ORAS OU Mega Garchomp Offense

[Waxcode]

Hello! I built this team recently around Mega Garchomp, due to its ability to destroy stall, and it fairs well against balance. Consider it filling the hole Hoopa left in my heart. The team’s job is to weaken Garchomp’s checks and counters, before sending it out to sweep late game. While it is pretty obvious on this team, the surprise factor of Mega Garchomp, and the fact people don't prepare for it too much, is usually enough to win the game.

Team Building Process:

Team Building

Started out with a core of Garchomp-Tyranitar-Klefki. These ‘Mons generally work well together, especially T-Tar and Chomp. Klef provides spikes, Thunder Wave support, and a potential Excadrill check.

Tornadus and Latios were added to the team as offensive powerhouses. In tandem they check or counter many Pokemon that would threaten the core (Eg. Keldeo, Skarmory)

Azumarill was thrown on, almost at a limb as a powerful Water type attacker and priority.

It became clear that Rocks were needed for the team, and Klefki wasn’t really doing much, especially compared to what a Clefable could do. Heatran was added to check faries and provide rocks.

After trying out many Pokemon in the last slot, including Skarmory and another Klefki, I settled on Ferrothorn as a better Water resist (and Excadrill counter) than just having that job be Latios’s.

The Team:

Garchomp @ Garchompite
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Fang / Fire Blast

Mega Garchomp is a very powerful wallbreaker and late game sweeper. While it lacks speed after Mega Evolving, 170 Attack can dent almost anything attempting to switch in. It's also very bulky, and has a decent typing, somewhat making up for it's loss of speed.

Max Speed and a Jolly Nature are used to outspeed things like Medicham and other base 100 pokemon before mega evolving, and outpace pokemon like Dragonite, max Speed Lando-T, and Excadrill after Mega Evolving. Attack investment lets it hit 439 Attack, most resisted hits will not bounce off with that stat.

Swords Dance is very strong as well. Because of it's amazing bulk, huge attack, and typing, it can set up on a plethora of Pokemon. +2 Garchomp can OHKO or 2HKO almost every Pokemon in OU.

Fire Fang and Fire Blast are interchangeable. these help Garchomp hit common switch ins, mainly Ferrothorn and Skarmory. I usually prefer Fire Fang for the accuracy, both 2HKO Ferrothorn, but Fire Fang can be boosted by Swords Dance, letting it OHKO Ferrothorn and 2HKO Skarmory.

Fire Fang and Fire Blast Calcs

0- SpA Mega Garchomp Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Skarmory: 150-178 (45 - 53.4%) -- 32.8% chance to 2HKO

+2 252 Atk Mega Garchomp Fire Fang vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 198-234 (59.4 - 70.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0- SpA Mega Garchomp Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 252-300 (71.5 - 85.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Mega Garchomp Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 88 Def Ferrothorn: 256-304 (72.7 - 86.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Garchomp is a powerful ‘Mon against stall and balances, but needs a lot of support against offensive teams.

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Stone Edge
- Superpower

ScarfTar is the perfect partner for Mega Garchomp. To start out with the obvious, it provides sand to boost Garchomp’s Earthquake thanks to Sand Force, but it also checks many pokemon that threaten Chomp. This includes Latias and Latios, Weavile, and Charizard. In exchange, Garchomp can break many walls that Tar doesn’t enjoy dealing with, such as Skarmory, Chancey, or anything that doesn’t want to take a 170 Attack STAB (Potentially Sand Force) Earthquake. In general, ScarfTar makes up for Garchomp’s lackluster speed too.

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Calm Nature
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Thunder Wave

Continuing the theme of Pokemon strong with Mega Garchomp, we have a fairly standard Calm Mind Clefable. T-Wave is, once again, another way to make up for Garchomp's speed, and offers a way to deal with potential Low Kick Weavile or Lopunny. Clef is a more defensive switch in for Latis, as people are inclined to bring them in to revenge kill Garchomp.

Clef is also a good back up late game sweeper in it's own right, great Fairy typing and decent stats. Once it's counters are weekend there is very little that can be done to stop it.

Tornadus-T @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 76 Atk / 180 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Hurricane
- Knock Off
- Superpower
- U-Turn

Life Orb Torn provides a pivot this team needed. While I generally dislike the accuacy of Hurricane, usually the threat it is enough, and will not need to be used much. Superpower and Knock Off provide good coverage, and the latter is good to knock off important items such as Leftovers or Eviolite, the former to check Pokemon like Diancie and Tyranitar switch ins. Naive is used over Hasty, while making it take more from Draco, Ferrothorn and Tyranitar are usually enough to sponge special hits.

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power (Fire)
- Roost

Life Orb Latios is a fast and hard hitter, on the special side instead of physical. Hidden Power Fire, while expected to an extent in the current meta, can lure and kill many steel types that may give the rest of the team trouble, namely Scizor. Roost is necessary, as it is the team's only way to deal with a few prevalent threats, such as Rotom-Wash and Manaphy to an extent. I have Roost to keep it healthy for said Pokemon. Defog could be run, as the team has no hazard removal, but the team isn’t especially weak to hazards anyways.

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip

The team is rounded out with a pretty standard Ferrothorn. It is the main and much sturdier Water resist. It also provides the team with rocks and a decently reliable fairy switch in. While most of the set is standard, Power Whip is used over Protect, Spikes, or T-Wave to hit back water types, which is the main purpose of Ferrothorn on this team. While Azumarill is prevalent, more SpD is used to check Gardevoir and Diancie, which are potential threats to the team, especially the former after Garchomp has Mega-Evolved.

Threatlist:

Rotom-Wash: The only way for this team to deal with Rotom is either set up with Clefable or Draco Meteor it over and over again.

Water Types in general are hard to switch into, especially if they run coverage moves to hit Ferrothorn. (Eg. Keldeo, Superpower Azumarill)

Clefable: While not too scary, Unaware Clef can't be OHKO’d by Garchomp, and is hard to defeat with the rest of the team. Depending if it is running Flamethrower Magic Gaurd CM, it is hard to deal with Ferrothorn too.

Lopunny: The team has many pokemon that can take a hit from Lopunny, but nothing to outpace it. If is uses PuP or Latios and Tornadus are weakened, then it will most likely sweep.

Volcanion: Yeah this team can’t switch into this.


Other team issues:

• There is no priority on this team. There are a lot of bulky Pokemon and a few fast ones, but there is no priority.
  
  
• No Water type moves. This could be fixed with surf coverage on Latios, but there is very little to hit common Water weak Pokemon.
  
  
• If Garchomp faints, depending on what you are facing, the team will just fall apart. Sending it out early is very risky

So that’s the team. I still feel it needs some work, but it's been decent getting me up to about 1500. Thank you for reading this and have a nice day c:

Importable:

importable

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Stone Edge
- Superpower

Tornadus-Therian @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 76 Atk / 180 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Hurricane
- Knock Off
- Superpower
- U-turn

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip

Garchomp @ Garchompite
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Fang

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Calm Nature
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Thunder Wave

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Roost

 

[Futatsuiwa of Sado]

Hello there Waxcode! I like the team, Mega Garchomp is a really underrated threat in OU in my opnion, so I really appreciate you building around this.

Regarding the team, I see two EXTREMELY threatening mons that you seemed to leave out of the threatlist, and both of them are really common. These two mons would be Tornadus-T and Excadrill, as a Swords Dance LO Excadrill just sweeps your team, and you don't really have anything for Tornadus (Outspeeds and OHKO's Tyranitar with Focus Blast or just U-Turns out, weakens most of your team, and you lack a good SE Hit on it outside of the T-Tar). I would also agree with Fairies being threatening in general, especially Clefable. It seems like Ferrothorn is overloaded on what it needs to check: Azumarill, Mega Gyara, Gardevoir, Clefable, etc. Bisharp and Scizor are also annoying mons to face as well, though not impossible due to Scarf T-Tar and M-Chomp respectively.

The first change I would recommend making is going with Rotom-W>Latios. Not only does Rotom-w give you one of the best answers to Torn-T AND Sand Rush Excadrill in the game, but it provides you with a secondary Water-check, which allows Ferrothorn to have some breathing room, as well as giving you a solid Physically Defensive Pivot and utility in the form of WoW (See Bisharp, Lop and Scizor). This also allows you to switch into Will-O-Wisp variants of Talonflame much easier, as Tyranitar does not appreciate being burnt, which wears it down and weakens its attack power, which hurts the Scarf set significantly. Another benefit of this is that it gives you a good answer to Volcanion, which you mentioned was a bit annoying to switch into (well duh, Steam Eruption is not a nice move).

Rotom-W Set

Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Volt Switch
- Pain Split

This is probably the only major change I would recommend here, as the rest of the team seems pretty solid. After this, I would just go with some nitpicky things. The first of these series of nitpicks would be Fire Blast>Fire Fang on Garchomp. While Fire Blast may seem strange for a Swords Dance wallbreaker, I can assure you that it actually hits what it needs to hit just as hard, and hits things that Fire Fang doesn't much harder. One of the more important of these would be Skarmory as Fire Blast 2HKO's it most of the time (doesn't ALWAYS 2HKO SpDef variants though.)
0- SpA Mega Garchomp Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Skarmory: 222-262 (66.4 - 78.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Mega Garchomp Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 100-118 (29.9 - 35.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
After this, the last thing I would do is Make sure your special attackers have 0 ATK IVs (this is basically just Clefable now since I did Rotom-W for you). This is literally hardly important at all, but it helps against the rare Foul Play and confusion since it minimizes the damage from that.

Tl;dr

-->

Fire Fang-->Fire Blast

-->Nitpick ATK IVs

Team with Changes

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Stone Edge
- Superpower

Tornadus-Therian @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 76 Atk / 180 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Hurricane
- Knock Off
- Superpower
- U-turn

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip

Garchomp @ Garchompite
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Blast

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Thunder Wave

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Volt Switch
- Pain Split

Overall, this was a really nice team. Somethings to watch out for would be Clefable and Bisharp, but you should be able to play around these with Ferrothorn and Tyranitar respectively. Hope I helped and good luck with the team!~

 

[FlamingVictini]

Hey man, nice team and I appreciate the use of mega chomper here :D

The first thing I noticed is that you're using scarftar and rocks ferro. This may just be me, but I find that Chople Tar is much more effective than scarftar since the rise of very fast threats like alakazam (LO or Mega), Torn, and Weavile for example make scarftar a bit less efficient in handling most of the things it needs to deal with (you do lose out, however, on general speed to revenge kill in general, and the ability to beat birds (talon/pinsir) and/or bisharp in particular). With a bulky chople tar, however, you get a lot more solid bulk that not only lets you beat the main things you want to trap and remove with ttar (like lati, zam, gengar, you can now handle torn, etc.) but it also gives you some great physdef too which will give you an easier time vs weavile or zard-x, the latter of which can currently dd on ferro and blow through a lot of your team (before it dies to recoil). By running chople tar, you also get the freedom to run spikes on ferrothorn, which is really nice to put some pressure on the opponent and gives you something to do when stuck in ferro vs ferro matchups. You can also run t-wave on ttar to help cripple fast mons for garchomp or ease your time vs set-up sweepers, which will be important with a later change.

tyranitar set

Tyranitar @ Chople Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Rock Slide
- Pursuit

(in place of

)
This change does leave you weaker to bish, however, and i've already noticed you have a glaring weakness to SD scizor as well (while garchomp can sometimes function as a one time check, I rarely consider it a proper answer even if its helmet defensive just because chomp tends to get worn down very fast). Another thing I noticed is that you might struggle with opposing fairies since gardevoir and diancie both carry coverage to 2hko ferro, and clefable, even if it lacks flamethrower, can defensively pp stall ferro out of gyro ball depending on its set, leaving ferro useless as set-up fodder and forcing you to enter a CM war to take it out. To remedy these problems, I suggest using Talonflame > Tornadus. With a more mixed defensive set you can take on the aforementioned fairies (bar diancie) more reliably and also handle scizor/bisharp quite well. Talonflame does necessitate hazard removal on latios however and is a bit harder to keep healthy, but it definitely can help you handle some threats better.

talonflame set

Talonflame (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 248 HP / 128 Def / 132 SpD
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Taunt
- Roost
- Will-O-Wisp

or

(in place of

)
Finally, we can make one more change that will allow you to better handle Lopunny, Excadrill, and water-type attackers in general. What you can try is replacing Clefable with CM Slowbro/Slowking. If you choose to go slowking you can better handle diancie and volcanion while forgoing some bulk that gives security vs strong physical attackers like garchomp for example. It also gives you a nice sponge with regenerator that I think will just help your team while also maintaining that solid CM win-con that can sweep at the right time.

sets

Slowking @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 244 Def / 16 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Slack Off
- Calm Mind

note: you can use Nasty Plot King for more immediate pressure. If you do that, try these EVs: 248 HP / 188 Def / 56 SpA / 16 Spe with a Modest Nature

or

Slowbro @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 232 Def / 28 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Slack Off
- Calm Mind

Finally, I would recommend Fire Blast on Chomp with a naive nature since it helps out with skarm a lot and doesn't require a boost to do lots of damage (even though it seems weird with SD, this set can be really scary). Thats pretty much it, I have also considered excadrill as the mon of choice > lati if that's how you wanna roll (you become weaker vs some things and can't remove hazards super reliably (lati has the problem of pursuit trapping, however) but also gain some speed to revenge kill) but otherwise I think this team is pretty solid, so have fun!