Snow day!

[Purple Grind]

Hey everyone! Since UU was testing hail I decided that I’d try my hand at making a successful hail team. It wasn’t easy, hail forces you to waste a teamslot on snover who isn’t exactly the best pokemon in the tier. It’s also hard to abuse hail, it doesn’t boost STABs or double any pokemon’s speed. It’s even harder now that snow cloak is banned. Regardless, I decided I would make a hail team that could at least compete and this is what I came up with.

At a glance:

Snover @ Eviolite
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Blizzard
- Leech Seed
- Giga Drain
- Protect
The obligatory snover, Set pretty much explains itself. It can help against opposing bulky waters a bit and can tank hits from special attackers like raikou if I need it to. Protect is for leach seed recover and to scout choice users. It can also be used to surprise hi jump kick users. Not a great pokemon by any means, imo hail would suck less if abamasnow was available.

Nidoqueen (F) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 Def
Bold Nature
- Flamethrower
- Stealth Rock
- Earth Power
- Blizzard
Nidoqueen was a late addition but omg can she ever pull her weight. I slapped her on the team for a fighting resist/stealth rocks user and haven’t looked back. She takes hits from mienshao, heracross and scraggy like nothing. I’m considering swapping dragon tail for ice beam just because crobat is so annoying to deal with currently. (And honchkrow still fucks me hard)

Blastoise @ Leftovers
Trait: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Roar
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic
Blastoise. It’s completely standard but still effective. Rocks are really annoying to deal with so blastoise is nice to take care of them.

Glaceon @ Choice Specs
Trait: Ice Body
EVs: 252 Spd / 4 HP / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature
- Blizzard
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Heal Bell
This guy hits like a sack of doorknobs, hard. My main (lol only) hail abuser. Blizzards will seriously dent anything that isn’t a special wall that resists ice. Glaceon serves as an amazing wallbreaker and can even 2hko umbreon, the pinnacle of spd. Blizzard is basically the only move I’ll ever use. Because her movepool is so shallow there aren’t really any other options. Shadow ball maybe hits the rare slowking and hp fighting hits empoleon, snorlax and registeel. Heal bell is just filler but I have used it before. I guess I could switch to baton pass but both moves would rarely see use so it doesn’t matter. Glaceon is for blizzards. Basically anything slower than glaceon is gonna get destroyed. Though snow cloak is banned ice body is still a nice ability to help me deal with stealth rock damage and provide psudolefties recovery.

Scrafty @ Leftovers
Trait: Shed Skin
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 HP / 252 SDef
Careful Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SAtk / 30 SDef / 30 Spd
- Drain Punch
- Crunch
- Rest
- Bulk Up
Scraggy is a cool pokemon with a cool typing. His great special bulk helps me handle a ton of threats and with bulk up he can really be a pain to face. Shed skin compliments him nicely, as burn and paralysis become only temporary impairments and makes using rest somewhat less dangerous.

Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
Flygon is my revenge killer. Say what you want about scarf flygon, he’s key for cleaning up after the other team has been worn down by hail. He’s very reliable and nets the most ko’s on the team. Since the rest of my team is quite slow, most games I have to play carefully with flygon so he usually doesn’t see much use until lategame. In most games losing flygon early means defeat. I went for stone edge over fire punch because fire punch is really only for bronzong and I find it more helpful to have a way to hit flying types without getting locked into outrage.

That’s my team, let me know what you think/any suggested changes.

EDIT: I'm using blizzard not ice beam on nidoqueen lol

 

[morningsun]

This is a great team. Honestly, however, as you stated in your intro, Snover, as well as the hail that it brings, is next to useless. You did as good a job as anyone in making a viable team with hail, but the hail is more of an impediment than an asset. The only Pokemon on your team that really benefits from it is Glaceon. This team would, in my opinion, be better off as a non-weather team. Maybe you should try it with Weavile instead of Glaceon and a Steel type instead of Snover. I really feel bad about making this change, but from a competitive angle, it just makes sense. Hail, unfortunately, is just that bad. But, again, great job on your part. It really seems like a solid team otherwise and, if you'd like, you can keep it a hail team and even win a good number of your matches, I just feel you'd do even better if this team didn't have hail. Good luck.