DPP OU The Art of U-Turn

[M Dragon]

I have always liked offense. Since DP went out, I have always wanted to make a team based arround it, as i thought it was an amazing move in an offensive team, easily giving you the tempo of the battle, while allowing to scout the opponent's team, and after my dracobalance team was beated by k-12 with an u-turn team, I started to make my own u-turn team. I knew one thing: I wanted to make an u-turn team arround luke (details about how I made the team after the team).
I started using this team 4 months ago, and i have had huge success in the shoddy ladder. During the latios test, it got #1 the first day very easily with my main account, and in the standard ladder it ranked me #1, and it has won many tourneys.

At a Glance

General Strategy
The overall aim of this team is to systematically remove Luke's counters to allow it to sweep late game, while hitting hard with things like CBzor, mixmence or CMcune to weaken their team, flygon scouting and revenge killing, and uxie making switches, adding SR damage.
Late game, my last 2 pokes are 90% of the time Luke and flygon. If I can't sweep with luke, plan B is trying a flygon sweep.

The Team

Resistencia @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/6 SDef
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Yawn
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Psychic

M Dragon, are u crazy? How can u use this thing? Use metagross, or swampert or azelf! Uxie sucks!
That is what people usually say when they see this thing for first time, but they are very wrong. Uxie is one of the best starters I have ever used, and it is key for the team's success. It is very bulky, and nearly nothing will OHKO it without a CH, which means that it will set up the rocks first turn most of the times, except:
· Fast sleep: 90% of the times it will be a roserade, and i can stay until uxie wakes up to set up the rocks, as i have just one poke affected by the TS, and roserade is gonna set up 2 TS ladders it doesn't matter whatever i do.
· Taunt: 2 options here: if it doesnt resist psychic, i will psychic to kill it, and i will return later to set up the rocks. If it resists psychic (azelf mainly), I will u-turn to flygon to get the kill with another u-turn and then return to uxie (if it has taunted, it won't set up the rocks that turn)

After setting the rocks, it has 2 important roles: fighting counter (annoying things like infernape, lucario or machamp can be stopped by this guy), and phazer / sleeper with yawn, allowing me to scout their team while getting some nice SR damage for the opponent's team. Yawn is an awesome move against sweepers that thing they can set up in uxie's face. U-turn is also very useful to pursuit those celebis / blisseys that stays in yawn because natural cure.
Scizor and luke can take very well the bug, dark and ghost attacks thrown to Uxie

Ouch! @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 244 HP/252 Atk /12 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Pursuit

What can I say about this thing that you don't know? U-turn + SR destroys it counters, helping luke, since they have similar counters.
Early game I always u-turn while I can, and if I see a ghost that is faster than luke than could stop its sweep, it is a mindgame between Pursuit and Bullet Punch. I sometimes Superpower first turn. It is funny see how many heatrans / magnezones dies when i do that xd. Bullet Punch to clean late game.
200 HP makes it quite bulky, but im thinking i should make it bulkier and a bit slower.
It works really well with uxie, as uxie attracts many CBtars, which means a free turn for CBzor.
Fire attacks are easily stopped by mence, flygon or suicune

DragonFly @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Stone Edge
- U-turn

I don't remember who told me a long time ago that Flygon was one of the most annoying pokes for other offensive teams, and he was right. Will I u-turn, or will I EQ to destroy your nape / magnezone? If my opponent mispredict with something like that, Im in a huge advantage (which means a dangerous poke for my team is death, or he has switched and i have u-turned to a counter, adding SR + u-turn damage, what can be annoying for him if he has switched to a SR weak thing)
An evil DDtar with the babiri berry wants to sweep my team after one DD? Is an empoleon or a metagross trying to sweep my team after an agility? NP! Scarfgon is here to save the day, revenge killing them.
If there is a key pokemon that makes the team be together, that pokemon is flygon. If flygon dies early game, winning that game is much more difficult.
After luke sweep (if it dies for whatever reason), flygon cleans.
I don't know if adamant would be a better option, because i feel with jolly it doesnt hit hard enough
Ice and Dragon attacks are stopped by Scizor and Luke

Phenom @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Extremespeed
- Crunch

This thing is a beast. It has sweept entire teams without any problems, and if the gyara of a stall is weakened, this thing can sweep the stall.
Midgame it sometimes appears to CC to see what counters of luke my opponent's has, or simply to destroy one of his pokes (if mence is the onlu thing that can stop it, for example, after CC damage + rocks, it won't be able to stop luke later when it gets a SD)
Lategame, if it gets a SD, it is usually gg.
Fighting and ground attacks goes to uxie, mence or flygon (not fighting ones)

Bahamut @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 16 Atk/252 Spd/242 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Draco Meteor
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower

The stall destroyer. With a little bit of prediction, this beast can destroy a team, taking 2/3 pokes easily before dying. If a blissey comes in a outrage, suicune will sweep the stall very easily, if hippo / gyara / gliscor come in a Draco Meteor, luke will have a much easier time sweeping.
If there is no SR, this thing is gonna be a pain for my opponent, as it has absolutely no safe switching (except cress, which is destroyed by scizor).
Ice / Dragon attacks goes to scizor or luke, while rock attacks goes to luke or flygon.

Espejismo @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 6 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]

CMLOcune makes a comeback. Grizzly bear told me that it wouldnt work, but he was wrong. This thing is still a beast, and works pretty well destroying the celebi / zapdos switching, and i dont understand why people tries to stop it with breelom, just to be Ice beamed to death, or those that send scizor, just to die to a +1 Surf. It can very easily come against a gyara (specially those taunt leads) or heatran, and start his reign of terror, making a very good number against offensive / balance teams, and also stalls if bliss is weakened. This suicune is still a big surprise, and it works pretty well.
Electric attacks goes to flygon, and plant attacks goes to scizor.

 

[M Dragon]

How I made this team
When I started, I knew the team had to have luke, and the team should be based arround it.
As I wanted to make an u-turn team, CBzor is nearly a must for u-turn teams, so I added it to the team.
I had:

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Both lucario and scizor have similar counters and similar weakness, specially to fire attacks, so I thought I needed something that could destroy walls that could give lucario problems that could resist fire attacks, and ground/fighting attacks too if possible. I thought in 2 pokemon: mixmence and DD LO gyara. mixmence could help against stall teams and against bulky pokemons, and DD LO gyara could be a good idea for damage early game, so I added both.
This was the team:

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Now I needed a lead that could set up the rocks and an electric / rock resist. The second thing was an easy one: flygon was perfect in my team, as it can take rock / electric attacks directed at gyara, while helping me to revenge kill threats, and that added an another u-turner, hitting physical walls hard with Draco Meteor (I had a mixed one).
Now I had:

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I just needed a lead that could set up the rocks. I saw I had 2 SR weak pokes, so I thought taunt azelf would be a quite nice idea (aerodactyl would have meant too many rock weakness), so I had a new team ready for test:

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After few battles, i saw things like infernape or machamp very annoying, specially with rocks, and somebody suggested me uxie as a lead, so I tried it with a lot of success.

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With uxie in the team, I was winning much more times, so I decided to keep it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1-Bmu59OwY)
But soon, I started to see a problem with the team: gyarados and heatran in late game were a huge problem. I felt that gyara was doing nothing in the team, so i thought i should replace gyara. This was the battle that made me change gyara, because i saw i needed a better heatran switching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi0eM-4_Z4Q
Then, I saw grizzly bear's RMT and I thought that the CM LO suicune he used could fit well in my team, as it covered gyara and heatran quite well, and it could make gyara's job of weakening the opponents team. He told me that CM LO suicune didnt worked that well anymore, but i still decided to try it, and i was very surprised because absolutely nobody was expecting it, making some nice OHKOs to things like scizor, breelom, zapdos, and destroying celebi, latias (later), bulky waters...
So thats how I ended with this team.

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Finally, I made one last change, making flygon physical, because togekiss was giving me some problems, and i felt Draco Meteor wasnt hitting enough hard. With a physical moveset flygon was able to sweep late game with outrage, and use Stone Edge to kill things that gave me some trouble like zapdos or gyarados

Here are some vids:
vs Greko (he won a important spanish tourney) => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5q8-KBbBs
vs Hector (thnx to farmer) => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r75_b3DSi2s

 

[M Dragon]

Defensive Threats

Blissey - Can't really wall anything on my team apart from Suicune. Scizor can play mindgames with bliss (will I pursuit, will I u-turn or will I superpower?) Lucario finish her or can use her as set up bait.

Bronzong - Scizor u-turns, salamence flamethrowers, not a problem.

Celebi - If it lacks HP fire, it can be pursuited by scizor. With HP fire, salamence, suicune or flygon are my best answers. Most of the times suicune is gonna lure it, thought.

Cresselia - Scizor u-turns, if it lacks t-wave, luke can set up on it. It could be a problem if it has reflect or if it is the psycho sift version.

Donphan - Suicune surfs it to doom, mence draco meteors, uxie helps beating it, and scizor can u-turn for nice damage.

Dusknoir - Lucario can crunch it to doom, suicune can CM and destroy it with surf, mence can draco meteor

Forretress - Suicune beats it, salamence flamethrowers it to death, if it lacks EQ or explosion (most forretress), lucario can set up on it.

Gliscor - It can be very annoying. Draco meteor in the switch, and suicune are my best answers. It is annoying because it stops my 3 main sweepers: scizor, flygon and luke. U-turn from scizor can weaken it thought.

Gyarados - Salamence draco meteors in the switch, suicune will beat it with HP electric, flygon can stone edge it.

Hippowdon - If it is at 100% at late game, it could be a problem since +2 CC will fail the OHKO. salamence and suicune are again my best answers to this.

Jirachi - It can be very annoying, specially the scarf and the expert belt versions. Suicune can beat it, and flygon / salamence can revenge kill. If it is CM, scizor can u-turn and then flygon can kill with EQ.

Rotom-A - Salamence draco meteor, suicune takes it out by surprise, luke crunches it to death, if it is scarf i will force SB to pursuit it with scizor.

Skarmory - Suicune, salamence and lucario can beat skarm without problems.

Snorlax - Uxie + Lucario will beat this thing. Suicune can 3HKO with surf, and scizor can superpower if needed.

Suicune - Quite a big threat if gets too many CMs in. My own suicune has a good chance of beating crocune or surf/IB CM suicune. Lucario can kill at 50% and salamence and flygon are also good options if it is low of health. Without CM, salamence can draco meteor for 60-70% damage.

Swampert - Suicune, draco meteor, scizor u-turns.

Tentacruel - Suicune, flygon, salamence and uxie can stop it easily.

Tyranitar - Lucario can take out all versions (except DD, which is defeated by scarfgon), as can Scizor.

Vaporeon - Suicune can beat it if it doesn't have toxic, scizor can u-turn, and as a last resort, luke can SD and kill it with CC. It could be a problem.

Zapdos - Suicune can take it out with IB, salamence can Draco Meteor, flygon can stone edge. I usually beat it forcing it come with luke, switching to a counter and then, SD + extremespeed will KO it.


Offensive Threats

Azelf - Most are suicide leads. I always u-turn to flygon, who u-turns again for the KO. Scizor can also BP it.

Breloom - Uxie can take the sleep if needed, and then mence will flame to break the sub, and then i will Draco Meteor / Flame again.

Dragonite - Uxie will beat it, flygon can revenge kill with 1 DD, scizor can BP, suicune can IB, not a problem

Dugtrio - It won't revenge kill anything (well, maybe if suicune is weaken, or if scizor has superpowered), so it's not a big problem.

Electivire - Uxie laughts at it, flygon will revenge kill, suicune can outspeed and kill it, salamence can do the same.

Gallade - Uxie will beat it, and scizor can BP.

Gengar - Scizor will beat it. Uxie could take a SB and kill it if needed.

Gyarados - Suicune and flygon.

Heatran - Suicune is a great switching for any version. If it is not scarfed, luke will beat it, and if it is scarfed, flygon will do the job.

Heracross - salamence + lucario combo is very effective against it. Uxie can come in something not called megahorn (it wont KO, but whatever). Scizor can BP it and if it is the CB version, suicune will outspeed and kill.

Infernape - Uxie is a great counter, flygon can revenge kill, luke can extreme speed it, suicune will stop non SD versions quite well.

Jolteon - if it is specs, flygon + scizor will beat it very easily. Send flygon first turn, and if it comes again, send scizor to take de shadow ball and pursuit it. Lucario can extremespeed it.

Kingdra - Uxie will break the sub with psychic and play mindgames with it, scizor can beat it, luke and flygon can revenge kill

Lucario - Uxie can survive a +2 crunch and return a powerful psychic, my suicune will outspeed adamant versions, and jolly versions fail the KO to flygon with a +2 ES. Salamence can also make a good job. Scizor will do 40% with BP, and 60% after a defense drop.

Machamp - Uxie.

Magnezone - Obviously a threat because of my Steel types. Suicune can KO it with surf, and if it is scarfed, it can take easily a t-bolt after a CM. Flygon can EQ it.

Mamoswine - Scizor, suicune will outspeed and kill and uxie are my best answers.

Metagross - Suicune will do a lot of damage, Flygon can RK with EQ.

Porygon-Z - Scizor mainly.

Salamence - Uxie can take a +1 Outrage, sleep it and then luke will have a free SD. Scizor can revenge kill it with BP, and flygon can always revenge kill the mixed version.

Scizor - Suicune will take it out, mence can flamethrower it, luke can CC it to death, my own scizor can help revenge killing it.

Starmie - Scizor kills it, uxie + flygon will destroy it with u-turns, suicune will destroy it.

Togekiss - Flygon is my main answer here. Scizor can BP and suicune can IB it.

Tyranitar - Lucario and Scizor take it out.

Weavile - Lucario and Scizor both kill it.

Yanmega - Bullet punch for the 2HKO, luke and his ES, suicune will destroy it with IB

Zapdos - Flygon and mence will destroy the offensive variant.
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Conclusion
Well, so this is one of my most succesful teams, and also one of my favourites, since it is quite fun to use.
I know this team has problems, and it can be improved, and thats why i am posting this team here, so RMT please

 

[Thorns]

I can see that DDGyara could give you hell. use of u-turn means you take a lot more from sr and so with a life orb suicune won't last long. to remedy this you could just use leftovers on suicune. I really don't get the point of life orb, suicune is bulky and should be so.

keep jolly on flygon. flygon isn't meant to sweep, that's better left to salamence and latias.

change scizor's spread to 248 HP/252 atk/8 spd (or even 244/252/12) to outspeed the stupid 252/252/4 users, or the 248/252/8 users in the latter's case. that way sr takes 9 hits to kill you instead of 8.

 

[Astamatitos]

Definetely an awesome team.
Having used it myself (with permission from you of course) this team definetely stands up to it's achievements.

I was surprised by Uxie's success as well, it's ability to cause Switch outs thanks to Yawn and accompanied with U-turn, can buy you at least 2 turns of Stealth Rock damage, which is crucial, in many situations.

Since the ladder system tends to match the two of us up a lot (lol) allow me to note one of your team's few ''weaknesses'', that being Gliscor.

Gliscor ruins your late game Lucario plan, while in return you do not have something which can setup on it easily. Suicune and Salamence are your only answers to it, but with Stealth Rock down, Sandstorm damage and Life Orb recoil you won't be able to do multiple attempts to stop it.
To be honest there's not a change i'd do to your team to fix this weakness as that would most probably mess up the synergy of the team. For example if you changed Lucario's Crunch to Ice Punch, then you'd lose the KO on Rotom, meaning you'd be unable to win against stall.

In response to the above post, i wouldn't touch Suicune's set seeing as M Dragon uses Life Orb Suicune to suprise-kill Zapdos and Celebi, both of which would be problematic for Lucario during late game.

 

[Shizzle]

I have used a fairly similar team to this (Swampert/CBzor/SDluke/specialmence/scarfgar/BulkyDDdos)

I see 2 small little things, one, i see no reason for flygon to run jolly 252 Spe and scarf. With 320 Speed it outspeeds Modest scarfgar, agiliygross after agility, empoleon +2, and of course DDmence and DDtar. So i would run 220 Spe EVs, and dump the rest into Defense or Special Defense, as most of the damage he will be taking is from SR, hence HP evs would be useless.

The same goes with salamence, i have never seen the use of going 252 Spe naive on my mixmences, i always go 38 Atk / 252 SpA / 220 Spe, which reaches 320 Speed.

Also, have you considered memento on uxie, i would test it out over psychic

 

[JLei2k]

Max Speed is for speed ties with other base 100 scarfers such as other Flygon who he'd like to speed tie. Those extra couple of HP/Def Ev's are not worth always losing the speed tie in that situation.

Same thing with the Mixmence. The reason to run Max speed is he'd always beat your Mixmence since you are not. A few extra attack EV's isn't guaranteeing any KO's while he would always lose to other Mixmence running naive max speed (which is really the standard anyways) and other base 100's that would run max speed such as offensive Zapdos and Jirachi for example.

It's a great team M_Dragon and it's record speaks for itself can't really change much without messing with the core strategy but you are weak to a few things but you already pointed those out in your threat list and you are definitely good enough to play around them. Bravo on the team.

Oh missing an EV on the Scizor but I already told you that.

 

[M Dragon]

Im gonna try the EV spread thorns suggested
Gyarados can also be beaten with uxie or flygon (stone edge KOes non bulky ones), so Im not too worry about it

Gliscor is perhaps the biggest deffensive problem for the team, and if my opponent plays safe with gliscor, I will be in trouble. Sacrificing luke to allow a later flygon sweep is what i usually do. Could roost in mence help against gliscor?
In wifi i use Ice punch in luke, so gliscor is not a problem when i play wifi, thought (no rotom)

Thanks for the rates ;)

 

[chenman333]

Heh, I made a team almost exactly like this (http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50084) 3 months ago. Except I had Metagross as my lead. It was very successful, but did not have the awesomeness you had (most likely due to me not being nearly as good as you, maybe not having Uxie).



Anyway, if you feel like experimenting, I had some fairly successful variants where I used Tyranitar over Lucario with SD Scizor and went with the SD Scizor sweep route. Worked out fairly nicely, as Tyranitar can seriously blow through Scizor's counters and then a sweep becomes much easier. Then it kinda loses that U Turn theme. Also it helped vs. Zappy, as Timid LO Zapdos w/ HP Ice was a serious annoyance back then because of how annoying Stone Edge though. But the intro of Latias has probably made that thing obsolete so I'm not sure whether it even exists anymore.

Also, I remembered Brick Break on Salamence to be a pretty cool move, as the ability to knock Blissey out in 2 hits without needing to go to Outrage was really useful when clearing a path for Suicune. After revealing moves like Draco Meteor, Blissey starts coming in more and not needing Outrage is great.

 

[M Dragon]

If i make scizor SD, the team loses the main theme as you have said, and i also lose the pokemon i lose the main poke of my team (luke)

And brick break vs EQ in salamence was hard, but i ended with EQ just because empoleon. I will test BB, thought, as it also helps against t-tar that wants to absorb my draco meteor

 

[mien]

change scizor's spread to 248 HP/252 atk/8 spd (or even 244/252/12) to outspeed the stupid 252/252/4 users, or the 248/252/8 users in the latter's case. that way sr takes 9 hits to kill you instead of 8.

Why would you try to outspeed the 4Spe users?

In a 1 vs 1 battle the slower Scizor always beats the fastest thanks to the defence drop of Superpower. And when you both use U-turn the slower Scizor can easily take the attack but the pokemon the faster one switches in will have to face a combination of SR and U-turn.

Just give it 0 Spe there is nothing in particular you need to outspeed

 

[RainDance]

Dude is true in the case of lead infernapes, but each others superpower from scizor can KO all sczior, bulky, SD, and C-Band. Speed matter their to get the faster kill, the defense drop of the foe doesn't help you with shit.

 

[PurpleWeezing]

I gotta agree with Mien, getting the slower U-Turn in case of facing another Scizor (if you consider that Scizor's #1 in usage, this COULD happen sometimes :P) is really important for your team, as your trying to keep the pressure up as much as possible.
Well, as I already told you on shoddy there isn't much to correct. The team works, every mon has a role and does it's job. If there's anything I'd try it's Starmie > Suicune. It's a viable Spinner, which could help a lot with Scizor U-Turning all day long. You could even go Rapid Spin on a Life Orb set to maintain some pressure, whereas Recover gives you a more reliable way to beat Gliscor in the long run. But it's just a suggestion and your team is good how it is, if I'd be you I wouldn't use Starmie as well :P 'Nuff said ;)

 

[panamaxis]

Seeing as you told me to rate this....

Don't see how you have gliscor troubles... mence has easily come in on the EQ / SR / SD./..whatever and take it out. Suicune does fine too and even uxie can consistently come in and force it out.

So yeah, obviously this is a great team no doubt, but I think you should run adamant on flygon..Jolly gets you...what exactly? Outruns DD mence and speed ties with other flygons at best? If flygon wants to kill yours, it needs to outrage, and then it's going to get stroked by scizor or lucario. With SR, priority on two pokemon and Life Orb, DD Mence isn't going to sweep you very often.

So, I think adamant would do you better seeing as you have no real troubles against those pokemon in which jolly is helpful for. It's also going to help more against bulky gyarados and zapdos...seriously, zapdos can outstall the stone edges if EVd properly...Jolly flygon is just weak as hell, adamant is much better, at least on this team.

Not much else to add, nice team.

 

[M Dragon]

Flygon is now adamant