Project OU Next Best Thing: Cycle 87 - Not hosted anymore

[Jonbot]

Rain dance by JTD783

Focus energy by Stone Bold

 

[Hatternity]

Protective Pads by Dreadfury
Life Orb by GiyuForPresident

 

[InvisibleWater]

Protective Pads by Dreadfury
Substitute by Hatternity

 

[JTD783]

Protective Pads

Mystic Water

 

[RedDiamond1024]

Sub by hatternity
Protective pads by Dreadfury

 

[Xenocide88]

Substitute by Hatternity
Focus Energy by Stone Bold

 

[blooclipse]

ppads and substitute

i was going to submit specs but forgot
L me fr

 

[BT89]

me was late mb


Voting is up!



The winner is… Protective Pads by Dreadfury!

Votes

Substitute by Hatternity - 4
Protective Pads by Dreadfury - 6
Mystic Water by Xenocide88 - 2
Choice Scarf by chaIk
Heavy-Duty Boots (Boots Shark) by nameless90 - 0
Life Orb by GiyuForPresident - 1
Expert Belt by DuGuo - 0
Focus Energy by Stone Bold - 2
Substitute Ice Fang by RedDiamond1024 - 0
Rain Dance by JTD783 - 1

Cycle 84



Continuing with the weather, Excadrill has once again proven itself to be a menacing sweeper in the current tier. With the lowered usage of walls like Corviknight and PhysDef Landorus-T that had neutered its effectiveness in prior iterations of the metagame, Excadrill is able to thrive versus a majority of the tier, acting as a staple on sand teams as the premier Sand Rush abuser in the tier. Even though Excadrill's movepool is rather middling in size, you guys can always make some heat out of these kind of movepools, so let's see what you guys got!

Banned Sets
(standard SD)

The deadline is Sunday, August 7th!​

 

[Hatternity]

Choice Band

Excadrill @ Choice Band
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 24 HP / 252 Atk / 232 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin

Adamant CB Excadrill can be really powerful, breaking through Pokemon that would otherwise check it. Notably the extra power gives it the ability to 2HKO physical walls like Slowbro and Ferrothorn with Earthquake, and deal almost 3/4 to a SDef Landorus-T coming in to pivot with Iron Head. Every more impressive is OHKOing offensive Zapdos most of the time with Rock Slide. Dual Stabs + Rock Slide is already really good coverage, and most coverage moves like X-Scizor or Brick Break only do marginally more to targets than a neutral Earthquake. We can even fit rapid spin for an emergency hazard removal late in the game, or to boost our speed should we ever loose Choice Band.

Some Calcs

52+ Atk Choice Band Mold Breaker Excadrill Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 186-220 (47.3 - 55.9%) -- 80.9% chance to 2HKO


252+ Atk Choice Band Mold Breaker Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 165-195 (46.8 - 55.3%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery


252+ Atk Choice Band Mold Breaker Excadrill Iron Head vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Landorus-Therian: 240-283 (62.9 - 74.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery


252+ Atk Choice Band Mold Breaker Excadrill Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zapdos: 316-372 (98.4 - 115.8%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

 

[blooclipse]

reserving the VEST

 

[Jean-Actimel]

Suicide lead and sand rush hybrid

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Rapid Spin

Mold breaker does not have many uses since there's not magic bounce or levitate user in Ou.
This set fits mostly on offensive sand teams.
Rocks+Spin and toxic allows allows drill to do 2-3 of those things most time.
-keep rocks off your field
-put rocks on the opponent field
- toxic a ground for zolt

Sand rush allows him to clean up late.

I really like the flexibility of this set.

 

[Xenocide88]

Reserving: Air Balloon
I lied....

SpDef Sand SubToxic

Excadrill @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Rush
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 172 HP / 132 SpD / 204 Spe
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Substitute
- Toxic (Flex Alternatives: Rock Slide/Rock Tomb, Rapid Spin)

MASSIVE EDIT: The above EV spread is suboptimal. The following spread of: Jolly 172 HP, 224 SpDef, 112 Spe is not only 2 points faster in the Sand than it was before, but also bumps it's final SpDef up 4.

Originally I wanted to do an Air Balloon set but my best ideas were looking too much like the standard SD set just with a different item. Looking over Exca's stats though made me realize it had some interesting bulk potential and flex in its EV spread. 204 Speed EVs with a neutral nature lets it outrun max speed 110 choice scarfers in Sand, but not quite Regieleki. It also obviously will be slower than even 252 neutral opposing Excadrill. 172 HP EVs lets it hit 404 HP for 101 HP subs, and combined with the nature and SpDef EVs lets it tank a surprising amount of hits. Modest Specs Tapu Lele for example can't ohko with anything but Focus Blast, even on a crit+rocks, and gets ohko'd back with a 0 Atk Iron Head. The major downside of the set is you really rely on your STAB coverage, and as a result don't threaten things like iron birbs whatsoever. What you get in return is the ability to soft check more SpA threats, and wear teams down over more turns as opposed to outright sweeping with a boost.

Earthquake and Iron Head are main choices here for attacking moves, they will give you the most mileage. Substitute and Leftovers give you more subs and more turns to click moves, as well as easing prediction. Finally we get to the last slot, which Toxic is the main choice. Without it you are woefully inadequate against things like Rotom-W, Buzzwole, and Zapdos to name a few. In the event you feel you have these mons sufficiently answered with the rest of your team, a Rock coverage move such as Rock Slide could suffice, and Rock Tomb would give extra speed control. Both however feel notably worse here than they do on more offensive sets, especially since they lack the power of a Swords Dance boost. Rapid Spin can also be slotted here if your team is lacking a hazard remover, but the loss of a slightly more offensive option means this set will not whittle enemy teams down as quickly as it would with Toxic.

Note: This thing has some fun moves like Magnet Rise, but it really starts to suffer from 4mss when you start working outside a lot of the standard effective sets.

 

[Giyu]

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

Choice Scarf Excadrill basically acts as a revenge killer, late-game cleaner, and just standard speed control. With the additional speed, Excadrill is able to outpace many threats such as Blacephalon, Victini, and Weavile. Earthquake and Iron Head are self-explanatory and are Excadrill's most reliable and highest damaging STABs. Rock Slide allows Excadrill to hit Flying-types such as Zapdos, Tornadus-T, and partially Corviknight. Toxic cripples any swich-ins like Buzzwole, Landorus-T, and Slowbro to chip them down. X-Scissor is mainly for troublesome Grass-types such as Rillaboom, Tangrowth, and even Slowbro. Rapid Spin can make Excadrill a quick hazard controller.

 

[Jonbot]

Reserving hone claws


@ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Hone Claws
- High Horsepower
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide

This set is very similar to standard sd but it has a few great perks. Being able to have 100% accurate high horsepowers allow excadrill to bypass / grassy terrain, allowing exca to benefit from the passive recovery while not losing power or accuracy. The booster accuracy also means that can more consistently kill with rock slide, as well as allowing exca to hit hard without risking static and also 2hko :pelipper; attempting to set rain, which can be incredibly helpful for sand teams.

 

[chaIk]

Excadrill @ Soft Sand
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rapid Spin / Rock Slide

Do you not want to lock yourself into one move to be able to use Swords Dance, but do you still want a damage-boosting item? Soft Sand is what you're looking for! Boosting Earthquake's power gives some valuable calcs:

252 Atk Soft Sand Excadrill Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Weavile: 288-339 (102.4 - 120.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Soft Sand Excadrill Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 280-331 (88.3 - 104.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Soft Sand Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 236-282 (77.6 - 92.7%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252+ Atk Soft Sand Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 216 Def Tapu Fini: 327-385 (95 - 111.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252+ Atk Soft Sand Excadrill Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 298-352 (75.8 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes

 

[JTD783]

Wide Lens Excadrill



Excadrill @ Wide Lens
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- High Horsepower
- Iron Head
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic / Rock Slide​

This set is intended to be used alongside Rillaboom, whose Grassy Terrain cripples Earthquake. Wide Lens bluffs... Shuca or Chople I guess, while removing the accuracy issues on High Horsepower and Toxic. All else is standard. As with any sand team, bring some good answers to Corv/Skarm and switchins for Buzzwole, Zapdos, and Volcarona.

 

[RedDiamond1024]

Spdef (Excadrill) @ Leftovers
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 20 Atk / 252 SpD / 168 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
This drill set outspeeds timid max speed tran, and can 2hko offensive zap with rock slide. The rest is put into spdef for maximum special bulk to tank attacks from the likes of zapdos and koko.

 

[nameless90]

Offensive Air Baloon Excadrill

Excadrill @ Air Baloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide

Here we have an offensive Excadrill with three attacking moves + Swords Dance in order to muscle through the defensive checks; thanks to its Spe and natural Atk, Excadrill can force some switches and, thus, it is able to gain some extra free turns to set-up for free. Don't understimate the good set of immunities and resistances Excadrill has.
Air Balloon allows to set-up in front of Earthquake users, so it is very useful to gain these extra turns, not to mention if the opponent's threat only runs Earthquake as attacking move.

 

[Dreadfury]

Sash+Steel Beam Excadrill!

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin / Rock Tomb
- Earthquake
- Steel Beam

This is an older suicide lead set that works kinda like the old Sash+Explosion Lando-T set works: lead off with it, set up Rocks, use Rock Tomb for longer-term Speed control or Rapid Spin to handle opposing hazard control while boosting Drill's own Speed, and use Steel Beam to pseudo-spinblock by KOing itself in the event that you're up against a Corviknight or something. The Steel Beam doesn't really do any notable damage; it just exists to manually kill Excadrill.

Obviously, this only really fits on extreme HO archetypes, but I think it has some legitimate merit as far as suicide leads go, much like how Sash+Explosion Lando does.

EDIT: Kept on saying Meteor Beam.

 

[blooclipse]

Sash+Meteor Beam Excadrill!

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin / Rock Tomb
- Earthquake
- Meteor Beam

This is an older suicide lead set that works kinda like the old Sash+Explosion Lando-T set works: lead off with it, set up Rocks, use Rock Tomb for longer-term Speed control or Rapid Spin to handle opposing hazard control while boosting Drill's own Speed, and use Meteor Beam to pseudo-spinblock by KOing itself in the event that you're up against a Corviknight or something. The Meteor Beam doesn't really do any notable damage; it just exists to manually kill Excadrill.

Obviously, this only really fits on extreme HO archetypes, but I think it has some legitimate merit as far as suicide leads go, much like how Sash+Explosion Lando does.

Steel Beam is the attack that takes half of your HP. Meteor beam is the 2-turn attack that raises our special attack.

 

[Dreadfury]

Steel Beam is the attack that takes half of your HP. Meteor beam is the 2-turn attack that raises our special attack.

WHOOPS! Not sure why I didn't catch that.

Edited everything to reflect that, but I did mean Steel Beam all along.

 

[kek123]

Aerial Ace Drill

Excadrill @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD /252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head/Rock Slide
- Aerial Ace
- Swords Dance

LO adamant kill Buzz with Aerial Ace at +2
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Excadrill Aerial Ace vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Buzzwole: 442-520 (105.7 - 124.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Aerial Ace is very nice at the moment since most people run Spdef lando and corv is on the decline, lot of people run Buzz to deal with treats like Weavile and Urshifu.

This set goes quite will with Weavile since Buzz is one of its biggest answers and this Excadrill sets works well as a lure

And it goes with out saying that it is a good late game sweepers

 

[Stone Bold]

RestoChesto

Excadrill @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 156 Atk / 112 Def / 72 SpD / 168 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Swords Dance / Iron Head / Rapid Spin
- Rest

Outspeeds Modest Heatran when Sandstorm isn't active and the defensive EVs allow it to take 1 Choice Band, Adamant Rillaboom Grassy Glide from full or 1 Timid 252 EVs Tapu Fini Surf from full, and by extension max special attack Scald as well.

252+ Atk Choice Band Rillaboom Grassy Glide vs. 0 HP / 112 Def Excadrill in Grassy Terrain: 306-360 (84.7 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
252 SpA Tapu Fini Surf vs. 0 HP / 72 SpD Excadrill: 306-360 (84.7 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

A moveset like this allows Excadrill to beat the Pokemon that would like to status(Burn or Paralyze) it. As well as Pokemon that would like it to be worn down throughout a match. However, Rest fails when Electric or Misty Terrain are active though Tapu Koko doesn't want to be battling an Excadrill and Tapu Fini itself is prone to being worn down because it has to put itself in front of many powerful threats and cannot heal without Leftovers (or dropping Misty Surge and carrying Rest of its own).

 

[BT89]

Cycle 84 Submissions Phase is over!
Time to vote!

This Cycle's Featured Pokemon


Choice Band by Hatternity
Sand Rush Suicide Lead by Jean-Actimel
SpDef Sub Toxic by Xenocide88
Choice Scarf by GiyuForPresident
Hone Claws by Jonbot
Soft Sand SD by chaIk
Wide Lens by JTD783
Specially Defensive by RedDiamond1024
Air Balloon by nameless90
Steel Beam by Dreadfury
Aerial Ace by kek123
Rest + Chesto Berry by Stone Bold


You must vote for 2 sets, in no particular order.
You have 24 hours to vote!
Voting ends on Monday, August 8th.

Please do not vote for your own set, and make sure to vote for 2 sets. ​

 

[Hatternity]

Steel Beam by Dreadfury
Aerial Ace by kek123