Oglemi
Borf
https://www.smogon.com/dex/rs/pokemon/ponyta/
[Overview]
On a hyper offense team, Ponyta can make a decent anti-lead to fully prevent Glalie from setting up Spikes and disrupting other common leads from performing for the rest of the match with Hypnosis. In most cases, Magby is probably going to be a better fit for your team due to its greater power and coverage, but hitting the right Pokemon with Hypnosis can make all the difference for a hyper offense team. However, Ponyta has no use outside of the lead slot, as it's sorely outclassed by Flareon and Charmeleon in almost every category apart from Speed.
[SET]
name: Anti-Lead
move 1: Hypnosis
move 2: Overheat
move 3: Body Slam / Toxic
move 4: Hidden Power Grass / Hidden Power Ground
item: Charcoal / Lum Berry
ability: Flash Fire
nature: Naive
evs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
- If it's not hit super effectively by Overheat, put it to sleep with Hypnosis
- Overheat will OHKO bulky Glalie and has a chance to OHKO Roselia with Charcoal
- Body Slam will deal a decent amount to physically frail mons like Flareon and Hitmonchan and has a good paralysis chance
- Toxic will probably be more effective in the long run against more defensive switch-ins, but since Ponyta fits the most on hyper offense teams it'll likely get more mileage out of Body Slam
- Last slot mostly filler. HP Grass is mainly for Relicanth, won't be doing much to other Water-types. HP Ground will really mess with Flareon and can be used after Overheat
[ADDITIONAL SET COMMENTS]
- Max Speed is needed to make use of its base 90 Speed and have a chance to Speed tie Vigoroth and Venomoth
- Ponyta is really, really frail so there's not much use in trying to keep it alive out of the lead slot
- If met with a Vigoroth, go for the Speed tie, Overheat will do 80-90% to offensive versions
[Other Options]
- Ponyta is not really useful outside of the lead slot, but if you really want to a super janky CB set is probably the most successful thing you could go for. Overheat / D-E / HP Ground / Quick Attack is probably what it would look like
[Checks and Counters]
- Lead Vigoroth wins the one-on-one 100% of the time. Lum Berry leads like Sudowoodo, Hitmonchan, and Huntail will as well
- Once Hypnosis is burned, a million things are not threatened by Ponyta at all. Bulky Water-types, Flareon, Torkoal, anything faster