The development of Generation VIII’s metagame has seen Sand plummet from its early dominance, a trend that has afflicted other Weather cores as well. Despite generic powerhouses reigning supreme, a case can still be made for players looking to take a more active approach or attempt something more unorthodox. This guide, like its predecessors in VGC 2018 and VGC 2020, seeks to showcase how players can build their own Sand teams by focusing on a step-by-step process that should eventually lead to a balanced team core that players can then proceed with to mold to their own liking. It will not provide players with a team but instead highlight the pros and cons of each choice that players would have to make as they follow the steps listed below.
WHY SAND?
It’d be folly to not understand what Sand provides prior to diving straight into its embrace. As such, here are the effects of having Sandstorm active on the battlefield:
- Deals damage equivalent to 1/16 of a Pokemon’s maximum HP at the end of each turn
- Immunity list:
- Rock, Ground, and/or Steel Type Pokemon
- Has either Sand Rush, Sand Force, Sand Veil, Overcoat, or Magic Guard as its Ability
- Holding Safety Goggles
- Activates the following Abilities:
- Sand Rush
- Sand Force
- Sand Veil
- Rock Type Pokemon have their Special Defense boosted by 50%
- Weather Ball doubles in Base Power and becomes a Rock Type move
- Halves the Base Power of Solar Beam and Solar Blade
- Moonlight, Morning Sun, and Synthesis only restore 1/4 of the user’s maximum HP
- Shore Up recovers 2/3 of the user’s maximum HP
STARTING POINT
No Sandstorm team would be complete without a way to summon the Sand, and the best way to do this is through the ability Sand Stream. This Ability sets up Sand for 5 turns, or 8 if the Pokemon is equipped with the Smooth Rock; or until the Weather is altered through either Weather Abilities like Drizzle and Drought, or certain Max Moves. Listed below are the Sand setters in the format.
Tyranitar’s status as the OG Sand setter, as well as blessings of pseudo Legendary Base Stats, sees it easily clinch the top spot out of all available Sand Stream users. As a Dark Type, it gains an invaluable immunity to Prankster shenanigans, though it does come at the cost of being 4x weak to Fighting Type moves, a predicament that already plagues most Sand builds.
As the only non Rock Type Sand Stream Pokemon, Hippowdon misses out on the Special Defense boost. However, it does bless Hippowdon with some straightforward selling points like getting STAB on Max Quake, better Physical bulk, and reliable recovery in the form of Slack Off. Hippowdon can even function well in a supportive role through Yawn, which puts the target under a lot of pressure in the age of Dynamax and Gigantamax.
Gigalith is the option for players that prefer a Trick Room route, or to avoid the crippling 4x weakness to Fighting Type moves that Tyranitar struggles with. Gigalith’s one other unique offensive quirk is its access to Explosion, which literally allows it to go out with a huge bang. On the supportive end, Gigalith has both Gravity and Wide Guard, which are useful in giving the team an additional operational element.
ABUSING SAND
There are two common methods of abusing Sand’s battle conditions, namely through either Sand Rush or Sand Force. Sand Rush is the most popular out of the duo, since it doubles the Pokemon Speed while Sand is active. With the move order of utmost importance to how each turn plays out, being able to outspeed the majority of the metagame when it otherwise wouldn’t is a huge factor, during both teambuilding and battling.
The other, Sand Force, is Sand’s attempt at offering what Rain and Sun provide for Water and Fire Type moves respectively. It provides a power boost to Rock, Ground, and Steel Type moves by 1.3x, which is equivalent to a free Life Orb boost but without the HP penalty. This boost to moves that are often boosted by STAB is rather significant, and there are three Types to choose from, which covers a wider variety of threats. Unfortunately, most viable Sand Force users usually want to run other Abilities, like Storm Drain on Gastrodon, Sand Stream on Hippowdon and Gigalith, and the aforementioned Sand Rush on Excadrill.
There is another way to utilize Sand, which is through Sand Veil, which increases the Pokemon’s evasiveness when Sand is active. This is not really that useful in Generation VIII, simply because Max Moves cannot miss, effectively nullifying the unreliable evasiveness gains. As such, listed below are some of the more viable options that players can consider in the role of a Sand Abuser. Feel free to pick one to two out of those showcased to form the Sand core.
Dracozolt and Dracovish are long-awaited Sand Rush sweepers that offer Sand cores a better assortment of move coverage, as well as not amplifying the traditional weaknesses of a Sand team.
Dracozolt gives highly useful Electric Type STAB in Bolt Beak, which is crucial in battles against troublesome Water Type and/or Flying Type adversaries like Tapu Fini and Celesteela. It also has access to great coverage moves like STAB Dragon Claw, High Horsepower, and Pluck. Pluck is a nice niche against switches-in, thanks to it stealing and consuming the target’s held Berry. Whereas players ran Hustle and Dynamax previously, the release of the Ability Capsules gives Dracozolt much more freedom and consistency outside of Dynamax.
Dracovish is the other candidate, this time giving decent coverage against Rock Type and/or Ground Type threats like Garchomp and Landorus Therian. It shares the same Type combination with Kingdra, allowing the Fossil Pokemon to KO the latter with STAB Max Wyrmwind, or Gigantamax Charizard with a fully powered Fishious Rend outside of Sun.
Lastly, there is the oldie goldie Excadrill. Its STAB combination is amazing both offensively and defensively. It hits 7 Types for super effective damage, 6 of them being popular metagame picks. It also boasts 2 Type immunities and 8 Type resistances. Generation VIII’s headline mechanic in Dynamax makes Excadrill an even scarier threat since the Max Moves for its STAB buff its defenses. This would make the Subterrene Pokemon much harder to eliminate without external boosts during its 3 turns of Dynamax.
Dugtrio and Alolan Dugtrio are two interesting candidates in the role of a Sand Force sweeper. Despite not being the fastest, both still comfortably outrun a majority of the metagame. Alolan Dugtrio may seem to be the better pick since it gets access to one more Sand Force boosted STAB, but the original variant is the only one that can reliably outspeed Raikou, Thundurus Incarnate, and Cinderace. Otherwise, players can view Alolan Dugtrio as a flipped Excadrill.
As the only striker (on this list) not awkward with dealing Special damage, Landorus Incarnate offers an underrepresented skillset to the table. It crucially outspeeds Charizard, while gaining access to two new tricks in Generation VIII. Sheer Force doesn’t boost or affect Max Moves, which means that Sand Force is now a reasonable option for players looking to Dynamax their Landorus Incarnate. Secondly, Landorus Incarnate now gets access to Weather Ball, a tasty 100 Base Power Rock Type move under Sand that is accurate and boosted by Sand Force. The Abundance Pokemon does lack Special Flying Type STAB, though players can run Sludge Bomb in its place to snag Grass Type and Fairy Type foes.
COVERING BASES
Having settled the core members of the team, players are advised to design contingency plans, not only in the case that setting up Sand isn’t a guarantee, or to deal with matchups that a Sand core would find hard to overcome. Here are some of the common problems that a Sand team would encounter:
- Compound Weaknesses I – Ground Type and Water Type Pokemon
- Compound Weaknesses II – Fighting Type and Grass Type Pokemon
- Intimidate
With a better understanding of what may threaten Sand cores, we can now proceed to devise counter mechanisms against such matchups. Anywhere between 2-3 out of those listed below would be sufficient for the team.
Compound Weaknesses I – Ground Type and Water Type Pokemon
Wash Rotom is a great asset to have against Water Type and Ground Type foes, bar the admittedly rare Gastrodon. Thanks to Levitate, it is able to easily wall and KO Landorus Therian, whether it be through crippling with Will O Wisp or setting up with Nasty Plot.
Rillaboom, on the other hand, is an important asset to have against the aforementioned Gastrodon (or Wash Rotom), as well as providing much better assurances against the likes of Tapu Fini. STAB Grassy Glide is great at quickly securing the KO against weakened targets, while it also carries useful tech moves like Fake Out and Knock Off. In return, the Sand cores eliminate the Fire Type and Flying Type foes that threaten the Drummer Pokemon.
Compound Weaknesses II – Fighting Type and Grass Type Pokemon
Togekiss is one of the best answers to Single Strike Urshifu, easily threatening the KO through 4x super effective Dazzling Gleam alone. Against stray Fighting Type and/or Grass Type moves like Grassy Glide and Close Combat, Togekiss can easily take them through Follow Me redirection. Players could also utilize Helping Hand to great bolster the team’s damage output, or exert pressure through moves like Yawn and Heat Wave.
With Grassy Seed and Unburden, Hawlucha synergizes with the potential ally in Rillaboom to become a fast sweeper, allowing it to fire off blindingly fast Acrobatics and Flying Press. Players can also opt to run Coaching or Taunt. The former turns Hawlucha into a buffing support, while the latter can help deny Trick Room. Another major selling point of Hawlucha’s in Generation VIII is its fantastic synergy with Max Moves. Max Airstream helps its teammate nab crucial outspeeds in mirror matches, while Max Knuckle bolsters the damage output of its allies, which are likely to hit from the Physical spectrum.
Intimidate
The overall efficacy of Thundurus Incarnate in Generation VIII means it is a no-brainer on a section that features Defiant. STAB Max Airstream, Max Knuckle, and Max Lightning all help enable the team and form a great neutral Plan B in scenarios where blindly leading Sand is not advisable.
Single Strike Urshifu is another powerful unit to consider since it ignores Intimidate drops through Wicked Blow. As a Dark Type Pokemon, it is immune to Prankster Will O Wisp, while offering STAB on its aforementioned signature move to eliminate the likes of Dusclops and Metagross.
FINISHING TOUCHES
There would be 1-2 slots still empty at this point in time. The best candidate(s) to fill them would be those that provide the team with external support that does not require Sand to succeed, but would complement the core if they were to be included. Some aspects to consider would include:
- Trick Room setter
- Other Rock Type Pokemon
- Other Ground or Steel Type Pokemon
- Alternative support
Players can pick those that they think best fit their team from those listed in this section, whether they be to fill the empty spots or to replace certain already taken slots. In the Dynamax era, certain Pokemon can fill the role of both Sand setter and Sand sweeper through Max Rockfall, which provides an additional element to teambuilding. During this process, players are advised to pay attention to the recent metagame changes and make sure any alteration to the team does not create unfavorable matchups against certain team archetypes.
Trick Room setter
Comfey’s utility as a Trick Room setter lies in Triage, which is a great way to trigger a held Weakness Policy through moves like Draining Kiss and Giga Drain. The former is also particularly useful for striking at Single Strike Urshifu, one of the biggest threats to Sand cores. Other utilities that Comfey offers include Ally Switch and Floral Healing.
Hatterene is an extremely powerful Trick Room setter. After it sets up Trick Room, it can either fire off Psychic Terrain boosted Expanding Force (with an allied Indeedee F), or Gigantamax and start punching holes with G Max Smite. Hatterene’s STAB combination is more than adequate for eliminating the Fighting Type threats to Sand teams. Its G Max Smite, while not setting up Misty Terrain to ward off unwanted Status afflictions, does introduce RNG into play, forcing the opponent to factor in confusion recoil.
Other Rock Type Pokemon
Regirock’s ridiculously high Base Defense makes it a fantastic neutral’s pick as a Rock Type Pokemon. It could act as a makeshift Sand setter since it is often a primary Dynamax candidate. The Special Defense boosts from Sand help make Regirock a lot harder to slay. It then gets a powerful damage-dealing option in Body Press, which works well off Regirock’s high Defense.
Terrakion is naturally fast, outspeeding the likes of Charizard, Arcanine, Excadrill, and Urshifu, then OKO them with STAB Rock Slide and Close Combat (Single Strike Urshifu). It is also one half of the infamous Terracott combination, where players can utilize Beat Up from a faster ally (usually Whimsicott) to trigger Terakion’s Justified Ability and quickly raise its already impressive Base Attack. Terrakion also benefits from the bulk offered by Dynamax, with the 2x HP modifier a great boon to its survival odds. Max Rockfall sets up the Sand that provides it with the Special Defense boost. Max Knuckle, on the other hand, becomes ridiculously scary after Beat Up.
Other Ground or Steel Type Pokemon
The face of Bulldoze Weakness Policy from VGC 2017 returns to VGC 2021 for a strong showing, even if its popularity has dwindled somewhat in Series 9. More teams do carry ways to check the behemoth’s influence, but even then it isn’t an easy feat to prevent Metagross from trampling through teams.
Mamoswine’s exclusive STAB combination and updates to Oblivious make it a great option against the popular Intimidate outlets like Landorus Therian and Incineroar. It does however has quite a bit of common weaknesses, like Close Combat or Grassy Glide, which could cuts its longevity short.
Alternative Support
One of the top utility Pokemon thanks to its high Base Speed, allowing it to either set up Screens or pivot into a better board position. Players can use this to help bring in Trick Room sweepers, or just go on the offensive and strike through Transistor boosted STAB.
An interesting alternative to Prankster Riolu. High Speed and great Base offenses see Pheromosa check a bunch of common threats, especially since it now gets Close Combat (instead of the unreliable Hi Jump Kick). It extends support through Coaching and Speed Swap, the latter particularly useful for overcoming Sand cores’ typical issues with Speed.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Sandstorm is an easy core to build around, especially for players new to the game. Please do feel free to experiment with different member combinations as one proceeds to build a team to his/her own liking. If players find (a) Pokemon not listed above, but would fit the team well, they are more than welcome to enlist them into their own teams.
MYSVGC 