[ou] "4-gen" sand term

[hocp]

Hello all, I am new to smogon. Nice to meet you~
I wish to share with you my ou sand term. My motivation of building this team is quite strange. I wish to upgrade Cynthia's team and "bring (pre-)Sinnoh pkms to battle Unova teams".
Please kindly rate my term and point out my team’s weakness (and wish to hear your kind improvement suggestions~). Thank you!!

The Sand Summoner
Tyranitar @ Leftovers

Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SDef
Sassy Nature
Stealth Rock, Pursuit, Crunch, Fire Blast

Tyranitar is the Sand inducer. It aims at setting up rocks and threatening Forretress and Ferrothorn in early-game, and taking special hits in the mid- or late-game. When fighting / earth / bug attacks are foreseen, we would switch to Skarmory. When water / grass attacks are foreseen, we would switch to Latias.

Scarf Shark
Garchomp @ Choice Scarf

Trait: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
Outrage, Earthquake, Fire Blast, Stone Edge

Garchomp acts as the physical powerhouse to weaken the opposing team. Choice Scarf is used to utilize Garchomp's revenge killing ability and check all scarf users below 102 speed.

Extreme Killer
Lucario @ Life Orb

Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
Swords Dance, Close Combat, ExtremeSpeed, Ice Punch

Lucario can both function as a mid- or late-game sweeper when there is a chance to set up a sword dance. Also, extremespeed is the only +2 priority move in this team, which can save the team when the opposing team has only +1 priority moves. This set can be used once the ghost pkms are taken out and the opposing team is significantly weakened.

Physical Wall
Skarmory @ Leftovers

Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 232 SDef / 24 Spd
Careful Nature
Spikes, Whirlwind, Roost, Brave Bird
// Thanks Jirachi for the updated Starmory set

Speical Wall
Latias (F) @ Leftovers

Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
Recover, Calm Mind, Dragon Pulse, Psyshock

Skarmory and Latias act as the physical and special walls respectively. Note that these two pkms are immunity to earth type attacks and have reliable recovery moves. These two pkms can take most of the priority moves (except pursuit in Latias’ case). Also, Skarmory’s fire and electric weakness can be relieved by switching to Garchomp.

Rapid Spinner
Starmie @ Leftovers

Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 216 Spd
Timid Nature
Scald, Ice Beam, Rapid Spin, Recover
// Thanks Jirachi for the updated Starmine set

Starmine performs the revenge killing, rapid spin and fast sweeping roles. It works with Latias as the special attackers in the term. Since Starmine cannot take much hits, Latias’ presence is essential to counter the 5-gen strong fighting attacks such as Terrakion’s close combat, and retaliate back with psyshock.

To summarize, this is a balanced team, resistent or neutral to stealth rocks, not too afraid of status moves, with Garchomp and Lucario being the main attackers; Tyranitar setting up the sand and taking special resisted hits; Skarmory and Latias being the stallers; Starmine providing the rapid spin and revenge killing supports. Skarmory, Latias and Starmine have the reliable recovery moves.

Though this team looks like a 4-gen team, actually Lucario, Skarmory, Latias and Starmine benefits from the generation shift for repectively having +2 extremespeed, sturdy, being in OU and having scald! And I wonder if I could fit some gen-5 pkms into my team.

I find this team works quite well against standard teams and sun teams. However, it has a hard time against rain teams, esp. Ferrothorn, Forretress and Scizor in rain, and Tornadus-T can always fire off 100% hurricane, superpower and U-turn to demolish this team.


Kindly use this team if you like~ Wish you enjoy! Thank you~!

Team Building Process:

As you all know, this is Cynthia's DP team.

Since I would like to make a sand team, Garchomp, Lucario and Gastrodon stand out. The former two will be the physical attackers in the team.

Tyranitar or Hippowdon are the logical sand inducers. The former is chosen for its superior special bulk and ability to trap ghost and psychic type pkms.

Due to its immuity to sandstorm, Skarmory is chosen for being a physical wall and for setting up spikes.

Since the team is quite weak to spikes, rapid spin support from starmine is appreciated.

The team is quite explosed to earthquake attacks and does not like Terrakion or rain abusers. Latias is chosen to replace Gastrodon. This also makes the team more resistent to toxic spikes damage. Also, Latias can work with Starmine as the special attackers in the team, or work with skarmory to stall for rocks and spikes damage on the opposing team.

 

[Jirachee]

Hi

Like you said, Tornadus-T is going to give you hell, nothing on your team really likes taking a Hurricane, except maybe for Tyranitar, which is wrecked by the mixed version with Superpower. Everything else on your team just dies to it after a bit of residual damage for the bulkiest things on your team (like Garchomp and Latias.) This makes Rain teams quite difficult to deal with for your team as then, you are weak to its most common abuser. To fix the Tornadus-T problem, I'd suggest switching Skarmory's EV spread to a Specially Defensive one. With this, Skarmory is a reliable switch in to Tornadus-T as well as plenty other powerful special attackers, while it also keeps great physical bulk thanks to its great base Defense.

I think it's pretty easy for Spikes stacking teams to stop you from removing their hazards. Especially those with Ferrothorn. Ferrothorn currently sets up all over your Starmie since you have no recovery and Life Orb + Sandstorm wearing it down, making it pretty much impossible for Starmie to keep up the pace against bulkier teams who don't mind sending Ferrothorn in often to set up on Starmie again. Ferrothorn has nothing to fear against Starmie, except the very rare Ice Beam freeze. Honestly, I think that you should be using a different Starmie set. The bulkier set seems to be fitting your team pretty well; it will provide a reliable spinner for your other Pokemon to rely on. With that set, Starmie isn't as scared of Ferrothorn as with the LO set: you got Recover to heal back HP, and you can simply spam Scald to attempt to burn Ferrothorn on the switch, and a burned Ferrothorn is one that will lose eventually.

Here's the set you should use:

Starmie

Starmie @ Leftovers
Natural Cure
Timid
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 216 Spe
~Scald
~Psyshock
~Recover
~Rapid Spin

Good luck!

 

[hocp]

Thanks v. much for Jirachi's suggestions! I replaced the original physical def Skarmory set to a special def one. And change Starmine's moveset and EV spreads arronding to Jirachi's suggestions. (All changes are highlighted in red below.)

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 232 SpD / 24 Spd
Careful Nature
Spikes, Whirlwind, Roost, Brave Bird


Starmie @ Leafovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 216 Spd
Timid Nature
Scald, Ice Beam, Rapid Spin, Recover


I retained Ice Beam in Starmine since I need it to check the dragons as well as the Landorus-T / Gliscor. I found that Starmine lasts much longer in the game with this set!

 

[clail]

solid team but i think using sub over fire fang on garchomp may prove useful. it allows you to set up on way more and avoid status.
sub on switch allows you to stay in on many choice scarf pokemon etc

 

[hocp]

Thanks very much Clail! Yes. Sub helps me to deal with choice scarf pkms (esp. Kyurem-B) or the priority move users. I found it quite difficult to choose between fire fang and sub. Fire fang allows me to due with Ferrothorn, Forretress, Scizor and Bronzong switch in, who will set up in front of Garchomp with no fire moves. On the other hand the sub allows me to set up at least one term...... Difficult choice ><

IMO, I still prefer fire move to due with the above mentioned steel walls, I guess that they pose a larger threat to me than the status in the rain. The entry hazard my team hates most is the spikes set by Ferrothorn and Forretress. What do you think?

solid team but i think using sub over fire fang on garchomp may prove useful. it allows you to set up on way more and avoid status.
sub on switch allows you to stay in on many choice scarf pokemon etc

Actually, another difficult choice for me in building this team is whether to give Lucario an adament or a Jolly nature. You know Landorus-T and Gilsor just outspeed Lucario with neutral nature. At last I decide to maximize the firepower of extremespeed by give it the former nature, because I think it's more important to have stronger +2 priority move in the late game.


By the way, may I ask where to find the links for pokemon icons to add in the thread? : )

 

[BlankZero]

Sprites.pokecheck.org for all your sprite needs. Bulbapedia has tons of pictures too, as does Google.

 

[hocp]

Oh thank you BlankZero! I successfully add the icons to the thread : D

Sprites.pokecheck.org for all your sprite needs. Bulbapedia has tons of pictures too, as does Google.

 

[hocp]

I guess it's better to replace sword dance Garchomp with Choice scarf Chomp, as I found swords dancing usually attacts steel walls to come in. Also, I think the team will benefit more to have scarf chomp to revenge kill Tornadus-T, or checking some deadly late game sweepers like moxiemence.

Thanks to Jirachi, the problem of Tornadus-T and Forrothorn has been mitigated. The more games I play, the more threats I have sorted out. May I ask if you guys have kind suggestions to improve my team to counter the following threats??

Threat List:

The landorus-Politoed gives me a lot of handache. When I want to set up sandstorm with Tyranditor, then the combination of U-turn plus Politoed comes in to bring the rain back... Tyranditor cannot keep on eating hits from U-turn

Shell smash from Cloyster posts a series threat to my team. As there are no mach punch users in the team and seems nothing can stop life orb Cloyster from sweeping?

Also, since I do not run hidden power grass in my team. Currently I don't have a solid way to deal with Gastrodon...

Scizor posts a great threat to my team. Just think about how choice banded scizor can demolish my team using superpower / bullet punch / pursuit / U-turn, or setting up swords dance...