BH Balanced Hackmons

Tea Guzzler

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so might as well drop my thoughts into the discussion:

quovoja's summarized these different options pretty perfectly, and personally i'm leaning more into option 2. option 3 is just theorymon and likely causes too much collateral from non-PH mons no longer having access to moves, along with stuff like tera/ph mons with self-resistant STABs meaning that the core issue of them being unable to be worn down still exists.

option 1 also exists but i'd be more reluctant to do this - i was speaking to UT earlier about tera's presence in BH and how it differs from AAA, highlighting full EVs meaning defensive tera is generally less valuable (exception obviously being PH mons, namely caly/slaking) [though still is for stuff like imposter] and it doesn't currently seem oppressive on anything that isn't already broken like contrary etern and stuff. ph arceus doesn't seem as obscenely broken as to warrant banning the entirety of poison heal, though we could revisit this option if we ban caly/slaking and they do end up being like that.

option 2 is the main one then. where slaking's only set is poison heal, calyrex has a stupid amount of set variety to where poison heal is just one of many broken variants, and i think caly should be banned irrespective of poison heal (seriously, this mon has beads, adapt, normalize, pixilate and PH, all of which pressure stuff absurdly well and practically force ting-lu or scales/AV stuff like muk-a and meloetta on every team). slaking is mostly a problem because it can shut down anti-PH measures pretty easily, is incredibly hard to actually kill (even if you do force it out), can fairly reliably 1v1 imposter barring crits (made worse by tera), and also still has underused options like glance and v-create which will just make it more busted when these become more popular. both of these being banned would allow for much more flexibility and general meta diversity. even if we get core enforcer back in DLC, personally i just wouldn't be bothered to free calyrex again, since this is just going to cause trouble and overcentralization in any meta it's free in.

also put drum and contrary in a spliff please and thank you
 

cityscapes

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couple guys:

:sv/calyrex-shadow:
Calyrex-Shadow @ Life Orb
Ability: Beads of Ruin
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Astral Barrage
- Mortal Spin
- Focus Blast
- Strength Sap

def a very flawed set, but mortal spin serves a pretty cool dual purpose here of removing hazards and poisoning regenvest ting lu. ghost/fighting is much much better than any moonblast idea because you hit slaking and yveltal isnt here to own you

:sv/ting lu:
Ting-Lu @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Victory Dance
- Knock Off
- Precipice Blades
- Will-O-Wisp

banger mon. you're very slow getting outsped by +spe 100s at +1 and zacc/caly at +2, but you're def boosted ting lu in no core no anchor meta. legitimately nothing kills this. if you want you can also run ceaseless>knock to become The Progress Maker i just like removing av for the special attackers on the squad (this can force in opposing regen ting very effectively)

:sv/zamazenta-crowned:
Zamazenta-Crowned @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Triple Arrows
- Ceaseless Edge
- Recover
- Nuzzle

i saw some people saying run sacred sword on this to beat slaking which is when i knew the playerbase was too far gone and they needed a wake up call. triple arrows is 50% to lower def 10% to flinch and high crit, super cool move that does well dealing with def boosts. obviously you might want something more resilient vs coverage slaking.

:sv/arceus-ghost:
The Vig (Arceus-Ghost) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
- Judgment
- Fleur Cannon
- V-create
- Strength Sap

cool as hell. you run this with calyrex and if they have caly counterplay you simply bust through it cause you have contrary. im not 100% sure you beat imposter but am pretty sure you do after ghost tera

thoughts:

- tera is awesome. i love the flexibility it gives in terms of teching around otherwise bad matchups (especially thinking in terms of lame teams like those ferrothorn balances last gen) and theres legitimately a lot of strategy around when to use it and on whom ("what part of the team's strategy do i overall want to invest in")
- also notable how tera type can screw you over sometimes. examples are tttech's ground kyogre losing to imposter and my water ting lu getting hit with prank moves. it's pretty interesting
- tera imposter proofing is fucked up though you can run something thatd be terribly unsound in earlier gens like ladder contrary or simple and simply tera your way past imposter at no additional cost
- drum is goofy as hell i didnt wanna free this
- covert cloak is insanely impactful and it'll be cool to see how it gets used
- sun/eterrain becoming much more accessible has had some cool effects. i saw opulse fireceus + solar blade sharpness zacc which was pretty neat. also important to note that these abilities lose to competing weather/terrain. misty surge owns all the mirais i think
- there are just a ton of crazy new moves. it'll take quite a while for things to settle down in that regard
- hazards work completely differently with the new moves. even vs fat mons you can't hope to block them unless we see covert cloak strats improve in the future, but in return removal is also pretty much unblockable between the 2 spins and tidy up
- i would really like to see a tidy up user that also functions as a late game wincon with the dragon dance effect
- caly and zacc are a pain as always, strongest mons in the meta that also outspeed everything, you know how it is
- base 120-130 speed is packed with etern, new dragons, arc, zamac. never before has it been so easy to outspeed the base 90-100 gang (this keeps a lot of the slower ph users in check)
 

Tea Guzzler

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WE HAVE A SLATE, NO FOOLS AND HORSES
Tea GuzzlerquojovacityscapesMAMPXxLazzerpenguinxX
Belly DrumBanBanBanBanBan
Last RespectsBanBanBanBanDo Not Ban
ContraryBanBanAbstainBanDo Not Ban
Calyrex-ShadowBanBanAbstainDo Not BanDo Not Ban
SlakingBanBanAbstainDo Not BanDo Not Ban
Belly Drum and Last Respects are now banned from BH. A 4-1 majority was needed for a ban (so Contrary stays for now), thus Contrary, Calyrex-Shadow and Slaking will remain free.

:snorlax: Belly Drum
This one's pretty straightforward since we banned it last gen. The ability for mons to go to +6 within 1 turn is inherently dumb in a balanced metagame, so when you have a very large handful of stuff with base 150 attack that is very hard to actually punish for setting up, dedicated drumspam teams become incredibly hard to deal with outside of highly specific (and bad) mons like Unaware Ghost-types.

:houndstone: Last Respects
People have recently brought this up due to it's potency as a comeback mechanic, with 300BP at maximum power. What breaks Last Respects is applications with killing off your own mons, usually through Final Gambit, as a way to force up it's damage - this is similar in style to the 5 gambit + NormPult teams last gen, except now you don't actually know what to preserve against the Dragapult (or now literally any mon thanks to Tera making any offensive threat have Ghost STAB). Last Respects on Poison Heal mons is also ridiculously strong, with a one-sided Imposter matchup and a reliable way to crush defensive counterplay, and Last Respects on random mons preserved until last (such as Choice Band Zacian-Crowned) also creates a gameplay issue with getting counterswept late-game without reprise. Having to dance around an option this nuclear has been seen before (Choice Band Kyurem-Black), however the fact that Last Respects doesn't make itself obvious in many circumstances pushes it over the edge.

:calyrex-shadow: Calyrex-Shadow
Calyrex-Shadow is incredibly strong, however it does have it's limitations that mean it's not as instantly broken as the other stuff we've banned. Specs sets have difficulty with breaking past immensely tanky Special walls or ones with advantageous typing, such as Ice Scales Arceus(-Dark) or Ting-Lu, or RegenVest Meloetta, Muk-A, Arceus(-Dark), or Ting-Lu, so running with the obvious inflexibility of a Choice item also carries the risk of getting hard-walled by one of these popular defensive choices. Of these Specs variants, Adaptability sets have issues with coverage strength being just shy of breaking past walls, and Beads of Ruin has it's own issue with alerting the opponent that you're using it. Normalize Variants have led to an uptick in Ability Shield, Magic Bounce and Prankster Glare usage, leading to inconsistency issues, and Poison Heal variants can build damage very quickly but lack the immediate safety offered by the other variants. It's still a powerful presence, however it has just enough counterplay to where it isn't as obscenely broken as it was in Gen 8, and we're keeping close monitoring on it. Tera does, however, make balancing around it precarious as this can magically remove certain counterplay, such as Tera-Dark removing the Prankster Glare + Imposter Astral Barrage weaknesses, Tera-Fairy meaning Specs sets can OHKO Ting-Lu through AV, and the like.

:lurantis: Contrary
Contrary's power comes in it's snowballing potential - the ability for BST menaces to both spam high-BP moves and also break into a sweep, by boosting both defenses and offenses across different sets, makes for incredibly difficult to stop sweepers especially given the lack of Topsy-Turvy, Spectral Thief and Core Enforcer. Just about the only thing keeping these Contrary sweepers from tearing the meta open is that most users are outpaced by the speedsters Calyrex-Shadow and Zacian-Crowned (Rayquaza needs to run +Speed to outrun these 2 at +1), Prankster Glare helps teams limit these sweepers from becoming totally unhinged, and Unaware can semi-reliably force these sweepers out or otherwise drain the low-PP moves being spammed. This is another one we're keeping a close eye on, Tera makes this similarly problematic due to the additional STAB provided further enhancing snowball potential, particularly with Fleur Cannon and Overheat.

Tagging Kris to implement.
 
Baffling decision ngl. Calyrex is easily half a dozen times as broken as last respects , and slaking and contrary are a bit behind that but but still way ahead. Last respects had exactly one good user, slaking, and it isn’t even Slaking’s best set; other users like Zacian Crown are usable as last mon cleaners but it’s even further from being their best set and on a play style that isn’t even good.

At least belly drum is gone but I hope council will fix this mistake.
 
damn I changed my whole team just to try to beat biased pog for the top spot and then you ban his goated strat, oh well

the godfather 1 (Arceus-Fairy) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Cotton Guard
- Quiver Dance
- Moonblast

still a good set I might keep it, or change it to unaware arceus ghost to counter slaking better, this set still counters a ton of boosters so might keep it
 
Sad to see belly drum go. It was a very predictable strategy to feast upon for easy free wins via Unaware and Fur Coat. It also automatically lost to normalize ghost sets. Oh well. Guess I'll have to play against real teams again.

I'd very strongly caution against further bans as we are already in a stall/bulky/defense favored meta. Contrary remains the last potential threat to defensive/stall-ish playstyles and that's only because people haven't realized how good Unaware is yet (which is quite puzzling considering how popular setup mons are in BH).

Caly-S and Zacian-C were major threats in prior gens but are nothing more than stall fodder now. Caly-S remains easily dealt with by most Ice Scales or regenvest mons and Ting-Lu completely obliterates Caly-S. If you play properly and realize they are running a Fairy Caly-S set, just Tera your Ting-Lu to steel type and laugh heartily. All that's left is the Normalize set but most good players should have remembered how good Magic Bounce is by now. You could also just kill the Caly-S instead of twiddling your thumbs tanking Astral Barrages over and over again because you forgot to put attacking moves on your tanks.

Oh and in case you forgot, Unaware can beat the setup sets because, you know... Unaware sort of ignores stat boosts from the other mon. That's what it does.

Zacian-C got nerfed and it's most popular sets have already been solved. Pop Bomb has numerous issues already discussed that prevent it from being a viable option, and the other sets just don't have enough breaking power after the -20 attack nerf. Zacian-C doesn't need any further discussion than this at this point in the metagame.

Pheal Slaking remains vulnerable to more offensive teams that can simply chunk its hp or just kill it immediately while stall teams can beat it with a Worry Seed Magic Bouncer (which you should be running anyway since it counters many other strategies besides Pheal Slaking).

I continue to hold my opinion from the previous gens of BH that it's simply poor form to just ban everything that threatens defensive grindy playstyles like bulky balance and stall. Imposter remains the single greatest counter to offense anyway and you don't even have to put it on your team to do that. This is because it limits how strong you can make your own mons during teambuilding and thus indirectly removes threats that defensive playstyles may have had trouble against.

I remain indifferent on Last Respects because I've simply never had an issue with it on ladder. If it ever did become an issue, there were dozens of easy counters to it anyway.

On a sidenote, has anyone figured out a good Koraidon set yet? He seems very unpopular compared to Miraidon.
 
On a sidenote, has anyone figured out a good Koraidon set yet? He seems very unpopular compared to Miraidon.
Koraidon has an incredible ability in regular Ubers that gives it a free STAB and additional water resistance, as well as an extremely diverse movepool. However in BH, none of those apply, and Miraidon's base typing is much better. That's why I assume people are finding it harder to find good Koraidon set (Koraidon is also competing with many physical attackers, unlike Miraidon)
 
Heres a fun move

Palkia-Origin @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Primordial Sea
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Water Spout
- Steam Eruption
- Volt Switch
- Trick

To use this move, click water spout or steam eruption and you will do a lot of damage. Trying to use volt switch or trick is just pretentious and i do not advise it. I'm not very good at the game and I've won a lot of games just blasting away teams with water spout. Awesome!
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
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hey guys its me city "based extremist 69" "erin 'cityscapes' xenofemme" scapes. i peaked ladder with this dumbass team that im gonna post here

POKEPASTE: https://pokepast.es/e341eb13ee35156b (change tera types, i never set them)

1670031148991.png

:xy/slaking:
Slaking @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Victory Dance
- Facade
- Precipice Blades
- Taunt

i made this cause Inoue beat me with normalize calyrex-s one time and i was like doesnt your team lose to slaking and they were like nuh uh. however every team loses to slaking. so i decided to build around this to get back at them. this set is nothing short of incredible, normal/ground hits legitimately everything. you can stall prank gira out of recovers sometimes.

:sv/zacian-crowned:
Zacian-Crowned @ Choice Band
Ability: Well-Baked Body
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Trick
- Magical Torque
- Pain Split
- Headlong Rush

gamer. pain split is for imposter and high hp guys like dondozo, you have banded fairy/ground coverage and the ability to trick slaking counters + eviolite. this also beats contrary. not hard to imposter proof you just need bozo.

:sv/chansey:
Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Spirit Break
- Wish
- Teleport
- Whirlwind

i always build with imposter cause it beats a lot of goofy stuff including other zacs such as pixilate, and can go toe to toe with weakened monke. spirit break on this makes legitimately no sense but i never sent this un transformed because i had 5 other broken mons.

:sv/miraidon:
Miraidon @ Draco Plate
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Judgment
- Thunder
- Strength Sap

thunder did not hit very often but when it did this guy went hard. only knock ting lu beats you, the standard ceaseless variants can't damage you enough and i think you have a chance at pp stalling prank recover (esp if they aren't leftovers).

:sv/ting lu:
Ting-Lu @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Ceaseless Edge
- U-turn
- Revelation Dance
- Rapid Spin

standard. never run mortal spin on this guy, steels can block it super easily and you aren't poisoning anything meaningful

:sv/dondozo:
Dondozo @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Haze
- Glare
- Entrainment
- Roost

the bozo. you need this to beat slaking and glare other stuff. waterceus also obviously a consideration cause i haven't used my arc slot.

replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-1727999941 vs stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-1728405414 miraidon goes hard i also win a mon because i know a lot of game mechanics
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-1728976458 vs revival blessing
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-1729002180 all my other pokemon dont function so i simply win with slaking

more thoughts:
- revival blessing is extremely silly. surprisingly didn't pose a lot of trouble for my team. no idea how i feel about it but i would like to maybe just kick it out instantly then maybe we can look at it later on. definitely a completely unprecedented game element.
- arceus has been a bit underwhelming honestly. yes it never dies, but the meta is just full of these mons with incredibly good dual typings like zacc, zamac, ting lu, miraidon, so the single type is less strong in comparison. offensively it just has a lot of competition.
- contrary is pretty ridiculous with no core/spectral ill try to get it banned
- monke absolutely carried me through every game. while i do think i outplayed the guys at least a bit it feels weird for a simple chimp to be so overwhelming. i could always win if i made the right sequence of plays with him, there was genuinely no counter
- fire immune zacc is very very good. choice trick is also fantastic as usual
- i wanna try tower of power again
- covert cloak is incredibly annoying, ceaseless and others are great but this completely shuts them down unless you carry knock (unset). it's probably gonna be very strong on defensive team styles to prevent ceaseless guys (including imposter) from making progress.
- chansey can recover on almost all passive mons. it's almost impossible to stop it from doing that. much better to wear it down with hazards/status/knock or run plates on your guys so you never have to worry about its hp.
 
https://pokepast.es/2ac6c29e4be8cd67
made some simple mirai offense. imma be fr, i used this in tour today, and i forgot that last respects was banned, but it didnt matter because i mistyped into last resort instead. still won, though, because caly-s is stupid and revival blessing makes it stupider. you could also just like, kill everything with simple mirai + opulse zacc? thats definitely an option for you.
 

MAMP

MAMP!
I gotta question, why do people run good as gold instead of magic bounce. Seems like 99% of the time reflecting status moves is better than just being immune
i agree that bounce is generally better, the popularity of good as gold is largely new-toy syndrome. that being said, good as gold has a couple of benefits: it prevents hazard removal from defog (which isn't particularly relevant, as rapid spin, mortal spin, court change, and tidy up are all better/more popular than defog atm) and it stops you from being forced out by parting shot.
 
It has been 2 days and I already hate Revival blessing with every fiber of my being. That move so hilariously busted that it's not even funny anymore, especially in a meta where you can very easily get practically infinite uses out of the move. Press one button, remove 10 turns of game progress, rinse and repeat. I have never been this absolutely done with a mechanic after such a short time, and I seriously want to urge the council to take a good look at the move and think about whether something like this has any place in the tier.

I gotta question, why do people run good as gold instead of magic bounce. Seems like 99% of the time reflecting status moves is better than just being immune
There's a point to be made about GoG also preventing Trick, which can be useful in certain scenarios. I would however agree that mbounce is usually the better option.
 

Storm Eagle

Banned deucer.
firefox_TXGehoy2ZT.jpg

Average ladder experience since Revival Blessing was fixed. It isn't prominent in games. It isn't broken. Like most of the time it doesn't even change the outcome of games; it just artificially extends them. I'm not quite sure I'd even say it's "uncompetitive" from a logical standpoint. But this shit is just awful to play against. It easily reduces the quality of games because games can go on significantly longer than expected especially if one player has Imposter. Can this shit please be quick banned?

I don't have much of a comment on the meta quite yet. I'm still new and I am trying to get more experience while waiting for the metagame to develop before making any definitive comments on things. I do think Gen 9 BH is pretty fun so far; a far cry from Gen 8 BH for sure. I can very easily see this metagame being much higher quality overall if handled right. However, me posting about Revival Blessing should be a testament to how much it sucks getting these games even despite my inexperience with the metagame.

I'll definitely have some more experienced comments in the future. Just wanted to add feedback to what other people said here.
 

Tea Guzzler

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dropping thoughts on some stuff here

:pawmot: revival blessing is just a pain. it has relatively high opportunity cost and risk to using, however in games which aren't just kill trades, it just prolongs them beyond reason. this is especially given since the trapping methods we have right now are bad, meaning shed shell/covert cloak just farms revival blessing users and prolongs the game even more than one user already does. this is just a pain to deal with and adds either nothing or negative interactions, would like to see banned.

:calyrex-shadow: not banning caly-s was a mistake

:lurantis: not banning contrary was a mistake

:breloom: poison heal is a wierd one. slaking and caly are obviously problematic, however assuming we exclude these from the situation, we're left with a problem - do we ban victory dance/quiver dance (VEQD) or poison heal? banning poison heal would mean that remaining stuff like sub zacian can abuse VEQD freely, banning VEQD means poison heal still exists for other setup moves like bulk up, tidy up, shift gear, cm and the like. this is basically a game of "do we ban x or the thing that breaks x", and there's not really any examples to go off of in terms of a widespread ability being broken by a move (you could maybe argue gtactics but this is broken by like 6 moves). i can see both sides of the argument and don't really know where i stand, leaning more towards pheal atm just because non-pheal stuff needs to actually expend moveslots for recovery so either has gimped coverage or is easily worn down. banning VEQD seems a bit off, especially since the issue of "bad non-damage-trade counterplay to PH" still exists, but probably still has a beneficial outcome?

sidenote: last respects was found out to have a damage cap of 5,050, and revival blessing stacks this with each death. you're never realistically getting anywhere near the cap, but it's still pretty dumb.
 
:breloom: poison heal is a wierd one. slaking and caly are obviously problematic, however assuming we exclude these from the situation, we're left with a problem - do we ban victory dance/quiver dance (VEQD) or poison heal? banning poison heal would mean that remaining stuff like sub zacian can abuse VEQD freely, banning VEQD means poison heal still exists for other setup moves like bulk up, tidy up, shift gear, cm and the like. this is basically a game of "do we ban x or the thing that breaks x", and there's not really any examples to go off of in terms of a widespread ability being broken by a move (you could maybe argue gtactics but this is broken by like 6 moves). i can see both sides of the argument and don't really know where i stand, leaning more towards pheal atm just because non-pheal stuff needs to actually expend moveslots for recovery so either has gimped coverage or is easily worn down. banning VEQD seems a bit off, especially since the issue of "bad non-damage-trade counterplay to PH" still exists, but probably still has a beneficial outcome?
Just use worry seed, it's easy. Or misty terrain. Misty terrain's great, plus then annoying nuzzle doesn't work.
 
Hello friends. BH council has put on their working boosts, dusted their shoulders, and got some shoveling done. I'm here reporting on the recent findings in the BH council hole we've dug up!

1670208448200.png

credit cityscapes for this lovely drawing. Your effort does not go unnoticed :pray:

The council held a vote on Slaking, Calyrex-Shadow, Contrary, Revival Blessing, and Poison heal.

I think a vote on all of these, besides Poison Heal is quite intuitive for most who've dipped their feet deep enough into the BH hole. Slaking's poison heal set has been found to be extremely difficult to check as a result of core enforcer being removed from the metagame, and the addition of Victory Dance. When paired with taunt, it is able to beat through almost every check it has, and the ones that do stop it - aren't able to do so for long enough because of Recovery being nerfed to 8 pp. BH council has been discussing to what extent poison heal and/or Victory Dance has enabled this Slaking set, and whether those two should be tiered instead of Slaking. And we decided that as of this moment, it seemed like Slaking was the main abuser of it, and not entirely enabled by Poison Heal and/or Victory Dance. So, we decided to hold a vote for Slaking initially, and then also give Poison Heal a nod, with potentially future tiering decision being made on it, if for example Arceus-Normal or other Pheal sets abusing Victory Dance (or pheal) come into play.

Calyrex-Shadow was voted on, because its ability to be self-improofed, versatility of sets, and the fact that Ghost is an incredibly strong offensive typing when paired with coverage boosted by terrastalize, can cause a lot of stress on the metagame. Additionally, its stats - allowing it to outspeed nearly the entirety of the viable viable pokemon available, and essentially the highest SpA makes it a true force to be reconned with. It's impact is already seen, with a dark mon or Meloetta being necessary on every team, and as such a vote was once again held.

Contrary inherently, is a very strong ability allowing users to boost up their defensives - and become un-killable, or special attacking forces to begin spiralling away as they boost up their power. Unaware users, can at times deal with contrary users, however they have more than enough tools to break through them, such as taunt Eternatus or having the correct coverage move. Imposter-Chansey has been historically, one of the best - if not the best way of dealing with Contrary users, however users have adapted to it, by using ghost pokemon - such as Arceus-Ghost with ghost Judgement to break through imposter, or simply risking the speed tie - which can be considered uncompetitive, if the best way to check it is by risking a speed tie.

Revival Blessings was voted on because, the very nature of the move is mind and game-warping. The ability to bring back a pokemon that has beaten down its check, is quite ridiculous. When paired with final gambit, it can result in very uncompetitive gameplay. Additionally, leppa berry + recycle, or leppa berry + harvest can be used to continuously bring back fallen team mates, and result in infinite loops / theoretical draws. This can be seen as very uncompetitive.

Poison Heal was voted on, because as a result of losing core enforcer and anchor shot, it's become increasingly difficult to deal with quiver dance / victory dance poison healers. Simply trapping them, and removing their abilities - or the lack of threat of such, results in them being able to safely stay in and continuously boost their offensive and defensive stats. When paired with taunt, the remove the threat of entrainment from removing their abilities, and when paired with terrastalive, can become ghost or fairy to block dragon tail / circle throw from phazing them out. Abusers such as Arceus (most types), Slaking, and Calyrex-Shadow have already become a problem, so council has decided to hold a vote on them.

The results of the vote can be seen below.

SevagquojovacityscapesTea GuzzlerMAMP
SlakingBanBanBanBanBan
Calyrex-ShadowBanBanBanBanBan
ContraryBanBanBanBanBan
Revival BlessingBanAbstainBanBanBan
Poison HealDo not BanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not ban

After voting, for the reasons outlines above, the council has decided to ban Slaking, Calyrex-Shadow, Contrary, and Revival Blessing. Poison Heal however remains unbanned, but a close eye will be kept on it.

Council is interested in seeing how pokemon such as Arceus-Normal will develop, and whether they can replicate the power Slaking had, and if other poison healers will emerge that can similarly be increasingly difficult to deal with. Similarly, we'll be keeping a close eye on Quiver Dance and Victory Dance, because these two might potentially be enabling Poison Healers, and not Poison Heal itself. All these moves, abilities, and pokemon are interconnected, and we still haven't dug out the metagame to confidently decide how to tier the recently mentioned. (We'd love to hear your thoughts). And of course, if Poison Heal, or Victory Dance / Quiver Dance get banned, then we will re-evaluate Slaking.

Additionally, BH Council is still keeping a close eye on Terrastalizing. It hasn't jumped out as extremely broken or uncompetitive - yet, but this might change as the kick off tour progresses, and the metagame develops. Currently too, we feel as if Zacian-C is mostly healthy, and haven't seen much of an impact from Gorilla Tactics, however this of course is also subject to change as the metagame progresses.

Happy digging, and we'd love to hear your thoughts on this tiering, what we may have missed, and how you think these decisions will impact the metagame!

tagging Kris
 
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Hello everyone, I used to play BH a couple generations back and have recently decided to come back for a while because of the new generation. I have created a variety of very powerful sets which I would like to share so I can lay claim to these sets. Anyways here are some incredible sets for you to utilise in order to get free wins on the ladder against unsuspecting opponents.


Arceus-Fire @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Orichalcum Pulse
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Growth
- V-create
- Bitter Blade
- Solar Beam

This is a very strong Fireceus set which is difficult to wall without a Flash Fire mon. Most of the time you'll click either V-create since it's your best move or Growth if your opponent doesn't have a threatening mon out. A lot of teams have dondozo which is why this set runs Solar Beam.

252 Atk Life Orb Arceus-Fire V-create vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Arceus in Sun: 378-446 (85.1 - 100.4%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
+2 252 SpA Arceus-Fire Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Dondozo: 510-600 (101.1 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The calculator doesn't factor in the 30% attack boost from Orichalcum Pulse so I added a Life Orb which gives a somewhat similar boost. As you can see this mon is surprisingly strong despite the low 120 base attack.


Zacian-Crowned @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Victory Dance
- Substitute
- Magical Torque
- Bitter Blade

I know a lot of people like to run choice or non-imposter proofed sets but this set aims to utilise Zacian's incredible typing and bulk to set up victory dances and win. I used to run this with Contrary Eternatus but with 3 immunities you can run whatever other sweeper and imposter proof with this set. Well-baked body is another option but I find the Flash Fire boost to be very good.

+1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Bitter Blade (135 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Zacian-Crowned: 386-456 (99.4 - 117.5%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
+1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Bitter Blade (135 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Zamazenta-Crowned: 328-386 (84.5 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Magical Torque vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Zacian-Crowned: 72-85 (18.5 - 21.9%) -- possible 5HKO

As you can see the 50% boost from Flash Fire is very useful to kill opposing dogs and this set is also imposter proof since at even stat changes, a magical torque does not break the sub.

Now I will move on to never-before seen sets which I have not yet tested but am 100% confident will be good once the bans go through.



Eternatus @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Eruption
- Sludge Bomb
- Water Spout / Mortal Spin
- Dragon Energy

Everyone is sleeping on Eternatus but this mon is actually incredible. Imagine if Arceus has less attack but more speed and special attack. That is basically Eternatus' stat distribution. Unfortunately Contrary is banned but so is Calyrex which means Eternatus is now a viable special wall. With RegenVest, this mon can run powerful moves like Dragon Energy and Eruption without worrying too much about getting low. If Ting-lu is popular there is always the water spout to chunk it. Trust me this thing is super bulky.

252 SpA Eternatus Dragon Energy (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Ting-Lu: 243-286 (47.2 - 55.6%) -- 77.3% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Eternatus Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Ting-Lu: 324-382 (63 - 74.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Eternatus Dragon Energy (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Arceus: 186-219 (41.8 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO



Palafin-Hero @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Victory Dance
- Substitute
- Salt Cure / Taunt
- Aqua Step / Waterfall

I'm sure everyone will wonder what mon could replace slaking in terms of an imposter proof, super bulky and powerful PH setup sweeper. Now in my opinion normal Arceus is probably the closest replacement but what if you want to run a different Arceus set? Well let me introduce you to the new best imposter proof mon- Palafin. Now I personally think Salt Cure is one of the best moves in the game which people are sleeping on. If you win the speed tie against your imposter, then you beat it all the time. If you don't then you'll unfortunately have to switch but what the game doesn't tell you is that if you are skilled enough, you never lose speed ties. Anyways substitute + salt cure lets you beat Dondozo and Zamazenta which are extremely common in the current meta. If you run Aqua Step then you might be able to get +1 speed after your imposter switches in which eliminates the risk of any speed tie. Waterfall has more pp and can flinch though. Alternatively you can also run taunt over salt cure if you don't want to risk the speed tie. Taunt is always a good move.


Dialga-Origin @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steel Beam
- Chloroblast
- Strength Sap
- Heart Swap

This last secret set is Magic Guard Dialga. Dialga is another extremely underrated mon which was simply outclassed by Calyrex before. With Magic Guard, the 50% recoil of Steel Beam and Chloroblast as well as the life orb can be ignored completely. You will be surprised at how strong this mon is. The last two slots are filler and can be whatever you want. Unfortunately, Mind Blown doesn't exist this gen yet. Strength Sap is for recovery and Heart Swap Is for setup sweepers.

252 SpA Life Orb Dialga Steel Beam vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Arceus: 231-273 (52 - 61.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Dialga Steel Beam vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Ting-Lu: 302-356 (58.7 - 69.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Dialga Solar Beam (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Ting-Lu: 432-510 (84 - 99.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Dialga Solar Beam (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Kyogre: 294-348 (72.7 - 86.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
 

Tea Guzzler

forever searching for a 10p freddo
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Since orichalcum pulse doesn't boost solar beam, why not run desolate land for the slight extra boost to your fire moves?
orichalcum pulse actually boosts fire moves' damage by more. both create sunlight (which both have the same damage multiplier of 1.5x to fire moves), however orichalcum pulse has the additional effect of raising the user's attack by 33% in sun, meaning opulse is better for physical fire moves like v-create.
 

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