It's Ludicolo. Interestingly enough, I have been seeing more people use SD Ludicolo in order to bait a Blissey/RD sweeper check for free set-up. Waterfall and Seed Bomb are really deadly on that set giving it some good coverage and only needing Ice Puch to take on the Dragons who would resist the other moves.
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What teams thrive nowadays?
- Thread starter Phadunk
- Start date
I know...
On the SD Ludicolo thing, I find that a very interesting strategy, I think I am going to try that on my Rain Dance team.
SD Ludicolo just doesn't appeal to me, Rain doesn't last forever so you want to make the most of it while you can. I'd rather just come in and start hitting hard and fast right off the bat. If you have the normal Special Sweeper set, you can accomplish that, and still set the rain back up if need be, with the Swords Dance set, once the rain is out, you're most likely boned. Generally I'd just leave Sword Dancing up to Pokemon like Kabutops and Qwilfish, who really can make the most of it.
I agree with you SoT that Kabutops and Qwilfish are more deadly after a SD, but its because its unexpected that with Ludicolo it can be more effective than them since sometimes its harder to get the right prediction with the former two to get off a SD as they expect you to do it, but with all the Swamperts and other Pokemon afraid of Ludicolo running around, its just so easy to get off a SD. Its been a long time since I haven't managed to get a SD off with Ludicolo in a game. 8 turns is still enough for Ludicolo to get off a SD and do some big damage for Kingdra to finish off the team.
I've always been inclined to run balanced teams. Sometimes a team is more stall-focused, sometimes one is more offense-focused, but they're all balanced. My latest team uses bulky offense with a good spread of resists and a frail scarfer to knock out some threats with prediction. I seem to do well against stall but fail against hyper offense. Beating stall just takes prediction on my part, landing the Meteor or Superpower on the right Pokemon and watching everything fall apart from Toxic Spikes.
Maybe we play Rain Teams differently, I usually open up with Kingdra to smack around all the walls, and then use a Ludicolo/Kabutops late game since everything is weakened. Ludicolo in my experience makes a much better late game sweeper than an early game wall breaker, while Kindgra can be effective at both late game sweeping, and early game wall breaking. I just find it more beneficial that way. If the whole SD Ludicolo thing works for you, I'm not gonna tell you otherwise, I was just saying why I'd rather run Special over Physical.
And yeah, I've always had a feel for balanced teams. They just seem to be a more all around team, they can still hit hard, and they can still defend well. Most of the time they can beat out a hyper offensive team, and they still match up well with stall. I really just like the versatility that a Balanced team brings to the table, they don't make force you to play in one direction, be it heavy stall, or non-stop offense, but they can allow you to speed up, or slow down the game depending on the scenario.
I have always had a niche for balanced teams, leaning more offensive than stall.
From the Rain teams I have faced, most follow what SoT said. They send in Kingdra immediately to wear down the team, then send Ludicolo to clean up the mess.
EDIT: I tried a Rain Dance team today, and I sucked at it.
The likely reasons why that happened is:
1. Poorly constructed team
2. Not used to playing hyper offensive teams
Since there are some good RD RMTs, I highly doubt that it's because of reason one, which means that it is mostly because of reason two. In my old RD team, I had three Exploders in order to allow some of my frailer sweepers to have a free switch-in. You should also have a method of beating RD teams' greatest nemisises: Blissey, Abamasnow, and Kingdra. To handle Blissey, a Mixdra or some type of lure should suffice. Abamasnow is a litte trickier since it resists Water moves and most other types of moves RD sweepers have. My main way of dealing with it is to have my leadZelf explode on it on sight since most of them are in the lead position anyway (they are also rather rare anyway). The trickiest one to take care of is Kingdra due to its 4x resist on Water moves and its speed in the rain coupled with likely DD boosts. The only way my team was able to defeat it was having my healthy Bronzong Explode on it while it was stuck on Outrage.
Yeah, I felt my team wasn't very good from the start, but I tried it anyways, and after about six or seven matches I felt like it wasn't my thing. My team looked like any Rain Dance team:
Azelf
Rotom-W
Kingdra
Scizor
Kabutops
Ludicolo
I am definately not used to playing hyper-offense, I am used to balanced teams or balanced offense...
Azelf
Rotom-W
Kingdra
Scizor
Kabutops
Ludicolo
I am definately not used to playing hyper-offense, I am used to balanced teams or balanced offense...
Drop a Scizor for Bronzong, it's a lot sturdier and is more reliable to get rain up. Make sure your Rotom can outspeed Lucario and has like HP-Fight or Will-o-Wisp or something, otherwise lucario is a bitch to this team. I guess those are the only changes i would make. ~__~
I have to agree that Bronzong is a must for a RD team since it the best transition pokemon in OU and can nab emergency KOs with Explosion.
Although it has been awhile since I laddered in standard, I believe that Hail isn't used enough to make it a main focus unless your team will have trouble with Abamasnow. The most efficient way to beat Hail is to obviously remove it, but normal teams don't have that option. Therefore, smart playing is the best way to beat it. Offensive teams should constantly pressure the team with attacks and make them gather residual damage from SR due to all the switching. Stall teams would not have too much trouble since they often carry Hippowdon and can shift the momentum to their favor; though it also helps that SR takes a quarter of Abamasnow's HP. As for balanced teams, they vary too greatly to give a general strategy for them to beat hail.
Hail teams in general have trouble with Tyranitar, Lucario, Heatran, Scizor, and Salamence to an extent. All of those pokemon are common as shit, so that really doesn't work in it's favorite. Most pokemon viable on a Hail team are weak to Stealth Rocks, another common move, so it's almost a necessity to have a spinner. Hail teams are extremely multi-dimensional, generally based around 1 strategy: Toxic Spikes + Stallrein. A lot of things that are out and about right now resist Toxic Spikes, and usually will beat Wallrein 1 vs 1. Not much is in favor for a Hail team at this moment. Hail offense isn't exactly as viable as Sandstorm is, seeing as a good number of sweepers resist Sandstorm, so they don't take damage from it, while opposing Pokemon still take damage from it.
I don't know where are you coming from. To me half the OU counters/checks Scizor unless they're really low on HP anyways.
if "really low" is less than 50% hp, then yes, half of OU is KO'd by scizor using a priority move when they are "really low" on hp. and alot of the things switching in take big time damage.
Water, fire, electric and steel types are everywhere and Scizor easily do nothing% to them with BP (except really frail things like Jolteon and maybe Infernape). 50% is a HUGE overstatement.
Ever heard of physical walls/tanks that resist BP. They don't really mind getting hit by the attack. Skarmory, Forretress, Metagross, Heatran, especially Magnezone, Zapdos, and bulky waters are some of the pokemon that I thought up of on the spot that fit this criteria.
it does more than 50% to salamence 100% of the time, i use that as a guideline