Rate of the Week V3: Week 15

[Enki]

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 Hall of Fame, which will be kept in the OP of every thread, and will earn more consideration for the Ladybug

and Team Rater

badges. Also, after gaining three places in the Hall of Fame, a rater will be eligible to earn voice status in the RMT room on PS! on the condition that they've shown an interest in getting involved.

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 - Toon Linked (OU)
Week #2 - Nedor (OU), Arifeen (UU)
Week #3 - Fireburn (Ubers), Do A Bibarel (UU)
Week #4 - AM (OU), Raiza (PU), Kiyo (NU)
Week #5 - FlamingVictini (OU)
Week #6 - Cyndequil. (UU)
Week #7 - BreloomMyHomie (OU)
Week #8 - FlamingVictini (OU)
Week #9 - oml it's too ez (OU), Cyndequil. (UU), MrAldo (RU)
Week #10 - Nedor (OU), Cyndequil. (UU), Cranham (Ubers), Lax (Monotype)
Week #11 - AM (OU)
Week #12 - Lange (OU), Amaroq (UU)
Week #13 - all falls down (UU)
Week #14 - Manipulative (UU)
Week #15 - mil (OU)

 

[Tricking]

This week's OU winner is mil. He wrote an insightful rate, featuring great metagame knowledge and a good format. He started off saying that Togekiss is often a deadweight, as it is only useful against stall teams, which isn't frequently used in the current metagame. Therefore, he suggested to replace Togekiss with Choice Band Tyranitar, which provides a good support trapping latwins and opening holes for Keldeo and Raikou.

Then, he focused on improving Sceptile's set. In fact, due to a general glaring weakness to Heatran, mil thought that Earthquake on Sceptile was mandatory. He considered straight after that Energy Ball scored some useful OHKOs on bulky Water-types, and he suggested to use it over Giga Drain. After that, mil said that with the addition of Tyranitar, Landorus-Therian should focus on absorbing physical hits rather than breaking fat cores, so he suggested to use a standard defensive set on it. He suggested to run Choice Specs or Life Orb + RestTalk on Keldeo in order not to get it torn down by recoil.

Lastly, he put some good changes that, far away from being mandatory, could be valid alternatives to Togekiss in the initial team. For instance Choice Band Terrakion, while being still very powerful, is much faster than Tyranitar. Life Orb Tornadus-Therian could be a good option, though it'd need many fixes to be really effective.

Thanks to his well-written rate, mil has earned himself a spot in the Hall of Fame. Congratulations :]