On suicide leads

[animenagai]

the D/P metagame seems to be filled with suicide leads lately. azelf, deoxys, bronzong seem to be in every game. what perplexes me is that most of them just try and set down SR and then die while doing a bit of damage. i understand bronzong leads because it can at least get something asleep as long as it has a lum berry on it. however, even then so many people just try to blow up straight up SR and and hypnosis. azelf is a bit perplexing to me because the standard set seems to be:

-taunt
-explosion
-SR
-fireblast/psychic

and with all the CB tars running around with pursuit, it is pretty much forced to explode right after it switches in. so you get one turn to taunt/SR and another to die. grass knot doesn't do any better than explosion btw on t-tar.

i'm starting to find these leads just really stupid. it is just not a good option on most teams to sacrifice a poke right off the bat. it's hard enough to deal with all the OU threats, so getting rid of a potential revenge killer/counter before seeing much of the opponent's team is just perplexing to me. what's more is that if the main purpose of these starters are to set up SR, a spinner can easily come in and blow them away. is it worth sacrificing 1/6 of your team just to set up something the opponent can get rid of in one turn? makes no sense to me.

that's my rant. what do you think about suicide leads? let's discuss.

 

[Truthi]

I've been trying out both these Azelf and Aerodactyl suicide leads (although Aerodactyl doesn't explode, but he doesn't tend to hang around much either), and they're interesting.

Azelf always seems to get nailed right away when I try to get my Rocks down, it's no use Taunting Bronzong (if no Fire Blast) as they've caught on now and just go for the straight up Gyro Ball. And I've been using up its Focus Sash, and in fear of opponents setting up their own rocks, and don't really want to lose the chance to Explode.

But yeah, I figure I'm not doing myself that big of a favor with that as really people are also picking up on the Explode part, and that barely pulls any weight at all for me. And the past few matches I've been wanted that extra slot now.

Aero isn't too bad, his great speed and decent typing allow him to pull off those Rocks down pretty well. Taunt's still a cool move on such a fast poke.

The early spikes though are pretty neat to have. You're guaranteed to have Stealth Rocks up, and its nice reassurance. And having them blown away doesn't bother me for right now seeing as how I've got a ghost.

 

[merubin]

Rapid Spinners are relatively rare, and ladder isn't about winning every game.

Don't really see what needs discussion in the whole thing. It's just another metagame cycle: It's proven to work well; more people use it; people start expecting it and building teams to stop it; fewer people use it; someone notices that people aren't preparing it anymore; it comes back....

 

[Lil MuDkiP849]

I feel as though an awesome exploding lead could be a CB Metagross...explosion backed up by Adamant 252 Atk Ev's+ a CB is just WAY too good to give up on. I'd go-

Metagross@Choice Band
Adamant
252 Hp/ 252 Attack/ 4 Def.

Thunderpunch
Earthquake
Explosion
Pursuit

Dunno if it's a standard moveset, but to me it seems awesome to use. T-punch is for Gyra leads...pursuit for Deoxys and other stuff...only problem is it gets walled by zong i think...

But if it's a suicide lead to set up SR, Aerodeactyl is your poke. Its defense sucks yet it can SR and whatever...(with a sash for offense and survivability)

But in my own opinion about *exploding* itself? Sometimes it can save your team getting swept by a gyra or it can just sacrifice your own guy by them switching in a ghost...overall it's just a really risky move.

 

[gorm]

the point of suicide lead are to get rocks down and set up an offensive poke like sd luke (ex when azelf is faced with cbtar pursuit) to start cleaning up right away. the reasoning is that you dont want to "break" at any point in the game to set up your rocks with some bulky pokemon, you want rocks down early. sacrificing it allows you to get an offensive mon in for free early on in the game, and start punishing your opponents switches early on. Then hopefully you keep the game going offensively giving the opponent no time to spin.

 

[animenagai]

Rapid Spinners are relatively rare, and ladder isn't about winning every game.

Don't really see what needs discussion in the whole thing. It's just another metagame cycle: It's proven to work well; more people use it; people start expecting it and building teams to stop it; fewer people use it; someone notices that people aren't preparing it anymore; it comes back....

because a competitive pokemon forum is all about discussing the niches of the pokemon metagame. there are times when trends are nothing but that. trends without much true value. heck, e-vire usage is still high isn't it? how many of the top DP players use e-vire? close to none. things are always worth the discussion. if we reach a quick conclusion about it, so be it, at least we can say that it's justified or whatever.

and i disagree about spinners being relatively rare. i still find myself using starmie on a lot of my teams. even if the number of pokes with rapid spin are rare, they are often still useful especially when you have things like zapdos or gyara that act as some of your main counters. getting rid of SR can mean the difference between a 2HKO and a 3HKO, and that's huge.

 

[Brawley]

the point of suicide lead are to get rocks down and set up an offensive poke like sd luke (ex when azelf is faced with cbtar pursuit) to start cleaning up right away. the reasoning is that you dont want to "break" at any point in the game to set up your rocks with some bulky pokemon, you want rocks down early. sacrificing it allows you to get an offensive mon in for free early on in the game, and start punishing your opponents switches early on. Then hopefully you keep the game going offensively giving the opponent no time to spin.

Exactly, and this is what bronzong does anyways, explosion gives you a free switch to a sweeper or cleaner.

 

[animenagai]

i like gorm's point a lot, and that is interesting. however, there's also an intrinsic problem with trying to be too offensive early on, at least there's a problem with giving up too much for it. eg. if you bring in a SD luke and i bring in a SD luke counter, what next? it would work with a very well made offensive team, but i still don't see it justifying the millions of deoxys leads on shoddy.

 

[Sixonesix]

This is a common scenario when I battle:

Azelf uses Stealth Rock

I use Swords Dance

I switch to Gengar

Azelf uses Explosion

So they end up sacrificing a pokemon just to set up Stealth Rock. It's nothing more than a waste imo.

 

[Ryfle]

This is a common scenario when I battle:

Azelf uses Stealth Rock

I use Swords Dance

I switch to Gengar

Azelf uses Explosion

So they end up sacrificing a pokemon just to set up Stealth Rock. It's nothing more than a waste imo.

That's very situational and it shouldn't be taken into thought when deciding if a suicide lead is effective or not. I use one myself and it is very effective even if you cant take down your opponents lead you can put a huge dent in it, pressuring your opponent to switch of fear of having his Pokemon faint. The whole concept of a suicide lead is to pressure your opponent, and it gets that done.

 

[Brawley]

i like gorm's point a lot, and that is interesting. however, there's also an intrinsic problem with trying to be too offensive early on, at least there's a problem with giving up too much for it. eg. if you bring in a SD luke and i bring in a SD luke counter, what next? it would work with a very well made offensive team, but i still don't see it justifying the millions of deoxys leads on shoddy.

Then you have the advantage of knowing what its counter is, and then weaken it and sweep.

 

[animenagai]

Then you have the advantage of knowing what its counter is, and then weaken it and sweep.

true, but isn't the price a bit dear? you know what the counters are for a specific poke are anyways in general. take the SD lucario example, his counters are mainly gliscor, hippow, garchomp, gyara and salamence. you know you'll have those things in mind when you make a team (well at least you should if your plan is to let lucrio do some big damage). either way your counter for these pokes should be there ready in your infantry and it would be risky for you to get rid of them before the lucario counter is gone.

 

[Bentendo1]

A lead is supposed to give you an immediate upper hand, correct? If it's a set-up-SR-and-sweep team, it's done its job right? It's kinda like, "let's get this show on the road, no need to delay."

I guess it depends how you look at it. You could consider it an advantage or a disadvantage. I bet you play a bit more conservatively than the people running around with the suicide lead offensive teams, right?

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Nothing lets a poke get in and do its job than getting a free switchin without the fear of taking damage beforehand. And nothing ensures this better than having a Pokemon die. Every time a Pokemon goes down, you immediately get a free switch to take its place. Now, normally this is a bad thing for you, but when you use Explosion, you have simultaneously secured a free switchin for whatever you want to bring in, scouted the opponent's switch, and dealt massive damage to whatever comes in, provided it's not a ghost-type Pokemon. Suicide Leads immediately put the user in control of the match, and are essential to the way offensive teams are played.

 

[Zephiel]

I agree with everything you said.

I think suicide leads are only great for offensive teams. For stall teams, they don't work, because you need to be able to counter everything (in my opinion).

I think Roserade is the best suicide lead, because it can sleep right off the bat, and set up Toxic Spikes really well.

 

[Warthog]

I never used one and don't plan on to. Even though most of my teams like leading with Zong, I dont normally Explode right off that bat. That is horrible. I personally think that the sets are garbage but thats just in my opinion.

although I do like the latest one.. Heatren. stops Azelf cold and does everything it can do, just about.

Smeargle would be interesting to test out. It just wouldn't have anything to really follow up on. Spore/SR/BellyDrum/BP maybe? Or Spore/SR/Fake Out/Explosion. Fake Out with Technician.. and Explosion with Max attack and Adament.. maybe.

 

[BAD WOLF]

In my honest opinion, suicide leads is just bad pokemon. If you want a pokemon that can set up something like SR or Spikes then explode, you should be setting it up so that it can set up SR or Spikes, wall for as long as is possible (or force switches to rack up residual SR or Spikes damage) then go boom in the face of something like Blissey or Garchomp.

If it's something like Forretress (a good example of a pokemon that should be used for such a purpose, as it can do all of the above), Chances are Garchomp will be switched in to mop up most variants, setting up for a sweep with with 1-2 Swords Dances (or even 3 in some cases) and preparing for a OHKO with Fire Fang. Here's where actual theory differentiates from the Suicide lead Theory; Forretress has now served its purpose, setting up possibly 3 sets of Spikes, and forcing your opponent to switch in his mid-late game sweeper. As he sets up with Swords Dance, that's where you go boom, Ruining his day with a combination of Spikes damage and explosion to take out a major physical threat.

Another major reason that Suicide leads are not advisable is the amount of ghost types out there, and pokemon with support moves/items that enables it to survive an explosion. Forretress could have the highest base Attack of any pokemon and still is unable to kill anything with Protect, detect, endure, anything holding a focus sash, or any ghost type. That's a pretty extensive list, considering how many pokemon have been using Focus Sash, and how high in the rankings things like Gengar are (see Doug's usage statistics for July '08, sourced from here.

To most users it is simple common sense that explosion is a last resort; the one move that can take down a problematic pokemon and give you room to sweep. If that explosion is wasted (which I'm sorry it probably will be if you use a suicide starter, given that 95% of pokemon that run explosion have it on very predictable sets) on a ghost type or Focus Sash Pokemon, A bad start to the match will, in most cases, be followed by an even worse finish. Getting off on the back foot is rarely a good way to start a match, and being 6-5 down before your opponent has barely launched an attack or even wished good luck is not the way to go.

However, that's not saying that it can't work well with prediction. Prediction can make even the most basic of strategies work well if it's done properly. If your opponent starts with a pokemon that can do nothing against your suicide starter, feel free to set up SR while they switch and Explode on the incoming counter. Just don't forget late game that unless you have another exploder on your team, Taking down things like Scarfed sweepers will have to rely on residual damage and priority moves. Still, I'm 100% against suicide leads, and against teams that use more than one exploding Pokemon for that matter, because sacrificing 2 or more of own pokemon is honestly not something I'm big on.

Also, apologies if that sounded like a pamphlet on using explosion, it just so happens that my view of explosion is something that I can talk about forever. :)

 

[Jenigmat]

I've used a suicide lead looking something like this

Azelf@Life Orb
Jolly
6 HP/ 252 Attack/252 Spe
- U-Turn
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion
- Taunt

Deoxys-S is basically the only lead that I can't do anything to. Bronzong I can Taunt, (Gyro Ball does about 70%), Switch to a CB Heracross. Heracross tends to be countered by many of the same things as SDLuke, which I also have on my team, meaning that I can generally put a lot of pressure on the opponent.

 

[MetaNite]

I don't know about suicide leads, but I love using Roserade to set up toxic spikes but I don't just let it die then. I use it as a revenge killer, and it usually comes in handy later on.

I think most of these kinds of leads are pretty effective.

 

[IggyBot]

I don't think there is such thing as a "usless pokemon" if it does what you need it to do. If you're using Azelf/Aerodactyl/Deoxys to set up Stealth Rock early on, and you don't care about losing it, because it does exactly what you need it to do for your team, how is that usless?

Bulky pokemon have always been popular users of Stealth Rock, because they can take the hit while they set it up. But what happens when a bulky pokemon doesn't fit into the team? Well, Stealth Rock is a huge asset to any team, and if it doesn't fit on a bulky pokemon, then why not stick it on a fast pokemon that can do some damage before going down? For a while, Lum Berry Bronzong with Stealth Rock / Hypnosis was the most popular lead out there. Now we have fast pokemon with Taunt and Stealth Rock that shut down lead Bronzong's, and get Stealth Rock up for the user. That is a very valuable asset for a fast team that wants to end battles quickly.

These leads aren't usless at all, they're simply setting up for the rest of the team.

 

[BlueCookies]

If you are using Azelf as your Suicide lead, and have Deoxys on your team, Explosion puts a huge dent in Bronzong/Metagross(Common Lead/Switch-in), two pokemon Deoxys has a problem with. When they're gone, Deoxys can sweep the opponents entire team if they don't have anything else that can stop him.

This is a common scenario when I battle:

Azelf uses Stealth Rock

I use Swords Dance

I switch to Gengar

Azelf uses Explosion

So they end up sacrificing a pokemon just to set up Stealth Rock. It's nothing more than a waste imo.

Azelf carries Focus Sash, so it is unlikely to Explode at full HP. This is also fairly predictable, what happens if Azelf Psychics you?

 

[cim]

I think that, as great is Stealth Rock is, it's a waste of a team slot to dedicate an ENTIRE POKÉMON to taunt something, SR up, and immediately Explode. I pretty much decide my lead last, maybe making a few changes to it to accommodate for Bronzong leads like throwing on a Lum Berry, but I think way too much emphasis is being put on the lead.

The suicide lead idea, though a reliable way to get Stealth Rock out, is really just a waste of a team slot.

 

[Venom]

Who the hell said you're gonna Immediately Explode? Of course, if you don't, you've just wasted a Focus Sash on something like Azelf, but Azelf has a diverse movepool, Thunderbolt and Psychic being some of them, hitting leads like Gyarados and Gengar who try to switch into a Explosion. So no, it's not a "really just a waste of a team slot".

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

Eh I think they were good for a bit, but recently the increase in usage of Ttar leads have really resulted in quite the hit for them. Also I never saw the merit in using anything other than Azelf for these purposes. D-S leads are a complete waste of one of the best Pokemon in the game and Aerodactyl is just a piece of shit. The optimal sequence of events for the Azelf lead is being able to lay SR immediately without being forced to Taunt and then Exploding. And I must say if this goes smoothly, it's definitely worth the slot. However if you're facing a TTar lead you're forced to immediately lay SR so you're essentially trading a Pokemon solely for SR. After being forced into this situation several times I found that the trade was almost never worth it.

 

[IggyBot]

Again, how is it a waste of a slot if that Azelf does exactly what you need it to do to support your team?