Somewhat entertaining Lucario team [OU]

[weaselForce1]

Hello, world! This is my first-ever competitive team, and my first RMT. Here's the team at a glance:

The basic point of the team is to bait a choiced Pursuit from something like Tyranitar or Weavile to get in a free Swords Dance for Lucario and sweep, or at least cripple, the opponent's team. Swampert gets up rocks and otherwise makes a nuisance of himself, Latias and Rotom bait Pursuits, Porygon2 and Scizor cover some Lucario counters and shore up some general weaknesses, and Lucario is...well, Lucario.

Ch-ch-ch-changes in red.

Lead

Swampert @ Leftovers
Nature: Relaxed
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 236 HP, 216 Def, 56 Atk

Earthquake
Ice Beam
Stealth Rock
Roar

At august's suggestion, I'm using lead Swampert, and am really enjoying it. Gets up Rocks consistently, and continues to make a nuisance of himself throughout the game. Helps against problematic DD T-tar and continues to take hits well into the game. Also adds an extremely useful Fire resist to come on in potentially crippling Fire attacks to Scizor or Lucario.

Pursuit Bait

Latias @ Choice Specs
Nature: Timid
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP, 252 Sp. Atk, 252 Speed

Draco Meteor
Surf
Grass Knot
Trick

It breaks walls, rips holes in teams, and lures the absurdly obvious Pursuit: Latias is a near-perfect compliment to Lucario. This Latias is great for putting big, Lucario-friendly holes in teams. Easily KOs any physically defensive monster in its way, and even heavily weakens specially defensive mons, too. Three attacks because they kill a lot of stuff, and Trick because it cripples Skarm, Bronzong, and Hippowdown that can stop Lucario sweeps. Timid to outspeed neutral-natured base 110s and +speed base 100s, and Grass Knot hits T-tar and bulky waters hard.

Rotom-H @ Choice Scarf
Nature: Modest
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP, 252 Sp. Atk, 252 Speed

Overheat
Thunderbolt
Shadow Ball
Trick

Second verse, same as the first. If one powerful special attacker can set up for Lucario, a second one can't hurt. Again, three attacks to hurt things, and Trick to cripple walls. Rotom-H is also a great check for Gyarados, ghost-types, and steel-types that come in to ruin Lucario's fun, as well as the obvious ghost switch-in to lead Infernape's Fake Out.

General Utility

Scizor @ Choice Band
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP, 252 Atk, 8 Speed

Bullet Punch
U-Turn
Superpower
Pursuit

Standard CB Scizor. This revenge-kills or weakens a lot of thing that threaten the rest of the team, such as Breloom and Togekiss, what I've found are two of the biggest threats against this team, as well as killing off weakened Salamence and Celebi that give Lucario problems. Bullet Punch revenge kills or even just kills straight-up, U-turn scouts wonderfully, and Superpower hits a lot of things hard. Pursuit is another measure against ghost-types which Lucario really doesn't like facing.

Porygon2 @ Leftovers
Nature: Bold
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP, 216 Def, 40 Sp. Atk

Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Recover
Thunderwave

This duck makes an incredible companion to Lucario, and is quickly becoming my favorite pokemon in the game. Trace shenanigans allow it to counter Gyarados and physical Salamence, two annoying threats to Lucario, as well as Heatran, Jolteon, Vaporeon, and others, more of which I'm discovering every day. It even single-handedly checks Sunny Day and Rain Dance teams by coming in to trace Chlorophyll or Swift Swim , taking the ton of abuse it can take, and dishing out paralysis to negate weather-related speed boosts. This guy is absolutely the glue that holds this team together.

The Lucario

Lucario @ Life Orb
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Inner Focus

Swords Dance
Extremespeed
Close Combat
Ice Punch

The centerpiece of the team, and its late-game sweeper. Standard SD Lucario; comes in, SDs on the switch, and wrecks havoc until it's forced out or it dies. Crunch over Ice Punch because Jolly Lucario isn't outspeeding many Salamence as it is, and over Stone Edge because Gyarados is handled well by Porygon2 and Rotom-H. Adamant for extra power, and because Jolly doesn't outspeed many things that don't get hit hard with Extremespeed. If this gets an SD, there aren't a lot of things that stand in its way.


So there's the team. I've been playing it for a little while on Shoddy, and enjoying it greatly, but I feel it could use some changes, especially an alternative to LeadApe.

Pokemon this team has trouble with (off the top of my head) include Breloom (which is incredibly difficult to get in a check against), Zapdos (which checks a lot of my team and has no real counter in it), Machamp (which, again, checks a lot of my team and is near impossible to stop), and Togekiss (but perhaps because I keep getting haxed to death).

Rate, hate, steal (really, please steal it; if I see it used against me, it will absolutely make my week), and thank you in advance for anyone's help at all.

 

[august]

Hi.

Looking through your team, you have 2 mons that bait Pursuit really well. In doing this, you are generally staying in against Tyranitar, I'd assume. Having used a very similar team to this before, I can say from experience that you are extremely Substitute Dragon Dance Tyranitar weak. None of Rotoms Choiced attacks are enough to break Tyranitar Subs, and Porygon2 is quite easily set up on. Scizor is taking 49.27% - 58.02% from Max Atk Jolly Tar Stone Edge. The most obvious solution to countering all variants of TTar without having to rely completely on prediction is Swampert. Swampert also gets Stealth Rock up more consistently than Ape in my experience and is also useful late game to take Bullet Punchs, Thunderbolts, or even be death fodder and take choice locked attacks to scout.

Swampert (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 236 HP/216 Def/56 SAtk
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Ice Beam

Also forms a very solid defensive duo with Porygon2. Also counters Toxic SubTran to an extent, which has a lot of free chances to switch in, and Porygon2 is only really a good ScarfTran counter by nature, as it cannot break Heatran's Subs with Thunderbolt.

Latias should always be running Timid on the Choice Specs set. That way you can outspeed Infernape, +Spe Mixmence, +Spe CB Flygon, and anything else that can outspeed neutral base 110s and be considered a threat. Rotom H should also at least consider running Timid>Modest, because it outspeeds +1 Jolly Gyarados, who can steamroll you if Porygon is weakened.

Another thing I would consider is running Grass Knot on Latias. You have CurseTar and CurseLax covered fine, but CursePert is quite a menace if it can manage to play around your 2 trickers. Grass Knot will also do more to Tar, and most bulky waters as well. Surf is already a 2HKO with SR on Skarmory, which lessens the need for TBolt. The only thing I'd be weary of with running Grass Knot is the free Pursuit that Scizor can make use of. But judging by your post, the Pursuit will be taken advantage of with Lucario.

Speaking of Luke, I'd much rather just run Crunch to be completely honest. Most, if not all Salamence are going to outrun you anyway, so in order to hit it most of the time you'd have to throw a blindside Ice Punch on the switch to OHKO. Also, DDMence is handled fine by P2 and Scizor, and MixMence can be revenged by Rotom H and Scizor. Crunch also helps in breaking stall if you can somehow weaken the opposing Restalk Gyarados to the point an SD Crunch will take it out.

Very cool team, good luck with it.

 

[weaselForce1]

august: Thanks for the suggestions! I've been using the Swampert, and it works great, along with most of your other suggestions. I'm not sold on Grass knot yet (it doesn't get a lot of use so far), but Timid Latias and Crunch for Lucario were definitely helpful. I'll try out Timid Rotom-H later to see if outspeeding +1 Gyarados is worth the drop in power.