4th Gen Sandstorm Team

[benficacraze]

I recently got into Pokemon competitively and made this team after a bit of research. Haven't gotten Black or White yet, but I plan to get them soon. Please leave suggestions and I'd like to use this team in B&W so what should I add and take out for the gen 5 meta game? Thanks!

Okay, so we start off with Hippowdon
Earthquake
Roar
Stealth Rock
Thunder Fang
Adament Nature Leftovers
HP240/Def164/Sp.Def104
He's pretty bulky and sets up the sandstorm and stealth rock. He takes every hit really well, but then again he's a Hippowdon. Roar just trolls people after getting in the stealth rock but its important for the sweepers on this team. He has an adamant nature so that when he needs to attack, he can deal some real damage.

Gliscor
Rock Polish
Baton Pass
Taunt
Earthquake
Timid Nature Lum Berry
HP252/Speed252/Def4
Gliscor's main job is to taunt, rock polish and baton pass. Although he has a timid nature my Gliscor's attack is higher than his Sp. Attack, so he has Earthquake on there if he needs it. Rock Polish is needed because most of my sweepers are slow for the kind of pokemon they are. So Gliscor passes on the speed boosts and switches out. His sand veil also allows him to have a little less of a chance of getting killed too easy. The Lum berry also protects him so that he isn't stopped too easily.

Lucario
Aura Sphere
Psychic
Dark Pulse
Dragon Pulse
Modest Nature Choice Specs
HP4/Sp.Attack252/Speed252
Lucario is my favorite pokemon so I had to put him in here (lol). He's a late game special sweeper and is really good at what he does. He's mainly able to pull things off because of Gliscor and his Rock Polish. He is a complete monster, and he dosent have vacum wave, but he dosent really need it with aura sphere.
Tyranitar
Crunch
Earthquake
Stone Edge
Fire Fang
Adament Nature Choice Scarf
HP140/Attack252/Speed116
He is an absolute monster. Tyranitar (or carrot since shiny larvitar makes me think of a carrot O.o) can come in at any time and destroy. His Sand Stream stops other weather teams from making me cry and his moves can kill almost anything out there. He's not my first sweeper choice and he's not always needed but he's there when necessary
Metagross
Rest
Sleep Talk
Meteor Mash
Earthquake
Adament Nature Focus Sash
HP252/Attack40/Defense 216
Not your average metagross. He's mainly a tank but capable of being a late game sweeper. Focus sash is so that he can pull of the rest and no one ever sees the sleep talk coming. i love this guy cause he's so suprising. Figured him out thanks to serebbii.
Swampert
Earthquake
Stealth Rock
Ice Beam
Surf
Sassy Nature Leftovers
HP252/Defense196/60Sp.Defense
This guy is the last tank on the team. He is pretty bulky and one of my favorite starters. He does his job and stalls. Stealth Rock is there in case Hippowdon can't get it off. He can cause alot of damage when he wants to thanks to torrent and his great STAB moves. He's really helpful on this team.

well this is my stealth rock sandstorm. Suggestions for when I turn it into a 5th gen team please and how is it at the moment? Thanks!

 

[IronJustice]

Very impressive team. Most sandstorm teams suffer from weaknesses to fighting and water, but you have mitigated that threat better than many teams.

 

[benficacraze]

thanks

 

[michael]

This team is weak to almost literally every water and many grass type specially offensive pokemon. It doesn't deserve to be in the forum yet. Ironjustice, you really need to get a better knowledge of competitive battling before rating.

 

[danceparty]

My Opinion

This team is weak to almost literally every water and many grass type specially offensive pokemon. It doesn't deserve to be in the forum yet. Ironjustice, you really need to get a better knowledge of competitive battling before rating.

It looks decent to me

 

[IronJustice]

Mikel, perhaps some suggestions on how it can be improved would be more helpful.

 

[Lazyboy]

As much as I agree with Mikel that this team does have a lot of weaknesses that need to be addressed, he could have been a lot more helpful. So heres my two cents.

To start off with, you don't have a recovery move on hippowdon, which is the primary reason why he is one of the best physical walls in gen4. I'd suggest running slack off over thunder fang, otherwise you'll just be worn down by repetitive attacks.

Also, as mikel pointed out, this team is hugely weak to special attackers such as suicune, starmie, celebi and shaymin. To fix this, i'd recommend switching swampert for quagsire and metagross for specially defensive heatran. Quagsire with water absorb is pretty much a straight up stop to offensive starmie and suicune, has the same typing and access to reliable recovery. The only "loss" is stealth rock, but hippowdon already has that so... :S

Specially defensive heatran stops offensive grass types with a 4x resist against their STAB attacks, and even a LO earth power from either of them will fail to ohko heatran, allowing it to finish them off before they wreck shop.

Even with these changes, your team is still weak to Gyarados, so to help with this i'd suggest using celebi over gliscor. This gives you another water resist as well as some similar resistances that gliscor offers. You may lose your baton passer, but i'll get to that...

Right about now actually. By switching lucario's set to a standard sword dancing set, he can easily sweep teams on his own without the need of baton pass support (because lets be honest, choiced sweepers dont usually work). However, you could run bullet punch over crunch as many teams will rely on either gengar or scarf tyranitar to check lucario, and bullet punch allows you to beat them, leaving their team open for a sweep. The inability to hit bulky ghosts such as rotom-a shouldn't be too bad as you have tyranitar who can remove them with pursuit before you try and sweep.

Ok, so those are my ideas for trying to get this team to any sort of competitive level, and to recap:

- Hippowdon Needs Slack off
- Celebi > Gliscor, to patch the gyara weakness
- Quagsire > Swampert, hippowdon basically does everything swampert does
- Sp.def heatran > metagross, grass types make you sad face :(
- Luke needs to be an SD sweeper if you want him to sweep, bullet punch is a nice surprise

hope this helps... because if it doesn't I am kinda lost

 

[benficacraze]

Thanks Lazyboy, truley. I thought smogon was supposed to be full of people that helped like you did, not people like Aquaaa and Mikel who say you suck, now gtfo, even though I had stated I just started attempting to play competitively >.<

 

[Aquaaa]

Fine i'll help.

Your team gets really shut down by phazers such as Swampert or Skarmory, who can both set up Stealth Rock or Spikes and continues to roar/whirlwind for the rest of the match. You could patch this up by using Celebi.

Celebi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SpDef
Timid nature (+Spd,-Atk)
- Hidden Power (Fire)
- Leaf Storm/Grass knot
- Stealth Rock/Earth Power
- Trick

This set can still set up Rocks for you whilst also beating Swampert and Skarmory. It also provides a nice revenge killer for things such as Scizor. Trick helps it to cripple walls such as Blissey or Suicune. However Earth Power is also an option to hit Infernape or Heatran with.

By adding Celebi, i agree with Lazyboy when he says replace Metagross with Spdef Heatran.

Heatran (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 244 HP/14 Def/252 SpDef
Calm nature (+SpDef,-Atk)
- Lava Plume
- Protect
- Roar
- Stealth Rock/Earth Power

If you use Stealth Rock on Celebi, then use Earth power on Heatran, or vise versa. Using Heatran with Celebi gives you the Celetran partnership, meaning they resist all of eachother's weaknesses. Lava Plume is there so that you can hopefuly get the burn off on some physical attackers such as Flygon or Dragonite, protect helps scouts moves and roar is there to rack up Stealth Rock damage.

I also suggest that you replace your Lucario set with the standard Swords Dance set.

Lucario (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk,-SpAtk)
- Close Combat
- Crunch/Bullet Punch
- ExtremeSpeed
- Swords Dance

It does a much better sweeping job than specs will ever do, come in on resisted hit, force switch, use Swords Dance, sweep. Using this set means it doesn't really need the Baton Pass from Gliscor, it could help, but it's not really needed. So i suggest using the Britscor set to further aid you in beating stall teams.

Gliscor (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 HP/4 Def/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd,-SpAtk)
- Earthquake
- Roost
- Taunt
- Toxic

You could probably fit U-turn in there, although it is not really needed, pretty standard set and is explained fully on Smogon.


Also, Tyranitar really does not seem needed considering you're not that ghost weak, and you already have sandstorm. I would most likely replace it with Blissey, it can heal up all status for your team whilst walling waters that could give you trouble, such as Starmie.

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/4 Spdef
Bold nature (+Def,-Atk)
- Heal Bell
- Ice Beam/Protect
- Seismic Toss
- Wish

You could run Protect over something for reliable healing with Wish, however ice beam comes in usefu for Gliscors or Dragonites. However if you reeeeally want to use Tyranitar, then make it Jolly instead of Adamant, and run Pursuit or Aerial ace over Fire Fang.

 

[benficacraze]

thank you so much ^^

 

[Lazyboy]

I wouldn't suggest replacing scarf tyranitar. He does a really good job at the moment of securing a Luke sweep. Also, with the current changes, you'd be very weak to opposing Lucario (in fact if they run Bullet punch, then it's GG) so the addition of scarf celebi is pretty vital. But as aqua suggested, switch tyranitar to a jolly nature, this lets him outspeed things like starmie, which he couldnt do with an adamant nature. Also, you need pursuit, so you can put ghosts types that stop luke from sweeping (rotom-a, gengar) in a check mate position.