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Damn, and I thought I was good at using Alolan Raichu. Good stuff to this battler! One little tidbit for those who wanna run Achu in Psychic Cup: I highly recommend using Raid IVs. You'll lose a little bit of bulk, but in exchange you'll win CMP ties against Rapidash, which can be VERY important in a lead situation
Seems like a pretty fast paced format as well if you are running fast move damage as well so another thing to get some more attack to always guarantee that extra bit to ensure that KO/Shield or chip damage which you normally would need an extra fast move to do which can be bad if you don't have the extra damage.
I consistently hit 2200ish elo every season but watching this makes me realise how far players like SsThorn are ahead of me in terms of skill. Incredible gameplay!
I ran Grass knot on Raichu and sometimes it can be good against a mirror match bc if they don't shield it does a TON of damage! I'm very low elo so maybe that's why it works for me tho haha
It all comes to mindgames and your team composition as well but most generally do not want to stay in vs a Claydol because they can just farm you down and you also do not really do fast move damage either so it becomes very bad as you take 1 shield but they get a massive energy lead with almost no damage onto Claydol which will make your other pokemons struggle or sometimes you just may lose your key answer to their other pokemons like Slowbro/king (Kanto) which can cost the game.
I opted for a full electric moveset basically because of pacing, while the grass knot coverage would be nice against claydol, it would mean giving up matchups like galarian rapidash and victini and general consistency in raichus matchups.
Grass Knot only is there to counter Claydol, other than just against 1 matchup you lose alot of major matchups against more common picks which is not ideas as your only nuke/dps move is Wild Charge and with no baiting options other than a expensive Grass Knot you will lose most shielding scenario matchups. Even against Gardevoir it becomes bad. It takes 8 Charms to KO a Raichu in most IV scenarios. With ThunderPunch you will always be able to get 2 off against them which can either take the KO or 1/2 shields and most people will always try to save shields for Gardevoir meanwhile as to having Grass Knot, you will only be able to get off 1 move which is always going to be shielded and it also affects general matchups against Rapidash as such you will get hard outpaced as well without having a bait move to really go against. Even against a Victini a single ThunderPunch will always KO after they V-Create and it also is a safer move as you dont go -2 Defense either in certain matchups. Basically full electric moveset works good on everything but not against Claydol which you should always have 1 or 2 pokemon that can comfortably handle it as a safe switch.
With ThunderPunch Raichu you can always grab 1-2 shields depending on Shadow or not. Even then G-Rapidash is quick enough to also get BodySlam shields as well if Raichu can't get that off either. And most people who double shield Charmers will not appreciate the last 2 pokemons against 2 shields either as you kinda force yourself to keep your charmer alive only to lose to a pokemon that performs very good with energy leads to flip that 2v3 with 2 vs 0 shields. Also you will not really see much charmers in higher ranks as pokemons who resist Charm just makes them not able to do anything. Yes there may be some around but in general Charm will not appreciate being resisted against pokemons like G-Slowbro/kings, Victini, Steel types like Bronzong/Metagross.
Geez. What i really hate about this is "just come to look at this amazing pokemon, you just need to pair it with broken pokemon number one and broken pokemon number two"
I'd usually agree but Raichu is definitely meta in Psychic Cup. All 3 play very strong roles. Raichu is similar to Victini in that it forces shields or massive damage.
It's why most people try to build anti-meta picks or try and get lucky with the rng for having a good lead + safeswitch counter as well. Cuz you can always expect people to run the broken pokemons every game so just having a pure counter against them just helps but it will not save you from some games cuz that is just how they are. There will always be that one player who starts off with a Claydol lead to hunt down Raichu leads but when they go against a WaterGun Slowbrow or Malamar they just lose, part of the way some people just play but it happens. But in general if you just know what people are running often and have good counters it won't really matter what they run even if its the best pokemon it won't change a thing if the anti-meta pokemon you run catches them on the lead/switch.
Every time high level gameplay is shown, people say this garbage. Some players are more skilled than others. This battler is not using an exploit to get to this elo, it's skill.
If exploits were the case they would just win every matchup they go or forfeit knowing if they get hard countered to begin with. If you actually play well and since this format has a small pool of pokemons its very easy to know what team composition your opponent is running if you played against it or used the team before. Ever seen a Bastiodon/Victreebel/Medicham team comp before if you have then you can just play around it without even having to know what pokemon they are running as it is mostly from experience you play against that team/pokemons. It is skill based because if you can call the baits or catches then you win in scenarios which you normally wouldn't and it is not nice to call high ranked matches cheaters either. Might as well just say all people who do PvP even in lowranks exploiters from Rank 1 ~ 10 when that isn't true.
