Bad Dragon - DD Zard Offense

[Lord Death Man]

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intro​

After Charizard dropped, I kept thinking about how I wanted to try a dragon dance set, but kept getting discouraged by how bad it seemed. Eventually, I decided to just play about twenty games using a team with it, and, to my surprise, I went 19-1.

As an abbreviated look into team design, I noticed I was weak to a few major things, just from using Charizard - Tyrantrum/Rock Types in general, Hazards, Priority, and Bulky Waters. In addition, Charizard has very limited set up chances.

Scrafty was chosen to check rock types/ground types and Band is just a generally nice set in my opinion, blanket checking a large selection of attackers. Kabutops was chosen to beat Fletchinder, spin hazards, and to lure in bulky waters and get some key chip damage on them, while also forcing out annoying mons like Houndoom, Emboar, and especially Delphox. Virizion was chosen for it's match up versus bulky waters, sharpedo and bulky grounds, plus it's occasionally relevant matchup versus rain teams, which are otherwise an incredibly awful matchup for this team. Absol is a solid cleaner, lures in Diancie, murks offensive teams, and is really nice in general.

the team

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(Charizard) @ Life Orb
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 56 SpD / 200 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Flare Blitz
- Thunder Punch
- Earthquake

An impressively decent sweeper, it's low attack is made up by a solid base 120 STAB move, access to decent coverage, a great speed tier, and a nice ability. However, it's absolutely useless if rocks are up, and has difficulty breaking a lot of mons even with it's coverage. Evs are to keep it's life orb recoil as low as possible while still maintaining decent bulk and outspeeding base 80s, plus Accelgor at +1, while being as strong as possible.

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(Scrafty) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 152 HP / 252 Atk / 104 Spe
Adamant Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Poison Jab

Cool, underrated set. Takes on a lot of stuff that makes Charizard cringe, especially Tyrantrum and Rhyperior, but also certain Absols. Probably this team's biggest MVP. Also lures in Fairies, which are often set-up bait for Charizard, especially Aromatisse.

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(Kabutops) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet
- Stone Edge

Spins + checks Fletchinder in one slot. Lures in Jellicent, Slowking and Alomomola, and knocks off their lefties, leaving them very vulnerable, while also giving me a decent idea of their defensive spread and if it's okay for Zard to attempt to set up.

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(Virizion) @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Giga Drain
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Takes on a lot of water types and ground types, including Flygon and Mega Steelix, while still beating through a lot of common checks to itself. I wasn't sold on this set at first, but it's definitely grown on me and helps this team handle a lot of defensive and offensive threats in one slot.

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(Mesprit) @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Healing Wish
- Stealth Rock
- Psychic
- Grass Knot

Relatively standard rocks Mesprit with Grass Knot over other coverage moves. I felt that Flygon was not much of threat, and the only dark type I was truly afraid of is Scrafty. Healing Wish is really important to this team because I'm very susceptible to status and because one of Charizard, Virizion, and Absol benefit more from extra life than I think another sweeper could offer. Grass Knot hits Rhyperior and Seismitoad hard, immediately opening up the possibility of a Zard sweep without being as telegraphed as Virizion is.

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(Absol) @ Life Orb
Ability: Super Luck
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Iron Tail
- Sucker Punch
- Superpower

A cool mon that's nearly impossible to switch into, I picked it because sucker really threatens offensive teams, and because I felt that Virizion just wasn't cutting it versus Diancie. I could probably use something better, but I haven't felt the need to quite yet.
replays
Only kept one for now unfortunately.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ru-317597487

I get a solid 3 kills with Charizard, and then lose.

major weaknesses
Slowking in general is rough, as nothing wants to take any of it's coverage moves, and it doesn't have a lot of difficulty pivoting in and out through the match. Trick Room sets are especially difficult.
Flygon with offensive sets cause a lot of trouble with Charizard, as it can't OHKO them or surprise them with a strong, super effective coverage move. Sets with Earthquake and U-turn as the only attacks are outright set-up bait. Scarf Outrage sort of eats through my team.
Emboar. Nothing switches into every coverage move, and I can't know it's scarf until something dies. It comes in pretty easily against a lot of my team, too.
Sun Teams. The coverage just eats me alive and the speed is difficult to handle.
Manetric, Eelektross and Jolteon. Nothing comes in on these and they all can volt switch over and over in the worst case scenario. Specs sets especially are difficult.

importable

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(Charizard) @ Life Orb
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 60 SpD / 196 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Flare Blitz
- Thunder Punch
- Earthquake

(Scrafty) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 152 HP / 252 Atk / 104 Spe
Adamant Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Poison Jab

(Kabutops) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet
- Stone Edge

(Virizion) @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Giga Drain
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]

(Mesprit) @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Healing Wish
- Stealth Rock
- Psychic
- Grass Knot

(Absol) @ Life Orb
Ability: Super Luck
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Iron Tail
- Sucker Punch
- Superpower

shout outs
Thanks to Confide. for letting me use the replay
Kableye you're cool and you saying it was entirely outclassed in Sun made me explore more of what zard can do.
Diogo thanks for giving people a ton of teams that lose to this.
DKFirelord I tried to build something you'd never expect for our swiss match, and still choked. D:
ZANBAKUResh i forgot you werent dead until you posted <3
Everyone else too.
final words
Is Charizard bad? Absolutely. Is it better than a lot of other bad mons? Absolutely.

 

[zbr]

no shoutouts to the cutest ru player on earth aka me?

and yes fam this team is intense xd. will prolly leave you a rate later hehe