I've recently passed from playing RU to NU after making this team, which ended up needing no RU pokemon to make sense. It's been doing very well and I've reached the top 1% with it on the smogon server. I also want to specify that this is my very first RMT and that English is my second language.
As the title indicates the heart of this team is volbeat. I use it's ability to baton pass +3 special attack boosts not to one, but to three of my other pokemon who all use it very differently. With prankster, the little cricket can troll all day long no matter how frail it may seem. The rest of the team is still built to be viable without it's help though as volbeat often requires a lot of prediction.
So lets move on to the members of the team starting with the trollbeat itself
Volbeat (M) @leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 Hp, 252 Sp.D, 4 Spd
Nature: Calm
-Encore
-Substitute
-Tail Glow
-Baton Pass
Volbeat's main goal is to baton pass Tail Glow while losing the less hp possible. Prankster, substitute and leftys are always a good way to scout the opponent, blocking status and trick and giving me a free turn to set up tail glow. It also works very well against common multiple rock attacks because the opponent is bound to miss at least once. Encore is the utility move I chose over thunder wave or confuse ray. It completely abuses those who previously failed giving me a status and stayed to try to break my sub, (because you don't want to switch and give volbeat a free turn to set up). It also counters those who could try to set up on volbeat while it accomplishes what it does best. The two other moveslots are used for the main strategy to baton pass huge special attack boosts. Since volbeat doesn't need neither attacks nor speed and its defense is just plain horrible, I invested everything in its special bulk making it quite impressive for a little bug. The 4 speed EVs are to out speed other volbeats or illumises since it seemed worthless in defense anyway. I will usually never lead with volbeat unless I highly suspect a choiced trick lead from the opponent as not much in my team likes to deal with those and Volbeat just loves them.
The Blower
Seadra (F) @Eviolite
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 64 Hp, 56 Def, 252 Sp.A, 136 Spe
Nature: Modest
-Agility
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Hidden Power Grass
Seadra is the first of the three pokemon to which I baton pass tail glow and fills a dual role of sweeper and physical wall thanks to eviolite. Sending a baton pass with priority usually means what’s coming in is going to receive a hit. As long as it's neutral and physical, seadra can take loads of them. Hopefully, he can even pull off an agility to completely sweep thanks to its awesome type coverage and great defense to cover priority moves. Poison point is chosen over Sniper because a +3 crit is already powerful enough to ohko anyways and poison point is much more useful when acting as a physical wall. EVs are spread too fulfill its dual role in the team and to out speed nearly every scarfed folk with one agility. I will usually never lead with seadra as he's much less threatening unboosted.
The fat on fire
Magmortar (F) @Choice Scarf
Ability: Vital Spirit
EVs: 4 Hp, 252 Sp.A, 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
-Flamethrower
-Thunderbolt
-Focus Blast
-Psychic
Magmortar is the second baton pass receiver and requires much less explanation. He's an ordinary scarfed pokemon with plenty of coverage but becomes a complete monster after volbeat's help. Although he lacks seadra's massive defense and cannot switch moves, he requires one less turn to set up and hits so hard he can often deal with only flamethrower (It's accuracy is preferred to Fire Blast's power since magmortar already hits hard enough once boosted). Vital sprirt also makes it a good switch in on tangela, jynx and amoonguss. I only lead with magmortar when I suspect toxic spikes as they are devastating to my team and he counters pretty much everyting that sets them in NU bar tentacool.
The Sucker
Cradily (F) @Lum Berry
Ability: Suction Cups
EVs: 56 Hp, 252 Sp.A, 200 Sp.D
Nature: Modest
-Giga Drain
-Ancientpower
-Earthpower
-Recover
Cradily is the last receiver of baton pass and uses the boost in a very different way. I first chose cradily for its ability: Suction Cups. Many people immediately think of switching out to a phazer when they see volbeat come in. Cradily can surprise them with its ability and get a free switch in. The main move of this set is Giga Drain since cradily is way too slow to attempt a traditional sweep. It rather tries to suck up the damage it takes while simultaneously wrecking havoc in the opponent's team. While seadra takes on the role of the physical wall, cradily works perfectly as a special wall and can use recover if it has not received a boost. The other two moves just give awesome coverage. Ancientpower is used over hiddenpower rock for that small chance of making cradily a complete demon. Cradily also covers quagsire with special defense investment to make sure everyone is aware I have massive special attack. Unfortunately, since cradily is so slow, it fears powerful physical fighting, Steel, Ice and Bug moves, but killing cradily this way will often cost the life of the opponents phazer to get a free switch. For the item, I first wanted to use leftovers but I like to respect item clause even if I don't play with it and volbeat needed it much more. I chose the lum berry not realizing how useful it would actually be (it's consumed like 7 games out of 10). In fact as soon as the previously listed threats are gone the first thing everyone does is to cripple cradily with a status. Lum berry immediately cures the status letting cradily demolish the last threat and leave the opponent harmless. Cradily is never used as a lead, though I like to put it in first position faking a stealth rock lead.
Wakattack
Marowak (M) @Thick Club
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 160 Hp, 252 Att, 92 Def
Nature: Adamant
-Earthquake
-Double Edge
-Thunderpunch
-Substitute
Sometimes you just can't win with plenty of special attack and marowak is here to balance things up a bit. Hitting harder earthquakes than an item free groudon, marowak is nothing to set up on which makes him a great suicide lead. If the opponent wants to set up rocks or a swords dance at the very begging of the game he is pretty sure to lose a pokemon and rocks usually don't hurt my team enough to make up for a 6 vs. 5 battle. Double Edge gives great neutral coverage and thunderpunch is used over stone-edge because marowak has no time to lose missing attacks. Substitute gives marowak a chance to hit properly when confronted to many possible switches that are immune to his attacks.
Mad Meow
Purugly (M) @Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 4 Hp, 252 Att, 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly
-Retaliate
-U-Turn
-Sucker Punch
-Taunt
Last but not least, purugly is the utility guy filling many roles my team would otherwise lack. Even with a poor 82 Attack Stat, STAB life orb boosted Retaliate makes insanely powerful revenge kills and purugly has the speed to pull it off. U-turn gives momentum and often helps sending out volbeat on the appropriate opponents. Sucker Punch is the only form of priority in my team and is one of the two reasons I chose purugly over cinccino who learns none. The second reason is taunt because with such a speed it's always a good thing to have. Thick Fat also gives purugly two useful resistances along with its ghost immunity. Purugly works as an appropriate lead too if marowak seems inappropriate.
Notice that my team sets no hazards and can only induce status with secondary effects or poison point. This may seem like a weakness but I believe it's good to carry a lot of attacking moves and volbeat's setting up is nearly always more effective than hazards and status. Plus it makes the usually weak clerics and spinners rather useless and great set up bait. Also, my team has two weaknesses to rocks and no spinner, but after testing it, rocks and spikes are usually much less problematic than the less common toxic spikes.
Threats:
-Anything that sets up toxic spikes on something else than volbeat or purugly (taunt) can hurt pretty hard, but since I tend to sweep a lot it just limits the time I can do it as stall teams fail to resist such powerful moves. Baton passing a sub and cradily's lum berry are also effective ways of making the toxic spikes slightly less harmful.
-Taunt and encore users are the main counters to volbeat and must be taken care of without a boost.
-Cinccino is also a total pain in the ass since it rock blasts volbeat (killing it behind its sub), bullet seeds Seadra and Marowak (the physical walls) and wake-up slaps or U-turns Cradily who would have been the best counter otherwise. It evens out speeds purugly and it hits with very unpredictable power. Scarfed focus blast is the most reliable way of getting rid of it; flamethrower can work too after life orb damage. Sucker punch can also help to finish him off.
-After rain dance, ludicolo is a threat to nearly every NU team, volbeat can still stall the rain turns with substitute (especially if he uses hydro pump) and cradily can recover taking around 50% from ice beam and faking storm drain. It should bet noted that setting up rain also comes with a considerable waste of time my team can abuse and the switch in is not always easy on marowak.
-There are probably other threats to my team but they haven’t caught my attention.
I appreciate any rating and advice and I would also like to know if you consider this team cheap or predictable. (sorry for the random size of the images they kept being rescaled to original size when previewing the post)
As the title indicates the heart of this team is volbeat. I use it's ability to baton pass +3 special attack boosts not to one, but to three of my other pokemon who all use it very differently. With prankster, the little cricket can troll all day long no matter how frail it may seem. The rest of the team is still built to be viable without it's help though as volbeat often requires a lot of prediction.
So lets move on to the members of the team starting with the trollbeat itself
Volbeat (M) @leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 Hp, 252 Sp.D, 4 Spd
Nature: Calm
-Encore
-Substitute
-Tail Glow
-Baton Pass
Volbeat's main goal is to baton pass Tail Glow while losing the less hp possible. Prankster, substitute and leftys are always a good way to scout the opponent, blocking status and trick and giving me a free turn to set up tail glow. It also works very well against common multiple rock attacks because the opponent is bound to miss at least once. Encore is the utility move I chose over thunder wave or confuse ray. It completely abuses those who previously failed giving me a status and stayed to try to break my sub, (because you don't want to switch and give volbeat a free turn to set up). It also counters those who could try to set up on volbeat while it accomplishes what it does best. The two other moveslots are used for the main strategy to baton pass huge special attack boosts. Since volbeat doesn't need neither attacks nor speed and its defense is just plain horrible, I invested everything in its special bulk making it quite impressive for a little bug. The 4 speed EVs are to out speed other volbeats or illumises since it seemed worthless in defense anyway. I will usually never lead with volbeat unless I highly suspect a choiced trick lead from the opponent as not much in my team likes to deal with those and Volbeat just loves them.
The Blower
Seadra (F) @Eviolite
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 64 Hp, 56 Def, 252 Sp.A, 136 Spe
Nature: Modest
-Agility
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Hidden Power Grass
Seadra is the first of the three pokemon to which I baton pass tail glow and fills a dual role of sweeper and physical wall thanks to eviolite. Sending a baton pass with priority usually means what’s coming in is going to receive a hit. As long as it's neutral and physical, seadra can take loads of them. Hopefully, he can even pull off an agility to completely sweep thanks to its awesome type coverage and great defense to cover priority moves. Poison point is chosen over Sniper because a +3 crit is already powerful enough to ohko anyways and poison point is much more useful when acting as a physical wall. EVs are spread too fulfill its dual role in the team and to out speed nearly every scarfed folk with one agility. I will usually never lead with seadra as he's much less threatening unboosted.
The fat on fire
Magmortar (F) @Choice Scarf
Ability: Vital Spirit
EVs: 4 Hp, 252 Sp.A, 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
-Flamethrower
-Thunderbolt
-Focus Blast
-Psychic
Magmortar is the second baton pass receiver and requires much less explanation. He's an ordinary scarfed pokemon with plenty of coverage but becomes a complete monster after volbeat's help. Although he lacks seadra's massive defense and cannot switch moves, he requires one less turn to set up and hits so hard he can often deal with only flamethrower (It's accuracy is preferred to Fire Blast's power since magmortar already hits hard enough once boosted). Vital sprirt also makes it a good switch in on tangela, jynx and amoonguss. I only lead with magmortar when I suspect toxic spikes as they are devastating to my team and he counters pretty much everyting that sets them in NU bar tentacool.
The Sucker
Cradily (F) @Lum Berry
Ability: Suction Cups
EVs: 56 Hp, 252 Sp.A, 200 Sp.D
Nature: Modest
-Giga Drain
-Ancientpower
-Earthpower
-Recover
Cradily is the last receiver of baton pass and uses the boost in a very different way. I first chose cradily for its ability: Suction Cups. Many people immediately think of switching out to a phazer when they see volbeat come in. Cradily can surprise them with its ability and get a free switch in. The main move of this set is Giga Drain since cradily is way too slow to attempt a traditional sweep. It rather tries to suck up the damage it takes while simultaneously wrecking havoc in the opponent's team. While seadra takes on the role of the physical wall, cradily works perfectly as a special wall and can use recover if it has not received a boost. The other two moves just give awesome coverage. Ancientpower is used over hiddenpower rock for that small chance of making cradily a complete demon. Cradily also covers quagsire with special defense investment to make sure everyone is aware I have massive special attack. Unfortunately, since cradily is so slow, it fears powerful physical fighting, Steel, Ice and Bug moves, but killing cradily this way will often cost the life of the opponents phazer to get a free switch. For the item, I first wanted to use leftovers but I like to respect item clause even if I don't play with it and volbeat needed it much more. I chose the lum berry not realizing how useful it would actually be (it's consumed like 7 games out of 10). In fact as soon as the previously listed threats are gone the first thing everyone does is to cripple cradily with a status. Lum berry immediately cures the status letting cradily demolish the last threat and leave the opponent harmless. Cradily is never used as a lead, though I like to put it in first position faking a stealth rock lead.
Wakattack
Marowak (M) @Thick Club
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 160 Hp, 252 Att, 92 Def
Nature: Adamant
-Earthquake
-Double Edge
-Thunderpunch
-Substitute
Sometimes you just can't win with plenty of special attack and marowak is here to balance things up a bit. Hitting harder earthquakes than an item free groudon, marowak is nothing to set up on which makes him a great suicide lead. If the opponent wants to set up rocks or a swords dance at the very begging of the game he is pretty sure to lose a pokemon and rocks usually don't hurt my team enough to make up for a 6 vs. 5 battle. Double Edge gives great neutral coverage and thunderpunch is used over stone-edge because marowak has no time to lose missing attacks. Substitute gives marowak a chance to hit properly when confronted to many possible switches that are immune to his attacks.
Mad Meow
Purugly (M) @Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 4 Hp, 252 Att, 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly
-Retaliate
-U-Turn
-Sucker Punch
-Taunt
Last but not least, purugly is the utility guy filling many roles my team would otherwise lack. Even with a poor 82 Attack Stat, STAB life orb boosted Retaliate makes insanely powerful revenge kills and purugly has the speed to pull it off. U-turn gives momentum and often helps sending out volbeat on the appropriate opponents. Sucker Punch is the only form of priority in my team and is one of the two reasons I chose purugly over cinccino who learns none. The second reason is taunt because with such a speed it's always a good thing to have. Thick Fat also gives purugly two useful resistances along with its ghost immunity. Purugly works as an appropriate lead too if marowak seems inappropriate.
Notice that my team sets no hazards and can only induce status with secondary effects or poison point. This may seem like a weakness but I believe it's good to carry a lot of attacking moves and volbeat's setting up is nearly always more effective than hazards and status. Plus it makes the usually weak clerics and spinners rather useless and great set up bait. Also, my team has two weaknesses to rocks and no spinner, but after testing it, rocks and spikes are usually much less problematic than the less common toxic spikes.
Threats:
-Anything that sets up toxic spikes on something else than volbeat or purugly (taunt) can hurt pretty hard, but since I tend to sweep a lot it just limits the time I can do it as stall teams fail to resist such powerful moves. Baton passing a sub and cradily's lum berry are also effective ways of making the toxic spikes slightly less harmful.
-Taunt and encore users are the main counters to volbeat and must be taken care of without a boost.
-Cinccino is also a total pain in the ass since it rock blasts volbeat (killing it behind its sub), bullet seeds Seadra and Marowak (the physical walls) and wake-up slaps or U-turns Cradily who would have been the best counter otherwise. It evens out speeds purugly and it hits with very unpredictable power. Scarfed focus blast is the most reliable way of getting rid of it; flamethrower can work too after life orb damage. Sucker punch can also help to finish him off.
-After rain dance, ludicolo is a threat to nearly every NU team, volbeat can still stall the rain turns with substitute (especially if he uses hydro pump) and cradily can recover taking around 50% from ice beam and faking storm drain. It should bet noted that setting up rain also comes with a considerable waste of time my team can abuse and the switch in is not always easy on marowak.
-There are probably other threats to my team but they haven’t caught my attention.
I appreciate any rating and advice and I would also like to know if you consider this team cheap or predictable. (sorry for the random size of the images they kept being rescaled to original size when previewing the post)
