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[1:58:51 AM] Reymedy: there's no way someone wins
[6:21:58 AM] Team Pokepals: tell them, even a full restore won't save them against me ;)
Thanks to everyone for signing up!
For this round, we have decided to accept oml it's too ez and FlamingVictini.
Both challengers face the first rater in the league. The pairings will be:
I wanted to build around Charizard X because it has very few switchins, mostly bulky grounds. Pivoting into these is not too difficult, so I just chose Dragon/Fire coverage. Roost for recovery against more defensive teams.
Keldeo is really nice to weaken teams through Scaldburns and also to eliminate bulky grounds for Zard. Burning fat water types is also good for Zard because it limits their ability to wall Zard a bit.
Latis are a check to non boosted Zard, also I don't want people do Draco freely, that's why I chose Ttar. It also prevents Gengar and Hoopa from spamming their stabs, to which I have no switchins.
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 176 SpD / 80 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Iron Head
- U-turn
- Body Slam
Jirachi can absorb Dracos and also Fairy moves from M-Garde for example. U-Turn gives momentum which is always nice and Bodyslam makes sure the opponent can't switch in checks to Rachi for free.
Landorus-Therian @ Soft Sand
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 56 HP / 252 Atk / 200 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Polish
- Smack Down
- Swords Dance
This is my second setup sweeper. Adamant soft Sand Lando breaks those fat Water and Grounds, also has the potential to 2hko Quagsire after a little bit of damage.
Include 3-5 Replays of you playing the team on the ladder. Make sure it's around 1700 on the PS. I also want you to refer to your replays in the text, when rating.
You have to structure like this: 1. introduction 2. list of all threats in detail 3. answers for each threat. You can add more paragraphs of course. Make sure to provide metagame knowledge in your rate.
Please send your rate to Enki, Analytic or Snowy. Deadline is in ~72 hours from now (Friday 11 pm EST)
Hey man, I like your idea of running Lando/Rachi/Latios, which is a solid starting point for bulky offense teams. It is capable of pivoting into a variety of threats in the current meta while providing momentum, Stealth Rock, hazard removal and Wish support.
However, the choice of your sets can be improved. I will make the team bulkier, while keeping wallbreaking capabilities and speed control.
You run SpD Jirachi, which not only absorbs Fairy (Gardevoir, Diancie, Clefable) and Dragon attacks (including Kyurem-B) for the other teammates, but it also is an answer to Flying-types like Tornadus-T or M-Pinsir and it can also deal with Serperior, against which you have to play carefully. As you see Jirachi's role compression is really good, it is important for the team, because it has to check a lot of Pokemon. This is the reason why I recommend you to run Wish+Protect on it, giving you recovery and Wish support for the other teammates. A set with more SpD allows you to tank Kyurem-B's Earth Power and stalls it out due to Life Orb recoil while avoiding the 2HKO from LO Serperior's HP Fire. Running Wish+Protect loses you momentum, because while you go for Wish, the opponent can bring in a Pokemon that forces Jirachi out, for example Excadrill, Landorus, or Garchomp. This means that you have to switch in Landorus a lot more when trying to heal Jirachi back up. You have to switch defensively, that means that the opponent has the possibility to set up, however if you go for Wish and in switch into Landorus in the next turn, you'll get the Wish and gain HP with Lando.
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 224+ SpD Jirachi: 177-208 (43.8 - 51.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 224+ SpD Jirachi: 195-231 (48.2 - 57.1%) -- 44.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Mega Diancie Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 224+ SpD Jirachi: 170-200 (42 - 49.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Lando has to take more hits now, so I recommend the standard defenisive set and move Stealth Rocks to it. Now, bulky water types like Slowbro, Quagsire, Gastrodon, and Manapy and bulkier Ground-types (which wall Charizard) become even more problematic, because EP Lando hit them for a lot of damage. Running Toxic on Lando allows you to surprise these and make them less likely to wall your team. This change loses you a lot of wallbreaking potential.
Choice Band>Choice Scarf makes Tyranitar the wallbreaker of the team. It has extremely high damage output, can even take a super effective hit and attack afterwards. It can even scare out Suicune with 204 speed investment which outruns it. Due to adamant nature and Choice Band, it can pursuit Slowbro, which won't be able to switch into Charizard X and Keldeo after the damage. Latios and Starmie, which are answers to Keldeo, still can't stay on the field safely. If they do, Tyranitar will cripple them to the point where they are no longer an answer to Keldeo. Landorus, Hippowdon and Quagsire can't take its hits easily too, so they will always be forced to recover which gives you a turn to switch. Pursuiting Heatran for over 50% makes sense too, it comes in on Jirachi and Latios a lot, while your only answer is Keldeo, which gets worn down through repeated switchins to rocks and potential Lava Plume burns. Rest is a little gimmiky bit helps versus defensive teams if it gets burned.
Losing speed in giving the role of the wallbreaker to Tyranitar, Scarf>Specs on Keldeo will add speed control back to the team. Roost>HP Fire on Latios allows you to pivot into Pokemon that wall Charizard more easily. Scizor, Ferrothorn or Skamory aren't too problematic to the team.
DD Zard-X works here, the team centers around weakening or crippling its checks, then you find an opportuniy to set up and win. You can try a defensive set too, it depends on how you want to play the team. It runs Will-O-Wisp/Flare Blitz/Roost/Dragon Claw with an Impish nature and an EV spread of 248 HP / 52 Def / 208 Spe, which will allow you to hit 288 speed, outspeeding Hoopa-U, to which you have problems switching in. Burning Ground Types like Hippowdon/Quagsire/Lando or Azumarill (which is also a threat to your team) on the switch either cripples the opponent's defensive core or one of their wallbreakers.
+
The reason why this duo is dangerous to your team is because your only Keldeo switchin is Latios, which gets trappes by Slowbro. The other 'water resist' is Keldeo, which can't switch into opposing Keldeo without sacrificing a lot of HP. Usually people run Latios in combination a Water or Grass type that can switch into Keldeo without getting trapped by Tyranitar. You have to play really carefully against this core, but still it will be difficult and you have to predict the turn your opponent switches into Tyranitar.
M-Pinsir is really dangerous to the team. It can SD on the switch to Lando, avoid the attack drop due to Hyper Cutter and OHKO Lando, while doing around 90% to Jirachi with Close Combat at +2. Keldeo can only revenge it at full health, if it doesn't have a boost. With Stone Edge on Lando, you can revenge Pinsir, but miss out on Toxic. If you expect the opponent to bring a M-Pinsir, then running Stone Edge>Toxic is a way to deal with it. In that case, you should run Toxic>Icy Wind on Keldeo to hit Slowbros or cripple it with Will-O-Wisp on Charizard. Running Fire Punch>Jirachi does around 30% to it, while also hitting steel types, but I think it is not with it, since Iron Head just does a few percent less than Fire Punch and U-Turn provides momentum, and Ferrothorn is not a problem to the team.
Like in every bulkier build, you'll probably have to sacrifice a Pokemon to take these out. You can't really switch into these, but it's hard to cover anyway.
Rain is a problem too. If the opponent runs two rain sweepers, it will be hard to play against it. Tyranitar can remove the rain, but can't take a hit. If you predict Kingdra to Draco by baiting the move with Keldeo, you can treat Kingra like a Latios and Pursuit it (73.6 - 87.1%), which will almost take it out on the switchout if it is locked into Draco. Same appies to Politoad, if you catch one of the members of the rain core on a pursuit, you put yourself in a good position.
Without CM, it is not too problematic, although hard to wear down. If it CM's, then you have a problem. Tyranitar outspeeds it, but sacrifices a lot of health and risks a burn. It is your only way to really break it. Annoying it with status helps too.
Nothing can really take a hit from M-Medicham. Keldeo and Latios revenge it, but if it runs Ice Punch, Lando can't come in on it. Sacrificing a Pokemon while bringing it in range of Keldeo's attacks can work. Same stuff applies to Lopunny, but it has less damage output.
Here are some Replays which show how Banded Tyranitar works, removing Psychics and breaking walls: R1 vs Gardevoir+Bisharp Bulky Offense R2 vs against a defensive team similar to Honus' Sableye-Talon team. Tyranitar gets the deciding kill against Sableye.
Ok so I want to start off by saying that this is a pretty nice team, and I like the way it feels, but its definitely not perfect. I've been experimenting with several zard builds before I even looked at this team, and i still have not figured out which variations should be considered "optimal." I will say, however, is that there are two ways to go about adjusting this team. One method would involve no changes in your pokemon, but a few set changes. This would involve running a lure mixrachi with moves like gknot and icy wind, to ease things up for zard and also lando-t by hitting fat grounds as well as bulky waters like slowbro, suicune, etc. that currently are a massive pain in the butt to take down. This would involve moving rocks to tar and making it chople berry, which I tend to prefer over scarftar for the simple reason that it checks a lot of the same stuff, but covers alakazam and tornadus-t(two massive threats in the current metagame) while only losing out on bisharp and stuff that requires speed in general. With 2 other small changes in hp electric keldeo (for opposing waters) and roost latios (for longevity that helps a lot vs opposing water), I did actually test this version out, but I found that the jirachi was clunky and the team was no less weaker to serperior than it was before. As you can see in this replay I struggled a huge amount against serp, and I was only able to win because the serperior lacked dragon pulse and thus my zard-x could set-up and win the whole game. I eventually came to the conclusion that the team would really need scarf lando-t to adjust the team fully, but i absolutely love the combination of Zard-X + DD Lando-t and I really wanted to maintain it in this form of the team.
The reason for this is I love how both of them break down each others checks, and also attempt to create set-up opportunities for each other. For example, Zard-X can force opposing scarf lando-t to take damage and also eq or stone edge (u-turning will be bad for the opponent obviously), paving the way for lando-t to come in immediately after and rock polish to clean. Alternatively, lando can weaken a rotom-w heavily with stone edge while blocking volt switch, meaning zard-x can set-up on it freely provided it lacks thunder wave, which is uncommon and only really used on extremely zard-x weak teams. Thus, my adjustments to the team will focus on maintaining this core and trying to bring it to its full potential.
The first thing I want you to realize is that on the dd lando-t, you need to adjust the speed # to outrun adamant excadrill in sand after a rock polish, as well as timid heatran before any boosts. I actually end up doing something a little more creative with the lando-t so i'll show you my fully adjusted set later, but for now, you can see in Turn 16 of this replay that the lack of speed on lando may as well have lost me the game. Another reason i struggled in this game was because slowbro walled a large majority of the team, and he also had a tyranitar to trap latios, which is one of the only members on this team that can actually take on slowbro (and happens to lose to cm slowbro, and gets forced out if it slacks off on a draco meteor). You can see similarly in this replay that I struggled against slowbro throughout the whole game, especially with latios gone. The first suggestion i'm going to make is to use Chople Ferrothorn > Jirachisince it allows you to check similar mons like mega gardevoir, diancie, Latios/Latias, kyurem b, and alakazam, while also putting a lot more pressure on opposing waters (defensive ones, as well stuff like rotom-w or azumarill) since you can leech seed and power whip them. While ferro does not perfectly replace jirachi's roles on its team, the extra benefits it brings (mostly for combatting waters) are massive and easily outweigh the benefits of jirachi in place of ferro.
Now one downfall of this change is you're now certainly weaker to serperior (which is already a huge problem you struggle to deal with), and in general have less momentum on the team. I found that the combination of Latios + Keldeo was ok, but a bit slow and wasn't meeting my expectations fully. I decided to replace Keldeo with LO Starmie, because it provides hazard removal (i remove latios right after this) and also can outspeed and ice beam serperior, while threatening slowbro with thunderbolt rather consistently. It also lures in ferrothorn when it rapid spins, and this is perfect for Zard-X to come in while hazards are off and wreck havoc upon the opposing team.
Now Latios was rather unnecessary, and this is where I struggled to find a perfect last. By removing Keldeo I certainly developed a greater weakness to dark types, although I feel safe against hoopa since scarf isn't that strong and can get trapped, whereas offensive variants can be outrun and ko'd by stuff (while chople ferro also can tank a non-fire punch) and ttar just checks it in general. I also did not feel too scared against bisharp since it is safely checked by scarftar's superpower and also by zard-x, while being uncommon nowadays and having very few set-up opportunities. Weavileis the only one that really scares me, and honestly with the completed version its the only major threat i've found that is still definitely beatable thanks to chople ferro and the fact that a healthy ttar or zard can tank a hit and ko it back. In the end I found that the need for a secondary check to set-up sweepers as well as the naturally fast and strong torn and mzam, as well as the ability to break/soften defensive cores for zard-x + lando-t to power through outweighed my concern for weavile, so I decided on a last for LO GKnot Thundurus. It can succesfully lure Hippowdon and Quagsire with grass knot, which massively opens up room for the zard + dd lando-t core to sweep. With prankster twave it checks a large variety of threats. For the last moveslot, HP Ice is certainly usable to threaten tank chomp and lando-t, although these mons are usually scared off regardless, and I found HP Flying to be useful instead. It helps threaten fighting types like Mega Heracross and Mega Medicham (as you can see turn 1 in this replay, it got an ohko t1 where instead I would have lost a mon to hera). The choice is up to you, however.
Now finally, I wanted to adjust the lando-t. I initially just made the spread 252 atk / 12 def / 244 spe (hits 279, outrunning max timid tran and adamant drill) and changed smack down to stone edge since the much greater immediate damage is always better than smack down on a set-up set like this, but after some experimenting I was really happy with a different set. What i'm talking about is using HP Ice > Swords Dance, and running LO > Soft Sand. This set change is pretty interesting and I think meshes with Zard-X really well. LO gives Lando-t more power in all its attacks, making SD a bit less necessary and allowing it to have a much higher chance to 2hko quagsire on the switch, leaving zard-x free to rip through stall. With LO and HP Ice, you can also blast away opposing lando-t and to an extent tankchomp or gliscor (while also not risking stone edge vs mons like dragonite), which really helps out Zard-X. In this replay (starting turn 11), you can see that Lando was able to grab an rp but had no time to SD as well. However, thanks to LO and HP Ice, it was able to cleanly sweep through the opponent. You can also see in turn 7 that the LO gave lando the power to ohko keldeo after rocks with eq, and scarftar can trap and remove latis, which can stop the sweep by tanking a stone edge (albeit needs much less weakening for stone edge to ko when u have a lo boost). This set only has the downside that you can't SD to break through skarmory and hippowdon easier, and that the LO recoil is theoretically an issue when facing excadrill. Excadrill is not a massive issue however (ferro > rachi makes things comfier than before, at the very least), and in my testing I found the LO recoil to not be a huge problem. If you prefer double dance, however, you're free to use that.
Other than the weakness to a well played weavile, i'm extremely happy with this team. It has a good strategy of sweeping with zard and/or lando, and the whole team works well to make this strategy work a great majority of the time. I have alternatively considered klefki > thundurus, chople rocks tar, and breloom/serp > ferro in an alternate iteration of this team, but I think this changes the team much too much for the purposes of this rate. While 3 mon changes may seem more than desirable, the actual replacements are extremely similar to the original mons and I think overall, contribute to a more effective team. I hope you enjoy playing this team as much as I have.
Mil's rate suggested a very nice change in WishTect Rachi over the current set, this complements the wallbreaker duo of my team pretty nicely as they are Fairy weak. Landorus appreciates the wish support too as it can be overwhelmed by certain cores. However, I think mil made some unnecessary changes such as BandTar over ScarfTar. This made the team's NP Thundurus and Gengar weakness to be significantly worse, and the fact that ScarfTar can be a last ditch attempt to take out something like a Bisharp or Starmie, two of some many other threats to the team, only made it very unnecessary in my eyes. WoW Charizard-X was another unnecessary addition in my opinion because I had a goal of sweeping with DD Zard-X when I started out with building this team, great try though. I loved the formatting and structuring, solid rate overall.
FlamingVictini's rate was a bit hard to understand because of its confusing structuring. He started off by saying that he had two scenarios for my team in terms of the changes, but somewhere down the line reading his rate, I kinda got lost. Anyway, FV suggesting a Lure Jirachi over the current set was something that I really appreciated because of how it contributed toward achieving the goal of the team, which was a Zard-X sweep. The Thundurus and Ferrothorn changes were pretty decent too, Grass Knot Thundurus was a fantastic addition in my opinion and Chople Ferro was something that I could definitely see working. However, in the end I think it come down to the fact that FV changed 3/6 pokemon on the team and left me with a severe Ice-type, Dark-type, and Fairy-type weakness amplification that I didn't find in the original team. The Landorus change was rather unorthodox but yeah it definitely seemed to serve a niche in achieving the goal of the team. Very good effort and I think what I liked most about FV's rate is that his changes seemed to be speaking from actual experience from playing with the team which is something I found pretty admirable. Pass to next round.
Mil's rate is a pretty well structured rate, suggesting nice changes, to begin with Wish Spdef over the current set, which supports the team pretty well and gives the team a nice fairy check. Landorus' set is a huge change, making it defensive, and losing a secondary wincon, considering that Landorus-T was the second wallbreaker, completing the core Landorus-T and Mega Charizard X. Another change was Zard X's set, making it bulkier with wow, which is kinda annoying to many playstyles but at the same time he lost another wallbreaker, having them a few ways to beat stall teams, but to cover that "mistake" he suggested Choice Band Tyranitar over the Scar, which is a change that I appreciated. Anyway the format was almost flawless, really like his format, some changes might be considered rendundant, but he focused on not changing the team that much, but imo he lost his focus about the goal of the team and made the team imo a little bit passive losing a lot of momentum.
FlamingVictini's rate was a pretty nice rate imo, pretty well structured as well and well explained, analysing the team at the beginning and showing step by step how the rate evolved. The Jirachi change was a pretty nice one, supporting how he said the Zard X sweep. Thundurus and Ferro changes are pretty well explained and also help's the main role of the team, which is the double sweep, Chople Ferro helps against Fairies and GKnot Thundurus is something that I really liked. As his last change he suggested Rock Polish HP Ice Landorus, with the Life Orb support is the change that I appreciated more, he showed how that thing works in the team and still keeps the main goal of the team, which is Lando and Zard X's sweep. A last thing that I liked in FV's rate was that he suggested another option, giving many options to the team, if the player doesn't like those changes, giving a more offensive version of that team. A thing that maybe doesn't go in FV's side is that suggesting to change 3 'mons on 6 might not help him. Anyway a pretty well done rate with a nice analysis, many options, decent format and he kept the focus on the main goal of the team. Pass to next round.
hello, this is a straightforward looking m-charizardx offense at first glance, utilizing 'mons like specs keldeo to wallbreak, latios to fill the role of a necessary form of hazard removal, as well as a basic backbone to manage threats; despite this, there are more than a few fundamental issues with the team that have to be addressed. first off, even though dd landorus-t is an excellent in this metagame, relying on an offensive variant and your secondary wincon may i add to check threatening physical attackers such as excadrill, m-lopunny, and opposing m-charizardx is a terrible idea as it will easily get overwhelmed, while you may also lose a way of cleaning late-game in the process, especially considering the rest of the team does not provide counterplay for the aforementioned problems. dd m-charizardx builds should also have consistent ways of breaking down bulky waters and grounds that prevent you from sweeping, and this can be difficult for the team. although this is offense and the matchup will inevitably not be the best, rain abusers such as mega swampert and kingdra put a lot of strain on the team, and even banded azumarill picks up a kill without much prediction. finally, the team is fairly slow overall, having only scarf tyranitar and to a lesser extent body slam jirachi as forms of speed control which makes stuff like mega alakazam threatening, especially considering the backbone can't really deal with it. there are also a few minor spread optimizations that will help in the long-run. in this rate, i will aim to remedy these problems while keeping a similar team structure.
the first change that i will be making is physdef landorus-t > dd landorus-t. this set is definitely optimal for this build in particular to function as a blanket check to prominent physical attackers like excadrill, m-lopunny, and mega metagross (something that offensive variants cannot do well) that overrun the team's backbone and offensive core with ease. also, physdef landorus-t provides a stealth rocker to free up jirachi's slot for something far more beneficial. as you already have scarf tyranitar and a few ways of removing birds as a last resort, knock off is great on its set to remove leftovers / rocky helmets from the likes of landorus-t, hippowdon, rotom-w, slowbro, clefable, ferrothorn, and skarmory which helps your main cleaner and wearing them down quickly is obviously beneficial. if you're that paranoid about flying types, stone edge is always an option but i feel like it is not necessary. having a momentum generator is always nice as well to break down the opponent through hazards and switch initiative for your wallbreakers. changing the set from double dance loses a secondary cleaner that m-charizardx teams appreciate as it can have impossible matchups, but a future change will remedy that.
next, i will be making a beneficial change in chople t-wave ferrothorn > spdef jirachi. this replacement helps with a few things mentioned above; it improves the matchup against rain builds and offensive waters in general (along with tyranitar's sand stream providing counterplay) immensely. not only this, due to chople berry, it blanket checksthreats such as mega gardevoir, gengar, weavile and most importantly (mega) alakazam which pressures every singe 'mon on the build with attacks. spikes support is crucial for the team in order to pressure 'mons such as mega venusaur, tangrowth, heatran, azumarill, slowbro, etc. which can be annoying to break past, and the stuff mentioned being weakened makes you clean much easier mid-late game and can force the opponent into an unfavorable position. thunder wave gives the team a form of speed control due to how relatively slow it is and crippling something make be useful for a setup opportunity. i felt like a steel move was not required because t-wave + power whip deals with everything needed and hitting waters such as rotom-w, slowbro, manaphy, and keldeo is much better.
moving onto the offensive changes as turning the build into a more balanced and passive route is not a good idea;subcm keldeo> specs is advantageous as it fixes the fact you're only setup wincon is dd m-charizardx which isn't consistent as i previously mentioned. not only this, the team removes and weakens its checks quite well with the combination of scarf tyranitar eliminating bulky psychic types, hazard stack to pressure bulky waters and grasses, thunder wave support to create setup opportunities, and the sole fact it can cripple its own checks early-game with scald. also, it finds an easy setup opportunity thanks to one of the members of the team being pursuit bait. furthermore, i find this keldeo set in particular to be underrated currently thanks to its main answers being weakened, crippled, or entirely removed rather easily, and helps in the build's occasional matchup against stall which can be tough win. although this change has its advantages, you do lose a wallbreaker, but the next change will help with that as well as greatly in a few other aspects.
the final drastic fix that i will be making islo starmie> lo latios for multiple reasons. first off, i incorporated a hazard stacking element to the team, meaning removing your own hazards with defog can cut your own momentum, but thanks to rapid spin you continue to pressure the opponent with rocks 'nd spikes. next, its higher speed is much preferred on this team for 'mons like serperior and the crowded base 110 tier; having a form of counterplay with scarf tyranitar is great. due to its ability analytic, it makes switching around starmie extremely challenging for any playstyle, hitting 'mons such as clefable and tyranitar much harder than latios would makes it a far more superior form of hazard control here. thanks to its movepool, starmie can also lure in bulky waters that can be a struggle to break down as i originally mentioned as a big issue, and forcing bulky grounds out just weakens the opponent even further; psychic is used for consistency and to lure in and 2hko rotom-w which generates momentum and cripples the entire team, but ice beam is also an option in that slot to nail serperior harder.
as for a small optimization, change m-charizardx's ev spread to 48 hp / 252 atk / 208+ speed to add some extra bulk in helping setup on stuff like rotom-w's hydro pump, while hitting a speed tier high enough to outspeed scarf terrakion at +1, which has been common as of late.
Landorus-Therian @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Def / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Knock Off / Stone Edge
Ferrothorn @ Chople Berry
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 168 Def / 76 SpD / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Power Whip
- Spikes
- Thunder Wave
- Leech Seed
tl;dr:
-----
physdef > double dance
chople thunder wave ferrothorn > spdef jirachi
subcm keldeo > choice specs
lo starmie > lo latios
48 hp / 252 atk / 208+ spe > 252 atk / 252+ spe -----
in conclusion, i feel like the team plays much better with my changes. they made the backbone much sturdier to manage threats that were extremely problematic, improved on the overall speed of the team which is useful in this metagame, maintained 2 wincons so you can have multiple ways of ending out a match, hazard management is essentially perfect with the combination of scarftar | hazard stacking backbone | spinner | wincons, and provided multiple ways of paving a setup opportunity for one of your members as well as improving counterplay. this was all done while keeping the team structure similar.
~ nedor
Sup dude. Nice charizard X team. I notice how weak the team is too bulky waters.Things like slowbro/manaphy/suicune give you a hard time as you don't have much to deal with it. Your main switch in for water moves is latios and latios can drop a draco metor as the opponent will slack off back its hp as you drop down to minus 2. Then ur opponent proceeds to stall u down with ur life orb or set up on you with a boosting move like calm mind. Offensive water types give you some trouble too. Mons that have coverage for ur water resist in latios and keldeo like azumarill are really hard to switch into for this team. Another thing I notice is that Serperior troubles your team. It can hit every pokemon on your team for super effective dmg with dragon pulse + leaf storm + Hidden Power Fire. There are also some common threats to HO like fast pokemon like ice punch lopunny-mega as it can outspeed everything.
First thing i recommend is too run breloom>keldeo. This change helps you versus water types as you are part grass type so you can hit water types with a stab super effective bullet seed. Breloom also brings sleep and priority to the table. It possesses enormous utility in Spore, which is essentially a guaranteed cripple on any opponent that isn't Grass-type. Mach Punch also gives you priority to move first and check dark types like bisharp.
Next thing you should run is Spikes | Toxic | Thunder Wave | Flash Cannon Spd klefki over jirachi. Klefki can help you get speed control by crippling fast threats like serperior /tornadus-therian /lopunny-mega/Alakazam-Mega with thunder wave making them easier to deal with and revenge kill. This also help you versus ice types like weavile as u resist both of it's stabs and gives Spikes, Draco Metor switchin, Fairy switchin and Speed Control to this team. Spikes help you better for sweeping as you will lower pokemons HP and punish them for switchin Toxic goes well with spikes as they either stay in and die to toxic or they switch out and get punished by hazards, Toxic help you wear down fat stuff that wanna stay on the field, Flash Cannon lets you pressure Fairy types and Max Spd klefki allows you to better check Speical attackers like Gardevoir-Mega/Kyreum.
Next up, you definitely should run 232 speed over 200 speed on your landorus-therian. This lets you outspeed Adamant Excadrill. This helps you as you will be harder to revenge kill.as now excadrill dosent outspeed you which means you can oko it before it can hit you. Since I removed you Rocker. I suggest you run Stealth Rocks over Rock Polish and U-turn Or Hidden Power ice over Sword Dance. This change allows you to get rocks on landorus-therian. U-turn can help you gain momentum or you can run Hidden Power Ice on Landorus-therian to catch things like Gliscor/Landorus-therian making it easier for charizard x to sweep.
Next up, I recommend you run offensive starmie over latios. Running starmie allows you to deal with serperior better as now you have better speed control with starmie allowing you to revenge kill pokemon like serperior. Starmie can also help you versus the water types as well as you can run thunderbolt to hit water types(starmie, azumarill ,manaphy) and flying types(Skarmory, Tornadus-therian) Starmie still checks fighting types like keldeo while getting rid of hazards better as now you can rapid spin instead of defogging meaning you wont get rid of the hazards that you set up on your opponent's field.
Jury Decision - summary Enki thinks, that Starmie is a good change, because hazard removal and a Keldeo check is needed. Running Starmie as the only switchin to it will make the team lose quickly though, when Starmie is burned, because it has no recovery. There is also recoil from Life Orb and potentially sand damage, which will wear Starmie down very quickly. He told me, that he would've liked to see a toxic orb set on Breloom. Lando was the secondary sweeper, and using the set Ez suggested it can't clean (without Rock Polish) or break (without Swords Dance).
Snowy told me, that Nedor's rate was more minimalistic, he improved the team with less changes than Ez.
Thanks for the participation !
Venu checks a ton of stuff, like Keldeo, bulky waters, ground types and fairies. I chose a more offensive set, because I want the team to take hits and hit back very hard.
Volcarona @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Fire Blast
- Bug Buzz
- Giga Drain
Volcarona is very threatening to many teams, because it is hard to deal with once it has a boost. I chose a Sitrus Berry, that way I have a bit more HP when trying to set up.
Excadrill goes well with Volcarona, because it has access to Rapid Spin. I chose an Earth Plate set to hit harder and Life orb Recoil wears it down too fast. With Swords Dance, I can break balance teams.
Latis are a threat to Rotom, Volcarona and Venu, so I like to remove them from the game. The set is standard, but I chose Ice Punch so I can hit Lando or Garchomp very hard, because these are the Pokemon that carry Stealth Rock. Having them removed makes it much easier for Volcarona to set up. Excadrill also like Lando or Garchomp weakened, so that it can sweep easier.
Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Thunder Wave
- Will-O-Wisp
I chose Rotom, because it does well with Venusaur, they cover their weaknesses very well. I chose Will-O-Wisp over Pain Split, that way I can paralyze Charizards. I don't really have a solid way dealing with both formes, I hope you can help me fit it.
Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Calm Nature
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Stealth Rock
- Calm Mind
I need Stealth Rocks and also an answer to Kyruem. I chose Clefable, because it can switch in a lot of threats without being 2hkod.
importable
Please send your rate to Enki , Analytic or Snowy.Deadline is on Sunday, 11 pm EST.
at first glance, there are definitely a few weaknesses & redundant 'mons holding the team back from its full effectiveness. when i analyzed it more in-depth (team composition, possible versions, etc.,) i recognized that there were many win conditions&goals for the team to accomplish. these include mega venusaur + pursuit tyranitar to act as a backbone while eliminating or weakening problematic 'mons in order for the latter to have minimal answers, qd volcarona as a late game cleaner, sd excadrill as a possible early- to mid-game wallbreaker or late game cleaner, as well as cm clefable. even though having many win conditions to choose from depending on the matchup can be good, having too many 'dead' 'mons just restricts the build far too much; taking volcarona as an example here, it is a very team & matchup reliant 'mon. it cannot be slapped onto a build with a form of hazard removal & proceed to say that it will sweep, a ton of support is needed alongside it to make it function, something this team does not particularly do efficiently. also, there are also too many spreads & sets that can definitely be optimized, not to mention there are a few 'mons that the build greatly struggles against, including but not limited to charizard-y (especially as excadrill is not rock slide), sd bisharp, & opposing mega venusaurthat can potentially beat your entire team with stealth rock up, with your only form of counterplay being sand stream from tyranitar & hoping volcarona can setup which isn't reliable. the original team included multiple win conditions & speed control to help with the offense matchup, so that is what i will try to maintain as best as possible, while making a few simple changes to improve the goal of the build, thus making it more consistent.
first off, i recommend using spdef bulk up + wisp talonflame as opposed to volcarona. to put it briefly, talonflame is a much more consistent option as a win condition, while not being a dead 'mon other than that for multiple reasons. early game, talonflame is capable of spreading statusquite well to the majority of switchins, including landorus-t, garchomp, rotom-w, & slowbro, switches into some threatening 'mons consistently due to reliable recovery + spin support like charizard-y, mega venusaur, alakazam, & mega scizor, not to mention it can pick off weakened stuff with its priority attack. i personally found no item bulk up + wisp to be most optimal instead of something like swords dance to more comfortably beat 'mons like bisharp & gliscor in a 1v1 scenario alongside scarf tyranitar for the latter. acrobatics also doesn't take any recoil damage at the cost of some power, which helps as sand is already chipping at you turn by turn. lastly, i'm running enough speed to outspeed jolly max speed garchomp as swords dance variants can prove to be annoying to beat. overall, talonflame i feel is a much better option as its less risky worthy, less matchup reliant, helps with many threats, & can even cripple checks to a secondary win condition.
now, on this team specifically,cm slowbro would be the better option as a bulky water over rotom-wash. even though offensive mega venusaur has the typing allowing it to switch into specs keldeo, it often gets overwhelmed by coming into rocks, very possible scald burns & not being capable of healing up fully due to sand stream being up. slowbro comes in well as a secondary check to not only keldeo, but also 'mons like mega lopunny, mega medicham (huge issue for balanced builds), & charizard-x. calm mind variants are also extremely strong with the correct team support, which this team does possess; while you do lose a form of speed control, that can easily be remedied later on by adjusting some sets. thanks to calm mind + psyshock, slowbro is capable of beating many threatening opposing bulky win conditions 1v1, such as crocune, clefable, subcm keldeo, & cm manaphy. while it supports the team well due to the reasons mentioned, the team also supports slowbro well in hazard removal to allow it to come in safely against threats, a status absorber, a pursuit trapper, & secondary win conditions in case it isn't capable of setting up. in general, slowbro fits the build well in the slot of a bulky water, even though it does lose the ground immunity, the build can manage every relevant ground-type well, especially with a change that i will be making soon.
as for the smaller optimizations, i think mega venusaur should be running more speed than you currently have, 152 hp / 252+ spa / 104 spe should do it. this benchmark is 221 which outspeeds physdef landorus-t and rotom-wash, allowing you to severely weaken or remove them thinking they can freely u-turn or volt switch out respectively, while also creeping standard suicune and jolly bd azumarill. thanks to scarf tyranitar, this build can afford to not run rock slide on excadrill (referring to mega pinsir), the only thing is, air balloon should be ran over earth plate to use prominent grounds as setup fodder, especially considering slowbro is the main way you handle opposing excadrills. superpower> ice punch is sort of mandatory on scarf tyranitar to effectively revenge kill bisharp and pick off a weakened keldeo, something along those lines. to remedy the fact that a form of speed control was lost with the slowbro change, trythunder wave > calm mind on clefable to cripple switchins like heatran that would otherwise come in freely on you and cause trouble. however, this is not your only option as a filler if you feel like talonflame + scarf tyranitar + sand rush excadrill provides enough speed, moves such as encore to create possible setup opportunities & prevent setup sweepers from doing they're thing, healing wish to bring back a member of the team that can threaten your opponent, fire blast to prevent skarmory, mega scizor & other various steels from coming in, or even something such as knock off to remove items.
that's all from me on the team. even though i made a few pretty simply changes to the build, it improved its effectiveness greatly, all while keeping an extremely similar composition structure. hope i helped & have a good day! (✿╹◡╹)
(p.s please never use sitrus volcarona, lum / passho are better in every situation)
~ nedor
Hey there, I'm going to be really honest with you, but I really dislike the idea of this team, and let me explain why. Volcarona is a pokemon that requires a massive amount of team support, and while the idea of pairing with mvenu may seem cute (in your case, however, neither the volc, clef, or mvenu sets actually offer any synergy to beat each others counters, which is a problem), it leads to a huge restriction on the rest of the team that causes a major struggle in creating a very solid squad. I think nearly always, volcarona needs to be paired with mega diancie or mega sableye as it just requires a great amount of team support in oras and that leads to all the succesful volcarona builds being very similar. I'll leave you some example teams to chew over as an extra side to this rate, but they won't be the focus of what I work on later.
1. Volcarona / Diancie-Mega / Starmie (sometimes seen with latios) / Hippowdon / Ferrothorn / Filler (very common archetype that is often seen with talon > volc) 2. Volcarona / Sableye-Mega / Starmie / Hippowdon / Ferrothorn / Tornadus-T (iirc first made by cicada, but a pretty standard build) 3. Volcarona / Sableye-Mega / Skarmory / Tyranitar / Tornadus-T / Gastrodon (made by ben gay, used this spl to win) 4. Volcarona / Diancie-Mega / Latios / Landorus-T / Bisharp (or jirachi) / Keldeo (Standard offensive variant) 5. Volcarona / Garchomp / Starmie / Landorus-T / Mega-Metagross / Breloom (made by GeeMick) 6. Volcarona / Diancie-Mega / Starmie (or latios, which was used by blunder this spl to win) / Landorus-Therian / Jirachi / Breloom (popularized by cosine180) 7. Volcarona / Rotom-Wash / Latias-Mega / Landorus-T / Jirachi / Keldeo (made by ABR)
I spent a lot of time attempting to develop a team that maintained both Mega Venusaur and Volcarona, but it was much too difficult for me to establish a team that I was happy with (unless I gave the team a complete makeover, of course, and this would change the original goal of the team). So instead I decided to take a different path, which involved replacing Volcarona with Talonflame. This change actually solves a great deal of problems with the team while maintaining much of the original goal of the team, and i'll detail why in a second.
First, it is important to establish the issues with this team, and then how we want to go about to resolve these issues and also improve the strengths of the team. You correctly identifiedboth zards to be a major threat to your team, but you have several other issues as well. Regarding special attackers, Mega Alakazam/LO Alakazam can be a major issue since it can come in and beat a lot of your team (both can outrun scarf tar and ohko with focus blast, and even excadrill in sand is beaten by mzam if it can come in and trace sand rush), and CM sets especially can be troublesome as that eases their ability to break clefable and the team as whole. You also struggle against Taunt LO Tornadus-T, as it can deal massive damage or KO the entirety of your team and is only checked by excadrill unreliably (since it requires sand), as well as a rotom that lacks painsplit and will be losing at a minimum 46% from the combination of Hurricane + Uturn (not including leftovers recovery or hazards). You also have no good switchin to Mega Gardevoir which can be an issue for sure. You also struggle against SD Bisharp (as rotom is a highly unreliable check, and your scarf ttar lacks superpower), Mega Medicham, Mega Metagross (to an extent), and also LO Iron Head Kyub (which isn't so uncommon, and it can allow kyurem to defeat clefable, which is your only real stop to it defensively).
(in place of
) Again, since I discussed how volcarona created the need for too much team support and didn't provide so much in defensive synergy either, I think Talonflame > Volcaronais an extremely strong change to make here. Talonflame not only can function similarly to volcarona (regarding the idea of overloading the checks of venu, talon, and clef), but its mixed defensive setcan switch intoMega Gardevoir, Bisharp, Weavile, Zard-Y, and AV Tornadus Therian, while it can 1v1 Jolly Zard-X, Mega Medicham, Mega Metagross, and also revenge kill things with priority brave bird. With Bulk Up and Taunt it can be asolid win con and check to defensive CM'ers like Reuniclus, and Clefable, and especially appreciates the support of knock off mvenu, which will enable it to 1v1 most heatrans (and actually use it as set-up fodder). Like every other suggestion in this rate, I'll leave the full set at the end of this post.
Now that I've already mentioned it, I might as well bring up this change now. You don't have a real need for HP Fire on Venusaur, and Knock Off > HP Fire is actually extremely nice to support your team. The main target is heatran, allowing you to remove its lefties and from that point essentially abuse it as set-up fodder for talonflame and clefable (where otherwise they may have been beaten). Rather than using earthquake, however (which usually won't ohko regardless), Knock Off is generally much more spammable and effective since removing items generally isn't ever bad. Examples of other mons you'd want to knock off include Tornadus, Latios/Latias, and many leftovers users. You mentioned that you chose an offensive version of Venusaur, but I think having at least some physical defense investment is definitely valuable. I have two different spreads for you which i'll leave at the bottom, but one just focuses on tanking hits much better (which I prefer for its defensive consistency to handle threats like MVenu, Keldeo, Weavile, and Thundurus) while the other focuses on shelling out damage, and meeting the bare minimum of tankiness.
This change creates some really solid synergy and direction with your core without compromising consistency, and it highly devleops something I like on your team, which is MVenu + Clefable (but not in the way you executed it). I've already changed the venu to knock off, but your team is currently using rocks cm clefable, and while this isn't a bad set by any means, your clefable would really love to have thunder-wave on it. The reason for this is that if T-Wave CM Clefable is not only much more consistent as a sweeper/team supporter, but also if it is paired with Knock Off Mega Venusaur, it can actually 1v1 supposed counters such as taunt leftovers tran, making it a very powerful and scary mon that can sweep through whole teams because of one turn. I'm also going to tweak your clefable spread a little bit by adding more sdef so that it can switch in on LO Alakazam and better handle Thundurus, giving you a bit of a safety cushion vs those threats.
Another change I think will be extremely valuable that also accoutns for a hole created by the clefable change will be to use chople defensive tar > scarf tar. This will provide the stealth rocks that your team needs, and also accomplish a great deal of the trapping Scarf Tar can do, except arguably better, since it can actually beat Alakazam and Tornadus-T, which are two major threats in this metagame. With physdef investment it can avoid the 2hko from _! Charizard-X's DClaw, and with Ice Beam you can also hit Garchomp and Landorus-Therian (actually dealing more damage than ice punch without taking recoil), which you wanted in the original and is appreciated by this team.
While I completely understand the sentiment of earth plate excadrill here, I think its very important to use either Air Balloon or Leftovers since its ability to spin and support the team is extremely important. While SD Drill is nice, my experience has told me that toxic > sd on drill is extremely good, and it meshes especially well with this team as it helps out talon (and itself) a great deal. I think this team appreciates Air Balloon a great deal but leftovers can be extremely nice, so feel free to try out the latter if you think it will be better.
This is a really simple change, but since the team is now ok vs Zard-X thanks to a bulkier ttar and also possibly the bu tflame, Rotom can afford to drop t-wave for pain split, which is really great for rotom to keep itself healthy to check things like Tornadus-T and Mega Metagross.
For some time I considered trying to find a replacement to rotom-w + clefable that would make the team a bit more solid, but it wasn't very easy and both members actually work a lot better with the set changes and talon > volc, as I detailed in this rate. I tested this team vs some top caliber players like Ben Gay and it did well, so i'm hoping you'll find this team to be much improved and significantly more effective like I did. If you're curious to know more about any of the side ideas i tried to develop or have any questions, feel free to let me know. Have Fun :)
Jury Decision - summary
Reymedy told me, that Nedor's rate has better overview, better structure and his text has a better flow while reading. Also FV forgot to include the import of the sets, which is a problem, because he talks about "mixed defenses Talonflame" set, but we never know what the actual spread is. However, Reymedy told talked about Nedor's M-Venu spread and he pointed out, that it needs more defense investment to take on Diancie, otherwise Clefable (which has no CM) and Venu will just recover against it and will never have the opportunity to attack; if a speedy Venu is used, it should have 230 Speed to outspeed crawdaunt.
Enki said that it's really close, both raters made similar changes. Slowbro makes the team less weak to Fighting types and covers a lot of threats like Zard X and helps out versus water types like Keldeo. In the end it comes down to one issue, FV forgot the sets and that's why Enki declared Nedor as the winner in this round.
Thanks for your participation.
Btw, FV is a Team Rater now!
Thanks to everyone for signing up!
For this round, we have decided to accept toshimelonhead.
In Round 1 the pairing will be: Trickingvs. toshimelonhead
Scizor @ Scizorite
Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 44 Atk / 16 Def / 200 SpD
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- Roost
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
The team was built starting with M-Sciz. It checks a ton of stuff like Weavile and Kyruem-B, also Faries if they don't have HP Fire, Flamethrower or Will-O. Obviously, it is weak to Fire and Water types, that's why it has Knock Off. Removing items from Heatran, Keldeo, Tornadus-T, Talonflame and so on reduces their longevity. This gets trapped by Magnezone a lot and the matchup is not great against it. How can I play around it ?
To break stall teams, TG Manaphy was chosen. Psychic Ohkos Venusaur after +3 and has very good coverage. This Pokemon has a very important role on the team. It has to take on the Water and Fire Types for Scizor. Manaphy gets worn down really quickly throghout the match, they Toxic it, burn it, or bring it down with chip damage. When this is weakened, then it is really troublesome dealing with Heatran and Talonflame. It would be great if you could give some advice on that.
Next, there is LO Tornadus. This thing is very hard to switch into. Superpower does over 50% to Heatran, which gives Clefable and Scizor better chances to sweep. U-Turn is for momentum because Torn forces many switches and Heat Wave is for Steel types.
Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 144 Def / 112 SpD
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock
- Slack Off
Scizor, Manaphy and Tornadus are all weak to offensive Pokemon like Lopunny, Charizard-X and Excadrill. Hippowdon can deal with these and can also set up rocks. It also takes on Electric types like Manectric, Raikou and Thundurus, which are all problematic for the first three Pokemon.
Max HP Latias has some nice coverage with BoltBeam. It can also deal with Keldeo, which is always a problematic mon. It can stall out Volcanion's Steam Eruption with Max HP, even with a burn. If this gets trapped by Tyranitar, dealing with Keldeo and Zard-Y gets really problematic. How can I fix that issue?
Last mon is Clef, it serves as a nice glue. The T-Wave for speed control. If Talonflame is paralysed, Scizor can possibly kill it with Knock Off, since it will be slower with Will-O-Wisp. Heatran is pressured too. In end game, it can just click CM when checks are weakened.
hello, the team is already quite solid, however there are a few pokemon you must be careful with. You have already noticed them while describing the team and you said the team doesn't have a good matchup especially against trappers (mainly Magnezone and Tyranitar) + Keldeo, Charizard Y, Weavile and other common cores. In fact both Scizor and Latias are necessary backbones in your original team. So, you need a Pokemon that helps you deal with powerful threats like the aforementioned Keldeo and Charizard Y even though your main check (Latias) got trapped by Tyranitar. For this purpose, I thought about using Assault Vest Tornadus-Therian. This Pokemon gives you a solid answer to these mons, and yeah, now you'll say: "how do i check zard y with a 50% accurate Hurricane", well Hidden Power Rock solves this problem. I know it isn't a common set at all, but it can really work considering it acts as a lure opening the field for Scizor getting rid of zard y and occasionally of talonflame. It's also a reliable move to deal with Talonflame in some scenarios, although you shouldn't use it on the obvious Roost. The only downside is the fact that you lose a bit in terms of coverageWith this being said, you still need to work a bit to play around Magnezone, so I think that Superpower Scizor is enough to do so. The EVs in Speed should be given to outpace standard Choice Specs Magnezone which is nowadays more common than a Choice Scarf variant. It also deals with Ferrothorn considering that you lost a bit of power with your Tornadus-Therian. U-Turn is a valid alternative as well, but it makes it way more difficult dealing with Ferrothorn and it's not very reliable, as it forces you to switch out and often it causes some 50/50 situations, however the momentum gained is pretty nice. At this point, since you mentioned Knock Off Scizor as one of your ways of dealing with opposing Talonflame, I'd suggest you to run Thunderbolt Clefable over Thunder Wave. Finally, I think BoltBeam Latias doesn't really have a niche except for being a good lure to Gliscor. However, I think you should run the standard set with Draco Meteor and Psyshock on Latiasbecause you have already enough coverage/lures versus Flying-types, so you should have an answer to CM users like Suicune. For instance, if it's at low health and you need a crit to KO it, it'd be kinda frustrating, so that's why i'd suggest you to run the standard set. Same situation as this when facing CM Clefable. At the end, you can either run Toxic or Whirlwind on your Hippowdon over the useless Stone Edge. The former would help against Rotom-Wash and other bulky stuff, whereas the latter would help versus Gliscor which normally forces you to go to Manaphy.
This is a decent balance team that could improve with a couple of adjustments. Before getting into any suggested changes, let me start with the major problem of this team: this team does not have a lot of offensive synergy to consistently sweep good ladder teams. Let me give an example. Heatran walls the current Scizor set because it resists Bullet Punch and can take a Knock Off even at +2. When your opponent switches in Heatran against Scizor, your best move is to switch to Manaphy. The problem here is Heatran is not going to stay in against Manaphy, so Heatran will switch out scot free until Scizor comes back in. Throughout the match, Heatran can stay alive long enough to prevent Scizor from ever setting up because nothing else on your team bar Hippowdon to OHKO it (and again Heatran is never staying in on Hippowdon, either).
We’ll get to some solutions later; the ultimate goal is to keep the same defensive backbone while providing a way to break for setup sweepers to finish off the opponent at the endgame.
My first suggestion is to change Manaphy’s set to a more defensive variant with Calm Mind / Scald / Rain Dance / Rest. This is one of the best stall breakers in the game, and the extra Defense gives you better staying power against Heatran, Talonflame, and Weavile. It can outlast Unaware users such as Quagsire and Clefable, as well as set up on Chansey and Mega Sableye. While Volcanion walls this set, we can fix that problem with some other adjustments to the team.
Normally I don’t suggest changing the Mega when rating a team. This is a special case. LO Latias is not strong enough on offense (or defense, frankly) with its current moveset. Mega Scizor is not as good in this metagame with everyone packing Volcanion and multiple Steel- types, so I’m giving Latias the Mega slot. I’ll keep three of the moves – Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, and Roost all work well, and I am adding Reflect Type as the fourth move. This gives you tremendous help on defense. Tyranitar and Bisharp no longer OHKO you with Pursuit and Sucker Punch, and you can also check Heatran assuming you can Refect Type before Heatran burns or poisons you. The best part about this set is its ability to handle the Charizard-Y / Specs Keldeo / Tyranitar core because Latias has much more Special Defense (see the calcs below the set). The EV’s are Max HP / Max Speed because it allows you to survive 4 Lava Plumes from unboosted Heatran and have enough speed to outspeed non Choice Scarf Keldeo. You still get to wall Volcanion like a boss, too.
4 SpA Life Orb Latias Thunderbolt vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Talonflame: 166-198 (46.2 – 55.1%)
4 SpA Life Orb Latias Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Suicune: 161-192 (39.8 – 47.5%) – guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Life Orb Latias Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 176 SpD Mega Slowbro: 179-213 (45.4 – 54%) – 44.5% chance to 2HKO
4 SpA Life Orb Latias Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy: 185-218 (45.7 – 53.9%) – 3.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 SpA Heatran Lava Plume vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Mega Latias: 76-91 (20.9 - 25%) -- 0% chance to 4HKO
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Mega Latias in Sun: 110-130 (30.3 - 35.8%) -- 41.3% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Mega Latias: 94-111 (25.8 - 30.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Mega Latias: 116-138 (31.9 - 38%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after sandstorm damage (not switching out)
252+ SpA Volcanion Hidden Power Ice vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Mega Latias: 102-122 (28 - 33.6%) -- 0.1% chance to 3HKO (Old Latias gets 3HKOed 94% of the time)
8 SpA Mega Latias Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Suicune: 156-184 (38.6 - 45.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Slightly less power but worth it! - you can add 52 Special Attack EVs to have the same power, but not sure if that provides any significant KOs)
For Scizor, I am going to suggest a Swords Dance Life Orb set. With Max Attack, it has more power than Scizor-Mega (see example Pikachu calc below) and more Speed than a non-Scarfed Magnezone if Scizor uses a Jolly nature. If that’s not as important, feel free to try an Adamant nature as it is more common and guarantees an OHKO with Bug Bite at +2 against defensive Rotom-Wash after Stealth Rock damage. I don’t think you’ll miss the Special Bulk of your current Mega-Scizor set; it doesn’t want to switch into random Scalds or HP Fires anyway.
44 Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pikachu: 96-114 (45.4 - 54%) -- 44.1% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Technician Scizor Bullet Punch WITHOUT LIFE ORB vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pikachu: 99-117 (46.9 - 55.4%) -- 76.6% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pikachu: 129-152 (61.1 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pikachu: 143-168 (67.7 - 79.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bug Bite vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Rotom-W: 289-341 (95.3 - 112.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bug Bite vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Rotom-W: 263-309 (86.7 - 101.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Finally, here are some cosmetic changes: I changed Hippowdon’s ability from Sand Stream to Sand Force. Nothing on your team really benefits having Sand up, and it damages Torn-T and Mega Latias unnecessarily. Clefable has a few options with Speed: 28 IVs guarantees outspeeding min speed Chansey; 21 IVs prevents Ferrothorn from 2HKOing you with Gyro Ball. I'll put the importable at 28 speed to prevent the speed tie from min speed Chansey. Feel free to experiment.
The team with the changes has more offensive synergy than before. Latias chips away at Clefable’s big checks in Heatran and Bisharp. Life Orb Scizor is stronger than the former Mega Scizor set and has better type coverage with Superpower and Bug Bite. The team ends up getting a lot more sweeps with Clefable because of Mega Latias and Scizor breaking for it.
So TL;DR:
Current Manaphy -> Stallbreaker Manaphy
Current Latias -> Reflect Type Mega Latias
Current Scizor -> Offensive SD LO Scizor
Current Hippowdon -> Sand Force Hippowdon
Current Clefable -> 28 Speed IVs to outspeed min Speed Chansey
Our jury decided that in terms of formatting and explaining details toshimelonhead scores better but considering the effectiveness of the changes and metagame knowledge Tricking's rate has a higher quality. Because we value the latter two more than formatting the jury deciced that Tricking's rate exceeds toshimelonhead's rate in terms of overall quality.
The challenger began with a solid idea in changing Manaphy to the Rest+Rain Dance set to not get worn down by Heatran as easily as before. Increasing the pressure on Heatran by using M-Latias which can chip at its health turn per turn, he changed Scizor to a set which can't deal with Fairies in the long run and without recovery will get worn down quickly throughout the match until Pokemon like M-Gardevoir, Clefable or Diancie can overwhelm the team.
Thanks for the participation !
We have our next challenger already! With a solid number of rates under his belt and starting a comeback by winning Rate of the Week last week, Hector Hard Mode wants to face our League. The pairing will be:
I built this hyper offense team a long time ago during the ORAS greninja metagame, where it was very successful. I would greatly appreciate it if you could adapt this team to the current metagame without sacrificing offense synergy, which this team thrives on as the team works to break down each others checks and also create set-up opportunities for each other.
Diancie is the cornerstone of this team. RP is fairly uncommon now, but back when I made this team this set was incredibly power and unprepared for. I believe RP diancie still has great sweeping potential in this metagame, but the rise of mons like amoonguss has made it difficult for diancie to sweep these days, for example.
I slapped on gengar since it was a powerful breaker with taunt, allowing to to soften a lot of special walls or fat tanks and prevent them from recovering their health or trying to set up. Its ground and fighting immunities are also very useful.
Memory (Bisharp) @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 29 HP
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance
Bisharp forms a really great core with gengar as it can set-up on dark, rock, and steel attacks for example, and gengar provides a fighting and ground immunity for bisharp. SD Bisharp is not only a dangerous sweeper, but can help break when necessary.
Scarf latios is the glue of this team, not only checking a multitude of fast attackers / setup sweepers that threaten offense, but trick can be extremely useful to force set-up opportunities for the rest of the team. Defog is handy if you need talonflame around and healthy in a pinch.
Empire of Sound (Landorus-Therian) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 12 Def / 244 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Explosion
The go-to lead of this team, sash lando was incredibly underrated at the time and I really wanted to use it on this team since I thought it was capable of doing a lot of damage. With sash you're almost guaranteed to get up rocks if necessary, but you can also utilize explosion to dish out heavy damage against rotom or keldeo for example.
Talonflame completes the team by providing another set-up sweeper with strong priority and great synergy with diancie. Roost is necessary since you won't always defog with latios, and it gives talon the unique function on this team as a sweeper that can have longevity when setting up.
alright so the first thing that i saw about the team is that by typical oras standard now, this is just a goon offense which is gonna struggle really badly with stall given how common amoonguss and pursuit trappers that outspeed gengar are. the team also doesn't account for threats that really stop diancie like amoonguss and mega venusaur, and to fix the matchup against them and stall, i recommend rain dance psychic manaphy > gengar. manaphy is a way better stallbreaker and puts a ton of pressure of bulkier builds, which gengar really struggles to do nowadays. with that said, the team is extremely weak to excadrill under sand because lando-t is offensive, diancie can't even attempt to protect-stall sand turns, and everything else just gets blown apart by excadrill. to remedy that, i'd go with defensive lando-t > suicide lead lando-t. obviously this is a bit of a momentum killer but with threats like mega lopunny running around, offense has been forced into running a bulky ground-type if it really wants to maintain a solid consistent matchup against it. so on top of that, rock polish mega diancie struggles in the meta right now mostly because protect is extremely useful for mega evolving safely against threats like bisharp and mega gardevoir, so to allieviate that, protect > rock polish with an ev spread change would help improve that. the last change here is a bit strange, but i feel it works and is kinda needed. so with talonflame, hazard control on the team include scarf defog latios and mega diancie, the former being very inconsistent and only decent as a revenge killer meanwhile the latter struggles with the common ground types that carry stealth rock. without talon, problems against mega altaria, serperior, alakazam, and mega gardevoir crop up, so one change that could nicely cover that would be scarf jirachi > talonflame. this also adds another dragon and fairy resist which the team is in desperate need of as well as providing a very solid revenge killer to the aforementioned threats. and because scarf latios isn't needed anymore due to issues with charizard x and the likes of mega lopunny being patched up with landorus-t, and general faster threats like serperior and alakazam, latios can afford to run an all out attacker moveset now, to lure annoying pokemon like mega scizor as well as skarmory, which can trouble the team a lot since it mostly walls it.
sets**
obviously, since this is an old team, a lot of changes were needed to modernise it for the current meta, hope it helped!
yo man, i like your ho and you seem to have a pretty clear goal in how you want to pressure threats to rp mega diancie with sd bisharp, talonflame, and gengar, which weaken threats to an m-diancie sweep like landorus, scizor, mega metagross, and ferrothorn. however, by going for powerful offensive synergy between members, you've conceded having counterplay against a number of powerful anti-offense threats. under the sand, excadrill puts in a lot of work as your landorus-t set is is easily 2HKO'd by iron head and the next closest ground resist is latios, which is needed to take hits from keldeo. weavile is also fairly threatening as although it can be lured by scarf latios, it has nothing to come in at all on it aside from bisharp and that falls to a low kick. i suppose that diancie can outspeed it after a rock polish but it's really not an ideal situation. choice scarf tyranitar can also put in a fair bit of work as it can pursuit latios for say a keldeo or breloom and it also walls / rk's gengar, bisharp, and talonflame. bisharp is a big nuisance in that mega diancie is its best check at +2 and you're not running protect, so you'll have to either bluff the protect or mega early in the game. i also noticed after looking at the team that it's overly reliant on talonflame to take on bulky grasses like venusaur, tangrowth, and amoonguss, all of which are commonly paired with tyranitar and potentially excadrill. this is troublesome given that talonflame needs stealth rock consistently off the field in order to check these threats without being forced to roost, but scarf latios struggles to keep hazards off without giving set-up or switchins to bisharp for example. azumarill is also a tad annoying as although you check it decently with gengar, choice band doesn't have a real answer aside from sacking a member to get chip damage off on it. mega lopunny is also quite annoying, 2hkoing the team. manectric and raikou can also be an annoyance as they outspeed most of the team members and are really only checked by scarf latios, which cannot recover off volt switch and stealth rock chip. amoonguss + quagsire stall is also very difficult to play against as they collectively wall bisharp, diancie, and talonflame, while gengar and latios are trapped and killed by band weavile. finally, rotom-w seems to annoy the team a lot as it comes in pretty freely on talonflame and can check every team member besides latios and landorus if it's at full health. latios is not a sufficient check given that rotom can easily volt switch out into a pursuiter like the aforementioned tyranitar and remove your keldeo check. with that in mind, though, let's hop into the rate. -> i think the first change that we make is replacing gengar with jolly bd azumarill. gengar exacerbates the team's weakness to tyranitar and weavile while not being a particularly effective breaker against most stall builds because of the aforementioned trappers. azumarill puts immediate pressure on those darks while also checking sand excadrill with aqua jet and keldeo, and can put pressure on amoonguss and ferrothorn, knocking them out with a +6 knock off for a potential mega diancie sweep. return can also be run over knock off if mega venusaur is a greater concern than ferrothorn. a jolly nature also lets you outspeed slow rotom that aren't running 44 speed, which can help weaken rotom for talonflame or diancie. it's also another mon that can set up on a choice-locked tyranitar into pursuit and punish darks. -> sd blitz talonflame faces a lot of trouble in the current metagame in regard to setting up with the prevalence of tyranitar, rotom-w, and manectric. although it does check lopunny and scizor a few times, stealth rock and quick attack de-incentivize its use quite a bit. power herb magma tran is an effective alternative to check scizor and ferrothorn that puts a lot of pressure on stall builds that rely on chansey or quagsire as their check to heatran. heatran can trap bulky waters like quagsire, slowbro, azumarill, and suicune, then hit them with a solar beam to weaken or ko them for diancie. additionally, it beats bulky grasses like venusaur much more reliably which is huge given the team's weakness to a bulky grass + spikes + a pursuiter. will-o-wisp also gives you potential counterplay against bisharp if you haven't mega evolved yet with diancie, although earth power is also acceptable in the last slot for handling volcanion. to help take on electrics and break more effectively against bulky grasses, bisharp would appreciate having an attack boosting nature. an atk boosting nature bisharp has a chance to ko mega manectric after rocks with sucker punch, assuming that you're not able to obtain the defiant boost, as well as ko unaware clefable after stealth rock. if you stick with swords dance, adamant bisharp gains a guaranteed ko at +2 against assault vest tangrowth and offensive mega venusaur after stealth rock. it can also get excadrill from a much higher amount of hp w/ sucker punch, limiting its time on the field. also consider running grass knot or taunt over swords dance as well to make the matchup against quagsire stall builds better, being able to lure quag out, knock it off, and immediately ko or stop it from recovering. i noticed that the team still had trouble coming in on excadrill and lacked balance breaking power across the board without gengar, so sd rocks landorus-t seemed like a better fit than sash landorus. earth plate and smack down give landorus the ability to put immediate pressure on skarmory and rotom-w if they come in on a smack down, and with swords dance, you can still ko the majority of balance threats at +2. a spread of 132 HP / 196 Atk / 180 Spe let it come in on mega lopunny's fake out + ice punch most of the time w/o rocks and excadrill's iron head, while still retaining enough speed to creep breloom, bisharp, and volcanion, all of which fall to a +2 earthquake. finally, mega diancie would definitely appreciate having hp fire over earth power in the current metagame. being able to hit ferrothorn for roughly 75% is crucial to not have its sweep stopped midway. mons such as jirachi, metagross, heatran, and excadrill which would take more from earth power should all have been significantly weakened before diancie attempts to sweep, and metagross + excadrill commonly run bullet punch / balloon respectively anyway. opposing heatran are still taken out by diamond storm once below 50%. alternatively, psychic in the last slot gives you a nice means of 2hkoing mega venusaur and amoonguss on the switchin or taking them out once they're weakened.
so that's all i think, rp diancie is an interesting option in the current metagame but requires quite a bit of support to effectively sweep. although i think the changed team is more effective at attaining a sweep for diancie, i think that changing a large part of the team structure would be hugely beneficial but falls outside of the purview of a rate. yache garchomp to lure manectric is an option that i was considering for some time over landorus, as was dropping rock polish in favor of protect and relying on other team members to sweep with support. scarf latios is also not particularly effective aside from surprise value against electrics, so the team would enjoy a better scarfer, and a fatter ground resist would probably be ideal but not possible given that one can't simply rely on a magma storm heatran to break stall and balance. you'll have to play aggressively to catch metagross before it megas with heatran or landorus, or else it can still punch holes in the team structure. all in all i think that the team has more counterplay against more threats than before and better executes its purpose.
Empire of Sound (Landorus-Therian) @ Earth Plate
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 132 HP / 196 Atk / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Smack Down
- Stealth Rock
- Swords Dance
Heatran @ Power Herb
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 112 HP / 144 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Taunt
- Solar Beam
- Will-O-Wisp / Earth Power
While HHM tried to adjust the team in a way Diancie can win by using Rock Polish despite its problems in the current meta because of the many priority users, p2 replaced Rock Polish on Diancie and made Landorus-T defensive, creating a team which is suited better for the current meta, with the cost of losing the 'originality' RP Diancie had. Nonetheless both rates are on point and worth a read.
Thanks to all for the participation and good luck to Hector in Round 2!
I wanted to start with these two since I wanted to use terrakion alongside pursuit support, which is where MZor fits in perfectly, also beating a lot of faster attackers that trouble terrak. I'm using scarf rak here because I need the speed, but otherwise I think the core works better when terrakion can hit a bit stronger.
Tornadus-Therian @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 112 HP / 24 Def / 120 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hurricane
- Heat Wave
- Knock Off
- U-turn
I noticed the team my core was really troubled by Venu and Keld, and I also wanted another pivot on the team, so I decided to add AV torn, which is just really good in general because of its speed, bulk, and regenerator.
Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- U-turn
I was really weak to stuff like Chomp/Lando and in general physical attackers that could beat scizor, like talonflame, and I also didn't have any electric immunity to help me deal with stuff like manectric or raikou. I also wanted to have more options to gain momentum and have a secondary ground immunity, so I chose lando over tankchomp here. I'm using toxic to hit bulky grounds, making things a lot easier for scizor/rak and giving me a way to pressure talon since most of them go for the wisp before the taunt.
At this point I had a glaring water weakness and also lacked anything to really pack a punch and break teams, so I decided on Manaphy. This set gives the Scizor / Rak core good support with its coverage options, and is helped especially by scizor which pursuits lati's and u-turns on bulky grounds to bring in mana.
Raikou @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Calm Mind
I noticed that I was really weak to electrics since Lando doesn't really beat stuff like thund properly, and also my only way to hit waters hard was with mana's energy ball, so raikou seemed like a good fit to clean up the team while providing the team another potential win con that can also help gain momentum.
Terrakion @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Iron Head
- Toxic
Hey man, I like your idea of running Pursuit M-Scizor to trap Latis and other Psychics because both Manaphy and Terrakion can capitalize if they are weakened or killed. Also, Manaphy not only threatens Pokemon which resist Scizor's attacks immediately, it can also soften up the opponents water resists by burning them with Scald or just do heavy damage to the opponent's team after setting up with Tail Glow. I will rate your team in a way that it will improve breaking capabilities while taking more advantage of Pursuit Scizor. U-Turning with Scizor as the opponent switches into his fire/flying mon can give Terrakion many opportunites to damage opposing teams.
In its current state the team lacks immediate power, with no real way to pressure opposing teams. Your mons take time to get strong, by that time the opponent will bring a check or just do heavy damage while you set up, considering the current meta.
(band>scarf)
Choice band on Terrakion will increase your team's potential to break through teams a lot, since it's difficult for them to find a switchin to it. The coverage Stone Edge and Close Combat offer are great while being high base power moves; even the most sturdy walls will get 2hkod if they don't resist its moves, while Landorus, one of the best answer to it, can't deal with it in the long run. CB also synergises better with Pursuit Scizor, since Latis can revenge Terrakion.
(scarf>defensive)
The team needs more speed now, scarf Lando-T does well with Terrakion as the latter can break through defensive walls and the former can sweep. Terrakion (if weakened) and Scizor struggle with Talonflame so Lando can revenge it when it's at enough HP without the fear of getting burned.
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By the choice of your mons and typing wise the team covers Steel/Water/Ground/Flying which is reasonable but it can't take water attacks well, because Manaphy and Tornadus struggle with chip damage from Scald burns and Rocks damage and thus will get worn down over time. The next point addresses the immediate answer to switchins to Terrakion and covering its potential loss of momentum if it locks itself into the wrong move. Against teams that don't do well against Terrakion, it should be brought in repeatedly to spam its stab moves. Checks to it include healthy Water types like Azumarill, Keldeo and bulkier ones, Grass types including Breloom, Serperior and Fairies (if Terrakion locks itself into CC) are covered by Amoonguss. Clear Smog helps the team a lot dealing with CM Clefable, Suicune and DD Altaria, while HP Fire prevents Ferrothorn from setting hazards for free and doesn't allow M-Scizor to SD. Sporing opposing mons and switching directly into Terrakion if you predict a switch into another mon can work too. Raikou offers Volt Switch and CM, also a Flying+Electric resist, but besides that it can't take any hit and it gets worn down through burns by Will-O-Wisp Talonflame and repeated U-Turn/Knock Off/Superpower by Tornadus-T.
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Fire and/or Flying types, mostly Talonflame, Tornadus, Charizard X and Y look really threatening because they come in on Scizor and Amoonguss, although they have to be careful because of Spore and U-Turn. Heatran helps with these and a set with a Timid nature 80 HP / 176 SpA / 252 Speed survives a Focus Blast from Timid Charizard and a Close Combat from Mega Pinsir at full. The bulk also helps tanking Dracos, thus takes off pressure on Scizor and makes the switch less obvious while allowing to scout for the Latios set and pivoting into Clefable's moves. Lava Plume / Earth Power / Toxic / Stealth Rock sets hazards, poisons problematic mons or common switchins, while dealing with opposing SpD Heatran with Earth Power without needing too much damage on it, killing Volcanion after two switchins to rocks and damaging Sableye for a good amount. If you find it likely to play vs. Charizard Y you can run Stone Edge>Toxic with 24 Attack investment to ohko it.
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Focus Blast vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Heatran: 290-342 (84.5 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
24- Atk Heatran Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y: 300-356 (101 - 119.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
176 SpA Heatran Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Volcanion: 204-242 (56 - 66.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
176 SpA Heatran Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 188+ SpD Heatran: 272-324 (70.4 - 83.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
176 SpA Heatran Lava Plume vs. 252 HP / 144+ SpD Mega Sableye: 88-105 (28.9 - 34.5%) -- 4.2% chance to 3HKO
On Manaphy I suggest a max speed timid set to speedtie with M-Medicham and other base 100 mons. Run Ice Beam>Psychic to break past bulkier Grass types like Amoonguss, Tangrowth and Celebi; Venusaur is covered by Heatran pretty well and Amoonguss can pivot into it if it needs to. Optionally Explosion>Knock Off can be a safety break on Lando for setup sweepers like DD Lando after a boost, while Knock Off softens up bulky mons if they lose their Leftovers. Rock Slide is a more accurate option over Iron Head on Terrakion and Quick Attack can finish off weakened sweepers. Alternatively, if you want the team to go a more balanced route, you should try Slowbro>Manaphy (or Slowking because of Volcanion), which fixes the M-Medicham and Zard X issue and adds a lot more defensive bulk to the team, but that version is a little passive and you will be waiting for Scalds to burn and switch between Amoonguss and Slowbro/king, having problems catching momentum, till the power mons in ou will eventually overwhelm both.
Amoonguss @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Def / 96 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hidden Power FIre
- Spore
- Clear Smog
- Giga Drain
Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 80 HP / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Lava Plume
- Earth Power
- Toxic
- Stealth Rock
M-Medi definitely an issue, the team doesn't have solid fighting resists. Burning it with Manaphy helps, maybe Pursuit it with Scizor so that it will be in EQ range from Lando. People like to switch into it if they expect your Amoonguss to come in so it needs a bit of aggresive play to deal with this.
Sand Rush Drill with Balloon and SD will cause problems. Scizor can't take on SD variants too well, Lando can sponge its attacks a bit. It's not an auto-loss but it should be played around carefully.
Water resist is Manaphy and Amoonguss. Sadly, you can't wall this with Grass types easily. If it isn't given too many free switches the team can deal with it. Lando, Terrak outspeed and kill, Sciz can U-turn on its switchin and Amoonguss threatens it with sleep.
Scizor can pivot into it with the additional bulk it has, then get a slow U-Turn into Terrakion. Heatran also takes 'just' ~50% from its attacks unboosted.
After a NP boost you're in trouble. Lando can revenge it but has to click Stone Edge, losing mometum if they switch. Amoonguss can put it to sleep 1v1. Playing vs electric types in general is problametic, if they run Volt Switch like Manectric, they grab momentum most of the times because there's no ground type that could be brought in immediatly without risk. It is not impossible to beat though, repeated hazard damage will bring it low and except for Scizor and Lando everything can live a hit from it and hit back hard.
Belly Drum is a pain to play against. They BD on your Among switchin, then you have to Energy Ball it with Manaphy and Bullet Punch with Scizor, or the other way around. The added bulk on Sciz help tanking +4 Aqua Jets
Difficult to play against, you kinda have to trade 1v1 for these.
yo, so this has some neat concepts that are pretty innovative in the current metagame, but at a glance this team is going to struggle a lot to handle common wallbreakers and put sufficient pressure to threaten modern defensive builds. wallbreakers like char-y, ice punch mega medi, and specs keldeo if it gets a burn on tornadus-t are just going to roll through the squad, but honestly i think the biggest problem is that the current build is really passive and really struggles to break any sort of defensive mega scizor build or beat spikestacking teams; the team has no hazard removal and relies a lot on manaphy and tornadus to take on hippowdon and ferrothorn, which can wear down their checks with hazard pressure and eq / gyro. volcanion in a similar fashion to keldeo is tough for you to switch in on, but not impossible to force out. the other main inhibitor for a terrakion sweep late game is that the team kind of struggles to put pressure on bulky grounds like garchomp, which you can't really stop from getting free dtails off or pressure out if it's at high health. manaphy is able to take on landorus and hippowdon a few times, but it's not particularly enjoying taking eq / uturn damage after rocks long term. this is problematic especially because terrakion struggles to break through them, and even with toxic, it's not sufficient counterplay given that getting a decision right is skewed heavily in your opponent's favor. hp fire kyub is a threat, as although you can in theory check it decently with scizor and terrakion neither enjoy taking earth power + hp fire, and it can come in on landorus, manaphy, and tornadus if rocks aren't up. azumarill puts in work once raikou has been chipped down by volt switch and rocks, and 2hkos the squad with the appropriate coverage if it's banded. belly drum also has the chance to pull off a sweep due to the lack of solid resists to jet, given manaphy's role as the fire type switch in, and scizor's relative weakness with bp. most stall builds should also be able to stall you out given that without rain dance, manaphy won't be able to put enough pressure on chansey or unaware clefable to break past it without losing so much pp that it can't sweep. the lack of immediate power in the build makes your task much harder to perform. i think that's enough nitpicking though, so let's get into the rate.
-> in your rmt, you mentioned that you were looking for a keldeo and mvenu check when you added assault vest tornadus. latios covers both of those threats reliably for your team while also checking charizard-y, kyurem-black in a 1v1 scenario, mega medicham with draco, and generally boasting more immediate power which the team desperately needs to threaten certain mons out. it also boasts recover and hazard removal, both of which ease your matchup against bulky grounds immensely as it can draco to put them in range of a terrakion close combat and clear spikes which prevent your mons from coming in very often. certainly, defog can put the team in closer range of bisharp, but you have terrakion to check it offensively, scizor to whittle it w/ uturn and life orb, and don't let it set up with anything barring a -2 latios. lati also slightly betters the matchup against offensive electrics in conjunction with raikou, which is good because raikou is volt switched on forever, and can easily check rotom-w at full.
with such heavy defensive investment in scizor, landorus-t doesn't need to be nearly as defensive to handle threats because they have redundant coverage of threats like mega lopunny. char x also has a secondary check in scarf terrakion, so it's not too much of an issue to use smack down rocks landorus with knock off. a spread of 224 HP / 232 Atk / 52 Spe allows you to live fake out into ice punch from mega lop, letting you bring it in if scizor's too weak to take high jump kick, while also taking a +1 (+0) jolly charx flare blitz and eating two iron heads after rocks. smack down and knock off let you put a lot of pressure on most stops to landorus like rotom-w and skarmory, which can let you stallbreak with the increased power. knock off in particular can be crucial to get rid of a rocky helmet on garchomp or opposing landorus, vastly bettering your chances of winning late game with it and staying out of some prio attacks' range. 52 spe hits 231 speed, which helps creep volcanion and rotom-w that try to hit 230 for volcanion speed creep themselves. 88 spe can be used instead if you prefer outspeeding adamant breloom and bisharp instead.
->at this point, the team needs a secondary reliable means of checking waters besides latios while also reliably taking advantage of opposing scizor and ferrothorn. specs volcanion is a good fit over manaphy, giving you a better abuser of voltturn momentum support with wallbreaking capability for terrakion, and it can check venusaur with the threat of a specs fire blast. it's also a much sturdier check for opposing scalds and provides good mindgames for band azu to have to pick between waterfall and play rough / knock / superpower, which allows you to bring mega scizor in on it much more safely. volcanion also takes better advantage of mega scizor's pursuit, and manaphy's stallbreaking prowess is largely handled by smack down knock landorus in conjunction with volc and / or pursuit damage on chansey.
so with the changes, the team becomes much harder to switch in on and has more synergy between members. the squad is better able to maintain the voltturn softening core with hazards off the field while being able to trap and kill threats like latios for volcanion to spam steam eruption. additionally, knock off from landorus and a potential toxic from terrakion prevent most grounds from staying healthy throughout the game and denying a late game sweep, and the squad is better able to check charizard-y with volcanion as a failsafe in the event that it's trapped. raikou also appreciates having bulky grasses like venu and tangrowth pressured out and whittled by continual pressure and knock off. all in all i think that this squad executes its purpose of a late game terrakion sweep much better than before. terrakion's arch-nemeses in priority, azu and scizor, are both checked and forced out by volcanion and can even be taken down from about 60% by earth plate landorus; the team gives them no room and actively whittles them with even latios or the like. scarf tyranitar is still a bit of a concern late game but between voltturn, rocks, and sciz / terrak this team shouldn't struggle overmuch with it.
gl broski n_n
Terrakion @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Iron Head
- Toxic
Raikou @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Calm Mind
Both of the rates were well presented and easily understood, so the jury decision lies in the effectiveness of the modified teams both players made. Mil focused on improving the synergy of the of the original Rak + Scizor core and made crucial changes that allowed the freedom to make terrakion choice banded, significantly improving synergy between the two (as banded terrakion can 2hko or severely weaken common scizor answers and hits much harder than a scarf set after coming in from a scizor u-turn on talonflame, for example). This involved adding a heatran to provide rocks and a decent answer to zard, venu, and changing lando to a choice scarf set to make up for the loss in speed and raikou (which partly served as an electric check for the original team). Changing Torn to Amoonguss also increased the defensive synergy of the team and provided a more solid answer to keldeo.
Hector Hard Mode’s rate does improve the team, but it shifts the focus of the team heavily onto volcanion and away from terrak, which was intended to be the main breaking unit alongside scizor. HHM made a smart change by choosing latios over torn, giving the team a more solid defensive backbone and hazard control. The addition of volcanion did improve the team in many ways, but it also makes the team slower and especially weaker to ground types. The set change for lando also did not improve the team much, whereas certain changes could have accounted for new weaknesses created by HHM’s changes. Rocky Helmet on Lando would be good to keep to chip things for Rak and Scizor, and if Toxic was put on lando (which significantly improves the matchup vs hippowdon and grounds in general) or even on raikou, the team would have scored better. Psychic on Latios would have been smart for a similar reason.
Because HHM’s team was not fully developed to account for new weaknesses whereas Mil’s team was a significant and solid improvement of the original, the jury has decided that mil wins this round. For additional information about the team, FlamingVictini specifically wanted to see the raters make the change of adding heatran, allowing for the critical switch to scarf lando and band terrakion, and also would have liked to see latios in place of tornadus. Personally he likes Rotom-W as the teams water type for its defensive synergy and volt switch, but knew that other waters had their own merit (but the choice would play an important role on this team), and wanted to see what approach HHM and Mil would take regarding this challenging decision. Congratulations to HHM for coming this far and performing so well! :)
With two wins in Rate of the Week and showing significant improvements in his rates ez is back to challange us again ! This time, he will face our most recently badged OU rater.
The pairing for this round will be:
The teams idea is to stack hazards and remove Altaria checks, then remove the spinner/defogger with Tyranitar to then set up hazards so that Altaria's checks get weakend even more. At some point, after hazard damage, a potential burn, sand, and damage from other attacks, Altaria's strong Return/Frustration will hit Amoonguss and M-Venusaur very hard and will hopefully 2hko. A set with Heal Bell + DD sets up on stall teams easily and provides the team with a wincondition that outspeeds Lopunny and Manectric at +1.
Slowbro @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 236 Def / 24 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Calm Mind
- Slack Off
Slowbro can switch into Talonflame which walls Altaria. It also takes off the pressure from Altaria from Keldeo, Volcanion and other strong waters. Excadrill is also handled pretty well with this, if it isn't adamant SD Life Orb.
Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 84 HP / 172 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Earth Power
- Lava Plume
- Taunt
This is one of the best answers to Venusaur and Amoonguss, two Pokemon which are really annoying to Altaria. It also does well vs. Clefable, which Altaria can't beat on its own.
Tyranitar traps Latis and Starmie, furthermore the team is really weak to M-Alakazam, Gengar and Zard-Y so I chose a chople berry to get rid of these, without getting ohkod by fighting coverage. Adamant Stone Edge hits very hard and chips down mons.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip
This is another answer to the Latis, while also checking Manaphy sets decently. It gets up hazards to pressure the opponent's switches.
All in all I have no ground immunity and no really fast revenge killer, also Weavile is really problematic to switch into.
Hey there,
Altaria + Magnezone is a really dangerous combination that can be difficult to face for a lot of teams, as shed shell is very uncommon on skarmory and ferrothorn nowadays. Your idea of using hazards to overload other Altaria checks like MVenu is also really neat. To be completely honest, your team is very good as is, and has counterplay to most of the weaknesses you mentioned. The best I can do is improve intricacies of the team and lessen the weaknesses in some areas of the team, while unavoidably creating smaller weaknesses in other areas. Specifically, the lack of any ground resist once Altaria has mega evolved means you're reliant on slowbro or ferrothorn to tank hits, leaving you weak to strong attackers like LO Garchomp, SD Excadrill, DD Landorus, or a combination. Weavile and bisharp are two other potential issues, as they heavily pressure your team, and tanking hits with ferrothorn or heatran is your only real counterplay, which is unreliable but barely functional in some situations. Some other playstyle issues include a lack of speed (Choice Scarf magnezone can't even outrun Tornadus-Therian) and a lack of hazard removal, which is very important on teams with Altaria as it tends to get pressured really heavily by hazards, limiting its options to set up and sweep. My changes aim to improve upon as many of these flaws as possible, while minimizing the amount of holes that are opened in the process.
To solve the issue of a lack of a ground immunity and to better handle weavile/bisharp, skarmory is the best solution. I considered choice scarf landorus-t to have more speed, but this left too many holes to cover and removed the aspect of spikes that this team enjoys. While skarmory is still not a proper dark resist, its much more reliable than ferrothorn due to reliable recovery in roost and better physical bulk. Skarmory is a premier physical wall, also handling mons like pinsir and gliscor, that can also phaze for your team, and sets up hazards very well. I prefer counter in the fourth slot to better deal with the likes of bisharp/gyarados or similar mons, but iron head is useful for diancie and clefable, and brave bird has its merits as well. Skarm doesn't really need max defense investment (I have enough to avoid the 2hko from banded icicle crash without leftovers and rocks most of the time), and the sdef lets it better handle things like the growingly popular physical attacking diancie. I'll leave the full set and all other sets at the end of the rate.
With skarmory to better handle things on the physical spectrum, slowbro isn't as necessary (although I loved its synergy with the magnezone altaria core), and starmie can instead take its place, mainly to provide rapid spin support. Being fast gives the opponent less room for counterplay, and the set is pretty cookie cutter. I chose T-Wavein the fourth slot because I later remove it from ttar, and it really helps with the speed control aspect of the team, and also helps in balance wars by paralyzing clefable, for example.
By removing slowbro, the team loses out on a solid Zard-X answer, so I wanted to modify this tyranitar to better handle that, but to retain some firepower in its attacks. With 188 defense evs I hit the same benchmark as 80+, which is used to avoid the 2hko from dclaw after rocks. I left 56 attack evs, as with an adamant nature it boosts your damage output by around 10% compared to 0 atk, and placed the leftover in speed for a little creep (the speed you had previously isn't all that useful as ttar can't do much to skarm anyway). I also removed T-Wave in place of Stealth Rock, as I felt heatran needed the free moveslot to do a bit more.
Speaking of tran, I wanted to change this to a stallbreaker set as you have practically no counterplay against any stall team. I made a simple switch to Magma Trapping tran with Toxic > Rocks, and optimized your evs a bit to reduce hazard damage.
Since you're running a mono-attacking alt and your team is pretty bulky, it makes a lot more sense to go for a bulkier spread rather than a simple offensive one. With 240 HP and 80 Def EVs and an impish nature, Lopunny has only a 6% chance to 2hko after stealth rocks (provided you are already mega evolved), giving you more breathing room defensively and a better shot to set-up and grab multiple DDs. 12 SDef evs ensures Timid Zard-Y's fire blast will never 2hko in sun (without rocks), and the remaining evs are dumped into speed to hit 240, allowing you to outrun adamant base 70s like Bisharp or Breloom without a boost, and also outrunning up to serperior after a single dragon dance.
Altaria-Mega @ Altarianite
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 240 HP / 80 Def / 12 SpD / 176 Spe
Impish Nature
- Return
- Heal Bell
- Roost
- Dragon Dance
Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 88 HP / 168 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Taunt
- Toxic
Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 224 HP / 56 Def / 200 SpD / 28 Spe
Bold Nature
- Spikes
- Counter / Iron Head / Brave Bird
- Roost
- Whirlwind
That's it, you had a very nice team but hopefully these changes can make it even better. Good Luck! ^_^
Hello, that is a pretty nice hazard stacking team you have here. I like how you have magnezone to remove altaria-mega checks like ferro and scizor. I notice some threats to your team. This team does not have a big way of dealing with stall, your team will be slowly worn down with the hazards and status moves that stall will bring. This team is also does not like Gardevoir-Mega and Weavile due to their fighting coverage. Heatran could also trouble this team as it can taunt and toxic your altaria-mega, wear down your slowbro with toxic, earth power your heatran and lava plume your ferrothorn. I have a few ideas in mind on how to improve the team while keeping the main goal of trapping checks for altaria-mega and being a hazard stacking team.
A suggestion I have is to run an ev change of EVs: 240 HP / 104 Def / 12 SpD / 152 Spe instead of running max speed, max attack. You are a heal bell set which means you want to be bulkier to set up on opposing pokemons easier. The Def evs allow latios not to 2ko you with Psysock. The 12 SDef evs allows Altaria-Mega too take 2 Sun Boosted Fire Blast from timid charizard y. Running a bulkier spread also can u versus a lot of balance breakers like heracross-mega, charizard y, thundurs etc allowing you to not sack a mon and allowing for easier set up because you can take hits better.
Latios
252 SpA Life Orb Latios Psyshock vs. 240 HP / 104+ Def Mega Altaria: 130-153 (37 - 43.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock Heracross-Mega
252 Atk Mega Heracross Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 240 HP / 104+ Def Mega Altaria: 140-165 (39.8 - 47%) -- guaranteed 3HKO Zard-Y
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 240 HP / 12 SpD Mega Altaria in Sun: 148-175 (42.1 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Flamethrower vs. 240 HP / 12 SpD Mega Altaria in Sun: 122-144 (34.7 - 41%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 240 HP / 12 SpD Altaria: 108-128 (30.7 - 36.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock Thundurus
252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Hidden Power Ice vs. 240 HP / 12 SpD Mega Altaria: 159-187 (45.2 - 53.2%) -- 32.8% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Hidden Power Ice vs. 240 HP / 12 SpD Mega Altaria: 159-187 (45.2 - 53.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 SpA Thundurus Hidden Power Ice vs. 240 HP / 12 SpD Mega Altaria: 242-286 (68.9 - 81.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock Lopunny-Mega
252 Atk Mega Lopunny Return vs. 240 HP / 104+ Def Mega Altaria: 132-156 (37.6 - 44.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock Manectric-Mega
252 SpA Mega Manectric Hidden Power Ice vs. 240 HP / 12 SpD Mega Altaria: 128-152 (36.4 - 43.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Next thing I recommend is magneton over magnezone. Magneton gives you a lot more speed control allowing you to have a fast revenge killer for things like Weavile, Starmie, Tornadus-T, and Jolly Talonflame. You do however lose out on kos on things like ferrothorn and scizor-mega but with the hazard stacking on your team you can force them in to take the hazard dmg with altaria and put them in range of hidden power fire or hit them with a hidden power fire lowering them enough where if they switch out hazards will hit them again resulting in them not being able to switch into anything on your team.
Next thing I recommend is too run Band Tyranitar over Chople Tyranitar. This allows tyranitar to be a wallbreaker meaning your team to not be so weak to bulkier teams that can widdle your team down. Tyranitar can also help you with your stall problem as nothing appreciates switching into tyranitar. The job of pursuting is also a lot easier as you hit harder with pursuit and you can just click pursuit as either way the psychic type hazard remover (latios/latias/starmie) will end up dead. This also helps with opposing Psyhic types that like to calm mind. Things like reunclius/slowbro/slowking will have a harder time sweeping your team as tyranitar hits too hard to give them a chance to set up. Band ttar can help you wear down other mons too like heatran (espeically with hazards) who can wear down altaria and slowbro with toxic and beat your heatran with its own earth power especially when your spikes are up.
With chople berry removed from tyranitar, common threats to balance like gengar/alakazam-mega have become a bigger problem. Which is why I recommend you runChople Berry over Leftover on Ferrothorn. This allows you to take the focus blast from Alakazam-mega, Gengar and unlike chople tyranitar, chople ferro can also take on gardevoir-mega (which otherwise would always get a kill with the coverage of Hyper Voice + focus Blast) and then proceed to kill them off with a gyro ball. Removing Chople from tyranitar also made a bigger problem for charizard y but I adjusted the Altaria-mega Ev Spread to take on Charizard y.
Altaria-Mega @ Altarianite
Ability: Cloud Nine / Natural Cure
EVs: 240 HP / 104 Def / 12 SpD / 152 Spe
Impish Nature
- Return
- Roost
- Heal Bell
- Dragon Dance
Again the Spd Guarantees you can take 2 fire blast from timid sunboosted charizard y and the def allows you to take 2 Returns from lopunny-mega and 2 Psyshocks from life orb latios. The Speed evs allow you to outspeed base 110s at +1 speed.
Im sure you already know this because this has the same concept as magnezone but as a reminder max Spa and max Spe with Timid Nature to Be as Fast as possible to outpace things like weavile/tornadus-therian and to hit as hard as possible.
Slowbro @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 236 Def / 24 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Calm Mind
- Slack Off
Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 84 HP / 172 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Earth Power
- Lava Plume
- Taunt
Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Superpower
- Pursuit
The Speed allows you to outspeed mandibuzz, skarmory and adamant azumarill, max attack adamant allows you to hit as hard as possible and the rest is tossed into HP to take hits better in general from things like latios/heatran etc. Superpower was chosen in the last slot to hit steels for altaria-mega like ferro and heatran and also being able to hit other tyranitars.
Ferrothorn @ Chople Berry
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip
Both raters have great formatting and structure, again the effectiveness of the suggestions played the largest role in our decision. The main reason why we agreed on ez not passing is because he left the team grounded not mentioning the weakness to offensive Ground types. Changing Ferrothorn to Skarmory was one possible way of fixing that weakness, after that the team had to be adjusted to the change.
Thanks for participating !
Our next challenger is just waiting for his chance to participate. He has rated a lot of teams on the forums in the past months and got some wins in Rate of the Week too, next round Eutychios (King Sun) will try his best against us ! The team and the pairing will be posted soon.
Venu was chosen as the first mon because it checks a ton of stuff in the meta and can also hit hard. this moveset has good coverage and hits almost everything bar heatran.
NP Thundi is the breaker of this team, after just bit of damage it breaks through balance mons like hippowdon, Latias, Clefable, Tangrowth, Amoonguss and so on
Slowbro @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 236 Def / 24 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Calm Mind
- Slack Off
slowbro checks fire types and strong attackers, while calm mind helps winning late game. it supports venu in taking scalds so that venu isn't overloaded. it is also the main talonflame answer.
Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 216 SpD / 44 Spe
Careful Nature
- Iron Head
- Whirlwind
- Defog
- Roost
skarm adds a fairy resist, especially those that carry psychic coverage like Gardevoir or sometimes Diancie
Terrakion can sweep the game once the opponents walls have been weakend, it has very good speed and can hit hard. terrak is blocked by fat ground or grass types, which venu takes on and thundi can break
Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock
- Soft-Boiled
clef sets up rocks and twaves mons. it helps versus electric types a bit and checks a huge portion of the meta too http://pastebin.com/8F1trpSa
Deadline is Monday July 13th, 11:59 pm est. Please send your rates to our League Members
Hey man, this is a cool MVenu balance team, but it seems like it struggles a lot w/ beating common stallbreakers and with its overall identity. There’s not really any identifiable win conditionaside from potentially Thundurus and sometimes Venusaur, both of which heavily struggle in the current metagame because of the prevalence of Tyranitar’s Sand Stream. I also noticed that you have trouble killing off Latios which can put in quite a bit of work with Roost as you don’t have any means of killing Latios effectively but rely on boosting w/ Thundurus, Slowbro, or Clefable to beat it. Offensive Mega Scizor, on the other hand, is a very tough matchup if it manages to set up as your Mega Venusaur is easily put into range of a +2 Bug Bite and outsped, while Specially Defensive Skarmory can only whirlwind it out while still taking a hefty amount from +2 Superpower. Opposing CM Clefable can also be quite a nuisance if they carry thunder wave, as you become reliant on not being paralyzed regularly with your Slowbro or Venusaur, the latter of which Clefable can also set up on. Opposing Mega Venusaur, Tangrowth, and Amoonguss are also exceptionally annoying for you to take out as you have no consistent means to wear them down aside from Thundurus, which is walled by Venusaur and quite easily succumbs to Life Orb recoil, Stealth Rock, and Scarf Tyranitar. Finally, killing off Mega Charizard X can be problematic because although you can revenge it fairly easily w/ Choice Scarf Terrakion, it can perpetually force you into compromising situations where you have to take damage w/ Terrakion as it forces out CM Slowbro or Skarmory if you need either for a different threat, proceeding which they can threaten setting up. For example, say you bring in Skarmory and your opponent brings in Mega Charizard X. They can either Flare Blitz, killing Skarmory if you stay in, or they can get damage off on Terrakion as you go hard in to prevent them from setting up a second Dragon Dance on say a pivot to Slowbro. With these threats in mind, I will attempt to provide your team w/ a consistent win condition while improving your defensive synergy and providing a means to win the hazard game.
I think the first change that we make to shore up this team's matchup against Latios, Mega Scizor, and Charizard X at the same time is using Heatran over Clefable. Heatran checks Latios and sets Rocks in the same way that Clefable can, but it also handles standard Charizard X with Toxic if it's not been heavily weakened and can always outspeed and check Mega Scizor with fast Fire-type STAB. It also handles Grasses like Amoonguss, Tangrowth, and Venusaur much more effectively, mitigating the risk that they pose to this squad. Taunt can temporarily stop Clefable for you as well.
To help put pressure on the aforementioned Grass-types, you can use Spikes on Skarmory over Defog to complement Heatran's Stealth Rock. Running Spikes gives you a lot more ways to put pressure on opposing fat builds, which otherwise you have a lot of trouble breaking. You can also run a little less speed because you really want the ability to tank HP Fire rolls from Latios and every point counts. 12 speed EVs should be sufficient.
->
With Heatran and Skarmory running Spikes, the team doesn't appreciate opposing Spikers and hazards too much. Starmie over Slowbro maintains a secondary switchin against Keldeo while also providing hazard removal for your Thundurus and preventing Heatran from being worn down too quickly. This is the tool you need to help win the balance matchup. You also still have Skarmory and Mega Venusaur to take on most Mega Lopunny, so it's not the end of the world to lose a redundant switchin.
-> Finally, with hazard support and pressure on bulky Ground-types + Mega Scizor, I recommend replacing Terrakion's set to Life Orb Double Dance to provide a win condition against balances and offenses alike. After a Rock Polish, Terrakion outspeeds every Pokemon on offenses and can 2HKO them late game, while with Swords Dance, it can threaten every common Pokemon on balance and stall.
So that's about it! With my changes, you maintain your fairly core of Mega Venusaur + Thundurus while gaining a win condition in Terrakion, Spikes support to be able to beat other grounded fat teams, and defensive synergy against Mega Charizard, Mega Scizor, and Latios. Other options include Magma Storm Heatran to improve your matchup against stall teams, as well as Tail Glow Manaphy for stall or offensive teams if you're confident in your matchup against hazard stacking teams.
hello, nice team we have here, I like the idea of using mega Venusaur, Mega Venusaur is really strong both offensively and defensively, having an incredible skill with an exceptional bulk, and also having a high special attack, which allows him to intimidate bulky waters, grass-types and fairy-types. Having taken a look at team, and after doing some tests with it, I came to the conclusion that this team has a lot of problems with stall builds, since the lack of a Stallbreaker, the typical mega Sableye stall formed from the common build: mega Sableye, Quagsire, Skarmory, Amoonguss, Chansey + filler, can create many problems to the team, the absence of a wincon against stall teams makes this too "incapable" to deal with stall cores; after that, I noticed that the team struggles to deal with mega venusaur, Mega Venusaur is really an annoying pokemon for your team, means specially if it is together with Pursuit trapper as Weavile, SD Bisharp, or band Ttar, which put pressure to your Spd Skarmory; Strong special wallbreakers as mega charizard Y, magnezone and gengar are very annoying to deal with, the team has only revenge killer for these; Finally tornadus-t, is annoying, it is manageable by Clefable and Cm Slowbro, but I think the team needs further support, since Tornadus-t is very common now. My rate will try to improve this team making these threats more easy to deal with in the battle.
Given the lack of a stallbreaker, and the lack of a switch to mega Charizard y, I suggest using Stallbrekaer heatran over thundurus, Heatran provides a solid switch to Av Tornadus Therian, mega venusaur and magnezone , also is a good check of fast mega Scizor, beats 1v1 chansey and spd talonflame, and is a great burn / toxic absorber, finally Heatran has a great sinergy with mega Venusaur, he is able to enter of latios's draco meteor, it is a hard check to Bisharp and Weavile ,also i'd suggest running chople berry, with it, Heatran can better control Gengar, Life orb Tornadus-Therian, mega Alakazam; Volcanion can be hit hard with Earth power; I wanted to point out that I decided to put Heatran as Rock setter, to put pressure on hazard remover as Latios, Skarmory, Zapdos, Mandibuzz and mega Latias.
The next change, since we have already a Rock setter, is to use calm mind over stealth rock, calm mind makes Clefable less passive against CM mega Sableye, Tornadus-Therian , Mega Alakazam, Kyurem-b and Manaphy, also is a great set-up late-game sweeper, manages to finish off the sweep after Scizor, Heatran, jirachi and others Clefable checks are eliminated by his teammate; thanks to the combo Thunder wave + Calm mind can win the 1v1 against defensive Mega Venusaur and no roar Heatran; Also Clefable is really good against stall teams, Provides to free setup against chansey, and makes it predictable opponent switches amoonguss / Skarmory, in that case the team has Heatran, which puts pressure to these two counters mentioned above, CM Clefable has much synergy also with the other team members. I put 18 iv on spe , this allows Clefable to PPstall the ferrothorn's Gyro balls taking 3HKO.
Mega Venusaur loves the Pursuit trappers as teammate to put under pressure gengar, latios, mega Latias, so i'd suggest you to use scarf tyranitar over scarf terrakion, despite having already Clefable and Heatran into the team, Cm latios, reflect type CM mega Latias, Sd Bisharp, were still problems not totally controllable, adding scarf tyranitar, these become less dangerous, Scarf ttar also helps in a way to revenge kill mega Medicham, mega Charizard X and mega Charizard Y, its main role is to eliminate the potential of mega venu checks during the match with the help of the other teammate, the moveset is standard: Stone Edge / Pursuit / Crunch / Superpower, this allows Ttar to control the threats mentioned above, Furthemore Pursuit + hazards are amazing together, this combination weakens pokemon as Volcanion, Manectric-mega and raikou very quickly.
I think slowbro needs a small adjustment to the spread, I would suggest to use this: 248 Hp / 232 Def / 24 SpD / 4 Spe, this 4 evs on Spe allows Slowbro to outspeed Amoonguss and mega Sableye, This small adjustment can be useful in certain cases, such as when mega Sableye has low hp, or if you have already done 1 or 2 cms and the opponent puts Amoonguss taking Scald, and then you take the Psyschock.
Heatran @ Chople berry / Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Magma Storm
- Taunt
- Earth Power
I think that with these changes the team has become less passive, with more solid win-conditions, and even more synergistic. Hope i've helped and GL with the team
- Eutychios
Although Chios' formatting and structure look great, his changes made the team too passive and leave a lot of common threats unchecked. The use of Spikes on Skarmory aswell as adding a Ground Type were the changes we expected from the raters. Also, the raters should have changed the team to make it better at winning instead of focusing on covering every possible threat.
While Hector's changes made the team less passive, it has a problematic matchup against Rotom-W and common Fighting types which is a no-no for balance builds.
To summarize our decision, we don't let Chios go through even though both rates have noticeable weaknesses, as at the end of the day, Hector's rate does a better job at being proactive.
If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to contact our jury for this round: Reymedy, DennisEG, mil.
I'd just like to say that I hope the participants had a fun learning experience testing your skills against top raters, and that it's helped you guys on the road to becoming better raters. You all did very well, especially considering how tough the league was designed to be. Huge props to mil for doing an amazing job hosting this and thanks as well to our jury, league members and everyone else who contributed to making this league a success! Keep an eye out for more of these in the future, and perhaps even some for other tiers :)
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