Hello Smogon! Although I have been a dedicated pokemon fan for several years, I have always seemed to turn a blind eye to competitive battling, simply going for the in game experience, but recently I thought I would give it try and I haven't looked back!
After reading several very helpful articles on the Smogon website, I decided to create a rain stall team. Partly because where I live it never seems to stop raining! Although I have experimented with rain offense, I feel this team is more suited to my style as I am a more defensively minded player, and I didn't want my team to be exactly the same as about a third of all the teams out there! So here's the team:
Monsoon (Politoed) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Toxic
- Protect
- Perish Song
Ofcourse, the essential to any rain team, politoed. The aim is to keep him alive as long as possible against other weather teams, so I have chosen a defensive set, this obviously combines with the fact that the team is highly defensive. Scald is there for a main STAB move and deals decent damage to most pokemon that do not resist it. Toxic cripples many pokemon that politoed could otherwise not touch. Protect is used as a stalling move and perish song is useful to force out an adversary pokemon or in the rare case that the opponent is down to their last pokemon to guarantee a win.
(Fort Knox) Ferrothorn (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 168 SDef / 88 Def / 252 HP
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Spikes
Again, almost an essential on every rain team, ferrothorn. He counters an incredible amount of pokemon, especially those that other pokemon on the team have trouble to deal with. He can tank electric moves well and laughs at any grass moves used on him. He works well in the rain as it weakens his weakness to fire. The moveset is pretty standard. Power Whip and Gyro Ball as two strong and reliable STAB moves, spikes for entry hazards (although I have considered stealth rock too and cannot seem to decide) and leech seed to try and provide him with some sort of recovery to increase his longevity.
Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SDef / 252 Def
Bold Nature
- Seismic Toss
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Toxic
Chansey acts as the team cleric, healing status and wishing back health points all around. She also tanks special hits extremely well and can take a surprising amount of physical ones too thanks to her massive HP and eviolite. This chansey however seems to have the condition of four move syndrome. Seismic toss is there to deal consistent damage and help break substitutes that the other pokemon simply could not. Wish is there to heal any pokemon and itself, Heal Bell heals all status and has turned out to be a really essential move and toxic cripples the opponent often leaving them with only a few turns left due to the mechanics of bad poisoning. The problem is that chansey has no reliable form of recovery in the form of softboiled and this can be a problem, especially against faster physical threats.
Ujelly? (Jellicent) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spd
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Taunt
Acting as a spinblocker and a great all round defensive pokemon as it can take physical and special hits from some of the strongest pokemon in the metagame. It has basically perfect synergy with ferrothorn, both pokemon resisting eachothers weaknesses and is useful against fighting types that chansey may have problems dealing with. Scald acts as a STAB move and combines well with Will-O-Wisp inflict burns and render many physical attackers such as scizor useless. Recover allows jellicent to stay alive longer and Taunt forces many defensive pokemon to switch out giving jellicent the chance to recover health or inflict a burn on the incoming pokemon.
Tentacruel (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 20 SDef
Bold Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Protect
Tentacruel is my rapid spinner and is great defensively as it regains 25% health every two turns (whilst only being hit once) thanks to protect. Toxic spikes adds hazards and if he can set down two layers it is very useful, especially if the opponent lacks a grounded poison type. Scald is used to deal damage and the 30% burn chance is obviously very handy. Rapid Spin, as discussed is essential and Protect helps stall out the opponent and enables him to regain more health every turn. I have also considered using the sub toxic set, but I do not know which one would be more appropriate.
Ditto @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Def
Sassy Nature
IVs: 2 Spd
- Transform
Ditto, the pokemon no one would ever dream of using in the past generations has come back with a bang. When combined with a choice scarf, he acts as possibly THE best revenge killer in the game. This ditto has won me innumerable games and seems to deal with many of the problems that stall teams face. The opponent will rarely dare set up with ditto in the team preview, stopping threats such as sword dance scizor and dragon dance dragonite with ease. The 2 IVs in speed give Ditto a hidden power ice which can help against some hidden power users such as Thundurus-T. Ditto helps counter non boosting threats as well such as choice band haxorus, turning the opponents favourite and strongest pokemon against them.
Conclusion
I have been using this team now very regularly for the past week (since I started playing) and I have been winning about 70% of the games I play on pokemon showdown which I think is good for my first team. Threats to this team do not seem very common, but electric types can often cause problems as well as calm mind users that ditto might have problems dealing with such as Reuniclus as it is difficult to wear down thanks to its great ability and recover. Breloom also seems to be a bit of a problem pokemon.
Changes I have considered making:
1.Replacing a pokemon by Wobbuffet, as the custap berry is now released for bw2. I don't know whether is a good choice however, and if it is, which pokemon to be replaced?? I think that Wobbuffet would also combine well with Ditto. Any help on this point would be much appreciated.
2.Changing one of chanseys move,
3.Using a sub toxic set on tentacruel,
4.Replacing spikes with stealth rocks on the ferrothorn set.
Threats
This is not a threat list as such, but just ideas that opponents have used that I found difficult to deal with.
1.Substitute users such as toxicroak cause problems for the team as ditto cannot come in and they can be often difficult to break.
2.Bulky set up sweepers such as calm mind reuniclus that ditto cannot often beat.
3. Hail teams; these teams seem difficult to beat as I do not have a decent pokemon do dispatch Abomasnow
As I have already mentioned I have very new to the competitive battle scene, so any advice whether it is a matter of changing four EVs on a pokemon to replacing two pokemon on the team would be very helpful. To finish, I hope this team will provide some originality on the current rain teams!
After reading several very helpful articles on the Smogon website, I decided to create a rain stall team. Partly because where I live it never seems to stop raining! Although I have experimented with rain offense, I feel this team is more suited to my style as I am a more defensively minded player, and I didn't want my team to be exactly the same as about a third of all the teams out there! So here's the team:
Monsoon (Politoed) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Toxic
- Protect
- Perish Song
Ofcourse, the essential to any rain team, politoed. The aim is to keep him alive as long as possible against other weather teams, so I have chosen a defensive set, this obviously combines with the fact that the team is highly defensive. Scald is there for a main STAB move and deals decent damage to most pokemon that do not resist it. Toxic cripples many pokemon that politoed could otherwise not touch. Protect is used as a stalling move and perish song is useful to force out an adversary pokemon or in the rare case that the opponent is down to their last pokemon to guarantee a win.
(Fort Knox) Ferrothorn (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 168 SDef / 88 Def / 252 HP
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Spikes
Again, almost an essential on every rain team, ferrothorn. He counters an incredible amount of pokemon, especially those that other pokemon on the team have trouble to deal with. He can tank electric moves well and laughs at any grass moves used on him. He works well in the rain as it weakens his weakness to fire. The moveset is pretty standard. Power Whip and Gyro Ball as two strong and reliable STAB moves, spikes for entry hazards (although I have considered stealth rock too and cannot seem to decide) and leech seed to try and provide him with some sort of recovery to increase his longevity.
Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SDef / 252 Def
Bold Nature
- Seismic Toss
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Toxic
Chansey acts as the team cleric, healing status and wishing back health points all around. She also tanks special hits extremely well and can take a surprising amount of physical ones too thanks to her massive HP and eviolite. This chansey however seems to have the condition of four move syndrome. Seismic toss is there to deal consistent damage and help break substitutes that the other pokemon simply could not. Wish is there to heal any pokemon and itself, Heal Bell heals all status and has turned out to be a really essential move and toxic cripples the opponent often leaving them with only a few turns left due to the mechanics of bad poisoning. The problem is that chansey has no reliable form of recovery in the form of softboiled and this can be a problem, especially against faster physical threats.
Ujelly? (Jellicent) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spd
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Taunt
Acting as a spinblocker and a great all round defensive pokemon as it can take physical and special hits from some of the strongest pokemon in the metagame. It has basically perfect synergy with ferrothorn, both pokemon resisting eachothers weaknesses and is useful against fighting types that chansey may have problems dealing with. Scald acts as a STAB move and combines well with Will-O-Wisp inflict burns and render many physical attackers such as scizor useless. Recover allows jellicent to stay alive longer and Taunt forces many defensive pokemon to switch out giving jellicent the chance to recover health or inflict a burn on the incoming pokemon.
Tentacruel (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 20 SDef
Bold Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Protect
Tentacruel is my rapid spinner and is great defensively as it regains 25% health every two turns (whilst only being hit once) thanks to protect. Toxic spikes adds hazards and if he can set down two layers it is very useful, especially if the opponent lacks a grounded poison type. Scald is used to deal damage and the 30% burn chance is obviously very handy. Rapid Spin, as discussed is essential and Protect helps stall out the opponent and enables him to regain more health every turn. I have also considered using the sub toxic set, but I do not know which one would be more appropriate.
Ditto @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Def
Sassy Nature
IVs: 2 Spd
- Transform
Ditto, the pokemon no one would ever dream of using in the past generations has come back with a bang. When combined with a choice scarf, he acts as possibly THE best revenge killer in the game. This ditto has won me innumerable games and seems to deal with many of the problems that stall teams face. The opponent will rarely dare set up with ditto in the team preview, stopping threats such as sword dance scizor and dragon dance dragonite with ease. The 2 IVs in speed give Ditto a hidden power ice which can help against some hidden power users such as Thundurus-T. Ditto helps counter non boosting threats as well such as choice band haxorus, turning the opponents favourite and strongest pokemon against them.
Conclusion
I have been using this team now very regularly for the past week (since I started playing) and I have been winning about 70% of the games I play on pokemon showdown which I think is good for my first team. Threats to this team do not seem very common, but electric types can often cause problems as well as calm mind users that ditto might have problems dealing with such as Reuniclus as it is difficult to wear down thanks to its great ability and recover. Breloom also seems to be a bit of a problem pokemon.
Changes I have considered making:
1.Replacing a pokemon by Wobbuffet, as the custap berry is now released for bw2. I don't know whether is a good choice however, and if it is, which pokemon to be replaced?? I think that Wobbuffet would also combine well with Ditto. Any help on this point would be much appreciated.
2.Changing one of chanseys move,
3.Using a sub toxic set on tentacruel,
4.Replacing spikes with stealth rocks on the ferrothorn set.
Threats
This is not a threat list as such, but just ideas that opponents have used that I found difficult to deal with.
1.Substitute users such as toxicroak cause problems for the team as ditto cannot come in and they can be often difficult to break.
2.Bulky set up sweepers such as calm mind reuniclus that ditto cannot often beat.
3. Hail teams; these teams seem difficult to beat as I do not have a decent pokemon do dispatch Abomasnow
As I have already mentioned I have very new to the competitive battle scene, so any advice whether it is a matter of changing four EVs on a pokemon to replacing two pokemon on the team would be very helpful. To finish, I hope this team will provide some originality on the current rain teams!