OU Sandstall team

[NeLLY979]

Hey Smogon, this is my second RMT. As the title suggests, this team is based around a stall playstyle in sandstorm. I've had quite a good degree of success with it, but from testing I'm unable to break through physical walls, and I lack true counters to rain teams. Any tips would be greatly appreciated, so without further ado, here we go 8D​

TEAM MEMBERS:

A closer look...​

Hippowdon

Ability: Sand Stream
Item: Leftovers
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 HP/100 Def/156 SpD
Attacks: Slack Off/Fire Fang/Earthquake/Roar​

I decided on using Hippowdon over Tyranitar as I felt despite Tyranitar's defensive buffs from Sandstorm, Hippowdon is much more suited to this team, with Roar for phazing and racking up entry hazard damage, and access to Slack Off which has aided me in many weather wars. Whilst most sets use Ice Fang, my personal preference is Fire Fang as it seems to catch many opponents off guard, and scares off enemy Abomasnow.​

Jirachi

Ability: Serene Grace
Item: Leftovers
Nature: Careful
EVs: 252 HP/100 Def/92 SpD/64 Spe
Attacks: Wish/Protect/Thunder/Fire Punch​

Jirachi is one of my two wishers, and with the above EV spread provides viable defense against both physical and special threats, whereas Blissey has to immediately switch out in the possibility of a physical hit. The 64 Speed EVs allow me to roast all but Scarfed Scizor with a Fire Punch, a very useful capability indeed. Thunder is there purely to have something to counter rain teams, with Serene Grace's increased paralysis chance being a nice addition too.​

Forretress

Ability: Sturdy
Item: Leftovers
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 HP/56 Def/200 SpD IVs: 0 Spe
Attacks: Rapid Spin/Gyro Ball/Toxic Spikes/Stealth Rocks​

Forretress seemed to me to be the best entry hazards user for this team. Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock are my chosen combo, providing decent damage without the long set up required with Spikes, as even a single layer of T-Spikes can prove invaluable to my team. Rapid Spin is an obvious choice for drawn out battles, with Spikes posing a major threat as all but one of my team is grounded. Gyro Ball is a handy move to have, providing a nice chunk of damage to Magic Bounce Xatu ad Espeon on a switch in, and providing something other than Rapid Spin in the event of a Taunt.​

Gliscor

Ability: Poison Heal
Item: Toxic Orb
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/4 SpD
Attacks: Ice Fang/Earthquake/Protect/Substitute​

Whilst this is a typical set it's one that has proved successful on numerous occasions. Ice Fang is to stop Landorus steamrolling this team entirely and to combat other Gliscor, with Earthquake acting as a devastating STAB move. Protect and Substitute combine with Poison Heal to make an extremely annoying stall, whilst racking up residual damage.​

Blissey

Ability: Natural Cure
Item: Leftovers
Nature: Calm
EVs: 252 HP/252 SpD/4 Spe
Attacks: Wish/Softboiled/Seismic Toss/Light Screen​

Blissey is my usual switch-in to physical attackers or if I predict a status move incoming. Natural Cure has been a great asset to my team, with Blissey able to soak up many burns and poisons. Her wishes provide an invaluable support option for my team, and Softboiled is great for tanking any incoming hit. Seismic Toss is there to deal consistent damage, and is my go-to move when I expect a switch or weaker attack and no other team-mates require Wish support. Light Screen patches up the rest of my team's unspectacular Special Defense stat and further boosts Blissey's tanking capabilities. Whilst any sets seem to favour Defense EVs over Special Defense, I personally prefer Special Defense as even with max Defense investment, I rarely find Blissey lasting long against any physical threat at all.​

Sableye

Ability: Prankster
Item: Usually Black Sludge (However, I occasionally utilise Choice Items, Iron Ball,or LAgging Tail too)
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 HP/100 Def/156 SpD
Attacks: Recover/Taunt/Trick/Substitute​

Ah, Sableye. I love this pokemon so much. It's been on many occasions my MVP, and I'm surprised it is so underrated. Prankster makes this into one of the biggest pains an enemy can face. Not only do I need to invest no EVs into Speed, but instant Recovery is extremely handy, or an instant Substitute to tank any hit. The lack of resistances further increase this survivability, but where Sableye truly shines is its capabilities to break down a team bit by bit. I usually lead with Sableye to hide the Black Sludge, and will proceed to trick this, unless it is likely to go onto a Poison pokemon. From here I can further displace the enemy's items, such as putting a Choice Item onto a wall, or ruining someone's ChestoRest. Enemy taunts are rendered useless by Sableye's priority Taunt, and it also forces many support pokemon to switch out.​

Anyway, there we are. As said previously, my main priorities in improving this team are options to take down physical walls, and a way by way I can reliably counter rain. Any other advice would also be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.​

 

[doughboy]

With this stall you have really hard time damaging the opponent. A lack of Toxic users (Tspikes isn't enough) and Spikes makes this team really easy to get around. On your team I would highly suggest Ferrothorn with Power Whip and spikes over Forretress (provides Spikes and helps with Rain). To care of Rapid Spinnig I would highly suggest Tentacruel to have a good fighting resist. Lastly I would highly suggest changing Sableye's moveset or replacing it with a Utility counter Jellicent (helps with Rain, but loses to CM Reuniclus).

Your team needs a big overhaul. I promise I will come back latter to update this rate and fix a number of things (particularly Blissey's moveset).

Edit:

Ok as promised he is the update. Wynaunt got most things I wanted to say covered. Awhile ago he made a Sand stall team and its a pretty good one. So to give you an idea of what we are aiming for take a look at it here.

In combination with Wynaunt's changes I highly suggest you put Foul Play>Night Shade. Foul Play is much harder on a lot of switchin's and if you are concerned about Tyranitar or Heatran your other team mates can easily come in and wall those two.

I also disagree with adding in Celebi. While Celebi's Volt-Turning breakage is needed, its Perish Song is not. Sableye should be able to deal with endgame Reuniclus' or Dragonites easily (hippo can also smack dragonite). What your team really needs is Spikes. Spikes will allow you to accumalate damage much, much quicker and hit things harder in general. Thus instead of Celebi, I am going to reccomend Spikes Roserade over Jirachi. Roserade will bring many more relevant benefits to your team than Celebi: Spikes and removal of Toxic Spikes without the need to Rapid Spin (a grounded Poison type, such as Roserade, removes Toxic Spikes on the switchin). Roserade can easily break up Volt Turn (possibly even easier due to Spikes) and act as a status like Celebi does. She also gives your team a chance against Gengar that Celebi couldn't. Your team as it is now Gengar (and with Wynaunt's suggestions) can set up a Substitute freely on 2 members of your team and start havoc.

Keep Wish on Blissey, Forry needs it (and your team will collapse without it)

Roserade (Roserade) (F) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Natural Cure
152 HP / 68 SAtk / 252 SDef / 36 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Rest
- Spikes
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Fire]

I'm lazy, so I don't want to type it all out again, but the explanation for the EV's can be found here in Roserade's section.

 

[NeLLY979]

I'm gonna try out these changes tonight hopefully, Ferrothorn does sound promising indeed so I'll see how that fares, and I'll try find a slot to put Tentacruel in.
I'll have a look at Sableye movesets and see if any work better. The only thing is the one I have now seems to be highly efficient and causes a lot of disruption in all the battles I've used it. However, this is an RMT so I'm not gonna go defend my team without at least trying them, so many thanks for that ^^
Anyway, cheers for the rate 8D

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Ok man this really is not a bad basis for a team you got here; with the right moves alone this could be a pretty respectable stall team. The problem you have is literally all of your pokemon have some pretty silly and outright bad moves and movesets. I could just tell you to slap on the standard movesets, but then you won't learn what was wrong.

Hippowdon: I personally don't like running stealth rock on Hippowdon, that’s fine. Really the main problem with this set is fire fang. Fire fang is literally only useful on 4 relevant OU pokemon, Skarm, Ferrothorn, and Forretress, Scizor. Honestly, just hit scizor with earthquake. Note how for the rest of these pokemon can really do any damage to your team as you have a rapid spinner, and they all can take a few fire fangs with no problem due to their monster defenses. Ice fang is far more useful to hit Salamence, Dragonite, Landorus, and Gliscor, all of which are pokemon that stand good odds of sweeping you and take critical damage from ice fang. You can lose your weakness to all of these pokemon with just one move. Also you may want to run whirlwind over roar since your not running stealth rock, it will help you out in beating those rare but annoying soundproof Mr. Mimes. Finally you may just want to run a full out defensive spread on Hippowdon to more easily take strong outrages and close combats, because Hippowdon usually hovers while close to a 2HKO from.

Jirachi: This set is pretty bad. Thunder on a sand team is just a really really bad idea with 50% accuracy and all, not only that but you don't need it for rain team as you have Blissey to eat them up. Fire punch isn't going to scare out any respectable Blissey I hate to tell you, and outside of Scizor, everything else can take a fire punch. There is in fact a similar wall breaking set out there for Jirachi to this (with Iron head, Ice punch, fire punch, and thunderbolt), but with recovery you don't have enough slots for it to work, and your not wall breaking for anything since you lack a sweeper. The standard Jirachi (iron head, body slam, wish, protect) is far better as you can spread around paralysis crippling sweepers and flinch haxing them to death. That is much more effective than whatever you’re doing here.

Forretress: Forretress isn't that bad actually. The evs are kind of odd since Forretress doesn't take many special hits and tell to live about it. 80 special defense evs is enough to take weak special hits. Outside of that, your team has a rather large Gyrarados weakness, so volt switch on Forretress is advised to aid that weakness a bit, 56 special attack evs and a relaxed nature with help that out. Really your problem is what to get rid of for volt switch. You may want to run it over toxic spikes since toxic spikes usually aren't that useful, or over stealth rock and use stealth rock instead on Hippowdon, Jirachi, of Blissey. You may also want to consider running spikes over toxic spikes since most of the time spikes are more useful.

Gliscor: Your Gliscor isn't that bad actually, it’s just in a weird place between the toxic stall and swords dance set. Just use toxic over ice fang here or swords dance over substitute to get a move effective set. I think swords dance might be a better choice to allow you to take down Breloom and late game sweep. Also you want to run more speed here 72 speed is the standard way to go to outspeed Jolly tyranitar (which is pretty rare), 56 speed evs is enough to outspeed 252 speed Breloom and Politoed.

Blissey: I only have 2 small things to say about Blissey, but both are really important. First off is light screen, I have no idea what your doing with it, light screen is not aiding blissey take down special threats any better and is pretty useless on it. Toxic is a much, much better move, it allows you to take down pokemon like Volcanora and Celebi which otherwise, I have no idea how your dealing with. I realize you have toxic spikes, but you won't always be able to get 2 layers in, that is a fact. Finally your ev spread, you need some physical defense evs to take pursuits at the least. Swap over 252 evs from special defense to defense to take them much much better, it turns a 1HKO from pursuit into a 3HKO that is not an exaggeration.

Sableye: Sableye can be so, so much better. Yes sableye right now can cripple a pokemon, big woop. What if I told you it could infact cripple and kill whole teams. Give it night shade / taunt / willow-wisp / recover, and watch people cry. Wisp whatever you want, taunt them if they attempt to recover, boost, or status you, from there just recover off any damage and maybe use night shade to speed up their deaths, as they slowly die to burn damage. It is one of the best stall breakers ever; I highly suggest you use it.

Changes I suggest

Hippowdon (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
- Whirlwind
- Slack Off


Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Def / 32 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Iron Head
- Body Slam
- Wish
- Protect


Forretress (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 56 SAtk / 80 SDef
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Toxic Spikes
- Volt Switch
- Rapid Spin
- Gyro Ball


Gliscor (F) @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Protect
- Ice Fang
- Swords Dance


Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Softboiled
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Seismic Toss


Sableye (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Taunt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Night Shade

This is with Blissey with stealth rock as this team doesn't really need wish. If you want it though, just give stealth rock to somthing else or over toxic spikes.

One actual team suggestion I have is to use Celebi over Jirachi. Sableye pretty much solves all over Blissey's special problems, and Celebi will help you out in fighting volt-turn teams and rain.

Specially Defensive Celebi

Celebi @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 224 SDef / 32 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Giga Drain
- Perish Song
- Recover
- Hidden Power [Fire]

 

[WhiteZekrom786]

Well If I have to say my opinion about it, I think the team should have at least 1 sweeper. It looks as if you have so much support and no stat-boosting sweepers on your team. Sure it's suppossed to toxic and stall but still, I say a sweeper should still go in this team. Ex. Scizor, Landorus, Lucario, Terrakion, etc. That's what I think. Hope that helped! :D

 

[XcRunner]

I would recommend adding Roserade to your team. You need a good counter to rain teams, and grass typing is a great asset against them, while it can also sleep opponents and set up toxic spikes for you.
Roserade@leftovers
Calm
-Toxic Spikes
-Leaf Storm
-Sleep Powder
-Rest
252 hp/252 spD/4 spe
The set is pretty standard. Leaf Storm for high damage, sleep powder and t spikes so that you can do residual damage and put opposing threats out of use, and rest w/ natural cure allows for great longevity.
Another recommendation would be to put stealth rock on Hippowdon over Fire Fang and then putting Spikes and Volt Switch on Forretress over Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock. You really don't need him to be doing that much.
I'm also going to agree with ScarfWynaut's Sableye suggestion. He can be so useful, and your set isn't abusing his full potential.
I hope this helped, and good luck with the team!