SV OU A Shock In The Dark (1860) ~ SandyShocks + RoaringMoon VoltTurn

[KiuDily]

A Shock In The Dark (1860) ~ SandyShocks + RoaringMoon VoltTurn

Introduction:

Hi again! Am back to share another fun offense team I built. This time, it's with a voltturn core of Sandy Shocks and Roaring Moon!
When I was building this team, I was looking for ways to deal with physically defensive fat mons like Garganacl and Dondozo, and Sandy Shocks caught my eye. This mon has solidified itself as the best specially offensive ground type this gen, not including unreleased mons, and I'm happy to say it's been a blast using it. I initially paired this mon with Dragon Dance Roaring Moon because in theory it swept once physical walls have been weakened, but this strategy was somehow tougher to pull off than I had first thought maybe because I'm bad at the game, so I let it be speed control instead, and thus completing the voltturn core. Choice Scarf allowed Roaring Moon to reliably threaten usually faster mons like Dragapult, Booster Energy Iron Valiant, and Meowscarada. Sandy Shocks in turn deals with the Unaware Trio plus Garganacl/Corviknight. Together, this duo forces a lot of switches, and gives plenty of opportunities to bring in something to threaten back. I decided to not build hazard stack, seeing the tier is already full of it, maybe next time. Team name is A Shock In The Dark not only because it's Sandy Shocks with a dark type, but also because of how many 50/50s this thing forces, gotta take your chances and guess what comes in. Anyway, here's the team!

-Paste will be at the bottom-

i learned how to do spoilers :D

In no way is this an impressive feat, I just like keeping track of which of my teams are the better ones.
And hey, write-ups are fun, I do these for fun, hope you're having fun with showdown too :D

Team Members:

Zephren (Sandy Shocks) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Earth Power
- Spikes / Stealth Rock

Zephren the Sandy Shocks here is the star of the show. This mon usually comes in throughout a game to cause havoc and is generally the special breaker/nuke. A STAB combo of electric/ground and decent SpA stat allows it to hit the majority of the metagame for respectable damage. Volt Switch maintains momentum for the team, while Thunderbolt and Earth Power are it's main STABs. Spikes lets you get up at least some form of hazard pressure, and is usually clicked when this mon forces something out. Stealth Rock is also an option to pressure Pelipper and Chien Pao, but it's less preferable to lock yourself into. Timid Max Spe and max SpA allow it to hit hard while being as fast as possible. Choice Specs combined with tera ground Earth Power is this set's main attraction and it hits like a truck. It can net a KO on, or severely weaken any ground bound foes that don't resist unless they have stupidly good spdef. Tera ground is preferred over grass for the power. I found I didn't really need tera grass when I was running it before.

some calcs

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ground Sandy Shocks Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Amoonguss: 306-360 (70.8 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ground Sandy Shocks Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex: 316-372 (103.9 - 122.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ground Sandy Shocks Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fairy Garganacl: 216-256 (53.4 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ground Sandy Shocks Earth Power vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 404-476 (87.2 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ground Sandy Shocks Earth Power vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Fairy Skeledirge: 242-286 (58.8 - 69.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ground Sandy Shocks Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Hatterene: 272-322 (85.5 - 101.2%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
Most importantly, GLIMMORA CAN KISS MY ASS

Galeon (Roaring Moon) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Crunch
- Outrage / Earthquake / Stone Edge???
- U-turn

This is Galeon, friendly neighborhood Salamence Roaring Moon. As I mentioned before, this is the speed control for the team with Choice Scarf, mainly providing fast U-turns, and is very useful to simply scare out certain unwanted mons. Crunch and Outrage make up it's main STABs, and U-turn for momentum. Iron Head combined with tera steel OHKOs Iron Valiant, hits annoying Hatterenes and sometimes even tera fairy Espathras. I've used Earthquake instead of Outrage before, which is why it's there as another option, but I didn't find myself using it very often, aside from surprising opposing Cinderaces turn 1 with an OHKO. It was replaced with Outrage as a way to deal with Dragonites, Volcaronas, and Ceruledges better. I've never used Stone Edge but if flying/fire/bug types are problems for this team, maybe rock coverage could be good??? EVs are max max because it's a Roaring Moon, and Protosynthesis Atk is preferred. Additionally, tera steel could be used as a defensive measure against Dragonite's Extreme Speed, and Chien Pao's/Baxcalibur's Ice Shard.

Teach (Corviknight) @ Safety Goggles / Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Defog
- Roost

There's nothing Sandy Shocks and Roaring Moon collectively hate more than fat grasses. And also every offensive fairy/fighting/ground/volcarona but WHATEVER. Fat grasses is what Teach here is for. Corviknight is this team's generally reliable pivot into EVERY grass type minus Scovillain, and hazard remover. This is the standard set consisting of Brave Bird for damage, U-turn for momentum, Defog for hazards, Roost for not dying to Chien Paos. Max physdef with Impish is used to tank as many physical hits as it can before inevitably going down. Safety Goggles is the hidden tech, can't be spored, able to surprise many a Breloom/Amoonguss and knock them out/2HKO them. It surprisingly works very well. Lefties is another option in the case you find Safety Goggles useless. Pressure is Corviknight's best ability, you can stall out certain moves. You'd almost never tera this mon, but if getting rid of the fire weakness and gaining fighting resistance is needed, you can use tera flying in a pinch. It also bolsters Brave Bird damage so that's cool. 30 Spe IVs for underspeeding the average Corviknight for a slower U-turn, but you can go lower if desired.

Harmony (Hatterene) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 Spe
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
- Draining Kiss
- Nuzzle

Hatterene is this team's status spreader, bulky stall breaker, and hazard deterrent, but is mainly used to combat dark/fighting types. This is Harmony, the Hatterene. Calm Mind and Stored Power is a powerful combo we should all know very well by now heck Espathra. Draining Kiss + Lefties keeps Hatterene healthy, and fairy happens to complement psychic coverage pretty nicely. Nuzzle reliably spreads paralysis, slowing everything down for our Sandy Shocks, and giving you a good chance to 1v1 opposing Hatterenes as well. The speed EVs are for speed creeping base 35s such as Dondozo, Garganacl, and Toxapex. Everything else is invested into physical bulk. Tera water lets you eat steel/ice moves, and improves the rain matchup. Unfortunately, Hatterene is not strong until you start boosting, but sometimes it can win games on it's own.

Valor (Iron Valiant) @ Choice Band
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spirit Break
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Trick

Valor the physical Iron Valiant is back! And this time, it's running a slightly different set. This mon is usually used as an early game breaker, and well, I needed a physical fighting type to pressure the darks in this tier. It's great as both a Choice Specs bluff, and Choice Scarf bluff. Spirit Break and Close Combat are it's powerful STABs, handling neutral targets. Knock Off is it's coverage for ghosts, and a very spammable move early game, being able to remove Lefties from mons like Great Tusk is vital. In addition to that, if you can predict a Gholdengo coming in to eat an expected Moonblast, Knock will OHKO most scarf variants, while slightly bulkier variants will always be 2HKO'd. Trick is in the last slot to cripple a mon that's coming in to eat an expected Moonblast, that isn't Gholdengo. Mons like Skeledirge, Clodsire, Volcarona, and sometimes Corviknight, but mainly Volcarona will try to switch in. Shutting down these mons with a Choice Band will pave the way for a potential sweep with a Volcarona of our own. EVs are max max to take advantage of Valiant's better Atk. Similarly to Roaring Moon, tera steel is used to eat a hit from Dragonite's Extreme Speed and ice moves from Chien Pao. I suppose I COULD make this mon scarf, and Roaring Moon banded, however I prefer to be able to cripple a mon with Trick without losing my speed control.

Stellar (Volcarona) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 248 HP / 108 Def / 152 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Fiery Dance
- Giga Drain
- Morning Sun

Flame Body Flame Body Flame Body blelelelele. Never procs, but I still love this mon. This is Stellar, the team's special sweeper, and it's rocking a good ol' standard set. Quiver Dance is the dumb boosting move, Fiery Dance for more boosts, Giga Drain + tera grass for strong coverage against waters/rocks like Dondozo and Garganacl, and Morning Sun for recovery. 152 Spe EVs with Timid hits 301, one point faster than base 87s like Baxcalibur and Great Tusk, everything else is dumped into physical bulk for more burn chances. Heavy Duty Boots ensures protection against hazards, keeping it healthy. This mon usually is the one doing the sweeping. Make sure you play carefully around Chien Pao if using tera, and don't be like me and forget Morning Sun is weather dependent.


Notable Threats:
Twice have I made a team that has trouble dealing with Great Tusk and Volcarona BUT SURELY NEXT TIME I'LL MAKE ONE BETTER, RIGHT???

- Once it starts, it's hard to stop, not even with this team's own Volc. My solution to this has always been to Trick it a Band when I suspect it might come in, because it works almost every time, or Nuzzle it with Hatterene and try to 1v1, but sometimes it can get out of hand with the boosts even through para.

- This thing hurts, and Sucker basically plows through the entire team. I usually use Valiant as an early game breaker, but if I see this on preview, its hp should be conserved. Tera flying is the regular tera you should look out for, but fucking FIRE variants straight up win.

- Despite my attempts to prevent losing to this, rain still gives this team issues. Use Hatterene sparingly. It's definitely winnable, but good rain really stinks.


Some Replays:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1782375931 making way for a Volcarona sweep
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1782383501-frg2yfs9ydqoyjtfunr1e297f8jabm3pw Safety Goggles Corviknight saves me
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1782998915-tuszw195gkm39289i8et9o98gnrffkhpw Getting rid of Gholdengo early really helps
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1783958403 thank you Highv0ltag3 for seemingly begrudgingly letting me share this replay! I know it feels a little awkward to hax a bit in a game and then proceed to win, which was why I asked if I could share it, but I don't mind at all, really! What I really wanted to show off here was Sandy Shocks' ability to hit up some fat mons for big dmg.

Paste:
https://pokepast.es/c819727118fb2c13


thanks for reading :D

​

 

[1LDK]

Valor (Iron Valiant) @ Choice Band

Bro I was just going to do a time with this, anyway time to steal the team I guess
but for real tho, don't be ashamed of the 1860, that's high, that's higher than anything I could ever dream off, congrats on the team

 

[KiuDily]

Bro I was just going to do a time with this, anyway time to steal the team I guess
but for real tho, don't be ashamed of the 1860, that's high, that's higher than anything I could ever dream off, congrats on the team

AHAHAHA SORRY, you can still try for a cb valiant team, it's sick!! no pressure to get you to make one tho, though i'd love to see it being a team's centerpiece one day.
thank you for the kind reply!

 

[Highv0ltag3]

Very cool team! If I didnt hax you definitively won that game, so it passed the test for sure!

 

[hamiltonion]

Cool team! I've been messing around with it in the Greninja meta and I feel that Scarf Roaring Moon isn't particularly well positioned right now. Its not particularly strong and it's super easy to take advantage of and then you're on the backfoot. Instead, I've felt that Valiant is a much stronger Scarf user with Knock Off and Trick to cripple stuff like Volc and Dragonite in a pinch. But that removes one of the 2 breakers of the team. To get around that, I ended up replacing Roaring Moon with Specs Greninja. Specs Gren is really strong and can pressure stuff that likes switching into it Pex with Spikes. I think it also has fairly strong synergy with Sandy Shocks with the threat of double switching Gren into ground-types trying to come in on Tbolt Sandy Shocks.

So the changes I recommend are: Specs Greninja > Scarf Roaring Moon and Scarf over Band on Iron Valiant. Finally, I suggest running SR over Spikes on Sandy Shocks. Here's the Greninja set I've been using. Good luck!


Greninja @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Spikes

 

[KiuDily]

Cool team! I've been messing around with it in the Greninja meta and I feel that Scarf Roaring Moon isn't particularly well positioned right now. Its not particularly strong and it's super easy to take advantage of and then you're on the backfoot. Instead, I've felt that Valiant is a much stronger Scarf user with Knock Off and Trick to cripple stuff like Volc and Dragonite in a pinch. But that removes one of the 2 breakers of the team. To get around that, I ended up replacing Roaring Moon with Specs Greninja. Specs Gren is really strong and can pressure stuff that likes switching into it Pex with Spikes. I think it also has fairly strong synergy with Sandy Shocks with the threat of double switching Gren into ground-types trying to come in on Tbolt Sandy Shocks.

So the changes I recommend are: Specs Greninja > Scarf Roaring Moon and Scarf over Band on Iron Valiant. Finally, I suggest running SR over Spikes on Sandy Shocks. Here's the Greninja set I've been using. Good luck!


Greninja @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Spikes

HUHHH?? didn't expect greninja to be let out into this tier so soon, the meta's really going through a lot of changes isn't it lol. funny how this team's pretty much already outdated.
but now that i think about it, greninja does sound really strong in this meta, and would help this team break through darks , fires, and grounds much easier. a couple problems that immediately stand out to me is the lack of a shadow ball switch in, and that moth now goes absolutely ham. though i suppose that's better than losing to kingambit which is much more common than moth imo.
your other suggestions are cool, i like those.

thank you for the rate, and for trying the team out!