EXCADRILL BALANCE
Pokepast in the sprites :)
There is one mon that has been mostly forgotten as the Crown Tundra DLC arrived into our lives and gave us all of the legendaries back, excadrill has been relegated to only a sand abuser after the arrival of tier king landorous-t, and even at that role it isnt very good! as some people prefer using dracozolt over the mole which has led to its relative obscurity, that is why I decided to make this team while also having some fun myself.
Welcome to my RMT, please give feedback on what could be changed and enjoy.
TEAMBUILDING PROCESS Pokepast in the sprites :)
There is one mon that has been mostly forgotten as the Crown Tundra DLC arrived into our lives and gave us all of the legendaries back, excadrill has been relegated to only a sand abuser after the arrival of tier king landorous-t, and even at that role it isnt very good! as some people prefer using dracozolt over the mole which has led to its relative obscurity, that is why I decided to make this team while also having some fun myself.
Welcome to my RMT, please give feedback on what could be changed and enjoy.
As the name of the title suggests I started out with excadrill, since I obviously wasn't going to make a sand team I opted for the utility rocks set being a solid blanket check to some special attackers while luring mons and poisoning them on the switch.
Since I was using excadrill instead of a more conventional rocker I said to myself that I would need something that could exploit its unique characteristics, then I landed on HexPult and CM Clef, excadrill by virtue of its scary attack stat forces switches into more defensive mons and poison them on the switch, HexPult exploits this by being a solid cleaner, dragapult also has great synergy with excadrill since its hexes arent very powerful before status and mons like tapu koko and scarf lele can exploit dragapult's low power which excadrill helps draga to deal with.
I put CM clef to be a secondary win condition to deal with other team styles that HexPult cant fight against and to bait other mons like nidoking for excadrill to munch on. These three form a really nice Fairy-Dragon-Steel core.
The team was stupidly weak to rillaboom, tangrowth was an incredible addition since it was a rillaboom counter with reliable recovery that wasn't prone to magnezone (an incredibly threatening rising teamstyle) tang also functions as a glue mon and knock off absorber that can fight against other physical attackers like scarf kartana and landorous-t (the most common excadrill switchin).
Now that I had a defensive backbone and some solid win conditions I needed some incredible power to open up opportunities for those wincons, specs lele is one of the most threatening wallbreakers and it also paired incredibly with the team as mons like dragapult can u-turn on blissey and give the lele chances to break, it also gives me an offensive check to rillaboom.
I specifically opted for lele as opposed to other nuclear breakers like specs kyurem thanks to my propensity to blissey.
Zapdos was the last member of the team to bring some defog support and to also aliviate the pressure of tangrowth to handle every physical threat as mons like scizor use tang as setup fodder and other guys like kartana and rillaboom are normally used together and they could overwhelm tangrowth , zapdos also brings a zamzenta-c counter and general utility in the form of volt switch while not stacking weaknesses like other deffogers like corviknight would do
The team was super weak to ghosts, specs pult and scarf blacephalon were the big ones as they could throw their shadow balls without any care of the world and my only spdef wall in clefable could be easily overwhelmed, and also my speed control was unimpressive as If i lost the tie against opposing dragapult I was basically doomed, which mon could solve all of those problems? Hydreigon baby, scarfdreigon gave me a way to deal with those ghosts while keeping dragapult's power, speed and pivoting abilities, dreigon also gave me more security against heatran which also appeared to be a bad matchup.
THE TEAM ITSELF
Excadrill @ Leftovers
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
Excadrill is the rocker of the team while being able to compete against other popular rockers like clefable and heatran, it also has toxic to discourage deffogers like mandibuzz from coming in. Rapid spin aliviates the pressure from zapdos of always having to manually defog rocks and excadrill gets many opportnuties to spin as its high attack forces defensive switches, all of this while having a spdef spread that lets it handle mons like tapu koko and scarf lele, drill is very valuable to the team thatnks to its toxic immunity letting it stay against mons like blissey without the risk of getting ruined as opposed to mons like landorous, it also works as a lure for the previously mentioned lando and mandibuzz so that dreigon has an easier time cleaning up.
Clefable @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Calm Mind
- Flamethrower
- Soft-Boiled
Clefable works as another spdef wall and a solid win condition after the things that threaten clef are gone, thanks to excadrill being a solid rocker I could use clef as a solid defensive mon against things like specs pult and opposing hydreigon while also having the ability to boost up and being able to 1v1 Volcarona if neccessary, it is very straight forward mon, bringing role compression in its defensive and offensive capabilities.
I just use the standard CM set with flamethrower so that I can instantly threaten ferrothorn instead of being basically walled by it.
Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 20 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 232 Spe
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Draco Meteor
- U-turn
- Earth Power
Hydreigon is the speed control and general RK of the team being able to handle mons like blacephalon, gengar and dragapult that otherwise would be very difficult for the team to deal with, hydreigon's great speed tier let it out oace other popular scarfers like lele, kyurem and lando while not being very weak. It also has u-turn so that it isnt a complete sitting duck against blissey or clefable letting teammates like lele and excadrill to deal with the blobs.
Tangrowth @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Knock Off
- Sludge Bomb
- Giga Drain
- Brick Break
Tangrowth is the main physical wall against attackers like kartana, lando, rillaboom and bisharp. It can come in many times against them thanks to regenarator and it can cripple potential switchins with either a sludge bomb poison or by removing their items with knock off, It also is a crucial piece by the fact it negates ferrothorns recovery and it will always lose in the long game. I am making use of brick break for its better accuracy as opposed to focus blast which lets tang reliably beat bisharp and deal consistent damage to zamazenta.
Tapu Lele @ Choice Specs
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
Tapu Lele is the breaker of this team, opening up wholes so that either clef or hydreigon can clean up, lele takes advantage from the fact that mons like blissey and clef come in on hydreigon and zapdos giving lele many opportnuties to break the opposition by the use of the u-turn/volt switch from the previously mentioned mons.
I just use the standard set with 2 psychic moves, fairy stab and focus blast.
Zapdos @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Static
EVs: 248 HP / 220 Def / 40 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Heat Wave
- Defog
- Roost
Zappdos is the deffoger and defensive backbone in conjuction with tangrowth, zapdos handles other threats that tangrowth can't stand against like scizor, corviknight and melmetal while also handling similar threats like the two OU grasses so that the team can't get overwhelmed. Zapdos also brings some offensive qualities threatening out mons from the likes of corviknight and toxapex, things that more passive deffogers like mandibuzz and corviknight can't do.
It also functions as a zamazenta-c counter, however its role isnt defined by the doggo and zapdos is a solid member with or without zamazenta in the metagame.
THREATS
Weavile is very hard as my speed control is vulnerable to ice shard and every other mon has a chance to be ohko'd by banded axel, while it does need the three hits of axel to take out excadrill and clefable meaning that if it misses or uses icicle crash and doesnt flinch weavile can be ko'd, and while mons like tangrowth and zapdos are incredibly punishing on contact weavile is still incredibly threatening and it can easily sweep the team if not careful.
The frog is strong, the only mon that doesnt inmediately die to heatran's attacks is hydreigon but since i am a variant without roost dreigon can be easily chipped, other than drei excadrill is the only other mon that threatens heatran out. Heatran can be especially hard when backed up by a solid defensive backbone as excadrill and hydreigon aren't the strongest attackers out there.
Heatran also finds opportunities to enter the field against clefable and tangrowth which only makes the MU more difficult.
shell smash goes brrr
CONCLUSION
Cool team I like it, getting a bit more serious this is a team that I've just been having a blast with, it definetively could use a bit more polishing and re-working as I am still a bit undecided on some of the sets like using thunderbolt over flamethrower on clef or changing excadrill's ability, however I think that it is a solid team amd something that could genuinly last for all of the generation.
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