Rate of the Week V3: Week 25

[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)

 

[Cynde]

This week's UU winner is Adaam! His rate is a well structured and well written rate showcasing good formatting and conciseness. Adaam initially suggested Swampert over Rhyperior as ground type wall-breakers such as Mamoswine and Mega Swampert are threatening to the team. Unlike Rhyperior, Swampert isn't weak to ground type moves so it's able to match up far better against those pokemon.

His next change of Sylveon over Darmanitan was an important defensive change as it restricted the ability of specially offensive Dragon-types such as Hydreigon to punish the team, while also improving the team's match up against special attackers in general. The support Sylveon provides to other teammates like Swampert and Forretress in the form of Wish is useful so they can remain healthy enough to switch into opposing Pokemon repeatedly throughout the course of the game. Adaam also mentioned that Darmanitan was not really effective on Balanced teams which made this a suitable change.

In his next change he mentions that DD Feraligatr isn't really effective in the current metagame as it's unable to outspeed most choice scarf users and other common, fast Pokemon such as Mega Aerodactyl, Crobat and Mega Sceptile in addition to facing serious competition from Gyarados. He changes DD to SD in order for it to wallbreak more effectively and remove some pressure off Mega Sceptile as a Suicune check. He also mentions that Aqua Jet will be useful to beat faster threats such as Mega Beedrill that attempt to revenge kill it.

After that, Adaam suggested that Knock Off be run over Foul Play on Sableye as it'll help cripple fairy types and Guts-utilising Fighting-types. He mentions that the usual targets of Foul Play such as Entei and Mega Absol are already sufficiently handled by the team. Thanks to his great rate Adaam has earned himself a spot in the hall of fame! Congratulations!

 

[deoxys speed]

This week's DOU winner is Level 51! His rate offered several small changes like more efficient EV spreads and one set change on Landorus-Therian that really improved upon an already good looking team. First off Level 51 suggested to take away some of Conkeldurr's Attack and HP and put it into Defense and Speed so it could take a Draco or Psyshock from Latios and a Jolly Fake Out + Return or Adamant Double-Edge from Mega Kangaskhan while still having the strength to knock them both out after taking the hit and also being able to out run Adamant Kangaskhan in Tailwind.

His next change was giving Sub Heatran a lot more HP instead of Special Attack because Sub Tran's main purpose isn't to knock out everything on the field it is to keep a Substitute up and annoy the heck out of your opponent so having Adamant Landorus-T's Rock Slide not breaking your Sub which a lot of teams rely on late game when they can't afford to lock themselves into Earthquake or Superpower is good to have. The last change and the biggest was changing the odd mixed Substitute Landorus-T into a purely physical Assault Vest set with Stone Edge and a Jolly nature.

This helped quite a bit with the Mega Charizard-Y match up seeing as most Charizard carry Hidden Power Ground or Focus Blast so Heatran can't just wall it and his Scarf Kyurem-B needed quite a bit of residual damage to knock it out with Fusion Bolt. Almost all Charizard-Y builds have Wide Guard somewhere so using Stone Edge instead of Rock Slide is a good call and Jolly is necessary because some bulky Zards have 282 speed to out run Adamant Scarf Lando-T after an Icy Wind and Modest Hydreigon is also a common Pokemon so Jolly is nice for catching those two.

Thanks to this solid rate, Level 51 has earned himself a spot in the hall of fame! Congratulations! :>

 

[feen]

This week's Monotype winner is all falls down! His rate is a well displayed one with an excellent format. First, he notified the threats to the team, and went on to mitigate the threats. His first change was using Substitute over Earthquake on Gyarados. While Earthquake is useful in beating Electric teams, the team had nothing for Psychic teams, which is more common overall. Having Substitute on Gyarados lets it set up on Psychic walls, ravaging through the team. All falls down also stated that Politoed is useless on a team without taking advantage of rain, and suggested using Choice Specs Keldeo over it. Keldeo gives the team a wallbreaker, and a key Pokemon in dealing with Steel- and Normal-types.

All Falls Down also made Rotom-W bulkier, as it can check Electric-types, as well as a lot of types, while offensive variants aren't really that effective. His last changes were running Knock Off on Azumarill with a better EV spread, and Acid Spray on Tentacruel in order to have better matchup versus Calm Mind Clefable. Thanks to his well written rate, all falls down earns another spot in the Hall of Fame! Congrats!