Balanced Sandstorm

Well, I've recently tried to make my way up the ladder, and so far this team is the one I've had the most success with. However, I would always like to improve my team, which is why I'm submitting it for critique.


Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252HP/ 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature(+SpD, -SpA)
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Superpower
- Stone Edge

Tyranitar is the harbinger of the sand storm, and his EV spread and item makes him double as a special soak and physical threat. I generally don't actually lead with him, as his slow speed can be a liability and I don't feel like having him instantly killed early in the game. Instead, he tends to be a switch in. One thing I don't like about this set up though is his lack of physical tankiness as well as the move Stone Edge, which has an 80% chance to miss.


Scizor @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Pursuit
- U-turn

Scizor seems to be in every team, mostly because he's very good at what he does. This is a pretty standard Choice Band Scizor set, acting as a dangerous revenge killer or hitting strong with a U-turn, and can act as a check towards Psychic and Dark types, as well as Terrakion. Overall, he's probably one of the most valuable members of the team.


Heatran @ Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 192 Def / 64 SpD
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Earth Power
- Lava Plume
- Roar
- Stealth Rock

Heatran acts as a fire-soak as well as a non-balloon Heatran counter. In addition, the EV spread gives this Heatran a decent amount of bulk, with 386 HP backed up by 296 Def / 290 SpD. The main reason for the given EV spread is becuase I'm much more of a fan of mixed walls. Due to all the swaps that Heatran inevitably produces, I like to use him as one of my two stealth rock setters.


Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 HP / 176 Def / 80 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Toxic Spikes
- Protect

While Tentacruel seems quite out of place on a sand team, made more noticeable by the fact that he's the only member of the team affected by the sandstorm, he acts as a very solid response to Rain teams, capable of solidly walling most of the pokemon found on them and setting up Toxic Spikes as well as spinning away various hazards. However, his lack of reliable recovery bothers me a lot but other rapid spinners don't fit the team. I've tried bulky Starmie, but it just doesn't have Tentacruels bulk, not can it set up hazards, and Donphan simply accentuates the team's weakness to water, while Forretress just makes the team defensively unbalanced, giving me not enough special tankiness. Tentacruel is the one I most want to replace, but I can't find a solid replacement.


Terrakion @ Salac Berry
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
- Swords Dance
- Substitute
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

This guy has resulted in so many turnabout wins that it's ridiculous. He acts as my best physical sweeper, especially once his counters are out of the way. After a swords dance boost and with Salac berry popped, he can single-handedly sweep. Unfortunately, I have two issues with him. This current EV spread means that when using substitute three times, Terrakion will be at 26% HP. In all honesty, I don't like sweeping at 1% HP from the fourth substitute, even if it may be suitably dramatic. As a result, I tend to most use him if stealth rocks have been placed on my side of the field, meaning that I can safely hover around ~20% HP during my sweep instead of dangerously low. Also, he has the same problem as Tyranitar, in that his reliance on Stone Miss is a crutch.


Landorus-Therian @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 244 HP / 64 Atk / 200 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
- U-turn
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide

I've fallen in love with this guy, as he's easily the best physical wall I've managed to find for this team. He does have a weakness to Ice and Water, but that's balanced out by various other members of the team. This Landorus-T set is actually pretty standard, with the exception of the removal of Stone Edge and replacing it with Rock Slide, which is much more reliable. The drop in power is very significant, but I'm relying on Landorus-T to be reliable, not neccesarily to do the damage. U-Turn is also nice, allowing some TurnTurn to occur between it and Scizor. Overall, this guy is easily my MVP.


I think that this team has two primary issues, the first of which being dealing with stall teams, and the second being hyper-offensive rain teams, as almost every member of my team has a weakness to water type moves, which is only balanced out by Tentacruel. However, relying solely on one pokemon to carry the team and soak up all the damage from rain teams when it has no reliable recovery is very painful. Any suggestions or improvements to this team are welcome :D

I see you have a sandstorm team here, I also have a sandstorm team, and it's been effective. Your's is pretty good,but being weak to rain teams is a pretty bad thing in this metagame, as rain is the dominate weather right now, if it weren't for tornadous-T it's be easier to handle but due to tornadus they a a good force.I'll give you some ideas on how to improve your team.

Change tyranitar to hippowdon. Hippowdon lacks a 4x weakness to fighting and can heal using slack off, making it a good pokemon for a sand team.I reccomend this moveset for it.

Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Whirlwind
- Stealth Rock

This makes your team able to have rocks and it's not that bad of a lead either. roar helps phaze things around as well making allowing you to make an more offensive heatran.

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 192 Def / 64 SpD
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Earth Power
- Lava Plume
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hidden Power Ice

This allows heatran to hit things like landlordus, gliscor, dragonite, salamance, and garchomp harder and OHKO them with rocks. will-o-wisp allows you to have gaurenteed burns on your oppodents pokemon, which cripples physical sweppers.

With that you can consider changing stealth rocks on your landlordus to swords dance or rock polish, but then you'd have to get rid of u-turn as it ruins the point of the boosting. However I think you should put super power over stealth rocks and stone edge over rock slide on your landlordus and put either a choice scarf on it, allowing it to take down pokemonlike ballon heatran and anything weak to rock or fighting.

I'd say atleast give those tips a try for your team

Hey, nice team! I agree with you on Lando's effectiveness- as it is a very superb physical wall.

You are quite right in the fact that Rain teams seem problematic- your team is quite weak to water type attacks, and should Tenta get KO'd there's not much you can do to prevent Tornadus or Keldeo to sweep you. Even slower weaker water types such as bulky Rotom-W can pose a threat, since running a coverage move is all opponents need to rid you of your counter. You also have a big weakness to ground types- Mamoswine and Landorus in particular. Your whole team bar Lando and Scizor are weak to Ground, and Scizor does not resist nor is it bulky so it won't be able to take those hits. Lando on the other hand can be defeated by coverage, usually in the form of Ice type moves. I think your one of your weak points is Heatran. It compounds all of the above weaknesses, and doesn't really cover anything your team has trouble with. ABalloon Tran can be defeated easily by Terrakion / Tentacruel. Lando already provides Stealth Rock, and with a powerful revenge killer in Scizor and Lando able to Intimidate and kill things Scizor can't beat, phazing is not all that important- and of course, there are other ways to 'force' switches. A good pokemon that can do this as well as handle Rain well is Specially Defensive Rotom-W instead of Heatran.


Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Calm nature / 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpDef
Hydro Pump / Volt Switch / Thunder Wave / Pain Split

Specially Defensive Rotom-W is a great fit to your team. It helps you take care of all of the major threats that your team doesn't like. With its good bulk and resistances, as well as SE STAB in Volt Switch, Rotom can handle most Rain teams quite easily, and when working with Tenta who beats Keldeo, they can quickly become a rock stop to any sweeping attempts of opposing Rain teams. Rotom is also a great answer to Ground types- immune to their STABs and resisting most common coverage moves, too. It beats Lando and Mamo with HPump, and Hippo and Donphan spinners too. Rotom also has great synergy with your team. It forms a VoltTurn core with Scizor and Landorus, which can grab momentum for you. It beats in Lati@s and other Dragons that Ttar/Zor/Lando can trap/cripple. It can take powerful fighting type special attacks that Ttar can't handle, too. The moveset is fairly standard. HPump is your powerful STAB, hits Ground/Fire/Rock, so it's a great move to use against opposing Sand/Sun too. Volt Switch lets you pivot, and it deals a nice chunk to water types, letting the switch in KO or force out for more hazard damage. TWave cripples opponents- and with Lando, I don't think WoW is as necessary. Pain Split is your 'recovery', as it lets you regain massive amounts of HP when used against slower, full health foes.

Now, I think your Scizor set needs optimizing. With the removal of your defensive Steel, I think it is a good idea to give Scizor a bulkier spread of 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe Adamant. This lets it absorb a few hits here and there, and can be crucial when handling powerful, fast sweepers such as Alakazam or Dragons. You become a lot slower, but to be honest the extra speed doesn't really help much anyway, since much of OU still outspeeds you (hence the point of BPunch, eh?)

That's all I've got. Good luck!

Hey, nice sandstorm team!

The first thing I noticed is that you have a pretty big weakness to water, specifically rain teams. Tentacruel is good against them, but once he's gone, you're up a creek. The second thing I noticed was that banded Scizor and Tyranitar seemed redundant to me, as they're both hard hitting pursuit trappers. The third thing I noticed was that you lacked a scarfer. To remedy all of these problems, I would recommend replacing Scizor with Scarf Latios.

Latios @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP/252 SpA/252 Spe

~ Draco Meteor
~ Psyshock
~ Surf
~ Trick

This Latios can do some wonderful things for your team. First of all, it helps bring a small amount of the pressure off of your Tentacruel to take on rain teams. Not only that, but it can help deal with your Terrakion/Keldeo problems, easily revenging both of them with Psyshock. If you're facing a more stall-ish team, then Trick can cripple an opposing wall for the rest of the match. It also gives you something that can outspeed Tornadus-T, which can otherwise give your team some problems. Tyranitar can already deal with the psychic types that you said Scizor dealt with, the only thing you lose out on is gaining momentum with U-Turn, but I think the pros outweigh the cons in this situation.

Good luck with the team and I hope I was able to help somewhat!

Hi, nice team!

First we suggest to modify the Evs of Tyranitar, all that speed is not necessary, tantovale invest part of its Evs in HP to make it a bit 'more resistant.
So I suggest to change the way Evs 156 HP / 252 Atk / 100 Spe, then changes the nature Adamant, then you will see how much damage you do xD. Evs in speed with the essential nature to overcome in Spe Adamant exceed what are these other evs I have invested in HP.
Known that the only way you can kill Tornadus-T is the Bullet Punch Scizor, the rest does not have a guaranteed income upon him, also I see that you have two Pokémon that place the Stealth Rock and one needs to be removed.
So I deliver thee to Heatran Rotom-W Specially Defensive in this way you have a Pokémon that can fit easily on Tornadus-T, and Keldeo, which would be very annoying for your team.
Then for Scizor would change the Evs, making it more bulky as proposed by Electrolyte.
For Landorus-T you still recommend Stone Edge> Rock Slide, Rock Slide agree that is more accurate, but with Stone Edge you have to consider that you have more chance to kill.
Good Luck, with your team!

Set

Hi there,

Pretty well built Sand Team you got here, but like others have suggested, you do seem to have some problems against Rain. While you may have Tentacruel to help deal with Rain, I'd argue that Tentacruel alone really doesn't do the job, as it still has no business dealing with the likes of Thundurus-T and Keldeo. I'd definitely try out something in place of Tentacruel, probably something like Calm Mind Latias. It gives you some insurance against Keldeo and Thundurus-T, while also helping you against offensive Politoed. Tentacruel on Sand is pretty bad anyway, as outside of Rain it's more of a liability. I'd argue that your team really isn't overly weak to hazards anyway, as you should be able to apply enough pressure with Scizor / Terrakion / Tyranitar to stop them. Not to mention Latias also provides you with a solid special attacker, something that you currently lack. It allows you to beat physical walls such as Gliscor who cause your team a lot of problems. Additionally, Latias fares well against Terrakion's counters, and given that this team seems to be based around a Terrakion sweep, I think you'll sweep a lot easily and a lot more consistently if you go with this change.

Also looking over your team, I really don't understand your current Heatran set. I don't think Physically Defensive Heatran is all that good given that the most common physical typings are Ground and Fighting, both of which Heatran loses to. I think you'd make better use of Heatran slightly by altering it's set over to a Specially Defensive set. A spread of 248 HP / 252 SDef / 8 Spe would work, as this now gives you a better answer for Sun Teams who similarly are a pretty bad matchup for Sand Teams. This does ease some of the pressure off of Tyranitar to take pretty much every Special hit aimed at your team, so you might want to follow up with the set Mr. Green suggested, which hits much harder than your current set while you still beat pretty much everything you did before. Also regarding Heatran, I think you should drop Earth Power -- the only things you really hit harder are Terrakion, Heatran and Tyranitar. You still lose to Tyranitar / Terrakion, while you've also got to hope the opposing Heatran isn't carrying an Air Balloon which is one of Heatran's most common items. I'd suggest trying out Toxic over Earth Power, as you can hit common switch-ins to Heatran such as Latias and bulky waters, both of which do give your team some trouble if Tyranitar is gone.

Looking at your team composition, the main thing that stood out to me was the lack of a Choice Scarfer. I'm not quite sure how you deal with any setup sweeper, as you really have no way of revenging them. I'm not really sure what would be the best Scarf user for this team, but the easiest would be changing either Tyranitar or Terrakion's set to a Scarf set -- I'd advise Tyranitar's, as it still beats Latias / Latios / Gengar / Starmie that stand in the way of Terrakion's sweep. Also on the topic of Terrakion sweeping, you might want to change your current Terrakion EV spread to 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe, so that after Substituting 3 times, you're at 25%, activating Salac Berry at the highest amount of health possible, which might act as a failsafe against weaker priority trying to stop your sweeps; just something to consider.

Good luck!

Hi there.
This is an interesting team and very effective, but I see that you have a lot of weaknesses, as Rotom-W, you have nothing to tank his attack (Volt Switch/Hydropump) and Terrakion do not kill with Close Combat, then Tyranitar can take a Will-O-Wisp and Scizor also, I suggest you put Latias Cm refresh on Scizor, Latias is a very good counter against rotom-W and with Refresh it can come on Will-O-Wisp/Toxic/Twave. Then you're very disadvantaged against Tornadus-T you have nothing for tank, because Tyranitar is Outspeed and he is OHKO by superpower/Focus Blast, then heatran is OHKO by Hurricane + SuperPower / Focus Blast, you're very disadvantaged against Gyarados DD also, because generally it has the move Substitute with this move Tentacruel can't do anything, Terrakion and Landorus-T too, I suggest you to put Rotom-W on Terrakion, Rotom-W is a very good pokemon for your team, it may be a good scooter and a good counter for the Rain teams, then now you can come easily on Tornadus-Gyarados-Landorus and I suggest you to put Leftovers on Heatran because he's stall and does not move to heal.



Tl;dr

Hey there,this is a very nice Sand team.But you are really weak to Rain teams,as Tentacruel on a Sand team is not a good answer.Also you have 4 pokemon weak to water and Scizor won't enjoy Rain boosted water hits.Tornadus-T can simply spam Hurricane against this team.Heatran and TTar are the only pokes that can take a Hurricane but made short work of by Superpower,Focus Blast.

To solve this problem of Rain teams,I suggest you change Tentacruel for a SpDef Rotom-W.Rotom-W can tank Hurricane and water attacks and can use Volt Switch to keep momentum.

However,Rotom-W by itself cannot take on Rain teams by itself as tanking hits Rain boosted hits from SpecsToed,ScarfKeldeo,Torn-t will easily wear it down.Which is why I also suggest LOTank Latias instead of Heatran.Latias acts as a second water resist and has nice offensive presence.Latias can also deal with Sun Team as Genesect is no longer in OU.Ttar already counters the Lati twins and you would still have Scizor as a steel type.Speaking of Scizor,make it bulkier by changing it's spread to 248HP/252 Atk/8 Spd.

Finally,you lack a Scarfer,so I suggest changing Landorus-T to a scarf variant.ScarfLandorus-T can function as a revenge killer and a physical tank at the same time,giving you an answer to most set up sweepers that CBScizor can't revenge kill.Plus CBScizor,SpDef Rotom-W and ScarfLando makes a nice volt turn core


So the suggested changes are:

CBScizors EVs 4HP/252Atk/252Spd>248HP/252 Atk/8 Spd
Heatran>LOTank Latias
Tentacruel>SpDef Rotom-W
Bulky Landorus-T>ScarfLandorus-T

Also,If you do take in these suggestions,change TTar's item to lefties/chople and give it Stealth Rocks.Good Luck!

Cool team here,

As others have said, this team really struggles against Rain, especially vs. SpecsToed and LO Tornadus, which can pretty much Spam one attack and win if the team are weakened just a bit [Tentacruel, Heatran and Tyranitar mainly. Rotom-W is an even bigger nuisance, since it kills half the team between Will O Wisps and Hydro Pumps and then Tentacruel can't do anything to it, but is Volt Switch weak, you'll probably have to try and double-switch in a terrakion to kill it, but forcing it out will be hard, and it's going to wreak havoc once it's in. Another nuisance for this team is SubToxic Gliscor, who can get a Sub up on Scizor or Landorus and then you'll probably have to sacrifice a mon to break its sub, as everything except TTar, Scizor and Landorus-T risks an OHKO trying to break its sub. It's not a set that's really a big threat in itself but this team really has a ton of trouble with it. To absolve the rain weakness and get rid of the Gliscor problem I'm going to advocate a SubCM Latias over your Heatran. Heatran is a very nice sun counter but Latias is just as good, especially when paired with a Tyranitar, given that it sets up on the weather starter Ninetales [rendering it more of a liability] and isn't succeptible to being killed by Duggy. Rotom-W, which would otherwise be a gigantic problem, is absolved and beaten handily by Latias, who again is able to set up all over it. Another Pokemon I'd like to advocate is a SubCM Jirachi and I'd reccomend putting him over Scizor. I'm going to be honest here and say that Scizor isn't really doing much for this team in regards to helping Terrakion sweep, and Tyranitar already rips off strong choice banded attacks and handles a lot of Psychic Types, it seems like all Scizor is doing is giving you another Poke that's succeptible to Rotom-W. Anyways I think a cool Pokemon to try over Scizor might be a SubCM Jirachi. It might seem a bit odd to use two SubCM Mons [though feel free to put HP Fire or Roar over Substitute on Latias], but the two actually work together well. Jirachi usually beat, or at the very least force in and heavily damage a Pokemon like Blissey who beats Latias, while Latias can set up on a Pokemon like Gastrodon [unless it has the rare combo of Ice Beam/Toxic which is almost never seen], that beats Jirachi, the two also have CB Tar to help them trap and kill the special walls that stop them. In addition to that, SubCM Jirachi beats Tornadus and can easily set up on and sweep a lot of rain teams out there.

Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Roar
- Roost
- Dragon Pulse


Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunder
- Psychic
- Substitute
- Calm Mind