Rate of the Week V2: Week 2

[IronBullet]

Rate of the Week
​

Welcome to Rate of the Week! This is a project that looks to bring quality individual rates into the spotlight and recognizes the hard work of unbadged raters. Here's how it will work:

• Each week, official Team Raters will be paying close attention to the RMT forum and reading the rates posted in their respective tiers. They will then shortlist a few which will be in contention for the Rate of the Week award.
• From the pool of shortlisted rates, one will be chosen which most exemplifies the qualities of an excellent rate. That rater will be the winner for that particular tier!
• A post will be made by an official TR who specialises in that tier, explaining how and why the particular rate won. This will allow aspiring raters to gain an idea of what constitutes high-quality rates, and hopefully incorporate those aspects into their own rates.
• There will be multiple winners every week, one from OU and a couple from other tiers depending on the quality of the rates posted. We hope that in this way we can expand rating activity in less popular tiers, while maintaining a weekly OU winner.
• Official Team Raters are eligible to win, but not more than once. Unbadged raters can win the award multiple times.

So what's in it for the winners? Well, they will earn a place in the Rater of the Week Hall of Fame which will be kept in the OP of every thread. Winners also earn more consideration for the Ladybug

and Team Rater

badges.

We hope that this project will encourage people to put more effort into their rates and become better and more experienced raters, which will consequently increase the quality as well as the quantity of rates in the forum. Good luck to you all! :)

Hall of Fame

Week #1 - Nedor (OU) and fran17 (LC)
Week #2 -

 

[IronBullet]

This week's UU winner is YABO! It's clear from his rate that he put a ton of effort into it, suggesting two sets of changes which both go a long way towards improving the effectiveness of the team without altering its main focus. He starts off by recommending a change in Whimsicott's EVs to a spread of 236 HP / 144 Def / 128 Spe with a Timid nature that importantly allows it to outspend positively natured Salamence, and gives it the bulk to more easily take on the likes of Hydreigon and Mega Swampert.

YABO then recommends two sets of changes: the first makes the team more solid against Mamoswine, which is a huge threat to the team, while the second still becomes more solid against Mamo but is vulnerable to Knock Off variants. In the first set of changes YABO suggests Defog over Grass Knot on Empoleon. This allows Empoleon to provide hazard control support, which makes it possible for Rotom-H to replace Crobat to give the team a very solid Mamo answer. Replacing Grass Knot with Defog doesn't really make the team any weaker to Water-types with Whimsicott now becoming sturdier. Replacing Crobat does make the team weaker against Heracross, which is why YABO suggests Tentacruel over Empoleon as an alternative. Losing Empoleon does not hurt the team too much, with Whimsicott serving as a decent Hydreigon answer already and Rotom-H retaining the Flying resist. Mega Aero does become a rather big threat on paper though, so YABO suggests trying out Scarf Cobalion over Mienshao if that proves to be the case in practice.

YABO's second set of changes sees Empoleon being replaced by Tentacruel, but this time he suggests replacing Crobat with Bronzong which can handle Mamoswine provided it doesn't pack Knock Off. Colbur Berry is a clever idea here that allows Bronzong to handle Knock Off Mamoswine pretty reliably. His very detailed rate, efficient suggestions, and excellent format has earned YABO a spot in the Hall of Fame. Congrats!

 

[Enki]

This week's OU winner is shui3! His rate focused on trying to cover the team against its most common threats. His format looks really nice and it's very clear and concise. He started with explaining how the playstyle works, and how volturn cores are weak to hazards. His suggestion of Latios over Celebi to have the Defog support is a pretty good one, as it gives the team a hazard remover, and maintains a solid answer to Keldeo.

Then he started talking about the playstyles the team can face, starting with stall. His suggestion of Life Orb and Fire Blast on Hydreigon, allow Hydreigon to really threaten fat teams, and defeat steel types like Mega Metagross, Skarmory (one mon the team struggled to KO before) and Scizor with more ease. His suggestion of Hippowdon over Heatran may be a bit criticized, as it opens up a big weakness to Serperior. However, Hippowdon offers a lot to the team as it's able to check major threats including Mega Manectric, Raikou, and Mega Lopunny. He also mentioned how it's able to help against set up sweepers due to it being able to phase them out via Whirlwind.

Finally, he mentioned other options over Rotom-W, including the positive and negative aspects of each option. His suggestion of Raikou helps against electric types and Serperior, but it also makes the team weaker to sand and rain teams. He also mentioned how Rotom-W can check Excadrill in sand, as well as Mega Swampert. Shui3 made a fantastic rate with great formatting, and deserves a place in the Hall of Fame. Congrats!

 

[g]

The RU Rate of the week is 49's!
The rate, that can be found here shows his ability to massively improve on a team while keeping its original idea of being sticky web hyper offense using the very uncommon threat of Marowak to dismantle opposing teams combined with Mega Glalie.
His improvements focus a lot on improving the difficult matchups Sticky Web teams have when met with something able to quickly remove the precious entry hazards from the game by incresing the overall speed of its wallbreakers (as well as upgrading the mediocre Leavanny with Smeargle that gets Stealth Rock up for the team as well) and also fitting into the team a big underrated threat in SubCM Meloetta while also improving the overall defensive synergy.