BH Balanced Hackmons

The regular HO bellydrum + final gambit on the other hand is more "fish" oriented as you need to final gambit the right pokemon and usually prankster pokemons aren't brought out unless you really have to. Final gambit can also backfire and I usually see people being stuck in the 1400s with such teams meanwhile with a team I listed above I usually see them in the 1600s.
Most of the Gambit HO teams you've seen on ladder are just meme teams created for goofing off on ladder. It's been shown that Final Gambit HO is a valid and very deadly strat if built and used correctly. Both myself and Sugarhigh easily got into the top 10 with Final Gambit Spam teams and the strat was used extensively in the ompl tournament.
Here as some replays of the strat working against accomplished BH players:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1247330328
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1242877585
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1243957419-e03klx7jxe8hzpfqra287b7qnscakxmpw
And here's an RMT: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-8-post-crown-tundra-bh-fake-stall.3675183/ showing that it can be both consistent and very effective on ladder.
 
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Posting some of the teams I made use of in Slam:

https://pokepast.es/64676de63307f6e9
This is the team I used a bunch on ladder after I got bored of only using Hazard a Guess, until I got tired of it too. It's really effective at what it does, and puts a ton of pressure on teams offensively without being weak to Cramorant, but in exchange it does have some issues with enemy PixiXern. You do have Chansey, Zama, and if the item is removed Zygarde-C, but it can be a painful matchup regardless. Consider putting thousand arrows over U-Turn on Landot, I almost never end up clicking that one. Zygarde set sometimes has core and sometimes has metal burst, the latter makes Xerneas much more bearable but is otherwise worse and makes stuff like Reshiram a bit more annoying.

https://pokepast.es/5e513f31794cdc5b
I passed this one to TI for him to use, it worked out quite well there. Calyrex really just does well in a lot of archetypes, freely spinning on so much and ice espeed can let you pick off stuff once their steel gets eliminated, which Palkia does offensively and Chansey defensively; shed shell chansey is great for this, since a lot of Teams their steel as the only good way to handle itself so if you have a shed shell chansey you can just turn that into a liability unless they're running knock or cgas. Regenvest Zama + FC Solg is really good, as long as you dont mind that its stacking a pretty huge resh weakness; it's not the end of the world to face it, but it is really annoying.

https://pokepast.es/d002eed49be56535
This is the team I brought VS aesf, it's kind of generic but it's pretty good at what it does. Zac-C is running the excellent Sunsteel + Glance + V-create coverage combo, which normally has the issue of being walled by Cram but you're carrying Jungle Healing so you don't really care. Spikes PH Xerneas + Spin Aerilate Hooh is a really strong momentum combo, with Ho-Oh also acting as an answer to impostered Zacian in a pinch if Zama gets too low, and espeed Ho-Oh + Imp Chansey + prank Tina + FC Zama really does a number on covering offensive threats for you.
 
does anyone know how to deal with Pheal semi-easily as I'm having trouble building around it without a decent sacrificing defensive/offensive presence
Usually knock-off + purify is pretty decent although it's kinda niche. Another niche option is trick pecha berry although you probably want it on a steel type.

Otherwise entrainment, worry seed, core enforcer should be good enough for non-niche uses as well.
 
worry seed is very good, as it also helps if they try and swap out on the move as the opponet would lose their ability, I use a Ho-oh with nuzzle as well for alot of pressure in between the two moves
Usually knock-off + purify is pretty decent although it's kinda niche. Another niche option is trick pecha berry although you probably want it on a steel type.

Otherwise entrainment, worry seed, core enforcer should be good enough for non-niche uses as well.
both of thanks for the help
ps. do these also work against fini as she's the one giving me the most trouble as I usually run Enforcer and she's immune to it
edit: never mind worry seed works great
 

Sweet Jesus

Neal and Jack and me, absent lovers...
Still using magic guard + Life orb sets and still lovin' them.


Blacephalon @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
- Mind Blown
- Astral Barrage
- Glacial Lance
- Volt Tackle

Probably one of the hardest unboosted sets to wall out there and it outspeeds the 90-100 speed tier. STAB astral barrage adds some really nice coverage that isn't usualy found with fire/ice/electric combinations and often acts as a way to nab the 2hko without having to predict properly your opponent's switch-in. I would consider running minimum sp.d since you aren't tanking much anyway and it gives you a 62,5% chance to ohko imposter chansey with astral barrage and not generate the awkward speed tie situation on a chansey switch-in. I improof this set with my own chansey (you can run imposter and wall only your own blacephalon since you won't be tranforming on an imposter'd mon or just run a non-imposter chansey and wall opposing blacephalon).


Darmanitan-Zen @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Mind Blown
- Core Enforcer
- Volt Switch
- Recover/Strengh sap

I still use DZ as a wall which is why I run bold nature, but magic guard is a decent ability for a wall DZ set and just so happens to give it huge offensive momentum. I also really like how DZ is one of the greatest mons with an absolute trash attack stat making it a decent switch-in on strength sap. DZ's low speed is great tool to cancel poison healers with core enforcer or slow pivot with volt switch, which other wallbreakers would kill for. The main downisde of this set is that although it's not that hard to improof, it is extremly hard for you to stop your opponent's chansey from using DZ as a way to heal his imposter chansey for free. Strength Sap can be used to make it easier to stop chansey from healing, but it's less reliable for your own set, you won't be healing much on imposter switch-ins and chansey can still core enforce your magic bouncer.


Barraskewda @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fishious Rend
- Glacial Lance
- Volt Tackle
- Flip Turn

Not my favourite set, but deserves to be mentionned. This set is very straigtforward. I like the fact is really baits out cramorant which doesn't expect to get OHKO'd without even taking the damage. You do rely on misty terrain or using heal bell with another mon after however.


Blacephalon @ Focus Sash
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
IVs: 0 HP / 0 Def / 0 SpD
- Mind Blown
- Astral Barrage
- Volt Tackle/Vacuum Wave
- Endeavor

A variation to the blacephalon set I used before the LO set. Blacephalon is probably the only mon I would want to run a magic guard + sash set because he reaches decent damage without an item or boosts with mind blown and destroys anything immune to endeavor with astral barrage. I've won a couple of games my opponent probably thought were unlosable because blacephalon endeavor'd a wall I could not get through. I generally like this set because it's a combination of an ok wallbreaker and a very reliable one time stop to a sweeper (similar to prankster d-bond). Vacuum wave or any other priority can help you kill a sweeper after endeavoring him, but you can often simply kill the sweeper with one of your coverage moves instead of endeavouring, leaving you with a second free 1HP endeavor that is near impossible to wall with ghost coverage. The main downside of this set is you often can't use it offensivly that much as long as blacephalon is your only way to not get swept since you need to keep your sash intact.
 
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a loser

I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Community Contributor Alumnus
What are the greatest counters to Hyper Offense?
This question is far too vague. There are several styles of hyper offense and neither of them will have true counters as each battle is matchup dependent. Imposter users and Prankster Haze support are definitely some of the best blanket checks to offensive teams, but these really shine brightest when facing random setup spam that you might encounter on the ladder.

Good HO teams find ways to bypass traditional checks by using anything from niche sets to uncommon coverage moves to lure in common checks and beat them. Examples of this include things like V-create on Xerneas for Prankster and Ice Scales Zamazenta-C or Prankster Taunt on setup sweepers to prevent Prankster Haze. They will also make sure that the sets are improofed in one way or another. This is usually not the case for teams using things like Simple Geomancy Mewtwo with Stored Power, which loses to Imposter users and likely reverse sweeps the opponent. Improofed HO teams have options including but not limited to Multi-Attack or Techno Blast attackers, Substitute with or without Baton Pass, Unburden Belly Drum, and hard-counter teammates like Normalize Regigigas paired with a setup Ghost-type like Spectrier to keep Imposter from being a factor.

It is also very important for HO teams to maintain momentum throughout the battle, as losing it even momentarily can mean losing the battle altogether. Things like entry hazards and cause HO teams lots of trouble, as some rely on Focus Sash to keep momentum and improof their team, and most offensive builds have little to no room for hazard control as this can be a momentum drain. Status and chip damage, both of which Cramorant provides, are certainly good deterrents to momentum and can also be found with pivot and/or status moves from both walls and your own offensive mons. Spectral Thief is another good way to keep momentum away from offensive teams, but isn't super reliable since certain setup sweepers like Kartana and Necrozma-DM are slower than common Spectral Thief users and its also important to note that not all HO teams rely on stat boosts to excel.

So what I'm getting at really is you can't just look at mons based on their bulk, typing, and ability to check offensive threats. Building with a bunch of fatmons and relying on Imposter can only get you so far until you run into something unexpected. The things you mentioned can definitely be used to check HO teams, but this depends on the role each is playing and what the opponent is bringing. To provide a vague answer for you, I'd say momentum is one of the best counters to HO, since these teams generally do not get good results when playing on their heels.
 

Sweet Jesus

Neal and Jack and me, absent lovers...
I think we need to talk about final gambit. On one hand it's one of the most effective ways of stopping stall and the fact you sacrifice the user keeps it from being overpowerful, but on the other hand, it's also extremly hard to counter and kind of forces you to run chansey just to absorb it (or at least the ones coming from scarf scrappy zygarde who outspeeds all but regielki). I hate how guessing whether your opponent's set is a standard set or a FG sacrifice set is such a black and white issue with no grey area, especialy for zygarde who usualy runs defensive sets when he's not FG.

Don't get me wrong, I love how any mon can have an offensive or defensive set in this tier, but FG is just the laziest hyper offensive strategy that can be used to break basicaly anything and make the game a 5v5, 4v4 or 3v3 with very few options to stop a FG spammer from getting to a point where skill is barely needed and the winner is decided based upon what match-up is left at the end of the FG spam.

For example, on turn 1, if you're facing a scarf scrappy zygarde with trick and FG and you haven't started the game with regielki, prankster or a pixilate/refrigerate + Espeed user, you basicaly can't switch anything in safely except maybe imposter chansey who will still be at SR killing range or will become completely ineffective against walls (if zygarde uses trick and your opponent improofs with a locked item, in which case he reamins a FG threat). Sure the FG user loses his mon too, but he has built his team in consequence. The fact chansey is a terrible swtich-in on regular thousand waves zygarde and isn't even a good switch-in on lunala and eternatus (other top FG users who can hit incoming imposters and giratina with super effective stabs) just makes matters even worse.

Building a regular team that properly counters FG suicide leads really limits the the viable strategys and therefore it's usualy simpler to just wing it in-game and hope you predict FG correctly and sacrifice what you think will be the least useful against your opponent's other mons.

To be clear, I am not suggesting final gambit is broken, I am suggesting predicting FG is too binary and it's presence in the tier makes the tier less skill based and more match-up dependant.

Thoughts?
 
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I'm gonna say it...

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the bird is a problem

From lurking on the bh discords this is a sentiment that appears very widespread and I wholeheartedly agree. Whenever you see the blue bird in preview and you didn't bring aroma or 3+ phealers/zekrom/jungle healing your heart just sinks for the RNGfest that's about to ensue. But there seems to be an agreement that cram isn't truly broken in a winrate sense, but rather it just feels wrong on a competitive level. I'm not sure how to compellingly make that argument but here's some points about it that I think are problematic and will hopefully prompt further discussion:

1) The counterplay to cram is pretty much entirely in the builder. If your offensive mon doesn't have one of the above qualities (pheal, jungle healing, zekrom, aroma support, or misty terrain support which is fringe), your opponent can very easily put you in a position where your guy just has to take a para to make any progress. There's no real in-game counterplay. You can try to get to rocks up and double out on cram to your threatening phealer a bunch of times but a good chunk of them carry boots anyway and you will have to play extremely precisely to prevent it from ever healing back up (unless you get a lucky matchup where they're running sap cram and you have a bouncer). All this means that as teams prepare for cram more and more it ends up feeling like a very matchup-fishy pick because its ability to effectively spread paras is almost entirely dependent on your opponent's team structure.

2) A lot of the builder counterplay is not good against non-cram teams. Jungle healing on zac-c comes with a huge opportunity cost and no one would run it if cram wasn't in the meta. Post-beak ban Zekrom is just a pretty mediocre mon that struggles with zamac and is outperformed heavily by other guys in the tier. Despite the prevalence of cram many teams made by competent players without a phealer will go without aroma because it is still just so hard to fit, especially on offense. Running only phealers as your offensive core is very constricting and doesn't even solve the cram problem for your defensive guys*. Using suboptimal techs to deal with specific mons is nothing new in pokemon and it alone isn't a sign of an unhealthy metagame but it absolutely does contribute to the feelings of matchup-fishing associated with cram when you bring these techs against a team without it.

*very minor point but i kinda hate how using a single phealer on teams feels really bad rn, because then you can't run aroma and you are just leaving the rest of your guys to get paralyzed by the bird

3) full paras are so dumb. Like I think on principle if there was a hypothetical viable ability that caused your opponent's move to fail x% of the time while it was on the field it would be banned. Across tiers the counterplay to mitigate to impact of para rng is to either bring in a mon that is immune to the para or designate a sponge that can still fulfill its role in the matchup to a reasonable degree even if some of its moves do not work. Without that latter form of counterplay you are just left in a situation where your guys who can't actually perform their role if their moves don't go through end up taking it because you have no choice, which leads to paras deciding games significantly more often than simply nuzzle/glare.

this was a bit long and if I had more time it would have been shorter but those are my main thoughts
 
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Sweet Jesus

Neal and Jack and me, absent lovers...
I'm gonna say it...

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.
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the bird is a problem

From lurking on the bh discords this is a sentiment that appears very widespread and I wholeheartedly agree. Whenever you see the blue bird in preview and you didn't bring aroma or 3+ phealers/zekrom/jungle healing your heart just sinks for the RNGfest that's about to ensue. But there seems to be an agreement that cram isn't truly broken in a winrate sense, but rather it just feels wrong on a competitive level. I'm not sure how to compellingly make that argument but here's some points about it that I think are problematic and will hopefully prompt further discussion:

1) The counterplay to cram is pretty much entirely in the builder. If your offensive mon doesn't have one of the above qualities (pheal, jungle healing, zekrom, aroma support, or misty terrain support which is fringe), your opponent can very easily put you in a position where your guy just has to take a para to make any progress. There's no real in-game counterplay. You can try to get to rocks up and double out on cram to your threatening phealer a bunch of times but a good chunk of them carry boots anyway and you will have to play extremely precisely to prevent it from ever healing back up (unless you get a lucky matchup where they're running sap cram and you have a bouncer). All this means that as teams prepare for cram more and more it ends up feeling like a very matchup-fishy pick because its ability to effectively spread paras is almost entirely dependent on your opponent's team structure.

2) A lot of the builder counterplay is not good against non-cram teams. Jungle healing on zac-c comes with a huge opportunity cost and no one would run it if cram wasn't in the meta. Post-beak ban Zekrom is just a pretty mediocre mon that struggles with zamac and is outperformed heavily by other guys in the tier. Despite the prevalence of cram many teams made by competent players without a phealer will go without aroma because it is still just so hard to fit, especially on offense. Running only phealers as your offensive core is very constricting and doesn't even solve the cram problem for your defensive guys*. Using suboptimal techs to deal with specific mons is nothing new in pokemon and it alone isn't a sign of an unhealthy metagame but it absolutely does contribute to the feelings of matchup-fishing associated with cram when you bring these techs against a team without it.

*very minor point but i kinda hate how using a single phealer on teams feels really bad rn, because then you can't run aroma and you are just leaving the rest of your guys to get paralyzed by the bird

3) full paras are so dumb. Like I think on principle if there was a hypothetical viable ability that caused your opponent's move to fail x% of the time while it was on the field it would be banned. Across tiers the counterplay to mitigate to impact of para rng is to either bring in a mon that is immune to the para or designate a sponge that can still fulfill its role in the matchup to a reasonable degree even if some of its moves do not work. Without that latter form of counterplay you are just left in a situation where your guys who can't actually perform their role if their moves don't go through end up taking it because you have no choice, which leads to paras deciding games significantly more often than simply nuzzle/glare.

this was a bit long and if I had more time it would have been shorter but those are my main thoughts
I'm sure plenty of people feel this way as I myself tend to get frustrated building around cramorant, but the reality is there's still a lot that makes cramorant far from overpowerful or over centralizing.

First off, you should add guts/quick feet and thunderus-T (aerialate and no guard are decent) to your list of killers unaffected by para and consider SR as one of the best ways to grind cramorant. The fact that cramorant is quite literally a sitting cormorant duck is really the main argument to not consider him broken. Sure his presence limits your ability to use any move that doesn't ohko him, but you can often just use opposing cramorant as a way to heal your mons or set up hazards for free (or set up boosts if it doesn't run spectral thief). This is why I usualy run taunt on cramorant (and to force the enemy to activate the effect), but he's still completely powerless against magic bouncers and opposing taunt unless you run flip turn in which case he becomes weak to... opposing cramorant. The fact cramorant's stats are so underwhelming really makes the game more like 6 vs 5+cram than 6 vs 6.

It should also be noted that anything ohkoing cramorant is at a net positive if the cost is just para + 25% hp. Finaly, although Pheal/guts and aroma don't mix well together, you can still use them on the same team. No one is forcing you to use aroma in-game as long as you don't feel like the cost of healing your phealer isn't worth healing other mons.

I fully understand the pain of playing around cramorant, but to me it's impossible to make the argument it's broken or overcentralizing when there are so many ways to play around it. I think cramorant actually makes the meta less centralized around the crowned dogs which are definitely the big losers of his presence in the tier. If we ban cram, it will be because it's just not fun to play with it because it's very far from broken, I don't think I'd even give it higher than A-.
 
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cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
personally i am not very concerned about gambit. the part i mainly took issue with in that post was "skill is barely needed and the winner is decided based on what matchup is left at the end of the gambits". if you're facing hyper offense with a bunch of scarf high hp mons or whatever, just trade away your bad pokemon so you're left with better ones for the matchup. because of this it's hard for me to really get on board with this argument.

as for other miscellaneous gambit uses like dmaw etern removing zamac or something, that's fair but at the same time you're still trading away one of your strongest breakers. i think this is much less problematic than other ways of bypassing counters; if zacc whips out rend to own a volt absorb hooh or something and have a much easier time later, that feels more unbalanced and unfair to me than etern literally sacrificing itself to invest harder in something else (and etern still needs quite a bit of support, to be clear).

i have a few arguments about cram, ill try to make this coherent but this pokemon isnt very easy to talk about in terms of what it does to the meta so my apologies if it doesnt come out that well

probably my biggest issue with cram is that i feel like it just invalidates otherwise great pokemon like non prank zamac. first of all let me establish that "reacting" to cram as zamac literally does not work, you can't recover and heal bell in 1 turn so he just hops out and you're just completely losing. anyway, i feel like zamac being able to freely throw out attacks is really healthy for the meta. by correctly using moves like knock, spectral, anchor, and fighting moves zamac is able to establish a pattern of minor chip damage on opposing pokemon which in turn shapes the gameplan for both players similar to pawns in chess. (status like burn and toxic is healthy for similar reasons, which is why i'm not a fan of the push towards status protection.)

basically what i mean by this is that any attack by a pokemon that isn't cram resistant has to be incredibly direct and straightforward cause otherwise you just get owned. i kind of miss stuff like throwing out spectrals that pose a very low threat level but can open things up for your other guys, the game feels a lot less deep without em. this is why i'd probably vote to eject this guy from the meta if it came to that.
 

Sweet Jesus

Neal and Jack and me, absent lovers...
personally i am not very concerned about gambit. the part i mainly took issue with in that post was "skill is barely needed and the winner is decided based on what matchup is left at the end of the gambits". if you're facing hyper offense with a bunch of scarf high hp mons or whatever, just trade away your bad pokemon so you're left with better ones for the matchup. because of this it's hard for me to really get on board with this argument.

as for other miscellaneous gambit uses like dmaw etern removing zamac or something, that's fair but at the same time you're still trading away one of your strongest breakers. i think this is much less problematic than other ways of bypassing counters; if zacc whips out rend to own a volt absorb hooh or something and have a much easier time later, that feels more unbalanced and unfair to me than etern literally sacrificing itself to invest harder in something else (and etern still needs quite a bit of support, to be clear).

i have a few arguments about cram, ill try to make this coherent but this pokemon isnt very easy to talk about in terms of what it does to the meta so my apologies if it doesnt come out that well

probably my biggest issue with cram is that i feel like it just invalidates otherwise great pokemon like non prank zamac. first of all let me establish that "reacting" to cram as zamac literally does not work, you can't recover and heal bell in 1 turn so he just hops out and you're just completely losing. anyway, i feel like zamac being able to freely throw out attacks is really healthy for the meta. by correctly using moves like knock, spectral, anchor, and fighting moves zamac is able to establish a pattern of minor chip damage on opposing pokemon which in turn shapes the gameplan for both players similar to pawns in chess. (status like burn and toxic is healthy for similar reasons, which is why i'm not a fan of the push towards status protection.)

basically what i mean by this is that any attack by a pokemon that isn't cram resistant has to be incredibly direct and straightforward cause otherwise you just get owned. i kind of miss stuff like throwing out spectrals that pose a very low threat level but can open things up for your other guys, the game feels a lot less deep without em. this is why i'd probably vote to eject this guy from the meta if it came to that.
I fully agree saccing your usless mons for the specific matchup is the best way to counter final gambit and will hand you the win more often than not, but that assumes that 1 you saw the final gambit coming, 2 you correctly guessed your opponents remaining sets and possibly 3 you have the favorable match up on the first non-gambit turn.

The fact FG has practicaly no counters is just too polarizing, even if it implies saccing the user. I wouldn't be arguing FG is too binary if it wasn't for the great abusers, but zygarde just so happens to have enough speed to outspeed everything with a scarf, and lunala and eternatus both outspeed and hit every other viable mon with higher hp really hard (except non-imposter chansey). Because of this, a player using this strategy practicaly has complete control on having the match be 5vs5, 4vs4 or 3vs3. His opponent can choose to sac the most strategic mons, but he can't really play around it any other way. A player should not have this power, especially on turn 1.

FG is a little like innards out was last gen before the ban except you trade off the ability of stopping sweepers mid-sweep for the fact there's practically no way to play around it.
 
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I'm gonna say it...

.
.
.

the bird is a problem

From lurking on the bh discords this is a sentiment that appears very widespread and I wholeheartedly agree. Whenever you see the blue bird in preview and you didn't bring aroma or 3+ phealers/zekrom/jungle healing your heart just sinks for the RNGfest that's about to ensue. But there seems to be an agreement that cram isn't truly broken in a winrate sense, but rather it just feels wrong on a competitive level. I'm not sure how to compellingly make that argument but here's some points about it that I think are problematic and will hopefully prompt further discussion:

1) The counterplay to cram is pretty much entirely in the builder. If your offensive mon doesn't have one of the above qualities (pheal, jungle healing, zekrom, aroma support, or misty terrain support which is fringe), your opponent can very easily put you in a position where your guy just has to take a para to make any progress. There's no real in-game counterplay. You can try to get to rocks up and double out on cram to your threatening phealer a bunch of times but a good chunk of them carry boots anyway and you will have to play extremely precisely to prevent it from ever healing back up (unless you get a lucky matchup where they're running sap cram and you have a bouncer). All this means that as teams prepare for cram more and more it ends up feeling like a very matchup-fishy pick because its ability to effectively spread paras is almost entirely dependent on your opponent's team structure.

2) A lot of the builder counterplay is not good against non-cram teams. Jungle healing on zac-c comes with a huge opportunity cost and no one would run it if cram wasn't in the meta. Post-beak ban Zekrom is just a pretty mediocre mon that struggles with zamac and is outperformed heavily by other guys in the tier. Despite the prevalence of cram many teams made by competent players without a phealer will go without aroma because it is still just so hard to fit, especially on offense. Running only phealers as your offensive core is very constricting and doesn't even solve the cram problem for your defensive guys*. Using suboptimal techs to deal with specific mons is nothing new in pokemon and it alone isn't a sign of an unhealthy metagame but it absolutely does contribute to the feelings of matchup-fishing associated with cram when you bring these techs against a team without it.

*very minor point but i kinda hate how using a single phealer on teams feels really bad rn, because then you can't run aroma and you are just leaving the rest of your guys to get paralyzed by the bird

3) full paras are so dumb. Like I think on principle if there was a hypothetical viable ability that caused your opponent's move to fail x% of the time while it was on the field it would be banned. Across tiers the counterplay to mitigate to impact of para rng is to either bring in a mon that is immune to the para or designate a sponge that can still fulfill its role in the matchup to a reasonable degree even if some of its moves do not work. Without that latter form of counterplay you are just left in a situation where your guys who can't actually perform their role if their moves don't go through end up taking it because you have no choice, which leads to paras deciding games significantly more often than simply nuzzle/glare.

this was a bit long and if I had more time it would have been shorter but those are my main thoughts
while i do agree with you, the bird is quite annoying to play against, I do think there are plenty of counters that should be expiremented with alot more than they do right now. I have been testing around with magic guard sets, speciffically the ones by sweet jesus higher up on this page. Volt tackle is very powerful and it's only weakness being the recoil, which is mitigated by magic guard, on top of that the user is unable to be poisoned or hurt by hazards, something that makes it very difficult to swap into cramorant.

Magic Guard I think is definitly something that is on the precipice of being quite powerful in the metagame as it really does just make certain setup strats impossible to pull off. Hazards are a nonfactor, meaning something like rapid spin and running a more offensive set packing maybe glacial lance, Volt tackle, rapid spin, and shore up? idk really I just wanna be able to utilize going into hazards with no threat. I think you might wanna try one of these sets, or a no guard set with zap cannon.[/QUOTE]
 
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Speaking to the people advocating for Magic Guard as a way to combat Cram: the bigger problem with Kram-g is the paralysis, not the 25% chip. Though Cram isn't broken, it definitely creates a huge number of 50-50s. Do I attack and get paralyzed or do I predict the switch to Cram, not attack. and lose a big chunk or all of my health? If that mon then is paralyzed, more 50-50's result, where you just have to hope that your mon can fight through the paralysis. This is a huge problem because not even Jungle Healing is guaranteed to work through Paralysis, meaning your para absorber might still lose if it gets fully paralyzed when it tries to use Jungle healing. That is why I believe that Cram-G is super uncompetitive.

But while it's still around, have some solid anti-Cram sets. These sets are viable even against teams without Cram which is why they're good.

Band Adapt Lando-t: Thousand Arrows ohkos Cram from full, and can easily be spammed against much of the rest of the meta. The only annoying part is that your Lando gets paralyzed, but you've also saved the rest of your team from being paralyzed. Lando is already fairly slow, even with Jolly, and the stuff that now outspeeds it after Para is still hit super hard by one of its standard moves, meaning that it might still be able to gain one more KO if it can come in safely next time.

PH Thunder Cage Xerneas: After a quiver dance boost, Xerneas ohkos Cram with Thunder Cage. Thunder Cage also gives you chip on common switchins like Tapu Fini, Zamazenta-C, And Ho-Oh. Other PH sweepers are of course good answers, but I wanted to highlight Xerneas here because the Pixilate set is currently taking much of the spotlight.

Water Absorb Magearna or Zacian: These mons are extremely useful since they can cripple Cram with Knock Off or trap it with Anchor Shot, and are immune to its most common pivoting move. Obviously you want to bring them in as Cram is recovering or doing some other utility that isn't flip turning, so they are surprised. These mons also protect you from the ravages of the deadly Palkia and the scary rain teams that you see occasionally.

Slow RegenVest Users: Pokemon like Dialga and Palkia can run Assault Vest sets that 2hKO Cram. Dialga's Volt Switch actually has a good chance to OHKO Cram, and the paralysis is tenable for them because they're already meant to be dirt slow anyway. Of course, you might still be unlucky with full paras, but that's just how it goes. Assault Vest mons also let you pivot around efficiently, and since the meta is very trap-heavy right now with threats such as Anchor Imprison Zacian everywhere, being able to just make them waste time is great.

Corrosive Gas: Prank users with this can often catch Crams on the switch, removing whatever item they're trying to use. Scarf Cram is especially cancerous because it can easily cripple multiple mons with the scarf and then with paralysis too. Even with the rise of trick immune mons such as Orb Giratina and itemless Groudon and Kyogre, Trick is another rampant problem that has the potential to create favorable matchups for the Trick user at low risk. Often, tricking the right mon can be even better than KOing it, because it generates way more free turns.
 
while i do agree with you, the bird is quite annoying to play against, I do think there are plenty of counters that should be expiremented with alot more than they do right now. I have been testing around with magic guard sets, speciffically the ones by sweet jesus higher up on this page. Volt tackle is very powerful and it's only weakness being the recoil, which is mitigated by magic guard, on top of that the user is unable to be poisoned or hurt by hazards, something that makes it very difficult to swap into cramorant.

Magic Guard I think is definitly something that is on the precipice of being quite powerful in the metagame as it really does just make certain setup strats impossible to pull off. Hazards are a nonfactor, meaning something like rapid spin and running a more offensive set packing maybe glacial lance, Volt tackle, rapid spin, and shore up? idk really I just wanna be able to utilize going into hazards with no threat. I think you might wanna try one of these sets, or a no guard set with zap cannon.
Speaking to the people advocating for Magic Guard as a way to combat Cram: the bigger problem with Kram-g is the paralysis, not the 25% chip. Though Cram isn't broken, it definitely creates a huge number of 50-50s. Do I attack and get paralyzed or do I predict the switch to Cram, not attack. and lose a big chunk or all of my health? If that mon then is paralyzed, more 50-50's result, where you just have to hope that your mon can fight through the paralysis. This is a huge problem because not even Jungle Healing is guaranteed to work through Paralysis, meaning your para absorber might still lose if it gets fully paralyzed when it tries to use Jungle healing. That is why I believe that Cram-G is super uncompetitive.

But while it's still around, have some solid anti-Cram sets. These sets are viable even against teams without Cram which is why they're good.

Band Adapt Lando-t: Thousand Arrows ohkos Cram from full, and can easily be spammed against much of the rest of the meta. The only annoying part is that your Lando gets paralyzed, but you've also saved the rest of your team from being paralyzed. Lando is already fairly slow, even with Jolly, and the stuff that now outspeeds it after Para is still hit super hard by one of its standard moves, meaning that it might still be able to gain one more KO if it can come in safely next time.

PH Thunder Cage Xerneas: After a quiver dance boost, Xerneas ohkos Cram with Thunder Cage. Thunder Cage also gives you chip on common switchins like Tapu Fini, Zamazenta-C, And Ho-Oh. Other PH sweepers are of course good answers, but I wanted to highlight Xerneas here because the Pixilate set is currently taking much of the spotlight.

Water Absorb Magearna or Zacian: These mons are extremely useful since they can cripple Cram with Knock Off or trap it with Anchor Shot, and are immune to its most common pivoting move. Obviously you want to bring them in as Cram is recovering or doing some other utility that isn't flip turning, so they are surprised. These mons also protect you from the ravages of the deadly Palkia and the scary rain teams that you see occasionally.

Slow RegenVest Users: Pokemon like Dialga and Palkia can run Assault Vest sets that 2hKO Cram. Dialga's Volt Switch actually has a good chance to OHKO Cram, and the paralysis is tenable for them because they're already meant to be dirt slow anyway. Of course, you might still be unlucky with full paras, but that's just how it goes. Assault Vest mons also let you pivot around efficiently, and since the meta is very trap-heavy right now with threats such as Anchor Imprison Zacian everywhere, being able to just make them waste time is great.

Corrosive Gas: Prank users with this can often catch Crams on the switch, removing whatever item they're trying to use. Scarf Cram is especially cancerous because it can easily cripple multiple mons with the scarf and then with paralysis too. Even with the rise of trick immune mons such as Orb Giratina and itemless Groudon and Kyogre, Trick is another rampant problem that has the potential to create favorable matchups for the Trick user at low risk. Often, tricking the right mon can be even better than KOing it, because it generates way more free turns.
from what im understanding from these posts is that magic guard blocks gulp missile damage and electrics don't get parad (for the topic of this post anyway). so magic guard zekrom/thundurous/eleki/zeraora(an underused mon who has great potential) basically have immunity to crams main gimmick making them much better in a meta where cram is big threat and helps make them slightly more viable and can help skew them to be picked over other mons. if the meta shifts this way then cram might start getting paired with ground types or volt absorb making the enemy team more limited( but only slightly ) as it turns in a 6v4+ predictable set/mon+cram. and non of the electric types listed are particularly bad and can definitely be built with. if anyone wants to see a post where I go more in depth about this or someone else wants to make post about this than ill be more than happy to help if my schedule allows.
 
from what im understanding from these posts is that magic guard blocks gulp missile damage and electrics don't get parad (for the topic of this post anyway). so magic guard zekrom/thundurous/eleki/zeraora(an underused mon who has great potential) basically have immunity to crams main gimmick making them much better in a meta where cram is big threat and helps make them slightly more viable and can help skew them to be picked over other mons. if the meta shifts this way then cram might start getting paired with ground types or volt absorb making the enemy team more limited( but only slightly ) as it turns in a 6v4+ predictable set/mon+cram. and non of the electric types listed are particularly bad and can definitely be built with. if anyone wants to see a post where I go more in depth about this or someone else wants to make post about this than ill be more than happy to help if my schedule allows.
yeah i think we onto something, maybe something like volt tackle, head smash (I see ho-oh the most as a volt absorber, however any flying is good) volt switch maybe in case you want to predict switches and then a move of personal choice (i would run some water or ice move to counter grounds) on Zerora with life orb as magic guard blocks the damage from it if I remember correctly. I'm going to test this set later today with my main stall team and replace the ferrothorn. I'll check back to see if it goes well.
 

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