XY OU First RMT

[bpeterson464]

This is the first post that I've ever made on this site, so I'm actually pretty excited.

I started this team wanting to make something original, and I think that I've done a pretty good job. Basically what I did first was choose three pokemon that I really like, and that work well together, and put them on a team. Those choices were Mega Charizard X, Greninja, and Ferrothorn.

Charizard @ Charizardite X
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake

I love that they finally made Charizard the badass that it's always looked like. In any case, Chrizard X is one of the best physical attackers in the game. When it gets a dragon dance in the mid to late parts of the match there are very few things that can stop them. Flare Blitz/Dragon Claw/Earthquake is nearly (possibly completely) unresisted, and coming off of 538 attack after a boost KO's mostly anything in one or two hits after stealth rock.

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball

Ferrothorn has been one of my go-to's since the beginning of BW. It's bulk is amazing, it's support movepool is great, and it hits pretty hard in it's own right. It also really doesn't like fire moves, but if Charizard has mega evolved, I can switch to that, and fighting moves are sponged by Scolipede exceptionally well. All in all, there's not much to say about Ferrothorn that hasn't already been said. It's a great physical wall, sets stealth rocks very well, and can paralyze to boot. Though Power Whip may be a better attack when all's said and done, so that could be a change.

Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Ice Beam
- Hydro Pump
- Grass Knot
- Shadow Sneak

Greninja was another pleasant surprise from the current generation. It functions very well as a cleanup man and revenge killer. I switched extrasensory for shadow sneak since, while my team has plenty of speed, it's rather lacking in priority (and it's really fun to watch people use hi jump kick after it's used shadow sneak). It hits Gengar decently hard, and I've got other ways to take care of poison types (ferrothorn, latios, excadrill, and scolipede specifically).

Latios @ Choice Scarf
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Trick
- Hidden Power Fire

Latios is pretty new to the team since I originally had Zapdos at this spot. I just ended up liking Latios' typing and movepool better. It's also faster and hits slightly harder, especially regarding Draco Meteor. It also helps hit fire types that this team has problems with as well. Mega Charizard X is another thing that this team had trouble with before, and Latios outspeeds and OHKOs even after a dragon dance, which was impossible for this team to do before. Still misses sometimes though...

Excadrill @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin

Excadrill is there because I needed rapid spin and this was the best I could come up with. It's not bad by any means, but it's not great either. It's nice to have it hit fairies super effectively with iron head and just generally smash things with earthquake, but it's not irreplaceable by any means.

Scolipede @ Life Orb
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 236 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Megahorn
- Earthquake
- Poison Jab
- Protect

Scolipede was a revelation. I basically had this spot as a throwaway, so I thought, what the heck, I've seen this thing in ubers, and there it is on the BL list. Let's give it a shot. Holy crap. I just protect the first turn if needed, then let the beast go. I don't think that Megahorn has missed for me yet, which is going to happen eventually, but it can tank physical hits, and really loves giving physical hits. It can OHKO tons of pokemon, though I do wonder if I should trade poison jab for rock slide at times. It's a small gripe, but it'd be nice not to have to worry about Charizard Y and would be a nasty surprise for someone switching to talonflame.

So that's that. By all means blast it to pieces, though it'd be best if you had some suggestions in the criticism. This team's done pretty well, though it could stand to be a bit better. I'd prefer not disbanding the trio of Greninja, Ferrothorn, and Charizard X, but I will if that combo is the worst thing ever. Thanks!

 

[Puzzle King]

Hey, nice team! It's actually really good for a first timer (better than my first team at least). Here are my suggestions:

Thunder Wave and Gyro Ball on Ferrothorn is pretty redundant. While I understand that you can hit some ground types with Gyro Ball that you wouldn't be able to hit with T-wave, I think using Power Whip or Protect would be better. Power Whip allows for some Grass coverage on Ferro while Protect allows you to have some stalling action alongside Leech Seed.

Next, Extrasensory over Shadow Sneak on Greninja. Greninja is already insanely fast in the XY OU meta and doesn't really need priority. Extrasensory also hits Gengar hard as well as providing coverage for M-Venu and Keldeo, two of the most threatening presences in the OU metagame. Try the set:

Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Extrasensory
- Grass Knot

Choice Banded Excadrill is a interesting choice. However, it limits the use of Rapid Spin quite a bit. Try using a Life Orb to max damage while allowing attack switching or an Air Balloon to negate Excadrill's ground weakness.

Lastly, I recommend using Trick over Surf on Lati as it allows you to cripple set-up sweepers or walls. You already have water coverage on Greninja.

Hope it helps!
-PK

 

[Albacore]

This team looks pretty solid for a first RMT, however, I have a few changes to suggest :

- Gyro Ball+Thunder Wave is pretty counterproductive on Ferrothorn, since you deal very small damage to anything you've paralyzed. I would either replace Gyro Ball with Power Whip or replace Thunder Wave with Protect or Power Whip. I would recommend the latter since Gyro Ball stops Mega-Gardevoir (who is pretty annoying deal with if it comes in for free) from switching into you for free and enables Ferrothorn to actually counter Kyurem-B, so you probably want to keep it.
- Shadow Sneak on Greninja, isn't necessarily bad, it's just that there are few situations in which it's really useful, given that it is so weak you need to be facing a priority user or faster Pokemon (the latter of which is rare) at very low health for it to come into play. Extrasensory I think would be better since it enables Greninja to act as a check to Keldeo. Although you do have Latios as an answer to Keldeo, it gets worn down by it very easily, so something else that can take it on 1v1 is appreciated. It also gives you a reliable way to OHKO Gengar and lets you OHKO Mega-Heracross after Stealth Rocks, so I think its benefits outweigh that of Shadow Sneak.
- Choice Band is a pretty subpar item on Excadrill, I would actually recommend giving it a Choice Scarf. The reason for this is that without a Speed boost Excarill is simply too slow to reliably spin against fast, offensive teams. It will be very easy for offense to get rocks up and completely prevent you from removing them, which is bad news for XZard and Scolipede. Air Balloon is a decent item for it since you don't have to lose momentum by locking yourself into Rapid Spin, but once again, you lack the Speed to really get a spin off.
- I'm not sure Latios actually needs to be scarfed. Scarf Latios's great perk is that it lures in faster attackers such as Greninja, however, Scolipede can already revenge kill these for the most part, and if you decide to follow my advice and give Excadrill a Choice Scarf it can do that too. I think Life Orb would be better for two reasons : Firstly, it lets you 2HKO Mega-Gardevoir with Psyshock after Stealth Rocks. Secondly, it gives you the freedom to run Defog over Surf which actually means you don't have to run Excadrill as your hazard remover. Which brings me to my next point :
- This team looks very weak to Mega-Heracross, Although half your team (XZard, Latios, and Greninja) can check or revenge kill it, it can still come in completely for free against the other half and proceed to put you in a really bad situation. A simple fix would be replacing Excadrill with Landorus-T. As a Scarfer, Landorus-T is basically superior to Excadrill, thanks to added utility in U-Turn, more speed and more power. Although it doesn't exactly counter Mega-Heracross, it does slow it down, enabling the rest of your team to take it on much more easily. You can also run a physically defensive set which can switch into MHera, take minimal damage, pivot into a check and therefore deal with it even better, but I would still recommend Scarf over it since it gives you the ability to revenge kill a large number of threats.

So to recap, Power Whip or Protect over Thunder Wave on Ferrothorn, Extrasensory over Shadow Sneak on Greninja, Scarf Lando-T over Banded Excadrill, Life Orb over Scarf and Defog over Surf on Latios. Feel free to make all or none of these changes as you wish.

 

[bpeterson464]

Hey, nice team! It's actually really good for a first timer (better than my first team at least). Here are my suggestions:

Thunder Wave and Gyro Ball on Ferrothorn is pretty redundant. While I understand that you can hit some ground types with Gyro Ball that you wouldn't be able to hit with T-wave, I think using Power Whip or Protect would be better. Power Whip allows for some Grass coverage on Ferro while Protect allows you to have some stalling action alongside Leech Seed.

Next, Extrasensory over Shadow Sneak on Greninja. Greninja is already insanely fast in the XY OU meta and doesn't really need priority. Extrasensory also hits Gengar hard as well as providing coverage for M-Venu and Keldeo, two of the most threatening presences in the OU metagame. Try the set:

Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Extrasensory
- Grass Knot

Choice Banded Excadrill is a interesting choice. However, it limits the use of Rapid Spin quite a bit. Try using a Life Orb to max damage while allowing attack switching or an Air Balloon to negate Excadrill's ground weakness.

Lastly, I recommend using Trick over Surf on Lati as it allows you to cripple set-up sweepers or walls. You already have water coverage on Greninja.

Hope it helps!
-PK

Awesome, thanks. Yeah, I wasn't sure if gyro ball went by base speed or the speed stat, which would obviously be reduced by thunder wave, so power whip it is. I'll definitely take a look at the other stuff as well.

 

[bpeterson464]

This team looks pretty solid for a first RMT, however, I have a few changes to suggest :

- Gyro Ball+Thunder Wave is pretty counterproductive on Ferrothorn, since you deal very small damage to anything you've paralyzed. I would either replace Gyro Ball with Power Whip or replace Thunder Wave with Protect or Power Whip. I would recommend the latter since Gyro Ball stops Mega-Gardevoir (who is pretty annoying deal with if it comes in for free) from switching into you for free and enables Ferrothorn to actually counter Kyurem-B, so you probably want to keep it.
- Shadow Sneak on Greninja, isn't necessarily bad, it's just that there are few situations in which it's really useful, given that it is so weak you need to be facing a priority user or faster Pokemon (the latter of which is rare) at very low health for it to come into play. Extrasensory I think would be better since it enables Greninja to act as a check to Keldeo. Although you do have Latios as an answer to Keldeo, it gets worn down by it very easily, so something else that can take it on 1v1 is appreciated. It also gives you a reliable way to OHKO Gengar and lets you OHKO Mega-Heracross after Stealth Rocks, so I think its benefits outweigh that of Shadow Sneak.
- Choice Band is a pretty subpar item on Excadrill, I would actually recommend giving it a Choice Scarf. The reason for this is that without a Speed boost Excarill is simply too slow to reliably spin against fast, offensive teams. It will be very easy for offense to get rocks up and completely prevent you from removing them, which is bad news for XZard and Scolipede. Air Balloon is a decent item for it since you don't have to lose momentum by locking yourself into Rapid Spin, but once again, you lack the Speed to really get a spin off.
- I'm not sure Latios actually needs to be scarfed. Scarf Latios's great perk is that it lures in faster attackers such as Greninja, however, Scolipede can already revenge kill these for the most part, and if you decide to follow my advice and give Excadrill a Choice Scarf it can do that too. I think Life Orb would be better for two reasons : Firstly, it lets you 2HKO Mega-Gardevoir with Psyshock after Stealth Rocks. Secondly, it gives you the freedom to run Defog over Surf which actually means you don't have to run Excadrill as your hazard remover. Which brings me to my next point :
- This team looks very weak to Mega-Heracross, Although half your team (XZard, Latios, and Greninja) can check or revenge kill it, it can still come in completely for free against the other half and proceed to put you in a really bad situation. A simple fix would be replacing Excadrill with Landorus-T. As a Scarfer, Landorus-T is basically superior to Excadrill, thanks to added utility in U-Turn, more speed and more power. Although it doesn't exactly counter Mega-Heracross, it does slow it down, enabling the rest of your team to take it on much more easily. You can also run a physically defensive set which can switch into MHera, take minimal damage, pivot into a check and therefore deal with it even better, but I would still recommend Scarf over it since it gives you the ability to revenge kill a large number of threats.

So to recap, Power Whip or Protect over Thunder Wave on Ferrothorn, Extrasensory over Shadow Sneak on Greninja, Scarf Lando-T over Banded Excadrill, Life Orb over Scarf and Defog over Surf on Latios. Feel free to make all or none of these changes as you wish.

Landorus! That's who I was thinking of. That makes a lot of sense, but I really don't like defog. I like having my own hazards up, and defog clears everything, so I think I'll go with your first suggestion and change to choice scarf.

I actually have latios scarfed for a very specific reason that's come up pretty often. When someone sends out Charizard X, and I have to switch out, so they set up a dragon dance. Latios can outspeed after that, and OHKO with Draco Meteor.

Thanks for the advice! It'll really help in the future.