ORAS OU Sandcadrillasaur - Sand Rush

[vikeyev]

Sandcadrillasaur

This is my Sand rush excadrill team, built specifically around a Tyranitar-Excadrill core.​

The Team

Excadrill @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
- Rock Slide​

Excadrill is used as my main sweeper, Sand Rush to almost always guarantee a first hit, Earthquake for a powerful STAB and and excellent coverage against common threats such as Heatran, Ttar and the frustratingly powerful Mega-Medicham. Iron head for another great STAB to hit those pesky bulky Fairy's (and a way to hurt the Latis etc). Rock Slide to give him a semi reliable way to take on common flying threats like Talonflame and Mega-Charizard Y.​

Tyranitar @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Ice Beam​

Ttar, almost always used as a starter, to set up Sand Storm. Stealth Rock for entry hazards, Stone Edge for a powerful STAB attack for extra coverage over Flying, Fire and Ice threats like Talonflame and Empoleon etc. Pursuit to trap common Ghost and Psychic threats like Gengar and Mew and Ice beam to for coverage against slower/weaker Dragons and grass types like Celebi etc.

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 8 Def / 200 SpD / 56 Spe
Careful Nature
- Taunt
- Toxic
- Roost
- Knock Off

Taunt Gliscor to prevent Protect healing/wishing etc. Toxic to whittle down Sweepers and Bulky threats like Garchomp etc. Roost for added recovery on top of Poison Heal and Knock Off to help shut down Pychic/Ghost threats and threats that rely on Items.

Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Ice Punch

Lucario with Close Combat to shut down Bulky Special Walls Like Chansey and Blissey and to help against common threats like Ferrothorn, Heatran and Magnezone. Extreme Speed is invaluable in finishing off faster pokemon that have already been worn down. Ice Punch for better coverage against common Dragon threats like the Latis or Grass threats.

Venusaur-Mega @ Venusaurite
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 248 HP / 96 Def / 144 SpD / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Synthesis

Mega Venusaur with Giga Drain for STAB coverage against common water threats like Rotom-w and Azumarill. Sludge Bomb for another great STAB against some Grass and Fairy threats (and the occasional poisoning), HP-Fire lets it take on steel types like Ferrothorn etc and Synthesis for recovery when the Sandstorm subsides.

Blastoise @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 184 HP / 252 SpA / 72 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Rapid Spin
- Roar
- Aura Sphere​

Last and certainly not least, Rapid spinner Blastoise, for coverage against entry threats and common Fire and Rock threats. Roar for a little more utility and forcing out common switch-ins against Blastoise and Aura Sphere for threats like Keldeo and Kyurem etc.

Final Notes​

So far this has been an amazing team that has gone through repeated alterations, Exca and Ttar are the only 2 originals from that team. Gliscor was added soon after, Lucario was added because I had no reliable way to take out threats like Ferrothorn, and Venusaur and Blastoise were added earlier this morning to replace the far less bulky Celebi and the....virtually dead weight Tentacruel.

 

[zbr]

hello there! nice to see luke getting some love once again but i'm sure you'll need to flesh out your rmt more otherwise the deadly dual chopping banded haxiom will come and lock this rmt up. so before he does that, i'm going to try and give you some opinions of mine on the team. first off, nice balance squad that utilises sand! sand balance is a rly interesting type of team but i think you've taken a different approact to it. i'm going to slightly bump the team up a bit by retaining the sand core while changing a bit of mons here and there so you can have a bit more fun with the squad.

first off, i know mvenu is rly good at it's job but in your team it's kinda awkward. you want to be able to heal up with synthesis but you can't because of the sand. but if sand ends then you need to set it up again later for drill to sweep otherwise it becomes a lot more dead on the field. i don't think that's quite a good idea. both in theory and in practice it's a bad combo (unless you aren't running smoothtar but then that's another story altogether) so my first suggestion is let's bump out mvenu for standard amoongus. why standard amoongus? for the exact same reason as why you used mvenu, only it's much more reliable on this team as well as the fact that now you've loosened up the mega slot so you can have something fun in there!

im not sure what mega you would want to run in the slot that was just freed up, but personally, i think that mega lopunny, mega zard xy, mega gardevoir, are all great options for the team but since we hate chansey and her friends so much, i think we will opt for mega gardevoir with taunt over lucario will almost always give stall the work. msab can't switch in, spdef talon can't take psyshock + hvoice, taunt stops chansey allowing you to go into ttar to trap it or psyshock it. overall, mgarde would do what luke wanted to do but better due to it's much stellar fairy typing.

the blastoise set you're running is used mainly in RU as a fatmon set. blastoise in general should only be used if you want to use it's megastone otherwise there are many other spinners that actually outclass it. however for this change i am actually going to suggest that you run rotom-w over blastoise. a sand team needs a good pivot. and rotom-w is a good one to use in this team because it not only can burn common physical attackers, but it can also switch out to maintain momentum for the team.

another minor tweak would be to run air balloon / life orb over lefties on excadrill. this is because you don't necessarily need the longevity on drill but you definitely need the power. with these changes your hazard controller is now out of the picture but generally with taunt garde you should rarely have an issue with rocks since majority of the rockers (bar jirachi but you have gliscor) are not going to like taking either a hvoice / fblast or a psyshock from garde which makes it a rly good way to limit hazards considering now you will have two taunters on the team. but should you think that hazards still make you uncomfortable then you can opt for rapid spin over sd on excadrill. this way hazards can easily be limited on your side of the field.

lastly, keep in mind that kyurem-b will always be a problem to sand cores. no matter what rendition of the sand team you play, as long as you play sand, then it's likely that you will end up being weak to kyub but understand that if you play smart around it, you should be able to limit the damage it does to your team. hopefully my suggestions help you climb up the ladder more and improve your team so that it rectifies some of the weaknesses that are present. good luck and have fun in the game! /cheers/

sets

Amoonguss @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 168 Def / 92 SpD
Bold Nature
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Clear Smog
- Hidden Power Fire

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 172 Def / 88 Spe
Bold Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

 

[Rampecker]

Hi! You have a good team there, M-Venu + Sand is a standard core and its effective.

I found some issues with your team, one of them being M-Alakazam, this mon can pressure your team a lot since your only switch-in to it is Gliscor which can get 2HKO'd after rocks, you can revenge it with Lucario but that's it, Excadrill can't check it because it Traces Sand Rush so it always outspeeds you. M-Pinsir is another big problem for your team, with Return it can do a lot of damage to your team since your only flying resists are Tyranitar and Excadrill and they lose to Close Combat. Psychic Manaphy is probably the biggest problem to your team, it's able to OHKO everything with rocks up after a Tail Glow and you don't have a good way to revenge kill it.

Latios >

Blastoise: Blastoise isn't really viable in OU, it doesn't have reliable recovery so it gets worn down too fast. Latios was a good replacement for it, it has Defog for hazard removal which is nice since your team is really weak to Spikes, it's able to check Volcanion and its another check to Keldeo since M-Venu doesn't like getting burned by Scald. Latios has reliable recovery with Roost and the main reason I chose it over Starmie is because it gives you a check to Psychic Manaphy, that mon can literally 6-0 your team. As the last move you can choose between Thunderbolt, Psyshock or Surf, Tbolt hits water types like Azumarill or Volcanion, Psyshock hits M-Venu/Amoonguss and Surf hits Heatran/Lando/Tyranitar.

Chople Berry > Smooth Rock: This helps you with the weakness of M-Zam and M-Pinsir, with a Chople Berry Tyranitar is able to take a Focus Blast from M-Zam and attack it to put it in range of E-Speed from Lucario, it also takes a Close Combat from M-Pinsir and OHKOs with Stone Edge. Without Smooth Rock you have less sand turns but that helps M-Venusaur since that way it can recover 50% from Synthesis thanks to sand not being there.

That's it for my rate. You are still a little bit weak to M-Scizor, but with HP Fire M-Venu you should be fine since you have ways to play around it and it only gets a free SD on Latios and Tyranitar so be careful with that. I hope you like the changes, have fun!

Sets

Latios (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Surf / Thunderbolt / Psyshock
- Roost
- Defog

Tyranitar @ Chople Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Ice Beam