Team Dust Devil (Sand Team)

[Saxon5]

TEAM DUST DEVIL​

INTRO:​

Hey Smogonites!!!!! It's been awhile since I've been on here and as of late I have built a team that has been the best team I've built. I played about a year ago, but I gave up seeing that I couldn't successfully build a decent team and was sick of the constant appearance of weather in the OU metagame. But this time around I've decided to embrace weather in the form of Sandstorm. I'm an amateur player obviously,but this team has actually been the most successful of the assortment of teams I have built (UU and RU included). I have a record of 28 wins/ 32 losses on the PS server. I know that isn't impressive at all, but it is extremely better than the records of my past teams. I know this team has potential, but there are a few bumps and imperfections amongst the six pokemon I have chosen. I'm also not sure what direction to take this team, being more offensively oriented, or more stall. Another major issue is that I feel as though I'm not taking advantage of Sandstorm. All that aside, let's dive in shall we.



TEAM BUILDING PROCESS​

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I decided that Tyranitar would be the better choice over Hippowdon for my weather-inducer. He went along better with the direction I wanted to take the team.

I then searched for a nice Spiker or Stealth Rocker. With immunity to Sandstorm, and resistances to numerous types of moves, Skarmory was the obvious pick.

I needed pokemon that could function well under the sand. With STAB Earthquake and Sand Force to abuse my weather condition to the fullest, Landorus was my next addition.

Looking at my team now, I saw I had huge weaknesses to Ice and Water and I lacked a good Special Wall. With an Ice resistance and a complete Water immunity, Jellicent seemed like a logical decision. She also has decent synergy with T-Tar.

With Rain running amok in the OU metagame, NOT running some sort of rain sweeper counter or even an abuser of your own is suicide. Starmie made alot of sense to add to the team due to it's Ice, Water, and Fighting resistances, along with STAB Hydro Pump under the rain and a 100% accurate Thunder that rips apart most rain teams. Even without rain Starmie functions very efficiently.

With Rain covered, I turned my attention to sun teams. What pokemon had great special defense along with resistances to fire and grass, decent speed, and was able to take advantage of sun on its own? Latias of course!

Misc. Thoughts: One weather I didn't cover was Hail. I'm not bashing hail or anything, but I haven't seen enough of it as to where it becomes a threat. besides, Landorus and T-Tar can take care of them with Stone Edge and Stealth Rocks and Spikes provided by Tyranitar and Skarmory respectively.

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS

Tyranitar (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Hasty Nature
- Crunch
- Ice Beam
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake

T-Tar's role on my team is to set up weather. I gave him a Choice Scarf so that he could at least compete with the speed of the other Pokes in the tier. I didn't have pursuit on this set because Pursuit is a horrible move to be locked into. Plus, most people keep their Pokes in nowadays. Crunch is good due to it's reliable power and STAB. Ice Beam allows T-Tar to OHKO(which explains the 4 SAtk EVs. Stone Edge is good STAB with good base power. Earthquake is a good coverage move for T-Tar and takes advantage of the EdgeQuake combination that few Pokemon actually have a resistance to. To be perfectly honest, T-Tar has been underwhelming. Even with a Choice Scarf he still looses some Speed wars. And because this is such an important piece to my team, I could really use some help with his moveset/EVs.


Synergy:
Fighting: Jellicent, Starmie, Landorus,
Ground: Landorus, Latias, Skarmory
Bug: Jellicent, Landorus, Skarmory
Steel: Starmie, Jellicent, Skarmory
Water: Starmie, Jellicent, Latias
Grass: Latias, Skarmory

Skarmory (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 24 Spd
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Roost
- Whirlwind
- Brave Bird

Synergy:
Electric: Landorus, Latias
Fire: Latias, Starmie, Jellicent, Tyranitar

This spot was originally given to Gliscor, however, Gliscor seemed to have a hard time setting up those entry hazards. So I tested Skarm and he did an excellent job and meshed well with the team. Spikes is a nice perk to have on this team(reason is in Landorus' analysis). It can set up Spikes in many ways. For example, when a Dragon uses Outrage(which is common in the tier) they are locked in and Skarm takes minimal damage while setting up some spikes and Roosting off the damage when the Dragon switches out, giving it 2-3 free turns to do whatever he wishes. Whirlwind is for threatening boosters/substituters. Brave Bird is a back-up just in case Skarm gets taunted. All-in-all Skarmory is a great support Poke to have on this team.

Landorus(M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Naive Nature
- Gravity
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power Ice
- Stone Edge

Synergy:
Ice: Jellicent, Starmie
Water: Jellicent, Latias, Starmie

Imagine spamming Earthquake, one of the best moves in the game, whenever you want. Well, you don't have to dream anymore. Landorus can do this using Gravity. This forces all pokemon to lose their Levitate abilities and flying types lose their ground type immunites, therefore making them vulnerable to an Earthquake of a 125 Base Attack+Sand Force+STAB. That... hits like a truck considering that most Pokemon who have Levitate or are part Flying coincidentally are weak to ground moves(ex. Skarmory). With Skarmory's nice contribution in Spikes all Pokemon are grounded and take off an immediate 25% of their health, which makes it easier for Landorus to sweep). Stone Edge's accuracy is boosted by Gravity and HP Ice is used as coverage. The only drawback to Gravity is Landorus, Skarmory, and Latias are now vulnerable to ground moves as well. The only one that it significantly hurts is Skarmory who now has an additional weakness to avoid.

Starmie @ Expert Belt
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Thunder
- Recover

Synergy:
Grass: Latias, Skarmory
Electric: Landorus, Latias
Bug: Jellicent, Skarmory, Landorus
Dark: Tyranitar, Skarmory
Ghost: Skarmory, Tyranitar

IN RAIN:I knew that having a rain counter/abuser was crucial especially to a Sandstorm Team. Politoad has almost a 20% usage rate. So figure, about 1 in every 5 games Starmie gets to abuse Hydro Pump+STAB+Rain along with a 100% accurate Thunder at it's disposal to tear apart Rain Teams. Ice Beam is for Dragonite(under rain anyway) and Recover is there to heal off damage.

IN SAND/GENRAL: One might think that without rain, Starmie may lose it's potency due to the lack of an accuracy boost to Thunder, essentially becoming a wasted moveslot. Well, my team has Gravity support courtesy of Landorus which lowers the evasiveness of all Pokemon, which, in reality, boosts the accuracy of all moves. Thunder gains a more acceptable accuracy, while Hydro Pump finally becomes a reliable move. Ice beam is for OHKOing Dragons and creates a BoltBeam combination with Thunder. It may seem odd that I gave Starmie 0 IVs in Attack, but that lessons the damage done when Starmie is in Confusion. Very nitpicky, but the damage because of confusion could hypothetically cost me a loss. I gave Starmie an Expert Belt so that it least gets some sort of boost, because if I gave it a Life Orb, it wouldn't live long between the damage of the LO and Sandstorm damage. Overall, Starmie is one of the most consistent Pokemon on my team.

Jellicent (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 44 SDef / 216 Def
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Recover
- Scald
- Toxic
- Taunt

Synergy:
Grass: Skarmory, Latias
Electric: Latias, Landorus
Ghost: Skarmory, Tyranitar
Dark: Skarmory, Tyranitar

I wanted a spinblocker and a Pokemon that could check many rain teams on the defensive spectrum. Once again, the 0 Attack IVs are there so Jellicent doesn't hurt itself too badley in confusion. Recover is to heal off damage. Scald is there for the chance of burn to cripple physical attackers. Toxic is there to slowly wear down walls that my team would have trouble with. One problem I noticed with Jellicent was, as she posioned these walls, their immediate response(most of this time, in the same turn) was to Toxic Jellicent in return. I eventually added Taunt to cripple Blissey and Gastrodon and then Toxic them. Leftovers cancels out Sandstorm damage which would normally be on a Jellicent anyway. Jellicent is a good Poke and performs it job well.

Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Recover

Synergy:
Bug: Skarmory, Landorus, Jellicent
Dragon: Skamrory
Ice: Jellicent, Starmie
Dark: Tyranitar, Skarmory
Ghost: Tyranitar, Skarmory

You may notice a common theme amongst this team. Recover. 4/6 of the Pokemon on the team carry Recover/Roost. And I question the redundancy of the move on that many of the members of this team. Anyways, Latias. A Pokemon that I chose for its ability to counter sun teams, high Special Defense, and it's good resistances. Latias' strategy is to Calm Mind on something it can set-up on and then recover off whatever damage it took while Calm Minding and then begin to demolish sun teams using an advantage that the sun team gave to Latias. HP Fire is boosted by Sun, and since most Pokemon on Sun teams are Grass Type Sweepers, it has a very good reason to take up a moveslot. Dragon Pulse is there as a good STAB and is able to hit pokemon that resist HP Fire. However, on paper, Latias looked very nice, but in testing, it doesn't turn out to be as effective. It can't check Ninetales, as most of them carry HP Ice, and it gets outsped quite often. I believe that the EVs may be the cause of this, but I don't know. And I believe that the key to this team's success lies in this slot. I have considered Heatran, but it's low speed turns me away from using it, and I have no idea what kind of set to use if I were to use it.


So that concludes my RMT. I THANK YOU for taking your time to read this, and if you could post and help me that would require an even greater thanks. Any lit nitpicky thing that could help my team I would appreciate. Once again, Thanks!​

 

[Jirachee]

Hi

Your team is going to have a lot of issues against teams who pack Magnezone and something like Choice Scarf Salamence. Salamence can easily spam Outrage against your team since it's fairly slow and frail. Skarmory is your only Dragon resist, and while it's pretty good at stopping most physical dragons, it won't be able to do anything against Magnezone which traps it fairly easily and smashes it with a Choice Specs boosted Volt Switch or Thunderbolt. Furthermore, I don't see what Starmie does for your team. Starmie without Rapid Spin isn't that great of a Pokemon in the current metagame, as its main advantage over other threats is the fact that it offers a fast, offensive spinner, while there are no other Pokemon capable of offering this. I think that your team lacks a dedicated revenge killer, as Tyranitar only outspeeds base 115s, and a good amount of the metagame is able to outspeed that, be it via boosting or holding a Choice Scarf. I think that replacing Starmie with Choice Scarf Keldeo would make your team a lot more effective. Keldeo outspeeds pretty much everything in the metagame, including +1 Salamence, +2 Dragonite, Sand Rush Stoutland, etc.. It also offers you a way to fight against Rain teams, since with its Speed and power, Keldeo is extremely difficult to handle when its STAB Water moves are boosted.

Furthermore, Keldeo synergies exceptionally well with Tyranitar, because Tyranitar can trap a great number of its counters with Pursuit, allowing Keldeo to sweep afterwards. With the newly acquired Choice Scarf Keldeo, you should change your Tyranitar's set to a Choice Band set. With this set, Tyranitar becomes Keldeo's best friend, as it can OHKO things like Latios with Pursuit, and this, even if they stay in. You say that most people stay in nowadays, however, if you can catch something like Latios after it used Draco Meteor, it has no advantage in staying in, so it will probably attempt to switch out, evading Tyranitar's Crunch. While Pursuit is indeed an horrible move to be locked into, with Keldeo's revenge killing abilities, you can beat pretty much any kind of set upper that attempts to set up on Tyranitar, so it's all good.

While Spikes are an excellent addition to any team, they are pretty much always inferior to Stealth Rock, which your team lacks. Stealth Rock hits any kind of Pokemon on the switch, so it's always going to be useful, since Rock resists are not very common anyway, while Rock weak Pokemon are incredibly common (just think of all the Flying typed Pokemon in the metagame.) Stealth Rock is also key when it comes to play against some of the most dangerous threats like Dragonite, breaking its Multiscale. I'd replace Spikes with Stealth Rock on Skarmory, so you gain the superior hazard, and a useful tool against a lot of threats.

With that, I think that your team is going to be much better. I like your Landorus set! Here are the sets you should use:

Keldeo and Tyranitar

Keldeo @ Choice Scarf
Justified
Timid
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
~Hydro Pump
~Surf
~Secret Sword
~Hidden Power Ice

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Sand Stream
Adamant
EVs: 152 HP / 252 Atk / 104 Spe
~Stone Edge
~Crunch
~Pursuit
~Superpower

Good luck!

 

[Saxon5]

Thank you soo much! I did notice that my team struggled with Magnezone. I will definitely try out Keldeo and the new T-Tar set. I think Keldeo will make my team 10x better

 

[Electrolyte]

Hey, neat team!

This is a nice Sand team, and the Gravity use is super cool and makes the team a lot more fun to use. Your team may suffer from some small weaknesses, though. You are a bit weak to Lati@s, Gengar, and Alakazam- as all can outspeed a majority of your team and deal massive amounts of damage. TTar may be used to counter them, but without bulk or Pursuit, those pokemon can just flee or KO you. Hazards could also be an issue for your team- especially since you don't have any powerful attacks to use against Forretress / Ferrothorn bar Latias's weak HP Fire, and because you lack a spinner. This in turn causes VoltTurn to seem like a problem, so I'll try to help you fix that. You yourself also don't run Stealth Rock, so Sun teams could be a bit problematic- especially since, as you said, your Latias doesn't check Sun effectively. To help you patch up some of these problems, I suggest that you make some of the following changes.

I think the biggest step forward you can take to help improve your team is to change Latias's set. Right now, you're focusing all of your evs on bulk- making you both slow and weak, something that Sun teams can easily exploit. To fix this, I would use a Life Orb Latias over your current one.

Latias @ Life Orb
Timid / 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Draco Meteor / Psyshock / Hidden Power Fire / Recover

While this may seem a bit too offensive for you, I think it could work over your current set because it has more speed and initial fire power. This lets you come in against Ninetales and immediately force it out- instead of fumbling for a couple turns and leaving with half the health you came in with. The added power also allows you to apply some more initial pressure against your opponent in the beginning of the match- allowing you to utilize Latias throughout the whole of a match instead of just the end / beginning to set up. The extra speed also lets you beat Fighting types such as Keldeo / Breloom who won't always be easy to handle with just Starmie. It also lets you use Latias to beat banded Dragons, Therians, and the base 100 Speeds. Draco Meteor is your STAB move, and it can smash through many things that don't resist it. It also destroys Dragon types. Psyshock beats Fighting types / Tentacruel, giving you an edge against Rain teams that commonly use those pokemon. Hidden Power Fire beats Scizor, Ferrothorn, and Forretress, OHKO'ing standard Zor and crippling Forre / Ferro. It also helps you beat Sun teams, as its power grows in Sun. Recover gives you longetivity, and helps make up for SStorm / LO damage.

To help you handle your lack of Stealth Rock and inability to defeat faster special attackers, I suggest you use Specially Defensive TTar instead of your current Scarf one. It gives you much needed bulk to help handle opposing Sand / non weather teams.

Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Adamant / 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Crunch / Pursuit / Stealth Rock / Stone Edge

Bulky Tyranitar has SpDef matching Blissey in Sand- and can be used to wall special Dragons that have coverage to beat Skarmory (namely FBlast Hydriegon / Lati@s) With Crunch / Pursuit, you can trap many dangerous setup sweepers too, such as SubDisable Gengar or Double Setup Thundurus-T, both of whom can be annoying for you to face. Tyranitar can now also set SR for you, which will help great when you try to win weather wars. Because your team utilizes Sand relatively less than others, extra hazards can let you apply even more pressure against opposing weather teams- as you will be able to utilize hazards and TTar to force your opponent to switch often. Crunch and Pursuit are your methods of trapping and killing Psychic / Ghosts, and Stealth Rock is hazards that ward off Ninetales and Sun teams. Stone Edge is secondary STAB, as it hits Therians and Bug types relatively hard. If you want more assurance against Steels, you can also try Fire Blast, with a Sassy nature, as it hits Ferrothorn and Forretress for decent damage too.

Now, for some more minor changes. Since hazards do most certainly annoy you especially since you run a Gravity abuser, I'd gice Starmie Rapid Spin over Recover. This lets you beat stall teams with more ease, and it also lets you make vital switches against opposing weather. Since Starmie is a spinner, it can also draw in Ghost types such as Jellicent, which Thunder can maim, or Gengar, which a double switch to TTar will take care of. I also don't really think Ice Beam is the best move to use; you've already handled Dragon types well with Skarm / TTar, so I would probably use Psyshock over Ice Beam, since it always OHKO's Gengar and can be used to hit Fighting types hard too.

Other than that, you look pretty great. Cool team!

 

[ssbbm]

this is actually a pretty good team, but i think the main problem is that you dont know whether youre trying to be offensive or defensive on the team which make sit so that you have to have a weird playstyle

if youre running ttar / latias / skarmory / jellicent then that seems to be decently defensive enough of a team, so note the changes i make will give you a more defensive team than the one you currently have.

my first change is to make your landorus-i into a landorus-t. your current landorus-i isn't running sheer force, so its not like it can really differentiate itself from landorus-t outside of 10 extra speed and a stronger hp ice. on the other hand, landorus-t is both bulkier and stronger outside of sand. the set im thinking of it

landorus-t@ leftovers
adamant
252 hp / 52 atk/ 204 def
-earthquake
-stealth rock
-stone edge
-u-turn

this will provide a stronger defensive backbone (skarm + lando-t is nearly unbreakable). if you do this then you should make skarm specially defensive as its duties as a physical wall are being shared by with landorus-t.

finally, latias should run 252 speed to take advantage of its high speed stat.

tl;dr lando- i -> lando-t; skarm -> spdef skarm; latias - > 252 hp / 252 speed

 

[Saxon5]

Thank you Electrolyte. I will definitely make those changes. And ssbbm I do agree with you that this is an awkward playstyle, but it seems to work so far. Also, I tried Landorus-T before I chagned to Landorus and the reason why I switched him was because Landorus offered more abusing of the weather than the therian version did. Thank you for your opinon and I will definitely give Landorus-t another shot.

Edit: @Electrolyte.
But won't running an offensive Latias be an inferior Latios in the end?