BW OU The first real impact of the Sand Rush Ban.

[Caetano93]

Hey guys. Coming here to talk about the most recent change in this lovely tier and how Sand Teams are just broken right now. Also sorry about any grammar errors as english isn't my native language.

So, No Weather, Rain and Sun lost his most efective way of dealing with Sand (I know that Sun with no Dugtrio is a joke but was usable) and i watched the meta in this first month of no Sand Rush in some minor tours and Discord PLs. In the first 2 weeks nothing changed as Sand was just spammed and rain was struggling to find his pace again. The meta was aparently "fine' with the ban as nothing mosntrous happened. Then somebody in the last 10 days (and i don't know who started the cancer) decided to combine Gravity + Excadrill Sand Force...

Dear Arceus, this combo is just wrong and tier breaking... Before it was never usable because an oponent Sand Rush Drill could easily sweep you if Gravity is up and Sand Force have a very dificult time trying to muscle pass Rotom-W and Skarmory. In this situation Excadrill was a very fine Pokémon because:
a) Sand Force though extremly powerfull are useless versus some meta defining mons.
b) Mold Breaker don't have the imediate breaking potential as Sand Force.
c) Sand Rush countered any Excadrill of the Sand teams and forced the teams to have a good ground / steel answer.

No Sand Rush means NO IMEDIATLY PUNISH FOR SAND BUILDS so they are not restricted anymore to use defensive mons to not auto-loses to the mole. Exploiting this a very, very, deadly core is rising into usage on tours:

Spoiler: The Core

Tyranitar @ Chople Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 168 HP / 88 Atk / 252 SpD
Brave / Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Pursuit
- Crunch
- Fire Blast / Superpower

+

Excadrill @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin

+

Landorus-Therian @ Earth Plate / Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 12 Def / 244 Spe
Naughty / Adamant Nature
- Gravity
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice] / Stone Edge
- Rock Polish / Sword Dance

The idea is extremly simple. Set up Gravity and click STAB Boosted Quake until every mon dies. And God this works and is annoying as hell to play against this. Skarmory, Rotom, Bronzong and Thundurus, the normal ground answer for standart teams are ripped to shreads. Other comum checks like Gliscor, Celebi, Breloom, Hippowdon and Slowbro are relatively easy to lure especially if Hazzards are up.

Spoiler: Calcs

252 Atk Sand Force Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon in Sand: 141-166 (33.5 - 39.5%) -- 18.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Sand Force Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro in Sand: 148-175 (37.5 - 44.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Sand Force Excadrill Earthquake vs. 244 HP / 248+ Def Gliscor in Sand: 135-160 (38.3 - 45.4%) -- 59% chance to 3HKO after Poison Heal

252 Atk Sand Force Excadrill Earthquake vs. 236 HP / 0 Def Breloom in Sand: 131-155 (40.9 - 48.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after sandstorm damage and Poison Heal

252 Atk Sand Force Excadrill Iron Head vs. 236 HP / 0 Def Breloom in Sand: 211-249 (65.9 - 77.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage and Poison Heal

252 Atk Sand Force Excadrill Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Celebi in Sand: 175-207 (43.3 - 51.2%) -- 5.1% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery

Of course this isn't an auto-win versus every MUs but the power behind this strategy is just dumb because the player normaluy only need 1 setup of Gravity to see the oponent team crumbling to pieces. Celebi And Hippo have very little usages and Breloom can't enter if Rocks are up or if he isn't a Def set. So, right now, we only have Gliscor and Slowbro as good checks to this... One that can be lured by any mon woth HP Ice and one that takes 37% minimum...

I am waiting this shenanigan to become extremely popular as it is very VERY good and have no actual counter and hopping for Sand Force suspect to stop this nut house to wreck havoc at tours.

Agrees with me? Disagrees? Fell free to comment and let's make the PP peoples give more atention to BW.

 

[Zard97]

This core is nothing new and it was perfectly viable even when Sand Rush was around. It was already used in 2017 when I started competitive pokemon again except at first Scarf Garchomp was more common than Scarf Excadrill (and I guess Garchomp is still fine if you really want to outspeed Volcarona and/or your team is already too fight/ground/Alakazam weak etc to add Excadrill).
That said it's not as good as you make it out to be for a variety of reasons. First of all it makes all your pokemons grounded which means everyone will take Spikes damage and this is a huge drawback. Taking out 1 pokemon for earthquake doesn't really matter if you can switch-in...2? 3 times? And these teams require a lot of pivoting to be able to position Excadrill in the right place to claim kills. WHILE having to deal with the opponent's attacks. This replay speaks for itself [Gen 5] OU replay: SweetPosho vs. SOULWIND - Pokémon Showdown
Secondly, this strategy is extremely prone to backfire. Ground-types are extremely common in BW to the point you're pretty much guaranteed to face at least one of them for game. I like to run Tangrowth in these teams just in case I should face Scarf Garchomp / Excadrill / Landorus-T but this doesn't mean I will not be destroyed by LO Garchomp, Mamoswine, and so on.
Thirdly, it's gimmick. It's just awkward to use and to play against and as long as Gravity has been revealed you can expect your opponent to start playing more aggressively (just like Posho did in the replay with Latios at some point). Momentum is key and if you can WW with Skarmory / Spore with Amoonguss / place Keldeo against them etc whenever they click Gravity, their plan will be spoiled most of times. Protect helps too and it's very common nowadays.
So...I believe this strategy only really shines against certain fat teams that basically can't even punish a setupping Landorus-T. I think that's a good thing, someone's gotta keep them in check. Against the majority of the metagame it's just OK, otherwise it would have gotten more usage.

 

[Caetano93]

Hey. I really liked your coment. Thank you for it and let me do my reply.

This core is nothing new and it was perfectly viable even when Sand Rush was around. It was already used in 2017 when I started competitive pokemon again except at first Scarf Garchomp was more common than Scarf Excadrill (and I guess Garchomp is still fine if you really want to outspeed Volcarona and/or your team is already too fight/ground/Alakazam weak etc to add Excadrill).

To be fair, Gravity usage exist even before, as it was a DPP team meme and was used in Gen 5 since BW2 was released. The diference now is that with no Sand Rush, the best sand counter, it was actual competitively viable. I have see usage in minor tours (roa room tours and discord tours) and it have a very good win rate with the cost of only 1 move on Landorus.

That said it's not as good as you make it out to be for a variety of reasons. First of all it makes all your pokemons grounded which means everyone will take Spikes damage and this is a huge drawback. Taking out 1 pokemon for earthquake doesn't really matter if you can switch-in...2? 3 times? And these teams require a lot of pivoting to be able to position Excadrill in the right place to claim kills. WHILE having to deal with the opponent's attacks. This replay speaks for itself [Gen 5] OU replay: SweetPosho vs. SOULWIND - Pokémon Showdown

You have a very fair point here and it realy need a very good opponent prediction to make the strategy work. Also, it's not for every team build because you need a good ground check (and because of this almost all Gravity teams have Slowbro). Also the Spikes imunity negated is another thing that can realy help you if used correctly to chip fast Scarf Lando (very few have more than 264). For the replay SOULWIND brings a very strange team with Scarf Lati and Rock Slide support Ttar (things that are considered bad in tour games) and made some bad plays at the start and mid game (like trying to Gravity sweep at the game start). If he doesn't have rushed his plays he will have a much more easy time in the game.

Secondly, this strategy is extremely prone to backfire. Ground-types are extremely common in BW to the point you're pretty much guaranteed to face at least one of them for game. I like to run Tangrowth in these teams just in case I should face Scarf Garchomp / Excadrill / Landorus-T but this doesn't mean I will not be destroyed by LO Garchomp, Mamoswine, and so on.

The fact that it removes your ground imunity too really need to be calculated before using Gravity and your build need an answer to not be counter sweeped with Scarf max speed Lando or Scarf Chomp. Tangrowth can work i guess but it don't help you with Keldeo or Rain MUs (the reason that Amoonguss, Ferrothorn, Def Breloom and Slowbro have a lot more usage). Mamoswine have almost zero usage outside DragMag (where it normaly don't have Icicle Crash so your Tango win this) and LO Chomp (i realy like this set) have so much competion with Scarf and SD to be even considered when building a team (nobody builds thinking "my team is weak to LO Chomp", the reason as why it have it moments in tours).

Thirdly, it's gimmick. It's just awkward to use and to play against and as long as Gravity has been revealed you can expect your opponent to start playing more aggressively (just like Posho did in the replay with Latios at some point). Momentum is key and if you can WW with Skarmory / Spore with Amoonguss / place Keldeo against them etc whenever they click Gravity, their plan will be spoiled most of times. Protect helps too and it's very common nowadays.
So...I believe this strategy only really shines against certain fat teams that basically can't even punish a setupping Landorus-T. I think that's a good thing, someone's gotta keep them in check. Against the majority of the metagame it's just OK, otherwise it would have gotten more usage.

It is gimmick exactly like every strategy before they got tour usage and becomes standart. The thing is that isn't easy to use but is very deadly with the right predictions. Also your Lando don't even need to be setup as i have see defensive Landorus with Gravity punishing a Skarmory that tried to come for free Spikes (the setup worked better for me tho).
The thing is that this strategy, right now, hard punish standart Sand Balances that 90% of the players spam at the tours and that's why it got a usage rise. I realy belive that the teams will adapt to counter this but now it's hilarious to just click Gravity at right time and win just clicking Quake 4 times.

 

[Zard97]

Yes, but Landorus-I rarely ran Gravity and when it did so, it mostly was for self-sufficient sheenanigans.

Just because Rock Slide TTar is rare in tournaments, that doesn't mean it's bad. Rock Slide is great for killing Tornadus, Volcarona, and Thundurus-T while still covering Kyurem like Superpower does. As for Scarf Latios, you're somehow forced to use it in certain teams when you lack speed control and still need Latios' resistances. While it is very prone to being pursuitted, it works well when you are not facing a Tyranitar; I suspect SW thought Posho would have brought Excadrill Rain Offense, against which Scarf Latios is good (it could trick ferrothorn, outspeed scarf keldeo, check ThunT once). You can argue about how these two things may be weird choices for that team, however they are not bad in themselves.
Bulky Scarf Landorus-T was only really justified when Sand Rush was legal and it should disappear. You forgo cleaning capabilities for what? For checking Terrakion better? Terrakion is not so great to begin with and offensive behemoths in general like Garchomp are killing you anyway if they want to. I'd rather have the strongest and fastest EQ possible unless it's a defensive team or something.

Defensive Breloom and Slowbro are no much better off against Rain Keldeo than Tangrowth is. In my team the role of checking Keldeo is given to another member.
mamoswine isn't only used as a lead on dragmags.
Also anything is deadly with the right predictions; Trick Room + Conkeldurr, for example. Gravity may become standard (I'm not a diviner), however I can't see a Sand Force suspect happening like you suggested. And even if it becomes big it will still be awkward and not exactly intuitive to use, that's why I call it gimmick.