Dust in the Wind (Sandstorm in Little Cup)

[Heysup]

Introduction

In the new Pokemon Black and White games, Sandstorm is not only one of the best stalling techniques, but it also became one of the most dangerous offensive threats. We will look at these new Sandstorm Pokemon, as well as older Gen Pokemon that were changed to be benefited by Sandstorm.

New Offensive Sandstorm Abilities

Sand Strength: +1 Atk to Ground / Rock / Steel attacks.
Sand Throw: +2 Spe (ie Sandstorm's "Swift Swim" or "Chlorophyll")

These abilities allow Ground-types with either decent Speed or decent Attack to become dangerous sweepers. Let's take a look at which Pokemon have these abilities.

Sandstorm Sweepers

Mogoryuu
Stats: 60 HP / 85 Atk / 40 Def / 30 SpA / 45 SpD / 68 Spe
Abilities: Sand Strength / Sand Throw / Mold Breaker (Dream World)

Mogoryuu is arguably the best new sandstorm sweeper since he has excellent offensive stats and probably the best three abilities for a Ground-type Pokemon to have. With Sand Strength, Mogoryuu can run an awesome Choice Scarf set and become a great revenge killer and late game sweeper. Sand Throw allows it to use moves like Swords Dance and have +2 Spe and +2 Atk, making its Life Orb boosted Earthquake likely OHKO the entire metagame if they do not resist. Obviously Mold Breaker Earthquakes will run this tier to the ground, I personally think that it's best set will involve Mold Breaker to dispose of Bronzor.


Sandshrew

Stats: 50 HP / 75 Atk / 85 Def / 20 SpA / 30 SpD / 40 Spe
Ability: Sand Throw (Dream World)

Sandshrew gets an excellent addition to its sweeping capabilities with Sand Throw. Though it's offensively outclassed by Swords Dance Mogoryuu, Sandslash has sufficiently more physical bulk, allowing it to set up on many more threats.


Diglett

Stats: 10 HP / 55 Atk / 25 Def / 35 SpA / 45 SpD / 95 Spe
Ability: Sand Strength (Dream World)

Without Arena Trap, Diglett goes out of its usual niche as a trapper and gets an opportunity to become a sweeper. With Claw Sharpen, Earthquake, and Rock Slide, essentially a +2 Life Orb Diglett with 20 Speed is going to be a very difficult opponent to stop.


Dangoro

Stats: 55 HP / 75 Atk / 85 Def / 25 SpA / 25 SpD / 15 Spe
Ability: Sand Strength (Dream World)

Dangoro is pretty interesting. It has quite impressive physical bulk while also carrying an excellent Attack stat. It's major drawback, however, is its very very shitty Speed. Luckily, it can use Rock Polish to remedy its Speed. With a simple set of Rock Polish, Stone Edge, Earthquake, and Explosion, Dangoro can sweep and punch holes in the opponents team due to having such strong attacks (boosted by Sand Strength).

Not very threatening Pokemon with Sand Power:

Shellos - 48 Attack, slow, it sucks.
Nosepass - 45 Attack, slow, it sucks.
Hippopotas - Obviously this would be important....if you didn't need Hippopotas for permanent sandstorm.

Which Pokemon do you think are going to be the best on a sandstorm team? What about against it?

[Losa]

Very interesting. Dual SD sweepers could be very good not to mention fun to use.
Moguryuu and Sandshrew are obviously getting the most out of this new deal.

The title of this thread is great too :D

[iss]

My favorite right now is Dangoro. With a Balloon attached, it could set up on something like Munchlax (after a KO of course) and proceed to sweep with +1 Attack and +2 Speed. I'll add more to this later but seriously, I plan to use Dangoro to it's full potential.

EDIT: From Deck Knight's post in the LC Dream World abilities thread:

Originally Posted by Fat Deck Knight

Sand Strength Nosepass

Laugh now guys, laugh while you can. But consider this: After a Rock Polish, Nosepass has 26 Speed and it's Earthquake and Stone Edge are coming off an effective 21 Atk (22 with Adamant, but then you only have 24 Speed, not really worth it). It also has 19 HP so it can abuse Life Orb, while it's two defenses are 20 and 24(Sandstorm) Respectively. That's a lot of bulk for a LO user, and it only has to expend 1 HP each time it attacks, unlike say, Aron, Geodude, Larvitar, and Rhyhorn.

Alternatively Nosepass also works in Trick Room, where it can drop down to 7 Speed while retaining that fantastic bulk (or even more if you want to use Oran). All of Nosepass' good moves are TMs anyway, so if you can't cobble together a set from Earthquake/Rock Slide/Stone Edge/Explosion/Rock Polish/Thunder Wave/Volt Change then nothing I post will help you.

[A.Sate]

Man, I was hoping Aron would get one of the newer abilities. But still, he should get a nice boost with all the sandstorms that will probably occur. Dangoro looks like he could replace Aron though, and Diglet is better off as a trapper IMO.

[matty]

So basically Sand Stall teams now have a sweeper not named Lileep :)

Time to abuse Sand Veil Gligar + Mogoryuu Mold Breaker

[NeoSeth]

I've been liking Nosepass in the PO server. It's pretty awesome.

Also, Lileep is just as good as ever this gen. Get in a few Curses and practically nothing will stop you. Sand Stall in general has gotten a lot better, thanks to Evo Stone.

[Moo]

I haven't seen any Sand Sweepers yet, but they look very dangerous on paper. Also Lileep is a total douche in the sand.

I think the LC Metagame will eventually become very weather orientated, providing sun stays.

[SkyNet]

Wow massive bump NeoSeth lol. I've been meaning to test Mogoryuu for time but haven't gotten around to it, I've heard a LO boosted HP Ice OHKO's Gligar (don't know how true that is)

[NeoSeth]

Originally Posted by Fat SkyNet

Wow massive bump NeoSeth lol. I've been meaning to test Mogoryuu for time but haven't gotten around to it, I've heard a LO boosted HP Ice OHKO's Gligar (don't know how true that is)

According to the Smogon Calculator, Max HP/Spe EvoStone Gligar takes 61.5% - 76.9% from HP Ice. A set with no HP investment takes 69.6% - 87%.

Use Rock Polish Nosepass. Seriously. RP/EQ/SE/whatever. Heck, Volt Change if you feel like it XD. HP Ice on that set is more legitimate, doing 87% - 104.3% to EvoStone Gligar without any HP/SpD EVs. So 2 switch ins to SR is enough to KO, although STAB Stone Edge is going to hurt anyway (It's a guaranteed 2HKO, doing 52.2% - 69.6% with an Adamant nature). With that same nature, it hits stats of 19/22(For Sand Strength powered moves)/20/9/22/24. You can also run Jolly to be faster. Regardless, it's cool.

[Charmander]

I actually think Sandstorm has affected our stall section of Little Cup more this generation. With constant Sandstorm damage and Evolution Stone, it's no surprise why. Tesshiido, the newest and coolest Spiker, resists Water and Grass which is pretty cool for Rock/Ground teammates and really helps stall. Evolution Stone is another cool thing that helps Sandstorm stall, which makes a Lileep / Slowpoke core pretty impossible to beat. Gligar is also pretty cool to have as it resists Fighting and Ground, and kills stupid Steel-types. Sandstorm Stall has actually really affected the metagame, everywhere you go you need to find a way to break Lileep / Slowpoke cores. Really the only way to do this is with Meditite, who will probably get banned at some point. Offensive Sandstorm kind of sucks this generation with stuff like Tesshiido and Gligar anyway. Lileep, however, rapes on Sandstorm teams and makes them effective. The only problem is like five Fighting-types are everywhere, making it extremely hard to pull off non-stall Sandstorm.

Stall: Really effective.
Offensive: Nope.

[NeoSeth]

Eh, I wouldn't go far enough and say it isn't good. There's the hax king Gligar, who can a really nasty SD set. There's also Cranidos, who sports enormous attack and solid speed after an RP. Not only that, but he can use Ice Beam to knock down Gligar.

Stall definitely got the bigger buff, but I expect some nasty offensive Sandstorm teams to come about.

[Darkamber8828]

Lileep/Slowpoke gets Komatana'd too.

Also, I've broken some stall teams with NP Missy, who murders anything that isn't Murkrow and the rare Lickitung (still has a big owie after) after a boost, and is immune to Tspikes.

Also, Toxic Spikes break it bad.

Also, Slowpoke is Pursuit weak, although nobody seems to run that on their Murkrow.

Pointing out fighting-types don't inherently beat little-Doryuuzu and Sandshrew and Diglett, which is nice.

Also Gligar helps with Fighting-types.

Also, Tesshiido doesn't run Shed Shell, which makes it Magnemite bait.

And the sand throwers have a spare moveslot to go with their SD/Edgequake, which could potentially be HP Ice...

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Take with grain of salt, never used a sandstorm team.