Chibo's Back In OU - My New Team

[CT Chia]

So I've been knee deep in VGC gameplay for the last 4-5 months or so, and now that my VGC regional qualifier has come and pass, I'm back to playing some OU. I really enjoy VGC style play, but unfortunately not too many people, and most people play OU :/
It's cool and all, but doubles plays so much faster and I enjoy the metagame more.

Either way, my first OU team I made, with actually making revisions and such, I went for more of a stall based team with toxic spikes and such. I guess it's because that's the style I went for in doubles, and I wanted to see if it carried over well to singles OU. Long story short - it didn't lol. It either ***** or got *****. So I decided to make a new team. I pretty much just threw together 6 amazing pokemon without thinking a lot about team strategy, etc. I did specifically pick my lead out, as it's not a standard lead at all - but I love it :3

But yea, strategy just sort of worked itself out, I really love this team. I haven't needed to make a single revision to it yet, and it's winning me more OU matches then I think I ever have before. Throughout playing on Pokemon Online I got 2nd in a 64 person tourney, almost never dropped friendlies (I would say I have about a 90% win rate), and I entered a 96 person tourney earlier and swept my first round no prob, but then had to go. I'm still playing now and will report back with my results.

And after the history of this team, here it is:

Toyota (Ninjask) (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Speed Boost
EVs: 8 HP / 248 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Aerial Ace
- U-turn
- X-Scissor
- Night Slash

Chibro (Slowbro) (M) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Own Tempo
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Surf
- Psychic
- Slack Off

Toyota2 (Scizor) (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Aerial Ace

Hanuman (Infernape) (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Blaze
EVs: 64 Atk / 192 Spd / 252 SAtk
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Flamethrower
- Close Combat
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Grass Knot

Nissan (Breloom) (M) @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Poison Heal
EVs: 236 HP / 248 Def / 24 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Spore
- Focus Punch

Corolla (Starmie) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic


Ninjask:
Not a standard lead at all... Not even a standard Ninjask really! Choice Band is a known Ninjask set, I've actually ran into another run while playing this team. It really is over looked imo. There's so many different leads out there and this helps with two key things: 1. Ninjask is going to go first, and unless I know I can OHKO with one of his three other moves, I'm going to use U-Turn. It does great damage banded, and I choose whoever I want to send in next to counter the lead. 2. It OHKO's Azelf with U-Turn, and I HATE Azelf leads. 3. U-Turn is surprisingly powerful banded, to give an idea against a Aerodactyl lead (which I see a lot), it does around 40%, which is a great start. Ninjask comes in, attacks and leaves. I would say like 75% of the time I'm using U-Turn and nothing else with him.

Slowbro:
Wow why is this guy not used more? I always use him sort of like a novelty because he's one of my favorite pokemon, but he seriously performs as one of the best pokemon on my team easily. Once he gets set up, good luck taking him down. Slowbro is such a defensive beast he literally eats explosions lol. Very very few physical attacks will take him down, even when super effective. They really need to be both STAB and super effective to do significant damage. Not many attacks do over 50% to Slowbro, and since he is slower, you can continuously heal all of your health if you play slow(bro) and steady. They do 45%, you heal 50%, you're still regaining ground. You can literally spam it until you're at full health again to make sure you're good for another Calm Mind. Get all the Calm Minds you can because once Slowbro gets all that attack power, there's no stopping him. It really isn't hard to get 6 Calm Minds, and getting like 2 is cake. Even after a couple of CMs a STAB super effective special attack does nothing to him. Furthermore, most of the attacks Slowbro is weak to are special so it works out great. Slowbro keeps a lot of OU pokemon in check, especially Infernape, which people would otherwise have trouble with. And to end this paragraph, get that 6x Calm Mind and Slowbro will be sporting something around a 950 special attack stat. Amazing.

I will write up the rest later, this is a lot to type lol.

 

[xLeafybug =D]

I'm guessing Scizor is supposed to have Technician.

But besides that, this team is really good.

 

[CT Chia]

fffuuuuu

thanks for finding that, forgot to change it

 

[Zankoku]

What's the extra HP investment for on Ninjask? It's not like you're making Substitutes with him, and he's so fragile that just about anything will OHKO him anyway, especially after a 50% life loss from Stealth Rock. Max out his attack and put a point into something random like Defense.

 

[Wave⁂]

A solid team. Some comments:

Aerial Ace Scizor. Why would you use that instead of Bug Bite or Quick Attack?
Leftovers on Slowbro is much better, so you can Recover stall even if an attack hits you for 50%. Why Lum Berry?
Fast U-Turn users are awesome and underrated. I would recommend a Scarf Scizor in the lead position, but I'm not sure how to replace your current Scizor.

 

[CT Chia]

NInjask was 4 HP like normal, but I found that I couldn't survive 2 Stealth Rocks. Bumping it up to 8 should allow me to, but I haven't tested it yet and I forgot exactly how it works. Though bumping it down to 0 probably does the same thing.

Toxic straight up counters Slowbro, it's awful. I always used Leftovers until I found out how much Toxic destroyed me lol. Also, I can use him as a great Breloom (subless) switch it. They always Spore me, then I'm healed, then I OHKO with Psychic.

Not sure about Aerial Ace on Scizor. Idk, I don't even use anything besides Superpower and Bullet Punch anyway lol.

 

[Wave⁂]

Throw the extra 4 EVs into Defense. Maybe you can live a Bullet Punch. (ahahahaha no)

Does the Lum Berry actually help against Toxic users, since they can just, y'know, Toxic you again?

 

[CT Chia]

Throw the extra 4 EVs into Defense. Maybe you can live a Bullet Punch. (ahahahaha no)

Does the Lum Berry actually help against Toxic users, since they can just, y'know, Toxic you again?

Considering Toxic is also not 100% acc, I can hope that one of the turns will miss lol. But either way, it gives me enough time to OHKO them.

They have something Slowbro is great against

I switch in Slowbro

I set up with Calm Minds

They realize they can't beat him and switch to Toxic user

They toxic

I heal and OHKO or do great damage then switch to Scizor or Starmie (Toxic is no good on Steel and Starmie has Natural Cure)

 

[Zankoku]

Chibo: Stealth Rock will hit Ninjask for 50% of its max HP, rounded down. With no HP EVs, it's got 263, an odd amount of HP. With 4 EVs, it becomes even. With 8 it becomes odd again, but you're better off just putting nothing into HP. Hell, you can even just do 252/252 and not use the remaining 4 EVs.

 

[CT Chia]

Sounds good, I figured it was that.

In the moment it was more like WTF I HATE GETTING 2HKO FROM ROCKS URG TAKE MORE EVS

 

[xLeafybug =D]

On Ninjask, run 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe. This allows Ninjask to reach 263 HP, which allows it to get 2 switch-ins while SR is up. 8 HP would let Ninjask reach 265 HP and do the same thing, but that seems unnecessary.

Ninja'd. This happens a lot.

 

[Wave⁂]

Ninjask'd.

fixed

it's funneh cuz he's a pogeyman

 

[Gates]

**** Japanese cars.

 

[Wave⁂]

Right so Ninjask is ***** by Stealth Rock in like fifty different ways so you should use an Azelf or something.

 

[kirbyraeg]

nah ninjask is good. absolute speed advantage, and you lock trick leads who WILL try to trick you a scarf anyway.

imo starmie should have trick over psychic.

slowbro uses leftovers better than lum berry even though it has CM. toxic is painfully telegraphed most of the time, so you should really just switch to scizor when you expect toxic.

slowseed breloom sucks. try a 252hp/252 spe jolly since you don't care about attacking power anyway and it'll let him stall out more foes.

I hate nape but he's good

might as well run pursuit on scizor just because ninjask will completely trap trick leads, which you will safely be able to pick off.

 

[Deleted member]

slowbro isn't used because in OU he's almost strictly inferior to suicune. suicune has better defenses and speed, better typing, and deals with the same pokemon either equally or better. you won't have to play around bug/dark/ghost weakness (scizor, tyranitar, and gengar are incredibly highly played). all you gain from slowbro is a fighting/psychic resistance and fighting moves are basically never boosted.

 

[Gates]

The Psychic STAB is pretty much useless too. You might as well just use Crocune over Broseidon.

 

[kirbyraeg]

Nah. Slowbro doesn't get as ****ed by taunt, as he can run two attacks+Slack Off. His physical defenses aren't that much worse, he gets the ability to counter most fighting types with his good bulk, and psychic is actually still NOT a bad stab to have as most dark types in OU don't like surf. You can't mindlessly switch him in on fire blasts like cune, but he still does a nice job of handling physical hits from walls among other things.

 

[Wave⁂]

slowbro isn't used because in OU he's almost strictly inferior to suicune. suicune has better defenses and speed, better typing, and deals with the same pokemon either equally or better. you won't have to play around bug/dark/ghost weakness (scizor, tyranitar, and gengar are incredibly highly played). all you gain from slowbro is a fighting/psychic resistance and fighting moves are basically never boosted.

Machamp

...that's about it

 

[The Real Gamer]

Slowbro is actually one of the very few true Machamp counters... Well him and Spiritomb are they only ones that come to mind atm.

 

[CT Chia]

That's what it was... I knew Own Tempo came in great use sometimes I forgot when though. It eats Machamp's Dynamic Punches like a beast.

That fighting resistance is SO helpful, and I love the Psychic STAB.

 

[ss118]

you should run scarfed scizor.

fastest U-Turn with a band and the most powerful u-turn with a scarf.

 

[CT Chia]

I'm thinkin about it, even with the mistake of not having Technician on Scizor for a while it still destroyed everything so I'm sort of losing the band power but gaining technician power on BP lol

 

[ss118]

I almost want to make a team based around banded ninjask lead now. However, for the sake of it I will list my thoughts here.

The two biggest issues: 4x SR weak, paper-thin defenses, and 90 Base attack. Advantages? Unpredictability and 160 Base speed.

So first off I'm thinking max the attack stat: completely. You already out speed Electrode with an adamant nature, so no need to go jolly. At that point it is you choice:

1) Stay max speed, beating anything attempting to beat Scarfed Heatran. 252 Atk/ 4 Def/ 252 Spd
2) Go down a single point and beat scarfed heatran. 8 HP/ 252 Atk/ 252 Spd
3) Go down to 395 to beat aerodactyl and other base 130s. in this case only 152 spd EVs are necessary.

 

[The Real Gamer]

I just noticed you have a glaringly bad Zapdos weakness.

A bulky Zapdos could easily come in on your Slowbro and you wouldn't have a safe switch in. Your Breloom would be the only Pokemon that could resist the Thunderbolt while the rest either get smacked hard or OHKOd. But after you switch your Breloom in, it gets killed by Heat Wave.

Also, since this team lacks SR, both Infernape and Starmie wouldn't be able to OHKO it with Ice Beam or HP Ice. So basically whenever a Zapdos comes in on your Slowbro, your only option is going to be to sacrifice one of your faster sweepers.

Solution= Take away some EVs from Def and HP and dump enough points into Spe until it hits 160. Then, your Breloom will be JUST fast enough to out-speed and Spore both the physically and specially defensive variants of Zapdos.

 

[CT Chia]

When Zapdos comes in on Slowbro, I keep him there lol. I'm fine.

Edit: If the Zapdos has no investment in SAtk, I use a CM as they switch in. Next turn they go first with TBolt and:

286 Atk vs 295 Def & 394 HP (95 Base Power): 200 - 236 (50.76% - 59.90%)

Then I CM that turn after it hits. Now next turn I Slack Off as they TBolt again likely (if they do anything else that sucks for them lol)

286 Atk vs 394 Def & 394 HP (95 Base Power): 150 - 176 (38.07% - 44.67%)

After 2 CM's they can't do more than 50% so I'm healing damage every turn until I'm at (or near) max then I can CM again

If the Zapdos has investment in SAtk it can get tougher for me, though if I ever have 2 CMs when the Zapdos comes in then I'm not scared at all

 

[Wave⁂]

You could try a physical Infernape with Stone Edge and Overheat, but I think you're fine.

 

[The Real Gamer]

Oooo i c.

Well hopefully you won't run into any offensive sets!

EDIT: OK new scenario: Physically defensive Zapdos comes in on your Scizor's Bullet Punch and threatens to out-speed and OHKO you with Heat Wave... What do you do?