slant Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 Five Minute Swift Swim Team (peak #1) INTRODUCTION OU is pretty stale. I tried for months to shake it up with new strategies, but in the end I couldn't even break 1200, no matter how hard I tried. Healing wish + offense was a disaster. So was my double dragon team (latios and latias). Weatherless offense was just a joke. No matter what I did, Excadrill and Kingdra put a hard stop to any strategy. Then two days ago I threw my hands in the air in frustration, said 'fuck this', and then threw together a swift swim team in five minutes. I just hit #1. In two days. My teambuilding process went like this: I wanted to abuse the most broken pokemon in the tier. Either I could go excadrill in sand, or swift swim in rain. I chose to go with rain since I could cram more broken pokemon into my team. Great, then so far I have half of my team: Politoed, Ludicolo, and Kingdra. Next, I stuck Dugtrio on to trap opposing weather starters. So far if all goes according to plan, I will have rain up and 2 swift swimmers ready to wreck my opponent. The list of counters to my team at this point is miniscule: Chansey, Gastrodon, Jellicent, and Ferrothorn. In other words, my 4 pokemon already steamroll 95% of the OU tier. To patch up my weaknesses, I chose subDD Dragonite to counter all these pokemon, and then added a Starmie for rapid spin support so as to keep Dragonite's multiscale intact. Boom, instant formula for win. The purpose of this post is twofold: (1) to showcase my (admittedly cheap) team that I hit #1 with , and (2) explain how much I hate swift swim. The ability is cheap and stifles creativity in the metagame. You just can't go wrong with Politoed + swift swim, which leaves you with like 5 possible counters to your team. Any jackass can succeed with this formula with minimal planning. Once rain is up, the rest of the match can be won on autopilot by just hammering away with water moves. One final note - this team is not meant to take hits, so don't tell me I don't have type synergy. The point of this team is to get rain up as fast as possible, and just keep blasting away with water moves. This is a very offensive team, all of my matches end in around 30 turns max. TEAM AT A GLANCE TEAM IN DETAIL Dugtrio (F) @ Focus Sash Trait: Arena Trap EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd IV: 21 Hp Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk) - Earthquake - Substitute - Reversal - Stealth Rock Dugtrio is my lead. Most people lead with their weather counters, which means that most of the time I automatically win the weather war. Against Tyranitar and Ninetales it's already gg. Against Abomasnow (without ice shard) I can sub down and KO it with reversal. Hippowdon causes me quite a bit of headache but thankfully almost all sand teams run Tyranitar instead. Against Politoed leads or other non-weather leads, I use Dugtrio as a suicide lead that sacrifices itself to get up a layer of stealth rocks. I have also considered using stone edge on this guy to beat Volcarona, but it's very rare to see it early game, and by late game I already have rain up, meaning it no longer poses a threat. HP Ivs are to give it 201 hp, meaning it can sub down to 1hp and fire off a full-powered reversal, but this hasn't been too useful. Politoed (F) @ Choice Specs Trait: Drizzle EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SAtk Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Surf - Ice Beam - Perish Song - Hidden Power [Grass] Once I have eliminated the opposing weather counter, Politoed comes in to win the weather war. Surf is my stab, easily KOing everything that doesn't resist it, and 2HKOing most water resists. HP Grass is for those Gastrodons that ruin my 'surf spam' strategy. Perish song is needed to stop all setup sweepers, Politoed's decent bulk allows it to survive most attacks if it is at full health. In the beginning I ran Focus Blast over Perish Song, but it lost me many key matches that I would have won otherwise. I elected to give it a specs set to blast holes in the opposition, meaning it can take out some key pokemon, before being sacrificed to bring in another sweeper. The extra power ensures that my opponent needs to focus on killing Politoed asap instead of setting up or laying down hazards, which keeps momentum in my favor. Starmie @ Life Orb Trait: Natural Cure EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Hydro Pump - Thunderbolt - Ice Beam - Rapid Spin Typically after Politoed comes out and dies, Starmie is the next one out. His #1 job is to clear my field of hazards, which is easily done thanks to its high speed. Its next job is to wallbreak, which it does pretty easily. After all, not much can live through a rain-boosted hydro pump from Starmie. Kingdra (F) @ Choice Specs Trait: Swift Swim EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Draco Meteor - Dragon Pulse - Hydro Pump - Surf Not much to say about this guy, this is my late game sweeper and revenge killer all rolled into one. Surf is ridiculous, in the rain it gets boosted to 150 base power. To put that in perspective, that is like draco meteor, except perfectly accurate and with no power drops. It is the move I use 90% of the time. I use the dragon moves only when my opponent is rocking some water immunities, and even then I use the move sparingly. Hydro pump gives me extra power (obviously). To give an idea of how sick it is, against Ferrothorn (arguably one of its biggest counters), STAB + rain boosts make hydro pump a base 135 power move (and does around 40% to it). HP Fire against Ferrothorn in rain is base 140 power, making the difference between a resisted hydro pump and a super effective move a paltry 5 base power. Ludicolo (F) @ Life Orb Trait: Swift Swim EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Surf - Giga Drain - Ice Beam - Focus Blast Ludicolo is a bit weaker than Kingdra but makes up for it with impeccable coverage. After everything has been softened up a bit, Ludicolo just cleans up. Most things are destroyed by surf (see discussion above) and whatever isn't can be hit super effectively. I won't go too much more into detail since everyone on the ladder already knows what a terror it can be. Dragonite (F) @ Leftovers Trait: Multiscale EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 60 SDef / 124 Spd Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk) - Dragon Claw - Dragon Dance - Roost - Substitute Dragonite is my failsafe, the pokemon I use to pull off a sweep when all else fails. With multiscale, it is almost guaranteed to take a hit and set up dragon dance. From there I can stall ice attacks through a combination of sub and roost. In particular, ice attacks do only 1x damage if I roost and get multiscale back. Once my other team members are dead, I bring in Dragonite to go for the last-pokemon sweep when it cannot be phazed anymore. It patches the slight weakness I have to stall teams, for instance Dragonite can set up easily vs Ferrothorn and Jellicent, substituting on a status move, and dragon dancing up while they struggle to break my sub (or switch out). Counters/Final Words The only things that really threaten my team are the pokemon with water immunities such as Gastrodon, Jellicent, and Chansey. Of course 1 on 1 I have plenty of ways to beat these pokemon, but a smart player will keep switching these pokemon in and out, preventing me from executing my 'blindly click water stab move' strategy. Some minimal prediction is required to beat these pokemon, but it is completely doable. Hippowdon or dual-sand teams are also a bit tough to play around, but seriously 2/3 of my team threatens Hippowdon so I'm not too worried. Other common rain counters don't stand up well to this team. The premier rain wall, Ferrothorn takes between 30-40% damage from the water moves that Starmie, Kingdra, and Politoed carry so it is only a matter of time before it is worn down. If it switches in to Ludicolo, it is 2HKOed by Focus Blast. Overall there are like 5 counters total to politoed+swift swim. 80% of the time your opponent won't pack those counters, meaning you can pull off an easy win. The team is designed so that the other 20% of the time when there is a counter, pure offensive pressure allows you to muscle past them and break the counters. Rate/hate/steal this team, I don't care. edit: Shedinja counters this entire team, watch out for this badass. Export Dugtrio (F) @ Focus Sash Trait: Arena Trap EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk) - Earthquake - Substitute - Reversal - Stealth Rock Politoed (F) @ Choice Specs Trait: Drizzle EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SAtk Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Surf - Ice Beam - Perish Song - Hidden Power [Grass] Starmie @ Life Orb Trait: Natural Cure EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Hydro Pump - Thunderbolt - Ice Beam - Rapid Spin Kingdra (F) @ Choice Specs Trait: Swift Swim EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Draco Meteor - Dragon Pulse - Hydro Pump - Surf Ludicolo (F) @ Life Orb Trait: Swift Swim EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Surf - Giga Drain - Ice Beam - Focus Blast Dragonite (F) @ Leftovers Trait: Multiscale EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 60 SDef / 124 Spd Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk) - Dragon Claw - Dragon Dance - Roost - Substitute Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamina Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 XD Graz on top As of late I have also started to think that swift swim (and shadow tag chand) have started becoming op in this current meta game. For the team itself I don't see much flaws at all. Only threat to team is rapid spin - shedinja combo but who runs that xD. You will almost always with the weather war with your pokes and no one uses hail because of chandaleur. You rmt clearly demonstrates how op weather abusers are. THEY MUST BE BANNED Nicely written rmt as always slant : ) Wrote this in iPhone so sorry if there might some grammar/spelling/syntax mistakes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slant Posted August 4, 2013 Author Share Posted August 4, 2013 lol thanks for pointing out that shedinja counters my entire team if rocks aren't up added to the threatlist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noir Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 (edited) Why don't you use Thunder instead of Thunderbolt, since you have a Rain Team and can bring the weather to your favour? (no offense) Edited August 4, 2013 by YagamiNoir4896 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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