Cheese in Balanced Hackmons
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Art by Ticken.
Balanced Hackmons is an OM where almost anything is possible; you can use almost any Pokemon, ability, move, and forme, all with maxed out EVs (subject to the banlist, hence the "Balanced" bit). This naturally lends itself to a lot of creative options, which inevitably extends to cheese strategies, of which there are a lot. This article will go through some of the most common and well-known strategies from older generations, although do note that most have taken a step down in SV and some are banned altogether.
Normalize
Normalize plays quite simply: you take a fast Ghost-type like Dragapult or Mega Gengar and give it Normalize, Entrainment, and an attack that changes type with the user's held item (Judgment + Spooky Plate or Multi-Attack + Ghost Memory). The main idea here is that, given it's a really fast Ghost-type, it can outspeed most enemies and give them Normalize, making them unable to directly damage it with most attacks. This gives you a window to trap and remove targets, set entry hazards, boost with Tail Glow or Swords Dance, or the like. Here are some sample sets (Mega Gengar is from Generation 7, Dragapult is from Generations 8 and 9):
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Counterplay to Normalize strategies is quite varied. Revelation Dance, Z-Moves, Judgment, and Multi-Attack all bypass Normalize and can be used to threaten a KO, Parting Shot is used for both pivoting and neutralizing the Normalize user, Prankster + Entrainment can remove Normalize and thus prevent the Ghost-types from spreading it, Extreme Speed users with -ate abilities (Pixilate, Aerilate, Refrigerate) can chase them out, Knock Off removes almost all of their damage potential, Magic Bounce deflects Entrainment, and Glare completely neutralizes them. New to SV is the Ability Shield, which completely disables the strategy.
There exists a subset of Normalize that involves trapping; more specifically, trapping a foe, giving them Normalize, and using that as a window to Baton Pass an absurd number of boosts to a sweeper that in 99% of cases wins the game on the spot. Shortened to "AcuPass", this cropped up in Generation 8 with Dragapult and an accompanying sweeper, normally a Yveltal. These sample sets are shown below:
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Here's a guide on using the strategy:
- Trap an eligible target. Eligible targets are foes that lack Haze, Topsy-Turvy, Spectral Thief, status moves that switch either Pokemon, and ways to KO themselves like Mind Blown, Explosion, and Toxic Orb.
- Use Skill Swap to give them Normalize. Skill Swap is used over Entrainment as it bypasses Magic Bounce.
- Spam Acupressure until you get maximum boosts.
- Baton Pass to your sweeping teammate, and use Imprison immediately.
- Guaranteed win the game unless the opponent has Focus Sash + Counter or Spectral Thief, as exactly nothing can take +6 860BP Power Trip (not even Fur Coat Zamazenta-C).
The attacker in question doesn't have to be Yveltal, but it has to generally be bulky and have good Attack. Imprison shuts down Haze, Destiny Bond, and Imposter as methods to stop the sweep, and Yveltal's Dark typing blocks Prankster Topsy-Turvy; other attackers need Dazzling to stop this. Counterplay methods mostly overlap with standard Normalize, although Haze and Topsy-Turvy are additional options, Magic Bounce doesn't work, and priority attackers usually fail unless you have multiple users. Requiring two team slots to execute also makes the team it's on significantly worse if it can't get the strategy to work. Generation 9 has Baton Pass banned, meaning this is no longer possible; trapping strategies must eliminate the target with the Pokemon trapping them to be of any use.
Prankster + Copycat
If you're familiar with DiveCats (Prankster + Assist Liepard and Purrloin), this can play pretty similarly. Prankster allows you to call Copycat with priority, which essentially means you can call the last used move with priority; in most cases, this is used to call priority V-create, which nukes a significant chunk of the tier when used by something like Alolan Marowak:
- Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club
- Ability: Prankster
- EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
- Brave Nature
- IVs: 0 Spe
- - V-create
- - Shadow Force
- - Copycat
- - Glacial Lance / Destiny Bond
Alolan Marowak is used here for three main reasons: STAB on V-create and Shadow Force, low Speed, and Thick Club. Fire/Ghost is excellent offensively and makes for potent damage output with Thick Club, such as OHKOing tier staples like Regigigas and Xerneas with a priority V-create after Spikes. Alolan Marowak also has a second mode with Shadow Force, which is called with priority on the first turn but not on the second, allowing it to dodge basically all non-priority attacks thanks to its low Speed. Copycat is also useful here, as Copycat's PP is used up rather than V-create and Shadow Force's, meaning running out of PP is basically never a concern. Glacial Lance nukes Zygarde-C, a would-be roadblock, while Prankster + Destiny Bond can grab surprise KOs.
There's a few counterplay methods here. Anti-Prankster measures, like Psychic Surge and Dark-types, can shut down V-create spam but can't do anything against Shadow Force. Prankster only gives +1 priority, and Alolan Marowak is always minimum Speed, so outprioritizing it with your own Prankster-boosted moves and Extreme Speed can throw off what Copycat calls. Zygarde-C is also a pretty huge roadblock if it can switch in safely.
While Prankster + Copycat is possible in SV, it's heavily nerfed by the loss of Alolan Marowak and the prevalence of Yveltal as a reasonably common physical wall. It's still possible to get wins with it, especially since calling Gigaton Hammer allows you to bypass the cooldown turn, which means Pokemon like Kartana can take advantage of it, but it's notably worse.
Imprison + Transform
This setup is relatively simple. Use a trapping move like Anchor Shot to trap a target in, use Imprison to seal off shared moves, and then Transform into it. Since you have Imprison up and the same moves as the target, they are forced to Struggle, which is a guaranteed KO if they lack Shed Shell and aren't Ghost type. By far the peak usage was in mid Generation 8 with Zacian-C and later Zamazenta-C:
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Zacian-C was used while it was still legal thanks to its set ambiguity (whether it was offensive or ImpForm) allowing it to trap and remove a good deal of unsuspecting targets, and it was a very large contributor to Rusted Sword's eventual ban and Zacian-C being locked off completely, as it was far too constraining to feasibly counter both ImpForm and offensive sets. Zamazenta-C was the most used ImpForm trapper after Rusted Sword's ban for a few reasons: it was fast, was bulky, had a STAB-boosted trapping move without immunities, could very easily feint other sets, and had a great number of different abilities that let it pick and choose what it trapped. Fur Coat, Ice Scales, Flash Fire, Dazzling, and Prankster were all viable options; other trappers like Registeel were occasionally seen as Zamazenta-C could use something else in this case, but these tended to lean much harder into Prankster.
Countering ImpForm was possible, albeit very much like a flowchart. Hard switching to a Ghost-type like Giratina and staying in until the suspected ImpForm user left or Transformed was almost always the best option, and it didn't exactly lead to fun or interactive games when playing against it. Slow pivots like Zygarde-C could be used to safely bring in a wallbreaker like Groudon or Rayquaza, which would get one turn to KO the ImpForm user before being forced to Struggle, but it was only safe if you knew the ability in advance (which was rare). In many cases, teams lacking a counter would simply be forced to accept a sack every time the ImpForm user switched in, as there's simply not room to outplay it unlike many offensive threats. It's for these reasons that Transform was banned right at the end of Generation 8, effectively banning the strategy; Imprison is banned in Generation 9, shutting it off there too, although for reasons that are discussed next.
Imprison + Simple Setup
Simple has always been a pretty good ability, although it's only been particularly good with Nasty Plot (or in Generation 7, Tail Glow). This is because it provides an immediate damage kick that Imposter isn't safe against, and it's uncommon to be turned against you if stolen with Spectral Thief. This changed in Generation 9, with Haze being the only consistent anti-setup option, meaning Imprison / Haze / Setup move / Power Trip became a near-uncounterable setup to sweep past teams with a brutally strong Power Trip. Imprison shuts off Imposter and Haze users, meaning that direct damage and the rare Dragon Tail were the only real counterplay options left, both of which weren't too hard to navigate. See some sets below:
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The counterplay to these basically falls to not letting them set up safely, which is an issue when many defensive staples can't break through their raw defensive stats, and Arceus-Poison's Clear Amulet means Strength Sap and Parting Shot aren't reliable means of slowing it down. Fillet Away sets were generally more vulnerable to priority due to the lack of Defense boosts, although they only took two turns to start spamming Power Trip as opposed to four. As stated above, Imprison has since been banned, locking off this strategy; it's not been seen in other generations thanks to Spectral Thief and Topsy-Turvy heavily shutting it down.
Substitute + Good as Gold / Soundproof
It might be weird to see Substitute being banned from a format, which I'm fairly sure is a first for competitive Pokemon. This largely falls down to Generation 9's very specific set of additions (Victory Dance, Good as Gold, and Salt Cure) and removals (Spectral Thief and Core Enforcer) allowing Substitute setup to thrive. Substitute gives these attackers a window to safely boost with Victory Dance, which gives the window for a STAB-boosted attack and one of Salt Cure or Leech Seed to harass the opponent. Salt Cure and Leech Seed allow users to relatively safely harass Haze users, which can stop the setup but can't punish it, and with 8 PP on recovery moves, it's pretty easy to run them out of HP in the long run. Here was the most common set:
- Zamazenta-Crowned @ Leftovers
- Ability: Good as Gold
- Tera Type: Steel
- EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
- Jolly Nature
- - Substitute
- - Victory Dance
- - Iron Head
- - Leech Seed
Zamazenta-C was chosen for its good Speed and defenses, meaning it could boost alongside common checks like Tidy Up Groudon and still maintain the Speed advantage in most cases. Other users also existed, like Palafin-H and Arceus-Steel, with their own selling points; Palafin-H had a much better matchup into Groudon, which was the most common Fur Coat user at the time, and Arceus-Steel resisted Pixilate- and Aerilate-boosted Boomburst by default. However, these had enough drawbacks (comparatively frail and occupied the Arceus slot, respectively) for Zamazenta-C to remain dominant.
Now this is all well and good, but why was Substitute banned instead of Good as Gold? The answer lies in Soundproof, which many feared would be able to almost directly replicate the Good as Gold sets with only a few minor counterplay differences (such as immunity to Torch Song and Boomburst exchanged for a Prankster Glare weakness if Substitute wasn't up). In the end, Soundproof was deemed to be too close to Good as Gold in its role, and Substitute was banned to prevent the strategy entirely.
Small note: This strategy cropped up before the Dex changes that both allowed basically every Pokemon into SV BH and locked off some formes without manual transformation, including Zamazenta-C and Palafin-H. Without Zamazenta-C, Arceus-Steel would've likely been the next best option. With Zamazenta-C gone, the strategy is due for a retest at some point, but we just haven't got around to it yet at the time of writing.
Final Gambit Spam
Final Gambit Spam encompasses teams with multiple Final Gambit users that aim to selectively remove certain targets. There's two main versions—"Hard GambitSpam", usually featuring five Choice Scarf + Scrappy Final Gambit users and a dedicated wincon, and "Soft GambitSpam", which typically uses multiple (usually two) attackers that use Final Gambit to get past troublesome walls but also have other use cases.
The premise for hard GambitSpam is simple: get five Pokemon with massive HP, give them a Choice Scarf and Scrappy Final Gambit, and pick something that'll win the last one-on-one. This leant very hard into getting guaranteed KOs with HP behemoths like Chansey, Blissey, Zygarde-C, and Guzzlord, and usually resorted to methods like Normalize and Perish Song to win the last one-on-one. You might see a team like this being used for that purpose.
Soft GambitSpam leans more into threats that simply happen to have high HP but can perform other useful roles, meaning they can extract utility before using Final Gambit or simply have utility outside of it. These threats are often offensive, with No Retreat Lunala and offensive Eternatus being some of the more common options in Generation 8, seen below:
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Counters for GambitSpam differ between which variant you're facing. Hard GambitSpam entirely depends on creating a one-on-one situation for a very telegraphed threat; it's almost impossible to have an effective Final Gambit user that can also reliably win the last interaction. As such, it becomes relatively easy to pick and choose which Pokemon to keep in order to beat the one foe that will be left. Imposter Chansey also presents a roadblock, as it can tank Final Gambit from everything except Chansey and Blissey, which forces the GambitSpam user to almost always take a two-on-one endgame. Priority like Xerneas's Pixilate Extreme Speed and Yveltal's Triage Oblivion Wing can also weaken Final Gambit to the point of not KOing its target, which can also lead to two-on-one endgames. Many of the higher-HP options like Chansey, Blissey, and Guzzlord are also not very fast even with a Choice Scarf, meaning that if they aren't using Prankster + Copycat, it's feasible to outrun them with some of the most common meta options.
Soft GambitSpam is less straightforward to counter as it's less clear to see coming, although you can usually take an educated guess based on how the threats are played. Trying to bait the Final Gambit into an unintended target is usually the best course of action, as Soft GambitSpam usually plays very similarly to a "standard" team and will be much more adept at exploiting, say, an Ice Scales user being forcibly removed.
Hard GambitSpam has taken a notable step back in Generation 9. The metagame is overall much faster, meaning that Final Gambit users like Guzzlord, Cetitan, and Regidrago are almost guaranteed to be outsped and KOed by something on the enemy team. This is made worse by the fact that Species Clause is in place rather than Forme Clause (meaning you can't have both Giratina and Giratina-O). Soft GambitSpam is still an option but notably worse, as more high-HP options to sponge Final Gambit are on the table, and a core option in Zygarde-C is essentially unviable due to being inaccessible without Power Construct.
SubPass
As in standard tiers, SubPass revolves around using a dedicated team of Baton Pass users to accrue a huge pile of stat boosts and then passing these to a demonic sweeper that can end the game. In BH, this revolves heavily around abilities (both immunity abilities and Prankster) to stonewall offensive threats, methods of punishing Haze usage, and (in Generation 8) multiple Normal-types to protect against Spectral Thief. Here's a Gen 9 Baton Pass team importable.
Final Thoughts
BH has had a lot of cheese strategies, and while Generation 9 has clamped down on them (both through in-game changes and through tiering), many are still possible and new ones are always cropping up. Feel free to drop by the main BH thread or OM Discord to discuss anything you find or anything seeing current use, or hop on BH's permanent ladder on Pokemon Showdown! to test different strategies!
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