BH Balanced Hackmons

[JoeyJoeJoeShabadoo]

Maybe it's just the weakness of a full stat-up support pokemon where any flaw ruins your team. I tend to sweep baton pass squads pretty easily and don't even use Spectral Thief often. That being said, it does have some powerful uses; although i often find i'm better throwing something else out than using my Baton Pass. The Zamazenta set wields a deadly STAB Body Press off of 853 Defense and Cotton Guard brings that to 2134; Baton Pass is there for dodging out or getting a clutch boost but usually swinging hard is more productive.

Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Final Gambit
- Toxic Spikes
- Trick
- Baneful Bunker

Unoriginal

Zeraora @ Assault Vest
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bolt Beak
- Fishious Rend
- Spectral Thief
- U-turn

Bulky and boomy

Reshiram @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steel Beam
- Blue Flare
- Earth Power
- Quiver Dance

Weirdly the pokemon that ends up running through teams. The Life Orb gives it enough punch to get through Imposters and Steel Beam is fantastic against Fairies and Shuckle. I'm sure you could run a similar set with Sheer Force and a different third move, but Magic Guard is a great defense against stall. Stops a pesky leech seed+sturdy set too.

Eternatus @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Ice Scales
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shell Side Arm
- Clanging Scales
- Blue Flare
- Nasty Plot

Powerful and holds on well. Spore wasn't as common as I thought.

Zamazenta-Crowned @ Leftovers
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Cotton Guard
- Body Press
- Baton Pass
- Nuzzle

Zamazenta-Crowned is the best Body Press user in the game. She's got STAB and the high HP/SP.D/SPD that mons with higher base defense lack. This thing laughs off pretty much any physical set. It can be your win condition but you can also support with Baton Pass and Nuzzle.

Toxapex @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Court Change
- Parting Shot
- Perish Song

Court Change is worth a move slot on any team, especially with Prankster. Toxic Spikes aren't much of a threat but flipping Stealth Rock chip or a Sticky Web is a game-changer. Toxic Orb works for sweepers and stallers, with Perish Song pressuring something trying to set up. Depending on the situation, you can often afford to use Trick twice to take back your Orb.

 

[cityscapes]

A Comprehensive Critique of Balanced Hackmons in Generation 8

(note 1: this applies to both galar dex bh and natdex bh, although i do have less experience in the latter and will typically be using galar dex for examples)
(note 2: by no means do i think that either of these metas are unsalvagable. the natdex bh bolt/rend suspect is a great step and i think both metas could be quite fun after appropriate tiering action is taken)
(note 3: free shed i miss him, ban boots if u have to)
(note 4: im not right about everything [i am right about note 3 though])

BH in Generation 8 has brought a variety of new and interesting mechanics, but some of these specific mechanics have combined to form a metagame that has stagnated quickly and rewarded only very specific strategies in high level play. In this essay I will attempt to explain which factors specifically have contributed to this effect, using both personal experience and general metagame knowledge. I cannot hope to prescribe any sort of optimal tiering action by myself, so I will leave this responsibility to the readers.

Without a doubt, the biggest intrinsic problem in the metagame is how absurdly strong the offensive threats are compared to their defensive counterparts. This shouldn't be too hard to illustrate, you have Mega Blaziken but with Ice STAB and a crazy speed tier, Kyurem-W from last gen, Zacian-C, and of course the two newcomers Bolt Beak and Fishious Rend with their various uses. Meanwhile, defensively you only have a couple mons that can even come close to matching these base stats while having a decent typing (Etern, Zama-C, maybe Reshiram) and even then, these answers feel extremely fragile and all crumble to an Earthquake or two.

If you look at Fur Coat in something like Gen 7 BH, it has a pretty interesting function. Stall teams are the only ones that make use of true passive, defensive FC users. Outside of that, you see the ability used typically on offensive Pokemon, like willdbeast's Kyurem-B or my Tapu Lele, to increase the amount of offensive Pokemon they can take on 1v1. In this metagame, however, FC is an absolute necessity to even attempt to take on the breakers. Intrepid Sword, for example, has no true defensive counterplay besides FC. This is less problematic in Natdex (thanks for getting rid of intrepid sword), but still stands out as an issue particularly with Bolt/Rend/V-create combined with Wicked Blow and Triple Axel to eliminate the fat dragons as counterplay, making it easy to create sets that can't really be countered.

Anyway, why is it bad that Fur Coat is used defensively and is a good ability? This is less of an intrinsically bad thing and more of a symptom of a real problem, this problem being that Pokemon and strategies designed to punish passive FC users and other ability-less defensive Pokemon (FF/PSea, Prank, Scales) are less efficient at doing their job than just using straightforward offensive Pokemon that can do the same thing better. I would say that this effect, above all others, is the greatest cause of uncompetitiveness in this metagame.

Those of you familiar with games like StarCraft will know that there are three main strategies in a game: offense (concentrating resources to deal the most damage possible), defense (concentrating resources to defend against the attack), and economy (concentrating resources to get more resources). The three strategies form a rock paper scissors triangle of offense<defense<economy<offense. In BH, the "economy" strategy is most widely seen in Poison Heal users, who make consistent progress without being chipped down or easily forced out by offensive pokemon (meaning not losing resources); other examples include Shed Shell Imposter and Mold Breaker. These categories obviously aren't absolute (some Poison Heal users like PH Regigigas fall into other categories, and it would be silly to classify Anchor + Spectral + Entrainment as "offensive") but it works as a rough picture for what I'm trying to say here. Note that "strategies" typically refers to specific Pokemon rather than teams; most good teams have a mixture of all 3 strategies.

The problem with this metagame is that "economy" strategies are generally much worse than the offensive or defensive ones. Due to the freedom offered by BH, defensive strategies typically have no issues being at least decent, and offensive strategies have a wide variety of firepower to draw from. Economy strategies, on the other hand, have tons of meta-specific factors working against them. The metagame lacks Pokemon that are bulky, strong, and resistant to status. Outside of Shed Shell Imposter, you pretty much only have PH Dark-types (urshi/grimm/ttar) and PH Zekrom. Even these Pokemon find themselves forced to adopt offensive roles to actually get something done with Shift Gear and/or Dynamax late-game.

The prevalence of Fur Coat and Ice Scales wouldn't be such a problem if the users didn't literally get bailed out of a powerful game mechanic they would otherwise lose to, that being hazards. Hazards got nerfed into the ground this gen, and this has hurt economy strategies more than anything else. No longer do you have a powerful (but still counterable) tool that can punish overly passive teams and players. Hazards are a shell of their former self because even when you put in the effort to set up hazards, you have no guarantee that the hazards will hurt your opponent more than they'll hurt you. (This is different from Magic Bounce, which discourages passive hazard setters while encouraging the Bounce user to make risky plays to get a big reward, and Mold Breaker is offered as an option to bypass Bounce for those who don't feel like taking this risk.) Court Change + Rapid Spin makes hazards basically a non-factor, and games typically end up with either max hazards on both sides or no hazards on either side. Boots also deserves a mention for giving FC/Scales yet another out to hazards.

As a result, the nuances involved in offense/economy, defense/economy, and economy/economy are emphasized much less, and the game becomes about offense/defense, offense/offense, and defense/defense matchups. Typically this means both teams slowing the game down to a glacial pace in order to give their breakers an opportunity to come in and win, defensive mons trying to hit each other with burns and Knock Off, and Imposter just hanging out because Imposter breaks the rules. Genuinely offensive teams have turned from an unstoppable, OMPL-winning behemoth into a truly pitiful ladder staple due to being simply unable to break through and establish their own tempo.

Even balance teams have very little room to innovate from my experience. A byproduct of FC/Scales being so prominent is that what your defensive mon can do offensively is less of a factor. You need the power level of Pokemon like Darm in order to not get walled by random FC/Scales mons. As a result, bulky Pokemon that can have offensive presence (Melmetal, Magearna, even offensive Eterns) get pushed out of the metagame and passive status/Knock users take their place. Similarly, only the very small subset of offensive Pokemon that don't actually have counters can be used consistently. The meta has devolved into a state where you can genuinely say "this team has 4 offensive pokemon and 2 defensive ones" and have it mean something. The passive/nonpassive spectrum has been all but abandoned as defensive mons take the decent options available to them (status, hazard removal, trapping, maybe a stab move) and offensive mons use every single tool available to them in order to not lose to FC/Scales.

Something I like to talk about is the concept of "positioning", keeping in mind the opponent's best threats and favoring positions that are solid vs them. In Gen 8, positioning has become almost entirely focused on the long term and not the short term. Playing in a way that discourages something like Darm, Zekrom, or Zac-C from coming in is completely unfeasible considering they can threaten to immediately kill half the mons on your team. Instead, you need to win the war of attrition by making their defensive mons waste more turns recovering than you do and not giving them any time to get something started as a result. If you don't focus all your resources on this specifically or look to get your offensive mon in on anything that isn't a guaranteed recover, you open yourself up to huge punishes-- despite hazards being bad, switching is punished very heavily in this metagame by moves like status and Teleport, and without Poison Heal you lack mobility. As a result, you typically only have one or two viable moves each turn. Passive play isn't just rewarded, it's practically forced.

The issue with the metagame back when Shell Smash was legal was that the offense/defense matchup was skewed incorrectly. Now, the issue is that the defense/economy matchup is skewed incorrectly. I think we have several paths to go about this; nerfing offense (by removing beak/rend/intrepid sword/maybe darm) and nerfing defense (removing court change or maybe boots/teleport if youre based) can both help this.

Thanks for reading.

tl;dr: REMEMBER 6 MONTHS AGO WHEN HAZARDS WERE GOOD AND YOU COULD MAKE DGZ DO NOTHING WITH STEALTH ROCK LOOOOOOOL

 

[JoeyJoeJoeShabadoo]

So I don't know if this was intended, but Imposter also copies a pokemon's G-Max form. Though it might have only been the aesthetic.

 

[a loser]

So I don't know if this was intended, but Imposter also copies a pokemon's G-Max form. Though it might have only been the aesthetic.

This is only aesthetic. I've ran into the same thing in the past. You look like the G-Max mon but you can't use the G-Max moves, even if you Dynamax yourself. If you do Dynamax, you remain looking like the G-Max forme.

 

[a loser]

Good news BH players! Crown Tundra is coming sooner than expected and will be released on 10/22/2020 (about a month earlier than expected).


These guys and more are returning to the meta and some new faces like Calyrex and the Galarian Bird Trio are joining them. These new mons, along with new (and old) moves and abilities they might bring, are sure to shake up the metagame quite a bit.

I'm particularly intrigued by the two new Psychic-type special attacks, one that can cause freezes and the other than reduces the opponents PP, and Thunder Cage that sounds like an Electric-type partial trapping move (hopefully on Magma Storm's level rather than Whirlpool though). Dragon Energy also looks good for making Dragon-types even more of a pain to deal with this generation, but at least we're getting some good Fairy-types back.

Notable returning moves include but aren't limited to: Sacred Fire, Origin Pulse, Precipice Blades, Dragon Ascent, Magma Storm, Shadow Force, Oblivion Wing, Geomancy, Thousand Waves, Core Enforcer, Steam Eruption, Diamond Storm, and Nature's Madness.
I've put some in bold that look more impactful than others due to bringing back high powered coverage, utility/trapping, and a much needed ability suppressor.

Until today, we thought we had at least two more months before the DLC released so the council had been discussing the state of the metagame to see what could be done to potentially improve it. Most of our discussion points, like Intrepid Sword, Dynamax, Imposter Chansey, and Bolt Beak / Fishious Rend are going to be heavily impacted by the second DLC. I'll briefly touch on these below.

Intrepid Sword has been the choice ability for physical attackers this gen, for obvious reasons, and has resulted in Fur Coat being a high-usage ability to check it. With physically bulky mons like Zygarde-C, Giratina, and Groudon returning, I'm thinking Intrepid Sword will become a little easier to deal with (or even necessary so we can break through big Zyg lol).

Following this, Bolt Beak and Fishious Rend have been talked about a lot this gen thanks to their very high base power. Zygarde-C and Giratina give us two more fat Dragons to eat these moves and perhaps free up Eternatus from needing to run Fur Coat as much. Of the returning mons, we aren't really getting great abusers of these moves outside of maybe Palkia and Tapu Koko.

Dynamax, which has already survived a suspect testing, could get interesting with new DLC content. While Core Enforcer returning is great for mons like Eternatus, it also might miss out on Dynamax Cannon's utility. Yveltal sticks out to me here as a good Dynamax mon, as its STABs while Dynamaxed grant it speed boosts and drops the opponent's special defenses. A set similar to my Adaptability Yveltal last gen could do some damage with Quiver Dance, Oblivion Wing, and either Dark Pulse or the new Fiery Wrath move that Galarian Moltres brings.

TLDR? DLC is coming early and it'll be fun!
Edit: I forgot about the datamine showing the UBs and some mythicals, so I added in a few things that have to do with them.

 

[GL Volkner]

(i heard ubs are in the datamine too if youre confused why theyre included)

i spent a while earlier today crafting some sets that seemed kinda fun to use, idk if they'll end up being any good but i figured i'd share no less. these aren't formatted well bc i couldn't be asked (idk what the dark pulse clone is so far so if that ends up being better just replace)

dlc sets?

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Dragon Ascent
- Ice Hammer
- Flip Turn

Lugia @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Roost
- Defog
- Haze
- Anchor Shot

Rayquaza @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dragon Darts
- Scorching Sands
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Blacephalon @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Shadow Ball
- Mind Blown
- V-create

Kartana @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sunsteel Strike
- Grav Apple
- Close Combat
- Flip Turn

Darmanitan-Galar-Zen @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ice Hammer
- Sacred Fire
- Bolt Beak
- Fishious Rend

Yveltal @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Oblivion Wing
- Dark Pulse
- V-create
- Knock Off

Yveltal @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Belly Drum
- Knock Off
- Dragon Ascent
- Thousand Arrows

Yveltal @ Life Orb
Ability: Triage
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Oblivion Wing
- Dark Pulse
- Scorching Sands

Yveltal @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Ice Scales
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off
- Spectral Thief
- Shore Up

Yveltal @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Spectral Thief
- Strength Sap
- Shore Up

Yveltal @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Oblivion Wing
- Taunt
- Quiver Dance

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fire Lash
- Anchor Shot
- Topsy-Turvy
- Roost

Ho-Oh @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Brave Bird
- Mind Blown
- V-create
- Strength Sap

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Boomburst
- Sacred Fire
- Recover

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Gentle Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Boomburst
- V-create
- Roost

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Anchor Shot
- Roost
- Defog
- Lava Plume

Xerneas @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Scorching Sands
- Spikes
- Spiky Shield

Xerneas @ Life Orb
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Boomburst
- Extreme Speed
- V-create
- Strength Sap

Xerneas @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Light of Ruin
- Head Smash
- Volt Tackle
- Mind Blown

bye :)

 

[Whitephoenixace]

ice hammer isnt returning GL Volkner . No crabrawler

 

[Champion Leon]

(i heard ubs are in the datamine too if youre confused why theyre included)

i spent a while earlier today crafting some sets that seemed kinda fun to use, idk if they'll end up being any good but i figured i'd share no less. these aren't formatted well bc i couldn't be asked (idk what the dark pulse clone is so far so if that ends up being better just replace)

dlc sets?

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Dragon Ascent
- Ice Hammer
- Flip Turn

Lugia @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Roost
- Defog
- Haze
- Anchor Shot

Rayquaza @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dragon Darts
- Scorching Sands
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Blacephalon @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Shadow Ball
- Mind Blown
- V-create

Kartana @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sunsteel Strike
- Grav Apple
- Close Combat
- Flip Turn

Darmanitan-Galar-Zen @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ice Hammer
- Sacred Fire
- Bolt Beak
- Fishious Rend

Yveltal @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Oblivion Wing
- Dark Pulse
- V-create
- Knock Off

Yveltal @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Belly Drum
- Knock Off
- Dragon Ascent
- Thousand Arrows

Yveltal @ Life Orb
Ability: Triage
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Oblivion Wing
- Dark Pulse
- Scorching Sands

Yveltal @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Ice Scales
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off
- Spectral Thief
- Shore Up

Yveltal @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Spectral Thief
- Strength Sap
- Shore Up

Yveltal @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Oblivion Wing
- Taunt
- Quiver Dance

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fire Lash
- Anchor Shot
- Topsy-Turvy
- Roost

Ho-Oh @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Brave Bird
- Mind Blown
- V-create
- Strength Sap

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Boomburst
- Sacred Fire
- Recover

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Gentle Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Boomburst
- V-create
- Roost

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Anchor Shot
- Roost
- Defog
- Lava Plume

Xerneas @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Scorching Sands
- Spikes
- Spiky Shield

Xerneas @ Life Orb
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Boomburst
- Extreme Speed
- V-create
- Strength Sap

Xerneas @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Light of Ruin
- Head Smash
- Volt Tackle
- Mind Blown

bye :)

Why not Moongeist Beam in Blacephalon? You listed Shadow Ball. With the Additional power, and effect, it’s totally worth the pp drop.

Yay for the IS Heavy-Duty Boots D-G-Z :)

 

[blueberrychill]

Since DLC is around the corner, just posting a couple of teams I've used recently.

https://pokepast.es/6b6a3c096f02e284

I think Marshadow is pretty interesting as it's just bulky enough to not mind eating random Knock Offs and neutral hits here and there, so it can afford to throw Spikes out. I have King's Shield on it instead of Spiky because it makes switching around Zacian-C and Darm a bit easier usually but whatever works. Ground Memory Exca is also neat since as everyone knows, Ground resists are far and few between so it can clean late game quite often with a Shift Gear since +1 Multi-Attack OHKOs a lot of common bulk mons like Zacian-C, Zen Mode and the few FC Dragons. Zam-C is a roll if they're +Def otherwise it also OHKOs.

https://pokepast.es/1ff99650e7a141f3

I like Lava Plume a bit more on Lunala compared to Scald but I opted for variety just to cover random Prim Sea and FF Pokemon. Whirlwind on Etern is very filler-y but I was tired of running into variations of that one BP team since people tend not to run MB on it for whatever reason. Would probably replace it with QD and Earth Power over Sands or something. Also I think someone mentioned this in the thread before but Draco is really cool on Reshiram since it OHKOs Zekrom after a Spike. If you don't mind making yourself weaker to Darm, you can run Modest which also has a high chance of OHKOing Eternatus after one Spike as well.

 

[Champion Leon]

Since DLC is around the corner, just posting a couple of teams I've used recently.

https://pokepast.es/6b6a3c096f02e284

I think Marshadow is pretty interesting as it's just bulky enough to not mind eating random Knock Offs and neutral hits here and there, so it can afford to throw Spikes out. I have King's Shield on it instead of Spiky because it makes switching around Zacian-C and Darm a bit easier usually but whatever works. Ground Memory Exca is also neat since as everyone knows, Ground resists are far and few between so it can clean late game quite often with a Shift Gear since +1 Multi-Attack OHKOs a lot of common bulk mons like Zacian-C, Zen Mode and the few FC Dragons. Zam-C is a roll if they're +Def otherwise it also OHKOs.

https://pokepast.es/1ff99650e7a141f3

I like Lava Plume a bit more on Lunala compared to Scald but I opted for variety just to cover random Prim Sea and FF Pokemon. Whirlwind on Etern is very filler-y but I was tired of running into variations of that one BP team since people tend not to run MB on it for whatever reason. Would probably replace it with QD and Earth Power over Sands or something. Also I think someone mentioned this in the thread before but Draco is really cool on Reshiram since it OHKOs Zekrom after a Spike. If you don't mind making yourself weaker to Darm, you can run Modest which also has a high chance of OHKOing Eternatus after one Spike as well.

I am very impressed with these teams.
Hopefully we can use them post DLC.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we could!

This works as the final sets before the new DLC, and should serve as a sort of time capsule before the new era happens.

I think this is a great example for newer players.

Totally fetch sets!

 

[GL Volkner]

crown tundra spoilers

big if real, but there's a psychic/ghost with 100/85/80/165/100/150. jesus christ, idk if the tier is ready for this thing LOL

 

[GL Volkner]

alright so w/ the datamine coming out i thought i'd make a bigger post with more effort than my last one which isnt saying a ton. obviously the legendaries are coming back from last gen, but i thought i'd make a post on what i think is probably gonna shake up the meta more.

1) that dumb ghost mon
i posted about it above. atm the tier doesn't have the resists to handle ghost types. that's changing - we have yveltal coming back, but how does it fare vs this beast?
252+ SpA Choice Specs Necrozma-Dawn-Wings Volt Switch vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ice Scales Yveltal: 110-130 (24.1 - 28.5%) -- 97.7% chance to 4HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Necrozma-Dawn-Wings Moongeist Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Yveltal: 157-185 (34.4 - 40.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tinted Lens Necrozma-Dawn-Wings Moongeist Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Yveltal: 234-276 (51.3 - 60.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

there isn't really much to say here. snorlax will very likely still be needed in the tier to check this beast but that still falls hard to adapt psystrike.

252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Necrozma-Dawn-Wings Psystrike vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Ice Scales Snorlax: 221-260 (42.1 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

the next best immunity, typenull, does p poorly against it too (plus null is garb)

252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Necrozma-Dawn-Wings Photon Geyser vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Type: Null: 214-252 (54.4 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

dynamax remaining in the tier is helpful for this, but i think it'd be better to do away w/ this mon entirely. i mean, c'mon, the best counter is literally umbreon.

2) glacial lance (that 130 bp phys ice move) and thunderous kick
glacial lance is a fantastic move for darm. it's so much stronger than icicle crash. fire immunity melm isn't really a good check either...

because of thunderous kick. this move is really appreciated by stuff that hates steels. darm-g-z doesn't really have to play the game of "am i gonna beat primsea or flash fire" anymore. this move is exceptionally good coverage for darm-g-z against a ton of things that'd wall it normally. i can anticipate that doublade sees a huge boost in viability due to the immunity to fighting it provides (aegislash doesn't have the bulk) to take resisted glacial lance at +1, but darm-g-z is very likely top tier since it received a lot of indrect buffs to coverage options. it did have cc before admittedly, but this new move is still very strong and nice for it. maybe it'll function better than cc on non choiced sets? stuff like kartana also really enjoys thunderous kick existing too.

3) eerie spell

idk the pp on this move or the bp, but doing damage while deducting pp is pretty good for anchor mons (and a ton of defensives). if the dumb ghost mon goes, i can see the meta becoming incredibly defensive and this move would be fantastic for combating those meta trends. it's probably the fourth thing i'm worred about on my list though.

e: this sucks now

i went deeper than i actually wanted to so im gonna go drink some water now bye

 

[Parsimont]

Regieleki @ Choice Band
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bolt Beak
- Fishious Rend
- U-turn/Baton Pass
- Earthquake

Literally it's fast, just why not

 

[Balanced Freakmons]

Suuuure....

Chillmaw (Kyurem-Black) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shift Gear
- Glacial Lance
- V-create
- Spore

 

[willdbeast]

Volcanion @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- V-create
- Fishious Rend
- Glacial Lance
- Shift Gear

Should be half decent vs some darmgz sets and has stronk stabs, what's not to like?

Kyurem-Black @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Glacial Lance
- Bolt Beak
- U-turn
- filler
+1 252 Atk Kyurem-Black Glacial Lance vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Spooky-Horse: 355-418 (87.8 - 103.4%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

Just a couple of random sets.

Spooky-Horse seems incredibly strong though, it outgallops basically everyone and seems very difficult to defensively answer, and the few things that seem like good checks (lax, maybe yvel) seem kinda exploitable. I think a lot of teams will be relying on just every mon tanking one hit and being able to knock off or something in return. Also with dynamax around I think this could lead to a lot of 50/50s, either u dyna and tank then ohko them or don't, and they can switch out/dyna themselves or hit you normally. Regigigas might find itself with a place on teams just as something to switch into specs ghost moves. Maybe you can use fc chansey just like old times. Regenvest zyg also could be nice for scouting it, or ice scales.

As much as I hate to say it Dialga doesnt seem that amazing since it doesnt really resist any threats now, but could perhaps still be okay.

 

[berry]

some cursory thoughts

a pretty big decisions players will have to make now is whether they want to run astral or moongeist, it's the coinflip between raw power and utility. I think this decision will become pretty obvious a few weeks in after we see if ice scales mons stay extremely popular, but it's a decision we have to make

- tinted lens ghost rider is insane, it can hit crazy numbers with a combination of astral barrage / psystrike. maybe adaptability or something similar is better? It's pretty much the new MMY from last gen. It's fast, it's super great on the special side, the similarities go on and on. Kinda like a gengar / mmy mix depending on the set you decide to run

Calyrex-Shadow @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Astral Barrage
- Psystrike
- Trick
- Apple Acid (???)

or you can just steal one of the old sm sets lol

Calyrex-Shadow @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Astral Barrage

Calyrex-Shadow @ Life Orb
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sing
- Inferno
- Zap Cannon
- ???

- i pretty much stole volk's intrepid lando set from above and put it on kyurem, switched it around a bit, and it seems incredibly good. kyurem is one of the best attackers atm, it gets glacial lance which is just a fucking broken physical ice move and you can combine that with any chunk of other broken physical attacking moves and just be set for the entire endgame

Kyurem-Black @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Darts
- Glacial Lance
- Bolt Strike
- Poltergeist

-zyg-c is insane as always, we knew exactly what was up when this mon was rereleased

Zygarde-Complete @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Rapid Spin
- Shore Up
- Volt Switch
- Thousand Waves

I think that pheal regigias is in a really really good place right now, excuse the awful set it's just kinda what i threw together but it seems like this mon is gonna put in crazy work, at least for the next couple weeks as people remember how to play actual bh and not whatever garbage dlc0 and dlc1 were

Regigigas @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Facade
- Spore
- ground move or the new ice move or some other cool coverage

i have been informed by loser that this gigas set fucking sucks and it needs knock off or something, do with that information what you will

 

[justideas]

So I returned to this metagame seriously for the first time since Sun and Moon. I was really looking forward to testing the full capabilities of the new abilities, pokemon and moves.

But then I saw it.

and then luckily that opponent sacked it unnecessarily.
But then the next game I saw another one. And another one. And one with wings. And another one

and by the time i realised what was going on i was surrounded

I can only imagine this has been asked a hundred times... So i apologise in advance. But can someone please explain to me why Imposter as an ability is still allowed in hackmons?

I have never seen a pokemon/ability combo that is so meta-defining and toxic as the imposter Chansey/Blissey sets that have plagued balanced hackmons for years. Seriously they've been around for ages, and never lost dominance in the meta. I can only guess that's because no normally regulated meta would allow for such a broken thing to exist?

Let's just remind ourselves briefly what you can do in one turn with any imposter Blissey/Chansey.

1. Instantly copy your opponent's boosts upon switch in
2. Instantly copy and let you know your opponent's set
3. Instantly obtain a superior version of their pokemon, usually with roughly 2-3 times the HP.

If you had an ability that did just one of these things, it would be considered an extremely powerful ability.

The first would be an incredible anti-offence and set up ability. The second would be fantastic for scouting. The third would just stupidly broken.
With imposter Blissey/Chansey, you get all 3 of these incredible advantages for the price of a single turn. It doesn't even have to be done with any risk or prediction involved. You are so bulky that unless you allowed your opponent to set up to +6, you can switch in and scout on just about any non-super effective move. Even if they are at +6, you can still win a speed tie and sweep, or perhaps run scarf blissey to guarantee a kill.


Going back to just the ability itself, Imposter on Ditto makes it a fantastic Ubers mon. It single-handedly deters any offence or set up. But it's not broken normally. Why? Because ditto, the only mon that has access to it, has a base HP stat of 48. It is nearly always an inferior version of whatever it copies, and that's how it is supposed to be, how it stays balanced, despite being one of the best mons in the uber's meta. It can be revenge killed by priority moves, it can be one-shot by the majority of defensive counters and it's forced to run choice scarf in order to avoid being killed by the thing it copies.

None of these weaknesses apply to Chansey and Blissey. They literally have over x5 the HP that ditto has. The impact of this is completely different, it's hardly even the same ability. You go from being an inferior copy with limitations to a version that is nearly always superior to the original, even on pokemon with HP stats that are already quite high. You can run any item you wish to. You hard switch into nearly any pokemon with the confidence that you're unlikely to take even 50%. You can stay in against, set up and risk speed ties against the pokemon you copied, knowing that you will be doing more damage to them, then they do to you. It's just blatantly overpowered and horribly unfair to the opponent that you copy.

I've included some damage calcs for reference. Please remember, this calc was done with the intent of putting the original pokemon in the best situation to OHKO an imposter at neutral. But not in a situation where the set was built specifically to counter Imposter.

Damage Calc for a Kyurem-White imposter scenario

This is the Calc for a Choice specs, modest draco from a Kyurem-White attacking an Eviolite Imposter Chansey:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Turboblaze Kyurem-White Draco Meteor vs. +1 252 HP / 252 SpD Kyurem-White: 452-534 (64.2 - 75.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Here's the calc for the eviolite Imposter's counter-attack:
252+ SpA Turboblaze Kyurem-White Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Kyurem-White: 452-534 (99.5 - 117.6%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

I just want to emphasize this in case you missed it. This scenario is designed to be fully in favour of the original pokemon and disadvantageous to the imposter. You win a speed tie. You're running choice specs (item advantage) modest for damage. A closer HP stat to Chansey to help reduce the comparative buff between original and imposter (The lower the original pokemon's HP, the bigger the improvement gap between original and the Chansey/Blissey imposter). We're using a pokemon with an extremely high special attack stat to help ensure the best damage possible. We're using one of the strongest stab, super-effective moves possible, to help ensure the best damage possible.

Yet after all that, after putting the situation severely in your favour. You can't even KO them. Meanwhile, they OHKO you easily and could have roosted off the damage even if you had won the first speed tie.

And another calc to show you how frail Ditto is in is compared to the original version (To emphasize why Imposter isn't normally a problem, but is completely different on Chansey/Blissey)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Turboblaze Kyurem-White Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Kyurem-White: 854-1008 (360.3 - 425.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Sure. There is some counterplay. But should i build my entire team around countering my own techniques in case they're copied by a Chansey? Because that's what i currently do. I build sets that use imprison, rely on unique items, and ensure i have an answer on my team to my own pokemon. Despite all these precautions, i still find that the biggest threat on my opponent's team is always just my own pokemon with more HP (Ei. An imposter Blissey/Chansey). Just the mere presence of an imposter Chansey/Blissey means that i need to chip at it and play the long game in order to avoid being revenge swept by my own sets.

One of the biggest issues is that you only have three choices to effectively beat an imposter.
1. Build a set that can't be copied properly (Ei. Build sub-optimal/niche sets so that when you're copied you're not forced to switch)
2. Build teams that can counter themselves (Ei. every time the opponent copies you, you're forced to switch out into your answer -meaning that team building is more restricting and they know your full set + your best answer that technique).
3. Rely on status moves and hope the opponent doesn't expect or predict it. (Ei. Ensure your own sets are able to be crippled by status you use and hope your opponent plays risky with their imposter.)

Now obviously some people are very happy with keeping this meta as pink as possible, otherwise, it wouldn't be here. But I'm really curious to get answers as to why this combination is allowed when it is arguably the best combination in the game, bar none. It is over-centralizing, over-powered, and over-used. Seriously how the hell did we manage to ban "Illusion", but keep "Imposter"?


It just boggles my mind that the metagame that allows for the most creative and wild sets, is also the metagame that kills off my motivation for creativity the most. There's nothing more disappointing than spending time building a set, only for someone to copy it in one turn, instantly have a better version and continue to counter-sweep you. If not for purely balance reasons, then by now it should have been banned just to encourage a creative and fun metagame. Maybe I'm speaking to the wrong crowd? Maybe the hardcore hackmons players have all come to accept imposter as a part of the meta, afterall "If you can't beat em, join em". But i always get the sense from players i chat with that most players tend to agree with my assessment and that the hackmons player base is limited by the fact it encourages this sort of gameplay.



Anyway here's a little anti-meta set you might want to try:

Calyrex-Ice - Anti-meta

Calyrex-Ice @ Never-Melt Ice
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Spectral Thief
- Swords Dance
- Imprison

The idea is that you can spam Ice-type Espeed against offence and have the bulk to set up against most balance/stall.
Since so much of the meta revolves around Espeed, imposter and spectral thief, you can just set up Imprison and start freely taking your opponent's boosts with little-to-no fear of having them taken from you or being outsped. Leftovers, weakness policy and red card are also good item choices..

 

[cityscapes]

just cause something is hard to plan around when youre first learning to play doesnt mean its uncompetitive at all levels. the structure of bh allows for dynamic and interesting ways of covering/limiting imposter on all playstyles. offense for example should typically focus on exploiting the fact that hard switching vs offense is really bad, so you can limit how many opportunities you give them to teleport and maybe bring some other imposter control like status, multiattack, or semi offensive fc mons. alternatively you can use really frail stuff with sash and try to just kill them. similarly balance and stall have so, so many ways of dealing with imposter.

the game isnt just about "bring a complete airtight 100% counter to every single one of your pokemon". this will cause you to lose momentum and is super super exploitable if you make building mistakes like giving imposter spots to recover and sit there without good counterplay. think of imposter the same way you'd think of any other pokemon, something you can cover with many situational checks/counters to ensure it rarely gets a chance to make significant progress.

https://pokepast.es/bde81ac805dc82a1 here is one example (sorry for pre-dlc2, i havent built anything good since it came out). i'll make a small list for each mon detailing some forms of counterplay if imposter comes in on them.

• urshifu - try to wisp them so their moves do much less, this is likely a worthwhile trade because urshifu typically gets hp back really fast. after that you can proceed to knock their eviolite. (if they come in later you can 1v1). etern and slowbro can be used to take hits and go for a burn if they're less valuable. you can also go to gear and click moonblast which does quite a bit. also urshifu can dynamax and become immune to low kick
• magearna - you spam qd and they can't kill you unless they crit, imposter has only 5 pp on its only damaging move (moonblast) so you can spam attacks and force them to switch out in the face of your +6 attacks which is a win for you. a backup strat is to go to your own chans who can't transform, and from there trick your scarf, whirlwind them out, or even final gambit if theyre weakened.
• eternatus - magearna hard walls this if you don't mind getting burned and still have your balloon, chansey can also take hits if you want to get rid of scarf, even urshifu can function as a midground play. tspikes affect 2 mons on the team and are removed by 2 others so are typically not an issue. defensively this isn't covered super well but imposter rarely wants to mess with etern
• zekrom - slowbro is the designated counter, it can get in trouble if it's weakened but imposter being at -2 means they'll be forced out sooner or later. zekrom itself also handles imposter extremely well thanks to sub, imposter cannot come in on anything except bolt beak or mayyybe sap.
• slowbro - hard walled by urshifu, you can also just click scorching sands or teleport in front of imposter to discourage them from just sitting there

see the team facing imposter here:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1137576288
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1137674188
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1136566124

https://pokepast.es/ef5ecef34741b844 here's another example, this ones from a gen 7 bh team that's more semi-offensive so not all the pokemon are totally covered. rather than listing off every mon i'll look at broader patterns in general

• pdon needs a dedicated imposter-proofer (suicune) because of how self-sufficient it is in particular, able to set hazards, sap, and kill everyone unless you have a dedicated resist (ray obv will not like taking a burn). it's important to note when a pokemon needs dedicated imposter-proofing like this and when it doesn't, lopunny for example gets walled by the entire team so you don't need a wall for him.
• ray and xern don't have dedicated imposter-proofers cause they do a better job at discouraging imposter from coming in, plus they aren't powerful enough to the point where imposter just comes in and kills everyone. typically xern can win just by magma storm into qd'ing up, but if this plan doesn't work then all 4 of lopunny, pdon, chans, and cune can step in depending on the situation. similarly everyone on the team can take at least 1 move from mray (not lopunny lol)

https://pokepast.es/f48c3b080265b1b3 in case that wasn't offensive enough for you, here's this. basic idea is that you have wincons with a way around imposter (plate dazzlegar covers itself, xern, and triage ray) while the explosion users can just blow up and destroy imposter immediately. mental herb deos beats imposter only losing to prank spore as a result.

overall, beating imposter typically means thinking both offensively and defensively when building a team. if you're not planning on switching out much, your team should be really offensive otherwise you just get outlasted. even semi-offense can fit in some defensive utility instead of just going all out.

also the issue i have with calling it a "superior version of whatever you have out" is even if i had a kyurem w with 250 base hp and eviolite, i still wouldn't want to switch it in on a specs kyurem w boomburst. this is why imposter without a stable teleporter is bound to get hit-and-run'd, chipped down, and limited to 1 kill max even if the lategame is favorable.

if u reply to this please post replays + teams that "should" be good that you feel are unfairly limited by imposter. thanks

 

[Knight who says "Ni"]

Every team I build seems to need one of RegenVest Yveltal or Sand Stream Tyranitar in the current meta. Maybe it's just that I'm not a great builder, but nothing else seems really capable of handling Calyrex. The ability for both of it's stabs to ignore abilities means that Ice Scales pokémon such as Incineroar are not overly reliable checks. They can also have items removed and be left bait for other pokémon.

Calyrex

Calyrex-Shadow @ Choice Specs
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moongeist Beam
- Volt Switch / Trick
- Blue Flare / Secret Sword / Moonblast / Knock Off
- Psystrike / Photon Geyser

This is the Calyrex set I have been running. As you can see, it doesn't need much more. My personal favourite set is Moongeist + Psystrike + Koff + Volt. This lets you lure in checks like Regenvest/HDB Yveltal or HDB Incin and remove their items, leaving them to be much shakier checks. It is wrong to suggest that Calyrex is uncheckable, it isn't. Here are some checks to it:

Checks

Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Shore Up

Yveltal @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Knock Off
- Spectral Thief
- Sucker Punch
- U-turn


Zacian-Crowned @ Rusted Sword
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Play Rough
- U-turn
- Sunsteel Strike
- Sucker Punch

As you can see, the checks that I have listed here have one thing in common: Sucker Punch. Sucker punch is great if you are intending to counter or check Calyrex, as it prevents lucky crits or surprise coverage from taking your answer to it down. It can also be great on offensive Pokémon such as Zacian to be able to one shot. However, Calyrex can and sometimes does work around this by simply running PsySurge. This means that bringing a sturdy answer such as Yveltal or TTar is not optional. Below are calcs if you're interested in seeing how robust these "checks" actually are:

Calcs

252 SpA Choice Specs Necrozma-Dawn-Wings Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Yveltal: 180-214 (39.4 - 46.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Choice Specs Necrozma-Dawn-Wings Secret Sword vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Tyranitar: 492-580 (121.7 - 143.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252 SpA Choice Specs Necrozma-Dawn-Wings Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 180-212 (44.5 - 52.4%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

Yeah there isn't a lot checking this that isn't super passive like chansey. I think this pokémon is wholly uncheckable and needs to go.

 

[Cuddly]

With Crown Tundra having dropped last Thursday, a whole bunch of new goodies have arrived.

Calyrex-Shadow @ Leftovers
Ability: Normalize
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Mean Look
- Entrainment
- Perish Song
- Rapid Spin

An classic trapper set. Originally something Gengar would use, being originally the fastest Ghost type, now Calyrex-GR takes that mantle.
Not only is Calyrex-GR faster (so fast it is only surpassed by 3 Pokemon naturally), but its far more threatening than Gengar, having an astonishing 165 SpA. So often it will warrant having something switch into with a defensive Pokemon or an offensive priority abuser.
If they get caught in a Mean Look, very rarely will there be any retaliation. All they can hope for is that they outspeed, had Shadow Sneak, or are another Ghost type.
After that, you can use Entrainment so that they can’t hit you, use Perish Song, and then spam Rapid Spin. Bonus points for Rapid Spin boosting your speed as well. So potentially you can even outspeed those Scarfers/Weather Speed or Regieleki/Ninjask/Pheromosa.

Calyrex-Ice @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Glacial Lance
- Psychic Fangs/Psychic Terrain
- Thousand Arrows

Calyrex-IR makes for a great PH Pokemon, as well as a Trick Room setter.
PH and Toxic Orb helps prevent burns from occurring, letting it dish out incredibly damage from its 165 Atk. It also allows Calyrex to heal 1/8 of its health, which will be a lot given how bulky Calyrex-IR is. Having 100/150/130 bulk (which here is 252 in every category) rivals that of Cresselia’s bulk.
Trick Room lets Calyrex-IR control the speed settings when its on. Thanks to its bulk, it doesn’t have to worry about priority as often, and has take care of prankster abuse with PH and not boosting its stats.
In the event that someone does have priority, you can still activate Dynamax, making your bulk even more study, but also lets you set up Psychic Terrain. So if you had any fears of a Sucker Punch that was a little too strong, you can set it aside.
Or you can set it up yourself, though that is unwise.
Glacial Lance is that strongest Non-charge physical ice attack, and something short of resists, thick fat, or +6 Def enjoys it.
Thousand Arrows is the best Ground type attack in the game, letting it hit every single possible Steel type.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Ghost Rider has 100% got to go. It was bad enough with Darm-Z having one stupidly fast uncheckable offensive mon, but now that it's on both sides of the spectrum, it's just flat out impossible to run anything other than offense with any reliability. Like, I was just in a match against an ice scales TTar that swtched into my moonblast fairly easily and forced me to switch out with knock off. I then brought in a pivot, -turned when they switched out of TTar, and then brought back in my adapt Calyrex, which now that I knew their set proceeded to click Moongheist Beam for forty when they switched back in, Koing them. Of course, if I'd been tinted, I could have just dropped it from full. If snorlax isn't Prankster, it can't switch into Photon, but if it is, it can't come in on Psystrike or Secret Sword. Etcetera. My own team is running Type Null + Regenvest Yveltal to try and not lose, and I still find myself ceding momentum to Volt Switch, which when your team has to spend this much time not dying to fast special threats leaves you really open to being riped apart by Darm-Z or Zacian-C or the like.

In the meantime, for people trying to check this thing, I've found this core to sorta work:

Hide

Type: Null @ Eviolite
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Teleport
- Soft-Boiled
- Court Change
- Spectral Thief

Yveltal @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Spectral Thief

It's not something I'd ever really use without Calyrex around, but Null covers tinted psystrike sets, especially ones with astral barrage that really put the hurt on any dark, and Ygod is great for not ceding the game to volt switch and handling Adapt Photon sets. There are some more reliable checking cores out there, but most of them give up too much other utility for what bit of checking power they can eke out and mostly leave you weaker to the team Calyrex is on.

 

[a loser]

The recent changes and additions to the meta are definitely a lot to take in and it is going to take some time for things to develop before we get a real picture of each mon's role in this new meta. That being said, this is effectively a brand new meta, similar to the start of a new generation. I believe that this transition will be slightly easier than the one from Gen 7 BH to Gen 8 BH almost a year ago, but people are going to have to adapt and potentially change the way they became comfortable playing with in the initial Dexit meta.

The council has been discussing what we think of the young meta so far and I'll go over some of the highlights here. For starters, we're going to scrap the old viability rankings and release a fresh one soon, once we at least get a better grasp of the meta. While some of the ranks might end up looking the same, like Zacian-Crowned in the high A Ranks, starting over is best for looking at mons whose world got flipped up-side-down like Lunala and Seismitoad.

Another big topic has been Dynamax. While Dynamax did survive a suspect test back in March 2020, we have to remember that the metagame at the time was before any DLC releases, when Wobbuffet was the best Imposter, and when Melmetal was on every single team. Since then, we've gained Chansey as Imposter, who is insanely bulky when Dynamaxed, and more recently a ton of new mons who are actually good Dynamax users like Regigigas, Xerneas, and Yveltal. It is becoming more and more clear that Dynamax and how it is used (on both offense and defense) has an impact on almost every battle.

This leads into my next topic, Calyrex-Shadow, which has clearly been the hot topic in community discussion so far and rightfully so. Its near-unmatched SpA and Speed tier have re-awoken the need for Ice Scales and/or Assault Vest Dark- and Normal-types that saw so much usage early this gen when Specs Lunala was a premier wallbreaker. Shadow Rider clearly outclasses Lunala offensively and is nearly forcing the use of Dark- and Normal-type defensive cores in order to check its Choice Specs and various other sets. The fact that Calyrex-S can Dynamax also puts a strain on defensive cores by breaking choice locks to punish switch-ins and can also allow it to set Psychic Terrain to make revenge killing it even tougher.

At the moment, I'm thinking Ghost Rider is a manageable top-tier threat that is benefiting a little too much from Dynamax. I think its offensive teammates, like Xerneas and DGZ, are benefiting from Dynamax as well to help dismantle defensive cores and punish switches.

I'd love to see more thoughts on the Crown Tundra meta so far, especially on Dynamax and its place in the meta.

 

[berry]

I think that a re-suspect or council decision on the fate of dynamax would be the best first step in stabilizing the metagame. The raw utility in being able to suddenly cancel a choice boost and fire off superpowered moves with gigantic benefits gives already strong offensive mons (like caly-s or intrepid dgz or even something a little slower but more consistent like qd pheal xern) way too much utility. I've run into a ton of situations where clicking dyna with a choiced intrepid mon gets me out of an ultra sticky situation that I should have lost and allows me to turn it around, all while gaining momentum from stat boosts or anything of the like. Dyna is overwhelmingly strong from an offensive point of view, and its strength skyrocketed with the new offensive options we got in the dlc.

Another thing worth talking about is the new essentially best-in-slot moves we got alongside caly-s and caly-i. Lance and Barrage give mons like DGZ and caly-s extremely viable options that are extremely spammable and, when combined with dyna, render defensive options nearly worthless. The moves are not broken or banworthy on their own, just insanely insanely good. Being able to dmax and click them with nearly no downsides pushes dyna over the edge of being broken, especially because these moves are absolutely everywhere with no drawbacks.

As an offense player I absolutely love these new toys, but from a point of view that aims to preserve metagame integrity, I think that having a wide variety of viable playstyles is the key to keeping a metagame fair and fresh. When looking at all of the dynamax pandemonium at the beginning of this generation, the global smogon consensus was that dynamax overwhelmingly benefits the offensive side of things, while having to dyna as a reaction on a defensive mon for the sake of preservation is almost always a move that results in the stoppage of momentum and a dead mon on your side at the end of the turn sequence. Dyna may have been bearable in a pre-dlc2 format, but this addition brought too many offensive tactics to the table to ignore, and the meta is unhealthily tipping towards an offense-dominated format.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Honestly, I don't think Dyamaxing is that huge of an issue atm, certainly not one comparable to DGZ or Calyrex. Often times I find myself considering that the biggest use I get out of it offensively is bypassing my choice lock. A lot of this, I think, comes down to how it doesn't play well with other powerful mechanics; Dynamaxing pokemon get reduced (relative) benefits from poison heal, they can't use Choice Item boosts, and a lot of our most powerful moves actually get weaker, either directly in the form of EG V-Create, FIshous Rend, and Bolt Beak, or indirectly in the form of EG Moongheist Beam, which loses its ability to threaten Ice Scales Pokemon when under dynamax. I think the far more useful activations of Dynamax are instead when I use it to prevent a sweep by an opponent by giving my Melmetal or Darmanitan or Yveltal some crucial extra bulk to live a hit against all the setup sweepers. It does contribute to some unhealthy dynamics itself, but not at the same scale of Calyrex - and, as I am increasingly coming to believe, Darmanitan-Galar-Zen.

Since I've already talked about the unhealthy role Calyrex plays, lets look at DGZ: It's stupid fast, only outpaced by a very small handful of offensive threats; Calyrex, Zacian-C, Zacian, Zamazenta, and Dragapult. This would be one thing, except it's too strong; it murders anything offensive that's slower than it. We've had pokemon like that before - Specs Mray, Specs Kyurem-W, Electrify Gengar, etcetera. The problem is, these were mostly good at wallbreaking; they mostly worked by virtue of coming in on something passive and taking advantage of how hard they were to switch into to fire off an attack. This seriously limited their use, as defensive teams could afford to run real answers and offensive ones gave them fewer opportunities to come in. The main exceptions to this was Mega Ray and its 115 speed, which ended up eventually getting the boot (although, admittedly, not entirely on virtue of specs), and Psysurge MMY with its 140 speed, which... also got the boot. Darmanitan-Galar-Zen can come in on otherwise perfectly fine offensive pokemon like Kyurem-B, or Zekrom, or Lunala and force their opponent to choose what dies. There are vanishingly few pokemon that can switch into both Intrepid Sword and Mold Breaker Darmanitan; things get worse if you run Flip Turn to punish Primsea users, or just have an unexpected coverage move; something like Fishous Rend or Knock off or Bolt Beak can render a lot of would-be switchins unable to effectively answer DGZ, and since you only really need the first two moveslots to do your job you can do this without sacrificing your overall utility overly much. This is not a healthy dyamic for the metagame. But that's not the limit of what darm can do, either.

Hide

Darmanitan-Galar-Zen @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- V-create
- Flip Turn
- Fishious Rend
- Glacial Lance

DGZ can also run a stupidly effective choice scarf set to just run over offense. It punishes many of the good plays offense actually has against DGZ; agressive play to keep your Zacian-Crowned on the field might limit my chances to claim a kill with CB Darm, but if I'm scarf I'll take the opportunity to just eat the Zacian while I'm at it. It's exceedingly difficult to revenge kill, defeats most imposter fairly reliably, and is stilla nighmare to defensively switch into.


I don't know if the solution is banning one, or both - or maybe finally getting rid of intrepid sword will weaken DGZ enough that people are freer in teambuilding and have the room to check Calyrex. But something needs to happen here.

 

[SuperSkylake]

I would definitely stand by a suspect on Isword. There is no opportunity cost to running it and very little upside to running a similar offensive ability such as Adapt, Tough Claws etc, which give you a weaker boost. You do get the slight upside of using mixed sets at times with these abilities, but there's no real point in running them if you can just delete stuff with Isword anyway. There's just not that much variety in our physical wallbreakers, because we just look for the Intrepid Sword user that can click the delete button the most often against our opponent and it usually does. I think both DGZ And Regieleki, the two most notorious Isword users we have right now, would be a lot more manageable without isword. For example Darm would probably end up running scarf or band Desoland or Tough Claws with Flip Turn, or Magic Guard, which is still quite threatening but opens up the field of checks to a lot more stuff. Regieleki will probably switch to Tough Claws to help boost its Fisheous Rend, Bolt Beak, Triple Axel and offensive pivot move, which is about a 13% damage reduction compared to Intrepid Sword (1.5-1.3)/1.5.