Rain Review

Trondheim Basculins, coached by Rain

~~He had the options to get Shiftry or Cacturne, and he went for fucking Nuzleaf, I don’t understand~~
Rain got a good defensive typing and a great offensive typing, and drafted accordingly. He has excellent bulk in Ferrothorn, Tangrowth and *sigh* Eviolite Nuzleaf or whatever. His offensive options are better though, with things like Mega-Gyarados and Krookodile being able to run either Moxie or Intimidate, as well as a potential Ddance sweep in Gyarados’ case. Sneasel is fast and strong, even if it’s just a discount Weavile, Alolan Exeggutor does weird shit and both Houndoom and Whimsicott are great special attackers. Whimsicott and Sableye even form a Prankster core and can seriously mess up the opponent. Then you have Pawniard, which is surprisingly strong, Leavanny to set up webs or pass on an SD, and fucking Nuzleaf. He has 3 reliable ways to set up rocks and two defoggers, as well as answers to both physical and special attackers (although Sableye should be careful of Guts mons). He also has decent priority with Sucker Punch Pawniard, Ice Shard Sneasel and both his Prankster mons. Also, his weakness to Fire is covered by Flash Fire Houndoom and Mega-Gyarados, and his weakness to Fighting is covered by Sableye and non-mega-evolved Gyarados, which has the advantage of being neither Grass nor Dark before its Mega. This doesn’t mean that his draft is perfect though, even if it’s quite good.
His momentum is rather meh, with only U-turn Whimsicott being fast and getting a switching move. He also has no Electric type, and that means that Sneasel as well as rock type moves are his only answers to Flying types, which are only resisted by Pawniard (not very reliable) He also gets screwed over by a strong U-turn once Gyarados has mega-evolved, but he is lucky that anan the bug master is in another division. Another thing that hurts him are Ice types, and he has no Fighting types neither for them nor for Steel and Dark types. Finally, Mach and Bullet punch do great against him, and that will for sure be abused by Lobt, who can get Sneasel out of the way and let his Flying types have some fun. He does have Trick Room potential on Alolan Exeggutor, but not much benefits from it other than Exeggutor himself, especially if he has set up webs before.
Rain got decent mons, but not much that makes his draft **really** strong. It’s well rounded and balanced, but nothing screams easy wins, so he will have to show that he can play well in order to succeed with this draft.

This draft gets a 7.5/10