UU sandstorm stall (creative name, i know)

KarateF22

I've always liked sandstorm teams, and have used quite a few in OU. However, i do not play UU much and once i gave it a try, i liked the differing metagames. I missed the prevalence of sandstorm, so i sought to create a team which can abuse sandstorm in the UU environment. So, i created this team.

The team:
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Hippopotas (F) @ Focus Sash
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Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP/164 Atk/94 Def | 13 Spe IVs
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Earthquake
- Protect
- Yawn
- Stealth Rock

There isnt much to expect from poor ol' Hippopotas, as he typically is eliminated quite quickly. Protect prevents fake-out leads from ruining his rock laying while earthquake gives him a chance against electrode leads. Yawn is against non anti-leads, and allows him to be useful by either putting something to sleep or forcing a switch. Nevertheless, his exclusive ability to setup permanent sandstorm in UU is nothing to scoff at.

Gligar (M) @ Leftovers
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Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/6 Spd
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Aerial Ace
- Knock Off
- Roost

Gligar is often used as a pure BP'er, or as some sort of offensive poke. I opt for a more defensive role, one which he easily fills with his 105 base defense and awesome ability; sand veil. Knock off is ALWAYS annoying, as nothing likes their choice band knocked off and without leftovers, many walls will suffer greatly in sandstorm. Roost is obligatory reliable recovery. His high defense allows him to even roost-stall donphans ice shard, as once it misses i can apply toxic to him. I opted for dual STAB Earthquake / Aerial Ace because Earthquake is... well... Earthquake and is nice against the multitude of poison types found in this tier, rocks types as well... Aerial Ace may seem like a poor choice due to its low power but it is massively useful against pokes like hitmontop, hariyama, and the like who love to spam close combat against my team. I must be careful with Hariyama though, as they often pack ice punch which can cleanly OHKO Gligar. It can serve as an anti-grass attack in a pinch too.

Clefable (F) @ Leftovers
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Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP/46 Def/212 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Seismic Toss
- Wish
- Protect
- Aromatherapy

Clefable's specially defensive bulk is something sorely needed on this team, and her ability Magic Guard gives her immunity to indirect damage, including sandstorm. I had originally used Cosmic Power on this set because i liked the defense boost, but in the end Protect proved to be the more useful move. It has saved me more than once against Magnetons who figure their use has expired and vie to end with a bang against my Clefable. Aromatherapy goes without saying and with two sleep talkers on my team it can be abused quite well.

Drapion (M) @ Leftovers
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Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP/6 Atk/252 Def
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Toxic Spikes
- Whirlwind

Drapion, alongside Gligar, forms my physically defensive core. Drapion is also useful in that he sets up, removes, and abuses toxic spikes for my team which is incredibly useful even factoring in the abundance of poison-absorbing pokes in UU. Crunch allows him to deal with annoying ghost and psychic types, assuming they lack a ground-type or boosted move. Earthquake is useful against other drapions or just poison types in general, and helps drapion from being setup bait.

Milotic (F) @ Leftovers
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Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP/200 Def/58 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Surf
- Ice Beam / Recover / Haze
- Sleep Talk
- Rest

Resttalk Milotic solves her common problem of being slapped with toxic and allows her to abuse her ability, Marvel Scale. While asleep, Milotic is actually MORE physically defensive than specially defensive meaning that she becomes a near impenetrable omni-wall. Surf and Ice Beam provide nice coverage, walled only by opposing water types. However, an option suggested to me by shrang has proven not to only be a cool idea, but from my experience actually somewhat practical. using recover alongside resttalk means my Milotic is enormously hard to take down as not even a 3HKO is guaranteed to eliminate her if sleep talk decides to pick recover. It also allows me to stay awake if im not statused or if i have a somewhat beneficial status like burn (in the end, usually more useful than harmful). Another option is Haze which though i have only used once or twice, has proven its worth against the likes of Calm Mind Slowbro.

Cradily (M) @ Leftovers
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Ability: Suction Cups
EVs: 252 HP/6 Def/252 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Stone Edge
- Curse
- Sleep Talk
- Rest

Cradily is, as Narulyg pointed out, the "true master of the ancient art of Sitting There and Not Dying". Cradily is a lot more vulnerable to fighting type moves than Regirock, so i must take care in eliminating them before Cradily enters the field. Unlike Regirock though, Cradily does not fear powerful Hydro pumps and Leaf Storms which often plagued him.... fearing only ice beam, which is rarely STABed and thus has lackluster power. Stone Edge was chosen over Rock Slide because Cradily needs the more powerful move due to having lower attack than Regirock. Resttalk somewhat alleviates the low PP problem anyways as when Stone Edge is chosen asleep it doesnt use any SE pp. Lastly, Stone Edge's high crit chance means that in a curse vs curse war, Cradily is more likely to win than the opponent.

Retired pokes (once used in team, but no longer)

Regirock @ Leftovers
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Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP/6 Atk/252 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Rock Slide
- Curse
- Sleep Talk
- Rest

REPLACED BY CRADILY

Thanks for taking the time to read, please leave a rate! I'm a bit new to the UU metagame, so try not to be too harsh. Both negative and positive rates help, just keep it constructive!
 
I'm just going to quickly throw this out there, but if you have a SS Stall team, you MUST MUST MUST have Cradily.

Cradily is an absolute beast in the sand, shrugging off status and blocking phazing attempts with Suction Cups, and is a true master of the ancient art of Sitting There and Not Dying. It's phenomenally easy to set up Curses, especially because most people's first instinct seems to be to switch into a Toxic user, use Toxic, and try to stall you out while you stat up and then sleep it off.

And not only does it have incredible physical bulkiness with Curse, it is insanely hard to KO with special attacks. For example, specs Porygon2 fails to 3HKO with ice beam. That's a 95-power 2x effective attack, coming off of 462 Satk! LO Moltres does the exact same damage with Fire Blast.

You can slot in Cradily in place of Regirock with the same moveset, nature, EV's, and everything. I personally prefer a bit more atk and def investment for Curse to modify, but to each his own.

Also, look into using Acupressure Shuckle, who if saved for last to prevent phazing, can turn imnent defeat into a glorious victory.

Edit: The world makes no sense. And I'm off to study the type chart again...
 
while regirock is vulnerable to phazing, as you pointed out, he takes super effective fighting moves MUCH better than cradily due to much much higher defense. his sdef is only marginally lower, and his attack is a bit higher. He is also immune to intimidate, memento, and moves like that. that being said, ill give cradily a try as his neutrality to water and grass attacks is appealing
 
in all honestly add aggron to this team somewhere he can help with so much type coverage that you dont have with this team. hes not much stall but he is a great pokemon. or you could also try a trick room sandstorm. never seen it before and ive watched alot of wifi vids. im just throwin stuff out there.
 
Toxic Spikes is lol in UU, since pretty much every team has a poison type pokemon on it (Toxicroak, Drapion and Venusaur are the most common ones). Either drop Drapion for a pokemon who can use normal Spikes or change its set to Rest/Sleep Talk/Crunch/Whirlwind.

Milotic wants: Toxic/Surf/Ice Beam/Recover (same EV Spread and whatnot)

As previously stated, Regirock is outclassed by Cradily, who is the biggest pain in the ass in SS.

I recommend Protect on Clefairy if your going to use wish. Stalls out for more SS damage and lets you scout some.

Thats all I got for now.
 
Berserker Lord said:
uh Narlyug, Cradily is onlt 2x weak to ice, rock isin't hit super effectively by ice.
Click to expand...
Rock is neutral to Ice, Grass is weak to Ice.

Anyway, Cradily is an absolute choice like the first guy said.
My dumb mind suggests me to go with an Stockpile set, which is.. D/C on the good side. I'm not sure it would be possible to take out Cradily in sandstorm with +3 stockpile.. but as he said the set Regirock used is probably better. Too bad Cradily doesn't have Leech Seed but it would probably be broken..
 
Nice team, I'll just go through each Pokemon and say what I think:

Hippo: Replace Yawn with Roar or Toxic. Roar is better due to the fact that you phaze right away and it's not useless with Sleep Clause in effect. Toxic is another option since you already have Drapion for phazing.
Gligar: I'd suggest Taunt/U-Turn over Toxic/Knock Off. While Knock Off is incredibly annoying, Taunt stops setting up or healing. U-Turn is always nice to scout stuff with.
Clefable: Replace Cosmic Power with Encore. She will get set up on easily, and will eventually die to some crit or something like that.
Drapion: I'd replace Taunt with EQ. Since you're not running any Speed on it, you're not going to Taunt anything quickly. EQ allows you to hit Raikou, who is a bitch to pretty much every team.
Milotic: Good. Although you have a few other options to consider in Ice Beam's place. First is Haze, allowing to remove set-ups. Second is Recover. People would go "Ah, Sleeping Milotic, if I get something of magnitude 3HKO would mean I kill it right??." Well if Sleep Talk picks Recover, expect to see ragequiters.
Regirock: Good. I like Crorock, but as everyone has been suggesting, you should at least give Cradily a try. The difference is that Regirock can be phazed, Cradily cannot. Cradily also has a monster of a Special Defense in the Sand, and since you're boosting with Curse anyway, you'd want a good Special Defense to start with.
 
Team updated. Movesets of Gligar, Drapion, Clefable, and Milotic tweaked. Regirock was replaced with Cradily, using almost identical set and EVs. Hippopotas remains unchanged.

A quick question.... i discovered Chansey's description is slightly misleading in that it says you cannot use aromatherapy + wish.... making me presume that included heal bell as well. However, i discovered you apparently CAN have heal bell and wish..... so the question is.... should i use a Clefable or a Chansey with the set currently being used? Clefable is nice because it cant be outstalled and has leftovers in sandstorm... but chansey's extra special bulk is something else as well.
 
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