SM Doubles OU Charizard-Y with Zygarde

[Crab-kun]

Good morning/evening/night. I made this team with the objective of being a safe pick against any sort of opponent, as in with the objective of making a team with few bad matchups, some of which could be played around. I started this with the core of Zygarde and Charizard-Y because there are few leads that can outright beat this, specially with HP Ice on Charizard.

Zygarde @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 216 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
- Protect
This Zygarde set is very simplistic by nature: Set up and click Thousand Arrows. That move combined with Protect make for the staple of all Zygarde sets. Dragon Dance is the move that allows Zygarde to sweep, and Substitute helps with that by giving it a free turn to act. I chose Substitute over Glare because this team has little problem with speed control and I find myself wasting the moveslot. The EVs max out my attack stat and outspeed Timid Heatran.

Charizard-Mega-Y @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 24 SpA / 108 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Solar Beam
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect
This Charizard-Y set is on the peculiar side, but I've seen it gain some traction these past few days. Starting with the EVs, I sacrifice lots of my SpA stat for physical survivability. It survives Adamant Salamence Double-Edge and has a good chance of surviving Rock Slide from Landorus-Therian (12.5%; can be guaranteed with 144 Def EVs, sacrificing 20 EVs from either Speed or SpA), the Speed EVs outspeed +Spe Base 70, and the rest is dumped into SpA for extra power. Surviving the previously mentioned moves is useful because this set, besides the standard Heat Wave and Solar Beam, has Hidden Power Ice, allowing Charizard to easily nab a kill on both Salamence and Landorus. This also kills Zygarde, which can be problematic.

Milotic @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Icy Wind
- Recover
- Protect
Seeing how the main core would perform, I came to the conclusion that something that can reliably force Landorus-Therian out and provide speed control would be necessary. Milotic was the first thing that came to mind, as +2 Icy Wind is a pain and the speed control si very appreciated when running Charizard-Y. The set is standard barring the item; Previously this was Sitrus Berry, but further into teambuilding I decided to add Tapu-Lele, so I replaced it with Psychic Seed, which provides a +1 bonus to SpD when in Psychic Terrain. In hindsight, this might be better with Intimidate support, but it has worked out so far for me so I left it in for this write-up.

Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Download
EVs: 252 Atk / 64 SpA / 192 Spe
Naive Nature
- U-turn
- Iron Head
- Ice Beam
- Flamethrower
With the addition of Milotic, the team was lacking in the offensive side (Zygarde is kind of weak by itself, Charizard-Y has a bulkier spread and Milotic is fully defensive). With that problem in mind, I wanted something that was versatile and that could deal with Fairies, which were looking to be problematic. My solution was to this was Scarf Genesect. Its STABs dent a lot of unresisted things, and its incredible movepool versatility make it mostly unpredictable. In place of Explosion I decided to put in Flamethrower to hit Aegislash (I wouldn't be able to even dent it if it had Wide Guard), but besides that, everything is standard industry business.

Hydreigon @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Earth Power
- Protect
Going off the previous Flamethrower point, if the enemy has Wide Guard Aegislash it becomes very difficult to deal with. To counter this, I decided on using Hydreigon. Being a Dragon type, Hydreigon is useful for coming in hits neutral hits that few pokemon in my team could take, while also providing a BIG boost in power with Life Orb Draco Meteor. Hydreigon's Dark typing also comes in handy for dealing with Trick Room, an archetype that troubles this team. The speed coming from Scarf Genesect and Icy Wind deemed sufficient, so I went for a Timid spread with Earth Power over Tailwind for hitting Steels.

Tapu Lele @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 144 Def / 108 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Taunt
- Protect
Even with Hydreigon, my Trick Room matchup seemed poor, so I decided to bring in Tapu-Lele with Taunt. Tapu-Lele is a very strong mon under Psychic Terrain, being able to 2HKO a lot of unresisted thing with Psychic, while providing solid coverage with Moonblast. Another thing that made me put Tapu Lele in was that its a Pokemon very weak to Steel types, and I have Charizard-Y, one of (if not the) best Steel check in the meta, alongside Zygarde, which also troubles Steels with Thousand Arrows. Running Psychium Z allows me to bust open some 2HKOs into OHKO, specially because this move cannot be protected. I also hate Lorb recoil on Lele, because it often needs to take a hit or two.


Looking back, this team does wonders for me in what I stated in the introduction: it can play vs anything on the hands of a good player. Unfortunately I'm not quite there yet and need more practice. If I were to question it myself, I'd replace Hydreigon with something else and maybe consider switching Tapu Lele; However, rating and changing up the team here posted is not my job, but yours, the rater. Thanks for your time :]

Team

Zygarde @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 216 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
- Protect

Charizard-Mega-Y @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Drought
EVs: 148 HP / 124 Def / 20 SpA / 108 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Solar Beam
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect

Tapu Lele @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 144 Def / 108 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Taunt
- Protect

Milotic @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Icy Wind
- Recover
- Protect

Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Download
EVs: 252 Atk / 64 SpA / 192 Spe
Naive Nature
- U-turn
- Iron Head
- Ice Beam
- Flamethrower

Hydreigon @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Earth Power
- Protect

 

[Yellow Paint]

Overall, it's a solid team, you built around a good core and are using good sets etc. My question would be: where's the z move? You've said quite a few times that you have troubles with wg aegi. Why not groundium z zygarde, which gets around wg and ohkos, and is useful overall as a nuke attack? It'd be a shame if you wasted boosts/sub because you were forced out. Another option would be z draco hydrei, which can freely draco without worrying about spa drop.

Though, you do have a lot of trouble with koko, and as you've said yourself you might wanna switch out hydrei. As of now, zygarde can only win with pristine hp or a boost, and lele checking is conditional on terrain. Maybe just swap hydrei for venusaur? You know the set: chloro, lo, max spe max spa giga/sludge/sleep powder/tect. You've already got HO sun so you might as well, and people aren't preparing nearly as much for sleep. Milo+zygarde probably cover fire resists well enough, so the only real problem is a lack of psychic resists, which hydrei honestly didn't really help because it still loses to lele.

Good team man, hope you do well with it.

e: since you get speedier with venu, maybe swap gene for aegi, which adds some important flying/psychic/fairy resists and an overall defensive backbone?

The other option would be to swap hydrei for tyranitar instead of venu, which keeps psychic immunity and better fills the role of defensive backbone but might clash a bit because of weather.

 

[Crab-kun]

Overall, it's a solid team, you built around a good core and are using good sets etc. My question would be: where's the z move? You've said quite a few times that you have troubles with wg aegi. Why not groundium z zygarde, which gets around wg and ohkos, and is useful overall as a nuke attack? It'd be a shame if you wasted boosts/sub because you were forced out. Another option would be z draco hydrei, which can freely draco without worrying about spa drop.

Though, you do have a lot of trouble with koko, and as you've said yourself you might wanna switch out hydrei. As of now, zygarde can only win with pristine hp or a boost, and lele checking is conditional on terrain. Maybe just swap hydrei for venusaur? You know the set: chloro, lo, max spe max spa giga/sludge/sleep powder/tect. You've already got HO sun so you might as well, and people aren't preparing nearly as much for sleep. Milo+zygarde probably cover fire resists well enough, so the only real problem is a lack of psychic resists, which hydrei honestly didn't really help because it still loses to lele.

Good team man, hope you do well with it.

I considered replacing hydrei for venu at first but dismissed it because I think Venusaur is stupidly ugly. Groundium Z Zygarde is cool because it allows it to kill something without boosts which is a plus.
I'll try all the mentioned changes. Thanks for the feedback.

e: I have tried out Venusaur and it worked wonders.

It's still stupidly ugly and impossible to look at without bleeding from your eyes though