Rainy days... A Gen 5 OU..

[blackwing_zero]

My Team For Rainy Days ​

My tl;dr​

Hello again, and welcome to my second RMT! This team was made for the suspect tests and I put my best effort into it, trying to reach 1500. Well, seeing as this was my first suspect test it wasn't too bad~ Before that, i've tried all sorts of teams and playstyles but wasn't really successful and I had almost given up. But on the last day, I saw the announcement and thought, hey, i haven't used manaphy yet, might as well give it a try now before it goes to ubers. So thats the story of the team, i realise it's a tl;dr kinda thing so you can skip it if you want ;) Overall, this has been one of my most favorite teams and fits in well with the metagame.​

Here's what i'm talking about:

Now time for the process:​

I wanted to test manaphy so that had to be a part of the team, but i haven't had any experience with rain dance teams yet so i decided to start with the basics, this team needed rain so politoed was naturally chosen. Then I added manaphy to the team, but I also wanted another pokemon to make use of rain so i decided on a kingdra. That's half the team already, next up i wanted to cover any weaknesses i had. Okay, that was a bad idea, for any team there are loads of weaknesses and not enough pokes to cover them all so i decided to include something that will be useful no matter what. This leads me to darkrai, who can put a troublesome pokemon to sleep and come back in later to be a threat. And finally I wanted priority no matter what which brings me to scizor who works pretty well in the rain. Last but not least we have cloyster, yes, really. At first i had cloyster to try out shell break and have access to ice shard to revenge dragons but then i realised how useless it was and replaced it with deoxy-A who does everything, but better.​

No weaknesses and resistance chart this time because a) it's a rain team and b) because this isn't meant to be a defensive team, unless you count scizor as a defensive poke~​

"Add a bit more depth or else i'll have to lock your thread?!"​

Politoed (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Focus Blast
- Toxic​

First off we have politoed, who sets the pace of the game and summons rain. I chose a scarf set because i realised that it isn't completely deadweight on a team and works best as a revenge killer. This job is usually best kept for a fast frail sweeper who can use choice items and deal massive damage, but it is also the safest position to be in since they usually only come in after a kill. I wanted to kept my toad safe so i made it into a revenge killer, it uses only the rain to boost his main stab move. Ice beam is for coverage and toxic is for enemy toads since they're usually pretty bulky. Focus blast doesn't do enough damage so i'm not sure.​

Manaphy @ Rindo Berry
Trait: Hydration
EVs: 252 HP / 240 SAtk / 16 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Tail Glow
- Rest
- Surf
- Ice Beam​

Next up is uber nominee of the year, manaphy. This is a specialised manaphy set that is designed to sweep but also be able to beat a common check in shaymin or nattorei via rindo berry. At +6 in the rain, surf does 77.6% - 91.2% to 252/252 sassy nattorei, the most defensive set out there. If it tries to set up spikes then scizor can come in and u-turn out meaning it won't be able to counter manaphy anymore. Also, it takes 151.5% - 178.2% from a modest 252 SAtk specs skymin so you're always able to survive a seed flare at full health thanks to rindo berry. The Spd evs let it outpace max speed adamant breloom, and the rest is put into HP for maximum bulk. The remainder goes into SAtk using a modest nature to deal as much damage as possible after 1 turn of set up. I haven't used CM manaphy yet but this is definitely it's best set i believe. Using manaphy makes rain teams worthwile since it can easily beat stall by itself and makes darkrai tame without dark void to abuse.​

Darkrai @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Bad Dreams
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Trick
- Dark Void
- Dark Pulse
- Focus Blast​

Scarf Darkrai really catches people of guard! not many people expect it to be carrying a scarf considering how popular the NP set is but that makes this set all the more effective. Trick can cripple walls and dark void puts troublesome pokemon to sleep. The two moves provide good coverage and lets darkrai sweep weakened enemies. Interestingly, it outpaces max speed adamant doryuuzu in the sand so jolly really is the best nature? Pretty much nothing can safely switch into this set, sweepers can't switch for fear of getting slept and walls will be rendered useless via trick. The thing I love about darkrai is how well it deals with sashers at 1 HP, dark void puts them to sleep and bad dreams makes them faint, letting me use dark void again on the incoming pokemon.​

Scizor (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Rain Dance​

Do i really have to explain scizor? Well, okay then, since you asked so nicely. Scizor makes great use of u-turn to get good switch ins and bullet punch to revenge kill. everything is standard apart from its last move which is kinda like an ace in the hole, so to speak. It's only used in those rare emergency situations where i don't have rain up and they still have a bunch of threatening sweepers left. I still think it's better than pursuit though, as whenever the opponent tries to switch out, you're generally better off using u-turn to gain momentum.​

Kingdra (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Draco Meteor
- Hydro Pump
- Dragon Pulse
- Surf

We now turn to kingdra, the second most threatening sweeper in the rain. I don't really have experience using kingdra but i saw someone mention how good it was on the suspect thread so i decided to give it a try. I'm pretty impressed with its performance so far, its deals insane damage with just two moves and they even have pretty good coverage which is a nice plus. The reason for the ridiculous amount of speed is to revenge kill other kingdras that don't invest in full speed which is pretty much all of them! An important member of the team :)

Deoxys-A @ Focus Sash
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Ice Beam
- Thunder
- Psycho Boost
- Superpower

Just plain old deoxys, it makes for a great revenge killer and hits like a truck but can't really take one himself :P It has the worst case of "4 moveslot syndrome" i have ever seen! using coverage moves means missing out on extremespeed! stealth rock! taunt & magic mirror! Given the difficultly i decided to keep it simple and go for coverage moves only. The moveset is simple: ice beam and thunder to make use of the legendary boltbeam combo and abuse the rain. Psycho boost is an overpowered psychic move that even gets STAB and works off of a base 180 SAtk, definitely no safe switch ins unless its tyranitar who dies to superpower anyways~



Finally, the conclusion

I do have more to say about the team, but it'll probably take forever, so i'm just going to say a few. This has been one of my best teams so far and was very fun to play with, i wanted to share this team with everyone and hope you enjoyed it. Any comments or criticisms are appreciated. Overall, i found 5th Gen to be the most fun and hopefully it will continue to grow to become a diverse and interesting metagame, i'm also working on a warstory so that's something to look forward to. Thanks for reading~





*Threat list coming soon