SM UU (UU) Climate Change

[Gadget]

(UU) Climate Change
A UU sand team

Intro

Hello RMT, I would like to preface this by explaining why I made the team.
UU has always been a tier I have liked, it gives me vibes of a modern take on DPP OU with a bit of black and white thrown in. With the suspect testing of drizzle and drought as of recent I felt the tier started to become less DPP and More B/Wish. One of my favorite play styles in b/w was and has always been sand with stoutland. So when I saw the weathers suspect I figured now would be the best time to make a sand team, to relive pre sand rush ban.

Teambuilding

Good boy
Stoutland @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return / Facade
- Crunch/Superpower
- Play Rough/Fire Fang
- Wild Charge
Stoutland is the first mon I put on this team. Stoutland hits a blazing 518 speed under sand and has a similarly high attack stat. Return is an easily spammable STAB and great coverage moves like wild charge. Wild charge is what really makes this set go from decent to good, allowing you to hit mons that otherwise slow down the other members of the team such as Primarina and Mega Pidgeot. Crunch or superpower was one of my toughest choices I had to make on earlier versions of the team, however when I started running Mega-Steelix in later versions of the build, I found that Steelix hit most of what superpower was hitting, and that crunch was more reliable when dealing with threats like Chandelure or Rotom-H. The removal of superpower left dark types wide open however and that leads to the other option I find myself switching between. Play rough or fire fang. Fire type moves are hard to come by in this sort of sand build so for a while I was running fire fang as a slight scizor check. however Hydregon became hard to answer after I dropped superpower so sometimes I run play rough in fire fangs spot.

The Standard Setter.
Hippowdon @ Smooth Rock / Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Toxic
This is the smogon dex Hippo, there is not anything fancy about it. Hippowdon has always been the best sand setter in the tier, and with my initial pick of Stoutland a good rocker was needed. Smooth rock is preferred over leftovers because it can be hard to get stoutland in, and smooth rock allows for 3 more turns where I have a chance. Toxic is there over whirlwind because whirlwind is too slow, and getting a toxic off on Alolamola, another threat to the team, is far more useful then rocks chip. Initially this mon had far to much to do. it was the only sand setter for a long time, and the only rocker, and it still needed to be a defensive check, this mon was overloaded, however that is fixed in the final version of the team. Hippowdon and Stoutland formed the core the team was going to be based on, and from there I had tried many mons before deciding on the next one.

A Shocking partner
Zeraora @ Zap Plate
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Plasma Fists
- Grass Knot / Hidden Power [Ice]
- Close Combat / Volt Switch
- Knock Off
Zerora helps cover some of sand's biggest weaknesses, water types. bulky waters such as primarina and suicune could 6-0 my team until I started running this mon. It helps deal with the EQ immune flying types like Mega-Pidgeot and Tornadus. in addition, knock off makes dealing with gligar go from impossible to do-able. plasma fists is a great stab, and CC helps deal with dark type so that I can run fire fang on Stoutland. Grass knot or HP ice is there for coverage. now lets talk about that item. "Why zap plate?" you might ask yourself. Initially I was banded but having 2 choice banded fast physical sweepers on the team was redundant, so then I switched to life orb. Life Orb lets me hit very hard, but the sand chip + life orb gave this mon realistically 6-7 turns at best before it died from its own recoil, not leaving me enough time for this mon to do anything, so zap plate was chosen.

The Iron Curtain
Steelix-Mega @ Steelixite
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Curse / Stone Edge
- Rest / Ice Fang
- Heavy Slam
- Earthquake
The Mega of the team, Mega Steelix. For a while there was a lead Mega-Aerodactyl in this spot, but as time went on, 9/10 games all it did was get up rocks then get sacrificed later on. From there I tried Mega Sharpedo, and while it worked, I found myself time and time again where I wished I had a tiny bit more stopping power, and another fast physical attacker was defiantly not needed. This is where I tried Mega Steelix. Initially I was a curse rest set, but my team ran into trouble with Gligar and I started running Ice fang in order to hit it. Stone edge is the other move thats usable instead of the curse rest package. Stone edge gets the sand force boost, hits waters, and deals with switch ins such as Rotom very hard. Dispite being a ground type this mon also share very little in the way of weaknesses with teammates. This is also a ground type that is a reliable way to deal with faster ice types such as frosslass, who before were annoying to the team.

Other mega options

Mega Aerodactyl: If you replace crobat, I would strongly suggest replacing Mega Steelix with Mega Aerodactyl, as it is a defoger that gets the advantage of the spdef boost from sand. You can also run coverage for some problematic mons.

Mega Sharpedo: If you cut Zeroura I would suggest running Mega Sharpedo. Mega Sharpedo is a very good mon, but on this team its roll is filled by two other mons in the form of Stoutland and Zeroura.

Mega Sceptile: This is a nice psuedo check to some of the rain teams running around. I say psuedo check because it still looses to Kingdra. in addition it gives the team that fast special attacking mon that it wants so badly, and it gives the team a way to deal with water types easily.

Aerial Dominance.
Crobat @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Roost
- Defog / Taunt
- Brave Bird
- U-turn / Taunt
I needed hazards controls. there was no way around it. With Mega Aerodactyl out of the picture spike stacking and webs teams had a field day against this team, and my problems against gligar only got worse as it also set rocks. I wanted a fast defogger that could also function as a pivot into either Steelix or Stoutland depending on the situation, and I wanted to be able to do that throughout the whole game. I tried Noivern, but I found it to be too weak when I needed to throw out the odd draco or hurricane. from there I tried a bulkier Scizor, but I felt I lost too much momentum whenever I tried to defog. Crobat had the best of both worlds where you are able to drop a nuke on a switch in, defog away rocks, and then piviot out into one of your sweepers. This mon can also form a small volt turn core if you choose to run it alongside volt switch on Zeroura.

The Flex Spot
Gigalith @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Toxic
- Superpower
This is the flex spot of the team, and can be adjusted to whatever you expect to be going against. I am currently running Gigalith in this spot. I am currently running Gigalith here because of the sheer amount of weather that is present. This team really wants to have sand up, and since drizzle is running around everywhere, a second sand setter is almost key right now for this team to function. Gigalith, aside from setting up sand, helps alleviate pressure on other mons to do too much work. remember how I said earlier that initially hippowdon was overworked? Gigalith lets hippowdon run leftovers, and makes it so that Steelix doesnt need to run stealth rocks. However running gigalith makes Gligar / Hippowdon a much greater challenge to deal with.

Other Flex Slot Options

These mons can also be run over gigalith if you struggle against certain match ups.

Primarina: A nice special attacker, deals with some of the big threats to this team such as Gligar. Provides another check to Latias. If keeping rain off wasn't so crucial this is what I would normally run.

Seismitoad: This is the other option I like currently over gigalith. it prevents rain from spamming hydro pump, and can get up rocks. unfortunatly Ludicolo seems very popular on rain, invalidating this mon frequently.

Gengar: Specs gengar hits like a truck, and with energy ball you are able to hit water types that would otherwise switch in. Unfortunately kingdra is faster and just kills Gengar.

Importable

Steelix-Mega @ Steelixite
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Ice Fang
- Stone Edge
- Heavy Slam
- Earthquake

Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Toxic

Gigalith @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Toxic
- Superpower

Stoutland @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Crunch
- Fire Fang
- Wild Charge

Crobat @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Roost
- Taunt
- Brave Bird
- U-turn

Zeraora @ Zap Plate
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Plasma Fists
- Grass Knot
- Close Combat
- Knock Off

Threat List

A quick overview of mons that this team does not appreciate what so ever.

Kingdra: simply put, under rain this comes in, and 9/10 times says "pick one" Specs pump just hits too hard to deal with

Rotom Heat: The immunity to EQ and resistance to steel makes it hard to consistently hit this mon hard without potentialy over predicting and falling behind.

Gligar: Simply put, this walls half the team if it has eviolite.

 

[Estarossa]

Hi Sanctus Janus, cool team :) As I promised you earlier I have made some changes to your sand team. As we discussed previously, I considered this without weather being present as it is currently only in a suspect test, and hopefully won't be freed.

I kept your hippo + stoutland + mega-steelix sand core for this team, but in my opinion a choice of mega-aerodactyl instead of mega-steelix would make more sense here, and any team using this core is likely to suffer because of it, as aerodactyl will offer you a lot more extra roles, such as an infernape and moltres answer, speed control outside of sand, and pursuit. Gigalith could be an option to give you the flying resist over hippowdon, but it is typically heavily outclassed by hippo otherwise.

Onto the changes I made, I first made slight adjustments to the 3 sets you used for each of these pokemon.


Minor Changes:

Set Change : No big changes to this one, but as I am removing gigalith I made this smooth rock, as hippowdon as a sole sand setter is more then enough for the team. I also put whirlwind on over toxic as this allows you to phaze out threats that try to set up on you, and rack up hazard damage to put things in range of stoutland, and with a team like this you are unlikely to want to waste time toxic stalling anyway.

Set Change: I made the moveset for stoutland return, facade, superpower, crunch. This offers you the perfect coverage offered by normal, fighting, dark. Facade is a must on stoutland as it lets you take advantage of scalds/toxics, and noteably allowing you to 2hko pokemon such as hippowdon, gligar and alomomola. Superpower allows you to hit steels such as aggron/steelix for the maximum damage, noticeably ohkoing aggron (or forcing sturdy if at full) if it isn't mega'd. Crunch lets you hit predicted ghosts on swap, and allows you to 3hko doublade, doing around 35-45% damage. Fire fang is another option over crunch, allowing you to OHKO scizor on a swap and still 3hko doublade, but it does less damage vs doublade and won't kill gengar, and leaves you completely walled by chandelure.

Set Change: I changed the EV spread on steelix to a standard 252 HP / 208 Attack / 48 Spdef Brave set. The extra spdef evs are designed for manectric which is pointless here, but the extra spdef can still help you vs latias a little better, and 44 attack evs won't make any difference to kills. I changed Ice Fang for Curse and Heavy Slam for Gyro Ball here as under sandstorm, gyro ball will be just as powerful vs gligar after one curse. This also lets steelix serve as a secondary win condition.



Now onto the major changes. Firstly, I decided to merge your fat water matchup and hazard control into one pokemon. Stoutland can already hold some level of matchup vs fat waters due to scald powering up his facades, but relying on this alone requires rng and can chip his HP unecessarily. I also used this as an opportunity to give you the outside of sandstorm speed control that aerodactyl would have given you.


Major Change:

+

->

: I decided to merge zeraora and crobat into an Electrium-Z Starmie. This gives you a way of breaking bulky waters that aren't part ground too, while giving you speed control that allows you to beat pokemon such as terrakion and infernape, and hazard control. The remaining two moves in hydro pump and ice beam give you coverage for some of the ground types that might annoy your stoutland + steelix such as hippowdon and gligar, and stop pokemon such as hydreigon and celebi from freely swapping in on you.



I now had a free slot in the team. I wanted to give you a way to pressure the water/ground pokemon such as swampert that your starmie can't break. I also wanted to offer you a swap in to u-turners such as beedrill and scizor, so that your hippowdon isn't overworked too much. An (albeit passive) way of punishing bulky steels was also appreciated, so that they can get in range of stoutland easier. This additional slot is also used to give you a swap in to primarina, which while punished by multiple members of the team, can cause havoc if it comes in safely on hippowdon or steelix.


Major Change:

+

->

: A rocky helmet amoongus gives you a way to punish u-turners such as mega-beedrill and scizor. Through it's stab giga drain it also gives you a way to punish bulky waters/grounds such as swampert. Via rocky helmet and hp fire, you can slowly chip at bulky steels, and hp fire also lets you punish scizors for trying to stay in on you. Amoongus can also serve as a swap in to primarina if it comes in on hippowdon or steelix for free, giving you defensive counterplay vs it. Sludge bomb allows you to hurt fairies, and hit pokemon such as celebi hard for trying to swap in on you. Clear smog is another option that lets you annoy crocune, however it won't beat it alone and will require you to try and finish for a scald burn on stoutland so you can facade it. Spore is always a useful move, allowing you to sleep a potentially annoying pokemon and putting more pressure on the enemy when it comes to dealing with stoutland.



As explained earlier, I didn't view the additional sand setter as necessary. I however still wanted a moltres/flying resist for the team due to it threatening hippowdon amoongus and steelix greatly, albeit needing a safe swap in vs steelix due to the potential stone edge lure. The new choice of rock type also gives you a better matchup vs hydreigon, and can punish swaps with its good coverage, especially water types. It also lets you annoy rotom-heat a lot more since you are faster than it.


Major Change:

->

: A 3 attacks speed boosting nihilego gives you a solid moltres answer and flying resist. Due to it's coverage it is able to punish swap ins, with grass knot hitting ground types such as hippowdon, swampert and krookodile, while thunderbolt hits water/flying types such as aerodactyl-mega, suicune, empoleon and tentacruel. Due to 176 SpA EVs, it is able to speed boost upon claiming a kill, letting it outspeed pokemon such as scarf krookodile and aerodactyl, making it harder to revenge/pursuit trap if they are within range of grass knot / thunderbolt respectively. Nihilego also offers you an ok swap in to hydreigon under sand, as it's SpDef hits high levels, and sludge wave will 2hko it. Stoutland and steelix both greatly threaten it, but a swap in is still helpful if it comes in on hippowdon/starmie/amoongus (with either taunt or another pokemon asleep in the latter case).

If desired, the electrium-z could be moved to nihilego with a fourth attack such as hp ice/fire and a life orb put on starmie in order to threaten bulky waters more and punish gligar/scizor respectively, but this set is much more prone to being pursuit trapped and worn down, and can't swap in on any of the pokemon it wants to threaten directly. You may want to use 252 SpA to maximise the damage if doing this.



Final Team:

As explained in the introduction, there is only so much you can do with a steelix + hippowdon + stoutland core, but hopefully you should find this improves your matchups a bit. I would however recommend not trying to use steelix and stoutland in the same team.

With double poisons and no aerodactyl, you will need to be careful around psychic types, especially celebi, however steelix is one of the best answers to latias, and nihilego is capable of outspeeding celebi, and stoutland can outspeed it under sand and kill it with a small amount of chip. Gyro ball also has a 44% chance of OHKOing celebi under sand from steelix, which you can potentially use to lure it.

click sprites for team importable.​

 

[Gadget]

Hi Sanctus Janus, cool team :) As I promised you earlier I have made some changes to your sand team. As we discussed previously, I considered this without weather being present as it is currently only in a suspect test, and hopefully won't be freed.

I kept your hippo + stoutland + mega-steelix sand core for this team, but in my opinion a choice of mega-aerodactyl instead of mega-steelix would make more sense here, and any team using this core is likely to suffer because of it, as aerodactyl will offer you a lot more extra roles, such as an infernape and moltres answer, speed control outside of sand, and pursuit. Gigalith could be an option to give you the flying resist over hippowdon, but it is typically heavily outclassed by hippo otherwise.

Onto the changes I made, I first made slight adjustments to the 3 sets you used for each of these pokemon.


Minor Changes:

Set Change : No big changes to this one, but as I am removing gigalith I made this smooth rock, as hippowdon as a sole sand setter is more then enough for the team. I also put whirlwind on over toxic as this allows you to phaze out threats that try to set up on you, and rack up hazard damage to put things in range of stoutland, and with a team like this you are unlikely to want to waste time toxic stalling anyway.

Set Change: I made the moveset for stoutland return, facade, superpower, crunch. This offers you the perfect coverage offered by normal, fighting, dark. Facade is a must on stoutland as it lets you take advantage of scalds/toxics, and noteably allowing you to 2hko pokemon such as hippowdon, gligar and alomomola. Superpower allows you to hit steels such as aggron/steelix for the maximum damage, noticeably ohkoing aggron (or forcing sturdy if at full) if it isn't mega'd. Crunch lets you hit predicted ghosts on swap, and allows you to 3hko doublade, doing around 35-45% damage. Fire fang is another option over crunch, allowing you to OHKO scizor on a swap and still 3hko doublade, but it does less damage vs doublade and won't kill gengar, and leaves you completely walled by chandelure.

Set Change: I changed the EV spread on steelix to a standard 252 HP / 208 Attack / 48 Spdef Brave set. The extra spdef evs are designed for manectric which is pointless here, but the extra spdef can still help you vs latias a little better, and 44 attack evs won't make any difference to kills. I changed Ice Fang for Curse and Heavy Slam for Gyro Ball here as under sandstorm, gyro ball will be just as powerful vs gligar after one curse. This also lets steelix serve as a secondary win condition.



Now onto the major changes. Firstly, I decided to merge your fat water matchup and hazard control into one pokemon. Stoutland can already hold some level of matchup vs fat waters due to scald powering up his facades, but relying on this alone requires rng and can chip his HP unecessarily. I also used this as an opportunity to give you the outside of sandstorm speed control that aerodactyl would have given you.


Major Change:

+

->

: I decided to merge zeraora and crobat into an Electrium-Z Starmie. This gives you a way of breaking bulky waters that aren't part ground too, while giving you speed control that allows you to beat pokemon such as terrakion and infernape, and hazard control. The remaining two moves in hydro pump and ice beam give you coverage for some of the ground types that might annoy your stoutland + steelix such as hippowdon and gligar, and stop pokemon such as hydreigon and celebi from freely swapping in on you.



I now had a free slot in the team. I wanted to give you a way to pressure the water/ground pokemon such as swampert that your starmie can't break. I also wanted to offer you a swap in to u-turners such as beedrill and scizor, so that your hippowdon isn't overworked too much. An (albeit passive) way of punishing bulky steels was also appreciated, so that they can get in range of stoutland easier. This additional slot is also used to give you a swap in to primarina, which while punished by multiple members of the team, can cause havoc if it comes in safely on hippowdon or steelix.


Major Change:

+

->

: A rocky helmet amoongus gives you a way to punish u-turners such as mega-beedrill and scizor. Through it's stab giga drain it also gives you a way to punish bulky waters/grounds such as swampert. Via rocky helmet and hp fire, you can slowly chip at bulky steels, and hp fire also lets you punish scizors for trying to stay in on you. Amoongus can also serve as a swap in to primarina if it comes in on hippowdon or steelix for free, giving you defensive counterplay vs it. Sludge bomb allows you to hurt fairies, and hit pokemon such as celebi hard for trying to swap in on you. Clear smog is another option that lets you annoy crocune, however it won't beat it alone and will require you to try and finish for a scald burn on stoutland so you can facade it. Spore is always a useful move, allowing you to sleep a potentially annoying pokemon and putting more pressure on the enemy when it comes to dealing with stoutland.



As explained earlier, I didn't view the additional sand setter as necessary. I however still wanted a moltres/flying resist for the team due to it threatening hippowdon amoongus and steelix greatly, albeit needing a safe swap in vs steelix due to the potential stone edge lure. The new choice of rock type also gives you a better matchup vs hydreigon, and can punish swaps with its good coverage, especially water types. It also lets you annoy rotom-heat a lot more since you are faster than it.


Major Change:

->

: A 3 attacks speed boosting nihilego gives you a solid moltres answer and flying resist. Due to it's coverage it is able to punish swap ins, with grass knot hitting ground types such as hippowdon, swampert and krookodile, while thunderbolt hits water/flying types such as aerodactyl-mega, suicune, empoleon and tentacruel. Due to 176 SpA EVs, it is able to speed boost upon claiming a kill, letting it outspeed pokemon such as scarf krookodile and aerodactyl, making it harder to revenge/pursuit trap if they are within range of grass knot / thunderbolt respectively. Nihilego also offers you an ok swap in to hydreigon under sand, as it's SpDef hits high levels, and sludge wave will 2hko it. Stoutland and steelix both greatly threaten it, but a swap in is still helpful if it comes in on hippowdon/starmie/amoongus (with either taunt or another pokemon asleep in the latter case).

If desired, the electrium-z could be moved to nihilego with a fourth attack such as hp ice/fire and a life orb put on starmie in order to threaten bulky waters more and punish gligar/scizor respectively, but this set is much more prone to being pursuit trapped and worn down, and can't swap in on any of the pokemon it wants to threaten directly. You may want to use 252 SpA to maximise the damage if doing this.



Final Team:

As explained in the introduction, there is only so much you can do with a steelix + hippowdon + stoutland core, but hopefully you should find this improves your matchups a bit. I would however recommend not trying to use steelix and stoutland in the same team.

With double poisons and no aerodactyl, you will need to be careful around psychic types, especially celebi, however steelix is one of the best answers to latias, and nihilego is capable of outspeeding celebi, and stoutland can outspeed it under sand and kill it with a small amount of chip. Gyro ball also has a 44% chance of OHKOing celebi under sand from steelix, which you can potentially use to lure it.

click sprites for team importable.​

After a few test games I have to say, this team is much better, however I would like to ask a few questions. My first one is what does protect do on Nihilego? an extra 6% of hp does not seem that relevant vs most mons and something like Tspikes or Twave seems much more relevant throughout a match. The second question I have is: would recover be worthwhile running on starmie? Seeing as it is the only hazard control on the team it seems as it it would be under pressure from chip for a large portion of the game. Final question, what do those 48 spdef evs add to steelix? what does it do for the mon? Great edits and I would gladly use this over the initial team

 

[Estarossa]

After a few test games I have to say, this team is much better, however I would like to ask a few questions. My first one is what does protect do on Nihilego? an extra 6% of hp does not seem that relevant vs most mons and something like Tspikes or Twave seems much more relevant throughout a match. The second question I have is: would recover be worthwhile running on starmie? Seeing as it is the only hazard control on the team it seems as it it would be under pressure from chip for a large portion of the game. Final question, what do those 48 spdef evs add to steelix? what does it do for the mon? Great edits and I would gladly use this over the initial team

The extra 48 spdef evs are meant to let you survive an overheat from manectric after rocks, but obviously this isn't important here. I just used it cause it's the standard spread and I didn't see any real changes that going max attack would cause in terms of turning 2hkos into ohkos, while the extra spdef would help you a tiny bit more vs lati, so yea you could quite happily just run max attack if you wanted i guess?

Recover on starmie is an option I considered, you will just have to lose a certain coverage move on it. I would personally leave that one up to you to just try out and see what feels most comfortable for you honestly!

Protect on nihilego lets you scout choice locks, such as from krookodile. If the krookodile went for pursuit for instance, you'd know to just stay in and grass knot it, or predict a swap and use an appropriate move. The extra recovery can also be useful however, and it can in certain situations help you against z-moves too.

If you were choosing a fourth move on nihilego, an option such as hidden power ice (with an expert belt / life orb instead) could be more appropriate than toxic spikes, as this would help you lure in gligar. Toxic spikes is unlikely to be particularly helpful to a team like this, especially with amoongus being able to take an attack from stoutland/steelix to clear them.