Requiem of Spirit

Hey Jaxx,

You seem like you've covered most of the metagame nicely, and I would recommend Specs Latios over your Latias, but I don't want to ruin your fun. I like the use of Gastrodon, it was one of my favorite Pokemon when I first started out playing competitively, and it's not any worse in this Generation either, so I might give it a try if I make a comeback to OU.

Overall, great team and good luck.

EDIT: NOT THE OWL MUSIC AGAIN PLEASE NO I BEG YOU

Hello Jaxx, I really like this team but Specs Latios can mess you up badly. You'll generally be relying on Tyranitar to trap it usually but that won't work if Latios is paired with the omnipresent Skarmory to lay Spikes for it (which is extremely common). Everything else gets 2HKO'd at minimum by Draco Meteor. You said you were looking for a Latias replacement that could also help against Reuniclus, so my suggestion is a specially defensive Jirachi in its place. It's a great Latios counter and defeats Reuniclus with relative ease, whether it's a Calm Mind or Trick Room variant.

Jirachi @ Leftovers | Careful | EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Wish | U-turn | Body Slam | Iron Head

Normally, Protect is used in U-turn's spot, but Magnezone is very common now, especially in conjunction with Latios, who Rachi is here to check in the first place. U-turn allows you to escape from it, and it abuses multiple hazards extremely well.

With Jirachi defeating Reuniclus for you, there is little need for a Chople Berry on Tyranitar; I highly recommend going with Shed Shell, just to make it harder for sun teams with Dugtrio to defeat you. Good team and good luck.

Bowl Cut:

Thanks for the feedback, you should defiantly get back into OU though, its the meta for MEN! Also, yes the Owl music!

BKC:

Thanks for the suggestion on Jirachi I knew there was something more fitting than Latias and I think that might just be it. I'll make sure to test this change and update the OP as needed. Interesting suggestion with Shed Shell, I haven't encountered many Dugtrio but now that you mention it if I were to run a sun team I'd most likely be running Duggy too.

Hi Jaxx, good to see you posting an RMT. Anyways, this is a pretty cool team and since you've already got most of the metagame in check there's certainly no need to make any major changes. One thing you may want to consider is the use of Taunt in place of Protect on Gliscor's moveset. This will allow you to act effectively as a stallbreaker while turning Ferrothorn and opposing Skarmory into nothing more but set-up fodder. Both moves do work well though and in the end it's totally up to personal preference. Overall, this is a great team so yeah, good luck.

Oblivion IX:

Thanks for the feedback, I will try out Taunt over Protect and compare as Protect isn't a must have move on Gliscor after all. It would defiantly be helpful with those pesky Bulk up Conkeldurr and with good predicting, stop a Rotom-W from pulling off Wisps on my team.

You might want to consider investing 40 Speed EVs in Jirachi to outspeed most variants of NP Celebi. It's a pretty big threat, since Jirachi can't always heal itself reliably and you might have to rely on Excadrill's X-Scissor. Maybe try Fire Punch as well since it still handles Magnezone and checks Scizor, but U-turn is definitely useful for maintaining momentum.

Apparently you're already considering this, but I think Taunt > Protect on Gliscor and even Taunt > Brave Bird on Skarmory are worth trying out. The two cover similar threats, so Skarmory doesn't necessarily need an attacking move when it can just phase opponents and have Gliscor take out Air Balloons. Taunt helps prevent stuff like Ferrothorn / Forretress from setting up, but Rapid Spin on Excadrill already clears hazards. If you decide to add Taunt, you could also give Excadrill Swords Dance for the extra sweeping power. Not much to add really, as I feel the team is pretty close to being complete.

a well played sun team has a huge advantage against your team. Shed shell helps you against duggy, but ninetales still beats ttar with sub / wow / hp fighting and ttar cant hurt tales when burned. With ttar gone, sun sweepers such as venusaur and sawsbuck sweep your team with little to no effort. When ttar is still alive, you have to sac a mon as ttar cant switch in safely. Spdef Heatran should work well over jirachi, checking mostly the same threats but also beats sun teams. Something along the lines of lava plume / earth power / toxic / roar should work well. Leftovers is prob the most useful item, but air balloon protects you from venusaur eq and sawsbuck nature power.
With this change, youre a little reuniclus, so maybe change ttar to a spdef version with 252 hp / 4 atk / 252 spdef adamant. Sr / pursuit / crunch / superpower @ chople berry lets you beat reuniclus and the lati's and also beats opposing ttars because you dont use a speedlowering nature.

Gl

I don't really see the reason for a shed shell on Ttar, as seeing Dugtrio around is very optional. Simply run Leftovers on him, as it helps to survive.

Tomahawk9:

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not so worried about sun teams as I can usually play around them quite well but I will make sure to test Heatran and to see if my team can still play the same way while giving me a greater advantage against sun teams.

Captain Dragan:

I guess it just comes down to a matter of preference and I just like to have a way to escape Dugtrio if he does decide to turn up. I don't really miss the recovery from leftovers but thanks for the suggestion.

It seems like Taunt Stallbreaker Jellicent absolutely demolishes your team. It outspeeds t-tar, so the only things that can beat it are Gliscor (but not if it has scald) and Excadrill, which cant ohko and is burned/scalded. While being quite unorthodox, you could run Toxic on Jirachi instead of u-turn, as Jirachi would outspeed Jellicent. The only other way to fix the weakness w/o changing some of your team members is to make tyranitar into a choice band set, and give Jirachi Stealth Rock over U-Turn. Also, you should definitely run Swords Dance on Excadrill; replace X-Scissor with it. Even though it is your rapid spinner, late game excadrill can pull of a sweep with +2 Rock/Ground coverage if the conditions are right.

The quick fix to Jellicent would just to speed up your Skarmory. U-turn is indefinitely valuable for Jirachi not because of Magnezone, but because of Celebi. The only thing you have to threaten it is basically Excadrill, who would HATE to come in on Giga Drain or Hidden Power Fire. Without that U-Turn on Celebi, who can be a buffer on the switch to Excadrill, otherwise NP Celebi can rape this entire team if it just keeps picking it's spots.

I do think you could possibly run Jellicent over Gastrodon however. It still has the anti-Water part, but you don't have to be as weary as Hidden Power Grass Politoeds or Heatrans, which would both cause a lot of hassle to the team. It's also good to serve as a Spin blocker because your team looks easily stalled as it doesn't have enough offense, but it can't prevent you from protecting your own hazards. Having a secondary Poke to take on fighters is never a bad thing as well since Infernapes and Terrakions are always annoying.

Hey,

Ok so this team is incredibly solid, but has a lot of trouble with bulky Waters i.e. Gastrodon, Quagsire, Rotom-W and Jellicent, especially the versions that carry Toxic. Having a single Water doesn't help your cause either, making it more difficult to combat rain. I think with Tyranitar, Gastrodon and Skarmory you have Latios well covered already, it's not much cause for worry even without special defense Jirachi. What I'd suggest is trying out a bulky NP Celebi over Jirachi. It easily counters all the bulky Waters, and also eases the pressure on stall, since not much is stopping it boosting to +6. If you feel that you become weaker to Latios and such, you can easily increase the special defense on TTar since it barely needs any special attack to 2HKO Ferrothorn or Skarmory, nor to KO Gliscor. If you're worried about Reuniclus you can revert back to Chople on Tar. Here's the set:

Celebi@ Leftovers
220 HP | 248 Sp Atk | 40 Speed
Modest
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power Fire
- Nasty Plot
- Recover

Also, I would recommend going back to Brave Bird on Skarm to help deal with Virizion, since simply Whirlwinding out doesn't help. The above suggestion of Specially Defensive Heatran would actually help out this team quite a lot by dealing with Volcarona, but your Water weakness would be so large that it's simply bit worth it. Instead, you can try Rock Slide on Tyranitar over Ice Beam. Tyranitar easily survives a boosted Bug Buzz, and OHKOs back with Rock Slide. In all, the new Tyranitar set would have EVs of 252 HP | 16 Sp Atk | 240 Sp Def, a moveset of Rock Slide | Stealth Rock | Fire Blast | Crunch, and Chople Berry.

Good luck!

Hello Jaxx, you have a pretty nice Sandstorm team but I would still be concerned with opposing Rain teams where your only means of stopping them is Gastrodon. Regardless, most Politoeds carry the move Toxic which easily cripples your Gastrodon and you have nothing else to come in it to take the status hit. I also see no reason to give Tyranitar Shed Shell. Focus Sash/Choice Band Dugtrio regardless fail to OHKO your Tyranitar, not to mention if you have Stealth Rock or Spikes up Focus Sash Dugtrio will fear coming in on Tyranitar. A Focus Sash Dutrio with Earthquake does 54.31% - 63.86% to your Tyranitar and with Choice Band it does 80.94% - 95.79%. Not to mention the usage of Dugtrio in the BW OU metagame is extremely low. Currently being placed 78th on the latest usage stats. While you can strengthen the team's ability to take down opposing Ninetales (source of Sun teams) and Politoed (source of Rain teams) by giving your Tyranitar Choice Band. Not only does it help with that, your team hates spin blockers. As you have no way of stopping other stall teams if they're easily able to spin away your entry hazards when you're not. The two most common spin blockers in the BW OU metagame are Jellicent, Gengar, and Chandelure. With Pursuit/Crunch and enough speed on Tyranitar, it is able to defeat opposing Jellicent or Chandelure so you can freely spin away entry hazards with Excadrill. Here's the set:



Tyranitar @ Choice Band -- Sand Stream
Nature: Adamant - EVs: 180 HP / 252 Atk / 76 Spd
- Pursuit
- Crunch
- Superpower
- Stone Edge

I also recommend using Protect on your Jirachi over U-turn for it to effectively support Wish and be able to counter certain big threats to your team. A standard Gengar with Life Orb and Shadow Ball does 30.45% - 35.89% to the Jirachi and has a 30% chance of lowering your SpDef by one stage. After lowering your SpDef, the 2nd Shadow Ball would do 45.54% - 53.71%, and you're going be stuck at trying to Wish back up. Not to mention even without a SpDef decrease, Gengar is able to 3HKO you before you can Wish back up your health since you lack Protect. So it's very important to give it Protect over U-turn.

You should also give Skarmory more Speed EVs in order to be able to stop opposing Skarmory from setting up on you or being able to Taunt you. Not only that, it may even help you evade Jellicent's Will-o-wisp/Taunt with your own Taunt and be able to safely send in Tyranitar to Pursuit/Crunch or safely sending in Gastrodon to Toxic it and not get yourself hit by Taunt/Will-o-wisp. Move the 4 Atk EVs and about 16 Def EVs to its Speed.

Finally, instead of giving your Excadrill X-Scissor give it Swords Dance so you can actually propse a sweep to opposing stall teams or most teams in general when Gliscor is weakened. I see very little reason to give it X-Scissor without Swords Dance anyways as it's unable to OHKO Pokemon like Latios and Earthquake does just enough damage as X-Scissor would do to something like Starmie. X-Scissor would do a 160 base power damage due to x2 super effective, while Earthquake would do 150 base power due to STAB. So there's a lot more reasons to use Swords Dance than X-Scissor.
One other option is giving Excadrill Leftovers over Air Balloon to increase its defensive capabilities. The only reason you probably would want Air Balloon is be able to revenge kill opposing Excadrills that don't carry Air Balloon. You already have Skarmory and Gliscor to handle Excadrill, no need to give it Air Balloon when you can give it Leftovers and be able to spin away hazards better.

Good luck!

Wow I didn't expect so many replies. Thanks to everyone who took the time out to rate my team. I have read, agreed and noted everything posted here and I will make sure to get round to testing each and every suggestion given. Thanks again guys.