[RATE MY TEAM] Pranking a Prankster!

[Pokeventurer]

So hi guys i am back with another team (this is something i am getting success with alot in the past few days or so. the team has a mega sableye *YAAAY* yeah i know some of the readers left at this point, but congrats if you stay and if you read my intros too though so without further ado let's jump into this crazy team:


Sableye-Mega @ Sablenite  
Ability: Prankster  
EVs: 252 HP / 212 Def / 44 SpD  
Calm Nature  
- Snarl  
- Will-O-Wisp  
- Toxic  
- Sunny Day

So mega sableye started as soon as i heard some people saying that it gives up the most important ability *prankster* and acquires some of the  most useless abilities in the game. well! at that very moment i was inspired by my own stupid mind to pull together a team with mega sableye. Dont get me wrong here, sableye isn't the star of the team, i just glues together a team around it well, in means of support.
Sableye is an understated pokemon and even worse as it's mega is a troll literally and it is completely considered a joke. well there were some things that inspired me to use mega sableye, so without boring u guys to death leat's get started on what this sableye contributes to my team:
. Bounces back thundurus taunts, or from any other one's even any status moves (spore, dark void and anything threatening to think of, by surprise ( it actually is good)
. provides the best weather disruption (for heatran and salamence, against rain)
. Shuts down any attackers with snarl and W-o-W.
. Walls mega kang more than perfect. (the most popular)

Ok i think mega sableye is quite explained much here. the spread is supposed to be for a standard sableye in the meta, for some games were i avoided m-evolving it and brought it as a secondary option for back up support.


Heatran @ Choice Scarf  
Ability: Flash Fire  
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe  
Modest Nature  
- Heat Wave  
- Overheat  
- Flash Cannon  
- Earth Power

Next comes the pokemon i wanted to try out with m-sableye. sableye can support to to it's fullest potential. b activating the sun and the using it's will-o-wisp to activate the amazing flash fire it has and then walls others from OHKO'ing it, heatran sure did took alot of games through this simple tactic.
Heatran's stats and EV'ing have always gave me problems against mirror-matches and the speed it reached, so i gave it a scarf to outspeed most of the metagame. i don't have any Hp-ice on it cuz swampert is the boss of em all.


Staraptor @ Life Orb  
Ability: Reckless  
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Brave Bird  
- Protect  
- Tailwind  
- Double-Edge

Next up is a pokemon inspired from one of my favorites on the pokemon scene Ashton Cox, surprisingly it should've lost viability but it was present on Ashton's both VGC14 and VGC15 Worlds team , so i wanted to give it a try. it formed a reasonably good synergy around heatran and sableye. you guys can't imagine the power of this mon. Ashton had a CB on his mon but i went for life orb as it suited my playstyle much better and gave me options against multiple opponents out on the field. *the end to all rotoms*
I am in this sorta love-hate relationship with this mon on the team right now, i had close combat but it adds to it's ridiculous defenses, but can't add a sash cuz it's always using a recoil move. tailwind isn't something i wanted, though it really helps swampert, but icy wind is something i wanted and it fits the team better.


Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite  
Ability: Intimidate  
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe  
Jolly Nature  
- Dragon Claw  
- Protect  
- Double-Edge  
- Dragon Dance

Mega salamence is a pokemon that is just a throw on. i wanted a secondary mega mon, cuz a support mega 100% isn't so the idea for any team i think. salamence surprisingly doesn't makes it to any matches, nor did it had any success in many matches. i choose it to deal heavy damage, sableye provided fairly good support, DD wasn't getting used at all and i wanted to change it for EQ.


Swampert @ Rindo Berry  
Ability: Torrent  
Level: 50  
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 44 Spe  
Modest Nature  
- Ice Beam  
- Wide Guard  
- Scald  
- Earth Power

Thanks alot to Aaron Zheng for showing me the power of this pokemon, it does alot against the metagame. It stops the geni's at an instance, deals with aegislash and heatran, walls stuff and much more, is m-salamence a thing now? not much to say and lazy EV'ing and need improvement on that on my end especially any good suggestions for it? it also shuts down fairies and more spread moves that every team carries in some form i don't have regrets from it other than i think i could use a bit of speed on it or get a nice bulky spread. absorbs electric types, ice types and water from the quartz mentioned above.


Ferrothorn @ Rocky Helmet  
Ability: Iron Barbs  
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD  
Adamant Nature  
- Power Whip  
- Thunder Wave  
- Protect  
- Iron Head

Ferrothorn is a last minute addition. i used it as it was good against rain modes and spread T-wave speed control which pays off in alot of matches if my opponents don't have a way to stop it with fire types. it also counts as a fair counter to the move fake out and Kangaskhan,ui do miss myself some leech seeds but t-wave was way more useful in matches. using it for the first time so just 252/252/4'd the EV's. iron head was for more consistent and better damage to slower t-tar, tr garde and sylveon. gives offense against TR

Closing thoughts:
i idk why i don't have much to say about this team as the EV spreads need to be suggested "u can blame me cuz i am lazy" plz don't leave me with plz read this post before posting and RMT i think this brief was enough for the rating, i may update this post soon in more detail and add vids. Hope u liked it. Bye for now!

[Delta]

I always love Staraptor. The only problem I see is that Landorus will destroy 4 out of your 6 Pokemon. I will go into better detail later.

[LDS kasumi]

its a nice team. but you need to check Intimidates and landoT, because every kid on the block has landorus :D but i like this team.

[Aether]

Cool, thought I'd chuck my two cents into the mix. Not a bad looking team, still needs quite a bit of work.
Obligatory, remember to adhere to the forums rules, you haven't even included damage calcs for the EV spreads you've chosen (or why you've chosen them).

However, there's quite a few gaping holes in your team building. Interesting choice going for M-Sableye but realistically magic bounce will never really be needed. Its all good and well being able to repel those taunts and spores, but a taunted thundurus is still a huge offensive pressure, and breloom / amoongy can't even get put to sleep. M-sableye seem to be something you like, so I wont say the obvious 'run Prank sableye' [but you probably should]. If you just wanted the pokemon for magic bounce then I would heavily suggest Espeon, which can still sunny day / charm / toxic etc.
If your'e still going to stick with M-Sableye, then here's a few pointers. Your're running far too much support, it has practically 0 offensive pressure against the popular amoongus and gengar. I'd suggest more:

Sableye-Mega @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 212 Def / 44 SpD
Calm Nature
- Snarl
- Will-O-Wisp
- Foul play
- Protect / recover.

Playing stall moves such as W-o-W without some form recovery / protection is ludicrous. The w-o-w FF heatran is a nice idea but will not work in practice. M-sabl without prankster is slower that a [scarfed] Heatran and therefore will not activate FF until the end of the turn, by which the frailty of heatran will have become obvious and it may have been OHKO's by any of the popular VGC appearances, kang, landy-T and the like. This is also true for the sunny day set-up, which has another downside of halving the scald damage from swampert. Nice idea for weather disruption, but theres a reason why people use switch-in abilities to set rain. A slow pokemon like M-sable will set weather at the end of the turn, by which the opponent will have dealt its weather boosted damage. There's also a reason why scrappy-kang is run. A fake out still flinches ghost types, allowing for others to damage / faint the fairly weak sableye.

Your reason for scarfing Heatran is fairly silly. Mirror matches are meant to be dealt with by other pokemon, its why VGC is a doubles tournament. If your'e that worried about outspeeding another heatran, try:

Heatran @ Shuca berry / air baloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Heat Wave
- Protect
- Flash Cannon
- Earth Power

Once again, no protect on heatran will leave it a severely open target, VGC is about keeping your pokemon on the field, not trying to sweep immediately and leaving yourself crippled for late game. Chuck on a shuca / air baloon to deal with ground types, and remember, a team must have synergy, not just focus on taking down a single opponent.

M-Salamence is a good mega (my favorite) to run with this team, but D-dance is fairly pointless. Double-edge can OHKO most things anyway and M-mence already outspeeds. taking a turn to set up will usually leave you open for a faint / revenge kill, especially as you're only running single target moves.

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Protect
- Double-Edge
- Tailwind

Tailwind is a better option to d-dance, it gives the rest of your team more suitability (and helps your heatran with its speed problem).

Keep the staraptor if you want, but quite honestly your just focusing on its offensive pressure again, rather than its synergy with the rest of your team. looking at team magma team builder, your'e lacking quite a lot of coverage. Here's the link:

http://www.teammagma.net/teambuilder/?30...98|598|485

honestly I'd swap staraptor for something with more coverage, and the best option I can think of is the unusual Scarf-gardevoir or the standard sylveon.

Gardevoir @ Choice scarf
Ability: Trace
Ev's: 12Hp / 252 SpA / 144 Spe
Timid nature
- Moonblast
- Shadow ball
- dazzling gleam
- Psychic

or

Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 92 HP / 116 Def / 252 SpA / 48 Spe
Modest nature
- Hyper Voice
- Shadow Ball
- Psyshock
- HP Ground

Adding one of these two also removes one of your teams ice weaknesses. and gives you a far more balanced team: http://www.teammagma.net/teambuilder/?30...00|598|485

Swampert looks cool, I tend to run gastrodon @ expert belt instead. Does the same job, has more offensive pressure, functions better under trick room, and water absorb pairs fantastically with Heatran.

With ferrothorn, honestly T-wave isn't a very good idea. You're already running tailwind, and have W-o-W as a status inflict-er. Plus ferros speed is so piss poor that even a half-speed charizard outspeeds it. I'd probably go for:

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Atk / 52 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Protect

Hope this helps, you still have a lot of work to do and I ain't going anywhere near your EV spreads without any reasoning and calcs. Your team need more synergy and coverage, if you say two pokemon are meant to work together, you need to think of how that will play out in a turn-by-turn battle scenario, e.g your M-sable and heatran does not have as much realist synergy as you'd hope.

[Justin]

Nice write up Pokeadventurer and great reply aether!

[Strandmy1]

This isn't huge, but I think people forget about this aspect of M-Sableye: on the turn (and only on the turn) that Sableye Megas, he keeps the prankster effect and gains Magic Bounce. This is because prankster acts like speed in that it is decided at the beginning of the turn.

I just got screwed by this on Showdown. I led Gengar/Liepard (parish trap) and went for a parish song / taunt. Sableye evolved and my taunt bounced back AND Sableye's taunt hit Gengar before he got off is parish song.

So for weather disruption it could work given that the opposition leads with a weather setter and he leads Sableye and goes for a Sunny day turn one or some other such scenario. Is it 100% reliable, No, but if the opponent isn't excepting it it could work.