TSS stands for Toxic, Spikes and Sandstorm. It is a very common strategy in today’s metagame, due to Tyranitar being nearly everywhere. The main aim of TSS teams is to set up spikes as soon as possible, and try to force as many switches as possible. With Sandstorm negating the Leftovers’ recovery, and spikes taking out a chunk of HP each turn of a non-Levitator / Flying pokemon, as its switched in, TSS wears out most teams. With the added effect of Toxic, teams go down to this kind of strategy rather well.
When making a TSS team, you should try to make most of your Pokemon immune to Sandstorm, because if you don’t Sandstorm backfires often. The teams following this style are of stallish nature, as they would want to survive long enough to outstall the opponents with spikes, sandstorm and toxic. A Rapid Spinner is invaluable as well, but it is usually preferred to have 3 or 4 pokemon that are immune to spikes.
Knock Off is a very cool move that it works very well with these kinds of teams. If you manage to knock out the Leftovers from pokemon like Snorlax, Blissey, sandstorm does huge amounts of damage to them. It wears them out surprisingly fast! Sadly, there aren't many half-decent pokemon that are able to use that move.
What specific pokemon should a TSS team have and look out for?
There is a very big problem almost all TSS teams face. The pokemon that are immune to Sandstorm usually don’t like to take on Bulky Waters. You would need to get a way around them. Zapdos has really good defenses, which make it a rather good choice for this kind of job. With the right EVs, it can switch into almost all Waters’ Ice Beams. Fighting Pokemon are problematic as well, but usually they don’t like Sandstorm. They can’t do much to stallish pokemon like Forretress and Skarmory one on one, but they are definitely extremely hard to switch into.
There is a must for all TSS teams: a bulky water to take the CB attacks of pokemon like Salamence. Swampert is the only ground type in the game which is not weak to Water and Ice attacks, and is resistant to Sandstorm. Milotic and Suicune are good choices, but are worn out easily by Sandstorm. A Bulky Water also provides extra defensive support to the TSS team, which is really cool.
Tyranitar is obviously required to complete a TSS team. With it’s trait, Sandstream, turning on the automatic Sandstorm, you don’t have to worry about using Sandstorm, like you had to in TSS in GSC. In TSS teams, Tyranitar is usually kept as a starter as it turns on the Sandstorm early, which can be helpful.
TSS teams usually miss out on a Special wall, and deal with them by predicting well. Though not recommended, but a Snorlax or Blissey might help. But they take way too much damage from SS, moreso Snorlax.
What Pokemon are usually used in these kind of teams?
As mentioned earlier, Tyranitar is almost a necessity due to Sandstream. There are quite a few uses of Tyranitar. It can Dragon Dance up once the opponent’s ground type is out and sweep with Rock Slide and Earthquake with some help from Taunt. Then you have Choice Band Tyranitar, which utterly beats every pokemon on the switch, if predicted right. Focus Punch from a CBTar ruins Skarmory on the switch, hurts Swampert really hard. Earthquake and Rock Slide with prediction can destroys the metagame due to its decent type coverage. HP Bug is usually used for Claydol switches. You also have BoahTar, which is a bit outdated, but still works really well. A lot of Tyranitars are seen these days. HP Grass variants are not very rare either.
Skarmory, Forretress are good choices for the walling and spiking part. Skarmory can PHaze, whereas Forretress can spin. Skarmory gets a STAB’d Flying move to stop Heracross better, but doesn’t hurt other stuff hard enough. Earthquake from Forry, however, can ruin some Steels and Rocks, as it walls them well too, but Heracross and some other fighters like to set up on it. Toxic is seen very often on Skarmory and Forretress replacing their Rest and Explosion respectively.
Zapdos was mentioned earlier as it is a very versatile pokemon. It has the ability to take lots of hits before dying. Rest + Sleep Talk set is the standard set for Zapdos in these conditions. Most Zapdoses run Calm Nature and quite a bit of HP and SDef EVs to take minimal damage from Ice Beams from Bulky Waters.
A Bulky Water is needed as well, just in case you face Dragon Dance Salamence and you don’t get helpless against it. It also performs its job as a secondary physical hit taker in case the opponent has a Magneton and has got a kill on your primary wall. Swampert is usually the preferred water in these conditions as it’s resistant to the Sandstorm, and can counter a bunch of common pokemon.
The above pokemon mentioned are used 80% of the time in all TSS teams. The other two pokemon are used according to the players’ style.
A Spinner is often used. Donphan, Claydol are good choices for that purpose. Claydol provides a handy Fighting resist, but lacks some attack power, unlike Donphan. Claydol gets Ice Beam as well, which sometimes makes people use it over the Bulky Water, but usually it’s not recommended.
Flygon is mostly used in one of the open spots as it has a great typing and an amazing attack! Choice Banded versions are extremely hard to switch into as a lot of things that hurt it get 2HKO’d by STAB’d Earthquake. Fire Blast is used for Skarmory. SubFlygon is used more often in today’s metagame. As Flygon forces a lot of switches, Substitute starts showing up on Flygon. Screech is really helpful in these kinds of teams as it helps in forcing switches, but then, it gets walled by Skarmory. Fire Blast is sometimes used over Screech for that reason. If used with Swampert, it also can take on the main Special Attackers in the game, Raikou and Zapdos, with prediction obviously.
Celebi also provides a HP Grass and Thunderbolt resistance, like Flygon. It can support well, can Heal Bell, if needed. Calm Mind Pass to Zapdos, SDance pass to Tyranitar. Sweep on its own as well. But it doesn’t like Sandstorm very much.
Jirachi and Metagross are good options as well. They have a rather good typing and can hurt just about anything. Jirachi can support the team and sweep with Calm Mind and a Special Move; whereas Metagross can sweep through the metagame easily. If Celebi passes a Swords Dance to Agility Metagross, it’s almost unstoppable. Choice Band Metagross is Godly with prediction. Resttalk helps as well. Mixed Metagross are very unpredictable.
Armaldo is a very cool pokemon, but is a little too slow. It has cool things like Knock Off and Rock Blast going its way. Aerodactyl deserves a mention for denting lots of pokemon with CB. In Sandstorm, it’s hard to switch into.
Gengar’s unpredictability always helps in this kind of a stale metagame. Scizor is really under-rated, but has the ability to sweep on its own by Reversal and Swords Dance in Sandstorm. Also has the ability to pass a few Stat boosts.
Snorlax, Blissey and Regice help you take Special attacks better, but they really don’t like sandstorm. Some random Pokemon with Light Screen help as well. Magneton and Dugtrio are always there to get rid of big threats.
Tips for a good TSS battle:
1. Make sure, you have covered Spikes, as you would have to switch around a lot.
2. Don’t show your main sweeper, unless you are sure you can destroy the opponent’s team.
3. Sand Veil Pokemon suck. Don’t use them.
4. TSS vs TSS battles are seen often. Make sure you keep your Bulky Water alive for a long time in that kind of a battle
edit- I do realize there is an existing TSS guide, but I took the permission of Mekkah to post.
When making a TSS team, you should try to make most of your Pokemon immune to Sandstorm, because if you don’t Sandstorm backfires often. The teams following this style are of stallish nature, as they would want to survive long enough to outstall the opponents with spikes, sandstorm and toxic. A Rapid Spinner is invaluable as well, but it is usually preferred to have 3 or 4 pokemon that are immune to spikes.
Knock Off is a very cool move that it works very well with these kinds of teams. If you manage to knock out the Leftovers from pokemon like Snorlax, Blissey, sandstorm does huge amounts of damage to them. It wears them out surprisingly fast! Sadly, there aren't many half-decent pokemon that are able to use that move.
What specific pokemon should a TSS team have and look out for?
There is a very big problem almost all TSS teams face. The pokemon that are immune to Sandstorm usually don’t like to take on Bulky Waters. You would need to get a way around them. Zapdos has really good defenses, which make it a rather good choice for this kind of job. With the right EVs, it can switch into almost all Waters’ Ice Beams. Fighting Pokemon are problematic as well, but usually they don’t like Sandstorm. They can’t do much to stallish pokemon like Forretress and Skarmory one on one, but they are definitely extremely hard to switch into.
There is a must for all TSS teams: a bulky water to take the CB attacks of pokemon like Salamence. Swampert is the only ground type in the game which is not weak to Water and Ice attacks, and is resistant to Sandstorm. Milotic and Suicune are good choices, but are worn out easily by Sandstorm. A Bulky Water also provides extra defensive support to the TSS team, which is really cool.
Tyranitar is obviously required to complete a TSS team. With it’s trait, Sandstream, turning on the automatic Sandstorm, you don’t have to worry about using Sandstorm, like you had to in TSS in GSC. In TSS teams, Tyranitar is usually kept as a starter as it turns on the Sandstorm early, which can be helpful.
TSS teams usually miss out on a Special wall, and deal with them by predicting well. Though not recommended, but a Snorlax or Blissey might help. But they take way too much damage from SS, moreso Snorlax.
What Pokemon are usually used in these kind of teams?
As mentioned earlier, Tyranitar is almost a necessity due to Sandstream. There are quite a few uses of Tyranitar. It can Dragon Dance up once the opponent’s ground type is out and sweep with Rock Slide and Earthquake with some help from Taunt. Then you have Choice Band Tyranitar, which utterly beats every pokemon on the switch, if predicted right. Focus Punch from a CBTar ruins Skarmory on the switch, hurts Swampert really hard. Earthquake and Rock Slide with prediction can destroys the metagame due to its decent type coverage. HP Bug is usually used for Claydol switches. You also have BoahTar, which is a bit outdated, but still works really well. A lot of Tyranitars are seen these days. HP Grass variants are not very rare either.
Skarmory, Forretress are good choices for the walling and spiking part. Skarmory can PHaze, whereas Forretress can spin. Skarmory gets a STAB’d Flying move to stop Heracross better, but doesn’t hurt other stuff hard enough. Earthquake from Forry, however, can ruin some Steels and Rocks, as it walls them well too, but Heracross and some other fighters like to set up on it. Toxic is seen very often on Skarmory and Forretress replacing their Rest and Explosion respectively.
Zapdos was mentioned earlier as it is a very versatile pokemon. It has the ability to take lots of hits before dying. Rest + Sleep Talk set is the standard set for Zapdos in these conditions. Most Zapdoses run Calm Nature and quite a bit of HP and SDef EVs to take minimal damage from Ice Beams from Bulky Waters.
A Bulky Water is needed as well, just in case you face Dragon Dance Salamence and you don’t get helpless against it. It also performs its job as a secondary physical hit taker in case the opponent has a Magneton and has got a kill on your primary wall. Swampert is usually the preferred water in these conditions as it’s resistant to the Sandstorm, and can counter a bunch of common pokemon.
The above pokemon mentioned are used 80% of the time in all TSS teams. The other two pokemon are used according to the players’ style.
A Spinner is often used. Donphan, Claydol are good choices for that purpose. Claydol provides a handy Fighting resist, but lacks some attack power, unlike Donphan. Claydol gets Ice Beam as well, which sometimes makes people use it over the Bulky Water, but usually it’s not recommended.
Flygon is mostly used in one of the open spots as it has a great typing and an amazing attack! Choice Banded versions are extremely hard to switch into as a lot of things that hurt it get 2HKO’d by STAB’d Earthquake. Fire Blast is used for Skarmory. SubFlygon is used more often in today’s metagame. As Flygon forces a lot of switches, Substitute starts showing up on Flygon. Screech is really helpful in these kinds of teams as it helps in forcing switches, but then, it gets walled by Skarmory. Fire Blast is sometimes used over Screech for that reason. If used with Swampert, it also can take on the main Special Attackers in the game, Raikou and Zapdos, with prediction obviously.
Celebi also provides a HP Grass and Thunderbolt resistance, like Flygon. It can support well, can Heal Bell, if needed. Calm Mind Pass to Zapdos, SDance pass to Tyranitar. Sweep on its own as well. But it doesn’t like Sandstorm very much.
Jirachi and Metagross are good options as well. They have a rather good typing and can hurt just about anything. Jirachi can support the team and sweep with Calm Mind and a Special Move; whereas Metagross can sweep through the metagame easily. If Celebi passes a Swords Dance to Agility Metagross, it’s almost unstoppable. Choice Band Metagross is Godly with prediction. Resttalk helps as well. Mixed Metagross are very unpredictable.
Armaldo is a very cool pokemon, but is a little too slow. It has cool things like Knock Off and Rock Blast going its way. Aerodactyl deserves a mention for denting lots of pokemon with CB. In Sandstorm, it’s hard to switch into.
Gengar’s unpredictability always helps in this kind of a stale metagame. Scizor is really under-rated, but has the ability to sweep on its own by Reversal and Swords Dance in Sandstorm. Also has the ability to pass a few Stat boosts.
Snorlax, Blissey and Regice help you take Special attacks better, but they really don’t like sandstorm. Some random Pokemon with Light Screen help as well. Magneton and Dugtrio are always there to get rid of big threats.
Tips for a good TSS battle:
1. Make sure, you have covered Spikes, as you would have to switch around a lot.
2. Don’t show your main sweeper, unless you are sure you can destroy the opponent’s team.
3. Sand Veil Pokemon suck. Don’t use them.
4. TSS vs TSS battles are seen often. Make sure you keep your Bulky Water alive for a long time in that kind of a battle
edit- I do realize there is an existing TSS guide, but I took the permission of Mekkah to post.
