What are things to consider when making a Trick Room-Team?

Question

I'm not very much a competitive player, and I never really used any "[something]-based" teams before (e.g Rain Teams, Hail Teams, Trick Room teams etc.) - I always build either stall or sweep team. But hey, TR teams sounds very fun so I wanted to try it out.

The thing is, I'm rather bad at these kinds of team-building, and I could really use some help here ;w;

Comments

What format? Trick Room teams are probably best in OU. I haven't played much of other tiers, but I know they aren't really viable in Ubers or AG and due to lack of Melmetal in the lower tiers it isn't that powerful either.

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You generally want to have 2 trick room setters, usually cresselia and uxie/hatterene/maybe bronzong. Trick room teams always have melmetal, and you can play around with other slow, powerful breakers like crawdaunt, glastrier, alolan marowak, and reuniclus. Momentum is valuable on these types of teams so moves like memento, lunar dance, misty explosion, and explosion should be used on the setters.

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Personally, I think that Stakataka and Dusclops are the best setters. (Stakataka is crazy with beast boost and Dusclops is a brilliant wall). Jirachi and Porygon2 also work very well. Once you've set it you have all sorts of options: Snorlax with curse, mega Slowbro (another potential setter), mega Steelix, Copperajah (which can also set entry hazards) and Glastrier. Aggron, Mawile and Calyrex-ice can also work. Combining with a sand team using Pokemon such as Hippowdon and Gigalith works too, especially if you want to follow the steel types line.

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Jirachi is too fast for Trick Room. Gigalith, Copperajah, Steelix, Aggron and Snorlax aren't good in OU. Hatterene, Uxie, and Cresselia are way better TR setters then Stakataka and Dusclops.

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Ah maybe that's why I'm rubbish at using trick room teams... Also this: https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/216113/what-are-some-good-strategies-for-a-trick-room-team is a good answer.

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Well, the best tier for Trick Room is hands down VGC. It's the only format where Trick Room is commonly used and quite viable. There are multiple strong setters like Porygon2, Dusclops, and Hatterene, and TR is very useful in a meta where games are generally very quick and two Pokemon are able to take advantage of the limited amount of turns it offers at once. In Singles TR is not the best as you really only have three turns after setting TR + switching out / Teleporting. With good prediction on the opponent's part Trick Room can easily be stalled out and most of the abusers aren't very good outside of it. If you don't like Doubles as much, OU is probably the best tier as it has very strong breakers which I'm not going to go over very much since it's stated in SpookyTerrain's answer.

Answer 1

I'll explain for OU, as that's the tier that Trick Room is most viable in. The most reliable way to play Trick Room is with a suicide lead, two setters, two abusers, and Melmetal.

Suicide Lead

For a suicide lead, you're looking for a Pokemon with Trick Room and a way to generate momentum. Two good suicide leads that I often use are Uxie and Hatterene. Hatterene is a great Trick Room setter due to it's ability, Magic Bounce, deterring hazards and Taunt. On the other hand, Uxie can set Stealth Rocks and use Memento to weaken the opponent.

Uxie:

Uxie @ Mental Herb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Memento
- Magic Coat

Mental Herb is the optimal item on Uxie, as it has no attacking moves. You should set up Stealth Rock before setting Trick Room to maximize the remaining turns for the abusers. Magic Coat can bounce back a predicted Taunt after Mental Herb is consumed, as well as a form of anti-hazard. Memento is used instead of U-turn to bring in the abusers safely.

Hatterene:

Hatterene (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psyshock
- Mystical Fire
- Misty Explosion

You can switch the item on Hatterene to something else if you'd like too, as it stays on the field for about two turns at most. A great alternative to Misty Explosion is Healing Wish, which still generates momentum and stores a free heal for the next damaged Pokemon to switch in. You can try running a Relaxed nature to always live a Surging Strikes from Urshifu-R with a Choice Band, but the extra explosion power is usually worth it.

Setters

What you're looking for in a Trick Room setter is bulk and a good pivoting move. Two Pokemon that fit the bill are Porygon2 and Cresselia. Both of them sport great bulk and a pivoting move in Teleport and Lunar Dance respectively.

Porygon2:

Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Teleport

Eviolite bolsters Porygon2's already good bulk, letting it live many more hits. Ice Beam KO's or chunks Landorus and Garchomp, but Tri Attack can be run instead. Toxic is great for putting defensive Pokemon on a timer, reducing how long they can stall out your team. Teleport provides some much needed momentum, letting in the abusers safely.

Cresselia:

Cresselia (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Moonlight
- Moonblast
- Lunar Dance

Leftovers provides passive recovery for Cresselia, but other options like Mental Herb are also useful. Lunar Dance fully heals the next damaged Pokemon to switch in, which is great for giving your abusers more longevity. Options like Psyshock and Ice Beam are other options to use instead of Moonblast.

Abusers

A good abuser has low speed paired with high bulk or attacking stats. Some notable Pokemon that fit these requirements are Conkeldurr, Alolan Marowak, and Crawdaunt. All of these Pokemon have great attacking stats as well as pretty good abilities.

Conkeldurr:

Conkeldurr @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Drain Punch
- Facade
- Knock Off
- Mach Punch

Conkeldurr is a powerful Guts sweeper with dangerously high attack. Drain Punch can offset the residual damage from Flame Orb, increasing how long it can remain on the field. Facade is great nuetral coverage with a boost from Guts, and Mach Punch is great priority. Knock Off is a way to deal with Ghost types.

Alolan Marowak:

Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Flare Blitz
- Poltergeist
- Earthquake

Thick Club acts as a free Swords Dance, making it better than other offensive items like Life Orb or Choice Band. Flare Blitz is strong STAB that takes advantage of Poltergeist. You can use Bonemerang in place of Earthquake to break Substitute and Focus Sash, but Earthquake is much more reliable. A lower power albeit more accurate option is Shadow Bone, which can be used in place of Swords Dance for more reliable Ghost STAB.

Crawdaunt:

Crawdaunt @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Aqua Jet
- Knock Off
- Crabhammer

Crawdaunt is another Swords Dance sweeper with a strong ability, Adaptability, which raises the power of it's STABs to incredible levels. Aqua Jet can be used to finish off low health Pokemon inside and outside of Trick Room, while Knock Off and Crabhammer serve as powerful STAB.

Melmetal

Melmetal is a must on any Trick Room team, so good that it needs it's own section. Banded Double Iron Bash does incredible damage to any offensive Pokemon, while still dealing a large chunk to walls and resists.

Melmetal @ Choice Band
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Double Iron Bash
- Earthquake
- Superpower
- Thunder Punch

Banded Melmetal under Trick Room is a menace, and claims a kill (sorry, faint) almost every time it enters the battlefield. Earthquake is great for the likes of Toxapex and Heatran, while Superpower hits Ferrothorn. Thunder Punch is for Flying types like Corviknight.

Sample

Pokepaste

This is the team I use most often, and is assembled with the Pokemon shown above. It features Hatterene as the suicide lead, Porygon2 and Cresselia as the setters, Alolan Marowak and Crawdaunt as the abusers, and, of course, Melmetal.

Comments

The team has a few problems for example only two trick room users are enough. Another thing is that setup moves are bad so focus on pure damage. Also you stand no chance against physical walls/special attackers. Invest more in special attacks and special defense. I like clefable.

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I specifically mentioned Shadow Bone on Marowak instead of Swords Dance, because it's a reliable source of damage, albeit less power then Poltergeist. You can run Close Combat on Crawdaunt, but it doesn't have much of a movepool outside of that. Cresselia is fully invested in special defense, hitting 394. Porygon2 also has over 300 special defense with Eviolite. These are just some tips and example sets, I'm not saying that this is the only viable team and you shouldn't use anything else, but this kind of setup is what I found most reliable. There isn't actually many good special attacking Pokemon for Trick Room, one thing I've been trying out is Water Spout Specs Jellicent due to the lack of options. Clefable is not defensive or offensive enough for a Trick Room team, as it's best offensive set is Calm Mind and it's more of a rocker then a Trick Room setter due to it's slightly above average bulk.

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Trick Room is more viable imo in VGC than OU, where Pokémon like Necrozma-DM, Porygon2, Hatterene, and you can take more advantage of it compared to a Singles format. So if you would be able to add VGC to the answer, it might be better.

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I'm not experienced enough in VGC to give any good advice, so I don't know what's good or not which is mainly why I didn't talk about it in my answer. @kuroyupii, if you'd like for me to hide this answer for so you can get a VGC one, let me know.

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I was expecting to be able to use Caly-IR but hey, I'll try this out - And no, OU is completely fine

Answer 2

Basically on a trick room team you want two trick room setters. Setter no 1 should be able to generate momentum in some way, be extra slow, and have a focus sash. A good idea is to focus on tanky Pokémon instead of stallers. Trick room is short so you want to do a ton of damage with minimal setup. Melmetal is a good example of this and steel types typically work nice with the types of most other trick room abusers. The best place to use trick room generally is OU as higher tier Pokémon generally fit in hyper offense or balance teams. One honorable notice also goes to gyro ball as it becomes really powerful during trick room if used on the right Pokémon. Ferrothorn usually abuses this strategy. Crawduant is a really good idea here because his typing helps remove Pokémon that threaten steel types and it is strong in general. I see a lot of physical damage on these teams so include special moves as well. A nice item here is assault vest as you will usually have no setup moves anyway. I like when the second trick room setter is very bulky as it can be reused for some longer battles although those are rare. These are just a few tips. Here you can find a sample team: https://pokepast.es/183655aaccc31310

Comments

Dont get me wrong, but why was this answer downvoted without any reason?

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Why only two moves on Hatterene? Why Body Press on Melmetal and not Superpower? Why Eerie Spell on Galarian Slowking? Why Expert Belt on Crawdaunt?

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what do you mean without any reason?

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Sorry I’m not the best at teams. It’s just supposed to be an example. Expert bell is to remove what crawdaunt counters faster, eerie spell is decent stab, superpower lowers attack, and finally hatterene only needs two moves in order to serve it’s purpose.

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there's still no downside to having four moves. but why Eerie Spell instead of Psyshock or Psychic?

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. . .

Trick Room in OU is *much* more than having a suicide Hatterene and Vest Basher. That's why the answer was downvoted, as it doesn't cover the main points and lacks the basic things about TR in OU.

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Ah alright, makes sense. And I even had sort of a misunderstanding before. No worries now!