[overview]
**Draft Order**: Round 5 onwards
**Price Range**: 7-9 points
**Overview**: Breloom may look like quite the fungi, but it's no sleeper when it comes to battle. Its access to the coveted Spore alone is enough to keep any opponent up at night, but its sky-high Attack and Technician-boosted moves like Bullet Seed, Mach Punch, Rock Tomb, and Bulldoze allow it to put foes to sleep the old-fashioned way as well. Even foes capable of walling Breloom are never truly out of the woods: with Poison Heal and moves like Leech Seed, Substitute, and Toxic, it's always capable of turning the tables and making those checks mere setup fodder! Unfortunately, even though Breloom's teambuilder options violate the Geneva Conventions, Breloom itself is held back by the fact that it simply can't run everything it wants to at once; its Poison Heal sets often rely on prediction to be threatening attackers, while Technician sets are quick to get worn out if Breloom it isn't hitting the right moves. Pair that with its saddening Base Stats and the many ways of checking Spore, and you've got a versatile Pokemon with mushroom for improvement, as Breloom can often feel inconsistent when compared to other similarly-priced picks.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Offensive Utility**: As a rare offensive Spore user, Breloom has no trouble making openings for itself just by hitting the battlefield, and despite having the bulk of an actual mushroom, access to Poison Heal and resistances to common types like Ground, Dark, and Electric give Breloom several opportunities to get its stubby little claws onto the field. After scaring out any foe not sporting the proper tech, it can get to work while hiding behind a Substitute to thwart its passive would-be checks with Focus Punch and Leech Seed, break through walls with Swords Dance and its massive coverage, or simply spread other status with Toxic.
**Wallbreaker**: With Breloom's impressive Attack and plethora of Technician-boosted moves, any opponent will find that switching into this thing isn't an easy task, even if Spore is out of the equation. With a Choice Band or Swords Dance boost, Breloom can even act as a cleaner and revenge killer with Mach Punch!
**Disruptor**: Breloom can invest fully into the sheer menace of Spore, playing with the sole intention of putting a specific target to rest. Whether it's using a Focus Sash to act as a pseudo-stopgap or pushing the limits of its bulk with Poison Heal and investment, if the opponent doesn't respect Breloom, they'll be sleeping with the fishes.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB Moves**: Bullet Seed, Seed Bomb, Mach Punch, Close Combat, Drain Punch, Force Palm, Low Kick
**Setup Moves**: Swords Dance, Bulk Up
**Utility Moves**: Spore, Stun Spore, Toxic, Leech Seed, Substitute, Protect, Brick Break
**Coverage**: Aerial Ace, Bulldoze, Facade, Gunk Shot, Poison Jab, Pounce, Rock Slide, Rock Tomb, Stone Edge, Tera Blast, Thunder Punch, Zen Headbutt
Niche Moves
========
**Focus Punch**: Breloom's ability to make foes dance is put on full display when running Focus Punch, letting it score massive damage when predicting switches or behind a Substitute.
**Fling**: The classic Fling + Big Nugget combo allows Breloom to deal massive damage to bulky Psychic- and Ghost-types that it might otherwise struggle with. Toxic Orb sets aren't out of the fun either; pair that with Fling, and you've got yourself both a one-time Toxic that can bypass Taunt and a newly-found immunity to Poltergeist!
**Counter**: Counter lets Focus Sash Breloom eliminate desired physical threats, all while avoid the guess-and-check work that comes with potential Spore counterplay.
Common Items
========
**Toxic Orb**: Armed with one of the world's finest delicacies: deadly toxins, Breloom can reliably activate Poison Heal and stay healthy.
**Choice Band**: Technician Breloom's already-deadly ability to break and clean up teams only gets deadlier with the power of a Choice Band. Choice Band sets can even keep Spore to really turn the opponent's hair gray.
**Focus Sash**: Though Breloom isn't known for bulk, Focus Sash lets it tank any single hit, letting it shut down almost any sweeper with a well-placed Spore or super effective hit.
**Damage-boosting Items**: With the sheer amount of power and coverage Breloom has at its claws, the damage boosts from an Expert Belt, Life Orb, or Black Belt are never unwanted!
Niche Items
========
**Resistance Berries**: Similar to Focus Sash, resistance Berries allow Breloom to take a hit and decommission whatever foe it chooses, even in games where entry hazards and chip damage seem inevitable.
**Loaded Dice**: Bullet Seed may as well shoot actual bullets when Breloom holds a Loaded Dice; the increase in hits combined with the increased damage with Technician results in a move that can wear out all but the bulkiest checks fast.
**Lum Berry**: Surprisingly, Breloom sets without Poison Heal don't like getting statused very much. Running Lum Berry lets it avoid those pesky status effects without sacrificing Technician's damage output.
**Eject Pack**: Bulky Poison-types that prey on Breloom's lack of pivot moves are in for a wake-up call; with an Eject Pack, it's just one Close Combat away from bringing in your team's Poison-type check unscathed.
Tera
========
Although Breloom's serviceable base typing and unimpressive Speed means it's no paragon of Terastallization, its massive utility and raw firepower make it worth considering as a secondary Tera Captain regardless. Tera Fire and Fighting are among its most common Tera types, with the former offering powerful coverage and the latter boosting its already-strong STAB attacks. On the other hand, Tera Poison, Rock, and Electric boost Breloom's existing coverage moves to new heights while giving it a decent defensive typing, and Tera Steel lets it flip almost all of its defensive matchups in a single turn.
Draft Strategy
========
The sheer variety of sets Breloom can run means it can find a place in almost any team looking for a strong Fighting-type with a bit of disruptive spice. It's often drafted for Spore, but the nature of that move means it's unwise to expect Breloom to get one off every game. Not that it needs to; just the expectation of Spore alone forces the opponent to play very carefully around Breloom, which a team with these strengths can use to their advantage!
**Knock Off**: One of the best ways of dealing with Spore counterplay is to remove it entirely; no Safety Goggles are safe from Knock Off users like Roaring Moon and Tinkaton!
**Steel-types**: Breloom has many ways of dealing with its dedicated checks, but bringing it with a Steel-type partner like Metagross and Gholdengo is one of its simplest tricks. They resist almost all of the types it is weak to, letting them easily take advantage of whatever passive Poison-type it managed to bring in.
**Entry Hazard Control**: Toxic Orb sets may not particularly care about entry hazard chip damage, but with its poor bulk and Speed, those will be the only sets Breloom can run if it's not paired with a hazard remover like Iron Treads or Blastoise.
**Pivots**: Any pivot from Iron Moth to Mandibuzz can ensure Breloom gets in without fear of getting picked off with super effective coverage, getting worn out by neutral hits, or just switching into a Knock Off before Toxic Orb has time to activate.
**Setup Sweepers / Cleaners**: Wincons such as Salamence and Necrozma generally like it when their bulky checks are put to sleep via Spore or simply whittled down from the wallbreaking Breloom provides.
Checks and Counters
========
**Spore Lures**: With all of its stats besides Attack leaving a lot to be desired, Breloom can be easy pickings when it's caught by surprise. An unscouted Safety Goggles or sudden Substitute is often enough to shut down a Spore attempt, and if one of these is run on something Breloom isn't expecting, it's getting forced out at best and KOed at worst!
**Poison- and Flying-types**: Poison-types like Pecharunt and Flying-types like Zapdos resist Breloom's STAB moves and can easily OHKO it it back, both types restricting what sets it can run and making it more prone to clicking a wrong move. Though both types have to watch out for its coverage, Poison-types in particular are excellent candidates for more consistent Breloom checks, as they're immune to Toxic and usually don't mind holding Safety Goggles.
**Multi-hit and Sound-based Attacks**: Focus Sash and Substitute shenanigans mean nothing to multi-hit attackers like Baxcalibur and sound-based attackers like Kommo-o respectively! Their ability to pressure Breloom even when it's hiding behind these gimmicks is bad news, as with Breloom's poor bulk, they're threatening potential OHKOs.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/big-pharma.657717/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/termnal.404799/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/scionicle.599989/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/vmnunes.613460/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno.527276/
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