What's up BW. Thought I would show a team that I've had for a while but never shown off. I thought now would be a pretty good time to do so, with Cloyster being gone and a lot of the Hail Offence teams looking pretty similar I thought I would show off something that looks pretty different and by all means still very viable.
Abomasnow @ Focus Sash
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 36 Atk / 252 SpA / 220 Spe
Mild Nature
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Blizzard
- Ice Shard
- Wood Hammer
Pretty common/standard set for Abomasnow. The reason its here is for its Ability to chip down Steel types and Sand staples which Gyarados, Starmie and Garchomp can all exploit. It's great STAB combination makes for a great early game wall breaker even if you lose the hail. Another great reason for Abomasnow being here is for its great matchup into Rain. With 4 out of the 6 Pokemon on the team hating Scald burns or even just taking damage from a Rain boosted Scald, Abomasnow is able to remove it and threaten all the common Rain staples. Hail is also able to remove Thundurus-T and Tornadus-T's 100 percent accuracy Thunder's and Hurricanes which are usually pretty threatening to Hyper Offence. Blizzard and Hidden Power Fire are able to deal great damage to Ferrothorn and Skarmory which enables Gyarados and a late game Healing Wish back to Garchomp and Wood Hammer hits Bulky Waters, mainly Jellicent and Rotom-W which greatly enables Gyarados and Scizor, especially since there is no real status aborber on this team.
Set Details:
210 Speed outspeed Bulky Rotom-W and Jellicent. Rest is put into Special Attack to maximise the damage of the most clickable move, STAB Blizzard.
Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 88 HP / 248 Atk / 4 Def / 168 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Substitute
Gyarados servers an interesting purpose on Hail Offence. It's great typing and ability means that it can check both Keldeo and Excadrill which are pretty hard for Hail Offence and Hyper Offence to deal with in general. Not only does it support the team with its great defensive qualities but it's also a great abuser of Hail too, with the Hail chipping down to of its checks in Skarmory and Ferrothorn. The last move Outrage looks a bit weird, but with Hail chipping yourself in conjunction with Substitute, Outrage makes for a pretty nice last move here. Being able to midground a vast majority of the tier, especially with Hail and Abomasnow's Blizzard putting pressure on Steel-Types. Outrage can kill a lot of weakened targets in an end game and also be used to deal with opposing Hyper Offence Dragon-Types such as Garchomp, Dragonite and Latios. Gyarados can also deal with Volcarona which is extremely threatening to Hail teams that forgo the use of Dragonite or Choice Scarf Garchomp.
Scizor @ Metal Coat
Ability: Technician
EVs: 44 HP / 224 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 224 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Quick Attack/Pursuit
First Steel-Type of the team. Scizor is as usual a great Offence pick with its access to Priority Bullet Punch and Sword Dance. Metal Coat here since taking recoil from Life Orb and Hail doesn't sound great although you do lose a little bit of power. I've been switching between Quick Attack and Pursuit every time I use this team. Quick Attack is good for hitting bulky Water-Types that would usually outspeed you like a faster variant of Rotom-W or Keldeo as well as hits Thundurus-T but without Life Orb its feels pretty underwhelming. Using Quick Attack also requires dropping Pursuit meaning you are less reliable at trapping Psychic-Types and are completely walled by Jellicent which isn't great especially since you want Jellicent removed for Gyarados. So I think Pursuit should be the primary option.
Garchomp @ Yache Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance
Garchomp as the Stealth Rocker on HO isn't an uncommon pick. The reason why its Garchomp here is because of its ability to take on Thundurus-T as well as being a nice abuser of Hail. Again, dont want to sound like a broken record, Hail chips steel = Dragon-Type broken. Rough Skin is nice for chipping down physical threats in tandem with Hail and Stealth Rock as well as being a pretty scary wall breaker and late game cleaner if Healing Wish is passed to it.
Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 72 HP / 252 Atk / 184 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- U-turn
- Ice Punch
- Healing Wish
Choice Scarf Jirachi is an offence staple, being pretty much a U-Turn to get in breakers safely as well being able to Healing Wish an offensive threat later. 2 Steel types on HO isn't really common but with Hail weakening your own Steel-Types having 2 felt kind of mandatory, especially when Scizor cant really take a Surf or a Draco from Latios well especially when you consider Stealth Rock and Hail. Jirachi is also a really nice Alakazam and Dragonite check and ensures the team isn't too slow, while also having somewhat of a back bone.
Starmie @ Air Balloon
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Rapid Spin
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Thunderbolt
Starmie is the most common and usual pick for hyper offence. It's just very consistent at Rapid Spinning. The difference here which we have seen recently in a lot of games is Hidden Power Fire Starmie which ensure that you can keep Hazards off, even vs Ferrothorn which would usually just put them back up again. On top of that it also enables Gyarados since you can weaken or remove a Ferrothorn and set up on something later and let Gyarados clean the end game. Side note that I would like to mention is that Hidden Power Fire Starmie is ALWAYS slower than opposing Starmie which is fine because Abomasnow comes in on Starmie most the time anyways and Hidden Power Fire also lets you check Scizor more reliably which the team isn't really weak to it but thought it was worth a mention anyways.
Had a lot of fun using the team, please let me know if there are any changes you would make and have fun using it!
edit: so uhhhhhhhhhhh, i kind of forgot to do a threat list so here it is.
Sand Keldeo can be really annoying if it gets its Scald Burns and you dont manage to pressure it in the early game.
Skarm Jelli offence can be annoying if you dont get the roll with Blizzard into Ice Shard turn one. Also playing with rocks up in general is kind of hard for this team, best way i've dealt with playing vs these teams is Abomasnow Blizzard into Shard turn one and then trade Wood Hammer into Tyranitar with whatever it clicks and then play from there.
Clefable+Max Physdef Skarm/kind of any sort of fat annoys this if you are unable to position Garchomp well. Especially vs the standard HippoClef stuff you're whole team kind of gets Paralysed, Knocked Off and put on a timer if you can't position the Garchomp well. Best way to deal with these teams is again trade a bunch of damage with Garchomp and Gyarados and then try let Scizor win an end game. You also have Healing Wish to try again with Garchomp vs these teams which is nice. Could also try using Trick in that slot to Trick a Skarmory.
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