Rapid Spinners in LC

[chimp]

(approved by Blarajan)

With the introduction of Sticky Web, the need for a good spinner is growing more and more important. While some players will argue that Defog is better, Rapid Spin has got its niche for allowing you to keep your own hazards on the field, putting you're opponent and a massive disadvantage.

However, the one thing that Rapid Spin doesn't have is a wide distribution. Only a whopping 10 LC pokemon have access to the move, so finding a spinner who fits on your team can be a tad difficult. This thread is designed to help players find a spinner that'll work on their team.

The Spinners

Squirtle
Abilities: Torrent/Rain Dish
44/48/65/50/65/43
Squirtle is hardly seen in Little Cup. As a spinner, its outclassed, almost entirely, by Staryu, who has higher stats, larger move pool, and better abilities. This poor turtle does have decent bulk, and, with Rain Dish, can be kinda good on Rain teams. But I wouldn't suggest ever using a rain team in LC.

Sandshrew
Abilities: Sand Veil/Sand Rush
50/75/85/20/30/40
Sandshrew is a decent spinner thanks to its base 85 defense. Its Special Defense is a let down though, as most spin-blockers will be able to pry on it, however, it does get some other cool moves such as Knock Off and Shadow Claw to deal with them. Its total set up bait for the likes of Gligar and Swirlix, though.

Staryu
Abilities: Illuminate (lol)/Natural Cure/Analytic
30/45/55/70/55/85
Staryu is arguably one of the best spinners in LC. She has a great ability in Natural Cure, as well as a fantastic movepool, which includes Recover, Thunderbolt, Psychic, Thunder Wave, and Cosmic Power. She is also incredibly fast with decent bulk (but only with eviolite). However, Staryu is has trouble getting past spinblockers, who are often specially defensive, such as Misdreavus and Frillish.

Pineco
Abilties: Sturdy/Overcoat
50/65/90/35/35/15
Pineco is certainly interesting, being one of the few pokemon with the ability to clear hazards away and set them up. Pineco can throw up stealth rocks, spikes, and even toxic spikes onto your enemy's side, while keeping your's safe. However, it gives Gligar a huge opportunity to set up, and defoggers and spin blockers alike fear nothing. Except explosion, maybe... but probably not.

Drilbur
Sand Rush/Sand Force/Mold Breaker
60/85/40/30/45/68
Drilbur spent most of the 5th gen on the offensive, so he is itching to run a defensive set. With earthquake and mold breaker, Drilbur can handle Misdreavus and Honedge, two common ghosts. Drilbur hates knock off (but really, who doesn't?) because without an eviolite, he is terribly frail.

Tentacool
Clear Body/Liquid Ooze/Rain Dish
40/40/35/50/100/75
Tentacool is a fantastic spinner in LC. It also gets Toxic Spikes to aid its team further. Water/Poison typing is pretty good in LC, allowing Tentacool to check fairies, Gligar, and even Tangela (Giga Drain will heal Tentacool with Liquid Ooze!). If you have trouble with special attackers, fighting types, or hazards, Tentacool will be a great asset to your team.

Bergmite
Own Tempo/Ice Body/Sturdy55/69/85/32/35/28
Bergmite is the only Gen VI pokemon to receive Rapid Spin. Bergmite also gets some cool moves such as Recover, Icy Wind, Rock Slide, and Curse. Unfortunately, an ice typing is really bad defensively, and give Bergmite a weakness to Stealth Rock, the same thing he is trying to remove. He is also torn apart by Honedge.
He can run a pretty solid stall set in the hail with Curse, Recover, and Ice Body.

There are some other options, such as the levitating Baltoy with dual screens, or a defensive Shellder, Kabuto, or Omanyte, who can handle gligar, set up stealth rocks, or toxic spikes, respectively.


Spin Blockers
When using a spinner, its important to watch out for any ghost type pokemon who can block the attack, rendering Rapid Spin useless. The most common ghost type pokemon are Misdreavus, Honedge, Frillish, Gastly, and Drifloon.

 

[Rowan]

I think only 3 spinners are ever reliable in Little Cup and they are Staryu, Drilbur and Tentacool.

Staryu is probably the most reliable, having access to recovery, high speed and amazing coverage. If you run Staryu it's pretty easy to be able to get a spin off.

Drilbur is also pretty good, but it finds it much harder to switch in and has less speed and no recovery. However it can still fire off powerful Mold Breaker Earthquakes which does a pretty good job of hurting stuff. However, Gligar basically walls this guy and has no problem in switching in and setting up Rocks again. Gligar also basically outclasses it in every way so Drilbur has taken a huge hit this gen.

Tentacool has a great niche as a Swirlix counter this generation and also has good supporting moves, Rapid Spin included. However it has no way of breaking past the SpinBlockers which makes it an unreliable spinner. It's still a great wall for loads of things though and finds itself being useful. But if you desperately need those rocks out of your way, it probably isn't the best choice.

 

[Melons-N-Soda]

I personally think Shellder should stay offense, even with it's good regular Defense, it's Special Defense is pretty bad without investment or whatever, meaning that any Electric or Grass type can kill it.

The others, I agree with Cockscrew here. Squirtle is pretty bad, since the only way for it to be successful is to Prankster Rain Dance then U-Turn (I think one mon can do this).

Sandshrew and Baltoy are set-up bait. Even though Baltoy's Levitate helps it against EQ-spammers.

Pineco is weak to hazards, and with no Steel-type like his big brother, he just overall falls short. And it's offensives are pretty bad. (And should be hazard setter instead)

Bergmite is Pineco with a bad defensive type.

Kabuto and Omanyte should stay offense too, except for probably the latter but that's due to bulk. Otherwise, same as Shellder.

 

[Phemeto]

Total speculation here, but Im wondering if Staryu will even be viable. The only way to get rapid spin on staryu was through the Pomeg Glitch in gen 3 i believe (as well as all its other moves pretty much). This is because it is a genderless pokemon and cant pass down egg moves from my understanding. So with pokebank i wonder if pomeg glitch pokemon will even be transferable. Because it shouldnt be able to learn hydro pump and rapid spin and the transfer may see it as an illegitimate pokemon.

 

[Goddess Briyella]

Nice thread! I'd like to recommend a few fixes.


First of all, Pineco should never ever be used as a Rapid Spinner.

Its greatest niche from my experience is setting hazards while also serving as a stop to setup sweepers with Sturdy and Red Card, which allows it to survive any attack besides Rock Blast and then force a switch, causing all the opponent's setup turns to be wasted, and also messing up any kind of momentum they had by bringing in a Pokemon they didn't select that then takes damage by the hazards you laid down. It's much better as just a hazard layer and setup stopper, and even then this niche is almost completely ruined by the prevalence of Defog Gligar in the current metagame and how effortlessly it can remove hazards.

The main reason it's a bad idea to use Rapid Spin on Pineco is that Sturdy is ruined if it has to come in on ANY kind of hazard (unless it's ONLY Sticky Web, as there's no damage) to remove it, and it does not have the special bulk to help it survive, nor the Speed to be able to use Rapid Spin before fainting to any decently powered special attack. It's also weak to Stealth Rock in addition to Sturdy being nullified.


Bergmite makes an awful Rapid Spinner for some of the same reasons Pineco does: being weak to Stealth Rock, having pitiful special bulk, and having no Speed to work with or resistances to anything at all other than Ice. Honedge makes Bergmite entirely useless, as it blocks Bergmite's Rapid Spin, walls its STAB, walls the Stone Edge and Gyro Ball that Bergmite has access to (its two best non-STAB attacks), and it also severely threatens it offensively.

But I wouldn't suggest ever using a rain team in LC.

I wouldn't rule this out. There are Pokemon such as Mantyke, who has gargantuan special bulk as well as Rain Dance/Swift Swim and the STABs needed to nail both Vulpix and Tangela for super-effective damage. There are plenty of Prankster carriers who have access to Rain Dance. It's true that XY Little Cup doesn't have an auto-Rain inducer but I've used manual Rain to good effect and I've also seen it used very well by others. Just something to keep in mind.

Drilbur finds a good home with Sun teams, since it'll remove him of his water weakness, and ground type has decent synergy with fire and grass.

It can work, but Ground/Fire has a shared weakness to Water, and Ground/Grass has a shared weakness to Ice, two types that are commonly used together on one set. Just about every specially inclined Water-type runs an Ice coverage move like Ice Beam, so I'm not sure about the synergy here, as this is three Pokemon (half of a team) all weak to one kind of set... something to keep in mind.

 

[Ray Jay]

Staryu is one of my absolute favorite Pokemon right now. Natural Cure is super useful against defensive teams, as a lot of them rely on spreading Will-O-Wisp right now because of the prevalence of physical attackers. It's awesome to have something that can sponge status. I think Staryu is further viable as it can maintain offensive pressure via its strong Hydro Pumps or boltbeam coverage, and its ability to use Life Orb pretty well. Furthermore, it's the fastest spinner outside of Sand Rush, which makes it just awesome. Speed is extremely valuable in this metagame, and while some 19 speed ties are unfortunate, just being able to force those are valuable to keep pressure on the opponent (for example, Misdreavus can switch in safely to Staryu but then has to risk a Speed tie if it wants to kill it before dying to Life Orb variants). Recover is also super nice as it is the only spinner with good defensive typing that has recovery, meaning it can also use Eviolite. I think this is what really sets it apart from Tentacool, offensive pressure aside. Spinners really like to use Eviolite as you typically try to switch your spinner in at an opportune moment, but doing that repeatedly is a good way to get worn down, which is a pretty common strategy for teams that use hazards.

 

[Delver]

Total speculation here, but Im wondering if Staryu will even be viable. The only way to get rapid spin on staryu was through the Pomeg Glitch in gen 3 i believe (as well as all its other moves pretty much). This is because it is a genderless pokemon and cant pass down egg moves from my understanding. So with pokebank i wonder if pomeg glitch pokemon will even be transferable. Because it shouldnt be able to learn hydro pump and rapid spin and the transfer may see it as an illegitimate pokemon.

I doubt this will be the case but its a legitimate concern. I definetly think Staryu is *the* best spinner in the teir - if only because its speed stat will let it get one off when you really need it to - rayjay covered the rest of its pros that I have for it.

I want to point out that what makes spinners good in this teir is more what else they can add to the team. LC, more so than the other teirs, has been about of covering a million things with a few choices. In other words, I've never personally picked a mon *because* it can spin, but rather because it can maintain pressure even with only 3 other attacks. Besides staryu, I think drilbur is the only other 'global' spinner that can boast this. The other spinners are just too subpar stat-wise to really impress me. I will admit that I've never used any of them besides sandshrew (who's only good as Drilbur #) but:

Squirtle - as mentioned in OP - a bad staryu

sandshrew - Its ok, but outclassed by drilbur. I havent seen any double rush stats lately, but its a better candidate for spinning on those than drilbur, imo.

pineco - Sturdy is nice but broken by a stealth rock weakness - which you will almost always be switching into. 15 speed stat and mediocre-at-best bulk means it will be outpsed and ko'd by any super effective physical attack, and most likely any special attack

tentacool - probably the only one i would consider besides Staryu / drilbur. Decent bulk and some key resistances in fighting, ice and fire. STAB poison suddenly got good, STAB water has always been good. Also its faster than drilbur which is pretty good

bergmite- its icetype and has worse bulk than pineco. Own Tempo is next to useless (handles parafusion krow i guess...) Ice Body is ok, but stacking fighting fire and rock weaknesses with snover is a terrible idea especially now that it only lasts 5 turns. sturdy as a hidden ability is good. But i mean, at that point its a bad pineco.