(Baton) Passport to Victory - Kidogo     
IntroductionHey smogon, kidogo here! OK, it’s been a while since my last RMT, and so much has happened since then. I've grown a ton as a battler and have definitely expanded a lot in terms of my playstyles (as in I’ve used a few non-rain teams over the last year xD), and I’ve become more involved in smogon as a site. However, it wasn't until recently that I really felt I had another team that was worthy of RMTing. I’ve recently become a bit of a stall fanatic, and after using it twice in a row in a team tournament, my teammates made me promise to use offense the next weeks, so I got cracking. After a lot of tries and revisions, I came up with this team. I think it’s a testament to its effectiveness that, despite my very limited time recently given school, it managed to get up to #2 on PS pretty quickly. Furthermore, the team features my absolute favorite new set: nastypass celebi. So I present to you: (Baton) Passport to victory! The Team
Terrakion @ Focus Sash Fairly standard, but definitely effective for this team. With focus sash and terrakion’s great speed it is close to guaranteed to get rocks up, and it often will get a kill as well. Moves are p self-explanatory, its purpose is mainly to get those rocks up, SE and CC are great attacking moves that let it do a ton of damage. Taunt stops other SRers (great for hippowdon—I send in terrakion vs something else, they switch into hippo while I SR, then taunt while they try to SR before going off to thundy or smth. Works every time xD) while quick attack is really cool for other sash leads (sashterra and sashmamo being a couple big ones). One perk of using this as my SRer is that I have no trouble with xatu/espeon, which makes sun a lot easier to deal with—if I lead with rachi, they’ll assume it has rocks and switch to their xatu, which I uturn out of and go straight to terra, forcing a switch…when I SR. Works perfectly if you play it right.
Politoed @ Choice Specs Yeah forget defensive toed, specs is where its at. This thing hits so hard it’s unbelievable. Hpump in rain 2hkos bulky resists, gets close to OHKOing even SpDrachi, and even has a shot at 2HKOing defensive blissey after rocks. Moves are obvious, hpump to kill stuff, ibeam gives cool coverage and does like 65% to SpDbi, p close to a KO after rocks with some prior damage. Fblast gets close to OHKOing ferro and OHKOs all ttar in sand. HP [grass] is nice for jelli switches and to OHKO most starmie. Pardon me if you’ve seen the word “OHKO” a lot in this descripition—that’s just what toed does. And I haven’t even mentioned what happens when this lil’ guy gets passed an NP boost or two…let’s just say, I've OHKOed chanseys. EVs max SpA, outspeed adamant max speed zor (fast CB, offensive SD), and the rest in HP.
Jirachi @ Leftovers Rachi does seem to keep popping up in my teams, and for good reason—it’s a great SpD wall and pivot. EVs maximize SpD bulk with enough speed to outrun jolly mamo and iron head it to death, which proves helpful a lot of the time. Wish is useful not just for rachi but to pass to other stuff, which uturn helps out with, as well as allowing me to escape zone (which is particularly important since rachi is my sole steel). I don’t even think bslam needs explanation, except that it’s here > thunder because I like paralyzing chomp, landy, and thundy, as well as hitting stuff like latios outside of rain. This set is definitely my favorite for rachi atm, I don't even see the need for protect when I’ve got both bslam and iron head—70%=100% anyway :P
Keldeo @ Choice Scarf Okay, nothing new here, we’ve all seen this set. I replaced garchomp with this guy cause, with a scarf, I felt garchomp just didn't have enough power. Keldeo, on the other hand, is the most powerful member of the…well, most powerful except for toed…ok, well most powerful member of the team except for toed and thundy-t, but think of that as a testament to their power. This guy hits super hard and fast. Most of the time he’s my primary win condition, and the majority of my games are spent figuring out ho to take out that celebi, after which a +2 SpA keldeo usually spams surf and sweeps the opponent’s entire team. Not much else to say—I’ve tweaked the moveset a little, trying out Hp elec and bug (yah I hate SpDbi) but the classic has proven itself. Thanks to CTC for the support of HP ghost keldy, this is what I'm using now and it's really nice since with it literally nothing can wall keldy at +2.
Thundurus-T @ Expert Belt First of all, let me just say that BPing +2 SpA to this guy is somewhere between winning the super bowl and orgasms on the ecstasy scale. Like…I dare you to name ANYTHING that wants to take a hit from that. Blissey? Gimme a break. Chansey? Thunder 2HKOs, if I don’t mind risking 30% miss to do 80% with fblast. SpD quagsire you say? Yeah right, but +0 fblast still has a 90% chance to 2HKO after rocks. Don’t think, just click thunder (with the occasional other move thrown in). The feeling of power is just org…ok nvm im gonna stop there. OK, but back on topic, this set does some really nice things for the team. Rotom-w is OHKOed (after rocks only if very SpD), Keldeo’s main counter, SpD jellicent, is of course OHKOed, max SpD celebi is 2HKOed after rocks most of the time, Tentacruel is OHKOed, amoonguss is 2HKOed, the list goes on. Synergy aside, this thing is a great tool vs stall with its sheer power and a great one vs offense if I get an agility. Thunder OHKOs about everything, hp ice hits the stuff that has the audacity to actually be immune to thunder (landy,other thundy, etc.), fblast OHKOs most ferro and all ttar, which is really useful since most sand teams have nothing to do with this guy except switch in ttar so I cant mindlessly spam thunder…bye bye ttar. Agility allows for end-game sweeps and is surprisingly easy to set up (scizor is one cool target, as is terra locked into CC. Then again, you OHKO them both which is more fun). Damn this guy is fun to use. Thanks to everyone who's suggested a bulkier spread/item, it now is a bulkier EV spread @ ebelt, which I'm finding is a cool compromise between power and survivability.
Celebi @ Leftovers OK, some of you may have seen me post this set in the OU creative sets thread, but since this whole RMT was basically just an excuse to talk about this set to you guys, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. First of all, this guy is the second half of my basic defensive core along with jirachi—rachi takes on the special attackers like gengar and alakazam, and celebi shuts down stuff like breloom, terrakion, and even +2 luke. This thing is just so bulky—as an example I cited in the OU creative sets thread, CBnite outrage does something around 65% to this celebi, which is easily stallable with recover + leftovers. And like, this thing can take a uturn from standard landy-t (4x effective attack from base 145 atk n.n)—the new no attack version, for example, doesn't even guarantee a 2HKO on it lol. Recover ensures it can stick around, Baton Pass means the few physical attackers it can’t beat can’t make it stick around, psychic hits the stuff celebi needs to be hitting, way harder than giga drain, OHKOing all breloom, 2HKOing terrakion in sand, 2HKOing keldeo, OHKOing gengar switchins, OHKOing croak, and the list goes on. It also does way more to the dragons that celebi is used to check, like salamence, dnite, and chomper, than giga. Lastly but greatest beyond comparison, we have the one, the only, Nasty Plot. I said it in the creative sets thread and I’ll say it again here: I don't even have words to describe how awesome this set is. You have not known life until you have 6-0ed a team with a +6 SpA scarf keldeo simply spamming surf as the opponent’s resists are OHKOed (see replays below for numerous examples :D). First of all, it is just too cool how awesome the synergy between keldeo and celebi is. Celebi is weak to dark, fire, ice, and bug, all of which keldeo sets up on. Keldeo meanwhile is weak to psychic, electric, and grass; celebi takes those on. But even better than that, celebi lures in Pokémon such as scizor, ttar, weavile, skarm, and other u-turn users—exactly what keldeo loves to come in. For example, the opponent sends in bandtar while I nasty plot. I then BP to keldeo, who takes ~20 from the weak pursuit…and most likely is all set to sweep, or at the very least to destroy the opponent’s weather-setter. And it works in the opposite direction too: celebi is happy to set up on the stuff that hinders keldeo, like jellicent, other celebi, ferrothorn, amoonguss, and even stuff like breloom if spore has already been used (+2 bullet seed doesn't even 2HKO). This then forces them out while I get +2…and you know what happens after that. Furthermore, celebi doesn't even need to pass to sweep—seriously, a ton of teams will just flat-out get swept by +6 celebi because psychic is all the coverage I really need (again, see replays XD). And if I do want to pass but don't want to go to keldy for some reason (saving him for an end-game sweep usually), politoed and thundurus are perfectly happy to receive the boost instead, after which they will promptly OHKO everything. Oh yeah, one of the best things is that celebi can just happily NP up to +6 on the pink blobs, at which point psychic is doing 35%. Psychic once, then BP to keldeo on the softboiled and you have just won the game. Importable |
