Agiligross Sweep

[Marshey]

This is my first RMT and post here at smogon. I've been competitively battling for awhile but this is the first team I made completely on my own. I noticed that Metagross is a little neglected nowadays due to Scizor and is really only ever used as a lead, so I decided to build a team around its agility sweep set. The team has served me pretty well but has some issues with stall and bulky offense teams so I figured I'd present it to you guys for some criticism. Well, have at it; Any suggestions are welcome.

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 80 HP/252 Atk/176 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Ice Punch

This is the standard Jirachi lead with trick substituted for ice punch. I don't know whether its just where I am on the ladder, but the number of pokes its actually useful to trick a scarf are slim to none making it more beneficial to be able to revenge salamence sweeps. The basic idea is to iron head anything that doesn't resist it and hopefully flinch them to death. U-turn is used on anything that Jirachi can't handle and helps scout the opponents team. Whenever I run into something that can't dent Jirachi I just send it back in and set up rocks. It works pretty well and usually sticks around for a long time.
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Tyranitar (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 160 HP/252 Atk/96 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Aqua Tail

Now that Latias has been banished to Ubers I changed my Tyranitar back to Choice Band. This is straight from the analysis and lacks any creativity but it has been very helpful. Pursuit tears Cresselia and Rotom-A to shreds, making Metagross that much closer to a sweep. Furthermore, it does a nice number on Blissey and makes her think twice about switching in. Stone edge is great for STAB and wrecks Zapdos, another poke my Metagross hates. Crunch gets STAB and hits almost anything hard for neutral damage and aqua tail is used for bulky grounds and opposing Tyranitars.
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Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/222 Def/36 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Thunder Wave
- Grass Knot
- Recover
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Celebi is absolutely amazing on this team. Thunder wave+Jirachi=Hax. Anyway, thunder wave slows down opposing pokemon and couples with Jirachi for one of the most annoying combos ever. The main purpose of Celebi is to serve as a bulky ground and water counter to open up a sweep for either Gyrados or Metagross. Grass knot kills the majority of these and does major damage to things like Tyranitar. Hidden power fire is for scizor, breloom, and other steels or grasses cocky enough to try and wall celebi and recover keeps it alive over the course of the battle. While it doesn't do much on its own, it has so much synergy with my team it has won numerous games for me.
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Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP/228 Def/32 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Roost
- Thunderbolt

Here's another analysis standard. Zapdos makes an excellent scizor/steel counter with heat wave. STAB thunderbolt helps eliminate the bulky waters that plague Gyrados, Tyranitar, and Metagross. Hidden power grass does massive damage to swampert which otherwise walls this set and most of my team. Lastly, roost is obviously for recovery. I've found Zapdos to be a bit redundant at times, as the only thing it really has over Celebi is the ability to kill steels risk free. I'd appreciate it if you could come up with a replacement that would better deal with stall teams and blissey in general.
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Gyarados (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake

The first of my two game-enders, Gyrados is an absolute menace with a dragon dance. I decided to include it in my team when I noticed that not only do I need more fire-resists, but it has pretty much the same counters as Metagross. Its ridiculously hard to survive both sweepers after the bulky waters are out of the picture, the purpose of the rest of the team. Gyrados uses STAB waterfall most of the time to pick off just about anything it hits for neutral damage. Stone edge picks off flying types and opposing gyrados while earthquake is added for nice coverage. Gyrados also fares very well as an early game sweeper, opening up holes the rest of my team is happy to exploit. By weakening its counters, it makes it easier for Metagross to pull off a sweep later. I often use it as an early game switch-in against Heatran that think they can take my Jirachi lead down and prevent rocks from going up.
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Metagross @ Life Orb
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 112 HP/252 Atk/12 Def/132 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Agility
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Thunderpunch

Once Metagross has the opportunity to set up, it becomes a force to be reckoned with. Meteor mash is its most used attack, dealing massive damage to anything that is unresisted. Earthquake hits the steels that resist meteor mash hard and has good coverage with it as well. Thunder punch prevents Meta from being completely walled by Skarmory and bulky waters. Problem is, with just agility, Metagross lacks the power to hit hard enough to drop defensive pokes. In fact, most of my team is too balanced to hit anything hard enough to kill. Thanks for reading, now rate away!
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Edit: After using the team a little more I realized I forgot to mention that I have a bit of trouble with Heracross and Infernape. Both are easily capable of sweeping my team and I lack a hard counter to either. Thanks again!

 

[greenstreet]

Hey there pretty good team I must say the only changes I can see worthwhile is running more speed on metagross to avoid getting revenge killed by scarfgon and scarfrachi. I cant really see any weaknesses at all really.

great job with the team.

 

[Agammemnon]

Scarfrachi and Scarfgon are played Jolly, meaning they reach 492 speed, while Metagross can only reach 239 with Adamant nature => 478 with an Agility, so he can't outspeed them.

 

[Marshey]

Hmmmm. Any other suggestions? I've been having some trouble with Heatran and Infernape after Gyrados is gone and could use another fire resist.

 

[Smith]

You said that your team doesn't do well against stall, as is the case with many Agiligross teams. I have 3 fixes that can probably help that-

On jirachi, I'd run Trick over U-turn. Tricking a scarf is the biggest bitch-slap a stall team can recieve. I know, I like U-turn as well here, but it's basically moveslot syndrome and it's the most expendable.

As for Zapdos, I would change him to SubSplit Rotom. Sub + Pain Split makes him very useful against stall, and can even threaten blissey with pain split, although not for a lasting amount of time, but then again, she isn't really a threat to Agiligross.

The last change I think is the most important and the most helpful. Change Gyarados to BulkyTaunt Gyarados. This will make him a potent stall-breaker (provided the abscense of Rotom, which Tyranitar can usually accomplish) and, because of the added bulk, means he can stick around longer to counter Infernape and Heatran, whom you said you had problems with after Gyarados kicked the bucket.

That's it. Hope I helped.

 

[Marshey]

Thanks Toxic Spork. I tried some of the changes. The bulky Gyrados is working excellently, however, I can't say the same for the other two. I just can't live without U-turn on Jirachi. Rotom has worked to some extent, but it really doesn't see too much play time.

 

[Marshey]

Bump, maybe I should have given it a snazzier title. Come on I know my team isn't perfect.

 

[Marshey]

24 hour bump.

 

[purple crobatchop]

Scarfrachi and Scarfgon are played Jolly, meaning they reach 492 speed, while Metagross can only reach 239 with Adamant nature => 478 with an Agility, so he can't outspeed them.

That's why I always run more speed when I use Polishgross.

 

[ginganinja]

Well you could run a LO Starmie over Zapdos. It still packs a large punch and can deal with INfernape if Gyarados is down. Starmie still hits bulky waters hard with Thunderbolt can with Hydro Pump it has a chance to OHKO scizor with SR support.

 

[Marshey]

LO Starmie is working excellently. Any reccomendations on EV spreads? I'm sure they could be improved. Also, are you suggesting I run Metagross jolly purple crobatchop? It already lacks power as it is. I've been experimenting with leftovers on Meta instead of LO and have yet to come to a conclusion on which is better. Any more suggestions?

 

[ginganinja]

your standard sweeper spread is fine on starmie, I think its 4 Def/252 SpA/ 252 Spe of the top of my head, please somebody corect me if I am wrong

 

[Mr Acurite]

i would think that ice punch would be better than thunder punch on gross, because it has better coverage and makes it more of a dragon killer. most of your team is set around removing counters, so i wouldn't worry about that. i think you could replace zapdos with a good bulky hariyama, adamant, 252 evs in hp and attack, guts, toxic/flame orb, and fake out, low kick/close combat, stone edge, and payback. maybe it doesn't do as much, but if a tyanitar switches into jiarachi locked into ice punch, a single low kick will spell its doom, and let hariyama set up a burn.