SM OU - Mega Beedrill + Tailwind Offence (Making Beedrill Viable in OU) (2024)

Yo Hello Fellow Human ! I like that you're trying to use Mega Beedrill in OU, but I feel that it and some of its partners are satisfactory at best. Mega Beedrill isn't good simply because it lacks the power to punch holes through bulkier builds. Celesteela and Scizor-Mega, among many other Pokemon, easily wall. This fact is especially true because your Beedrill packs X-Scissor. X-Scissor + Poison Jab is not typical whatsoever. Whenever anyone ever uses Beedrill, it's to gain momentum via U-turn.

Overview

Firstly, this team is extremely lackluster defensively. It's not even like it packs the offensive pressure to compensate for this. Water-, Fire-, and even menacing Ice-types such as Kyurem-Black, Charizard-Mega X, or Greninja-Ash, absolutely annihilate this team. They click their respective STAB moves and pick up KOs, especially with hazards such as Spikes and/or Stealth Rock to weaken your defensive Pokemon in Muk and Skarmory. Physical attackers and sweepers shred through the team, too. Tapu Lele is your "setup destroyer," but it's far too frail to survive a majority of boosted hits. Not all setup sweepers opt for priority, and the ones who do (i.e. Dragonite or Mega Pinsir) often pack a strong STAB move that does the job. I'm simply struggling to see the ultimate goal of the team.

Team Changes

U-turn >X-Scissor | Knock Off >Fell Stinger

Fell Stinger sucks—end of story. No matter how convincing one may sound, it's impossible for me to believe this move holds ANY utility in a real game. It's very weak, even with the Adaptability boost, meaning that it can fail to revenge kill a lot of Pokemon that a U-turn could. Knock Off allows Beedrill to punish its checks like Celesteela, removing their Leftovers. U-turn provides Beedrill with several pivotal abilities. This lets it threaten Pokemon that it could potentially revenge kill; this is the primary role of your Beedrill.

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Keldeo > Xurkitree

I'd like to replace a garbage sweeper with a setup Pokemon that can solidly stallbreak. Keldeo's main utility comes from its TauntCM set right now, which allows it to prevent Haze, recovery, and any form of fazing that could prevent its set up from being successful. It heavily annoys Beedrill's checks such as Celesteela or Skarmory by preventing any potential form of recovery (Leech Seed for the former and Roost for the latter) with Taunt. Its menacing power at +1 allows it to punch holes through its conventional checks with Hydro Vortex. Keldeo's natural bulk of 91/90/90 also provides it with more setup opportunities. Xurkitree, if it misses its Hypnosis, tends to die immediately. Even at +1, it's easily revenge killed and requires a Tail Glow to gain many OHKOs / 2HKOs before it's KO'd itself. The style of play between these two Pokemon is vastly different, but Keldeo provides a blanket check for Charizard-Mega X and Ash Greninja; while checking Kyurem-B with prior damage.

Choice Specs

Tapu Lele, on this team, would act much better as a Choice Specs wallbreaker rather than a Taunt user. Keldeo takes up the utility of Taunt and a Z-move, so it can't run a Z-Focus Blast or Z-Psyshock set. Tapu Lele can wallbreak superbly, which provides Keldeo and Mega Beedrill more chance to shine. Psyshock and Psychic are both ran, as Psyshock can 3HKO Magearna, 2HKO Chansey, and many other feats that Psychic can't attain. Meanwhile, Psychic is able to collect 2HKOs vs. 252 HP Heatran, hit physically defensive Pokemon like Clefable harder, etc.

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Defog > Superpower | Stone Edge / Hidden Power Ice > Rock Slide

Landorus-Therian, as a Scarfer, can opt to run Defog if other team members can't afford to run it. In this case, Skarmory with Defog wouldn't be ideal considering that it's running Stealth Rock (which is already sub-optimal as it is). Offensive SR Lando-T was in consideration, but that'd leave the team without a Choice Scarf user. Anyways, Superpower hits literally nothing. You didn't even explain its usage in the OP, so I'd like to see what it does that U-turn momentum or an outright Earthquake doesn't do better. Rock Slide is merely a weaker version of Stone Edge. It, for example, fails to 2HKO defensive Zapdos, while Stone Edge nabs a 76.6% chance to do so. Hidden Power Ice could also be used to weaken Zygarde or opposing Landorus-Therian—those of which could be annoying for Mega Beedrill.

Fire Punch > Ice Punch | 248 HP / 136 Atk / 28 Def / 92 SpD / 4 Spe Adamant Nature > 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD Careful Nature

A change of Toxapex > Muk-Alola was in heavy consideration, but I suppose Muk can still offer some solid team support. Fire Punch allows Muk to target Mega Scizor, Magearna, Ferrothorn, and Kartana. Ice Punch sounds great on paper, as it hits Landorus, Garchomp, Zygarde, etc., but they all check it before it can fire off the attack, so it ends up being relatively useless. The above EV spread can be explained here.

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Ferrothorn > Skarmory

Skarmory shares extremely stiff competition with the likes of Heatran, Celesteela, Ferrothorn, and Scizor-Mega as a bulky Steel-type. Out of them all, Skarmory is easily the worse. On this team, Ferrothorn provides additional help vs. non-Hidden Power Fire Kyurem variants, offensive Water-types bar Keldeo and Volcanion, Mimikyu, etc. On this set, Protect is run in the final slot to moderately assist in the Hawlucha match-up. You can Leech Seed on the Swords Dance and Protect on the incoming HJK (or even Power Whip anticipating another SD). If it's a Roost variant, Power Whipping after the Protect will generally be more optimal unless you know their style of play, as the Flying-type gets removed—allowing Power Whip to cause neutral damage. At +1 (assuming Intimidate from Lando-T), Muk-Alola fails to be OHKO'd by High Jump Kick and can retaliate with a Poison Jab. This, in conjunction with Leech Seed chip, or Stone Edges from Landorus, will eventually result in Hawlucha's demise if played correctly.

Importable

(click the images for the team!)

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the rate. Alakazam-Mega is always an option available over Mega Beedrill, but it's the star of the team so I don't want to replace that (that would also result in 3 total changes). Good luck!