VGC Sand Team

[manavtheboss]

I was pretty bored, so I was looking around for a nice team idea, when I remembered sand teams. They can be quite strong, with some pokemon like T-tar, Excadrill (The king of sand IMO), Hippowdon, Terrakion, and Landorus. So without further ado, here is my team:

Jerry (Excadrill) Life Orb/Air Balloon

Sand Rush, Adamant, 252 Att, 68 Spe, 188 HP
-Earthquake
-Iron Head
-Rock Slide/Swords Dance
-Protect/Swords Dance

Self Explanatory. Excadrill is an absolute speed devil with insane attack to boot. Earthquake and Iron Head for STAB. Rock Slide is a nice atack for coverage, spread damage, and also flinching, while swords dance is for potential switches and protects and other predicts, to get your already insane attack over the roof for essentially guaranteed OHKOs (most sash pokemon are also dead after sandstorm damage) and Protect for scouting, predictions, protecting if you use your own spread move, etc. and Swords Dance for the same reasons stated earlier. Life orb is for extra damage, and air balloon is some temporary ground immunity.

The King (Tyranitar) @Tyranitarite

Sand Stream, Mild, 208 HP, 252 SpA, 36 Atk, 12 Def
-Dark Pulse
-Rock Slide
-Ice Beam/Earthquake
-Protect

Ttar is a great sand setter, with great defensive, and offensive stats. Normal and mega both have sand stream for setting, or resetting sandstorm (go mega). Dark Pulse and Rock Slide are both great STAB attacks. Ice Beam is a dragon, ground, flying, or grass killer, and Earthquake for general coverage. Protect is for scouting, spread moves, and predicts.

TheHornedOne (Terrakion) Choice Band

Justified, Jolly, 252 Atk, 252 Spe, 4 SpD
-Close Combat
-Rock Slide
-Iron Head
-Earthquake

Choice banded killing machine. Close combat and rock slide for STAB, Iron Head and Earthquake for coverage.

GreenGoblin (Latios) Red Card

Levitate, Bold, 252 Spe, 252 HP, 4 Def
-Roost
-Dragon Pulse/ Draco Meteor
-Psyshock
-Protect

Latios is a great pokemon in general, with great stats and good movepool. Roost is nice recovery. Dragon pulse could be used in place of draco meteor due to the lack of stat drops, and psyshock is nice STAB. Protect again for the same reasons. I run red card because at this moment i can not think of a good item and red card is pretty hilarious. I would appreciate some item suggestions!

For these last two slots I was looking for some nice bulk or priority. I was thinkg between pokemon like scizor, hippowdon, talonflame, mandibuzz, porygon2, lando-T, azumarill, and rotom-W

ScumEater (Mandibuzz) Leftovers

Overcoat, Calm, 252 Def, 252 SpD, 4 HP
-Roost
-Foul Play
-Defog/Protect
-Toxic/Protect

Mandibuzz is a very nice fit as it is a great tank, and its ability, overcoat, also grants sandstorm immunity. Roost is for recovery, and Foul Play is some damage to wear down opponents.
Defog could be useful, for the occasional spikes and sticky web, but i prefer protect because rocks aren't to worrysome for this team. Toxic is nice to wear down opponents and toxic stall.

And finally, as i wanted a revenge killer/priority user, and something to counter fire types,

RescueRabbit (Azumarill) @ Assault Vest

Huge Power, Adamant, 252 Atk, 252 HP, 4 SpD
-Knock Off
-Aqua Jet
-Play Rough
-Waterfall

Azumarill is a great pokemon for revenge killing. It is quite bulky, has a powerful priority attack in aqua jet, and access to great moves like play rough and knock off. This set is quite good at countering special attackers and the combination of latios, mandibuzz, and azumarill, I feel you get a solid defensive core. It is also a nice counter to fire types.

Matchups:
I haven't doe too much testing yet, but off the bat, some powerful teams, like rain, sun, perish trap, trick room, mix n match teams are decent matchups for this team.

Rain and Sun: Sand will actually be set over the others as the sand setter, Ttar is very slow compared to ninetails, charizard y, and politoed, so it will set after the opposing pokemon and sand will be the actual weather condition up, allowing a big advantage.

Trick Room: It could be a slight problem, as this team is quite speed built.

Perish Trap: Difficult to tell, as perish trap is strong, but uncommon

Mix n Match: I feel a lot of common pokemon are easily dealt with due to excadrill alone. It outspeeds essentialy the entire meta under sand rush, and can easily kill them. Strong backup in Ttar, Terrakion, and Azumarill is good for cleanup or even general offense. However, Tflame is pretty problematic.

Share your thoughts down below, with critique, suggestions, or anything you like! Constructive Critisism appreciated!

 

[Pyritie]

I do seriously suggest testing with this team a little -- I'm sure you'll find all of the earthquakes you have (and lack of protects) means you'll frequently be forced to either EQ your own pokemon or not EQ at all.

Excadrill is pretty frail, and I think focus sash is a much better item for it, especially if you want to do the swords dance route.

Your tyranitar is ok but I don't think the mixed set is as useful as it was in 2014. Mega tyranitar likes a dragon dance set with rock slide, DD, crunch, and protect. If you want an all-out attacker, I think a scarf set would be better, with rock slide, crunch, ice punch, and superpower/low kick.

You've already got another rock type so I think you should replace terrakion completely.

Latios wants 2 stabs (draco meteor & psyshock/psychic), a coverage move (energy ball, thunderbolt, ice beam, HP ground, etc), and protect. I think life orb or specs are better items for it (obviously if you go with specs, replace protect with something)

I think your mandibuzz will sit there and do nothing the entire match. Pokemon who can take hits but can't really do anything back usually aren't very good, and VGC is far too fast paced for toxic stall. Hazards are almost never seen, so you don't need a defogger. If you want a support mon, consider something like a togekiss. This would also pair well with your excadrill and tyranitar (especially if you use the mega DD one), as togekiss can spam follow me while excadrill EQs everything or ttar sets up a DD. Here's a sample togekiss:

Togekiss @ Sitrus Berry / Safety Goggles
Ability: Serene Grace
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 196 Def / 4 SpA / 12 SpD / 60 Spe
Bold Nature
- Follow Me
- Tailwind
- Air Slash
- Protect

It survives LO bisharp iron heads, most mega metagross iron heads (can 100% survive jolly 252 but not adamant 252) - even with one turn of sand damage! The speed lets you outspeed adamant scarf landorus-t by one point under tailwind.

Azumarill looks fine, though it isn't great in the current meta.

Sand is fine and all but also try to make sure your team isn't completely reliant on it. Ttar + exca are fine together (like with politoed and ludicolo), but the other four should be able to hold up by themselves.

 

[P3DS]

If you want the new japanese archetype for sand, they run sash exca/scarf ttar/amoonguss/special mega salamence +2 others for coverage. I'd drop terrakion and mandibuzz, for the aformentioned togekiss and breloom, as this deals with your water weakness better, and provides redirection support.

 

[KantoCastRed]

I pretty much agree with the two comments above (except special Ttar is still a threat) but to build on them:

Swap Azu for Rotom-W. Azu can always do work but an advantage of picking Rotom-W in this spot is that: 1) Levitate frees you up for more Earthquakes and 2) its offensive not affected by Intimidate/ Burn. Yes Snarl is a thing now but its common users (eg. Arcanine, Suicune, Entei) all fear its STAB.

Latios is cool but that set doesn't really make sense to me. Its also a generally inferior choice to Mega Salamence imo (I'd suggest mixed over full special because Double-Edge is a great nuke and he goes down to basically any Ice moves anyway so you aren't missing much with Naive over Jolly), so you may just want to snipe the Japanese team build mentioned above + Rotom-W and a 6th.

Aegislash could work well there helping you deal with fairies threatening Sally and Ttar and offer Wide Guard support. Plus, Weakness Policy variants can OHKO M.Metagross, M.Khan, & M.Sally without fear of being OHKO'd in shield form and he's generally a strong choice against them anyway.