Special Season 5, 6v6 Single Battles, no items

[Spoonfairy]

Rules for this special season:
• This competition will use Single Battles format.
• Items cannot be held by Pokémon!
• Eligible Pokemon; National Pokédex No. 001 through 719
• Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Celebi, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, Jirachi, Deoxys, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Phione, Manaphy, Darkrai, Shaymin, Arceus, Victini, Reshiram, Zekrom, Kyurem, Keldeo, Meloetta, Genesect, Xerneas, Yveltal, Zygarde, and Diancie cannot be used.
• A 30-minute time limit for each match will automatically be enforced in-game, beginning at the start of each battle. If the outcome has not been determined when the time limit expires, the game will automatically apply tiebreakers to determine a winner.
• At the beginning of each battle, players have 120 seconds to select 6 Pokémon with which to battle. (Which is your whole party so it only matters which one you want to go first with ^^)
• At the beginning of each turn, players have 60 seconds to select a move or change Pokémon in battle. If a player has not made his or her selections at the end of this period, the game will automatically make selections for the player.
• Duration; UTC 07/14/2014 08:00 PM-09/08/2014 07:59 PM
(Source; http://3ds.pokemon-gl.com/battle/5/regulation/)

I would love to hear what kind of setups you guys will go for in this season, some theory crafting if you will, as me myself is far from having a complete team in mind, no mega evolves and a huge key component of build setups gone...
Lets solve this puzzle together! ^^

Personally I can still see Blaziken and Talonflame being really strong as the items they use isn't that important.

 

[Pyritie]

$5 says garchomp will still be #1

 

[Spoonfairy]

I wont take that bet ;)

Who is the best for Stealth Rock setup without items?

 

[Olaph Olaffsson]

$5 says Acrobatics is going to be the most popular move!

Shuckle seems much less viable now that it cannot hold Mental Herb, but other hazard setters that don't rely on items should be fine. Is the only F.E.A.R mon left Donphan?

 

[Bedlington]

Despite the loss of Lum Berry, I think multiscale dragonite will be popular

 

[Hulavuta]

Hmm, we already have a thread for this but whatever. Like I said in that one, I think SwagPlay will be popular since you can pack a few Swagger users, and there are no Lum Berries.

 

[ethan06]

Thundurus @ n/a
Jolly
Prankster
252 HP/252 Def/4 Sp. Def
-Taunt
-Thunder Wave
-Substitute
-Acrobatics Volt Switch

tbh if it's all the same to you guys i'll be sitting out of this one

EDIT:

As far as I know Thundurus can't learn Acrobatics?

Whoops. Still doesn't look like much fun

 

[Deleted User 220884]

Acrobatics tflame or staraptor, bulky pokemon, klefki with swagplay

 

[Spoonfairy]

Thundurus @ n/a
Jolly
Prankster
252 HP/252 Def/4 Sp. Def
-Taunt
-Thunder Wave
-Substitute
-Acrobatics

As far as I know Thundurus can't learn Acrobatics?

 

[oSeasons]

This tier is SOOOOO fun. The only thing I hate about this metagame is that some of the Japanese players resort to timer stall in order to secure the win. For example, if they knock out one of my pokemon, they'll timer stall for the remainder of the match in order to secure the 6-5 timer victory :/

I'm currently sitting at rank 20 something with 26 wins and 6 losses :p

 

[Theorymon]

Been dealing with real life stuff, but I'm going to get into this hard after battle of the legends!

Now, since this is 6vs6 without items, I assume that stall is going to be a lot more deadly than normal, since theres no life orb and such around. I have 3 ideas atm for teams.

1. The first one Im going to try out is a team based around Shadow Tag abuse, specifically Wobbuffet, and I may pair it with Gothitelle as well. Blissey is currently in top 12 usage, and Gothitelle can screw that up pretty hard! Wobbuffet is also nice for safeguard. Apparently, most Talonflame are using Will-O-Wisp and Roost, so Wobbuffet can not only set up dangerous sweepers like Garchomp, but also sorta replaces lum berry in a way! Sadly though, there are no scarfmons for Wobbuffet to pray on, but I feel like the lack of offensive items may make up for that.

2. Not a specific team idea, but Ive been thinking about making a team with Sheer Cold Suicune. Unlike our 6vs6 metagames, OHKO moves are fair game here, and they could be pretty annoying for stall teams!

3. The last team idea I'm currently interested in is some sort of full baton pass team. I gotta admit, the lost of mental herb sounds nasty, but I wonder how many people are actually preparing for baton pass... dEnIsSsS , your thoughts on full baton pass's viability without items? I figure you're the ultimate expert on that matter :P

Finally, something interesting I noticed the last time I checked the usage stats: I saw almost no defog. Im guessing thats because Defog requires a gen 4 game for a lot of mons, but that does have some interesting implications, it may be harder to keep hazards off in this metagame for a lot of people than expected!

 

[ethan06]

About Defog, Mandibuzz looks like a good user of the move in terms of availability and relative non-reliance on items. Without the danger of boosts from Choice Bands and Life Orbs, Mandibuzz becomes an even better physical sponge and hazard remover. I guess it doesn't need to run anything other than it's standard set...

 

[Charlotte]

Does being able to pass evasion help BP chains significantly? I'm thinking Minimize Drifblim, which has 150 base HP for bulky subs and a few neat options like Clear Smog and Defog at its disposal.

 

[Mega_Charizard_Z]

Just won four battles testing this out with a quick team I slapped together consisting of: Mamoswine, Ferrothorn, Jellicent, hydreigon, haxorus, and Honchcrow. No focus sashes = so many honchcrow sweeps :D

 

[Theorymon]

Well, I have been trying this metagame a bit, and I got to around 1650ish last time I checked, using this team.

Wobbuffet / Gothitelle / Blaziken / Garchomp / Rotom-W / Azumarill

I really need to change this team, its been having issues against some dangerous stuff like Talonflame (that thing is way more of a pain than I was expecting), and to be honest I might add in hazards somewhere later.

Feel free to suggest stuff, but here is one big thing I got from my expereince so far: Wobbuffet is pretty awesome! I haven't seen too many Belly Drum Azumarill, so I've been able to trap them, often times letting my Blaziken sweep! Gothitelle has been less consistent though, but there have been a few times where... in a really douchbag move, I've been able to timerstall a few people to death with Gothitelle. However, it seems like higher ranked players are very prepared for this. For example, I've seen a lot of defensive mons like Gastrodon run a OHKO move like Fissure specficly to nail Gothitelle it seems.

Also, while people are prepared for Blaziken, its still quite the beast. Something particular helpful is that after speed boost, you outspeed Greninja, who seems to be EVERYWHERE at the moment. Slaming Skarmory and Blissey is pretty nice too! Just watch out for Slowbro, I've been seeing a lot of highly ranked players using that, and Slowbro is a lot harder to wear down than Talonflame and Azumarill thanks to Regenerator.

Finally, as odd as this sounds, I've been using Rock Tomb Garchomp. Garchomp actually misses KOing Greninja often with Earthquake, so with Rock Tomb, I've actually screwed people out of an emergency Garchomp switch-in! (granted, Rock Tomb is used more than Rock Slide in Battle Spot singles as well).

This metagame has less than 3 weeks left, let's talk about it some more and try to do well in its final moments!

 

[ryan]

I toyed around with this meta a little bit on Showdown, and I've had a lot of fun with a nice defensive balanced team that utilizes Wish/Heal Bell Unaware Clefable to keep SpDef Bulk Up Talonflame and bulky DD Gyarados healthy to wallbreak and sweep in the same match. Had quite a bit of luck with it, and it was a lot of fun. Losing Leftovers on all of these Pokemon was really bothersome, but they still managed to do pretty well, particularly with Leech Seed support from Ferrothorn and of course Clefable's Wish support. It's certainly more strenuous to keep from being worn down throughout the match, but it's still doable in different ways.

 

[Eclipzer]

Hey,

After playing like 200 special rated battles since the new season im here to announce some things you have to be prepared to face.

From X - 1650~ you'll face pretty much good stuff teams with good synergy, mostly speed tier pokemon or completely dedicated stall teams.
SkarmBliss is still a thing.

From 1650 you start getting those 1,8 - 1,9 japanese players using the following strat, and its unbelievable uncompetetive and unsatiesfying...
Gothitelle@ Shadow Tag
- Calm Mind
- Double Team
- Rest
- Psyshock

They will set up on any special attacker or wall you may bring in - their whole 'tactic' revolves around this.
Luckily, after being desperate i found a nice way to get in their head.
I found that Honchkrow is really useful in special battle spot, mainly because of moxie and pursuit; ever other trapper would work too but you can basically start sweeping after baiting the gothitelle switch with bringing something like florges / cresselia and then double switch into your pursuit user.
So: If you found your urself struggeling give this kind of counterstrat a try, its nothing new but incredible effective vs. Teams with Gothitelle.


Remember to never surrender to those kind of time stalling guys, they are not competetive!

 

[Pyritie]

Good thing there's only a week and a half left of that season then

 

[Purgatory]

We could use some of that sweet evasion clause right 'bout now, GF!

 

[iioooiiioo]

If teams that are just pure stall didn't exist, then this would be one of my favorite meta's. Was fun seeing some guy dc 'cos Whirlwind after he set up a few Double-Teams.