SS OU Sloshing Stall Slayers - Hail Hazard Stack HO

Yo, yo! I am back with my 4th RMT and after last time, (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/rain-bo-ft-wish-pass-clefable.3708942/#post-9357465) I eventually scrapped the team for being too passive to be on rain, I turned to hail and looked into making it extremely offensive, and specifically to CRUSH stall. Hyper Offense, if you will. This team in a way is similar to my Grass Spam HO. However I assure you, this is a better built team. Without further ado, I present to you, Sloshing Stall Slayers!

THE TEAM: (https://pokepast.es/f979c3be12264d28)
:sm/zapdos-galar: :sm/ninetales-alola: :sm/arctozolt: :sm/tapu-lele: :sm/ferrothorn: :sm/garchomp:

:sm/zapdos-galar:
ZAPDOS
Zapdos-Galar @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Brave Bird
- Close Combat
- Blaze Kick

I initially wanted to build around a :zapdos-galar: for HO. :Zapdos-galar: isn’t used a whole lot in the metagame so it has a pretty decent surprise factor. :zapdos-galar: is an extremely prevalent threat to the OU tier right now. Just seeing a :Zapdos-galar: strikes fear into the eyes of players defaulting to leading :Landorus-therian: every game. :Zapdos-galar: breaks so many things that would usually be on stall teams. :Corviknight:, :Landorus-Therian: :Toxapex:, :Ferrothorn:, :Clefable: and many more can all be broken with hazard support. We can also keep up the momentum with U-Turn as our extremely strong brave birds and close combats force out very specific responses that can be used as a momentum gainer which is nice for a fast-paced team like this looking to close out games in <30 turns. Brave Bird and CC are stab, U-turn is for momentum and blaze kick is to break through :corviknight: and :skarmory: easier. I am running Jolly as :zapdos-galar: has a very important speed tier and :choice-band: is for breaking.

:sm/ninetales-alola:
NINETALES
Ninetales-Alola @ Icy Rock
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Aurora Veil
- Freeze-Dry
- Encore
- Blizzard

:ninetales-alola: is our hail and veil setter. This is a pretty standard set with veil to help breakers swap in or to help :ferrothorn: and :garchomp: set up hazards. Freeze-Dry is to be able to chunk bulky waters such as :toxapex:, :tapu-fini: and :slowbro: whilst hitting :gastrodon:, :seismitoad: and :pelipper: for 4x effective. This also helps against rain teams as Freeze-dry hits usually 1/2 or more of the team for super effective. Encore is to lock something into a support move then get a free switch into a breaker along with hail chip. As the last move I like to run blizzard to do more damage when it is needed but this could easily be subbed out for other moves. I run timid and max speed to set hail as fast as possible.

:sm/arctozolt:
ARCTOZOLT
Arctozolt @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 200 Atk / 76 SpA / 232 Spe
Naive Nature
- Substitute
- Bolt Beak
- Blizzard
- Low Kick

:arctozolt: is an absolute madman. Under hail this boy outspeeds so many things, we also have the extremely hard to resist bolt-beam core but the moves are just stronger, it’s not fair. Behind a substitute you can make your opponents shake in their boots as they are wondering whether you are going to bolt beak their ground type predicting a swap or will you blizzard and just play it safe and hope that they double back on themselves. I usually do the former as people don’t like risking their :landorus-therian: and like to bring it back in for intimidates if I don’t get up a sub, they also like to eventually get sr up if they hadn’t already. This is the standard :arctozolt: hail sweeper set with low kick for things like :ferrothorn: and :melmetal: (before it gets banned lol)

:sm/tapu-lele:
TAPU LELE
Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Future Sight
- Focus Blast
- Moonblast

Now as it can sometimes be a prediction game when attacking with :arctozolt: I wanted a future sight user. :Choice-Scarf: :Tapu-Lele: is both a great breaker overall and the best offensive future sight user. It was love at first sight (no pun intended). Even thought future sight was meant to be paired with :arctozolt: I find myself pairing it with :zapdos-galar: more often. I am using a standard set with dual stab and focus blast for :melmetal:, :ferrothorn: and :heatran:. :Tapu-Lele: serves as speed control aswell because even under hail our sneezing menace gets outsped by scarfers which is a pain late game when you don’t have the hail turns to set a sub.

:sm/ferrothorn:
FERROTHORN
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Knock Off
- Leech Seed
- Body Press

Ok I know, this is meant to be a hyper offense team but I atleast need something to fall back on and rely on defensively. I chose :ferrothorn: for this job as it has chip damage and item removal with iron barbs, spikes and knock off to open up the rest of the team. I run body press as the last move to trade vs other :ferrothorn: as it can be a problem for :arctozol: to deal with and it also sets hazards. I run leftovers for the longevity but I can see this being swapped out for :rocky-helmet: to give more chip damage. :ferrothorn: is sometimes just used as a sack to set up some hazards and knock off an item to then get a free swap into a breaker. This mon gives us a water resist, a defensive steel type and hazards which is extremely useful and I do not regret a defensive mon on a HO.

:sm/garchomp:
GARCHOMP
Garchomp @ Leftovers
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Swords Dance

I needed an electric immunity, and something that can swap into a ghost stab even just once. I decided to go for :garchomp: here as it provides stealth rock and acts as another breaker. :Garchomp: has great speed for the ghosts it is either getting chunked by or revengekilling. I run swords dance along with earthquake for stab and fire fang for a surprise factor. I cannot tell you how many times I have swords danced on something swapping out and fire fanged the unexpecting :corviknight: which usually kills or deals huge damage and then I go on to win as they lose a :Tapu-Lele: check, an :arctozolt: check and a :zapdos-galar: check in one turn, it is hilarious. I like :garchomp: as a lead as I can usually scare off the :landorus-therian: lead with the presence of :ninetales-alola: and :zapdos-galar: in team preview. Which allows me to safely get up a sr and prevent them from getting theirs. :garchomp: also acts as a secondary contact punisher and can rack up chip damage on. :landorus-therian:, :corviknight:, :tornadus-therian:, :tapu-koko: and many more when they brainlessly click u-turn.

Thats all for the Pokemon and the sets! Let’s move onto the threats

THREATS:
:sm/ferrothorn:
It can be hard to break through if :zapdos-galar: cannot get in and is very annoying as it punishes contact and has hazards. A very annoying mon.

Anything with stealth rock lol
There’s no removal here as because of the teams hazard stack element and fast paced gameplay, I dont have the time or a team slot for a defogger and there was no rapid spinners that fit the team. :Regieleki: was thought about but ultimately scrapped. I just have to be super aggressive and double into a counter when their rocker is coming in. Rocks aren’t the end of the world as the only rock weak mon here is :ninetales-alola: and if it is too low to come in again, it can be useful to have as a sack with how fast this team wants to end games.

:sm/dragapult: :sm/blacephalon:
Ghosts can be hard to deal with as shadow ball is spammable, again you need to play aggressively and not let them come in freely.

(there’s prolly more threats but I forgot lmao)

REPLAYS:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1681340919 - Vs Nidoking + Urshifu Balance (:urshifu-rapid-strike: :slowking: :heatran: :corviknight: :nidoking: :zapdos:)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1682542473 - Vs Terrakion Balance (:terrakion: :heatran: :slowbro: :zeraora: :tornadus-therian: :landorus-therian:)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1682869903 - Vs LudwigFrog's Nasty Plot Rotom-Wash Offense (:rotom-wash: :weavile: :landorus-therian: :heatran: :tangrowth: :melmetal:)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1682944228 - vs Rotom-Heat + Articuno Galar Stall (:rotom-heat: :landorus-therian: :buzzwole: :clefable: :slowking-galar: :articuno-galar:)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1682953737 - Tapu Lele and Arctozolt crack open semi-stall (:tapu-lele: :Rillaboom: :toxapex: :tornadus-therian: :heatran: :gastrodon:)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1687368512 - Zapdos shreds Weavile + Urshifu Offense (:slowking-galar: :urshifu-rapid-strike: :garchomp: :weavile: :corviknight: :Rillaboom:)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1689877129 - Arctozolt shreds through Blacephalon + Crawdaunt semi-stall (:crawdaunt: :blissey: :landorus-therian: :corviknight: :tapu-koko: :blacephalon:)


CONCLUSION
That’s all for this time! I really enjoyed using this team as it got me my highest peak ever and it would mean a lot if this team was actually good lmao. I would also like to give a quick shoutout to Pinkacross and Mimikyu Stardust’s posts about war on stall that show what a stall team needs, and how to counter them. I wouldn’t have made this team without them, so thank you guys so much! That’s all I have to say, until next time!
 

3d

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very solid hail team, haven’t seen much of these recently and i really like the build. most of the threats u listed are pretty manageable as zolt can outspeed and revenge kill ghosts in hail, and ferrothorn gets chipped very easily with zolt + lele. what is a big threat however, is excadrill. it does not take much for an excadrill to sweep this team as once chomp and ferro are barely chipped it sets up a SD on lele and immediayely sweeps your team.

:ferrothorn: -> :corviknight: for this reason, i suggest corviknight over ferrothorn. corviknight provides a lot of utility for this team, mainly defog support for your ice types, and a real ground resist. keeping corviknight healthy will mean excadrill will never sweep and it also provides a nice way to get zolt in via uturn. while the lack of a water resist may seem bad at first glance, the rain MU will come down to who can win the weather war anyway, and this at least gives u an out when facing sand.

:garchomp: changing chomp to spdef will help vs scarf blacephalon which otherwise could be very annoying. losing out on SD will be fine since we already have the immediate breaking power of cb zapdos so we can afford to make chomp bulky.

Garchomp @ Leftovers
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 HP / 240 SpD / 16 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Protect / Flamethrower

Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 168 Def / 88 SpD
Impish Nature
- Body Press
- U-turn
- Defog
- Roost
 
Thanks for the rate! I’m really happy that the team is actually good lol. My only question with the ferro -> corv swap is that I think I might play too passive and go into corv literally anytime there’s hazards on my side which wastes hail turns and could risk opportunities for breaking. So is defog just there for if corv is really safe and ninetales is below 25% or smthn? Also, how would I play around magnezone other than just predicting when it comes in.
 

3d

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is a Tutor Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
World Defender
Thanks for the rate! I’m really happy that the team is actually good lol. My only question with the ferro -> corv swap is that I think I might play too passive and go into corv literally anytime there’s hazards on my side which wastes hail turns and could risk opportunities for breaking. So is defog just there for if corv is really safe and ninetales is below 25% or smthn? Also, how would I play around magnezone other than just predicting when it comes in.
defog whenever rocks go up honestly, with that being said i forgot to mention that arctozolt should be leftovers as you're typically gonna be trying to play with hazards off the field.
 

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