Gen 3 Sandstorm+Spikes (My First Team)

[darkmaster1415]

I decided to try ADV OU after hearing from many People that it is a skillful and fun format plus the fact that my favorite Tyrannitar is really good in this format made me even tempted to try this format. I created my team Tyranitar after reading articles about this format and what was legal in gen 3 OU format. My main concerns when playing with this team so far is Swampert and possibly other mons I might have underlooked.

Helga (Tyranitar) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Atk / 16 Spe
Brave Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Is my lead Pokemon and decided to go with a physical punch set to deal with Blissey. Brave nature is to give Hidden Power grass more power to deal with Swampert.

C.P. Brain (Gengar) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 172 HP / 148 SpA / 188 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Giga Drain
- Will-O-Wisp

My status user of the team that helps deal with special attacks and special walls.

Genie (Jirachi) @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Def / 32 SpD
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Fire Punch
- Wish

The defensive calm mind user of the team that helps deal with Snorlax, Skarmory,Gengar and other steel types (Metagross and other Jirachi's).

Fortnite (Forretress) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Earthquake

The spike setter of the team that can also deal with opposing spikes and I decided to give it Earthquake to prevent Magneton from locking it out with Magnet Pull.

Its Electrifying (Raikou) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Calm Mind
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Substitute

The standard set for Raikou that has HP Grass to deal with Swampert and it can give a jump to Adamant Aerodactyl due to its speed investments

The Jolly Olly Man (Regice) @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 120 SpA / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Seismic Toss
- Rest
- Psych Up
The special wall of the team that is able to deal with the best special attackers in the meta and anti Calm mind user with Psych Up. It can be a threat toward other pokemon like Swampert.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

Solid start, it has some flaws but I think it can be fixed up in to a pretty good team.

First things first, forretress without pursuit support is almost never going to be an effective rapid spinner. Gengar is incredibly common on spikes teams and hard walls forretress. You have two options here, you can make the ttar a pursuit set or you can replace forre with skarmory and try to make the team less spikes weak in general without worrying about rapid spin. I personally recommend the latter as forretress invites a lot of offensive pokemon in and you may find yourself overwhelmed. Skarmory adds some extra defensive backbone to the team while also being more effective in a pure spiking role.

The other big thing is this team in its current form is very weak to opposing tyranitar. Particularly DD sets. Your only rock resist is jirachi who can only hope to burn ttar with fire punch, and your only real threat to dd tar is gengar's wisp. Other than that it can check pretty much check every pokemon on your team which isn't good. Adding in a swampert or flygon somewhere can work for this. If you go for the skarmory>forre option i recommend flygon as the fact that it is spikes immune will mean you don't have to worry too much about opposing spikes. I would go for a bulky toxic protect set although a more offensive set could also work as you have jirachi to eat aerodactyl attacks. As far as what to replace you have a few options. I would personally replace regice. Defensive regice can have a tough time on teams without good anti spikes support, and raikou can cover a lot of the threats regice is meant to cover if you play the team aggressively enough.

Some other options to consider:

Jolteon>raikou: jolteon fills a similar defensive niche while just being a generally more reliable pokemon. Volt absorb gives it an extra recovery option against opposing electric types and its speed makes it more reliable against starmie. The big thing though is it has the ability to escape dugtrio with its fast baton pass. You lose the ability to sweep with CM but jolt can be a pretty effective late game cleaner without it, and is just more versatile in its ability to perform various roles throughout the match. I suggest running a roar variant as it can be a really effective spikes abuser (tbolt/hidden power/roar/baton pass).

Explosion on gengar: boom gar frees up some options against special walls making jolteon (or raikou) more effective as late game cleaners. It's also just a great late game board control tool. The fact that it's fast and weak means its explosion can be used to give yourself the momentum to get your win condition in, or halt the sweep of something like a suicune on the opponent's side. I would also suggest a bulkier spread. Max hp, enough defense to survive +1 mence hp flying and enough spdef to survive tar's pursuit on the switch would really help.

Let me know if you have any questions! Hope this was helpful.

 

[darkmaster1415]

Solid start, it has some flaws but I think it can be fixed up in to a pretty good team.

First things first, forretress without pursuit support is almost never going to be an effective rapid spinner. Gengar is incredibly common on spikes teams and hard walls forretress. You have two options here, you can make the ttar a pursuit set or you can replace forre with skarmory and try to make the team less spikes weak in general without worrying about rapid spin. I personally recommend the latter as forretress invites a lot of offensive pokemon in and you may find yourself overwhelmed. Skarmory adds some extra defensive backbone to the team while also being more effective in a pure spiking role.

The other big thing is this team in its current form is very weak to opposing tyranitar. Particularly DD sets. Your only rock resist is jirachi who can only hope to burn ttar with fire punch, and your only real threat to dd tar is gengar's wisp. Other than that it can check pretty much check every pokemon on your team which isn't good. Adding in a swampert or flygon somewhere can work for this. If you go for the skarmory>forre option i recommend flygon as the fact that it is spikes immune will mean you don't have to worry too much about opposing spikes. I would go for a bulky toxic protect set although a more offensive set could also work as you have jirachi to eat aerodactyl attacks. As far as what to replace you have a few options. I would personally replace regice. Defensive regice can have a tough time on teams without good anti spikes support, and raikou can cover a lot of the threats regice is meant to cover if you play the team aggressively enough.

Some other options to consider:

Jolteon>raikou: jolteon fills a similar defensive niche while just being a generally more reliable pokemon. Volt absorb gives it an extra recovery option against opposing electric types and its speed makes it more reliable against starmie. The big thing though is it has the ability to escape dugtrio with its fast baton pass. You lose the ability to sweep with CM but jolt can be a pretty effective late game cleaner without it, and is just more versatile in its ability to perform various roles throughout the match. I suggest running a roar variant as it can be a really effective spikes abuser (tbolt/hidden power/roar/baton pass).

Explosion on gengar: boom gar frees up some options against special walls making jolteon (or raikou) more effective as late game cleaners. It's also just a great late game board control tool. The fact that it's fast and weak means its explosion can be used to give yourself the momentum to get your win condition in, or halt the sweep of something like a suicune on the opponent's side. I would also suggest a bulkier spread. Max hp, enough defense to survive +1 mence hp flying and enough spdef to survive tar's pursuit on the switch would really help.

Let me know if you have any questions! Hope this was helpful.

I was originally thinking of running Skarmory and I was against it because I did not like the idea of it being trapped by Magneton and killed (Is there a way to play around this? I assume whirlwind). Though you are right about Forretress so I will replace it with Skarmory and I originally thought about using Swampert but after you mentioned Flygon's Levitate (which I forgot it had that ability) I will use that instead. Hmm, I like the idea of using Jolteon so I guess I will try it along with Explosion on Gengar. I also thought about trying Venusaur as a lead Pokemon/Swampert counter thoughts on that?

Changes I am thinking about making so far are

Skarmory
Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
- Protect

Gengar @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 8 SpA / 112 SpD / 88 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Fire Punch
- Ice Punch
- Explosion

Flygon @ Leftovers
EVs: 188 HP / 180 Atk / 140 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power Bug

Jolteon @ Leftovers
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power Grass
- Substitute
- Baton Pass

 

[Cowboy Dan]

Sounds good!

As far as dealing with magneton teams, you'd be surprised how much you can accomplish with just one layer. When you have skarm in early, you always want to make sure you avoid going toxic until you have at least a layer of spikes down. Toxicing in to a magneton before you have any spikes down obviously will put you at a huge disadvantage. As far as trying to get more layers down, there are generally more important things you can do than getting a second layer. The damage difference between 1 and 2 layers is pretty insignificant. The difference between 2 and 3 though is massive so if you think you'll be able to get all 3 down definitely go for layer 2. If you don't think you'll be able to get 3 down there's generally better options than getting 2 down, so if mag comes in on the 1st layer of spikes WW is generally a better play as if you live it gives you at the very least useful fodder which can be incredibly valuable particularly in late game scenarios and also allows you to continuously play mindgames with the skarm. I would also go careful>impish on skarm as it gives you a really good chance of surviving non magnet magneton tbolts.

The coverage of fire ice grass is really good so you don't have to follow this suggestion but I would probably try to fit willowisp on gar somewhere, it makes bulky gar a lot more dangerous as things like physical tar and snorlax can no longer switch in. There's a couple ways you can go with the coverage moves, tbolt/icepunch gives you more power against waters like cune which is super helpful, and allows you to check mence which the team is a bit weak to. Hp grass/Firepunch though can be really hard for a lot of teams to switch in to making it a more dangerous offensive threat so it's tough to say. I'd probably try out all 3 versions on ladder and see which you like best.

Id go roar>sub on jolteon, sub jolt is good on specific teams but you don't have the immediately dangerous heavy hitters to really make the best use of it here, and taking 25% of your health away every time you use it is counterproductive to jolt's role as an offensive pivot. Roar is awesome on jolteon because its speed forces a lot of switches and you can force a lot of damage by roaring a predicted switch over spikes.

Here's how I picture the team now:

Team

Helga (Tyranitar) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Atk / 16 Spe
Brave Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Gengar @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 8 SpA / 112 SpD / 88 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Ice Punch
- Explosion

Genie (Jirachi) @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Def / 32 SpD
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Fire Punch
- Wish

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
- Protect

Jolteon @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 3 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Roar
- Baton Pass

Flygon @ Leftovers
EVs: 188 HP / 180 Atk / 140 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power [Bug]

As for venusaur, I think it's a really cool mon and a great lead. Not sure how exactly to fit it on this team, but if you find a way i have nothing against the idea. If not i definitely suggest trying it out on another team! It's a lot of fun to use.

Good luck!

 

[Kurai Hada Ichi]

this team has no water resist so its very difficult for it to kill Milo Swampert and Cune without losing an arm an a leg. id suggest celebi over jirachi or even cune with cm would be a god send for it. just my 2 cents on the matter but nice overall and nice adjustments CB Dan but no water resist is a really tough thing to deal with when pert is so prevalent

Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Rest
- Ice Beam
- Surf