First Post, First RMT, First Sandstorm Team!

BoyBoy

Hello Smogoners, after much trouble of finding a way to post because of my Activation email not sending, i finally decided PM a mod
and they activated my account for me, which is great! (Hope this helps any1 who can't post too lol).

A Glance at my Team.
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Anyway, this is my first Sandstorm team ever so I'd imagine there'd be tonnes of flaws in it. How I built this team was simple, I
wanted no Pokemon weak to Stealth Rock, since I believe 25% every switch-in seems a bit too much, and if there was no
Sandstorm Immunity, it would have been around 31%. Now with that in mind, I needed Tyranitar for sandstorm of course, but I also
wanted to trap Pokemon, since I'm rather an offensive player and it frustrates me to (only a little) see my opponent switching to
something that counters me completely, with that said, I also added Magnezone and Dugtrio into the team, which gave me three
Pokemon. With 3 spots left to choose Pokemon with, I wanted two walls and a late game sweeper. That's how I came up with my
team. Oh and by the way, I'm not the best at battling and making teams, so any constructive critisizm is appreciated. Also note that
I play on wifi, so if you suggest Legendaries with hidden powers, i'll be unable to obtain them. So far this team is 5-0 on WiFi but I
still feel that it could be so much better. So I need help with making this team the best it can be =D.
Changes in red


The Sandstrap-Lead.
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Tyranitar @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sandstream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Nature: Adamant
- Stone Edge
- Fire Punch
- Crunch
- Pursuit

Every sandstorm team needs a Sandstreamer, and being the offensive player that I am, I chose Tyranitar over Hippowdon.
252 Atk EV's for the obvious maximum attack and the HP EV's for the extra bulk. I originally used Choice Band on this Tyranitar
seeing as how deadly it is when coupled with Pursuit, but I noticed as a lead, I was very susceptible to status leads, so I changed
the Choice Band to a Lum Berry and it seems to be working fine. Also, when status is not thrown at me, I can feign choice band and
suprise an opponent thinking i'm locked in earthquake or pursuit. Tyranitar is also one of the three Pokemon i use to stop my opponent
from switching easily. Stone Edge and Earthquake for the "QuakeSlide" combo, and Crunch is for STAB.


Killing Steelers
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Magnezone @ Life Orb
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 6 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Modest
- Thunderbolt
- Magnet Rise
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Explosion

Magnezone can kill most Steel types except for Heatran and bulky Metagross. With scarf it's speed is 351, which outspeeds
all Gengar, which takes 76.25% - 89.66% from Thunderbolt, so if it's taken minor damage before hand, it's usually a KO before it
can Focus Blast me, same goes for Lucario as both Thunderbolt/HPFire both fall a little short of an OHKO. Thunderbolt is STAB (which is
142BP), Flash Cannon is for grounds, especially Rock/Grounds and also a secondary STAB. HPFire is only for Scizor, as even Super
Effective it still has less power than a thunderbolt, and Explosion is a last-ditch move, and when coming from 351 speed, it's not
that hard to pull off.


Grounded? I'll Kill You!! (Bad Pun =P)
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Dugtrio @ Life Orb
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 4 Def / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Aerial Ace

My last trapper of the team. This is the standard Dugtrio from the smogon sets, Jolly and 216 Spe EV's to outrun all base 115's, 40 Def
EV's for a chance to survive Lucario's Extreme Speed (i think) and 252 Atk for maximum attack. Earthquake and Stone Edge for
"QuakeSlide", i prefer Stone Edge over Rock Slide because Dugtrio doesn't have a very good attack stat, so it needs all the help it gets,
and the 10% boost in accuracy means little to me. Sucker Punch is mainly for those with Speed stat-ups and the rare Alakazam. Aerial
Ace is a filler that I've never used use far, I might replace it with Pursuit for Gengar and Azelf when they are weakened, not sure though =X.


Utility Wall
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Gliscor @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 244 HP / 12 Atk / 252 Def
Nature: Impish
- Stealth Rock
- Roost
- Ice Fang
- Earthquake

My main physical wall that also uses Utility moves to support my team. Stealth Rock is obvious, most if not all teams have it. Roost
for healing, U-Turn is for scouting switches, which I then switch to the appropriate trapper or counter. Earthquake is a good STAB,
but Knock Off would help me greatly as well, some I'm a little up in the air with this one, both of them have had merits when I tried them.
Gliscor is also my main ground and electric immunity of the team. HP EV's give maximum Leftovers recovery, max defense to increase
survivability and rest in attack for a little extra pinch.


WISH I had Sandstorm Immunity (also a bad pun XD)
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Vaporeon @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 188 HP / 252 Def / 68 SpD
Nature: Bold
- Wish
- Protect
- Surf
- Toxic

188 HP EV's for a good Leftovers number, rest to increase defenses to take hits better. Wish is for self and team healing which has helped
me greatly in almost every battle, Ice Beam for dragons and surf is STAB. Toxic is to spread Status (it's the only status in my team) and
it provides me a way of dealing with some of the most dedicated non-resting walls. I used to have Baton Pass over Toxic so that
I could Baton Pass on the switch so that I may trap them with a counter, but one too many times have I predicted wrong which
caused me to be in a pickle and lose the match, so I decided not to rely on my predictions too much and just go with Toxic. I'm also thinking
of replacing Ice Beam with Protect so that my Vaporeon can be ensure that it gets it's Wish, and it can still kind of stall Dragons to death
with Toxic/Wish/Protect/Sandstorm, need some help with this though. Vaporeon also gives me the very important water immunity that I need.


It's getting late... Let me sweep them!
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Scizor @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 232 HP / 252 Atk / 12 SpD / 12 Spe
Nature: Adamant
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- U-Turn
- SuperPower (Roost beforehand)

Scizor the great late game sweeper. Swords Dance to boost my Attack late game and Bullet Punch to sweep with. U-Turn is to scout for
counters such as Heatran and make the appropriate switch, Roost is for survival and heal back from Life Orb and damage taken while
Swords Dancing. HP EV's give 339 HP, which is a good number for Life Orb recoil, max Attack for most damage possible, 12 Spe EV's to
outrun other scizor that don't run Spe EV's and rest in SpD for some extra bulk and easier setup. I usually keep this until late game, but if I
know that my opponent has no counters left, I can bring it in on weak walls and just set up. It's somewhat easy to setup with the bulk and
Roost that Scizor has. Also, I'm considering using Lucario since not as many things resist Extreme Speed, and Close Combat is really good,
but the lack of U-Turn and a healing move makes me think twice, help would be nice with this too.

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And that's the last of my team. Thanks for reading about my team and again, I appreciate any constructive critism. My team is based
on trapping my opponent with U-Turn and trappers, while Sandstorm and Stealth Rock take advantage of switches and making certain
kills easier with residual damage. I'm not very good at "You have a ____ weakness", so I need lots of help with that =P. Thanks in advance!
 
Just one thing, U-Turn conflicts with Swords Dance, seeing as you lose your boosts on switching out. I recommend Brick Break or Superpower in that slot.
 
First of all, Gyarados. BulkyGyara can Taunt Vaporeon so it cannot Toxic, potentially allowing Gyarados to get 2 Dragon Dances, outspeeding Magnezone. If you went straight to Magnezone to try to counteract the chance of Gyarados getting 2 Dragon Dances, you risk an Earthquake in the face, if it carries it. In fact, BulkyGyara with 1 Dragon Dance ties at the same Speed as your Magnezone. For this reason I suggest Hidden Power Electric over Toxic, allowing Vaporeon to deal with it much easier. On top of this, offensive Gyarados will hate Hidden Power Electric; Toxic may give it an extra turn or two where it can wreak problems for your team after KOing Vaporeon.

Erazor, BoyBoy is more or less using U-turn as a Pokémon which can be used to help utilize his trappers easily, hence U-turn. However, I would agree with SuperPower over perhaps Roost, just to help the team deal with Blissey easier, especially because Dugtrio is running Jolly.
 
That's true, but the point of U-Turn is so i can switch into a trapper/counter if they send in say, heatran. That would put me into another advantageous position. SuperPower kind of only works against Heatran, and since I need to get it on the switch, i rather U-Turn to Tyranitar and scare it off with EQ so that more damage racks up if he/she decides to switch, if he doesnt he Earthpowers for about 35% damage, then hes dead. My scizor only ever SD's at the very late game stage or if i know bullet punch can sweep, so i dont think super power was necessary

Edit: This also works for other Pokemon such as Zapdos and stuff that resist Bullet Punch. E.g. If they send in Gyarados, i usually U-Turn until i see all 6 of their Pokemon, which means I'll get Magnezone on the same turn he switches to Gyarados, this means he takes SR, and his Gyara dies, or another Pokemon takes SR damage and gets hit with TBolt.

Edit2: oh didnt see Twash's post.

Hmm Gyarados does seem to kill my team rather easily, so i guess i'll put HPElectric on vaporeon since it has the IVs to do so.

About Scizor, its true that SuperPower will help me get rid of blissey easier, but Scizor could easily set up on Blissey unless it had Flamethrower, Guess ill use Super Power over Roost for insurance then. But should i use Leftovers instead of Life orb then? so that scizor wont die so easily, because it uses U-Turn quite a lot throughout the match and it might be too weak to set up later in the match.
 
I'd switch uturn on gliscor for ice fang. Many of gliscor's common switchins are bulky waters, neither of which you could really trap effectively without dying. Plus, ice fang allows you to 2hko salamence, so you can drop ice beam on vaporeon for protect, to allow you to scout there and allow it to self heal more effectively.
 
Seems like a good idea, and i could just switch to Vaporeon for the water/ice attacks to maybe even heal vaporeon =]. And lets my vaporeon counter gyarados even better.

Any more suggestions? =]
 
If you are going to use a ttar lead use a sash tar that always is unpredictable.

TTar@Focussash
EVS 252 ATK/252 Speed
Ice Beam
Fire Blast
Super Power
Dark Pulse
 
A quick nitpick on some movesets. I suggest changes for 2 of your trappers.

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Magnezone @ Life Orb
Ability: Magnet Pull
Modest Nature
EV: 6 HP / 252 Sp. Atk / 252 Speed

Thunderbolt
Magnet Rise
HP [Fire]
Explosion / Signal Beam

A life orb version is more appropriate. Choice Scarf is overrated. It is more appropriate simply because it lets you handle common 252 Hp / 252 Attack Scizor's and CB Scizor's nicely without getting set up on the next pokemon switch in. Thunderbolt is your main attack to carve off Skarmory and Magnet Rise is there to reduce one weakness on that nasty x4 weakness to ground. Hp [Fire] will always OHKO the common scizors nowadays. Explosion is if you want to go out with a bang. Signal Beam is mainly for Celebi which is one of it's common switch ins to Hp [Fire] and thunderbolt.

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Dugtrio @ Life Orb
Ability: Arena Trap
Jolly Nature
EV: 252 Attack / 6 Def / 252 Speed

Earthquake
Stone Edge
Night Slash
Aerial Ace

LifeOrb is decent repalcement for CB because of Salamence mainly. After your trapped or stuck with Earthquake or a weak move like Aerial Ace, it is too easy to set up DD with Salamence which is a deadly threat to your team. Orb will do nicely. QuakeEdge will give you nice coverage on switch ins and ditch Sucker Punch because it was mainly for Deoxys-S but now he's banned. Night Slash will always OHKO w/sr Gengar and OHKO Alakzam which is a good accomplishment. Aerial Ace is alright, but it is your main weapon on the rare Heracross which is rarely seen nowadays.

On Vaporeon I suggest replacing Protect with Baton Pass. It allows you to give your trappers a safe switch in and it allows you to scout switch outs. Wish + Baton Pass gives support to your trappers also and other pokemon. The Gliscor set is alright, but I suggest Relaxed natured 0 Speed IV's and find a place for U-Turn. U-Turn is a great attack and a scout move to safely bring in your trappers. You might want to consider replacing SR on Gliscor and put it on your T-Tar in place of Crunch or another move. With that handled and simply CB Set on Scizor will be good enough instead of SR. It scouts for you and Bullet Punch +1 is good enough to handle Salamence switch ins. U-Turn is amazing fit for a team like this to bring in your trappers safely. In general, it's a good SS trap team. The support around it should be worked around your trappers. I hope this helped.
 
Thanks for the replies =D

Xero I like my current Ttar set since it beats Roserade and other status inducing leads. Also the pursuit has netted me quite a few kills, but ill test your set on shoddy too to see how it works =D.

Crafty i like the suggestions you made, it really brings out the trappiness of my team which is how i like to play. Except i think i will stay with Scarf on zone because if i can just weaken lucario a little (or even LO damage), i can kill it with TBolt before it Close Combats. Also SD Scizor has swept teams late game for me, especially when they have only bulky waters left, which i can easily set up on.
 
Couple of things to note (small changes, this team seems overall fairly good):

On Ttar, the Dark/Rock combination has very good coverage already. Every OU Steel besides Magnezone and Lucario takes Neutral Damage from either Crunch/Pursuit or Stone Edge. So Earthquake seems like a good choice for your last move, as it hits those two steels, right? Well, there are some better options. Aqua Tail allows Tyranitar to get a stronger hit on some Pokemon who normally wall him (Hippowdon and Gliscor in particular, but it is also powerful against opposing Tyranitar, Rhyperior, and Heatran). Fire Punch is another favorite of mine for Tyranitar. It will allow a clean OHKO on Scizor and Forretress, provides a stronger attack than Crunch against Metagross/Bronzong/Jirachi, provides a more accurate 150 base power attack against Skarmory, hits Lucario and Magnezone for powerful damage, and provides an attack to hit Breloom with, who otherwise resists every move on the set. Earthquake fails to hit Breloom and is is weaker than Stone Edge against Scizor/Forretress. The choice is up to you, but I've found Fire Punch to be incredibly good on my Tyranitar. I often spam it as my first move out to scout for Scizor.

As for Vaporeon: If you're running Wish/Protect, you should also run Toxic over HP Electric. Surf/Toxic hits most everything except Tentacruel and Empoleon, and is overall more powerful. What are you using HP Electric on that you wouldn't rather just Toxic and stall out? I guess maybe Gyarados, but against all other Bulky Waters you want Toxic.

Scizor's moves seem... odd. U-Turn and Superpower are great on the CB set, but on a Swords Dance set you want X-Scissor/Quick Attack and Brick Break. X-Scissor gives you a more powerful STAB move than Bullet Punch and helps you beat Cresselia, without forcing you out and causing you to lose your SD bonuses in the process. Quick Attack works as a nice alternative for a Technician-Boosted Priority move against Electric/Water/Fire Pokemon who resist Bullet Punch and is a decent alternative for this slot. Brick Break is the preferred Fighting move for type coverage, as you don't want to lower your attack in the process (it also removes those pesky screens).

The only other thing I'd suggest is replacing Gliscor with some form of Rotom-Appliance. Rotom makes an excellent addition to this kind of team, providing handy immunities to both Fighting and Ground, which helps to support Tyranitar and Magnezone.

@Veteran: Gliscor is not a safe Switch-in to Lucario unless it runs the first set on Smogon (much more attack and speed) to outspeed it and OHKO with Earthquake, as many Lucarios pack Ice Punch these days, which will OHKO Gliscor.
 
First of all, put Sucker Punch back on Dugtrio. It really helps against faster foes.

Night Slash will always OHKO w/sr Gengar and OHKO Alakzam which is a good accomplishment.
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Too bad Alakazam OHKOs first. :(

Scarf Magnezone is overrated, it's lacking in power. Use Specs or Life Orb with a Modest Nature.
 
BoyBoy said:
Thanks for the replies =D

Xero I like my current Ttar set since it beats Roserade and other status inducing leads. Also the pursuit has netted me quite a few kills, but ill test your set on shoddy too to see how it works =D.

Crafty i like the suggestions you made, it really brings out the trappiness of my team which is how i like to play. Except i think i will stay with Scarf on zone because if i can just weaken lucario a little (or even LO damage), i can kill it with TBolt before it Close Combats. Also SD Scizor has swept teams late game for me, especially when they have only bulky waters left, which i can easily set up on.
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Well thats the point so would a sash tar and it would do alot better. but i see that running lum does help
 
Cool suggestions wildfire, i really like the fire punch on Tyranitar, so ill replace EQ with fire punch, and put Crunch back on over SR.

Sorry but i cant use Rotom-A since this is Wifi =P. maybe when everyone has platinum ill try it out.

Fixed changes =D (Thanks for everyones help too!!)
 
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