ORAS OU The don and the zard (Crawdaunt Balance)

[ShirakuHikao]

Hello. My name's ShirakuHikao some people might know me from OU tournaments or from OLT and some don't. I wanted to make a team with Crawdaunt for a long time, and I finally made it. Now I have to make a team with Staraptor and my wishlist is complete :D (for now...). The team currently has 15W-0L and climbing on the Showdown OU ladder. The only thing that my team especially hates is Breloom. Other than that, it's a pretty good team. Yes, you do see correctly, it is a regular Medicham indeed. I will explain my pick later.

THE TEAM:

Teambuilding Process

Started with Crawdaunt. I wanted to build a team around it for a really long time.

Picked a defensive core of a Mega Charizard-X, Ferrothorn and Quagsire. This core supports my Crawdaunt really well.

A defogger was mandatory, as Charizard doesn't really like switching into Stealth Rocks and other hazards. I chose Latios over another defogger so it also give me more power.

I picked Conkeldurr as my last `mon, a really strong Pokémon with a lot of potential.

I had a really bad problem with fairies and I wanted to keep the offense so I replaced Conkeldurr with Medicham. Yes, I am the one "against the mainstream" guy that uses regular Medicham. My pick is gonna be explained later in the thread.

The team in depth:

the don (Crawdaunt) @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 240 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Crabhammer
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet

Crawdaunt is the reason I built this team. It has a very good potential being a high ranked threat in OU, while being able to outspeed most defensive Pokémon and dealing massive damage to them, if not knocking them out. With the ability of OHKOing a standard physically defensive Slowbro to having a really high chance of OHKOing a Hippowdown after rocks, it makes a very awesome stallbreaker and revenge-killer. 16 HP EVs give Crawdaunt an extra hit (due to Life Orb's recoil). It's chosen oven more Speed EVs because there aren't many `mons that a 252 EVs daunt outspeed and 240 EVs one don't.

Swords Dance is to set-up on good opportunities, allowing it to sweep an entire team, Crabhammer and Knock Off are mandatory STAB moves and Aqua Jet is a mandatory STAB priority move.

the zard (Charizard-Mega-X) @ Charizardite X
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 248 HP / 152 SpD / 108 Spe
Careful Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Roost

A defensive Mega Charizard X allows me to cripple a lot of physical threats; from Azumarill to Bisharp and other `mons just for a little bit of damage. It provides me a counter for a Zard-Y that doesn't carry EQ/Dragon Pulse, Heatran, Bisharp, Magnezone, Rotoms and more, and so as threatening Skarmory and Ferrothorn with a potential Flare Blitz. 248 HP are for mandatory bulk, 108 Spe are for outspeeding max speed 70 base speed `mons and the rest is put into SpD because it can take care of physical threats with a potential Will-O-Wisp burn. The move picks are very obvious. I chose EQ over a fire type move so I can deal with Heatrans, also while still dealing with pesky steel types (except for Ferrothorn and Skarmory ofcourse).

the thorn (Ferrothorn) @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 248 HP / 68 Def / 192 SpD
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Protect

Ferrothorn runs Gyro Ball as its main STAB move, Stealth Rock to set Stealth Rocks, Leech seed for recovery and Protect for even more recovery, while also scouting on choiced `mons. The spread is pretty standard, taking on Kyurem-B and fairy types is of course is its main goal (description took from the good cores thread, where I took the defensive core from).

the quag (Quagsire) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Recover
- Toxic

Quagsire runes Recover for recovery, Toxic for passive damage, Scald as its main STAB option and Earthquake as its secondary STAB option, this is what takes on Set-Up sweepers. It runs full Physical bulk and a -speed nature so it wont lose any stats, seeing as speed is useless on it anyway its the best option to go with (description took from the good cores thread, where I took the defensive core from).

the lati (Latios) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Roost
- Defog

Latios provides me a defogger that isn't weak to Stealth Rocks, a counter to scarfed Keldeo (it is annoying to get burned by Scalds though) and a counter to more things. The EV thread and item pick is pretty standart. Draco Meteor and Psyshock are mandatory STAB, Roost for recovering back health and Defog for dealing with hazards.

the cham (Medicham) @ Life Orb
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Bullet Punch
- High Jump Kick
- Zen Headbutt

Regular Medicham is really underrated. Why? This beast has access to 2 priority moves, being Fake Out and Bullet Punch and has the infamous "Medicham's HJK", one of the most metagame changing moves. It has around 200 attack stat less than Mega Medicham has but hey, you can't say that 438 Atk + Life Orb is bad! It's base attack stat is higher than Azumarill's, has better Spe and has a harder hitting main STAB move and it also keeps out pesky fairies which my teams struggles to do. I had to run max Spe in order to outspeed annoying 70 base speed `mons. Obviously, max Atk is used to hit hard.

Credits

Omegasization - Zard-X/Ferrothorn/Quag core (http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/oras-good-cores-check-post-714.3524713/page-48#post-6314415)
That's it for now :)

Importable

the don (Crawdaunt) @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 240 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Crabhammer
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet

the zard (Charizard-Mega-X) @ Charizardite X
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 248 HP / 152 SpD / 108 Spe
Careful Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Roost

the thorn (Ferrothorn) @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 248 HP / 68 Def / 192 SpD
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Protect

the quag (Quagsire) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Recover
- Toxic

the lati (Latios) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Roost
- Defog

the cham (Medicham) @ Life Orb
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Bullet Punch
- High Jump Kick
- Zen Headbutt

Proof of peak and some replays

OK, let's get it straight. 1355 isn't high and isn't very impressive either but I still felt like posting this because it was on an alt account that was actually meant to test this team, and because I am on a 15W-0L streak and still going on!

My name in Showdown is ShirakuHikao, not "aaaa233". I am repeating myself, that's an alt account that was made to test this very specific team.

Some replays:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-293641707
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-293648724

Any help with the team is appreciated and if you want to pick it up for testing and/or laddering, feel free as long as you tell me if you like the team or not!

Thank you very much for reading and goodbye for now!​

 

[Absollite]

Hey there, nice team!

I honestly cannot say that regular Medicham is viable, no matter what you say. I would suggest replacing it with a special attacking mon, as your team is heavily physical biased. Gengar > Medicham (or any other hard-hitting special attackers really) seems good for your team. Also consider running Fire Punch / Flare Blitz > Earthquake on ZardX, since Fire STAB is pretty important. Crawdaunt get rid of Heatrans anyways, and you get to hit Ferrothorn and Skarmory. This is more up to personal opinion how much of a threat Heatran is to your team (I don't think it's that big of a threat between Quagsire, Crawdaunt, and used-to-be Medicham), although I would definitely say Fire Punch over Earthquake, since you aren't the offensive variant so you don't need Flare Blitz. Since you said you got the core from a good cores thread, I won't change any more of it for now.

Gengar set

Gengar @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Wave
- Focus Blast
- Taunt / Substitute / Icy Wind

Literally straight from the analysis, if you want to tweak it a bit go ahead and do so.

Here's a protip: just change Crawdaunt's HP IVs instead of wasting EVs to save Life Orb recoil. You still get those 16 evs to put into speed, and you don't really lose much.

If I have more time later I'll add to this rate, but for now, hope I helped!

 

[Ruffles]

Hello ShirakuHikao, I really like the defensive core you put there :]

I feel like this team's main problem is that it fluctuates between Bulky Offense, Balanced, and even Semi-Stall. I think the best thing you can do is to change your Pokemons a little bit to focus on one style so you can have more synergy in your team.

First, while Medicham is a very interesting choice that can work out a lot of times, it is actually not very consistent in wallbreaking, especially because there are offensive threats that can overpressure Mega Zard X, Ferro, and Quag and you will find yourselves sacking Medicham a lot. Instead, I recommend replacing it with Gothitelle. I know this may sound annoying for many or for you (a lot of people hate this), but this mon is very consistent at what it does, as it easily traps annoying threats such as Manpahy, Chansey, Quagsire, Ferrothorn, and most of all, Clefable (BIG problem to your team) cripple or eliminate them, and speed up the game.

Since this team wants to be more balanced than offensive, Latios seems out of place. I feel like Latias is a better option because it can check Keldeo much better (something that can threaten your team a lot), and gives you a little bit extra advantage against Thundurus.

Finally, I do feel Crawdaunt is out of place, but If you really want it, you can keep it. If you ever feel like changing it though, you should try stuff like Rotom-W or AV Tornadus-T, aka mons that have defensive value and can give you momentum (u-turn & volt switch).

Tl;dr

1. Gothitelle > Medicham.
Timid Nature | @ Choice Scarf
128 HP / 164 SpA / 216 Spe
Trick | Rest | Psychic | Thunder Wave or Calm Mind

2. Latias > Latios
Timid Nature | @ Life Orb
72 HP / 184 SpA / 252 Spe
Defog | Roost | Psyshock | Draco Meteor