The Raging Desert: Second attempt

[Albel]

This will be my second RMT. This time, it is a Shoddy team, but it's an improved and revised version of my D/P Sandstorm Team(ALOT has changed from the original team). I've played this for quite a while now. I won some, I lost some, and now I want to improve this team. So please RMT and show me what's wrong.
Changes made in bold.

Tyranitar@Focus Sash
Sandstream
Jolly
252atk/ 252spd/ 6hp
-Fire Punch
-Counter
-Taunt
-Crunch
This is my lead. He sets up Sandstorm and murders leads like Azelf with Crunch. Taunt and Counter is mainly for Hippowdon, but ironically, I haven't seen a Hippo lead since changing. Taunt so far hasn't been super useful, but Counter's worked wonders. Fire Punch has easily let me take down Scizor, too.

Magnezone@Leftovers
Magnet Pull
Modest
252spd/ 252sp.atk/ 6hp
-Thunderbolt
-Hidden Power (Fire)
-Flash Cannon
-Signal Beam
Magnezone is pretty awesome when passed Rock Polish. I tried Choice Scarf, but the restriction was causing me to constantly switch out. Not much more to say here, but Signal Beam hasn't seen much use.

Heatran@Choice Scarf
Flash Fire
Modest
252spd/ 252sp.atk/ 6hp
-Fire Blast
-Earth Power
-Hidden Power (Grass)
-Dragon Pulse
Fire Blast is an awesome STAB, while Earth Power is for coverage and obviously for other Heatran. HP Grass is for Swamperts and waters who think they can counter me, and Dragon Pulse is for Mence and Flygon. Plus, it has decent attack power. Tran is also my Infernape counter, coming in with Earth Power while most likely outspeeding it. I'm also able to more easily kill other Heatrans.

Scizor@Leftovers
Technician
Adamant
34hp/ 252atk/ 224spd
-Swords Dance
-Bullet Punch
-X-Scissor
-Brick Break
Scizor is my Sweeper. With SD and Rock Polish combined, he's pretty amazing. Bullet Punch is obviously for priority, and X-Scissor for a powerful STAB. Brick Break is for T-tar and predicting Heatran switches.

Gliscor@Leftovers
Sand Veil
Jolly
252hp/ 216atk/ 42spd
-Earthquake
-Rock Polish
-Stealth Rock
-Baton Pass
Gliscor is my wall and my solution to Heatran. For Heatran, I switch in when it's obviously gonna Fire Blast or Earth Power. So I hope to outspeed it with Earthquake. As for Heracross, he's easily walled, and I can setup. Gliscor is also my Stealth Rocker. After that, just one Rock Polish and I can pass to pretty much anyone in my team(most of the time it's Zone or Scizor).

Cacturne@Brightpowder
Sand Veil
Jolly
252atk/ 252spd/ 6hp
-Seed Bomb
-Sucker Punch
-Swords Dance
-Thunder Punch
Cacturne is also a great sweeper. 252 speed EVs with Jolly puts it at about 200 speed, so it can easily kill Swampert, Rhyperior, and Bronzong(with Thunder Punch). One SD, and Cacturne's ready to sweep. If I had a good enough attack(besides Sucker Punch) then it makes an awesome Celebi counter. Gyrados seems to like to set up DD, so I just Thunder Punch it and it dies. Sucker Punch is an awesome priority and STAB attack, because Cacturne obviously isn't outspeeding Infernape any time soon. After a Close Combat or two, Infernape falls to Sucker Punch's power, so that would hopefully take care of an obvious Infernape weakness.
Nothing much has changed. Still amazing, but why didn't I think of Brightpowder before? Awesome improvement.

 

[Orion]

Damn, I was writing this long-ass rate here, and my PC suddenly shut down ._.
I will try to make some short thoughts, however;

I don't find your Tyranitarlead to be very much effective. These days setup-leads like Bronzong, Hippowdon and Forretress are everywhere, and you can't do anything to them. Secondly, pulling off a Rock Polish-sweep at the beginning of the game rarely works, as the opponent WILL have a Tyranitar-counter lurking in the curtains.
Tyranitar, however, gets the awesome move Taunt. He also gets another awesome move in Counter. Taunt + Counter is one of the most awesome combinations ever. You Taunt the opponent Hippowdon on turn one. Then, when it attacks with Eartquake, you live with a Focus Sash, and Counter kills Hippo. Then he has lost his initial Stealth Rocker, and also his main physical wall. You might say that's a dumb way to waste a Tyranitar, but it gives you the upper hand, and even at 1 HP Tyranitar will summon the Sandstorm should someone have changed that.

For Bronzong, you answered your own question;

Two or three boosts, and Hidden Power is ready to take on Mence or Flygon.

Charge Beam and HP Ice is an extremely weak combination, and without Calm Mind I have never been able to figure out why people actually use those moves. You are better off using Gyro Ball. It will hit Salamence for a buttload of damage already, especially if it has Danced. Also, all those Scarfed Flygons roaming Shoddy will be raped. Finally, use Hypnosis or Earthquake as your move; Hypnosis is a great move altogether, while Earthquake hits Heatran switch-ins. Also, your EVs are a bit off. Bronzongs HP is quite low, so you want to maximize that. If you give it 86 Attack EVs as well, you OHKO Gengar and Weavile, while 2HKOing Tyranitar. The rest can go where you want Bronzong to be taking hits.

For Scizor, I see a crucial problem already. You will Baton Pass when something Bullet Punch can't handle. How will you BP out from Heatran, Infernape or Zapdos? Scizor without Agility is a frail Baton Passer in my opinion. Drop BP and use Superpower instead. It will not only hit Skarmory hard after Swords Dance, but also KO incoming Heatrans.

For Gliscor, you're better off with this set:

@Leftovers
[Jolly]
252 HP, 216 Speed, 40 Attack
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
- Roost

it's an excellent sweeper in Sandstorm, and punish all slower teams. HP is needed to give it some bulk, while the Attack helps OHKO Lucario before Swords Dancing.

Finally, Focus Sash on a Pokémon who doesn't lead is pretty pointless. Even with Taunt on Tyranitar, the opponent can have a faster Stealth Rocker, like Infernape, or have Pokémon coming in to set up some residual damage later on. Cacturne is, sadly, rather dependant on Focus Sash in order to be effective, so I would consider dropping Cacturne in favour of a counter to your huge Infernape and Swords Dance Lucario-weakness. That counter is

@Leftovers
[Impish]
252 HP, 216 Defense, 40 SpDef
- Waterfall
- Dragon Dance
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

It counters both your initial problem very well, including having all-round great resistances for your team. If there's no Water Absorbers, this one might actually pull of a sweep as well.

 

[Imran]

Early Statting up is generally a bad tactic as Orion pointed out, your Tyranitar is not going to get anywhere fast, so it's probably worth going with an all out attacking lead tar, or possibly a Stealth Rock Tar, the most common is CB Tar who uses sheer power to beat through opponants, the second is anti-lead tar, who generally runs Flamethrower, Dark Pulse, Ice Beam and Superpower IIRC. Those are both options for you, but personally I would consider simply running Choice Band Tyranitar:

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Adamant Nature / Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 Spe
~ Stone Edge
~ Crunch
~ Pursuit
~ Aqua Tail / Earthquake

Aqua Tail will 2HKO Hippowdon, but Earthquake hit a whole loads of stuff Super Effective and also provides great neutral coverage with Stone Edge, it's more about what you want to be hitting with it. Pursuit will destory Azelf leads wether they hit or not. With the bulk of this set, you can switch into Special attackers like Zapdos and Heatran later in the game should you wish to, and fire off powerful STAB attacks, that are likely to put a dent into anything that switches in!

I agree with Orion on Bronzong too, to summarize what he said, the spread you are looking for is 252 HP / 86 Atk / 80 Def / 92 SpD, with a Sassy Nature. Gyro Ball is definately needed on there, and I would suggest Earthquake, this does leave this set a little clueless against Skarmory, but you hopefully have enough offensive pressure on your team to render that a non-issue. Scarfing Heatran will deal with your Infernape / Lucario weakness nicely (again props to Orion for noticing), but I feel this is the better way to go, than getting rid of Cacturne who is good to use in the sand.

Change Cacturne's Item to BrightPowder, it is pretty much essential to getting the Swords Dance boost, I would also change Thunderpunch to Substitute, what are you hitting with it outside of Gyarados, Skarmory I guess. I f you feel you really need that coverage, then keep it, but if you don't need it then I suggest Substitute, you can keep Substituting until they miss and then you can get your free swords Dance, as Orion said, Focus sash is pretty much redundant on anything that isn't a lead!

Finally, I don't see what Scizor is really doing for you, considering that you should change Gliscor to what Orion suggested. The Baton Pass, odds on wont be that easy to accomplish, or useful to you, and I would reccomend changing it to get something solid as a special threat to keep that Skarmoy that might bother you in check, I'd say change it to a Zapdos, this way you get another handy EQ resist and generally bulky Pokemon that can hit back hard, and recover for itself should it Wish to, this will help keep physical walls in check =)

I hope it goes well for you, be sure to post saying how these new changes are working out for you! and If you are still having any problems that you feel need fixing up, I'll be sure to check back to see how its going!

 

[Solidus]

I'm heavily agreeing with Orion and Goldfan on not leading with a stat boosting Tyranitar, for all the reasons that were already stated. You will end up being Taunted by those common leads such as Gengar, Azelf, and Aerodactyl. If you're leading with Tyranitar, you'd be better off using a Choice Band set like Goldfan suggested, or if you want a another versatile Tar set that can potentially counter Bronzong and Azelf, and also counter Gengar and Gyarados decently, use this set:

Tyranitar @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 240 HP/36 Atk/48 Def/184 SpD
Sassy Nature (+SpD, -Spe)
~ Taunt
~ Counter / Thunder
~ Fire Punch
~ Crunch

First off, make Tyranitar's Speed IV 3, and combining this with Sassy will set Tars speed to 117, which will severely weaken Bronzong's Gyro Ball. Here are your options to consider for this set: If you use Counter + Taunt, you can easily defeat Bronzong by Taunting when it uses Stealth Rock and Counter when it does Gyro Ball, which shouldn't cause much harm to you, as I stated earlier. This will KO Bronzong quickly. If you're fearing Gyarados more, consider using Thunder over Counter, as it has a good chance to OHKO Gyara with it. As for Gengar and Azelf, they will be 2HKO'd by Crunch. You have to watch out for Focus Blast and Hidden Power Fighting though.

As already suggested, Bronzong would be better off without Hidden Power Ice and Charge Beam, as they both provide poor coverage, and they just don't cause enough damage. If you still prefer to use them, I suggest running Calm Mind > Explosion. You shouldn't hope to do any reasonable damage to common special walls such as Blissey or Cresselia with that set. Maybe a Choice Scarf Magnezone would probably be a better option for your team. It can do all the current roles your Bronzong is doing, but better. Here is the set I recommend:

Magnezone @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 6 HP/252 SpA/252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
~ Thunderbolt
~ Hidden Power Fire / Hidden Power Ice
~ Flash Cannon
~ Signal Beam

You may not have Stealth Rock support with this, but you'll be doing all the things Bronzong was doing, but a lot better. Thunderbolt for a strong STAB attack. Hidden Power Fire for revenge killing Scizors, or Hidden Power Ice for killing Mences and Flygons. Flash Cannon is for Tyranitar and other Rock types such as Rhyperior. Since you aren't using a SR'er, why not consider a Gliscor set similar to what Orion suggested, but except with SR and Rock Polish:

Gliscor @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 HP/196 SpD/60 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
~ Rock Polish
~ Earthquake
~ Stealth Rock
~ Baton Pass

The only weakness to this is that you won't be able to harm Flying Pokemon, or ones with Levitate like Gengar, but this is mainly for Speed passing purposes. Stealth Rock for utility. Rock Polish at least once, then attempt to pass to Scizor. You should use a Life Orb Scizor and should preferably run Swords Dance/Bullet Punch/Brick Break/X-Scissor for overall coverage, and for the EV's: 32 HP/252 Atk/224 Spe. Anyways, getting to your last Pokemon, Cacturne: Orion was talking about an Infernape weakness your team had, and I'm agreeing with that. If you feel the need to replace it with a Gyara, feel free to do so, since it is a good option to consider. I'll come back and check here if you have more questions. Anyways, I hope this advice helps you, and the best of luck with your team! :D

 

[Albel]

Thanks guys, I'll make some changes to my team, and come back to report how I'm doing. I see that clearly T-tar's my problem here, and I'll get right on it. Again, thanks for the help.

EDIT: Pssst. Hey. It's me. It's been updated.