SV UU Suspect Coverage: Sandy Shocks

By Estarossa. Released: 2023/06/03.
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Art by Deka__

Art by Deka__.

Introduction

Sandy Shocks has been a standout Pokémon in SV UU since its introduction. Its blend of a strong STAB combination, solid Speed tier, excellent defensive utility against top-tier threats in Talonflame, Scizor, and Tinkaton, and access to entry hazards and Volt Switch has let it act as a strong pivot that can be very hard to prevent from making progress even when it can't freely use Volt Switch. To top this off, it's one of the more offensively potent users of Terastallization in the tier, being capable of working its way around key defensive Pokémon like Gastrodon and Wo-Chien that can otherwise stop it from becoming even more dangerous, at the cost of its defensive utility. Sandy Shocks ended up finding itself a place on an awful lot of teams because of its myriad assets; very offensive teams loved its ability to trade with a lot of Pokémon in the tier with its raw bulk, power, and speed, while more defensive teams were capable of funneling health into it with Wish from Scream Tail to take advantage of it being one of the most consistent answers to threats like Taunt Talonflame and appreciated its offensive output and hazard support to make more progress.

Why did Sandy Shocks get a suspect then? The key to this mostly fell into the Terastallization topic, as it took an otherwise fairly healthy Pokémon and made it very difficult to play around at times. Terastallization making Pokémon capable of working around their checks is nothing new, but in the case of Sandy Shocks it gave it the opportunity to become a virtually unblockable Volt Switch user with Tera Grass, allowing it to be potentially devastating when supported by other pivots that could circumvent the lack of self entry opportunities Sandy Shocks would have once it lost its ability to switch into Pokémon like Tinkaton and Talonflame. This isn't particularly the end of it, as Sandy Shocks has other strong Tera types in Ground, letting it apply strong pressure to checks like Assault Vest Donphan and specially defensive Hippowdon reliably while pressuring Gastrodon better without giving up its resistance to Stealth Rock or incurring a weakness to Talonflame's STAB attacks, and Ice, letting it break through would-be counters like Wo-Chien and Decidueye and put more pressure on Assault Vest Cyclizar attempting to switch in.

Unblockable Volt Switch users aren't anything new, but what made Sandy Shocks worth suspecting was the insane level of strength it provided at a base level without this, and the solid bulk and speed that granted it lots of potential trade options.

Set and Teammates

Sandy Shocks

Sandy Shocks only really had the one set by the time of the suspect test, although it had seen use cases such as dual entry hazard lead sets on hyper offense and Choice Scarf sets in the past. While Spikes is by far the more popular hazard, Stealth Rock still sometimes sees usage on it instead when other potential Spikers are on the team such as Gastrodon, as it allows Sandy Shocks to spend more time clicking devastating attacks while synergizing better with the number of free turns Gastrodon gets to lay them. This is also occasionally seen if a team has no room for another Stealth Rock setter, but the former case is more common. Power Gem is occasionally seen on Tera Ground sets to hit Salamence the hardest and target Kilowattrel and Rotom-H, but both of these options aren't common enough to justify it otherwise, and losing the option to run Thunderbolt to hit targets like Salamence harder without switching out can be occasionally unfortunate.

Common teammates for Sandy Shocks would often fall into a couple of categories.

salamence gengar tyranitar

Offensive threats that appreciate Sandy Shocks bringing them in on Pokémon such as Cyclizar and Wo-Chien can make sure Sandy Shocks always provides solid value. These Pokémon are all capable of wearing down Ground-types like Hippowdon and Gastrodon too to potentially allow Sandy Shocks to let another Pokémon Terastallize instead. Choice Band Tyranitar can't pressure Hippowdon so well but loves Sandy Shocks luring the Ground-types in and taking them out with Tera Grass so that it can freely break the opposing team.

cyclizar scream-tail tinkaton wo-chien

Sandy Shocks appreciates teammates that can defensively handle some of the threats to it like Greninja, Choice Scarf Quaquaval, Wo-Chien, and Gastrodon. Cyclizar provides pivoting support of its own as well as Rapid Spin if Sandy Shocks has to take a Knock Off from Tinkaton, which also lets it remove entry hazards while preserving Sandy Shocks's own ones, while Scream Tail provides Wish support to allow Sandy Shocks to repeatedly switch into Tinkaton, even if it has Terastallized to a Grass-typing. Tinkaton provides Stealth Rock and can pressure Wo-Chien while being able to cripple Pokémon such as Gastrodon with Knock Off and appreciates Sandy Shocks checking Talonflame. Wo-Chien can help defensively check a range of threats like Gastrodon and Greninja, and even if forced to Tera Ghost, it can still provide spinblocking for Sandy Shocks's Spikes.

Pro Ban

Sandy Shocks strong bulk and STAB combination that lets it aggressively trade with a significant part of the tier, such as Gengar, Scizor, and Noivern, allows it to be not just a dangerous fast pivoting option but also a top-tier offensive threat itself. When combined with its devastating potential to work around all its common answers with Terastallization, this made it too strong a force in the tier for a lot of players, where Sandy Shocks would always get insane value no matter what it did, be it laying Spikes against its counters and saving Tera for another Pokémon or being an unblockable Volt Switch user that would always create bad situations for the opposing player, as Pokémon like Wo-Chien and Decidueye were easily abusable by fellow pivots like Noivern and Scizor or offensive threats such as Salamence. Its Tera type diversity also made it a non-obvious threat that had to be carefully played around before it was revealed, and would mean that teams would often need to have combinations such as Wo-Chien + Gastrodon to even defensively handle it, ignoring the previously mentioned issues from VoltTurn cores.

Anti Ban

The anti-ban camp's main argument against Terastallization making Sandy Shocks broken was the significant downsides that pulling said trigger would bring. One of Sandy Shocks biggest assets is its ability to act as a fantastic answer to top-tier threats in Talonflame, Tinkaton, and Scizor, and these Pokémon would often provide some of its main entry points early- to mid-game too. If Sandy Shocks wishes to Terastallize, it gives up on all of this, for instance being unable to force Talonflame out at all when brought in through fellow pivots and unable to punish it for clicking moves such as Roost. It also becomes unable to stop dangerous Swords Dance Scizor sweeps and struggles to reliably punish Tinkaton for entering the field due to no longer resisting Gigaton Hammer or Stealth Rock, especially after taking a Knock Off. Terastallization could easily backfire in these situations if the opponent predicted it and for example switched their Gastrodon out, providing all the downsides to Sandy Shocks without having actually claimed a KO and forcing it to rely on its teammates' pivoting to provide it the rest of its entry points later.

Conclusion

Sandy Shocks ended up not reaching the 50% +1 majority required to be banned from UU, as of the 22nd of May 2023, with 13 Ban votes to 23 Do Not Ban votes. This was a less clear-cut suspect than some of our other more recent ones, and it'll be interesting to see how Sandy Shocks fares into the move towards post-Home UU metagames.

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