Just run Magic Bounce.
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BH Balanced Hackmons
- Thread starter Tea Guzzler
- Start date
Yeah but bounce and stat based are generally preferred for doing more outside of sapblock I.e bounce being able to pivot on wisp/toxic/glare/spikes (as well as the sap mon actually getting farmed for hp + attack reduction). Stat based has good defensive utility I.e blissey countering say, flutter mane and Etern.
hi so i voted dnb and thought i might as well go through my reasoning, because in my eyes this ban doesn't actually solve the problem it aims to fix
first off: what actually uses sap?
first off: what actually uses sap?
- basically every arceus. this is due to recover essentially ensuring that standard take heart arceus never wins the imposter matchup; similar sort of issue for tidy up. physical wall arceus also have a much higher preference for it due to sap helping stave off attackers like mchomp and ash-gren. exceptions where they use recover are limited, since outside of rare circumstances (such as a stab SE judge user, like fc ghost), this makes the set complete imposter fodder
- every dragon energy user (etern, mirai, more niche palk-o and mscept). recover is not sufficient at keeping HP high enough for energy to be a damage threat, which is pretty bad when it's both the main damage show and necessary on all 4 mons to hit imposter with
- generic offensive mons that want a timer longer than 4 turns (chomp, luc, etc); usually things on the slower end that will need to trade damage more often than something like ash-gren
- limited defensive options, almost always physical attackers (such as mpert and random yveltal)
- for special attackers, sapblocking really isn't functionally changing; the only real difference is that the punishment for getting the 50/50 wrong (bounce replacing ooze does not remove the 50/50) is reduced if the opponent is relying on sapblock via bounce rather than low attack. in the majority of cases, teams that want to block sap from special attackers with any consistency are going to use an attack-based blocker, and nothing's reasonably changing in that regard. arceus-ghost is also unlikely to bag a win from this, as bounce yveltal beats in the exact same way ooze yveltal did, and yveltal's whole thing in the recent meta has been "i have a spare mon slot and need a ghost check with some utility" which doesn't seem likely to change.
- for physical attackers, the main change is the 50/50 situation described above. due to them sort of needing their attack stat, the momentum swing in favour of the bounce user is greater than for special attackers (since a bounced sap means, with almost certainty, you're getting a free switch). all this really changes is the sap user having to reposition their progress maker again rather than it instantly dropping if they guess wrong; undeniably better, but ultimately still down to a 50/50. for things like garchomp whose walls naturally have low attack, like mega audino, expect basically no change.
Is sapblocking itself the problem? To me, it felt like the problem was getting randomly OHKOd or otherwise severely chunked.
Come take tea's place on council, we'll make you TL
this isn't to say ooze itself wasn't a problem, but sapblocking on the whole is an issue just because recover is such a flawed option, so you're punished whichever option you pick. recover can just run out + physical walls without mbro-level bulk risk can just get spammed down by some random choice bander, and sap can obviously get blocked.
The fact that Sap has 16PP versus recovers 8PP makes sapblocking almost necessary in this meta, otherwise you will just get rolled by almost every Arceus on the ladder. Not to mention, all other sap block methods have much more prevalence in the meta compared to Ooze, which the only uses i can think of for it (outside of sap blocking) are countering bounce by sapping it and in niche cases against Triage users
Lumina Crash i feel iffy on, id have to playtest with it, Photon Geyser i dont understand why it got banned in the first place, but Substitute would force all the fun sweepers to change their ability to unaware or infiltrator or just lose to stall, and Im fairly certain it also blocks Sap (correct me if Im wrong), so it would just make Ooze seem weak by comparison
Literally a skill issue, there's more sapblocking methods other than just erasing the opposing Pokemon (who would've guessed that it would be unhealthy) and that's a good thing. You can run Blissey or Magic Bounce, those are great and block Strength Sap.
The way I understand this ban, is not that sap blocking is "broken", but more so that Liquid Ooze is uncompetitive. It is very difficult to tell from preview that an opposing team has liquid ooze, and it is nearly impossible to prep vs. besides "not using sap" or using a magic guard strength sap pokemon. To be punished instantly, and so catastrophically, when strength sap is necessary on many sets, and has to be clicked is understandably uncompetitive. While other sap blocking strategies are still very powerful, they only hinder progress, w/o the added punishment, so playing around them can be done in a more competitive manner. Strategies such as using wish support for example, can be a competitive way to play around magic bounce / sap sipper / blissey teams, or double recovery can be used. Such a ban overall to me, feels like it aligns well with tiering focused on building a competitive metagame, with ample strategies to counter specific strategies, and give ample opportunity to play around counters. Liquid Ooze can be used once, and if successful, cannot be countered. If unsuccessfully, gameplay becomes extremely strained (similar to how Cramorant was in gen8bh, it does nothing besides cripple your mon, but it's mere presence is enough to warrant a totally different game plan when it is on the field). Strategies like magic bounce / sap sipper / blissey deny progress, but allow more proactive counter play both in-game and in the builder, which liquid ooze does not.
As someone who didnt play gen8BH, please enlighten me as to what the funny little bird did
ahahahaha, sorry sorry I should have explained. Because formes are freed in bh, you were able to use cramorant in its "Gorging" form with Gulp Missile. In its gorging form, when you attack Cramorant (physical or special or non-contact) you take 25% damage and get paralyzed. This meant that if the opp had Cram, you were scared to click any attack, in fear that your pokemon will be instantly crippled. It was truly a terrible (but memorable) time for gen8bh. Although it's not 1 to 1, the strain it put on teambuilding, and the gameplay around it felt similar to that of liquid ooze, so I thought it was worth a mention for comparison.
Please refer to Tea Guzzler's post where he elaborates on why he voted DnB to Liquid ooze. "skill-issue" isn't part of it when other options work, i'm saying banning it wasn't a good idea because of it not solving the problem. Sure you can say skill issue because "haha funny meme on imperium what a dummy" but honestly banning it is more of "I don't like that the best healing move comes with the risk of being mega countered", it balanced out other healing moves because they at least don't come with the risk Str sap does, but now the big counter is gone and now is only half punished.
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I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding going on here.
Banning Liquid Ooze isn't about "solving the sapblocking problem", sapblocking will and should remain an integral part of the metagame. But the issue was that Liquid Ooze was too powerful of a sapblocking option since it doesn't leave the option to come in later and try to sap again when the sapblocker has been put under more pressure.
In Imperium's post they mention how "not having the risk of getting ooze balanced out the other healing moves" but that's not really what matters here. Strength sap being the most viable healing option isn't something that will be changed by bans or unbans (besides banning sap lmao). It's a natural consequence of the lack of trapping options, the difficulty of fitting anti-setup against physical attackers and 8 pp healing making it impossible to stall out the powerful 8 pp moves like you could before. The other healing moves are never going to be worth using over sap on a huge portion of mons because needing to run shackle or mean look makes any defensive mon become insanely passive. There's a reason people are running scales sap users.
So the argument that "Council just wants to buff Sap even further", while completely misguided, isn't actually wrong. Sap is the meta healing move and removing it would lead to the tier becoming unplayably passive with every defensive mon running some god awful do-nothing set to prevent Imp from farming it for heals. (inb4 "ban Imposter then" which has been suitably adressed earlier in the thread). So because we're stuck with Sap, we may as well make sapblocking an actually healthy part of the metagame instead of "lol I got one predict right there goes your defensive core".
Anyway, I've built two teams recently in the new meta I'd like to share.
This team is a sequel to the superman semistall I built back in the Lumina Crash meta. It features an unorthodox defensive core that is fully immune to hazards and highly resistant to knock off and chip while stacking multiple layers of spikes and rocks to make progress. Has some issues with non-standard Take Heart users and opposing Magic Guard and the lack of Imposter makes it vulnerable to the usual ladder shenanigans but overall it's worked quite well on ladder and has been used in the BH ghosting tour successfully.
This one is a modification of my old ashgren + mg blissey team that replaces Magma Storm FC Poisonceus with KoffSalt FC Waterceus and replaces Scarf Steely Spirit Kartana with Scarf Desolate Land MBlaziken. The core of Sniper Ashgren, MG Blissey and FC MAudino has been extremely consistent for me and I believe you could make it work with a variety of mons in the other 3 slots so long as one of them is very fast (you need a fast breaker to make Blissey's Teleport a sufficient answer to setup special attackers). Ashgren's Magical Torque is mostly filler so you could swap it for Frost Breath, Flip Turn, Sucker Punch etc. The team has seen success on ladder and in test games.
Currently, I feel like the meta is a little matchup fishy, but not to the extent where it feels unplayable. I'm not sure how you could improve that though given nothing feels overwhelmingly powerful.
Banning Liquid Ooze isn't about "solving the sapblocking problem", sapblocking will and should remain an integral part of the metagame. But the issue was that Liquid Ooze was too powerful of a sapblocking option since it doesn't leave the option to come in later and try to sap again when the sapblocker has been put under more pressure.
In Imperium's post they mention how "not having the risk of getting ooze balanced out the other healing moves" but that's not really what matters here. Strength sap being the most viable healing option isn't something that will be changed by bans or unbans (besides banning sap lmao). It's a natural consequence of the lack of trapping options, the difficulty of fitting anti-setup against physical attackers and 8 pp healing making it impossible to stall out the powerful 8 pp moves like you could before. The other healing moves are never going to be worth using over sap on a huge portion of mons because needing to run shackle or mean look makes any defensive mon become insanely passive. There's a reason people are running scales sap users.
So the argument that "Council just wants to buff Sap even further", while completely misguided, isn't actually wrong. Sap is the meta healing move and removing it would lead to the tier becoming unplayably passive with every defensive mon running some god awful do-nothing set to prevent Imp from farming it for heals. (inb4 "ban Imposter then" which has been suitably adressed earlier in the thread). So because we're stuck with Sap, we may as well make sapblocking an actually healthy part of the metagame instead of "lol I got one predict right there goes your defensive core".
Anyway, I've built two teams recently in the new meta I'd like to share.
This team is a sequel to the superman semistall I built back in the Lumina Crash meta. It features an unorthodox defensive core that is fully immune to hazards and highly resistant to knock off and chip while stacking multiple layers of spikes and rocks to make progress. Has some issues with non-standard Take Heart users and opposing Magic Guard and the lack of Imposter makes it vulnerable to the usual ladder shenanigans but overall it's worked quite well on ladder and has been used in the BH ghosting tour successfully.
This one is a modification of my old ashgren + mg blissey team that replaces Magma Storm FC Poisonceus with KoffSalt FC Waterceus and replaces Scarf Steely Spirit Kartana with Scarf Desolate Land MBlaziken. The core of Sniper Ashgren, MG Blissey and FC MAudino has been extremely consistent for me and I believe you could make it work with a variety of mons in the other 3 slots so long as one of them is very fast (you need a fast breaker to make Blissey's Teleport a sufficient answer to setup special attackers). Ashgren's Magical Torque is mostly filler so you could swap it for Frost Breath, Flip Turn, Sucker Punch etc. The team has seen success on ladder and in test games.
Currently, I feel like the meta is a little matchup fishy, but not to the extent where it feels unplayable. I'm not sure how you could improve that though given nothing feels overwhelmingly powerful.
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I think it's not accurate to describe ooze as a counter of sap. A counter is something can wall you but you can still switch. As ooze directly kill your pm, it's more close to a fatal trapper for sap users.
im more known/knowledgeable based off the older gen's, but if something really obviously "the best" is being counterplayed, its not that the counterplay is broken, its moreso your intentionally falling into a trap thats exploitable.
other then it being "Better" is there any other reason your not just running normal recovery? last gens shore up was basically the most popular healing move, because sand was actually a viable weather effect due to buffing spc def of aerialate counters, so imprison blocking was a very popular counter measure, esp with the additional bonus of imposterproofing, which WOULD'VE made the move banworthy, but it wasn't like we couldn't just...use recover/roost instead despite it being the clear superior option. other strats fell into this logic too.
im not knowledgeable on this gen, so im not going to say im right, because 8pp on defensive mons sounds atrocious and could very well be a reason for sap sipper being necessary to use, but im just going to leave this trail of thought here.
other then it being "Better" is there any other reason your not just running normal recovery? last gens shore up was basically the most popular healing move, because sand was actually a viable weather effect due to buffing spc def of aerialate counters, so imprison blocking was a very popular counter measure, esp with the additional bonus of imposterproofing, which WOULD'VE made the move banworthy, but it wasn't like we couldn't just...use recover/roost instead despite it being the clear superior option. other strats fell into this logic too.
im not knowledgeable on this gen, so im not going to say im right, because 8pp on defensive mons sounds atrocious and could very well be a reason for sap sipper being necessary to use, but im just going to leave this trail of thought here.
strength sap is used over recover because:
- you're very unlikely to just "run out" given you have twice the pp; you can thus afford to heal at higher remaining HP (essentially you can get away with not getting 100% efficient recovery much more than with recover) much more easily, making choiced wallbreakers a lot less threatening
- you can avoid situations where a phys wallbreaker you don't instantly threaten can just sit there and keep smashing away at your recovers
- it's significantly less exploitable by imposter (in essentially every case, "standard sap" mons that opt into recover either need to be arceus-ghost or carry a trapping move; mons that usually carry recover can only really justify it via their bulk and typing -> just pad the imp matchup with some random utility, which something like arceus-fairy simply cannot do)
- you just heal more than recover against a good chunk of pokemon, especially as the builder loves giving you max attack EVs when running any physical move regardless of its bp
This is a huge blow to the BH metagame, I can see Mew having usage but not being as bulky as Chansey sucks. Big changes are coming.
Oh, turns out it was a false alarm... hopefully.
i have two switches (but don't have the second one on me) so i can test this in a local battle at the weekend, will post results here
I don't really agree with some points brought up in this post (also like very delayed response but whatever)
Firstly, statbased is pretty limited in options. There are very limited viable mons that have low enough attack to sapblock, and of those even fewer can hard sapblock, as even lowish attack mons like MAud still provide a decent amount of health to the sap user that gives them leeway to play. Thus, the only true statbased sapblocker that is meta is Blissey, which has the highly exploitable defense stat, making any physically oriented sap user impossible to sapblock though Blissey.
Then, for the difference in interaction between Bounce and Ooze, consider the following scenarios:
1. Positive matchup for sap user.
If sap user is physically oriented, the matchup against Bounce is a bit worse, but still better than Ooze. Sapping into a bounce most of the time would force the sap user to switch out unless its a 4x weak matchup or something. However, this still gives the sap user the opportunity to come in later and make another prediction to heal up if the player somehow generates that opportunity, as opposed to Ooze straight up killing said mon.
If sap user is specially oriented, then even if the Bounce mon switches into the sap, it still has to play a dangerous 50/50 the following turn, as opposed to Ooze straight up killing said mon and turning it into a true 50/50. Obviously if the Bounce mon switches into an attack then it is a good result for the sap user.
2. Neutral matchup.
Kind of similar to above, if you end up sapping on Bounce you lose momentum and have to figure out a way to heal up the mon later without losing to the offensive threat (which would involve some accurate predicts as well), but at least you are not losing the mon immediately.
3. Bad matchup for sap user.
This is over for the sap user either way.
Scenario 1 is the most important difference between Bounce and Ooze. Without Ooze it is possible to prep for certain common Bounce mons or have your sap users cover a wide range of Bounce mons (e.g. not have all your sap mons get walled by Bounce Audino or something) while with Ooze even with prep you still cannot be safe in game. One example I have regarding this was when I used Ooze Yveltal a while back and forced 50/50s against stuff like Sap Miraidon and Fairyceus that have no business existing when Yveltal hard loses to both if it was Bounce.
Offensive meta is very diverse currently, there aren't really any clear standout options, and stuff like Ashgren, Necro, Zam, Flutter, Chomp, and others are all great choices. Ashgren in particular is pretty strong because it can play physical or mixed (special is very specific) while the others are more or less specialized since SpA Necro is competing hard against Zam. Flutter is interesting because Moongeist is a broke move but from playing with Flare Boost set (and Specs previously) it actually lacks power to hit OHKO/2HKOs because of not running Astral, and requires strong Knock Off support to prevent being farmed by RegenVests into Imp/RK.
Magic Guard is really good and a lot of stuff can viably run it including dragons and waters. Dodge every form of chip, use Mortal Spin to advantageously dodge Para and Burn, free item choice which includes free Life Orb damage boost. For Waters it also enables a spammable Wave Crash. Just generally easy to fit as a supporting offensive option that provides a degree of defensive utility, can improof stuff, and helps switch into annoying stuff for momentum (or to not lose it). A pretty easy generic structure is breaker MG FurScales additional defensive Imp.
Defensive meta sees the reintroduction of some things that were obsolete in the prior MMX DeoA Diancie meta, while the only notable mon that phases out is Poisonceus, overall meaning a more diverse defensive meta to try to handle the diverse offensive meta. Moongeist and Sunsteel do have an impact on defensive meta by encouraging resists for the respective FurScales ability.
Also stay tuned for a Resources overhaul soontm with an updated VR, Role Compendium, Speed tiers, and analyses will also open soon.
To me, there are pretty clear differences between the 3 primary sapblock methods (Ooze, Statbased, Bounce) that make Ooze standout as "bad" while the other two are more reasonably healthy and competitive. In other words, Ooze is the only unhealthy form of sapblocking and its removal does fix sapblocking by making it more competitive.
Firstly, statbased is pretty limited in options. There are very limited viable mons that have low enough attack to sapblock, and of those even fewer can hard sapblock, as even lowish attack mons like MAud still provide a decent amount of health to the sap user that gives them leeway to play. Thus, the only true statbased sapblocker that is meta is Blissey, which has the highly exploitable defense stat, making any physically oriented sap user impossible to sapblock though Blissey.
Then, for the difference in interaction between Bounce and Ooze, consider the following scenarios:
1. Positive matchup for sap user.
If sap user is physically oriented, the matchup against Bounce is a bit worse, but still better than Ooze. Sapping into a bounce most of the time would force the sap user to switch out unless its a 4x weak matchup or something. However, this still gives the sap user the opportunity to come in later and make another prediction to heal up if the player somehow generates that opportunity, as opposed to Ooze straight up killing said mon.
If sap user is specially oriented, then even if the Bounce mon switches into the sap, it still has to play a dangerous 50/50 the following turn, as opposed to Ooze straight up killing said mon and turning it into a true 50/50. Obviously if the Bounce mon switches into an attack then it is a good result for the sap user.
2. Neutral matchup.
Kind of similar to above, if you end up sapping on Bounce you lose momentum and have to figure out a way to heal up the mon later without losing to the offensive threat (which would involve some accurate predicts as well), but at least you are not losing the mon immediately.
3. Bad matchup for sap user.
This is over for the sap user either way.
Scenario 1 is the most important difference between Bounce and Ooze. Without Ooze it is possible to prep for certain common Bounce mons or have your sap users cover a wide range of Bounce mons (e.g. not have all your sap mons get walled by Bounce Audino or something) while with Ooze even with prep you still cannot be safe in game. One example I have regarding this was when I used Ooze Yveltal a while back and forced 50/50s against stuff like Sap Miraidon and Fairyceus that have no business existing when Yveltal hard loses to both if it was Bounce.
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Regarding current meta, played quite a few games recently and tried some stuff, observations so far
Offensive meta is very diverse currently, there aren't really any clear standout options, and stuff like Ashgren, Necro, Zam, Flutter, Chomp, and others are all great choices. Ashgren in particular is pretty strong because it can play physical or mixed (special is very specific) while the others are more or less specialized since SpA Necro is competing hard against Zam. Flutter is interesting because Moongeist is a broke move but from playing with Flare Boost set (and Specs previously) it actually lacks power to hit OHKO/2HKOs because of not running Astral, and requires strong Knock Off support to prevent being farmed by RegenVests into Imp/RK. Magic Guard is really good and a lot of stuff can viably run it including dragons and waters. Dodge every form of chip, use Mortal Spin to advantageously dodge Para and Burn, free item choice which includes free Life Orb damage boost. For Waters it also enables a spammable Wave Crash. Just generally easy to fit as a supporting offensive option that provides a degree of defensive utility, can improof stuff, and helps switch into annoying stuff for momentum (or to not lose it). A pretty easy generic structure is breaker MG FurScales additional defensive Imp. Defensive meta sees the reintroduction of some things that were obsolete in the prior MMX DeoA Diancie meta, while the only notable mon that phases out is Poisonceus, overall meaning a more diverse defensive meta to try to handle the diverse offensive meta. Moongeist and Sunsteel do have an impact on defensive meta by encouraging resists for the respective FurScales ability. Also stay tuned for a Resources overhaul soontm with an updated VR, Role Compendium, Speed tiers, and analyses will also open soon.Hello everyone. Now that the tour is over, I can finally reveal some of the greatest and most terrible sets you'll ever witness. Before that, I will mention that I am going to keep this as brief as possible. Have you heard of the parable of the sower? It goes:
"Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." And he said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
That is exactly what I will do. I will simply spread my ideas. If you refuse to try these sets, so be it. I believe some people will realise and utilise the power of these sets, and that is enough for me.
Starscourge Radahn (Dialga-Origin) @ Adamant Crystal
Ability: Wandering Spirit
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Doom Desire
- Thunder Cage
- Ruination
- Strength Sap
This is not the first time I have recommended this set. This dialga is the ultimate Regenerator counter. Unless the regen mon has Precipice Blades or Salt Cure, you can always switch this into u-turn, knock off rapid spin, stone axe and other contact moves. Doing so will swap both mons' abilities, granting Dialga Regenerator and giving your opponent the useless Wandering Spirit. But that's not all. The Doom Desire -> Thunder Cage -> Ruination trifecta is an extremely lethal combination which lets you do what I call "bursting". Bursting is a term from video games where you deal a large amount of damage in a short amount of time. This Dialga can burst all by itself or be paired with a nuke to suddenly OHKO a mon. Furthermore, you're also imposter-proof because of how Strength Sap makes you recover more hp. Other moves you can try include Torch Song, Scald and Whirlwind.
ReinhardLohengramm (Sceptile-Mega) @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Energy
- Chloroblast
- Torch Song
- Strength Sap
Next we have MG Sceptile. This is a very straightforward mon. Sceptile is the fastest special dragon, which means it can outspeed all other dragons at neutral and OHKO them with Dragon Energy. Chloroblast is good coverage for Greninja, Kyogre and Ground Arceus. It also hits Swampert and Slowbro which is nice. The last two moves are more flexible. I recommend Strength Sap for longevity to keep your Dragon Energy powerful, but you can try Matcha Gotcha for different sort of sustain. You can even run no recovery if you want. As for coverage, I recommend Torch Song, Thunder Cage and Secret Sword. There are other options though like Malignant Chain, Steel Beam and Blue Flare if you want more immediate damage.
Arceus @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Take Heart
- Boomburst
- Shore Up
- Judgment
Your eyes do not deceive you. This is indeed a Normal-type Arceus. This mon is the best Ghost Arc and Flutter Mane check if they have Secret Sword. If they don't have Secret Sword then Blissey is the best. Thanks to how Secret Sword was coded, its damage is reduced by Ice Scales. Normal is only useful for its ghost immunity but Fighting is quite rare so it's a decent type. Furthermore, it gets two of the most powerful moves in the game in Boomburst and Population Bomb. Unlike a lot of Arcs, this one is not really Imposter proof since you're not running Thunder Cage but you can easily imposter proof with a ghost-type.
Blissey (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Ruination
- U-turn
- Clear Smog
- Stone Axe
This is another old set I made, but I don't think people realise how good Regenvest Blissey is. Do you want to know what the worst thing about running passive mon is? You easily get set up on and you have to spend turns recovering because of chip damage from hazards and poison. Well what if I tell you that there is another way to circumvent the drawbacks of Blissey and that is Regenvest. With Clear Smog, you parma-wall every Torch Song dragon in existence. You sap block them because Blissey has 0 attack. Not only that, you chop their health in half with Ruination. You never lose momentum because of U-turn, and you also prevent stuff like salt cure and poison damage because you switch. Trust me, run these three moves on your Blissey and you'll soon realise how terrifying this innocent-looking mon is. As for the last move you can run whatever regen move like stone axe, knock off, spin, salt cure etc.
Alakazam-Mega @ Flame Orb
Ability: Flare Boost
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Pain Split
- Psystrike
- Moongeist Beam
If you're looking for a stall breaker/offense cleaner than look no further than Flare Boost Alakazam. This is basically a copy of the Flutter Mane set except you're faster and stronger but with worse coverage. After a single NP you OHKO almost every single offensive mon in the game. Flame Orb + Pain Split means you can turn your chip damage into health against high hp mons. There are some drawbacks though, mostly from coverage. I think you always choose either moongeist or moonblast. Don't be fooled though, even when Psystrike is resisted, you're still doing a ton of damage to resists as shown below:
+2 252 SpA Flare Boost Alakazam-Mega Psystrike vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Steelix-Mega: 129-153 (36.4 - 43.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252 SpA Flare Boost Alakazam-Mega Psystrike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Lugia: 183-216 (43.9 - 51.9%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO
Zacian @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Strength Sap
- Spirit Break
- U-turn
- Salt Cure
I think Zacian is one of the best Ice Scales/RegenVest mon atm. This is because of its amazing 138 Speed. Do you remember why everyone ran Miraidon to check Kartana? Sure it was because you resist the STABs, but what was more important was because Miraidon could outspeed and Torch Song the Kartana without needing to take a hit. The same thing is what makes Zacian so good. I think you should always run Knock Off on this mon to reduce the opponent's damage. Spirit Break lets you neutralise Take Heart and No Retreat. You do need another way to beat Arc if they have Sap though. This could be Salt Cure on Zacian or another mon in your team. I will note that you outspeed Necrozma and Greninja among a bunch of other dragons. You can even use this to soft check Koraidon if that gets popular. Unlike Arc, you outspeed it.
Calyrex-Ice @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Snow Warning
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Aurora Veil
- Flip Turn
- Ice Shard
- Strength Sap
Alright that was the end of the "good" sets. Now I would like to share extremely spicy and 100% optimal "god" sets that will cause your opponents to uncontrollably shake and cry. The first is Snow Warning Caly-I. This mon is a soft Garchomp and Kyurem-B check. Great improof if you run those mons with Mold Breaker since it doesn't work against the Snow defense boost. But here is the twist: we can run Aurora Veil on this mon or another mon on your team to utilise the snow. I know Cityscapes is shaking and crying right now from the sight of this demon. Do you think that's all? well of course not. With Adamant nature and Ice Shard, you have a roll to kill chomp at -1:
252+ Atk Calyrex-Ice Ice Shard vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Garchomp-Mega: 372-444 (88.5 - 105.7%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
The chances are even higher if they're running less defense to OHKO imposters or if they clicked Glaive Rush the previous turn. The sheer emotional damage inflicted from this sequence of events will definitely make your opponent forfeit immediately.
BARTHOLOMEW KUMA (Tyranitar-Mega) @ Shed Shell
Ability: Simple
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Jaw Lock
- No Retreat
- Power Trip
- Strength Sap
You have reached the conclusion of this post, and deserve to be bestowed possibly the greatest set in the 2024 BH metagame: No Retreat Tyranitar. Contrary to what the name suggest, you do in fact, retreat with this set. If you don't know, you can actually use No Retreat multiple times if you are already under the trapping effect of Jaw Lock, Spirit Shackle, Block or Mean Look. The strategy is simple: run another mon with Spirit Shackle, switch into an imposter of it and click No Retreat. You can No Retreat a second time even if the imposter switches. Most of the time even one No Retreat is enough to let Tyranitar OHKO a lot of mons. If an imposter comes, you can Strength Sap twice before Jaw Lock. If they switch, your Jaw Lock will mean that they can't switch the Imposter back in. Once the Imposter is trapped you can 1v1 it with Strength Sap. If you are wondering what peak BH team building looks like, this is it. We have peaked with this set.
"Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." And he said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
That is exactly what I will do. I will simply spread my ideas. If you refuse to try these sets, so be it. I believe some people will realise and utilise the power of these sets, and that is enough for me.
Starscourge Radahn (Dialga-Origin) @ Adamant Crystal
Ability: Wandering Spirit
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Doom Desire
- Thunder Cage
- Ruination
- Strength Sap
This is not the first time I have recommended this set. This dialga is the ultimate Regenerator counter. Unless the regen mon has Precipice Blades or Salt Cure, you can always switch this into u-turn, knock off rapid spin, stone axe and other contact moves. Doing so will swap both mons' abilities, granting Dialga Regenerator and giving your opponent the useless Wandering Spirit. But that's not all. The Doom Desire -> Thunder Cage -> Ruination trifecta is an extremely lethal combination which lets you do what I call "bursting". Bursting is a term from video games where you deal a large amount of damage in a short amount of time. This Dialga can burst all by itself or be paired with a nuke to suddenly OHKO a mon. Furthermore, you're also imposter-proof because of how Strength Sap makes you recover more hp. Other moves you can try include Torch Song, Scald and Whirlwind.
ReinhardLohengramm (Sceptile-Mega) @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Energy
- Chloroblast
- Torch Song
- Strength Sap
Next we have MG Sceptile. This is a very straightforward mon. Sceptile is the fastest special dragon, which means it can outspeed all other dragons at neutral and OHKO them with Dragon Energy. Chloroblast is good coverage for Greninja, Kyogre and Ground Arceus. It also hits Swampert and Slowbro which is nice. The last two moves are more flexible. I recommend Strength Sap for longevity to keep your Dragon Energy powerful, but you can try Matcha Gotcha for different sort of sustain. You can even run no recovery if you want. As for coverage, I recommend Torch Song, Thunder Cage and Secret Sword. There are other options though like Malignant Chain, Steel Beam and Blue Flare if you want more immediate damage.
Arceus @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Take Heart
- Boomburst
- Shore Up
- Judgment
Your eyes do not deceive you. This is indeed a Normal-type Arceus. This mon is the best Ghost Arc and Flutter Mane check if they have Secret Sword. If they don't have Secret Sword then Blissey is the best. Thanks to how Secret Sword was coded, its damage is reduced by Ice Scales. Normal is only useful for its ghost immunity but Fighting is quite rare so it's a decent type. Furthermore, it gets two of the most powerful moves in the game in Boomburst and Population Bomb. Unlike a lot of Arcs, this one is not really Imposter proof since you're not running Thunder Cage but you can easily imposter proof with a ghost-type.
Blissey (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Ruination
- U-turn
- Clear Smog
- Stone Axe
This is another old set I made, but I don't think people realise how good Regenvest Blissey is. Do you want to know what the worst thing about running passive mon is? You easily get set up on and you have to spend turns recovering because of chip damage from hazards and poison. Well what if I tell you that there is another way to circumvent the drawbacks of Blissey and that is Regenvest. With Clear Smog, you parma-wall every Torch Song dragon in existence. You sap block them because Blissey has 0 attack. Not only that, you chop their health in half with Ruination. You never lose momentum because of U-turn, and you also prevent stuff like salt cure and poison damage because you switch. Trust me, run these three moves on your Blissey and you'll soon realise how terrifying this innocent-looking mon is. As for the last move you can run whatever regen move like stone axe, knock off, spin, salt cure etc.
Alakazam-Mega @ Flame Orb
Ability: Flare Boost
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Pain Split
- Psystrike
- Moongeist Beam
If you're looking for a stall breaker/offense cleaner than look no further than Flare Boost Alakazam. This is basically a copy of the Flutter Mane set except you're faster and stronger but with worse coverage. After a single NP you OHKO almost every single offensive mon in the game. Flame Orb + Pain Split means you can turn your chip damage into health against high hp mons. There are some drawbacks though, mostly from coverage. I think you always choose either moongeist or moonblast. Don't be fooled though, even when Psystrike is resisted, you're still doing a ton of damage to resists as shown below:
+2 252 SpA Flare Boost Alakazam-Mega Psystrike vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Steelix-Mega: 129-153 (36.4 - 43.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252 SpA Flare Boost Alakazam-Mega Psystrike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Lugia: 183-216 (43.9 - 51.9%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO
Zacian @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Strength Sap
- Spirit Break
- U-turn
- Salt Cure
I think Zacian is one of the best Ice Scales/RegenVest mon atm. This is because of its amazing 138 Speed. Do you remember why everyone ran Miraidon to check Kartana? Sure it was because you resist the STABs, but what was more important was because Miraidon could outspeed and Torch Song the Kartana without needing to take a hit. The same thing is what makes Zacian so good. I think you should always run Knock Off on this mon to reduce the opponent's damage. Spirit Break lets you neutralise Take Heart and No Retreat. You do need another way to beat Arc if they have Sap though. This could be Salt Cure on Zacian or another mon in your team. I will note that you outspeed Necrozma and Greninja among a bunch of other dragons. You can even use this to soft check Koraidon if that gets popular. Unlike Arc, you outspeed it.
Calyrex-Ice @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Snow Warning
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Aurora Veil
- Flip Turn
- Ice Shard
- Strength Sap
Alright that was the end of the "good" sets. Now I would like to share extremely spicy and 100% optimal "god" sets that will cause your opponents to uncontrollably shake and cry. The first is Snow Warning Caly-I. This mon is a soft Garchomp and Kyurem-B check. Great improof if you run those mons with Mold Breaker since it doesn't work against the Snow defense boost. But here is the twist: we can run Aurora Veil on this mon or another mon on your team to utilise the snow. I know Cityscapes is shaking and crying right now from the sight of this demon. Do you think that's all? well of course not. With Adamant nature and Ice Shard, you have a roll to kill chomp at -1:
252+ Atk Calyrex-Ice Ice Shard vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Garchomp-Mega: 372-444 (88.5 - 105.7%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
The chances are even higher if they're running less defense to OHKO imposters or if they clicked Glaive Rush the previous turn. The sheer emotional damage inflicted from this sequence of events will definitely make your opponent forfeit immediately.
BARTHOLOMEW KUMA (Tyranitar-Mega) @ Shed Shell
Ability: Simple
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Jaw Lock
- No Retreat
- Power Trip
- Strength Sap
You have reached the conclusion of this post, and deserve to be bestowed possibly the greatest set in the 2024 BH metagame: No Retreat Tyranitar. Contrary to what the name suggest, you do in fact, retreat with this set. If you don't know, you can actually use No Retreat multiple times if you are already under the trapping effect of Jaw Lock, Spirit Shackle, Block or Mean Look. The strategy is simple: run another mon with Spirit Shackle, switch into an imposter of it and click No Retreat. You can No Retreat a second time even if the imposter switches. Most of the time even one No Retreat is enough to let Tyranitar OHKO a lot of mons. If an imposter comes, you can Strength Sap twice before Jaw Lock. If they switch, your Jaw Lock will mean that they can't switch the Imposter back in. Once the Imposter is trapped you can 1v1 it with Strength Sap. If you are wondering what peak BH team building looks like, this is it. We have peaked with this set.
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