Other Metagames Insomnia and Narcolepsy: An Anything Goes RMT

[SaturnZelda]

"The AG room sucks at making RMT names, so I had to be creative" -Erotic Pigeons
Cryptis actually made the above name ^ (<3) because of 2 mons I have on my team. If you don't know what Narcolepsy is, go Google it. Anyways, let's take a look at the team before I tell you all about it:

(Edit: There is a pastebin with the entire team in it at the bottom of this post now)

Scary Ghosts (Arceus-Ghost) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Judgment
- Magic Coat

(Sorry about the non gif, couldn't find one)
Your God (Arceus-Poison) @ Toxic Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psych Up
- Judgment
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power

(Not a Groundceus, again, couldn't find one)
Gaia (Arceus-Ground) @ Earth Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

Jingle Jingle (Klefki) @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Safeguard
- Foul Play

Santa (Darkrai) @ Leftovers
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Taunt
- Dark Void
- Dark Pulse

Mr. Red Eyes (Mewtwo-Mega-Y) @ Mewtwonite Y
Ability: Insomnia
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psystrike
- Ice Beam
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast


So, that's my team. I've been laddering with it for a month or two, and it's worked out pretty well so far. I hit 1865 on the AG ladder with it, but sadly don't have a screenshot to prove it, because I didn't think about an RMT at the time. You see where the name comes from, anyways. Now for the Pokemon.

Scary Ghosts (Arceus-Ghost) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Judgment
- Magic Coat

As you can tell, this Ghostceus functions as a lead, setting up Stealth Rocks and Roaring out potential sweepers. It's 248 HP allows it to take a +2 Earthquake from an E killer and Roar them out into something new. Magic Coat is there for the possibility of Smeargle leads with Spore, or Darkrai leads. The Roar is not, however, for Geomancy Xerneas. I'll touch back on that later.

Gaia (Arceus-Ground) @ Earth Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

I picked Ground Arceus over Normal Arceus with Swords Dance simply because STAB with Earthquake is really nice for dealing with lots of common Pokemon in the tier. At +2, it can OHKO an insane amount of the tier with Earthquake. Stone Edge hits Ho-Oh, Lugia, and does neutral damage to M-Ray, which, if you have enough stat boosts, can be followed up with an Extreme Speed to KO. A drawback on this, though, is that it already has it's item slot used up, so it can't run Lum Berry against Darkrai, and also can't deal with it as effectively with Extreme Speed.

Your God (Arceus-Poison) @ Toxic Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psych Up
- Judgment
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power

I was one of the first in the tier to use this certain Pokemon, and now it's fairly common throughout AG. (Here's where we'll be talking about Geomancy Xerneas) As you can see, it has Psych Up, which is solely for the purpose of stealing Geomancy Xerneas' stat boosts, and then proceeding to OHKO it. The investment into 4 Speed makes it faster than the average Geomancy Xerneas. After Xerneas is down, it's a very powerful sweeper to have, but the abundance of priority in the AG tier makes it not last long after taking an attack from Xerneas. Others have used Recover over Flamethrower, but I personally prefer Flamethrower to hit Skarmory (Just for you, oosty) and Ferrothorn, both of which are hard (impossible in the case of Skarmory) to take out otherwise with the Arceus.

Santa (Darkrai) @ Leftovers
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Taunt
- Dark Void
- Dark Pulse

Done with the Arceus' (Arceui?) now, so let's move onto the Darkrai. His name is a play on Satan, if you didn't notice. This used to be a fairly popular set among AG users, but now it's only sprinkled here and there in the tier. The Taunt and Substitute combo allows you to successfully defeat all Sleep Talk users (including scarfed Xerneas, if you play it correctly and have a substitute up when they switch into it). Dark Pulse is for extra damage when they're asleep, and that's about it.

Jingle Jingle (Klefki) @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Safeguard
- Foul Play

That's right, not a SwagPlay Klefki! I decided against it, because everyone hates it so much, and it's not used that much anymore because people predict it. So I came up with this. With the 252+ Defense and Reflect up, it can take a V-Create from Mega Rayquaza. It gets 2HKOed from a +2 Earthquake from Extreme Speed killer Arceus, and with Light Screen it basically doubles it's special defense, not to mention it's main purpose of providing shielding for the other members of my team. Foul Play is for those who have a Lum Berry Extreme Speed killer, are predicting SwagPlay, and go for another Swords Dance, thinking you'll just boost their stats more. Safeguard is protection from Dark Void and Thunder Wave for the next 5 turns, as well as from other SwagPlay Klefki. The Foul Play is also so that it isn't completely helpless and Struggling when a Pokemon uses Taunt on it. And over the course of the last few days, I've been noticing more Magic Coat users that are disappointed when this isn't SwagPlay.

Mr. Red Eyes (Mewtwo-Mega-Y) @ Mewtwonite Y
Ability: Insomnia
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psystrike
- Ice Beam
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast

Time for my Mega Mewtwo. There's the obvious Psystrike, which is for reliable damage and accuracy on lots of Pokemon in the tier. Ice Beam is to hit Mega Rayquaza, which OHKOs it after rocks. Shadow Ball is to hit other Mewtwo, and Giratina, which has been more common in the tier since I've been playing. Focus Blast is to hit Darkrai for a reliable OHKO (Except for when it misses), and to hit Extreme Speed killers if you must. Insomnia is useful to switch into Darkrai with, because it negates Dark Void's sleep condition.



Your Other God (Arceus-Poison) @ Toxic Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psych Up
- Judgment
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power

Santa (Darkrai) @ Leftovers
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Taunt
- Dark Void
- Dark Pulse

Scary Ghosts (Arceus-Ghost) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Judgment
- Magic Coat

Gaia (Arceus-Ground) @ Earth Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

Jingle Jingle (Klefki) @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Safeguard
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Foul Play

Mewtwo-Mega-Y @ Mewtwonite Y
Ability: Insomnia
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psystrike
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam


http://pastebin.com/9s9JgPbW

 

[Pigeons]

Hey man, Pigeons here, you've got a pretty cool team, I really think Dual Screens is underrated on Klefki and you've got a few other neat things as well. Naturally there are some weaknesses so I have some suggestions on how to improve them.

The first weakness I noticed when looking at this (and I believe I mentioned it to you) is EKiller Arceus, you have no really reliable switchin to it. Looking at your team again, Ghostceus seemed like the most expendable member, so I'd recommend running Bulkceus over Arceus-Ghost. By running Bulkceus in that spot, you greatly improve your EKiller matchup and it also helps switch in against things like Ho-Oh or Primal Groudon that you also seem slightly weak to.

Bulkceus covers the glaring weaknesses but there are a couple smaller moveset suggestions I have that you may or may not be interested in. Firstly, with Mewtwo, Shadow Ball seems like fairly unneeded coverage considering Mewtwo shouldn't be against opposing Mewtwo in the first place and Giratina is hit by Ice Beam, so I'd suggest trying either Taunt or Fire Blast over Shadow Ball on Mewtwo. I think Fire Blast would be better on this team to help beat Skarmory, but Taunt allows Mewtwo to beat Lugia much more effectively as well as a few other things, so that's up to you.

Your Darkrai set is definitely usable, it's actually quite cool against Sleep Talk users, but I think you might want to consider Nasty Plot over Taunt on Darkrai. While Taunt's ability to invalidate certain Sleep Talk users is definitely useful, I feel like your current Darkrai set fails to take full advantage of the turns generated by Dark Void, and the screens support from Klefki could also assist it in setting up. This is sort of a personal preference thing, I don't think either set has massive advantages over the other but it just seems like it'd fit your team a bit better.

Lastly, while I do get that not being able to hit Skarmory with Poisonceus would be annoying at times, I think it'd really help your team to run Recover over Flamethrower on Arceus-Poison. While you do give up some coverage, Recover is pretty important because you rely so much on Poisonceus to check Fairies, with no recovery it will often have a difficult time reliably checking Xerneas or other Fairies throughout a match, and you don't seem to have a great way to beat GeoXern is Poisonceus is weakened other than using Klefki's Light Screen and then trying to KO it with Mewtwo or Arceus.

Overall though, really cool and solid team, I hope my rate helped!

Sets

Arceus @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 244 Def / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Will-O-Wisp / Toxic / Extreme Speed
- Recover
- Stealth Rock
- Roar

Mr. Red Eyes (Mewtwo-Mega-Y) @ Mewtwonite Y
Ability: Insomnia
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psystrike
- Ice Beam
- Taunt / Fire Blast
- Focus Blast

Santa (Darkrai) @ Leftovers
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Void
- Dark Pulse

Your God (Arceus-Poison) @ Toxic Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psych Up
- Judgment
- Recover
- Earth Power

 

[SaturnZelda]

Hey man, Pigeons here, you've got a pretty cool team, I really think Dual Screens is underrated on Klefki and you've got a few other neat things as well. Naturally there are some weaknesses so I have some suggestions on how to improve them.

The first weakness I noticed when looking at this (and I believe I mentioned it to you) is EKiller Arceus, you have no really reliable switchin to it. Looking at your team again, Ghostceus seemed like the most expendable member, so I'd recommend running Bulkceus over Arceus-Ghost. By running Bulkceus in that spot, you greatly improve your EKiller matchup and it also helps switch in against things like Ho-Oh or Primal Groudon that you also seem slightly weak to.

Bulkceus covers the glaring weaknesses but there are a couple smaller moveset suggestions I have that you may or may not be interested in. Firstly, with Mewtwo, Shadow Ball seems like fairly unneeded coverage considering Mewtwo shouldn't be against opposing Mewtwo in the first place and Giratina is hit by Ice Beam, so I'd suggest trying either Taunt or Fire Blast over Shadow Ball on Mewtwo. I think Fire Blast would be better on this team to help beat Skarmory, but Taunt allows Mewtwo to beat Lugia much more effectively as well as a few other things, so that's up to you.

Your Darkrai set is definitely usable, it's actually quite cool against Sleep Talk users, but I think you might want to consider Nasty Plot over Taunt on Darkrai. While Taunt's ability to invalidate certain Sleep Talk users is definitely useful, I feel like your current Darkrai set fails to take full advantage of the turns generated by Dark Void, and the screens support from Klefki could also assist it in setting up. This is sort of a personal preference thing, I don't think either set has massive advantages over the other but it just seems like it'd fit your team a bit better.

Lastly, while I do get that not being able to hit Skarmory with Poisonceus would be annoying at times, I think it'd really help your team to run Recover over Flamethrower on Arceus-Poison. While you do give up some coverage, Recover is pretty important because you rely so much on Poisonceus to check Fairies, with no recovery it will often have a difficult time reliably checking Xerneas or other Fairies throughout a match, and you don't seem to have a great way to beat GeoXern is Poisonceus is weakened other than using Klefki's Light Screen and then trying to KO it with Mewtwo or Arceus.

Overall though, really cool and solid team, I hope my rate helped!

Sets

Arceus @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 244 Def / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Will-O-Wisp / Toxic / Extreme Speed
- Recover
- Stealth Rock
- Roar

Mr. Red Eyes (Mewtwo-Mega-Y) @ Mewtwonite Y
Ability: Insomnia
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psystrike
- Ice Beam
- Taunt / Fire Blast
- Focus Blast

Santa (Darkrai) @ Leftovers
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Void
- Dark Pulse

Your God (Arceus-Poison) @ Toxic Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psych Up
- Judgment
- Recover
- Earth Power

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll definitely be implementing some of those. And yeah, you did mention the EKiller weakness to my team to me in the chat. Thanks for your help!

 

[PurpleGatorade]

Hey Tyler! Nice team you have there. I honestly would have said basically what pigeons already went over, so I will try to make some radical changes to this team that u may or may not like lol. Basically what I see here is a really nice triple screens klef that is simply not made full use of by the rest of your team. You only have one setup sweeper-arceus-ground, which I think is a problem. I think a good change would be life orb mewtwo>mmy. Life orb mewtwo gives u a lot of KO's that mmy does not, like killing mray after rocks. Next, I know u added a bulkceus but I would change that to an ekiller with sd, espeed, eq, and stealth rock. This allows u to have a second setup sweeper while also keeping rocks on the opponent's side of the field. By now you have probably noticed that there isn't a mega slot. The final, and possibly most radical change is to get rid of arceus-poison and insert mega gengar instead. Essentially, this new version of the team consists of wall breakers and sweepers that revolve around screens klef. A life orb mewtwo wrecks havoc in conjunction with reflect+light screen and u can still easily deal with Xerneas with a combination of light screen + psystrike or espeed spam. While this may not be the direction u wanted ur team to take, I think it is a decent alternative that allows you to take full advantage of triple screens klef. Of course, replacing MMY leaves u somewhat vulnerable to darkrai, but safeguard + lum Berry arceus should take care of that relatively well for u. After wallbreaking with mewtwo and/or ekiller, you can easily clean teams with darkrai and mega gengar. Anyway, great team once again and I hope u like my suggestions!

 

[SaturnZelda]

Hey Tyler! Nice team you have there. I honestly would have said basically what pigeons already went over, so I will try to make some radical changes to this team that u may or may not like lol. Basically what I see here is a really nice triple screens klef that is simply not made full use of by the rest of your team. You only have one setup sweeper-arceus-ground, which I think is a problem. I think a good change would be life orb mewtwo>mmy. Life orb mewtwo gives u a lot of KO's that mmy does not, like killing mray after rocks. Next, I know u added a bulkceus but I would change that to an ekiller with sd, espeed, eq, and stealth rock. This allows u to have a second setup sweeper while also keeping rocks on the opponent's side of the field. By now you have probably noticed that there isn't a mega slot. The final, and possibly most radical change is to get rid of arceus-poison and insert mega gengar instead. Essentially, this new version of the team consists of wall breakers and sweepers that revolve around screens klef. A life orb mewtwo wrecks havoc in conjunction with reflect+light screen and u can still easily deal with Xerneas with a combination of light screen + psystrike or espeed spam. While this may not be the direction u wanted ur team to take, I think it is a decent alternative that allows you to take full advantage of triple screens klef. Of course, replacing MMY leaves u somewhat vulnerable to darkrai, but safeguard + lum Berry arceus should take care of that relatively well for u. After wallbreaking with mewtwo and/or ekiller, you can easily clean teams with darkrai and mega gengar. Anyway, great team once again and I hope u like my suggestions!

First off, back to the first problem of an EKiller weakness. Your changes don't help that (Not trying to be rude here) I'd be nearly exactly where I started, just with a Klef centered team. MMY still does OHKO M-Ray after rocks with Ice Beam, and what exactly does M-Gar do?

 

[PurpleGatorade]

It doesn't matter that ur weak to ekiller because the projected new team is more hyper offense. Mgar basically just traps and kills stuff for u after u wall break with ekiller or mewtwo. Also it becomes extremely threatening if backed up by reflect and light screen.

 

[MZ]

Sorry I'm a bit late, I promised to rate this but better late than never I guess. The current iteration has a few issues which I think Yuga's rate handles alright but not perfectly, as bulkceus can only take on ekiller so well for so long. One important thing that you should take from it though is running Taunt on Mewtwo over Shadow Ball, it only hits opposing mewtwo which doesn't come off as particularly necessary on this team at all. I also think you'd be better off with a max special attack Taunt Darkrai, not only is max HP kind of useless unless you're running the one weird set with some different EVs to take 2 Espeeds from Ekiller, but better chipping Sableye could be invaluable with a Mewtwo and a physical Arceus form. I also think you should consider going Sludge Bomb on Darkrai because it baits Clef if you do choose to leave the current setup with Groundceus, especially since there's not too much supporting taunt or NP here so the choice is mostly yours.

Now this might come off a bit as personal preference, but rates invariably have to draw from our own experiences. Psych up special Poisonceus just isn't a good set. Poisonceus in general is only a decent mon for being generally threatening while stopping GeoXern, and you have absolutely no need for Psych Up to do that. There's no point in limiting yourself to the inferior special set only for those cases where you get in on a xern that geomancied. I think a standard SD 3 attacks set would let you fiddle around with the Groundceus slot a lot more effectively, and the only real think you're dropping is the ability to hit skarm particularly well which the rest of your members will handle (after more changes).

From here you do have a few ways to go, and while bulkceus was interesting I think a unique way to take the team would be going Hex Giratina-O over your bulkceus choice and then SR offensive Pdon over Groundceus. Replacing two Arceus formes is pretty extreme, but it gives you more solid primal checks and arceus checks which you desperately need, in particular running that Klefki set and no good Pdon switchins is just a recipe for trouble. You also have the option to be using a Defogger here which could help versus spikes oriented teams, but if you'd prefer to stay offensive then I'd look into just having the uninvested shadow sneak since the team's only current priority is Espeed Poisonceus. As for Pdon, SR 3 attacks gives the necessary support but also helps out a bit because another offensive mon unable to touch skarmory would become a bit of a problem here.

This was a lot so here is an updated importable with the changes I've suggested so you have everything. Hopefully this new version works out for you and doesn't have too many changes for your liking, I got in a test game with Zangooser and it did fine so that's something as well.

 

[SaturnZelda]

Sorry I'm a bit late, I promised to rate this but better late than never I guess. The current iteration has a few issues which I think Yuga's rate handles alright but not perfectly, as bulkceus can only take on ekiller so well for so long. One important thing that you should take from it though is running Taunt on Mewtwo over Shadow Ball, it only hits opposing mewtwo which doesn't come off as particularly necessary on this team at all. I also think you'd be better off with a max special attack Taunt Darkrai, not only is max HP kind of useless unless you're running the one weird set with some different EVs to take 2 Espeeds from Ekiller, but better chipping Sableye could be invaluable with a Mewtwo and a physical Arceus form. I also think you should consider going Sludge Bomb on Darkrai because it baits Clef if you do choose to leave the current setup with Groundceus, especially since there's not too much supporting taunt or NP here so the choice is mostly yours.

Now this might come off a bit as personal preference, but rates invariably have to draw from our own experiences. Psych up special Poisonceus just isn't a good set. Poisonceus in general is only a decent mon for being generally threatening while stopping GeoXern, and you have absolutely no need for Psych Up to do that. There's no point in limiting yourself to the inferior special set only for those cases where you get in on a xern that geomancied. I think a standard SD 3 attacks set would let you fiddle around with the Groundceus slot a lot more effectively, and the only real think you're dropping is the ability to hit skarm particularly well which the rest of your members will handle (after more changes).

From here you do have a few ways to go, and while bulkceus was interesting I think a unique way to take the team would be going Hex Giratina-O over your bulkceus choice and then SR offensive Pdon over Groundceus. Replacing two Arceus formes is pretty extreme, but it gives you more solid primal checks and arceus checks which you desperately need, in particular running that Klefki set and no good Pdon switchins is just a recipe for trouble. You also have the option to be using a Defogger here which could help versus spikes oriented teams, but if you'd prefer to stay offensive then I'd look into just having the uninvested shadow sneak since the team's only current priority is Espeed Poisonceus. As for Pdon, SR 3 attacks gives the necessary support but also helps out a bit because another offensive mon unable to touch skarmory would become a bit of a problem here.

This was a lot so here is an updated importable with the changes I've suggested so you have everything. Hopefully this new version works out for you and doesn't have too many changes for your liking, I got in a test game with Zangooser and it did fine so that's something as well.

The changes seem a bit too much, so I won't implement all of them. I will however switch the EVs on Darkrai to max SpA, change Poisonceus to physical, and put Taunt on Mewtwo. I'll also change Bulkceus to Gira-O, but I'm going to swap Thunder Wave on it with Will-O-Wisp.