ORAS OU How to ladder, a venu + zardy team

[Ox the Fox]

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Gooooddd morning New York Smogon. It's Ox the Box here with an extremely successful mega charizard-y team. I wanted to build around a team around mega charizard-y and regular venusaur and this is how it turned out. Now let's get on to the RMT. :]

Teambuilding Process

I wanted to build around mega charizard-y + venusaur so I got to work. I decided to go with a standard chary set and a 3 atk + sleep powder venusaur set.

I added a banded ttar as a way to get rid of chansey and to get massive damage on heatran with pursuit, it's also a nice way to get rid of latios.

Excadrill seemed to be an obvious choice to add. It was another weather sweeper and a great way to spin for chary.

I now needed a rocker so I put in a random ferrothorn. It's just a needed filler.

I desperately needed something for lopunny and bisharp so a scarf keldeo was a perfect fit.

I wanted a switch in to pokemon such as venusaur and lopunny so I changed ferro to a rocks mew.

Proof of Peak

http://imgur.com/yN1wHez
man from earth is me n_n

In Depth Analysis:
How to ladder

Charizard @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Solar Beam
- Focus Blast
- Roost​

Mega Charizard-Y is such an amazing pokemon right now. Fire/grass/fighting coverage is almost impossible to switch into especially with a ttar being able to trap special moves. I chose a modest nature over a timid nature as I really appreciate the extra power and I'm not that weak to landorus. I've chosen to run focus blast over earthquake as I would really like to hit ttar for extra damage while still damaging heatran. I'm using flamethrower over fire blast as the extra pp is really nice and the power isn't needed. Chansey is KOd from pursuit + 2 flamethrowers.

scarf lati?

Venusaur @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 72 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 180 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Venusaur is such a good underated mon right now. It also sweeps through so many teams while providing a great switch in to pokemon like keldeo and azumarill. I'm using sleep powder over earthquake or knock off so that I can hit heatran and also hit bisharp as they try to sucker punch me. The speed evs are for adamant bisharp while still keeping an HP number, you can run timid if you want to outspeed jolly bisharp and also scarf latios.

zzz "stall"

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 166 HP / 252 Atk / 90 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Superpower
- Stone Edge

Choice banded ttar is an extremely crucial part of this team. I picked banded for the extra damage on heatran and also for hitting chansey much harder. Scarf isn't really needed as I already have 2 weather sweepers. The moveset is pretty standard, but with superpower being the only unusual move. It hits ferro, heatran, chansey, and bisharp. 90 speed evs (or 88) allows it to outspeed standard skarmory.

zzz "offense"

Excadrill @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rapid Spin
- Rock Slide

Excadrill completely destroys offense under the sand. I'm using adamant as have several options for opposing excadrill such as chary and my mew. The moveset is pretty standard with rapid spin over swords dance so that I can clear up rocks for zardy. Not much to explain here.

needed filler

Mew @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 152 Def / 108 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Roost
- Stealth Rock
- Will-O-Wisp

The change from ferro to mew has been extremely useful. Mew provides an excelennt switch in to venusaur and lopunny while still getting up rocks. I'm using psychic in order to hit poison and fighting types and will o wisp so I can actually touch dark types. A more physically defensive spread is used in order to better check lopunny with 108 speed evs to outspeed jolly bish. Thanks to brokenwings in the Competitive Tutoring room for suggesting this.

eh we out here

Keldeo @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 1 Atk / 30 SpA
- Scald
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Secret Sword

Choice scarf keldeo is such an amazing pokemon. It provides a crucial bisharp counter to this team, and also a lopunny check out of the sand. I'm using modest as timid really doesn't do anything, thanks to Mob Barley for suggesting this. Hp electric is also being used in order to hit pokemon such as slowbro and gyarados.

Threatlist:

No switch ins, but I have several pokemon which can force it out.

importable

How to ladder (Charizard) @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Solar Beam
- Focus Blast
- Roost

scarf lati? (Venusaur) @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 72 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 180 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder
- Hidden Power [Fire]

zzz "stall" (Tyranitar) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 166 HP / 252 Atk / 90 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Superpower
- Stone Edge

zzz "offense" (Excadrill) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rapid Spin
- Rock Slide

needed filler (Mew) @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 152 Def / 108 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Roost
- Stealth Rock
- Will-O-Wisp

eh we out here (Keldeo) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 1 Atk / 30 SpA
- Scald
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Secret Sword

Thanks so much for reading. If you guys have any suggestions feel free to leave them down below. Test it if you like and good luck!​

 

[Ragnarock]

Impressive run dude, glad to see you're killing the ladder better me, lmao. Good team, not much to change. If you want, it's not required or anything, but you could knock the speed from Charizard to 240 evds to still outspend heracross and pinsir before mega evolving and throw the extra evds into a tad bit of bulk on it. Doesn't hurt, but again not required. Gengar is a bitch but you have things barring mew to eat a hit and revenge. Keep doing what you're doing bud. I'm proud of you.

 

[Knots]

-No priority.
-I don't see the strength in running dual weather, especially when Venusaur wants the sun so bad. Your own team is fighting with itself
-Dual Choice!: the bad idea that seems good in the team builder™

You can solve at least two of those by finding someone that's not banded t-tar. Or drop choice band and run unnerve ;)

 

[F22/aRaptor]

How is it coming in so freely? after I get a kill? a lot of the time it will be with either excadrill venusaur or keldeo which all force it out. Who the fuck are you?

GOATChris has a point, albeit put the wrong way. Exca and Venasuar are only circumstantial force outs. To get them in and even attempt to force Gengar out, one of your weather inducers will likely have to be sacrificed. Keldeo does not like damage stacking up if your opponent has hazards. By forcing it out with either of those three, you're not really putting the opponent in a bad position. By having to force something out all you're doing is giving the opponent momentum as they can plan ahead when you are then forced to switch out after they play a check to your pokemon. There's a difference between playing around it and forcing something out.

As to Gengar coming in freely.... There's more than enough ways it can come in freely (or relatively freely) that don't involve you KO'ing something (Good prediction of moves (you have a few moves it can come in on safely/semi safely), Volt-Turn e.t.c . But again, they're all relatively circumstantial.

 

[VictoriasDelibirds]

Your team has a grand total of 0 switch-ins to Rock Slide Landorus-I. In addition, you are decently weak to CB Talonflame (let's face it; no one in their right mind is going to blindly spam Brave Bird when you have a Tyranitar in the back). Even if you do sacrifice something in order to get a Pursuit off with your Tyranitar, that allows the myriad of threats that your team has 0 switch-ins to (CB/SD Terrak (admittedly very uncommon but still threatening), Life Orb Kyurem-B, Mega Pinsir, DD Zard X) to come in and pick up a kill (in the case of the former two) or set up and potentially sweep your team in the case of the latter two, depending on if Excadrill is dead or not (if it's not, they can click the appropriate move and smack that on the switch, too). Mew is overloaded in this sense because by the looks of things, that is your main check to the threats that I just mentioned. While it might be able to take on one of them if it's at full health and doesn't have to switch in on the threat first (save for Zard X; you get raped by that thing), there is no way that it can take on all of the things that you're trying to make it take on. If I were you, I would pick one of your weather cores (sun or sand) and rework the two remaining mons in order to better counter/check the various threats to your team.

 

[Dread Arceus]

For the first time in my life I'm going to have to agree with Tele. Not only do you not have Gengar switchins, it's hardly a true statement that you have things to force it out. If you manage to do anything notable with this team, I can assure you it is nothing but fault from other players on the ladder.

aight, not every team can have a gengar counter because not every team can run fucking mandibuzz or av torn-t. also how are you gonna pop off on somebody about skill when you've only posted 4 times? please hop off tele's d, you look like a fool

-No priority.
-I don't see the strength in running dual weather, especially when Venusaur wants the sun so bad. Your own team is fighting with itself
-Dual Choice!: the bad idea that seems good in the team builder™

You can solve at least two of those by finding someone that's not banded t-tar. Or drop choice band and run unnerve ;)

-why do you need priority when you have 2 mons in the top speed brackets of ou...hello?
-try it, idk what else to say, it has its own benefits
-there's no ironclad rule limiting you to one choice item; more choice items means more power/speed for more hard reads. if you're afraid to make plays then by all means, limit yourself to 1 choice item max. that aside, it's not uncommon for a team this aggressive to have multiple choice items, since it increases overall lethality.

Your team has a grand total of 0 switch-ins to Rock Slide Landorus-I. In addition, you are decently weak to CB Talonflame (let's face it; no one in their right mind is going to blindly spam Brave Bird when you have a Tyranitar in the back). Even if you do sacrifice something in order to get a Pursuit off with your Tyranitar, that allows the myriad of threats that your team has 0 switch-ins to (CB/SD Terrak (admittedly very uncommon but still threatening), Life Orb Kyurem-B, Mega Pinsir, DD Zard X) to come in and pick up a kill (in the case of the former two) or set up and potentially sweep your team in the case of the latter two, depending on if Excadrill is dead or not (if it's not, they can click the appropriate move and smack that on the switch, too). Mew is overloaded in this sense because by the looks of things, that is your main check to the threats that I just mentioned. While it might be able to take on one of them if it's at full health and doesn't have to switch in on the threat first (save for Zard X; you get raped by that thing), there is no way that it can take on all of the things that you're trying to make it take on. If I were you, I would pick one of your weather cores (sun or sand) and rework the two remaining mons in order to better counter/check the various threats to your team.

the ever-so-common rock slide lando-i. that you need to have switchins for. on offense. ???? as far as talonflame, he can beat it with both TTar and exca in sand, and if he absolutely has to he can fuck it over with rocks, recoil, and Mew. as far as Mew being overloaded, the point of his team is to keep momentum, with Mew acting as a sort of fallback for shit like MLop that would otherwise be a giant pain for the team.

tl;dr it doesn't matter if his team has counters for every mon under the sun. It's offense. It's not supposed to.

 

[Knots]

-why do you need priority when you have 2 mons in the top speed brackets of ou...hello?
-try it, idk what else to say, it has its own benefits
-there's no ironclad rule limiting you to one choice item; more choice items means more power/speed for more hard reads. if you're afraid to make plays then by all means, limit yourself to 1 choice item max. that aside, it's not uncommon for a team this aggressive to have multiple choice items, since it increases overall lethality.

-For when someone sets up on you and you don't outspeed anymore and then you need to stop it. This isn't a fatal flaw on its own, but I think it's always worth pointing out.
-No, it does not. The more I think about the dual weather component of this team, the worse it gets. He has 2 pokemon that are practically useless without their weather support and giving up that support is literally built into the team. That's on top of sun taking away one of Keldeo's STABs. This team is at war with itself. You don't even have anything to say in its defense besides "it has some vague benefits I can't actually tell you about". Is that maybe because there are none?
-"too afraid to make plays"?? I didn't say there was a rule, obviously there's not or else it would stop these people from making that bad decision to run 2 choice items in the first place. Piling on choice makes a team predictable and gives your opponent an edge to make his own plays. Ox can't afford to let people push him around on this team, especially when he's running dual weather and therefor can't afford the constant switching esp when it means switching in one of his weather mons and changing the weather.

 

[Scotti]

since no one is here to help lemme help you friend.

Since you are weak to gengar runs Scarf Tar. This will allow you to outspeed and trap gengar with pursuit. Just don't switch into focus blast or your screwed. Scarf tar also allows you to revenge kills threats such as starmie, mega pinsir, and zard y. With this change you are weaker to stall which leads me to my next change.

Next you should run sub cm keldeo over your current set. Because you are weak to stall with the change of band to scarf tar, sub cm keldeo will be a great fix. Zard y + keldeo + pursuit stall, lets you defeat the common stall core of goth|cress|quag|chansey|skarm| sab. Also even though you don't have scarf keldeo, I am pretty sure defensive mew handles lopunny fine.

Besides that nice team:]

 

[bludz]

Hey I've been seeing this team on the ladder a lot and I think it's pretty cool, dual weather cores are fun. Venusaur is a bit underrated and it's nice to see it get some love.

One thing I'd like to say is that a U-Turn or Volt Switch user would greatly benefit this team as it would allow you to switch weather more freely and also could potentially make trapping easier. Not sure what I'd take out or change but just a thought. Rotom-W would be good for this since once TTar goes down, SD Talonflame sweeps easily by setting up on Mew.

 

[VictoriasDelibirds]

the ever-so-common rock slide lando-i. that you need to have switchins for. on offense. ???? as far as talonflame, he can beat it with both TTar and exca in sand, and if he absolutely has to he can fuck it over with rocks, recoil, and Mew. as far as Mew being overloaded, the point of his team is to keep momentum, with Mew acting as a sort of fallback for shit like MLop that would otherwise be a giant pain for the team.

tl;dr it doesn't matter if his team has counters for every mon under the sun. It's offense. It's not supposed to.

Alrighty then, buddy. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Rock Slide Lando-I is completely unviable and is just some random set that I pulled out of my ass. Even if Landorus-I is only running Sludge Wave, the following calc would apply to Ox's Mega Zard Y:

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Charizard Y: 143-169 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 89.1% chance to 2HKO

Since we're dealing with theoreticals here (and I know that a lot of you tournaments players seem to like running a Modest nature on Landorus-I in order to wallbreak; or maybe you just enjoy getting outsped by stuff like Timid Zard Y), here's another calc:

252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Charizard Y: 157-186 (52.8 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

So in essence, it doesn't matter whether or not Lando is running Rock Slide; Ox's team still gets smashed by it whenever it's brought in.

If "the point of his team is to keep momentum," as you put it, then Banded Tyranitar should not be part of his squad. If you actually paid attention to the constructive criticism contained in my post rather than simply deciding to search for something to take a swing at in an effort to discredit me, you would know that the vast majority of my complaints with the team stemmed from Tyranitar and its tendency to lock itself into Pursuit when faced with threats such as Lati@s, Talonflame, etc., which in turn would allow threats to Ox's team to set up/pick up kills. Looking back on my previous post, I think that Ox could actually keep his dual-weather core; I should have explored the possibility of changing Tyranitar's set rather than suggesting that Ox remove Tyranitar from his team (and the Excadrill that goes along with it) entirely. It might be beneficial to change Tyranitar's set to an offensive Smooth Rock or Assault Vest set, since (1) the team already has a Stealth Rocker and (2) this would alleviate the problems that come with being locked into an extremely undesirable and weak move. Ox stated that he had Choice Band on Tyranitar in order to hit Heatran and Chansey harder. While Ox's Tyranitar would indeed miss out on the OHKO on Heatran were its Choice Band to be removed, this shouldn't be much of an issue, since Keldeo deals with Heatran just fine, standard specially defensive Heatran gets outsped by Excadrill and is OHKOed by Earthquake (duh), and Heatran does not appreciate a Focus Blast in any way from Modest Zard Y (Heatrans with the specially defensive spread that has 68 EVs of Speed creep take anywhere from 63.3 - 74.8%). As far as Chansey is concerned, please refer to the following calcs:

252+ Atk Tyranitar Stone Edge vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 244-288 (38 - 44.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after sandstorm damage
252+ Atk Tyranitar Superpower vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 390-460 (60.7 - 71.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage

As you can see, the most common variant of Chansey is always OHKOed by a combination of Stone Edge and Superpower+Sandstorm damage (as well as 2 Superpowers if you happen to use it first to catch Chansey on the switch), thus making Choice Band on Tyranitar even more obsolete. Finally, removing Choice Band on Tyranitar would alleviate the whole Mega Pinsir/Zard X/Kyurem-B etc. problem of them being able to set up/pick up a kill due to Tyranitar not being locked into a weak move anymore (Stone Edge easily dispatches all 3 of them).

Long story short: Change CB Tyranitar to offensive AV or Smooth Rock.

 

[Analytic]

Okay,I'll get straight to the point.

Your team does conflict with one another.
Venu in the sand and Keldeo in the sun aren't the situations for you and many a time,you may be forced into doing so.

Your team doesn't have any Gengar switch ins but there aren't many to begin with.

I'd actually replace Keldeo with Starmie and change Excadrill to an SD Sweeper,lmk how that works out for you.

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Psyshock
- Rapid Spin

Solves your problem with Gengar by scaring it out albeit,a better one than Keldeo.

Good luck,congrats on your peak and I hope I helped

 

[Dilwar]

This isn't a rate, but a small bitpick on your Tyranitar spread. 166 Atk achieves the same number as 164 Atk, and 90 Spe achieves the same number as 88. In total you wasted 4 EVs which is a free stat point, so you can optimize that. Other than that, the team is clearly very well made with an original and creative idea. Nothing to change and congrats on building a very solid and fun team.

 

[njnp]

I think this team is not bad at all, Yes it has a major gengar weakness but gengar is fragile also with the common life orb recoil it cant last as long..I do think you should run scarfed tar for it but clearly you faced tons of gengar moving up the ladder. Your team is also weak to the bird abuser Talonflame after T-tar goes down lets say you face a team with sd talon and gengar...you are screwed most likely lol. I have faced this team myself was annoying to go against but was able to beat without talonflame or gengar but as people have said above every team has its flaws. Gl Pal wish u major success in the future!

 

[Wiz T7]

OK everyone here is just being stupid and have no idea what they are talking about.
You have 2 + checks to gengar which is perfectly fine for ho. You can change ttars set to scarf if you like although that means changing mews set as well to taunt > psychic otherwise you have no solid way to break stall. Land I is also checked 3 fkn times if it lacks psychic. In all honesty the most relevant threat to this team at the moment is Pinsir since you're only way of dealing with it is sand rush exca. So in my opinion make ttar scarf and run taunt on mew, just my 2 cents buddy and grats on doing so well with the team!

 

[RichieTheGarchomp]

So after playing atleast 50 games I can say a few things.

Pros:

Char Y destroys
Venu and Char form a great duo
TTar and Excadrill form a great duo
Excadrill breaks offense
Keldeo destroys everything else

Cons:

Removing hazards is mandatory and its really hard to get Exca in the battlefield sometimes
Keldeo cant work in Sun
Rocks
Not enough turns for Exca to abuse

Good team, but im thinking of some ways to make it better.