SS UU Rising Voltage Team

[Volantary]

Hi all, this is only my second RMT. I wanted to share a team I made about a year ago and still tears through some teams on the ladder at around 1500 rating. I have some wins against pretty respected UU players and it's a ton of fun to play, hopefully some others can get some use out of it.

https://pokepast.es/f866e42150e4d95e

Pincurchin @ Terrain Extender
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rising Voltage
- Spikes
- Recover
- Scald

Pincurchin kind of speaks for itself. Ground types switch into it pretty often, so scald is a great way to punish that with some reasonable damage or a burn. Spikes are the only hazards on the team; against more passive teams it doesn't have a problem using Spikes and Recover to get all three layers up. I actually rarely click rising coltage, but it does do a good job of deterring Skarm from trying to defog, and it hits neutral targets harder than you might think.

Toxtricity @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Punk Rock
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rising Voltage
- Volt Switch
- Boomburst
- Sludge Wave

Toxtricitys typing is great in some situations, and the first of three scarfers on the team. Boomburst is great to punish ground type switch ins, and rising voltage for most other things. Volt switch for momentum and sludge wave mainly for tang. With a scarf its speed is pretty good, and the two hard hitting moves plus volt switch means scouting it's set can be punished pretty well. The number of scarfers on the team can surprise an opponent, getting some advantage from an opponent who's decided "there's no way they're running this many scarfers".

Raichu-Alola @ Life Orb
Ability: Surge Surfer
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rising Voltage
- Grass Knot
- Psyshock
- Surf

The main feature of the team. Grass knot doesn't OHKO most swampert which is good to keep in mind, but it does with spikes up. Rising voltage is brutal, psyshock is great to counter venasaur in the sun, surf and grass knot is great coverage. Taking out ground types is a win con for this team as rising voltage from Raichu, Tox and Pincurchin rip through everything else. I switched between specs and LO for Raichu, but I think a well played LO is a great win con.

Rotom-Wash @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Trick
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch

Trick cripples stall, hydro helps get rid of grounds, defog helps keep Raichu alive. Volt switch gains momentum. Rotom always puts in work, and this is no exception.

Keldeo @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Flip Turn
- Secret Sword
- Icy Wind
- Surf

Keldeo is brutal in general. It's role here is to help take out grounds, and/or keep momentum with flip turn. Icy wind can punish a salamence or tang, or get a vital suicide speed drop on a barreskewda or venasaur in their respective weather.

Gardevoir @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Mystical Fire

To be honest, gardevoir was originally here because I think it's super underrated and I like the fun interactions trace can bring. It's turned out to be one of the unsung heroes of the team. Trick again cripples stall, psyshock hits Chansey nicely, moonblast is a fantastic nuke and mystical fire can win matchups against special attackers. Almost no-one expects a third scarfer, so it's late game cleaning potential is surprisingly strong. Even when you see it coming, trace + scarf + spatk is tough to deal with.

The team is played by getting electric terrain + spikes up as early as possible, then punishing the inevitable ground switch ins with coverage. Once the grounds are gone, Raichu + Gardevoir can win.

The team is fairly weak to barreskewda in rain, and struggles to break some balance teams. I've never had a problem with stall, trick scarf + the pure power breaks fairly easily. If offence doesn't have a way to outspeed Raichu, it tends to fall apart too.

Hope someone who isn't me has fun with this one :)

 

[justdrew]

So, I totally got distracted and stopped doing rates for a little while but I'm back!

I'm going to be honest and say that this is a hard team to rate because objectively there is a lot that needs to be fixed. For one, with Scizor and Hippowdon dominating this tier, Gardevoir isn't viable at all. Your Keldeo set also just isn't optimal. You want Calm Mind 3 attacks with Leftovers or Choice Specs, Life Orb doesn't work outside hyper offense. Next, you have too many Choice Scarfs. You only ever need one on a standard team. One form of speed control is usually fine. You also have Surge Surfer on top of 3 Choice Scarf users.

Keep those fundamental errors in mind when remaking this team. But I have to say, Electric Terrain isn't a strategy that's been used in any recent tournament in SS UU--to my knowledge. So I don't think it's viable. I would suggest that you mess around with either Sun, Rain, or hyper offense with a suicide lead like Excadrill or Scolipede.

Generally speaking if youre team has more than 2 non UU Pokemon (your team has 4) it's not going to be very viable or successful in a competitive UU setting. I encourage you to learn more about UU and post another RMT when you make another team you think is solid!

 

[Volantary]

Thank you for that analysis, super insightful.

I guess this is a problem with not being punished by not playing too high up on the ladder, although I have gotten wins against strong players with this team.

I fully accept that Gardevoir isn't great in the current meta, to be honest I didn't realise it doesn't even appear on the VR. You're right that my UU knowledge is at least out of date, I built this before scizor & hippo dropped. I just enjoy using it, and catching scizor with mystical fire is fun, but I accept that's not really a good competitive reason.

I'm interested to know why the Keldeo set is considered bad though. I find myself clicking every move and it always puts in work. I can't say I've ever felt it lacking for power so I never felt the need to sacrifice the option to switch moves for a bit more.

I also fully accept that 3 scarfers is not a standard team, but the whole concept is "outspeed everything and hit really, really hard with rising voltage", using coverage + the waters to try to remove the ground types that stand in the way of that. I'm not necessarily saying I'm right to do this in a competitive setting, but it feels like it being a non-standard way to build a team isn't a good enough reason to write it off as a wrong decision if it performs well in testing. Like, innovation comes from trying non standard stuff. I hope I'm explaining that position well! I'm interested to hear the counter opinion to that from a strong player.

Electric terrain as a strategy is pretty interesting. I'm still not convinced it's as viable as the strats you mentioned, but protection from spore + the sheer power of rising voltage has its merits. Raichu has swept so many games that I struggle to believe it's completely unviable, although maybe pincurchin + Raichu + a more standard rest of the team is a better direction to go in, or even a manual electric terrain on a better Pokémon like Room to free up the slot pincurchin takes up. Do you think that direction could be worth pursuing?

Thank you again for the time & comments.

 

[justdrew]

Your Keldeo set is only bad because you aren't CM. As an example, here is a vivalospride team from the Scizor suspect test. He is using Life Orb Keldeo except he has Calm Mind over Flip Turn. That is just a simple optimization to make that Keldeo set better.

As for 3 Choice Scarfers. I understand that you want to outspeed everything but here's my take from a competitive standpoint. A Choice Scarf gives you speed at the cost of flexibility. So yes, your entire team is very fast, but you can't switch moves. You have terrain + Raichu which essentially gives you 7 turns of speed control. You can totally add on another Choice Scarf user, but 3 is just overkill and you are sacrificing mobility as well as other roles. For example, you have no Stealth Rock setter and no Rapid Spinner. Since Raichu is on a timer, you definitely want something like Excadrill to remove hazards on your side while still keeping Spikes up. Your team has no Ground-type and no Steel-type which are necessary on all UU teams (Steel because its just good and Ground as an Electric-type immunity. You have no Zygarde-10% switch in so in a competitive game you can lead Pinchurin into a Zygarde and literally have to let one of your Pokemon die. By adding 3 Choice Scarf users you sacrifice a bunch of other roles you need to consistently win games.

The reason I don't really like Electric Terrain and Raichu is because of these calcs:

+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Raichu-Alola Psychic vs. 248 HP / 220 SpD Hippowdon: 339-399 (80.9 - 95.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Raichu-Alola Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 382-452 (54.2 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Raichu-Alola Psychic vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Swampert: 261-308 (64.7 - 76.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Raichu-Alola Rising Voltage (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Tangrowth in Electric Terrain: 246-290 (60.8 - 71.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

However, I do want to try to make you a team that is usable, despite not being the most viable.

https://pokepast.es/e781b4eeaee20f43

Here's what I came up with. You have your Electric Terrain core with Excadrill adding a lot of role compression with Rocks and Spin as well as its Ground- and Steel-typing. Then you have Hatt which pairs with with Excadrill by not letting Hippo and Skarmory in for free to set hazards and wall Excadrill. Next, to keep momentum, I decided to go with Zarude which is a nice late game cleaner and also U-Turns on Cobalion and Amoonguss which gets Raichu in for free as well as Scizor which provides nice bulk as well as Knock Off to make progress, Bullet Punch which as priority is a form of speed, and U-Turn to keep momentum. So while I do not have 3 Choice Scarf users, I have Raichu in Terrain, Scarf Zarude, Bullet Punch from Scizor, and Excadrill after a Rapid Spin which is 4 forms of speed control. Continue to mess with this and have fun. I hope this was helpful and you learned something about SS UU!!