Snorlax, Cloyster, and Zapdos are the best pokemon in the game, in that order. This is almost an undeniable fact, and the direction the Viability rankings are trending since my outlandish vote in 2020 with cloy over both electrics. However, this philosophy starts to clamp my style of building, as almost every team I build has all three of these pokemon. Even now, my favorite team has BOTH electrics, snorlax, and cloy. However, for this one, I wanted to relax these preconceptions, to hopefully make something decent without these teambuilding constraints. With that said, this team attempts to strangle the spikes game, and win with curseTTar or explosions lategame.
fucking tree (Exeggutor) @ Leftovers
IVs: 6 HP / 28 Atk / 24 Def
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Psychic
- Giga Drain
- Explosion
The first pokemon on this team is one that has fallen from an A tier threat in this gen, but still one of my personal favorites. This pokemon is the perfect glue for the team too, covering the glaring golem/rhydon weakness without it, functioning as a lure for skarmory, steelix, zapdos, snorlax, or tyranitar, depending on which of the attacks you choose not to reveal at any given time. 4attks egg is a very agressive and prediction reliant pokemon, which is perfectly in line with my playstyle. Realistically, if a normal (non adrenaline junkie) person wanted to run this team, use a status move over hidden power fire.
misty (Starmie) @ Leftovers
- Light Screen
- Psychic
- Recover
- Rapid Spin
Ever since the advent of golem, people are starting to forget about the gen's old premier spinner. Starmie is here to spin and cover the things zapdos does, but better. Light screen synergizes with the other electric weak pokemon on the team, and can lead to very interesting interactions with CurseTTar, Exeggutor, or Snorlax. Psychic covers machamp/heracross (sometimes) and hits spinblockers hard too. The team is very hera weak as I am not running zapdos, but heracross is falling out of the meta as of late anyways. Spikes is important as without the offensive powerhouses that is zapdos, offense needs a way to play agressively, and spikes is perfect for that. Light screen also makes Starmie essentially unpursuitable.
GENGHIS (Gengar) @ Leftovers
- Mean Look
- Explosion
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
I fucking love this set as of late. It's very ttar weak, so necessary offensive plays will need to be made to not get pursuit trapped, or just simply blow up TTar. This set can catch so many pokemon off guard for a confirmed explosion, most of the time snorlax. If you are not an adrenaline junkie, switch this set to dpunch or hypnosis, and if you run hypnosis, put egg on sleep powder. If not, happy snorlax trapping.
T_T (Tyranitar) @ Leftovers
- Rock Slide
- Curse
- Rest
- Roar
When I was a middle schooler, playing pokemon showdown on my chromebook in math class, in 2018, this was the set that carried me to 1500 elo for the first time. I was a bit of an idiot back then, I played tyranitar, zapdos, raikou, snorlax, foretress, skarmory, not because it was a good team (which it is), but because the pokemon looked cool. But this set is the centerpiece of the team, and a current favorite idea. With the correct supporting pieces (exeggutor, spikes), curseTTar can absolutely run through offensive teams in the lategame. Also functions as another snorlax check on the team. Roar has interesting priority in this generation, so funnily enough, you can spam roar against other not cursed skarmory and you'll always get it because the SLOWER roar is the one that doesn't fail in this gen.
Laxative (Snorlax) @ Leftovers
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk
- Rest
Classic talklax, kind of necessary without any other real nidoking counters, and being the blanket electric check. Synergizes really well with TTar with earthquake hitting everything TTar cannot, and forcing switches for easy doubles galore. Putting zapdos to sleep with double edge damage is sweet. Just a standard defensive snorlax functioning as a glue here, nothing much to see here.
$pikes (Forretress) @ Leftovers
IVs: 6 HP / 28 Atk / 24 Def
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion
- Hidden Power [Fire]
The spiker. Another important piece to the team, as spike control is virtually necessary on this team to break through some stall structures. Funnily enough, foretress's explosion as a bait is severely underrated. Hidden power fire is on this guy because without it, the matchup against hpghost foretress is essentially unwinnable. Once foretress is revealed to be hidden power fire, people will switch in very explodable pokemon like starmie and golem in on it, and foretress's explosion can negate some of these pokemon, greatly helping tyranitar in the late game.
I hope you like my team! Feel free to suggest anything, criticism is always welcome. Happy building!