MZ
And now for something completely different
I'm sorta surprised that there's been a decent amount of gigalith discussion/usage but it's either as a regular defensive pivot or people are pairing it with Lycanroc with only 1 sand team. I get new toy syndrome, but we have something way better than lycan.
VERY fast doggo (Stoutland) @ Normalium Z / Life Orb (only LO if you have another z user already)
Ability: Sand Rush
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Frustration
- Crunch
- Superpower
- Fire Fang
In a meta where HO is pretty much all I've been seeing because the new offensive toys are way more interesting and powerful than the defensive ones, VERY fast doggo is faster than pretty much the entire meta bar scarf keldeo/terrak, which I haven't even been seeing that much of. While it is slightly weaker than Lycanroc (115 to 110 base attack), Lycanroc only has Stone Edge/Crunch/Brick Break for any kind of coverage, worse natural bulk where Stoutland can actually tank a hit or two, and a larger weakness to Rachi and Scizor which are two of the three most busted things in the meta right now with torn-t. Breakneck Blitz is really huge for you to net some random KOs like a great shot to take out Volcanion after rocks (guaranteed with 1 sand turn) and in general is just there to let you bust past the one thing your team couldn't weaken enough before clicking return on the more frail offensive things. While being weak to loom mach and taking a ton from scizor BP can be annoying, it's been really key for me in handling offense matchups like the above sashspam as long as you can break sashes early and not choke vs DDnite. Opposing Zard Y arent even that annoying since they have to be mega'd already to immediately reset sun and you're going to be running Gigalith to check it at minimum. I dont have the time to dump a lot of calcs but give this a shot.
Oh and some teams can probably try play rough / psychic fangs / pursuit / banded which was King UU's very diff set, I just found being able to switch it up vs scizor/rachi/dhelmise was really good and psychic fangs didn't hit much
VERY fast doggo (Stoutland) @ Normalium Z / Life Orb (only LO if you have another z user already)
Ability: Sand Rush
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Frustration
- Crunch
- Superpower
- Fire Fang
In a meta where HO is pretty much all I've been seeing because the new offensive toys are way more interesting and powerful than the defensive ones, VERY fast doggo is faster than pretty much the entire meta bar scarf keldeo/terrak, which I haven't even been seeing that much of. While it is slightly weaker than Lycanroc (115 to 110 base attack), Lycanroc only has Stone Edge/Crunch/Brick Break for any kind of coverage, worse natural bulk where Stoutland can actually tank a hit or two, and a larger weakness to Rachi and Scizor which are two of the three most busted things in the meta right now with torn-t. Breakneck Blitz is really huge for you to net some random KOs like a great shot to take out Volcanion after rocks (guaranteed with 1 sand turn) and in general is just there to let you bust past the one thing your team couldn't weaken enough before clicking return on the more frail offensive things. While being weak to loom mach and taking a ton from scizor BP can be annoying, it's been really key for me in handling offense matchups like the above sashspam as long as you can break sashes early and not choke vs DDnite. Opposing Zard Y arent even that annoying since they have to be mega'd already to immediately reset sun and you're going to be running Gigalith to check it at minimum. I dont have the time to dump a lot of calcs but give this a shot.
Oh and some teams can probably try play rough / psychic fangs / pursuit / banded which was King UU's very diff set, I just found being able to switch it up vs scizor/rachi/dhelmise was really good and psychic fangs didn't hit much