A brief history of Tera Poison in SV OU

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In the buildup to Generation 9's release, Tera-types such as Water, Fairy, and Steel were heavily discussed due to their good defensive profiles, while Fire and Ghost were also talked about for their offensive prowess. Some other types though, such as Rock and Bug, were left in the dust. Somewhat in the middle of that was Tera Poison. The idea of a Pokémon becoming immune to Toxic sounded interesting, but Toxic's limited distribution in Generation 9 may have contributed to Tera Poison not initially being regarded too highly. Fast forward to 2024, and Tera Poison has found its place as a common Tera type on some of the scariest setup sweepers in the tier. This article will explain Tera Poison's slow rise to the metagame chronologically by showcasing its most popular users.

Generation 9

Generation 9 was finally here and it didn't take long for popular Tera types so rise in usage. Offensive Pokémon like Chi-Yu and Chien-Pao would use one of their original types for their Tera type, while others like Dragonite and Roaring Moon would use Tera Normal and Tera Flying respectively, thanks to the good synergy with their moves Extreme Speed and Acrobatics. Defensive Pokémon such as Dondozo and Garganacl would use Tera types like Fairy and Water, as they allowed them to more easily handle threats like Baxcalibur. Tera Poison saw next to no usage in both categories, but there was one notable exception.

• Ting-Lu @ Leftovers
• Ability: Vessel of Ruin
• Tera Type: Poison
• EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
• Careful Nature
• - Earthquake
• - Spikes
• - Whirlwind
• - Ruination

Ting-Lu was the first noteworthy user of Tera Poison, and it used it while being a defensive Pokémon. Though Ting-Lu would also use Tera Water, Steel, and Ghost, its typing made Tera Poison worth considering defensively, as, unlike the other Tera types, it not only removed Ting-Lu's weakness to Fighting-, Fairy-, and Grass-type attacks but also turned them into resistances. This in turn, improved Ting-Lu's matchup against popular Pokémon at the time like Iron Valiant, Meowscarada, and Breloom. Its ability to shrug off Iron Valiant's Moonblast was particularly appreciated, as the tier lacked in Fairy answers while some of the topmost Pokémon were weak to it, such as Dragapult, Great Tusk, Chien Pao, Roaring Moon, Baxcalibur, and of course Ting-Lu itself. We can find a team with the above set in ayevon's team in SV OU Bazaar from December 7th 2022:

In 2024, Tera Poison Ting-Lu is still a common sight, being able to get extra turns against new foes such as Serperior, Rillaboom, Ogerpon-W, and Enamorus, particularly as Ting-Lu has added other attacks such as Heavy Slam and Stone Edge to its arsenal.

While Ting-Lu was the main user of Tera Poison during this period of time, midway through it another Pokémon made use of Tera Poison in a popular team in both ladder and tournaments.

Vert's Hatterene Sun not only brought Brute Bonnet to the forefront of the metagame but also showcased Tera Poison Hatterene. What is Tera Poison for here? It improves Hatterene's matchup against Glimmora, letting it safely deny hazards against it and potentially remove Toxic Spikes that might be left on the field.

As time went on, not many other Pokémon made use of Tera Poison regularly or showed up in popular teams. However, changes in the metagame allowed two more Pokémon to use it to small success, those being:

Baxcalibur would usually opt for offensive Tera types such as Ice, Dragon and Ground and would run Tera Fairy or even Steel if it wanted a defensive Tera type, as the latter two turned its weakness to Dragon-type attacks into a resistance, with Tera Steel also removing its weakness to Fairy-type attacks. Hydreigon on the other hand would usually opt for Tera Steel for similar reasons, with it also boosting the power of its Flash Cannon and its Levitate ability negating its newfound weakness to Ground-type attacks anyway. That said, Tera Steel would still leave both Baxcalibur and Hydreigon vulnerable to Fighting-type attacks, mainly Iron Valiant's Close Combat, which started gaining popularity towards the tail end of this time period. Tera Poison solved this by granting them with a resistance to Fighting-type attacks while still providing the Fairy-type resistance like Tera Steel would. Keep in mind that other Tera types were still far more popular, yet it was nice to see these two opt for Tera Poison once in a while given its low presence in the metagame until now. As for Baxcalibur and Hydreigon in 2024, the former is currently in Ubers, and the latter sees next to no play in OU.

Home Metagame

Early in the generation, Espathra showed the power of the combination of Stored Power and a move to hit Dark-type Pokémon super effectively such as Tera Blast Fighting or Dazzling Gleam backed up by Tera Fairy. With Pokémon Home, we would see a newly introduced Pokémon take this idea and expand on it by making use of its Tera type defensively, the type in question being Poison.

• Cresselia @ Leftovers
• Ability: Levitate
• Tera Type: Poison
• EVs: 248 HP / 208 Def / 52 Spe
• Bold Nature
• IVs: 0 Atk
• - Moonlight
• - Calm Mind
• - Moonblast
• - Stored Power

So why Tera Poison instead of another Tera type like Water? For one, Poison only has two weaknesses in Ground and Psychic. However, Cresselia's Levitate negates said Ground weakness. As for Psychic, unlike Generations 8 and 7, which had Tapu Lele, as well as Mega Alakazam and Mega Medicham in the case of 7, Generation 9 was lacking in offensive Psychic-types able to threaten Cresselia; the most noteworthy one was Hatterene, which could set up with Calm Mind alongside Cresselia and win the one-on-one with Psyshock but still lost instead if Cresselia opted not to Terastallize. Furthermore, Tera Poison also granted Cresselia an immunity to Toxic from the likes of Toxapex and Clodsire, which was another way to slow down Stored Power users like Mew in prior generations. Add to all of this Cresselia's amazing bulk, reliable recovery in Moonlight, and access to Moonblast to hit Dark-types, and you get a bulky setup sweeper able to take games by storm after just a couple of turns of setup. We can see this set in thehollow1's Cresselia team for the Kingambit suspect test:

Though Cresselia was the most prominent new user of Tera Poison, a couple more Pokémon made use of this Tera type, with a bit more prominence this time than how it was for Baxcalibur and Hydreigon.

First was Hoopa-U, with Tera Poison turning its weakness to Fairy into a resistance and particularly improving its matchup against Iron Valiant, as it also provided Hoopa-U with a resistance to Iron Valiant's Close Combat, which would otherwise heavily threaten Hoopa-U's due to its poor physical bulk. Tera Poison also boosted the power of Hoopa-U's Gunk Shot while flipping its 4x weakness to Bug to block revenge killing attempts with U-turn.

Following Volcarona's first ban, the list of Pokémon that were able to take on Iron Valiant became even smaller. Tera Poison allowed Garganacl to act as one of those checks while also later dealing with the terrifying Sneasler by resisting its dual STAB options. Garganacl's high bulk, access to Curse and Iron Defense, and "resistance" to Ghost-type attacks thanks to Purifying Salt let it take on other common attacks from Iron Valiant such as Knock Off, Shadow Ball, and Psyshock. This Tera type also gave Garganacl a resistance to Meowscarada's Flower Trick, which could otherwise crit through its Defense boosts.

While none of these Pokémon are OU anymore, they still make use of Tera Poison when they show up, particularly Cresselia and Hoopa-U. This closes the second chapter of the OU metagame, and while Tera Poison seems to be used only on very specific or niche Pokémon, the best is about to come.

The Teal Mask Metagame

Remember Cresselia's ability to set up with Tera Poison? Well what if we do that but on a Pokémon that is extremely strong right away due to a 140 Base Power STAB move and 135 base Special Attack?! Introducing Ursaluna-B!

• Ursaluna-Bloodmoon @ Leftovers
• Ability: Mind's Eye
• Tera Type: Poison
• EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
• Modest Nature
• IVs: 0 Atk
• - Calm Mind
• - Blood Moon
• - Earth Power / Hyper Voice
• - Moonlight / Vacuum Wave

At first glance, Tera types such as Water, Ghost and Fairy seem to make more sense on Ursaluna-B, and while it certainly made use of those, Tera Poison was the one at the top. This Tera type turned Ursaluna-B's weakness to Grass- and Fighting-type attacks into a resistance. This was invaluable in a metagame where Rillaboom + Sneasler cores were everywhere, with Close Combat Iron Valiant and Body Press Zamazenta being a common sight on top of that. Not only that, but the immunity to Toxic was much more important now with Toxic Gliscor being one of the top defensive walls in the tier. Keep in mind that one free turn with Ursaluna-B might mean getting a KO right away thanks to its signature move Blood Moon, and it was excellent at getting free turns by baiting the aforementioned Fighting- and Grass-type moves. We can find an even bulkier version of this set in one of Finchinator's teams from SCL III:

Ursaluna-B would eventually get banned from OU via a suspect test in which it received 93.42% support for a ban, and it was not be retested for The Indigo Disk metagame.

Ursaluna-B was not the only bulky Pokémon that would set up with Tera Poison, as another new Pokémon would also do this while making use of Stored Power.

• Manaphy @ Leftovers
• Ability: Hydration
• EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spe
• Tera Type: Poison
• Bold Nature
• - Take Heart
• - Acid Armor
• - Scald
• - Stored Power

By this point, Tera Poison's defensive capabilities were more than clear, and thus Take Heart + Acid Armor Manaphy sets opted to run it rather often. Manaphy was able to turn its Grass weakness into a resistance, granting it free turns against the likes of Rillaboom and Ogerpon-W. While it wasn't able to hit them hard right away, a free Acid Armor would prevent them from breaking past Manaphy altogether. Unlike Cresselia, Tera Poison Manaphy would be weak to Ground-type attacks from the likes of Gliscor and Great Tusk. However, said Pokémon also had to be scared of Manaphy's Scald hitting them for super effective damage, while Acid Armor could let Manaphy become unbreakable to them either way. Furthermore, Manaphy could be used alongside Rillaboom, with the former's Grassy Terrain removing Tera Poison Manaphy's weakness to Earthquake and granting it extra passive recovery. During the Gliscor suspect test kd458's Manaphy Grassy Terrain team proved to be greatly effective, being used by several players to achieved voting requirements. Said team is...

Manaphy was one of the scariest sweepers in The Teal Mask metagame in part due to the above set. Despite Manaphy eventually dropping to UU, its impact is still felt with Pokémon like Ogerpon-W running Encore to stop setup sweepers like Manaphy from getting out of hand.

Not only new Pokémon were using Tera Poison, however, as an old metagame staple also started making use of it to great success.

• Great Tusk @ Booster Energy
• Ability: Protosynthesis
• Tera Type: Poison
• EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
• Jolly Nature
• - Headlong Rush / Earthquake
• - Ice Spinner
• - Bulk Up
• - Rapid Spin

Just like with Manaphy, Tera Poison granted Great Tusk a resistance to Grass-type attacks such as those from Rillaboom; it also turned Great Tusk's Fairy weakness into a resistance, improving its matchup against the likes of Enamorus and Iron Valiant. The aforementioned Rillaboom and Enamorus would then be met by a super effective Ice Spinner. With Tera Poison also came an immunity to Gliscor's Toxic, allowing Great Tusk to use it as setup fodder, as Gliscor's Earthquake wouldn't do much damage once Great Tusk started boosting with Bulk Up. This also let Great Tusk more safely take on Zamazenta, gaining a resistance to its Body Press. Leng loi used a team with this Great Tusk set to showcase other rarely seen Pokémon in Tinkaton and Iron Jugulis, the team being...

Great Tusk is still very much a presence in the current metagame, with Tera Poison allowing it to also take on new threats in Meowscarada and Serperior.

A couple more Pokémon started using Tera Poison at this point to good success:

Clefable was another Stored Power user that opted to run Tera Poison, this time boosting with Cosmic Power, making it hard for passive Ground-types like Landorus-T and Gliscor to break it and giving it setup opportunities against Sneasler's Poison-type attacks. It could even opt for Unaware instead of Magic Guard, as Tera Poison provided it with an immunity to Toxic.

It was around this time that Hisuian Samurott started running Tera Poison, as it turns all of its Fairy-, Fighting-, and Grass-type weaknesses into resistances.

The Indigo Disk Metagame

In the current metagame, several new Pokémon quickly started making use of Tera Poison. The first of these Pokémon is the last of our Stored Power users, and had already seen play with a similar set in Generation 8, with Toxic being a common way to stop it back then.

• Latias @ Leftovers
• Ability: Levitate
• Tera Type: Poison
• EVs: 248 HP / 244 Def / 16 Spe
• Timid Nature
• IVs: 0 Atk
• - Calm Mind
• - Agility
• - Stored Power
• - Aura Sphere

Unlike the other Stored Power users, Latias boosts its Speed with Agility, and can threaten Dark-types without having to rely on Tera Blast thanks to its access to Aura Sphere. Just like with Cresselia, Tera Poison grants Latias an immunity to Toxic, with Levitate upsetting its Ground weakness. This set was showcased by Pinkacross in their Screens HO RMT early into The Indigo Disk metagame:

Another of our Tera Poison users is the controversial Darkrai. In the months prior to Darkrai's drop into OU, types such as Fairy and Fighting were brought up as potentially great choices for Darkrai's Tera type. Tera Poison was another option discussed, and one that seems to have made an impact on the tier.

• Darkrai @ Focus Sash / Life Orb
• Ability: Bad Dreams
• Tera Type: Poison
• EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
• Timid Nature
• IVs: 0 Atk
• - Dark Pulse
• - Sludge Bomb / Ice Beam
• - Ice Beam / Focus Blast
• - Nasty Plot

Tera Poison turns Darkrai's Fairy and Fighting weaknesses into resistances, improving its matchup against the likes of Enamorus, Zamazenta, Iron Valiant, and Clefable. Furthermore, Tera Poison grants Darkrai a resistance to Rillaboom's Grassy Glide, potentially denying Rillaboom's attempts to revenge killing it. While Darkrai doesn't always run Sludge Bomb, it also appreciates the extra boost in power it gets when it does. Giving Darkrai free turns can be lethal due to its access to Nasty Plot and formerly Hypnosis, and Tera Poison gives it some space to get those free turns. Right before sleep moves were banned, vkhss managed to use Tera Poison Darkrai to great success with his 3 attacks Darkrai HO, the full team being...

Even after the ban of sleep moves in SV OU, Darkrai is still a great choice, with Tera Poison being perhaps its best Tera option to flip some of its matchups into the tier's strongest threats.

Taking the idea of using Tera Poison to flip matchups on their heads to the extreme, the next controversial Pokémon that proved itself able to use Tera Poison well enough to demand a suspect test was Gouging Fire!

• Gouging Fire @ Leftovers
• Ability: Protosynthesis
• Tera Type: Poison
• EVs: 252 HP / 72 Atk / 104 Def / 16 SpD / 64 Spe
• Impish Nature
• - Flare Blitz
• - Breaking Swipe
• - Dragon Dance
• - Morning Sun

With Tera Poison to grant an immunity to Toxic, Gouging Fire forced the DLC2 metagame to adapt around it, as a Tera Poison Breaking Swipe set turned Gouging Fire's usual checks like Gliscor, Great Tusk, and physical Landorus-T into setup fodder. A resistance to Fairy-type attacks is appreciated, but Tera Poison's Fighting-type resistance is even more vital; this combines with Breaking Swipe to let Gouging Fire PP stall out Curse Dondozo entirely, as even a maxed-out Body Press when resisted isn't enough to break through Leftovers and Morning Sun recovery, while Breaking Swipe handles Waterfall variants. While Gouging Fire survived its suspect vote, Tera Poison was and still is a major contributing factor to its success. This set was first seen on spook's Bulky Gouging Fire bulky offense build, making a major splash in the tier on the following team:

Bulky setup sweepers using Tera Poison are still a common theme in the tier, with one in particular having recently risen to the spotlight.

With Tera Poison, Primarina flips its matchups into Grass-type attacks from Ogerpon-W, Rillaboom, and Meowscarada, also gaining an immunity to Toxic from Galarian Slowking and Clodsire. Defensive Pokémon like Clodsire and Gliscor that could otherwise take advantage of its weakness to Ground-type attacks are punished by its Water STAB options; though it isn't Primarina's only option, Tera Poison is a very strong choice that has to be respected.

Closing Thoughts

Tera Poison's unique traits have let it be a tool against the likes of Breloom, Iron Valiant, Rillaboom, and Sneasler, which might say more about the strength of such Pokémon rather than the defensive profile of Tera Poison as a whole. However, it has also allowed bulky setup sweepers like Cresselia, Manaphy, and of course Ursaluna-B to terrorize the tier. Pokémon like Darkrai and Hoopa-U have been able to use Tera Poison offensively as well, thanks to it powering up Sludge Bomb and Gunk Shot. However, unlike Tera Dark with Kingambit, Tera Ghost Dragapult, Tera Fire Chi-Yu, Tera Ice Baxcalibur, and even Tera Steel Scizor, Tera Poison has yet to show up as a STAB Tera type able to boost the damage output of the user's moves, with only Tera Poison Sneasler and Overqwil having shown up a couple of times at most.

Will Tera Poison find new uses in the future? What Pokémon are yet to exploit Tera Poison's strengths? That is yet to be seen, but I am sure the answers will surprise us.

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