Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
Translation: Compression of Rats
How about one of the coolest anime tracks in the franchise to go with it?
With the RBY NU Cup coming soon, I want to share a team that I thoroughly enjoyed using during NU Snake Draft II. I most certainly wasn't the best competitor there, but a bunch of people liked my use of Raticate in the tournament, and it's one of my favourite Pokemon to use in the tier, so I may as well talk about it in-depth.
This team was originally not very good. When I was preparing, Ika Ika Musume and pac helped me with optimising the team by compressing the roles I wanted into different Pokemon, as well as just using better things. Eventually, we ended up with a general "goodstuff" core that used Raticate as less of a setup tool for Kingler and more just what it is. It followed a lot of the rationale you see today: Blastoise + Poliwhirl is a very difficult core to counter, Charizard is broken and arguably #1, and Mr. Mime is mandatory. Very simple, very effective.
The at-the-time-final version of this mess performed admirably against Serpi, but unfortunately lost due to an untimely critical hit and iffy move choice I'll go over later. You can see it at play here, at 23:00;
The Team
Poliwhirl
Ability: No Ability
- Amnesia
- Hypnosis
- Surf
- Counter
Poliwhirl is a little goober. By using it, you're just saying "I'm going to take everything you love" to your opponent. For a Raticate team, this is exactly what you need, because that's your aim. Anyway, normally, Poliwhirl builds use Psychic to cover Blastoise, which tends to wall it otherwise. However, I used Counter specifically because Serpi likes to lead Charizard and uses Slash to contest Poliwhirl. I personally think it's still fine against Blastoise, as it tends to use Seismic Toss to contest Poliwhirl anyway. Naturally, knowing this exists is enough to stop it, but I think it's quite the bargain anyway given how often it goads players into having to attack it with a Body Slam or something.
Charizard
Ability: No Ability
- Fire Spin
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Hyper Beam
Raticate
Ability: No Ability
- Super Fang
- Hyper Beam
- Body Slam
-
Clefable
Ability: No Ability
- Body Slam
- Blizzard
-
- Thunder Wave
Mr. Mime
Ability: No Ability
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Seismic Toss
- Thunder Wave
A mandatory Pokemon in NU, apparently, but sometimes I think it isn't and people are simping too much. That aside, Mr. Mime is the core special offence of the tier and works really well with Raticate, as I can usually take a Mime out without compromising my own at all. Keeping the opponent off Mime is very important given nothing resists Psychic, and it helps in the anti-Water effort as well.
Blastoise
Ability: No Ability
- Surf
- Body Slam
- Seismic Toss
- Counter
Conclusion
This team style has a lot of potential. I'm probably going to be using an upgraded version (and probably a lot of other rat teams) in NU Cup in some capacity, as I kind of just play the tier for it anyway. This was a fun trip down memory lane and I hope you enjoy horsing around with what may be one of the most successful teams I've ever made for RBY as a generation.Here's the importable of the original;
Pokepaste
Poliwhirl
Ability: No Ability
- Amnesia
- Hypnosis
- Surf
- Counter
Charizard
Ability: No Ability
- Fire Spin
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Hyper Beam
Raticate
Ability: No Ability
- Super Fang
- Hyper Beam
- Body Slam
- Bubble Beam
Clefable
Ability: No Ability
- Body Slam
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
Mr. Mime
Ability: No Ability
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Seismic Toss
- Thunder Wave
Blastoise
Ability: No Ability
- Surf
- Body Slam
- Seismic Toss
- Counter
Ability: No Ability
- Amnesia
- Hypnosis
- Surf
- Counter
Charizard
Ability: No Ability
- Fire Spin
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Hyper Beam
Raticate
Ability: No Ability
- Super Fang
- Hyper Beam
- Body Slam
- Bubble Beam
Clefable
Ability: No Ability
- Body Slam
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
Mr. Mime
Ability: No Ability
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Seismic Toss
- Thunder Wave
Blastoise
Ability: No Ability
- Surf
- Body Slam
- Seismic Toss
- Counter