OU Spotlight: Garchomp

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Introduction

Garchomp has been a very strong Pokémon since its introduction in DPP, where it even got banned to Ubers. However, in the earlier and middle stages of SM OU, Garchomp fell heavily out of flavor, even dropping down to B- on the Viability Rankings at one point. This was mostly because people believed that it was simply a worse Zygarde. However, since around September in 2018, it's been gaining a lot of usage, mostly through its Z-Move set, with people also using different sets such as TankChomp, mixed Mega Garchomp, and Swords Dance Mega Garchomp. Garchomp has now established itself as one of the strongest Pokémon within the OU metagame, and this article will look into its sets and cores with it.

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Sets

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• Garchomp @ Rockium Z / Dragonium Z
• Ability: Rough Skin
• EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
• Jolly Nature
• - Stealth Rock
• - Earthquake
• - Stone Edge / Outrage
• - Swords Dance

Garchomp has access to EdgeQuake coverage, and with the aid of Rockium Z, it can easily overwhelm would-be checks like Tapu Bulu, Celesteela, and Rotom-W. It can switch into Pokémon like Heatran pretty comfortably, meaning that it can create many opportunities to set Stealth Rock throughout the match for itself. To add onto that, many Defoggers find it incredibly hard to deal with Garchomp, ultimately making it an amazing Stealth Rock setter. Thanks to Swords Dance, Garchomp is a very threatening wallbreaker capable of overwhelming many of the bulkiest walls in the OU metagame, such as Clefable and Tapu Bulu, on top of being an efficient Stealth Rock setter. With recent developments, such as Mega Latias's massive surge in usage, people have started to run Dragonium Z again too.

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• Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
• Ability: Rough Skin
• EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 Spe
• Jolly Nature
• - Stealth Rock
• - Earthquake
• - Flamethrower / Roar
• - Toxic

While it was pretty popular throughout the entirety of ORAS, it took awhile for TankChomp to take off in Generation 7. This was because Garchomp simply wasn't recognized throughout most of Generation 7 because of Zygarde. However, once people started experimenting with Swords Dance Garchomp, they also began to experiment with TankChomp. This set takes a different approach to what Garchomp can do, aiming to wear physical attackers down through the combination of Rocky Helmet and Rough Skin, which can be very annoying to deal with. It doesn't really have the space to break down walls with Swords Dance, so it opts to run Flamethrower and Toxic instead to wear down Pokémon like Ferrothorn and Kartana and cripple Pokémon like Zapdos and Rotom-W. Roar is also an option that is sometimes run to check sweepers like Hawlucha.

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• Garchomp-Mega @ Garchompite
• Ability: Rough Skin
• EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
• Mild / Rash Nature
• - Stealth Rock
• - Earthquake
• - Draco Meteor
• - Fire Blast

This Garchomp set takes a different approach as a Stealth Rock setter by taking advantage of Mega Garchomp's great mixed offenses. Thanks to Mega Garchomp's increased Special Attack, it's capable of taking on Defoggers such as Tornadus-T and Rotom-W relatively easily with Draco Meteor. It's also a particularly effective wallbreaker against bulkier teams that rely on slower backbones such as Heatran + Tapu Bulu, Rotom-W + Tangrowth, and Toxapex + Celesteela, all of which it can put a severe dent into thanks to the solid coverage that Earthquake, Draco Meteor, and Fire Blast provide. Moreover, this Mega Garchomp set is also capable of luring in and removing many of Garchomp's classic checks, such as Tangrowth.

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• Garchomp-Mega @ Garchompite
• Ability: Rough Skin
• EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
• Jolly Nature
• - Swords Dance
• - Earthquake
• - Stone Edge
• - Substitute / Fire Fang

This Garchomp set has seen niche usage on dedicated sand teams, as it goes very nicely alongside Excadrill, which is the main wincon on most sand teams. Together, they are capable of overloading shared checks like Rotom-W, Tangrowth, and Celesteela thanks to the combination of Stone Edge under sand and Swords Dance. This Mega Garchomp variant can choose to run Substitute or Fire Fang to ease prediction and shield it from status moves or to reliably hit Pokémon like Tapu Bulu, Celesteela, and Tangrowth, which is really useful for sand teams.

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Good Cores

This is a very common core that has seen consistent usage even before Zygarde's ban, and it still holds up to this date. The basic premise of the core is for Garchomp to wear down common Mega Alakazam checks such as Celesteela, specially defensive Tapu Bulu, and Assault Vest Tangrowth. In return, Mega Alakazam can check Pokémon like Mega Latios, which Garchomp tends to struggle against.

When people see Garchomp in Team Preview, they will often attempt to check it with Pokémon like Tangrowth. Because of this, mixed Mega Garchomp makes for an amazing teammate with Ash-Greninja, as it is a very efficient way to wear down defensive cores that rely on Grass-types such as Tangrowth and Tapu Bulu to check Ground-types. In return, Ash-Greninja is able to provide Mega Garchomp with Spikes support, which is very nice considering that Mega Garchomp tends to force a lot of switches.

This core revolves around wearing shared checks between Excadrill and Mega Garchomp down to the point where they cannot check either anymore. This is accomplished through two ways; Breakneck Blitz Excadrill, which allows it to break typical checks like Rotom-W and Zapdos after using Swords Dance very easily, and Mega Garchomp, which is great at breaking through Pokémon like Celesteela and Tangrowth with a Swords Dance boost behind its belt.

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Final Thoughts

Despite experiencing some significant setbacks in the SM OU metagame for awhile, Garchomp and its Mega Evolution now thrive in the current metagame. Between its flexibility as a wallbreaker and Stealth Rock setter, Garchomp can fit on a lot of teams and be a major menace to loads of different teams. Make sure to give it a try!

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