RMT: My "Sandstorm" offense team.

nbh1

I've always had liked making "gimmick" teams, and have had varying degrees of success. My rain dance team is still one of my most successful teams for example. So I wanted to try my hand at making a sandstorm team. Here it is:

Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Sandstream
252 HP / 152 Def / 104 SpD
Impish
Stealth rock
earthquake
slack off
roar

The first question was, "who did I want as my lead, tyranitar or hippowdon." When analyzing typical lead sets for each pokemon, I realized that tyranitar wouldn't be able to much outside of the start of the match. Hippowdon however is a sturdy wall, with an instant recovery move and the ability to roar away my opponent's stat increases. His role is to absorb set stealth rock up early, absorb physical hits, and take care of any stat boosters before they become to tough to handle.

Gliscor @ Leftovers
Sand Veil
252 hp / 40 atk / 252 spe
Jolly
Swords dance
earthquake
stone edge
roost

I was looking for a physical attacker that could take full advantage of sandstorm being in effect. The speed allows me to able to outspeed positive nature lucario. I chose max hp, to make it as bulky as possible. The rest of the evs are put into attack. Most swords dance sets run hyper cutter, over sand veil. With this ev spread, and assistance from misses because of sand veil, I'm able to get 2-3 swords dances almost every match.

Lucario @ Life orb
Inner Focus
252 atk / 4 def / 252 spe
adamant
swords dance
close combat
extreme speed
crunch

My late game sweeper. I look for an opening to be able to bring him in and get a swords dance up. Unless the opponent's faster and isn't worried about extreme speed, he can rip through many a team.

Heatran @ life orb
Flash fire
252 spa / 4 spd / 252 spe
Timid
Flash fire
Fire blast
earth power
hidden power grass
substitute

I'm aware that this gives me my third water weakness. The benefits outweigh the risks in this case.This guy essentially is my weapon to break the game open early to mid game. I bring him in on either a fire attack, or to an attack it resists. More often then not, opponents think it has a choice scarf. Thanks to the free turn provided by the the switch, I set up a sub. From there. I take out as many pokemon as I can before it's taken out, or I switch out. Unless I have bad luck with misses, or a bad prediction, Heatran usually takes out at least 2 pokemon.

Starmie @ life orb
natural cure
4 def / 252 spa / 252 spe
timid
hydro pump
thunderbolt
ice beam
recover

Along with gliscor, starmie is another attacker who generally is in it for the long hall. Good speed, superb movepool, and a crucial water resistance makes this a crucial element to my team.

Gengar @choice scarf
levitate
4 def / 252 spa / spe
timid
shadow ball
focus blast
thunderbolt
hidden power ice

With delegating heatran and starmie to sweepers, I knew I needed a potent revenge killer. Gengar provides an immunity to ground and fighting which allows me a good chance to switch it. Thanks to a timid nature and choice scarf, Gengar is guaranteed to outspeed the vast majority of pokemon. Hidden power ice and thunderbolt give potent options to virtually guarantee ohko on dragon dance gyarados and dragonite (thanks in large part to stealth rock). Focus Blast and shadow ball guarantee at least a neutral hit on any type. Barring a miss, with good prediction, Gengar almost always gets takes down a pokemon or two before the opponent realizes it's scarfed. While it is vulnerable to pursuit, it allows a great chance to switch in lucario and set up (since most pursuit users have a choice item equipped).

Bottom line: I've done A LOT of testing with variations of this team. While a couple of others have been successful (had moderate success with a rest talker gyarados), this has proven to be the best. So far, I haven't lost with this team. I've even have beaten some of the most respected battlers on the forums that I use to find battles. What do you guys think?
 
Hi! On this team there is a huge Water weakness and no real core. You need another water resist so change Gengar with Scarf Shaymin. This completes a F/W/G core on your team, while still having a revenge killer. There is nothing elseto change as this team is very good. GL with it.

Shaymin @choice scarf
levitate
4 def / 252 spa / 252 spe
timid
Seed Flare
Earth Power
Air Slash
hidden power ice
 
Cool team you have here, nbh. The overall structure of this team is quite solid and it seems your Pokemon all have decent synergy among themselves. A strong strategy is also being implemented and it seems you've got a good chunk of opposing threats covered well, so to be honest, this team looks pretty good as of right now. However, I see a couple of Pokemon which may be troublesome at times if they get the chance to set up; dragon dance Gyarados would be the foremost threat (but there are also others like swords dance Lucario, substitute Heatran, LO Starmie, swords dance Scizor, etc) as after setting up, it can pretty much decimate your team after they have taken a small amount of residual damage; seeing as Gyarados is commonly paired up with Scizor, your main check to Gyarados, Gengar won't be able to help if Scizor manages to trap and KO it. To help with Gyarados (as well as the other problems your team has), I recommend replacing your Gengar with a choice scarf Flygon which not only is able to revenge kill the aforementioned threats, but also, fits nicely into a sandstorm team (due to its typing) and can also keep up momentum with U-Turn to help find an opportunity for your other sweepers to come in and set up. I hope this has helped and good luck!
 
Scarf T-Tar can really mess your team up, outspeeding Heatran, Starmie, and Luke and KOing them, and trapping Gengar locked into anything but Focus Blast
 
Choice Scarf conundrum.

The choice scarf shaymin is an interesting idea and I'll look into it. I've actually tried using Choice Scarf flygon in one of the previous incarnations. I found I didn't really like it. I have encountered Scarfed Tyranitar, and it hasn't caused me any problems yet. If brought in on my gengar, my gengar would go down if locked into a move other then focus blast. It still provides the perfect opportunity to bring in lucario and set up. If I change gengar to either flygon or shaymin, it would give me the issue of having half my weak to ice (in addition to water in flygon's case).
 
Wait a second, the person who posted that shaymin set posted a set that isn't possible. Shaymin doesn't have the levitate ability.
 
Shaymin resists ground and has decent bulk, so you might want to try it. I see you need a fighting/ground/water resist/immunity scarfer in the last slot, and typing-wise Celebi is a perfect fit. Not sure if you'd want one though, but it makes up a CeleTran combo on your team and that's always great.
 
"Decent"? Gee, 101 Subs with pretty good defences, doesn't seem that bulky to me. Shaymin are pretty much the same, but on this team, I see Celebi doing better. It seems that Celebi would be pretty awesome on this team. CScarf w/ Leaf Storm, Earth Power, HP Ice, and filler in general wrecks havoc.
 
thanks guys

I'll make the celebi and try it out. It definitely would give better synergy for the team. I'm just hoping the drop in power and loss of dragon dancer (with more then one boost) coverage won't hurt me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top