Hey everyone! This'll be my first post, and after I've secured rank 1 and rank 4 and 5 (also 13 i guess), I feel like I have comfortably gained enough knowledge on this tier to drop my insight. A lot of people may recognize me as edward (vu edward, vu eddie, eddieGP), I've been consistently peaking rank 1 (multiple times) on at least one of the OM's of the month every month, but inheritance has been one of my favorites. I've been able to get above 1450 very comfortably with a couple different teams. I wanna describe a couple mons that helped me get there.
+ any samurott-h inheritors or spike setter
Why haven't I seen this running around absolutely everywhere? IDK because if you build a decent team w this, getting to 1400+ is easy. When ape inherits from breloom, the poison heal allows this mon to beat so many stables in the meta. The set I have been using stops basically every spinner barring maybe a cryo gholdengo. This is the idea I was building my team around to get to 1630: set up spikes w a samurott inh and never let the other team spin. Most teams have been using cyclizar inheritors as their sole hazard control and after ape activates its orb, it is a consistent spin blocker and wall to i believe every possible set there is. Worry seed is to beat other poison heal users and garg sets that can be toxic'd. Pult cant OHKO this set which allows ape to get a toxic off, protect for more health, than switch out to a check. Ape is able to check so many mons in this meta including most walls in the game, any garg set, any cyc set, heck even strong special attackers like bundle. I would say the only way to beat this shit is either overwhelming them with predictions and attacks, strong physical hits, knocking off before it gets its orb, or your own poison heal worry seeder.
Build a team around this, make sure to cover annihilape's weaknesses (pult, strong physical attackers, etc), force people to switch around a lot and you will win easy games.
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Annihilape: 283-338 (66.7 - 79.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
Annihilape @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Drain Punch
- Toxic
- Worry Seed
- Protect
The big sets running around are dragalge or mixed sheer force, but I believe the better set is mixed sheer force. This set is borderline broken because it is unbelievably easy to deal with the counters to this mon with a well built team. Max HP AV hoodra gets destroyed by shadow ball into cc. Pult's speed allows it to beat big threats in the meta like iron bundle and iron valiant. The coverage with ice beam and thunderbolt allow it to deal with ting-lu and toxapex. In order to really deal with this mon, you need to catch your opponent with a scarf mon, you need to use multiple mons to deal with it, or have a good garg inheritor to wall it.
Shoutout to the people running around with banded cinderace pult. It hits surprisingly hard and can destroy teams that don't have a good physical wall.
This mon inheriting from garg imo is one of the best walls in the game. With salt cure, this mon can deal with set up magearna, wall pult, beats cyclizar hoodra or gambit w salt cure/body press, wall basically any physical attacker after an iron defense, etc. Can't be status'd so you gotta be a strong ass breaker to kill this thing. Cress can just win games with iron defense and is also a great mon against any unaware mons because it can't be toxic'd. But the thing I love MOST about this mon is that it slaps around sheer force dragapult. On my team, I use a max hp max def set with ZERO spdef investment and it takes 35.8 - 42.7% from sheer force life orb shadow ball. With ANY spdef investment, pult is not a threat to this set (barring a crit).
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Purifying Salt Cresselia: 159-190 (35.8 - 42.7%) -- 94.9% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
I also think the best sam user is Urshifu-Rapid-Strike. I've used scarfed before (which is a demon), being able to beat pult and revenge a lot of mons. The set I am using is protective pads SD. Usually I don't even need to SD, but being able to switch attacks makes this mon really hard to switch into. I also think sash is very viable for the right kind of teams.
Okay this thing is just straight up stupid. I've pasted the set that has gotten me success. This sweeper was what I 6-0'd most people under 1300 with. It guarantee lives two consecutive superpowers from max attack enam valiant (meaning it can always switch in on it unless mag is not full or val has a boosting item/adamant nature). This shit walls most sets garchomp/lando/great tusk/enamorus can run. After a couple boosts, this thing also beats basically every mon there is except garg users. It easily sets up on AV hoodra late game and can't be phased out my dragon tail. The only things that beat this are fat pp-stalling unaware mons or garg sets. Another set that is running around is the frosmoth set, which is also good but doesn't have recovery. I've personally never used the set but I've seen others use it, and for GOD'S SAKE please run shield dust for salt cure or tbolt para's. Ice scales is very situational, being useful against maybe pult and bundle but other than that it doest help you sweep. After a couple calm minds ice scales is barely noticeable. I should've lost to this set so many times but all the sets I see are ice scales so I beat them with salt cure or boosting with my own cress mag and tbolt para.
Magearna @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
- Moonlight
Let me preface this section by saying I have reached rank 1 a couple times with multiple accounts and I have not ever used Enam Iron Valiant, but it is most definitely a big threat. I've seen a substitute set run around that is pretty good and can beat mons its not supposed to. Perrserker sets also hit like a truck and can destroy teams that aren't prepared. On one of my earlier teams, I used a Hisui-Sam Val which put in so much work with it's insane coverage. To beat this shit, personally I always had a magearna or pult to revenge it. I personally don't like scarf enam val because it can't usually lock into a single move to break anything. (I think enam mixed/physical is the best set)
Iron Valiant @ Expert Belt
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Sacred Sword
- Ceaseless Edge
- Air Slash
- Ice Beam
(I haven't used this set in a while but I still think it is good)
Not much to say, this is the reason most special attackers are useless. Predict pult cc's, and dont get trapped by a magnet pull great tusk and you should be fine to wall half the metagame.
Do I think anything is ban worthy? If I had to pick something it'd be ceaseless edge or poison heal. The annihilape hazard stack strat has been working way too easily for me. Some games, I can tell turn 1 that I am gonna win (if ceaseless edge is able to get up easily and if they don't have a solid hazard remover). I wrote this post completely off of my personal experiences and a lot of sets here won't be good without a well built team around it. There are many other mons that are relevant and strong in the meta that I have not included because I have not used them or I think there is enough counterplay to deal with them. I also want to shoutout AB The Goat and ElRompeTesoOLT, rank 2 and 3 right now. These two players were also
abusing the annihilape set and built crazy coercive stall teams around it and it is DIFFICULT AS SHIT to beat them. I don't think I've beaten ElRompeTesoOLT yet and I've beaten AB ONLY when I made doubles and predictions like a madman. I'm gonna try to be more active in this community so let me know what yall think or if you have any questions about my thought process.
I've used it a couple times on teams just to ohko hoodra (if it has no def investment and its chipped or you can use rocky helmet to kill off the u-turn) and it works well with pokemon like adaptability iron bundle since water resistances are rarer than you'd think. Also it's a great wall against physical attackers, checks most samurott-hisui users, has volt for momentum, and rest for longevity. Can sometimes just sweep teams that are physical attacker based w/ iron def. Its just that its honestly hard to fit on a team.
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) is literally necessary to combat an Iron Bundle’s Hydro Pump / Urshifu-Rapid-Strike’s ( 
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