Lucario is "The Chosen One" - Offensive Team

[Maneshwar Singh]

Hey everyone! So after a while of playing OU on showdown, I've devised a team that does pretty well as long as I read my opponents well and disrupt their strategy and/or set my team up for a sweep.

Here's the crew:

​

This team is built mostly around Lucario. I first wanted to use him as a sweeper/late game sweeper, so I came up with a few pokemon to compliment him. I really like Dragonite and magnezone backing up Lucario (for reasons I'll explain later). Landorus, Keldeo, and Alakazam are there to start to rip holes in the opponent's team and disrupt their strategy before they can get going. After that, I rely on offensive swing and momentum to keep the opponent on the defensive and scrambling. once all the holes have been punched, The last offensive pokemon I have left (Usually Lucario) comes in and brings the win home. I tried to keep my team adaptable and able to be useful by not relying on just Lucario for sweeping. Lucario, Dragonite, Keldeo, and Alakazam are all capable of sweeping the opponent

Analysis:​

The Chosen One (Lucario) @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Bullet Punch
- ExtremeSpeed

Lucario is what this team is built around, and as such, he is "The Chosen One," who shall lead this team into victory. This is the set that I use for him to clean up late game. He can usually pick off real weakened pokemon with extremespeed or bullet punch. And for those other threats he has close combat. I really try and get him set up with a favorable match up, swords dance up, and then wreak havoc. There's nothing more to him, just to set up and kill. I'm not sure I like Life Orb on him as it hurts his durability, but Lucario was never all tat durable anyway. Bullet punch is for Gengar, though I've been considering ice punch lately. The reason I decided against it is because Bullet punch gives my team 2 types of priorities, so it doesn't get walled completely by ghosts

The Protector (Dragonite) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Lonely Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Punch
- ExtremeSpeed

Dragonite's job is to protect Lucario, either by walling water/ground/fighting attacks, or by setting up DD early and wreaking havoc on the opposing team. A lot of the time, Dragonite ends up protecting Lucario by sweeping before Lucario is even needed. Dragons also attract steel types, so in a way, D-Nite is a Lure to eliminate bulky steel types early. This might or might not be redundant, considering that a +2 Close Combat from Lucario kills a lot of steels on contact. D-Nite also carries Extremespeed, which I love. Having 2 priorities that hit hard make it tough bring in weakened pokemon. Especially Jolteon who gets KO'd by a +1 Extreme Speed after SR damage or being weakened by the switching mind game. I use D-Claw over Outrage because I don't want this guy to be locked into steels with Outrage where it can kill them after 1 D-Claw and a Fire Punch. I was considering giving him a shell bell to try and keep multiscale in effect, but curing an untimely burn for a DD might just be much more worth it.

The Kill-Switch (Magnezone) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 172 HP / 252 SAtk / 84 Spd
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]

I'm not sure if Magnezone is redundant in this team, but I really like the synergy he provides along with a very powerful volt switch, and can severely damage bulky waters on the volt switch. If this guy comes in on something and the opponent switches into something I can't volt switch on- I usually switch into Keldeo. If I know the opponent has a ground type, I'll hit it with a flash canon. I was really considering using HP ice instead of fire, because this guy really likes to lure in the ground types. That might be more useful, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Usually people start with a steel type and I have in Landorus-T, so I'll u-turn into Magnezone and go for the kill. I don't know if that'll be more worth it for my team. Then to kill steel types, my next bet is Dragonite with Fire punch, or hope that Landorus has weakened them for Lucario to close combat them. I was thinking of replacing him, but I just like the powerful volt switch too much. Though I was thinking of giving him a different item so he's not locked into volt switch on a ground type. HP Fire also lets me kill grass types that could be bothersome.

The Lasting Hope (Keldeo-Resolute) @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Icy Wind
- Secret Sword

Keldeo is another Wall-Breaker/Hole Puncher I have going for my team. Usually people expect a choice spec'd Keldeo, but this one provides some useful utility to get the opponent scrambling and on the defensive. It depends on when Keldeo comes in, but if it's late, I just let him die form Life orb. If it's early, I'll try to save him for later. This guy is here to come in and Do damage and really hurt the other team. I might take suggestion on a different non-choice item because I would love for this guy to be more durable, but that extra power often helps a lot.

The Gatekeeper (Landorus-Therian) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 200 HP / 64 Atk / 244 Def
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

This is the gatekeeper - the offensive check for ground/fighting types that would give Lucario Problems. He comes in for the SR or U-turn to provide me with offensive swing and momentum. He can hurt ninetales with an earthquake, or u-turn out of politoed. This guy is really just an offensive pivot, as found on smogon. Occasionally, he does damage steel types and other unsuspecting pokemon.

The Destroyer (Alakazam) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Signal Beam
- Hidden Power [Ice]

This is the destroyer. He comes in to remove dragons with hp ice, fighting types with psychic, espeon. He also gets rid of gliscor and opposing Landorus-T's. Basically He's a fast revenge killer that's capable of sweeping if the opponent has no answer to him. I have a sash on him just in case something comes in that's faster and thinks it can kill it. After he's sashed, usually a pokemon with priority comes in to kill it, in which case, Lucario usually wins that battle.

Conclusions and Last Words:​

This team has done well for me in OU, Usually I can out-switch the opponent for favorable matchups. The only things I was considering were putting HP ice on Magnezone and getting rid of the choice item. Though I'm not sure about getting rid of the choice because magnezone can't out speed anything that will earthquake him.

I was also considering Starmie, but I didn't want to add another grass weakness and get rid of a good hole puncher.

The other pokemon I was considering was T-tar for sand support, though I'm not sure switching them out for Alakazam and Keldeo would make this team stronger.

With all that being said, Comments/Thoughts/Suggestions?

Thank you all for taking the time to read through this.

 

[MCBarrett]

Hey Maneshwar, pretty nice team you have here. I would agree that Magnezone doesn't really seem to fit on this team very well, considering that you do not really need to trap things like Ferrothorn or Forretress to sweep with Lucario considering he can either take them out by himself (Ferrothorn) or the rest of your team handles them well so it isn't a threat (Forretress). I also noticed that you do not have a Scarfer which is always a good thing to have in this metagame. Since you seem to really like the ability to gain momentum with volt switch and since your team would really appreciate a dragon resist outside of Lucario I would recommend using Scarf Jirachi. Jirachi is a great Scarfer thanks to its ability to flinch with iron head, gain momentum with U-Turn and revenge kill dragons with Ice Punch which could otherwise be threatening to your team. For the last move slot you could either use Fire Punch for extra coverage or Healing Wish which allows you to sac Jirachi and bring in your next Poke fully healed. I would recommend Healing Wish but it's really personal preference.

With this change however I can see Jellicent turning into quite the annoyance so I would recommend using Shadow Ball over Signal Beam on Alakazam. With Scarf Rachi Celebi becomes much less of a problem so ditching Signal Beam shouldn't be a problem.

Hope my suggestions helped! Let me know how it works and good luck with the team!

 

[Maneshwar Singh]

Thanks for your suggestions! I did end up changing signal beam to shadow ball, more effective like you said.

I also tried out Jirachi, but for some reason, I just can't seem to get a winning record with him. I've lost 80% of the games I played with Jirachi. Though it would be useful to have a scarfer, I changed back to magnezone and I was able to just do more damage with him. I think what gets people about him is they expect him to come in and do something completely different form what I had planned. I dunno what it is - maybe it's some mind game that the opponent thinks I'm playing but really not and it becomes a meta-mind game that throws people off about Magnezone which helps me get wins. He may not gel with the rest of my team, but he is winning me games somehow. Could a scarfed Metagross work? I'm not sure. I lose the switching potential, but he does resist dragon. might not be fast enough though as a scarfer should be.

 

[Metal Sonic]

Hello Maneshwar! Nice team you have here! A Swords Dance Lucario sweeper set is really cool, I'm going to suggest some changes to your team in order to make it better!

I find that Jellicent is an annoyance to your win condition. Fortunately, you have a Magnezone to take care of it, and also Keldeo having HP Electric is useful! However, I'd like to present to you another addition by changing Signal Beam ---> Shadow Ball on Alakazam so that you can kill Jellicent, and other Psychic and Ghost types more easily. This is important as Ghost typings can pose problems for your Extremespeed users.

I also find that Breloom is a big threat to your team. Nothing except Landorus-T can switch in safely against it, and in particular I am referring to the Focus Sash Lead set. LowSweep/MachPunch can remove Zone and Lucario from your team, and Bullet Seed nets easy KOs on Keldeo and Alakazam. Spore can incapacitate your Landorus T and Dragonite cannot switch in onto a Focus Sashed Breloom, forcing you to have to sack someone for Spore. I suggest the usage of a Sleep Talker, and the best candidate I can think of for this role is Dragonite. I suggest for Dragonite to be given a Choice Band and for Dragon Dance to be changed to Sleep Talk, so that you can have a Sleep absorber on your team and also hit hard with +1 Extremespeed right off the bat.



Finally, you are also missing 4 EVs on Lucario. Maybe you can put it into Defense or HP. Who knows, maybe that 1 point can save a life!


Hope my suggestions helped! Let me know how it works and good luck with the team!

 

[ogasian]

Hey man really nice team! Just a few nitpicks. I personally prefer Expert Belt over Life Orb on Keldeo, as it allows you to bluff a choice item before you nab the suprise KO. Second, your team has a severe weakness to strong water type attacks from the likes of Keldeo and Politoed. I know because I faced you today on the ladder (i think i was using the alt Facepalm234) and Specs Toad raped you. I suggest replacing Zone with a Nasty Plot Baton Pass Celebi. It can pass Nasty Plot boosts to Keldeo or even attempt a sweep itself! Here is the set I have in mind.

Celebi@Leftovers
Natural Cure
252 hp/252 spD/4 speed
Calm

Baton Pass
Nasty Plot
Giga Drain
Recover

Good luck!

 

[Troller_Shedinja]

wow, cool team! i have one suggestion that probably isnt all that big, but u have a weakness to a scarfed victini with mamoswine combo:

Victini @ choice scarf | Victory Star
Adament | 252 atk/ 252 spd/ 4 HP
V-Create/ Bolt Strike/ Zen Headbutt/U-Turn

Mamoswine @Life Orb | Thick Fat
Adament | 252 spe/ 100 atk/ 152 HP/ 4 spd
Ice Shard/ Earthquake/ Stone Edge/ Icicle Crash

victini has se moves on ur whole team except dnite and lando, but mamo has that
covered with sr damage to get rid of multiscale

i suggest that u scarf ur keldeo with a modest nature, but really, i suppose that
victini isnt that common in OU, but the combo of ice, fire, electric is common on
conk(via the elemental punches), so conk is a potential threat, but not very likely
to sweep due to his base 45 spe, but if he is baton passed a big speed boost from
ninjask or something, ur team is gonna have a problem dealing with him(especially
the sheer force ones with life orb), but im pretty sure ur team can deal with this.

 

[chimpact]

Your team doesn't have much to take on water moves. Dragonite and Keldeo are your only resists, dragonite doesnt want to come in on random moves so it can preserve its scale and keldeo can't take too much damage because of life orb. Even though your team is offensive you still should have a decent switch-in to water moves because of how common rain teams are. I would add in a starmie to patch up that weakness.

In order for starmie to be put on the team, I replaced Magnezone with it. Starmie is a great answer to offensive teams. Previously, you only had dragonite or alakazam at full health to handle keldeo, but this gives you another option. Additionally, its another fighting resist in case you don't want to put pressure on landorus.

Starmie @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 28 Def / 8 SAtk / 224 Spd
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Recover

Moveset is pretty self explanatory. 8 Special attack EVs enable it to OHKO Gengar 100% of the time. The speed allows you to outspeed Base 110's and Tornadus-I. Rest of the EVS are put into HP and defense for solid bulk. Scald is great against more defensive rain teams that rely on their ferrotorn to continuously take hits.

Additionally, I recommend a slight change to your Keldeo's set. By replacing Life orb with a Lum Berry and Icy wind with Calm Mind, you can bluff a choice set early on in the game and increase your survivability with the Lum Berry. you lose out on a lot of power, but Jellicent is a huge problem to your team and it can easily life orb stall your keldeo with recovers as it's not doing enough damage. With Calm Mind supporting Keldeo, that will not be the case and it can even take on a (weakened [65% or less]) amoongus one on one with the help of lum berry. a + 1 Secret sword does a minimum of 32% to 252 / 0 Def Amoongus.

 

[Subject 18]

Hey there Maneshwar! Solid start to the team so far. Like others before me have mentioned you have a really weakness to water moves and rain really just compounds that. Dragonite can take a few but I personally wouldn't as you need it to be at full health to avoid being easily revenged killed. As you said Magnezone on your team doesn't really help you much. It doesn't have much of a purpose that isn't made redundant by Lucario and Keldeo (partially).

First off I would like to suggest replacing Magnezone. Like I mentioned above its role it made redundant and that slot could be better used for a Water resist. I would recommend using Nasty Plot Celebi. You can switch in to water moves and make them with ease and threaten out Keldeo (non Ebelt) and Politoed. Having Baton Pass and Nasty Plot give you the chance of being able to escape Pursuit Trappers like Tyranitar and Scicor as well as having the ability to pass Boosts to Keldeo if the need every comes up.

Celebi @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 224 SpD / 32 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Nasty Plot
- Hidden Power Fire
- Baton Pass

As Jellicent stops Lucario cold, you can make change Bullet Punch on Lucario for Crunch. Having Bullet Punch is nice to beat Terrakion but Landorus-T is around for that purpose not to mention that Extreme Speed is stronger for most things you need to beat. Ice Punch is another option to have there to nail Landorus-T and Gliscor coming in to wall you but Keldeo is faster than both and can kill them off.

Minor Changes:

- On Dragonite I would make the nature Adamant and not Lonely.
- I would make Keldeo Scarfed to help dealing with other speedy threats that could be an issue.
- Scarfed Keldeo >> Life Orb Keldeo
- You are missing 4 EVs on Lucario put those into HP
- The 4 SpAtk EVs need to be moved to Def or SpDef


That is all I have for you right now. If you need more help feel free to ask. Hope this helped and good luck with the team.

~Subject 18~​

 

[Maneshwar Singh]

That you everyone for all your replies, I'm testing out all these new combinations as we speak.

I don't know what it is, but somehow Magnezone is too important for me to win LOL! Anytime I replace him with anyone else, for some reason my team just starts going on losing streaks. Rain really hasn't been a problem with me, or Sun, because I tried to make sure I don't have a huge weakness to that. And I usually get rid of key pokemon early or soon enough for them to be ineffective. Most of the time, I'm able to out-smart my opponents and disrupt their strategy either by Throwing out something they don't expect as a lead or by playing mind-games with all the switching I do. I guess sometimes things look good on paper but just work out differently in battle. Plus one person might see a different use for a Pokemon during battle where others would not.

With that in mind, I am still however trying out everyone's suggestions. Thank you again, everyone, for all your suggestions. Helping out with this team has really helped me and I appreciate everyone who took the time to do so. It's funny, I'm seeing people using my team on showdown - I guess it feels kinda good.

Here's the updated team thus far:

The Chosen One (Lucario) @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Crunch
- ExtremeSpeed

After much deliberation, I went with Crunch as of late. Makes Jellicent not a problem and unsuspecting part psychic pokemon get hit hard. Still debating over crunch and bullet punch though, because most of the things that will psychic Lucario are way faster than him. Maybe I'll change it back to bullet punch later.

The Protector (Dragonite) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Punch
- ExtremeSpeed

Changed this guy to adamant when I noticed he wasn't. I didn't change this guy at all. Someone suggested starmie as a spinner/support to get rid of hazards for this guy, but he's really my wall breaker/ pressure provider. He comes out early as I try to prevent the stealth rocks by starting out surprising the opponent. If I don't see an answer to dragonite on their team, This guy comes out first, DD's up, and goes to town on the other team. I know the beauty of Multiscale is to preserve D-nite's HP and can come in handy mid-battle, but I haven't had a problem with that yet. I do occasionally bring him out in SR anyway. I guess a lot of my strategy is screwing with the opponent's mind and sometimes taking absurd ballsy gambles.

The Kill-Switch (Magnezone) @ Focus Band
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 172 HP / 252 SAtk / 84 Spd
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Thunder Wave
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Magnezone. I just can't seem to get rid of this guy. I keep him in, I'm able to win. I switch him out, I go on a tough losing streak that I can't shake off without this guy. Though I originally had him in as a choice specs user, I switched it to focus band. I dunno why, for S&G's I guess. Sometimes it gets a focus band hax and it survives an attack to either KO or switch out to absorb more hits. This guy's become pretty much the team's punching bag. Other items I thought of using included: air balloon, rocky helmet, red card, razor claw, eject button, razor fang, magnet, or a lum berry. I really didn't want to give away that this guy isn't a choice specs user. Another reason I keep him around is because I switched T-bolt to T-wave which has crippled many opponents thinking they can switch in anything that's not part ground. And when I see that coming, I just use flash canon to hit them for some damage. I usually have to rely on my prediction abilities a lot, so I guess that's why magnezone works out for me. Though I have seriously considered switching HP fire to ice, but I'm leaving it fire for now.

The Lasting Hope (Keldeo-Resolute) @ Expert Belt
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Icy Wind
- Secret Sword

I was having stability issues with Keldeo early on, so I did change life orb out for expert belt. This set has worked out well for me, though I am seriously considering the calm mind/lum berry modifications that Chimpact suggested earlier. That might be even better for my team and give him more staying power. In the past, I usually ice wind something I know I can't kill easily, and usually magnezone or landorus-t resists whatever is coming, so I ice wind him on the switch, switch to magnezone/landorus for the attack, and volt switch/u-turn in for the advantage. It's long and convoluted, but it's worked for me and breaks down my opponent mentally when they can't seem to win the switching-game.

The Gatekeeper (Landorus-Therian) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 200 HP / 64 Atk / 244 Def
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

This guy still keeps the gate.

The Destroyer (Alakazam) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Ice]

This guy still destroys.

 

[Mr cookies]

Why are you running jolly lucario anyways? What do you need the speed for? Change to Adamant if you dont need the extra speed, especially if you choose BP>Crunch