Help with my gen 7 ou team

Question

So I found a couple discord servers with the battle rules being smogon ou. I decided to join in because I've gotten bored using the same pokemon over and over again and I wanted to use Tornadus anyway so I just reconfigured my sand team to fix its greatest flaw, lack of fighting resist. Any help would be appreciated

Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Tornadus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid nature
- Defog
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Hurricane

Milotic @ Leftovers
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Protect
- Recover
- Surf
- Dragon Tail

Tyranitar @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Impish Nature
- Toxic
- Crunch
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock

Excadrill @ Rockium Z
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance

Garchomp-Mega @ Garchompite
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast

I just decided to give Tyranitar the full support duties because I rarely use it anyway and I actually want my opponent to slowly chip away at its hp. I just use it to setup the sand

Answer 1

Okay.

Tapu Lele seems really great.

Tornadus could do with running 4 SpAttack so Hurricane doesn't do nothing.

Milotic- It's pretty good, but I'd swap Protect for Ice Beam and Dragon Tail for Toxic for stalling. Also, running Scald over Surf is a better idea. Alternatively, you could run Scald, Recover, Coil and Hypnosis, which is pretty good.

Tyranitar - I'm not sure about it. I know it sets up sand though, so keep it on. Try replacing the defence EVs for attack and running Carrful. Stone Edge > Toxic.

Exadrill is good.

Garchomp - I think this could be changed. You already have a ground. Maybe try this.

Tapu Koko @ Life Orb

EVs: 4 SpDef/252 SpAtt/252 Speed.
Timid nature.
Ability: Electric Surge.

Thunderbolt
Dazzling Gleam
Volt Switch
Nature's Madness.

Hope I helped!

Comments

Koko, Lele and Excadrill don't run 4 HP because that leaves them with an odd HP total, which is good for entry hazard rounding.

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Oh okay.

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Yeah this isn't the best Milotic set I came up with. It originally had toxic, recover, haze and scald but I wanted to mess around to see what else it could do and well, they didn't yield much better results. I don't even know why I was trying to change something that was almost perfect

Why would Tapu Koko be better than Garchomp? Mega Garchomp is probably the third best sand abuser and if I use Tapu Koko, I have three pokemon weak to ground. Also, Excadrill hates will o wisp and Garchomp doesn't mind it that much, if it really needs to eat the wisp anyway, because draco meteor is gonna be it's main move

Tyranitar needs the defense evs so it can take multiple hits. My plan is basically to have my opponent slowly wear down Tyranitar as it tries to support so that I can use my other mons except Excadrill to fight. Once the first sandstorm subsides, I send it out again and if by then Garchomp is down, I'll sack Tyranitar and let Excadrill finish everything off. And it still hurts even without investment. Although I think I'll take you up on that stone edge since I think I'm gonna go back to that simple yet effective Milotic set

@Fizz what do you mean by 'entry hazard rounding'?

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Percentage-based damage is rounded down by Pokemon's damage calculator, so it is marginally better to have an odd amount of HP (unless your Pokemon is also reliant upon a percentage-based healing move).

Answer 2

This is a really good team, but I think I could make a couple of changes to improve it even more:

Tapu lele seems fine, but in my opinion its slightly redundant to be using a Choice Scarf set when you have Excadrill who is really fast under sand anyway and is generally used on sand as a late-game cleaner, similar to what Scarf Lele achieves. Therefore, I'm proposing to change Tapu Lele to the Choice Specs set, which you can use as a early game breaker to pave the way for an Excadrill cleanup.

Tornadus looks fine, just maybe move the HP EVs into SpA so that Hurricane hits a bit harder. Otherwise, I would suggest to perhaps trial Taunt over Knock Off to assist with Stall, but Knock has its uses in crippling Pokémon such as Chansey by removing it's Eviolite.

Lose Milotic. I think I would be right in saying that in OU Toxapex is a much better choice for a bulky Water-Type, being immune to Toxic and having Regenerator to heal. Also, Milotic's main niche on this team seems to be phasing with Dragon Tail, whereas Toxapex spreads Toxic which is generally more consistent in chipping the opposing team for a sweep. It's up to you on this one :)

Tyranitar should, I believe, be running Chople Berry or Leftovers in addition to being more physically offensive, otherwise it's incredibly passive and almost complete Taunt bait. That said, the Mega might not be a bad idea because it's really tanky so you can run a more offensive set.

Excadrill is fine, just replace Rock Slide for Rapid Spin so you get a little bit extra way to remove entry hazards.

Now, Garchomp. I understand completely where you were coming from with using the Mega, but I have to say that regular Garchomp would be better here due to the increased speed. Perhaps Life Orb would be a better choice?

Final Team w/ Changes

Comments

I actually already revised the team. I replaced Milotic because it is incredibly inconsistent. On one hand it just laughs at every single choice scarfer in the game as well as certain pokemon like Mega Alakazam or Ash Greninja because there is nothing those guys can do to it but on the other hand, some pokemon like mega Medicham just powers through it.  And I'm hesitant to use Toxapex because I'm gonna have three pokemon weak to earthquake and only one immune to it which was the main reason I went with Milotic, or why I love Milotic so much but well, being the most beautiful pokemon does make it really picky

I also revised Tornadus a bit. I'll put a link to the changes I made and why I made them since I posted this on smogon forums as well so I can gather more advice and see which one fit the team as well as my playstyle

You know, I actually had the exact same thoughts on Tapu Lele when I first constructed the team but I'm just so obsessed with speed. I'll have to try the specs version first and see if it does help

Yeah but that would make sand be a bit too quick and my opponent would just wait it out, which was my main concern. Tyranitar is basically just the support with rocks and thunder wave. I already lost toxic on it and gave it crunch

Wouldn't rapid spin only give the opponent free turn as well as waste a turn of sand?

And also, I have a different version of this team that still keeps the main Tyranitar and Garchomp core. I replaced Excadrill with Ash Greninja, Garchomp having dragonium z and sand veil, and Tyranitar being the mega although I haven't tested it yet

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/help-with-my-sand-team-for-usum.3667747/

Here's the alternate version of this team. But as I mentioned, I haven't battled with it that much and I just copied the changes I made to this team, which was the first draft I made anyway

https://pokepast.es/9b6a20f024212f1b

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In terms of Rapid Spin on Excadrill, it's not usually intended to be used specifically in sand, instead acting as another way to remove hazards in a pinch. Generally in sand teams, Iron Head and EQ are adequate because the point is to remove Excadrill's counters or checks such as Celesteela or Skarmory, so Rapid Spin just acts as a placeholder.

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Oh I see. I'll have to try that as well to see if I can suit it to my playstyle. By the way, what do you think about the revamped one? On the link I gave?