So this is a team that I kind of threw together just for fun and I did actually see some success with it on the ladder (ELO 1515). This is a team specifically designed around intimidate to gain momentum against physically based teams that like to spam D-Dance and Curse. However, I'm open to some constructive criticism since I'm aware this is a very flawed team but it has a lot of potential and felt like a nice change of pace compared to what I'm use to using. Here's the breakdown...
https://pokepast.es/af54a12544554b40
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Set Descriptions:
Arcanine
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 Spe
Bold Nature
- Fire Blast
- Thief
- Toxic
- Rest
Arcanine is surprisingly a good defensive lead that gives it nice utility with Thief. A lot of times it tends to lure out Bliss and Lax or even Swampert which proceed to either get their item stolen or (in Swampert's case) get poisoned on the switch. The main job for this set is to put pressure on Skarm leads to switch and then lure out a mon to steal an item from. Because this is a defensive set, it needs all the power it can get to deal some kind of damage which is why I opt to use Fire Blast over FT. Finally, rest is there obviously to keep some maintance on Arcanine since it's going to take a beating. It does quite well against Curse Lax by switching in and taking a Body Slam whiling lowering it's attack and then switching back out to another intimidate mon to prevent it from gaining any momentum from boosting.
Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion
- Earthquake
Because the opponent is usually going to want to switch out quite often to remove atk drops on their physical mons, having a dedicated spiker is necessary. I went with Forretress because it has a better time dealing with Mag as oppose to Skarm barring some good predictions on the switch, and it can be an all purpose mon that can also rapid spin spikes away. Explosion is there to simply make holes in the opposing team or at least dent other defensive water types. Finally Earthquake is mainly to deal with Mag switching in or to gain some momentum against opposing Metagross.
Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 68 HP / 252 Atk / 188 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Earthquake
- Taunt
The second intimidate mon on the team in Gyarados takes a more offensive role. D-Dance Gyra can sometimes take games by itself and is mainly here to not only be an intimidate switch in but to also gain momentum over mons that Arcanine usually can't do much to like TTar, Swampert, Milotic. Taunt also gives it the ability to tackle Skarm with no issues (though admittingly it can get chipped by Drill Peck varients) and can usually just clean up against weakened mons like Jirachi, Claydol, or just outright take care of opposing fighting types.
Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Toxic
- Flamethrower
- Protect
The third and final intimidate mon that I have never used until this team, Wish Salamence. I've never realized how well this set works under the right conditions until actually trying it out. Because Mence is immune to spikes and has a lot of nice resistances and an immunity to ground attacks in general, it usually acts as a nice defensive pivot into things like Heracross, Gyar
=ados, Physical Mence, and Flygon. It's also a good pivot into weakened Claydols looking to boom at low health, and after an attack drop or two it hardly does any significant damage since Claydol isn't strong to begin with. Wish is obviously very novel on Mence but helps out tremendously whenever I'm looking to heal up my Arcanine in a pinch or just toxic/wish/protect stall in certain matchups.
Rhydon @ Leftovers
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 212 HP / 122 Atk / 176 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide
- Substitute
So when I initially built this team I mainly wanted to experiment with Rhydon and I wanted to try and find other ways to make it work in the ADV OU environment. I usually bring this out whenever my opponent is looking to go Rock Slide with their TTar already having -1 atk. Normally it's difficult to gain momentum with Rhydon considering how slow it is, but in cases like the aforementioned matchup with TTar, I can set up a sub and depending on what they go into I can either start setting up with SD or hit them back with my stabs. I found that the one matchup Rhydon is always good in is Snorlax, and because Lax can sometimes decimate entire teams I think if Rhydon is to have one main role, this would be a pretty important one since this team really has no other answers for Lax outside of Rhydon.
Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Soft-Boiled
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
This is pretty self explanitory. I don't really have too much on this team that can take too many special attacks so I have found that Blissey is the best choice here. However, because this team is already pretty defensive and rather passive at times, I wanted to try and go a different route with Blissey and just go straight up offensive with a Calm Mind Bolt/Beam set. CM Bliss helps tremendously with not only walling opposing bulky water types but can dish out a nice bit of damage back and keep any other special attackers at bay that want to setup on me.
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So what do you guys think, how can I improve this? As I mentioned before, I'm aware this team is very flawed and it's really matchup dependent considering how much I've tested it. But I think it has better potential and I'd love to see someone maybe push this further. Right now the three Intimidate mons on this team are all weak to Rock. The problem is, there aren't really that many other viable Intimidate candidates in Gen 3. The only other option I thought about was Tauros. The problem with Tauros is you usually want to run Choice Band with it, and if I'm going to have an offensive Intimidate user I rather just go with DDance Taunt Gyarados.
https://pokepast.es/af54a12544554b40
=============================
Set Descriptions:
Arcanine
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 Spe
Bold Nature
- Fire Blast
- Thief
- Toxic
- Rest
Arcanine is surprisingly a good defensive lead that gives it nice utility with Thief. A lot of times it tends to lure out Bliss and Lax or even Swampert which proceed to either get their item stolen or (in Swampert's case) get poisoned on the switch. The main job for this set is to put pressure on Skarm leads to switch and then lure out a mon to steal an item from. Because this is a defensive set, it needs all the power it can get to deal some kind of damage which is why I opt to use Fire Blast over FT. Finally, rest is there obviously to keep some maintance on Arcanine since it's going to take a beating. It does quite well against Curse Lax by switching in and taking a Body Slam whiling lowering it's attack and then switching back out to another intimidate mon to prevent it from gaining any momentum from boosting.
Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion
- Earthquake
Because the opponent is usually going to want to switch out quite often to remove atk drops on their physical mons, having a dedicated spiker is necessary. I went with Forretress because it has a better time dealing with Mag as oppose to Skarm barring some good predictions on the switch, and it can be an all purpose mon that can also rapid spin spikes away. Explosion is there to simply make holes in the opposing team or at least dent other defensive water types. Finally Earthquake is mainly to deal with Mag switching in or to gain some momentum against opposing Metagross.
Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 68 HP / 252 Atk / 188 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Earthquake
- Taunt
The second intimidate mon on the team in Gyarados takes a more offensive role. D-Dance Gyra can sometimes take games by itself and is mainly here to not only be an intimidate switch in but to also gain momentum over mons that Arcanine usually can't do much to like TTar, Swampert, Milotic. Taunt also gives it the ability to tackle Skarm with no issues (though admittingly it can get chipped by Drill Peck varients) and can usually just clean up against weakened mons like Jirachi, Claydol, or just outright take care of opposing fighting types.
Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Toxic
- Flamethrower
- Protect
The third and final intimidate mon that I have never used until this team, Wish Salamence. I've never realized how well this set works under the right conditions until actually trying it out. Because Mence is immune to spikes and has a lot of nice resistances and an immunity to ground attacks in general, it usually acts as a nice defensive pivot into things like Heracross, Gyar
=ados, Physical Mence, and Flygon. It's also a good pivot into weakened Claydols looking to boom at low health, and after an attack drop or two it hardly does any significant damage since Claydol isn't strong to begin with. Wish is obviously very novel on Mence but helps out tremendously whenever I'm looking to heal up my Arcanine in a pinch or just toxic/wish/protect stall in certain matchups.
Rhydon @ Leftovers
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 212 HP / 122 Atk / 176 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide
- Substitute
So when I initially built this team I mainly wanted to experiment with Rhydon and I wanted to try and find other ways to make it work in the ADV OU environment. I usually bring this out whenever my opponent is looking to go Rock Slide with their TTar already having -1 atk. Normally it's difficult to gain momentum with Rhydon considering how slow it is, but in cases like the aforementioned matchup with TTar, I can set up a sub and depending on what they go into I can either start setting up with SD or hit them back with my stabs. I found that the one matchup Rhydon is always good in is Snorlax, and because Lax can sometimes decimate entire teams I think if Rhydon is to have one main role, this would be a pretty important one since this team really has no other answers for Lax outside of Rhydon.
Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Soft-Boiled
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
This is pretty self explanitory. I don't really have too much on this team that can take too many special attacks so I have found that Blissey is the best choice here. However, because this team is already pretty defensive and rather passive at times, I wanted to try and go a different route with Blissey and just go straight up offensive with a Calm Mind Bolt/Beam set. CM Bliss helps tremendously with not only walling opposing bulky water types but can dish out a nice bit of damage back and keep any other special attackers at bay that want to setup on me.
============================================
So what do you guys think, how can I improve this? As I mentioned before, I'm aware this team is very flawed and it's really matchup dependent considering how much I've tested it. But I think it has better potential and I'd love to see someone maybe push this further. Right now the three Intimidate mons on this team are all weak to Rock. The problem is, there aren't really that many other viable Intimidate candidates in Gen 3. The only other option I thought about was Tauros. The problem with Tauros is you usually want to run Choice Band with it, and if I'm going to have an offensive Intimidate user I rather just go with DDance Taunt Gyarados.
