The End of All Hope

Honestly, BW OU started out pretty terrible. Then, when Excadrill got banned, things got better (except for VOLT-TURN EVERYWHERE). And now... Things are getting worse again. So, that's my question: Is there really any hope left for this metagame? It's strange, I think the metagame is terrible, yet there's something I still enjoy about it. What, though? I have no idea.

Take a look at this team, for instance. There's very little room for variation in it. At the moment, honestly I think Hippowdon on Sand teams is non-negotiable due to the fact that Dugtrio's only getting more common on Sun teams. At this point, Terrakion's essentially a must-have on Sand teams because it's an incredible offensive check to Genesect in Sand. Finally, I need Latias because I need a good Keldeo check. Man, those days when I could just win games by clicking buttons... Can't go around doing that anymore.

Though, honestly, this is in my opinion essentially a variation of the sand team you should be using - The ones with Hippowdon. Pretty much every Hippowdon Sand team I see on the ladder is some variation of the same cookie-cutter Hippo/Terrakion/Spikes/Sand sweeper/filler/filler or something like that. It's ridiculous. But, for whatever reason I see very few Hippowdon Sand teams in the RMT forum. So, here you go, a Hippowdon Sand team. Enjoy.




Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Atk
Careful Nature
IVs: 25 Def
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
- Slack Off

Honestly, this team wouldn't be going anywhere without Hippowdon. Gets up Sand, gets up Stealth Rock, tanks hits like a boss... Man, I just can't imagine what this team would be like with Tyranitar instead. Hippowdon isn't Dugtrio bait like Tyranitar is, making it better against Sun teams. With the Specially defensive spread, it also switches in on Tornadus-T much more easily than Tyranitar can (who risks Superpower), while also taking hits from Genesect much more easily (the lowered Defense IV ensures Genesect gets an Attack boost instead of a Special Attack boost, allowing Hippowdon to take around 40% from Ice Beam instead of around 60%). Stealth Rock, Earthquake, and Slack Off are all non-negotiable on Hippowdon, as it's pretty useless without them. I use Ice Fang on it to hit things like Gliscor and Garchomp as hard as possible, while at the same time being able to actually do some damage to Tornadus-T.



Terrakion @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Rock Polish
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

Terrakion is fantastic. Although Techniloom being introduced in BW2 isn't doing it any favors, it is the best offensive check to Genesect in the sand, bar none. I still think Double Dance is Terrakion's best set; By using Swords Dance, it can give Stall teams a headache unless they use extremely niche Pokemon such as Nidoqueen. With Rock Polish, it can outspeed pretty much everything on offense and give them trouble. This only leaves room for two attacks, but really, Close Combat and Stone Edge give such amazing coverage that you don't really need anything else. You really only need to eliminate Gliscor, which isn't too hard (Ice Fang Hippo, Gengar, Latias, and Stoutland does a pretty good chunk with CB Return).



Gengar @ Black Sludge
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Disable
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast

Man, I really think SubDisable Gengar is bad and very predictable, but for whatever reason it seems to work on this team. I'm using it for spinblocking, and despite what people say about it, it seems to do pretty well at this. Let me name the three most common OU spinners: Starmie, Forretress, and Donphan. Gengar doesn't do so well against Starmie, but I'll get to that later. As for Forretress, I can switch in on the Spin, and even if Forretress has Gyro Ball, I can go for Substitute as it attempts to use it and then Disable it. Donphan? You are not spinning with that thing, ever. Really, though, I'm using Gengar over Jellicent because Gengar can give Tyranitar a nice Focus Blast to think about, while Jellicent is from my experience bigger Pursuit bait than Gengar is.



Skarmory @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Whirlwind

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Remember those days when Skarmory was the end-all be-all for physical walls and Spikers, and when people were actually using otherwise useless garbage such as Magneton just to beat it? I don't. To me, Skarmory started to become the epitome of mediocre starting in DPP; Physical attackers started to become more and more powerful, it gained physical weaknesses, and the introduction of new threats such as Lucario and Infernape hurt it considerably. BW2 wasn't much kinder towards it as Choice Band Terrakion simply 2HKOes it, while the fact that it doesn't do so well against Sun sweepers isn't very appealing either. Yet, despite all these bad points stacked against it, Skarmory still manages to shine as this team's MVP by a long shot. It Spikes with ease, takes non-Banded non-boosted physical hits like a champ, and at the same time capitalizes on Spikes easily by abusing Whirlwind. Need to wear down that SpD Jirachi? No problem, wall it for days, Spike up, and start phazing. Garchomp/Dragonite/whatever locked itself into Outrage? Not if Skarmory has anything to say about it! Conkeldurr? My friend Skarmory would like to phaze your ass out. Techniloom being troublesome and your other checks to it are down? Skarmory's your man. I never thought I'd say this, but Skarmory is truly fantastic in this metagame.



Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Surf
- Recover

I have never been a big fan of Calm Mind Latias.... But that's exactly why I'm not using one! Yeah, I have a pretty bad habit of using Life Orb on Pokemon susceptible to Sandstorm damage on Sand teams, but whatever, Latias is still good, great check to Keldeo. Although this set may seem outclassed by Latios, Latias's better bulk allows it to more easily take hits from threats such as Thundurus-T and Sheer Force Landorus, and at the same time abuse Recover more easily. Tyranitar is a problem, but I have 1) Hippowdon, and 2) Superpower Stoutland to stop it. Skarmory also beats any variant that does not have Fire Blast, while Spikes can help wear Tyranitar down into 2HKO or potentially even OHKO range for Surf. Oh, and is CB Terrakion being a problem? Not anymore, now you can just beat it with Psyshock!



Stoutland @ Choice Band
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Wild Charge
- Superpower
- Pursuit

Stoutland is fantastic and people need to be using this thing more. With Spikes and stuff, I can wear down Return resists into KO range (though I will need to blast through Skarmory with +2 Terrakion, that's why Terrakion's there though. Wild Charge helps against it too) and then just blast through shit with a CB Return until I've won the game. Additionally, this is a key part of my spinblocking core with Gengar. I just need to sacrifice Gengar to Starmie, then trap Starmie with Stoutland and BAM no spinning. So, you want to actually tank something with that Dragonite? Good luck doing so without Multiscale! Additionally, it can trap things like Latios, who would otherwise be massive trouble.

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So, hope you enjoyed, any advice is appreciated, blah blah blah.

Importable:

Hey LucaroarkZ nice looking Sand team you have here! As you said this looks like one of those standard Stoutland teams.

Their isnt really much i can say that is wrong with this team because it looks to me like a very well built team. I just have a few minor nitpicks to make the team a little bit more efficent.

First off regarding your Terrakion. You mentioned that Terrakions double dance set is in your opinion the most effective Terrakion set but i would have to disagree. Terrakion will be hard pressed to set up a Rock Polish and Swords Dance in most situations while if he does survive Life Orb will be wearing him down before he can do significant damage. Also given the popularity of Scizor and Breloom their stab priorty Mach Punch and Bullet Punch can end eny Terrakion sweep cold. For these reasons i suggest SubSalac Terrakion>Double Dance Terrakion This Terrakion set still makes use of Swords Dance to boost up its attack to insane levels however this Terrakion also has Substitute to make it harder to pick off by priority attacks. With sand boosting his special defence weaker special attacks will not break Terrakions Substitutes giving him more set up oppurtunites. With a Salac Berry attatched once Terrakion gets under a third of its health it gets a +1 speed boost which although it doesn't give you a +2 like Rock Polish it is still often enough seeing as Terrakion has a very high base 108 speed stat.

My only other suggestion is regarding your Stoutland. 32 Hp / 252 Atk / 224 Spe> 252 Atk / 4 Sp Def / 252 Spe is the prefered option. 252 Speed evs doesn't outspeed anything notable other than speed tying with +2 Dragonite which isn't really that important seeing as Dragonite will have a hard time getting to +2 anyway. The 224 speed evs lets you hit an important benchmark letting you outspeed Sandslash as well as Choice Scarf Landorus and Choice Scarf Thunderous-T. The rest of the evs are dumped into Hp to give Stoutland a better chance at surviving priority attacks.

Good luck with the team i hope i helped!

Sets
Tl;dr


~Superpowerdude

Hey LucaroarkZ.This is a very nice Sand Balance team.I like the use of Double Dance terrakion,it's his best set imo too.I always used it on almost every one of my offensive teams.

Anyway,this team is nice for combating sun but it looks sort of weak to Rain since with only one water resist.Even Latias can't take repeated hits with Sand and LO wearing it down.Rain teams with Scizor are a a big threat since Scizor can pursuit trap Latias,after Latias is gone,it's only a matter of time before this team gets swept by something like Scarf keldeo or LO Starmie.

Genger appears to be this team's weakest link.I suggest you replace with some sort of water resist.Jellicent seems like a nice fit here.I know you chose Genger over Jellicent to deal with Tyranitar a bit,but your team seems to be more weak to Rain than Ttar.

Another nitpick is that you can run Rocky Helmet on your Skarmory to get an advantage against U-turn spammers.With hazards and spin blocker and Rocky Helmet on skarmory,Genesect will be forced to use one of it's coverage moves more often,you can use it as set up bait for terrakion.Double Dance terrakion can easily wreck teams after it gets the appropriate boost.

Hope I helped.

EDIT:Sub Salac terrakion is a nice suggestion but I think Double Dance is still better.Sub Salac is one time set up and forces you to reduce it's HP really low.Sub Salac terrakion cannot check Genesect quite well.Plus it doesn't let you make use of that nice 50% sp Def boost much either.Double Dance doesn't mean you have to set up both RP and SD but the one according to the situation.After terrakion gets a RP with LO it can OHKO almost every offensive threat with SR up and after a SD it can OHKO almost every defensive threat in OU with SR+Spikes and 10% prior damage on Gliscor.

Hey LucaroarkZ, solid team you've got here, as expected of the standard Hippowdon sand offense teams. However, the DragMag core can and will cause you trouble, since they can trap Skarmory and run through the rest of your team with their powerful attacks. To help solve that problem, I'd recommend the use of Shed Shell over Leftovers on Skarmory. This will help you immensely by keeping Skarmory alive, reducing the need to sack something each time a Haxorus or company decides to step in and use Outrage. Also, you only have one Water resist, so that might bite you in the rear when facing down rain teams that have multiple powerful Water-type attackers, such as Specs Politoed and Specs Starmie. To help against those threats, I'd recommend the use of Standard Jellicent over Gengar. This not only gives you a check to the powerful Water-types in OU, but it also gives you a fine counter to offensive Volcarona, which, despite its rarity, can actually sweep your team 6-0 after a bit of prior damage. A small list of changes can be seen below.

Set:

Jellicent @ Leftovers | Water Absorb
Bold | 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spe
Scald | Toxic | Night Shade | Recover

Nitpicks:

Leftovers ----> Shed Shell

That's all I have to say, so good luck, and Luvdisc'd.

@ Superpowerdude: I'm not so sure of SubSalac Terrakion actually. White symphoni pretty much perfectly explained my doubts on SubSalac Terrakion, so I have nothing to add. I'm also unsure of what I'm living with 32 HP EVs on Stoutland that I'm not living with no HP EVs. The 4 SpD EVs are actually there to ensure Genesect gets an Attack boost and not a Special Attack boost.

@ White Symphoni: Rain teams with Scizor are no longer as common as they were in BW1, though I would say they are beatable. Scizor can't actually trap Latias all that well in the Rain, since I believe CB Scizor's Bullet Punch doesn't OHKO and something tells me Scizor isn't living a Rain-boosted Surf. I'll probably end up using Jellicent anyway though.

@ Trinitrotoluene: I can see how the DragMag combo could be threatening, but for whatever reason I haven't had trouble with it. I guess it's just because DragMag teams are better on paper than they are in practice, Latias outspeeds Haxorus, and none of the Dragons like to take a CB Return from Stoutland, but I've had no trouble with DragMag at all. Not a big fan of Shed Shell anyway. I'll probably end up using Jellicent anyway (I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of any of the OU spinblockers), but not for offensive Volcarona at all. In fact, I've never had trouble with offensive Volcarona at all because Stoutland outspeeds under Sand and OHKOes with Return. Hell, I've even used a Sand team at a point in BW1 where offensive Volcarona was actually quite common with 4 Pokemon that were hit super effectively by Volcarona's STABs and only Stoutland under Sand to outspeed, and I never once got swept by offensive Volcarona using that team (and I used it a lot in BW1). Volcarona doesn't appreciate Stealth Rocks and Spikes, and from my experience spinning is very difficult against this team. Thanks!

I'm not sure how no one has pointed it out yet but Tornadus-T is obviously a huge problem for this team. This is easily fixed by running 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD Careful on Skarm to counter Hurricane / Superpower in rain easily. It'll still take locked Outrages (well not Kyurem-B but that thing in OU is a joke anyway, pick your poison) and Techniloom, Conk can still be phazed and as a backup can be defeated one on one by Latias or Gengar if you get them in, although Gengar will need to play the 50 / 50 game with Disable due to Mach Punch.

Tell me if this opens up any other weakness, good luck.