Okay! Updated the team with a full threat list of the top 50 most used Pokemon in OU! I also changed the nature of Salamence to Jolly, seeing as there are more benefits to using Jolly than Naive. And now, as I promised, I will respond to my most recent rates! :)
Because Phil was so kind as to give me permission to ladder with this team, I feel obligated to post a few afterthoughts from laddering this weekend.
Like RMJ said, strong life orb users like starmie and gengar are extremely menacing in the lategame or even in the early to midgame if uxie fails to set up against a taunt or trick lead. Jirachi cannot always be near full health to handle these threats at all times, and uxie is often too damaged late game to set up light screen before being ko'd when other members who could usually take a hit are weakened from switching in on resists and SR.
Another very annoying set of pokemon are opposing CM users like CM jirachi or CM latias. The team's only surefire answer to either of these is tricking with latias and as we all know, tyranitar with pursuit is always a common switchin in this scenario.(or whatever else, it just has to take the trick after all). Therefore, team matchups like these often devolve into a coinflip scenario between this team's CM jirachi and opposing teams' CM latias or CM jirachi. CM latias with surf guarantees, all by itself, that the CM war is exactly what will happen, as neither heatran nor latias can reliably stop it, or stop it at all.
Twave is also a major annoyance to this team. A team with bulky CMer(s) and a few twaves here and there quite often has a matchup advantage against this team.
One of the lessons that can be learned from these few weaknesses is that this team should be played quite recklessly: Sac when you need to sac and always try to maintain pressure by setting up CM's and DD's at all times, as this prevents most of the issues noted above from being gamebreaking. MMPR has the best offensive synergy out of any RMT I've seen, and by that I mean that offensive sacrifices are often duly rewarded. Swampert came in on your DDmence? Sac it so that later CM jirachi can only really be stopped by trick users. Ttar came in on latias in the early game? Stay in and surf again more often than leaving and giving it a chance to DD or sub so that jirachi has a better chance of ohkoing it after a CM later on. Latias came in on heatran's magma storm and you don't know if it has surf? Dragon pulse/explode anyways so that your latias, suicune, and salamence have an easier time predicting and sweeping later on. (Life Orb Surf only averages a little over 80% w/o screen support iirc even latias does know it). I could go on and on but you get the picture. In most cases, keeping offensive pressure and certain team members unrevealed and healthy is the best way to play the team.
In many ways, this team has the properties of heavy offense; it continuously puts pressure on the opponent so that by the time screens are down and he wants to retaliate, many of his key players are too weakened for him to stand a chance at winning the game. Team Mighty Morphin Power Rangers does all of this while taking advantage of the weaker, special defensive side of DPP, remaining bulky and fast, and wowing both the user and his opponent by being so damned innovative and sexy! So again, as I don't quite think it has been said enough: Great team Phil!
Thanks for all of the compliments ^_^. And yeah, as mentioned before, LO Starmie or Gengar can be a pain. You just have to hope to have a Pokemon in good health, or something already set up by the time your opponent takes these Pokemon out. It's usually not hard to set something up with screens, though, so that by the time these guys come out, you have CM's or DD's under your belt. If you lose your momentum, it becomes hard to pick up steam again, but that can be said about any team. I tried my best to make members who have a hard time losing momentum, and can at least dent other Pokemon really bad before going down themselves.
Hey Phil, one of my favorite RMTs here. I played this team quite a few times, but people don't play it that well I have to admit. It's obvious how successful it is for you judging by your record, but I think I see some threats with it. The one thing that hits this team harder than anything, imo, is any Choice Band dragon. I don't think Flygon can 2HKO Suicune, but a Dragonite with Extremespeed poses a big threat. It can do a shit load of damage to Latias, 2HKO Suicune, and can kill everything else. Yes, it requires amazing prediction (which I have so that's why I won =] ) so it shouldn't pose too much of a threat when this team is played by you. Anyway, just wanted to point that out, and btw this is excellent team!
Well, now that you have played me using this team first-hand, I think you can see how it is played better! Also, thanks for the compliments :)
Very good team, Philip7086; I'm very envious. One thing I wanted to point out is a weakness to RestTalk Curse Tyranitar. It can set up on Heatran, since it lacks Earth Power, even the Explosion does a decent amount. It can set up on Jirachi, since it is immune to Psychic, takes little damage from Thunderbolt, and even then, rest off paralysis, even though paralysis doesn't affect it much. It can also set up on Latias locked on either of the Dragon moves, or if it has tricked away the Specs. Salamence won't be around for long with Stealth Rock and Sandstorm, and won't be doing as much damage with Earthquake without the Life Orb. If you switched him in for the Intimidate, Tyranitar probably already has a Defense boost from Curse. The only true way to stop him is to Trick the Specs, but they might have already been tricked.
I might have played it wrong, but it wiped the floor with me. But seeing as how that Tyranitar is so rare and the team is so synergized, if you will, there isn't much you can do. So this rate serves more as a warning and a congratulations on such a good team. That was actually for first loss with it too.
Curse TTar is definitely a pain. Your best bet is to Trick it and then be done w/ it. Also, Jirachi is supposed to have Flash Cannon, so that helps versus Tyranitars as well. Also, every member of the team has an attack that hits Tyranitar for super effective, so even if Curse TTar can take out a member or two, I think it would need to be extremely lucky to take out the majority of my team.
I'm curious, has this team ever been swept by sub HP ice raikou? with no priority and nothing to outspeed it, I can imagine you would be pretty much screwed if it set up on something like uxie, suicune, or jirachi. I suppose you could change flash cannon to psychic to give jirachi a chance at stalling it out, but then you'd be walled by tyranitar and latias. raikou is pretty rare though, so its probably not worth making moveset changes over.
And here it is! The biggest weakness to my team! The thing is, although in theory Raikou can sweep my team clean, I have taken out Raikous in the past before without losing more than one Pokemon. First of all, back before this team was posted, people always brought Raikou in on my +1 Suicune behind Light Screen, allowing me to beat it out. This scenario ALWAYS happened, for every Raikou I have faced. I think it has to do with people not having a better solution for Suicune than Raikou. Also, last month, Raikou was only used on 1.71% of teams (not even enough to make the list of top 50 most used OU Pokemon) , and even with that, HP Ice was only used on 28.2% of Raikous. Now that this team has been posted, of course, it would be easier to know when exactly to let Raikou loose for a sweep. However, I have never lost to a Raikou, to this day. My solution is just to maintain momentum against my opponent, so they cannot find a good opportunity to get Raikou in. Of course, this isn't always possible, but that's how the cookie crumbles.
Thanks for all the rates everybody! Sorry it took so long to get that threat list up :(
