SM PU Girafarig kinda balanced

[Vuldix]

PU Girafarig Team

Introduction

Girafarig is one of my favorite pokemon so I decided to build a team around it. I'm hoping I can get some advice on how to improve this team since I'm not the best teambuilder.

Girafarig @ Life Orb
Ability: Sap Sipper
Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 Def | 252 SpA | 252 Spe
Moves: Nasty Plot | Dazzling Gleam | Psychic | Hyper Voice

I chose to build this team around Girafarig since it's never used, even in PU. The grass immunity is nice and it has some decent moves.

Hitmonchan @ Assault Vest
Ability: Iron Fist
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 208 HP | 188 Atk | 196 SpD
Moves: Drain Punch | Mach Punch | Ice Punch | Rapid Spin

I'm using Hitmonchan. It's just a standard Smogon set with a bit more attack and a bit less everything else. It takes care of

Torterra @ Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 Hp | 4 Atk | 252 Def
Moves: Synthesis | Leech Seed | Wood Hammer | Earthquake

He's physically defensive since most of my team is lacking in that department. Synthesis, Leech Seed, and Leftovers can be really annoying. He doesn't have Overgrow because generally when I have less than 1/3 of my HP I'd use synthesis.

Liepard @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
Nature: Jolly
EVs: 252 Atk | 4 Def | 252 Spe
Moves: Charm | Encore | U-turn | Knock Off

Liepard is for agility Kingler since Torterra can't take a hit well. It would use charm and then knock off or U-turn to switch into Torterra or Wormadam.

Archeops
Ability: Defeatist
Nature: Jolly
EVs: 252 Atk | 4 SpD | 252 Spe
Moves: Acrobatics | Stone Edge | Roost | U-turn

My team has a pretty bad bug weakness, so Archeops takes care of that pretty well. He's also a great revenge killer.

Wormadam @ Leftovers
Ability: Anticipation
Nature: Calm
EVs: 252 HP | 116 Def | 136 SpD
Moves: Stealth Rock | Toxic | Bug Buzz | Protect

Wormadam is severely underrated as a wall. It resists tons of common types. I don't really know what I'm doing with the Evs in this one but I'm hoping for some suggestions!

Importable

Girafarig (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sap Sipper
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Shadow Ball
- Psychic
- Hyper Voice

Hitmonchan @ Assault Vest
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 208 HP / 188 Atk / 112 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
- Mach Punch
- Rapid Spin

Torterra (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Synthesis
- Leech Seed
- Wood Hammer
- Earthquake

Liepard (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Charm
- Encore
- U-turn
- Knock Off

Archeops (F)
Ability: Defeatist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Acrobatics
- Stone Edge
- Roost
- U-turn

Wormadam-Trash @ Leftovers
Ability: Anticipation
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 4 SpA / 136 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Protect
- Bug Buzz

 

[Emerfirek]

Hi! I'd also like to see Girafarig put in work, so I'll help you out to the best of my abilities.

First, the Girafarig: w/ Life Orb, I found it could only attack maybe once or twice per battle, before fainting. LO also limited the opportunities for it to set up a Nasty Plot. When I changed it to Colbur Berry, I found it could survive a Banded Skuntank's Pursuit/Sucker Punch, set up one NP, and then OHKO back w/ Hyper Voice 87.5% of the time (w/ Stealth Rock up, that's 100% of the time). However, Calm Mind Spiritomb is still an issue.

For mixed walls like Wormadam-Trash, there is a nice tool to help distribute EVs: http://pokestudio.altervista.org/defevs.php
For example, if you want Wormadam-Trash to take the majority of physical and special hits equally well (50/50 bias), you'll want 252 HP / 160 Def / 96+ SpD.

What does Hitmonchan's 188+ Atk take care of? The Smogon suggested spread is mainly for the Aurorus matchup, outspeeding by one point, bringing it down to Sash w/ Drain Punch, and KOing it w/ Rapid Spin just in case it set up Stealth Rock. But if you want more Atk, current Showdown usage shows 208 HP / 252+ Atk / 48 Spe which reaches an even 200 Speed. I assume you know what you're talking about w/ the 188+ Atk, so I'll suggest the following EV spread: 252 HP / 188+ Atk / 16 SpD / 52 Spe to speed creep defensive Mesprits.

Also, please consider a Silvally over Liepard, as its Parting Shot can function as a smaller but faster Charm+U-turn. I'd recommend either Ghost or Fairy if you're worried about Bugs, w/ this set:

Silvally @ Ghost/Fairy Memory | RKS System
Bold (Ghost) or Impish (Fairy) | 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Shadow Ball (Ghost) or Multi Attack (Fairy) | Parting Shot | Toxic | Defog

Now here's an iffy suggestion you may or may not be comfortable w/: if you run a Silvally as your hazard removal, it can open up room for your Hitmonchan to run Throat Chop over Rapid Spin. Throat Chop can cover Ghost and Psychic switch-ins to Hitmonchan's stab moves, though you might feel inclined to run max Atk at that point. It's up to you.

I also used a Scarf Lycanroc-Midnight over your Archeops during my test battles b/c I hated missing Stone Edge, but if you like this Archeops, then there's not much other reason for you to change it.

Hope I helped just a bit. What do you think?

Cheers!

 

[MZ]

tbh I didn't rate this initially because I assumed the thread was going to be locked for not following the rmt rules and beyond that something like this is just really hard to rate, but it's not locked and I do want to respond to the above rate by Emerfirek so yeah. I really do like seeing new users getting into rating teams, it's especially nice to just see someone other than myself rating PU ones. The problem is, it really doesn't fix a lot of issues and uses a lot of flawed reasoning, with the outcome being that most of the edits just don't make a lot of sense. Girafarig and Wormadam are left on the team and the reasons for set changes are fairly arbitrary, there's almost no reason to creep defensive Mesprit with Hitmonchan, the Silvally set is fairly subpar as would be Throat Chop Hitmonchan, and Scarf Midnight is just unviably bad regardless of its better accuracy. The rate doesn't fix the major issues with the team (unviable Pokemon and zero synergy) and it just arguably makes it worse.
It's hard to rate a team like this because, to be perfectly honest, half of it is just not worth using at all. Girafarig is just totally outclassed and terrible, there's no reason to use Wormadam-Trash, and utility Liepard is a fairly horrendous set. Beyond that, the last 3 mons don't have any particular synergy, like they could work together but at that point I've kinda just deleted half the team for being awful and there's no reason to keep up with what you have. If you wanted a decent team to use the Hitmonchan+Archeops core then this is fairly solid, but the team is more built around (to the extent that it's built around anything because there's almost no synergy here) the Girafarig. And Girafarig is just too terrible of a mon to leave on the team in any serious rate. The best I can recommend is starting a team around Jynx (like the closest thing to Girafarig I can name that's actually good), but even then I wouldn't bother working off what you have because it's just really really flawed. Sorry, I know it's not a great answer and I wouldn't have posted it if it wasn't a better answer than the above suggestions.