Gen 6 Mega T-Tar Sand HO w/ Screens

[A_Whopper]

I've been using this Mega T-Tar Sand w/ Screens Offense team I built. This team is built to control the speed and pacing of the game while having multiple set-up mons which I've been having lots of success on the ladder. It plays like a standard Sand HO team; however, I mixed it up and built it as a high risk, high reward style of team.

Tyranitar-Mega @ Tyranitarite
Ability: Sand Stream
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 8 Def / 248 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Crunch
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake

The first member of the team is Mega T-Tar and due to the general speed of most mons in the tier all it takes is one dragon dance to out-speed and hit opposing teams with insane damage. T-Tar can be an early game breaker or late game sweeper depending on how you play it, because of Mega T-Tar's natural bulk he can set up a DD on anything without a fighting type move.

I chose to go with a DD, Crunch, Rockslide, and Earthquake set because the potential sweeping power of Mega T-Tar is so great and missing moves like stone edge can make you lose right on the spot. Going with the more accurate rockslide with the chance to flinch is better in my opinion, especially since if you have already DD'd then you can out-speed and flinch most mons that are bulky enough to live a hit. Last move that a lot of though was put into was earthquake, generally Mega T-Tar can struggle against steel types and in a lot of cases T-Tar runs superpower, but if you're trying to sweep with T-Tar having a move to hit steel types and mons like Keldeo for neutral damage without lowering your own stats was an important decision when building the set.

Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss
- Protect

Now for the wildcard mon on the team. Registeel is such a bulky mon with limited weaknesses due to its great pure steel type that it can set up rocks and t-wave threats with minimal risk. Setting up rocks is important on any team and having a mon that can set up rocks safely was a priority for the team. I tested a lot of different mons, but Registeel was the choice I landed on. Due to its natural ability to shrug off any special attack and most physical attacks and fire back with a t-wave Registeel is a key set piece on the team.

Registeel is weak to ground types, which unfortunately is a lot of the meta, but on anything that isn't Excadrill, Landorus-T, and Garchomp it can hold its own and often types set up for your other teammates. The set is pretty standard with rocks, t-wave, s-toss, and protect. With leftovers having protect is very important, along with the ability to scout choice mons and cause M-Lopunny and M-Medicham to miss HJK.

Registeel can live hits from M-Alakazam, Weavile, Volcanion, Keldeo, Tornadus-T, most megas in the tier and fire back with t-wave to cripple threats. The only real downside is that Registeel can be set-up on, so it is better to use it to set-up rocks and then get it out of there before you get set-up on by a sweeper mon.

Garchomp (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Rough Skin
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 28 HP / 252 Atk / 16 Def / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Fang
- Rock Slide

This Garchomp set was used with sand veil before it got banned, however it is still just as useful with rough skin. This is a scarf chomp set EV'd to be faster than M-Alakazam and still have slight bulk. This set is designed for revenge kills and late game sweeping. It is normal for Garchomp to be a bulky stealth rock setter; however, I believe with this team the scarf set is so much more dangerous because with this set you can out-speed every un-boosted mon in the tier and hit them with extremely strong adamant attacks.

The set used is EQ, Dragon Claw, Fire Fang, and Rockslide. Rockslide is used for the same reason as M-Tar, dragon claw is used instead of outrage, but those can be swapped if you want the extra damage. Fire fang is the outlier; it is used for Ferrothorn and Scizor, but if you get locked into it on a resist expect to do no damage.

Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 4 HP / 236 Atk / 16 Def / 36 SpD / 216 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide

Now we get to the most important and standard mon on Sand HO teams. Everyone knows that Excadrill absolutely dominates in ORAS and one of the best ways to use it is in sand. In sand Excadrill out-speeds every mon and most boosted mons. With great typing and an absurd attack stat, Excadrill can easily sweep late game or weaken and break teams early as well.

This set might be a little controversial as there is no rapid spin. This SD, Iron Head, EQ, and Rockslide set is built for pure power and sweeping. Now there are three mons with rockslide, and the para flinch base of this team continues to grow. After an SD Excadrill can OHKO a majority of the tier and since it forces a lot of switches getting an SD off is easy.

Now if you are uncomfortable with not having hazard removal you can get rid of SD or Rockslide for Rapid spin, but then you could be substantially weaker, or struggle to hit Zapdos, which is very common.

Thundurus @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 24 HP / 232 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Nasty Plot
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Substitute

This is one of my favorite mons on the team and can be your most valuable win-con in certain matchups. Now this is a NP Thundurus with Substitute because prankster sub with screens (last mon) can live through a majority of attacks and with para'd mons on the opposing team you can sometimes get free subs off. This mon destroys stall and can get multiple NP's off to sweep, not having focus blast can be a hinderance, but if you can set up multiple NP's it doesn't matter too much.

This team can be very weak to stall and more specifically Skarmory, but Thundurus is your counter to stall and Skarmory. There is a version of the team that wants t-wave instead of sub, but I believe that the value you get out of having a sub in front of Thundurus is too important.

Serperior @ Light Clay
Ability: Contrary
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leaf Storm
- Glare
- Reflect
- Light Screen

Here is the last member and the glue that keeps everything together. Serp is fast and has decent bulk, it can set up with leaf storm, but most importantly it sets up screens so that way every other member of the team can set-up and win. With screens, M-Tar can set up safely, Excadrill can SD safely, and Thundurus can Sub NP safely. With screens this team is built to set up and dominate whatever is in front of it.

Serp also has glare so it can para anything in front of it to keep with the theme of para flinch. This mon is one of the best in ORAS for its versatility and on this team it sets up screens and lays the groundwork for quick dominant wins.


There are a few changes that can be made. This team is not perfect and can struggle against mons like M-Lopunny and M-Medicham, it also generally struggles against scarf Landorus-T and stall. Here are some changes to help if you find yourself struggling: such as changing the T-Tar set to ice punch to cover for Landurus-T and Gliscor better, or fire punch for Ferrothorn and Scizor. For stall there are a couple things that can help, putting Taunt on either Thundurus, Serp, or T-tar is on option. There is no hazard removal because the team is built more to set-up and win, but if you desperately want hazard removal you can put rapid spin on Excadrill instead of SD or Rockslide.

Thank you all and let me know if you have any changes or thoughts, I've been using this team all year and have had very good success.

 

[mixnite]

the core of Tyranitar Excadrill Serperior and Thundurus is a really good and well known base for building a sand offense and I like your unique spin with Substitute on Thundurus over the usual Thunder Wave/ Focus Blast. however despite this I do think you've made quite a few missteps by adding Registeel and Choice Scarf Garchomp to the team. Registeel especially is a major blunder since it completely ruins the pacing of the team by providing zero offensive pressure. the case is the same with garchomp since it doesn't really have any good moves it wants to lock into while also unecessarily filling the same role as Excadrill without the ability to pressure the opposing team with Swords Dance boosted STABs. this easily gives something like Clefable a free opportunity to heal out of +1 Tyranitar range which is especially devastating since this style of team doesn't have the longevity to consistently recover from lost momentum. I would reccomend adding one or both of Volcarona and Manaphy or another set up sweeper that lets you maintain offensive pressure while also benefiting from the sand chip and screens support.

I've actually just played two recent tournament games with this type of structure so I'll share the teams I used to help you get an idea of the general framework that this type of team uses. feel free to make your own changes as long as you stick to maintaining offensive pressure through strong attackers and set up sweepers.

here are the teams:
Stealth Rock Garchomp vs. HSK7 in game 2 of game 2 ORAS Invitational play-ins

Mega Garchomp vs. NoName6293 in game 3 of ORASPL Week 7

while I lost both games I'd like to note that it was not a result of the team but rather my own missplays

anyway I hope you have fun experimenting and playing in this wonderful tier God bless you!!​

 

[Ithi]

I'm not really the biggest ho stan, but this sand offense definitely has the right idea. registeel is just a massive momentum sink and chomp doesn't really make too much sense here with its set, not unless you want to go for some heated sd rocks chomp set w/ the broken qd volcarona in the back. I guess another thing too I'd strongly suggest for a six like this is hwish support in the form of latias or cresselia. Fighting types pick this off like crazy

 

[Paprikaflow]

Hey, cool that you dropped an RMT :)
Generally I like the idea of Sand Offense using screens. Thundurus as an addition fits in well.
What I also like is that you freed Excadrill and Mega-Tyranitar from the burden of having Stealth Rock.
I also like the Set you chose for Serperior.
What I do not completely love is running Rock Slide on Mega-Tyranitar over Stone Edge. Yet I think it is within an acceptable range of choice.

Fast Water-types like Keldeo could threaten your team quite a bit, I think it can become a problem, same as Volcanion. Registeel is quite an uncommon choice. The utility it provides is quite usefull so I get the idea. It both gives an Ice-resist and provides Stealth Rock. On the other hand its weak attack allows others to come in relatively easy, especially Excadrill is a problem, since it can threaten it with Earthquake and remove Stealth Rock.
Using an offensive Garchomp in Sand is a cool idea. I am not super sold on using Choice Scarf though. Despite it delivering speed controll and it beeing Adamant allows it to have quite some damange it can often miss the mark. Since you are running dual screens with that team you could think of replacing it with another Pokemon. If you are worried about speed control you could use something with Dragon Dance, which would be especially useful if you want another Water resist. If you want to go really crazy you could try Haxorus, but there are many different choices.

Thank you for dropping the RMT. I like the creativity and I hope you drop many more.
Keep it up