Hello, and welcome to a joint RMT between myself and PK Gaming. Now, I know what you're thinking: 'lol PK sucks so bad, he can't possibly make a team worth rating'. But wait. With my steadying influence, we have managed to build a team that can effectively use the many talents of Raichu (lol). After steadily making changes and improving the team, we arrived at this final product. (lame title goes to PK)
team building process:
The final team:
While laddering with this team, I managed to peak at 35th on the UU leaderboard under the username PK_failure. I know that this ranking is not much to brag about, but one must keep in mind that this team is essentially playing with 5 pokemon by devoting a teamslot to Raichu (just kidding. sort of).
Cloyster @ Focus Sash
EVs: 252 Attack, 152 Special Attack, 104 Speed
Nature: Naughty
Ability: Shell Armor
- Surf
- Spikes
- Ice Shard
- Explosion
I think that PK and I can agree that this Cloyster is one of the sexiest leads that either of us has ever used. Almost nobody would expect Cloyster to use the 4 moves that we run. One could call this a “troll” set, and that wouldn’t be far off. Cloyster works his magic by abusing the rarity of this set, along with his natural abilities of tanking hits with his gargantuan Defense stat. Cloyster has two jobs on this team: First, it sets up Spikes to abuse the switches that this team causes and to rack up residual damage, which is always useful. Secondly, and equally as important, it tries to get offensive momentum going in our favor. As we all know, Cloyster is one of the best Spikers in UU, but its offensive stats are often overlooked for a more bulky approach. This set aims to retain most of a standard set’s Spiking abilities while also making it an offensive juggernaut (well, almost).
EVs/Nature: First and foremost, our Cloyster runs 104 Speed EVs to hit a speed of 203. This allows it to outrun 8 Speed Milotic and any other anti-metagamers out there who want to outspeed it by 1 point. After outrunning Milotic, it is free to blow up and tear a huge hole in the opposing team’s defensive core. With this speed, Cloyster will also beat most Blastoise, Poliwrath, and Azumarill, 3 pokes that absolutely love to get free turns off of Cloyster. After hitting this key speed, we pumped 252 EVs into Attack to give Cloyster more bang for his buck (pun intended) in Explosion. Then, the rest were dumped in Special Attack to boost Surf’s power. Naughty nature (+Attack, -Special Defense) works the best with this set, since it’s really not meant to take more than one special hit. Focus Sash ensures that Cloyster is either going to tank that hit and respond accordingly or just switch out, so attempting to boost his Special Defense to make him a wall really isn’t worth the trouble.
Moveset: Cloyster reprises its standard role of being one of UU’s premier Spikers on this team. Spikes support the team by providing steady entry hazard damage, which this team can really use. Surf is also standard, serving as the obligatory STAB that hits hard on Donphan/Steelix and other friends that are stupid enough to stay in. Explosion is for blowing defensive pokes looking to wall Cloyster into next week. Explosion cleanly OHKOs 248 HP/252 Def Bold Milotic and anything that isn’t as bulky. With Milotic, the moveset can typically be determined by observing if there is Leftovers recovery. If not, the Milotic is probably a LO tank or offensive, which means Cloyster will switch out immediately. This generally serves as a reliable method for choosing a course of action (unless you’re Thund, and put Lefties on an offensive Milo -.-). Ice Shard takes the last moveslot because there is no such thing as too much priority. Even with Technitop on the team. Ice Shard allows Cloyster to beat LOTres from the lead spot, does great damage to any Swellow or Scyther looking to make a sweep, and also provides a decently powered STAB priority move to finish off stray Sashed or defensively weak pokes. It also 2HKOs DDTaria cleanly while forcing them to lock themselves into Outrage.
matchups:
Magcargo @ Leftovers
252 HP, 80 Special Defense, 12 Special Attack, 164 Defense
Flame Body
Bold
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Earth Power
- Recover
Our new Stealth Rocker and Swellow counter. With a 4x Fire resist thanks to its unique typing, Magcargo rises from the depths of NU to serve as our Swellow, Moltres, and Arcanine counter. Maggy takes advantage of its typing and the fact that Fire-type sweepers rarely pack a coverage move for opposing fire types to stop them in their tracks. Magcargo is also one of the best possible switch-ins to Ambipom, as its Flame Body ability will burn Ambi about 50% of the time if they Fake Out and U-turn. Magcargo unfortunately carries a 4x weakness to the common attacking types of Water and Ground. To somewhat counteract this crippling trait, we have also added Milotic as a pretty sure-fire switch-in against anything packing a Water or Ground attack.
EVs/Moveset: The EVs are taken from the Smogon set, except for 12 EVs moved from Defense to Special Attack so Maggy gets the guarenteed 2HKO on Houndoom. The moveset is fairly simple as well. Stealth Rock is awesome as always, Recover allows Maggy to heal and wear down the sweepers it's supposed to, Lava Plume as a good spamming move with that sweet burn rate, and Earth Power to hit Fire types.
Milotic @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP, 200 Special Defense, 56 Defense
Nature: Calm
Ability: Marvel Scale
- Surf
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Haze
Our second new member, replacing Technitop. ResTalk Haze Milotic serves as a reliable check to DDGatr, who would otherwise cause this team major problems. Milo also serves as a great status absorber and bulky water check. Specially Defensive Milo at least stalemates with any bulky water out ther, allowing us an oppurtunity to recapture momentum. Milotic also just serves as an excellent overall wall that not many sweepers can break through.
EVs/Nature: EVs from the Smogon analysis, they give Milo incredible special bulk. The small defense investment goes a good way in helping Milo check Swellow in a pinch.
Moveslot: Pretty straightforward. Surf as the only attack, and it does decent damage to neutral targets. Haze to counter set-uppers like DDGatr. ResTalk to act as a status sponge and to give Milo some much appreciated extra physical bulk. Milo is also able to PP Stall for just about forever with Haze and Rest.
team building process:
The whole team idea started with Raichu and using it as a Nasty plot sweeper/encore user. The entire team was based on helping Raichu out.
The team needed entry hazards in the form of spikes. Raichu is very prone to switches and it additional damage helped in Raichu's effort in sweeping. Uragg decided to whip out his custom made Cloyster set that acted as our anti-lead, spiker and Bulky water killer.
Raichu's obstacles as a Nasty plot sweeper involved would mainly involve the big Kahuna of special walling himself. (Registeel) Torterra was picked to act as a perfect Registeel counter, physical wall and stealth rock user. We initially picked Dugtrio, but it lacked stealth rocks and was setup fodder for Torterra.
The team was currently very weak to special attacks. We initially wanted to use a bulky water, but instead we decided to opt for bulky Mismagius. It acted as a fantastic spin blocker, stall breaker and special sponge all in one pokemon. (although it cannot take on strong special attackers like Moltres and Magmortar)
Next, we wanted another physically tanky pokemon that could take on pokemon Torterra could not (namely Swellow and Arcanine) We opted for SubRise Aggron.
Aggron worked well for a while. Unfortunately it was often dead weight and couldn't reliably counter Arcanine as well as we thought it could. With great regret, we replaced the metal behemoth with it's earthly cousin. (Rhyperior)
Sub Rhyperior is menace to this metagame and it worked really well in countering physical varients of Arcanine and Swellow. It even setup for free against Registeel.
With the team almost complete, we felt that our team lacked a strong revenge killer. Technitop was a pokemon I had a lot of success using in the past and we figured that we should run it. It helped in countering Houdoom (who tore this team apart)
The team needed entry hazards in the form of spikes. Raichu is very prone to switches and it additional damage helped in Raichu's effort in sweeping. Uragg decided to whip out his custom made Cloyster set that acted as our anti-lead, spiker and Bulky water killer.
Raichu's obstacles as a Nasty plot sweeper involved would mainly involve the big Kahuna of special walling himself. (Registeel) Torterra was picked to act as a perfect Registeel counter, physical wall and stealth rock user. We initially picked Dugtrio, but it lacked stealth rocks and was setup fodder for Torterra.
The team was currently very weak to special attacks. We initially wanted to use a bulky water, but instead we decided to opt for bulky Mismagius. It acted as a fantastic spin blocker, stall breaker and special sponge all in one pokemon. (although it cannot take on strong special attackers like Moltres and Magmortar)
Next, we wanted another physically tanky pokemon that could take on pokemon Torterra could not (namely Swellow and Arcanine) We opted for SubRise Aggron.
Aggron worked well for a while. Unfortunately it was often dead weight and couldn't reliably counter Arcanine as well as we thought it could. With great regret, we replaced the metal behemoth with it's earthly cousin. (Rhyperior)
Sub Rhyperior is menace to this metagame and it worked really well in countering physical varients of Arcanine and Swellow. It even setup for free against Registeel.
With the team almost complete, we felt that our team lacked a strong revenge killer. Technitop was a pokemon I had a lot of success using in the past and we figured that we should run it. It helped in countering Houdoom (who tore this team apart)
The final team:
While laddering with this team, I managed to peak at 35th on the UU leaderboard under the username PK_failure. I know that this ranking is not much to brag about, but one must keep in mind that this team is essentially playing with 5 pokemon by devoting a teamslot to Raichu (just kidding. sort of).
Cloyster @ Focus Sash
EVs: 252 Attack, 152 Special Attack, 104 Speed
Nature: Naughty
Ability: Shell Armor
- Surf
- Spikes
- Ice Shard
- Explosion
I think that PK and I can agree that this Cloyster is one of the sexiest leads that either of us has ever used. Almost nobody would expect Cloyster to use the 4 moves that we run. One could call this a “troll” set, and that wouldn’t be far off. Cloyster works his magic by abusing the rarity of this set, along with his natural abilities of tanking hits with his gargantuan Defense stat. Cloyster has two jobs on this team: First, it sets up Spikes to abuse the switches that this team causes and to rack up residual damage, which is always useful. Secondly, and equally as important, it tries to get offensive momentum going in our favor. As we all know, Cloyster is one of the best Spikers in UU, but its offensive stats are often overlooked for a more bulky approach. This set aims to retain most of a standard set’s Spiking abilities while also making it an offensive juggernaut (well, almost).
EVs/Nature: First and foremost, our Cloyster runs 104 Speed EVs to hit a speed of 203. This allows it to outrun 8 Speed Milotic and any other anti-metagamers out there who want to outspeed it by 1 point. After outrunning Milotic, it is free to blow up and tear a huge hole in the opposing team’s defensive core. With this speed, Cloyster will also beat most Blastoise, Poliwrath, and Azumarill, 3 pokes that absolutely love to get free turns off of Cloyster. After hitting this key speed, we pumped 252 EVs into Attack to give Cloyster more bang for his buck (pun intended) in Explosion. Then, the rest were dumped in Special Attack to boost Surf’s power. Naughty nature (+Attack, -Special Defense) works the best with this set, since it’s really not meant to take more than one special hit. Focus Sash ensures that Cloyster is either going to tank that hit and respond accordingly or just switch out, so attempting to boost his Special Defense to make him a wall really isn’t worth the trouble.
Moveset: Cloyster reprises its standard role of being one of UU’s premier Spikers on this team. Spikes support the team by providing steady entry hazard damage, which this team can really use. Surf is also standard, serving as the obligatory STAB that hits hard on Donphan/Steelix and other friends that are stupid enough to stay in. Explosion is for blowing defensive pokes looking to wall Cloyster into next week. Explosion cleanly OHKOs 248 HP/252 Def Bold Milotic and anything that isn’t as bulky. With Milotic, the moveset can typically be determined by observing if there is Leftovers recovery. If not, the Milotic is probably a LO tank or offensive, which means Cloyster will switch out immediately. This generally serves as a reliable method for choosing a course of action (unless you’re Thund, and put Lefties on an offensive Milo -.-). Ice Shard takes the last moveslot because there is no such thing as too much priority. Even with Technitop on the team. Ice Shard allows Cloyster to beat LOTres from the lead spot, does great damage to any Swellow or Scyther looking to make a sweep, and also provides a decently powered STAB priority move to finish off stray Sashed or defensively weak pokes. It also 2HKOs DDTaria cleanly while forcing them to lock themselves into Outrage.
matchups:
Ambipom: Cloyster has to switch out here, but the Sash is preserved for later use as Ambipom cannot set up hazards. Mismagius, Rhyperior, and Torterra are all capable of taking a hit and retaliating accordingly.
Uxie: Free Spikes. Cloyster doesn’t really care about SR since Uxie will break its Sash while U-turning out. Cloyster can’t do much to Uxie, but it sets up 2-3 layers of Spikes for free and explodes on something if it has the chance.
Moltres: LOTres is beaten by Surf + Ice Shard, while the Sash leaves Cloyster at 1 HP. ScarfTres is rarely seen anymore, but suffers the same fate or even gives a free switch to a resist.
Alakazam: This is a bitch. Offensive variants generally give this team a lot of trouble, so seeing this in the lead slot is better than meeting it midgame. Mismigaius can take a Psychic/Focus Blast and hit back with Shadow Ball, but sometimes it’s just a better idea to blow up it his face
Electrode: Surf on the first turn as it taunts/RDs, then either Surf again to finish if it taunted or Ice Shard if it danced. Saves the Sash to explode on Ludicolo later.
Hariyama: This fucker puts Cloyster in a world of hurt. Torterra does alright if it doesn’t pack Ice Punch. Otherwise, I might just have to blow it up.
Kabutops: Cloyster can’t handle it, but Torterra shits on it and then eats it for breakfast.
Mesprit: Is troublesome. Cloyster is forced out initially out of fear of Grass Knot, and Missy is usually a good answer.
Omastar: Go directly to Raichu. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Spiritomb: Torterra beats it while setting up SR.
Uxie: Free Spikes. Cloyster doesn’t really care about SR since Uxie will break its Sash while U-turning out. Cloyster can’t do much to Uxie, but it sets up 2-3 layers of Spikes for free and explodes on something if it has the chance.
Moltres: LOTres is beaten by Surf + Ice Shard, while the Sash leaves Cloyster at 1 HP. ScarfTres is rarely seen anymore, but suffers the same fate or even gives a free switch to a resist.
Alakazam: This is a bitch. Offensive variants generally give this team a lot of trouble, so seeing this in the lead slot is better than meeting it midgame. Mismigaius can take a Psychic/Focus Blast and hit back with Shadow Ball, but sometimes it’s just a better idea to blow up it his face
Electrode: Surf on the first turn as it taunts/RDs, then either Surf again to finish if it taunted or Ice Shard if it danced. Saves the Sash to explode on Ludicolo later.
Hariyama: This fucker puts Cloyster in a world of hurt. Torterra does alright if it doesn’t pack Ice Punch. Otherwise, I might just have to blow it up.
Kabutops: Cloyster can’t handle it, but Torterra shits on it and then eats it for breakfast.
Mesprit: Is troublesome. Cloyster is forced out initially out of fear of Grass Knot, and Missy is usually a good answer.
Omastar: Go directly to Raichu. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Spiritomb: Torterra beats it while setting up SR.
Magcargo @ Leftovers
252 HP, 80 Special Defense, 12 Special Attack, 164 Defense
Flame Body
Bold
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Earth Power
- Recover
Our new Stealth Rocker and Swellow counter. With a 4x Fire resist thanks to its unique typing, Magcargo rises from the depths of NU to serve as our Swellow, Moltres, and Arcanine counter. Maggy takes advantage of its typing and the fact that Fire-type sweepers rarely pack a coverage move for opposing fire types to stop them in their tracks. Magcargo is also one of the best possible switch-ins to Ambipom, as its Flame Body ability will burn Ambi about 50% of the time if they Fake Out and U-turn. Magcargo unfortunately carries a 4x weakness to the common attacking types of Water and Ground. To somewhat counteract this crippling trait, we have also added Milotic as a pretty sure-fire switch-in against anything packing a Water or Ground attack.
EVs/Moveset: The EVs are taken from the Smogon set, except for 12 EVs moved from Defense to Special Attack so Maggy gets the guarenteed 2HKO on Houndoom. The moveset is fairly simple as well. Stealth Rock is awesome as always, Recover allows Maggy to heal and wear down the sweepers it's supposed to, Lava Plume as a good spamming move with that sweet burn rate, and Earth Power to hit Fire types.
Milotic @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP, 200 Special Defense, 56 Defense
Nature: Calm
Ability: Marvel Scale
- Surf
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Haze
Our second new member, replacing Technitop. ResTalk Haze Milotic serves as a reliable check to DDGatr, who would otherwise cause this team major problems. Milo also serves as a great status absorber and bulky water check. Specially Defensive Milo at least stalemates with any bulky water out ther, allowing us an oppurtunity to recapture momentum. Milotic also just serves as an excellent overall wall that not many sweepers can break through.
EVs/Nature: EVs from the Smogon analysis, they give Milo incredible special bulk. The small defense investment goes a good way in helping Milo check Swellow in a pinch.
Moveslot: Pretty straightforward. Surf as the only attack, and it does decent damage to neutral targets. Haze to counter set-uppers like DDGatr. ResTalk to act as a status sponge and to give Milo some much appreciated extra physical bulk. Milo is also able to PP Stall for just about forever with Haze and Rest.
