SM OU First OU team! Looking for feedback

[apeepes]

I've played a bunch of OU in the past but never really took the time to make a team of my own, mainly copied from blunder and such, I tried this but it doesn't seem like it does well. I based my idea on webs defog bait with Araquanid and Bisharp.


Bisharp @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Pursuit/Knock Off
- Stone Edge
The main player, kinda. Wanted to try a way of countering defog and Bisharp does it pretty well, scaring mons off with pursuit and sucker punch. Defiant boosted iron head does big numbers on any mon that doesn't resist it and +2 stone edge oneshots all Zapdos variants. The only problem is that once the webs are gone, it's very slow and will very easily be revenge killed. Life orb over AV since I'm not running SD and the damage is needed.


Alakazam-Mega @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Substitute
The fast special threat that keeps in check fighting (and to some extent steel) types that threaten Bisharp while serving the role of late-game cleaner. Substitute on switch-outs to avoid status and buy a free turn, pretty standard stuff. This mon's common counter, Chansey, gets mauled by Bisharp with knock off, and mega Sableye, if invested in spdef, can at least hope to burn Bisharp before inevitably going down to a life orb iron head.


Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Brick Break
Main and only hazard removal. Focus sash to clean up weakened Hawlucha and surprise opposing sand users. Sand rush to threaten Tyranitar by using its own sand against it. Brick break to hurt screens teams, since neither Koko, Ninetales-A or Klefki would like to stay in on this.


Araquanid @ Focus Sash
Ability: Water Bubble
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Sticky Web
- Magic Coat
- Liquidation
- Lunge
Common lead webs Araquanid. 300 sped from those 8 EVs let it tank a vast majority of hits, and physical attackers get weakened by lunge. It can very efficiently counter non fly z Salamence and Dragonite (mainly Salamence) with lunge spam. Magic coat to hopefully deflect rocks or any hazard to make the defog bait more efficient. Very easy to set rain on, which is the main issue.


Mothra (Volcarona) (F) @ Buginium Z
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 248 HP / 112 Def / 148 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Bug Buzz
- Fiery Dance
- Quiver Dance
- Hidden Power [Ground]
Defensive QD EV spread. Went with HP ground over roost since Heatran pretty much counters a big part of the team, and is a common switch in to Volcarona, so getting rid of a threat seemed much more beneficial, but without roost it can get out-setup on by offensive Volcarona variants and will get worn down eventually, opening a path for Greninja to go Ash-Gren.


Tangrowth @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Earthquake
- Giga Drain
- Knock Off
- Hidden Power [Ice]
I chose Tangrowth as the last member cause I needed a sponge. I had considered Zapdos as well because Hawlucha poses a huge threat to the team but eventually set on Tangrowth because of its ability to handle Ferrothorn and most special attackers, though if Hawlucha starts being more of a nuisance I'll gladly switch to Zapdos. Tangrowth does also a good job against mega Swampert and Ash Gren, these two being major offensive forces in rain teams.

Well, it seemed good on paper but after a few matches it really doesn't click, so I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Bold School]

What is the goal of your team? Individually, your ideas aren't bad per say. However, they don't really mesh as a whole unit. You could use a bit more cohesiveness and balance. I had a bit of trouble with suggestions since I'm not 100% sure what the purpose of your team is. So while I wait for you to answer that, I'm going to cover a couple of major flaws that I think might help explain why your team isn't really meshing right.

First problem: Webs. Why do you want them when you appear to have no pokemon that really benefit from them? Not that they are bad per say. I just don't see what purpose they serve for your particular team when your main attackers don't need them. Mega Alakazam has a godly speed tier, Volcarona gets speed boost as a setup sweeper, and Bisharp has Sucker Punch. As a rule, none of those pokemon tend to have trouble with speed control. The rest of your pokemon are either too slow to really take advantage of them or Excadrill, which get can get a significant speed boost through Sand Rush and would usually benefit more from that type of support than webs.

Are you worried about scarf users and weather speed boosts or something? I noticed you mentioned things like Hawlucha and Mega Swampert as problems. Well, your team really shouldn't struggle with speed control. There are other measures you can take to counter specific threats if you are worried about them or struggling with them. As for Hawlucha, flying types aren't slowed by webs anyway so that wouldn't help you there.

Solution: Figure out a direction for your team. Do you want to change some of your teammates to ones that better benefits from webs? Or does your team not really need web support in the first place? Since you say that you based your team idea around webs and defog support from Bisharp and Araquanid, my first instinct would be to start there. But it's really up to you what you want to do with the team.

Second problem: Stacked weaknesses. In particular, fire and flying type moves. The team seems pretty weak to fire types since half of your team has that weakness. Same thing for flying type moves, which target a mostly different half of your team. In general, you want to try and avoid having a type weakness that targets too many of your team's pokemon at once. This is much easier said than done of course. Still, my first recommendation would be to try and make it so that no more than two of your pokemon are weak to a single type of common attack. This could be a bit less of a problem if you are planning on going hyper offense and outspeeding everything. Still, it makes bad matchups more common.

Tangrowth in particular is an incredibly poor fit here, since it exacerbates both the fire and flying weaknesses for your team. With all due respect, it was not wise to use a defensive pivot that was weak to two of the type weaknesses that two other respective members of your team already struggled with. Another potential problem is the double types on your team. Having double steel types can be good, but you have to be careful the weaknesses don't stack too much. Bisharp and Excadrill are good pokemon. However, they are also both weak to fire, fighting, and ground type moves. So you should be careful about adding more pokemon that are weak to any of those typings if you plan to keep both. Otherwise, you'll end up with a similar problem that Tangrowth gave you. The same thing is true for having dual bug types in Araquanid and Volcarona. The flying and rock weaknesses could be problematic if you don't cover for that. It's not necessarily a problem as long as you monitor it and keep that in mind for the team. But you do have to keep it in mind when team building.

Solution: Change out some of the teammates to cover for these weaknesses. In general, your focus should be on type weaknesses that two (or more) of your pokemon have a problem with. How much you need to cover for the weaknesses depends on the type of team you have. If you are going more hyper offense, you might not need pokemon to cover for weaknesses as much and simply limiting each type weakness to two pokemon might be ok enough. If you want any kind of bulk on your team, you are probably going to want pokemon that can cover for some of your worst type weaknesses and matchups.

 

[Tenebricite]

A few basic suggestions after scanning the team:

If you're going with sash exca, I would recommend the lead set. Add rocks since your team currently has none. For this set, you can have rocks, earthquake, rapid soon, and toxic/Rock tomb. Brick Break isn't really a worthwhile investment.

I would recommend toxic over lunge on Araquanid, as this move generally has more utility in wearing down opposing pokemon than lunge, especially if you plan to use araquanid to catch setup sweepers.

You should try running swords dance on Bisharp instead of Stone Edge since SD can make it much more threatening as a sweeper and a +2 knock off does lots to Zapdos anyway, and has 100 percent accuracy. Again these are just suggestions regarding the sets only.
Thanks and enjoy your games!

 

[Ace Trainer Conan]

Life orb isn't a good set to run on Bisharp, reducing its already low longevity. Black Glasses (MUCH more fitting than Dread Plate) makes for a much better item, not killing itself each turn. Puruit is an interesting option, although knock tends to be better. Tenebricite was right; Stone edge is not the best move to run on the set, but you could replace it for Knock off; that would give you three dark moves, but dark spam is actually pretty good in the meta. Plus you've got Iron head so Fairies don't get it easy. I understand why you are running Jolly Bisharp, but Adamant is generally a better nature, dealing much more damage to switch ins such as Heatran with Knock Off.

Bisharp @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Pursuit
- Knock Off

Bold School is correct; you do have significant Flying and Fire weakness (Zard Y legit OHKOs your entire team if it runs Air slash), so I suggest changing Excadrill to Heatran. Heatrangives you both a flying and fire resist, keeps rocks for you and is just a solid mon. Once Zam Mega evolves it also traces Flash fire so you can safely dispatch their heatran with Focus Miss.

Heatran @ Lefties
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Def
Whatever nature boosts SpD and lowers Atk


Speaking of Zam, I understand how Toxic is threatening, but you get worn down by rocks and weather too much, Sub only worsens this, so Recover is generally the better option.

Garchomp could be a more fitting replacement to Araquanid, discouraging Lucha from setting up with Rockium Z, and tanking an unboosted HJK as well (which chips thanks to Rough Skin.