Battle Spot: Mega Camerupt Trick Room and Doubles strategy

Build set as of Gen 6

• Ability – Sheer Force
• Stats – HP (252), Special Attack/SpA (252), Defence or Special Defence/SpD (4)
• Nature – Quiet/Modest
• Item – Cameruptite
• Moveset – Fire Blast/Heat Wave (stab), Earth Power (stab), Ancient Rock, Protect

Before Camerupt got a mega-evolution, no one would actually consider this camel because not only it's super slow, but the defences are quite terrible too, making it forced to wear Focus Sash at all times in Trick Room. Thanks to the mega-evolution, it suddenly became a Trick Room powerhouse sweeper overnight and a force to reckon with, even without Trick Room, it still has a good chance of taking the opponent down before it faints. 

Strength

One obvious upgrade is its Sheer Force ability, which increases any moves with secondary effects by 30%, but at the same time removing the effects which is fine because that's all it needs to do - OHKO'ing. 

Also, its mega-evolution increases all  Attack, SpA, Defence and SpD while sacrificing Speed stats granting better durability. While taking away Speed seems like a bad thing, in Trick Room however, it will prolly move first most of the time with Quiet nature and will obliterate opponents who uses Amoongus. 

Fire/Ground typing is unique too, providing resistance to Fire (duh), Steel, Bug, Fairy, Poison and an immunity to Electric, leaving only two weaknesses.That being said...

Weakness

The two weakness that it has - Water and Ground are two common types in the metagame. Putting it against Water-type is a BIG NO unless if you have a partner with Strom Drain ability, otherwise it'd be just a suicide mission. Then again, Storm Drain won't save the camel from Surf either. 

Mega Camerupt lacks a very solid third attacking move too, so just like Mega Ampharos, this Pokemon is pretty predictable and can be countered easily by bringing a Pokemon with Flash Fire ability, or Wide Guard move to block Heat Wave or Eruption. 

Move set

With Sheer Force at its disposal, STAB moves like Fire Blast or Heat Wave and Earth Power are automatically chosen for obvious reasons. It can literally OHKO most Pokemon in just one shot,  and those who are just neutral against it would likely lose their HP more than half most of the time. While Eruption alone can cause serious havoc leaving both opponents at half-life at least, the opponent can just counter it with a Flash Fire Pokemon & Wide Guard, so that’s why Fire Blast is preferred (unless if you hate shaky accuracy, then Flamethrower is not bad but loses that oomph power). 

As mentioned earlier, Mega Camerupt lacks a very solid third attacking move. Flash Cannon gets a very nice buff though, but that’s about it, and not really recommended since it’s only super effective against Ice, Rock (which Fire and Ground covers very well) and Fairy. So in the end, Ancient Rock is really your only option getting a nice power boost from Sheer Force, and useful against Flying Pokemon especially Talonflame and Mega Charizard Y/Z.

Closing thoughts

(image credit to Suikuzu)

Mega Camerupt is one of the best Pokemon to go for in a Trick Room team, there's no doubt about that. Best to have a Storm Drain partner to cover its 4x Water weakness too, because together it would be almost invincible. But if you opt for a regular Camerupt, it can be done too.  

A regular Camerupt build will have its Attack and SpA stat fully pumped, investing into other stats is utterly useless since they're so low already. Thus, this makes Solid Rock ability kinda useless (x4 weak to Water, remember?) and Magmar Armor is even worst. With such a low HP stat, most of the time it won't last after the second round so it might as well go down with a big bang Explosion. This goes very nicely with Focus Sash item and Anger Point ability with a chance of getting critical hit (which happens quite often in Battle Spot for some reason), and it really can take opponents by surprise with awesome Michael Bayhem explosion which he'd be proud of, trust me. 

So Mega Camerupt, I choose you! Glhf!