An Elite Sandstorm Force

[devilry]

Well so far, this team has been giving me quite a bit of success on both Shoddy Battle and my pokemon Platinum WiFi.

The main weaknesses I have encountered so far is my vulnerability to paralysis and a potential MixApe sweep.

However, other than that, I am confident it is an awesome, strong team and I'd like to have your opinions on it =D

Do note that because my IVs in my game are not perfect, and because it's likely most of the people I am fighting will not be perfect either, I decided that I'd throw aside the exact EVs needed to outspeed certain threats or tank certain moves and whatnot. However, if it is truly necessary, I might still make changes.

MY TEAM AT A GLANCE:

Without further ado,

1. LEAD + PHYSICAL WALL - DEEP BLUE

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
Nature: Relaxed
EVs: 240 HP, 216 Def, 52 SpA

Earthquake
Ice Beam
Surf
Stealth Rock

Standard Swampert lead, doing a great job at that. Key resistances to fire and immunity to electric makes this guy an awesome switch in for Skarmory and Lucario. Grass moves are also extremely uncommon on lead pokemon, allowing this guy to get a stealth rock in most of the time. Should I meet taunt abusers like aerodactyl, pert can just directly go for the KO. Truly an amazing pokemon. And of course, not to mention, sandstorm immunity =D

2. REVENGE KILLER - iBURN

Heatran @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
Nature: Modest
EVs: 252 SpA, 252 Spe, 4 HP

Flamethrower
Dark Pulse
Dragon Pulse
Earth Power

The reason why I went for modest was because the TM for explosion is really a pain to get, and this modest Heatran has a Special Attack IV of 30 which is really awesome. It's HP is dragon so that's out, but dragon pulse still does a nice stand in for HP Ice, snagging KOs against salamence under stealth rock and sandstorm pressure rather comfortably. Dark pulse is there as a filler move, which does surprisingly comfortably when people think they can switch their azelf or gengar on my earth power. The choice scarf, of course, allows Heatran to outspeed most threats and hit back hard with its own moves.

Heatran can switch it in fire, ice and grass moves without concern, also being able to take dragon, dark and ghost, making it the perfect support pokemon for Swampert, Latias and Lucario. It also deserves praise for being able to absorb will-o-wisps.

Between fire blast and flamethrower I have not made up my mind, however in my experience flamethrower has generally been more effective and reliable.

3. SANDSTORM + CHOICE BANDER - SOVEREIGN

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 252 Att, 252 HP, 4 Spe

Earthquake
Fire Punch
Aqua Tail
Pursuit

When I say that a team better not let their walls linger too long in a battle, I mean it. NOTHING hits a fleeing pokemon harder than a Choice Banded STAB pursuit, being strong enough to take even a fleeing Dusknoir down from previous experiences, after stealth rock support.

Being able to set the sandstorm going infinitely and taking down Blissey, Latias, Cresselia, Choiced Gengars or Azelfs on the wrong move are just few of the reasons why Tyranitar is such an invaluable team player. Personally I never really understood the point of crunch or stone edge, considering that most of the time a combination of ground, fire and water moves would already hit for super effective on all the most common pokemon in OU, and pursuit has no trouble dealing with any dark-weak pokemon barring defensive reflect latias with recover. Cresselia is not an issue with sandstorm going and rest won't help it escape pursuit.

The strategy is simple; should the opponent bring in a wall (which I must also add that Latias and Heatran greatly attract), I just bring TTar in and wipe them out.

With fire punch, also, I no longer need the speed EVs to outspeed skarmory. Not to mention, it dents forretress and scizor.

4. PHYSICAL WALL - SKARMORY

Skarmory @ Leftovers/Shed Shell
Ability: Sturdy
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Def, 4 Spe

Toxic
Spikes
Roar
Roost

Standard Skarmory without brave bird and the EVs pumped into defense. The ability is also not much of an issue since sand attack/flash is rarely used in any situation anyway. I decided not to go with brave bird simply because my team isn't a stall team, and skarmory is better off working on the indirect damage in light of many stronger attackers.

Immunity to ground and resistance to grass makes Skarmory a great switch in to Swampert, Heatran and Tyranitar.

The strategy of course, is to switch Skarmory into something that can't hurt it, and toxic or set up spikes on the switch.

5. THE CUTE ONE (I'm considering making it my team mascot) - LATIAS

Latias @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Timid
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Spe, 4 SpA

Calm Mind
Thunderbolt
Dragon Pulse (I'm considering giving Latias Protect over DP. This is because Latias generally attracts steel-types like scizor or metagross, which dragon pulse hits little against anyway. As a team player, it doesn't need to hit ground types all the time, plus everyone would be expecting DP on latias anyway. CM boosts come in usually only to deal with Suicune)
Wish

Oh my eff - Latias is so cute it hurts! And despite being so cute, opponents absolutely LOATHE it, and for a very good reason too! As long as Latias switches in to a pokemon that can't hurt it, even if the opponent brings in a counter, Latias can always just wish and heal its team mates. And even if the opponent chooses to be cautions, Latias could take advantage of the situation to set up calm mind and cause utter devesation. The combination of a potential sweeper, wall AND support gives Latias an irreplaceable role on my team.

Resisting electric, grass, fighting, water, fighting and being immune to ground, Latias can virtually switch in for any of my pokemon.

Thunderbolt is needed on this set as my only way to keep gyarados in check, being neutral to steel like surf is, while dragon pulse hits everything else hard after being boosted by calm minds.

I should also note that with thunderbolt, Latias will always almost destroy any variations of Suicune or Milotic one on one since it has calm mind itself.

6. LATE GAME SWEEPER - SHREDDER

Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
Nature: Jolly
EVs: 252 Att, 252 Spe, 4 HP

Extremespeed
Close Combat
Ice Punch
Swords Dance

Okay, I'm the least sure on this one. Lucario's role would generally be to switch in on a waller and set up, however Tyranitar's pursuit already takes down most walls barring Bronzong, Forretress and possibly Jirachi or Celebi, leaving Lucario little space to set up.

However, when it does, it's a menace. Ice punch OHKOs gengar after a swords dance and snags extra OHKOs on gliscor, salamence, flygon and dragonite, so I prefer it over crunch.

If I'm going to use this guy, most of its counters would generally have been removed earlier in the game, leaving this guy to perform a clean sweep. Tyranitar's pursuit means that no Cresselia or Azelf could come in to spoil a crunchless Lucario's fun late game.

Still, I'm not so certain on Lucario's position on this team because so far, it has been the least helpful member. Potential canditates I am considering to replace it are Gliscor (who can take fighting moves alongside Latias, a huge weakness to my team) or Bronzong.

So, any comments? =D
Help would be appreciated.

 

[tab]

Hey. This looks like a pretty solid team, I can't really see any huge weaknesses, so this is mostly going to be small suggestions for individual moves.

Firstly, Heatran should have a Naive nature, as without the +speed nature, you're missing out on revenge killing quite a few threats that Heatran is needed for. Heatran still has enough power to KO what is needed with a +speed nature.
You should use Fire Blast over Flamethrower. The lower accuracy can be annoying sometimes, but Fire Blast is reliable enough for it not to be a huge problem unless you get really unlucky, and the increased power is important in landing several key OHKO/2HKOs.
Dark Pulse is pretty unnecesarry, as you're almost always going to be better off hitting the pokemon that you'd be using Dark Pulse on with Fire Blast, seeing as it's both more powerful and less dangerous to be locked into. A better option would be Explosion, which lets Heatran go out with a bang once its done its job and is getting pretty low on HP, as well as opening up the option of Exploding on a threat when you really can't risk anything else. With Explosion, you should move the 4 HP EVs into Attack.

On Tyranitar, an arguably better EV spread is 176 HP/252 Atk/80 Spe, which lets you outspeed a few more important pokemon, which is particularly important as I'm going to suggest losing Fire Punch.
Your current choice of moves is pretty sub optimal. Stone Edge is an absolute must-have on CB Tyranitar, STAB rock is a great attacking type, and Stone Edge is generally Tyranitar's least dangerous attack to get locked into. As Fire Punch is the least useful attack on that set, it should go. Not hitting Scizor for SE damage isn't important, it's going to get OHKOed by Stealth Rock + Stone Edge a lot of the time anyway.
Crunch is also an extremely useful attack to have on Tyranitar, although Earthquake is arguably useful as well. You might want to try out Crunch over EQ, but as long as you use Stone Edge the set is fine.

Skarmory should use Brave Bird over Toxic. Brave Bird isn't there just for stall teams, it's there because even without Attack EVs, it hits hard enough to either beat or scare off a lot of threats, fighting types in particular. Using Skarmory without an attack also means you automatically lose to anything with Taunt.
Whirlwind is a better choice than Roar, as it hits pokemon with Soundproof.

Latias should use Roost/Recover over Wish, as the two turn recovery can be a huge liability on something like Latias, especially when you don't have Protect. The standard EV spread of 128 HP / 128 SpA / 252 Spe would also be better too.

I'd probably keep Lucario, as it looks like it should work well with the rest of the team. However, seeing as you aren't using Crunch, I'd probably consider using Stone Edge over Ice Punch and an Adamant nature, which automatically beats many of Lucario's common counters, Gyarados in particular. Jolly Ice Punch Lucario isn't that useful imo, especially as you have what it deals with covered reasonably well with the rest of the team.

I hope this helps, and good luck with the team.

 

[Gorgonopsid Master]

well from a glance your team is quite offensive and it is actually nearly obliterated my a special based mixape who can come in on about half your team and because your team is quite offensive I suggest either Rotom-W(yes the water 1) because you can come in with ease and then ohko with hydro pump or u could use a starmie who outspeeds ape and hits him with STAB water attacks however scarfgon and cbdugtrio are all choices to use too

 

[devilry]

I'm thinking of gliscor over lucario to help with special-based mixape.
Latias would also pose as trhreat for mixape.
With 2 pokemon that can counter it, I think my team would handle it decently.

 

[devilry]

Oh thanks Tab for the rate! I'll definitely put stone edge in for TTar..maybe replace earthquake for it should I get a gliscor for additional EQ support.

As for Heatran, sad to say I can't change it because it's for WiFi and getting another Heatran might be impossibly difficult. I'll see how I can manage with this.

Toxic on skarmory is something I'm still relatively comfortable with since fighting types rarely come on skarmory anyway, and it's usually switching in and out a lot. Plus, from my experiences, Skarmory needs to conserve all the HP it can get (especially if Magnezone becomes popular enough to warrant a shed shell), so I'll stick with it for now.

As for Latias, thanks but I'm still going with wish. Wish serves much more to heal any team mates over Latias itself, cause chances are my opponents will always be switching when it comes in. Wish has saved me in a lot of situations before.

 

[mtr]

I'm thinking of gliscor over lucario to help with special-based mixape.
Latias would also pose as trhreat for mixape.
With 2 pokemon that can counter it, I think my team would handle it decently.

Latias is enough of a Mixape counter, as is Extremespeed on Lucario.

Really, there's not much that's problematic about this team. Except for...no hard check to deal with DDMence/DDGyara (well, Latias can help with this one unless it has Ice Fang).

It's not the biggest problem. Just know that you'll have to be a bit more clever than usual to deal with Salamence. Mainly just use Swampert as Outrage bait and switch to Skarmory, hoping the dude doesn't DD again in a counterprediction.

Man, I wish you could have had Explosion on Heatran, but if nothing can be done, than nothing can be done.

 

[devilry]

Thanks =D
Swampert, from my previous experiences, can take a single DD outrage and hit back with ice beam. After which, I would try to heal it with wish.
As for DD Gyarados, I guess if Latias isn't in optimal condition to come in I could always use Skarmory to phaze it out.