Introduction:
The IronPress combo is one that's close to irrelevant in the current DOU metagame. Nothing consistently uses it besides bronzong, despite the idea of boosting your defense and offense at the same time being inherently really strong. This is where Iron Hands comes in; with very good natural bulk it becomes easier to set up, and with the STAB boost on body press it becomes much harder to wall after it sets up. The tier is also full of physical attackers like Oger-W, Oger-H, Pao, Roaring Moon, opposing Hands, etc. This leaves an opening for IronPress Hands to do well into the surrounding metagame.
1.
Iron Hands
Iron Hands @ Leftovers
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 92 HP / 160 Def / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Iron Defense
- Body Press
- Ice Punch
- Detect
This is the star of the team, and therefore also its starting point. Hands's absurd natural bulk lets it setup iron defenses with consistency, which also makes it much harder to kill. Ice Punch covers targets that Hands wouldn't be able to hit at all with this set like Sinistcha, Dragonite, and the genies. Normally, SD hands also has a very similar role to this. Those sets often need to run clam to counteract intimidate, which hands is very weak to. However, this Hands isn't really afraid of intimidate so we can greed the item. Leftovers gives us recovery and comboes well with Hands's absurd 154 base HP, giving us an overall higher net gain on health per turn. Water tera is a generally strong tera on hands, letting it take on snow teams effectively without sacrificing the resistance to make it rain from gholdengo. Since Hands has worse special bulk than physical and it isn't boosted by idef either, we maxed its special bulk out completely. With only a little bit of HP investment now, Hands has a 75% chance to live Earth Power from timid lando, letting us OHKO it back with ice punch. The more important calc involving landorus comes up when we take tera into consideration: with tera water, hands will always survive two earth powers from timid lando with the lefties recovery. The rest of the EVs are put into defense to boost body press's damage, and 4 EVs are in speed to minimize speed ties with opposing uninvested Hands/Ursaluna. Hands hitting the 137 speed tier also has the benefit of outspeeding the 203 speed tier at -1, which is a relatively common speed tier that slower mons can try to hit.
2.
Ting-Lu
Ting-Lu @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 20 HP / 164 Atk / 24 Def / 252 SpD / 48 Spe
Impish Nature
- Whirlwind
- Ruination
- Stealth Rock
- Throat Chop
Hands with max special bulk often doesnt really take special attacks perfectly, and its still susceptible to being outdamaged by threats like modest lando, gholdengo, and regidrago. Ting-Lu's vessel of ruin helps slow this issue down, letting hands stick around for extra turns and be more of a nuisance. The moves are relatively standard; Rocks and Whirlwind are a given when using this pokemon without AV, and ruination gives lu an option into pokemon like diancie which it cant damage otherwise. The last move is throat chop, since ghold can be really tough for our Hands set and this gives us a tool to hit it hard. When combined with the attack investment, chop can 2hko even very bulky gholdengo through leftovers. Helmet is used because Idef hands often pushes physical attacks away from itself and towards its partner, giving lu more opportunities to chip the opponent with rocky helmet. Poison is a great defensive tera for lu, and gives us an option to remove tspikes too if we really need to. The speed EVs let Ting-Lu outspeed our Hands by 1 point, letting us use ruination to cut our opponents health in half before using body press. We want to use Ting-Lu to mainly switch into strong special attacks, so there's max investment there. The rest of the bulk lets us almost always survive three -1 ice spinners from pao with hospitality, letting us set up rocks in the face of super effective damage.
3.
Sinistcha
Sinistcha @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Hospitality
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 8 SpA / 172 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Matcha Gotcha
- Rage Powder
- Trick Room
- Shadow Ball
Hands + Lu is a super bulky core that tries to overwhelm the opponent after a few turns of setup. An inherent issue with this kind of strategy can be getting chipped down over time. The opponent can simply swing at us a few times and we will just run out of health. While Hands's leftovers are partially targeted to solve this problem, it often isn't going to be enough to outpace common cores like Bolt + Incin + Rilla or Glimmora + Ting-lu. And this is where Sinistcha comes in. Sinistcha's main draw comes in Hospitality, letting our bulky pokemon gain much-needed recovery and stay alive for more turns. However, this isn't its only use here. With its good complementary typing to both iron hands and ting-lu, it can redirect moves that would otherwise hit these pokemon for super effective, letting them save their health for later. Sinistcha also doubles down as a strong TR setter, giving the team some speed control. Matcha Gotcha and sball provide good neutral damage into the tier, with the item and tera being standard ones.
4.
Incineroar
Incineroar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Def / 156 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Fake Out
- Flare Blitz
- Taunt
- Parting Shot
Despite Lu being on the team, we still need more for Gholdengo as after tera, it can still run away with the game. Incin is a second check to gholdengo as well as being an insane pokemon in its own right. Incin also helps complete a very nice switching core of lu, cha, and itself. Intimidate slowing the pace of the game down synergizes very well with the rest of the team, and the rest of Incin's support kit help glue the core together. Fake Out, Flare Blitz, and Parting Shot are all standard moves that help Incineroar contribute in almost any given matchup. We dropped Knock Off for Taunt to give us a tool vs opposing hard trick room, which our team currently gets outpaced by. Tera Ghost helps give insurance against opposing fighting attacks, fake out, and espeed. HDB helps us pivot comfortably against rocks, and the EVs are also common. 8 speed EVs lets us reduce speed ties with opposing incineroar, giving us direct info on the faster fake out dynamic from the ability activation order.
5.
Kyurem
Kyurem @ Assault Vest
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 108 HP / 152 SpA / 52 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Glaciate
- Freeze-Dry
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon
Kyurem's decent bulk which gets further boosted by the Assault Vest help better the team's matchup against offensive threats such as Oger-W, Lando-I, the ursalunas and Rillaboom, as well as providing a second form of speed control with glaciate. Overall, kyurem serves as the team's second special wall, while also pressuring problem pokemon like Amoonguss with its powerful ice stab. Kyurem's ability to trade with regidrago without tailwind is also very important, since our team is quite weak to dragon energy in general so far. In return, the team gives kyurem a lot of survivability, letting it attack many more times and get more value. Glaciate is kyurem's most spammed move on this team, getting speed drops to help counteract the lower speed tiers on the team. Freeze-Dry and Earth Power make kyurem almost unwallable offensively, giving us the option to use kyurem more offensively as well. Flash Cannon nails Diancie for super-effective, who can be a massive pain when paired with Amoonguss. Water tera is specifically used on kyurem to trade with chi yu and sun-based offense more effectively, and is also a good defensive tera in general. The speed EVs outspeed modest landorus and timid glimmora, while the special attack investment lets us 2HKO physically defensive Tornadus with glaciate. Finally, the special defense and HP let us take a helping-hand boosted charcoal full power tera-fire torkoal's eruption in the sun without tera, which is a calc so absurd that we decided to not focus on anything more specific as kyurem can take pretty close to all special attacks.
6.
Gholdengo
Gholdengo @ Life Orb
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 56 HP / 28 Def / 252 SpA / 172 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Make It Rain
- Shadow Ball
- Protect
So far, the team lacks special offense and is heavily support-oriented. We therefore start looking for a strong set-up special sweeper that can use our core and also gives us a good burst option. Gholdengo fills these roles perfectly with its above average SPA and strong stab options in make It rain and shadow ball, accentuating its role as the team's late game clean up sweeper and strong wallbreaker against slower teams. Its superb defensive and offensive typing helps against foes that iron hands might struggle with, such as amoonguss, iron crown and hatterene. Gholdengo also gives us a second wincon with Nasty Plot, and with life orb also gives us strong burst damage that we were lacking before. Protect rounds out the moveset and we went with a tera type of fairy to handle chien pao better. While this may seem odd at first because iron hands easily beats pao, we realized in testing that when we use ghold as the centerpiece that hands cant really come in early game. This results in lines where Gholdengo is very susceptible to pao, since we can't easily redirect its moves with sinistcha and it is often paired with pokemon that handle incineroar very well. The tera also helps us take knock offs from incin and rmoon more comfortably. A timid nature alongside 172 EVs lets Gholdengo outspeed Chien-Pao after 1 speed drop, letting us then OHKO it with Make It Rain. Max special attack compliments life orb well, and 56 HP EVs minimize life orb recoil. The rest of the EVs are put into defense since there aren't any more relevant speed tiers we can hit with what we have left.
This team is a bulky build that aims to maximize value out of the few offensive pieces we have. As of now, one of us has used this team to get to 1850+ on ladder using this team from the low 1500s (evidence has been attached below). Hopefully you all enjoyed our first ever RMT, and we wish everyone a great new start to 2026!
Here's the paste if anyone wants to use the team: https://pokepast.es/0f5362f4f3e8f192
The IronPress combo is one that's close to irrelevant in the current DOU metagame. Nothing consistently uses it besides bronzong, despite the idea of boosting your defense and offense at the same time being inherently really strong. This is where Iron Hands comes in; with very good natural bulk it becomes easier to set up, and with the STAB boost on body press it becomes much harder to wall after it sets up. The tier is also full of physical attackers like Oger-W, Oger-H, Pao, Roaring Moon, opposing Hands, etc. This leaves an opening for IronPress Hands to do well into the surrounding metagame.
1.
Iron HandsIron Hands @ Leftovers
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 92 HP / 160 Def / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Iron Defense
- Body Press
- Ice Punch
- Detect
This is the star of the team, and therefore also its starting point. Hands's absurd natural bulk lets it setup iron defenses with consistency, which also makes it much harder to kill. Ice Punch covers targets that Hands wouldn't be able to hit at all with this set like Sinistcha, Dragonite, and the genies. Normally, SD hands also has a very similar role to this. Those sets often need to run clam to counteract intimidate, which hands is very weak to. However, this Hands isn't really afraid of intimidate so we can greed the item. Leftovers gives us recovery and comboes well with Hands's absurd 154 base HP, giving us an overall higher net gain on health per turn. Water tera is a generally strong tera on hands, letting it take on snow teams effectively without sacrificing the resistance to make it rain from gholdengo. Since Hands has worse special bulk than physical and it isn't boosted by idef either, we maxed its special bulk out completely. With only a little bit of HP investment now, Hands has a 75% chance to live Earth Power from timid lando, letting us OHKO it back with ice punch. The more important calc involving landorus comes up when we take tera into consideration: with tera water, hands will always survive two earth powers from timid lando with the lefties recovery. The rest of the EVs are put into defense to boost body press's damage, and 4 EVs are in speed to minimize speed ties with opposing uninvested Hands/Ursaluna. Hands hitting the 137 speed tier also has the benefit of outspeeding the 203 speed tier at -1, which is a relatively common speed tier that slower mons can try to hit.
2.
Ting-LuTing-Lu @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 20 HP / 164 Atk / 24 Def / 252 SpD / 48 Spe
Impish Nature
- Whirlwind
- Ruination
- Stealth Rock
- Throat Chop
Hands with max special bulk often doesnt really take special attacks perfectly, and its still susceptible to being outdamaged by threats like modest lando, gholdengo, and regidrago. Ting-Lu's vessel of ruin helps slow this issue down, letting hands stick around for extra turns and be more of a nuisance. The moves are relatively standard; Rocks and Whirlwind are a given when using this pokemon without AV, and ruination gives lu an option into pokemon like diancie which it cant damage otherwise. The last move is throat chop, since ghold can be really tough for our Hands set and this gives us a tool to hit it hard. When combined with the attack investment, chop can 2hko even very bulky gholdengo through leftovers. Helmet is used because Idef hands often pushes physical attacks away from itself and towards its partner, giving lu more opportunities to chip the opponent with rocky helmet. Poison is a great defensive tera for lu, and gives us an option to remove tspikes too if we really need to. The speed EVs let Ting-Lu outspeed our Hands by 1 point, letting us use ruination to cut our opponents health in half before using body press. We want to use Ting-Lu to mainly switch into strong special attacks, so there's max investment there. The rest of the bulk lets us almost always survive three -1 ice spinners from pao with hospitality, letting us set up rocks in the face of super effective damage.
3.
SinistchaSinistcha @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Hospitality
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 8 SpA / 172 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Matcha Gotcha
- Rage Powder
- Trick Room
- Shadow Ball
Hands + Lu is a super bulky core that tries to overwhelm the opponent after a few turns of setup. An inherent issue with this kind of strategy can be getting chipped down over time. The opponent can simply swing at us a few times and we will just run out of health. While Hands's leftovers are partially targeted to solve this problem, it often isn't going to be enough to outpace common cores like Bolt + Incin + Rilla or Glimmora + Ting-lu. And this is where Sinistcha comes in. Sinistcha's main draw comes in Hospitality, letting our bulky pokemon gain much-needed recovery and stay alive for more turns. However, this isn't its only use here. With its good complementary typing to both iron hands and ting-lu, it can redirect moves that would otherwise hit these pokemon for super effective, letting them save their health for later. Sinistcha also doubles down as a strong TR setter, giving the team some speed control. Matcha Gotcha and sball provide good neutral damage into the tier, with the item and tera being standard ones.
4.
IncineroarIncineroar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Def / 156 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Fake Out
- Flare Blitz
- Taunt
- Parting Shot
Despite Lu being on the team, we still need more for Gholdengo as after tera, it can still run away with the game. Incin is a second check to gholdengo as well as being an insane pokemon in its own right. Incin also helps complete a very nice switching core of lu, cha, and itself. Intimidate slowing the pace of the game down synergizes very well with the rest of the team, and the rest of Incin's support kit help glue the core together. Fake Out, Flare Blitz, and Parting Shot are all standard moves that help Incineroar contribute in almost any given matchup. We dropped Knock Off for Taunt to give us a tool vs opposing hard trick room, which our team currently gets outpaced by. Tera Ghost helps give insurance against opposing fighting attacks, fake out, and espeed. HDB helps us pivot comfortably against rocks, and the EVs are also common. 8 speed EVs lets us reduce speed ties with opposing incineroar, giving us direct info on the faster fake out dynamic from the ability activation order.
5.
KyuremKyurem @ Assault Vest
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 108 HP / 152 SpA / 52 SpD / 196 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Glaciate
- Freeze-Dry
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon
Kyurem's decent bulk which gets further boosted by the Assault Vest help better the team's matchup against offensive threats such as Oger-W, Lando-I, the ursalunas and Rillaboom, as well as providing a second form of speed control with glaciate. Overall, kyurem serves as the team's second special wall, while also pressuring problem pokemon like Amoonguss with its powerful ice stab. Kyurem's ability to trade with regidrago without tailwind is also very important, since our team is quite weak to dragon energy in general so far. In return, the team gives kyurem a lot of survivability, letting it attack many more times and get more value. Glaciate is kyurem's most spammed move on this team, getting speed drops to help counteract the lower speed tiers on the team. Freeze-Dry and Earth Power make kyurem almost unwallable offensively, giving us the option to use kyurem more offensively as well. Flash Cannon nails Diancie for super-effective, who can be a massive pain when paired with Amoonguss. Water tera is specifically used on kyurem to trade with chi yu and sun-based offense more effectively, and is also a good defensive tera in general. The speed EVs outspeed modest landorus and timid glimmora, while the special attack investment lets us 2HKO physically defensive Tornadus with glaciate. Finally, the special defense and HP let us take a helping-hand boosted charcoal full power tera-fire torkoal's eruption in the sun without tera, which is a calc so absurd that we decided to not focus on anything more specific as kyurem can take pretty close to all special attacks.
6.
GholdengoGholdengo @ Life Orb
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 56 HP / 28 Def / 252 SpA / 172 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Make It Rain
- Shadow Ball
- Protect
So far, the team lacks special offense and is heavily support-oriented. We therefore start looking for a strong set-up special sweeper that can use our core and also gives us a good burst option. Gholdengo fills these roles perfectly with its above average SPA and strong stab options in make It rain and shadow ball, accentuating its role as the team's late game clean up sweeper and strong wallbreaker against slower teams. Its superb defensive and offensive typing helps against foes that iron hands might struggle with, such as amoonguss, iron crown and hatterene. Gholdengo also gives us a second wincon with Nasty Plot, and with life orb also gives us strong burst damage that we were lacking before. Protect rounds out the moveset and we went with a tera type of fairy to handle chien pao better. While this may seem odd at first because iron hands easily beats pao, we realized in testing that when we use ghold as the centerpiece that hands cant really come in early game. This results in lines where Gholdengo is very susceptible to pao, since we can't easily redirect its moves with sinistcha and it is often paired with pokemon that handle incineroar very well. The tera also helps us take knock offs from incin and rmoon more comfortably. A timid nature alongside 172 EVs lets Gholdengo outspeed Chien-Pao after 1 speed drop, letting us then OHKO it with Make It Rain. Max special attack compliments life orb well, and 56 HP EVs minimize life orb recoil. The rest of the EVs are put into defense since there aren't any more relevant speed tiers we can hit with what we have left.
This team is a bulky build that aims to maximize value out of the few offensive pieces we have. As of now, one of us has used this team to get to 1850+ on ladder using this team from the low 1500s (evidence has been attached below). Hopefully you all enjoyed our first ever RMT, and we wish everyone a great new start to 2026!
Here's the paste if anyone wants to use the team: https://pokepast.es/0f5362f4f3e8f192
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