ORAS Doubles OU Looking to change things up (Using an old Zard Y Team)

VCrakeV

VCrakeV

So, before I type out my team, I'd just like to explain what I'm looking for here. This is a team that's hardly different from what I used 6 months ago (though I didn't post it here, so it may seem new), and I'm looking to change things up. Plus, I've noticed it has trouble with opposing Zard Y teams and the rare but powerful Talon+Azumarill combo. I'm open to new team ideas all together (different mega, for example), so feel free to suggest something else that may seem interesting to me (similar playstyle). Without further ado, here's my team:

Charizard Charizardite Y
ability: solar power
nature: modest
EVs: 248HP, 144Def, 8Spa, 108Spe
Fire Blast
Solar Beam
HP Ground
Protect

Solar power is for opposing sun teams, which I have trouble with. The speed EVs are to always outspeed max speed Breloom (never again will I make the mistake of being slower than a spore user). Maxed out health - 4 to have the most bulk and still switch in on rocks twice (as rare as they are in doubles, I have seen them). I put 144 in defense to alwayls survive Anything from Mega Khan and rock slide from Landy T once (no chance with SE though lol). Modest and 4 Spa just to make Zard Y's high special attack just a bit more threatening. Fire blast is to bypass wide guard while doing much more damage to a single target. Solar Beam is obvious coverage, especially for Azumarill. Protect is to stall opposing conditions, ko a threat with its partner, etc. I chose HP Ground over overheat in order to prevent being walled by Heatran. It also catches the opponent offguard. Charizard's role is basically to nuke single targets, and, to a minor degree, aid the team with sun.

Venusaur Life Orb
ability: chlorophyll
nature: modest
EVs: 174HP, 252 Spa, 84Spe
Giga Drain
Sludge Bomb
HP Ice
Protect

Venusaur is my bulky-ish offensive mon. Chlorophyll gives it many critical outspeeds under the sun, and life orb gives its attacks some needed "umpf". Giga Drain is its main stab; it doesn't rely on sun, and helps mitigate life orb recoil. Sludge Bomb is its other stab option, which deals huge damage to popular fairy types. In fact, Venusaur is a great answer to both M-Diance and M-Gardevior. HP Ice is to OHKO Landy T without the harsh reduction in Spa from leaf storm. I chose coverage over sleep powder because of the shaky accuracy. It also helps with the many dragons that are 4x weak to ice. Protect is to wait for sun and its speed bonus, as well as stalling out stuff like trick room and the occasional lucky poison (when sludge almost KOs, and the poison is enough to take it out next turn).

Aegislash WeaKness policy
ability: stance change
nature: modest (three modest in a row... lol)
EVs: 248HP, 8Def, 252Spa
Kings Shield
Wide Guard
Flash Cannon
Shadow Ball

This is the only new guy on my team, though he is popular with Zard Y. He's mostly here for wide guard, but he offers offensive presence as well. Wide guard is for rock slide mostly, but it's nice to have against choiced earthquake and hyper voice. King's shield is a must, making sure Aegislash is never in his vulnerable form. The last two moves are stab for when I need offense from Aegislash. The weakness policy lures opponents into giving me a free boost and KO, as long as they don't crit or double focus. A +2 from Aegislash does wonders, even on neutral hits.

Togekiss @safety goggles
ability: Serene Grace? Doesn't matter, I guess
nature: Calm
EVs: 248HP, 252Def, 8Spd
Tailwind
Follow Me
Heal Bell
Morning Sun

Togekiss is my support, basically. Safety goggles allows it to absorb spore. Nature and EVs are meant for balanced bulk. Tailwind is to provide my team with much appreciated outspeeds. I haven't used follow me a lot, but it occasionally helps protect a slower mon who needs to remove/cripple/weaken a threat. Heal bell is to remove pesky paralysis and sleep from my offensive mons, especially Zard. Lastly, morning sun keeps it in the game, and it also gets a boost from the sun. I never had to worry about losing all of my PP, so I stuck with it. I originally used mental herb, but I didn't run into taunt as much as I thought I would.

Scrafty Lum Berry
ability: intimidate
nature: adamant
EVs: 248HP, 252Atk, 8Def
Drain Punch
Fake Out
Knock Off
Quick Guard

Scrafty provides lots of utility, as well as some offensive pressure. Fake out takes one mon out for a single round, bypassing threats temporarily. Quick Guard works wonders, surprising Azumarill, Talonflame, and Thundurus. Knock off removes enemy items, sometimes crippling them and dealing considerable damage. Drain Punch gives Scrafty more offensive presence, and heals up any damage as well. High Jump Kick was in my mind for loads of damage, but it just seems too obvious and risky. Even if I don't get predicted and protected, there's a chance to miss, which is a double whammy.

Rhydon eviolite
ability: lightningrod
nature: adamant
EVs: 248HP, 8Atk, 252Spd
Earthquake
Protect
Rock Slide
Ice Punch

Rhydon's main objective is to redirect threatening electric attacks that could spell doom for Zard. Plus, it works wonders against thunder wave. Rhydon is very bulky due to the EV investments, so it usually provides a few turns of protection even if focused down on. It also brings offensive pressure with an adamant nature and dual stab in earthquake and rock slide. Ice Punch was a filler, because I really don't know what to do with it. It helps against Landy T, even after Intimidate (it doesn't OHKO, but Rhydon can take a few hits). It also, of course, demolishes flying dragons and Garchomp.
 
Hey man, pretty cool sun team just a few changes though so keeping the theme of a sun team, I will go one by one for each mon-
1. Char-y set is designed to survive a rock slide from adamant lando(only 50% of time though) but rather than that as it is your main attacker I think alternate spread of 248 HP / 64 Def / 88 SpA / 108 Spe will do better which survives a adamant kanga return + I wouldn't keep char-y in front of lando anyways specially when there is no venusaur. Also, heat wave > fire blast coz spread damage!

2. Now, giga drain though sun independent, is pretty meh as you will see it is mostly underpowered + venu outside of sun is not a good mon so I suggest solarbeam but obviously choice is yours. Also, run 100 speed evs to outspeed deoxys-attack in sun.

3. Aegi is pretty good.

4.Now that togekiss set is pretty meh, as this is a offensive team, so you would rarely get chance to heal bell anyways, so really man air slash>heal bell so that it beats amoongus reliably.

5.Now rhydon's niche lies only having lightning rod, other than that its pretty hard to justify its position over other mons that are faster and perform kind of similar jobs like scarfed lando and stuff, but obviously that makes the team boring, so if you want to use rhydon use the set 184 HP/200 Atk/124 SpD as it avoids a 2hko from adamant lando's e-quake, also stone edge would be better than rock slide to bypass wide guard and ko bulky electrics such as thundy and zappy. You can also try drill run over equake as after spread damage is taken into account it is more powerful and allows you to hit aegislash more powerfully. Just one more thing run Brave over adamant so that it does well in TR as well.
 
sup dude nice team

I agree with darksylvion, just use 248 HP / 64 Def / 88 SpA / 108 Spe as a spread

I'm not a fan of ChloroSaur as I feel like it makes your matchup so much worse versus Talonflame, but that doesn't matter much.
I don't agree with darksylvion, because I think Giga Drain is great to mitigate damage. I understand the reason why you don't want to use Sleep Powder, but honestly that is Venusaur's greatest niche under sun, so I would recommend using Sleep Powder over Hidden Power Ice.

Togekiss doesn't seem like it adds much, if anything at all. Heal Bell is not useful in Doubles anyway, and without attacking moves it just seems a bit useless. It looks like it is outclassed by Zapdos in this case. Sun teams always appreciate bulky Electric-types that provide speed control. A Ground immunity is useful as well, and Zapdos has the ability to check Talonflame and Thundurus, while Togekiss looks like it is straight up deadweight and has zero offensive presence whatsoever.

Zapdos @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Static
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 172 SpA / 28 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Tailwind
- Heat Wave

On Aegislash, I would change it to Safety Goggles over Weakness Policy, as Zapdos now replaced Togekiss. I would also just generally recommend Safety Goggles, as Fire-type attacks will most likely just KO you in Sun, while you block the most common Ground-type attack (Earthquake) with Wide Guard. I also would change your nature to Quiet, so you'll do a better job in Trick Room, and you'll always speed tie versus opposing min Speed Aegislash, which is useful in 1v1 situations (you take less damage in Stance Change and it is optimal if the opponents Aegislash moves before you)

On Scrafty, I would change Lum Berry to Sitrus Berry. Sitrus Berry just gives you so much more longetivity and allows you to switch in to stuff and take hits more easily. I don't see why you would use Lum Berry, as Will-O-Wisp isn't even common and Thunder Wave doesn't matter too much, as you're fairly slow anyway.

Lastly, I would change Rhydon to Rhyperior, as I feel like Rhydon doesn't offer much. Rhyperior doesn't lose too much bulk without Eviolite, and Rhyperior now has to option to go for more damage. I would use qsns's set he used during SPL, which is a fast Rhyperior which is very threatening if you have Tailwind support from Zapdos.

sweep (Rhyperior) @ Life Orb
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Drill Run
- Rock Slide
- Ice Punch
- Protect

If you're less confident with fast Rhyperior and would just prefer a better matchup versus Trick Room, you could go with 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD with a Brave nature.

I hope my rate was useful, good luck with the team! ^_^
 
Thanks for the advice (and compliments) guys! I made most of the changes, but felt like some things weren't right. Is wide guard not popular enough to choose fire blast over heat wave? Isn't that Rhyperior build a little specially weak? I'm using an AV variant (with thunder punch) in order to mitigate that. I'm still wondering if the change is worth it, but it seems great so far. I just need more time to see how Rhyperior takes hits. Togekiss was dead weight, and Zapdos was a great replacement. I forgot all about it... even with the recent HA release.

Any idea in what situations I should use sleep powder? I find it hard assessing the situation when I have a 25% chance to miss. Should I only use it as a last resort? If the risk is low (ie, both opposing pokemon are intimidated, or something)?
 
You could use Fire Blast over Heat Wave, I just think that Mega Charizard Y's offensive potential is better used with a spread move. You can deal with Aegislash (the most common Wide Guard user) via HP Ground anyway.

Rhyperior might be a little specially weak, and Assault Vest could indeed work. I prefer Life Orb for the extra damage, but both could work.

You could use Sleep Powder in any situation honestly. In Chlorophyll, Venusaur outspeeds basically anything and that allows it to freely use Sleep Powder on a suspectible threat. Sleep is a powerful status and it's very useful in many cases.
 
AV Rhyperior is a pretty bad idea, if you're not running a boosting item it's always more efficient to just use Eviolite rhydon with max attack. That said, neither seems like a good choice for your current team, Thundy twaves may be a threat but Rhydon has some pretty bad matchups across the board. I'd say use Keldeo + Lo Lando instead of Rhydon + Scrafty, the pair really improve your offense while keeping quick guard and intim.

Also you should still use blaze zard, you're most likely just taking residual damage on switchins without too significant of a power boost over mega. You also prefer getting extra spdef from mega in a sun mirror, and a random trace mon will get the spa boost as well.

You should pay attention to your latios matchup, it's one of the reasons venu sun has fallen out of favor lately.

Minor edits: blaze zard, upped venu's speed benchmark, roost>heat wave zap, goggles zap, altered zap spread.
Charizard-Mega-Y @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 248 HP / 64 Def / 88 SpA / 108 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 SpD
- Heat Wave
- Solar Beam
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Protect

Venusaur @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 72 HP / 252 SpA / 184 Spe
Modest Nature
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder
- Protect

Aegislash @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Shadow Ball
- Flash Cannon
- Wide Guard
- Protect

Zapdos @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Static
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 104 SpA / 48 SpD / 32 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Tailwind
- Roost

Keldeo @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Secret Sword
- Quick Guard
- Protect

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Knock Off
- Protect
good luck!
 
Can someone explain the Zapdos spreads, and their advantages? What does the higher Venusaur benchmark achieve?
 
Zap is more physically defensive than the analysis zap, it lives a talon flare blitz in sun. A big reason for using zap on sun is a better matchup against lando and talon than thundy. I believe the analysis spread evs for living specs hydreigon draco, which is honestly really rare, and only barely survives two lando rock slides.

The venu I added should pass all scarfers, and outside of sun it will outspeed bisharp, with a little creep for heatran, which is a huge threat to your team. HP on venu honestly doesn't do much, it's much more preferable to absolutely go first, especially with a sleep powder that threatens so many things.

Once again, you currently have a really bad latios matchup, you might want to swap venu out for a non chloro user. Non venu sun doesn't need to prepare nearly as hard for dragons and heatran and talon as sun with venu.
 
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