Monoteams

[cantab]

One dragon that is NOT OHKOed by Weavile is Shelgon. If Shelgon runs Lefties Weavile's chance for even the 2HKO is slim if not none. Meanwhile even with min neutral nature attack, Shelgon always OHKOes Weavile with Brick Break.

 

[mtr]

you guys are forgetting that Wild Card. I would never take a 100% dragon team into battle. I would use five dragons and Scizor, since Mamo and Weavile both lose to it(except wierd bait sets)

Why not use Bronzong? It has Stealth Rock, which is crucial.

 

[Lightsabre]

mtr- that's probably work as well. I said Scizor because I like having priority, and right now the only priority avaible to Dragons is Dragonite's Extremespeed

 

[Aminar]

Flygon gets Quick attack...

He just can't make good enough use of it, even on a choice band set. Base 40 power normal just isn't significant enough.

 

[jc104]

You don't really need priority - most of the dragons make pretty good scarfers.

 

[Mr.E]

A monoteam can contain a wild card (a pokemon which does not belong).

"Wild cards" are for tournaments which allow them. A true mono-type team doesn't have a fucking wild card.

Needs more Fighting in the list. The only annoying thing about Fighting is that the only one that learns SR is Infernape. :[ Can't really use him as the dangerous mixed threat he could otherwise be because hey, he has to run SR and you'd be a fool not to have SR on a mono-Fighting team.

 

[Eggbert]

One dragon that is NOT OHKOed by Weavile is Shelgon. If Shelgon runs Lefties Weavile's chance for even the 2HKO is slim if not none. Meanwhile even with min neutral nature attack, Shelgon always OHKOes Weavile with Brick Break.

A neutral natured Shelgon with 252 HP is taking 55.7% - 66.5% from CB ice shard. Even if shelgon survives, what can he do to anything besides 4x effective brick break?

 

[cantab]

You run a +Def nature, that's neutral with respect to attack. (I'd probably run Relaxed, since Shelgon's slow anyway).

You're right that it can't do much to anything other than Weavile. Outrage is your best damaging move, but I wouldn't fancy the lock-in. There's Toxic, but you're unlikely to take much advantage of it. Wish to support your other team members is probably good, especially given Mence and Nite are SR weak. Weather if you want it. (Given Dragon+Fire and Dragon+Water are both pretty good coverage, either sun or rain might be useful). Roar to dish some entry hazard damage. Maybe you could run RestTalk?

 

[Eggbert]

Shelgon has a good movepool, but vaporeon entirely dominates it as a wisher, suicune as a resttalker and phazer.

A mono team could work until you hit 1200, but beyond that...

 

[Pollux-Castor]

I wasn't sure what kind of team I wanted, I am just getting back to playing Shoddy, but I think I will try a Mono-Dragon Team. On one of my teams I was having a damn good time with Life Orb Flygon (Dclaw, Earthquake, Flamethrower, Roost). He will probably be in there as the Electric resist. And BTW Kingdra is neutral to Ice Shard. You don't want her switching in repeatedly but she can't be revenged like most other dragons.

Edit: Latias also takes only 2x damage from Ice Shard rather than 4x. She should survive, especially bulky versions.

Edit2: just won several battle on shoddy with this team, dragonite, kingdra, salamence, flygon, latias, forretress. thinking about making a RMT thread

 

[Mr.E]

Forretress isn't a Dragon...

A mono team could work until you hit 1200, but beyond that...

I haven't battled in a few weeks now but I piloted my mono-Fighting team in OU past 1500, just under the bottom part of the leaderboard, last time I bothered trying. You're severely overestimating the abilities of your fellow pokémon battlers. [/brag]

 

[cantab]

Most people accept a team with 5 members of the same type as being a mono-type team, despite the big 'no' picture that one person in this thread posted.

Personally, while I accept the wildcard, I feel it is dissatisfying if it ends up being a core member. For example making a mono-water team centred around snagging a Motor Drive boost for Electivire and sweeping with it - while that's in the rules of mono-type with wildcard, to me it seems to go against the spirit. (Whether said team would be any good isn't relevant to my point.) The wildcard should be there to cover for the inevitable key weaknesses of a mono-type team, not to do most of the work itself.

 

[Assassin of the Red Sands]

hey, fighting isn't listed in the first post
would that be a good, decent, weak, or poor (or whatever words the first post said) monoteam?

 

[ANinyMouse]

Mono-type teams are definitely something I've always loved dabbling in.

To be honest with you, though, I haven't ever made one that fared well enough in battle to warrant using it seriously - that is, until I broke some rules and hacked some illegal movesets/abilities. Suddenly, a mono ice team isn't such a joke when Mamoswine has Mold Breaker; likewise, a Steelix with Rapid Spin and Recover becomes an amazing defensive support backbone.

But, that's just for my own personal DS battles. Obviously, "hacking" illegal movesets or abilities cannot be standardized or endorsed. Hell of a lot of fun, though!

 

[anubite]

But that doesn't make it outright impossible. Anubite's original statement implied he thought there weren't even 6 dragons allowed in standard.

Sorry, I didn't intend to imply this. I know there are 6 pokemon - however, almost all of them are 4x to ice. It's a pretty bad team to monoteam with, even with their decent move pools and high stats.

And using NFEs? I've tried that with dragon, trust me, doesn't work (Gabite isn't that good, neither is dragonair or shelgon). The only NFE I've actually used in OU to any degree of success is Slakoth...

Rock mono teams aren't terrible, I've done rather well in UU. But you basically need sandstream to do well with them. Also, Probopass makes an amazing defensive SpA - has access to some nice moves. Just watch out for EQ and fighting. Lunatone is incredible too, has access to cosmic power, calm mind, I think barrier, and a tons of great SpA moves for covering rock's weaknesses. Only problem is it's terrible speed. It's like it's a "I wish I was cresselia" pokemon.

And of course the sub-type matters, I didn't want to imply that by picking water, it's suddenly a better type. I was rating the types more on their accessibility and flexibility.

Flying types are pretty bad at mono-typing, even though they cover a lot of kinds of pokemon, they are weak to SR and are on a whole, frail. Many have 4x weaknesses, too. Their stats aren't usually stellar either (around the 450-500 range, I think, though poison is there was well and I give undue praise to them for their awesomeness).

I wasn't trying to create any paradigm statements about monoteams, I just wanted to bring the topic to light as it seemed that no one talked about them, and when they're posted in RMT, people usually go "LOL WHERE'S YOUR WILDCARD DUDE HEATRAN'S JUST GONNA SWEEP THIS???" and the person is automatically labelled as a noob, or something. That's my impression, anyway.

Oh and I did forget fighting on my list, that's not because I </3 fighting, but because I haven't really mono-teamed with it. I think I did only once, and didn't like my team that much. Been staying away from it, I guess.

As for wildcards, I said I don't use them, I feel it does tarnish the spirit of a monoteam, but I can understand if people want to use them. I usually accept teams of 5 + wildcard as a monoteam...

 

[Lockeness]

Monoteam psychic sounds like the best mono team. However, in my experience most monoteams can be easily beaten. Then again all I have seen are mono type Grass teams created by players who were not skilled in the game. I do think that mono teams are a viable choice in competetive play. They just may not be as strong or orthodox as diversified teams.

 

[SJCrew]

All I have to say is, don't try mono Bug in OU. No matter how good you think you are, it's not necessarily a challenge to do well with so much as it is a flat out impossibility. They can't do a damn thing about Scizor, much less Steel types in general.

 

[cantab]

HP Fire and Superpower on your own Scizor can both 2HKO opposing Scizor. CB Heracross's Close Combat has a good chance of OHKOing.
If you want an ersatz option, how about Specs Scizor with HP Fire? OHKO opposing Scizor, 2HKO Metagross and Skarmory. You might be able to work out a mixed set with Life Orb too, though you can't 2HKO all Metagross with it.
No doubt bug can find much better ways to deal with steel.
And, of course, mono-bug immediately suggests a Baton Pass team.

 

[makiri]

216 EV Neutral Life Orb Hidden Power Fire Scizor vs 248 HP EV Scizor

200 Atk vs 196 Def & 343 HP (90 Base Power): 344 - 408 (100.29% - 118.95%)

You're underestimating the power of Technician!

 

[Toothache]

Mono-rock has a lot of potential. Tyranitar gives everyone a nice boost to SpD, which Cradily especially loves him for. In fact, Trick Room is great in mono-rock cos of the generally low speed (with the obvious Aerodactyl exception), and the meteorites can easily set that up for you.

 

[Zanicus]

I feel that you can overcome the cons of dragon-type Mono teams by having some strange pokes specifically deal with the most dangerous problems. Let's say for example you use a Kingdra with HP Fire to deal with Scizor or Weavile specifically, sounds dumb but could make the team that much better.

 

[Mr.378]

Mono-Teams, always a fun thing to use. Althogh my last one was a water one in ADV. I really should make a new one, always a nice idea.

 

[Game Freak201]

I used to run a team with 4 dragons in it, and it did decently in the ladder as well as advancing me through a round or two in a tournament I was playing in. The members were Azelf, Kingdra, Dragonite, Flygon, Salamence, and Bronzong/Magnezone. The whole point of the team was to bring out dual screens to cushion the common weaknesses and lure in the Steel type to kill it. Afterwards, killing off the rest of the team with Dragon Dance and Outrage abuse was a general breeze with the exceptions of Scarfed Ice Beamers when both Azelf and Bronzong/Magnezone are dead.

Dragonite and Kingdra served as the bulky sweepers while Salamence weakened walls. Flygon served as a revenge killer, and Azelf and Bronzong/Magnezone served as the dual screeners as well as setting up SR.

 

[Sy123]

@ Anyone who thinks Dragon monos are crap ass, just remember kick ass Lance, he uses Dragon looking pokemon, or pokemon in the Monster/Dragon egg group, on shoddy, I made a tea only consisting of Dragon Egg Group pokemon, though, you only get Seviper, Arbok, Gyarados, Milotic outside of the normal dragons
My team was

Seviper@ Choice Specs Set
Latias @ Trick set
Salamence @ DD set
Dragonite @ My own CB set, consisting of, Extreemespeed/Waterfall/Outrage/ Earthquake
Flygon @ Mixed set
Milotic @ Special Wall

I sometimes run Scarf on Seviper, Milotic, stops Weavile in its tracks, forcing it to retreat or face a HP Fighting of mine :)

 

[Cipher Admin Lovrina]

Mono ice = your basic n00b hail team, no? Abomasnow, Froslass, Glaceon, Mamoswine, Walrein, and maybe Fridge Rotom as the wild card!

Mono-water for me would be Swampert, Gyarados, Ludicolo, Kingdra... wow, so few weaknesses!