Team Building Lesson #1: The Sweeper

Introduction

Now, to start off, I should mention the basic set up for a competitive team. Generally, you have your lead, your walls, your sweepers, your supports, your revenge killer, and the less common hazer. In this lesson I will teach you all there is to know about a sweeper.

What is it?
A sweeper is your power house pokemon. This is the one you will use to "Sweep" the enemy team. Sweeping is simply knocking out the enemy pokemon with ease, typically with one hit. In most battles it's the sweeper that determines who will win. In most cases, though, sweepers aren't very bulky, and are easily taken down if not played right. Another thing to worry about is being walled by enemy pokemon, or being stopped mid sweep.

Important to note
It's typically a smart move to have more then one sweeper on your team, but you don't want to have too many. I generally limit myself at three, and even that is a rarity. By having extra sweepers on your team you won't be out of the battle just because your sweeper gets KO'd.

Some examples


Gyarados
Item: Life orb
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Adamant
Ev's: 252 Atk/6 Def/252 Spe
Moveset: Dragon Dance
Waterfall
Stone Edge
Earthquake/Bounce

Possessing a powerful moveset while packing in nice physical attack and speed, while carrying some good resistances, Gyarados is able to sweep many unprepared teams with ease, and utilizing Dragon dance to gain even more speed and attack makes him an excellent choice for any team.


Charizard
Item: Life orb(I'll explain item choices for pokemon in a later lesson)
Ability: Blaze
Nature: Timid
EV's: 4 Def/252 spA/252 Spe
Moveset: Fire Blast
Airslash
Hidden Power Grass
Focus Blast

Charizard, being a fairly under rated sweeper, can pull off some fantastic sweeps, using his nice special attack to wipe out the competition. The only issue with Charizard is his typing. Being Fire/Flying, Rock type moves are 4X super effective, and stealth rock will take down half your health upon entry, making it fairly difficult to sweep without setting up fo him with the rest of your team.

Conclusion
The sweepers are easily one of the most important components to your team, and essential if you want any hope of winning. I have given an example of a physical sweeper and a special sweeper, but thee are so many I couldn't even list them let alone give sets for them. It's always important to remember your sweepers limits, and as tie goes on you will get the hang of different pokemon's speeds. For more information and some expert sets, I suggest going to http://www.smogon.com/
Next Team building Lesson: Walls

wth? why isnt magickarp on this list?

Magickarp=OP


Magickarp=The pkmn chuck norris

Hey guys Leon has asked me to expand on his sweeper guide by adding information on the different types of sweepers and some more examples.

Special Sweeper
A special sweeper is a Pokemon who uses special moves to "sweep" the enemies team . People use special sweepers to brake wholes in teams with high defense stat Pokemon , and create a easier win for their team. Some of the best special sweepers have a wide variety of moves to pick from, Alakazam and Gengar are two of the best special sweepers right now. When choosing a special sweeper for your team you want to look at a couple of stats Sp ATK, Speed, and HP the reason why HP is important is because we want to know if the Pokemon will be able to set up with moves like Calm mind.

Example:

Alakazam
Item: Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Nature : Timid
EV's: 4 Def/252 spA/252 Spe
Moveset: Calm Mind
Psychic
Focus Blast
Shadow Ball

Alakazam is an amazing special sweeper with his high base special attack his access to a large special move set and abilities like Magic Guard which makes him invulnerable to any indirect damage

Physical Sweeper
A physical sweeper is the exact opposite of a special sweeper, they usually have a large physical move set pool. They are used to kill special walls and other pokemon to make sure your other pokemon can have an easy time with their team. The 3 main stats you want to focus on are Hp, Atk, and speed. again Hp is important to be able to set up moves like Dragon dance.

Example:

Dragonite
Item: Life orb
Ability: Inner Focus
Nature: Adamant
Ev's: 4 Hp/ 252 Atk/ 252 speed
Moveset: Dragon Dance
Dragon Claw
Earthquake
Fire punch

Dragonite is underrated but overplayed he may not be the best physical sweeper he has a lot of problems, being a slug compared to other physical sweepers. He really excels at setting up with dragon dance. He Has a large physical pool and at 252 Atk EVs and adamant he has 403 atk.

Mixed Sweeper
Mixed Sweepers are a very unique and underused sweeper they are pokemon which have access to a large pool of both moves and have stats which can accommodate for both. Mixed sweepers usually do not have set up moves like calm mind or dragon dance because they are usually to lacking in the HP department. They usually rely on support like Smeargle or other baton passers to set up for them. You mainly want to focus on ATK SPA and Speed with mixed sweepers. They are usually used to break wholes in tanks of any type and make wholes in their team all around. Mixed sweepers excel against highly offensive teams rather then defensive teams.

Example:

Jirachi
Item: Expert Belt
Ability: Serene Grace
Nature: Naive
EVs: 152 Atk/ 204 SpA /152 Spe
Move set: Iron Head
Fire Punch
Hidden power (Ice)
Thunderbolt

Jirachi is a very uncommon mixed sweeper and this move set and build can really knock your opponent of his feet if he isn't prepared for a mixed sweeper when you send out Jirachi as people mostly play Jirachi as a Special sweeper. Jirachi has access to some great moves for a mixed sweeper like Iron head and thunderbolt. With Jirachi you can really play around with the move set and you aren't really set to one move set, this makes Jirachi an amazing mixed sweeper.

Again if you have any questions or just want to theory-craft feel free to leave a comment.

~just ignore magickarp~ yeah its not like magickarp could be a sweeper.....lol

I hope you know pimpnite is a fake. He battles himself to create his fake videos. And Magikarp is no longer a viable sweeper in competitive play with the Drizzle+Swift Swim ban.

If you read his video description he stats its not viable and if you look at the date it was before drizzle + swift swim was banned so that statement was pointless, don't you think ?.? Also he doesn't even use drizzle in the video

Umm... This date is after the ban. but that's only if you're doing Smogon (which I'm assuming we're doing here due to what I see on everyone's teams) And with the metagame nowadays, most of it is permanent weather, so if you use Rain Dance. (something wrong with you?)

Anyway, even without rain, Magikarp doesn't outspeed much pokemon esp ubers.

On the other hand, who excited for BW2?