5th Gen OU RMT: "Guys I just really like lucky misses"

[EmuKiller]

Introduction:
This was originally a monotype team (no latias and I had hippowdon instead of ttar) that I made for fun, and when I saw that it was moderately viable I decided to do a little tweaking to make it a standard OU team. The only important thing here is keeping sandstorm up, which can wreck a lot of teams that rely on weather.

Tyranitar (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 180 SAtk / 76 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Crunch
- Superpower
- Fire Blast
Sand Stream is what's important. After that it's either stealth rock, counter their lead with massive damage, or switch to someone I like more. Works pretty well!

Mamoswine (F) @ Life Orb Trait: Thick Fat
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Spear
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
Outspeeds a lot of slower pokemon, cool typing, and priority ice move makes for some nice revenge kills when needed. I dunno if I'm using him right personally though? I have a lot of trouble keeping him alive and hitting for Super Effective damage. I think I will either get rid of him, garchomp, or landorus for Hippowdon.

Latias (F) @ Leftovers Trait: Levitate
EVs: 128 HP / 128 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]

My MUST HAVE pokemon to counter all the super frustrating bulky waters in the world. Otherwise my team would get roflstomped by vaporeon and suicune and stupid stupid pokemon like those.

Excadrill (M) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- X-Scissor
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
Obvious choice for sweeping on a sandstorm team. I'll go on just for the sake of having a legit description though. Gets speed boost in sandstorm, covers a lot of types, and can swords dance if I use him to revenge kill and predict they will switch.

Garchomp (M) @ Yache Berry
Trait: Sand Veil
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Swords Dance
Kind of redundant to have two Swords Dancers on my team, garchomp I guess being the worse of the two. I hate hate hate running specs on him though because trading away versatility in a "close to mono-type" team can really hurt. Anyway, garchomp is still broken and sand veil is pretty troll.

Landorus (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Sand Force
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Grass Knot
- Earth Power
- Focus Blast
Landorus is the best Sp.A ground-type pokemon. He had to be specs to 2HKO skarmory who otherwise COMPLETELY DECIMATES this team. I still like him, but introducing latias makes him not as useful.


What I need: I want to switch out either Mamoswine or Landorus for Hippowdon so I get both sand streamers on my team. Weather is SUPER important in B/W and having both will give me a lot more security at my n00b level of play. Otherwise, please critique and I'm incredibly open to advice!

 

[Wave⁂]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=110421

 

[EmuKiller]

Now that there's filler explanations are you going to actually rate it or did you just want to make a worthless 10char post?

 

[Wave⁂]

You really want me to do your job for you?

Why does Tyranitar have the EV spread it has? Why use Pursuit over Crunch? Why use Aqua Tail instead of Earthquake or even Fire Blast, which is the standard set to deal with Ferrothorn?

Why does Mamoswine with Icicle Crash instead of Icicle Spear? Why don't you have Superpower, when Stone Edge is redundant in terms of coverage?

Why use bulky Latios when Latias is better at it? Why does it have the EV spread it has. Why is Latios your bulky water counter when Landorus's Specs Grass Knot hits harder?

Why do you have two Swords Dancers? That's pretty uncommon.

 

[EmuKiller]

I would... like advice?

I TOTALLY forget why Ttar has that EV spread. I just stole it off smogon. Pursuit is just for later game guaranteed kills, but I guess it is pretty weak so I'll switch back to crunch. Fireblast is Sp.A so that got me worried, but I suppose if it's standard now I'm probably running an outdated build.

Mamoswine was someone I again just stole from smogon. I wasn't liking it that much, but maybe with Ice Spear and Superpower it'll find more use. I'll definitely make the changes!

I just figured Latios was more broken (haha) but I'll switch to latias if it does the job better. The EV spread was given to me as advice during a previous RMT, and I just copy/pasted it in and switched to Latios instead of Latias cause again... I'm not very good and just figured Latios completely outclasses.

Garchomp was initially Specs, but I hate hate hate running a lot of specs pokemon at my level of play where it feels more important to be versatile. The berry I've found to be really useful too. If you have a non-choice/non-SD garchomp build, I'd be up for trying it.

Thanks for the help!!

PS: Any advice for someone I can drop for Hippowdon?

 

[IceArrow]

This is a really good SS team. I also use a sandstorm team and I think Thunder Wave works better than Aqua Tail on Tyranitar. I also think that this is better than Mamoswine.

Gigalith (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Sand Power
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Heavy Bomber
- Explosion

It's Stone Edge OHKOs almost everything.

Excadrill is also better with a Balloon than Life Orb.

 

[choknater]

im starting to really feel the power of sturdy pokemon

 

[Tenodera]

Have you thought of using the bulky phazer Garchomp over your Swords Dancer? Otherwise he would be the one I would suggest to replace with Hippo.

 

[EmuKiller]

Hey Guys!

Something else that I've run into is losing to OTHER Sandstorm teams! Like just going up against someone elses excadrill with the exact same EV spread and moves and it coming down to that 50/50 coinflip.

Are there any pokemon I could add to my team that would effectively work as a "sandstorm counter", that doesn't do too badly in sandstorm itself? I'm thinking maybe Swampert?

 

[Gates]

Gliscor is probably the best way to deal with other Sandstorm teams. Poison Heal Gliscor is obviously the best, but if you're not playing in Dream World (and I assume you aren't since you don't have Sheer Force on Landbro) then Gen IV Britscor is still good, particularly since you have Sand Veil hax going for you. You could even move Stealth Rock from Tyranitar to Gliscor and make it your lead to free up Tyranitar to run Substitute or Ice Beam or something (or even Scarf it and run Pursuit). Take out Landbro for Gliscor and take out Mamoswine for another special attacker, ideally one that isn't weak to ice or water but still has access to fire or electric attacks since you're worried about Skarmory (even though you should be more worried about Ferrothorn but whatever). You could even use Bulk Up Conkeldurr (god I hate that name) since he has access to priority moves and Stone Edge, which seems to be all you're really using Mamoswine for.

You should also change your set on Latias because the moves you have right now are honestly not that great. You realize that Dragon Pulse is not only his best STAB move but it also resisted by only one type out of 17? You realize also that Dragon Pulse+Surf gives "perfect" coverage (Resisted only by Empoleon and Ferrothorn)? Now I realize that you're using Thunderbolt to hit water types (which isn't the greatest idea because a lot of them are also ground or really specially defensive with access to Calm Mind anyway, but I guess your team has a Gyarados weakness anyway so whatever) and HP Fire to hit steel types (which is redundant because Thunderbolt hits everything except Excedrin and Steelix for neutral or better damage anyway but your team has a weakness to Curse Ferrothorn so whatever). However, I don't think you were really looking at the broader type coverage problems here. Here's a list of what resists one or more of Latias' attacks in order of least threatening to most threatening:

Numel
Every Rock/Ground type
Rotom-H
Lanturn
Every Water/Ground type
and most importantly every single Dragon type

The last point is the most crucial because it means that any single dragon in the game can come in on Latias, take however much damage from Latias' attack if they don't outspeed it, and then kill with Dragon Claw or Outrage or even Draco Meteor or phaze/kill with Dragon Tail. You might be able to kill them if they're neutral to one of the attacks and you have a few boosts, but if you have more than 1 boost you've won the game anyway. Even DDSalamence, who has about as much bulk as a wet piece of tissue paper, only takes 50% or so from a +1 Thunderbolt. MixMence can not only revenge kill but Roost that **** off right away. Dragon Pulse and either of these moves gives you better coverage - Dragon Pulse+Thunderbolt is resisted by Ferrothorn, Excadrill, Steelix, and Magneton/zone but would be better against bulky waters and rain teams; Dragon Pulse+HP Fire gives you nearly perfect coverage with the only pokemon who resists both being Heatran who gets hit by Earthquake even harder than Japan and Haiti combined tasteless joke. As a third option, you could drop Recover run a spread of something like 200 HP/56 SpA/252 Spe and run all three attacking moves for perfect coverage that's not resisted by anything. This is dangerous though since you lose your ability to recover but it's not like Ice Beam does that much to Latias after 1 or 2 Calm Minds anyway (22% max from Swampert, everything else doesn't OHKO and you kill right back). Frankly if you really want to beat Bulky Waters then you might even want to go as far as to run Refresh and just make it a mono-attacker with Dragon Pulse. The most important thing to take away from this though is to run a dragon attack since it allows you to kill dragons you outpseed before they can kill you first.

This segues well into my final point which is to make Garchomp Scarf for ****'s sake. Other than Exedrin (who isn't very fast at all outside of sand), you have no way to deal with fast threats. ScarfChomp gives you ways to outspeed things in any weather. There are so many things that YacheChomp needs to be able to outspeed but can't. Latias, Dragon Dance users, and Scarf users as low as base 60 laugh at Garchomp if it doesn't have a Scarf. For starters, Yache Berry does nothing to deal with dragon attacks, meaning that any Scarfed dragon or any dragon with some sort of other speed boost or ScarfTran can come in on Garchomp, outspeed it, and kill it before it can set up or retaliate. Yache Berry may help you against Scarf Jirachi's Ice Punch, but it doesn't to jack against Iron Head and its 60% flinch rate. Even Scarf Tyranitar can get a Crunch in which does 40% minimum and can 2HKO if he gets a defense drop from it and you need to waste your first turn boosting your already high attack. Cloyster OHKOs even before Shell Smash, and I don't think I should have to talk about what Cloyster can do after a Shell Smash (in fact, your whole team is Cloyster weak, you should definitely run Conleldurr). There's also the fact that Garchomp just generally doesn't have the bulk to take hits from strong special (or physical really) attacks that he doesn't resist. You already have two sweepers on this team and what you really need is a good, fast revenge killer. With Excedrin and Latias, having any other set-up sweepers is just pushing your luck. Having access to ScarfChomp would be great for your team. A lot of times when you need something your opponent has to be killed, ScarfChomp can come in and turn the tide of the match. YacheChomp can't do that since he needs to boost to be a big threat. ScarfChomp is something that your opponent needs to play around, and can be a huge factor in winning matches.

 

[Wave⁂]

Holy **** I just noticed Tbolt / HP Fire Latias, that is hilarious

 

[Enzo]

I'd put sheer force on landorus so he can hit hard in and outside of sand.

I mean the only thing that doesnt get boosted from sheer force that u already have is grass knot.
and Grass knot is filler, really. and hpice will ohko either way or won't if its a 100% dnite. So just take out grass knot for like psychic or slime wave

IMO.

 

[Wave⁂]

When did Sheer Force Landorus get released?

 

[Enzo]

When did Sheer Force Landorus get released?

/sighs

I mean if his mamoswine has Thick Fat (unreleased DW ability as well) can't landorus have it as well. smh

 

[Wave⁂]

Oh, this is DWOU? Nevermind then.

 

[Gates]

Hidden Power doesn't get a Sheer Force boost either. The only moves he has that get boosts from it are Earth Power and Focus Miss. So really his ability doesn't matter that much.

I guess Sheer Force would be better simply because it gives boosts outside of sand though.