Sand Tomb, a ladder scaling team.

Genobee

First of all I wanna apologize for my bad grammar since english is not my main language.

Well, I've been trying to climb on the ladder of smogon for like 2 days with this team and I wanna a review in it, maybe it's lacking something that I can't see and another peoples opinion may help me. It's a vary standard OU team with some unexpected things that can catch some teams off guard.

I'm a sand players since GEN 4 and Tyranitar is my favorite poke since GEN 2, I've been using him since forever, and I once again wanted to use him in my team, so he was the first pick for the team.

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Tyranitar (F) @ Chople Berry
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 232 HP / 8 Def / 208 SDef / 60 Spd
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Pursuit
- Stealth Rock
- Superpower
- Fire Blast​

He's in the team mainly to set up rocks, set up sand, and trap out some guys like Lati@s, Chandelure, Deoxys-S, and other guys. Fire Blast is for Scizors that tend to U-turn him, so I've put some speed EV's to outspeed banded Scizors and OHKO them, even with the -SAtk nature. It can withstand some special punishment, but not for long since he lacks recovery and lefties. Chople berry for Superpower Deoxys-S and other things. Superpower is in the set to maim other Ttars.

My second poke was suposed to be a sand abuser and with GEN 5 came Excadrill, he hits like a truck after swords dance, can't be poisoned, can't be paralyzed, and resists bullet punch. It's the main reason to use him instead of Terrakion.

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Excadrill (M) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Rock Slide
- Swords Dance​

Air Balloon to sometimes resist earthquakes and to make switch-ins smoother, but i'm thinking of using Life Orb so that I can pull some immediate power mainly to revenge kill Keldeo, cos he can wreck my team really bad. Adamant nature instead of Jolly cos it's awesome reach 810 Atk after a Swords Dance. Rapid Spin is there mainly as a filler.

My third slot was supposed to be another sand abuser, but that would be meaningless if I can't set sand, so I need something to scare politoeds and take water hits. So as I was looking through the forum pages I saw a poke that could work for me. So I came up with Suicune that gets Water Absorb in DW, It could turn the tides of battle for me.

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Suicune @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Calm Mind
​

I chose a more offensive set so it could really be a threat to the oposing team. The rest-talk set is nice but doesn't really fit my needs, a way to deal with other water types mainly Manaphy and Politoed. Bad thing is that it can only count with HP:Electric for the job.

Now I needed someone to put a stop to other sand abusers like Terrakion, Excadrills and Landorus. Gliscor could be exactly what I need since he can survive even unboosted Rock Slides/Stone Edges and fire Earthquakes against Excadrills and Terrakions and Ice Fang non-HP:Ice Landorus.

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Gliscor (F) @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Taunt
- Protect
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang​

Even though I like this set very much, I'm not sure about the Swords Dance, so i've changed it for Taunt so I can have an answer against stall teams, but still i'm unsure and Toxic coulda work just as fine. Protect to scout and get some recovery of poison heal, Eq/Ice Fang for coverage. It can check Breloom too, since he can't Spore me, but I can harm him with Ice Fang.

Now that I have a sand abuser, sand setup and some defences, I needed a revenge killer. The best one is Ditto, but since its release, I wanted to use Shadow Tag Chandelure. And he's awesome. The ability to trap some threats, some scarfers, or slower foes is awesome.

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Chandelure (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Shadow Tag
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Overheat
- Energy Ball
- Hidden Power [Ice]
​

Choice Scarf turns it's already awesome SAtk into a real weapon into DW OU, since now it outspeeds most threats and kill them, simply as that. Overheat instead of Fire Blast cos it's a hit and run set, so I love the extra power and accuracy. Energy Ball for coverage. I used to have HP:Fighting but now i'm using HP:Ice to revenge kill against Chomps, Nites, Mences, Gliscors and Landorus.

My last slot was destined to a pokemon that could cover some gaps in my team, and I saw a Deoxys-S set that caught my eye. A offensive Set that could outspeed Scarfed Genesect and had an awesome coverage.

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Deoxys-S @ Life Orb
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Superpower
- Psycho Boost
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Thunder
​

It have and awesome coverage and can OHKO many things. Superpower is there to hit Ttars, killing it if it doesn't carry Chople Berry. Psycho Boost is an awesome STAB move, hitting hard everything that doesn't resist it. HP:Fire is to get genesects and scizor, severely hurting ferrothorn also. Thunder hits hard every rain sweeper, effectively revenge-killing them, mainly Keldeo and Manaphy, the most dangerous ones.

changes in RED

Rate my team please guys, construtive ratings are welcome.
 
All, right, this looks like a fairly solid DW sand team. It might help people trying to rate it if you would give a little more info as to what kinds of threats trouble you, but I'll note some of the issues I see.

For excadrill, I really don't see the need for rapid spin. I mean, sure it's nice, but your only rock-weak is chandelure who really shouldn't be switching around a lot, and exca can use the time spent spinning to get an SD boost. Possible options for the third slot are frustration, x-scissor, and brick break. However, if you feel you're weak to stall teams or just that hazards are annoying to you, rapid spin can totally be kept.

I would suggest changing chandelure's set from specs to scarf. With shadow tag, chandelure is one of the best revenge killers in the game, but it can only do that if it outspeeds its target, and the power from specs is basically not needed as chandelure is already basically OHKOing everything with a supereffective move. I would also change HP [fighting] to HP [ice], as fighitng is basically just for tyranitar, which isn't such a huge deal for sand teams, especially since every other member of the team hits it for supereffective damage. HP [ice] allows you to revenge garchomp, salamence, gliscor, landorus, and +1 dragonite (most of the time). This would also mean changing the EVs to basic 4/252/252 (probably modest, as timid usually isn't needed).

For gliscor, I would suggest taunt > swords dance. First of all, your current set is set-up bait for spikers like skarmory and forretress, who will laugh at your attacks (especially given no attack investment). Furthermore, when exactly is gliscor going to have the time to SD? Skarmory could just whirlwind you away, while excadrill sets up in your face and 2HKOs after enough boosts while you have to waste a turn breaking the balloon. Taunt helps with this while also helping against stall, which your team seems fairly weak to--a skarmbliss core walls everything except for deoxys (and tyranitar to a degree, although skarm won't take much from fire blast).

I also notice a big weakness to rain (although just about every sand team has that). Manaphy with energy ball OHKOs everything at +3 even with sand up, and nothing on the team can OHKO it. Furthermore, the only things that can outspeed the offensive set are deoxys and excadrill in sand. This basically means that if ttar gets knocked out and the opponent has politoed and manaphy, deoxys is your only hope at stopping a manaphy sweep. However, psycho boost cannot KO even without any investment in HP or special defense, with superpower doing way less and hp [fire] and ice beam being resisted. Manaphy could then go on to sweep the team. Changing chandelure to scarf helps to remedy this, but energy ball only manages 60-70% IIRC. To help with all of this, I would suggest changing something on deoxys for thunder(bolt), most likely ice beam. Thunder is probably the better option since it would be used almost exclusively against rain teams, when you get perfect accuracy. Thunder has about a 30% chance to OHKO at full health, a guaranteed OHKO with SR damage. Even if deoxys fails to OHKO, chandelure can easily come in to revenge.

Hope these comments helped :)
 
Kidogo said:
For excadrill, I really don't see the need for rapid spin. I mean, sure it's nice, but your only rock-weak is chandelure who really shouldn't be switching around a lot, and exca can use the time spent spinning to get an SD boost. Possible options for the third slot are frustration, x-scissor, and brick break. However, if you feel you're weak to stall teams or just that hazards are annoying to you, rapid spin can totally be kept.

In fact, I kept rapid spin just in case some toxic spiker pops up. TS can severely harm my cune and my chandelure, since both take hazard dmg, sandstorm dmg and toxic dmg, so i'm keeping cos excadrill have nothing better

I would suggest changing chandelure's set from specs to scarf. With shadow tag, chandelure is one of the best revenge killers in the game, but it can only do that if it outspeeds its target, and the power from specs is basically not needed as chandelure is already basically OHKOing everything with a supereffective move. I would also change HP [fighting] to HP [ice], as fighitng is basically just for tyranitar, which isn't such a huge deal for sand teams, especially since every other member of the team hits it for supereffective damage. HP [ice] allows you to revenge garchomp, salamence, gliscor, landorus, and +1 dragonite (most of the time). This would also mean changing the EVs to basic 4/252/252 (probably modest, as timid usually isn't needed).

I did these changes on chandelure and now he's even better. I still miss the sheer power from the overheats into politoed switchs (sometimes I could take up do 35% from them even under rain) but now with HP ice I can use Thunder on my Deoxys-S which can now work as my anti lead against politoed, and also revenge kill manaphy. Chandelure is a beast ever more now.

For gliscor, I would suggest taunt > swords dance. First of all, your current set is set-up bait for spikers like skarmory and forretress, who will laugh at your attacks (especially given no attack investment). Furthermore, when exactly is gliscor going to have the time to SD? Skarmory could just whirlwind you away, while excadrill sets up in your face and 2HKOs after enough boosts while you have to waste a turn breaking the balloon. Taunt helps with this while also helping against stall, which your team seems fairly weak to--a skarmbliss core walls everything except for deoxys (and tyranitar to a degree, although skarm won't take much from fire blast).

I'm using taunt on gliscor now, but still I haven't noticed a significative change, i'm thinking of using toxic or sub so I can stall better. Still I haven't found a stall team as well, so I still can't exclude taunt at all, so i'll keep it for a while.

I also notice a big weakness to rain (although just about every sand team has that). Manaphy with energy ball OHKOs everything at +3 even with sand up, and nothing on the team can OHKO it. Furthermore, the only things that can outspeed the offensive set are deoxys and excadrill in sand. This basically means that if ttar gets knocked out and the opponent has politoed and manaphy, deoxys is your only hope at stopping a manaphy sweep. However, psycho boost cannot KO even without any investment in HP or special defense, with superpower doing way less and hp [fire] and ice beam being resisted. Manaphy could then go on to sweep the team. Changing chandelure to scarf helps to remedy this, but energy ball only manages 60-70% IIRC. To help with all of this, I would suggest changing something on deoxys for thunder(bolt), most likely ice beam. Thunder is probably the better option since it would be used almost exclusively against rain teams, when you get perfect accuracy. Thunder has about a 30% chance to OHKO at full health, a guaranteed OHKO with SR damage. Even if deoxys fails to OHKO, chandelure can easily come in to revenge.

Most of the times, my manaphy check is suicune, I can set 2 CMs in front of him and then kill it with HP:Electric, but, if cune is down, i lose. Now I have Deoxys-S carry thunder, and it can function now as a Revenge killer against Politoed, Manaphy and Keldeo (which is the biggest threat against my team)

Hope these comments helped :)
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I'd like to say a lot of thanks for the rating, it made my team even better. Now i'm placed into 28 in the ranking and still climbing.
 
Glad my suggestions helped ;) Definitely keep rapid spin on exca if it is useful for you. On gliscor, I agree with the possibility of something over taunt--although it makes sense, it never seems to work for me. A possible suggestion I might make is aerial ace--it gets you nice damage on fighters and an OHKO on breloom. There are other options though too.

Congrats on the rank!
 
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