Importable: https://pokepast.es/4d0700e9ee3fc3a2
Raticate @ Leftovers
Ability: Guts
EVs: 52 HP / 252 Atk / 204 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Double-Edge
- Endeavor
- Super Fang
- Thunder Wave
The star of the show. This is not a mon that has gotten much if any love in this generation or any generation as far as I'm aware. A Route 1 shitmon with bad stats but a surprisingly wide movepool. The key attractions here being the very limited Endeavor, the signature move Super Fang, combined with the ever reliable Thunder Wave. Combined with a relatively high speed stat, this forms a potent wall breaking combination. The threat of thunder wave incentivizes ground types to enter which then allows raticate to start beating them down with super fang and/or endeavor.
More traditional walls like
or recover spamming mons like 
can eat the twave, but they usually have trouble permanently walling the rat. An inopportune full para, accidentally knocking raticate HP down to the range where endeavor becomes very powerful, or triggering guts all make the prospect of using these key defensive pieces a rather fraught one.
Raticate can also benefit from common lead matchups which are surprisingly unable to one shot the frail rat, letting him get a twave off and then scurry away on a sliver of HP to return later in the game for a meaty endeavor.
252+ Atk Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 52 HP / 0 Def Raticate: 209-246 (79.1 - 93.1%)
252+ SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 52 HP / 0 SpD Raticate: 222-262 (84 - 99.2%)
4 Atk 30 IVs Salamence Brick Break vs. 52 HP / 0 Def Raticate: 212-250 (80.3 - 94.6%)
(The one notable exception being Metagross, whose Mash can easily kill Raticate from full. I recommend swapping to Swampert)
Swampert @ Salac Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Endeavor
- Surf
- Toxic
A pretty standard endeavor swampert for this type of new age hyper offense "slop" team. I have opted for surf here for consistency and pp because Raticate often does a lot of the dirty work of softening up Skarmory, which makes the added hydro power a bit less needed.
Toxic could be replaced with Roar for a better matchup against defrachi, but I tend to prefer toxic on spikeless and roar on spikes. In any case, you'll usually want one or the other to prevent recover loopers from stalling you out.
Describing fully how to use Endpert is beyond the scope of this RMT, but a few pointers. You often want to use it to trade against a key opposing defensive piece or at least, force them into an uncomfortable choice between allowing said defensive piece to be crippled or to switch out and give swampert a free turn to get even more value. Key targets are enemy swampert/blissey/water type, but claydol and metagross will sometimes do in a pinch. You can also use Swampert defensively once to check a dangerous physical threat (usually ddtar or agil meta)
Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 184 HP / 144 Atk / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
A pretty standard bulkyish ddtar set. 184 HP is for jolly dug. 144+ attack is for the jump point, with the rest dumped into speed to creep the other stuff in the 20x range as well as to outspeed a +1 269 speed heracross or +1 270 dd mence at +2.
Compared to other slop teams, I opted for a bulkier spread with lefties because we are not leading the tar and trading it t1 here. It is more likely to take a bit of chip or be needed defensively later on. Lum would not be wrong and would help with the status issues that can plague this team in current form, but I found lefties better.
This mon is more often used in early game to trade with key defensive pieces than to sweep in endgame, but of course, being a tyranitar in ADV it can be used quite flexibly.
Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 156 Atk / 212 SpD / 140 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Rock Slide
- Brick Break
- Earthquake
The infamous "Penguin Mence," a DD Mence that can't (HP)Fly. Naturally, this is an extremely double edged choice as being unable to hit
can prove extremely costly. On the other hand, Brick Break provides a lot of breaking power to get past without the usual downside of dd bb mence (walled by 
). To use it effectively, it can be helpful to decide whether you will use it to break through the checks for Raikou/Metagross to sweep or whether you will use Raikou/Metagross to break through the checks for Mence to sweep.
Metagross @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 168 HP / 224 Atk / 16 Def / 100 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Agility
- Explosion
A fairly standard Agility Metagross. With Raticate filling some of the roles of Registeel on Slop, Metagross is a much more natural steel type to fit here. 168 HP + 16 Def allows Meta to always live +1 EQs from from full.
I've opted for explosion over rock slide here because the team is already pretty solid vs the birds and it can often be useful to blow up the final check to Penguin Mence like a bulky celebi.
Raikou @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Calm Mind
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Crunch
Raikou on mixed offense teams like this has been one of the biggest trends of 2025 and if you've tried it a bit, you can really see why. It is such a dynamic mon that can rip through teams or break pseudo defensive pieces like and to enable the rest of the team. And common answers to revenge Raikou with 
or 
often expose the team to salamence or metagross getting the needed turn to setup and sweep.
Superkou is used here because with our own sand, substitute often proves counterproductive. And Crunch is quite vital to allow us to do max damage to and to enable Salamence.
As is usually the case with Raikou, enemy can be a big hindrance. In sand you can sometimes just get there with crits/paras/a slight head start, but otherwise you are usually trying to eliminate blissey with one of the other trading pieces first or to use raikou to force a bit of chip on blissey to put it into +1 salamence bb range for later. The good news is that after blissey is gone, Raikou often has free reign to go crazy.
---
Replays:
Unfortunately I didn't save too many and didn't save the peak (hopefully it is not too hard to believe though). I was originally going to go for 1800 but uh, I've had an interesting few weeks.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452044396-0eksuael8xk41b0r7i879odn47y6mtvpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452036283-252og6u7b1m7h74ihd5oqmv5pvuc2gwpw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452025232-pdxks6q5glcqknswo4j3xjsypiidp3xpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452028582-frxvyik97ur5xia5a7du0cm55qbbud9pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452024133-icdc95tmtkicy9qb2sns9qcjtw1aybfpw
---
Wanted to thank a few people who inspired this team:
Ban Manaphy was the original inspiration to build with Raticate in OU after watching Mana do work with it in the biggest offsite gen3 draft tournament
Fruhdazi of course pioneered this team comp and his shilling of Aggron convinced me to try a different shitmon endeavor user. Go read his post if you haven't yet.
Now, do I think Raticate is actually viable? Idk, probably not. But it certainly has performed much better than I expected. Try out the team and let me know if you find any other cool ideas with the little guy.
Raticate @ Leftovers
Ability: Guts
EVs: 52 HP / 252 Atk / 204 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Double-Edge
- Endeavor
- Super Fang
- Thunder Wave
The star of the show. This is not a mon that has gotten much if any love in this generation or any generation as far as I'm aware. A Route 1 shitmon with bad stats but a surprisingly wide movepool. The key attractions here being the very limited Endeavor, the signature move Super Fang, combined with the ever reliable Thunder Wave. Combined with a relatively high speed stat, this forms a potent wall breaking combination. The threat of thunder wave incentivizes ground types to enter which then allows raticate to start beating them down with super fang and/or endeavor.
More traditional walls like
or recover spamming mons like can eat the twave, but they usually have trouble permanently walling the rat. An inopportune full para, accidentally knocking raticate HP down to the range where endeavor becomes very powerful, or triggering guts all make the prospect of using these key defensive pieces a rather fraught one.Raticate can also benefit from common lead matchups which are surprisingly unable to one shot the frail rat, letting him get a twave off and then scurry away on a sliver of HP to return later in the game for a meaty endeavor.
252+ Atk Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 52 HP / 0 Def Raticate: 209-246 (79.1 - 93.1%)
252+ SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 52 HP / 0 SpD Raticate: 222-262 (84 - 99.2%)
4 Atk 30 IVs Salamence Brick Break vs. 52 HP / 0 Def Raticate: 212-250 (80.3 - 94.6%)
(The one notable exception being Metagross, whose Mash can easily kill Raticate from full. I recommend swapping to Swampert)
Swampert @ Salac Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Endeavor
- Surf
- Toxic
A pretty standard endeavor swampert for this type of new age hyper offense "slop" team. I have opted for surf here for consistency and pp because Raticate often does a lot of the dirty work of softening up Skarmory, which makes the added hydro power a bit less needed.
Toxic could be replaced with Roar for a better matchup against defrachi, but I tend to prefer toxic on spikeless and roar on spikes. In any case, you'll usually want one or the other to prevent recover loopers from stalling you out.
Describing fully how to use Endpert is beyond the scope of this RMT, but a few pointers. You often want to use it to trade against a key opposing defensive piece or at least, force them into an uncomfortable choice between allowing said defensive piece to be crippled or to switch out and give swampert a free turn to get even more value. Key targets are enemy swampert/blissey/water type, but claydol and metagross will sometimes do in a pinch. You can also use Swampert defensively once to check a dangerous physical threat (usually ddtar or agil meta)
Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 184 HP / 144 Atk / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
A pretty standard bulkyish ddtar set. 184 HP is for jolly dug. 144+ attack is for the jump point, with the rest dumped into speed to creep the other stuff in the 20x range as well as to outspeed a +1 269 speed heracross or +1 270 dd mence at +2.
Compared to other slop teams, I opted for a bulkier spread with lefties because we are not leading the tar and trading it t1 here. It is more likely to take a bit of chip or be needed defensively later on. Lum would not be wrong and would help with the status issues that can plague this team in current form, but I found lefties better.
This mon is more often used in early game to trade with key defensive pieces than to sweep in endgame, but of course, being a tyranitar in ADV it can be used quite flexibly.
Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 156 Atk / 212 SpD / 140 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Rock Slide
- Brick Break
- Earthquake
The infamous "Penguin Mence," a DD Mence that can't (HP)Fly. Naturally, this is an extremely double edged choice as being unable to hit
can prove extremely costly. On the other hand, Brick Break provides a lot of breaking power to get past without the usual downside of dd bb mence (walled by ). To use it effectively, it can be helpful to decide whether you will use it to break through the checks for Raikou/Metagross to sweep or whether you will use Raikou/Metagross to break through the checks for Mence to sweep.Metagross @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 168 HP / 224 Atk / 16 Def / 100 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Agility
- Explosion
A fairly standard Agility Metagross. With Raticate filling some of the roles of Registeel on Slop, Metagross is a much more natural steel type to fit here. 168 HP + 16 Def allows Meta to always live +1 EQs from
from full.I've opted for explosion over rock slide here because the team is already pretty solid vs the birds and it can often be useful to blow up the final check to Penguin Mence like a bulky celebi.
Raikou @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Calm Mind
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Crunch
Raikou on mixed offense teams like this has been one of the biggest trends of 2025 and if you've tried it a bit, you can really see why. It is such a dynamic mon that can rip through teams or break pseudo defensive pieces like
and to enable the rest of the team. And common answers to revenge Raikou with or often expose the team to salamence or metagross getting the needed turn to setup and sweep.Superkou is used here because with our own sand, substitute often proves counterproductive. And Crunch is quite vital to allow us to do max damage to
and to enable Salamence.As is usually the case with Raikou, enemy
can be a big hindrance. In sand you can sometimes just get there with crits/paras/a slight head start, but otherwise you are usually trying to eliminate blissey with one of the other trading pieces first or to use raikou to force a bit of chip on blissey to put it into +1 salamence bb range for later. The good news is that after blissey is gone, Raikou often has free reign to go crazy.---
Replays:
Unfortunately I didn't save too many and didn't save the peak (hopefully it is not too hard to believe though). I was originally going to go for 1800 but uh, I've had an interesting few weeks.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452044396-0eksuael8xk41b0r7i879odn47y6mtvpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452036283-252og6u7b1m7h74ihd5oqmv5pvuc2gwpw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452025232-pdxks6q5glcqknswo4j3xjsypiidp3xpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452028582-frxvyik97ur5xia5a7du0cm55qbbud9pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2452024133-icdc95tmtkicy9qb2sns9qcjtw1aybfpw
---
Wanted to thank a few people who inspired this team:
Ban Manaphy was the original inspiration to build with Raticate in OU after watching Mana do work with it in the biggest offsite gen3 draft tournament
Fruhdazi of course pioneered this team comp and his shilling of Aggron convinced me to try a different shitmon endeavor user. Go read his post if you haven't yet.
Now, do I think Raticate is actually viable? Idk, probably not. But it certainly has performed much better than I expected. Try out the team and let me know if you find any other cool ideas with the little guy.
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