Rate of the Week V3: Week 28

[IronBullet]

Rate of the Week
​

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 unbadged raters will have priority since that is the main focus of this project.

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 will earn more consideration for the Ladybug

and Team Rater

badges. Also, after gaining three places in the Hall of Fame, a rater will be eligible to earn voice status in the RMT room on PS! on the condition that they've shown an interest in getting involved.

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 - Toon Linked (OU)
Week #2 - Nedor (OU), Arifeen (UU)
Week #3 - Fireburn (Ubers), Do A Bibarel (UU)
Week #4 - AM (OU), Raiza (PU), Kiyo (NU)
Week #5 - FlamingVictini (OU)
Week #6 - Cyndequil. (UU)
Week #7 - BreloomMyHomie (OU)
Week #8 - FlamingVictini (OU)
Week #9 - oml it's too ez (OU), Cyndequil. (UU), MrAldo (RU)
Week #10 - Nedor (OU), Cyndequil. (UU), Cranham (Ubers), Lax (Monotype)
Week #11 - AM (OU)
Week #12 - Lange (OU), Amaroq (UU)
Week #13 - all falls down (UU)
Week #14 - Manipulative (UU)
Week #15 - mil (OU)
Week #16 - Tricking (OU)
Week #17 - Hector Hard Mode (OU), Christo. (UU)
Week #18 - p2 (OU), all falls down (UU)
Week #19 - ez (OU), Chakra (RU), S0LID G0LD (LC), Memoric (Doubles)
Week #20 - nv (UU), GradeAGarchomp (VGC), Joshz (Anything Goes)
Week #21 - King Sun (OU), PrinceLucian (NU), GradeAGarchomp (VGC), NOVED (Battle Spot)
Week #22 - ez (OU), fran17 (LC), TONE114 (PU)
Week #23 - Sken (LC)
Week #24 - Nedor (OU), RebornFX (VGC)
Week #25 - Adaam. (UU), Level 51 (Doubles), all falls down (Monotype)
Week #26 - bludz (OU)
Week #27 - celes (OU), Cyndequil. (UU), Chakra (RU)
Week #28 - Hector Hard Mode (OU), nv (UU)

 

[Cynde]

This week's UU winner is nv! His rate had fantastic formatting, good structure and detailed reasoning. nv initially suggests running Krookodile over Nidoqueen as Nidoqueen (along with Crobat) stacks a psychic type weakness which is rather problematic. Having Krookodile provides the team Stealth Rocks, a way to punish Psychic-types and the ability to Pursuit Pokemon such as Bronzong which is a nuisance to Mega-Abomasnow and Tyrantrum.

His next change was to replace Cofagrigus with Milotic. He reasons this change by saying defensive Cofagrigus is generally inferior to Sableye due to Sableye's access to Recover and Prankster, and with the team being weak to Pokemon such as Entei and Gyarados, Milotic was a welcome change. He then makes a series of set changes starting off with Mixed Abomasnow over the Swords Dance set so the team will have a more reliable switch in to Scald.

nv replaces Tyrantrum's item with Choice Band as Choice Scarf is not able to outspeed most of the common Scarf wielders in the tier along with several faster Pokemon such as Mega Sceptile. He suggests running Outrage over Dragon Claw as in conjunction with Choice Band, it will allow Tyrantrum to break down teams a lot more easily. He then makes a change of Infernape's set from Choice Band to Nasty Plot in order to provide the team with a win condition.

nv changes Crobat's EV spread to max speed and max attack stating that the high speed is what makes Crobat such a valuable defogger in the first place. He suggests running U-turn over Cross Poison as the former generates momentum and the latter is out damaged by Brave Bird, even against Fairy-types. Lastly, he optimises crobat's set by changing the item to Sharp Beak to ensure it hits as hard as possible. Thanks to his detailed and very well presented rate, nv earns a well deserved spot in the Hall of Fame! Congratulations!

 

[busyguy]

sorry for the delay !

This week's OU winner is Hector Hard Mode. The team was build around M-Houndoom coupled with Steel/Fairy/Dragon/Ground while including Fire/Water/Grass. In his rate he begins with analyzing threats to which the team has little counterplay. After that, he suggests Lando-T in place of Garchomp which helps the team versus Ground Types with which the team really struggled, also the matchup versus fighting types and electrics with ice coverage is improved. With an offensive spread which includes Swords Dance, it adds a breaker, which was needed to break though SpD mons that Houndoom has problems with. Next, he suggests Serperior instead of Tangrowth, which adds needed speed and works well together with NP Houndoom, because Talonflame and Tornadus-T, which are one of the most common Houndoom switchins get paralysed by Serperoir. Houndoom can use NP on the switch into Torn-T and Talonflame, to break past them, which works even better when they are paralyzed, paving the way for a Serperior sweep. He ends the rate advising Jolly Azumarill, to beat slow Rotom-W.

With his well structured and precise rate, Hector has earned himself a spot in the Hall of Fame. Congratulations!