Hi all
Rotations is a format that's not talked about a lot. I enjoy it in theory, but it's not always easy finding games on it. It's hard to learn much about the format since I can't just go on the ladder and grind very easily. I'm 11-5 at 1599 rating and #1 in Canada, just to show you how inactive this format is.
SO, I've decided to do an RMT and share my thought process in how I approach the format. I know nothing of the format so I'm likely very wrong about just about everything, but atleast I'm thinking and talking about it and I'd rather be wrong than just not talk about it. So here we go.
My experience with Maison rotations gave me three ideas about how to play Rotations.
The first is to have a safe brainless nuke. This means an attack that can just be fired off and hit the opponent's entire team for atleast neutral damage. Something that NOTHING wants to take. After seeing someone post Tyrantrum calcs on an RU thread, I thought I HAD to use Tyrantrum. Love its design, and some of the calcs made my jaw drop all the way to the floor. I felt that it would be nice pairing it with Azumarill, who can rotate into Fighting/Dragon/Ice attacks aimed at Ttum and use that turn to set up a Belly Drum.
My second thought concerned support moves. For limited turn moves like Tailwind and Screens, normally in singles, you'd have a setter and the setter would have to switch out into the abuser. You essentially lose an entire turn of the support move just from switching out. Not so in rotations, where you can set up a Tailwind and rotate out the very next tun. Tailwind will be very nice support for Tyrantrum, whose middling speed is its crippling flaw.
My third thought concerned stat debuffs. In Singles and even Doubles, stat debuffs are easy to deal with since you can just switch out. It often isn't worth burning a turn to debuff when the opponent can cancel it out with a switch out. In Rotations however, switching out puts you at a disadvantageous position, since you're essential -1 turns compared to your opponent. Debuffs in rotations are often permanent.
With those three thoughts, onto my team!
OVERVIEW
The Nukes:
The "let your teammates handle it" aspect of Rotations allows for things that are extremely good at one thing and one thing only. Tyrantrum and Darmanitan are crazy good nukes, but have extremely crippling flaws that make them terrible choices on BS Doubles and Singles teams. Hide their weaknesses behind teammates and just have them do the one thing they were meant to do: Click Head Smash/Flare Blitz.
The Tailwinders:
It seems overkill to have 2 Tailwinders, but I won't ever bring both to battle. There will be matchups where Whimsicott will perform terribly, so I would need Talonflame and vice versa. I like Whimsicott a lot, but having double fairy with Whimsi+Azu would make me extremely vulnerable to poison. Not the most relevant offensive typing, but I can't exactly just ignore it. On a team that's so Tailwind reliant, I find that having two tailwinders to choose from is very valuable.
The Sweeper:
Mentioned above. I built this team to be a Dino Bunny terror team, but in practice, it actually ended up being a Bunny killing everything team. A lot of the times I would leave Ttum out of the match and just have Azu kill everything.
The "I dunno what I'm doing so let's just stick a random Mega in there" Slot:
Title says it all. Manectric gave me some valuable speed outside of Tailwind, added some special punch to a very physically oriented team, and gave me a way of not getting completely hosed by Aegislash. Seems to fit alright.
TEAM:
Angel (Azumarill) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Huge Power
Level: 50
EVs: 136 HP / 252 Atk / 120 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Belly Drum
- Aqua Jet
- Play Rough
- Superpower
Azumarill is the super star of my team. Not much to say, other than EV spread specifics. 136 HP/120 Spe gives me an even HP for Belly Drum and enough speed for Garchomp after a Tailwind.
Notes: I wouldn't change a single thing about this set.
Jaedong (Tyrantrum) @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Head Smash
- Outrage
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
Absolutely scary monster, but not as prominent as I would have thought. Choice Band is sketchy in Rotations, but I thought it would be fine since Rock has good neutral coverage alone. The 8PP is risky, but I figure if I used Head Smash 8 times, I must be in pretty good shape :)
Most of the time, if I saw a bulky resist (Aegislash, Ferrothorn as examples) I just won't bring Tyrantrum. Being locked into Head Smash against Aegislash is just asking for trouble.
Notes: Outrage is kinda stupid. Maybe Crunch over it?
Flameo (Darmanitan) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Earthquake
One of the scariest nukes ever! It has issues such as hitting into a King's Shield, or giving Heatran a Flash Fire boost, but even resisted hits will hurt. I once killed a Charizard Y from full with a Flare Blitz (drought boosted). Earthquake gives me an option against Aegislash, avoiding King's Shield and knocking out a Substitute. Superpower gives me a way to hit Air Balloon Heatran.
Notes: I considered Rock Slide > U-Turn, but felt that running away from Intimidates could have been helpful. I never ran into a situation where I'd use either.
Adamant makes more sense than Jolly on this team, but I already had this Darmanitan from last year and decided I wouldn't bother to rebreed a Darm just for this team. Jolly is helpful in outspeeding some of the faster things that opt to run Adamant/Modest (like Charizard Y).
Fluffy Puff (Whimsicott) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Def / 224 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sunny Day
- Tailwind
- Taunt
- Charm
224 Speed lets me outspeed Thundurus. Rest of the EVs in bulk. Focus Sash gives me a near guaranteed 2 Tailwinds. Taunt is to counter-Taunt Thundurus. Charm should permanently cripple anything that comes in. Sunny Day is exclusively to get free wins against Rain
Notes: 224 Speed is probably stupid. 252 would at worst speed tie opposing Whimsicott. The extra 28 EV in Def prob isn't enough to justify my spread.
Leech Seed is amazing in Rotations. Leech Seed > Sunny Day is something I am considering.
Neenja Snipa (Talonflame) @ Sharp Beak
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Protect
- Tailwind
- Will-O-Wisp
My secondary Tailwinder also fits the bill of safe brainless nuke. EVs are meant to outspeed and burn Metagross. WoW also dodges sucker punches from the likes of Mawile, which is why I ran WoW > Flare Blitz. I basically just put my Doubles TFlame into rotations, which is why it has protect, but I've found protect to be useful in those "wtf am I doing? Let's just throw a protect cuz I'm completely clueless" situations.
Notes: There are tons of options to use over Protect, though for now I'm just gonna stick with it. It's helped a few times but I kinda feel that Roost/SD would be better
NAY (Manectric) @ Manectite
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Flamethrower
- Magnet Rise
- Snarl
I've always held off on breeding Manectric just because it is so reliant on getting the correct Hidden Power, but in the "let's let teammates handle it" mentality in Rotations, you don't exactly need a do-it-all Manectric the same way you do in Singles. I put some fun stuff on this Manectric, but quite frankly Magnet Rise/Snarl has never made any impact at all in my battles. Snarl+Intimidate gives the double cripple, while Magnet Rise can dodge EQs from Garchomp (which it will want to use, since it doesn't wanna Dragon Claw into my fairies). In practice, I just spammed TBolt/Flamethrower, with Magnet Rise being more of a win-more move.
Notes: EVs not optimized. I'm looking to move EVs away from SpA and into bulk. For this team, my spread should be fine since I don't have any Special firepower anywhere on the team.
Rotations is a format that's not talked about a lot. I enjoy it in theory, but it's not always easy finding games on it. It's hard to learn much about the format since I can't just go on the ladder and grind very easily. I'm 11-5 at 1599 rating and #1 in Canada, just to show you how inactive this format is.
SO, I've decided to do an RMT and share my thought process in how I approach the format. I know nothing of the format so I'm likely very wrong about just about everything, but atleast I'm thinking and talking about it and I'd rather be wrong than just not talk about it. So here we go.
My experience with Maison rotations gave me three ideas about how to play Rotations.
The first is to have a safe brainless nuke. This means an attack that can just be fired off and hit the opponent's entire team for atleast neutral damage. Something that NOTHING wants to take. After seeing someone post Tyrantrum calcs on an RU thread, I thought I HAD to use Tyrantrum. Love its design, and some of the calcs made my jaw drop all the way to the floor. I felt that it would be nice pairing it with Azumarill, who can rotate into Fighting/Dragon/Ice attacks aimed at Ttum and use that turn to set up a Belly Drum.
My second thought concerned support moves. For limited turn moves like Tailwind and Screens, normally in singles, you'd have a setter and the setter would have to switch out into the abuser. You essentially lose an entire turn of the support move just from switching out. Not so in rotations, where you can set up a Tailwind and rotate out the very next tun. Tailwind will be very nice support for Tyrantrum, whose middling speed is its crippling flaw.
My third thought concerned stat debuffs. In Singles and even Doubles, stat debuffs are easy to deal with since you can just switch out. It often isn't worth burning a turn to debuff when the opponent can cancel it out with a switch out. In Rotations however, switching out puts you at a disadvantageous position, since you're essential -1 turns compared to your opponent. Debuffs in rotations are often permanent.
With those three thoughts, onto my team!
OVERVIEW
The Nukes:
The "let your teammates handle it" aspect of Rotations allows for things that are extremely good at one thing and one thing only. Tyrantrum and Darmanitan are crazy good nukes, but have extremely crippling flaws that make them terrible choices on BS Doubles and Singles teams. Hide their weaknesses behind teammates and just have them do the one thing they were meant to do: Click Head Smash/Flare Blitz.
The Tailwinders:
It seems overkill to have 2 Tailwinders, but I won't ever bring both to battle. There will be matchups where Whimsicott will perform terribly, so I would need Talonflame and vice versa. I like Whimsicott a lot, but having double fairy with Whimsi+Azu would make me extremely vulnerable to poison. Not the most relevant offensive typing, but I can't exactly just ignore it. On a team that's so Tailwind reliant, I find that having two tailwinders to choose from is very valuable.
The Sweeper:
Mentioned above. I built this team to be a Dino Bunny terror team, but in practice, it actually ended up being a Bunny killing everything team. A lot of the times I would leave Ttum out of the match and just have Azu kill everything.
The "I dunno what I'm doing so let's just stick a random Mega in there" Slot:
Title says it all. Manectric gave me some valuable speed outside of Tailwind, added some special punch to a very physically oriented team, and gave me a way of not getting completely hosed by Aegislash. Seems to fit alright.
TEAM:
Angel (Azumarill) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Huge Power
Level: 50
EVs: 136 HP / 252 Atk / 120 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Belly Drum
- Aqua Jet
- Play Rough
- Superpower
Azumarill is the super star of my team. Not much to say, other than EV spread specifics. 136 HP/120 Spe gives me an even HP for Belly Drum and enough speed for Garchomp after a Tailwind.
Notes: I wouldn't change a single thing about this set.
Jaedong (Tyrantrum) @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Head Smash
- Outrage
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
Absolutely scary monster, but not as prominent as I would have thought. Choice Band is sketchy in Rotations, but I thought it would be fine since Rock has good neutral coverage alone. The 8PP is risky, but I figure if I used Head Smash 8 times, I must be in pretty good shape :)
Most of the time, if I saw a bulky resist (Aegislash, Ferrothorn as examples) I just won't bring Tyrantrum. Being locked into Head Smash against Aegislash is just asking for trouble.
Notes: Outrage is kinda stupid. Maybe Crunch over it?
Flameo (Darmanitan) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Earthquake
One of the scariest nukes ever! It has issues such as hitting into a King's Shield, or giving Heatran a Flash Fire boost, but even resisted hits will hurt. I once killed a Charizard Y from full with a Flare Blitz (drought boosted). Earthquake gives me an option against Aegislash, avoiding King's Shield and knocking out a Substitute. Superpower gives me a way to hit Air Balloon Heatran.
Notes: I considered Rock Slide > U-Turn, but felt that running away from Intimidates could have been helpful. I never ran into a situation where I'd use either.
Adamant makes more sense than Jolly on this team, but I already had this Darmanitan from last year and decided I wouldn't bother to rebreed a Darm just for this team. Jolly is helpful in outspeeding some of the faster things that opt to run Adamant/Modest (like Charizard Y).
Fluffy Puff (Whimsicott) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Def / 224 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sunny Day
- Tailwind
- Taunt
- Charm
224 Speed lets me outspeed Thundurus. Rest of the EVs in bulk. Focus Sash gives me a near guaranteed 2 Tailwinds. Taunt is to counter-Taunt Thundurus. Charm should permanently cripple anything that comes in. Sunny Day is exclusively to get free wins against Rain
Notes: 224 Speed is probably stupid. 252 would at worst speed tie opposing Whimsicott. The extra 28 EV in Def prob isn't enough to justify my spread.
Leech Seed is amazing in Rotations. Leech Seed > Sunny Day is something I am considering.
Neenja Snipa (Talonflame) @ Sharp Beak
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Protect
- Tailwind
- Will-O-Wisp
My secondary Tailwinder also fits the bill of safe brainless nuke. EVs are meant to outspeed and burn Metagross. WoW also dodges sucker punches from the likes of Mawile, which is why I ran WoW > Flare Blitz. I basically just put my Doubles TFlame into rotations, which is why it has protect, but I've found protect to be useful in those "wtf am I doing? Let's just throw a protect cuz I'm completely clueless" situations.
Notes: There are tons of options to use over Protect, though for now I'm just gonna stick with it. It's helped a few times but I kinda feel that Roost/SD would be better
NAY (Manectric) @ Manectite
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Flamethrower
- Magnet Rise
- Snarl
I've always held off on breeding Manectric just because it is so reliant on getting the correct Hidden Power, but in the "let's let teammates handle it" mentality in Rotations, you don't exactly need a do-it-all Manectric the same way you do in Singles. I put some fun stuff on this Manectric, but quite frankly Magnet Rise/Snarl has never made any impact at all in my battles. Snarl+Intimidate gives the double cripple, while Magnet Rise can dodge EQs from Garchomp (which it will want to use, since it doesn't wanna Dragon Claw into my fairies). In practice, I just spammed TBolt/Flamethrower, with Magnet Rise being more of a win-more move.
Notes: EVs not optimized. I'm looking to move EVs away from SpA and into bulk. For this team, my spread should be fine since I don't have any Special firepower anywhere on the team.