The Abandoned Baby
Hey everyone. This Rate My Team is to help me out with my Reuniclus team. Reuniclus is one of my favorite OU pokemon because it embodies my favorite playstyle (bulky Offence with a slight empahsis on the defensive side). But Reuniclus is really not used all that much today (besides trick room, which is hard to pull off on a team). With all the dark and bug type moves going around, it can be a real challenge trying to pave the road to a sweep. What I love about Reuniclus, though, is that once you eliminate those 1 or 2 pokemon that stop his sweep, he usually just steam rolls the rest of the opponents team. As such, this team is designed to rid Reuniclus of his counters and give me a nice Calm Mind sweep. I'm already doing OK, but I'm convinced that there is a way to make the team even better.
Obviously I had to start with Reuniclus. The choice was between the Trick Room set or the Calm Mind set. I obviously chose the Calm Mind set due to its ability to become unstoppable once a few criteria were met.
Reuniclus has a very specific set of counters. The first and most noticable counter was Scizor. As we all know, Heatran is one of the best Scizor Counters there is. I picked up specially defensive Heatran for some Stealth Rocks. With Stealth Rocks up, Reuniclus could stop Skarmory if it had two calm minds up, instead of getting whirlwinded away because it couldn't hit through sturdy.
Next I needed a way to deal with CM Jirachi, a poke growing in popularity these days, who can annoyingly set up against Heatran in the rain if it packed wish. The new guy Garchomp is an excellent Jirachi check, however. Its immune to Thunder and T-wave and can easily take water pulses and OHKO back with STAB earthquake. Because Reuniclus isn't as reliable as it use to be back in early BW, I decided to go with a yache SD set as a back-up Sweeper.
I really wanted a way to trap ghost types and other psychic types that would hit Reuniclus too hard. What better than CB tyranitar with pursuit. It would make sure that they would be eliminated no problem.
By now my team was pretty water weak, so I added Jellicent to the mix. It also has great synergy with heatran and can help wall physical attacks. Combined with Heatran, the two make an effective burn core, that allows Reuniclus to take physical attacks much better while boosting its Sp.Def with Calm Mind.
If you have Jellicent, why not add a ferrathorn. It further patches my water weakness,gives me spikes and leech seed support, and with heatran gives me a Fire/Water/Grass core. It gives me tones of entry hazards, which my team could really use since when the opponent sees Reuniclus, they are willing to switch mulitple times to save that one dedicated counter they have. Ferrathorn is also great answer to Tyranitar, especially when using max physical bulk.
Reuniclus has a very specific set of counters. The first and most noticable counter was Scizor. As we all know, Heatran is one of the best Scizor Counters there is. I picked up specially defensive Heatran for some Stealth Rocks. With Stealth Rocks up, Reuniclus could stop Skarmory if it had two calm minds up, instead of getting whirlwinded away because it couldn't hit through sturdy.
Next I needed a way to deal with CM Jirachi, a poke growing in popularity these days, who can annoyingly set up against Heatran in the rain if it packed wish. The new guy Garchomp is an excellent Jirachi check, however. Its immune to Thunder and T-wave and can easily take water pulses and OHKO back with STAB earthquake. Because Reuniclus isn't as reliable as it use to be back in early BW, I decided to go with a yache SD set as a back-up Sweeper.
I really wanted a way to trap ghost types and other psychic types that would hit Reuniclus too hard. What better than CB tyranitar with pursuit. It would make sure that they would be eliminated no problem.
By now my team was pretty water weak, so I added Jellicent to the mix. It also has great synergy with heatran and can help wall physical attacks. Combined with Heatran, the two make an effective burn core, that allows Reuniclus to take physical attacks much better while boosting its Sp.Def with Calm Mind.
If you have Jellicent, why not add a ferrathorn. It further patches my water weakness,gives me spikes and leech seed support, and with heatran gives me a Fire/Water/Grass core. It gives me tones of entry hazards, which my team could really use since when the opponent sees Reuniclus, they are willing to switch mulitple times to save that one dedicated counter they have. Ferrathorn is also great answer to Tyranitar, especially when using max physical bulk.
Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP/252 Sp.Def/8 Spe
Nature: Calm
- Lava Plume
- Will-o-Wisp
- Roar
- Stealth Rocks
Heatran adds a lot of things to the team. Firstly, it eliminates public enemy numero uno, Scizor, from the mix. Assuming Scizor ever has the gall to stay in against me. Which means I can either Stealth rock or Roar if its already set up. That means more passive damage for me, especially if Ferrothorn has managed a few layers of spikes. A fire immunity through Flash Fire is always nice, since its such a common type of attack these days. The EVs provide excellent special bulk since its typing allows it to handle all the physical attackers it needs to take down (Physical Jirachi, Scizor). Secondly, He's normally my go-to lead, because of his awesome typing and ability to get rocks up easily. Thirdly, he makes it pretty easy to burn pokemon that enjoy switchin in on him, like tyranitar, terrakion, and landurus.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def/ 4 Sp.Def
Nature: Impish
- Power Whip
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Spikes
I love that picture so much. Ferrothorn is a great for walling all types of physical attackers, most notably tyranitar, even though some pack fire blast. If its fighting a burned opponent, not a physical attack can touch him. He'll simply recover the damage off with leech seed and lefties, and the opponent will be sore from taking Iron Barb, Leech Seed and Power Whip Damage all on the same turn, in addition to any hazard damage it took when it switched in. Protect is excellent for stalling to add up more residual damage.
Jellicent @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP/ 216 Def/ 44 Spe
Nature: Bold
- Scald
- Will-o-Wisp
- Taunt
- Recover
Jellicent compliments Heatran and Ferrothorn very well. It takes fighting attacks, Spin Blocks, Provides a solid core for the team, and spreads burns for Reuniclus. It also allows me to lure in and burn Tyranitar with good prediction. However Jellicent is the only member of my core that can actively and reliably restore its own health, meaning that from the first turn on, I'm on a time crunch to make sure threats that I need eliminated are picked off. The great thing about Fire Water Grass cores is that they can function OK without one member, but each of these three pokemon are also necessary to support Reuniclus, which gives me a huge time crunch.
Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def/ 4 Spe
Nature: Bold
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
Reuniclus is desinged to come in on a weakened team. The goal is that I really only need to set up one or two calm minds. Factoring in Life Orb, if reuniclus has one Calm Mind up, its Special Attack is equivalent to 557. With two Calm minds thats 743, and there's absolutely no drawbacks to the Life Orb Either. Magic Guard is an awesome ability. Reuniclus enjoys burn and poison, and is too slow to be affected by the speed reduction in paralysis (but doesn't appreciate the occasional freeze up from it). Reuniclus really enjoys fighting burned pokemon, which is made easier due to my burn core.
Garchomp @ Lum Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Spe/ 252 Atk/ 4 def
Nature: Jolly
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
Garchomp is a physical sweeper to help the team along. It provides quick offensive presence in a pinch and can easily rip apart unprepared teams. Garchomps main objective is to be the bane of all non-scarfed Jirachi. It OHKOs every single variant with its powerful Earthquake and pairs fantastically with a secondary dragon stab for late game cleaning should reuniclus fail. It also has surprisingly decent bulk and is hard to KO without a super effective attack.
Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk/ 156 HP/ 100 Spe
Nature: Adamant
- Pursuit
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Aqua Tail
Tyranitar is an offensive powerhouse. Unlike my core, it does not focus on damage over time and unlike my sweepers it is immediately threatening with an attack stat just over 600. It's just really hard to switch into with that monstrous attacks stat. The real kicker here is pursuit. It destroys the ghost types that Reuniclus hates as well as killing off any scizor switch-ins with Stone Edge. Its stabs work well together, only needing aqua tail to get rid of pokemon like heatran and Gliscor, who would otherwise not care about Tar. The sand he provides isn't so much for my team as it is for the opponents. Weather is obviously dominating the metagame right now (specifically rain), and tyranitar allows me to switch it whenever he comes in.
Major Threats to the team
My team is pretty good about getting rid of Reuniclus counters, but in return, its not so great at checking the things reuniclus handles well. Reuniclus is designed to come out late game, so a lot of fighting types give me problems, as they are normally out attacking early to mid game. Needless to say, my team has a hard time with them, specifically those that carry grass type attacks (I think we know who I'm talking about).
Major Problems:
Volt-turn Teams are kind of annoying for me to face
