My First Team; Sandstorm

[Makayta]

Each new generation of pokemon comes with its own surprises. Not only the new pokemon, but the moves, abilities, and potential of both the new and the old. But one specific pokemon's potential stood out for me; Excadrill. ​

Changes in BOLD!​

Machamp w/ Lum Berry
Ability: No Guard
Nature: Adamant
Evs: 240 HP/ 248 Atk / 16 SpD / 4 Spe
~ Dynamic Punch
~ Payback
~ Bullet Punch
~ Ice Punch​

My main use for this pokemon is as an anti-lead; to rid of all of the potential dangers early on. He doesn't set up sandstorm, but he gets rid of Gyarados, Azelf, Gengar, annoying dragon types, and many other leads. An insured confusion with a bonus of STAB damage proves helpful, and a free pass off of status because of the lum berry stops Breloom from putting me to sleep or Gengar from using Hypnosis. I was thinking of putting Hippowdon in this slot, but it would add another grass and water weakness that I can't afford to have on one team.

​

Excadrill w/ Air Balloon
Sand Rush
Adamant
~Rock Slide
~Earthquake
~Swords Dance
~X-Scizzor
EV's: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 HP
​

Excadrill has proven to be a ferocious sweeper both inside and outside a sandstorm. His ability gives him an extra speed boost, allowing him to outrun most of the other pokemon that can be sent out to fight him. Air Balloon is very helpful, as ground types trying to set Excadrill aside for the battle will be unaffective against him. After one or two Swords Dances, Excadrill's Attack skyrockets to create an even bigger dent in the sides of pokemon standing in his way. Rock Slide takes care of flying types, helps against Gyarados and Skarmory, and pops other balloons his rivals Heatran and other Excadrill might be carrying. X-Scizzor is for pokemon like Latias and other pesky psychic types.​

Tyranitar w/ Choice Scarf
Jolly
Ev's: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
~Stone Edge
~Crunch
~Pursuit
~Superpower​

Need I explain the brutality of this beasty pokemon? He not only sets up a sandstorm for Excadrills sweep, but he also punishes pokemon like Blissey that try to wall my team. Scarftar has an enormous tendency to demolish teams with the proper support. If I predict a switch, I pursuit. Crunch and Stone Edge provide decent STAB, and Superpower deals with Scizor, Ferrothorn, Blissey, and more.​

Ferrothorn w/ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
Nature: Sassy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
~ Leech Seed
~ Stealth Rock
~ Gyro Ball
~ Power Whip ​

Ferrothorn was the new generations Forretress; only it had more going for him since he is a grass type. he gets access to leech seed for minimal recovery, and Power Whip for STAB. Gyro ball also provides a good STAB move,as well as he can set up stealth rock for my team's sweep.​

Hydreigon w/ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Modest
EVs: 252HP / 252 SpA / 4 Def Modest
~ Thunder Wave
~ Dragon Tail
~ Draco Meteor
~ Dark Pulse
Possible replacements: Earth Power / Flamethrower (covers others' fire weakness and this hydra's bug and ice weaknesses)​

Hydreigon, apart from looking awesome, has access to the move Dragon Tail, which, combined with Stealth Rock, creates a painful switch. Thunder Wave makes pokemon switching into him slow and near useless, as I force them back out again with a STABed dragon tail. This moveset utilizes his Special Attack power, because I have too much of an abundance of Physical attackers on this team. Draco Meteor and Dark Pulse provide the two most powerful STAB moves for this monstrocity.

Jellicent w/ Leftovers
Ability: Cursed Body
Nature: Modest
EVs: 252 SA / 252 Spe / 4 HP
~ Scald
~ Hex
~ Recover
~ Ice Beam​

This funky jellyfish is awesome; aside for his perfect moustache. He covers a wide variety of the threats my team has. Having four weak to fighting, two weak to fire, two to water, and two to psychic, I figure this pokemons typing withstands the most basic defenses I'll need. Scald provides a powerful STAB move and a status condition, and Hex takes advantage of the burn with another boosted STAB. Ice Beam takes care of Dragons, and Recover keeps him alive so I can rid of as many threats as possible.​

I have plenty of weaknesses that repeat throughout my team and I would like to find a way to mend that. I want to make the best use of Excadrill as I possibly can by eliminating his main threats. In all honestly, I know that this team is not utilizing the full potential of my pokemon that it could with a little suggestion. Any help would be extremely appreciated!​

 

[Lemonade]

If you must make Jellicent offensive, 148HP / 108Def / 252 SpA Modest is more effective. It won't outspeed anything, so 252 speed is wasted. According to the Smogon Defense Calculator, that is bulkiest possible when Sp Atk is invested. It'll probably want Recover instead of Energy Ball or Evil Eye, because you mention it covers many of your teams' weaknesses, meaning it is vital to keep alive.

Also, thank GOD you aren't using Hydreigon as an inferior other Dragon. However, you're EV spread makes it counter productive. Instead, use 252HP / 252 SpA / 4 Def Modest with Dark Pulse. You lack special offense as compared to your physical.
Also, Magnet Pull will still allow Hydra to switch, and Shadow Tag is currently nonexistent. Draco Meteor for U-Turn for a more offensive presence.

If you find my suggestions ineffective, make sure to try out other stuff (this comment is my protection from flamers who don't realize I'm only suggesting things and I lack experience.)

 

[Makayta]

If you must make Jellicent offensive, 148HP / 108Def / 252 SpA Modest is more effective. It won't outspeed anything, so 252 speed is wasted. According to the Smogon Defense Calculator, that is bulkiest possible when Sp Atk is invested. It'll probably want Recover instead of Energy Ball or Evil Eye, because you mention it covers many of your teams' weaknesses, meaning it is vital to keep alive.

Also, thank GOD you aren't using Hydreigon as an inferior other Dragon. However, you're EV spread makes it counter productive. Instead, use 252HP / 252 SpA / 4 Def Modest with Dark Pulse. You lack special offense as compared to your physical.
Also, Magnet Pull will still allow Hydra to switch, and Shadow Tag is currently nonexistent. Draco Meteor for U-Turn for a more offensive presence.

If you find my suggestions ineffective, make sure to try out other stuff (this comment is my protection from flamers who don't realize I'm only suggesting things and I lack experience.)

Hmm. Good point. I am overusing physical moves. I will try out the special Hydreigon and I think Jellicent will need some recovery if I plan to keep him alive. Thank you!

 

[SwaggXdoggiesdoggies]

An option I see for reducing your weaknesses is running Skarmory instead of Ferrothorn. You'd lose a fighting weakness and giving it Brave Bird would help out further since, despite Jellicent's survivability, you have no real offense against fighting types. Also, you'd gain access to whirlwind and you'd be able to replace dragon tail with a more offensive move.
Also, Hydreigon isn't doing much on this team. He's kind of covering Machamp against Psychics, but you also have TTar and Jelli doing that. To fix this you could run a Salamence instead. Heres an idea:

move 1: Dance Dance
move 2: Outrage
move 3: Draco Meteor
move 4: Fire Blast
item: Life Orb
nature: Naive
evs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

You probably want to replace SD or X-scissor on Excadrill with Rapid Spin so he Salamence doesnt take SR damage. It also goes nicely with the Skarory and Excadrill, as both can take Dragon hits. Here's my source: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80628

 

[Xmagnet]

Try Ingrain on Ferrothorn w/ Rocky Helmet and Use Pain Split on Jellicent rather than recover. That's what has been working for me.

 

[chimpact]

In order for you to pull off a sweep with Excadrill you need to be rid of his counters.

Gliscor
Conkelder(p)
Skarmory
Bronzong
Air Balloon [Pokemon]

By Air Balloon pokemon I mean any pokemon that is weak to ground and likes to force switches (heatran, terakion etc.)

Slowbro is a good check to all of the above.

Slowbro (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 212 HP / 216 Def / 80 SpA
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Slack Off
- Scald / Surf
- Flamethrower
- Psychic / Grass Knot / Thunder Wave / Ice Beam

Flamethrower 2hko's 252/252 Hp/Def Skarm and deals a lot of damage to bronzong, you can easily switch into anything from Gliscor's moveset and threaten with surf/scald. Fling does not hurt you because regeneration gives you back 128 Hp every time you switch out (with this EV spread), as well as reset the toxic poison counter. I would replace him with Machamp.

Slowbro and Ferrothorn handle Gyarados well, and azelf/gengar aren't that threatening when you have Scarftar on your team. Most importantly you have 4 pokemon weak to fighting and slowbro adds a good resist to it.

Speaking of your fighting weakness, I don't think Hydreigon is contributing much to your team. If you took my suggestion on replacing Machamp with Slowbro, your team would likely lose a member to Tbolt/heatwave zapdos and a good remedy for that would be rotom-heat.

It resists Bolt Beam, has good bulk, recovery in restalk (or pain split), and if you decide to go with restalk, can absorb status for your team.

Replacing Hydreigon with Rotom - H
Pros
Fighting weakness less prevalent
Resistant to Electric, Ice, Bug, Steel, Grass, Fire, Flying
Recovery (Unreliable)
Cons:
Water/Rock [Stealth Rock] Weakness
Less attacking Power

 

[Eos]

Hey, got your PM.

Changes to your team:
~Starmie over Hydreigon
~Thundurus over Jellicent
Reasons being for this is that your team is very weak against fighting (so get rid of Hydreigon, a dark type), and although Jellicent will be immune to fighting type attacks, most fighting types have dark type moves (e.g. Payback) and will sweep right through your entire team. Conkeldurr especially will be able to just get one bulk up if it switches in on your scarf Tyranitar and then kill everything off with Drain Punch, Payback if needed, and Mach Punch for Excadrill. These changes will be able to wall fighting types completely, and then give your team a fighting chance (no pun intended lol). Starmie with this set, is very effective with todays metagame:
~Hydro Pump
~Ice Beam
~Psychic
~Hidden Power Fire
Item: Life Orb
EVs: 28 HP, 252 Sp. Att, 228 Spe.
Nature: Timid

The reasons for the HP instead of just 252 speed, is that HP Fire makes you have 30 IVs in speed instead of 31. And at 30 IVs, max EVs for speed, you really don't outspeed anything significant, so you mine as well put that to use. This set destroys all Fighting- and Steel-types that switch into your Starmie, thinking that they will wall you.


Thundurus picks up for Starmies lack of thunderbolt completely and turns around anything fast as well, with his Prankster ability. This allows him to use something like Thunder Wave or Taunt on something that usually would outspeed him (he would always go first). A good set for him is:
~Thunderbolt
~Thunder Wave
~Dark Pulse
~Focus Blast
Item: Expert Belt
EVs: 252 Sp. Att, 252 Spe
Nature: Modest/Timid

This set allows Thundurus to deal with fast annoying pokes like Latios, and still have some very good power behind all of it. Not really much to say about him besides just the fact that this set works well with Starmie and the rest of your team, and his typing, ability, and power can really put a whole in the opposing team.

I suggest you use Sassy/Relaxed nature on Tyranitar to boost his walling capabilities in Sand. Actually, Scarf Tyranitar is really terrible in this metagame. I suggest this complete change in the set:
~Stealth Rock (Because of Ferrothorn already having SRs, switch it to Spikes on Ferro)
~Pursuit
~Ice Beam
~Fire Blast
Item: Leftovers
EVs: These are really just option, due to your experience with whether you need better Defense or if you need Special Defense. I suggest you use max HP, and then spread your Def/Sp. Def Evs about evenly.

Hope this helped, Good Luck!~