[overview]
**Draft order**: Round 3-4 onwards
**Price range**: 11-12 points
**Overview**: In theory, Blaziken has a lot going for it as an offensive Pokemon. It has a potent STAB combination featuring high base power moves, good offensive stats and the fantastic Speed Boost ability to make up for its below average speed. It can even become a Tera Captain to power itself up even further. However, it is a high maintenance Pokemon due to its numerous flaws. Low bulk means it brings almost no defensive utility to its team, with the recoil of its most powerful STAB attacks not helping either. This also makes setup tricky, which it is reliant on in order to gain enough power to sweep. Additionally, it has trouble fitting all the moves it wants, inbetween Protect, Swords Dance and relevant coverage for specific matchups, which can leave it falling short of power or outright walled. Finally, as an offensive Fighting-type, it faces immense competition from a plethora of powerful Fighting-types, such as Iron Valiant and both Urshifu forms.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Cleaner**: As a cleaner, Blaziken eschews setup in Swords Dance in order to fit as many attacks as possible to hit all of its weakened targets. Speed Boost and Protect patch up its Speed stat while damage boosting items such as Life Orb can be used to further increase the power of all its moves.
**Setup wallbreaker / sweeper**: Swords Dance is used to boost Blaziken's damage output and break defensive walls either for itself or its teammates. The nature of running Speed Boost as an ability means it can boost it's own Speed passively and turn into a sweeper and wallbreaker.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB moves**: Flare Blitz, Blaze Kick, Fire Blast, Overheat, Flamethrower, Close Combat, Low Kick, Focus Blast, Aura Sphere, Vacuum Wave
**Setup moves**: Swords Dance, Protect
**Utility moves**: U-turn, Substitute, Will-O-Wisp
**Coverage**: Knock Off, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Rock Slide, Poison Jab, Thunder Punch, Brave Bird, Acrobatics
Niche Moves
========
**Bulk Up**: Bulk Up is a slower setup alternative to Swords Dance that also attempts to patch up Blazikens weakness to priority moves, many of which are physical. Though this requires more boosts to become threatening, which Blaziken usually doesn't have the longevity for.
**Brick Break**: This move is weaker than most of Blaziken's other STAB moves, but it has the added benefit of removing opposing dual screens, allowing Blaziken to muscle past attempts to weaken its damage output and stop it.
**Reversal**: Reversal becomes Blaziken's most powerful move, reaching 200 base power when at 1HP. This can be done through Focus Sash, Endure or multiple uses of Subsititue. While the potential is great, it is useless at high health and leaves Blaziken easily picked off when at full power, especially by priorty moves.
**Endure**: An alternative to Protect, Endure achieves the same effect of allowing Blaziken to survive a turn to boost Speed while leaving it at low enough health to activate pinch berries such as Liechi Berry, as well as power up Reversal.
**Solar Beam**: Strictly limited to sets running Power Herb or sun teams, Solar Beam provides strong coverage to hit Water-types as opposed to the weaker Thunder Punch.
Common Items
========
**Life Orb**: Life Orb is a standard item that can be used by almost all sets, mainly the cleaner, to increase damage output while allowing Blaziken to switch moves, though the recoil means Blaziken will be prone to KOing itself faster than usual.
**Charcoal / Black Belt / Expert Belt**: Damage-boosting items provide smaller and more specific damage increases than Life Orb, but they notably do not inflict recoil damage, extending Blaziken's lifespan while allowing it to hit certain benchmarks needed for a KO.
**Leftovers**: Many sets run Protect and Flare Blitz, which pair well with Leftovers to gain free turns of recovery and to help offset recoil damage.
**Heavy-Duty Boots**: Blaziken is frail and vulnerable to all entry hazards. As such, Heavy-Duty Boots can be used to conserve Blaziken's health for ease of setting up or using Flare Blitz.
Niche Items
========
**Air Balloon**: An alternative to Heavy-Duty Boots, Air Balloon sacrifices immunity to Stealth Rock for a temporary Ground immunity, allowing Blaziken to have an opportunity to setup or attack foes that're reliant on Ground-type moves to hit it.
**Choice Band**: Blaziken prefers to switch moves, such as using Protect to safely obtain Speed boosts. However, if wallbreaking is preferred over sweeping, Choice Band can be used to provide an even bigger boost than Life Orb, with the added benefit of being able to viably use U-turn as opposed to other sets.
Tera
========
Blaziken can make for a decent Tera Captain, where it can obtain further boosts to its already powerful moves. Tera Fire and Fighting are generally the best options, jacking up the power of its high base power STAB moves. Though depending on the matchup, it can go with types such as Tera Dark and Ground to hit specific targets that would otherwise wall it, such as Latias and Toxapex.
Draft Strategy
========
Blaziken can make for a powerful offensive piece to a draft, being a great cleaner and a decent wallbreaker. Though it will almost never singlehandedly take over games all by itself thanks to its numerous setbacks. Thus, Blaziken needs powerful teammates that can help create the right conditions for it to excel.
**Bulky slow pivots**: Many weaknesses and low defenses prevent Blaziken from hitting the field safely, so it appreciates bulky Pokemon for it to fall back on. Both Slowking forms and Rotom-Wash boast momentum moves and the bulk to take hits in order to slowly pivot and get Blaziken in without taking direct attacks.
**Alternate wallbreakers / sweepers**: Blaziken has issues with not having enough moveslots, leaving it with lacking coverage or not enough setup. As such, it wants teammates to fulfill these roles as well, preventing it from failing to do both at once. For instance, Palafin and Roaring Moon can also become wallbeakers or setup sweepers, allowing them to interchange roles with Blaziken.
**Entry hazards**: Being frail and often opting to not run Heavy-Duty Boots, Blaziken is pressured by all entry hazard. Thus, teammates such as Terapagos and Iron Treads that provide Rapid Spin can keep the field safe for Blaziken. On the flipside, Blaziken likes hazards being setup by its team in order to wear down all its targets. Hazard setters such as Ting-Lu and Glimmora therefore make for good partners thanks to how reliably they can setup hazards.
**Dual screens support**: Blaziken has a hard time setting up thanks to minimal bulk, so naturally screens support can help remedy this issue. Klefki and Grimmsnarl are some of the more reliable screen setters in the format thanks to Prankster, allowing Blaziken to run setup sets more reliably.
**Naturally fast teammates**: Speed Boost may be a great ability, but 80 base speed is pretty low to start with, leaving Blaziken potentially outsped even after one or two boosts. As such, naturally fast Pokemon such as Iron Bundle and Meowscarada can take the pressure off of Blaziken to check faster opponents.
Checks and Counters
========
**Priority attacks**: Since Blaziken is very difficult to outspeed after multiple Speed boosts, priority attacks are the best solution to bypass speed entirely and revenge kill it. This can be compounded further by Blaziken's frailty and the recoil it sustains from using both of it's main STAB attacks in Flare Blitz and Close Combat, as well as from Life Orb.
**Unaware walls**: Blaziken sets reliant on Swords Dance for damage will be completely stuffed by Pokemon with the Unaware ability, ignoring its stat boosts and walling it. Dondozo and Skeledirge are Unaware walls that also boast optimal defensive typing alongside high defense stats to wall Blaziken even further.
**Passive / chip damage**: Multiple forms of passive damage, such as recoil from moves such as Flare Blitz, as well as Life Orb, not to mention entry hazards, all add up to put Blaziken on an uncomfortable timer, leaving it hard pressed to take down healthy teams. Tactics such as Rocky Helmet usage can also burden Blaziken, leaving it KOing itself or putting it in range of priority attacks.
**Fire / Fighting resistances**: Most of Blaziken's coverage options are rather weak without boosts compared to its high Base Power STAB attacks. This leaves Pokemon naturally resistant to its STAB moves, such as Toxapex, Latias and Azumarill, difficult for Blaziken to make progress against or outright muscle past at all.
**Lures**: Despite its flaws, Blaziken does sometimes find good matchups where it can snowball and threaten to sweep. This can lead to lures designed to specifically counter it. Resistance Berries can allow Blaziken's targets to survive and take it out, whilst Focus Sashes and Custap Berry + Endure can also put a halt to its sweep. Thus, opposing teams should be scouted for lures before committing to a Blaziken sweep.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/deranged_lime.272077/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/nyx.564960/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno6377.527276/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/ken.594478/
**Draft order**: Round 3-4 onwards
**Price range**: 11-12 points
**Overview**: In theory, Blaziken has a lot going for it as an offensive Pokemon. It has a potent STAB combination featuring high base power moves, good offensive stats and the fantastic Speed Boost ability to make up for its below average speed. It can even become a Tera Captain to power itself up even further. However, it is a high maintenance Pokemon due to its numerous flaws. Low bulk means it brings almost no defensive utility to its team, with the recoil of its most powerful STAB attacks not helping either. This also makes setup tricky, which it is reliant on in order to gain enough power to sweep. Additionally, it has trouble fitting all the moves it wants, inbetween Protect, Swords Dance and relevant coverage for specific matchups, which can leave it falling short of power or outright walled. Finally, as an offensive Fighting-type, it faces immense competition from a plethora of powerful Fighting-types, such as Iron Valiant and both Urshifu forms.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Cleaner**: As a cleaner, Blaziken eschews setup in Swords Dance in order to fit as many attacks as possible to hit all of its weakened targets. Speed Boost and Protect patch up its Speed stat while damage boosting items such as Life Orb can be used to further increase the power of all its moves.
**Setup wallbreaker / sweeper**: Swords Dance is used to boost Blaziken's damage output and break defensive walls either for itself or its teammates. The nature of running Speed Boost as an ability means it can boost it's own Speed passively and turn into a sweeper and wallbreaker.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB moves**: Flare Blitz, Blaze Kick, Fire Blast, Overheat, Flamethrower, Close Combat, Low Kick, Focus Blast, Aura Sphere, Vacuum Wave
**Setup moves**: Swords Dance, Protect
**Utility moves**: U-turn, Substitute, Will-O-Wisp
**Coverage**: Knock Off, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Rock Slide, Poison Jab, Thunder Punch, Brave Bird, Acrobatics
Niche Moves
========
**Bulk Up**: Bulk Up is a slower setup alternative to Swords Dance that also attempts to patch up Blazikens weakness to priority moves, many of which are physical. Though this requires more boosts to become threatening, which Blaziken usually doesn't have the longevity for.
**Brick Break**: This move is weaker than most of Blaziken's other STAB moves, but it has the added benefit of removing opposing dual screens, allowing Blaziken to muscle past attempts to weaken its damage output and stop it.
**Reversal**: Reversal becomes Blaziken's most powerful move, reaching 200 base power when at 1HP. This can be done through Focus Sash, Endure or multiple uses of Subsititue. While the potential is great, it is useless at high health and leaves Blaziken easily picked off when at full power, especially by priorty moves.
**Endure**: An alternative to Protect, Endure achieves the same effect of allowing Blaziken to survive a turn to boost Speed while leaving it at low enough health to activate pinch berries such as Liechi Berry, as well as power up Reversal.
**Solar Beam**: Strictly limited to sets running Power Herb or sun teams, Solar Beam provides strong coverage to hit Water-types as opposed to the weaker Thunder Punch.
Common Items
========
**Life Orb**: Life Orb is a standard item that can be used by almost all sets, mainly the cleaner, to increase damage output while allowing Blaziken to switch moves, though the recoil means Blaziken will be prone to KOing itself faster than usual.
**Charcoal / Black Belt / Expert Belt**: Damage-boosting items provide smaller and more specific damage increases than Life Orb, but they notably do not inflict recoil damage, extending Blaziken's lifespan while allowing it to hit certain benchmarks needed for a KO.
**Leftovers**: Many sets run Protect and Flare Blitz, which pair well with Leftovers to gain free turns of recovery and to help offset recoil damage.
**Heavy-Duty Boots**: Blaziken is frail and vulnerable to all entry hazards. As such, Heavy-Duty Boots can be used to conserve Blaziken's health for ease of setting up or using Flare Blitz.
Niche Items
========
**Air Balloon**: An alternative to Heavy-Duty Boots, Air Balloon sacrifices immunity to Stealth Rock for a temporary Ground immunity, allowing Blaziken to have an opportunity to setup or attack foes that're reliant on Ground-type moves to hit it.
**Choice Band**: Blaziken prefers to switch moves, such as using Protect to safely obtain Speed boosts. However, if wallbreaking is preferred over sweeping, Choice Band can be used to provide an even bigger boost than Life Orb, with the added benefit of being able to viably use U-turn as opposed to other sets.
Tera
========
Blaziken can make for a decent Tera Captain, where it can obtain further boosts to its already powerful moves. Tera Fire and Fighting are generally the best options, jacking up the power of its high base power STAB moves. Though depending on the matchup, it can go with types such as Tera Dark and Ground to hit specific targets that would otherwise wall it, such as Latias and Toxapex.
Draft Strategy
========
Blaziken can make for a powerful offensive piece to a draft, being a great cleaner and a decent wallbreaker. Though it will almost never singlehandedly take over games all by itself thanks to its numerous setbacks. Thus, Blaziken needs powerful teammates that can help create the right conditions for it to excel.
**Bulky slow pivots**: Many weaknesses and low defenses prevent Blaziken from hitting the field safely, so it appreciates bulky Pokemon for it to fall back on. Both Slowking forms and Rotom-Wash boast momentum moves and the bulk to take hits in order to slowly pivot and get Blaziken in without taking direct attacks.
**Alternate wallbreakers / sweepers**: Blaziken has issues with not having enough moveslots, leaving it with lacking coverage or not enough setup. As such, it wants teammates to fulfill these roles as well, preventing it from failing to do both at once. For instance, Palafin and Roaring Moon can also become wallbeakers or setup sweepers, allowing them to interchange roles with Blaziken.
**Entry hazards**: Being frail and often opting to not run Heavy-Duty Boots, Blaziken is pressured by all entry hazard. Thus, teammates such as Terapagos and Iron Treads that provide Rapid Spin can keep the field safe for Blaziken. On the flipside, Blaziken likes hazards being setup by its team in order to wear down all its targets. Hazard setters such as Ting-Lu and Glimmora therefore make for good partners thanks to how reliably they can setup hazards.
**Dual screens support**: Blaziken has a hard time setting up thanks to minimal bulk, so naturally screens support can help remedy this issue. Klefki and Grimmsnarl are some of the more reliable screen setters in the format thanks to Prankster, allowing Blaziken to run setup sets more reliably.
**Naturally fast teammates**: Speed Boost may be a great ability, but 80 base speed is pretty low to start with, leaving Blaziken potentially outsped even after one or two boosts. As such, naturally fast Pokemon such as Iron Bundle and Meowscarada can take the pressure off of Blaziken to check faster opponents.
Checks and Counters
========
**Priority attacks**: Since Blaziken is very difficult to outspeed after multiple Speed boosts, priority attacks are the best solution to bypass speed entirely and revenge kill it. This can be compounded further by Blaziken's frailty and the recoil it sustains from using both of it's main STAB attacks in Flare Blitz and Close Combat, as well as from Life Orb.
**Unaware walls**: Blaziken sets reliant on Swords Dance for damage will be completely stuffed by Pokemon with the Unaware ability, ignoring its stat boosts and walling it. Dondozo and Skeledirge are Unaware walls that also boast optimal defensive typing alongside high defense stats to wall Blaziken even further.
**Passive / chip damage**: Multiple forms of passive damage, such as recoil from moves such as Flare Blitz, as well as Life Orb, not to mention entry hazards, all add up to put Blaziken on an uncomfortable timer, leaving it hard pressed to take down healthy teams. Tactics such as Rocky Helmet usage can also burden Blaziken, leaving it KOing itself or putting it in range of priority attacks.
**Fire / Fighting resistances**: Most of Blaziken's coverage options are rather weak without boosts compared to its high Base Power STAB attacks. This leaves Pokemon naturally resistant to its STAB moves, such as Toxapex, Latias and Azumarill, difficult for Blaziken to make progress against or outright muscle past at all.
**Lures**: Despite its flaws, Blaziken does sometimes find good matchups where it can snowball and threaten to sweep. This can lead to lures designed to specifically counter it. Resistance Berries can allow Blaziken's targets to survive and take it out, whilst Focus Sashes and Custap Berry + Endure can also put a halt to its sweep. Thus, opposing teams should be scouted for lures before committing to a Blaziken sweep.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/deranged_lime.272077/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/nyx.564960/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno6377.527276/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/ken.594478/
Last edited:
