As much as the competitive Pokemon community likes to play it safe in their team compositions, as it’s generally safer to play a better Pokemon unusually than try to use an unusual Pokemon competitively, there is some viability in creating a strange team. Often it has the advantage of catching the opponent off guard, forcing them to play against a Pokemon that they have little or no experience in dealing with.
One of the most famous times this has happened is when Se Jun Park won the 2014 VGC Masters Division with a Pachirsu on his team, as well as more recently in the 2019 VGC Masters Division as Hirofumi Kimura placed second with an Umbreon on their team. Neither of these Pokemon were considered competitively viable at the time, but their unusual nature definitely contributed to the high placement of the two players.
10 Chlorophyll Maractus and Drought Torkoal
As good as Torkoal is, both as a weather setter and as a Trick Room attacker, it’s much harder to take Maractus seriously on any team. The cactus Pokemon is notoriously bad, with its only redeeming quality being its special attack and access to Chlorophyll, which doubles its speed in the Sun. However, when paired together, Maractus’ otherwise useless After You can allow Torkoal to act sooner in battle without the need for Trick Room, firing off Eruptions before the opponent can whittle down its health and reduce the damage. In this way, Maractus also pairs well with other slower Pokemon that you are likely to see on Sun teams, such as Rhyperior, and also covers both Pokemon’s Water-type weakness with Solar Beam.
9 Dusclops and Exploding Snorlax
Dusklops and Snorlax are a fairly common pairing, as Dusclops is one of the best Trick Room setters in the game while Snorlax is a monster when its Belly Drum is combined with its Gluttony ability and its great base attack stat. Snorlax can, for whatever reason, also learn Seft Destruct, a move that doesn’t affect Dusclops at all due to it being a Ghost-type Pokemon. Dusclops can also learn Imprison to prevent the opponent from using Protect, meaning that, if the combination is successful, two of the opponent’s Pokemon are likely to faint very fast.
8 Vanilluxe and Inteleon
Although the inclusion of Alolan Ninetales has made Vanilluxe somewhat redundant, it is still a great Hail setter under the right conditions. While it can’t make use of Aurora Veil like Ninetales or Gigantamax Lapras, it does have the advantage of being the strongest Hail setter in terms of how much damage Blizzard will do, though this also makes it something of a one-trick pony.
Although Inteleon is incredibly frail, it is also incredibly fast and powerful, making it a decent pairing with Vanilluxe to spam powerful Blizzards at the opponent and helps cover its weakness to Rock and Fire-type attacks fairly well. Now that the fossils have access to their hidden abilities, Arctovish is also a decent pairing option thanks to Slush Rush and its access to Fishious Rend.
7 Alcremie and Swoobat
Once Swoobat’s hidden ability became readily available to players, it opened the door to many shenanigans with Stored Power that, unfortunately, never really took off. One of these strategies involves Alcremie and its signature move, Decorate, alongside Swoobat’s Simple ability, which gives it four total stat buffs instead of two. This catapults the base power of Stored Power from 20 to 100, 10 more points than if it were to use Psychic. While this doesn’t seem like much of a boost, it can mean all the difference in the world against some of the more powerful Pokemon.
6 Aqua Jet and Coalossal
Despite it having a fantastic ability in Steam Engine, Coalossal has largely been ignored in favor of other, easier to use Rock-types like Rhyperior. However, when given a Weakness Policy and paired with a relatively weak Pokemon that can use Aqua Jet, such as Squirtle or Wartortle, it can make for some interesting plays. Using said Aqua Jet on Coalossal will not only boost its speed by six stages, make it outspeed just about everything short of a Regieleki, but also boost its attack and special attack thanks to the Weakness Policy to make it hit significantly harder.
5 Falinks or Kommo-O and Psych Up
Both Falinks and Kommo-O have access to status moves that boost all of their stats by one stage, with Falinks having No Retreat and Kommo-O having Clanglorus Soul. By themselves, this can be fairly overwhelming, but when combined with a Pokemon that can use Psych Up, such as Espeon, which copies all stat changes, it can end a battle right then and there. If used by a Pokemon that also has Simple, such as Swoobat, those stats will all be doubled and make it virtually unstoppable.
4 Pheromosa and Glastrier
Of all the Pokemon that can use Speed Swap, Pheromosa is by far the fastest with a base speed of 150. When this is combined with one of the slowest Pokemon in the game, Glastrier, it can mean that it can function outside of Trick Room and is a decent alternative to making an entire team centered around keeping Trick Room active.
If Pheromosa manages to survive, which can easily be done thanks to giving it a Focus Sash, you can also Speed Swap Glastrier’s horrible speed onto an opponent’s Pokemon for good measure, severely crippling otherwise speedy Pokemon like Dragapult or Regieleki.
3 Klekfi and Regieleki
There are many Prankster Pokemon that make a good pairing with other, more powerful Pokemon, though in this case, Klefki may be the best. Klefki has access to Rain Dance, Reflect, and Light Screen, all of which go a long way to ensuring Regieleki can not only survive through its mediocre defensive stats but also take full advantage of the Rain to ensure Thunder has 100% accuracy. Other Rain setters like Pelipper could be viable, but they lack any way to increase Regieleki’s defenses at the same time
2 Shell Smash Polteageist and Baton Pass
Moving away from the doubles format, Polteageist has the potential to be one of the deadliest Baton Passers around, thanks to its Weak Armor ability as well as the buffing move Shell Smash, which lowers its defense in exchange for increasing its attack, special attack, and speed. While this does mean that Baton Pass is passing on the lowered stats as well, this can be circumvented with the use of a White Herb, which resets all lowered stats when it is consumed.
1 Binding Band Centiskorch and Quick Claw Galarian Slowbro
Somewhat more of a gimmick, Centiskorch’s G-Max move, G-Max Centiferno, benefits from the effects of the Binding Band, which boosts the chip damage done by binding moves and can make for a decent trapper. Galarian Slowbro with the Quick Draw ability, alongside the Quick Claw held item, gives it a decent chance of going first despite its low speed and makes for a decent pairing with Centiskorch thanks to its access to Water and Grass-type attacks to cover its Rock and Water-type weakness respectfully. Combined with its Shell Side Arm attack, which changes the damage type used depending on which defense is lower, this means you can also make it a legitimately good mixed attacker.
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