Walrein @ Leftovers
EVs: whatever defensive stuff
- Blizzurf
- Substitute
- Protect
- ????????
It's that fourth moveslot that really makes all the difference when you're trying to counter Walrein, and I think it's worth mentioning a couple of things about it.
I've seen a lot of people saying that Roar is better "because you don't need Toxic when you have Hazards/Toxic Spikes".
This is true. I also prefer Roar on Walrein to Toxic.
However, it is completely not correct when you say that during a suspect discussion. At that point, you're not saying that Walrein with Roar is broken, you're saying that Walrein with Roar is
conditionally broken provided that toxic spikes are on the field and can not be blown away/absorbed easily etc. etc. It's the same thing as me saying "Walrein isn't broken because it dies because toxic spikes are on the field". (Also, Cryogonal but yeah.)
Toxic Walrein, on the other hand, has a couple more actual, not conditional counters. For instance, anything that is faster than Walrein, is ice type or has leftovers, and has substitute, can basically set up on Walrein and do whatever it wants (providing it has a move that can easily break Walrein's sub). Furthermore, any Steel Type with leftovers is similarly immune to most of what Walrein can do. (And please, people, don't say "No because Walrein is behind a sub and Escavalier comes in and it surfs predicting the switch and then it surfs again as you break the sub and then surf is a 3hko! Once again, that's completely
conditional and doesn't deserve to be said in a suspect discussion).
Finally, I'd like to point out four pokemon that are pretty good in RU.
Entei, Moltres, Dusknoir, Spiritomb.
The common thing that all of these pokemon share isn't that they take little damage from Walrein's attack, or that they're immune to Toxic, or that they don't take damage from hail. They all do. What they share is Pressure and the possibility of running viable moves that can easily break Walrein's sub. If Walrein wants to get anywhere killing these things, it's forced to blizzard them using 1/4 of its PP each time. This means that whenever a Blizzard is predicted, you can just switch into one of these pokes (most of which don't take much damage from it), and sooner or later Walrein's PP will be gone. (It's obviously different if you run Surf, but I find Surf to be less threatening in general, and it opens Walrein up to a bunch of new threats (most notably every regenerator core ever). Entei could actually run Roar to further counter Walrein as well.
What I'm trying to get at here is that Walrein without Blizzard suddenly becomes much less threatening. It can't touch anything with Rest, or even something as simple as a Slowking - Amoonguss regenerator core, which can just keep switching back and forth until Walrein dies to its on struggling.
Honestly, Regenerator cores in general are pretty handy counters to Walrein. Amoonguss and Tangrowth obviously don't appreciate taking a Blizzard to the face, but Audino, Slowking and Alomomola paired together in any fashion can deal with any variants running Blizzard. Surf is destroyed by any regenerator core, as I mentioned above.
Finally, I'd just like to address the people saying "oh you're using an unorthodox set to counter a pokemon that I call broken? that must mean that the pokemon is broken!". As was mentioned before, this whole "Walrein is broken hail is broken" attitude is fairly new in RU. Because of this, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that we haven't considered all the counters of the pokemon in question, and that certain unorthodox sets might not be unorthodox if people start trying to counter it, now that it's apparentally a real threat. The pokemon i'm referring to is SpD Magneton, which is actually already a listed set on Smogon which says that it probably doesn't "not have utility vs. other teams".
I don't think only SpD Magneton could work though. Here's a pretty handy way to get rid of a Walrein behind a sub too.
@ Eviolite
EVs: 252 HP/252 SpA/4 SpD
IVs: 20 Speed
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- HP Fire
- Volt Switch
252+ SpA Magneton Volt Switch vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Walrein: 320-380 (43.86 - 51.41%)
By giving Magneton 20 Speed IVs, he drops to one point below Walrein's normal uninvested base 65. The slow Volt Switch allows it to break Walrein's sub as it Blizzards, and lets you switch into something that can threaten Walrein out of the field, whether it be a fast Toxicer, something that can OHKO it, etc. For more fun, you could pair it with a Galvantula or a Rotom-Mow, giving you not only an awesome offensive Duo-Electric core, but also allowing you to keep the momentum up by volt switching again. The vast majority of hail teams run absolutely no ground types (bye NQueen), so you don't have to fear them, allowing you to run HP Fire and Flash Cannon as amazing coverage against hail teams, absolutely slaughtering Hail pokes left and right.
252+ SpA Magneton Flash Cannon vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Glaceon: 284-336 (104.79 - 123.98%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Magneton Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Snover: 480-568 (148.14 - 175.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Magneton Hidden Power Fire vs. 248 HP / 0+ SpD Escavalier: 280-332 (81.63 - 96.79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO, probable OHKO after rocks
252+ SpA Magneton Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Dewgong: 338-398 (88.02 - 103.64%) -- 25% chance to OHKO ;)
Yes, it's stopped by HP Ground, but if you're forcing Glaceon "the big blizzspam threat" to lock itself into HP Ground, then you can probably deal with it pretty easily.