XY OU Hawlucha Hyper Offence [peaked at 8th]

[daftmau5]

Introduction
Hey everyone, daftmau5 here! Welcome to my RMT :)​

The inspiration for this team originally came about from seeing my good bud Gizmozian use Scarf Max HP Final Gambit Raptor in a bird spam team.

I then thought that Hawlucha would be a great mon to take advantage of the trail of destruction left by Staraptor after sacrificing itself to destroy Skarmory/Rotom-W. Hawlucha is a seriously underrated threat in a post-Aegi meta and wanted to try it out for myself. After a fair bit of laddering, i realised that this team was really missing Water stab and ended up replacing Staraptor for Greninja which has given the team a more consistent offensive flavour.

This is the team that i actually built to use for Cycle 1 of the Ladder Tournament and i came awfully close to making it before everyone went crazy and laddered to 2K. I actually went to bed in 6th place (8th overall on the ladder) and woke up in like 12th :(

I figured I'd make a different team for future Cycles and so i decided to RMT this one and receive some feedback and here we are :]

Peak

Team Preview

The Team

Hawlucha @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Unburden
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Def / 200 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Substitute
- Acrobatics
- High Jump Kick
​

This set is designed to clean/sweep after Hawlucha's checks and counters such as Rotom-W, Slowbro and Skarmory have been eliminated or weakened. I've elected to run a Jolly nature over Adamant despite Unburden giving Hawlucha a +2 boost purely because pokemon such as the Lati twins and Keldeo are on every damn team and being able to set up a sub on them and getting to a max power Acrobatics is really useful. It also allows Lucha to Sub on Lati which are looking to defog and then SD on the following turn before running through the opponents team. I'll admit a couple of times, being Adamant would have got me the extra 3% or so damage i needed but Jolly was beneficial more often than not.

The Given EVs are for maximum damage, outspeeding base 110s and then the rest going into an even HP number (so that Sitrus Berry and Unburden kicks in after 2 subs). I've now added enough speed for Thundurus in the off chance i end up behind a sub (Thanks for the suggestion Srn ) and also outspeeds R. Acrobatics and High Jump Kick are no brainers for dual stab. Substitute is to help Hawlucha activate Unburden/Sitrus Berry and also allows Hawlucha to set up on common mons such as Mew and Gliscor which can't touch Hawlucha with Knock Off/Wisp/Toxic,Eq, etc.

Hawlucha is also my emergency check against Sand teams. I'll often look to get Lucha under a sub early in the game to shave off 25% and then switch in on Rocks twice more to activate Sitrus/Unburden on the 2nd switch and then outspeed Rush Excadrill.

Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Dark Pulse
- Hidden Power [Grass]
​

This is the mon i replaced Staraptor with and i've noticed a big overall improvement despite the loss of a nuke. Hydro Pump and Ice Beam are standard while i've selected Dark Pulse because people are running Mew on every damn team and it refuses to die. Using Dark Pulse to pick off mons also means that Bisharp can't come in and just eliminate/force out Greninja with Sucker Punch. HP Grass does awesome damage to Rotom-W (which i need to weaken for Lucha) and also hits Azumarill fairly hard (which can smash basically everything on my team lel).

Latios (M) Choice Scarf Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
Evs: 252 Spe, 252 SpA, 4 SpD
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Trick Surf
- Defog
​

Latios was selected for its offensive presence, typing (I needed a Keldeo switch lel) and access to Defog. Draco Meteor is used to nuke stuff help Hawlucha clean through weakened mons. Psyshock is a nice secondary STAB for when i didn't want to give my opponent room to set up and is also great to 2HKO Chansey after rocks + prior damage (which Heatran could pull off with Taunt/Wisp).

I originally used Earthquake to smash Heatran (min 85% on max HP) as it often likes to switch into Draco Meteor/Defog. I ended up going with Surf since it gets better damage on Ttar and also OHKOs balloon Excadrill which is pretty annoying.

Trick Scarf means i can cripple something like Chansey on stall and alleviates my problems with +1 Zard X. Thanks Saphi for the brilliant suggestion.

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- Knock Off/Explosion​

Scarf Lando-T works really well in this team as an offensive pivot with U-turn in tandem with Mega Manectric and is a nice mon to revenge Bird spam which is really common at the moment (well Mega Pinsir mainly). Scarf Earthquake is extremely spammable once what remains of my opponents team is grounded. Knock Off is great early game to hit opposing scarf Lando-t (which frees up Manectric) and also get rid of lefties on things like Slowbro which is a bitch to kill. Explosion is also a pretty cool option over Knock Off to dent something like Mew while it inevitably goes for Wisp which means i can send in another mon to pick it off. Stone Edge revenges stuff like Dnite/Zard Y/Thundurus

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Modest Nature
- Fire Blast
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Will-O-Wisp​

This is a really fun Utility SR set though the EVs look a bit weird. Modest Max SpA Fire Blast hits really damn hard (2HKOing Mega Venu with Rocks) while 216 Spe is to outrun Jolly Ttar and burn it with Wisp. Wisp is also excellent to neuter Azumarill which terrorises this team. In fact when Azumarill usually leads against my Heatran, i'll go for the Wisp first turn since Waterfall + Aqua Jet (or CB Waterfall) can't KO me and then just get up Rocks the following turn.

Taunt is great to shutdown Clefable which is a pain in the ass and also prevent other Heatran from setting up SR. Air Balloon was selected as it helps Heatran get up Rocks better as a lead against things like Garchomp and Landorus-T.

Manectric @ Manectite
Ability: Lightningrod
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ice]​

Mega Manectric is a mega i haven't previously used and fits perfectly onto this team for a few reasons. 1. It pairs extremely well with Scarf Lando-T as a fast Volt Turn core; 2. It checks Bird Spam with Intimidate; 3. Offers incredible speed control. In fact, my whole team gets shredded by Greninja so a lot of the time i'll lead with Manectric over Heatran and give up immediate rocks just to ensure my team doesn't get mauled.

Tbolt/Volt Switch + HP Ice are fairly standard but i've picked Flamethrower over Overheat for more consistency and to ease prediction games with Ferro/Scizor switching in and out.

Mega Manectric is just such an incredible cleaner and has saved me in situations such as sacking my team to kill Ttar and waste sand Turns and then just cleaning house.

Replays​

• http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-162215281
  vs Mega Hera Rain
• http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-162537856
  Vs that really common Pinsir/Digg/Chomp/Zone team

Conclusion​

This matches up pretty well with most offensive teams on the ladder (in particular that PinsirZone Sash Digg/Chomp team which all the tour players spammed) but i've noticed has a lot of trouble v stall (just SkarmChan in particular lel). I generally need to overwork Heatran with Wisp/Taunt to wittle down Chansey and not lose Hawlucha to a High Jump Miss. Either way, this is pretty fun to use and doesn't require too much thought apart from working out which mons need to be dead for Lucha to clean.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
daftmau5.

Importable

Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Dark Pulse
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Hawlucha @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Unburden
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 60 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 192 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Substitute
- Acrobatics
- High Jump Kick

Latios (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 29 HP
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Surf
- Defog

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- Knock Off

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Modest Nature
- Fire Blast
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Will-O-Wisp

Manectric @ Manectite
Ability: Lightningrod
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Shout out to Jacks0n for being a scrub :]

 

[Pikachu42]

you should change greninja's and landorus's evs 4 HP makes you take more damage from rocks/hail/sandstorm/residual damage

 

[Pikachu42]

i think scarf lando could beat that since iron head does not do enough from excadrill. hawlucha after activating unburden also outspeeds i think.
if heatran makes it alive with air balloon intact, can will o on the iron head and then tank earthquake i guess. not sure

 

[daftmau5]

Hey there daftmau5 ! This is a pretty cool team, and congrats on the peak! I love Hawlucha and I've always wanted to try one.
On Latios, I suggest Hidden Power Fire over Surf. It allows you to deal with Pursuit Scizors.
Your team seems to have a pretty big weakness to the Tyranitar/Sand Rush Excadrill duo. It's not as popular as it was last Gen, but it looks like it poses a problem. I might come back to edit this in a few minutes when I get an idea of what to add.

Thanks for the rate! Pursuit Scizor would indeed be annoying but i didn't come across a single one in around 100 games over the last week so i'm happy to just risk it.

Rush Exca is extremely annoying to deal with but generally I can sack my team to waste sand turns once i can KO Ttar and then clean up with Lucha + Manectric vs common sand mons like Keldeo, latios, landorus-i etc. Also, i'll generally try and sub once with Lucha early on in the game so that after switching in twice on rocks, i get the unburden boost which means Exca is toast granted High Jump Kick lands. Balloon Tran + Lando-t also help me even out the match up.

 

[Sky Master Z]

Heatran:
Doesn't need any changes either


Mega Manectric:
Dosent need any changes so this set is good

Hawlucha:
You Have an amazing team but I think you should run power herb sky attack instead of sitrus berry because once power herb is gone u still get unburden boost plus hawlucha still does hella damage with acrobatics

Latios:
I also advise using Hp fire over surf to take care of other scizors and pursuit trapping Bisharp

Greninja:
There's nothing really that needs editing but put 4 evs somewhere besides hp like spd or def so u take less weather and entry hazard damage

Landorus T:
Again your evs are in wrong place otherwise this guy is good to go plus use knock off because explosion lando is a bit iffy


Again I'd like to congratulate u on the peak and the team

Hope I Helpt!!

 

[Srn]

Ey yo daft imma rate ur team i'm here :]

So i tried using lucha once upon a time and i was quite impressed with the results, however, the set i used was Liechi>Sitrus. This change offers a number of advantages. For example, its difficult to clean unboosted w/lucha, even against offense, so with this set you could just repeatedly sub against a lati@s until you get the attack boost AND unburden boost. This liechi also gets lucha to +3 against more bulky teams, which is nice too. I've used sitrus and liechi and imho the latter just works so much better. The only real drawback is that liechi activates at 25% as opposed to sitrus which activates at 50%, but lucha is frail af anyways not that big of a deal.
Also, liechi lucha just has a rly nice ring to it :] Try it out and see how it goes.
In terms of evs on lucha, i'd run 200 evs in speed. If you do somehow keep a sub intact against offense, this lets you outpace thundurus so you won't have to worry about it breaking ur sub. Consequently, run 52 hp evs to keep that even, and 4 evs stay in defense.

The tran set is kinda retarded .-. i'd recommend Flash Cannon/Earth Power>wisp. I'd probably use flash cannon cuz clefable is annoying, but if u think tran is more annoying to deal with then by all means use earth power. Just don't use wisp wtf mmawile is banned fren
To make you a tad less azu weak, you could consider Tbolt>Surf on latios. Surf rly doesn't do much for lucha :S
And don't feel to bad about being weak to azu, every offense that isn't running offensive mvenu is weak to azu :[

As for ninja, considering you have both a tran and a lucha that sets up all over mew, i rly don't think u need dpulse. U may think i'm joking but honestly, i'd give water shuriken a try JUST to nail talon. talon is a mon you wanna get rid of for lucha and ninja is a super cool lure for that :] Additionally move 4 hp evs to defense and move its hp IVs all the way down to 25 to hit a life orb number, not like its taking a hit anyways

Finally, You could fuk with ur megaman evs a little so that you outspeed chomp before mevo because all that max speed timid does is speed tie you with opposing mega pinsir, and you already have a scarf lando-t to beat that. So you can change megaman's current spread to 24/252/232+

Other than that this is a rly cool team, best of luck!!!

 

[daftmau5]

Ey yo daft imma rate ur team i'm here :]

So i tried using lucha once upon a time and i was quite impressed with the results, however, the set i used was Liechi>Sitrus. This change offers a number of advantages. For example, its difficult to clean unboosted w/lucha, even against offense, so with this set you could just repeatedly sub against a lati@s until you get the attack boost AND unburden boost. This liechi also gets lucha to +3 against more bulky teams, which is nice too. I've used sitrus and liechi and imho the latter just works so much better. The only real drawback is that liechi activates at 25% as opposed to sitrus which activates at 50%, but lucha is frail af anyways not that big of a deal.
Also, liechi lucha just has a rly nice ring to it :] Try it out and see how it goes.
In terms of evs on lucha, i'd run 200 evs in speed. If you do somehow keep a sub intact against offense, this lets you outpace thundurus so you won't have to worry about it breaking ur sub. Consequently, run 52 hp evs to keep that even, and 4 evs stay in defense.

The tran set is kinda retarded .-. i'd recommend Flash Cannon/Earth Power>wisp. I'd probably use flash cannon cuz clefable is annoying, but if u think tran is more annoying to deal with then by all means use earth power. Just don't use wisp wtf mmawile is banned fren
To make you a tad less azu weak, you could consider Tbolt>Surf on latios. Surf rly doesn't do much for lucha :S
And don't feel to bad about being weak to azu, every offense that isn't running offensive mvenu is weak to azu :[

As for ninja, considering you have both a tran and a lucha that sets up all over mew, i rly don't think u need dpulse. U may think i'm joking but honestly, i'd give water shuriken a try JUST to nail talon. talon is a mon you wanna get rid of for lucha and ninja is a super cool lure for that :] Additionally move 4 hp evs to defense and move its hp IVs all the way down to 25 to hit a life orb number, not like its taking a hit anyways

Finally, You could fuk with ur megaman evs a little so that you outspeed chomp before mevo because all that max speed timid does is speed tie you with opposing mega pinsir, and you already have a scarf lando-t to beat that. So you can change megaman's current spread to 32/252/232+

Other than that this is a rly cool team, best of luck!!!

Appreciate the rate man :]

200 speed EVs + Sub Liechi sound and Water Shuriken on Greninja sound like pretty sick ideas. Definitely going to try those out! Mega Man EVs are also nice.

As for Tran, the set seems retarded af on paper but puts in ridiculous amounts of work. I guess i'll test out Flash Cannon since it'll help me also chip away more at Lati's so Lucha can clean them out a bit easier later. Speed + Wisp was also an emergency +2 Bisharp check so hopefully i don't miss it =S Will also try out Tbolt on Lati.

 

[Saphi]

Hi there!

I can see a weakness to Charizard X and even Scarfed Terrakion here. Charizard X can almost 6-0 your team after a DD while Scarfed Terrakion could go on a rampage with Stone Edge. You have Landorus-T for that, but he can only check CharX with HP above ~77% and is torn apart bit by bit with Terrakions Stone Edge (~28-33%). Hawlucha could Revenge after Unburden kicks in but it is still very shaky. You also mentioned a weakness to SkarmChans Cores. I think your team would really appreciate it if you change your current LO Latios set to a Scarf Trick set. It beats the mentioned threats all by its own and cripples annoying walls easily, since everyone would be expecting LO Latios.

Latios @Choice Scarf
Evs: 252 Spe, 252 SpA, 4 SpD
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Trick
- Defog/Roost/Thunderbolt/HP Fire/Surf/HP Fighting (whichever you need more)

Good luck on climbing the ladder to Top 5 :D

 

[Enki]

Solid HO! Grats for the peak

Good job, I can only suggest some fixes; for example the Heatran set:
EVs: 240 HP / 24 SpD / 244 Spe
Timid Nature
Lava Plume > Fire Blast
With this EVs Heatran reaches a speed number of 276 in order to outspeed those pokemon which outspeed Jolly mHera, such as Mew and Lando-T. That could be useful to fast Taunt Mew.

Then, 'cuz Mew isn't anymore a problem u can run u-turn>dpulse on Greninja, to widen the Volturn core and gain momentum.

Put 0 ivs in atk on special sweepers like latias and manectric... to reduce foulplay damage.
Odd hp for stealth rock damage.

Latias

Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
IVs: 29 HP / 0 Atk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Defog
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock/Thunderbolt
- Recover/Healing Wish

Good luck with your peak ;]

 

[daftmau5]

Hi there!

I can see a weakness to Charizard X and even Scarfed Terrakion here. Charizard X can almost 6-0 your team after a DD while Scarfed Terrakion could go on a rampage with Stone Edge. You have Landorus-T for that, but he can only check CharX with HP above ~77% and is torn apart bit by bit with Terrakions Stone Edge (~28-33%). Hawlucha could Revenge after Unburden kicks in but it is still very shaky. You also mentioned a weakness to SkarmChans Cores. I think your team would really appreciate it if you change your current LO Latios set to a Scarf Trick set. It beats the mentioned threats all by its own and cripples annoying walls easily, since everyone would be expecting LO Latios.

Latios @Choice Scarf
Evs: 252 Spe, 252 SpA, 4 SpD
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Trick
- Defog/Roost/Thunderbolt/HP Fire/Surf/HP Fighting (whichever you need more)

Good luck on climbing the ladder to Top 5 :D

Awesome suggestion man. I was trying this out on the ladder today and it's been putting in serious work. Editing my OP with this as a definite change. Thanks :]

Solid HO! Grats for the peak

Good job, I can only suggest some fixes; for example the Heatran set:
EVs: 240 HP / 24 SpD / 244 Spe
Timid Nature
Lava Plume > Fire Blast
With this EVs Heatran reaches a speed number of 276 in order to outspeed those pokemon which outspeed Jolly mHera, such as Mew and Lando-T. That could be useful to fast Taunt Mew.

Then, 'cuz Mew isn't anymore a problem u can run u-turn>dpulse on Greninja, to widen the Volturn core and gain momentum.

Put 0 ivs in atk on special sweepers like latias and manectric... to reduce foulplay damage.
Odd hp for stealth rock damage.

Latias

Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
IVs: 29 HP / 0 Atk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Defog
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock/Thunderbolt
- Recover/Healing Wish

Good luck with your peak ;]

Hmm i'm not sure i agree with running Lava Plume (the raw power of Fire Blast is hard to give up) but i do like the suggestion of a Timid Nature to get an extra fast Taunt out and being able to roast Mega Hera. Testing this. Cheers mate.

you should change greninja's and landorus's evs 4 HP makes you take more damage from rocks/hail/sandstorm/residual damage

Implemented, thank you.

 

[MZ]

So this is definitely looking like a really cool team especially since my own Hawlucha team peaked at 1750 but I would have to agree with Srn about losing will-o-wisp on Heatran, with earth power being more useful than flash cannon since you can already taunt clefable. I played a few games with this team and my biggest frustration was not being able to do anything to things like opposing Heatran, and being forced to switch or waiting to be roared out, while I used will-o-wisp in maybe one out of the eight games that I played.

 

[habajiga]

Excellent team bud :] not much to say here, results speak for themselves. Just be careful of Mamoswine (not much you can do there tbh, nothing on offense switches in).

 

[habajiga]

You don't need to outspeed Thundurus, so I suggest you go back to 192 Speed on Hawlucha.
If you are not behind a Sub chances are Thundurus will t-wave you. However, if you are, either Sitrus already activated and you outspeed Thundurus regardless, or you can sub again as it attacked your sub until Sitrus activates. Then you'll end up outspeeding it with your sub intact, and hopefully you can finish it off after 2 rocks + 1 LO recoil as HJK does around 40%. There really is no reason to run 200 speed.

Sorry to disagree, I know its very rare, but Raikou.

 

[habajiga]

Excellent team bud :] not much to say here, results speak for themselves. Just be careful of Mamoswine (not much you can do there tbh, nothing on offense switches in).

edit: You might want to put those leftover 4 Evs into speed to outspeed 224+ Raikou :] Also have you thought about 240 speed on tran to outspeed max speed adamant M-Scizor?

 

[daftmau5]

You don't need to outspeed Thundurus, so I suggest you go back to 192 Speed on Hawlucha.
If you are not behind a Sub chances are Thundurus will t-wave you. However, if you are, either Sitrus already activated and you outspeed Thundurus regardless, or you can sub again as it attacked your sub until Sitrus activates. Then you'll end up outspeeding it with your sub intact, and hopefully you can finish it off after 2 rocks + 1 LO recoil as HJK does around 40%. There really is no reason to run 200 speed.

Hmm good point but i think i might just slap the 4 spare spare Def EVs into Spe like Habajiga. I can't imagine losing out on 2 HP (52 HP 200 Spe vs 60 HP 192 Spe) makes that much of a difference while being able to take on Raikou in a pinch is cool especially since AV/Specs Raikou is getting quite popular. Thank you for the suggestion all the same.

edit: You might want to put those leftover 4 Evs into speed to outspeed 224+ Raikou :] Also have you thought about 240 speed on tran to outspeed max speed adamant M-Scizor?

Done. I probably won't risk subbing/attacking Raikou unless i have to since i'm sure most people on the ladder just go max spe max spa. Still, it might be useful if i'm desperate and like i've said earlier, i don't mind giving up 2HP lol. As for Tran, i've actually been running Timid Tran recently just to be able to get a quick Taunt on Mew as well as lure and OHKO Jolly Mega Hera with Fire Blast. Thanks Haba!