When it comes to entry hazards, it can be a little difficult to put together a team to take full advantage of them- or it can be very easy.
The most important part of an Entry Hazard team, of course, is making sure that you have the entry hazards. Most pokemon that can learn one of the three entry hazard moves can learn two of them, and a rare few are capable of all three- but rarely will you want more than two. Having only one move slot free on a pokemon is a recipe for disaster, so it’s a good idea to spread out your entry hazard moves and have a little redundancy.
You also will want very durable pokemon. Your intent is going to be to cause your opponent to switch as much as possible. While you can do this by swapping between offensive pokemon, you will find your team taking a lot of extra hits in the process and packing your hazard team with sweepers will often leave you knocking out most of your team taking the swings that were made at other team members. Instead, tanks and walls are the order of the day, both categories of pokemon that can take a hit. In the case of a tank-heavy team, make sure you’re packing obvious threats to most pokemon types so as to provoke defensive switching from your opponent. In the case of a wall-heavy team, make sure you’ve got walls for everything, so you can provoke your opponent into switching to something to break each wall- just in time to watch you change what he’s dealing with.
Doing this properly takes a lot of prediction, so if you’re going to force swapping entirely by swapping your own pokemon around, you’ll need to carefully analyze the environment you battle in- what pokemon are common, which moves are prevalent, what you need to be prepared for.
Fortunately, there is another way to take advantage of entry hazards- Whirlwind and Roar.
While these two moves are a bit disadvantageous- both of them have a negative priority, automatically going last unless your opponent is using another negative-priority move- having them in your entry hazard team can make all the difference. The forced switching guarantees entry hazard damage, and while you might take an occasional hit, your opponent will destroy himself if he starts trying to switch his own team around to compensate- you just keep using Whirlwind and Roar and any attempt to switch will only double the hazard damage. This forces your opponent to use a random team member each turn- and while this can be to your advantage, particularly if your Whirlwind or Roar user is not especially tough, it can also be a huge detriment, since you don’t get to pick what comes in either. One unlucky random chance on Whirlwind or Roar can ruin your swap-forcing pokemon, so if you’re going to use this tactic, be prepared to have two or even three different pokemon forcing switches, each with different weaknesses and resistances.
Of course, there is a less-reliable but safer way to force switching and entry-hazard damage: status effects. If you’re not relying on Toxic Spikes to inflict Bad Poisoning, you can add in to your entry hazard team one or three pokemon that like afflicting enemy pokemon with burns, paralysis, freezing, confusion, and other nasty statuses that will provoke your opponent to swap out frequently. While this won’t cause switching as often, it tends to be much more debilitating for the enemy team than vague threats and slow forced-switching.
However you do it, remember that investing even part of your team in creating entry hazards can have a huge effect on the flow of your battles, and will often be worthwhile even if all you do is throw Stealth Rocks in the air every so often.
