[PokeBank Battle Spot Doubles] Sand Team: Not as Vicious as a Real Desert

DB81397

I built a Sand team the other night and things have been going awful. Unless the entire opposing team lacks an Ice-type move and all opposing Pokemon are grounded, I lose. Also, if I lose my sandstorm, I'll probably lose. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but I can make an attempt to justify my choices.

Hippowdon @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
- Crunch
- Protect

I couldn't decide between Hippowdon and Tyranitar; in addition, one of them usually gets OHKO'd anyway. I went with a simple tank spread on Hippowdon with low Speed because either of his jobs aren't to sweep. His job is to set-up the sandstorm and not die. In fact, I can't do more than 50% damage with him, which implies that he is alive long enough to actually do any kind of damage. All is not lost though; he does the job of setting up sandstorm quite well. He usually paired with Landorus because Landorus is half Flying-type. The moveset is quite simple. Earthquake is the STAB that is spammed, and Ice Fang and Crunch hit was Earthquake won't hit hard enough. Sitrus Berry is used here, which supplements my hope that Hippowdon can survive something (maybe a six year-old throwing a foam ball).

Landorus @ Yache Berry
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- U-turn
- Protect
With Sand Force and awesome Speed and Attack, Landorus makes a fearsome attacker on a sand team. Earthquake and Rock Slide are the moves of choice because they are spread moves. U-Turn is pretty neat for running away from Ice-types and things that carry Ice-type moves that Landorus or his active teammate can't OHKO before it OHKOs them. Like Hippowdon (alternatively, the whole team), he can dish out all kinds of hits but takes one as well as a wood board being chopped by a karate expert.

Terrakion @ Expert Belt
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Substitute
- Protect

When Terrakion come in, he usually hits something with a the force of what literally he is: a raging bull. In addition to Close Combat, I used Rock Slide for the spread ability. If Terrakion is able to live long enough, he can place a Substitute in, which I have on him mostly to protect from status. It was a coin flip possibility between Adamant and Jolly, but I felt hitting harder was more important.

Excadrill @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- X-Scissor
- Magnet Rise

Excadrill plays similarly to Terrakion, albeit with different typing, a filler move, and a neat move for all the Earthquakes being thrown around. X-Scissor hits for decent damage. However, the team is still an awful match-up against bulky Grass-types. In short, this is the standard Excadrill that tore through OU and Uber last generation.

Tyranitar @ Tyranitarite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Aqua Tail
- Protect

And now presenting, the Mega that I never use! He isn't bad, though; I usually send him out late game only to be OHKO'd upon touchdown. His spread enables him to "tank" and attack. I usually Mega then use Protect the same turn, then use an attack the next turn so that the first move he uses uses his Mega's speed. The non-STAB move, Aqua Tail, is useful for hitting Ground-types, but that's really it.

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Wide Guard
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
- Protect

Bringing up the rear, it is Utility Swampert boasting the nifty Wide Guard, which I now suspect is probably a waste of team slot because I've yet to see Surf. At all. In fact, I've barely seen spread moves other than my own. Because his job is to use Wide Guard, I avoided investing in Speed. Outside of Wide Guard, I have Swampert bring his unique-among-the-team-STAB Waterfall to hit pretty much whatever Earthquake or Rock Slide will hit. In summary, Swampert only has a team slot over Gastrodon or anything else useful is because of Wide Guard.
 
I do not think this is the best way to build a sand team. Notice that all your pokemon deal physical attacks only. Physical walls like Skarmory and Ferrothorn will laugh in the face of your lack of fire damage and wall you all day. I have little to no experience in double battles, but I think that as a general rule of thumb a variety of moves, rather than earthquakes and rockslides sprinkled liberally throughout your team, is the way to go. You will have tons of trouble with any pokemon who resist both of them, and will be left wondering what went wrong as your whole team struggles to scratch the enemy.

I would suggest heavy changes to your team. Ferrothorn or Skarmory could be a good physical wall to add to your team that would provide entry hazards against the enemy, with ferrothorn able to then provide leech seed/protect as a good set and skarmory offering whirlwind and brave bird nukes to cover some of your weaknesses in enemy grass types. Gastrodon could be used over Swampert as wide guard really isn't that needed for your team, since Gastrodon can absorb enemy surfs to become stronger. Aegislash with King's Shield can be a useful member of your team, especially with Swords-Dance-boosted priority moves, as your team lacks any priority moves to catch squishy but fast enemies.

Really though, you need to look at the numerous threats that you consistently lose to in doubles and look at what you can do to counter those threats.
 
I've played enough of Doubles to know that extensive, and sometimes even excessively unnecessary support is needed to set-up in this (in the rain on my game, Volcarona sets up almost never in Doubles). Aegislash will be completely out of the question unless you can help me figure how to support it enough to set-up. I also struggle with Levitating Pokemon and really anything that can fire off an Ice, Water, or Fire type attack that isn't a STAB attack. I tried entry hazards once in Doubles; it went awfully. I am considering Gastrodon > Swampert because Gastrodon is far more useful. I don't understand the point of walling in Doubles because what about the teammate Pokemon? I don't know of any Pokemon bar Gastrodon and Landorus that is helped by the sand and fires off Special damage.
 
You could use a pokemon with rage powder like amoonguss to buy you time to set up a potentially powerful dragon dance ttar, and as for special pokemon who operate well in sand: heatran with balloon could be good for your team, magnezone or probopass with magnet pull might put you up against enemy steels, and reuniclus with magic guard can set up trick room and reverse the tide on faster enemies.
 
hola
although your team is a sand team, your whole team does not have to abuse sand or be immune to the residual 6%. this is the main reason you are having trouble with ice types and flying pokemon/levitators. to remedy this, i would recommend switching out the following mons for something different: hippowdon, swampert, terrakion. ttar does hippowdown’s job (explained later). there are other wide guarders who can help your team more than swampert (machamp, hitmontop). excadrill, landorus, and terrakion all offer ground, rock, and fighting type attacks. however, they overlap and become redundant with their coverage. i would recommend switching out terrakion as you will probably be gaining another fighting type in his favor if you switch something in for swampert. however, if you would like to keep to your team, here are some suggestions

the individual pokemon:
as you said, hippowdon's main purpose is to set up the sand. tyranitar usually does this better in doubles because tyranitar offers an offensive presence. hippowdown is more niche and usable in singles because of its ability to stall and provide stealth rocks. as you've already noticed, neither of these tactics are very easy or useful in doubles. all in all, i would replace hippowdon with something to diversify your team away from the all sand genre.
a special landorus is usually used if you are going to use incarnate. this set would be life orb sheer force with a movepool like earth power/focus blast/hp ice. however, i would recommend switching to landorus-t primarily for his intimidate support. it would be exact same ev spread and movepool as landorus-i, just with intimidate.
for excadrill, i would recommend taking off x-scissor for protect. as you have already noticed, it does not do very much damage.
for ttar, you might want to try ice punch or fire punch over aqua tail. it allows you to hit the aforementioned pesky grass types along with a number of other things.

i don’t know how to go about this without sounding like a dick
zed is right in that you have too many physical attackers. you will most likely not run into a physical wall, but rather, into things like intimidate and will-o-wisp. changing some of your mons to special attackers would help remedy this.
you will usually not use a dedicated physical wall in doubles as mixed walls are preferred. the reasoning for this is that you only get to bring 4 pokemon and the games are too fast paced for 2 different dedicated walls to do anything. i would highly advise against using forretress and skarmory, as they are singles-oriented pokemon. they do a great job of physical walling, but not so much special walling. and i would concur with DB8 in saying that entry hazards are less of an importance in doubles. most of the time; the time spent setting up hazards is usually better used doing damage to your opponent.
if you were to use gastrodon, i would recommend storm drain > sand force. gastrodon is definitely more defensive, and the ability to draw attacks like scald away from your water weak teammates is definitely appreciated.
sandroom is definitely viable. heatran is slow enough. however, i would advise against adding heatran to this team as it compounds your ground, fighting, and water weaknesses (unless you switch out some of your ground/fighting/water weak pokemon).

overall, try diversifying your mons (the 3 i mentioned in the top) away from ground/rock/steel typing. an example would be like a grass pokemon. it helps defeat water and ground pokemon for its teammates, while at the same time its teammates help cover grass pokemon’s weaknesses.
:]
 
I've heard about Conkeldurr on SandRoom teams. I use a Conkeldurr on HailRoom like this:
Conkeldurr @ Big Root
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
- Protect

Gastrodon is never used without Storm Drain, I've heard. You sounded more like a dick to the other guy than me. Is Gastrodon the mixed wall, or is someone else? Is TTar a good Mega, seeing as I will always use him every game, or is Garchomp better?
 
DB81397 said:
Conkeldurr @ Big Root
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
- Protect
Is Gastrodon the mixed wall, or is someone else? Is TTar a good Mega, seeing as I will always use him every game, or is Garchomp better?
Click to expand...
sorry if i sounded mean zed, i promise i didn't mean to <3
Conkeldurr @ Life Orb
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Ice Punch
- Protect
this set does more damage. i think you would technically get more recovery with big root, it is overall more important for you to be doing damage with a conkeldurr. mach punch is nice priority as your team has none.

my mention of gastrodon was in response to your comment about switching swampert for gastrodon. i was suggesting defensive gastrodon over sand force gastrodon that you mentioned in your second post. gastrodon can definitely be a mixed wall to help your team. here is a good starting set.
Gastrodon @ Sitrus Berry/Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 108 Def / 28 SAtk / 120 SDef
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Muddy Water/ Scald
- Earth Power
- Icy Wind/ Ice Beam
- Recover/ Protect
this is defensive gastro stolen from http://nuggetbridge.com/articles/gastrodon-for-dummies/. if you would like to read up on what it survives, it's in the article, but overall it survives everything (except grass attacks ;])

both ttar and chomp are good megas. chomp is probably a little better between the two. however, your team most likely does not need another physically offensive sand abuser (you already have 3). although powerful, chomp is still prone to intimidate and burns. also, he leaves your team still prone to water and ice attacks (although he himself is not weak to water, by him not resisting water, he does not remedy the water weakness your team has). you would most likely have to switch out one of your sweepers (lando, terrak, exca) for chomp.

seeing as you have probably revised your team over the past couple of hours, a roster of your 6 would be helpful for future comments. :]
 
Give me a bit, and you'll have a revision.

Let's give this another try.

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Yache Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- U-turn
- Protect

Reincarnate Landorus is pretty cool. However, his Therian form boasts the awesome abiliy in Intimidate and a far superior Attack stat. While he isn't as fast, I did address this change in Speed with a better outlook on life Speed control. Anyway, the EVs and Nature are standard for hitting like a semi-truck. A Yache Berry has potential to save his life once. The moves are straightforward. However, their spread nature makes it difficult to score OHKOs.

Excadrill @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- X-Scissor
- Protect

Excadrill remains unchanged from the first team. If he lived long enough to attack, he was fast and powerful, usually dealing around 75% with unresisted STABs. X-Scissor just kinda... exists... Magnet Rise was nifty for avoiding his teammate's EQs, but I never used it. However, although Excadrill is fast, I consider replacing him with Conkeldurr for better coverage against pesky Ice-types and priority.

Tyranitar (M) @ Tyranitarite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Fire Punch
- Protect

Tyranitar boasts a Mega Evolution, Sand summoning, and awesome coverage. Fire Punch is used to nail the Grass and Ice types that potentially plague the team as a whole. Other than that, EVs are meant to allow him to tank hits, which with his Mega, make it easier to do.

Gastrodon @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 160 Def / 92 SDef / 240 HP / 16 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Icy Wind
- Earth Power
- Protect

Gastrodon brings to the table three things that need no explaination: Speed Control, Mixed Walling, and Storm Drain.

Rotom-Heat @ Zap Plate
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Overheat
- Discharge
- Thunder Wave
- Protect

Rotom-H actually has great synergy with my physical attackers in that they resist or are immune to Discharge, which make EQ and Discharge a formidable duo to face in combat. Outside of that, he exists to make the lives of Grass, Ice, and Water types hellish and completely unfun. Thunder Wave is great speed control, too.

Hydreigon @ Draco Plate
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Tailwind
- Protect

Hydreigon is a mean damn dragon. He has three scary things about him: three heads, which is pretty scary. He has awesome coverage, which is also pretty scary. He has one of the most powerful Draco Meteors outside of Pokemon banned from Battle Spot in the game, which is pretty terrifying, too. Tailwind is pretty nifty for supporting the team, too.
 
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Heh no worries, I'm very clueless when it comes to doubles. My short foray into it included such atrocities as a Politoed/Gastrodon combo spamming surf. Anyways, your new team looks pretty sweet and balanced. I might question if you invested too much into speed control with tail wind and icy wind over coverage moves, but other than that, I like the gutsy go for Rotom-H that works great with the team, and the Therian Landorus looks better than the normal one.
 
Thanks, mate.
I love Doubles. My experience with singles included games that included switching and setting up then switching then switching. Basically, I never attacked. Doubles gives Pokemon with little chance in Singles, like Beheeyem, a chance to shine.
 
Hey mate great improvements
the double levitators really allow you to eq spam. i see you've really went the whole hog for speed control. some of your measures might be superfluous. twave on rotom-h might not be quite as useful as will-o-wisp. seeing as you already have measures of controlling speed with icy wind and tailwind, i don't think twave will be that useful. also, idk about your playstyle, but if you use protect much (i personally never use protect) then you should keep protect on rotom. if not you should experiment with volt switch/light screen/tbolt in lieu of protect.
for the hydra, i didn't even know it got tailwind, but that is a super cool set. i think haban berry (dragon resist berry)/chople berry (fight resist berry) may do better than draco plate. being able to eat up an attack may help with getting tailwind set up. however, if you've found the extra damage from draco plate more useful, then keep it.

all i can say is watch out for fighting types, and you should be good
godspeed :]
 
hi there, just wanted to drop in and give you a few tips.

excadrill and landorus-t are somwhat overlapping imo. they both serve the role of eq users. because of this, I would ditch excadrill. landorus-t is a fabulous pokemon so I'm definitely biased towards him. he brings nice ultility in Intimidate + U-Turn and is still very powerful with his based 145 Atk. Also, as finally mentioned, you're somewhat weak to fighting types. i'd suggest talonflame > rotom-h. it covers your fighting weakness with his powerful priority brave bird. it can support the team with tailwind too. :] also, this frees up your rotom slot. i'd try to use rotom-wash. it's extremely good because of it's wide support pool, fantastic typing, levitate and immense bulk. it also has hydro pump and tbolt to hit hard with little investment. since you now have a water type with better synergy with your team, i'd try fitting a steel such as metagross, heatran or scizor over gastrodon. all have nice synergy with all of the rest of your team. :D

hope this doesn't seem like an intimidating wall of text.
~tommy
 
Thanks. There's still room for improvements or modifications here. I can still stick a Choice Scarf on Landorus to encourage Intimidate spam. I can swap Excadrill with Conkeldurr or something to hit Fighting-types; I can bluff Trick Room with Reuniclus, too.

I don't like Rotom-Wash. I can switch him in on an Absorb and he'd flop over and have convulsions. Same thing for Talonflame. I need Gastrodon for sucking in Water-moves that are inevitably aimed at TTar and Landorus. If I have to replace the Easy Bake Oven, I'd rather switch him with Heatran or Metagross because they hit what I need them to hit, which are Grass and Ice types. Don't worry about the wall of text; I'm 400 pages deep into a Stephen King novel :P


UPDATE: I still struggle against bulky Grass and Water types. Also against Mega Kangaskhan. Better details:
Gastrodon adds nothing to the team; I was under the impression that Storm Drain negates all Water moves.
Sandstorm damage... whatever the fancy term is... is a common suspect in my opponent's KOs
We aren't fast enough. Or they aren't slow enough. I don't live long enough to spam Icy Wind.
 
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