An old double dragon defensive team

[Kietharr]

I'm bored so I decided to re-download shoddybattle and rebuild some teams for today's game. It'll probably be a bit oldschool (last time I played Deoxys-S had just been re-banned from OU and everyone had bullet punch scizor) but please take a look.

Azelf, Naieve nature, 252sp. atk/252spe/4atk @ Focus Sash
Stealth Rock
Psychic
Explosion
U-Turn

Standard lead azelf, I usually use SR first, then U-Turn to switch in something from my defensive core, saving Azelf in case I need a fairly speedy revenge kill or I need to explode a setup.

Salamence, Mild nature, 84atk/216sp. atk/208spe @ Life Orb
Outrage
Draco Meteor
Fire Blast
Earthquake

Standard new mixmence, straight out of the analysis. I used it back in the day where brick break was the second physical attack, but now that it gets outrage there's very little sense in using brick break over it, considering it deals more damage to almost everything that you'd use brick break to kill. With any luck, the enemy will waste his primary dragon counter trying to deal with this, leading to his defeat.

Celebi, Bold nature, 252hp/220def/36spe @ Leftovers
Leech Seed
Recover
Grass Knot
Hidden Power (Ice)

My primary physical tank. Very oldschool spread, it's been around since the first days of shoddybattle and probably could benefit from some tweaks.

Zapdos, Bold nature, 252hp/220def/36spe @ Leftovers
Roost
Thunderbolt
Hidden Power (Ice)
Thunder Wave

Another somewhat oldschool spread/build, it fills in the defensive gap between celebi and the next pokemon. Twave cripples switch ins and semi-boltbeam and a 50% recovery move make Zapdos very difficult to deal with. He spreads around damage and status to aid the final sweep.

Heatran, Modest nature, 248hp/56sp. atk/206 sp. def @ Leftovers
Lava Plume
Earth Power
Rest
Sleep Talk

Restalk heatran, an old favorite of mine. Covers my enormous ice weak and inflicts burn. Very unexpected nowadays as most Heatrans have been toting scarfs lately.

Dragonite, Jolly nature, 252atk/252spe/4hp @ Yache Berry
Dragon Dance
Outrage
Earthquake
Fire Punch

Really does make a poor substitute for yachechomp, but given that fairly often an enemy will need to waste its dragon counter dealing with Salamence or one of the other ice weaks on this team, it should have little resistance unless they have multiple priority pokemon.


As far as what more I'd want out of the team, a priority attack would be pretty nice and if there have been any major changes that make this team unviable I'd like some notification, so far it's been doing ok for me but i'm at rock bottom on the ladder so I'm not exactly fighting the strongest enemies.

 

[Kietharr]

oh come on, I'm the only one who's even viewed this and it's on page 2? The thread name can't be THAT bad :/

LREDIT: You should know that the view count for all of smogon is faulty and only registers views as number of posts +1.

 

[haunter]

oh come on, I'm the only one who's even viewed this and it's on page 2? The thread name can't be THAT bad :/

Indeed this team doesn't look exactly defensive, lol.

Anyway, looking at your team I see two evident problems:

1) TTar: both CB and DD variants are hard to stop if you lack both a counter and a revenge killer for it. TTar can switch in quite easily on Heatran (barring a burn from lava plume) or Zapdos and start spamming stone edges which will 1-2hko every member of your team.

2) Latias: calm mind Latias or specs Latias is a pain as well, the only "safe" switch into a specs dragon pulse is Heatran which, anyway, can't really touch her. Calm mind Latias is even worse considering that she can actually set up on Heatran and Celebi.

To partially solve both the problems I believe that you should replace either Salamence or Dragonite with a CB Scizor: Scizor could trap and kill Latias (barring HP fire variants) and, at least, revenge kill TTar with either u-turn or bullet punch. Scizor would also be an extra insurance against DD dragons (though they will rarely find the time to set up on you). So, just for completeness:

Scizor@choice band
nature: adamant
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
-bullet punch
-u-turn
-superpower
-pursuit

Another possible problem would be SD Lucario, but I believe that you should be able to play around it with Salamence (though a +1 life orb'd ES does around 60% to it, so beware) and Zapdos.

On Celebi I believe that perish song could replace either leech seed or hidden power ice: I think that a pokemon like cro-Cune could be a problem if it comes on Heatran and starts calm minding up, so a pseudo hazing move like that could be really helpful.

Other than that, I believe that your team is quite solid.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

 

[Sc4rfCh0mp]

I don't see why you're using a DD Nite, its pretty much outclassed by Mence nowadays lol. As Haunter said, run CB Zor over it to stop T-Tar and Latias from laughing in your face.

I'd like to tweak your defensive sets a lil bit. Bulky Offense/All-OutStall or Offense are the only kind of teams that work in Platinum competetive play IMO, so I think Zapdos should be made a little bit more sweepish.

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Timid Nature
252 HP/ 80 Def/ 176 Spe

Heat Wave
Thunderbolt
HP Ice/HP Grass
Roost

Since Celebi has Grass Knot, I would stick with HP Ice. This set outspeeds Lucario and Breloom, while your old movespread didn't.

I just have one small tweak for Celebi: Replace HP Ice with Thunder Wave. Keeps the status running on your team, and works better than HP Ice (since Celebi's gonna lose to Mence/Flygon either way lol).

 

[sbc]

Seconding the addition of Scizor; you have 4 pokemon weak to Ice and your whole team is OHKOed by Weavile after an SD and is vulnerable to LO Mamoswine. Scizor gives you some insurance against said pokemon as well as DDtar who tears this team apart.

 

[Lee]

If you're using Double Dragon you're opening yourself up to Ice attacks (and in this case Rock) so it's essential that you do something to cover those bases in the rest of your members. Instead of that you've just threw in 2 more Ice weaks and no Rock resists.

I know Scizor has been suggested but I'd lean a little more towards Metagross here as he has much better synergy with the Dragons (the Rock resist is key here as at the minute you have nothing that can switch into CBTar's Stone Edge). He's also a little better than Scizor at luring in Ground attacks to give your Dragons a free switch in. Put him in in place of DDNite and change Mence to a Dragon Dancer. If you're insistent on keeping both Dragons then Metagross can replace Azelf as your lead with SR/EQ/MM/BP (I'm reluctant to reccomend Explosion as he'd be too important defensively to blow up).

If you do keep both Dragons, then it's probably worth switching roles. JollyNite is horribly outclassed - take a look at RL's thread on the subject.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51407

Salamence is the better Dragon Dancer hands down I'm afraid, while there's a lot of people who would argue that Dragonite is more effective in the wall breaker role thanks mostly to Superpower.

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/dragonite

Dragonite @ Life Orb
Rash
112 Atk / 200 SpA / 196 Spe
- Superpower
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Roost

 

[matzemix]

Taunt over U-Turn @ Azelf, helps out against other Support Leads.