Rate of the Week V4: Week 32

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IronBullet

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Rate of the Week
This is a project that looks to bring quality individual rates into the spotlight and recognise the hard work of unbadged raters.
  • 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 can be multiple winners every week - ideally 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 they are the main focus of this project.
So what's in it for the winners? 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.
Week #1 - Amoonguss (ORAS OU)
Week #2 - tankmonx (SM OU)
Week #3 - streams (SM OU)
Week #4 - Amoonguss (SM OU)
Week #5 - bludz (SM OU)
Week #6 - tigers jaw (SM OU)
Week #7 - Avidity (SM OU)
Week #8 - AnishSomani (SM OU)
Week #9 - FlamingVictini (SM OU)
Week #10 - Vertex (SM OU)
Week #11 - DracoNinja (SM OU)
Week #12 - MFJr King (SM OU)
Week #13 - Ramses (SM OU)
Week #14 - Amoonguss (SM OU)
Week #15 - MFJr King (SM OU)
Week #16 - Gross Sweep (SM OU)
Week #17 - MFJr King (SM OU)
Week #18 - AnishSomani (SM OU)
Week #19 - FlamingVictini (SM OU)
Week #20 - Gross Sweep (SM OU)
Week #21 - Gross Sweep (SM OU)
Week #22 - MFJR King (SM OU)
Week #23 - Tinberz (SM OU)
Week #24 - H.M.N.I.P (SM OU)
Week #25 - MFJr King (SM OU)
Week #26 - Gross Sweep (SM OU)
Week #27 - IronBullet (SM OU)
Week #28 - AnishSomani (SM OU)
Week #29 - IronBullet (SM OU)
Week #30 - AnishSomani (SM OU)
Week #32 - AnishSomani (SM OU)
 

IronBullet

Astronomy Domine
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Congrats to AnishSomani for winning once again with an excellent, detailed rate. He starts off by accurately identifying the major threats to the team, namely Tapu Lele, Calm Mind Clefable and Fightinium Z Magearna. He also explains that the team is too reliant on Mega Heracross and Heatran to break stall, which can be dangerous since Unaware Clefable can easily check Heracross.

To remedy this, he first suggests running a Psychium Z Calm Mind Latios over his current set. This allows Latios to put tremendous pressure on stall teams while allowing it to break balanced teams as well. It also pairs extremely well with Ash-Greninja since it can take advantage of the Spikes Greninja lays down, while aiding Greninja by breaking through Ferrothorn and AV Magearna. Removing Defog is not that big of a loss since the team appreciates Spikes and relies on offensive pressure to defeat the opponent. Common Toxic Spikes users do not threaten this team much, while webs are not as much of a concern nowadays due to their relative rarity. With Latios taking up the Z move slot, Anish then recommends running Leftovers on Heatran with Taunt instead of Toxic and a bulkier EV spread. The extra HP and Taunt helps to prevent Defog and deal more reliably with threats like CM Magearna, Mimikyu and Clefable, while still maintaining the ability to defeat Toxapex.

Since the team now does not struggle against bulkier teams, Anish suggests replacing Mega Heracross with Shift Gear + Calm Mind Magearna. This greatly helps with the team's Tapu Lele weakness and provides the team with a secondary wincon that synergises well with Latios and Ash-Greninja, while still checking Dark-types like Weavile. The downside of losing the ability to pressurise AV Tangrowth and Tapu Bulu is not too significant since the rest of the team still significantly threatens them.

Lastly, Anish suggests a slight teak to Garchomp's moveset with Rock Tomb over Stone Edge to make it easier to deal with important threats like Dragonite and Landorus-T, and Dragon Claw over Outrage to prevent setup opportunities for the opponent and maintain momentum.
 
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