Howdy. I created this team a few months ago and tried to create a detailed RMT with Calcs and everything, but my laptop decided to update overnight and erase all my progress (and motivation). I still want to share the idea though, so here's a more minimal RMT to water the GSC crops
https://pokepast.es/1aa6339cd459f227
The goal with this team was to use Entei. Simple as that. He's such a cool mon, but unfortunately suffers from a lot of old gen pitfalls, like having a terrible movepool and an beefy attack stat that contradicts its STAB typing (looking at you Kingler). For these reasons, Entei is often looked at as a Walmart version of Moltres, leveraging a 'niche' in the form of its lack of Electric and 4x Rock weakness + access to Solarbeam in exchange for an Earthquake (and Spike) weakness + a much weaker Fire Blast. In practice however, Entei is garbage and these upsides are not worth it at all. Moltres is already an unreliable pick for OU because it relies on hitting consecutive Fire Blasts to win games, and often will run out of PP due to poor luck. Entei is even worse off in this role, so instead of retreading it as a Sunny Day wallbreaker, I wanted to try using it as a sweeper. Passing growths to Moltres is feasible, but its still always forced out by Tyranitar, Golem, Rhydon, Starmie, etc,. However, because Entei learns Solarbeam, it can potentially cleave right through these roadblocks!
Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Lovely Kiss
- Self-Destruct
The purpose of this Snorlax is to cause as much mayhem as possible in hopes of facilitating Entei, Zapdos or Espeon to sweep later in the game. Double Edge and EQ do big damage to most of the tier. Lovely Kissing a rock type phazer can give Espeon and Entei some much needed free turns, and boom is to surprise opposing Snorlax. These four moves are almost never run with each other because of how badly Cloyster and Skarm own you, but it works because of how well Entei handles them. The surprise factor of boom on this set also cannot be undervalued, as removing opposing Snorlax is an even more massive advantage than usual for a team with three special sweepers. It would be awesome to fit Curse on this set somehow, potentially over EQ since you can just LK the rock types and Gengar, but overall its less consistent.
Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
IVs: 26 Def
- Thunder
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Standard Zapdos. This is the team's status absorber, but it's also awesome as a Growth recipient. +1 Thunder is nuclear. Zap is also a much needed ground immunity and pivot. Thundering into Raikou or opposing Zap until you either paralyze or force Rest is very helpful for Entei, as they have very low odds of hitting Thunder through Sleep Talk + Sunny Day.
Steelix @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Earthquake
- Curse
- Roar
- Explosion
Standard Steelix. The normal resist + phazer of the team. Exploding on Zapdos can be helpful, but for the most part Steelix likes to stick around, pivoting into Thunder and checking Snorlax. Having an answer to Cursetar is also enormous for this team. I originally used Golem in this slot because the team really appreciates Spin support, but ultimately I prefer Steelix's matchup into Zap/Raikou's Hidden Power.
Espeon @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Growth
- Psychic
- Baton Pass
- Morning Sun
Morning Sun is the 4th move of choice because its intuitive with Sunny Day and the increased longevity allows it to pass multiple times in a game. This thing is surprisingly tanky with GSC's maxed out stats, only taking 43.5% max from Raikou's Thunderbolt. Hilariously, you also only take 52% max from TTar's Rock Slide, allowing you to gain HP back versus non-Crunch variants with Morning Sun + Lefties barring a crit. Baton Pass also lets you circumnavigate Pursuit. That aside, Espeon provides offensive and defensive synergy to the team, outspeeding and threatening a 2HKO on Zapdos at +1 while handily switching into Machamp's Cross Chop. Paralysis is the biggest bane to Espeon however, so I wouldn't recommend trying to 1v1 Zapdos unless its sleeping or Sun is active, but even then you will always have a chance to be para'd by Thunder.
Entei @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Fire Blast
- Solar Beam
- Toxic
- Sunny Day
His Airness. Entei's role on the team is a special sweeper who can either make progress early in the game or clean up late,. His Fire Blast is much weaker than Moltres' (90 Sp.Atk vs 125) but makes up for it by learning Solarbeam, disintegrating fire resists the way Moltres can't ...sort of. Solarbeam OHKOs Rhydon Golem and Quagsire, but only does a measly 65% max to something like Starmie, which can stall out Sun with Recover. This is where Growthpass comes in. At +1, Entei is now strong enough to 2HKO Suicune and Recovering Starmie, and its Fire Blast now earns clean OHKOs on Exeggutor, Skarmory and Steelix. However, the biggest draw is Entei's +1 Fire Blast in Sun. Because of how internal stat boosts interact with external modifiers like weather, this doesn't give Entei a +2 Fire Blast, but a +2.25 one! 625 Sp.Atk is no joke, and it gives Entei the power to...
+1 Entei Fire Blast vs. Snorlax in Sun: 256-301 (48.9 - 57.5%) -- 53.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
2HKO Snorlax! Lets be honest--it takes way too much setup for this to work consistently, but it's really fun and satisfying when it does. Most games you will never have enough free turns to pass +1 and set up Sun, but Entei is still plenty strong with just one or the other. This is also why I choose to run Toxic over HP Fighting. Entei has really impressive bulk, especially when using Leftovers instead of Charcoal, but HP Fighting's DVs are atrocious, dropping you from 433 HP to 409. It might not sound like much, but its a big enough swing for Zapdos' Thunder to go from a 23.5% chance to 2HKO Entei after Spikes to a 81.1% chance. Meanwhile with Toxic, you lose the ability to chunk Tyranitar in exchange for poisoning it, which non-Rest sets hate. Crippling Tyranitar also improves Zapdos and Espeon's chances to sweep later should Entei falter.
Cloyster @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Icy Wind
- Spikes
- Toxic
- Explosion
Almost standard Cloyster. Icy wind is used to get cheeky booms on Zapdos and especially Starmie, who can pose big problems for this team otherwise. Surf is nice to have against Tyranitar, but oftentimes its not something you'll wish you had instead (it can even be unintuitive with Sunny Day on the team). In general, Cloyster's Spikes and Explosion pressure help to round out this unorthodox team.
And that's it! This team is flawed, but also extremely fun. Blissey (and stall in general) pose a big problem, but it can absolutely erase boom offense or Nido/Gar structures. Entei is a very challenging mon to build with, but I enjoy using him on this team a lot. I'm also open to any suggestions or improvements! The team has a lot of weird sets so let me know if I overcooked anything.
https://pokepast.es/1aa6339cd459f227
The goal with this team was to use Entei. Simple as that. He's such a cool mon, but unfortunately suffers from a lot of old gen pitfalls, like having a terrible movepool and an beefy attack stat that contradicts its STAB typing (looking at you Kingler). For these reasons, Entei is often looked at as a Walmart version of Moltres, leveraging a 'niche' in the form of its lack of Electric and 4x Rock weakness + access to Solarbeam in exchange for an Earthquake (and Spike) weakness + a much weaker Fire Blast. In practice however, Entei is garbage and these upsides are not worth it at all. Moltres is already an unreliable pick for OU because it relies on hitting consecutive Fire Blasts to win games, and often will run out of PP due to poor luck. Entei is even worse off in this role, so instead of retreading it as a Sunny Day wallbreaker, I wanted to try using it as a sweeper. Passing growths to Moltres is feasible, but its still always forced out by Tyranitar, Golem, Rhydon, Starmie, etc,. However, because Entei learns Solarbeam, it can potentially cleave right through these roadblocks!
Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Lovely Kiss
- Self-Destruct
The purpose of this Snorlax is to cause as much mayhem as possible in hopes of facilitating Entei, Zapdos or Espeon to sweep later in the game. Double Edge and EQ do big damage to most of the tier. Lovely Kissing a rock type phazer can give Espeon and Entei some much needed free turns, and boom is to surprise opposing Snorlax. These four moves are almost never run with each other because of how badly Cloyster and Skarm own you, but it works because of how well Entei handles them. The surprise factor of boom on this set also cannot be undervalued, as removing opposing Snorlax is an even more massive advantage than usual for a team with three special sweepers. It would be awesome to fit Curse on this set somehow, potentially over EQ since you can just LK the rock types and Gengar, but overall its less consistent.
Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
IVs: 26 Def
- Thunder
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Standard Zapdos. This is the team's status absorber, but it's also awesome as a Growth recipient. +1 Thunder is nuclear. Zap is also a much needed ground immunity and pivot. Thundering into Raikou or opposing Zap until you either paralyze or force Rest is very helpful for Entei, as they have very low odds of hitting Thunder through Sleep Talk + Sunny Day.
Steelix @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Earthquake
- Curse
- Roar
- Explosion
Standard Steelix. The normal resist + phazer of the team. Exploding on Zapdos can be helpful, but for the most part Steelix likes to stick around, pivoting into Thunder and checking Snorlax. Having an answer to Cursetar is also enormous for this team. I originally used Golem in this slot because the team really appreciates Spin support, but ultimately I prefer Steelix's matchup into Zap/Raikou's Hidden Power.
Espeon @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Growth
- Psychic
- Baton Pass
- Morning Sun
Morning Sun is the 4th move of choice because its intuitive with Sunny Day and the increased longevity allows it to pass multiple times in a game. This thing is surprisingly tanky with GSC's maxed out stats, only taking 43.5% max from Raikou's Thunderbolt. Hilariously, you also only take 52% max from TTar's Rock Slide, allowing you to gain HP back versus non-Crunch variants with Morning Sun + Lefties barring a crit. Baton Pass also lets you circumnavigate Pursuit. That aside, Espeon provides offensive and defensive synergy to the team, outspeeding and threatening a 2HKO on Zapdos at +1 while handily switching into Machamp's Cross Chop. Paralysis is the biggest bane to Espeon however, so I wouldn't recommend trying to 1v1 Zapdos unless its sleeping or Sun is active, but even then you will always have a chance to be para'd by Thunder.
Entei @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Fire Blast
- Solar Beam
- Toxic
- Sunny Day
His Airness. Entei's role on the team is a special sweeper who can either make progress early in the game or clean up late,. His Fire Blast is much weaker than Moltres' (90 Sp.Atk vs 125) but makes up for it by learning Solarbeam, disintegrating fire resists the way Moltres can't ...sort of. Solarbeam OHKOs Rhydon Golem and Quagsire, but only does a measly 65% max to something like Starmie, which can stall out Sun with Recover. This is where Growthpass comes in. At +1, Entei is now strong enough to 2HKO Suicune and Recovering Starmie, and its Fire Blast now earns clean OHKOs on Exeggutor, Skarmory and Steelix. However, the biggest draw is Entei's +1 Fire Blast in Sun. Because of how internal stat boosts interact with external modifiers like weather, this doesn't give Entei a +2 Fire Blast, but a +2.25 one! 625 Sp.Atk is no joke, and it gives Entei the power to...
+1 Entei Fire Blast vs. Snorlax in Sun: 256-301 (48.9 - 57.5%) -- 53.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
2HKO Snorlax! Lets be honest--it takes way too much setup for this to work consistently, but it's really fun and satisfying when it does. Most games you will never have enough free turns to pass +1 and set up Sun, but Entei is still plenty strong with just one or the other. This is also why I choose to run Toxic over HP Fighting. Entei has really impressive bulk, especially when using Leftovers instead of Charcoal, but HP Fighting's DVs are atrocious, dropping you from 433 HP to 409. It might not sound like much, but its a big enough swing for Zapdos' Thunder to go from a 23.5% chance to 2HKO Entei after Spikes to a 81.1% chance. Meanwhile with Toxic, you lose the ability to chunk Tyranitar in exchange for poisoning it, which non-Rest sets hate. Crippling Tyranitar also improves Zapdos and Espeon's chances to sweep later should Entei falter.
Cloyster @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Icy Wind
- Spikes
- Toxic
- Explosion
Almost standard Cloyster. Icy wind is used to get cheeky booms on Zapdos and especially Starmie, who can pose big problems for this team otherwise. Surf is nice to have against Tyranitar, but oftentimes its not something you'll wish you had instead (it can even be unintuitive with Sunny Day on the team). In general, Cloyster's Spikes and Explosion pressure help to round out this unorthodox team.
And that's it! This team is flawed, but also extremely fun. Blissey (and stall in general) pose a big problem, but it can absolutely erase boom offense or Nido/Gar structures. Entei is a very challenging mon to build with, but I enjoy using him on this team a lot. I'm also open to any suggestions or improvements! The team has a lot of weird sets so let me know if I overcooked anything.
