No Water Sandstorm Team

AwsomeBiz · Nov 20th, 2012, 12:28:40 AM

I made this this team from Marriland's Teambuilder, and I've tested it quite a bit, but it may need some improvement. If any water type pokemon are around against me, it's pretty much useless when Gastrodon's around. It feels like a pretty good team but rate away anyways.

Tyranitar(Lead)
_____________
@Lum Berry
Trait: Sand Stream
Evs:252HP / 64 SpA / 192Spe
Sassy Nature
~SuperPower
~Fire Blast
~Crunch
~Ice Beam

The most essential pokemon needed for a sandstorm team, I use it to send out the Sandstorm to either switch into another poke with the special defensive boost for my fellow ground and steel types. For T-tar the special defensive boost is great for surviving the most powerful special attacks, such as draco meteor. It's moveset give it a nice coverage, surviving a Genesect Bugbuzz and killing it with FireBlast. It is a good lure to water type attacks so I'll be able to switch into gastrodon. It is used for a Specially Defensive tank and to survive most hits. The lum berry is to cure those nasty status effects known as paralysis and sleep, so its able to continue its dusty rampage.

Gliscor(Bulky Sweeper)
___________________
@Toxic Orb
Trait:Poison Heal
Evs:252 HP / 64 Def / 192 Spe
Impish Nature
~Protect
~Earthquake
~Facade
~Swords Dance

This poke benefits from the sandstorm and can confuse opponents with this moveset. I'm able to set up if my foe assumes it's just another one of those stally gliscors. The Ev spread is to help it outspeed and at the same time take some physical hits for it to set-up swords dance. It helps to break walls that stop this team, such as ferrothorn,deoxys D,etc. A good scouter with the use of protect and to heal up with poison heal along the way.

Rotom-W(Bulky Special Attacker)
____________________________
@Life Orb
Trait:Levitate
Evs:184 Hp / 4 Def / 144 SpA / 176 SpD
Modest Nature
~Hydro Pump
~Will-O-Wisp
~Volt Switch
~Pain Split

The purpose of this poke is to cover up the weakness to fire type moves. Its role is to be a bulky special attacker and to cover up my team weaknesses and to provide some bulk. Willowisp further weakens physical threats like gyrarados,breloom and other pokes that counter this team. Provides a move to check the opposing team and spammable. This is the only poke that is able to switch into an ice type attack that might've been directed at gliscor.

Gastrodon(Bulky Support)
_____________________
@Leftovers
Trait: Storm Drain
Evs:252 Hp / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
~Toxic
~Ice Beam
~Earth Power
~Recover

The purpose of this pokemon is to completely stop water type pokemon if switched into a water type move, so it has the chance to sweep if needed. That and also to gain immunity to water and electric type moves. With sandstorm up, its able to takes ALOT of special attacks that would otherwise cause massive amounts of damage to my other pokes. Since it's one my most valued pokemon in this team, is should stay in longer with recover and wear down pokes with toxic that gastrodon has a hard time dealing with.

Gallade(Specially Defensive Bulky Sweeper)
____________________________________
@Leftovers
Trait: Steadfast
Evs:240 Hp / 224 SpD / 44 Spe
Calm Nature
~Substitute
~Drain Punch
~Shadow Sneak
~Bulk Up

Designed to be a bulky physical sweeper to set up on walls if needed. It is used to provide type coverage and overall more bulk. Bulk makes up for his low Def and to power up his moves to wreck face. It has drain punch to stay in as long as possible enough to deal as much damage as possible. Shadow sneak is used to surprise psychic types.

Skamory(Physical Wall)
___________________
@Shed Shell
Trait: Sturdy
Evs:252 Hp / 232 Def / 24 Spe
Impish Nature
~Whirlwind
~Brave Bird
~Spikes
~Roost

Still THE best wall with its typing today, and gets the special def boost from t-tar as a bonus. With 2 of my pokemon are weak to grass its really mandatory to have a very solid counter to them, such as my skarm. Is able to wall physical attacks that cannot deal with skarmory and setup on the opponent with spikes. It is also to able phaze out baton passers,sword dancers,subs,etc. WIth roost, it can stall out pokemon that are deemed threatening to my team.

Now please keep in mind this is my first team where I actually put some thought into creating and don't worry, I've tested this team on battle sims, just needd some tweaking for an efficient team be it replacing a poke, changing ev spread, items,etc. Any criticism is greatly appreciated.

~~A dude~~ · Nov 20th, 2012, 7:23:09 AM

Gliscor: swap Facade for Ice Fang, as this allows you to hit Gengar. Other than that, I am really short on time. Adios.

youngjake93 · Nov 20th, 2012, 10:50:14 PM

That seems like a waste to compensate for Gengar when Gengar could easily Disable Ice Fang.
The only advice I can think of is to watch out for Swords Dance Breloom with Low Sweep+Bullet Seed. It gets a free switch in on Gastrodon and can do work on this team. Looks pretty solid though.

AwsomeBiz · Nov 21st, 2012, 10:08:41 PM

Just need some more insight for my team, if anyone is willing, preferably a detailed analysis of my team.

youngjake93 · Nov 22nd, 2012, 6:16:54 AM

What is Superpower for? Could you switch it to Stealth Rocks?

undisputed · Nov 22nd, 2012, 4:16:15 PM

Hey!

Good looking team. Not too much to change in my opinion. I like your use of Gallade. It can get some surprise sweeps, but watch out for Tornadus-t! It will give you a headache if Rotom-w goes down. Anyway, I'll focus on some minor changes like you asked.

First, consider Defensive Rapid Spin Starmie instead of Gastrodon. Gastodon does a great job stopping Water types like you said, but you've got Rotom-w too. Rotom-w pretty much stops all Water types in their tracks. There are a lot of potential benefits to switching Gastrodon to Starmie. First, you can Rapid Spin opposing team hazards. That's pretty huge in a metagame where Deoxys-d is on a lot of teams. Starmie is also bulky enough to switch into most waters. CM Keldeo would be a pain for you to deal with, but Starmie can take it easily. Starmie also provides a little offense. Little is the key word, but Scald burns and SE Psyshocks will take their toll in a match.

Next, I highly recommend changing Superpower to Stealth Rock on Tyranitar. Fire Blast hits most Steels anyway, so I don't see the big need for it. I guess the only reason you'd use Superpower is for opposing Tyranitar, but Gallade gets a free switch in if that is the case. Overall, Stealth Rock will provide much more utility and passive damage than Superpower will directly do.

After that, I think you should try Toxic Stall Gliscor. Sub / Protect / EQ / Toxic is the set, and you can keep the same EVs you already have. Swords Dance really can't sweep anything. There's always some Landorus, Latios, or Keldeo waiting in the wings to end you. Sub Toxic stays around much longer, and it won't directly lose to those Pokemon unless it has to switch into them.

Otherwise, good team. Good work. Always good to see people put this much time and effort into making a team.

Good luck!

tehy · Nov 22nd, 2012, 4:39:15 PM

I'll be quick. Firstly, skarmory does not get a special defense boost from sandstorm, and with that said, a NPlebi or CMrizion give your team major problems. They're rare, so you can just leave it at that, but a good idea would be to follow undisputed's advice and swap out gastrodon for starmie-psyshock crushes virizion, and ice beam does a number on celebi. (And it technically learns signal beam.)

Secondly, facade to ice fang is a great idea. Subdisable gar can't even reliably disable you, since you have protect. Meanwhile, you can do actual damage to dragons like salamence and dragonite, which is always helpful, even with skarmory.

Gallade isn't very good, and i say that from a position of liking it. Consider just running conkeldurr or scrafty.

Edit: Well, yeah, but gallade isn't even in the barrel. At all. The article basically enumerates all the reasons to not use gallade as well, except for that whole "worse ability" thing.

AwsomeBiz · Nov 22nd, 2012, 11:19:04 PM

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, and I have switched out gastrodon for starmie. It seems to be working fine on my team, taking out the hazards, but can get threatened by ghost,bug,grass and electric type attacks which my team lacks the counter for them. I gave conkeldurr a try, but there seemed to be too many special attackers in teams i've been facing. There were times when I could've had gallade to use shadow sneak on pokes who resisted fighting attacks. As for scrafty this article kinda discourages me from using him...http://www.smogon.com/smog/issue21/bottom_barrel

Ranticus · Nov 28th, 2012, 12:17:04 PM

After reading the suggestions and your overview of the team, I found some ideas for upgrading the roster.

Starmie: The use of Starmie instead of Gastrodon allows coverage for your switch ins against SR and Spikes, I find this to be a wonderful addition.
Gliscor: The use of Facade I think is helping a bit, the issue I have with the standard Stall Gliscor is that Gengar and steel types just kind of wall them off. (Sat in a GTS battle for a whole hour on a stalemate between Skarmory and my Gliscor)
Replacement for Gallade: After testing a lot of Physical sweepers/stall breakerss (Conk, Gyrados, Gallade, Scrafty & Hitmontop), with your setup, I discovered that a Dry Skin Toxicroak is BEAST with this comp.
Toxicroak (The Boss)
___________________
@Black Sludge
Trait: Dry Skin
Evs:252 Atk / 4 hp/def / 252 Speed
Adamant Nature
~Swords Dance
~Ice Punch
~Drain Punch
~Sucker Punch

Essentially how this works with your comp, is it encompasses both Gastrodon and Gallade's responsibilities. It Hydration tanks, regains health when switched it on water attacks. I usually use him as a Lead if I see a Politoed on their team or alot of Psychic/Dark. If they switch in a Ninetails, just switch in your T-Tar next turn to knock out the Sunny Day. HE IS SO GOOD <3
(Edit: I did make a proxy of the team and added the additions for about 8 hours yesterday on Sim as research)

Nov 20th, 2012, 12:28:40 AM	#1
AwsomeBiz Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 3	No Water Sandstorm Team I made this this team from Marriland's Teambuilder, and I've tested it quite a bit, but it may need some improvement. If any water type pokemon are around against me, it's pretty much useless when Gastrodon's around. It feels like a pretty good team but rate away anyways. Tyranitar(Lead) _____________ @Lum Berry Trait: Sand Stream Evs:252HP / 64 SpA / 192Spe Sassy Nature ~SuperPower ~Fire Blast ~Crunch ~Ice Beam The most essential pokemon needed for a sandstorm team, I use it to send out the Sandstorm to either switch into another poke with the special defensive boost for my fellow ground and steel types. For T-tar the special defensive boost is great for surviving the most powerful special attacks, such as draco meteor. It's moveset give it a nice coverage, surviving a Genesect Bugbuzz and killing it with FireBlast. It is a good lure to water type attacks so I'll be able to switch into gastrodon. It is used for a Specially Defensive tank and to survive most hits. The lum berry is to cure those nasty status effects known as paralysis and sleep, so its able to continue its dusty rampage. Gliscor(Bulky Sweeper) ___________________ @Toxic Orb Trait:Poison Heal Evs:252 HP / 64 Def / 192 Spe Impish Nature ~Protect ~Earthquake ~Facade ~Swords Dance This poke benefits from the sandstorm and can confuse opponents with this moveset. I'm able to set up if my foe assumes it's just another one of those stally gliscors. The Ev spread is to help it outspeed and at the same time take some physical hits for it to set-up swords dance. It helps to break walls that stop this team, such as ferrothorn,deoxys D,etc. A good scouter with the use of protect and to heal up with poison heal along the way. Rotom-W(Bulky Special Attacker) ____________________________ @Life Orb Trait:Levitate Evs:184 Hp / 4 Def / 144 SpA / 176 SpD Modest Nature ~Hydro Pump ~Will-O-Wisp ~Volt Switch ~Pain Split The purpose of this poke is to cover up the weakness to fire type moves. Its role is to be a bulky special attacker and to cover up my team weaknesses and to provide some bulk. Willowisp further weakens physical threats like gyrarados,breloom and other pokes that counter this team. Provides a move to check the opposing team and spammable. This is the only poke that is able to switch into an ice type attack that might've been directed at gliscor. Gastrodon(Bulky Support) _____________________ @Leftovers Trait: Storm Drain Evs:252 Hp / 4 SpA / 252 SpD Calm Nature ~Toxic ~Ice Beam ~Earth Power ~Recover The purpose of this pokemon is to completely stop water type pokemon if switched into a water type move, so it has the chance to sweep if needed. That and also to gain immunity to water and electric type moves. With sandstorm up, its able to takes ALOT of special attacks that would otherwise cause massive amounts of damage to my other pokes. Since it's one my most valued pokemon in this team, is should stay in longer with recover and wear down pokes with toxic that gastrodon has a hard time dealing with. Gallade(Specially Defensive Bulky Sweeper) ____________________________________ @Leftovers Trait: Steadfast Evs:240 Hp / 224 SpD / 44 Spe Calm Nature ~Substitute ~Drain Punch ~Shadow Sneak ~Bulk Up Designed to be a bulky physical sweeper to set up on walls if needed. It is used to provide type coverage and overall more bulk. Bulk makes up for his low Def and to power up his moves to wreck face. It has drain punch to stay in as long as possible enough to deal as much damage as possible. Shadow sneak is used to surprise psychic types. Skamory(Physical Wall) ___________________ @Shed Shell Trait: Sturdy Evs:252 Hp / 232 Def / 24 Spe Impish Nature ~Whirlwind ~Brave Bird ~Spikes ~Roost Still THE best wall with its typing today, and gets the special def boost from t-tar as a bonus. With 2 of my pokemon are weak to grass its really mandatory to have a very solid counter to them, such as my skarm. Is able to wall physical attacks that cannot deal with skarmory and setup on the opponent with spikes. It is also to able phaze out baton passers,sword dancers,subs,etc. WIth roost, it can stall out pokemon that are deemed threatening to my team. Now please keep in mind this is my first team where I actually put some thought into creating and don't worry, I've tested this team on battle sims, just needd some tweaking for an efficient team be it replacing a poke, changing ev spread, items,etc. Any criticism is greatly appreciated. Last edited by AwsomeBiz; Nov 20th, 2012 at 10:44:22 PM.

Nov 22nd, 2012, 6:16:54 AM	#5
youngjake93 Join Date: Sep 2012 Posts: 263	What is Superpower for? Could you switch it to Stealth Rocks? __________________ http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3475016 Rate My Team?

Nov 22nd, 2012, 4:16:15 PM	#6
undisputed The greatest oak was once a little nut that held its ground Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 2,029 Came by a fork in the road, and went straight	Hey! Good looking team. Not too much to change in my opinion. I like your use of Gallade. It can get some surprise sweeps, but watch out for Tornadus-t! It will give you a headache if Rotom-w goes down. Anyway, I'll focus on some minor changes like you asked. First, consider Defensive Rapid Spin Starmie instead of Gastrodon. Gastodon does a great job stopping Water types like you said, but you've got Rotom-w too. Rotom-w pretty much stops all Water types in their tracks. There are a lot of potential benefits to switching Gastrodon to Starmie. First, you can Rapid Spin opposing team hazards. That's pretty huge in a metagame where Deoxys-d is on a lot of teams. Starmie is also bulky enough to switch into most waters. CM Keldeo would be a pain for you to deal with, but Starmie can take it easily. Starmie also provides a little offense. Little is the key word, but Scald burns and SE Psyshocks will take their toll in a match. Next, I highly recommend changing Superpower to Stealth Rock on Tyranitar. Fire Blast hits most Steels anyway, so I don't see the big need for it. I guess the only reason you'd use Superpower is for opposing Tyranitar, but Gallade gets a free switch in if that is the case. Overall, Stealth Rock will provide much more utility and passive damage than Superpower will directly do. After that, I think you should try Toxic Stall Gliscor. Sub / Protect / EQ / Toxic is the set, and you can keep the same EVs you already have. Swords Dance really can't sweep anything. There's always some Landorus, Latios, or Keldeo waiting in the wings to end you. Sub Toxic stays around much longer, and it won't directly lose to those Pokemon unless it has to switch into them. Otherwise, good team. Good work. Always good to see people put this much time and effort into making a team. Good luck! __________________

Nov 22nd, 2012, 4:39:15 PM	#7
tehy Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 1,150	I'll be quick. Firstly, skarmory does not get a special defense boost from sandstorm, and with that said, a NPlebi or CMrizion give your team major problems. They're rare, so you can just leave it at that, but a good idea would be to follow undisputed's advice and swap out gastrodon for starmie-psyshock crushes virizion, and ice beam does a number on celebi. (And it technically learns signal beam.) Secondly, facade to ice fang is a great idea. Subdisable gar can't even reliably disable you, since you have protect. Meanwhile, you can do actual damage to dragons like salamence and dragonite, which is always helpful, even with skarmory. Gallade isn't very good, and i say that from a position of liking it. Consider just running conkeldurr or scrafty. Edit: Well, yeah, but gallade isn't even in the barrel. At all. The article basically enumerates all the reasons to not use gallade as well, except for that whole "worse ability" thing. Last edited by tehy; Nov 23rd, 2012 at 3:09:32 AM.

Nov 20th, 2012, 7:23:09 AM	#2
~~A dude~~ Banned deucer. Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 188	Gliscor: swap Facade for Ice Fang, as this allows you to hit Gengar. Other than that, I am really short on time. Adios.

Nov 20th, 2012, 10:50:14 PM	#3
youngjake93 Join Date: Sep 2012 Posts: 263	That seems like a waste to compensate for Gengar when Gengar could easily Disable Ice Fang. The only advice I can think of is to watch out for Swords Dance Breloom with Low Sweep+Bullet Seed. It gets a free switch in on Gastrodon and can do work on this team. Looks pretty solid though.

Nov 21st, 2012, 10:08:41 PM	#4
AwsomeBiz Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 3	Just need some more insight for my team, if anyone is willing, preferably a detailed analysis of my team.

Nov 22nd, 2012, 11:19:04 PM	#8
AwsomeBiz Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 3	Thanks for all the suggestions guys, and I have switched out gastrodon for starmie. It seems to be working fine on my team, taking out the hazards, but can get threatened by ghost,bug,grass and electric type attacks which my team lacks the counter for them. I gave conkeldurr a try, but there seemed to be too many special attackers in teams i've been facing. There were times when I could've had gallade to use shadow sneak on pokes who resisted fighting attacks. As for scrafty this article kinda discourages me from using him...http://www.smogon.com/smog/issue21/bottom_barrel

Nov 28th, 2012, 12:17:04 PM	#9
Ranticus Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 2 IL	After reading the suggestions and your overview of the team, I found some ideas for upgrading the roster. Starmie: The use of Starmie instead of Gastrodon allows coverage for your switch ins against SR and Spikes, I find this to be a wonderful addition. Gliscor: The use of Facade I think is helping a bit, the issue I have with the standard Stall Gliscor is that Gengar and steel types just kind of wall them off. (Sat in a GTS battle for a whole hour on a stalemate between Skarmory and my Gliscor) Replacement for Gallade: After testing a lot of Physical sweepers/stall breakerss (Conk, Gyrados, Gallade, Scrafty & Hitmontop), with your setup, I discovered that a Dry Skin Toxicroak is BEAST with this comp. Toxicroak (The Boss) ___________________ @Black Sludge Trait: Dry Skin Evs:252 Atk / 4 hp/def / 252 Speed Adamant Nature ~Swords Dance ~Ice Punch ~Drain Punch ~Sucker Punch Essentially how this works with your comp, is it encompasses both Gastrodon and Gallade's responsibilities. It Hydration tanks, regains health when switched it on water attacks. I usually use him as a Lead if I see a Politoed on their team or alot of Psychic/Dark. If they switch in a Ninetails, just switch in your T-Tar next turn to knock out the Sunny Day. HE IS SO GOOD <3 (Edit: I did make a proxy of the team and added the additions for about 8 hours yesterday on Sim as research)