A Team By Jirachi & Rockstar
It's a very well known fact that the most common and best team style in the BW2 OU metagame is Drizzle. There are so many good Drizzle abusers even with the infamous Drizzle + Swift Swim combination banned via Aldaron's proposal, such as Tornadus-T, Starmie, Rotom-W, Thundurus-T, and much more. Drizzle teams can from heavily offensive teams to Stall teams, which make them even more dangerous since you can't really prepare yourself for Drizzle in general. BW2 just made Drizzle teams much stronger with the introduction of ridiculoudly powerful sweepers such as Tornadus-T who can sweep through a lot of teams with ease, or Keldeo who can break through common counters of Water typed Pokemon. All of these new toys contributed in the rise in usage of Drizzle Politoed, to a point where controlling the weather is nearly essential to secure a win.
However these kind of teams aren't without weakness and can surely find a lot of trouble against some anti metagame threats. A very common example of this is Gastrodon, which is incredibly good at stopping most Water types which are very common in Drizzle teams. However most of them are aware of these kind of threats and hard walls and have found a way around them, quickly taking them out in order to allow their Water types to sweep through helpless teams. We thought that Kingdra would be a perfect Pokemon to fight Drizzle teams, as it greatly benefits of Rain with Swift Swim in the increase of power to its Water STAB, and can destroy a huge part of their abusers. Since Kingdra is currently UU, we figured that not a lot of teams would actually be prepared to face it and it's certainly a powerful force in permanent Rain.
This team is quite simple: it revolves around removing Kingdra's counters, set up at least one Dragon Dance and sweep using Waterfall and Outrage. There are little counters to this fantastic sweeper in OU and the rest of this team can deal with them with ease. Kingdra doesn't even need Drizzle to sweep as it is a fine sweeper by itself, it just makes it much easier.This is nowhere near a perfect team however, there are some threats that can beat it easier than we would like to. However we do think that it's a pretty good one and would like to share it with you.
Team Building
We built the team around Kingdra because we wanted to take advantage of all the Drizzle teams in the metagame. Kingdra is very scary for these teams as it's extremely fast and extremely difficult to take down, and nearly impossible to check because of its great dual STAB moves. We went for a Substitute+Dragon Dance version because unlike the Choice Specs version, it actually works well against Sand and weatherless teams.
Obviously there's always Ferrothorn and various other Steel types who wall Kingdra somewhat easily because of its reliance on Outrage. Heatran was the perfect answer to most of them as it doesn't take much from their attacks and can hit them hard with Fire STAB even in Rain. It can also set up Stealth Rock which always helps. Heatran was a pretty obvious choice here.
Celebi was added because we thought an Heatran+Kingdra core would have a lot of trouble with bulkier Water types, especially those who carry Scald or Will-O-Wisp since our Kingdra is physical. Celebi is a nice switch-in to that kind of threat, while also having excellent defensive synergy with Heatran which is always a plus.
Our team definetly lacked Speed and it isn't a very good situation to be in when there are an incredible amount of threats that can just sweep you clean after one turn of set up. That's why we added Choice Scarf Thundurus-T, as it is able to revenge pretty much every dangerous threats with a few exceptions while also nicely complementing the rest of the team with Volt Switch, since slower Pokemon really appreciate to get in for free.
Since Heatran is our only Steel type and can't really deal with every Dragon types in the game, Scizor was a logic choice. It also added incredibly useful priority to the team and provided a way to put pressure on Terrakion which was somewhat of an alarming threat before. Scizor also gives us a second U-turn which is appreciated and a back up revenge killer in the case Thundurus-T isn't able to do the job.
We added Choice Band Dragonite as a second priority user, a wallbreaker and a great offensive partner to Kingdra as it can destroy Steel types with Superpower, and we started using the team, which wasn't bad but... not great either. We still had problems with a ton of stuff like teams with multiple Steel types, and Dragonite was more of a burden than anything else in that situation.
Hydreigon was the last addition to the team and it suddenly became much, much more effective than with Dragonite. We needed a better check to Rain Calm Mind Jirachi and something to beat Steel types easier and Hydreigon was just the perfect Pokemon for the job. With both Fire Blast and Earth Power it's able to hit pretty much every Steel type for Super Effective damage, and Draco Meteor just destroys everything else. This makes it an amazing partner to Kingdra as a Life Orb, Modest Draco Meteor tends to lure the enemy Dragon resist... to their fall.
Kingdra @ Leftovers
Ability: Swift Swim
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 40 HP / 224 Atk / 16 Def / 228 Spe
~Waterfall
~Outrage
~Substitute
~Dragon Dance
Ability: Swift Swim
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 40 HP / 224 Atk / 16 Def / 228 Spe
~Waterfall
~Outrage
~Substitute
~Dragon Dance
We decided to focus our team around this Kingdra, which is a pretty standard Substitute+Dragon Dance set. Kingdra is an amazing tool against offensive Rain teams because it can Revenge Kill pretty much everything in it with Waterfall, and Water types are just extremely easy to set up on. Bulkier Rain teams with Ferrothorn are much more of an issure for Kingdra but, as of now, it certainly isn't the most popular Pokemon on this kind of team. Once the bulkier Steel types have been removed from play Kingdra has an easy time sweeping through most teams, even with just one boost due to its amazing typing and bulk. It's not like Kingdra was a dead weight against Sand and weatherless teams though, as there are a pretty big amount of fairly popular threats that Kingdra can very easily set up on, including Heatran, Scizor locked into Bullet Punch, and Tentacruel. These are extremely common sights and they just can't do anything to Kingdra much without risking giving it multiple boosts which result in a sweep. Kingdra is a pretty difficult Pokemon to Revenge Kill too, as after a boost, there are really only a few Pokemon that outspeed it and can OHKO it because of its only weakness that is Dragon. The only common one is Choice Scarf Latios, and even then, it's much less common than Choice Scarf Flygon in Gen 4. This all contribute to make Kingdra an amazing sweeper.
Since it only has one weakness and two amazing x4 resistances to Fire and Water, Kingdra can take on a more defensive role for the team too. Kingdra becomes an important check to Offensive Heatran, Choice Rotom-W, Life Orb Starmie, and most Water types since they can put a lot of pressure on this team's main check to them, Celebi, which could end up dying if it takes too much of these attacks. Kingdra is more than capable of helping with these attackers and can actually set up on them to make them play more carefully, which can always be helpful. Even with all this defensive usefulness Kingdra is much better kept late game where the opposince Steel types have been removed or severly weakened and this team is perfectly able to to work without Kingdra supporting it defensively.
Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
~Fire Blast
~Earth Power
~Hidden Power Ice
~Stealth Rock
Offensively, Heatran is perhaps the most important member of this team, for numerous reasons. First, it's without a doubt the best switch in to Kingdra's arch-nemesis, Ferrothorn, who never enjoys taking a STAB Fire Blast, even in the Rain. This makes Heatran so important to the team's success, because we wanted to sweep with Kingdra. What makes Heatran such a wonderful partner to it is the fact it can switch into any Steel type in OU pretty easily, except maybe Superpower from Scizor, and burn them down to ashes with its Fire STAB. It was very important that Heatran had its Special Attacking power nearly maximized because we knew that we were going to face a lot of Rain teams which greatly reduce the power of Fire Blast, but even in that kind of condition Heatran is able to destroy most of the annoying threats that stop Kingdra from spamming the powerful Outrage. Secondly, Heatran is the team's Stealth Rocker, and sincerly, even Tyranitar isn't as good as Heatran to set them up. With Air Balloon it scares so much stuff out that it has a ton of free switches every game, so it can definetly use one of them to set up useful Entry Hazards, making it possible for Hydreigon and Kingdra to OHKO much more stuff with their Dragon STAB as they switch in, and making dealing with dangerous threats like Dragonite, Salamence and Volcarona much easier.
Heatran is also a formidable check to a plethora of threats which sincerly would just destroy this team without. This ranges from most version of Volcarona (has to be careful and keep the Air Balloon for Hidden Power Ground versions though), most Dragon Dancers like Dragonite and Salamence, Swords Dance Scizor, and Growth Venusaur. Obviously these aren't the only threats Heatran is able to check but that's only naming a few. It's very important to have a bulky Steel type in today's metagame because of all the incredibly powerful Dragons there are, and since Heatran carries a great mix of Physical and Special bulk, and a great Fire immunity, it goes without saying that it's one of the best for offensive teams. Heatran is our main tool against the not so popular but very dangerous Sun teams because it can take on so many of their most common members and hit them back very hard. Honestly, that team simply can't live without Heatran and it goes without saying that it's probably its most vital member.
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
Nature: Modest
EVs: 224 HP / 252 SpA / 32 Spe
~Giga Drain
~Psychic
~Hidden Power Fire
~Recover
Celebi is the team's main weapon against bulky Water types who give so much trouble to both Kingdra and Heatran. It's fairly easy for it to switch on most of the common ones like Rotom-W and Gastrodon since the are quite often slower than it, and can really hit them hard with Giga Drain. This is much more important than it seems because while Kingdra technically x4 resists their Water STABs to turn them into easy set up fodder, it really doesn't want to switch into Rotom-W's Will-O-Wisp or some random burning Scald because that could but an end to its sweep right there. It's very important not to take a 30% risk of losing your best sweeper right there because that severly reduces any team's chances to win and this is especially true against teams who carry Drizzle Politoed because so many of their common members are checked by Kingdra. Still, Celebi is a great tool for anyone who really hates this kind of Water types because it can simply shrug off any kind of status with Natural Cure and beat them easily.
Celebi is an important part of the team's defensive synergy because it is the only one who can take on the never ending amount of Fighting types in OU, including Technician Breloom, Conkeldurr, Virizion, and Terrakion to an extent. This is pretty important considering these Pokemon can easily scare out two of this team's members, Hydreigon and Heatran due to their Fighting weakness. Celebi can also tank Water moves with its great bulk and resistance, making it one of the best switch in for this type of Pokemon who run rampant in the current metagame. However Celebi's defensive prowesses are not limited to checking different type of Pokemon but also some playstyles. Celebi is probably the best check there is to Rotom-W + Scizor "Volturn" cores because it's an easy switch-in to Rotom-W and it can OHKO Scizor with Hidden Power Fire, which is crucial given the popularity of this core since the banning of Excadrill and Deoxys-S. Since this team carries no Rapid Spinner it was very important to have an immediate stop to this kind of strategy and Celebi is just the perfect answer. Finally, Celebi also serves as the team's status absorber, be it something like Stun Spore from Amoonguss or something in the likes because of the wonderful ability Natural Cure. Celebi is a much bigger part in this team's defensive synergy than in the offensive one but it is definetly one of the biggest reasons as to why it can work.
