Excadrill

[Steamroll]

Excadrill was one of the most controversial bans of 5th Generation so far, being bandwagoned into Ubers by a late string of ban votes in Round 5 of Suspect testing for OU. Needless to say he didn't get the boot from Dreamworld OU due to those events but the influence it had on the OU metagame then is definitely still around now. With Sand Rush Excadrill is able to hit a Speed stat of 604 (jolly nature; even with a neutral nature its able to outspeed every single pokemon including Deoxys-S) while sand is up. 110/60/65 Defenses are very good for a mon like Excadrill, able to take hits while setting up a Swords Dance in order to totally destroy the opponent's team. Its movepool looks rather lacking but it is effective, I mean it did get banned way back in October...

Base Stats:
HP: 110
ATK: 135
DEF: 60
SPA: 50
SPD: 65
SPE: 88
Here is the infamous set you can expect Excadrill to be running in the DW OU metagame:

Excadrill @ Life Orb / Air Balloon
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 4 HP / 252 ATK / 252 SPE
Adamant Nature (+atk, -spatk)
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Swords Dance
- X-Scissor / Rapid Spin

Now this technically can be considered two different sets but each one only depends on the item and move you select on each slash. X-Scissor for more coverage against Psychics and Grasses while Rapid Spin to support the team. If you opt for a Life Orb run X-Scissor over Rapid Spin, as the recoil damage will surely make Exca pay later by spinning away hazards at the cost of its health. If you opt for Air Balloon run Rapid Spin, as you can freely switch Exca in only to worry about rocks and spin away hazards. Earthquake, Rock Slide and Swords Dance are the standard three moves Excadrill will use, providing great coverage via a psedo-EdgeQuake combo and a means to boost its Attack to god-like levels.

Checks/Counters: While Excadrill was one of the most fearsome mons in the Standard OU metagame he still had problems getting past certain mons without support. Gliscor, Skarmory, Ferrothorn and Tangrowth (sans X-Scissor) all can throw a wrench in Excadrill's sweep unless Exca has accrued too many boosts. Skarmory can wall +2 Excadrill because it fails to be 2hko'd by Rock Slide, but be wary of flinching because that will definitely shut Skarm down. 252 HP/184 DEF Gliscor can withstand more than 2 hits from Rock Slide (48% - 56.5%) with Poison Heal recovery and Protect and proceed to Swords dance in Exca's face but again be careful of Rock Slide flinches. Ferrothorn can take two of Excadrill's Earthquakes (45.5% - 54%) factoring leftovers and set up spikes with its standard defensive spread but cannot do much back besides Protect and Leech Seed. Tangrowth can wall Excadrill's Earthquakes all day but comes to problems when faced with X-Scissor, barely missing a chance to be OHKO'd with rocks up (78.2% - 92.6%); Tangrowth can then proceed to Sleep Powder Excadrill and pivot the match in your favor as you can then leech seed and stall it out ever so slowly sans X-Scissor.

Even with these setbacks, with the right support and careful play beforehand you can proceed to sweep your opponent's team with little resistance on the path to victory.

 

[New World Order]

Return gives Excadrill a way to hit Gliscor, Rotom-W, and crew. In fact, I personally found that Swords Dance+EQ+Rapid Spin+Return worked just as well as Swords Dance+EQ+Rapid Spin+Rock Slide, although being walled by Gengar is infuriating at times.

 

[tomtom5858]

I remember reading somewhere that and Adamant Air Balloon +2 Return has an outside chance to 2HKO Gliscor. Can someone check this for me, please?

 

[Steamroll]

It can, I've had it happen to me :L

+2 Loon Exca Return vs. 252/184 Gliscor: 46% - 54.2% (depends if Gliscor has Poison Heal and Leftovers; if not it can 2hko)
+2 LO Exca Return vs. same Gliscor: 59.6% - 70.3% (outside chance to miss the 2hko with Poison Heal)

 

[Vein]

No. 1 counter would be Techniloom with Mach Punch OHKOing this guy.

With this I believe that a SubSD set would be viable.

EDIT: On the counters: you should add any MachPunch users such as techniloom (no. 1!), conkeldurr and infernape since they have a chance to revenge kill this guy.

 

[tomtom5858]

No. 1 counter would be Techniloom with Mach Punch OHKOing this guy.

With this I believe that a SubSD set would be viable.

EDIT: On the counters: you should add any MachPunch users such as techniloom (no. 1!), conkeldurr and infernape since they have a chance to revenge kill this guy.

All three are checks. Techniloom takes a shit ton from Return, Conkeldurr can't OHKO without a Band or Status Orb, and is OHKOed by +2 Loon Earthquake, and Infernape can't exactly take Earthquakes, either.

 

[Steamroll]

Or a stray Rock Slide either...

 

[tomtom5858]

Or a stray Rock Slide either...

Or Returns. Or Shadow Claws. Or really, Rapid Spins, either.

 

[BTzz]

There are a lot of new Pokes that threaten Tyranitar (some threaten Excadrill itself) such as Techloom, Genesect, Keldeo, Ditto etc. These along with Excadrill's old checks mean Exca isn't quite as broken in DW as it was in standard OU imo.

 

[Iceydude168]

While Techloom and Balloon Pokemon (Lucario says hi) seem to be good checks, remember they are only checks, and cannot come in more than once.

Tangrowth is a very, very good check due to Regenerator. However, it is beaten by boost stacking X-Scissor, as is Slowbro. I used to run Focus Blast Tangrowth, then realized that it sucked because it really only hits Excadrill? HP Fire Tang can actually do a lot of damage to Excadrill without a lot of investment.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Rock Polish Air Balloon Terrakion is a great way of turning your opponent's Excadrill into a sweep for yourself. You get a free boost and then you absolutely destroy anything that comes in with Close Combat

 

[Lemonade]

^as long as you avoid that Rock Slide $100%$ flinch chance, jkjk. Balloon Terra is pretty good, I love the chance of countersweeping.

Recently I've been fiddling with Chople Excadrill, and I must say it's not bad. Breloom is especially an annoyance for me, so I like surprising it and eliminating it. LO Mach Punch does ~55% with the Chople iirc, while I can beat it with a +2 Return most of the time, always after some residual damage. From there Terrakion follows Exca for the sweep. Maybe I'm playing clueless people, but anyone else have success?

 

[Porii Sames]

Although he has been retired from my SS team for a Dual Dance Lefties Terrakion, Excadrill was previously used as an anti-Excadrill Excadrill. With Adamant I still had the power I needed to sweep late game, and I also ran Brick Break. Brick Break + Air Balloon means your sweep won't be stopped early by other Excadrill if they are Jolly (or if they are Adamant and your Air Baloon remains in tact).