Building the Perfect Poison Type Gym Leader

Ah yes free monotype teams for showdown

To be fair, Bugsy's ace also has the quality of bouncing in and out of the fight instead of being a static 'final boss' of the team, so there's precedent for Crobat here

Though he didn’t make the cut, I’m glad my boy Swalot was in the video In some form.

Well... Time for me to speedrun building a poison team to see how mine is different.

Scoliopede is one of my favorite pokemon overall. While I understand gen5 isn't everyone's favorite, it really did give us some cool pokemon

I did a similar thing when making competitive mono-type teams. My rules were that all pokemon need to have 1 type of their speciality, and 1 pokemon that is not of the type speciality, but makes great use of the type speciality. 1)Toxapex (Wall) 2)Nidoking (Physical Sweeper) 3)Gengar (Special Attacker) 4)Amoonguss (Support) 5)Scolipede (Baton Passer) 6)"Toxic Boost" Zangoose (Ace)

I hope Glimmora gets on the Rock-type team. Stealth Rock + Toxic Debris sounds like a strong combination, especially when you combine it with the inevitable Ground-type moves the team will have going against any Poison-types that will want to switch in to clear Toxic Spikes, or Steel-types that want to tank a hit, not get poisoned by the Toxic Spikes or hurt that much by Stealth Rock and then Rapid Spin them away.

I'm a bit surprised Sneasler didn't make the cut, and almost offended it wasn't even an honourable mention. It's blazingly fast, hits insanely hard, covers the Rock and Steel issues the team faces with Brick Break or Close Combat, has a pretty good signature move in Dire Claw, and gets applicable coverage. Sure, it's brain explodes when someone thinks in its general direction, but it outspeeds most Psychic threats and Throat Chop and U-Turn would make quick work of them. Fake Out would also be a great option for a move to turn it into a T-Spikes supporting pivot, forcing an extra turn of chip every time it comes in, and then threatening the KO with a fresh CC or Dire Claw.

"Some of you may hate this pokemon because if Team Star-" Nah man, I love my boy Star Scream, even without the starmobiles.

In all honestly, I would opt for a white herb + curse + acrobatics setup for Crobat instead of super fang. Dealing half of the enemies health isn’t super important, especially compared to a set up pokemon with high amounts of speed and bulk, and more often than not if you have a matchup you don’t want to face against, you just u-turn out. Having a bulkier set compliments nicely with roost, in addition to acrobatics which doubles your damage to 110 when you have no item. Better than fly I think. Just a thought.

I'd give Roxie Toxtricity as an ace just for flavor, but as a generalized poison gym leader this is great

One day Drapion will get the attention he deserves

Place your bets on what the next type in this series will be! My personal pick is the flying type. And I'm also calling it now that he'll end the series with the starter trio

I like how you started with the types that are not usually given the spotlight

you should make a shepsky-mon video! what type and stats would your dog have if he were a pokemon?

I really like this series. I always wished the gym leaders were more challenging and had actually thought out teams. I’d love to see all of these modded into a game one day.

take a shot every time you hear poison 😂

you know its gonna be a good day when shep posts

TOXAPEX might actually be useful in the team with its abolity Merciless - A signature ability that every move it uses CRITS if the opponent is poisoned - even though Toxapex's offenses are abysmal having a critical damage every makes it better offensive and defensive at the same time

My poison team would've been much more grass and stall based, but a strong mon I was surprised didn't even get mentioned was Sneasler. It's quad weak to Psychic type, but the rest of my team composition makes psychic a joke, so Sneasler would very much serve as a mid to late game sweeper