Gen 3 [ADV OU] Gengar & Frenemies

[vilegloom]

Hey everyone, I've been having a decent degree of success with this ADV OU team, but would really like to take it to the next level so I'm wondering how I can improve the team, hopefully without making any major changes to the lineup. The goal of the team mostly revolves around Gengar and Snorlax to clean up, while Cloyster deals with hazards on both sides, Zapdos pivots in to force switches and build up Spikes damage with Roar, Celebi sets up with SD to either surprise TTar with HP Fighting or passes the boost to Agility Metagross as an alternative wincon if I lose Gengar and/or Snorlax. I have the most trouble facing SkarmBliss teams and Pokemon which abuse Protect like Jirachi.

The main inspiration/goal for the team was to highlight Gengar, a longtime favorite of mine, and avoid using Salamence & Tyranitar which I simply don't care for as much lol. I think these parameters helped me create a pretty cool team, tbh!

(I am (relatively) new to competitive battling and kind of lack the ability to think through all the possible checks, counters, threats and such, and haven't even really developed the vocabulary for fully articulating my choices, so apologies if my descriptions are a little light - only making this caveat because a lot of these RMT posts are really awesome and well-written! Hopefully I'll be on that level sooner than later.)

Sophie (Cloyster) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 72 HP / 8 SpA / 244 SpD / 184 Spe
Serious Nature
- Spikes
- Surf
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion

Not reinventing the wheel here, but also have considered that this maybe isn't an ideal lead, as according to the dex I'd be better off bringing Cloyster in on a safe switch like a bulky water. I have found myself in awkward situations against teams with Forretress leads where we're both trying to set up Spikes while also trying to predict when the other will go for a Rapid Spin. I've found that she is easily incapacitated by stuff like Body Slam Jirachi which prevents me from always getting 3x Spikes up, let alone pulling off the Rapid Spin. Explosion can be nice, but I feel like it's a little predictable as I've gotten walled by Skarmory or Gengar a few times on that.

Howl (Gengar) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fire Punch
- Ice Punch
- Giga Drain
- Explosion

Offensive Gengar is the raison d'etre of this team, but I'm a little daunted by its movepool and am not totally sure I've made the right choices with these moves. My logic in omitting Thunderbolt was simply that I have Zapdos, and Fire Punch allows me to threaten Skarmory just as well. I went Giga Drain over HP Grass for the recovery, and also took the dex's suggestion to cap my Speed EVs at 216 so I can outspeed Dugtrio, allowing me to put 40 EVs into HP, but I'm not sure how much that really helps. Would it be possible for me to invest more in Speed and then go Modest for more of a SpA boost?

Garuda (Zapdos) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 120 Atk / 252 SpA / 136 Spe
Mild Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Drill Peck
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Roar

Spikes & offense being the name of the game here, putting Zapdos on the team felt natural for phazing & accruing chip damage. I decided to go with a mixed set so I can try to put a dent in Blissey with Drill Peck, and HP Grass can put in work on Dugtrio if I'm feeling gutsy. Toxic or TWave could perhaps replace Roar or HP Grass, since I don't have much going on with this team in terms of spreading status. I'm also considering putting HP Fighting on rather than Grass, but my Celebi is running HP Fighting currently so that feels redundant to me.

Aslan (Metagross) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Agility
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Explosion

Metagross was the last Pokemon I added to my team, as I felt I was lacking a bit in terms of a physical sweeper that can put in work in the early game, as Snorlax seems to function better as an endgame cleaner to me. The Agility set was intended to synergize with Celebi's Swords Dance/Baton Pass combination. Lum Berry grants me flexibility against WOW Gengar and anything with TWave. In practice, I really just use Metagross as a boomer, but like Cloyster, I feel like my opponents can sense this and always seem to wait til I explode to bring in Gengar or Skarmory. :(

Lilith (Celebi) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 244 HP / 76 Atk / 124 Def / 64 Spe
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]

I think this physically oriented Celebi is my favorite team member at the moment. It can put in some serious work on Tyranitar and Blissey with HP Fighting, and setting up with SD feels safe since I can always BP to Metagross or Snorlax. Shadow Ball is there to help me out with opposing Gengar, but I wish it packed a little bit more of a punch. Given my surprising reliance on Celebi to actually put in damage, I'm contemplating going nuts and diverting those 124 Def EVs into Atk. This set seems to catch my opponents off guard and is probably the most successful on my team.

Zoey (Snorlax) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Immunity
EVs: 144 HP / 96 Atk / 132 Def / 136 SpD
Careful Nature
- Curse
- Rest
- Body Slam
- Hidden Power [Bug]

For such a hyped up threat in OU, I have had trouble making CurseLax actually work. I think the moves I've chosen might be the issue. HP Bug was intended to cover Celebi, but most people don't put their Celebi anywhere near my Snorlax to begin with. I think my poor kitty is a little bit too susceptible to phazing as well, and given how Skarmory seems to love giving this team hell, I'm finding myself getting walled a lot. I think this is probably less about the Pokemon and more about my skill as a battler, but any feedback on how this one can be more user friendly to a beginner, or even a full-on replacement for it would be totally welcome.

In conclusion, this has proven to be my most successful team as a newcomer to competitive battling. I chose to jump in with RSE as a starting point, with the hopes of moving through gens 4-7 and slowly building up my knowledge of how battle mechanics have changed over time, different Pokemon have risen to prominence or faded into obscurity, etc. and I'm proud of the fact that I have beaten some talented ADV OU players with a team I've built myself. I'd really like to be able to win more consistently and better respond to defensive threats without sacrificing the spirit of the team. Thanks for taking the time to look this over and I'm looking forward to any comments and feedback.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

I think this team kinda feels like the start of two different ideas rolled in to one. The first half looks like it's shaping up to be an offensive TSS but the second half turns it in to and SD pass physical offense. I think you can roll with either of these directions and create a good team but as it stands each of those 2 strategies are currently missing some key components to their success.

The more reliable archetype is the TSS offense build so I'll start there.

I know you mentioned you're not the biggest Tyranitar fan but unfortunately this is an extremely important aspect of this archetype. Getting damage to stick on things so that you can clean up late game is how these teams work and sand goes a long way to allow this to happen. Without it these teams don't have the damage output to reliably take on tanks like suicune and snorlax who should otherwise be easy match ups for TSS. I think you can get away with placing this in either the Celebi or Snorlax spot. There are a few different directions you could go with the move set, A mixed variant could work quite nicely here as a wall breaker as this team has quite a few tools against Milotic who is the main thing that walls that set. Those generally look something like this:


Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Brick Break
- Fire Blast
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Alternatively you could use a bulky phyiscal set. This will provide some additional support against a number of special attackers like Zapdos, Celebi and most notably Jirachi who can be problematic for teams like this. It also provides a great midgame blissey answer.

Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Focus Punch
- Hidden Power [Bug]

If you opt to keep Celebi, There's again a couple different directions you could take it. An offensive CM set would help break down skarmory and provide an additional wincon and would look something like this:
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 76 Def / 252 SpA / 180 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Calm Mind
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Psychic/Baton Pass

Not sure if Psychic or Baton Pass would be better, Baton Pass would be excellent support for Mixtar if you use that, Zapdos and Gengar but Psychic makes celebi itself a bit stronger particularly against flying types, and allows you to take on Gengar.

You could also use a defensive set with leech seed and Recover if you're looking for something a bit more defensively stable. The main disadvantage is that Skarmory tends to walk all over these sets but your team also has plenty of things that take advantage of Skarm so this isn't too terrible.

If you opt to keep Snorlax instead, you definitely want some sort of utility set. Focus Punch will help by not leaving you completely walled by Skarmory, and Self Destruct is generally the preferred move for these sorts of builds. Curselax can be strong but it requires extremely specific support to do its job that this team unfortunately doesn't offer. I would suggest something like this:

Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Immunity
EVs: 80 HP / 216 Atk / 68 Def / 132 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Body Slam
- Focus Punch
- Shadow Ball
- Self-Destruct

If you do use snorlax in this slot you might want to consider making the Tyranitar a pursuit set as otherwise the team is extremely weak to Gengar.

Alternatively you could also put blissey in that slot to be a more reliable special wall. Something along the lines of below would do the trick here:

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
- Seismic Toss/ Fire Blast / Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Thunder Wave/ Toxic / Wish
- Soft-Boiled

Outside of that, a there's also a few small move set tweaks I would suggest, HP Grass on Gengar I think would be better as offensive Gengar needs all the damage it can get vs opposing pursuit tyranitar to avoid getting trapped. Additionally while Lum Berry is really cool on agiligross in the right team but I think here you need leftovers as the metagross is acting as your main check to early game Tyranitar and more importantly Aerodactyl.


If you opt to go with the SD Pass route, there's one very key piece missing from this team which is Magneton. Without Magneton, Skarmory completely shuts down Celebi preventing you from ever getting the pass off. SD pass teams don't really need spikes so I would suggest putting it over Cloyster. This will also help your Metagross and Snorlax.

As for those two, I think on the SD pass set up Lum berry is the way to go on metagross so I would keep that set as is, I would still probably change the Snorlax set however to a 3 attacks boom set similar to what I suggested on the last team. With magneton support, Focus Punch isn't quite as necessary so I would suggest Earthquake in that slot.

If you go this route I think you probably want another SD pass recipient. There's a couple options there. Gyarados is an excellent one that can come in nicely on water types, specifically swampert, although Dragon Dance Tyranitar is also a very strong option on these sorts of teams. This pokemon can go over either Zapdos or Gengar, I personally think Zapdos is pretty useful on these sorts of teams so I would replace Gengar but Explosion Gengar is a very powerful lategame tool so you can opt to keep that instead. If you opt to keep Gar, my hp grass suggestion from the last team I think still holds here, and if you opt to keep Zapdos I would definitely use a baton pass set to give your physical attackers free entry and keep momentum on your side. It can also allow you to chain from Celebi to give your passing a bit more flexibility depending on what their celebi response is. Something like this is what I'd suggest:

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Thunder Wave / Agility / Substitute
- Baton Pass

Last but not least I think there's room for experimentation with the Celebi coverage moves. Fight ghost is solid and may be the best options here but I think it's also worth trying Giga Drain/HP Rock coverage as they smack Swampert and Zapdos, the two most common non skarmory phasers to SD pass cele while also hitting moltres as a side benefit who while rarer is a massive issue for these kinds of teams. I know it sounds pretty ironic that Swampert would be an issue for celebi but once they figure out you're SD pass and you don't have giga drain they can put a complete stop to it.

Anyway, sorry for the long winded post, hopefully something in there was helpful! Hope you stick around with ADV, it's an awesome metagame with a great community!

 

[vilegloom]

Thanks for such a detailed reply - I think I'm leaning more towards orienting the team around SD passing but I will try both play styles out and see which one feels better for me. Excited to get home from work and try these different sets out!