Ghost Protocol's Sandstorm

[Wally Smitty Elliot]

Sup guys. I'm new to sand teams, however this team has proven to be quite good somehow. It's a little weird, so I hope to improve it with your comments. Thanks!



SANDSTORM STARTER

Fat Bastard (Tyranitar) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 HP / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Flamethrower
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Ice Beam


The sand team's classic lead. Uses relaxed nature to maximize dmg with both physical and special attacks, while mantaining his high defenses. The 252 def investment complements the spdef increase from the assault vest. Flamethrower deals with most steel switch ins like ferrothorn and scizor. Crunch and stone edge both receive STAB to make some serious damage and ensure more coverage. Ice Beam cover dragons and gliscor.


RAPID SPINNER/FAST SWEEPER

Topogigio (Excadrill) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 20 Spd / 60 Atk / 176 HP / 252 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide

Sand Rusher by excellence. The ev spread is from smogon's database. Rapid spin clears hazards for Kangaskhan and Gengar. Earthquake and Rock slide offer good coverage from possible Threats. Swords dance makes late game sweeps possible. Leftovers prolongs his life, altough it can be changed to chople berry or air balloon.


TANK/HAZARD SETTER

Fire Blast Victim (Ferrothorn) @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 50 Def / 252 HP / 208 SDef
Relaxed Nature
- Power Whip
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Thunder Wave

A good mixed wall against water types threatening the team. Power whip whips (lol) water types thinking he's running gyro ball and destroys most subs. Stealth rock is the hazard of choice. Leech seed steadily helps his hp, while harassing switch ins. Thunder Wave slows down fast mons and screws the setups of others. Works great combined with leech seed.


WATER ABSORBER/SPECIAL ATTACKER?

Borriguero (Heliolisk) @ Leftovers
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- U-turn
- Surf

I just realized how useful this mon is against rotom-w. It can absorb his hydro pumps and tanks the thunderbolts. Also works as a counter to the dreaded azumarill. Lefties for his recovery. Tbolt is the STAB for this guy, checking water types. HP ice deals with gliscor and several dragons. I prefer u turn over volt switch in case some faster ground type switch in. Surf is an awesome addition to this thing, allowing it to counter ground and rock types.



MID/LATE GAME SWEEPER

Bill & Ted (Kangaskhan) (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 6 HP / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Return
- Earthquake
- Crunch
- Sucker Punch

I absolutely love this thing. I'm also aware that it is despised by everyone. We won't see this thing in OU soon, cuz she'll possibly be banned, and I agree with it. Mega kan is absolutely monstrous with STAB Return. Earthquake handles well aegislash, avoiding the attack reduction from king's shield, while offering awesome corverage. Sucker punch deals with anything faster than her, and crunch is for stat inducers like trevenant and disable gengar. Power up Punch is another option replacing crunch, working well for finishing weakened mons while giving free power ups to attack. Fire punch could be viable to deal with skarmory and scizor.



SPECIAL SWEEPER/STATUS

Newman (Gengar) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
- Will-O-Wisp

Special sweeper Life Orb Gengar. Shadows ball is the main STAB attack. Focus Blast makes sure he hits everything in the tier. The last 2 moves are debatable. Substitute helps him to survive those priority moves and prevents status. I thought about using taunt, to neutralize walls like blissey and chansey. Will o Wisp cripples physical attackers and switch ins. Other move options are thunderbolt, pain split and trick.



The teams seems to work well besides its weirdness, however I need help deciding what to use instead of Kangaskhan. Comments and critics are appreciated. Thanks for your help.

 

[Srn]

Hey, I got the request, so I'm here to rate your team!

Looking at it at a glance, you set sand with tyranitar and attempt to sweep with excadrill. You have a tank in ferrothorn and tyranitar, and heliolisk and gengar as special attackers to help break walls. Mega-mom, the most broken thing ever, is there to clean up weakened teams with ease. Nice.

Well, let me tell you one thing off the bat. It's ridiculously obvious that mega-khan will be quickbanned. All the anti-ban arguments have basically been shot-down completely within the first 5 pages and have been recycled for another 60 only to be shot-down again. But that's not what I'm here for.
Anyway.
The one thing I don't like about this team is that there isn't much of a dedicated wallbreaker. While gengar has a life orb, its two move coverage won't get too far, and your heliolisk is holding leftovers. You don't have power-up punch on kanga and you don't run max attack on excadrill. All these issues combined leave you very vulnerable to defensive teams, which is not good.
So what I'd do first is run 252att/252spe on your excadrill. If you plan to sweep in the sand with that thing, that is your best bet. Otherwise, you should go mold breaker for a more defensive approach, but really, you should be running max attack/speed either way.

Next, we meet heliolisk. And we meet his leftovers too. Which I don't like, so what I'd do is go leftovers-->Life orb. This will give you much more power, and because rotom-w are so common, and you can get some nice healing off his hydro pumps aimed at tyranitar or excadrill.

As far as mega-kang goes, the best set atm is sucker punch/crunch/PuP/return. You can play around aegislash with sucker punch, and you can just smack everything else outright with another PuP or return, so you oughta replace earthquake-->power-up punch. The best part is that this move gives you a +2 attack boost that cannot be taunted, and if you haven't mega evolved yet and they have a ghost, you can stay scrappy, use power-up punch, and then mega-evolve and crunch. So power-up punch is cool, use it.

Lastly, gengar is a nice fit into this team. But with life orb, substitute, and sand, he's gonna go down fast. What I'd recommend is will-o-wisp-->Pain split. This will keep your gengar around for a little bit longer, and though you lose out on status, pain split will help you much more against defensive teams.

The only thing I can't really fix about this team is the unavoidable ban of mega-kang, which really removes a lot your team has to offer. Nothing can really replace mega-kang, so I'm sorry to say, but I honestly can't think of anything that would be a good replacement. Maybe a Terrakion? I dunno.

Good luck with this team, hope I helped!

 

[Wally Smitty Elliot]

thx for the comment!
Yes, I just breeded a jolly mold break excadrill, so i'm replacing the sand rush one. I also agree with your advice on using LO with helio.
Gengar can abuse pain split and sub strategy, then I'll change that too.

Poor kanga, Idk what to use too. Maybe terrakion, maybe mega lucario (not a bad idea hmmm), maybe mega garch, who knows????

 

[Liquidocelot]

First of all i love your power whip pun and am an avid pun fan myself. Secondly may i suggest putting pursuit on t-tar as it may not be as powerful as crunch but it traps and will basically kill everything that crunch would have too. Other Then that everything the guy above me said was pretty accurate and overall a solid team that i wouldnt replace any team members and would give it a 8/10

 

[Wally Smitty Elliot]

First of all i love your power whip pun and am an avid pun fan myself. Secondly may i suggest putting pursuit on t-tar as it may not be as powerful as crunch but it traps and will basically kill everything that crunch would have too. Other Then that everything the guy above me said was pretty accurate and overall a solid team that i wouldnt replace any team members and would give it a 8/10

thx for the advice! Yeah, I can run pursuit.
Do you have any ideas of what to use instead of the soon-to-be-banned kangha?

 

[Liquidocelot]

Well my favorite normal type to run is persian but thats because I myself am a cat. So id suggest using a wallbreak like the person above me said maybe banded terrakion as it benefits from sand and can break almost alm physical walls with edgequake+Close combat and can help out with the the later exca sweep

 

[tcr]

Hey got the request man! From what it looks like, you aim to sweep with Excadrill? You have Tyranitar to take hits, trap things, and set up sand for Excadrill, Mega Kang breaks through stuff with its brokenness, Gengar is there for other Mega Kang, and to take fighting type attacks. Lastly, ferrothorn is there to take on water types with helioisk. Cool.

First off, it looks like earthquakes really screw you over, specifically mold breaker excadrills. Hell even sand rush ones mess you up. A flying type would really help, as would paralysis support to stop things like lucario and whatnot. Try running Thunderus over Helioisk. You lose an azu check (not counter) yes, but you have ferrothorn for that. Thunderus gives you priority thunder wave and great coverage coming off a high base SpA stat. It also can switch in on earthquakes and steel type moves (iron head, bullet punch) and retaliate with any of its coverage moves or just thunder wave.

If youre going to run sand rush, you need to run max speed and attack. Otherwise Mold Breaker is far superior. This lets you check Rotom-W, and other levitate users. It also comes in handy against random things like Dragonite, or sturdy users and such.

Next, run Rocky Helmet on Ferrothorn, Black Sludge on Gengar, and Power Up Punch on Kang. The first gives you insurance against Kang, by punishing its Parental Bond and wearing it down easily. It also helps against random things like espeed dnite, azumarill, genesect, and bullet punch. The second gives Gengar some survivability, as Sub wears it down easily. Lastly, PuP gives you literally the best sweeper in the game. Its so broken it isnt even funny. Anyway, hope I helped your team. Good luck.

 

[Wally Smitty Elliot]

Hey got the request man! From what it looks like, you aim to sweep with Excadrill? You have Tyranitar to take hits, trap things, and set up sand for Excadrill, Mega Kang breaks through stuff with its brokenness, Gengar is there for other Mega Kang, and to take fighting type attacks. Lastly, ferrothorn is there to take on water types with helioisk. Cool.

First off, it looks like earthquakes really screw you over, specifically mold breaker excadrills. Hell even sand rush ones mess you up. A flying type would really help, as would paralysis support to stop things like lucario and whatnot. Try running Thunderus over Helioisk. You lose an azu check (not counter) yes, but you have ferrothorn for that. Thunderus gives you priority thunder wave and great coverage coming off a high base SpA stat. It also can switch in on earthquakes and steel type moves (iron head, bullet punch) and retaliate with any of its coverage moves or just thunder wave.

If youre going to run sand rush, you need to run max speed and attack. Otherwise Mold Breaker is far superior. This lets you check Rotom-W, and other levitate users. It also comes in handy against random things like Dragonite, or sturdy users and such.

Next, run Rocky Helmet on Ferrothorn, Black Sludge on Gengar, and Power Up Punch on Kang. The first gives you insurance against Kang, by punishing its Parental Bond and wearing it down easily. It also helps against random things like espeed dnite, azumarill, genesect, and bullet punch. The second gives Gengar some survivability, as Sub wears it down easily. Lastly, PuP gives you literally the best sweeper in the game. Its so broken it isnt even funny. Anyway, hope I helped your team. Good luck.

Thn for all the adivice!

Is there something else I can run besides thundurus? Like a talonflame? I got another mold breaker jolly excadrill, so I think I'll run that. Kangha will get banned soon, and I have no idea who will replace it. Some say to use terrakion, but he'll be another eq victim, so any other idea?