Set of the week 13

This place has been dead for a couple months, so necrotime! Enter an entirely adorable, (possibly) deadly and annoying sweeper.


Pokemon – Riolu
Indended Tier – NU, but possibly higher tiers



Ren (Riolu) (M) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Naïve/ Naughty Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Circle Throw
- Copycat
- Roar
- Reversal

0 hp/ 31 Att/ 0 Def/ 0 SpA/ 0 SpD/ 31 Spe

Overview -

We’ve all seen aron, the notorious Lv.1 sand sweeper, but have we seen Riolu? Some of you probably have, but for those who haven’t, the main principle of this is “speed shuffling.” Most of the time, a phazer has to survive a shot before sucessfully roaring/whirlwinding/etc. the opponent out because of the move’s negative priority. Some from the ADV generation have probably encountered a speed shuffling aerodactyl with only sleep talk and roar, or have used sleep talk to bypass the negative priority of roar. If this is unfamiliar, you may have used sleep talk in another sense and phazed out another pokemon before they could make a move.

Strategy -

The main idea here is the same - survive a hit, circle throw the opponent out of the battlefield. However, the second time around, riolu can phaze the opponent basically scot-free with copycat. Copycat redoes the user’s last move. Usually, this is pretty useless, because most could just hit the same button again, but with prankster, the negative priority move now has positive priority, meaning that it can phaze even pokemon faster than it with circle throw. Copycat has 32 pp! 32 turns of nothing but SR and spikes, meaning that the more entry hazzards, the merrier. Also, SR and spikes, as well has sandstorm, will ruin riolu’s sash, so have a spinner! Circle throw actually does a fair amount of damage; for example, it does a good 25% percent on bulky scizor. It doesn’t sound too remarkable, but that’s 5 or so less wasted pp on killing scizor.

Roar is in the third slot if the opponent has any ghost users, but this is mostly for higher tiers, as NU has very few ghost types. Reversal is an extremely gimmicky option, but if it is late-game, no ghosts, and weak pokemon, riolu can attempt a late-game sweep with priority 200bp reversal. The Naïve and 0 Ivs in everything are to make sure that essentially any hit that connects brings it down to low hp.

Team Support –

Entry hazzards are essential, especially stealth rock. Spikes are never wrong, and a rapid spinner on your own side is especially beneficial to stop the sash from breaking. Cancelling weather is always nice, and a trapper for ghosts, such as absol, is useful as well, and if riolu is using an evolite, has some synergy, though both are as frail. Powerful, fast attackers and priority users love the weakening damage riolu does to the team, and can clean up after him. Pineco is great as well, able to Stealth Rock and spike as well as rapid spin. In ou, Scizor works well and can pursuit fleeing ghosts, allowing riolu to spam circle throw. Overall however, riolu really doesn’t need much outside of SR. Until prankster is released and riolu is allowed to enter the realm of wifi, a scout for ghosts will be invaluble.

Other Options –

Reversal’s both a gimmick and filler, so close combat and hi jump kick are some notable options. The IV’s could be reset to 31 and Riolu could make use of an evolite in NU to become less vunerable to other attacks.

Threats to riolu’s plot –

Protect, priority taunts, powerful priority, especially in the form of extremespeed. Luckily, 252 EVs in speed and jolly allow it to outrun the likes of conkledurr, scizor, and other priority users, but dragonite will eventually shoot it down. Kill these, and your opponent will have 32 long turns ahead of them.

Sounds like fun! A nice way to troll
I'll make sure to use this once prankster is released. xD

Too bad TTar exists.

Interesting trolling fact - with 252 EVs in attack, circle throw does 63% to full hp T-tar, not even counting spikes and stealth rock. T-tar is screwed . And even with sandstorm, it's still 16 turns of flat out trolling.

Saw Spade use this... 6 months ago? Still a cool set though.

Epic> Spade.

Oh that's right, but the problem is when I meant "Too bad Ttar exists" is that he needs 1 turn to set-up his Circle throw, which has -1 priority. Obviously that ONE turn they're going to attack him, which means he's usually going to be at 1 hp. It's a really team dependent strategy, and it should work well with Politoed/Ninetails due to weather cancel.

Yep, but it's designed for NU play mostly . Hippopoti are rare enough there. It's more of a hypothetical set than anything else because prankster hasn't been released yet though.