Resource BW OU Sample Teams mk. 2

[MeEsSm]

Maintained by the BW moderation team
FNH's previous version of this thread can be found here.​

This thread is here to archive teams from the Black and White OverUsed metagame and showcase popular playstyles and archetypes of the current metagame. Its aim is to help beginners and intermediate level players to get acclimated to the tier, or simply to help anyone in need of a solid team to play.

The teams here are added, replaced and updated by knowledgeable hosts who are directly in touch with top players and the general playerbase, to keep them up to date with the current metagame. Thus, submissions are closed unlike in current generation tiers.

Any general feedback on the content and quality here is appreciated to further make this a better resource.

Click on the Pokemon sprites to get the paste!

Sand Teams___________________________________________________________

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Sand's chief advantage is its flexibility. Its main setter, Tyranitar, is at the top of BW OU's food chain. Hippowdon is no slouch either, with its immediate recovery and staying power. On top of that, Sand's supporting cast has great synergy with the weather. Every turn Sand is up, your main threats ignore its damage, while the opponent's take 6.25% damage for free. Sand teams come in many flavors: from the slow, sluggish teams that abuse passive damage, to grind down the opposition to the more dynamic VoltTurn chains with Spikes and Psychic types, and anything inbetween. Whatever your playstyle preference, there's a solid Sand team out there that will work for you.

Sand Nō 1: Rotom Psyspam


Sand Nō 2: Life Orb Alakazam + Keldeo by crucify


Sand Nō 3: Terrakion Volt Turn by harshest


Sand Nō 4: Hippo Clef Jelli Semi-Stall by dice


Sand Nō 5: Italy Skarm Jelli by Raiza & Asuya


Sand Nō 6: Heatran Bulky Offence


Sand Nō 7: Xatu Forre Stall by ABR


Sand Nō 8: Hippo Clef Reuni by Feaniix


Sand Nō 9: Mix Chomp Rachi Sand Offence by zaaya

Rain Teams___________________________________________________________

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Rain teams rely on the extra powered offered by their weather. Few things in BW can match the explosive power of Water moves in Rain. Thundurus-Therian is Rain's other central piece thanks to its Electric immunity, typing, and perfect coverage to cover Rain's most annoying enemies. With Rain, you want to be on the offensive by getting your strongest attackers on the field while your weather is up. Unfortunately, all of that also means that keeping Rain up is far more important for your team than it is for Sand, and Politoed can struggle with that compared to Sand's far better setters.

Rain Nō 1: Big 6


Rain Nō 2: CB Scizor + Scarf Keld


Rain Nō 3: U-Turn Thundy + CB Mamo by peng & Monai


Rain Nō 4: Scarf Rachi + Sub Keldeo by Shoka

Hyper Offense Teams___________________________________________________________

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Hyper Offense teams try to finish the game fast. They live or die by turn 20, 30 at the very latest. To do so, they forego any defensive capability, favoring sacrifices for momentum and strong set-up sweepers that either pack strong priorities (like Scizor and Breloom), force a revenge kill that lets a teammate set up afterwards (like Garchomp), or that trade favorably into a lot of metagame staples (like Conkeldurr). Every turn you play with (or against) an HO team counts. Aggressive doubles and hard prediction rule their gameplay. If you let them dictate the pace of the game, you'll find yourself on the back foot.

HO Nō 1: Smurf by Smurf.


HO Nō 2: Volcarona Dragonite Double Healing Wish by Fakes


HO Nō 3: 4A Conkeldurr + Lead Terrakion by MeEsSm


HO Nō 4: Hail Dragspam by Cow

Past Teams Archive___________________________________________________________

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To help capture the changes over the years old teams have been left untouched in the previous version of this thread, which can be found here. Teams stored there were once influencial and represented a trend or structure common then, but are no longer as effective in the current meta as they once were.

Shoutout FNH for the format & LuckOverSkill for assisting with writing

 

[peng]

Good set of samples, well done guys.

I bounced quite hard off a couple of these when I first saw the list - it was odd to see things like ABR stall being added in 2025 as it feels like these were stronger concepts in years past? But the more I reflect on it I think you've done the right thing to correct some historical blindspots the samples have had. We've always been bad at including fat teams in samples, for example, and whilst its weird that the ABR team gets added now of all times, it only feels that way because we messed up by not including it a couple years ago. Same for the Clefable builds, I guess. They aren't at their prime currently but we do need some fat reflected in the sample teams.

Same goes for Italian SkarmJelli - I think its legitimately fine but its like 10+ years old and its a bit strange that 2025 is the year for it to finally become a sample lol. I think it looks like you wanted to include a SkarmJelli team of some kind and there was no obvious candidate cos these teams are all quite inconsistent, so fell on this one. Not sure what else I would have gone for, admittedly.

You've been generous to include 4 rains when its in such a poor spell but I think this is smart - we have no idea what the next 6 months hold and going too all-in on a "rain bad" mindset and cutting samples out could backfire.

HOs all look very good. OG Smurf might be beginning to overstay its welcome? But there's no rush to remove it currently.

The only team I push back on here is the Heatran sand. Heatran is a Pokemon we never really know how to include in the samples and sometimes end up shoehorning in for the sake of it. Whilst variations of this TTar FWG Lando Drill are broadly solid and go back years at this point, I think this specific version is not very good. TTar set looks very clunky. It has the weird combination of being slow weak and frail due to the set selections. Happy to see a Heatran team here in some form but I think the sets on this aren't it.

 

[mudkipslaps]

Very happy to see Shooting Stars as a sample team, as it has been one of my favorite teams to play since getting back into mons in early 2024. The changes made are interesting, and I look forward to trying them (and the other teams) in the future.

Musings on the edits

EVs: 248 HP / 88 Atk / 172 SpD > 248 HP / 60 Atk / 200 SpD
Ice Punch > Thunder Wave

TTAR's set changes to something slightly more standard. More bulk is allways nice, and less attack on its dark moves shouldn't impact too much. Thunder Wave over Ice Punch/Beam does change some scenarios, the first to mind being rain and Thunderous. Thunder Wave does open up crippling other threats that usually switch in to the Kaiju like Keldeo, which is very welcome.

Mild > Hasty
(+ SPA - DEF) > (+ SPE - DEF)

Least surprising changes of the 3 mons. I feel like this change definitely is warranted for sample status, but I'm not sure if its something I'll stick with all of the time playing the team. The biggest thing this changes are lead vs endgame performance of the set, since most people give you the benefit of the doubt on 333 speed regardless. Better into Skarm + its switchouts, worse into Ferothorn/Rain are my current kneejerk thoughts on when I usually lead Chomp fireblast/draco. Probably better into the uptick of offensive ferro outside of rain. Should be a way better mon outside of lead, but with how important keeping hazards away are for the team, I'm not sure how I feel still.

EVs: 176 HP / 252 SpA / 80 Spe > 36 HP / 252 SpA / 220 Spe
(285 HP)  > (250 HP)
(228 SPE) > (263 SPE)

Probably the changes I'm most interested in. Outspeeding several standard spreads for Dnite, Gyara, Mamo, and others are welcomed. The one thing I'm worried about is how much worse switching in to other mons and repeats will be with less bulk. Probably the change that'll take the most time to feel out. Speed Tiers for Reference

No Changes

The rest of the sets are fairly standard with the exception of EBELT on Rachi, so I'm not surprised at no changes. No Lando adjustments seems a bit strange with how sets have been changing on the creature, but its a classic set for a reason. White Herb & HP Fire are interesting changes I've seen some make to this teams Latios, but I'm glad they weren't included. This team needs the oomph from specs IMO.

TLDR; Fun team, thanks for updating the samples.