With the WCOP and BW1 simultaneously coming to an end, during my current lack of responsibility in real life pokemon has once again taken top priority on my mind. I'm as satisfied with the game as I was last time I posted an RMT and I believe it's the proper time to do so again.
You may know the ending BW1 metagame was my personal least favorite, but for team west I sucked it up. I use rain less than other styles in BW, but to be fair I've grown to hate using pretty much any type of team- this is what I think of them.
I built this team with ElDino during the dinosaur ages of BW suspect testing and never really used it, but just before the preliminary round I dug it up and just the lineup alone screamed potential at me. This is what i saw (literally there were no items/moves just pokemon)-
Noodlez, who I was testing with at the time was using Iconic's Eriatarka against me, which led to my discovery of Specs Starmie. What a thug. When I dug this team up I imagine that Starmie over Tentacruel and I loved the idea. Thank you Noodlez for dropping that off before you left.
My experience with this team has been "meh". There have been awful test games where a little slip leads to an instant loss and team matchups that were just impossible. It went 1-1 for me in the wcop which was satisfying enough (although I was very angry about how I lost). Regardless, my favorite teams (bar the Subroost nite one) can be dumbed down to the basic building blocks, and I believe this one is "Politoed, best possible Rain steel for the team, best Rotom-W check, best Sun check, best Spinner/Specs user, best late game cleaner". Not quite as simple as the "4 best rain mons + Toed + Duggy" philosophy I found behind a team I borrowed but I'm hoping the point was as simple as it looked. Here's the full lineup-
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SAtk / 216 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Surf
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Focus Blast
SpecsToed quickly became my favorite Politoed because it's probably the easiest to win the weather war with, the power isn't bad either. I chose Scald because I don't value any other filler moves it learns, Scald can let me do something to Tentacruel switches and maybe catch Protect SpD Tran off guard if it thinks I'm a bulky Toed early game.
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Atk / 128 Def / 88 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Hypnosis
Bronzong is the best Steel-type for this team for a few reasons, it's harder for the opponent to get leverage against early on, OHKOes Terrakion, and lures in a few cool things with Hypnosis. Hypnosis may be unreliable but when it works, and it works at the right time, it does something really cool. If I can sleep a Forry I'm suddenly able to get Stealth Rock when it would normally be impossible, same for Tenta. Sleeping Ferrothorn in particular is huge because Starmie can do some serious work most of the time after that. With Zong's bulk I can usually get that free kill because it's so hard to immediately KO under rain.
I have considered going EQ + HP Ice for coverage against Landlo even when I'm burnt (in case I wanted to sleep a Rotom-W) but it seems like an optional thing. Overall great pivot into all the Psychic / Dragon / Flying etc. moves this team draws.
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Focus Blast
Very underrated set IMO. It gets a lot of criticism for being "too weak" but in my experience it's easy to just get out and blast with this thing. It's an excellent stop to Rotom-W, has the coverage to hit anything hard with a boost, and keeps itself healthy with Giga Drain. I don't see what else there is to ask for on this team, except for some way around team matchup. I have considered SD Virizion because Rain Stall doesn't have any problems here but it's not convincingly worth it, especially when it doesn't solidly beat rain stall in the first place.
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Outrage
- Waterfall
- Brick Break
- ExtremeSpeed
My basic anti-sun mon. Another thing that can clean house when the Forry / Skarm / Ferro is put to sleep. Choice Band Dragonite.
All there is to say is Hurricane / Aqua Tail / Extremespeed / Roost and Dragon Dance Hurricane sets were also fun, but CB is just the best Nite.
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder
- Rapid Spin
- Trick
The reason I love Noodlez. Specs Hydro Pump coming from Starmie is truly something to behold. Natt is almost 2HKOed by it and doesn't do well at all when slept. The other 3 moves are for stall and pretty much only stall. Unless they have all of SpD Celebi / Jelli / Blissey or something there shouldn't be too much trouble finding a way to spin and cripple an important wall.
Trait: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 108 Def / 148 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Protect
The late game cleaner. Very hard to stop if the right things are weakened / slept, Extremespeed from Lucario and Bullet Punches from Scizor won't work with the defense investment. If the matchup is wrong this guy can't really do much though, no way to weaken rain stall with a rain team without some random status mon like Mew or Jellicent which wouldn't fit anyway unless I decided to go with something like dual hazard Skarm / Forry / Natt over Zong and Jelli over Starmie.
I have considered Scarf Moxie Gyarados or even DD Gyara in this slot.
I hope you all found the team cool, it's very fun if you match it up against a balanced / offensive team and I'm proud it doesn't use the bullshit mon Deoxys-D. Goodnight, Travel Well BW1, ye were a piece of shit.
Pretty Dragonair-
You may know the ending BW1 metagame was my personal least favorite, but for team west I sucked it up. I use rain less than other styles in BW, but to be fair I've grown to hate using pretty much any type of team- this is what I think of them.
Rain Stall- If you match against another rain stall with Heal Bell Chansey lol, even a Tentacruel Scald war would've been better.
Rain Offense- How do you beat stall with this? Well Work Up Vappy maybe
Terrakion Sand offense- Repeated coin flips take precedence against other Terrakion sand teams
Deo-D offense- this is just stupid
Drag/Mag- enjoyable for some but trolled by Gliscor
Sun- How much variety is there here?
Sun stall- Please don't bring Heatran against me
Sand stall- Probably the most fun thing to use lol. Bulk Up loom leads to really long annoying games if you dont have something like aerial ace glisc but other than that you can stay awake pretty easily
Rain Offense- How do you beat stall with this? Well Work Up Vappy maybe
Terrakion Sand offense- Repeated coin flips take precedence against other Terrakion sand teams
Deo-D offense- this is just stupid
Drag/Mag- enjoyable for some but trolled by Gliscor
Sun- How much variety is there here?
Sun stall- Please don't bring Heatran against me
Sand stall- Probably the most fun thing to use lol. Bulk Up loom leads to really long annoying games if you dont have something like aerial ace glisc but other than that you can stay awake pretty easily
I built this team with ElDino during the dinosaur ages of BW suspect testing and never really used it, but just before the preliminary round I dug it up and just the lineup alone screamed potential at me. This is what i saw (literally there were no items/moves just pokemon)-
Noodlez, who I was testing with at the time was using Iconic's Eriatarka against me, which led to my discovery of Specs Starmie. What a thug. When I dug this team up I imagine that Starmie over Tentacruel and I loved the idea. Thank you Noodlez for dropping that off before you left.
My experience with this team has been "meh". There have been awful test games where a little slip leads to an instant loss and team matchups that were just impossible. It went 1-1 for me in the wcop which was satisfying enough (although I was very angry about how I lost). Regardless, my favorite teams (bar the Subroost nite one) can be dumbed down to the basic building blocks, and I believe this one is "Politoed, best possible Rain steel for the team, best Rotom-W check, best Sun check, best Spinner/Specs user, best late game cleaner". Not quite as simple as the "4 best rain mons + Toed + Duggy" philosophy I found behind a team I borrowed but I'm hoping the point was as simple as it looked. Here's the full lineup-
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SAtk / 216 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Surf
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Focus Blast
SpecsToed quickly became my favorite Politoed because it's probably the easiest to win the weather war with, the power isn't bad either. I chose Scald because I don't value any other filler moves it learns, Scald can let me do something to Tentacruel switches and maybe catch Protect SpD Tran off guard if it thinks I'm a bulky Toed early game.
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Atk / 128 Def / 88 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Hypnosis
Bronzong is the best Steel-type for this team for a few reasons, it's harder for the opponent to get leverage against early on, OHKOes Terrakion, and lures in a few cool things with Hypnosis. Hypnosis may be unreliable but when it works, and it works at the right time, it does something really cool. If I can sleep a Forry I'm suddenly able to get Stealth Rock when it would normally be impossible, same for Tenta. Sleeping Ferrothorn in particular is huge because Starmie can do some serious work most of the time after that. With Zong's bulk I can usually get that free kill because it's so hard to immediately KO under rain.
I have considered going EQ + HP Ice for coverage against Landlo even when I'm burnt (in case I wanted to sleep a Rotom-W) but it seems like an optional thing. Overall great pivot into all the Psychic / Dragon / Flying etc. moves this team draws.
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Focus Blast
Very underrated set IMO. It gets a lot of criticism for being "too weak" but in my experience it's easy to just get out and blast with this thing. It's an excellent stop to Rotom-W, has the coverage to hit anything hard with a boost, and keeps itself healthy with Giga Drain. I don't see what else there is to ask for on this team, except for some way around team matchup. I have considered SD Virizion because Rain Stall doesn't have any problems here but it's not convincingly worth it, especially when it doesn't solidly beat rain stall in the first place.
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Outrage
- Waterfall
- Brick Break
- ExtremeSpeed
My basic anti-sun mon. Another thing that can clean house when the Forry / Skarm / Ferro is put to sleep. Choice Band Dragonite.
All there is to say is Hurricane / Aqua Tail / Extremespeed / Roost and Dragon Dance Hurricane sets were also fun, but CB is just the best Nite.
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder
- Rapid Spin
- Trick
The reason I love Noodlez. Specs Hydro Pump coming from Starmie is truly something to behold. Natt is almost 2HKOed by it and doesn't do well at all when slept. The other 3 moves are for stall and pretty much only stall. Unless they have all of SpD Celebi / Jelli / Blissey or something there shouldn't be too much trouble finding a way to spin and cripple an important wall.
Trait: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 108 Def / 148 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Protect
The late game cleaner. Very hard to stop if the right things are weakened / slept, Extremespeed from Lucario and Bullet Punches from Scizor won't work with the defense investment. If the matchup is wrong this guy can't really do much though, no way to weaken rain stall with a rain team without some random status mon like Mew or Jellicent which wouldn't fit anyway unless I decided to go with something like dual hazard Skarm / Forry / Natt over Zong and Jelli over Starmie.
I have considered Scarf Moxie Gyarados or even DD Gyara in this slot.
I hope you all found the team cool, it's very fun if you match it up against a balanced / offensive team and I'm proud it doesn't use the bullshit mon Deoxys-D. Goodnight, Travel Well BW1, ye were a piece of shit.
Pretty Dragonair-
