Hey guys, V0x / Lemonade here with an RMT I made like 2 months ago or something. I got some help from Jirachee because he was my tutor and this was built mostly using his teambuilding style. I don’t have any good other meta teams so I’m just going to post this one for obligatory end of XY. Also note I didn’t realize Valentine had a Zard-Y guide until after I made this team, though this wasn’t made around Zard-Y specifically.
Also haven’t played OU in a while (heh) but there haven’t been any changes since I made this. I used this in Ghosting and a variant in Liar’s Rule. Unfortunately I don’t remember any peaks and the ladder was reset but I did pretty well.
Breloom @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Spore
- Mach Punch
- Bullet Seed
- Rock Tomb
Gen 3 was the first game where I was really old enough to really get what was going on and I really liked Breloom so I wanted to use it. With Sash it can do a lot of work leading vs certain lineups and even not against those teams Spore is always good to incapacitate something. Technician Mach Punch and Bullet Seed do the deeps. Mach Punch helps revenge with two other sources of priority and Excadrill on the team and helps against opposing sand Drillers. Rock Tomb psyches out switch ins and kills Talonflame who don’t expect Sash, though most players do. But lower the Speed of things is always nice especially since I don’t have the fastest stuff on this team.
Charizard @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 40 Atk / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Mild Nature
- Fire Blast / Flamethrower
- SolarBeam
- Earthquake
- Roost
I forgot to mention that I actually really hate having to remove Rocks for -weak mons so I usually don’t use them. However, Zard-Y is really fun to play with because it does so much damage. Fire Blast owns everything and I prefer the power, but Flamethrower is a fine choice too. SolarBeam covers those Water-types, but of course do not blindly use this move when the opponent has Toed or Ttar / Hippo. My third move is Earthquake for Heatran because that thing is really annoying for this team. Nothing appreciates a potential Lava Plume burn and I would rather not have to rely on blind double switching to take it out. Also neutral Sun Fire Blast hits harder than SE Air Slash or Dragon Pulse or whatever would be used here. Lastly, Roost is a nice move to have especially when the opponent switches, and can bring you back to high enough HP so that you can switch into Stealth Rock again. Oh yeah, there’s little point to use max Speed with a positive nature because you don’t really beat what you tie with and of course relying on a Speed tie to get rid of a threat is a bad choice anyway. 40 Atk doesn’t really put EQ into any ranges though, but there’s not much better to put it in. Also Mild so that Zard takes Sludge Bomb from Venu slightly better.
Tyranitar @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 156 Atk / 104 SpA
Brave Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Fire Blast
- Pursuit
- Ice Beam / Stone Edge
Stealth Rock is way too good of a move. With this team, it is necessary to wear down Mega Venusauce to OHKO with Fire Blast because Thick Fat is lame. It also allows Mamo and Drill to 2HKO with Earthquake, preventing Venu from actually coming in to eat up a hit. Also Heatran is OHKOed by EQ, and if you hit Fire Blast you can actually beat Chansey with Zard-Y. Basically, you just double out into Breloom or something to prevent free Softboileds, and Mild Fire Blast can 2HKO. Note that you should always scout that the opponent actually does switch into Chansey when you have Zard-Y out, after the first time they do so it’s safe to assume they’ll continue to.
Smooth Rock Ttar pretty generic stuff, just Pursuit the Latis that try to take Zard-Y’s Fire Blast, Fire Blast Scizor who try to set up and Ferros, and Ice Beam for Chomp and Lando. Ttar has enough bulk to take one non-4x hit at full HP so it can eliminate one of them nicely. The Attack ensures a 2HKO on Lati not switching out or something, or maybe the Special Attack OKHOes some variant of Lando-T. It probably works fine to use max Defense too, to take on Birdspam. Mega Pinsir is a potentially troublesome but as long as you keep pressure with Rocks, Sand Drill + Jet and Ice Shard deal with it. Also with Latios > Mamo you can outspeed and Draco.
Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
Air Balloon actually gives a lot more opportunities to Rapid Spin, since you can spin on a lot of EQers as they break your Balloon with Stone Edge (which deals 0 damage) or something. It’s also an emergency check to other Sand Drills, but I have priority to deal with it so it’s not too bad to use Balloon to get a free spin. Standard 3 moves, not running Jolly because power is nice and once again I don’t need to speed tie with opposing Drills. SD over Spin with Defog Latios solidly deals with Chansey, but it gets worn down with Rocks and Sand if you make safe doubles.
Azumarill @ Assault Vest / Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: something / 252 Atk / something
Adamant Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Play Rough
- Superpower
Either AV or CB works here tbh, without Azu Greninja and Keldeo sort of own this team super hard and put too much reliance on Sand Drill. Overall just a solid mon to have, good deeps, Fairy typing, etc. Surprising Ferrothorn and stuff with Superpower is nice too, Knock Off is a bit overrated IMO though it would be nice for Chansey. The EVs are fairly arbitrary. Once again Aqua Jet helps revenge stuff. Water is a tad bad to have with Sun, but I also have Sand to negate it.
Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 240 Atk / 16 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Freeze-Dry
- Earthquake
Mamoswine is a really cool mon, I like Ice-types a lot but they are all really hard to use because of Rocks weakness and I feel like it’s often not worth the team support. Ground / Ice, high HP, and Thick Fat are amazing. I chose Hasty so I can eat up weak HP Ices and Fires really easily, and take Lava Plume in a worst case (don’t want to get burned of course). Good answer to Thundy lacking Focus Blast. Because this isn’t my Stealth Rock setter, I can run Freeze-Dry, Shard, and strong Ice STAB. Crash and Spear are both fine, Spear is nice for beating lead Looms because you always outspeed with Jolly and iirc Sash Mach Punch won’t OHKO. However, I once won a game off an Icicle Crash flinch, its animation looks cool, and it’s a pretty unique move so I use it. Freeze Dry is nice so I don’t have to switch out vs Water-types, overall cool move.
Threats:
Mega Venu + Balloon Heatran are a pain. I’m not big on using Solar Beam vs Venu trying to predict Heatran to pop its Balloon. Luckily Heatran can Pursuit the Balloon so not too bad.
+2 Bisharp (do they run SD?) wrecks everything, luckily it never gets an SD vs my mons and I don’t use Defog EZ.
Chansey is a pain with Fire Blast misses. Luckily most people don’t softboiled after taking one Fire Blast, so I can force them out and with Rocks 2HKO next time.
Probably some more but I can’t really remember them at this point. Most other defensive builds aren't too bad as long as you get free switches into Zard.
Anyway thanks for reading, XY was pretty fun but hype for ORAS bringing lots of cool new things to play with (like Mega Ray :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD). I guess this is my effective 2k but shoutouts are too time consuming so just one to a certain user who likes Latios and is currently ded, come back :)
Also haven’t played OU in a while (heh) but there haven’t been any changes since I made this. I used this in Ghosting and a variant in Liar’s Rule. Unfortunately I don’t remember any peaks and the ladder was reset but I did pretty well.
This team actually started with Breloom because I like that mon.
Spore doesn’t work on Grass-types, like Ferro and Venusauce, and Zard-Y kind of owns them.
Zard-Y needs spin / Defog. I don’t like Defog Latis very much (Roost + 3 Attacks and stuff is more up my alley) so I decided to use Excadrill. I also don’t like Mold Breaker Drill Scarf or not, so I decided to use Sand Rush. That means I need a sand setter, Ttar was my goto since it also Pursuits and sets Stealth Rock.
I can roughly kill everything now so now I need a Water-type to take on stuff like Greninja and Keldeo. Initially I used Gyarados, but it was Rocks weak so I swapped it out for Azu.
I don’t really remember my thought process here but part of it was wanting another priority move to help with revenge killing when added to Aqua Jet and Mach Punch, since Drill might be unreliable. Therefore I added Mamo. Oh yeah I also wanted a team I could potentially obtain easily ingame but I ended up not doing so. Another variation uses Latios in this slot with SD Drill because Chansey is a tad annoying, but it’s not terrible to deal with.
Spore doesn’t work on Grass-types, like Ferro and Venusauce, and Zard-Y kind of owns them.
Zard-Y needs spin / Defog. I don’t like Defog Latis very much (Roost + 3 Attacks and stuff is more up my alley) so I decided to use Excadrill. I also don’t like Mold Breaker Drill Scarf or not, so I decided to use Sand Rush. That means I need a sand setter, Ttar was my goto since it also Pursuits and sets Stealth Rock.
I can roughly kill everything now so now I need a Water-type to take on stuff like Greninja and Keldeo. Initially I used Gyarados, but it was Rocks weak so I swapped it out for Azu.
I don’t really remember my thought process here but part of it was wanting another priority move to help with revenge killing when added to Aqua Jet and Mach Punch, since Drill might be unreliable. Therefore I added Mamo. Oh yeah I also wanted a team I could potentially obtain easily ingame but I ended up not doing so. Another variation uses Latios in this slot with SD Drill because Chansey is a tad annoying, but it’s not terrible to deal with.
Breloom @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Spore
- Mach Punch
- Bullet Seed
- Rock Tomb
Gen 3 was the first game where I was really old enough to really get what was going on and I really liked Breloom so I wanted to use it. With Sash it can do a lot of work leading vs certain lineups and even not against those teams Spore is always good to incapacitate something. Technician Mach Punch and Bullet Seed do the deeps. Mach Punch helps revenge with two other sources of priority and Excadrill on the team and helps against opposing sand Drillers. Rock Tomb psyches out switch ins and kills Talonflame who don’t expect Sash, though most players do. But lower the Speed of things is always nice especially since I don’t have the fastest stuff on this team.
Charizard @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 40 Atk / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Mild Nature
- Fire Blast / Flamethrower
- SolarBeam
- Earthquake
- Roost
I forgot to mention that I actually really hate having to remove Rocks for -weak mons so I usually don’t use them. However, Zard-Y is really fun to play with because it does so much damage. Fire Blast owns everything and I prefer the power, but Flamethrower is a fine choice too. SolarBeam covers those Water-types, but of course do not blindly use this move when the opponent has Toed or Ttar / Hippo. My third move is Earthquake for Heatran because that thing is really annoying for this team. Nothing appreciates a potential Lava Plume burn and I would rather not have to rely on blind double switching to take it out. Also neutral Sun Fire Blast hits harder than SE Air Slash or Dragon Pulse or whatever would be used here. Lastly, Roost is a nice move to have especially when the opponent switches, and can bring you back to high enough HP so that you can switch into Stealth Rock again. Oh yeah, there’s little point to use max Speed with a positive nature because you don’t really beat what you tie with and of course relying on a Speed tie to get rid of a threat is a bad choice anyway. 40 Atk doesn’t really put EQ into any ranges though, but there’s not much better to put it in. Also Mild so that Zard takes Sludge Bomb from Venu slightly better.
Tyranitar @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 156 Atk / 104 SpA
Brave Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Fire Blast
- Pursuit
- Ice Beam / Stone Edge
Stealth Rock is way too good of a move. With this team, it is necessary to wear down Mega Venusauce to OHKO with Fire Blast because Thick Fat is lame. It also allows Mamo and Drill to 2HKO with Earthquake, preventing Venu from actually coming in to eat up a hit. Also Heatran is OHKOed by EQ, and if you hit Fire Blast you can actually beat Chansey with Zard-Y. Basically, you just double out into Breloom or something to prevent free Softboileds, and Mild Fire Blast can 2HKO. Note that you should always scout that the opponent actually does switch into Chansey when you have Zard-Y out, after the first time they do so it’s safe to assume they’ll continue to.
Smooth Rock Ttar pretty generic stuff, just Pursuit the Latis that try to take Zard-Y’s Fire Blast, Fire Blast Scizor who try to set up and Ferros, and Ice Beam for Chomp and Lando. Ttar has enough bulk to take one non-4x hit at full HP so it can eliminate one of them nicely. The Attack ensures a 2HKO on Lati not switching out or something, or maybe the Special Attack OKHOes some variant of Lando-T. It probably works fine to use max Defense too, to take on Birdspam. Mega Pinsir is a potentially troublesome but as long as you keep pressure with Rocks, Sand Drill + Jet and Ice Shard deal with it. Also with Latios > Mamo you can outspeed and Draco.
Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
Air Balloon actually gives a lot more opportunities to Rapid Spin, since you can spin on a lot of EQers as they break your Balloon with Stone Edge (which deals 0 damage) or something. It’s also an emergency check to other Sand Drills, but I have priority to deal with it so it’s not too bad to use Balloon to get a free spin. Standard 3 moves, not running Jolly because power is nice and once again I don’t need to speed tie with opposing Drills. SD over Spin with Defog Latios solidly deals with Chansey, but it gets worn down with Rocks and Sand if you make safe doubles.
Azumarill @ Assault Vest / Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: something / 252 Atk / something
Adamant Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Play Rough
- Superpower
Either AV or CB works here tbh, without Azu Greninja and Keldeo sort of own this team super hard and put too much reliance on Sand Drill. Overall just a solid mon to have, good deeps, Fairy typing, etc. Surprising Ferrothorn and stuff with Superpower is nice too, Knock Off is a bit overrated IMO though it would be nice for Chansey. The EVs are fairly arbitrary. Once again Aqua Jet helps revenge stuff. Water is a tad bad to have with Sun, but I also have Sand to negate it.
Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 240 Atk / 16 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Freeze-Dry
- Earthquake
Mamoswine is a really cool mon, I like Ice-types a lot but they are all really hard to use because of Rocks weakness and I feel like it’s often not worth the team support. Ground / Ice, high HP, and Thick Fat are amazing. I chose Hasty so I can eat up weak HP Ices and Fires really easily, and take Lava Plume in a worst case (don’t want to get burned of course). Good answer to Thundy lacking Focus Blast. Because this isn’t my Stealth Rock setter, I can run Freeze-Dry, Shard, and strong Ice STAB. Crash and Spear are both fine, Spear is nice for beating lead Looms because you always outspeed with Jolly and iirc Sash Mach Punch won’t OHKO. However, I once won a game off an Icicle Crash flinch, its animation looks cool, and it’s a pretty unique move so I use it. Freeze Dry is nice so I don’t have to switch out vs Water-types, overall cool move.
Threats:
Mega Venu + Balloon Heatran are a pain. I’m not big on using Solar Beam vs Venu trying to predict Heatran to pop its Balloon. Luckily Heatran can Pursuit the Balloon so not too bad.
+2 Bisharp (do they run SD?) wrecks everything, luckily it never gets an SD vs my mons and I don’t use Defog EZ.
Chansey is a pain with Fire Blast misses. Luckily most people don’t softboiled after taking one Fire Blast, so I can force them out and with Rocks 2HKO next time.
Probably some more but I can’t really remember them at this point. Most other defensive builds aren't too bad as long as you get free switches into Zard.
Anyway thanks for reading, XY was pretty fun but hype for ORAS bringing lots of cool new things to play with (like Mega Ray :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD). I guess this is my effective 2k but shoutouts are too time consuming so just one to a certain user who likes Latios and is currently ded, come back :)
