ORLY's Hail Team (I'd still like more opinions)

[0RLY]

Well, I've been testing this team for a while on Shoddy with great success. Now I turn to you to see what you think! Keep in mind that I purposely use all Ice types to be unique. Without further ado...

Abomasnow @ Leftovers.....Abomasnow @ Leftovers
Snow Warning/Timid............Snow Warning/Adamant
252sp.atk/252spe/6hp........252atk/252hp/6spe
-Protect....................................-Protect
-Energy Ball.............................-Wood Hammer
-Blizzard...................................-Ice Shard
-HP (Ground)...........................-Brick Break

Most people don't expect Abomasnow to be this good. Takes care of most leads with surprising strength. Protect to scout for an attack, heal with Lefties, and Hail damage. Most starters inflict sleep and Abomasnow isn't one of the most reliable pokemon on my team so if a Crobat or Gengar comes in, I'll let my Abomasnow fall asleep to activate Sleep Clause. In general, my Abomasnow does as much as it can before I sacrifice it for the team.
The second set represents the new set I'm using. A physical variant of the first one. EVs shifted over to HP to add durability and Ice Shard makes up for lost speed. Ice Shard is strong enough to ohko 4x weak dragons. The first set was too slow to do too much damage. Lum Berry is also really tempting because of all the Hypnosis leads...

Mamoswine @ Brightpowder
Snow cloak/Adamant
252atk/252spe/6hp
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide
-Ice Shard
-Stealth Rock

Outspeeds max speed Heatran and Metagross. Finishes the mess my other pokes leave behind. Sets up Stealth Rock on predicted switches and BPowder+Snow Cloak for annoyance. Rock Slide over Stone Edge because Gyarados ***** me with any attack and missing isn't an option.

Froslass @ Brightpowder
Snow cloak/Timid
252sp.atk/252spe/6hp
-Thunderbolt
-Blizzard
-Destiny Bond
-Thunder Wave

Thunder Wave to mess up fast pokes. Blizzard has 100% accuracy in the Hail. Destiny bond to take out Lucario, Metagross, Infernapes, etc that would otherwise destroy my team. Brightpowder for the same reason as Mamoswine. Generic boltbeamer.

Weavile @ Life Orb(sometimes Focus Sash)
Pressure/Jolly
252atk/252spe/6hp
-Night Slash
-Brick Break
-Ice Punch
-Protect

You've all seen this before. With a twist, I added Protect to add up some Hail damage since my attack isn't THAT great. It also lets me see if my foe is packing mach punch or something threatening. Life Orb for more damage. I would use Focus Sash, but Stealth Rock is too common and running an all Ice team just lures SR like clothes for girls. Still, Focus Sash ensures that I can switch in safely, which could save the lives of my other pokes.

Cloyster @ Leftovers
Shell armor/Impish
252hp/200def/56atk
-Explosion
-Toxic Spikes
-Ice Shard
-Protect

Physical Wall. Protect again to scout for mixed sweepers, Lefties, and Hail. Sets up Toxic Spikes between Protects and finishing off weak foes with Ice Shard, very surprising since most expect my final moveslot to be Rapid Spin. Explosion to take out any sweeper trying to finish off my Cloyster. Explosion isn't that strong, but it lets Mamoswine finish them off with Ice Shard.

Articuno @ Leftovers
Pressure/Calm
200sp.def/252hp/56sp.atk
-Heal Bell
-Roar
-Blizzard
-Roost

Supporter. Roar shuffles my opponents into Toxic Spikes and SR. Roost to get rid of SR damage, etc. Heal Bell to rid burns and paralysis and other annoying status from my team. Blizzard as an attacking move if I get Taunted. For some reason, I outspeed everything that could kill me and my defenses cover anything that can't. I'm having a bit of trouble, since without too much EV investment, Blizzard often wastes more PP than it should to KO things that aren't weak to it.

I put Protect on almost everybody. I often receive comments such as, "using Protect on every poke is like using Sleep Talk on every poke. You're just being too cautious." I have no idea how many times Protect has saved me. From a possible sweep. Allowing Cloyster to survive another turn or two using leftovers recovery and letting Hail rack up damage on Garchomp before ****** it with Ice Shard is just too good.

My new Abomasnow set hails over jolly Tyrannitar.

 

[shadydentist]

Uh... what do you plan to do about scarftran? He outspeeds everyone except weavile, who gets ohkod by fire blast or lava plume, while he can't hope to ohko back with brick break. The only pokemon whos not weak to fire is Cloyster, and hes got terrible special defense. Your only real hope is for snow cloak hax with mamoswine, and hitting back with earthquake...

 

[0RLY]

I have never seen a Heatran without Leftovers on shoddy. Scarftrans just aren't that common. Agil-gross and Lucarios pose greater threats than any other pokemon.

 

[Pilocus]

A hail team doesn't actually need to be entirely immune to hail, and is really better off not being mono-ice thanks to sr/lots of commonly exploited weaknesses. Anyways, you have no way around something like skarm/bliss/tenta, and everyone except mamoswine takes 25% or more from sr. Random scarfers that don't care about ice attacks and have something that ice is weak to (metagross and heatran come to mind) will 6-0 you, and you can't make the assumption that hail will be out all the time, given the popularity of Tyranitar/Hippowdon. Anyways, sub/seed/punch/blizzard is much better than the set you have for abomasnow (easily walled by any generic special wall), and sdance and rapid spin over protect on weavile (although cb is generally superior) and cloyster respectively is a much better option as protect will be useless 99% of the time. Anyways vaporeon (surf/wish/protect/hp elec ) over cloyster helps with most of your problems except for fightings and gives you the ability to wish pass o help keep abomasnow alive. Gliscor somewhere (probably over articuno who really doesn't do much) helps with this and frees up the last slot on mamoswine, where you should probably use ice shard/stone edge/eq/blizzard with life orb, which helps with most stall teams.

 

[0RLY]

Actually, I went pure Ice to be unique, kinda like a Gym Leader. I agree that Metagross/Heatran is a problem, but Mamoswine takes care of (most of) them with a single Earthquake. I find protect to be very helpful, especially against sweepers (without Lefties), because it allows all of my pokes to stall a little. I don't use subseed because it generally forces my opponent to switch while I get hit by a (usually fatal) attack. Subseeding overall is a good strategy, just not on a starter as frail as Abomasnow. Articuno has won me many games. Shuffling my opponents into toxic spikes further aids the use of protect on my other pokes.

I find dealing with ice's weaknesses fun. Because most players build teams that can handle all situations. But once their main pokes for dealing with ice types are gone, they're through.

 

[Terywj [태리]]

You could run: Shadow Ball, HP Fight, Blizzard, Taunt/Spikes on Lass.

 

[0RLY]

That would essentially make my Froslass a weaker, special attacking version of Weavile.

 

[0RLY]

Changed a few things around. I'd say this is the best pure-ice team around.

 

[Caleb Wolfbrand]

I agree. I really love your team. I love to think up "pure" teams like this and this one is superb. you'd be one scary ice leader!

 

[chaos 9]

no stallrein? boo. But yeah i suggest putting a scarf tran over articuno to help with meta and tran weak.

 

[0RLY]

I tried using stallrein, I get forced out by my opponent's fighting attacks. Hmm, I never thought of using Heatran to counter Heatran. Good idea, but I'm still trying to keep this team mono-ice.