So I haven’t really taken OU too seriously since XY OU due to the Greninja ban, so I kind of just dabbled with it here and there using random teams. One of the teams utilized Mega Venusaur and Pikachu as a sort of troll team, and after seeing more success in that team than I thought I’d get, I decided to make a more “serious” team and try to reach top 100 on the OU ladder. Now that I’ve accomplished that goal, I’d like to share the team with you.
So after throwing some things around, the final team ended up coming full circle and being my XY OU team, but subbing out Choice Scarf Greninja with a Pikachu and eventually changing Zard X to Zard Y. It sounds a little boring, but my XY team still fits most of the roles I needed it to and I ended up coming back to it.
Charizard (M) @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Solar Beam
- Focus Blast
- Roost
The Charizard I actually used was hasty nature, probably because I considered using earthquake over focus blast at one point, but this is what I would’ve went with. It’s a typical Charizard-Y set with focus blast to hit Heatran and TTar. This was originally a Dragon Dance Charizard-X with Earthquake, but in the upper parts of the ladder I found myself running into all of the Charizard-X counters such as Slowbro, Quagsire, Landorus-T, Hippowdon, etc very often, and since Talonflame has a similar problem against these same Pokemon, I decided to give Charizard-Y a try. Part of it was my stubbornness to have Charizard on my team, and the other was that there were times where the opponent would guess wrong on which Charizard I had back when I was running X since my team apparently didn’t make it as obvious as I thought. Having just made this switch recently, he does have some huge flaws, like having close to no chance against dragons or any sort of physical attacker, but he did have his moments. Flamethrower was chosen over Fire Blast for consistency.
Talonflame (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Tailwind
Talonflame is my answer to sweepers not named Dragonite. With a choice band and an adamant nature, Talonflame gains the ability to potentially score ohkos on Latios, Charizard-Y, Azumarill after its belly drum into sitrus berry, Tornadus-T, offensive Starmie, Mega Gardevoir, etc. It also scores a 2HKO on scarf Landorus-T. A little prior damage made some of the ohko’s absolute, but I couldn’t really find room for stealth rock on this team while using a defogger. With a choice band, I only really needed those 3 offensive moves, so I decided to use tailwind as the last move in the event that all I needed is for one of my other pokemon to be momentarily faster to secure the win.
Kyurem-Black @ Leftovers
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 52 HP / 252 SpA / 204 Spe
Rash Nature
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Fusion Bolt
- Substitute
It’s amazing how well Kyurem-B can take out entire teams on its own. Kyurem-B’s original purpose was to give me an option against Manaphy and an already boosted Azumarill as well as electric types. It’s also good at dealing with unboosted Dragonite as well as Mega Venusaur. Hidden power fire was a consideration for Scizor and Ferrothorn, but the opportunity lost from ditching any of the other moves was too great. HP EVs give you 101 subs for Chansey, though you won’t be doing much to it. He makes a good lead at times since people expect the choice scarf when you do, then you just set up a substitute. He may or may not have frozen some key Pokemon to win me some matches…..
Scizor (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Defog
- Knock Off
The team’s defogger. Careful nature with max bulk was used to endure hidden power fires and other special attacks, giving me an opportunity to defog while my opponent thinks they’ve killed me. The rest of the moves are staple.
Some calcs for Scizor
252 SpA Life Orb Latios Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Scizor: 286-338 (83.1 - 98.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Scizor: 116-136 (33.7 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
-2 252 SpA Life Orb Latios Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Scizor: 146-172 (42.4 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Scizor: 203-239 (59 - 69.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Clefable Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Scizor: 208-248 (60.4 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Magnezone Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Scizor: 220-260 (63.9 - 75.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Slowbro (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Flamethrower
- Thunder Wave
- Ice Beam
Physical tank of the team. Slowbro’s main objective was to paralyze stuff and burn things that couldn’t be paralyzed. He also serves as the perfect bait for Pikachu to score a lightning rod boost. Ice beam used to be psychic for the occasional Conkeldurr, but since I switched Charizard-X to Charizard-Y, I absolutely needed a good move to hit dragons with, namely Dragonite. Flamethrower was used for unsuspecting Scizors as well as Ferrothorn switch-ins.
Pikachu (M) @ Light Ball
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 4 Def/ 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Endeavor
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Ice]
And for the reason you’re even reading this. It’s no Greninja, but I thought it’d be cool to beat people with it. Pikachu kind of surprised me in that it wasn’t completely useless, unless my opponent ran a team of hyper offense that all outsped Pikachu. As cool and tempting as Volt Tackle is, I had to use thunderbolt to abuse lightning rod and to ohko Slowbro who was a problem for the team. Hidden power Ice was invaluable against Landorus-T and Grass types. Substitute allows you to capitalize on switches and acts as a shield to help you score KOs on things that are faster than Pikachu. For the last spot, I dabbled with grass knot, focus punch, knock off, and reversal, but since it seemed that none of these were covering all the options I wanted, I ended up going for a little trick I picked up watching Worlds 2016, Endeavor. Endeavor gave me a surprise factor of being able to bring literally anything I wanted to death percentage, where if Pikachu couldn’t pick them off, Talonflame or Scizor could from that point. Pikachu can use endeavor from full health and do a lot to a bulky pokemon, and using substitute to wittle down your own HP makes it even deadlier. I actually did try using a Thundurus in place of Pikachu for a little bit, and even though he was better for the most part, I preferred being able to completely nullify electric type moves. If the opponent is choiced and hits Pikachu with an electric move, he just gets to have a field day with your opponent. If they don’t, Pikachu bites the dust and your opponent locks themselves into an awkward move that allows you to do something with your next Pokemon. Pikachu actually doesn’t need a +speed nature, as there really isn’t anything important in the 279-306 ranges of speed. Most of the things you’ll be hitting are much slower than it, and you also need as much offensive investment as possible. For example, a modest nature barely scores the OHKO on rocky helmet Landorus-T. I found that Pikachu needs all the defense it can get, meaning yes, it can actually live a few things. With neutral defenses, it is able to barely live Manectric’s flamethrower, Clefable’s moonblast, non-CB Azumarill’s aqua jet, and potentially Magnezone’s flash cannon. 0 attack IVs made it so that you can potentially live 2 foul plays from full health.
Some calcs showing how Modest nature is necessary to stand a chance:
252 SpA Mega Manectric Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Pikachu: 175-207 (82.9 - 98.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Pikachu: 169-201 (80 - 95.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Zapdos Heat Wave vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Pikachu: 192-226 (90.9 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pikachu: 162-192 (76.7 - 90.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Magnezone Flash Cannon vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Pikachu: 186-220 (88.1 - 104.2%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Light Ball Pikachu Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 384-456 (100.5 - 119.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Light Ball Pikachu Hidden Power Ice vs. 240 HP / 0 SpD Garchomp: 364-432 (87.2 - 103.5%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Mega Sableye Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pikachu: 91-108 (43.1 - 51.1%) -- 4.7% chance to 2HKO
Obviously this team has its flaws. Some of the biggest threats to this team are:
Scarf Tyranitar – Scizor and Slowbro are the only things that don’t straight up die to this thing. I usually have to slowly chip away at it after paralyzing it with Slowbro, utilizing tailwind, or pray for some stone edge misses.
Latios – Scizor is the only thing that can take the draco meteor, and for Slowbro it’s a damage range. Talonflame can potentially ohko it.
Mega Diancie – Similar to Tyranitar, it outspeeds everything and threatens the ohko on everything. Usually have to chip away at it with Slowbro so Talonflame can take it out, or catch them slipping and bullet punch them with scizor.
Chansey – Status does nothing to it, and players are too smart to keep it in to get knock offed by Scizor. Since I had no way to stop it from switching to a better match up, my best way of dealing with it was Pikachu’s endeavor. Knock off with Pikachu was really good in this situation since Chanseys typically don’t fear Pikachu.
So yeah, that’s the team. Here are some replays showing the team doing business. There were a lot of times where they received the business, but let’s not talk about that. Some of these vids will have Charizard X in them as the mega switch was made fairly recently. One of the vids has me using Keldeo over Kyurem-B.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-417888692
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-423505714
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-424737330
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-425276556
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-425296634
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-425799261
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-425988898
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-426275021
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-426607352
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-426708199
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-426948442
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-427963488
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-428005600
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-428048114
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-428054442
Proof of peak:
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