Gen 4 Team: Meteoric Emerald (Offensive team)

[Shining Ace]

(Go figure why I named it like that.)

Team Building Process:
First off, I wanted to use my favorite Pokemon in this team, even though it is NU

Since my team is offensive, I also have to have a good Pokemon that can cover it's weaknesses and hit hard

I also need a lead, perhaps an Anti-Lead because it works very well, the best Anti Lead in OU IMO

Now to some other sweepers, since I was planning to scarf Scizor anyways, I need another Priority user to revenge kill things at low health, or after life orb damage

I remember how awesome Zapdos and Raikou worked out, Calm mind Raikou is insane, and Zapdos sweeper has very very high Special Attack and good speed.

Onto the team...

​

Carnage The Male Dragonite @ Life Orb Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 232 Atk / 252 SAtk / 24 Spd
Mild Nature (+SAtk, -Def)
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake
- ExtremeSpeed


Dragonite, what an awesome lead we have here.
Dragonite pretty much owns everything it faces unless it has Ice/Rock moves..
Draco Meteor rips holes through anything that doesn't resist it bar Blissey, Fire Blast for the likes of Skarmory, Earthquake for Heatran and other stuff, ExtremeSpeed for the 2HKO if any other move doesn't work here.
If Dragonite lives after working as the (anti)lead, it can revenge kill enemies with low health as well as break walls.

Synergy:
Ice = Lucario, Scizor
Rock = Lucario

Kari The Female Lucario @ Life Orb
Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- ExtremeSpeed
- Crunch


Lucario is just amazing, Swords Dance on anything that will switch out, and own things.
CC for STAB, ExtremeSpeed for Priority and revenge killing at low health, Crunch for ghost types, even though Gengar is quite fast, it can KO on the switch.

Synergy:
Fighting: Gardevoir, Dragonite, Zapdos.
Ground: Dragonite, Zapdos
Fire: Dragonite, Gardevoir (if it is Heatran)

PsyBeauty the Female Gardevoir @ Leftovers
Trait: Trace
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Def / 16 SAtk / 4 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Heal Bell
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
This is the UltimaRhys set, made by UltimaLink and Rhys007, modified by me.
Wish was there instead of heal bell but it didn't work because my team is offensive, so I needed heal bell for burn on Scizor and Lucario, and Paralysis on everything else.
Thunder Wave to cripple things, Tbolt and HP Ice for Psuedo BoltBeam combo, this set takes care of:
Heatran: Switch into fire move and trace Flash Fire, then, if Heatran doesn't have explosion, it can't do anything to Gardevoir. If my opponent switches, then It'll be hit with TWave.

Gyarados: Traced Intimidate really screws Gyara over, as well as tbolt to finish it off.
Vaporeon: Heals your HP for free and free heal bell or TWave is always cool.
Jolteon: Same as above, though these things carry Shadow Ball most of the time, so just heal and run.
There are also other things that Gardevoir can take down.

Synergy:
Dark: Scizor, Lucario
Ghost: Scizor, Lucario
Bug: Scizor, Lucario, Zapdos, Dragonite

Q8 FTW the Zapdos @ Life Orb
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Heat Wave
- U-turn
- Hidden Power [Grass]
Special Sweeping Zapdos rips holes through opponent's teams with it's Great Special Attack And Speed, Tbolt and Heat Wave are not resisted by anything bar Flygon and Swampert, HP Grass takes on swampert, while Flygon is something that Gardevoir can take sometimes. And if it uses Outrage, then I switch into Scizor and own.
I know U-Turn sounds stupid, I need suggestions on changing it to something that is not Roost.

Synergy:
Rock: Lucario
Ice: Lucario, Scizor

Red Scythe the Male Scizor @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Technician
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 244 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- U-turn
- Pursuit
- Superpower
- Iron Head
Pretty basic, has good enough speed to own things easily.
U-Turn OHKOs Celebi and Starmie, as well as a few others, Pursuit for Ghosts and obvious switch outs, Super Power might be replaced with something else because of the Attack and Defense Drop, Iron Head is just amazing with 30% chance of flinch.

Should I switch Super Power to Brick Break?
Also, I might choose another Sweeper instead of Scizor since it's very obvious.

Synergy:
Fire: Gardevoir (If Heatran)
(I think I need something that resists fire instead of this guy, Maybe Gyara...)

Rufmagen the Raikou @ Leftovers
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 68 HP / 72 Def / 116 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]

One of the best Sweepers in my opinion, Even Heatran with Earth power can take it down after ONE Calm Mind, Substitute helps it on the Switch, Tbolt and HP Ice for, another Psuedo BoltBeam combo on my team.
Raikou is also fast enough to screw many things over.

Synergy:
Ground: Zapdos

So that was my team.. Any suggestions and constructive criticism is welcome, thanks!

 

[Shining Ace]

Bump
Reserved for threats and other things.

 

[ToastTyrant13]

Well, your team seems rather solid.

Hmm...why Mild? Would Rash not be prefferable for an anti-lead since MANY if not most leads are physical? Sure there's Azelf and TrickMie, but you can still take nice hits from them while dishing back nice damage (well, Starmie will KO you with Ice Beam either way...).

 

[Shining Ace]

Well, your team seems rather solid.

Hmm...why Mild? Would Rash not be prefferable for an anti-lead since MANY if not most leads are physical? Sure there's Azelf and TrickMie, but you can still take nice hits from them while dishing back nice damage (well, Starmie will KO you with Ice Beam either way...).

Yep, True, I should change that.

 

[Smiles]

1. I think you should get a more reliable revenge killer.
Your whole team will be outsped by anything with a speed boost other than Tyranitar.

I'm not sure how much Scizor does for your team, but you should try a similar Pokemon with a similar job that is faster, such as Metagross or Jirachi.

Scarf Jirachi is a great revenge killer, outspeeding pretty much every Pokemon who boosts their speed (other than some Agility users). Jirachi has great revenge killing coverage, such as the elemental punches, as well as U-Turn like Scizor, and Iron Head to abuse the paralysis from Gardevoir.

Choice Scarf Metagross. Meteor Mash is extremely strong, and dents some things that resist it. Metagross also learns ThunderPunch and Ice Punch, as well as Earthquake to beat non-Shuca Berry Heatran. Metagross can explode.

Jirachi and Metagross both have similar resistances to Scizor, but they are both faster and more reliable for revenge killing. Either one of them can also Trick their choice item to cripple stall teams.

~

2. Your coverage with Electric is a bit redundant. If Zapdos switches into Stealth Rock and uses U-Turn, he already loses 22.5% of its health. Plus, Zapdos will probably lose more health than its opponent, considering how weak U-Turn is on Zapdos with a -Atk nature and a below average attack stat. Thunderbolt is already on 2 other Pokemon.

~

3. Specs Heatran can cause HUGE problems for this team.

Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Dragonite: 49.8% - 59.8%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Lucario: 308.2% - 363%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Gardevoir: 85.1% - 100.3%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Zapdos: 109.7% - 129.3%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Scizor: 546.5% - 643.7%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Raikou: 95.3% - 112.7%

Your only hope against Heatran will probably be at low health before you see Heatran, as Dragonite is your lead.
After Stealth Rock and Fire Blast, Dragonite will have a MAXIMUM of ~75% HP left, and possibly only ~15% left. Being slower than Heatran, Dragonite has no way to hit back if switching in.
Gardevoir is the only other one on your team who even stands a chance to survive, but still a VERY high chance to be KOed after Stealth Rock and Fire Blast. If switching in, you can only hope for a miss.

Factor in sandstorm and Gardevoir is dead.

With no counter/check, you can only rely on revenge kills / a miss.
With Scizor unable to OHKO Heatran with Superpower, your chances are slim.

~

4. I'd suggest adding Vaporeon somewhere on this team. It may slow down the pace of the team, but it makes a great check to Heatran and can pass important Wish's to Dragonite, Raikou, and Gardevoir. Vaporeon is also a very important switch in to water type moves, as your only resist, Dragonite, is weak to the ever popular ice type moves that accompany water type moves, such as on Vaporeon, Starmie, and Suicune.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

His team is only weak to Specstran in a sense that he has no safe switch-ins, it can easily be revenge-killed, given, this is not ideal, but it is not a huge weakness given that his only scarfer is a 65 base speed 'mon.

In other words, you are leaving yourself extremely weak to set up 'mons such as Gyarados and DD Dragonite, as a basic rule of thumb non-stall teams need a dedicated base 90 speed upwards scarfer, to deal with stat-uppers, also your team is, funnily enough, weak to curselax after lucario is gone anyway; which may actually happen a lot sooner if it switches into body slam, gets paralyzed and then EQed.

 

[Shining Ace]

1. I think you should get a more reliable revenge killer.
Your whole team will be outsped by anything with a speed boost other than Tyranitar.

I'm not sure how much Scizor does for your team, but you should try a similar Pokemon with a similar job that is faster, such as Metagross or Jirachi.

Scarf Jirachi is a great revenge killer, outspeeding pretty much every Pokemon who boosts their speed (other than some Agility users). Jirachi has great revenge killing coverage, such as the elemental punches, as well as U-Turn like Scizor, and Iron Head to abuse the paralysis from Gardevoir.

Choice Scarf Metagross. Meteor Mash is extremely strong, and dents some things that resist it. Metagross also learns ThunderPunch and Ice Punch, as well as Earthquake to beat non-Shuca Berry Heatran. Metagross can explode.

Jirachi and Metagross both have similar resistances to Scizor, but they are both faster and more reliable for revenge killing. Either one of them can also Trick their choice item to cripple stall teams.

~

2. Your coverage with Electric is a bit redundant. If Zapdos switches into Stealth Rock and uses U-Turn, he already loses 22.5% of its health. Plus, Zapdos will probably lose more health than its opponent, considering how weak U-Turn is on Zapdos with a -Atk nature and a below average attack stat. Thunderbolt is already on 2 other Pokemon.

~

3. Specs Heatran can cause HUGE problems for this team.

Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Dragonite: 49.8% - 59.8%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Lucario: 308.2% - 363%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Gardevoir: 85.1% - 100.3%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Zapdos: 109.7% - 129.3%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Scizor: 546.5% - 643.7%
Specs Heatran Fire Blast vs. Raikou: 95.3% - 112.7%

Your only hope against Heatran will probably be at low health before you see Heatran, as Dragonite is your lead.
After Stealth Rock and Fire Blast, Dragonite will have a MAXIMUM of ~75% HP left, and possibly only ~15% left. Being slower than Heatran, Dragonite has no way to hit back if switching in.
Gardevoir is the only other one on your team who even stands a chance to survive, but still a VERY high chance to be KOed after Stealth Rock and Fire Blast. If switching in, you can only hope for a miss.

Factor in sandstorm and Gardevoir is dead.

With no counter/check, you can only rely on revenge kills / a miss.
With Scizor unable to OHKO Heatran with Superpower, your chances are slim.

~

4. I'd suggest adding Vaporeon somewhere on this team. It may slow down the pace of the team, but it makes a great check to Heatran and can pass important Wish's to Dragonite, Raikou, and Gardevoir. Vaporeon is also a very important switch in to water type moves, as your only resist, Dragonite, is weak to the ever popular ice type moves that accompany water type moves, such as on Vaporeon, Starmie, and Suicune.

Specs Heatran is never a problem, Gardevoir traces his Flash Fire and sits there paralyzing anything that comes in.
I just need a reliable fire hit taker, I replaced Scizor with BulkyGyara and it works well, but that way, I don't have a revenge killer so I should think even more about what to use...
As for Zapdos, I don't really know what to put in place of U-Turn, I may replace Zapdos with a revenge killer of some sort though.

His team is only weak to Specstran in a sense that he has no safe switch-ins, it can easily be revenge-killed, given, this is not ideal, but it is not a huge weakness given that his only scarfer is a 65 base speed 'mon.

In other words, you are leaving yourself extremely weak to set up 'mons such as Gyarados and DD Dragonite, as a basic rule of thumb non-stall teams need a dedicated base 90 speed upwards scarfer, to deal with stat-uppers, also your team is, funnily enough, weak to curselax after lucario is gone anyway; which may actually happen a lot sooner if it switches into body slam, gets paralyzed and then EQed.

Gyarados, is not a problem, Gardevoir takes care of him by intimidating and Tbolting back, taking most of what Gyara can do.
But Curselax and DDnite are sure problems to this team, I have to find a way to get rid of them.

Thanks for the support guys!
I'm gonna test my team with Bulky Gyara instead of Scizor and see what comes out, if it appears that I need a scarfer, maybe Jirachi or Metagross over Zapdos, and maybe find a way to get rid of Curselax and DDnite.

EDIT:
Zapdos replaced with Scarf Metagross.
Scizor replaced with Bulky Gyara.
I'll see if I need any more changes by battling on PO.

 

[zapdos=god]

I don't see any reason why not to use roost on zapdos. As an offensive life orb version, it tends to switch out alot and with stealth rock littering the field, it will die quicker than you would want.

 

[Smiles]

Oops forgot about Trace on Gardevoir. However, you only have 1 answer to SpecsTran as Scizor cannot OHKO as revenge.

Like the other person said, you need a fast Scarfer.
Generally anything faster than Kingdra, meaning Rotom-a and up (86+ base speed), will work as a Scarfer as there are no faster +Speed sweepers, except Agility users, who are generally not that strong.

Flygon is great against entry hazards and sandstorm, something your other team members can have trouble with. Flygon learns the powerful Outrage and Earthquake, U-Turn to work well with Scizor, and ThunderPunch or Stone Edge to take out Gyarados or Zapdos, respectively. If you choose Flygon, you should give Scizor a Choice Band.

Jirachi can replace Scizor with a better flinch rate with Iron Head, better revenge coverage, such as the elemental punches, and blazingly fast speed. Jirachi can take down Blissey and Snorlax with Trick or Iron Head. Jirachi is also very versatile, making it unpredictable at first.

Rotom-a, preferably Rotom-W, can Trick to stop Snorlax and Blissey, as well as Thunderbolt and Hydro Pump for kills on Gyarados and Heatran respectively. Rotom-a being Pursuit bait gives Lucario a good chance to set up on the weak, unboosted, 4x resisted attack from ScarfTar. With Rotom-a you should find a way to reduce electric type attacks used, otherwise Thunderbolt just makes for more redundancy.

Choice Scarf Infernape also has U-Turn, which you seem to love (I do too!), as well as Fighting type attacks to lure out possible Lucario checks early in the game. Infernape is VERY unpredictable, and can severely weaken Starmie with U-Turn so that Lucario can take it out easily with Extremespeed. A full health Starmie poses as a threat to Dragonite, and Lucario and Zapdos in a way. Scizor is your best bet at KOing Starmie, as Starmie can deal massive damage to the rest of your team. However, Scizor takes massive damage from Hydro Pump. Using Infernape as a lure to weaken Starmie can instantly put it in checkmate by U-Turning to Scizor and using Pursuit. Infernape also learns ThunderPunch/HP Electric for Gyarados, HP Ice for Gliscor and Dragonite, Grass Knot for Hippowdon and Swampert, and Stone Edge for Zapdos and Gyarados. Infernape is a great wallbreaker, as he can OHKO many defensive threats such as those listed above, and Blissey, Snorlax, Levitate Bronzong, Skarmory, Forretress, etc. Scarf Infernape also works against unsuspecting Scarf Jirachi, Heatran, and Flygon.

~

These are just suggestions for revenge killers there are many possibilities, such as the unexpected and underrated Scarf Lucario. If you choose not to replace Scizor, Scizor should hold a Choice Band. Right now Scizor is still slow, unable to outspeed any Dragon Dancer in OU barring Tyranitar.

 

[Ian15]

I am not a veteran rater, in fact very new, but here's my rate.

THREATS

Offesive Gyarados
Empoleon
Scarf Flygon
Specs Heatran
Kingdra
Jolteon
Metagross
Dragon Dance Tyranitar with Brabri Berry
Dragon Dance Dragonite

Offesive Gyarados can set up on Choice locked Scizor and then sweep as it onlyy really needs the speed boost to sweep. Empoleon can do something very similar and then sweep. Jolteon can just launch off Shadow balls and then hurt you really badly. So that this rate is not depressing let me just say that anything that can outspeed Raikou after the set up is a better big threat and it will likely end up sweeping you.

Solutions

Not very hard, but run Scarfgon over Zapdos. I see no point in running both Raikou and Zapdos and personally I like Raikou a little more for this team. Everything that can possible sweep you is going to be very easily revenged by Scarfgon. Truth begin told I see no point in Gaurdeviour on your team, but the team is based around it so I guess it stays. I wold also second Scarfrachi over GArdeviour if you do not want to use Scarfgon, but anyway good luck with the team.

 

[Shining Ace]

I am not a veteran rater, in fact very new, but here's my rate.

THREATS

Offesive Gyarados
Empoleon
Scarf Flygon
Specs Heatran
Kingdra
Jolteon
Metagross
Dragon Dance Tyranitar with Brabri Berry
Dragon Dance Dragonite

Offesive Gyarados can set up on Choice locked Scizor and then sweep as it onlyy really needs the speed boost to sweep. Empoleon can do something very similar and then sweep. Jolteon can just launch off Shadow balls and then hurt you really badly. So that this rate is not depressing let me just say that anything that can outspeed Raikou after the set up is a better big threat and it will likely end up sweeping you.

Solutions

Not very hard, but run Scarfgon over Zapdos. I see no point in running both Raikou and Zapdos and personally I like Raikou a little more for this team. Everything that can possible sweep you is going to be very easily revenged by Scarfgon. Truth begin told I see no point in Gaurdeviour on your team, but the team is based around it so I guess it stays. I wold also second Scarfrachi over GArdeviour if you do not want to use Scarfgon, but anyway good luck with the team.

Wow thanks! I'll try that out.
The reason why I use pokemon like Gardevoir on my team(s) is because I use the pokes I like, you see.
And that is also why offensive Zapdos is in there even though you don't see him much.