I decided to try Hoopa-Unbound. I was surprised at how Hoopa-Unbound performed on the OU ladder! How badly it performed, that is. This thing is so bad. I tried out Choice Scarf, and it did 35% to a Corviknight. Literally how. This thing is base 170 SpAtk. It's like, ok against stall at least.
I faced several Kingambits while trying it out. Twice, the opponent switched Kingambit hard into my Hoopa's attack. Twice, I predicted that and clicked Focus Blast. Twice, I missed. This thing is worse than Incineroar. Incineroar can check/counter certain mons, and it does that job well. Hoopa doesn't do ANYTHING special. It's a slow glass cannon that loses to half the meta, and can't even do that much damage. It is RUBL for a reason. I'm disappointed.
I want to try out some fun off-meta mons, but there just aren't any viable ones. I tried Chesnaught, Incineroar, Zapdos-Galar, and now Hoopa, and they all aren't that great. Out of the four, Incineroar was definitely the best.
I hit my peak in the 1700s with Hoopa Unbound. I still love the mon. I hate, hate, hate choice Hoopa though. Psychic is just not a move you can afford to lock into in gen 9 OU.
Pair with Wish for best results. I used a u-turn punish in Zapdos as well. Zapdos also spreads para which Hoopa loves.
Hoopa-Unbound @ Assault Vest
Ability: Magician
Tera Type: Fighting/Poison
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Mild Nature
- Knock Off
- Psychic
- Drain Punch/Focus Blast
- Thunderbolt
Tera fighting makes drain punch kill gambit. Otherwise I prefer a Tera that flips your fairy weakness. Poison also lets you get psychic off on Zamazenta and crushes Valiant.
The plan is very simple. Switch it in on basically any special attack. Then make more progress than they made on you. Its crazy hard for slow, defensive pokemon to switch in on hoopa unbound so you're often chunking sweepers that need their hp to set up.
Glowking can switch in, but he has to hard switch immediately so something else is eating a knock off anyway.
Corviknight is a common switch in to resist the psychic, but physical corvi dies to the psychic + thunderbolt when it tries to u-turn. Special corvi can take this but thunderbolt 2hkos, so a single predict with thunderbolt cripples it. U-turn is also just short of an ohko so you have a little leeway, especially with wish fish.
Kingambit is another common switch in, but Kingambit hates chip damage from knock off. As soon as he's chipped enough that random earthquakes can kill him be loses a lot of his power. Drain Punch needs tera to ohko, but has other matchup uses. Focus Blast 1-shots 70% of the time and Sucker Punch doesn't start ohko-ing until 2 allies dead, and not guaranteed until 4. This is a little misleading as hoopa usually takes chip damage switching in on stuff. It is dangerous for Kingambits too though.
Gholdengo deals 20% on your switch in (30% with make it rain) and is comfortably ohko'd by knock off. Even if you predict with a psychic you don't get punished much if it stays as it can't kill. I find most gholdengos nasty plot on your switch which is great progress for you as someone is eating this knock off.
It used to be a great lead against rain as you just turn 1 press thunderbolt against Pelipper. They have Archaludon these days though so it might not work as well as it used to there.
Honestly though, matchups aside, just switch in on any special attack and Assault Vest Hoopa will force a lot more progress than it took. I'm a big fan of this mon.