The following is a rundown of one of my more popular Shedinja teams, as quoted in the Pokmon thread of an entirely different forum. Said thread and forum can be linked to upon request.
It should be noted that this team is near retired, although some of the members pop up in and out of other of my teams from time to time.
Most people who I wouldn’t want to know have already fought this team, so I’ll spill it all. It’ll be educational, at least.
The Opener "Libelle VI"
Flygon Naughty @ Choice Scarf 252 Attack / 188 Special Attack / 70 Speed
Earthquake
U-Turn
Stone Edge
Draco Meteor
What the hell
*Opening with a Choice Scarf user is almost as popular a 4th Gen tactic as opening with a Focus Sash user. My original 4th Gen team was almost entirely a quasi-sandstorm team, and this Flygon is the one remaining member of that mockup. She was there ONLY to counter Specsmence openers with a Draco Meteor to their face. Putting a scarf on her enables me to still outspeed Max/Max Sweeper (“Towers,” I call it. When you put 252 EVs into 2 stats.) Salamences that would otherwise wreak havoc if unchecked.
Although the threat is no longer around, Draco Meteor is STILL an amazing move. I GTS cloned Libelle VI, and her “daughter” Libelle VII has Fire Blast in place of U-Turn. Nothing in the game will resist Dragon and Fire attacks at the same time except Heatran, who’s weak to EQ.
U-Turn is a bit of a wild card. Nothing except another Scarf user will expect to outspeed this bad boy, so U-Turn is my switch button, but it also has the benefits of ruining Focus Punch and Focus Sash. Too bad I can’t seem to get any decent damage out of it, though. Them’s the breaks.
A helpful tip: 49 out of 50 openers don’t resist Rock. In fact, 4 out of 5 are WEAK to it. Stone Edge, although unstabbed, fucks shit up with a halfway decent attack stat and healthy EV investment behind it. 100 BP is nothing to sneer at. For the same reason, Earthquake is a frightening move, especially given that Flygon gets 150 BP out of it. God damn.*
The Physitank "Fry Guy"
Tangrowth Impish @ Leftovers 252 HP / 6 Defense / 252 Special Defense
Power Whip
Morning Sun
Sunny Day
Sleep Powder
Fear the power of this sun!
*A while back, there was a shitty Gamecube game called Pokmon XD: Gale of Darkness. In said game, you can catch a Tangela with Morning Sun, a move that heals 25%, 50%, or 80% instantly depending on the weather. On top of that, Tangela gets 2 abilities, each of which benefit from Sunlight.
I HAVE to run Sunny Day on my for reasons I’ll describe below. I lucked out, though, and my XD Tangela changed to Leaf Guard when she evolved. When the sun’s out, she’s immune to status, AND she’s able to almost fully heal herself at will. Most people fear Chlorophyll when I first start sleeping them, and try to out-think themselves, but you can’t paralyze a Leaf Guard user in the sun.
Fry Guy has a misgendered name and a GTS clone with the same misgendered name. The clone has the Defense and Special Defense EVs switched.*
The Cleanup Crew "Phaetonnon"
Magmortar Mild @ Life Orb 12 Attack / 252 Special Attack / 244 Speed
Earthquake
Mach Punch
Thunderbolt
Overheat
Huh, nice fit.
*For the record, Magmortar’s got a fucking gigantic Special Attack stat. Even after an Overheat, he can still hit Waters pretty hard with Bolt. That is, if the enemy didn’t already switch something into the OH.
If you don’t resist Overheat, and you just switched into Magmortar, you have just lost a Pokmon.
Like any pure attacker set, this requires a bit of prediction to work. You have 2 goals with this set:
(1) Make sure the only thing eating away at Magmortar’s HP is Life Orb.
(2) Stay ahead of your opponent.
Every time this fucker comes out, he takes out 1 to 3 members of the enemy team. Last year, there was a discussion thread on Smogon about a similar set to this with a different Nature (I use Mild, they use Rash). With only 12 EVs in Attack, Magmortar can ruin anything with a Quad Fighting weakness with Mach Punch.
Somebody has a Focus Sash Weavile out, gets cocky, thinks you’ll switch, and you Thunderbolt to scout. There goes 65% of his health. Even if Leftovers kicks in, Mach Punch will do 80%.
While Phaetonnon (Phaeton + Cannon) very much so benefits from Sunny Day, he’s not the reason why I carry it. For the record, though, Sunny Day STAB Overheat is fucking broken. The first hit comes out at 315 Base Power, which is stronger than Selfdestruct even AFTER the Defense drop. People think “oh, his Special Attack dropped, he’s probably going to switch after that” and then KABLAM, they get friend by a 158 BP Fire attack. Even after THAT shot, Overheat is STILL the stronger than a MAXED OUT Hidden Power Fire. How do you like those footballs?!
Just pray to the gods that your name isn’t Parasect. Holy SHIT.*
The Bite Machine "Thursday"
Feraligatr Jolly @ Salac Berry 6 HP / 252 Attack / 252 Speed
Ice Punch
Earthquake
Swords Dance
Waterfall
Feraligatr?
*Feraligatr has 4 things Gyarados doesn’t have: a 2x Elec weakness, Aerial Ace, a physical Ice move with perfect accuracy, and Swords Dance. Yes, it IS possible to have a Dragon Dancing Feraligatr, but fuck it. If I wanted to DD, I’d use Gyarados.
This Feraligatr was ORIGINALLY a STUPIDLY overspecialized Heracross counter holding a Choice Scarf. Instead of Swords Dance, he had Aerial Ace. I realized that, while the effort and the idea was nice, it was a stupid idea and a real waste of time. Without anything else handy to throw on him, I put a Salac Berry on Thursday to discover that Feraligatr is JUST bulky enough to survive even the strongest attacks in the red so long as they weren’t Super Effective AND stabbed. I would end up getting the scarf boost, after all.
Also, very few things resist Ice Punch and Earthquake at the same time. They are Shedinja and Levitate Bronzong. Hope this helps.*
The Support "Dr. Dreidel"
Claydol Calm @ Leftovers 252 HP / 252 Defense / 6 Special Defense
Rapid Spin
Stealth Rock
Ice Beam
Earth Power
What’s this guy doing, here?
*I needed a spinner, and Hitmontop/Starmie/Tentacruel was taken. First, Claydol doesn’t touch Spikes OR Toxic Spikes. It resists Stealth Rock. And it takes hits like a champ. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a reliable recovery move.
One thing I’ve come to notice is that Stealth Rock is one of the most amazing things in the world, even if it’s just used as a throwaway for lack of a better idea. Nobody’s immune to its harsh form of residual damage, and it also prevents Yanmega from parading in and out of combat more than once. With SR out, moves that would normally just make enemies VERY angry now kill them. SR is the difference between killing my Feraligatr and making it faster. SR ruins Focus Sash. SR fucking rules.
I also have a GTS clone of this mother fucker with the Defense and Special Defense EVs switched.*
The Trump Card "Phasma"
Shedinja Adamant @ Focus Sash 255 Attack / 255 Speed
Swords Dance
Shadow Sneak
X-Scissor
Toxic
Oh shit.
*This is it.
If you’ve known me or known of me for more than 4 months, you’ll know that I’m just a gigantic gimmick.
If it wasn’t for this gimmick, I’d be a very effective player, but I just can’t fucking resist it.
Every team I run is a gigantic Shedinja gimmick. In order for me to afford to use a Shedinja, I need (Tangrowth) weather control to eliminate Hail and Sandstorm, I need (Claydol) spike removal, I need (Magmortar and Flygon) Dragons and Leech Seeders gone, and I need (Feraligatr) a window to set up in.
Focus Sash is the second best thing to happen to Shedinja this generation, in theory, but everybody expects it. If I KNOW the enemy won’t be carrying Pursuit, I bring a Lum Berry. Otherwise, Focus Sash is seriously ONLY there to deal with Pursuit. I guess, if I’m lazy, I can abuse the Sash to get a Swords Dance in when I really don’t deserve it.
The REAL best thing to happen to Shedinja this generation was Shadow Sneak, a STAB priority move in its best attacking stat. Shadow Sneak means that I never have to fear the fact that Shedinja’s slow as FUCKING MOLASSES JESUS CHRIST. Shadow Sneak lets me finish off Gengars that switched into a X-Scissor.
Now, I COULD run Will-O-Wisp on Shedinja, but I prefer Toxic because W-O-W is mainly meant to cripple attackers. I carry Toxic to obliterate those pesky walls that are leftover when I’ve cleared the enemy team of all their attackers and they try to outstall me and start a Struggle war. No. I can’t have that. Struggle kicks Shedinja’s ass. I gotta control the field. I gotta have Toxic. Even with Swords Dance, I gotta have Toxic.*
Woo. The secret’s out. That’s my team in its current iteration. Right now, I’m deciding on an appropriate combination of tanks that will do the same jobs Tangrowth and Claydol do, but without the whole “Claydol can’t heal itself” bullshit. This MAY require me to take off another member, but Magmortar’s more than carried his weight on my team and Flygon comes in handy too often. That leaves my Feraligatr, who even though is very useful once he SDs and starts punching the shit out of things, I could see myself dropping if the situation desperately called for it.
My MAIN problem is my insane compulsion to use Shedinja on every single team I’ve run since 2003. While it’s a gigantic badass, the troublesome little fucker’s caused more anguish because of its insanely high maintenance requirements and its tendencies to leave me fighting 5 to 6 if I so much as forget to read a line of text. If something goes wrong and I switch my Feraligatr into a bad attack, there’s a chance he’ll be fine, get lucky, and pull through. If I forget that there are spikes out because I’ve been using my Levitators the whole fight, then somebody nails my Claydol before I Spin, Shedinja’s fucked.
This team had something like a 30-game winning streak going at one point. It was also very fun to use. The only REAL issue I had with it is that I understand how frustrating it can be when your only option quite literally is to hit “forfeit” or to simply lay down and die. I prefer a fun match all around, and angry opponents don’t always contribute to that. That comes with the Shedinja territory, though. Fuck yeah.
good shit!
Just need to beat MGS4 (almost done AFAIK)