Rose Red (Roserade) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 6 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Sleep Powder
- Leaf Storm
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Ice]
Namesake: Ah, a rose by any other name…Although, admittedly Roserade should be by the name of Briar Rose aka Sleeping Beauty. I just liked Rose Red’s character more and it still fits.
EV’s/Item/Nature: A pretty standard max/max sweeper spread. I do have one question though. On the Roserade analysis, the focus sash set has the extra 6 ev’s thrown into hp, but on the scarf set, it is dumped into special defense. Which is better? As for the choice scarf, it allows Roserade to hit a speed of 459.
Move Set: Sleep Power is the key to the set, allowing me to get off a quick sleep at the beginning of the match. Leafstorm allows me to always have a move to check those pesky curse Swamperts (ohko under all circumstances), +1 Calm Mind Suicunes, and to hit hard in general, doing a great deal of damage to dragon dance Gyarados (about 56%) and Kingdras (about 85%). Sludge bomb allows a nice stab move to pick off Infernape or Azelf trying to switch into a light grass knot. It also allows me to do a great deal of super-effective damage to Celebi. Lastly, HP Ice is to check +1 dragon dance Salamences.
Team Role: About 99/100 times I just sleep at the beginning of the match. The only time I think I ever don’t is if the lead is a Flygon, which are usually scarfed and try to use U-turn, in which case I just HP Ice it. Lum Berry leads are very rare now, teams hardly carry sleep absorbers any more and the only times Roserade has ever gotten me into trouble as a lead is when Sleep Powder misses. I am able to shut down all suicide leads, hopefully preventing them from getting Stealth Rocks up. I’m not afraid of revealing the “scarf surprise” early in the match, but it is nice when I can occasionally conceal it for a late game surprise knock out. I was going to list the top 10 leads and how Roserade stacks up against them superiorly, but really, it would just be a waste of time as I could (and do) just sleep them all. Roserade has a few very important roles on my team. Besides the fast leading sleep and previously mentioned swampert check, she offers me a toxic spikes absorber, revenge killer without fear of magnezone or status due to natural cure, and a soft celebi counter, being immune to leech seed, not caring about twave, resisting grass knot and being able to take HP Fire well. Roserade is surprisingly bulky on the special side, as not even an unboosted max special attack neural natured Infernape’s Flamethrower is a guaranteed OHKO, which is helpful against suicide lead Infernapes who opt for accuracy. Her grass typingand decent special defense also allows me to switch in on some electric attacks, like Jolteon and Zapdos and hit back hard.
Opinion: The choice scarf makes Roserade the ultimate anti-lead. Remember 6 months ago when Scarf Gengar was everywhere? Then all of a sudden everyone started carrying lum berry leads until the hypnosis of accuracy fell. Then all of a sudden everyone forgot about starting out with a fast sleep, meaning that it is once again anti-meta. And Roserade does have the fastest reliable sleep (for the sake of argument I’ll define “reliable sleep” as a sleep move with over 70% accuracy.) Besides sleep, Roserade is utterly walled by Heatran and most steels, fearing scizor switch-ins even more, but it isn’t too much of a bother for the rest of my team. The rest of my team can handle Heatran and other steels, and Scizor would be reluctant to switch in anyways if they think I’m the regular sashed toxic spikes Roserade with HP Fire. Roserade is invaluable to the team as the lead and fills a niche in my team that only she can. I’ve always like Roserade but have never been able to effectively use it on a team until now. Not that I think anyone will, but I don’t want anyone to look down on Roserade just because she is considered UU. The reason most UU don’t have a place on an OU team is because there is an OU Pokémon that outclasses the UU Pokémon and does their role better. But there is not one OU Pokémon that can do Roserade’s job on this team. The thing about being choiced is that if your opponent knows what’s coming, you still have to find a way to be effective, and there are not a lot of things that can stop a fast sleep.
Teambuilding Process: When building this team, the first thing I thought of was the lead, which is unusual for me. I wanted a lead that would immediately get me the advantage at the start of the match. I thought about taunt leads before realizing Scarf Roserade was the perfect anti-lead, spinning out of my old Scarf Gengar days. This gave me a soft counter to Celebi, a guaranteed check against Swampert, and a toxic spikes absorber, giving me free reign to pick a bulky water of my choosing. But then I thought about how I could take advantage of the fast sleep to continue keeping my opponent on his back foot, leading to the selection of my next Pokémon.
