First time building a Sandstorm Balance Team for OU, please help

[SirAnatra]

Hi, this is my first time building a Sandstorm Team, in this team I have some of my favourite pokemons and I would like to keep them. My biggest questions revolve around Movesets, Items and Abilities/EVs. 

 

I've tried making a rough sketch with the help of Smogon and a bit of creativity but I would appreciate if you could help me improve it and point out some major weaknesses and how to eventually prevail them. 

 

Here's the Pokepaste link, I will also include the team in the post, just in case: https://pokepast.es/2984711195b476d2

 

Spoiler

Gliscor (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 86 SpD / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Stealth Rock
- Protect

 

Tyranitar (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 6 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Thunder Wave

 

Metagross @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 6 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Psychic
- Hammer Arm
- Ice Punch
- Stealth Rock

 

Infernape (M) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Iron Fist
Level: 50
EVs: 96 Atk / 160 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Close Combat
- Fire Blast
- Grass Knot
- Hidden Power [Ice]

 

Rotom-wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 166 SpD / 92 Spe
Bold Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Defog

 

Amoonguss (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Def / 22 SpD
Bold Nature
- Giga Drain
- Clear Smog
- Spore
- Foul Play

 

Edited January 3 by SirAnatra

[TohnR]

Hey there !

 

In my opinion, the main problem of your team is that 5 of the mons are playing a defensive/bulky variant but most don't have reliable recovery or not enough staying power.
This team is pretty much guaranteed to lose against any type of stall and in the meantime, it isn't really THAT good against offensive teams since you don't use a Sand Rush user, so most of your team will still end up quite slow compared to the metagame.

 

There's 2 way to fix that "overall" issue : 

- Either you add more survivability through wish passing or more regenerator users (i.e. Mienshao over Infernape)

- Or you add more breaking power to be able to attempt to at least beat Balanced/Stall (i.e. add something like Garchomp or Excadrill, Serperior, Magnezone & more, you could also swap Metagross to offensive...)

If we come to the specifics of your sets : 

- I think you missed Rotom's nature (should be +spedef, if you really meant +def with full spedef invest, could you explain what for ?)

- Infernape kinda doesn't fit in the team, but it does a good work against offense I guess ? Wouldn't really pack enough power to wallbreak tho

- Stealth rocks on both def Metagross and def Gliscor seems kind of a waste, you're basically having 2 mons doing the same job in the team, should use Spikes on Gliscor in that case
- Assault Vest Tyranitar can't use Thunder Wave
 

I am no OU expert (I mostly do UU) and don't know much about the metagame there so I can't really say what specific mons give you trouble, so it's just a general critique.
Nice work for a first shot at a sand team tho, usually people make many more mistakes. 

 

Hope that helped 🙂 

Edited January 4 by TohnR