Hail Team, Sitting at 1500CRE

[PotheadSkanker]

I have always wanted to create not just a hail team, but a SUCCESSFULL hail team, whenever I battled opponents 1400+ in CRE, I did not see one successful hail team. The only hail teams I saw, were in the lower leagues, and imo not very sturdy or successful. So it has always been my plan to be a create a Hail team, that not only does well agaisnt lower CRE players, but can respectfully give even better players, 1400+ a hard time, with lots of hard work, tons of tweaks and changes, bad defeats, glorious wins, I finnaly managed to create a consistent hail team standing at the elusive 1500 mark. Without further ado, here is my team :).

The thing that is mainly forgotten about using Hail team, in an successful OU Team, is that Hail effects all pokemon that are not Ice, and Clefable, how many Ice type pokes are used in OU, Mamoswine and Weavile, are the only two Icepokes, I ever see, which means Hail is guarnteed to effect atleast 4 or 5 of the opposing pokes. Clever eh? Btw, my user name on shoddy is dubsteppa.

Gliscor (M) @ Yache Berry
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 HP/6 Def/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock

My variation of lead gliscor, now you may be thinking, max jolly?, one attacking move, sand veil on a hail team! are you insane!. Let me first point out, the effectiveness of these choices, the ability Sand Veil, means against other sandstorm teams, and espically against T-tar, I have the advtange, Stoneedge, is a 3hko, with Roost, and a minimal chance to hit all 3times. Means I can outstall and KO back T-tar with ease, I outspeed Lucario another great threat to hail teams. As you can see having another pokemon benefit from an opposing weather condition can work in your favour. Roost, is for stalling purposes, and good hp recovery, also outstalling stoneedges. EQ is an obvious STAB, Taunt, is for slower leads, notable example would be Swampert, who always uses SR first, not expecting a yache berry. Taunt also gives me the upperhand against, non scarf uxie, bronzong, forretress, skarm e.t.c, and then Stealth rock, which greatly helps me against those obvious powerful fliers, it is usually priorty that I have Stealth rock up on the field at all times. EVs, max jolly, may be considered newbish, but in my expeirnce, losing speed ties is not optional, I want to be able to ALWAYS, or always have a chance of winning speed ties that also are Jolly. Instantly giving me the advantage over opposing Gliscor. Gliscor is my main sponger for CB physical hits, u turns, machamps, and other offensive pokes. walls t-tar and lucario with ease. Yache means I survive all non STAB icebeams, and hidden powers.

Swampert: Taunt SR, Switch to Abomasnow
Dragonite: Switch into Heatran to sponge Draco Meteor, Switch in Abomasnow, or Gliscor into EQ, Iceshard, or SR.
Starmie: Switch in Abomasnow.
Heatran: Taunt, then EQ
SKarm: Taunt, then SR
Forrertress: Taunt, SR
Hippodown:Taunt, SR, Abomasnow
T-Tar: Taunt, SR
Azelf: Switch in Heatran, DarkPulse 2hkoes, also survives Explosion.
Infernape:Switch in Tentacruel, Surf then Rapidspin.
Uxie:Taunt, SR
Aeordactly: Problematic, usualy switch In abomasnow, Iceshard twice, surviving the Rockslide, and preventing rocks.
Roserade:Switch in Sleeptalk Heatran, can asorb spikes with Tenta
Metagross:Taunt,SR, EQ
Jirachi:Switch in mamoswine always, tricking the scarf back.
Gliscor:Taunt, SR,


It covers a lot of leads, and the one's it doesnt apart from Aeordactly, are usualy dealt with easily. Obviously having one attackinv move albeit an easily avoidable one, this thing attracts a lot of Gengar,Latias,Salamence,Gyradose.

Synergy:
Ice: Abomasnow,Heatran,Tentacruel,Wallrein
Water: Abomasnow,Tentacruel,Wallrein

Wallrein @ Leftovers
Ability: Ice Body
EVs: 220 HP/240 Def/50 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Protect
- Surf
- Roar


The infamous staple of Hail teams, and the main attraction, I usualy do not bring this beast out till late game, when I know I can get a sub up easy, this thing sponges physical hits like nothing, taking on CB Bullet punch scizor with ease, Ironhead jircahi with ease, Scarf flygon, with ease, even Metagross, adamant Meoter mash is a 4hko. Once I have a sub up, and the protect sub cycle starts, my opponent is going to lose health if it does not have lefties, surf is for neutral coverage, and helps me wittle away at pokes with lefties, while I regain my health with protect/sub, if I fear an eletric move? with mamoswine being saved late game aswell, all I do switch him in, and revenge the weakned team easy, with great coverage, EQ+Icefang, Roar, is to get rid of statteruppers, and is ALWAYS the move I use against Magnezone, why the fuck would you risk that?, because in my expeirince, Magnezone has ALWAYS used a sub, instead of going straight for tbolt, and it is priceless, to see there sub being roared away lmao.

Synergy:
Fighting:Gliscor,Tentacruel
Rock:Gliscor
Electric:Abomasnow,Mamoswine,Gliscor
Grass:Heatran,Abomasnow

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(Mamoswine) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Snow Cloak
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Ice Fang
- Return

My I have been bluffing a CB, but now your fucked Mamoswine. 394attack, and 388 speed, outruns everything apart from 130, Iceshard, to bluff Choiceband, and to check dragondance mence, nite, and scarfgon,also other weakned faster pokes, scarfgar. Icefang, to KO latias,celebi,and to good haxdamage to all that are neutral, Return is mainly a filler, usualy have Bite or Stonedge, this move is open to change. I outspeed any t-tar after a dragon dance, and EQ can clean up after SR, almost everything, the suprise factor is what usualy nets me so many kills, non scarf jircachi stays in, starmie stays in,scarftar stays in,latias stays in, so many pokemon stay in, only to get Koed instantly, I usualy say OOPS misclick lol, when I switch this into a T-tar that has just danced, and it has ALWAYS fucking worked haha. I try and use Iceshard early, to instantly bluff the CB, and them from then on it can score an easy kill later on. I love mamoswine, it has saved my ass so many times, and Icefang+snowcloak hax late game, is always funny. scarfswine, is also my main revenge killer against nearly everything that has koed my pokes, for example my abomasnow gets taken down by Latias,metagross,heatran, all revenged by Mamoswine.

Synergy:
Fighting: Gliscor,Tentacruel
Water:Abomasnow,Tentacruel,Wallrein
Grass:Abomasnow,Heatran
Fire:Heatran,Tentacruel

(Heatran) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 220 HP/160 Spd/130 SDef
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Lava Plume
- Dark Pulse


RestTalk heatran, this is my highly effective Rotom,Zapdos,Gengar,Scizor,Jirachi,Steel Killer. With the ev spread, Zapdos modest Tbolt is a 3hko-4hko at best. switch into a Heatwave, and I 2hko :).
Rotom's modest tbolt, is a 4hko-5hko at best, switch into a Willowisp, I 3hko.
Rest, and Sleep talk, for good survivablity for constant switching in and out, Lavaplume, for the good burn chance on incoming T-tar's,Gyradose,and Swampies. Dark pulse, to hit the incoming, Starmie,Latias nicely, and to win 1on1 against any ghosts. The speed Evs are enough to outrun Jollymax Scizor. who won't be able to rape me with Superpower. Obviously this set is walled by a lot of pokes, notably Blissey,Bulkywaters, and other Heatran. But spreading burn, and walling special attackers that lack surf, is a nice addition. it stays constantly healthy, and is a bitch to take down, because all its weakness, are covered perfectly, and with added SR,Hail, and toxic spikes, adding up, switching in for my opponent is harder.

Synergy:
Ground: Gliscor,Abomasnow
Water: Tentacruel,Abomasnow,Wallrein
Fighting:Gliscor,Tentacruel
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Tentacruel (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP/140 Def/108 Spd/10 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Sludge Bomb
- Surf

My 100& Breloom counter support cruel. Standard moveset, in Toxic spikes, rapid spin, sludge bomb and surf, reason for speed Evs, is to outrun all Brelooms, and Ko Back with Sludgebomb, taking the Spore, with Lumberry. Breloom can rape my team once it spores, and gets subs up, and with poision heal, hail dose not take it down, and thats the reason why Lumberry and the speed Evs are important to my team. This ev set also works as the perfect Mixape counter, resistant all its stabs, and threating with a stab surf. Toxic spikes, helps me check, pesky wishing vapeoron, T-tar,Hippodwon,Swampert,Machamp,Blissey,Celebi, that can prove difficult to take down. Rapid spin gets rid of rocks and spikes, and this thing also asorbs Toxic spikes on switch in which is very useful. Once tentacruel has done its job, no rocks, toxic spikes on feild, no threat from breloom,infernape e.t.c, I usualy sack it, and use it as death fodder for a free revenge with Scarfswine.

Synergy:
Ground: Gliscor,Abomasnow
Eletric:Mamoswine,Abomasnow,Gliscor
Psychic:Heatran

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Datsik (Abomasnow) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 HP/99 Def/159 SDef
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Ice Shard
- Wood Hammer

Now this is my own creation, a SpecialWall Subseeding variant, that uses Physical proirty, strange, but extremely effective. Iceshard, lets me KO even Bulkymence, after SR, and also 2hkoes Dragonite, Woodhammer competley rapes Sucine that CM's in my face, does good damage to T-tar switch ins, Leech seed, is my favourite move in the entire game, Don't know what move to use, and you know your opponent will switch?, Leech seed away, and then protect, that CB scizor that has just switched in, is now switting just above halfhealth, and it hasn't even attacked yet!, Leech seeding, protect, and its natural bulkiness, help me greatly, and make it hard to kill Abomasnow. I love this set, as it is never used, and the amount of times when Salamence stays in, just to get icesharded to death, I also love that Woodhammer is 3hko on Blissey, which means it has less time Healing its teamates. The reason for the SPdef spread, is so I can win 1on1 against latias, otherwise my team gets raped, Iceshard does 30-40 with an adamant nature, which results in them switching out, and me regaing momentum with a well placed Seed, protect, then to approiate counter, works wonders.

Synergy
Fire: Heatran (IMMUNE)
Rock:Gliscor
Fighting:Gliscor,Tentacruel
Bug:Gliscor,Tentacruel,Heatran.


That is my team, as you can see the team concept, is to stall as much as possible with good synergy between, gliscor,tenta,heatran,abomasnow, while preventing rocks, and having SR , toxic spikes on feild, once weakened enough, find a place to sub up with wallrein, stall some more, then switch into Mamoswine, for the final sweep with Icefang, or EQ.

Thankyou for reading, my main problems I have with this team are.

Heavy stall, spin blockers, latias/blissey/rotom/skarm combos
Lategame Lucarios,machamps, only real counter is Gliscor, tentacruel usualy dead by late game.

I would like some help, or maybe even new suggestions for members, I want to be able to hit the 1550 mark as soon as possible, possible team member changes would be Heatran and Tentacruel, thankyou for reading:).
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[jc104]

Hello. This is a good team, and I love Hail.

Your "special wall subseed" abomasnow does not have Substitute, which seems a bit odd. At the moment, you have Mamoswine for a strong ice shard. Therefore I suggest that you run Blizzard, since it hits those immune to leech seed harder, unless you remove Mamoswine as I may suggest later. You should use Substitute either over Protect or Wood Hammer. Your EVs are also funny - they have to be multiples of 4. I would quite simply suggest 252hp 4spAtk 252Spdef with a Calm nature or Sassy nature if running Seed Bomb or Focus Punch and Blizzard, or careful for full physical.

I would suggest that you run blizzard over Sludge Bomb on Tenta, because you gain much better SE coverage. Also, you need leftovers otherwise you will lose lots of health to hail.

You have a worrying lack of a Rock resist on your team, giving you big trouble with CB Tar. Therefore I would suggest trying Swampert over Gliscor. Speaking of Gliscor, since he has no business taking ice attacks even at 2x, he should run leftovers over yache berry, again due to loss of health through hail.

At the moment you do not have a spin blocker. I also see a Scizor weakness, particularly to SD scizor, a weakness to agility metagross (checked by Mamoswine for slower ones) and a Lucario weakness since Gliscor will often take damage in the lead position. A good means of countering this would be to run a Rotom-F, with either a Choice Scarf set or a Resttalk set (which would act as a good status absorber for Breloom) although if you were to run resttalk you would probably have to change your Heatran set.

Just a few ideas. Good luck

 

[franky]

Hello jc,

Solid hail team, your steps closer to making this a solid one. Bear with me, I'm about to suggest two vital members that could potentially make this team better. First and foremost, you are missing a spin blocker: a common element to hail teams. A spin blocker ensures Walrein can stall opponent to its full extent, and help stall out the opponent faster. You could seriously look to remove Mamoswine, I don't think you need the offensive power at the moment. Adding Rotom-A ensures it spins block for you, and most importantly, check the deadly Dragon Dance Gyarados. Locked in Mamoswine on Earthquake will give it a free turn to set up Dragon Dance, and it can easily cause grief your team provided that SR support is down on the opponents field. Scarf Rotom will outpace +1 Gyarados and +2 Bulky Gyarados. The Rotom set is RestTalk so you can constantly spin block. The EVs are 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 SpD with the EVs Bold and the movesets Thunderbolt / Will-O-Wisp / Rest / Sleep Talk. Every move is explainable, Will-O-Wisp smacks Tyranitar the best - a major problem to this team (SS of course).

You say you lack better spinning, I feel like your never going to budge through Rotom-A properly, unless of course your opponent acts stupid. You can consider a Forretress in that spot. Forretress adds a neat Dragon resist if needed, because you currently lack one. It also provides a neat Tyranitar switch in if the need arises. Since most Tyranitar sets are Scarfed now, you can take advantage of a free turn to Rapid Spin, set up Toxic Spikes, etc. It also adds the same package Tentacruel has: Toxic Spikes + Rapid Spin. The EVs are 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD with the nature Careful and the movesets Payback / Rapid Spin / Toxic Spikes / Spikes. This set is a good way of hitting spin blockers with Payback, hitting the 2HKO on the omnipresent Rotom-A. Spikes is obviously an added bonus, allowing the stalling process to go faster. I think you can use Forretress for sure.

A couple of tweaks here and there: remove Yache Berry on Gliscor for Leftovers. Adds more survivability. What are you taking Ice Beam from to be exact? I don't think Yache is worth it since you are not doing anything back to the opponent most of the time. Leftovers is probably the better option.

As for other options, Choice Scarfing Heatran would probably be best so you can combat with Infernape now. That's the only drawback I see with losing Tentacruel, however, Scarfing Heatran checks it to a good extent. Heatran not only checks Infernape, it also checks Lucario if the need arises. Heatran also welcomes Trick from Rotom any day. overall gl.

 

[PotheadSkanker]

Hello. This is a good team, and I love Hail.

Your "special wall subseed" abomasnow does not have Substitute, which seems a bit odd. At the moment, you have Mamoswine for a strong ice shard. Therefore I suggest that you run Blizzard, since it hits those immune to leech seed harder, unless you remove Mamoswine as I may suggest later. You should use Substitute either over Protect or Wood Hammer. Your EVs are also funny - they have to be multiples of 4. I would quite simply suggest 252hp 4spAtk 252Spdef with a Calm nature or Sassy nature if running Seed Bomb or Focus Punch and Blizzard, or careful for full physical.

I would suggest that you run blizzard over Sludge Bomb on Tenta, because you gain much better SE coverage. Also, you need leftovers otherwise you will lose lots of health to hail.

You have a worrying lack of a Rock resist on your team, giving you big trouble with CB Tar. Therefore I would suggest trying Swampert over Gliscor. Speaking of Gliscor, since he has no business taking ice attacks even at 2x, he should run leftovers over yache berry, again due to loss of health through hail.

At the moment you do not have a spin blocker. I also see a Scizor weakness, particularly to SD scizor, a weakness to agility metagross (checked by Mamoswine for slower ones) and a Lucario weakness since Gliscor will often take damage in the lead position. A good means of countering this would be to run a Rotom-F, with either a Choice Scarf set or a Resttalk set (which would act as a good status absorber for Breloom) although if you were to run resttalk you would probably have to change your Heatran set.

Just a few ideas. Good luck

Yo Jc, nice to see someone aswell from Engalnd :)

Yes you are right about my ev spread on abomasnow it is a bit strange, and I willl change it to maxhp, spdef, I would like to keep iceshard on abomasnow, because it acts as an extra defense against dancemence, and also Woodhammer+Iceshard, Koes any T-tar that switches in, having good priorty against Latias, not letting it recover and spam calmind.

Blizzard over Sludegbomb is acceptable, and I will change that, Sludgebomb was mainly there to do good Stab damage against Breloom, and Celebi, and give me a chance to posion the switch in, but I will change it, I have been considering Blacksludge>Lumberry, but I always worry about a Breloom threat, Being able to switch in, take the spore, then be fast enough to Koback, is important to me, the lifespan of tentacruel isn't as important as the rest of the team, aslong as it has done its jobs of setting toxic spikes, and spinning away rocks.

Yes, you are right there in my rock resist, I do not have a sturdy enough pokemon to take rock hits, CB or even Scarftar, is always revenged by Mamo, I usualy send in Gliscor, with its Sandveil ablity, and try to outstall with Roost, it usualy works, but if Gliscor is down, something will die in order for Mamo to sweep which can be annoying, I did try Hitmontop>Tentacruel, but I needed the extra toxic spikes support, and another fighting resist, I might try Forrertress, but I will make it defensively bulky, as I already have 3special defensively pokes.

Agiligross, is dealth with by Wallrein, that can take its hits, and roar away, Lucario is dealth with by Gliscor, but if it Gliscor is down, Mamoswine wins 1on1, (Even with swords dance, the opponent will rarely use Extreme speed, expecting Band, when I say GG), EQ Koes. Swords dance scizor can be problematic, but Heatran outruns even jolly scizor, So I can always revenge it with Heatran.

Because I do not run spikes support aswell, I do not think I need a spinblocker, It could prove useful, but the main spinners, are never threats to my team, Starmie allsets walled by Abomasnow, Forretress threatend by Heatran. e.t.c, It could prove useful, but the synergy with the team is what makes this team effective, because I have been playing with the same members quite a while now, and its good to be able to know exactly what each poke is capable off.

Thankyou for your rate, I will defintly consider some of the points you have made :)

 

[jc104]

Just a couple of things to respond to your post. You should not be considering black sludge. In most circumstances, there is little difference between this and leftovers. The only difference arises when the opponent uses Trick. Although in this case it may appparently be to your advantage, it actually just allows the trick user to cripple another one of your Pokemon.

Franky offered another good reason to add Rotom-F: bulky DD Gyarados, who at the moment had little troule sweeping your team. If you were to run Blizzard rather than Will-o-wisp, you would also be able to deal with breloom better. In addition, Will-o-wisp becomes useless against Tyranitar when Toxic Spikes are up, and will frequently be a wasted turn when selected through sleep talk.

I also feel that ScarfTran would help to deal with Rotom-A, Lucario and MixMence better than your current sets.