StormSingers (peaked 16)

[Ames]

[youtube]8y_R4hGrFdk[/youtube]

From the sky
To the Ground
Rain is falling all around
A Song of Storms begins
Soon we'll see who wins
First there's wind
Then some rain
Then a fucking Hurricane
We're all gonna drown
Tonight.
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Welcome to my first ever RMT. I have wanted to post one of these ever since joining Smogon however I could never build a particularly successful team. I have been using rain or weatherless teams for the vast majority of BW but they have always been inconsistent - after a long weatherless stint I returned to the rain and through either luck or slowly gaining experience (probably some combination of them both) I finally created a team which has been successful on the ladder.

This was my first team attempt at laddering on Showdown! and I realise the ladder is not exactly trustworthy however I was very excited to power my way into the top EDIT: 20 with only 6 losses.

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Now onto the important stuff. I like rain. I like Hurricane. I had always wanted to build a functioning, Hurricane abusing team but all attempts previously were lackluster. With the advent of Tornadus T, I thought I would give it another shot and this is what occured.

The team is fairly offensive (as most of my teams are, I like fast paced games) and while it may look weak to a few things on paper I have generally been able to overpower the opposition with powerful sweepers that give them little room to manouver. It is by no means close to perfect (though I am rather attatched to them now haha) so any/all advice and criticism is welcome. Thankyou for reading this far if you have and onto my team.
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Politoed @ Leftovers
Bold
Drizzle
252 Hp |252 Def | 4 SpD
Perish Song
Scald
Toxic
Protect

Classic fat toed. I love this guy - when I heard he was the one pokemon to get drizzle in gen5, I was expecting to be disappointed. Instead, I have been using this fat, annoying bastard ever since. It is suprisingly bulky and I have always loved Perish Song, it really is a fantastic move for a weather inducer in my own opinion. I have tried Refresh over Toxic and while it is nice to survive toxics and burns, he can't pose as much of a threat.

Forretress @ Leftovers
Sassy
Sturdy
252 HP | 4 Def | 252 SpD
0 Spe IV
Stealth Rock
Rapid Spin
Gyro Ball
Volt Switch

Next up is Forretress. While Ferrothorn may seem like the obvious choice in rain, Forretress is, in my opinion, better for this team and better in the current meta in general. Volt Switch is just an awesome move for a spinner and is especially helpful against Magnezone whom sets up on Ferrothorn. This guy almost always gets rocks up and can continue to support the team by spinning for my rather rock-weak sweepers. I use a specially defensive set because he can take physical hits pretty damn well already and I don't really have a special "wall" as such.

Latias @ Leftovers
Timid
Levitate
252 HP | 4 SpA | 252 Spe
Recover
Calm Mind
Dragon Pulse
Refresh

How can anyone not love Latias? I based my first BW team around her and she is still used on many of my teams to this day because she is such a great pivot, wall and sweeper all in one. Latias is basically my failsafe and my stallbreaker - her bulk and resistances are supremely welcome in the current meta. What makes this Latias special is that she runs the uncommon (in OU) Refresh, making her a mono-attacker. Possibly even the best/only viable mono-attacker in the current meta. She sets up on anything (preferably special attackers, obviously) which does less than 50% damage to her along with anything that relies on status to take her down. Once the metal bugs, Tyranitar and phasers are gone she has little trouble pulling off a tank-like assault.

Tornadus Therian @ Choice Scarf
Timid
Regenerator
4 Atk | 252 SpA | 252 Spe
U-turn
Heat Wave
Hidden Power Ice
Hurricane

We all know Tornadus and what he does. I run scarf now because of my team's weakness to things such as scarf Terrakion and Genesect (I swear those two are impossible to 100% prepare for). Heat Wave is for the suprise kill on scarf Genesect if rain is not up and it can also slightly help in sun. Hurricane fucks shit sideways and allows me to sweep late game once things have been weakened sufficiently due to the opposition's inability to outspeed me. He is generally my answer to Breloom and Conk on top of being to revenge a wide range of pokemon.

Volcarona @ Leftovers
Timid
Flame Body
4 Def | 252 SpA | 252 Spe
Substitute
Quiver Dance
Bug Buzz
Hurricane

All-mighty Volc. The second Hurricane abuser and one of the most threatening set-up sweepers in the game; we have all learned the hard way just how dangerous it is to not have rocks up. I chose to run Substitute because most people do not see it coming and it allows me the freedom of simply attacking a switch in twice if they are faster than base 100. This is excellent here because I generally use Volc mid-game to put heavy pressure on the opposition and weaken them for the other members of the team, not necessarily to sweep itself. If the opposition's answer to Volc is status on a switch in then they are going to lose at least one pokemon. Once it has danced behind that sub it becomes ludicrously dangerous, even without fire stab because many steels in the current meta take neutral damage from one of its moves. Obviously Heatran and Tales force it out but I can usually do at least some damage from behind the sub first if I need to.

Lucario @ Life Orb
Adamant
Justified
252 Atk | 4 Def | 252 Spe
Swords Dance
Extremespeed
Close Combat
Crunch

Finally, the silent hero Link. I mean Luke. Excellent pun aside, throughout the entirety of BW I had always been somewhat underwhelmed by Lucario. There always seemed to be more dangerous things to deal with. I'm glad I underestimated him. I'm glad others underestimate what can switch into him. On top of his ability to smash switch ins with some prediction he has swords dance. And extremespeed. Swords dance and extremespeed. The only thing cooler than that is Linoone. Despite being rather frail, Luke is another excellent pivot for my team taking minimal damage from the rocks being thrown around which plague Volc. Not only that but he gets a free attack boost without wasting a turn if you can successfully bait a dark attack - a lot of people simply seem to forget that Justified exists. This makes him an excellent tool against Tyranitar and to a lesser extent, Scizor. I personally run my own dark move in Crunch because I found my team to be weak overall to the bulky ghosts whom try to switch in on Close Combat. Sorry to preach about Extremespeed again but it is just such a great move with all these powerful priority attacks flying around.
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Prominent threats which I struggle with:
Tentacruel in the rain (doesn't really do much, I just have a lot of trouble breaking it)
Terrakion
Genesect (Especailly RockPolish but Expert Belt variants are a pain in the ass too)
Jolteon (non-choice, especially Shadow Ball)
Vaporeon (with roar)
Lucario
Gengar
Thundurus-T (Yet to face an Agility variant with this team but I can imagine it would tear me apart)
Jirachi (Sub Calm Mind makes life pretty sucky and Paraflinch is an eternal annoyance to everyone)
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Thankyou for reading my first RMT - I hope it was at least somewhat enjoyable for you. Oh and I bet you have that ^ piece of music way up there stuck in your head now.

Most of the artwork used here was originally done by Pearl7 but I'm not sure about a couple of them. They have all been edited by myself.
​

 

[chimpact]

I'll do a full rate later, but your Forretress is gonna need Sassy nature for a powered up Gyroball, and you should replace HP Ice on Tornadus for superpower or focusblast. You really need only have two pokemon that can touch heatran on a rain team which is pretty surprising.

 

[Ames]

D'oh! I meant Sassy, stupid mistake I'll change that now, thankyou for pointing it out. Heatran can be irritating but that's about all it is unless it has roar, Latias sets up all over it. I will definitely consider Superpower again though with a Naive nature, I know how well the mixed set works. I'll add though that HP Ice is nice if I lose momentum and need to revenge +1 Nite or Mence.

I look forward to your full critique :)

 

[Superpowerdude]

Hey man this is a very cool looking rain team congrats on the peak

Ok firstly you said you had a rather big weakness to Choice Scarf Terrakion. Choice Scarf Terrakion is quite a dangerous pokemon to any teams carrying Volcarona. To help remedy this probelm i reccomend switching Bullet Punch>Crunch on Lucario. Bullet Punch is extremely strong after a Swords Dance and helps against Terrakion with its useful priority. The proirity is also good against the likes of Gengar who can outspeed Lucario and beat it with Focus Blast. It also hits Mamoswine for super effective damage which is great because jolly variants outspeed your Lucario. On the topic of Mamoswine ones that carry Stone Edge can be a pain because it can beat Volcarona if it hasn't set up as well as Tornadus-T after some proir damage with Ice Shard as well as beating Lucario with Earthqauke. Bullet Punch helps effectivly deal with this.

The only other suggestion i have is regarding your Latias. While Refresh is a good option to avoid getting hit by Status i think the moveslot could be much better fufilled with Substitute>Refresh Substitute is alot better for Latias because with good prediction your opponent can give you a free Substitute when they go for a Status move. Latias is a good candidate for this move due to her great speed, and also great bulk behind a Substitute. This makes Latias's Substitutes quite hard to break especially as she starts accumilating boosts. Subsitute also protects Latias from sleep inducing moves and critical hits two things that Refresh can't do.

good luck with the team i hope i helped

Tl;dr

Hide

Lucario
.Bullet Punch--->Crunch

Latias
.Substitute--->Refresh

~Superpowerdude

 

[Jimbon]

Hi there,

Great team, with a great use of Scarf Tornadus-T, one of my favourite sets in this metagame. One problem I did see however was Sun Teams, and I was surprised these weren't included in your threat list. Offensive Sun Teams that carry Genesect plus a trapper look very problematic for you to face, as these types of team work by gaining momentum, and if Venusaur gets a free Growth up against Forretress, Politoed or even as Latias switches in, you have a big problem on your hands. From here, you pretty much need to get Politoed in and sac something else, only to revenge it again, which at this point can only be done by Tornadus-T. This is not a reliable way to deal with Venusaur, as you essentially have to let something die every time it switches in, and that doesn't cover what happens if you allow Venusaur or any other Chlorophyll abuser a free growth. There are a couple ways to deal with this, but the easiest imo would be to drop Refresh on Latias for Psyshock. Psyshock allows Latias to deal with Venusaur, as Dragon Pulse does not deal enough to Venusaur. This completely removes the free turn of setup Venusaur needs to actually do something against your team, meaning you do not have to let something die to revenge Venusaur. Additionally, Psyshock also allows you to deal with Choice Scarf Terrakion, something that you mentioned was a big threat to your team. Latias with Psyshock hits Terrakion much harder than Dragon Pulse does, while it also deters other variants of Terrakion such as Sub Swords Dance from setting up on Latias under Sand. Psyshock also means that you have something for Gengar, given that Gengar cannot OHKO your current Latias set, while Latias can easily dispose of Gengar with Psyshock. By losing Refresh, you lose the ability to beat status users such as Jellicent and Ferrothorn if it lacks Gyro Ball, but these are already dealt with by Lucario and Volcarona respectively, so I don't really see the need.

Also a little nitpick, I would recommend changing your Tornadus-T's set to 88 Atk / 252 SAtk / 168 Spe. With this set, you already outspeed everything that is relevant with a Scarf, including 180 Spe Timid Venusaur, Scarf Latios, Scarf Genesect, Scarf Terrakion, Adamant Stoutland and +2 bulky Volcarona. The extra EVs in attack actually add some power into your U-Turn, which is appreciated for the little bit of extra damage to put something into OHKO range for Lucario. As for Tornadus-T's moveset, I'd agree that Focus Blast would be a good option over Hidden Power [Ice] to help with Heatran, as Politoed and Lucario are your only options right now, and Heatran looks a little annoying for you to play against which is kind of ironic for a Rain Team. This also allows you to use Hidden Power [Ice] over Gyro Ball on Forretress to help with Dragons, while you should also use 52 SAtk EVs on Forretress if you use Hidden Power [Ice] to 2HKO Gliscor, Salamence and Landorus (T). The need for Gyro Ball is not as much as before if you decide to go with the Psyshock suggestion on Latias.

Good luck!

 

[alexwolf]

Hi man, nice team! Can't really rate this team right now, but SubCM Jirachi completely dominates this team. It can set-up easily against Latias, Forretress and Tornadus-T, which is half of your team, and at +1 it destroyes everything (Latias loses the CM war from Psyshock Jirachi, Politoed dies from 1 or 2 Thunder, Lucario gets 2hkoed from Thunder, and everything else can't do anything back to it). Something must be done asap... Fitting Ferrothorn, EQ Hydreigon or Garchomp in the team would greatly help, however i don't know what you should replace to put them in...

 

[Ames]

Hey guys, thankyou for taking the time to read through all this and offer some excellent advice.

@Superpowerdude: I had actually been using bullet punch to begin with but kept getting fucked by things like Jellicent and Cofagrigus. I will attempt it again now that I have some advice on how to improve the team in general. In regards to sub Latias; I quite like that idea. The sheer amount of freeze hax which have almost cost me games is ridiculous haha.

@Jimbon: You're right, obviously sun teams are a big threat... especially the Lavos core. The weird thing is that I guess I must not have played anyone overly competant who was using this style of team because I have never really thought mid-game "man, I really need a counter to ___ or a way to stop that from happening". I love the idea of psyshock on Latias because it not only lets me beat Venusaur but also Tentacruel, another huge annoyance. Massive 4MSS now though; I love her current ability to set up on things like blissey and turn an irritating situation into a win.

As for Tornadus, thankyou very much for the EV suggestion. I knew there must have been a better scarf spread but I couldn't find it. I personally prefer Superpower over Focus Blast so I might go back to that with a Naive nature.

I was also looking for that Forretress spread and probably would have been using HP Ice already had I known the correct EVs for it. Gyro ball is nice against Gengar and the Latis... but you're right if I do decide to go with psyshock this would obviously mitigate these issues.

@alexwolf: Thankyou! Correct again. SubCM Jirachi walks over me if it is given any room at all to even think about setting up. I have been craving a powerful ground type attack for some time but as you also said... wtf do I swap to get that in? haha. I have previously considered HP Ground somewhere but that is really just a cop-out. How close is Chomp to no longer being a suspect? I would love incorporate him somehow.

 

[alexwolf]

Garchomp is going to be OU for sure, ask any OU council member and he will confirm it. He just isn't yet, because they are thinking how to bring him down (Sand Veil ban, Sand Veil + SandStream ban, or something else). CB Garchomp is a very good poke, and a perfect check to Jirachi. He ohkoes any 252 HP Jirachi easily, while being able to switch into anything that he carries (Iron head, Psyshock, Thunder, Flash Cannon) except from Body Slam and Water Pulse (you must get really unlucky, as Water Pulse has only a 40% chance to confuse you, and then you only have a 50% chance to attack, so there is only a 20% chance to get confused and be unable to attack).

 

[Ames]

Excellent. I think I may have to make a few larger changes in the near future then... the electric weakness here is irritating - I realised even Magnezone can cause problems because even though it doesn't trap me, other than Latias, nothing can really tank its hits and outside Lucario, nothing can outright KO it haha.

 

[Kidogo]

Hey Ames, this is a cool team--very original but effective.
In order to solve your electric weakness, you might try out gastrodon--it gives you someone to take those volt switches and also stomps on magnezone and jolteon, while also beating some other threats you mentioned (subCM rachi for one) and actually beating tentcaruel handily. It also has the benefit of countering non-hp [grass] rotom-w, who is usually a problem for rain teams.

Given that you have volcarona and tornadus-t, a reliable rapid spinner seems necessary. I don't know what your opinion of forretress is, but whenever I use him on a rain team I only find myself able to use him for a spin once or twice, as he has no recovery and has low SpD. Furthermore, since you've invested in SpD on forretress, it seems like you don't really have anyone to take outrages (luke doesn't count). I don't now if you've tried him out, but I've found tentacruel to be a very reliable rapid spinner on rain teams, as his passive recovery is very nice. He also is a good check to choiced terrakion, all genesect, and lucario, which you said you struggled with. The thing is, this would leave you without a stealth rocker and a steel. If you want to go with this change, a good option could be jirachi--it can also provide wish support which could really benefit your team. This would mean replacing someone, in my opinon latias is probably the least necessary (you already have 3 special attackers, and you need tornadus for revenging while volc's is a really potent set). This set is also good at spreading paralysis which can help volc and luke to set up.

Small note--on tornadus, maybe consider focus blast/superpower > heat wave. Heat wave will be halved in power most of the time and hurricane already does a ton to sect. Meanwhile, a fighting move allows you to hit ttar really hard (OHKO depending on the spread) while also giving amazing coverage with hurricane. PP though.

Finally, have you considered using fire blast > substitute on volc? Even in the rain, it's pretty powerful, OHKOing things like ferro and genesect. Substitute does have its uses though, so whichever you would prefer.

GL with the team!

Edit: just realized I'm #1 and 2 in your screenshot lol

 

[Ames]

Excellent feedback, Kidogo; sorry I didn't get around to responding earlier! Thankyou for taking the time to analyse this for me.

Your suggestions are excellent - Gastrodon could indeed be exactly what this needs. It could in theory replace Latias as my answer to things like Rotom-W. Then as you said, Tentacruel would be a better option over Ferro as a spinner... which would remove my rock setter. I wonder then if a specially defensive Seismitoad could play a similar role with Water Absorb and being able to set up rocks...

As I also said to you the other day on Showdown, all your suggested changes would make this team look strikingly similar to your own current rain team haha. Obviously this is not a bad thing because your own team is pretty close to flawless.

I have been using Superpower on Tornadus over HP Ice but it has not really had any huge benefits, you really have to play carefully with it while scarfed or nothing will switch into you willingily.

Fire Blast is something I have never really felt the need for on Volc as I said - sub has provided me with almost all of his sweeps and I am very happy with that set.