Antiweather (Hail, peaked 2025 PS)

[Leen]

Antiweather​

One of the accounts I tested the team on, the team has been improved since:

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Yeah, 9 battles, I know. xD

Hi guys, it's your buddy, Leen. I'm kind of an unfamiliar face here, but I haven't really had anything to post until now. I started playing OU (and competitive pokemon) in late October, and most of my teams have been hail teams. Probably the things that made me pick hail were that it was the least common weather and that I thought it was cool. Not to mention that when I played weatherless teams, I noticed that if the rain/sun/sand (not-so-much sand) team I was facing couldn't get up its weather early, it was hurt quite a bit. So I decided to take an offensive approach to hail, and I called up my friend Kyurem-Black to help me. Kyurem-Black's cooler than kyurem, and he doesn't even have to try to be. Once my opponent's steels and other threats are gone, Kyurem-Black just destroys everything. I also decided on a scarfed abomasnow because subseed makes abomasnow kind of a tool and band is too slow, meaning I could really only hit things that were slow/things switching in. Just not my style. Teamed up with infernape to destroy steels, and some other cool buddies of mine, this team was ready to dominate. Hail is the anti-weather. The serious part is over. Let's go, my friends.

Whoosh.

Welcome to a world of snow and happy people. Pick up an apple to eat. You can eat everything but the stem. Enjoy as I walk you through this nifty team I have assembled to protect the great snow lands. May you have a great life and may you enjoy that apple.

The Pokemon

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Abomasnow @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Lonely Nature
- Blizzard
- Ice Shard
- Wood Hammer
- Earthquake
So we need santa to give out gifts. Abomasnow gives us wonderful snow. While most of it is rather self explanatory, earthquake is for heatran. Scarf helps me outspeed a lot of non-scarfers and hit hard with an attack. Abomasnow isn't a bad weather inducer with the proper team support. He is a total pal and can threaten all the other weather inducers. The surprise factor makes him valuable, as people expect to outspeed. The G in FWG.

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Iron Head
- U-turn
Jirachi is really important, and forms a little u-turn core w/ infernape. Not only does it get up rocks, it is able to wall a lot of threats in the metagame and start crippling anything with dat paraflinching action. Delicious.

Latios (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Surf
- Psyshock
Not only does latios absorb fire attacks for jirachi, it also can destroy all those steels in the way of Kyurem-B, along with other threats. This set's coverage is good and lets me hit almost anything pretty hard. Who's being walled now? Not Latios. Latios loves to meet new steel friends. Scarf lets it outspeed +1 dnite and more, but takes a lot of prediction to use properly, kinda like everything on the team.

Infernape @ Choice Band
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- ThunderPunch
- U-turn
I had used terrakion previously, but with the use of kyurem-Black on my team and with all the sun teams I was seeing, banded infernape was a solid choice. Mainly because he gets rid of those pesky steels and gains a boost from sun. He hits hard and hits fast, I really don't think it could get much better. Probably the best part about infernape is the fact that he threatens out so many things. Combined with U-turn, my opponent is put in a bad position. He's the F of the FWG core.

Starmie @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 32 SAtk / 224 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Thunderbolt
- Rapid Spin
I needed a rapid spinner so I didn't get destroyed by rocks. Spikes aren't as much of a problem. I've always used starmie as my spinner and he has defended his title of my favorite spinner well. With great special attack and speed, he is quite useful, meaning that he can threaten lots of things out. And once again, he spins. Simple stuff, albeit good stuff.

Kyurem-Black @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature
- Outrage
- Fusion Bolt
- Blizzard
- Dragon Claw
Sup. The star of the team is here. Why not use kyurem? He's better, you say? I don't know, yo. Sporting a Massive 170 base attack, massive gorilla arms, an appreciation for the fine arts, no weakness to standard dragon-killing ice moves, and a choice scarf to make it outspeed most everything, this thing is a monster. A monster. With the highest BST in OU. What. His ability also makes dragonite cry. Don't choke on that apple. Once the steels are gone, (namely scizor , BP -_-,) this guy becomes a PREDATOR. He catches every single little pokemon my opponent has and shows them his feelings. While not the most skilled pokemon to use, he is still probably the best member of my team. I have lots of team support for this guy, and considering how many kills he has gotten, he was 100% worth making room for.

Boom. Thanks for reading guys. Shoutout to my friends who don't have Smogon accounts and ShreyasPokemon for being a good dancer.
Shoutout to anyone who plays hail and credits to Dragonfruit for inspiring me to take such an offensive approach to hail.

If you want to play this team, feel free. Here's the importable:

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Abomasnow @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Lonely Nature
- Blizzard
- Ice Shard
- Wood Hammer
- Earthquake

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Iron Head
- U-turn

Latios (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Surf
- Psyshock

Kyurem-Black @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature
- Outrage
- Fusion Bolt
- Blizzard
- Dragon Claw

Infernape @ Choice Band
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- ThunderPunch
- U-turn

Starmie @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 32 SAtk / 224 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Thunderbolt
- Rapid Spin

Credits to King of Blades, Chimpakt, RaikouLover, Usatoday, and zIntens1fy for helping me make lots of good changes.
Tell me what you think. I'm still a relatively new battler and am looking for ways to improve my team and my teambuilding skills. Thanks again.
Update: I found cloyster to be a huge threat but most teams were pretty easy to deal with, even a lot of stall teams. I think this is the final update for a while, leave a rate if it looks like it has any more issues.

 

[RaikouLover]

while the type synergy of this team is very good, it has quite a few flaws. For starters, a levitator would be really nifty ^_^ as of right now, the team has no initial switch in for Mr. Garchomp or anything that feels like coming in and spamming high powered Earthquakes. Abomasnow is a rather poor switch.

Another thing is, this team is has too many Choice users. FOUR is WAY too many. I understand the use of all of them, but those Protect Rain stall teams will be a pain in your ass!

I don't really have any advice for the team because it has no focal point. It really is putting some hard-hitting anti-weather pokemon on a team and calling it a wrap. I'll test it though and report back!

 

[Leen]

Lol, just saw you on showdown. I see what you're saying, it's probably one of the biggest threats to this team. If you can come up with a suggestion on how to patch up that weakness it'd be great, I'll look into it. Thanks.
EDIT: The rain thing too; that's definitely a big issue. Considering rotom-w.

 

[RaikouLover]

Uhh.. lets see. Dragon Pulse >>> Ice Beam on Kingdra for sure.. and this team really really doesn't like Rain stall at all.. especially tentacruel / Ferrothorn cores. You have absolutely no way to beat them and they just press Protect. A set up sweeper would be a good start.

 

[zIntens1fy]

Seeding as my other comment got removed, ill make a serious rate this time. Between the time that I posted my last rate and this one I created and tested a hail team of my own using your scarfed abomasnow and Kyurem idea and it really works well. I also found that a RP special attacking Landorus takes case of a lot of threats to this team including heatran and other bulky pokes. The residuals from hazards and hail also make Landorus' job a lot easier. I would reccomend trying it over starmie as Kyurem usually just ends up coming in late game and cleaning up so it doesn't switch in that match making a spinner less important. Just something that you should try testing it has worked very well for me as I'm 6-0 with the team

 

[Leen]

I'm considering replacing kingdra with a CM latios and changing psyshock to thunderbolt on starmie. Thanks for the input, any thoughts on this?
Latios (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Dragon Pulse

 

[zIntens1fy]

I tried this set earlier but with a lati@s and it really can't do anything without sub as it is easily revenged. I say use sub cm hp fire and dragon pulse. The set above is walled by heatran but any lati is walled by heatran unless you want to run surf but hp.fire will take care of every other steel type that tries to resist the powerful boosted stab dragon pulse. Also if your going to run a sub cm set I would reccomend lefties

 

[Leen]

Will do. I'll keep psyshock on starmie for tentacruel and use this set, then:
Latios (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Dragon Pulse

 

[Usatoday]

while the type synergy of this team is very good, it has quite a few flaws. For starters, a levitator would be really nifty ^_^ as of right now, the team has no initial switch in for Mr. Garchomp or anything that feels like coming in and spamming high powered Earthquakes. Abomasnow is a rather poor switch.

Another thing is, this team is has too many Choice users. FOUR is WAY too many. I understand the use of all of them, but those Protect Rain stall teams will be a pain in your ass!

I don't really have any advice for the team because it has no focal point. It really is putting some hard-hitting anti-weather pokemon on a team and calling it a wrap. I'll test it though and report back!

Trust me a team can function very very well with multiple choice users however in order to do this you need a few key changes the first thing you need is hazards you have no stealth rocker from what I can see and with this idea I am going to suggest Deoxys Defense over starmie this is for a few reasons the first being that you will not only get a fast stealth rocker but it also comes in the form of one of the best suicide lead spikers. Now you may be a little unwilling to do this as it will remove your rapid spinner however I found when using a team nearly identical type wise because this team focuses around a LOT of prediction via switching either by U Turn or flat out double switching.

The second thing I'm going to recommend is that you change scizor to a Choice Scarf Jirachi my reasoning for this is because of tornadus therian with this appearance of rain you have nothing to switch into a choice specs or even life hurricane as it will outspeed everything except kyurem black and with Jirachi on your team it will give you a pokemon that could safely switch in a few times and be able to troll tornadus therian quite a bit as well as outspeed it and kill it off with ice punch or iron head depending on how low Tornadus is. Now another advantage to this is that you can also check dragons more reliably as it will outspeed plus 1 dragonite which may not be a problem for you but you have nothing that enjoys sponging a draco meteor from a latios.

Next off I believe that if you choose to take this effort you should invest in a spinblocker in this case an offensive ghost pokemon so for this I'm going to offer two choices the first being a Choice Banded Spiritomb the reason why spiritomb may be a good fit on this team is because it will allow you to check the ever annoying sub disable gengar, has enough bulk to sponge one hit, and gives you two of the best priority moves in existence being A. Sucker punch which allows you to nail a lot of things see calcs below and B. shadow sneak to bait pokemon into setting up and the last thing that it will allow you is trick which a tool very useful in which your team particularly doesn't like ferrothorn and forretress so by tricking them you can cripple them.

Calcs

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252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Sucker Punch vs 4HP/0Def Haxorus (Neutral): 63% - 74% (186 - 219 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Sucker Punch vs 4HP/0Def Dragonite (Neutral): 54% - 64% (178 - 210 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Sucker Punch vs 4HP/0Def Soundproof Abomasnow (Neutral): 67% - 79% (216 - 255 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Sucker Punch vs 4HP/0Def Water Absorb Politoed (Neutral): 67% - 79% (216 - 255 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Sucker Punch vs 4HP/0Def Jirachi (Neutral): 49% - 58% (169 - 201 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO. 25% chance to 2HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Sucker Punch vs 4HP/0Def Keldeo Resolution (Neutral): 28% - 33% (93 - 109 HP). Guaranteed 4HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Shadow Sneak vs 4HP/0Def Keldeo Resolution (Neutral): 28% - 34% (93 - 111 HP). Guaranteed 4HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Shadow Sneak vs 4HP/0Def Levitate Gengar (Neutral): 98% - 116% (258 - 306 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO. 91% chance to OHKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Shadow Sneak vs 252HP/0Def Water Absorb Jellicent (Neutral): 56% - 66% (228 - 270 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Pursuit vs 252HP/0Def switching Blissey (Neutral): 100% - 117% (714 - 841 HP). Guaranteed OHKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Pursuit vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers switching Blissey (+Def): 42% - 50% (307 - 363 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Sucker Punch vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Levitate Rotom (+Def): 38% - 45% (118 - 139 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.
252Atk Choice Band Infiltrator Spiritomb (+Atk) Sucker Punch vs 4HP/0Def Leftovers Levitate Rotom (Neutral): 66% - 78% (160 - 190 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.

My second opinion is that you go for Sub Icy Wind Gengar this is because is will allow you to outpace terrakion with ease as well as threaten out latios and latias assuming they run hidden power fire which most of them do now you may be asking why ice wind and this is because of the sheer fact that dragonite loves to attempt to set up dragon dances on gengar as it isn't very powerful against a full multiscale roost dragonite however with icy wind this will neutralize the threat of a dragonite sweep by making the speed boost from dragon dace useless.

So changes overall I would do these

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Or

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Sets
Deoxys Defense

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@ Rocky Helmet
Nature Timid
Ability Pressure
Evs 252 HP 4 Def 252 Spd
Stealth Rock
Spikes
Taunt
Skill Swap

Spiritomb

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@ Choice Band
Nature Adamant
Ability Infiltrator
Evs 252 HP 252 Atk 4 Def
Shadow Sneak
Sucker Punch
Pursuit
Trick

Gengar

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@ Black Sludge
Nature Timid
Ability Levitate
Evs 4 HP 252 SAtk 252 Spd
Shadow Ball
Icy Wind
Focus Blast
Substitute

Jirachi

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@ Choice Scarf
Nature Jolly
Ability Serene Grace
Evs 4 HP 252 Atk 252 Spd
Iron Head
U-Turn
Ice Punch
Fire Punch

​

 

[Leen]

Good info

Wow, that is a lot of useful information, I'll test those sets out. I'll report back once I'm done, thanks for the rate.

 

[King of Blades]

Sorry for the short rate, I'll probably update the rate tomorrow.

Right now, I see that you have hail, but you aren't abusing it except on abomasnow. Kyurem-B would really love blizzard. As it stands right now, you have a -sp.atk nature and a move that is inferior to blizzard when hail is up. The only way you could probably hope to get decent power out of ice beam is to change your nature to naive or hasty. Outrage spamming will almost always be stronger than ice beam, but blizzard packs a noticeable power increase.

There's the thing I see right now, I will update this with a better rate later.

 

[chimpact]

not a bad record, but you could definitely improve on your team with a few tweaks.

First of all I feel like if a hail team is running starmie they should be using the bulky set with scald and psyshock to handle keldeo. Keldeo is naturally tough for hail teams because of its typing. With a bulkier starmie you also handle bulky waters (like tenta) a bit better. You already have a lot of offense going for you and starmie is rarely set up bait.

Additionally, you should be using max speed or close to max speed when you're running SD scizor without roost. There's no need for the bulk and you definitely need the speed to outspeed certain pokemon like Heatran and rotom, who otherwise could ohko you or cripple you with will o wisp. Life Orb is going to conflict with the hp investment as well.

Lastly, I believe a LO latios with recover would have more survivability than your current sub cm one. LO may cost you 16% per turn with hail accounted for, but substitute takes 31% and uses up a crucial moveslot. with life orb you have a decent answer to rain threats like specs toed, rotom, and keldeo, but also have better coverage to dish out damage.

TL;DR

Speed EVS > HP

change set to scald/psyshock/recover/rapid spin

full starmie set

Starmie @ Leftovers Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 32 SAtk / 224 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Recover
- Rapid Spin

change set to psyshock or surf /hp fire / draco meteor/ recover

full latios set

Latios (M) @ Life Orb Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Draco Meteor
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Psyshock / Surf

- Recover

good luck with the team and hope i helped!

 

[Leen]

Sounds good. I'll change it up, Chimpakt and King. Thanks. For now, I'll be testing both versions (Usatoday's and the modified version of mine).
EDIT: OP Updated.
EDIT 2: Switched scizor to Jirachi. Kind of an unconvential set, and I was reluctant to try it but it was the best I could come up with. I've been able to deal w/ D-nite somewhat and deal other threats rather well now, but I'll have to test it further to see what I can do to improve it. Will also test the deoxys-d-spinblocker changes.