SS OU Dracozolt Sand Balance (around 1600 elo)

ZannaBianca99

Hi everyone, long time lurker here posting his first RMT. Wanted to post here a team that I feel has potential to be quite powerful but still needs to be refined. I'm sorry for the lack of pretty visuals but I still have to get accustomed to the site :)


Dracozolt @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Bolt Beak
- High Horsepower
- Fire Blast
- Draco Meteor

Here comes the star of the team. With a combination of Bolt Beak and the standard coverage, Zolt is able to break down a great number of powerful cores. It rarely is the wincon of the team but Zolt is there to help it's teammates be so. The EV spread is made to guarantee maximum damage. +Attack nature is needed for the power, even though it makes Zolt in sand slower than max speed +1 Garchomp and +2 Magearna. High Horsepower is over Earthquake to guarentee the 1HKO on Heatran even on grassy terrain.


Hippowdon @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 248 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic

The necessary backbone of any sand balance. It sets sand, provides an electric immunity, lays rocks and stops any overzealous rabbit on its tracks. I put Toxic over Whirlwind once I found myself kinda weak to the birds of OU, especially Mandibuzz. A couple of points in spdef help towards the Heatran match-up. Since the hippo doesn't rely on his item, I put on Smooth Rock to help Zolt come out in the right situation since it can be quite prone to damaging itself.


Slowbro @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 228 Def / 32 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Future Sight
- Scald
- Slack Off
- Teleport

Another fat boy to help out Hippodown wall the many physical threats of the tier. Bro takes out Mamoswine, Urshifu-RS and Barraskewda that can easily walk over Hippo. It also provides crucial FuturePort support for Dracozolt in both safely coming in and force out KOs. The 32 sdpef EVs are to always avoid the 2HKO against LO Seismitoad Earth Power and the 1HKO against Specs Kingdra Draco Meteor. The Rocky Helmet is there to punish Aces spamming U-turns.


Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Mirror Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Def / 224 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Defog
- U-turn

The last piece of the defensive core of the team. Corvi stops almost any special attacker of the tier dead in its tracks. It provides important Defog and U-turn support. Brave Bird gives consistent damage and prevents Corvi from becoming set-up fodder for Volcarona. The 32 def EVs are the to avoid the 1HKO against +2 LO Rillaboom Superpower. I first started using Pressure to give it more effective PP than Stealth Rocks, but since Corvi is the only special wall of the team I decided to use Mirror Armor to completely stop LO Latios and prevent any unfortunate spdef drops from Shadowballs and Psychics than can easily snowball into a loss.


Kartana @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword

One of the two usual wincons of the team. It helps to take care of the aforementioned +1 SD Chomp and serves as general cleaner. The set is quite standard but works for a reason, taking care of offensive teams left in shreds by Zolt. You must be careful of using Kart in the earlygame as it can easily be walled and status cripples it hard.
Thanks to Beast Boost though, once it gets going it usually becomes hard to stop.


Gengar @ Black Sludge
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Wave

Another potential wincon. Its role is to break and clean bulkier teams Kart has a hard time against. Shadow Ball remains quite spammable even after the horse ban and Sludge Wave can murder fairies and 2HKOs Blissey at +6. It also helps against Glowking who can't switch in on Shadow Ball. It's also nice to have an unrestricted high speed-tier mon to revenge-kill slower breakers.


Major threats:

Weavile (able to plow through most of the team with the right set-up)
Magearna (Specs can just kill everything)
Offensive Heatran (2HKOs Hippodown)

Thanks in advance to everyone for any help! :)
 
Last edited:
ZannaBianca99 said:
Hi everyone, long time lurker here posting posting his first RMT. Wanted to post here a team that I feel has potential to be quite powerful but still needs to be refined. I'm sorry for the lack of pretty visuals but I still have to get accustomed to the site :)


Dracozolt @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Bolt Beak
- High Horsepower
- Fire Blast
- Draco Meteor

Here comes the star of the team. With a combination of Bolt Beak and the standard coverage, Zolt is able to break down a great number of powerful cores. It rarely is the wincon of the team but Zolt is there to help it's teammates be so. The EV spread is made to guarantee maximum damage. +Attack nature is needed for the power, even though it makes Zolt in sand slower than max speed +1 Garchomp and +2 Magearna. High Horsepower is over Earthquake to guarentee the 1HKO on Heatran even on grassy terrain.


Hippowdon @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 248 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic

The necessary backbone of any sand balance. It sets sand, provides an electric immunity, lays rocks and stops any overzealous rabbit on its tracks. I put Toxic over Whirlwind once I found myself kinda weak to the birds of OU, especially Mandibuzz. A couple of points in spdef help towards the Heatran match-up. Since the hippo doesn't rely on his item, I put on Smooth Rock to help Zolt come out in the right situation since it can be quite prone to damaging itself.


Slowbro @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 228 Def / 32 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Future Sight
- Scald
- Slack Off
- Teleport

Another fat boy to help out Hippodown wall the many physical threats of the tier. Bro takes out Mamoswine, Urshifu-RS and Barraskewda that can easily walk over Hippo. It also provides crucial FuturePort support for Dracozolt in both safely coming in and force out KOs. The 32 sdpef EVs are to always avoid the 2HKO against LO Seismitoad Earth Power and the 1HKO against Specs Kingdra Draco Meteor. The Rocky Helmet is there to punish Aces spamming U-turns.


Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Mirror Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Def / 224 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Defog
- U-turn

The last piece of the defensive core of the team. Corvi stops almost any special attacker of the tier dead in its tracks. It provides important Defog and U-turn support. Brave Bird gives consistent damage and prevents Corvi from becoming set-up fodder for Volcarona. The 32 def EVs are the to avoid the 1HKO against +2 LO Rillaboom Superpower. I first started using Pressure to give it more effective PP than Stealth Rocks, but since Corvi is the only special wall of the team I decided to use Mirror Armor to completely stop LO Latios and prevent any unfortunate spdef drops from Shadowballs and Psychics than can easily snowball into a loss.


Kartana @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword

One of the two usual wincons of the team. It helps to take care of the aforementioned +1 SD Chomp and serves as general cleaner. The set is quite standard but works for a reason, taking care of offensive teams left in shreds by Zolt. You must be careful of using Kart in the earlygame as it can easily be walled and status cripples it hard.
Thanks to Beast Boost though, once it gets going it usually becomes hard to stop.


Gengar @ Black Sludge
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Wave

Another potential wincon. Its role is to break and clean bulkier teams Kart has a hard time against. Shadow Ball remains quite spammable even after the horse ban and Sludge Wave can murder fairies and 2HKOs Blissey at +6. It also helps against Glowking who can't switch in on Shadow Ball. It's also nice to have an unrestricted high speed-tier mon to revenge-kill slower breakers.


Major threats:

Weavile (able to plow through most of the team with the right set-up)
Magearna (Specs can just kill everything)
Offensive Heatran (2HKOs Hippodown)

Thanks in advance to everyone for any help! :)
Click to expand...
Your Dracozolt set is not very optimized. At the moment, the most popular spread is this:
Dracozolt @ Life Orb
Rash Nature
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 108 Atk / 212 SpA / 188 Spe
- Bolt Beak
- Earthquake
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
tagging Liquidocelot to explain what it does. In General, Dracozolt needs a lot of Special Attack investment in order to deal maximum damage to Hippowdon, Swampert, and ferrothorn. Attack investment doesn't really matter as much, since Bolt Beak will 2HKO most things anyways. If you wish, Earthquake can be changed to High Horsepower for maximum damage in grassy terrain, but you will be changing a 100% OHKO on Heatran into around an 80% factoring in accuracy.

You are right, your team is quite weak to Heatran, since Hippowdon usually would like to preserve its HP and if the opposing Heatran predicts you staying in and slacking off by Taunting, it could turn out to be deadly. A recent tech I've seen on another RMT is Earthquake over Scald on Slowbro, while adjusting the IVs to match. This provides a nice 50% on most Heatran, since it is rather unexpected.

I'm not certain that Black Sludge Gengar has much synergy with your Sand offense team. The sand will negate its black sludge, which is important against a lot of threats and makes it a waste of an item. The idea behind it, I assume, is to stack offensive pressure on Swampert, but I feel as though it could be done in a more efficient way. Adding a dark resist is probably a good idea, too. That is why I recommend Specs Magearna in this slot. Swampert often look to switch in to Magearna to block Volt Switches and setup sets, but if predicted you can take around 70% of their health with Fleur Cannon, leaving them in range for Dracozolt in the late-game. It also provides a secondary switch-in to opposing Magearna Fleur Cannon and the fairy typing is incredibly useful against Weavile, along with other Dark types such as Bisharp and dragon types like Kyurem and Wisp Dragapult that can be annoying. Although this does stack the steel typing, meaning you have a weakness to fire, Hippowdon and Slowbro are often enough to deal with Fire types, and Dracozolt can usually take one fire type hit, although you usually don't want it to.
 
musiquepkmn said:
Your Dracozolt set is not very optimized. At the moment, the most popular spread is this:
Dracozolt @ Life Orb
Rash Nature
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 108 Atk / 212 SpA / 188 Spe
- Bolt Beak
- Earthquake
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
tagging Liquidocelot to explain what it does. In General, Dracozolt needs a lot of Special Attack investment in order to deal maximum damage to Hippowdon, Swampert, and ferrothorn. Attack investment doesn't really matter as much, since Bolt Beak will 2HKO most things anyways. If you wish, Earthquake can be changed to High Horsepower for maximum damage in grassy terrain, but you will be changing a 100% OHKO on Heatran into around an 80% factoring in accuracy.

You are right, your team is quite weak to Heatran, since Hippowdon usually would like to preserve its HP and if the opposing Heatran predicts you staying in and slacking off by Taunting, it could turn out to be deadly. A recent tech I've seen on another RMT is Earthquake over Scald on Slowbro, while adjusting the IVs to match. This provides a nice 50% on most Heatran, since it is rather unexpected.

I'm not certain that Black Sludge Gengar has much synergy with your Sand offense team. The sand will negate its black sludge, which is important against a lot of threats and makes it a waste of an item. The idea behind it, I assume, is to stack offensive pressure on Swampert, but I feel as though it could be done in a more efficient way. Adding a dark resist is probably a good idea, too. That is why I recommend Specs Magearna in this slot. Swampert often look to switch in to Magearna to block Volt Switches and setup sets, but if predicted you can take around 70% of their health with Fleur Cannon, leaving them in range for Dracozolt in the late-game. It also provides a secondary switch-in to opposing Magearna Fleur Cannon and the fairy typing is incredibly useful against Weavile, along with other Dark types such as Bisharp and dragon types like Kyurem and Wisp Dragapult that can be annoying. Although this does stack the steel typing, meaning you have a weakness to fire, Hippowdon and Slowbro are often enough to deal with Fire types, and Dracozolt can usually take one fire type hit, although you usually don't want it to.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice! I too was quite unsure about the anti-synergy with sand and as always, if you can't beat them, join them. I will change the Zolt set and that EQ tech on Bro does look quite sweet so I'll give it a try. Maybe I'll change Bro to boots since I don't have a spikes absorber anymore.
 
Hello buddy, very nice looking team :D
I'm glad that sand has picked a lot of traction latelly, and Dracozolt is a monster under sand, with those absurdly strong Bolt Beaks.

I have a few changes that you may want to try out.

1.- :kartana: would be better in this team with Life Orb + SD set because it gives you high power to melt through Ground-types, which are usually the worst enemy of Dracozolt. It is just there to wallbreak and produce opportunities for Dracozolt, which destroy common Kartana answers like any bird in the tier.

2.- This team is so weak against Magearna and Heatran. I'm a big fan of SpDef Pex with Shed Shell to help against Heatran, and Magearna because of the investment, and you have Hippo to deal with Cinderace. So, :slowbro: can be replaced by :toxapex:

3.- On :corviknight: is better having Pressure. It allows it to beat rockers not named Heatran on the long run.

4.- Gengar doesn't look great on this team even if it is a great pokemon by itself. Also, you are weak to Future Sight. I would suggest a Dark-type to help against this issue.
 
musiquepkmn thanks for the tag.

Rash Nature
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 108 Atk / 212 SpA / 188 Spe
- Bolt Beak
- Earthquake
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast

Alright so why is this the best Zolt spread?

After rocks it Ohko's Buzzwole, Tangrowth, Non defensive Lando-T, Magearna, and 2hko's Phys Def Hippo, Phys Def Swampert and it ohko's/2hko's basically everything else in meta.

With the speed Ev's it allows it to Outspeed and ko anything below Scarf Lando-T and everything else unboosted in the meta.

Cheers and good luck mate
 
Lando-San said:
Hello buddy, very nice looking team :D
I'm glad that sand has picked a lot of traction latelly, and Dracozolt is a monster under sand, with those absurdly strong Bolt Beaks.

I have a few changes that you may want to try out.

1.- :kartana: would be better in this team with Life Orb + SD set because it gives you high power to melt through Ground-types, which are usually the worst enemy of Dracozolt. It is just there to wallbreak and produce opportunities for Dracozolt, which destroy common Kartana answers like any bird in the tier.

2.- This team is so weak against Magearna and Heatran. I'm a big fan of SpDef Pex with Shed Shell to help against Heatran, and Magearna because of the investment, and you have Hippo to deal with Cinderace. So, :slowbro: can be replaced by :toxapex:

3.- On :corviknight: is better having Pressure. It allows it to beat rockers not named Heatran on the long run.

4.- Gengar doesn't look great on this team even if it is a great pokemon by itself. Also, you are weak to Future Sight. I would suggest a Dark-type to help against this issue.
Click to expand...
Tried some of the new changes, I found I am super-weak to Koko so maybe I'll keep scarf Kart, thanks
 
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