ADV OU Kingdra Spikes Offense

[Sadlysius]

Kingdra Spikes Offense

- by Sadlysius

This is a team that I created around the Kingdra + BoomGar offensive core.

It aims to remove threats and win the spikes war on early game, to then clear with Kingdra on late game.
Playstyle-wise its a really offensive and prediction-based team, because of the latter its really fun to use!

Gengar @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 52 Def / 16 SpA / 88 SpD / 104 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Destiny Bond
- Explosion

Gengar is the lead of this team mainly because it can scare out most leads with the Will-O-Wisp/Hypnosis possibility and it can lure Blissey with Explosion, this being really important for Kingdra to clean later in the game.
Thunderbolt and Ice Punch are standard attacks on this Pokémon; letting him hit a lot of things for super effective, or atleast, neutral damage.
Destiny Bond is a nice surprise move, allowing Gengar to trade with out-of-control CMers or, in general, any slow Pokémon that thinks it can safely kill Gengar. This moveslot can be easily changed to Hidden Power Grass to deal more easily with Swampert if you feel like you need it.
Explosion is pretty self-explanatory, allowing GGengar to lure/weaken Blissey or any sort of special wall; even an uninvested Explosion will do a good chunk to most Kingdra checks and gives Dugtrio a free switch-in to finish the job.

The EVs spread accomplish the following:

• Always live a +1 HP Flying from +252 DDMence.
• Always live a Pursuit/Crunch from +252 TTar.
• Survive a Psychic from Offensive Starmie 81,2% of the time.
• Hit 310 Speed, speed-crippling Offensive Celebi, Bulky Flygon, and other Bulky Gars.
• Hit 300 SpA, improving % of OHKOing bulky Mence with Ice Punch.

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 248 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
- Protect

Skarmory, a pretty straight-foward Pokémon, adds three important things to the team; spikes support, a physical wall and a phazer. All in one slot. This Steel Bird is truly amazing and will provide value on nearly every match.
The move-set is as standard as it gets.
For the EVs spread details and more information about Skarmory you can check this thread.

Claydol @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Atk / 108 Def / 96 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Psychic
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion

Claydol is my team's spinner and rock-resist; along with Skarmory it provides a good physical backbone and spikes control. It does its job really well and consistently thanks to its bulky EVs spread.
Earthquake and Psychic for the dual STAB coverage, allowing it to hurt things like Tyranitar and Gengar decently hard.
Explosion is in this moveset because of the synergy with the team's BoomSpam theme; allows Claydol to get some final value and trading with, in the best-case scenario, a Kingdra check. Finally, Explosion is also good to stop a DDMence or DDGyara sweep.

The EVs spread accomplish the following:

• Gets 4HKO'd by Ice Punch from Bulky Gengar most of the time, 2HKOs with Psychic in return.
  
• Gets 3HKO'd by +1 HP Flying from +252 DDMence most of the time, OHKOs with Explosion in return.

Metagross @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 128 HP / 88 Atk / 16 Def / 252 SpA / 24 SpD
Quiet Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Explosion

Mixed Metagross acts as a glue for the team; providing some physical power, a second rock-resist, and a strong Explosion that creates holes on the defensive core of most teams with ease.
The move-set is the standard for MixMeta; does its job really well with it.
For more information about Metagross you can check this thread.

The EVs spread accomplish the following:

• Always lives a Choice Band Earthquake from Jolly Dugtrio.
• Gets 3HKO'd by Fire Punch from Bulky Gengar, OHKOs in return with Psychic.

Dugtrio @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 116 HP / 236 Atk / 24 SpD / 132 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Aerial Ace
- Hidden Power [Bug]

Dugtrio is the job-finisher, trapper and revenge killer of the team; it fits the team perfectly because of the BoomSpam.
The move-set is pretty standard and its made to maximize the number of Pokemon it can effectively trap and kill. This gives Kingdra even more opportunities to clean later on the game.

This Duggy EVs spread is really interesting and accomplish the following things:

• Always lives an unboosted Earthquake from +200 DDTTar.
• Always lives an Ice Beam from +252 Blissey.
• Hit 309 Speed, speed-crippling the likes of Offensive Celebi, +1 DDTTar, Bulky Flygon, and Bulky Gengars.
• Run an Adamant nature comfortably, giving Duggy the boost in power that it needs to 2HKO a lot of defensive threats.

Kingdra @ Lum Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 104 HP / 68 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 80 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 3 Atk / 30 SpA
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Rain Dance

Kingdra, the Pokémon that this team is based around. Its role on the team is to serve as the primary win condition. This underrated Pokémon only needs one turn to setup and proceed to clean through a weakened team from all the chaos generated by Kingdra's teammates...
The move-set of this Kingdra its mostly standard; Surf over Hydro Pump because of perfect accuracy, more PP and the loss in raw power will almost always not matter against weakened opponents in late game. Ice Beam has great coverage and hurts Grass-types a lot. Hidden Power Electric its there because it hits Water-types decently hard and specially Gyarados who otherwise walls Kingdra.
Lum Berry is really good in a late game scenario when your opponent desperately tries to intoxicate Kingdra; the lack of Leftovers recovery is not noticeable enough in my opinion and a wasted turn attempting to status Kingdra means that the enemy has to eat another rain-boosted Surf to the face.

The EVs spread is more bulky-inclined; Kingdra needs to be able to take a number of strong physical attacks because opponents will often try to punish the Rain Dance turn.
It accomplish the following things:

• Survive a +2 Rock Slide from +252 DDTTar, giving you a chance for setting up Rain and reverse sweep the opponent.
• Survive a Swarm Megahorn from Jolly Heracross, and has a chance to survive a CB Megahorn from +252 Heracross as well.
• Hit 226 Speed without Rain, outspeeding things like max. Speed Adamant TTar, Defensive Suicune, most Magnetons, AstaRachis, Umbreon, etc.
• Hit 452 Speed with Rain, outspeeding the entire unboosted tier and also +1 Adamant DDMence.

In conclusion, all I can say that, even with its weaknesses, I really like this team and would love to share it with all ADV players. It definitely has room for improvement so I'm open to all sort of suggestions and changes!

IMPORTABLE:
​

Spoiler: PS! Importable

Gengar @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 52 Def / 16 SpA / 88 SpD / 104 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Destiny Bond
- Explosion

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 248 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
- Protect

Claydol @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Atk / 108 Def / 96 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Psychic
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion

Kingdra @ Lum Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 104 HP / 68 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 80 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 3 Atk / 30 SpA
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Rain Dance

Metagross @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 128 HP / 88 Atk / 16 Def / 252 SpA / 24 SpD
Quiet Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Explosion

Dugtrio @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 116 HP / 236 Atk / 24 SpD / 132 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Aerial Ace
- Hidden Power [Bug]

PS. I'm not a native English speaker, so please forgive the weird grammar and/or misspellings

 

[Disaster Area]

Firstly, the way you presented this is very nice ^^

Lead Gengar is not a great pick in the current metagame, especially without Hypnosis: lead Pursuit Tyranitar is pretty common. Metagross would probably make a much better lead choice. That being said it's more of a preference call, but maybe you don't want to have to reveal dug so early against Tar teams. You might want to speed creep your own Skarmory to get a jump on opposing skarmory with Whirlwind.

You really need Refresh on Claydol or something. The team seems to me to be really Skarm weak. Refresh lets you handle it 1 on 1. Alternatively, if you went Taunt on Skarm maybe you could get away with using Explosion there. Lead mixed Meta is pretty good for chipping at Skarm actually so I could see boomdol working there if you made those two changes. I would go for an offensive spread on it btw, it's not like you're ddmence/ddgyara weak, and bulky dol is fine versus Gengar. This is the spread I got from Ninjax:
EVs: 236 HP / 224 Atk / 48 SpD
Brave Nature
you can actually hurt Tyranitar and stuff with it, it's pretty cool.

Also the team feels a bit swampert weak, particularly when paired with mag (which can trap skarm and to some extent also stop metagross booming on it).

Starmie could be annoying, have you considered a faster dug?

 

[Lycomedes]

Looks cool. I recommend Hypnosis and some Attack investment on Gengar, and maybe Focus Punch if you can forgo Ice Punch. Taunt and some Speed on Skarm helps against opposing Skarm. Protox helps against Starmie though. Refresh on Claydol lets you stall out opposing Skarm, but Explosion might be better overall.

 

[Sadlysius]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try a more offensive set and spread with Gengar and see if I need more changes.

 

[hclat]

Cool team. I saw you take a g3 in a master tour set with this recently. Kingdra is relatively unexplored, especially on spikes teams, but its matchup spread against the “big 5” ground immune (skarm zapdos gengar aero mence) is decent, so there shouldn’t be any reason they can’t be paired.


A couple issues I see:


Opposing special attackers:


Suicune is the biggest issue here. If it gets a boost, your only chance of stopping it is to explode or dbond it. Both aren’t ideal as primary answers, since they can be played around fairly easily. Celebi and jirachi similarly are major issues if dug is removed.

You don’t really have a gar switchin. Meta and claydol don’t want to get will-o-wisped, and kingdra isn’t a poke that you want to use repeatedly as a defensive check.

You don’t really have a zapdos switchin. Claydol is the only thing that wants to take a tbolt, and it can only hurt zapdos by exploding.


The gengar set:

Lycomedes touched on this, but it isn’t a good idea to dedicate two moveslots to trading. I think dugtrio is a deadly partner with hypnosis+boom gar, so I would recommend using this.

As disaster area said, lead gengar is fairly unusual on teams with spikes. It’s usually in that position to execute a trade and propel the game quickly into the endgame. If you wish to keep this here, I think skarm becomes far less useful.


Claydol:

I think claydol, even with explosion, is too passive a pokemon to operate well on this kind of team. On a special attacking team like this, your plan to beat spikes should be to prevent your opponent from spiking. Magneton actually seems like a good pick here. It removes your issues with skarm completely, as well as acting as a check for opposing zapdos and can try to deal with gar and cune in a pinch. Other pokes could work here as well, of course.

 

[Disaster Area]

Spoiler: New Version

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 168 SpD / 88 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
- Taunt

Metagross @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 128 HP / 88 Atk / 16 Def / 252 SpA / 24 SpD
Quiet Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Explosion

Gengar @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 68 Atk / 252 SpA / 188 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Explosion
- Hypnosis

Jolteon @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 76 HP / 180 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Roar
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Baton Pass

Kingdra @ Lum Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 104 HP / 68 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 80 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 3 Atk / 30 SpA
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Rain Dance

Dugtrio @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 116 HP / 236 Atk / 24 SpD / 132 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Aerial Ace
- Hidden Power [Bug]

I created a new version based on hclat's comments actually. I swapped out Claydol with Jolteon.
1) it puts pressure on skarmory. I've configured the rest of the team to do that too
2) it helps keep opposing gengar under control in the early game, as well as helps vs electrics and suicune
Taunt Skarm is used for the reasons talked about earlier. Hypnosis + Explosion Gar is a good way to take out special walls and is a good emergency button. It also helps dug to trap pursuit tar for gengar & kingdra. Metagross is now the team's only real rock resist, but Dug helps with DDTar, Jolt helps a little with Aero, and Kingdra likes to see both of those Pokemon in the endgame anyway. Also, since I added a Jolteon, the team is not so bothered by Starmie, so you can keep the bulkier dug. Leading skarm gets early spikes and baits out Magneton, which this team loves trapping: Gengar and Jolteon appreciate the removal of a wall, whilst Metagross is now safe from being trapped by it. You might like to try HP Grass instead of HP Electric on Kingda for pert, I'm not sure what's best, and also I'm a bit undecided on the hidden power type and filler move for Jolteon, so maybe hclat can help figure out what's best there.

 

[wyc2333]

i have read ur rain thread on smogon times after times, which hasn't mentioned surf kingdra.