Community POTW #33

[svenosman]

Countering Excadrill

Since Excadrill is a Physical sweeper, being burned would ruin your offense. That's as easy as it can get. Fire-type Pokémon can easily use a random Fire-type move and 2HKO it. Watch out for Earthquake and Rock Slide, cause they will hurt you badly. Camerupt on an Air Balloon can survive it. Shedinja can switch in, resist everything Excadrill has (except Shadow Claw) and burn it. Gardevoir can switch in, trace your Sand Rush and burn you.

Weezing can come in, levitate over your Eartquake (Rock Slide will hit it, but doesn't do much damage) and burn you.

I think the one of the best counters to Excadrill is Cofagrius. One physical hit and bye bye extra speed or extra power.

Guts Conkeldurr can Protect the first turn, and than Fling its Flame Orb to Excadrill to burn it. After that it can Mach Punch it till Excadrill faints.

Hitmontop should be noticed too. Fake Out, after that Mach Punch. All this with Technician, afcourse.

Last solution for the mole problem is setting up all kinds of entry hazzards, and when you predict a switch to Rapid Spin it: Ghost Pokémon with Focus Blast or a Hidden Power (Fight). That will do the job.

[WeatherEffectRain]

^OU listings, perhaps? Gardevoir, Camerupt, heck, most of the suggested are in NU/RU. The best bet to countering Excadrill is likely Jellicent, It's got great defenses and can burn him. Also, Shedinja is, like, dead in OU.(No pun intended)

But yeah Jelli and Conk are his most common counters, each doing great.

[tecannon521]

regarding metal claw... you might as well forget about it without sand force. poor base power coupled with poor coverage makes it relatively useless. steel typing is a defensive blessing and an offensive curse. i guess if you are deathly afraid of ice types it could work. and even on sand force sets excadrills mediocre speed allows it to easily be killed before it attacks.

[TimmahX]

In terms of counters, since a few mentions went out Shedinja, I should just point out that Sandstorm downs it in one hit, and it's almost always active when Excadrill is in play. Cofagrius' Mummy ability ruins Excadrill, making it a viable switch in. Sableye's Priority Will-O-Wisp and Trick ruin Excadrill. Rotom-W and Rotom-H both work wonders with their exclusive moves.

And since we're discussing Ubers, lets talk about some of the threats he has to contend with there:

Mewtwo: Aura Sphere, Grass Knot, and Flamethrower all hit Excadrill for Super Effective damage, and Excadrill needs Sand Stream in order to hit first.
Lugia: Walls him fairly well, but needs Hydro Pump to fight back.
Ho-Oh: Nukes it with Sacred Fire, as long as it's Sandstorm is out of the picture.
Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza: All three of them negate Sandstorm and 1hko him.
Latis: Grass Knot does solid damage to Excadrill, and pack Earthquake immunities.
Deoxys: Superpower, done.
Dialga: Aura Sphere. It should have something to take down Sandstorm on it's side though.
Palkia: Aura Sphere or Surf boosted by Rain Dance should down it.
Arceus: Arceus has a lot of ways to hit it, but most of the main sets it runs don't exactly cover Excadrill, so he might have an edge here.
Darkrai: It needs Sand Stream to outrun Dark Void, but Darkrai doesn't have much else to use against Excadrill.
Giratina: Aura Sphere and Earth Power work well, and it has Will-O-Wisp.
Shaymin-S: Seed Flare can gun down Excadrill, unless it gets in Rock Slide first.
Zekrom: Excadrill can wreck Zekrom with STAB Earthquakes, and little fear of it's retaliations.
Reshiram: Reshiram on the other hand, can annihilate Excadrill with Blue Flare.
Thundurus: Thundurus needs Grass Knot to hit Excadrill, and it doesn't always carry it. Excadrill is immune to Thunderbolt/Thunder and Thunder Wave and can fire back Rock Slides.

Basically, most stuff there can handle hit or counter him. Thundurus, Zekrom, Darkrai may be the only real exceptions, but even then, Darkrai can put it to sleep. He won't do too well there.

[WeatherEffectRain]

^Steel resists Grass, so it's neutral.

Why does everyone seems to forget some obvious resists :I

But actually, Excadrill should be played, and is typically played, as a Scarfed Revenge Killer and Spinner. I prefer it on Sun team w/Groudon, as Ho-Oh(As well as others) really need it.

[svenosman]

^So, not as a sweeper, but more as a offensive support? This way you need to be sure you can knock out any Fire-type pokémon before they can hit you with a Sunboosted STAB'ed Fire-type move. Having said that, a Fire Blast careeing (sorry for noncorrect spelling) Lati can hurt Excadrill a lot.

[PokefanTez]

to Timmahx: The Latis aren't uber.
Another counter that people seem to be forgetting is Heatran with air balloon. He pulls in when Excadrill uses earthquake, then can kill with a stab fire attack or two. I know that fire blast will OHKO assuming max SATK Heatran and Min SDEF Excadrill.

[caninobranco]

I think Gliscor is the best Excadrill counter, immune to earthquake and neutral to rock slide, immune to sandstorm damage and can run an abillity that gets advantage from Sandstorm (making Rock Slide accuracy even less reliable) and can destroy Excadrill with STAB Earthquakes, so a Pokemon who can kill Gliscor is a good partner for Excadrill, Landorus with Hidden Power Ice and SATK evs can take care of him as well as Swampert with STAB water atacks (listing only pokes with Sandstorm immunity), Mamoswine although hitting Gliscor's highest defense can still destroy him with Icicle Drop or even Ice Shard.

Also for partner Excadrill wants something to beat fighting pokemons, Gliscor with a flying atack is a good poke to do this as well as Magic Guard Reuniclus (who is the best Conkeldurr counter IMO), for fire pokemons normally Tyranitar who is almost always present due to his Sand Stream can counter them very safely due to fire resistance and good bulkyness.

[TheSuperZekrom]

A Standard Sandstorm Sweepers
Excadrill (M) @ Air Balloon / Life Orb
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- X-Scissor
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide

[WeatherEffectRain]

^So, not as a sweeper, but more as a offensive support? This way you need to be sure you can knock out any Fire-type pokémon before they can hit you with a Sunboosted STAB'ed Fire-type move. Having said that, a Fire Blast careeing (sorry for noncorrect spelling) Lati can hurt Excadrill a lot.

Dude, it's called switching. IN Ubers, Excadrill, atleast how I've used it, is for taking out some troublesome opponents when they're at low HP, and Spinning. Revenge and/or Spin. Simple.

But Exca is really good in Ubers, just try it out. Play it right and it's a winning player.

[Kraleck]

Countering Excadrill
Gardevoir can switch in, trace your Sand Rush and burn you.

Gardevoir has inferior Base Speed, so Exca, very likely, still has the first shot. However, that notion brings up another counter to Sand Rush Exca's rampage: Trick Room.

Doubled Speed means you move slower in Trick Room. Bronzong is bulky enough to throw one up, allowing slow Pokemon to get their revenge on the Sand Rushing bully. This makes the field of counters a wide open free-for-all:
-Bulky and slow(-ish) Water Types with Sandstorm protection like Slowbro/king with Leftovers, Quagsire, Swampert, Seismitoad, and Carracosta
-EQ-immune Steel Types like Skarmory, Magnet Rise Metagross, Magnet Rise Magnezone, Levitate Bronzong
-Sandstorm immune slow-runners like Rampardos, Rhyperior, Steelix, Camerupt, Torterra, Golurk, Magic Guard Clefable, Magic Guard Reuniclus, Cloud Nine Lickilicky, and Cloud Nine-taria

In a Trick Room situation, Excadrill is extra-screwed. The problem is that many of Exca's potential allies are also mentioned in there. Having low Speed, most of Exca's Rock, Ground, and/or Steel Type partners can turn Trick Room into their advantage and stall it out. Hippowdon loves the flipped Speed with its Base 47, as does Tyranitar with its Base 61.

[windsong]

^So, not as a sweeper, but more as a offensive support? This way you need to be sure you can knock out any Fire-type pokémon before they can hit you with a Sunboosted STAB'ed Fire-type move. Having said that, a Fire Blast careeing (sorry for noncorrect spelling) Lati can hurt Excadrill a lot.

Nope, fire blast carrying Lati@s can't hurt Excadrill.

In fact, Fire Blast carrying Lati@s can't hurt anything.

Because Lati@s don't get fire blast!!1!!!!1

[Aldieb]

Something commonly ignored is the use of agility sweepers who are actualy very effective this generation. Zapdos, Lucario, Kingdra (rain dance), Terrakion, and others are capable of boosting after which they outspeed and KO the mole. Also works wonderfuly against Venasuar and Sawsbuck in sun who make use of their Chlorophyl abilities to sweep. Zapdos is of particular note because hes capable of operating well in all three weather conditions.

[Dracoflare]

,Cofagrius' Mummy ability ruins Excadrill,.

Err sorry but mummy isnt activated when earthquake is used,and please don't talk about shadowclaw.

Dude, it's called switching. IN Ubers, Excadrill, atleast how I've used it, is for taking out some troublesome opponents when they're at low HP, and Spinning. Revenge and/or Spin. Simple.

But Exca is really good in Ubers, just try it out. Play it right and it's a winning player.

I agree with excadrill being good in ubers,except maintaining sand in Ubers is very difficult since Ttar will never be able to take on either of kyogre or groudon 1 v1.But yeah if used cleverly...Excadrill can own stuff in Ubers too.

[Phoopes]

It seems that the 4 standard attacking moves to have on an Excadrill set are Earthquake, Rock Slide, X-Scissor, and Shadow Claw. I'd like to point out a counter for Excadrill...
Landorus: Immune to Earthquake, Resists X-Scissor, Normally Affected by Rock Slide and Shadow Claw. Landorus can switch in and take no damage on an Earthquake by Excadrill, then hit right back with a Sand Force boosted Earthquake of its own, easily OHKOing Excadrill. (because who in their right mind wouldn't run Excadrill without SandStorm?) Probably bulky enough to take an unSTABed Rock Slide.

[WeatherEffectRain]

^Shadow Claw isn't standard, it's very rarely used. Return is typically placed over it. Rapid Spin sometimes there, too.

@Dracoflare: Scarf Exca and do as such. Sand doesn't need to be up all the time to use Excadrill, it just makes it a heck of alot better.

[Phoopes]

^Shadow Claw isn't standard, it's very rarely used. Return is typically placed over it. Rapid Spin sometimes there, too.

@Dracoflare: Scarf Exca and do as such. Sand doesn't need to be up all the time to use Excadrill, it just makes it a heck of alot better.

Hmmmm... I haven't seen Return on any Excadrill movesets in the metagame. Also, on second thought, Gliscor would probably be a better Ground/Flying counter with base defense at 125 over Landorus' 90.

[WeatherEffectRain]

Well, they both force Exca out. Landorus has Sand Force EQ to smack Excadrill around with. Or it could use some other move if you're on a balloon, but Landorus is still quite useful.

Gliscor is just a tad different being it's got that Defence, and it's EQ isn't quite as powerful. Either way, they're some of the top counters.

[Phoopes]

Also, some more counters:
Skarmory breaks a possible balloon with Brave Bird then Whirlwinds it away.
Bronzong can take anything that Excadrill has to offer, except a +2 X-Scissor. Bronzong could also K.O. Excadrill if Attack EV's are invested in it.
Heatran, with an Air Balloon, can survive a +2 Rock Slide and OHKO with Fire Blast.
Breloom or Conkeldurr can take out Excadrill with a STAB priority Mach Punch.
Lucario could K.O. Excadrill with a STAB priority Vacuum Wave, and not be "buffeted by the sandstorm" like Conkeldurr or Breloom would be.

EDIT: Hitmontop can revenge kill with an LO, STAB, Technician Mach Punch.

[multi-scale]

Jolly Excadrill can counter most standard Excadrills. Since most don't need the speed boost thanks to Sand Rush, they usually are Adamant nature. A Jolly Excadrill can come in on a death and then either KO with EQ or get up a Swords Dance on a switch.

[Dracoflare]

@above people used jolly in the beginning and then realised that except for speed tie against Other excadrill or blaziken(now banned on smogon) at+2 it isn't useful.Hence adamant>jolly.Your jolly Excadrill won't be a proper check as the opposing user may use jolly himself and you lose the speed tie.

Also stuff like conkeldurr are not counters.They are called checks.Gliscor and skarmory are the only true counters for excadrill.

[WeatherEffectRain]

Landorus counters pretty well, because if you're not using a Balloon Sand Force STAB EQ x2 = Dead Mole. Plus immunity to EQ, resistance to X-Scissor and Neutral to other moves mean that he's a good counter, yup.

But yeh about the checks otherwise.

[windsong]

Landorus counters pretty well, because if you're not using a Balloon Sand Force STAB EQ x2 = Dead Mole. Plus immunity to EQ, resistance to X-Scissor and Neutral to other moves mean that he's a good counter, yup.

But yeh about the checks otherwise.

+2 LO Frustration/Return OHKOs Landorus.

Not a counter, but an okay check if it hasn't taken any prior damage, Exca isn't at +2, or you've determined Exca isn't using X-Scissor.

[Vandslaux]

Gliscor is a fantastic counter, breaking the Balloon, and surviving two +2 Rock Slides and OHKOing with EQ. Trust me, when I ran a Sand team, Gliscors RUINED my Excadrill's sweep.

[WeatherEffectRain]

Okay, so more checks than counters.

What do we do now?