Hello, I've found this team particularly hard to rate to make it better because it's honestly a really solid team already. But, after some time, I've come up, and tested these changes, and I believe this has made the team do better overall.
Changes in
Blue
Threats in
Red
The team overall is very solid, but does struggle a fair bit with Pokemon like
Mega Latias,
Reuniclus,
Heatran,
Hawlucha,
Mega Scizor,
Ferrothorn,
Kartana,
Weakness Policy and Substitute Zygarde, all of which are highly dangerous threats in the current metagame.
Mega Latias and
Reuniclus are big threats to your team as they can freely boost against atleast half of your team thanks to their outstanding natural bulk and typing.
Heatran, specifically
Toxic or Will-O-Wisp Heatran, poses a big threat to your team because they can punish Mega Latios from switching in on Heatran.
Hawlucha is very capable of beating this team if it manages to get up a Swords Dance with very minor chip damage on Tapu Koko because it can OHKO or 2HKO every Pokemon on the team, while using Landorus-T as setup bait.
Mega Scizor and
Ferrothorn are very annoying, especially if they're carrying Knock Off, which lets them annoy a big majority of the team.
Kartana is a big threat to watch out for, specifically
Choice Band Kartana, as it can easily break up this team with proper prediction.
While it isn't as big of a threat as other Pokemon to this team, but once this team is significantly weakened, specifically
Weakness Policy and Substitute Zygarde's pose threats to this team.
Changes
I'd suggest changing Tapu Koko
from Choice Specs to its special z-move set. Considering how prediction reliant Choice Specs Tapu Koko is, it's very unreliable when paired with Hawlucha. Electrium Z improves the teams general matchup against Pokemon like
Heatran and
Reuniclus. It also doesn't have to lock itself into one move, resulting in it being more flexible. Running special z-move Tapu Koko also lets it function as a better check to
Hawlucha because being able to freely use Roost lets it stay healthy to take on Hawlucha throughout the match.
Changing
Hidden Power Ice to Punishment on Landorus-T improves the matchup against
Calm Mind Mega Latias and
Reuniclus. The loss of Hidden Power Ice doesn't come at much cost because the team has a good matchup against Zygarde, Garchomp, and Landorus-T anyways.
I'd suggest changing
Hidden Power Ice to Hidden Power Fire to help against
Mega Scizor,
Ferrothorn, and
Kartana, all of which can be decently annoying against this team. Changing Hidden Power Ice with Hidden Power Fire also means you should
replace Giga Drain with Grass Knot on Tangrowth because it lets Tangrowth break Zygarde's Substitute without Hidden Power Ice and will thus help a LOT against
Zygarde, which are pretty worrisome for this team as they can clean up and win in the late-game if your team is weakened up enough without Grass Knot or Hidden Power Ice.
Instead of Mega Latios I'd suggest using Mega Latias because of its superior defensive presence while still being very capable of beating the Pokemon Mega Latios can. Mega Latias is capable of taking a +2 Acrobatics from
Hawlucha, which is huge for this team because Hawlucha beats almost every Pokemon on the team. It also helps in the matchup against
Zygarde thanks to its natural bulk.
Ending notes
This team was honestly really good before these changes, but with these changes it should do better in matchups against a few Pokemon, like
Mega Latias,
Reuniclus,
Heatran,
Hawlucha,
Mega Scizor, and
Kartana.
tl;dr: The matchup against Pokemon like
Heatran,
Reuniclus, and
Hawlucha has benefitted from these changes thanks to the addition of Mega Latias and shift from Choice Specs Tapu Koko to special z-move Tapu Koko.
Mega Latias and
Reuniclus should be easier to handle because Landorus-T runs Punishment now. Adding Hidden Power Fire on Tangrowth instead of Hidden Power Ice helps the team against
Mega Scizor, Kartana, and
Ferrothorn which can be really annoying to this team. The addition of Grass Knot also means Tangrowth isn't setup bait for
Substitute Zygarde despite not carrying Hidden Power Ice.
