Mega Garchomp Sand Team Guide | Pokémon VGC Strategy
Summary
The Pokémon Champions | VGC Battles & Tournaments server presents a deep dive into a high-octane sand team featuring Mega Garchomp and Excadrill. This guide explores how to leverage Mega Garchomp's unique speed and coverage alongside Tyranitar to dominate the current VGC meta. It provides essential insights into EV spreads and team synergy, helping players refine their competitive strategies for upcoming tournaments.
I've always wanted to use mega chomp since seeing it cuz hes so cool. Though, when others saw failure in Levitate, I saw opprotunity. My main idea is to equake spam with Exca next to MEGA CHOMP Z, and have a overall very offensive sand team, with defense where needed.
Mega Chomp. Let's start with it's strenghts. It's incredibly fast, it hits decently hard, and is immune to ground moves. Pure Dragon resits a lot, like Yard heatwave, grassy glide and wood hammer, Wave crash and aqua jet, Flare blitz, and so on. He has coverage that hits a lot in this format, like Power Gem for dem Yards and Flamethrower for dem Golisopods and Rillabooms. I sadly need full-ish special attack to manage to ohko these threats, but it works out great. With his speed this high, I build it to outspeed Mega Frosslass, Sneasler, Salamence and other stuff in that tier. Now, he struggles a lot into floette, not being able to hit it back, while usually getting OHKOed by any touch of fairy moves. It loses ground stab, and keeps that high attack stat without it being used. So these are what we need to find in good teamates.
Ttar. Ttar is here to setup the sand and hopefully get a Ddance or 2, then rockslide to oblivion. It walls frosslass, which is incredibly nice for this guy, and hits overall really hard, with the added bonus of item removal. Ttar has always been a complete menace with one glaring weakness: Fighting types, but most of the relavent fighting types cripple to Garchomp + Excadrill anyways. (Kommo-o, sneasler, etc) Ttar is holding the Tyranitarite due to lack of better or more valuable item.
Excadrill. Oh boy, life orb boosted earthquakes hit hard. Excadrill is my main damage source, with sand rush and life orb hitting extreemly hard. I moved some points from speed into HP so grassy glide is less game-ending, and I have X-Scissor to hit those Rillabooms back. I know, rock slide is way better, but I have rock moves on both the mentioned mon already. It hits Floette, so that helps.
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Farig. Farig is manly here to block fake out and grassy glide, but due to a glitch, Grassy glide doesn't... get blocked. This however, is fine for the most part, and can remove trick room, threaten decent damage into Rillaboom, Ohko sneasler, and helping hand to pick up some kos Excadrill or Mega Chomp wouldn't otherwise. Farigraf is just a great mon.
Basculeigon. Basculeigon is a seperate wallbreaker, after the Garchomp + Excadrill core breaks. I don't think I need to expand on Adapatiblity Wave crashes + Last respects, but they hit harder than a mon should. It's immune to Sneasler close combats, so it's a relativly safe switch in when Ttar gets scared, and if you dont die from the first hit, you'll die from the second one.
Toxapex. Honestly, most of the time this guy is a benchwarmer, and I kinda wanted to add the guy, but it's what it offers into certian matchups can be really valuable. I have no ground resistance/immunity other than Z chomp, and Wide guard can be really helpful. Wide guard also blocks dazzling gleams, and offers a defensive backbone to the team. It never dies, and stalls pretty much, which is great.
Gameplan: I usually want to lead with Ttar x Zchomp or Ttar x Excadrill to get the sand going, and then either switch in Ttar or Garchomp and start earthquaking everything to oblivion, while Zchomp picks off whatever survived. In the back, I usually have Farig or Basculeigon, depending on how scary their priority looks. If I can, I'd like to usually bring basculeigon, but Farig also offers so much in return. I usually want to lead Ttar x Excadrill into Incin Rillaboom ballence, or very scary looking fairy types, while Zchomp into stuff like Lucario, Weather setters, and similar things. Excadrill is the default.
Overall, mega garchomp Z looks cool
guh, now you have a big ugly message inbetween my team report
Fixed lol
32 SpA Garchomp-Mega-Z Flamethrower vs. 32 HP / 2 SpD Golisopod-Mega: 184-220 (101 - 120.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
32 SpA Garchomp-Mega-Z Power Gem vs. 14 HP / 0 SpD Charizard-Mega-Y: 176-208 (105.3 - 124.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
32 SpA Garchomp-Mega-Z Dragon Pulse vs. 2 HP / 0 SpD Salamence-Mega: 168-200 (97.6 - 116.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
sandstorm chip is almost never impactful lol, i have thought of running indeedee, grassy glide still hits though but ik thats no excuse so ill prob make that change
Faries have never been a problem, always get wrecked by wave crash bascu or iron head, but i've never faced any ice types yet, so they could be scary. I assume not though, since i built just to outspeed frosslass, and i have 1 steel type, tyranitar, and power gem even
Yeah, The whole point is sand, excadrill is gonna stay as my pick
I meant I have iron head against steel types lol
the other day i think i ohko an opposing zchomp with iron head though? I think it might be the lorb but hmmm
i forget exca is strong sometimes lol
hmmm. I know i should switch toxapex, and harc seems nice, but i dont think it's the pick
like you said, bascu can be a problem, and that only streghens it, i already have a strong rock type, and i dont think the upsides outwigh the downsides
also, it doesn't help my glaring fighting weakness
hmmm. aero is a step in the right direction, but i dont think tailwind justifies it enough
ill look into flying types
base raptor might even work lol
I was thinking talonflame, but sand breaks gale wings
might do base staraptor lol
flame body isnt amazing on a frail mon
imma do raptor lol, my other options are base mence, base skarm, or... farfecthed
