Hello all - it has been (over) 5 long years since platinumCheesecake dropped
A Strategy Guide to Hackmons Cup - a wonderful, and in some ways timeless, primer for the single greatest metagame this site has to offer. However, there have been some seismic shifts in the metagame since that time, and playing HC in 2024 (soon to be 2025) is certainly different than playing it back in 2019. As a result, and as a humble but self-proclaimed hackmons mainer with over 2,500 wins on the Gen 9 HC Ladder, I thought it would be helpful to revisit the "Hackmons Bible," highlight the key concepts and theories that still apply today, but also to add my own perspective to this volatile metagame as we continue to grapple with tera and its consequences.
FIRST, if you have not yet read Platty's guide, go and read it! It's relatively short, and does an excellent job preparing you for what kind of mindset you need to have going into your typical Hackmons Cup game, whether you're on the ladder, in a room tour, or on the biggest stage in Randoms (RBTT). Here are my key takeaways, which I believe still apply just as strongly today as they did over 5 years ago:
Platty lays this out quite nicely - it's a common instinct to hover over one of your 6 pokemon, see that it has no attacks, and think the pokemon is useless. Too often on ladder, I'll see someone bring out a no attack pokemon and just let it die, almost like keeping it around on the team was curisng them somehow. Pokemon with 0 attacking moves can still help tremendously with probably the single most important aspect of HC, which is scouting. Keep that pokemon around and, when your opponent reveals a new pokemon and you don't know what moves it has, you can send in your attack-less mon to sponge the new hit without fearing losing one of your win conditions. Are you worried your opponent will take advantage of you having no attacks? Well, don't
tell them you have no attacks! You can signal, and counter-signal, what your own pokemon is packing in a variety of ways, which I'll touch on later. Regardless though, take advantage of those pokemon with 0 attacks, and learn more about your opponents team at every opportunity.
As I mentioned, scouting is the name of the game in Hackmons Cup. This isn't gen 9 rands, where your opponent's pokemon has only 1 or 2 possible sets. So how do you solve this problem? You make safe switches - which means being very careful about only switching in pokemon with good defensive stats, good defensive typing, typing opposite or synergistic with the pokemon you're currently showing, or deadweight mons with no other real utility. This won't be the last time I say this, but go read Platty's guide on this section - it applies just as much today as it did back then
- Status and Hazards are still King
Hackmons cup is a game of inches. Every little chip matters - and healing moves are few and far between. Therefore, moves like rocks, spikes and tspikes remain absolutely supreme, and if you have a mon with one of these moves, you should be extremely careful keeping them alive and allowing them to set their hazards. Similarly, pokemon with hazard removal should also be cherished and protected, as defog, rapid spin, and mortal spin can easily save you a game. You should also immediately look for your own mons that might have moves like copycat, sketch, transform or abilities like imposter and magic bounce and be ready to get those in if you see hazards.
Status is similar - moves that poison, burn or paralyze have a huge impact on each and every game. Like Platty says in his guide, moves like smog which are typically not great competitive moves have a huge place in this format, where even 1 poison tick can change a 2hko to a 1hko and win you a match.
- What to do about Wonder Guard
Ban it. Well, that's not going to happen, so instead you need to think very carefully about how you approach wonder guard. If you have a mon on your team with it, decide whether you want to show it early and enormously impact how your opponent is forced to play, or hold onto it for later in the game and hope your opponent loses his mons that have a way of hitting it. I won't rehash too much here, Platty's guide touches on this subject very well
Is a pokemon with 130 attack good? What about if it has 94 sp def? Platty breaks this down in his guide, and the same basic truths here still apply today. Because IVs, EVs and nature are completely randomized, don't take anything for granted - you might get a normally strong attacker like mamoswine, but notice too late that it's bold with 0 IV and minimal EV investment, which is why its attacks hit like a wet noodle.
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As you can see, a ton of the stuff I just mentioned is still relevant in today's metagame - but of course, Platty couldn't possibly have predicted that things like Tera would be introduced. Thus, I wanted to add my own two cents as a supplement to the Hackmons Bible, and with some perspective unique to this Tera meta we're in
- Look for your best Tera at the START of the match
Ok, this one may seem obvious, but I myself have strayed from this before when I'm not fully concentrating, and it almost always comes back to haunt me. Right off the jump, look at every single one of your team's tera types. You should be looking for a few different things - you want a tera type that, like in the main formats, is complimentary to your actual type. If you have a fighting type, a Dark tera is going to be nice - your opponent may be lulled into using a psychic attack on it, and a timely tera can swing the game. If you have an electric type, with an Electric tera and an electric attack, your damage output potential is extremely high and you should think about that as you move through a match. On the defensive side, maybe you got dealt a team with 5 pokemon weak to electric moves - in that case, look for a tera ground, tera grass or tera dragon that can potentially give you some safe switches if your opponent has strong electric moves which would otherwise cut through your team like a hot knife through butter.
You may even have a chance to create a very strong pokemon, like a tera electric swampert with regenerator or a tera steel salamence with 3 attacks - the other day, I had someone tera poison on turn 1 against me with their torkoal. Turns out, it had black sludge, and it ended up harrassing me for the entire match - the first turn tera was absolutely the right move. Things will change as your opponent reveals what they have, and you may end up using tera out of necessity, but having an idea going into the game what your best Tera options are will absolutely serve you well.
- Know your opponent (as much as you can!)
This one may not apply as much on the ladder, where there is a constantly changing scene of players making their run at the vaunted ladder peak. However, in tournaments, you typically know in advance who you're going to play, so take advantage of this! Watch their hc replays, or even just their replays in similar formats, and study how they play. Do they typically tera early, looking for a strong offensive matchup? Are they a defensive tera user, only using it to avoid KOs? Maybe they always wait until late in the game to tera? Do they always try to grab offensive momentum, even when it involves risky switches? Do they shy away from any risk whatsoever, always choosing to switch out and scout your move? All of these questions are vitally important, and knowing even one tendency that you can capitalize on can swing a tournament match. Just because it's HC doesn't mean typical scouting and preparation go out the window!
- Be unpredictable
This goes hand in hand with the last one, because the good players will scout your tendencies as well. Additionally, you can get scouted DURING a match, too, or even during a best of three. Try to switch up your playstyle and tendencies so your opponent can't reliably predict what you're going to do. If you play the first two games of a best-of-three by waiting until your 6th mon to use tera, and you do the same thing in game 3, you've just become very predictable. Maybe you always keep a pokemon out when you have a move that can hit your opponent super effective - they can learn that about you, and adjust accordingly. Regardless of your "tell," don't let your opponent learn vital information about you. Play unpredicably (but be reasonable about it - don't sack a win condition just because it's unexpected!)
There's more to this than just what plays you make, too. You can telegraph a LOT about your team, and your pokemon, by how quickly you move. Let me present you with a very common HC scenario - your opponent has something like Scizor, and it KO's a low health mon on your team. In the blink of an eye, you bring out your fully healthy Inteleon, which has mystical fire, a move that can 1hko Scizor. If i'm your opponent, and you sent inteleon in on my scizor THAT quickly - i know you have a fire move. There's no other real possibility. This is an obvious one, and good players likely won't let their 4x weak mons stay in in that scenario anyway, but it's just an example of how you can give information away by how quickly you move. Do not be afraid to pause for a few seconds, hell even a minute, even if your next play is quite obvious. You can counter-signal confusion or indecision, maybe luring your opponent into thinking you don't have any good options. Play those mind games, or they'll be played on you!
-Be a good speedometer
Figuring out how fast your opponent's pokemon are is extremely important in any metagame - the pokemon that goes first hits first, which can turn a loss into a win. But, how are you supposed to do that in hackmons, with randomized IVs EVs and natures? You're going to have to look at a pokemon's "speed range" (you can see this by hovering over your opponent's pokemon) and assuming it has something right in the middle. With this, it's also usually better to err on the side of caution. For example, your opponent may be revealing a Beeheyem, which has a speed range of 58-148. I'm typically going to assume, then, that it has a speed of around 110. If I have something with 140 speed, i feel very safe knowing that I will likely move first. If I have something with 75 speed, I COULD move first, but it isn't likely. If I have something with 105 speed - I may not want to risk it, though a lot of other factors play into that decision. Now, you'll have to constantly update this throughout the game, and sometimes you may even want to write things down on a nearby notepad. If you thought your opponent was at 120 speed, but then they outsped your 145 speed mon, you now know that mon's speed floor. Keep in mind the effects that different items and abilities have on speed - you may be dealing with a power lens, an ability like stall, or a choice scarf.
-Set rules for yourself to keep your pokemon safe
I don't think my rules are groundbreaking, but I do think they've stopped me from losing easy battles on the ladder and in tour matches. On the contrary, I see others who don't follow these simple rules, and it often costs them the game, or at least early momentum. Here's two simple rules - if your lead has a 4x weakness, switch it out, AND, if your lead has a 2x or 4x weakness to your opponent's lead, switch it out. There are always exceptions to these rules, but no one likes to play down 6v5, and if you leave your wooper in against a Serperior turn 1 and get Giga drained, you'll be kicking yourself. I'm wary of STAB moves in general, and so even if my opponent has a pokemon out that hasn't revealed a stab move, I would still hesitate to bring in something that it's STAB hits super effective. If you're playing cautiously, you should generally assume that your opponent's mon has a stab move unless proven otherwise. Again, these are two little rules I use to govern what i do with a lead matchup - but there are all sorts of rules you can play by to try to keep your games consistent and to avoid making costly mistakes. The more you play, the more you'll develop these rules, and even when the best time is to break them!
That's all I've got for now - Hackmons Cup is a brilliant and exciting metagame, with an enormous amount of depth and nuance that I think are a lot of fun to explore. If you can think of other tips, strategies and rules that apply to Gen 9 HC in particular, or HC as a whole, I'd love to see them!
