Hi, friends! Today I have an ADV OU team that I would like to showcase. I built this team for the Longest OU Tournament, where I’m entered in the RBY/GSC/ADV legs of it. RBY/GSC didn’t want to play (one never responded to any battle requests, from me or other people and the other straight up said take the win), so I only have one team I want to talk about: My ADV OU team.

Pastebin link.

I started the team with Agility Metagross. Why Agiligross? It’s just something I decided to pick, because you have to just grab something somewhere. Agility allows it to outspeed almost all of the metagame because Choice Scarf does not exist, so I thought it would be a good way to end games. Figure out a spot to Agility up, and you can sweep because nothing will be faster than you outside of Ninjask and stuff.

At first, I was considering a mixed set of Meteor Mash / Earthquake / HP Grass / Agility. This is ADV, so Psychic attacks will always be special; besides, Zen Headbutt didn’t exist until Gen 4 anyway; so I only have one of Metagross’s STABs on the set. (I think it’s relatively rarer to run both tbh. I can see a specially-biased set with Psychic and Meteor Mash on the side, but idk.) Earthquake is a good complement to MM, as it takes care of things such as opposing Metagross, Jirachi, Jolteon, Raikou, Magneton, and is just more accurate and so more easily spammable if you don’t want to miss. (Spoiler: The one time I clicked Meteor Mash in the tour battle, I missed. Oops.)

HP Grass was there specifically for Swampert. Swampert is a giant defensive presence in ADV OU; you’ll often see random things (even Choice Banders) running HP Grass because Swampert is just thrown in front of so many things, and he can actually be very hard to take down if you don’t have a Grass move. So I had HP Grass on this because, hey, Steel type probably clicking Meteor Mash; Swampert will come in for the resist, and—Boom, HP Grass.

Except I didn’t keep HP Grass. Later on, I had it on both Celebi and Salamence, so I thought, Hm, do I really need HP Grass on three mons? Is Swampert that big of a deal for me? It wasn’t, so I looked at other standard moves on Metagross and settled on Explosion. At that point, I had also decided I was using DD Tyranitar, so it was okay if I blew up my Metagross—DD Tar is also a fine end-game sweeper. Explosion is a great way to just… Remove something from play. Explosion is a practical 500 BP in this game (well, 250 plus it divides the opponent’s defense, so it’s basically 500), and with 252 Attack EVs, very few things (Regirock, Steelix, etc.) are going to take this very well.

The EV spread is something I came up with, but I’m not happy with it. I figured that, as I was using Agility, I didn’t need to go 252 Speed; I could figure out what speed benchmark I wanted to hit, especially since, as I said, there is no Choice Scarf around to outrun me. I don’t remember why exactly I chose 196+ Speed: I remember calcing it to outrun a +1 DD Salamence after Agility, but… I’m not sure why I chose that particular speed tier?? I very much die to a +1 Salamence EQ:

+1 252+ Atk Salamence Earthquake vs. 60 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 294-346 (93 – 109.4%) — 56.3% chance to OHKO

That’s… Not something I set-up on. And I’d have to Explode on it anyway. What was I thinking there?

I really should have gone with the other EV spread I had, which was 168 HP / 252+ Attack / 88 Speed. This allows Metagross to outspeed up through Jolly Aerodactyl, which is a more natural thing to try and outrun because CB Aero is commonly in the back of teams, especially with like Tyranitar running rampant. (You also outspeed Dugtrio and can KO with Meteor Mash, so that’s nice.)

Why I wanted to be so fast, I don’t have any idea. If you take the team, I’ve changed the EV spread because there’s… No point in being that fast. But I was that fast in my tour battle, so it’s worth noting that here.

Next, I think I went with Celebi. I don’t remember why I picked it. I think I had a thought of, “Oh, Calm Mind spam is a thing in ADV OU! Maybe I’ll try that out.” Ironically, only 2 of my Pokémon (incl. Celebi) were actually specially-based, so… 10/10 on that one, Khay. It was also a way to KO Swampert without actually Exploding my Metagross, so there’s that. And it couldn’t do much back to me, whereas it could EQ my Metagross. (The fact that it could switch into EQ was also probably a thing that brought me to it. Idk.)

Anyway, I have a simple CM BP Celebi. HP Grass over Giga Drain for a bit more damage (because Energy Ball doesn’t exist), Calm Mind, Baton Pass, and Recover. I remember going back and forth on the last move: Leech Seed, Substitute, Psychic, and Recover were all things I was thinking about. Would I pass a Sub? Could I Seed and force a switch, giving me better initiative with BP? Was I going to have dual STAB with Psychic? Could I sit there and Recover/CM to accumulate more boosts to pass? Any of those work, really. I went with Recover, as I felt in testing I was more using Celebi to pivot in and then spin out again with BP, and Recover gave it a bit more longevity for that kind of thing. You can use any of those moves if you pick up the team.

The EVs are to outrun Adamant Heracross. If I CMed on a switch out and they bring in Heracross, I can still BP my boosts into Salamence, which will take nothing from a -1 Megahorn. You also can outrun most Tyranitar who may want to get an HP Bug off against you.

+1 0 SpA Celebi Hidden Power Grass vs. 16 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar: 229-270 (66.3 – 78.2%) — guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

And you can bop it if you’ve gotten a bit of prior damage off on it. But yeah, CM Pass Celebi was really fun in testing, and I think I might use it a bit more :]

I believe next I chose specially-biased Salamence. This was a weird choice for me. I have always used DD Salamence in ADV OU; I think this is legit the first team of mine with a special Mence. So yay for pushing personal boundaries. Anyway, I chose special Mence because I figured, Hm, what can switch into a +1 special Mence? Dragon is special in this generation, so Dragon Claw gets boosted by Calm Mind pass; Fire Blast roasts Steel types; and HP Grass for that Water/Ground thing. Brick Break is there for Blissey; that can, in fact, switch into a +1 special Mence. Brick Break + 1 Spike + Sand can 2HKO Blissey with 24 Attack EVs. It also can scare Tyranitar, who takes quite a bit:

24 Atk Salamence Brick Break vs. 16 HP / 120 Def Tyranitar: 238-280 (68.9 – 81.1%) — guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Again, though, you need a little bit of prior damage. You do outspeed and kill though, so even Fire Blast into Brick Break can kill, assuming you have a nice roll on BB. (Min FB + Min BB doesn’t kill because 68+17=85, which means you’d need two Spikes :S) But yeah, CM Pass into Salamence was something I wanted to pull off, but I haven’t been able to do it yet. Special Mence is fun though.

The next two are basically plug-and-play members. The Blissey calc called for (it’s from the SmogDex) 1 Spike + Sand. So, obviously, I needed a Spiker and a Tyranitar, or that’d be an investment towards a benchmark I couldn’t fulfill. (I probably would have taken a Tyranitar anyway because Tar is one of the kings of ADV OU.)

Skarmory here is the Skarmory I always use in ADV OU. Spikes + WW + Rest Talk with Sp. Def is standard in ADV OU. Not too many things run Taunt (it’s in the game, but we don’t use it because—Actually, why don’t we? I think distribution may be bad in this metagame? Idk), so while you are Taunt bait, it’s not… A problem. Spikes is necessary for Salamence to KO Blissey, and I’m sure it helps Metagross and Tyranitar get a myriad of KOs that they wouldn’t normally, but I didn’t go through all those calcs. But Spikes help. WW is to deter set-up because lots of things can Curse, SD, BU, or CM, and it’s also to rack things over Spikes to increase hazards damage, thus also helping my attackers. Rest Talk means you can sleep off damage and continue Spiking or even get a non-negative priority WW. Sp. Def does mean you can tank some non-STAB Fire Blasts off of like Salamence and friends. Not much to say for this guy.

Tyranitar is a fairly standard DD Tyranitar. The spread is taken from the SmogDex; it allows you to live a Dugtrio Earthquake from full. HP Bug is to deal with Celebi; who otherwise enjoys switching into stuff like EQ. DD Tyranitar is, like Agiligross, fully capable of finishing out games at +1/+1. People often complain about the prevalence of Rock Slide in ADV OU, and how so many games can come down to a RS miss or RS flinch: Tyranitar is one of the biggest offenders of the RS spam game in ADV OU. Its combination of natural bulk and offense, plus the ability to set-up speed in a metagame without Scarfers, plus the ability to auto-summon Sand (and no way to cancel it out short of manual Rain/Sun/Hail) makes it a natural offensive powerhouse, and, really, you should have a reason not to heavily consider using Tyranitar on your team.

I suppose Lum Berry is a possible alternative over Leftovers to improve your match-up versus Gengar because people freak out over Gengar spreading status, but… I have no fear. (Aka, I didn’t bother to cover it.) I also just like the general Leftover recovery, especially with the bulk.

The last slot. Oh, the last slot. Ugh. At first I had a CM defensive Suicune. Then I realised I was really weak to Hidden Power Zapdos. So I changed it to Swampert, thinking, oh, if they have Thunderbolt/HP Grass, then they can’t hurt Salamence and I’ll be fine; if they have Thunderbolt/HP Ice (for pseudo BoltBeam), then I can bulk it out with Swampert. But then I realised that Thunderbolt still did too much to Mence (probably because I forgot I was running a –Sp.Def nature!), and HP Grass ruined Swampert. So I was like, What can I do? So I was like, Fine. Fine. I’ll get a bulky Ground type not named Swampert, and I stumbled onto Steelix.

Steelix isn’t OU; it’s BL. Its lower Sp. Def means it doesn’t eat the Fire Blasts aimed at the usual Steel defensive mons, so it’s not like it does anything special in that regard. The only reason I slapped it on was as a last-ditch thing against Zapdos. (It does NOT get Heat Wave in this gen, so I wasn’t fearing that.) Earthquake is generic STAB; Rock Slide is a 2HKO on Zapdos, while Hidden Power Grass has, iirc, a very small chance of a 3HKO; Explosion was there in order to nuke anything that I couldn’t break otherwise; and Roar is there because phasing, especially with Skarm’s Spikes up, is nice, and Steelix can switch into some physical boosting mons without too much fear. Having Steelix and Skarmory on the same team almost feels… Redundant. But it’s not, because they’re there for different things. So they don’t actually overlap. Idk. Steelix was a very late choice for me, and I am unsure how much I like it.

A Couple Problems:

Fire. This comes from having three Steel types and a Grass type on the same team. And Tyranitar does not want to get burned, because then you’re playing against the Attack drop. This would be why I would go back to the Swampert version of this team: One less Fire weak mon, and one more resist.

Magneton?? I put this in question marks because I don’t actually believe this is a big flaw. On paper, yes, half my team gets trapped by Magneton, but 2/3 of those mons have Earthquake. And Steelix is immune to Thunderbolt. The only one who gets trapped and threatened by Magneton is Skarmory, and the convention is (or was, I don’t see people doing it too much anymore tbh) to WW first turn to scout for the Magneton switch anyway, so you can know if you have to run.

Aerodactyl. Aero always scares me tbh. If it’s locked into a move, Skarm/Lix can generally wall it (Lix takes too much from EQ, to be said to wall it alone, but otherwise it does), but if it’s not locked yet, it’s scary.

Gengar/Status. Status really messes with this team. Heal Bell on Celebi or Lum on Tar/Gross might be something to look into.

The Battle:

The battle is here. I’m not going to go turn by turn because that’s exhausting. Some comments though:

I was a bit off-balance early on because I was confused by what his team was… Doing. When you see the first three members of an ADV OU team as Charizard/Regirock/Blaziken, it’s a bit ??? Especially when it’s SubToxic Zard. Like, what.

I have no clue what that Snorlax was doing. Curse / Fire Blast / Self-Destruct is… Interesting. I was calcing during the match, and even with my super-fast, lower-HP Metagross spread, I was sure I lived an Earthquake from there, but no, Self-Destruct just… Went off. I almost went to Steelix too there, rip.

I panicked at the end for almost no reason. See, again, I kept thinking, “This is what is standard on this mon.” Charizard should have had Brick Break. Thus my final message in the match, “Of course it comes down to Rock Slide. gg either way.” I was sitting there thinking, “Oh no, I’m going to miss, and it’s going to Brick Break me.” Looking back, SubToxic Zard… Probably didn’t have Brick Break. I’m almost sure now that I had nothing to fear but miss-RS + crit-burn-FBlast. Multiple times. So my final messages made little sense.

When your switch-ins to Blaziken become Tyranitar and Steelix >>>

Idk, I just think it was messy overall. I got through it, and I really need to play better next week. Hopefully it’s a more standard team because those mons were just… Throwing me for a loop. I know how to play against standard teams though.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got! I hope you enjoyed it :]