So now that Hoopa Unbound has been banned and choice band pursuit Weavile stall is running around the meta is shifting in a more defensive direction. Teams will have to adapt without Hoopa-Unbound and the coming of Volcanion. Bulky psychics like mega slowbro and mega latias, dragon types (mega latias again, latios) and Chansey will most likely see an upsurge in viability with the new changes. To combat this here are some meta-game trends I see becoming important:
Dark type wall-breakers: With the banning of Hoopa-Unbound and the rise of pursuit based stalls Dark Type Wall-breakers are becoming increasingly important. There are three Dark type wall-breakers that I think will be very good in the new meta. (I want to point out what Bludz said is correct that we shouldn't focus on just one style of Stall team. However these wall-breakers work well against most stall builds in general and I would like to focus on the ABR Weavile stall because it is extremely popular and imo the best build of stall right now).
Crawdaunt @ Life Orb/Splash Plate/Lum Berry
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly/Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Crabhammer
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet
Crawdaunt has been nominated to B+ on the viability rankings and for good reason. Mega Altaria and Mega Venusaur it's two best checks are seeing a decline in popularity and standard ABR Weavile stall (mega Sab, Amoongus, Chansey, Skarmory, Quagsire, and Weavile) has no switch-ins to this monster. While frail Crawdaunt is also not pursuit weak and most Weaviles on stall don't carry low kick so it can switch out or take a hit once:
252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Crawdaunt: 128-151 (47.7 - 56.3%) -- 84.4% chance to 2HKO
and retaliate with a kill or even switch out safely once on a pursuit. At +2 Aqua Jet can even kill Weavile for an added bonus: +2 252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Weavile: 304-359 (108.1 - 127.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Speaking of boosts after a swords dance everything on stall is destroyed and unaware quagsire can't stomach a hit well either.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 136 Def Amoonguss: 585-689 (135.4 - 159.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 304-359 (91 - 107.4%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Quagsire: 216-255 (54.8 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
it may be better to weaken quagsire or knock off it's leftovers first before attempting a sweep. Splash plate is a cool item that means no life orb recoil but a weaker knock off (and you may be able to bluff the somewhat inferior band crawdaunt) and lum berry allows you to avoid a burn on mega sab but has to be run with an adamant nature (adamant crawdaunt gets out-sped by defensive landorus-t and a few other things but is better against full stall) otherwise it is too weak in my experience.
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Taunt
- Dragon Dance
Mega Gyrados is another water and dark pokemon that I think is great. While the standard offensive Dash Dance set runs substitute I feel taunt is better in this metagame against stall for a few reasons. Taunt prevents Skarmory from whirlwinding you when you're behind a substitute (and completely shuts down whirlwind skarm with brave bird over iron head which is becoming more common) and taunt shuts down curse quagsire which is becoming more common than the toxic variant due to ABR stall. With moldbreaker taunt also avoids the burn from mega sableye and the sub mega gyrados version is not that great against sab either considering foul play has a very good chance at breaker mega gyrados's sub anyways before a dragon dance: 0 Atk Mega Sableye Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Gyarados: 81-96 (24.4 - 29%) -- 99.8% chance to 4HKO.
After a dragon dance every member of stall is 2hko'd and mold-breaker goes through unaware which is amazing against quagsire allowing a sweep with just a little chip damage on Amoongus +1 252 Atk Mold Breaker Mega Gyarados Crunch vs. 252 HP / 136 Def Amoonguss: 252-297 (58.3 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery. Plus Mega Gyra is faster than Weavile after a dragon dance so you're at no risk there either.
Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 100 HP / 252 Atk / 156 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Pursuit
I will admit here that I have not used this before but there's been a lot of hype around this pokemon in a few different threads so I felt like I should give it a go. This spread from Tyranitar aims at outspeeding most walls including Skarmory and quagsire and smacking them with super powerful stab moves. 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 156-184 (46.7 - 55%) -- 13.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Assuming you can hit both stone edges (which is never a sure thing) Skarmory is 2hko'd after rocks barring some really low rolls.
Some very minor prior damage on Quagsire also may be needed:
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 177-208 (44.9 - 52.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
What's really cool about this set is it has a super strong pursuit allowing you to severely weaken Chansey if you guess the switch correctly setting up a breaker such as Charizard-Y to sweep.
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit(80BP) vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 292-345 (45.4 - 53.7%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage and if the opponent stays in and you guess right you can knock them out with a Superpower:
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Superpower vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 584-688 (90.9 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
Some other interesting things I will like to say:
Relying on Hoopa-C to break stall as Hoopa-U did is a really risky proposition. Hoopa-C while being absurdly powerful is blessed with an awful psychic ghost typing leaving it 4% weak to pursuit dying from any pursuit user. This forces Hoopa-C to run substitute to attempt to avoid pursuit and quickly Hoopa-C develops 4mss syndrome having trouble fitting everything it needs to break stall in one set.
Hoopa @ Life Orb
Ability: Magician
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
- Psyshock
This is a set similar to the set commonly run in UU (but without salac berry which would make this set even weaker) but it has some big shortcomings in OU. In particular without Nasty plot Chansey is very hard to break and Hoopa gets worn down very quickly. Specs could be run as well to break Chansey 252 SpA Choice Specs Hoopa Psyshock vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 288-340 (44.8 - 52.9%) -- 28.9% chance to 2HKO (not as strong as Hoopa-U's that's for sure)
but you can only get one kill per game against any stall team with a scarf tyranitar or choice band weavile. I don't foresee this set being viable in OU at all.
Hoopa @ Life Orb/Salac Berry
Ability: Magician
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute
- Focus Blast
This set is actually decent but has some issues. Not running Psyshock means Chansey is hard to break as relying on focus blast is not a very reliable way to beat it due to miss chances though it does 2hko. +2 252 SpA Life Orb Hoopa Focus Blast vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 385-455 (59.9 - 70.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Not getting walled by every dark type in existence is nice though and I think this set does have some merit against stall though it is still clearly not the breaker that Hoopa-U was.
Speaking of pursuit weak Stall-breakers I have tried Stall-breaker Gengar along the lines of:
Gengar @ Black Sludge
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 8 HP / 248 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Taunt
- Shadow Ball
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hex
It's really awful. It can't beat Mega Sableye, gets pursuit trapped very easily, and loses to specially defensive talon. If you really want to run Gengar as a stall-breaker you need to run substitute but even then I'm not a huge fan of it at the moment.
With the arrival of Volcanion Choice-locked water pokemon will probably get worse and I think Azumarill especailly will get worse. Most stall teams carry amoongus and the arrival of Volcanion may make it even harder to use, though it will still be good just not one of the top pokemon in A+ anymore.
Though I will say Azumarill's Suprpower still does a lot to Volcanion: 252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Superpower vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Volcanion: 204-240 (56 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
and sludge Bomb or Sluge Wave cannot ohko in return
252+ SpA Volcanion Sludge Bomb vs. 172 HP / 0 SpD Azumarill: 260-306 (67.7 - 79.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
With the arrival of Volcanion I also think Life Orb and non-choice locked Keldeo sets will become more useful than Specs as being locked into a water move will be very risky.
In conclusion: There are many great Dark-Type Wallbreakers besides Hoopa-U so use them and take advantage of many stall-builds current over-reliance on pursuit (also try to avoid pursuit weak wall-breakers) and be careful with choice-locked water types.
Dark type wall-breakers: With the banning of Hoopa-Unbound and the rise of pursuit based stalls Dark Type Wall-breakers are becoming increasingly important. There are three Dark type wall-breakers that I think will be very good in the new meta. (I want to point out what Bludz said is correct that we shouldn't focus on just one style of Stall team. However these wall-breakers work well against most stall builds in general and I would like to focus on the ABR Weavile stall because it is extremely popular and imo the best build of stall right now).
Crawdaunt @ Life Orb/Splash Plate/Lum Berry
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly/Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Crabhammer
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet
Crawdaunt has been nominated to B+ on the viability rankings and for good reason. Mega Altaria and Mega Venusaur it's two best checks are seeing a decline in popularity and standard ABR Weavile stall (mega Sab, Amoongus, Chansey, Skarmory, Quagsire, and Weavile) has no switch-ins to this monster. While frail Crawdaunt is also not pursuit weak and most Weaviles on stall don't carry low kick so it can switch out or take a hit once:
252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Crawdaunt: 128-151 (47.7 - 56.3%) -- 84.4% chance to 2HKO
and retaliate with a kill or even switch out safely once on a pursuit. At +2 Aqua Jet can even kill Weavile for an added bonus: +2 252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Weavile: 304-359 (108.1 - 127.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Speaking of boosts after a swords dance everything on stall is destroyed and unaware quagsire can't stomach a hit well either.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 136 Def Amoonguss: 585-689 (135.4 - 159.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 304-359 (91 - 107.4%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Quagsire: 216-255 (54.8 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
it may be better to weaken quagsire or knock off it's leftovers first before attempting a sweep. Splash plate is a cool item that means no life orb recoil but a weaker knock off (and you may be able to bluff the somewhat inferior band crawdaunt) and lum berry allows you to avoid a burn on mega sab but has to be run with an adamant nature (adamant crawdaunt gets out-sped by defensive landorus-t and a few other things but is better against full stall) otherwise it is too weak in my experience.
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Taunt
- Dragon Dance
Mega Gyrados is another water and dark pokemon that I think is great. While the standard offensive Dash Dance set runs substitute I feel taunt is better in this metagame against stall for a few reasons. Taunt prevents Skarmory from whirlwinding you when you're behind a substitute (and completely shuts down whirlwind skarm with brave bird over iron head which is becoming more common) and taunt shuts down curse quagsire which is becoming more common than the toxic variant due to ABR stall. With moldbreaker taunt also avoids the burn from mega sableye and the sub mega gyrados version is not that great against sab either considering foul play has a very good chance at breaker mega gyrados's sub anyways before a dragon dance: 0 Atk Mega Sableye Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Gyarados: 81-96 (24.4 - 29%) -- 99.8% chance to 4HKO.
After a dragon dance every member of stall is 2hko'd and mold-breaker goes through unaware which is amazing against quagsire allowing a sweep with just a little chip damage on Amoongus +1 252 Atk Mold Breaker Mega Gyarados Crunch vs. 252 HP / 136 Def Amoonguss: 252-297 (58.3 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery. Plus Mega Gyra is faster than Weavile after a dragon dance so you're at no risk there either.
Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 100 HP / 252 Atk / 156 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Pursuit
I will admit here that I have not used this before but there's been a lot of hype around this pokemon in a few different threads so I felt like I should give it a go. This spread from Tyranitar aims at outspeeding most walls including Skarmory and quagsire and smacking them with super powerful stab moves. 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 156-184 (46.7 - 55%) -- 13.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Assuming you can hit both stone edges (which is never a sure thing) Skarmory is 2hko'd after rocks barring some really low rolls.
Some very minor prior damage on Quagsire also may be needed:
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 177-208 (44.9 - 52.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
What's really cool about this set is it has a super strong pursuit allowing you to severely weaken Chansey if you guess the switch correctly setting up a breaker such as Charizard-Y to sweep.
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit(80BP) vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 292-345 (45.4 - 53.7%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage and if the opponent stays in and you guess right you can knock them out with a Superpower:
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Superpower vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 584-688 (90.9 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
Some other interesting things I will like to say:
Relying on Hoopa-C to break stall as Hoopa-U did is a really risky proposition. Hoopa-C while being absurdly powerful is blessed with an awful psychic ghost typing leaving it 4% weak to pursuit dying from any pursuit user. This forces Hoopa-C to run substitute to attempt to avoid pursuit and quickly Hoopa-C develops 4mss syndrome having trouble fitting everything it needs to break stall in one set.
Hoopa @ Life Orb
Ability: Magician
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
- Psyshock
This is a set similar to the set commonly run in UU (but without salac berry which would make this set even weaker) but it has some big shortcomings in OU. In particular without Nasty plot Chansey is very hard to break and Hoopa gets worn down very quickly. Specs could be run as well to break Chansey 252 SpA Choice Specs Hoopa Psyshock vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 288-340 (44.8 - 52.9%) -- 28.9% chance to 2HKO (not as strong as Hoopa-U's that's for sure)
but you can only get one kill per game against any stall team with a scarf tyranitar or choice band weavile. I don't foresee this set being viable in OU at all.
Hoopa @ Life Orb/Salac Berry
Ability: Magician
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute
- Focus Blast
This set is actually decent but has some issues. Not running Psyshock means Chansey is hard to break as relying on focus blast is not a very reliable way to beat it due to miss chances though it does 2hko. +2 252 SpA Life Orb Hoopa Focus Blast vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 385-455 (59.9 - 70.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Not getting walled by every dark type in existence is nice though and I think this set does have some merit against stall though it is still clearly not the breaker that Hoopa-U was.
Speaking of pursuit weak Stall-breakers I have tried Stall-breaker Gengar along the lines of:
Gengar @ Black Sludge
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 8 HP / 248 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Taunt
- Shadow Ball
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hex
It's really awful. It can't beat Mega Sableye, gets pursuit trapped very easily, and loses to specially defensive talon. If you really want to run Gengar as a stall-breaker you need to run substitute but even then I'm not a huge fan of it at the moment.
With the arrival of Volcanion Choice-locked water pokemon will probably get worse and I think Azumarill especailly will get worse. Most stall teams carry amoongus and the arrival of Volcanion may make it even harder to use, though it will still be good just not one of the top pokemon in A+ anymore.
Though I will say Azumarill's Suprpower still does a lot to Volcanion: 252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Superpower vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Volcanion: 204-240 (56 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
and sludge Bomb or Sluge Wave cannot ohko in return
252+ SpA Volcanion Sludge Bomb vs. 172 HP / 0 SpD Azumarill: 260-306 (67.7 - 79.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
With the arrival of Volcanion I also think Life Orb and non-choice locked Keldeo sets will become more useful than Specs as being locked into a water move will be very risky.
In conclusion: There are many great Dark-Type Wallbreakers besides Hoopa-U so use them and take advantage of many stall-builds current over-reliance on pursuit (also try to avoid pursuit weak wall-breakers) and be careful with choice-locked water types.
Last edited: