Sand Castles - An Uber Sand Team

Question

Welcome to the beach…

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I decided to post this team now as X and Y are coming soon which will most definitely affect the Metagame. There are no replays and no ladder peaks, so I apologize for that in advance.

Cept this one...

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Around three weeks ago I decided to make an Uber team using the
weather I had not used before; Sand. The team was made, utilizing TTar
as my Sand Setter, Excadrill, Palkia, GhostCeus, Terrakion, and someone
who is no longer remembered. I used the team, it was ok to an extent. Yet I kept
having problems with it. And just recently while battling Poke'Slash,
she mentions that it's a good team. Except it wasn't functioning like
a team should. And despite my issues with battling recently, I knew I
wasn't that gawd awful. So there was something wrong with the team
itself. So I went to showdown and looked at the team. It came down to
one pokemon that I, personally, could not use effectively. Tyranitar.
This was the entire problem I was having with the team. The team was
good, I was good, but I couldn't use the team. So being incredibly
lucky I brought in the only other sand setter.

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Teambuilding Process

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Hippowdon has a higher Defense and Bulk than Groudon. This means I have a Defensive Castle with a recovery move, something that TTar lacks.

I was not aiming for pure stall however, but rather a mix between Offense and Defense, as this has proven to be my best play style. However, the two biggest problems Hippowdon had were water attacks and any strong special attack in general. To deal with these simultaneously I brought in Arceus-Grass which can tank a Full HP Water Spout and live around 50% HP. With max SDef and HP it allowed me to spread status and stall out Special Attackers with STAB Judgement and Earth Power.

However I was now packing two pokemon with an Ice weakness. This meant I needed a fire type. Reshiram entered the scene as someone who's typing benefited the team and who already had several weaknesses covered. However with a glaring dragon weakness in a tier filled with dragons, and a still pressing special attack weakness and no one taking full advantage of Sand, I brought in the one pokemon I knew could handle all my problems, Heatran.

With three walls and one Special attacker I decided I would need a Scarfer (Reshi was Specs). The pokemon to enter my head immediately was one I'd seen on Slash's and KoD's team, Scarf Mewtwo. So I slapped it onto the team, and it fulfilled its role wonderfully.

I still had a sixth slot so without any thinking I slapped on a pokemon I'd never used previously and went to test the team. Darkrai makes for great stuff, but in the end was not the man for the job.

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Test Edits

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Italicized - Previous Members
Bold - New Members

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• The first one to change in favor of typing balance and a need for a
  spinner, was Darkrai. Forretress entered the scene. With typing and
  capabilities as a hazard setter and spinner it worked quite well.

• The next to leave the team was Mewtwo in favor of Palkia. This change
  and the next one happened almost simultaneously as I realized I had
  no physical attacker, and that Palkia would help my water weakness
  better than Mewtwo.

• With Palkia on the team Reshiram needed to go. I had a desperate need
  for a physical Scarfer who would function under sand; and who works
  better than the King of Kings, Terrakion?

• With the amount of hazards on the team, and with someone else
  fulfilling the role of Kyogre check, Arceus-Grass needed a change.
  Arceus-Ghost came back to the team to fill the role of Special wall,
  spinblocker, EKiller check, and just generally pissing off the
  opponent.

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In Short

Darkrai > Forretress
Mewtwo > Palkia
Reshiram > Terrakion
Arceus-Grass > Arceus-Ghost

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Continued

Comments

LOL a vote and the sets haven't even been posted...

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It must be the synergy ;D

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*downvotes

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*flags >.>
#jealous

Picture Fail at the top

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I think I've got it working now

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*cough* I said that because it is. Yeah, it needs work, but hey, Ubers Sand is hard sometimes.

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it was* Past tense m'dear.

Answer 1

Uber Threats

• EKiller (Arceus-Normal) - I have three counters to Arceus. Without
  any boosts Ghostceus can come in and fire off a Will-O-Wisp to bring
  it down. Hippowdon can take any hit Arceus cares to dish out at +2
  and Whirlwind him out. Terrakion can tank a +3 ESpeed and KO with
  Close Combat.

• Kyogre - Forretress and Palkia can work together to take this sucker down. Forretress will be explained in full when the set is shown. Palkia can tank Thunders and Water Spouts and return the KOs with its own Thunder. Wacan Berry Kyogre is a variant Palkia has trouble taking down when switching in on predicted Thunder. ScarfOgre is the only variant which outspeeds Palkia, and it doesn't have enough power to KO.

• Ho-Oh - Palkia and Terrakion work well together to take down SubRoost Ho-Oh while Band-Oh can be utterly ruined by Heatran when locked into Sacred Fire. EQ is walled by Hippowdon, who gets rocks up while the opponent switches.

• Palkia - My two physical walls tank hits from Palkia and either switch it out, or stall it down. When you don't have recovery sand and toxic are quite the annoyances. Spacial Rend is tanked by Forretress and Heatran. Heatran can also tank Fire Blast and Thunder. Hippo can also take Thunder, while Arceus-Ghost takes care of Fire Blast.

• Groudon - Groudon's Defensive Bulk allows it to tank a huge number of physical attacks, which is why my main counter is my Special attacker. Palkia can easily rip Groudon to shreds with Hydro Pump or Spacial Rend. Toxic can hurt Groudon immensely, as can Will-O-Wisp.

• Arceus-Ghost - Again Ghostceus can be dealt with through a combination of stalling and status. As a ghost type, it is forced to carry Spooky Plate ensuring the first Will-O-Wisp to hit is good to go. Tran and Forre can take Ghost moves while Arceus-Ghost takes the fighting moves.

With those top tier threats dealt with I'd like to move on.

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Team Threats

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• Zekrom - Mixed Zekrom can take out Hippowdon and still have the strength to rip apart my Special walls with relative ease.

• Excadrill - When Hippo goes down then Exca can come in and rape the entire team. Under Sand it outspeeds Terrakion who is my only other alternate hope.

Those two are the only ones I've thought of or come across that can potentially break the team apart.

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Continued

Answer 2

And now the moment you've all been waiting for...

PARTY TIME

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Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Impish Nature
- Slack Off
- Whirlwind
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake

Max Defensive Hippowdon is the way to go. Exceeding Groudon in bulk and defense, he can heal off damage with Slack Off. Stealth Rock gives Forretress some breathing room. Whirlwind is almost essential in utility and forcing switches when it comes to checks and counters. Earthquake is nice for wearing down opponents who take a bite of Sand and faint.
Why is Hippowdon preferred over Tyranitar?
In my case TTar wasn't pulling off the role I needed him to. He definitely works better than Hippo as a Special wall, and in terms of diversity, so why not use him? First of all, TTar lacks a move for recovery. Secondly, he just can't tank physical hits the same way Hippo can. He can tank Special hits better, but there are many other pokes who can do that more effectively such as RockCeus. Third, Hippo is more forgiving with predictions gone wrong as he isn't as weak to so many types. Genesect in particular is something that threatens TTar considerably, but Hippo guffaws at. Hippo (depending on the TTar set you use) also has more survivability than TTar which is nice to have when you want your weather to win.

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Forretress @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Impish Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes
- Spikes
- Pain Split

Forretress originally started out as a Special wall but after adding in Heatran and GhostCeus as Special walls I realized that I could abuse his Defensive stat way more. Having Stealth Rock on Hippo allows for more breathing room in this set, meaning I can run Toxic Spikes. Spikes is a duh as is Rapid Spin. However the real selling point for this set is Pain Split this means that with Sturdy intact I can stay in on Kyogre, take a Water Spout to the face and proceed to suck it down to half HP while boosting myself. Switch to Palkia to finish off the job. It's a wonderful strategy that works every time.

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Palkia @ Lustrous Orb
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Thunder
- Fire Blast
- Hydro Pump
- Spacial Rend

Lustrous Orb Palkia is by far the most brutal Special Attacker I've come across with the possible exception of Specs Reshiram. Thunder is there to directly take down rain teams, but otherwise sees no usage. Fire Blast takes down Ferro under Rain (2HKO) as well as Forre, and Scizor. Hydro Pump is preferred > Surf to see use under sun where the extra BP is required to still do hefty damage. Spacial Rend is beautiful STAB and smashes everything not made of hardened metal. Using the Lustrous Orb surprises many foes who expect Palkia to be Scarfed. Spacial Rend, faints, Ferro switch in, Fire Blast, faints. It's beautiful to work with.

Palkia goes to work

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Terrakion @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- X-Scissor

Terrakion makes for an incredible Sand Scarfer. capable of taking +3 ESpeeds from EKiller it makes a good counter with overkill STAB Close Combat. It's second STAB is Stone Edge which cooks big chickens (Ho-Oh) and is main attack when Giratina comes in. Earthquake is great coverage with Stone Edge, while X-Scissor is final move and would only hit Deoxys forms and Mewtwo for anything better than the other moves.

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Arceus-Dark (Arceus-Ghost) @ Spooky Plate
Trait: Multitype
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Judgement
- Focus Blast

GhostCeus is a great spinblocker. ShadowBreak has good coverage (Shadow Claw and Brick Break). Will-O-Wisp brings physical attackers to their knees while Recover holds up against status and Sand. WOW and EVs provide the ultimate wall.

Edit: I'm now using Judgement + FBlast to deal better with defensive walls who just crapped all over me. Giratina laughed at Shadow Claw and Forretress just goes "bch plz". Also the two moves have a higher BP which is nice when all I have are 4 SAtk EVs.

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Heatran @ Leftovers
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Lava Plume
- Substitute
- Taunt
- Toxic

Ahhh, Heatran. Who knew you were so incredible at Ubers. Full special wall, Tran comes in on bad predicts or when a team mate fails. Substitute goes up while the opponent switches. Taunt is maddening and kills many other stall teams faster. Toxic is a great move for special attackers who don't gaf about Will-O-Wisp but hate constantly switch in and off hazards while slowly wearing down. Lava Plume has good chance to burn and gets STAB boost, with potential Flash Fire ability activating.

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Thanks for reading this sand team. It was one I particularly enjoyed making and playing with. Please offer any suggestions, especially concerning EVs as those aren't played with much if at all.

~MrKijani

Comments

Forretress is a big gimmik :O but i liek it

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Wait what's the nature of Forretress?

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lol thanks for catching that, the EVs were also messed so I fixed that up.

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just curious in what situation would one see a plus 3 extreme speed from e-killer? Maybe burned plus-6 or intimidated plus-4 i suppose

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I quite often reached +6 with EKiller as it takes four turns and quite often people wouldn't be switching Ferro out so I could get full set up, and if Giratina somehow survived then Lum would take care of burn. But otherwise people will not often get to +3 so yeah, not often does it happen :P

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I just shitted my pants when I saw that numel... it made me think... hump... daaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!