The counters section seems a little small. Without a Choice Band, Tyranitar is nowhere near OHKOing with Crunch, while Focus Blast is a Guarenteed OHKO in return. Scizor also has to run Bug Bite or it's not getting the KO either.
Psychics with the special bulk and/or secondary typing to laugh off HP Ice. Other Rankurusu (who will set up on you), Slowbro/King, Starmie, and Spiritomb. Also Shedinja and Cresselia and some Mew I guess.What exactly is shadow ball used for?
I prefer HP Fire for Scizor because STAB Psychic does a hefty chunk to the aforementioned threats anyway. Scizor is a chronic counter to the TR set and this easily dispatches of him before he has the chance to Bug Bite/U-turn. Probably making it the most beneficial third slot option. You lose coverage on Psychic types, the most common being Latios, but even standard Shadow Ball isn't getting the OHKO after SR, while it proceeds to Draco the fuck out of you. HP Ice is hardly getting the job done either. Only useful for Rand imo, though even he needs LO or Band to OHKO in return.I started using OTR ranculus recently. It's completely blown me away. I've never used trick room before, and the sheer power of the set is mind boggling. His special attack is just high enough to get the job done with a life orb, and he completely disregards the speed tiers, which is a powerful advantage for any sweeper. Ranky has won me games singlehandedly. Gen 5s eventual MVP?
Ranculus @ life orb
Magic guard
Quiet
192 HP/64 Def/252 SpAtk
2 Spe IVs
-Trick Room
-Psychic
-Focus blast
-Hidden Power Ice
HP ice instead of shadow ball. Landlos, gliscor and dragons die before they knew what hit them. Two speed IVs give you a hp with 70 power, and 60 speed.
What exactly is shadow ball used for? I've OHKOed pretty much everything with these 3 moves. Ice's coverage allows you to run through teams at a moments notice, no softening up needed. Shadow ball just seems redundant to me. You have focus blast for darks and hp ice for psychics, which are usually frail enough to be O/2HKOed and can't KO back. I can't think of anything that shadow ball is better for. Why has nobody mentioned hidden power ice/grass/fire?
MVP stands for Most Valued Pokemon, right?
Sorry, but this is just plain wrong, although i'm not sure about your EV spread, but at least with 252 HP / 252 Def which was already suggested (and i believe is most common) almost no physical attack will KO (if it can survive Ttar's crunch and CB scizor's U-Turn then it means it is definetly difficult to KO). Since scizor cannot OHKO with U-turn Rank should just recover on scizor's attack (especially since you risk pursuit if you switch) and Ttar is obivously OHKOed by focus blast. Few countes to this set are spiritomb and sableye thanks to their immunities (although they're both rare), CM latios with roar (who has trouble vs psycho shock versions if Rank is the last mon on the team) and CB Shubarugo which is Rank's best counter in general and you don't even mention it, although it's true that outside of countering Rank shubarugo kinda sucks.<p>Sadly this set is easily countered. Any Physical Attack that is Super Effective will destroy this set. Scizor takes little damage from a weak Focus Blast and can KO with U-Turn. </p>
Still, Shadow Ball needs a slash or a mention, so you can beat other Reunicles.You can beat Blissey anyway, what can Blissey do to you with magic guard. With Magic Guard Rakurusu does not care.
that'd be choice trickers; Iron ball and other fun trickers don't really bother it much. I'd add sableye to that list, and move Perish Celebi a bit backwards. All Shadow Ball Reunicli beat it, before having to switch out.. As do HP Fire variants. CB Zong is beaten by 0IV -speed nature, and Reuniclus really doesn't want the speed anyway.Shubarugo, Spiritomb, Taunt Deoxys-D, Metagross, CB Zong, CM Roar Latias, Perish Song Celebi, Trick users, Encore; prolly all these need mentions as counters too.