ORAS OU ORAS Emboar Balanced team.

[oryxslayer]

Team at a Glance:

Once I heard that the unova starters were going to have their hidden abilities released, I became very excited as it gave me 2 new pokemon to build teams around (nobody likes you, samurott). The more successful of the two teams has been my reckless emboar team. Reckless emboar stood out to me as an incredible wall breaker, with high attack and reckless helping him with his very effective movepool. He also became a much better pokemon after greninja was banned, removing one of his biggest threats in OU. The rest of the team was built around supporting emboar and allowing him to do his job of breaking walls and punching holes.

teambuilding process

I started the team with emboar, because he was the basis for my team. I decided to run a bulky-ish emboar, but I'll get to that later.

The next member of the team was rotom-wash. As he is a physical fire type, emboar has large weaknesses to landorus-t and rain teams. The easiest and best solution was to put rotom on the team, as they have very good synergy together, with emboar handling grass types like amoonguss or breloom without a problem and rotom taking on water, rock and ground types. Rotom also is a check for birdspam which is very necessary with emboar

Looking at my 2 pokes, neither could handle the lati twins very well, so I decided to add mega gardevoir as my mega. Mega gardevoir gave me a psychic resistance which was much appreciated and gave my team some special offensive presence.

My team still had a fairly large lati@s weakness, even with gardevoir, who could only switch in a few times, especially with rocks up. I decided to add sylveon, giving me a second check to the lati twins and more importantly, a cleric and wish passer. I had wanted to add a wish passer from the start, seeing as emboar would be constantly taking massive recoil damage from his attacks.

Looking at my team, I had no stealth rocker, and that is a must on all teams. Landorus-t does this role extremely well, while using his slow u-turns to bring emboar in. He is also a second check for mega pinsir and bird, which was quite helpful with 3 birdspam-weak pokes.

As I reached my team's final slot, I was missing another crucial part of any good team; the hazard-clearer. I decided to go with latias for this slot, mainly because her bulk allowed her to take hits, while still having offensive pressure. She also had the bonus of healing wish, which allowed me to revive team-mates from low health, which is very useful because sylveon is the only poke on my team with reliable recovery outside leftovers.

Now onto the.....
Team In Detail!

Emboar

Emboar @ Expert Belt (used to be assault vest)
Ability: Reckless
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Wild Charge
- Head Smash
- Hammer Arm
The star of the team. Emboar is a very powerful physical attacker, on the level of pokemon like conkeldurr. Emboar is my wall breaker, being able to break past most of the walls of ou (calcs will be included below). Emboar is also very good hole-puncher, early to middle game, being able to weaken something for mega garde to finish off. He is also my counter for heatran, as well as being able to beat gengar, which otherwise is terrifying for my team. While it doesn't really matter on a team with 2 fairies, he is able to break through mega sableye, while fearing nothing from it. He is a great switch-in to contrary serperior, which has been quite common on the ladder recently, fearing nothing but a glare, sorta, and wrecking with flare blitz. Emboar has the perfect moveset to take advantage of reckless, with flare blitz, wild charge, and head smash, all as very good coverage moves. Wild charge is great for smacking water types, and head smash basically throws everything for a loop. Hammer arm was chosen over superpower as I would rather have a speed drop on a slow poke than and atk and def drop.

Relevant Calcs

252+ Atk Reckless Emboar Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Sableye: 178-211 (58.5 - 69.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Reckless Emboar Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 170-200 (43.1 - 50.7%) -- 53.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Reckless Emboar Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 249-294 (61.6 - 72.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

-1 252+ Atk Reckless Emboar Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-T: 127-151 (33.2 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Reckless Emboar Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 208-246 (52.7 - 62.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

Rotom-Wash

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spe
Bold Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split
Rotom-wash was my choice of pokemon to support emboar, and handle his weaknesses. Rotom is able to beat talonflame, who can be a big threat to emboar. Rotom-W is also able to easily switch in on landorus-t and threaten it out with hydro pump or will-o-wisp. Rotom also is a very good way to beat mega swampert rain teams, especially if they lack kingdra. Rotom and emboar have such great synergy together, being able to beat up on each others weaknesses. Rotom is also a very big lure for M sceptile, M venusaur, and Serperior, which emboar completely craps on.

Mega Gardevoir

Gardevoir (M) @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 24 Def / 232 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Calm Mind
Gardevoir is my mega of choice on this team. I would have found a better image, but searching "mega gardevoir" on google images finds many things that shouldn't be said. Anyway, this gardevoir is a fairly standard set, designed to be able to beat the lati twins. Gardevoir is also my go-to special attacker and serves as a wallbreaker alongside emboar. Calm mind is the move I am debating, because I almost never have a chance to set up, and I feel like having taunt might be more beneficial. It would be nice to get some advice on this.

Sylveon

Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 SpD
Bold Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Protect
- Heal Bell
- Wish
Sylveon is my team's cleric, and general special bulk. Sylveon helps with curing the status that wittles down emboar and gardevoir so rapidly. The wishes sylveon provides are also very useful at keeping my pokemon alive and fighting, especially emboar who usually defeats himself after a few strong hits. This is a fairly standard sylveon cleric set and is my teams way of stopping the likes of mega manectric and a better counter to the lati twins.

Landorus Therian

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 8 SpD / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- U-turn
Landorus-T is my team's physical bulk, which it was lacking before he was added. He is my stealth rocker and answer to Mega charizard X. He is responsible for taking the physical hits thrown at the team, as well as hard-stopping mega pinsir and mega beedrill, two pretty big threats to the team thus far. Landorus' slow u-turns are very useful in bringing in emboar with no damage to the boar. Landorus also helps to beat some variants of mega lopunny not running ice punch. The set with ice punch, and unfortunately the most common, is very large threat to this team.

Latias

Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Defog
- Healing Wish
Latias was chosen as my final pokemon and my defogger. Her hazard clearing is extremely useful to emboar and gardevoir, who have no recovery on their own. Her healing wish support is tremendous for bringing gardevoir and emboar back from the brink so they can keep on wrecking. Latias was chosen over latios for that reason. Latias also helps with keldeo, which is a bit scary for my team if sylveon is down.

Threatlist:
Mega Metagross: Very dependent on set. If it lacks grass knot, rotom is a fine check. If it has grass knot and ice punch, it is very terrifying as landorus and rotom-w don't like to switch in.

Bulky Water Types: Bulky waters, especially those such as gastrodon or quagsire are very challenging for my team to deal with. I have nothing to really hit them hard reliably outside of rotom's volt switch, and that usually doesn't even 2hko the bulkier ones.

MEGA LOPUNNY: This is the biggest threat to my team by far. If it lacks ice punch, no problemo, just use landorus. The more common ice punch set though basically 6/0s my team with prior damage on a few things. Very commonly an autoloss against mega lopunny.

NEW MEMBERS:
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 240 HP / 252 SpD / 16 Spe
Careful Nature
- Iron Head
- Wish
- Thunder Wave
- U-turn

importable

Emboar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Reckless
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Wild Charge
- Head Smash
- Hammer Arm

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spe
Bold Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

Gardevoir (M) @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 24 Def / 232 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Calm Mind

Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 SpD
Bold Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Protect
- Heal Bell
- Wish

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 8 SpD / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- U-turn

Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Defog
- Healing Wish

My Final Thoughts
I am really surprised I haven't seen any emboar teams besides my own. It's fairly disappointing as emboar can be such a powerful threat if properly supported. I think this team is one of my best, and is usually unprepared for, because I use such an uncommon threat. I believe my team can handle most threats decently well (damn you lopunny), and fire back with incredible power. Thanks for reading, and please give a rate!

 

[Riahi]

I can't see AV Emboar working with all those recoil moves and you have different walls already.

Hide

Emboar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Superpower
- Wild Charge
- Head Smash/Stone edge

It could work as the scarfer of your team.

 

[pi3rate]

ya dont use av pig wat does it eat up anyways a hydro and do kill itself with recoil. Go with lefties to help you longer or life orb/ebelt/scarf. Your team is fairly weak to lati and sylveon isnt really a solid check to lati twins also your team loses to mega gardevoir also and sylv checks it but you do nothing back overall change it to rachi that way you can use scarf lando to beat things like mega manectric and zard x oh and gengar.

Sets

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 240 HP / 252 SpD / 16 Spe
Careful Nature
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock
- Wish
- U-turn
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 8 SpD / 248 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- Knock Off

 

[oryxslayer]

Thanks for the rate, Riahi. I considered going a full offense emboar with choice band, but not with choice scarf. I'll try it out, but I never really like a scarfer that can't outspeed the high speed pokemon such as m sceptile or m beedrill. Plus losing AV gives me a big weakness to gengar, and a scarf or LO gar would wreck me.

pi3rate, Thanks for the rate as well. Sylveon is actually a very solid check to the lati's unless they are specs. Sylveon can survive 2 psyshocks from latios after rocks and lefties/protect. It is true that my team loses to mega gardevoir, and your suggestion for jirachi is a very good idea, as it can do what sylveon was doing but not have redundant typing with gardevoir. I am actually fairly opposed to running scarfed landorus-t, as it really isn't a good answer for a DD mega charizard X. It may be able to take it down if it only set up 1 dd, but is OHKOed by adamant zard and outsped by jolly zard and jolly zard's flare blitz is a role to determine if it would ohko or not and is a guaranteed ohko after stealth rocks. While scarf landorus-t does beat mega manectric, it can't switch in for fear of being destroyed by hp ice. I will try changing sylveon for jirachi, but probably keep landorus-t defensive. I will include some calcs to prove my statements with zard x beating scarfed lando. With emboar, assault vest is not for taking hydro pumps. Without assault vest, emboar has nowhere near enough bulk to take hits from anything. However, I will try the expert belt, as it gives power, while not taking away more HP like life orb. Thanks for your suggestions.

Calcs are set at neutral attack for zard based on intimidate canceling dd's boost

Calcs

Adamant
252+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 24 Def Landorus-T: 306-360 (95.9 - 112.8%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

Jolly
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 24 Def Landorus-T: 279-328 (87.4 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 24 Def Landorus-T: 279-328 (87.4 - 102.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

 

[supermoospower]

Hi, I've been using emboar a lot in OU recently, and while it is obviously lackluster, what really helps it out is sucker punch, I run this over wild charge, because there aren't that many bulky waters other than slowbro, and you have rotom-W for that so it's fine, and life orb sucker punch adamant ohkoes latios

 

[Der Twist]

because there aren't that many bulky waters other than slowbro

Well...

These very viable OU bulky Waters would like to disagree with you. I don't know jack shit about Emboar or what's best to run which is why I've not rated this team to any degree, but to say Slowbro is the only relevant bulky Water, and that Rotom-W is a solid answer to it, is pretty inaccurate. Slowbro has reliable recovery, and Rotom can only Volt Switch and Burn it, being forced out to get some damage off which it can recover and being forced into something else which can't do much against it is not an answer. Imo, this team needs all the bulky Water support it can get, because it can be shut down quite nicely by a chunk of them.

 

[Pent]

Well...

These very viable OU bulky Waters would like to disagree with you. I don't know jack shit about Emboar or what's best to run which is why I've not rated this team to any degree, but to say Slowbro is the only relevant bulky Water, and that Rotom-W is a solid answer to it is, pretty inaccurate. Slowbro has reliable recovery, and Rotom can only Volt Switch and Burn it, being forced out to get some damage off which it can recover and being forced into something else which can't do much against it is not an answer. Imo, this team needs all the bulky Water support it can get, because it can be shut down quite nicely by a chunk of them.

You forgot Quagsire, Alomomola, and Gastrodon ffs.

 

[oryxslayer]

Thanks for the rate supermoospower. I have to agree with Der twist that wild charge is more useful for this team. Sure, sucker punch can ohko latios with life orb adamant, but I haven't seen a reason to run life orb. Also, emboar 2hkoes most of those bulky waters listed above with a wild charge, slowbro excluded. I would rather have the coverage that gets reckless boosting and hits threats to my team, than a 1 off coverage move that hits 1 poke and that poke is a poke i have prepared for very well.

 

[Der Twist]

You forgot Quagsire, Alomomola, and Gastrodon ffs.

I left them off because neither Wild Charge nor Rotom can do shit to them, but thanks for the elaboration. :P

EDIT: Except for Big Luvdisk, yeah I completely forgot about her for a bit. XD

 

[Pent]

I left them off because neither Wild Charge nor Rotom can do shit to them, but thanks for the elaboration. :P

:p

 

[supermoospower]

I'm just saying other than slowbro there are no other bulky waters commonly used in ou that are weak to wild charge, suicune isn't that common, and Head smash beats azumarill hard anyways, also burn slowbro, volt switch out into latias, then draco

 

[oryxslayer]

supermoospower, empoleon is sorta there, manaphy has seen a rise, politoed is very much a thing on rain teams. Wild charge is still worth it over sucker punch.

Expert belt shall replace AV on emboar, and Jirachi shall be permanent member over sylveon

 

[supermoospower]

supermoospower, empoleon is sorta there, manaphy has seen a rise, politoed is very much a thing on rain teams. Wild charge is still worth it over sucker punch.

Expert belt shall replace AV on emboar, and Jirachi shall be permanent member over sylveon

OK, thats good now that you have a better answer to lati twins now :)