RMT: The Long Evolution

Hey everyone! Synthetic Frost here, looong time player but new to the forums. I played competitively back in the days of R/B/Y/G/S/C winning several local tournaments, but got out of the game as I got older and went through college. But I always kept playing the games for fun.

However, I've recently found myself in a position with a lot of spare time, so I've been working on reviving my old team. However, needless to say, the metagame in OU has changed pretty significantly, so I needed to give my team a new breath of life, swapping out sub-par pokemon for their current equivalents, while keeping my old favorite staples, and trying to preserve the core goal of my team.

So, here we go:


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Scizor

Ability: Technician

Nature: Adamant

Item: Life Orb

EVs: 128 Atk /128 HP / 252 Spe

Bug Bite
Bullet Punch
Swords Dance
Baton Pass

My lead. I realize this is an odd EV spread, and truthfully I went with the cookie-cutter Scizor sets first, and none of them quite fit with what I was trying to accomplish with him. Scizor isn't so much a "lead" in the traditional sense as it is a scare tactic. Most people I've battled against just assume he's either Choice-banded or scarfed, and therefore usually switch out into something to retaliate with.

8 times out of 10, this gives me the free first move to Swords Dance right off the bat. And if they don't, the 128HP EVs allow me to take most priority hits. Then I just Baton Pass the swords dance to one of my other pokemon, usually ...


Hippowdon

Ability: Sandstream

Nature: Impish

Item: Leftovers

EVs: 252 HP / 152 Def / 104 Atk

Earthquake
Ice Fang
Stealth Rock
Slack Off


My physical wall. This slot used to be filled with my old Sandslash. The 104 attack EVs give him the ability to strike back in a pinch should the need arise. Hippowdon is my wall for all the fighting types that fill the OU metagame. He's also able to set up stealth rock pretty early in the game. His sandstream sandstorm works beautifully to set up early-game weather, and has great synergy with Scizor too.

As mentioned, by the time I bring him in, I usually have a swords dance already up, so Hippowdon's naturally high attack is perfect for taking on Scizor's usual counters.


Starmie


Ability: Natural Cure

Nature: Timid

Item: Choice Scarf

EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Surf
Ice Beam
Psychic / Thunderbolt
Recover/Rapid Spin

Ah, my old Starmie. Starmie was on my team very early on in R/B/Y, and single handedly won me the tournaments of the time. I noticed his absurd speed and special stats before i'd even finished the game for the first time. Only later on did I find out he was by far the fastest water pokemon. He's been with me ever since.

As of now, he serves as my mid-game special sweeper/rapid spinner. I very frequently change his last two move slots back and forth, depending on if I think I'll be dealing with a lot of entry hazards and/or fighting types.

With the current EV spread, he's much weaker defensively than the Starmie I used back in the day, but he's so fast that I rarely ever have trouble switching him out. Natural Cure is also a godsend. Starmie also has the dual roll of being a counter for the many dragon types in OU, with Hippowdon's Ice Fang as a last ditch back up, as well as a counter for threats to Scizor.


Jolteon

Ability: Volt Absorb

Nature: Timid

Item: Choice Specs

EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Thunderbolt
Shadow Ball
Thunder Wave
Baton Pass

My answer to my team's relative weakness (keep reading, the following pokemon explain it) to flying types. Jolteon has been with me about as long as Starmie has, and has worked absolute miracles for me in the past. Between Jolteon's Volt Absorb and Hippowdon's typing, I'm pretty well set up to defend against electric threats, especially Volt Switch.

I have Baton Pass on a Jolteon without a stat buffing move for two reasons. One, my team has a lot of physical prowess that I need to pass on, and don't always get the opportunity to pass directly from one physical attacker to the next, and two, the Charge Beam buffs can easily be passed to Starmie.


Infernape


Ability: Blaze

Nature: Naive

Item: Life Orb

EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe

Overheat
Close Combat
Stone Edge
U-turn/Mach Punch

My late-game sweeper and counter to my team's inability to handle steel and dark types. Ever since R/B/Y, I've LOVE the concept of fire types, but never the role they ended up serving. My old Charizard was immune to earthquake, but weak to what seemed like everything else. Infernape doesn't completely solve this problem, but he's got what are in my mind, the perfect stats for what a fire-type pokemon "should" have. He's fast, he's extremely versatile on both the physical and special side, and he's got about the best move pool I've ever seen on a fire pokemon. Plus, I'll admit, I love the Chinese Zodiac/Journey To The West "wise ape" theme he's got going on.

Infernape also often switches lead spots with Scizor on my team, which is why he has U-Turn. In the games where he's not, I give him Mach Punch for priority. Stone Edge, while cliche on Infernape, helps very much with my team's weakness to flying types late game.


Umbreon


Ability: Syncronize

Nature: Careful

Item: Leftovers

EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD

Heal Bell
Mean Look
Baton Pass
Wish

My special wall and cleric. The 128 Def EVs are for when I take that unexpected surprise hit from a priority fighting type move. I realize that Umbreon is outclassed by many others as a special wall, especially with all the new fighting types in Gen 5, but I just can't part with him. He was a BEAST as my wall in Gen 2, and like Starmie and Jolteon, has been a special part of my team ever since. Plus, there is one thing Umbreon still does best...

This particular set does exactly what it looks like. Traps my opponent and baton passes Mean Look. Umbreon is the base I've crafted the rest of my team on.



I realize that this is very much an older-feeling team in the sense that it doesn't very well handle newer gen strategies like trick room or weather, but what can I say? I'm a romantic for oldschool.

As always, any help, suggestions, or criticism is welcome and appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Hello.

Sand is quite the popular weather, right up there with rain nowadays, isn't it? Anyways, this team seems to be very well put together, so props to you on that, and hopefully with this rate, it can get even better, so let's get right in to it. First off, your Scizor spread is odd to say the least, so I suggest you change it to a spread of 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe over your current spread. This makes Scizor an amazing SD sweeper, with the Attack and Speed it needs to sweep. Staying on the topic of Scizor, I suggest that you use Superpower or Brick Break in the place of Baton Pass, as they allow Scizor to hit a variety of steel types such as Heatran and others. Moving on, I have to be honest, the Jolteon set you're running is pretty ineffective, because if you get locked into the wrong move, you'll become setup fodder. So, for Jolteon, I suggest that you use Thunderbolt, Volt Switch and HP Ice in place of Charge Beam, Thunder Wave and Baton Pass respectively. Thunderbolt gives you a strong STAB move to work with, an with Choice Specs, the power is just flat out incredible, also, it allows you to hit most of the bulky waters in the tier such as Slowbro and Jellicent. Volt Switch gives makes Jolteon a hit and runner, allowing it to switch into another teammate in order to resist the hit that is coming, and HP Ice is mainly for hitting dragon types and Gliscor. Well, that's all I really have to say for now. I hope my advice helped you just a bit. Have fun and good luck with your team!

~Dr Ciel~ (The doctor is OUT)

I just put Thunderbolt back on Jolteon, and am about to do another WiFi match to test it out, but sadly I don't have perfect IV's on him, so HP Ice is going to be quite an investment of breeding. But I'll see what I can do. Thanks!

Oh, you're on Wi-Fi. However, it should be noted that Mean Look is no longer passable. Sorry. Seeing as how the only abuser of a passed SD boost on your team is Infernape, I suggest changing BP on Scizor to Superpower, which shouldn't be too annoying if this team is in BW2. Hope I helped.

edit: Mean Look isn't passable as in the opposing Pokemon can switch. Baton Passing Mean Look does not exist anymore.

Well, I'll be honest, the core of this team rebuild was done on Heart Gold. I have Black Version 2, but I have only recently transferred the team over.

I was unaware that Mean Look wasn't passable anymore. It works just fine in my game. Or were you referring to the revised Smogon OU rules? If that's the case, then I'll be going back to my Curse set for Umbreon.

Hippowdon also benefits from SD quite a bit though. It has OHKO'd a decent percentage of the people I've battled. Nevertheless, I had already intended on giving Scizor Superpower in the near future.

Thanks again for the help.

Hi,

Nice team you have here, I like a lot the use of Jolteon in the current metagame anyway I have some advice to give you so let's start with the rate!

First of all, I agree with all Dr Ciel's advice. I'd change Scizor's EV spread into 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe and I'd use Superpower, replacing Baton Pass on it. EVs in Speed allow to outspeed a lots of threats like Rotom-W and Heatran and Superpower allows to kill some steel -types like Ferrothorn and Heatran which would create it some problem. I'd also use on Jolteon Hidden Power Ice and Volt Switch, replacing Thunder Wave and Baton Pass. Agreement among Thunder Wave and Choice Specs is not so good because when you'll use Thunder Wave you'll give some chances to setup to your opponent's pokèmon, for example you'll give a chance to setup to Rock Polish Landorus and that's quite bad. Then, your team has a big weakness to Venusaur, Rock Polish Landorus and also rain teams can be problematic for your current team because Starmie can't tank well strong water attacks. To fix this weaknesses, I'd use Offensive Life Orb Latias, replacing Umbreon. I'd use it with 72 EVs on HP, they allows to resist to Venusaur +2's Sludge Bomb and to tank better Landorus' Hidden Power Ice and some water attacks like Keldeo's Hydro Pump. Here's the set you should use:



Hope I helped, good luck!

Hello, and welcome to Smogon!

I can tell that you are a bit new to competitive battling, and I notice that you don't have the smartest decisions on your team. Many Pokemon like Umbreon serve little to no use in Overused, and this shows that you are a much newer player to the competitive scene. This is why before I start rating your team that you move sign up to Battling 101. The new round starts this week, and it would improve your overall skill to be enrolled in it. It is a great opportunity that helps improve your overall team building and prediction skills making you an overall new player. It will show you what is popular in the metagame and explain different components of competitive battling. This will help newer players like you become much better and improve quickly.

Now onto the actual rate, I first off suggest changing Scizor's Set to a more defensive Bulky Swords Dance to take on dragon attacks like Draco Meteors which will otherwise be a problem for the team. You need a much sturdier Latios check, and a bulkier Scizor will do the trick. Changing up the spread to one of Adamant 252 HP / 40 Atk / 216 SpD @ Metal Coat with Swords Dance / Bullet Punch / Bug Bite / Roost will give Scizor the needed bulk and offenses to be a formidable bulky sweeper. He can still revenge with the Metal Coat enhanced Bullet Punch, still making sure he has a strong priority move at easy access. Baton Passing is not going to be a very effective strategy with this team, and this set will overall do better. Just make sure to be careful of stray Hidden Power Fires from the Lati twins, which could quickly kill Scizor off.

Now you have quite the weakness to Gyarados, Volcarona, Tornadus - T, and Keldeo. To help against this I suggest using a different Pokemon entirely. Jolteon cannot handle these guys at all, as Tornadus - T can simply 2HKO it with Hurricane on the next switch. To handle all of these Pokemon much safer you should be using a Bulky Specially Defensive Rotom-W in place of Jolteon. Although weaker, it still provides momentum and can easily beat all the mentioned Pokemon. Rotom-W is a very good Pokemon in today's metagame because of how it can easily handle some of the most prevalent threats in both Rain and Sand. Jolteon is not very effective because it is often to weak or to fragile to be a good sweeper. Rotom-W still gives you momentum with Volt Switch and cripple foes with a Thunder Wave without being locked into it.This gives you an answer to Volcarona outside of the fragile Infernape and a great answer to Tornadus - T, who is actually being suspected right now!

Up next is Umbreon, who is another problem with the team. He is terrible in overused and has no use at all compared to other walls. Now like Alexander said, I suggest using one of the Lati twins. But I suggest using Bulky Life Orb Latias instead of Latios. Latios gets worn down very fast and will not be able to beat Terrakion, Rotom-W, or Keldeo very easily. Latias however is bulky enough to take on these Pokemon and doesn't get worn down as fast in sand. Finally I would suggest to use Rapid Spin on Starmie instead of Recover. Rapid Spin will help your team out immensely and Recover will not help you out much at all.



Good luck!