Bye Drizzle

[Plusle]

Bye Drizzle

Hello! This is my best team for Suspect Round 2. It uses 3 Pokemon who were UU last gen. The aim of the team is to smash Walls early game with Toxicroak And Azumarril and clear up with Choice Specs Kingdra or Offensive Trick Room Rankurusu. Too bad Drizzle will be banned soon.

Politoed (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hydro Pump
- Focus Blast
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Politoed is the most important member of this team setting down the important rain. I chose Choice Specs as it allows Politoed to do some good damage. Hydro Pump boosted with rain and Choice Specs does a lot to any switch in. Ice Beam is good for Nailing Dragon- and Grass- types. Focus Blast is very important as it destroys Tyranitar who trys to set up Sandstorm and Natorei who is a pain for rain teams. Hidden Power Electric is for Water Types and was chosen over Grass to remove Gyarados.

Azumarill (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Huge Power
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Ice Punch
- Superpower

Azumarill might seem like a strange choice for the team but it Glues it together. It destroys Sand Teams. Choice Band, Huge Power, Aqua Jet one shots Doryuzzu and Landlos. Superpower hurts for Tyranitar and Nattorei and Latios won't like taking Ice Punches. Waterfall is used against things such as Skarmory where Aqua Jet is not strong enough.

Kingdra (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Surf
- Hydro Pump
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Pulse

SpecsKingdra I love you. This thing is insane. Insanely quick and Insanely Powerful. Unless you are named Blissey or Grass, Water or Dragon typed then you will die to Hydro Pump. Surf is used for when I need the accuracy boost. Draco Meteor destroys any Latias. Dragon Pulse plays a similar role to Surf and is used when I just can not risk a miss.

Rankurusu (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Trick Room
- Psycho Shock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball

Rankurusu is great. Ofensive Trick Room Rankurusu is a great set in this Speed-Creep metagame. Psycho Shock makes this a Mixed sweeper meaning Blissey should not switch in. Focus Blast means this thing beats Natorei and Tyranitar. Shadow Ball is for Latias and other Rankurusu

Toxicroak (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Dry Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Drain Punch
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance

Toxicroak is the boss. Against rain teams not much can stop this. Subsitute gives it a safety net against faster pokemon. Life Orb and Subsitute damage is negated by Drain Punch and Dry Skin. Swords Dance boosts your Attack very high. Drain Punch is your main STAB and paired with Dry Skin heals off damage fast. Sucker Punch gies you priority and stops Psychics such as Latios in their tracks.

Nattorei (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Spikes
- Power Whip

Natorei is the teams Glue. It is a Leech Seeder. Leech Seed and Iron Barbs wear down the opponent slowly while Natorei sets up Spikes. Protect seems a weird choice except Thunder Wave is not very good for this team as it can hinder Rankurusus sweep. Protect allows you to Scout and regain healtth from Leech Seed. Natorei also has a decent Attack so Power Whip. can annoy rain sweepers.

Testing

Defensive Politoed
Stealth Rock>Spikes
Kabutops

 

[Smith]

Hey cool team! I understand that Drizzle looks close to being banned, but I'll give a rate in case you want to keep using it (I assume you do since you posted a RMT) until then or if it's not banned for whatever reason. Anyways, this team is pretty good, and you manage to pull a twist on what is normally a very dry (lol) playstyle. You do also seem to have various methods of beating other annoying Pokemon in the metagame, so congrats on that.

While Choice Specs on Politoed may seem like a good idea just to give it "something to do", but the fact is that it's basically Politoed vs. the metagame. EVERY TEAM YOU FACE that isn't opposing rain has (or should have) dedicated ways of destroying politoed so they can get their own weather up. The point here is that we should be trying to keep Politoed alive as long as possible. Another thing to note when you use a Specs Politoed is that he is ridiculously easy to switch into and set-up on using a water resist (which obviously any good team in this metagame will have at least 2-3 of). If Nattorei can start getting up spikes, for example, specs Politoed isn't going to look so smart and will die relatively easily, god forbid it has to try and take an attack with almost no defensive investment. Lastly, I'd note that even with specs, politoed isn't incredibly threatening, especially when Kingdra could likely switch into the same attacks and do so much more. For all of these reasons, I'd recommend changing Politoed into a standard defensive set.

@ Leftovers
Drizzle
252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm
-Boiling Water
-Toxic
-Perish Song
-Focus Blast / Protect

Again, this set focuses on playing to Politoed's strengths and keeping him alive as long as possible. While you certainly won't be doing much damage, that shouldn't be Politoed's purpose to begin with. While Focus Blast is nifty for Tyranitar, protect is very useful to scout for crafty toad-desposing methods and to regain leftovers.

That's the only major suggestion I have, the rest here are simply "notes". I feel that Kingdra having Surf and Hydro Pump is redundant and that he might have better options. Hidden Power Fire or Fighting would both be could choices to hit the extremely common Kingdra counter, Nattorei. Rain boosts down fire attacks to the point where they are dishing out similar damage, and is simply a matter of preference (you will probably find that HP Fighting has better neutral coverage, but this is up to you).

I'd also run Stealth Rock over Spikes on Nattorei. While not as vital as in last generation, SR is still better by itself than spikes. Firstly, levitating or non-grounded Pokemon are very common (like Voltolos, latios etc.) Secondly, I think that riskily playing Nattorei to get up more spikes is not as efficient as using Leech Seed or Power Whip liberally, and will increase his chances of being killed or mere set-up fodder for a dangerous sweeper.

That's all the advice I have, great team. I hope this helped!

 

[hullohihello]

Drizzle isn't banned just yet! Don't give up hope lol. But here's what I think.

I would have to agree with smith about defensive politoed. With my rain team which consists of politeod/zapdos/birijion/nattorei/kingdra/kabutops, politoed needs the survivability and the defensive spread lets it set up rain over and over again vs sand and the occasional ninetails. If you want to run specs, at least run 252hp/252SpA/4Spe since 70 base speed isn't going to let you outspeed anything significant.

On the other hand with Kingdra, the coverage is way too repetitive. 2 similar water moves and 2 similar dragon moves is a waste. A better set for specsdra which is pretty standard and what I use would be as follows.
Kingdra @ Choice Specs
Swift Swim
Modest
4Hp/252SpA/252Spe
-Surf
-Draco Meteor/Dragon Pulse
-Ice Beam
-Hidden Power Fighting
Surf and Draco Meteor provide the same coverage as your current set and ice beam lets you take out garchomp, randorosu, and flying types in general that may otherwise threaten your team such as zapdos. HP fighting is sorta a last ditch effort against nattorei and can hit tyranitar switch-in's if you predict correctly.

Also, I think you should at least give kabutops a chance over azumarill. Kabutops actually has a chance to outpace threats in the rain which makes it more useful against non-weather teams and still hits 542 attack with adamant nature and choice band which although its less than the 656 (?) attack azumarill hits, kabutops can be more a threat to many teams due to it being able to outspeed almost all non swift swimmers.

 

[Jaroda]

@Smith: Specs HP Fire vs Nattorei in Rain = 210. Specs Hydro Pump vs Nattorei in Rain = 202.5. It's a 3HKO either way and Kingdra frankly doesn't need a third coverage move. Only other move I could justify is Rest if you had a Heal Bell/Aromatherapy user.

 

[shrang]

On the other hand with Kingdra, the coverage is way too repetitive. 2 similar water moves and 2 similar dragon moves is a waste. A better set for specsdra which is pretty standard and what I use would be as follows.
Kingdra @ Choice Specs
Swift Swim
Modest
4Hp/252SpA/252Spe
-Surf
-Draco Meteor/Dragon Pulse
-Ice Beam
-Hidden Power Fighting
Surf and Draco Meteor provide the same coverage as your current set and ice beam lets you take out garchomp, randorosu, and flying types in general that may otherwise threaten your team such as zapdos. HP fighting is sorta a last ditch effort against nattorei and can hit tyranitar switch-in's if you predict correctly.

1) Ice Beam is pointless when you have Dragon STAB (Note neutral Draco Meteor hits harder than super-effective Ice Beam)
2) HP Fighting's base power vs Nattorei = 140 (70 x 2), while Hydro Pump in the rain = 135 (120 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 2). As you can see Hydro Pump does almost the same amount to Nattorei, and I'd much rather be locked into a double STABed 120 BP move rather than a non-STABed 70 BP move. Hydro Pump does more to Tyranitar than HP Fighting anyway (Hydro Pump is 120 x 1.5 x 2 = 360 BP while HP Fighting is 70 x 4 = 280 BP)

About the fact that there are two Water-type and Dragon-type moves on the same set, it is not redundant at all, while there's nothing else that Kingdra needs to run anyway. The two moves serve different purposes in different stages of the game. Hydro Pump and Draco Meteor are for early and mid-game wallbreaking while Surf and Dragon Pulse are there for late game cleaning and sweeping. He doesn't need anything else (If you really want to hit Shedinja, I guess you could replace Dragon Pulse with Toxic, but there isn't need for that).

 

[Smith]

Well the rain isn't always up, especially if your opponent makes a concentrated effort to get rid of Politoed so they can get up SS for example. I maintain that it's better than just running Hydro Pump and Surf.

 

[hullohihello]

Ok, thanks Shrang for explaining how the set is viable. From the description I origianally thought it was based off accuracy, but now I get it. Although in my opinion, surf and hydro pump is still repetitive and ice beam at least hits all the dragon/flying, and dragon/grounds and flying types without the SpA drop which lets it sweep rather than just revenge kill and break walls.

 

[MasterX]

Trust me the set you are using is all you need. I've used the set you are using before and its so powerful in rain. Even though you probably won't get it up. I tested it, specs Kingdra 2HKO's Blissey with three layers of spikes with hydro pump, its just that damn powerful(in rain obviously). You don't need anything else. Nattorei is I believe 3HKO or 2HKO with a lot of entry hazards. Surf for reliability and hydro pump for power same with dragon moves. Your dragon stab is also all you need for dragons.