After reading about how awesome Excadrill is, i decided to make a team around him. here's the final version.
Team Building Process
needed a way to set up Excadrill. the most obvious way is with a pokemon that has the sandstream ability. there are only 2, and since I greatly prefer offensive to defense.....
with Excadrill's greatest weakness being fighting types, i decided I needed a ghost to handle them. and so.....
obvious offensive choice here. now i need something to take care of the greatest Tyranitar counter, Scizor. That led me to....
yep. amazing steel killer. nuff said on that. with excadrill being weak to fire, water, fighting, and ground, i wanted something that could resist those. its bad enough that those are like the most common types in the game. I managed to find a pokemon resistant to fire, water, and fighting, and immune to ground. its also a great sweeper with few counters. allow me to introduce.....
bringing in gyarados brought another weakness to my attention. bulky waters. bulky waters can easily wall gyara, and possibly excadrill. hmm. grass types would lure in fires to be taken out by gyarados, while electrics is just like sayin "hey, ima let u set up ur own excadrill". not a fan of any of the grass types we have tho, so i decided to go with a water of my own.....
very powerful, very fast, excellent coverage. now my team was complete. I was content with it and convinced I had produced a very effective team. However, i decided to take another look at the 5th gen pokes. one pokemon wasnt enough to immerse myself in the new gen to my satisfaction. then I came across an amazing pokemon.....
a ghost/fire type? with the shadow tag ability? what a gift for this team. able to easily take the place of both gengar and magnezone. it fulfills both of their roles, and not only takes up only half the space on my team, but also does the jobs better.
now i'm left with.....
now to fill the empty spot. hmm. what openings can i create that i should be exploiting more? well, i'm able to take down steels and waters really well.......OH I KNOW!! DRAGONS!! as you can probably tell by my username, i love dragons. i almost always try to include at least one on my team, and yet somehow this team ended up without one. these are my choices.....
dragonite, salamence, and hydreigon, while great in their own right, were quickly eliminated as viable choices. hydreigon woulda meant adding a 3rd pokemon weak to fighting, and without a move to raise its bad speed, that means a scarf, and im not a fan of choice items. dragonite and salamence have a stealth rock weakness, and are either weaker or slower than latios, garchomp, or haxorus. now to start ranking these 3 in every category i can think of.
ability: garchomp, haxorus, latios
garchomps sand veil is clearly most synergetic with the team. haxorus's mold breaker allows it to hit bronzong and rotom's with EQ. nice if the opponent has pokemon with levitate thats weak to ground. latios's levitate is pretty much useless. nobody is gonna use ground moves against a latios.
offensive stat: haxorus, then a tie between garchomp/latios
speed: latios, garchomp, haxorus
but thats only their stats before their respective boosts. after a swords dance on chomp, dragon dance on haxorus, and calm mind on latios.....
offensive stat: garchomp, haxorus, latios.
speed: haxorus, latios, garchomp.
i really dont care about calm minds special defense boost, but latios has the advantage of not relying on outrage as its dragon STAB move. a steel type can switch into a dragon locked into outrage, and wall it. latios can KO back with hidden power fire. sure i have chandy as a steel killer, but I can't rely on chandy for everything. otherwise im screwed if he's taken out before he can kill all the counters to my other pokemon. speed is crucial to a sweep, but either way, none of these 3 are gonna be happy to see an opposing scarfed dragon. haxorus and latios can take the ice shard, and garchomp has access to fire fang to take down ice or steels.
as you can see, i had a tough decision on my hands. I decided to go with Chomp. the importance of the speed difference is reduced when you consider that the new ice types are slow, scarfed hydreigon will be common, and that if ppl want a fast ice move, they'll just use ice shard anyway. so the decision was made based on offense and ability. chomp wins in both. a +2 outrage will OHKO, or at least seriously dent, anything not steel. moves with 100% accuracy now have 80% accuracy. moves with 80% accuracy now have 64% accuracy. not to mention that the thunder wave immunity helps greatly.
now on to the specific builds of each.
Tyranitar
type: dark/rock
ability: sand stream
nature: jolly
item: life orb
EV distrubution
hp: 4
atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Dragon Dance
Crunch
Stone Edge
Earthquake
comments: standard dragon dance set.
Excadrill
type: ground/steel
ability: sand rush
nature: jolly
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Swords Dance
Earthquake
Metal Claw
Rock Slide
comments: i opt for rock slide over x-scissor because x-scissor just simply doesnt hit many common types super effectively. flying types can come in with immunity to my EQ, so i use rock slide to hit them super effectively. metal claw will be used whenever EQ or rock slide are unable to hit super effectively, and when metal claw can hit for at least neutral damage. the extra attack boosts will be greatly appreciated. sure it has low BP, but its still STAB, and will be at +2.
Chandelure
type: ghost/fire
ability: shadow tag
nature: naive
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
special atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Shadow Ball
Flame Charge
Calm Mind
Substitute
the fighting/steel killer. i chose flame charge as my STAB fire because its needed to raise chandelures low speed. besides, stab is still stab, and chandelure has very nice special atk. i feel really bad for the guy that uses a fighting type move with a choiced pokemon on the turn i switch into chandelure. while the opp is unable to switch, and locked into a move im immune to, i'll just calm mind 6 times, substitue, then flame charge until i get the KO. my immense speed and special attack can then get an unhindered sweep. i can still do this to a lesser extent against steels, but i doubt i'll get 6 calm minds since i'd still take dmg from the steel attacks, lol.
Gyarados
type: water/flying
ability: intimidate
nature: jolly
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Dragon Dance
Waterfall
Earthquake
Stone Edge
comments: standard DD set
Starmie
type: water/psychic
ability: natural cure
nature: timid
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
special atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Surf
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Hidden Power - Grass
comments: pretty much the standard life orb set. except instead of recover/rapid spin for the last slot, i opt for hidden power grass to have an answer to swampert.
Garchomp
type: dragon/ground
ability: sand veil
nature: jolly
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Swords Dance
Earthquake
Outrage
Fire Fang
comments: standard swords dance set.
thats my team. lemme know what you think






Team Building Process
needed a way to set up Excadrill. the most obvious way is with a pokemon that has the sandstream ability. there are only 2, and since I greatly prefer offensive to defense.....


with Excadrill's greatest weakness being fighting types, i decided I needed a ghost to handle them. and so.....



obvious offensive choice here. now i need something to take care of the greatest Tyranitar counter, Scizor. That led me to....




yep. amazing steel killer. nuff said on that. with excadrill being weak to fire, water, fighting, and ground, i wanted something that could resist those. its bad enough that those are like the most common types in the game. I managed to find a pokemon resistant to fire, water, and fighting, and immune to ground. its also a great sweeper with few counters. allow me to introduce.....





bringing in gyarados brought another weakness to my attention. bulky waters. bulky waters can easily wall gyara, and possibly excadrill. hmm. grass types would lure in fires to be taken out by gyarados, while electrics is just like sayin "hey, ima let u set up ur own excadrill". not a fan of any of the grass types we have tho, so i decided to go with a water of my own.....






very powerful, very fast, excellent coverage. now my team was complete. I was content with it and convinced I had produced a very effective team. However, i decided to take another look at the 5th gen pokes. one pokemon wasnt enough to immerse myself in the new gen to my satisfaction. then I came across an amazing pokemon.....

a ghost/fire type? with the shadow tag ability? what a gift for this team. able to easily take the place of both gengar and magnezone. it fulfills both of their roles, and not only takes up only half the space on my team, but also does the jobs better.
now i'm left with.....





now to fill the empty spot. hmm. what openings can i create that i should be exploiting more? well, i'm able to take down steels and waters really well.......OH I KNOW!! DRAGONS!! as you can probably tell by my username, i love dragons. i almost always try to include at least one on my team, and yet somehow this team ended up without one. these are my choices.....



dragonite, salamence, and hydreigon, while great in their own right, were quickly eliminated as viable choices. hydreigon woulda meant adding a 3rd pokemon weak to fighting, and without a move to raise its bad speed, that means a scarf, and im not a fan of choice items. dragonite and salamence have a stealth rock weakness, and are either weaker or slower than latios, garchomp, or haxorus. now to start ranking these 3 in every category i can think of.
ability: garchomp, haxorus, latios
garchomps sand veil is clearly most synergetic with the team. haxorus's mold breaker allows it to hit bronzong and rotom's with EQ. nice if the opponent has pokemon with levitate thats weak to ground. latios's levitate is pretty much useless. nobody is gonna use ground moves against a latios.
offensive stat: haxorus, then a tie between garchomp/latios
speed: latios, garchomp, haxorus
but thats only their stats before their respective boosts. after a swords dance on chomp, dragon dance on haxorus, and calm mind on latios.....
offensive stat: garchomp, haxorus, latios.
speed: haxorus, latios, garchomp.
i really dont care about calm minds special defense boost, but latios has the advantage of not relying on outrage as its dragon STAB move. a steel type can switch into a dragon locked into outrage, and wall it. latios can KO back with hidden power fire. sure i have chandy as a steel killer, but I can't rely on chandy for everything. otherwise im screwed if he's taken out before he can kill all the counters to my other pokemon. speed is crucial to a sweep, but either way, none of these 3 are gonna be happy to see an opposing scarfed dragon. haxorus and latios can take the ice shard, and garchomp has access to fire fang to take down ice or steels.
as you can see, i had a tough decision on my hands. I decided to go with Chomp. the importance of the speed difference is reduced when you consider that the new ice types are slow, scarfed hydreigon will be common, and that if ppl want a fast ice move, they'll just use ice shard anyway. so the decision was made based on offense and ability. chomp wins in both. a +2 outrage will OHKO, or at least seriously dent, anything not steel. moves with 100% accuracy now have 80% accuracy. moves with 80% accuracy now have 64% accuracy. not to mention that the thunder wave immunity helps greatly.
now on to the specific builds of each.

Tyranitar
type: dark/rock
ability: sand stream
nature: jolly
item: life orb
EV distrubution
hp: 4
atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Dragon Dance
Crunch
Stone Edge
Earthquake
comments: standard dragon dance set.

Excadrill
type: ground/steel
ability: sand rush
nature: jolly
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Swords Dance
Earthquake
Metal Claw
Rock Slide
comments: i opt for rock slide over x-scissor because x-scissor just simply doesnt hit many common types super effectively. flying types can come in with immunity to my EQ, so i use rock slide to hit them super effectively. metal claw will be used whenever EQ or rock slide are unable to hit super effectively, and when metal claw can hit for at least neutral damage. the extra attack boosts will be greatly appreciated. sure it has low BP, but its still STAB, and will be at +2.

Chandelure
type: ghost/fire
ability: shadow tag
nature: naive
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
special atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Shadow Ball
Flame Charge
Calm Mind
Substitute
the fighting/steel killer. i chose flame charge as my STAB fire because its needed to raise chandelures low speed. besides, stab is still stab, and chandelure has very nice special atk. i feel really bad for the guy that uses a fighting type move with a choiced pokemon on the turn i switch into chandelure. while the opp is unable to switch, and locked into a move im immune to, i'll just calm mind 6 times, substitue, then flame charge until i get the KO. my immense speed and special attack can then get an unhindered sweep. i can still do this to a lesser extent against steels, but i doubt i'll get 6 calm minds since i'd still take dmg from the steel attacks, lol.

Gyarados
type: water/flying
ability: intimidate
nature: jolly
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Dragon Dance
Waterfall
Earthquake
Stone Edge
comments: standard DD set

Starmie
type: water/psychic
ability: natural cure
nature: timid
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
special atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Surf
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Hidden Power - Grass
comments: pretty much the standard life orb set. except instead of recover/rapid spin for the last slot, i opt for hidden power grass to have an answer to swampert.

Garchomp
type: dragon/ground
ability: sand veil
nature: jolly
item: life orb
EV distribution
hp: 4
atk: 252
speed: 252
Attacks:
Swords Dance
Earthquake
Outrage
Fire Fang
comments: standard swords dance set.
thats my team. lemme know what you think