Rate of the Week V2: Week 9

[Enki]

Rate of the Week
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Welcome to Rate of the Week! This is a project that looks to bring quality individual rates into the spotlight and recognizes the hard work of unbadged raters. Here's how it will work:

• Each week, official Team Raters will be paying close attention to the RMT forum and reading the rates posted in their respective tiers. They will then shortlist a few which will be in contention for the Rate of the Week award.
• From the pool of shortlisted rates, one will be chosen which most exemplifies the qualities of an excellent rate. That rater will be the winner for that particular tier!
• A post will be made by an official TR who specialises in that tier, explaining how and why the particular rate won. This will allow aspiring raters to gain an idea of what constitutes high-quality rates, and hopefully incorporate those aspects into their own rates.
• There will be multiple winners every week, one from OU and a couple from other tiers depending on the quality of the rates posted. We hope that in this way we can expand rating activity in less popular tiers, while maintaining a weekly OU winner.
• Official Team Raters are eligible to win, but not more than once. Unbadged raters can win the award multiple times.

So what's in it for the winners? Well, they will earn a place in the Hall of Fame, which will be kept in the OP of every thread, and their rates will be announced on Twitter. Winners also earn more consideration for the Ladybug

and Team Rater

badges.

We hope that this project will encourage people to put more effort into their rates and become better and more experienced raters, which will consequently increase the quality as well as the quantity of rates in the forum. Good luck to you all! :)

Hall of Fame

Week #1 - Nedor (OU) and fran17 (LC)

Week #2 - shui3 (OU), YABO (UU), and 49 (RU)

Week #3 - celes (OU), Serapis (VGC)

Week #4 - FlamingVictini (OU)

Week #5 - Albacore (OU), dodmen (UU), 49 (RU), and Corporal Levi (LC)

Week #6 - MrAldo (OU) and Kreme (UU)

Week #7 - Miridy (OU) and Minority Suspect (Ubers)

Week #8 - littlelucario (OU)

Week #9 - Team Pokepals (OU) and Raiza (PU)

 

[Enki]

This week's OU winner is Team Pokepals! He has made a pretty cool rate with a great format too. First off, he talked about a huge threat of the team, which is Bisharp, with only Weavile as a check, explaining pretty well how Weavile couldn't che it and how Bisharp could get the boost thanks to Intimidate, from Mega Manectric and Landorus-T. Then he talked about a primary change, which is changing Rotom-W to Keldeo, a pretty nice check of Bisharp and thanks to Landorus-T the team doesn't need that much of Excadrill checks (non Mold Breaker he meant). He explained pretty well why Keldeo is a better choice and which kind of other threats Keldeo can deal with, such as Hippowdon and if he picks the Calm Mind version, he'd be able to threat Mega Sableye, which the team straggles.

The second change is Landorus-T set, which was at the beginning Choice Scarf, and Pokepals suggested to make it a Defensive Pivot, explaining the reasons. He talked about how Mega Charizard X may set up on many members of the team, such as Mega Manectric, and since Landorus-T is scarfed it'd be hard to switch in, because of Stealth Rock damage, and if it switch in once on a Flare Blitz it wont be able to do it twice. So making Landorus-T defensive means have a nice and solid check for Excadrill and thanks to Leftovers, it gain a little bit of health back. As a last change for Landorus-T he talked about moving the Stealth Rock from Heatran to Landorus-T, giving the first one a free move slot. As a last change he talked about how the team struggle a little bit with stuff such as Mega Venusaur and Clefable, so he suggested to make Heatran his stallbreaker, giving Taunt instead of Stealth Rock (moved on Landorus-T), beeing able to beat them without get paralisis (Thunder Wave Clefable) and stop any kind of recovery stall with Clefable or any kind of bulky Pokemon; Leftovers would be an option instead of Air Baloon if he lacks of recovery.

Thanks to his great formatting and multiple in-depth options to improve the team, Team Pokepals was able to provide a great rate, and has earned himself a spot in the Hall of Fame. Congrats!

 

[g]

This week we also have our first PU winner, Raiza! His rate other than being well structured, also makes clear the weaknesses of the team rated and changes to be made, thanks to its nice descriptions. Starting off, he states how the team was very prone to opposing offensive teams due to its mediocre overall unboosted speed and needed more reliable entry hazard control to succeed. In order to make that change, he first suggested to replace Whirlipede with Roselia, a more durable Spikes setter and check against Water-types, which allows the team to run a more reliable users of entry hazard control and switch into faster threats such as Floatzel. To improve its matchup against opposing hazards-stacking teams, he then suggested Misdreavus over Swanna, a Pokemon that is able to Defog away entry hazards while still being useful when faring against Fighting-types and Water-types, such as Machoke and Simipour. Along with the adding of Swanna, he explained how it was useless to have two forms of removing entry hazards, and proposed to run Stealth Rock over Rapid Spin on Armaldo. For his last change, as the team lacked a revenge killer, and, since fire types were covered enough, he suggested to replace Rapidash with Kadabra or Choice Scarf Mr. Mime, both effective against faster threat, and also extra insurances against Fighting-types while highlighting the differences between one another.

Overall, Raiza's rate was quite well rounded and concise so he definitely earned his place in the HoF