Bulltwinkle - Tapu Bulu through Monotype on Fairy

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Introduction

Fairy teams received a huge boost in viability in the transition from ORAS to SM Monotype, and Tapu Bulu is one of the main Pokémon that has propelled Fairy from the mid-tier type it was back in ORAS to its dominating state in the metagame in SM. Tapu Bulu itself has found its place on Fairy teams as an extremely strong physical wallbreaker, capable of capitalizing on matchups such as Water, Rock, and Ground with its Grass-type attacks boosted under Grassy Terrain. It is able to switch in on Ground-type attacks such as Landorus-T's Earthquake for teammates such as Tapu Koko and Mega Diancie, forming an extremely efficient offensive core with said Pokémon. With all that being said, let's take a look at Tapu Bulu's development on Fairy teams throughout SM Monotype!

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Set #1 - Choice Band Tapu Bulu

• Tapu Bulu @ Choice Band
• Ability: Grassy Surge
• EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
• Adamant / Jolly Nature
• - Wood Hammer
• - Horn Leech
• - Superpower
• - Stone Edge

Fairy Teams

Initially, when Tapu Bulu was released, many Monotype players recognized the absurd power Tapu Bulu brought to the table as a physical wallbreaker, something Fairy teams initially lacked in ORAS, as the only notable physical attacker they carried was Azumarill, which required a Belly Drum boost to wallbreak effectively. Therefore, many Fairy teams kicked off SM Monotype with Choice Band Tapu Bulu on their rosters to capitalize on its absurd power. Choice Band allows Tapu Bulu to become ridiculously strong, being able to knock out physically bulky Pokémon such as Toxapex and Mega Sableye with Wood Hammer under Grassy Terrain. Choice Band-boosted Horn Leech also provides Tapu Bulu with absurd recovery, allowing it to quickly heal off Wood Hammer's recoil as well as other forms of residual damage.

Overall Metagame

Due to Choice Band Tapu Bulu's initial prevalence, Ground teams very quickly transitioned away from the very low Speed Seismitoad variants they used in ORAS to suddenly using Timid variants to outspeed Adamant Tapu Bulu and OHKO it with Sludge Wave. This also marked one of the rare eras where Normal's Staraptor didn't merely Speed creep Adamant Breloom, opting instead to beat out Adamant Tapu Bulu as well, serving as a testament to just how threatening it was to Normal teams. For fear of this monster, rain Water teams experimented with Sludge Wave Mega Swampert, finding it a suitable answer to the main threat that blocked rain teams from breaking through Fairy. It wouldn't be for over a year before Mega Swampert started to finally drop Sludge Wave and push that duty to a teammate.

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Set #2 - Choice Scarf Tapu Bulu

• Tapu Bulu @ Choice Scarf
• Ability: Grassy Surge
• EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
• Jolly Nature
• - Wood Hammer
• - Horn Leech
• - Stone Edge
• - Superpower

Fairy Teams

Monotype players started questioning Tapu Bulu's rather low Speed, and with that, Choice Scarf Tapu Bulu rose in popularity in order to fix this issue. Choice Scarf Tapu Bulu is able to outspeed and threaten faster Pokémon such as Mega Charizard Y and Nidoking with Stone Edge or Wood Hammer and is able to clean late-game with its boosted Speed stat while still being a decently powerful wallbreaker.

Overall Metagame

Choice Scarf Tapu Bulu's reign over the metagame brought countless changes. What once was a disgustingly powerful wallbreaker now could also field a fairly fast set that many teams weren't ready to take on. Teams like Ground and Water that are naturally weak to Grass resorted to more desperate measures to keep it at bay. Ground teams exploited Tapu Bulu's reliance on Wood Hammer to OHKO threats like Landorus and Excadrill with the use of Focus Sash + Sludge Wave Dugtrio, happily sacrificing two Pokémon to assuredly get rid of the biggest threat to Ground. Water took on a different approach, and we began to see the use of Baneful Bunker Toxapex to both scout Tapu Bulu's move and poison it at the same time.

Other types were similarly threatened by the sudden jump in Speed. Electric teams could no longer use Tapu Koko to revenge kill a Wood Hammer-spamming Tapu Bulu, possibly costing two sacrifices to get both Tapu Koko and then Alolan Raichu in safely. This was the trigger that saw the traditional specially defensive Zapdos and physically defensive Rotom-W finally switch roles. Enabling Zapdos to switch into Wood Hammer was invaluable, and Stone Edge's accuracy left it unfavorable against Zapdos, especially factoring in Pressure's PP stall. In a twist of fate, even Fairy needed to address Tapu Bulu's new Speed. Like on Electric, Tapu Koko could no longer revenge kill it, and Magearna was soon banned, leaving the type with few options. Dropping Thunder Wave on Klefki to run Foul Play + Spikes to handle Steel became just too difficult to justify, as Thunder Wave crippling Tapu Bulu now was almost necessary to be able to defeat opposing Fairy teams.

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Set #3 - Return of Choice Band Tapu Bulu

• Tapu Bulu @ Choice Band
• Ability: Grassy Surge
• EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
• Adamant / Jolly Nature
• - Wood Hammer
• - Horn Leech
• - Superpower
• - Zen Headbutt

Fairy Teams

Choice Band Tapu Bulu is very difficult to properly wall, as only Pokémon that resist Grass such as Ferrothorn, Celesteela, and other Grass-, Steel-, and Flying-types wall it such. This allowed Choice Band Tapu Bulu to easily come back to Fairy teams, especially since many people were fine with giving up the speed Tapu Bulu provided, as Tapu Koko and Aqua Jet Azumarill provided more than enough speed for the team. However, instead of Stone Edge, this time Tapu Bulu ran Zen Headbutt to nail Poison-type Pokémon that could switch into Wood Hammer such as Mega Venusaur and Crobat. Wood Hammer absolutely destroyed any switch-in that was not 4x resistant to it, heavily limiting its only real switch-ins to Pokémon such as Ferrothorn, Celesteela, and Staraptor, the latter only due to its ability in Intimidate. Horn Leech allows Tapu Bulu to clean against types such as Water and Ground, where it could blow past the entire team without relying on using Wood Hammer, as well as providing extra recovery alongside Grassy Terrain. Superpower allows it to take on Steel-type Pokémon that resist its Wood Hammer such as Ferrothorn and Choice Specs Magnezone. Running Adamant allowed Tapu Bulu to hit with as much power as possible; however, it gave way for checks such as maximum Speed Seismitoad to check it on Ground teams, making Jolly variants the more reliable wallbreakers.

Overall Metagame

Unsurprisingly, when the metagame shifted away from beating Choice Band Tapu Bulu, it had a chance to snipe back and threaten teams once again. Non-rain Water teams were getting a bit too greedy with having hard switching to Toxapex as the primary answer to Choice Scarf, and Choice Band's immense power broke right through a lot of the ultra-fat semistall Water teams that had exploded into play when Choice Scarf Tapu Bulu ran the world. While this particular set would not take the spotlight for too long, semistall Water teams have never really recovered, and most Water teams even to this day are much more balanced, if not offensive. Ground teams, unable to drop Dugtrio before, began to see more diversity, adding in old favorites like Mamoswine, which were still able to cover the now much slower Tapu Bulu. While there was simply no way to prevent Tapu Bulu from getting a free KO once it was in, being able to revenge kill it was all Ground really needed.

Fairy, again, found itself adjusting to the loss in Speed. With the release of Mega Diancie, it had more than enough tools to handle a Tapu Bulu that couldn't outspeed anything but Clefable. Klefki, the permanent staple on Fairy for years, began to see waning usage at this time, with Mimikyu rising up instead, which was still able to handle Choice Band Tapu Bulu in addition to Psychic teams. While Baneful Bunker on Poison team's Toxapex was initially introduced to handle Choice Band Diggersby, it was only too happy to check Tapu Bulu as well. The threat of letting Mega Venusaur get KOed by a Zen Headbutt was too great, and losing Alolan Muk to Wood Hammer was similarly undesirable.

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Set #4 - Swords Dance + Substitute Tapu Bulu

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• Tapu Bulu @ Life Orb / Rockium Z
• Ability: Grassy Surge
• EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
• Adamant Nature
• - Swords Dance
• - Horn Leech
• - Zen Headbutt / Stone Edge
• - Substitute

Fairy Teams

With the rise of ultra-fat balance teams, Tapu Bulu adapted to this trend by using a Swords Dance + Substitute set. This really only left teams to deal with Tapu Bulu offensively, as it could beat a vast majority of defensive Pokémon. Substitute allows Tapu Bulu to evade status from slower Pokémon such as Chansey's Toxic and Mega Sableye's Will-O-Wisp and take advantage of their passive nature to set up a Swords Dance. Horn Leech allows it to gain back health from using Substitute and the extra damage that Life Orb made it take. The difference in power it felt from losing Wood Hammer wasn't actually that much, as after one Swords Dance, Horn Leech hits harder than Choice Band Wood Hammer. Additional coverage in Zen Headbutt allowed it to take on Pokémon such as Kommo-o and Mega Venusaur, making it not completely useless in the Poison matchup. Alternatively, Tapu Bulu could run Rockium Z + Stone Edge to nail certain targets such as Celesteela, Mandibuzz, Staraptor, and Zapdos for decent damage as well.

Overall Metagame

While Water teams could previously rely on Baneful Bunker to cripple and remove Tapu Bulu, Substitute + Swords Dance not only made Toxapex incapable of stopping it, but even rendered it free setup fodder. Furthermore, Suicune, which was once able to PP stall Horn Leech and Wood Hammer from both Choice Band and Choice Scarf sets, was incapable of PP stalling a Tapu Bulu that could switch moves against it to predict around Protect. Tapu Bulu could get a free Substitute on any of the many passive Water-types in order to block Greninja's attempts to revenge kill it. In response, some Water teams decided to just block the strategy altogether and began running Sludge Bomb Toxapex in order to break Substitutes in an effort to completely counterteam Fairy.

Like Water, Ground teams were also caught off guard by the new usage of Substitute, as sacrificing Pokémon was no longer a viable option when Tapu Bulu could just set up a Substitute on the switch. This was the beginning of sand Ground's disappearance, as Hippowdon was simply too passive and sand Ground teams couldn't reliably beat a Tapu Bulu that could set up Substitutes almost at will when considering the timer on sand. Instead, we saw Mega Steelix Ground teams make a big debut. Mega Steelix's ability to set up Curses right in the faces of basically every Fairy-type meant Ground finally found a very reliable way to beat Fairy teams after 2 years of suffering.

Fairy teams could also no longer really afford to run non-Swords Dance Tapu Bulu variants for fear of opposing Fairy teams having Swords Dance Tapu Bulu. The threat of an opposing Tapu Bulu getting a free Swords Dance off of a Choice-locked Horn Leech could be game-ending. For the first time, Poison teams, which were the primary target of Zen Headbutt, began to use maximum Attack Crobat to give its Brave Bird enough damage to actually KO Tapu Bulu thanks to its ability Infiltrator penetrating Substitutes.

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Set #5 - Substitute + Utility Tapu Bulu

• Tapu Bulu @ Leftovers
• Ability: Grassy Surge
• EVs: 236 HP / 4 Atk / 40 Def / 228 Spe
• Jolly Nature
• - Horn Leech
• - Leech Seed / Disable
• - Substitute
• - Swords Dance

Fairy Teams

Utility Tapu Bulu sets started to rise up alongside breaking sets with Z-Moves or Life Orb, usually carrying Leftovers for passive recovery. Many of these featured moves such as Taunt, Leech Seed, and Disable that could cripple and take advantage of different targets depending on what the Fairy team was looking for. Disable allowed Tapu Bulu to shut down its usual checks and counters by rendering key moves such as Toxapex's Sludge Bomb and Mega Steelix's Heavy Slam useless and proceeding to muscle past the opposing team. Leech Seed along with Substitute allowed Tapu Bulu to gradually wear down opposing checks such as Alolan Muk while still being able to set up and threaten the rest of the team. Taunt allowed Tapu Bulu to break down defensive Pokémon such as Zapdos lacking Heat Wave and Hippowdon. The EVs allow Tapu Bulu to preserve its Substitute against maximum Attack Landorus-T's U-turn while making it as fast as possible. All in all, Tapu Bulu's various utility sets exercise a wide degree of flexibility in order to muscle past traditional defensive answers in order to support the Fairy team's needs.

Overall Metagame

It is unclear how the metagame will shift in response to these new sets. Leech Seed, Taunt, and Disable make it very hard for many traditional sets to beat Tapu Bulu behind a Substitute. Tapu Bulu's ability to block many of the biggest threats to Fairy depending on what utility move it decides to run has shown to be incredibly powerful in the past couple of tournaments. Dark teams can no longer rely on Alolan Muk to essentially 6-0 Fairy, and Flying teams cannot recklessly send in Celesteela or Tornadus-T alone against Tapu Bulu any longer. In response to this new set, many Water teams have started to run Sludge Bomb + Haze Toxapex, which allows it to fairly comfortably take on Substitute + Disable Tapu Bulu. This is due to the fact that Substitute + Disable Tapu Bulu is much weaker than its Life Orb counterpart, allowing Toxapex to remove its boosts via Haze with much more ease and pressure it with Sludge Bomb.

Good luck in your search to find the next Tapu Bulu counter or the next Tapu Bulu innovation!

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Tapu Bulu Sample Team

The sample team is reflective of a pretty current Fairy team in the metagame. Tapu Bulu's set is either Swords Dance + offensive item or Swords Dance + Leftovers. Since this team is a sample, we went with the more easy-to-pilot set rather than Substitute + Disable Tapu Bulu.

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Closing Thoughts

Tapu Bulu has been an irreplaceable part of Fairy teams in the Monotype metagame ever since it was released in SM and has shown to adapt to the ever-changing metagame in order to fit its role as a much-needed physical wallbreaker on the team. As the metagame continues to change and grow, who knows what Tapu Bulu may start running in the future, but there's only one way to find out. After you put down this article, we encourage you to try out Tapu Bulu and Fairy teams in Monotype; you never know what you may build!

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