BSS Bulky Substitute Iron Hands [QC 1/1][GP 1/1]

[Photon]

So after investigating some top teams from last season, there is a bit more diversity in the non-AV Iron Hands sets than I was expecting to find. Sets range from only Substitute, only Swords Dance, and even one that used Water-type Tera Blast!

Nonetheless, the EV spread below was the standard from what I could tell, and the hallmark of this spread is keeping Dondozo's Wave Crash from breaking Substitute. As such, I have written this set to centralize around the use of Substitute. Swords Dance is still strongly recommended but a couple of other options are listed as well.

[SET]
name: Bulky Substitute
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Drain Punch
move 3: Thunder Punch
move 4: Swords Dance / Ice Punch / Earthquake
item: Leftovers / Sitrus Berry
ability: Quark Drive
nature: Impish
evs: 92 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 212 SpD / 28 Spe
tera type: Fairy / Water / Fighting

[SET COMMENTS]

* Iron Hands’s incredible bulk gives it one of the game’s strongest Substitutes, letting it set up on a unique list of threats.

* **Swords Dance**: Swords Dance lets Iron Hands set up on the passive foes it blocks with Substitute. The Attack boost also pairs very well with Drain Punch, keeping Iron Hands healthy and making it much harder to break.

* **Ice Punch**: Ice Punch provides more immediate damage against pure Ground-types and the ever-present Dragonite.

* **Earthquake**: Earthquake hits Gholdengo, Iron Moth, and Tera Fire Chi-Yu hard. It also does well against foes that try to block Drain Punch with Tera Poison.

Tera Types
========

* **Tera Dependency - High**: Despite having a strong bulk profile, Iron Hands frequently needs to remove its common Ground- and Fairy-type weaknesses to be effective.

* **Fairy**: Tera Fairy removes all of Iron Hands’s most troublesome weaknesses while also granting a powerful Dragon-type immunity. This does, however, make Iron Hands much easier to revenge kill with Gholdengo and Iron Moth.

* **Water**: Tera Water is another solid defensive option that drastically improves the Chi-Yu matchup. Likewise, the resistance to Ice is fantastic against Chien-Pao and Baxcalibur, with the latter no longer being able to rely on Icicle Spear to effectively break through Substitute.

* **Fighting**: Tera Fighting boosts Drain Punch’s output while removing Iron Hands's Ground weakness.

* **Fire**: Tera Fire can block Will-O-Wisp from support Dragapult and Rotom formes, which otherwise outspeed and burn Iron Hands if it doesn’t already have Substitute up.

* **Grass**: Tera Grass can turn the tides against faster Grass-types like Breloom and Wo-Chien, blocking their status moves and buying a free turn to start setting up.

EV Spreads
========

* **92 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 212 SpD / 28 Spe with Impish**: The defensive investment keeps uninvested Dondozo’s Wave Crash from breaking Iron Hands's Substitute, providing superior protection from Fissure spam. After Terastallizing, non-STAB Earthquake from the likes of Dragonite and Baxcalibur often fail to break Substitute as well. On the specially defensive side, a full health Iron Hands can live a Fire Blast from Modest Tera Fire Chi-Yu.

[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/photon.516307/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/derpysux.528485/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/yashgreninja.383911/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sabelette.583793/

 

[DerpySuX]

I would mention tera grass to allow iron hands to better abuse targets like wo-chien and Amoonguss, being able to deny spore is a huge plus especially on something like this which finds a lot of opportunity to come in.

looks good tho, QC APPROVED

 

[Photon]

I would mention tera grass to allow iron hands to better abuse targets like wo-chien and Amoonguss, being able to deny spore is a huge plus especially on something like this which finds a lot of opportunity to come in.

looks good tho, QC APPROVED

Changes made:

• Added Tera Grass to the list of Tera Types, specifically mentioning Breloom and Wo-Chien since they are faster than Iron Hands.
• Speaking of the ruinous quartet, I figured it would be a bit strange not to mention the Chien-Pao and Chi-Yu matchups so notes have been made about those in the Tera Types and EV Spread section.
• Cleaned up the wording in several bullet points to read a bit better.

 

[Theorymon]

btw derpy for future reference, while it doesn't show up when you do the highlight, GP Team does work!

(Also yeah not gonna forget this time LOL)

 

[YashGreninja]

amcheck!
Add Remove Comment

amcheck

[SET]
name: Bulky Substitute
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Drain Punch
move 3: Thunder Punch
move 4: Swords Dance / Ice Punch / Earthquake
item: Leftovers / Sitrus Berry
ability: Quark Drive
nature: Impish
evs: 92 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 212 SpD / 28 Spe
tera type: Fairy / Water / Fighting

[SET COMMENTS]

* Iron Hand’s Iron Hands's incredible bulk gives it one of the game’s strongest Substitutes, giving it a unique list of threats it can set up on.

* **Swords Dance**: Swords Dance is highly recommended, as it lets Iron Hands set up on the passive opponents Substitute often blocks. The boost in Attack also pairs very well with Drain Punch, keeping Iron Hands healthy and making it much harder to break.

* **Ice Punch**: Ice Punch provides more immediate damage against pure Ground-types and the ever-present Dragonite.

* **Earthquake**: Earthquake hits Gholdengo and Iron Moth hard, as well as Tera Fire Chi-Yu. It also does well into with opponents who that try to block Drain Punch with Tera Poison.

Tera Types
========

* **Tera Dependency - High**: Despite having a strong bulk profile, Iron Hands frequently needs to remove its common Ground- and Fairy-type weaknesses to be effective.

* **Fairy**: Tera Fairy removes all of Iron Hand’s Iron Hands's most troublesome weaknesses while also granting a powerful Dragon-type immunity. This does, however, make Iron Hands much easier to revenge kill by Gholdengo and Iron Moth.

* **Water**: Tera Water is another solid defensive option and drastically improves the Chi-Yu matchup. Likewise, the resistance to Ice is fantastic against Chien-Pao and Baxcalibur, with the latter no longer being able to rely on Icicle Spear to effectively break through Substitute.

* **Fighting**: Tera Fighting allows you to boost boosts Drain Punch’s output while still removing your Iron Hands's Ground weakness.

* **Fire**: Tera Fire can block Will-O-Wisp from support Dragapult and the Rotom-formes Rotom formes (remove hyphen), who which otherwise outspeed and burn Iron Hands if it doesn’t already have Substitute up.

* **Grass**: Tera Grass can turn the tides against faster Grass-types like Breloom and Wo-Chien, blocking their status moves and buying a free turn to start setting up.

EV Spreads
========

* **92 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 212 SpD / 28 Spe with Impish**: The defensive investment keeps uninvested Dondozo’s Wave Crash from breaking your Substitute, providing superior protection from Fissure spam. After Terastallizing, non-STAB Earthquake from the likes of Dragonite and Baxcalibur often fail to break Substitute as well. On the specially defensive side, a full health full-health (add hyphen) Iron Hands can live a Fire Blast from Modest Tera Fire Chi-Yu.

[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/photon.516307/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/derpysux.528485/
Grammar checked by:

GP Team

 

[Omastar68]

Should there be an item section too?

 

[Photon]

amcheck!
Add Remove Comment

amcheck

[SET]
name: Bulky Substitute
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Drain Punch
move 3: Thunder Punch
move 4: Swords Dance / Ice Punch / Earthquake
item: Leftovers / Sitrus Berry
ability: Quark Drive
nature: Impish
evs: 92 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 212 SpD / 28 Spe
tera type: Fairy / Water / Fighting

[SET COMMENTS]

* Iron Hand’s Iron Hands's incredible bulk gives it one of the game’s strongest Substitutes, giving it a unique list of threats it can set up on.

* **Swords Dance**: Swords Dance is highly recommended, as it lets Iron Hands set up on the passive opponents Substitute often blocks. The boost in Attack also pairs very well with Drain Punch, keeping Iron Hands healthy and making it much harder to break.

* **Ice Punch**: Ice Punch provides more immediate damage against pure Ground-types and the ever-present Dragonite.

* **Earthquake**: Earthquake hits Gholdengo and Iron Moth hard, as well as Tera Fire Chi-Yu. It also does well into with opponents who that try to block Drain Punch with Tera Poison.

Tera Types
========

* **Tera Dependency - High**: Despite having a strong bulk profile, Iron Hands frequently needs to remove its common Ground- and Fairy-type weaknesses to be effective.

* **Fairy**: Tera Fairy removes all of Iron Hand’s Iron Hands's most troublesome weaknesses while also granting a powerful Dragon-type immunity. This does, however, make Iron Hands much easier to revenge kill by Gholdengo and Iron Moth.

* **Water**: Tera Water is another solid defensive option and drastically improves the Chi-Yu matchup. Likewise, the resistance to Ice is fantastic against Chien-Pao and Baxcalibur, with the latter no longer being able to rely on Icicle Spear to effectively break through Substitute.

* **Fighting**: Tera Fighting allows you to boost boosts Drain Punch’s output while still removing your Iron Hands's Ground weakness.

* **Fire**: Tera Fire can block Will-O-Wisp from support Dragapult and the Rotom-formes Rotom formes (remove hyphen), who which otherwise outspeed and burn Iron Hands if it doesn’t already have Substitute up.

* **Grass**: Tera Grass can turn the tides against faster Grass-types like Breloom and Wo-Chien, blocking their status moves and buying a free turn to start setting up.

EV Spreads
========

* **92 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 212 SpD / 28 Spe with Impish**: The defensive investment keeps uninvested Dondozo’s Wave Crash from breaking your Substitute, providing superior protection from Fissure spam. After Terastallizing, non-STAB Earthquake from the likes of Dragonite and Baxcalibur often fail to break Substitute as well. On the specially defensive side, a full health full-health (add hyphen) Iron Hands can live a Fire Blast from Modest Tera Fire Chi-Yu.

[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/photon.516307/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/derpysux.528485/
Grammar checked by:

GP Team

Sorry for the delay, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to wait for a "GP Done" message before making my changes. The edits have been made.

 

[YashGreninja]

Sorry for the delay, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to wait for a "GP Done" message before making my changes. The edits have been made.

With amchecks, you can take whatever edits from the check you deem are valuable changes / changes that needed to be made. However, you should wait for an official GPer to go through your analysis with a fine comb and give you the green light to make any necessary changes. I would say right now to just wait until someone from the GP Team can check this.

 

[Sabelette]

GP 1/1 GP Team done

Addition Removal Comment
(AC) (AH) Add Comma/Add Hyphen, (RC) (RH) Remove Comma/Remove Hyphen

Hide

So after investigating some top teams from last season, there is a bit more diversity in the non-AV Iron Hands sets than I was expecting to find. Sets range from only Substitute, only Swords Dance, and even one that used Water-type Tera Blast!

Nonetheless, the EV spread below was the standard from what I could tell, and the hallmark of this spread is keeping Dondozo's Wave Crash from breaking Substitute. As such, I have written this set to centralize around the use of Substitute. Swords Dance is still strongly recommended but a couple of other options are listed as well.

[SET]
name: Bulky Substitute
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Drain Punch
move 3: Thunder Punch
move 4: Swords Dance / Ice Punch / Earthquake
item: Leftovers / Sitrus Berry
ability: Quark Drive
nature: Impish
evs: 92 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 212 SpD / 28 Spe
tera type: Fairy / Water / Fighting

[SET COMMENTS]

* Iron Hands’s incredible bulk gives it one of the game’s strongest Substitutes, giving it letting it set up on a unique list of threats it can set up on.

* **Swords Dance**: Swords Dance lets Iron Hands set up on the passive opponents foes it blocks with Substitute often blocks. The boost in Attack boost also pairs very well with Drain Punch, keeping Iron Hands healthy and making it much harder to break.

* **Ice Punch**: Ice Punch provides more immediate damage against pure Ground-types and the ever-present Dragonite.

* **Earthquake**: Earthquake hits Gholdengo, (AC) and Iron Moth, (AC) and Tera Fire Chi-Yu hard, as well as Tera Fire Chi-Yu. It also does well with opponents against foes that try to block Drain Punch with Tera Poison.

Tera Types
========

* **Tera Dependency - High**: Despite having a strong bulk profile, Iron Hands frequently needs to remove its common Ground- and Fairy-type weaknesses to be effective.

* **Fairy**: Tera Fairy removes all of Iron Hands’s most troublesome weaknesses while also granting a powerful Dragon-type immunity. This does, however, make Iron Hands much easier to revenge kill by with Gholdengo and Iron Moth.

* **Water**: Tera Water is another solid defensive option and that drastically improves the Chi-Yu matchup. Likewise, the resistance to Ice is fantastic against Chien-Pao and Baxcalibur, with the latter no longer being able to rely on Icicle Spear to effectively break through Substitute.

* **Fighting**: Tera Fighting boosts Drain Punch’s output while removing Iron Hands's Ground weakness.

* **Fire**: Tera Fire can block Will-O-Wisp from support Dragapult and the Rotom formes, which otherwise outspeed and burn Iron Hands if it doesn’t already have Substitute up.

* **Grass**: Tera Grass can turn the tides against faster Grass-types like Breloom and Wo-Chien, blocking their status moves and buying a free turn to start setting up.

EV Spreads
========

* **92 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 212 SpD / 28 Spe with Impish**: The defensive investment keeps uninvested Dondozo’s Wave Crash from breaking your Iron Hands's Substitute, providing superior protection from Fissure spam. After Terastallizing, non-STAB Earthquake from the likes of Dragonite and Baxcalibur often fail to break Substitute as well. On the specially defensive side, a full-health (RH) Iron Hands can live a Fire Blast from Modest Tera Fire Chi-Yu.

[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/photon.516307/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/derpysux.528485/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/yashgreninja.383911/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sabelette.583793/

 

[Photon]

Implemented. This is ready for the Dex.

 

[DerpySuX]

This is now onsite :)