XY OU RMT: Shifting Sands

Long time no see! Feels good to reopen this page again... Anyway heres the team!

Garchomp @ Garchompite
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Earthquake
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Stone Edge

Since Mega Garchomp is so cool to me I decided to make a team that would utilize his skill at breaking down the opposing teams cores and damaging both their physical and special walls in the early to mid game, making the rest significantly easier for the other members. His ability, Sand Force, will be very useful for boosting its Earthquake and Stone Edge while the Sand is up, giving him even more raw power to do his job.


Tyranitar @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Crunch
- Ice Beam
- Earthquake

Tyranitar was a must for this team. Sand Stream gives Garchomp the Extra Power to do its job, while Excadrill can take advantage of Sand Rush. I gave it a Smooth Rock over Leftovers so that the sand will last longer as 5 turns is not nearly enough for either Gamrchomp, nor Excadrill to make full use of. The sand along with Stealth Rocks provides necessary chip and entry hazard damage that will help get the KOes. I chose Tyranitar over Hippowdon because that would leave the team with too many common weaknesses.


Excadrill @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin

I do believe even Sand Rush Excadrill is OU now. If not let me know. I needed a fast Pokémon as well as a Rapid Spinner, not so much to get rid of SR, but for things like Sticky Webs and Spikes. However, power was not to be for gotten, and Excadrill was the first Pokémon to come to mind. An Adamant, Life Orb boosted Excadrill in the sand is a threat. Although Moldbreaker may be useful for a certain washing machine, Sand Rush proved valuable in giving me a fast option. This gave me a fast and powerful mid to late game sweeper to clean up after Garchomp.


Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spe
Bold Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

The washing machine returns! After looking over the team, Rotom - W seemed like a good fit for a physical wall. Especially since Talonflame and others with high offensive presence threaten the team to an extent. While Rotom - W can't do everything, the rest of the team helps make its job of defendin easier by applying high offensive pressure. It also just outspeeds Belly Drum Azumarill for a STAB Volt Switch, and is still slow enough for Volt Switch to bring in a team mate safely.


Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 244 HP / 252 SpD / 12 Spe
Calm Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Heal Bell
- Wish
- Protect

This team needed a Cleric. Wow, Toxic, Thunder Wave, Spore, and just about any status condition hamper a member of the team. Garchomp, Excadrill, and Tyranitar don't apperciate Burns so Heal Bell was a must. In addition, I needed to ability to pass off Wish recovery to my other Pokémon who either lack a decent recovery move or decided to choose another item over Leftovers. Sylveon gave me a Special Wall, and all of those attributes, plus a 117 Base Power Fairy type Hypervoice to deal with opposing Dragons and Fighting types.


Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
- Superpower

Scizor was the final choice not only because its my favourite Pokémon, but because I can give it a Choice Band and hit up the opposition with a Bullet Punch. U-turn give me a nice VoltTurn core to keep momentum while doing decent damage. Scizors access to priorty allows him to act as a great late game cleaner and Knock is great for getting rid of items like Choice Scarf or Leftovers. His Bug/Steel typing also gave a much needed Grass resistance for the team and the EV investment extends his bulk.


So theres my team, if you guys have ideas on what I could change, or different strategies I could make use of please share with the reasons as to why. Thanks in advance!
 

pj

is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnus
World Defender
Hi,
I would suggest ice punch over ice beam as ice beam is special while ice punch is physical and since you don't have any spread on special.
 
Hi,
I would suggest ice punch over ice beam as ice beam is special while ice punch is physical and since you don't have any spread on special.
Interesting thought, but Ice Beam is there because Tyranitar is mixed allowing it to hit Pokémon whose Special Defense isn't as high as their Defense. Any other ideas?
 
I like the scizor, but is there any point in giving it a choice band when you have no investment in attack? I know you have an adamant nature, but it just seems like a waste of a choice band if you have no attack investment, especially on a scizor. Scizor can take grass attacks extremely well even without investment in defence. To give an example, a max special attack mega venusaur giga drain does about 10% to scizor, and scizors special defence is terrible. If you're using it for a much needed grass resistance then you have no need to invest anything in defence at all because he already takes grass attacks extremely well. It's also the only form of priority on the team and without attack investment I don't think it will hit as hard as you want it to.
 
I like the scizor, but is there any point in giving it a choice band when you have no investment in attack? I know you have an adamant nature, but it just seems like a waste of a choice band if you have no attack investment, especially on a scizor. Scizor can take grass attacks extremely well even without investment in defence. To give an example, a max special attack mega venusaur giga drain does about 10% to scizor, and scizors special defence is terrible. If you're using it for a much needed grass resistance then you have no need to invest anything in defence at all because he already takes grass attacks extremely well. It's also the only form of priority on the team and without attack investment I don't think it will hit as hard as you want it to.
Hey thanks I didnt even notice that! So a spread of 248 HP / 252 Atk with either 8 Def or 8 SpD would be what I should be going for correct?
 
I'm thinking that would be better. Max attack choice banded scizor hits extremely hard and you still get the benefit of being able to switch into any grass attack and laugh at the damage because of scizors amazing 4x resistance to it.
 
I'm thinking that would be better. Max attack choice banded scizor hits extremely hard and you still get the benefit of being able to switch into any grass attack and laugh at the damage because of scizors amazing 4x resistance to it.
Perfect thanks for the advice! If you notice or have notice any thing else please let me know. In addition, how do you think Hippowdown as a Physical Wall would do? If its a good fit what role would Tyranitar take as opposed to my support one? I think this only because if the sand runs out my team could be in trouble.
 
Hippowodon is an amazing physical wall dude. Definitely much better than tyranitar in that regard. If hippowodon is going on your team as a physicall wall you should take tyranitar out altogether. There is no need to have two sand inducers because sand lasts long enough anyway. With one switch in you have 8 turns of sand and switch ins are easy to get with hippowodon because of its amazing walling capabilities, plus it has slack off for good recovery which can help it stay alive if you need it for sand later in the game.

If we're strictly talking about a sand inducer I think hippowodon is better, but tyranitar has some advantages over it. Tyranitar gets a free special defence boost from the sand and can take special hits really well, unlike hippo. Tyranitar can also attack. The standard set for a sand inducing hippowodon is usually earthquake, slack off, stealth rocks and roar. This means that outside of earthquake hippo can't really do anything except roar.

It all depends on what you're looking for. Hippo does the physical walling job much better and has reliable recovery. Tyranitar does the special walling job much better and can hit back pretty hard. I would suggest giving hippowodon a try because you already have a great special wall in sylveon. Hippowodon can also take on fearsome pokemon like megazard x much better than tyranitar can.
 
This team isn't necessarily bad. My suggestion for Garchomp is Dragon Claw and Poison Jab for moves. Though your opinion as to why you put Draco Meteor would help me a bit. Tyranitar looks good. You should try Pursuit to see if you prefer it over Crunch -- it can be a bit risky. But the power does double, if the opponents Pokemon switches out. Some people actually prefer Pursuit for Tyranitar, so im just giving you a suggestion. Excadrill looks good. Sylveon looks good. CB Scizor is very popular, so that's a good choice. For Excadrill and Sylveon, you should put Toxic (instead of Heal Bell) if you get bored and Excadrill should get CC just in case. Your party looks impressive.
 
Hi Sun Spirit , this is a pretty decent offensive sand team.

I'd like yo give you some advice that maintains the prupose of the team. Mega Garchomp is unfortunately pretty bad in the current metagame, he is easily shut down by offensive teams with faster threats. Due to the recent surge in SpD Gliscor on stall teams, he can't even shine in that matchup. Due to Rotom-W being your sole water resist, you also will run into issues with Greninja, Keldeo, and Azumarill with your current team. This is why I would like to suggest a Mega Venusaur over Mega Garchomp. Venusaur can help check lots of offensive water types while retaining a solid offensive presence if you use the offensive set. This set generally works best with Sludge Bomb, Hidden Power Fire, Giga Drain, and Synthesis. You definitely want 252 SpA with a Modest Nature on this set to hit hard and at least 20 Spe to outspeed Mawile and Azumarill. The rest can be slapped into HP, but you can put 4 EVs in a defensive stat to have an odd HP number in the case of recoil. It might seem counter intuitive to run Venusaur with Synthesis on a sand team, but it actually works really well (especially against balanced teams.) In addition it is a pretty big obstacle for lots of rain teams.

Sylveon is also kind of out of place on this team. I can't say it's a terrible fit, but I think a Magic Guard Clefable would suit this team a lot better. Your team lacks really good methods of breaking stall and the right Clefable set is pretty disastrous for stall. Moonblast, Calm Mind, and Softboiled are all mandatory but the weapon against stall is the underrated Stored Power. Stored Power smashes through unaware Pokemon in a way that Flamethrower can't. It depends on how badly you want to mess up stall, but I think Stored Power will fit better here. The rest of your team does pretty good against more offensive squads anyways. You really want 252 HP, 252 Def, 4 SpA for Clefable to take physical hits as well as possible. Due to Calm Mind, special attacks should be less of a problem.

I think Scizor was a typo, just to be sure you want 252 Atk (Instead of Def.) The last thing I would consider is maybe running Fire Blast somewhere on Tyranitar. I feel like your team might not need the Earthquake so bad, but this is really my personal preference.

Good luck, hope I helped!
Thanks for the advice, while I chose Mega Chomp for its ability to smash through cores, I realize that it would put up a lot of stress on Tyranitar, causing an over reliance on the weather which will probably run out at some point in the match. Mega Venusaur is an interesting option that I've never even tried before, and I'm feeling shaky on Clefable only because I'd be removing my Cleric. None of these Pokémon can really handle a burn (except maybe Venusaur) and Wish passing was one of the reasons Sylveon was chosen in addition to its pure Fairy typing.

So after looking at all this the team would consist of (if Sylveon is removed)
Scizor, Tyranitar, Mega Venusaur, Clefable,
Excadrill, and Rotom - W.

2 Physical Attackers, 1 Mixed/Support, and 3 Special Attackers. Seems like a good balance.

This team isn't necessarily bad. My suggestion for Garchomp is Dragon Claw and Poison Jab for moves. Though your opinion as to why you put Draco Meteor would help me a bit. Tyranitar looks good. You should try Pursuit to see if you prefer it over Crunch -- it can be a bit risky. But the power does double, if the opponents Pokemon switches out. Some people actually prefer Pursuit for Tyranitar, so im just giving you a suggestion. Excadrill looks good. Sylveon looks good. CB Scizor is very popular, so that's a good choice. For Excadrill and Sylveon, you should put Toxic (instead of Heal Bell) if you get bored and Excadrill should get CC just in case. Your party looks impressive.
This team isn't necessarily bad. My suggestion for Garchomp is Dragon Claw and Poison Jab for moves. Though your opinion as to why you put Draco Meteor would help me a bit. Tyranitar looks good. You should try Pursuit to see if you prefer it over Crunch -- it can be a bit risky. But the power does double, if the opponents Pokemon switches out. Some people actually prefer Pursuit for Tyranitar, so im just giving you a suggestion. Excadrill looks good. Sylveon looks good. CB Scizor is very popular, so that's a good choice. For Excadrill and Sylveon, you should put Toxic (instead of Heal Bell) if you get bored and Excadrill should get CC just in case. Your party looks impressive.
Draco Meteor is Mega Garchomps Special STAB since it was a Mixed Attacker. Thanks for the advice on changing the moveset but that would make Garchomp too physical and would detract him from going Mega. Mega Venusaur as suggested by asterat is a very real possibility.
 
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Hippowodon is an amazing physical wall dude. Definitely much better than tyranitar in that regard. If hippowodon is going on your team as a physicall wall you should take tyranitar out altogether. There is no need to have two sand inducers because sand lasts long enough anyway. With one switch in you have 8 turns of sand and switch ins are easy to get with hippowodon because of its amazing walling capabilities, plus it has slack off for good recovery which can help it stay alive if you need it for sand later in the game.

If we're strictly talking about a sand inducer I think hippowodon is better, but tyranitar has some advantages over it. Tyranitar gets a free special defence boost from the sand and can take special hits really well, unlike hippo. Tyranitar can also attack. The standard set for a sand inducing hippowodon is usually earthquake, slack off, stealth rocks and roar. This means that outside of earthquake hippo can't really do anything except roar.

It all depends on what you're looking for. Hippo does the physical walling job much better and has reliable recovery. Tyranitar does the special walling job much better and can hit back pretty hard. I would suggest giving hippowodon a try because you already have a great special wall in sylveon. Hippowodon can also take on fearsome pokemon like megazard x much better than tyranitar can.
I was seriosly considering Hippo over Ttar because of Zard X and Y. Would you agree with asterat on Clefable over Sylveon? I prefer Slyveon for its Cleric role but their points on Clefable were valid.
 
I actually agree that mega venusaur might be a better choice after reading asterat's post. You have no sticky web support on the team and without it mega garchomp gets outsped and hit very hard by a lot of common threats. The speed nerf after the mega evolution really hurts garchomp and a lot of things can now outspeed and potentially OHKO with ice attacks and strong dragon attacks. Mega venusaur is a very nice choice, well spotted asterat!
 
I actually agree that mega venusaur might be a better choice after reading asterat's post. You have no sticky web support on the team and without it mega garchomp gets outsped and hit very hard by a lot of common threats. The speed nerf after the mega evolution really hurts garchomp and a lot of things can now outspeed and potentially OHKO with ice attacks and strong dragon attacks. Mega venusaur is a very nice choice, well spotted asterat!
So Venusaur will be chosen over Garchomp, how about Clefable over Sylveon?
 
So Venusaur will be chosen over Garchomp, how about Clefable over Sylveon?
Mega Venusaur is good choice, too. If you pick Mega Garchomp at least put Poison Jab to take care yourself against Fairies. Clefable can be good for its use of Cosmic Power, which makes it difficult to defeat.
 
Mega Venusaur is good choice, too. If you pick Mega Garchomp at least put Poison Jab to take care yourself against Fairies. Clefable can be good for its use of Cosmic Power, which makes it difficult to defeat.
I will consider it, though, Venusaur and Scizor take care of Fairies rather well, and it would be unfortunate if something like a Scarfed Gardevoir used Moonblast or if Mega Gardevoir used Hypervoice. I'd rather put something that has STAB and resists Fairy than throw Garchomp to its own circle of hell
 
Hmm clefable seems like a good choice. Having a cleric is always nice but a stall breaker is probably much more beneficial and clefable is great for that. I haven't used clefable at all though so I'm not really the best guy to be giving advice on this.
 
Hmm clefable seems like a good choice. Having a cleric is always nice but a stall breaker is probably much more beneficial and clefable is great for that. I haven't used clefable at all though so I'm not really the best guy to be giving advice on this.
So now Clefable is the choice...
So my team Now would be Mega Saur, Scizor, Clefable, Hippowdon, Rotom - W takes a specially defensive role instead, and Excadrill.

I have a mid to late game sweeper in scizor, a physical, and special wall with Rotom - W and Hippowdon, a stall breaker in Clefable, Excadrill as a spinner and Sand sweeper, and Mega Saur as an early game sweeper/tank.
Look good to you guys?
 
I will consider it, though, Venusaur and Scizor take care of Fairies rather well, and it would be unfortunate if something like a Scarfed Gardevoir used Moonblast or if Mega Gardevoir used Hypervoice. I'd rather put something that has STAB and resists Fairy than throw Garchomp to its own circle of hell
You're right that Venusaur and Scizor take fairies comfortably. What i'm talking about is in case you're only down to Garchomp. How would you defeat a fairy with a lot of HP remaining, if you don't have any means to counter? But that's just me. Although i doubt you would throw your Garchomp against any fairy-types early on, besides i wouldn't recommend that either.
 
You're right that Venusaur and Scizor take fairies comfortably. What i'm talking about is in case you're only down to Garchomp. How would you defeat a fairy with a lot of HP remaining, if you don't have any means to counter? But that's just me. Although i doubt you would throw your Garchomp against any fairy-types early on, besides i wouldn't recommend that either.
I think i might end up putting Garchomp aside for excadrill, simply ecause he can make good use of Hippowdons sand where Garchomp cannot without going Uber. Thanks for the ideas though as I'll be sure to use this thread as a reference for future teams involving Garchomp. Unfortunately, Garchomp puts too many weakness that have to be overcompensated for by the rest of the team.
 

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