Glastrier's defining role is that of a bulky physical wallbreaker. It has outstanding bulk for ZU; furthermore, its stellar base 145 Attack, Icicle Crash, and all the coverage it needs including Close Combat and High Horsepower make it extremely difficult to switch into. Lastly, Glastrier can boost its Attack even further with Swords Dance, allowing it to potentially OHKO or 2HKO almost the entire metagame. Defensive staples like Palossand, Snorlax, and Appletun are often forced to Terastallize or switch out versus it. This means that Glastrier's most reliable defensive counterplay is somewhat specific, being limited to almost exclusively both forms of Qwilfish, Regirock, and Orthworm, none of which have reliable recovery, and the latter two of which often require Terastallization to fully check Glastrier.
[SET]
Swords Dance (Glastrier) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Chilling Neigh
EVs: 240 HP / 16 Atk / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Ground / Water / Fairy
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Icicle Crash
- Close Combat
- High Horsepower
[SET COMMENTS]
Swords Dance Glastrier acts as a fearsome wallbreaker, leveraging its outstanding bulk and the threat of its attacks to create setup opportunities for itself. Close Combat takes on bulky Pokemon that resist Icicle Crash like Orthworm and Thick Fat Snorlax. High Horsepower is near mandatory to hit Qwilfish and serves as effective coverage for Fire-types. Tera Ground gives Glastrier a resistance to Rock while boosting the power of High Horsepower, while Tera Water and Fairy flip Glastrier's weaknesses to common offensive types like Fire and Fighting. 252 Speed EVs allows it to outspeed slower walls like Dudunsparce and Porygon2, while the bulk investment lets it take on powerful attacks from various threats in the tier.
Glastrier greatly appreciates teammates that can help bring it in safely like Jolteon, Qwilfish, and Mesprit, since it often has to take a hit after switching in due to its poor Speed. Glastrier also works well alongside other wallbreakers like Choice Specs Jolteon, Hisuian Decidueye, and Charizard, as they are able to break down checks like Snorlax, Regirock, and Qwilfish for each other. Due to its many weaknesses as an Ice-type, Glastrier loves teammates it can fall back on to support it; some of these teammates include Snorlax, Palossand, Regirock, and Qwilfish. As a wallbreaker, Glastrier does exceedingly well alongside Pokemon like Grafaiai, Oricorio formes, and Typhlosion that can often take advantage of the holes that Glastrier makes in defensive cores through removal of foes like Snorlax, Dudunsparce, and Porygon2.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============
Glastrier can opt to run Heavy Slam alongside Tera Steel over High Horsepower to hit light foes like Mesprit and Steel-weak foes like Tera Fairy Dipplin and Dudunsparce. However, trading out High Horsepower for Heavy Slam tends to be overkill, as Glastrier's standard three-move coverage sufficiently hits all relevant foes; furthermore, giving up High Horsepower makes it struggle more against foes like Hisuian Qwilfish. Glastrier can also consider running Substitute to ease prediction, but all of its coverage moves are near mandatory, and without Swords Dance, Glastrier can struggle to threaten the walls it needs to.
Checks and Counters
===================
**Faster Attackers**: Glastrier's awful Speed means it can often be a target for offensive threats like Typhlosion, Charizard, Passimian, and Hisuian Decidueye, though it often has to be chipped in order to not take them down with it.
**Qwilfish**: Both forms of Qwilfish can be quite problematic for Glastrier; regular Qwilfish resists every move except High Horsepower, which it takes relatively little damage from after Intimidate, while Hisuian Qwilfish sports better overall bulk due to its Eviolite. Furthermore, both can use Glastrier's massive HP stat against it with Pain Split, allowing them to trade positively with it and poison it with Barb Barrage or Toxic.
**Bulky Threats**: Iron Press users like Orthworm and Regirock can match Glastrier's setup and threaten it out, though they may at times require Terastallization to do so. Poliwrath and Snorlax can do the same with Bulk Up and Curse, respectively, though Snorlax must Terastallize first. Weezing is able to neuter Glastrier with Will-O-Wisp and can switch in fairly safely, only fearing boosted Icicle Crash.
**Status**: Glastrier gets worn down rapidly by poison from Pokemon like Qwilfish and Muk as well as burn from Pokemon like Weezing and Mismagius; burn also neuters its damage.
[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/baitwiz.598623/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sleid.601970/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/tuthur.369076/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/adorluigi.528364/
[SET]
Swords Dance (Glastrier) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Chilling Neigh
EVs: 240 HP / 16 Atk / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Ground / Water / Fairy
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Icicle Crash
- Close Combat
- High Horsepower
[SET COMMENTS]
Swords Dance Glastrier acts as a fearsome wallbreaker, leveraging its outstanding bulk and the threat of its attacks to create setup opportunities for itself. Close Combat takes on bulky Pokemon that resist Icicle Crash like Orthworm and Thick Fat Snorlax. High Horsepower is near mandatory to hit Qwilfish and serves as effective coverage for Fire-types. Tera Ground gives Glastrier a resistance to Rock while boosting the power of High Horsepower, while Tera Water and Fairy flip Glastrier's weaknesses to common offensive types like Fire and Fighting. 252 Speed EVs allows it to outspeed slower walls like Dudunsparce and Porygon2, while the bulk investment lets it take on powerful attacks from various threats in the tier.
Glastrier greatly appreciates teammates that can help bring it in safely like Jolteon, Qwilfish, and Mesprit, since it often has to take a hit after switching in due to its poor Speed. Glastrier also works well alongside other wallbreakers like Choice Specs Jolteon, Hisuian Decidueye, and Charizard, as they are able to break down checks like Snorlax, Regirock, and Qwilfish for each other. Due to its many weaknesses as an Ice-type, Glastrier loves teammates it can fall back on to support it; some of these teammates include Snorlax, Palossand, Regirock, and Qwilfish. As a wallbreaker, Glastrier does exceedingly well alongside Pokemon like Grafaiai, Oricorio formes, and Typhlosion that can often take advantage of the holes that Glastrier makes in defensive cores through removal of foes like Snorlax, Dudunsparce, and Porygon2.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============
Glastrier can opt to run Heavy Slam alongside Tera Steel over High Horsepower to hit light foes like Mesprit and Steel-weak foes like Tera Fairy Dipplin and Dudunsparce. However, trading out High Horsepower for Heavy Slam tends to be overkill, as Glastrier's standard three-move coverage sufficiently hits all relevant foes; furthermore, giving up High Horsepower makes it struggle more against foes like Hisuian Qwilfish. Glastrier can also consider running Substitute to ease prediction, but all of its coverage moves are near mandatory, and without Swords Dance, Glastrier can struggle to threaten the walls it needs to.
Checks and Counters
===================
**Faster Attackers**: Glastrier's awful Speed means it can often be a target for offensive threats like Typhlosion, Charizard, Passimian, and Hisuian Decidueye, though it often has to be chipped in order to not take them down with it.
**Qwilfish**: Both forms of Qwilfish can be quite problematic for Glastrier; regular Qwilfish resists every move except High Horsepower, which it takes relatively little damage from after Intimidate, while Hisuian Qwilfish sports better overall bulk due to its Eviolite. Furthermore, both can use Glastrier's massive HP stat against it with Pain Split, allowing them to trade positively with it and poison it with Barb Barrage or Toxic.
**Bulky Threats**: Iron Press users like Orthworm and Regirock can match Glastrier's setup and threaten it out, though they may at times require Terastallization to do so. Poliwrath and Snorlax can do the same with Bulk Up and Curse, respectively, though Snorlax must Terastallize first. Weezing is able to neuter Glastrier with Will-O-Wisp and can switch in fairly safely, only fearing boosted Icicle Crash.
**Status**: Glastrier gets worn down rapidly by poison from Pokemon like Qwilfish and Muk as well as burn from Pokemon like Weezing and Mismagius; burn also neuters its damage.
[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/baitwiz.598623/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sleid.601970/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/tuthur.369076/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/adorluigi.528364/
Last edited: