SS OU Triple Ice Hazards HO - PEAKED #8, 1965 ft. Cloyster and Scarf Ninetales-Alola

[SetsuSetsuna]

Triple Ice Hazards HO

1. Introduction
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This is a Hyper Offense with Lead Mew, Life Orb Cloyster, Garchomp and Weavile as breakers, and SubSwarm Leftis Volcarona and the uncommon Scarf Atales as cleaners. The team is heavily inspired by 5 others from across multiple generations. For starters 2 SM teams in SubSwarm Volc + Vincune Offense and ZardX Double Fire HO both of which were posted here by royalfluxh so s/o to them. While I had known about those for a while, the one that made me want to rethink the idea for SS was this ORAS team by Santu so s/o to them as well. Finally this team I spammed for an entire 2 months in OU roomtours and ofc The Dark Fantasy by Mimikyu Stardust so s/o to him as well.

2. Proof of Peak

3. Sets

Mew @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 112 HP / 144 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Will-O-Wisp
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This Mew has both Spikes and Rocks. Colbur Berry allows it to live opposing Knock Offs, mainly the ones from Life Orb or Choice Band Weavile/Kartana. The HP and SpDef EVs allow it to always live a Shadow Ball from Modest Specs Dragapult, which regular Max HP Mew can't do 100% of the time. Taunt is really important to prevent opposing hazards, mainly rocks which 4 members of the team are weak to, as well as to prevent defog attempts. Finally the last move is Will-O-Wisp to cripple opposing Melmetal, Excadrill, Bisharp, Rillaboom, Tyranitar, Weavile and Kartana, all of which are really common leads vs Mew, as well as Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Garchomp and Landorus-Therian.

Volcarona @ Leftovers
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Quiver Dance
- Flamethrower
- Bug Buzz​

This is one of the 2 main cleaners for the team, and the most dangerous one vs unprepared teams. Substitute allows it to safely get into Swarm range. This set is able to beat Flash Fire Heatran one on one, since Substitute denys Toxic attempts while putting Magma Storm's accuracy at test. With a bit of surprise and 50-50 plays you can even beat Blissey; +3 Bug Buzz does 40 which can be recovered, but it does 60 once you subbed into Swarm range. The speed EV's allow it to outspeed Timid Lele. The most important calcs here are +1 Bug Buzz boosted by Swarm OHKOs offensive Garchomp and non AV Tapu Lele; +2 Bug Buzz does the same vs 0 HP Dragapult after 1 round of rocks. A fully healthy SpDef Landorus-Therian can sometimes (very rarely but it happens) take on 2 +1 Flamethrowers, so make sure to chip it in some way or another. Finally, Volcarona is also the member that takes advantage of Tapu Lele being locked into Moonblast, Kartana locked into Sacred Sword or Leaf Blade, and Rillaboom.

Cloyster (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Skill Link
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shell Smash
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion
- Icicle Spear
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At this point I want to repeat how important it is to keep rocks off at all costs. Since Taunt Lead Mew can't always do this from lead, let alone mid game, the team has Rapid Spin Cloyster to help vs hazards. Life Orb Icicle Spear helps Cloy prevent/punish Defog and Spin attempts from Corvi, Torn, Lando and Excadrill. +2 Explosion has a 99.6 min roll vs Max Def Toxapex, a 97.4 min roll vs Max Def Slowbro and chips Buzzwole extremely hard. The former helps Weavile and Volcarona a lot, specially since Volcarona doesn't have Psychic. The latter helps ofc Garchomp. Finally, Jolly nature allows it to outspeed scarf Kartana and everything slower at +2. This pokemon is NOT your way of winning most of the time. It's there as support and as a possible extra breaker if the chance presents itself (most notably vs stall).

Weavile @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Triple Axel
- Knock Off
- Ice Shard ​

SD LO Weavile is the main breaker. Great speed which allows it to most notably outrun Tapu Lele and Kartana. It's a Shadow Ball resist; if a ghost type like Blacephalon or Dragapult KOs lead Mew, then Weavile is your go to right after. The dark type also let's it resist Knock Off from scarf Kartana which can be annoying mid game. The Ice Type as well as it's huge power let's it prevent/punish defog attempts from, again, Corvi, Torn, Lando, Zapdos and Excadrill. Triple Axel and Knock Off are particularly great vs stall, remember that. Knock Off has a 96 and 97.1 min roll vs Tapu Lele and Offensive Volcarona respectively, with Triple Axel straight up OHKOing the former if it gets all 3 hits. Finally at +2 Life Orb Knock Off has a min 74.6 roll vs Max Def Toxapex, which lets you almost always kill Pex after a round of rocks and 1 spike (or just outright kill if there are rocks and more than 1 spike).

Garchomp @ Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Scale Shot
- Fire Fang ​

The go to ground in most HO Teams. We opt for Fire Fang over another option like Aqua Tail since Landorus shouldn't be a particular issue with 3 ice types on the team. Life Orb gives it some extra needed power to deal better with Tornadus-Therian and Zapdos, while also not being recovery fodder for Unaware mons on stall. Rough Skin allows the team to get some extra chip on Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Melmetal and even Weavile and Kartana if needed. This is the primarly answer to Volcarona and non boosted Blaziken, so try to keep it healthy for those. It also is the main way of scaring out Volcanion. As a reminder Life Orb Earthquake has a min roll of 96 and 96.4 on Tapu Lele and Offensive Volcarona, respectively.

Ninetales-Alola (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Snow Warning
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blizzard
- Moonblast
- Freeze-Dry
- Foul Play​

Scarf Atales is the other main cleaner for this team, while also patching the rain weakness to the point where the rain MU is a joke most of the time. Blizzard and Freeze Dry keep on being some of the strongest attacks to switch into in the tier; when backed up by spikes and hail even Steels take considerable damage that adds up very fast. Stab Moonblast let's it hit the Ice resist Weavile for 91.8 damage min, while also OHKOing Urshifu-Rapid-Strike and heavily chipping Tyranitar. Foul Play lets Atales hit Blacephalon, Victini, Aegislash, as well as boosted pokemon such as +2 Excadrill. Just as Kartana can, Scarf Atales outspeeds the bulky variants of Blaziken at +2 speed and hits them decently strong with Moonblast.

Why Scarf Atales instead of Veil? You do not need Veil. You are using Atales as a cleaner. Why not use a different cleaner like scarf Kartana or Blacephalon? Atales is faster than Blacephalon, while being able to spam it's attacks mid game way more freely than Kartana ever could since it doesn't have to worry about contact damage/abilities. While it can be fairly weak vs fat (just like scarf Kartana feels sometimes) it has an amazing MU vs most offensive mons. Landorus, Garchomp, Dragapult, Weavile, Urshifu, Blacephalon, Kartana and Tornadus-T are the main victims, but Scarf Lele, Tapu Koko, Tapu Fini and Rotom-Wash tend to lose fairly often too.

4. Major Threats

It's able to KO everything on this team except for Mew and Garchomp which it cleanly 2HKOs. While Mew can taunt Blaziken so it doesn't get to +2, Blaziken can just Protect and then SD as it is faster than Mew. Thus you do not want to lead Mew vs Blaziken teams and would rather lead Cloyster and Explode, or Garchomp and EQ or double into whatever can handle their team. Remember that +2 Bulky Blaziken is slower than Scarf Ninetales.

​

While almost nothing on this team lets Hawlucha get to +2, it can still find room vs lead Mew or Atales locked into Foul Play. Screens + Hawlucha is particularly annoying, but even without them it is probably going to claim at least 1 and a half mons when it comes out. Cloyster never gets OHKO from full (252+ Atk Hawlucha Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Cloyster: 204-240 (84.6 - 99.5%) ) and neither does Atales. You also have Ice Shard and Rough Skin so the mu is very doable, but Hawlucha is going to make a big hole most of the time.

​

Webs and specially Ribombee Webs can be straight up impossible. The best bet vs Ribombee is to lead Volcarona and go for the Stun Spore Miss. You can try to Spin at some point with Cloyster, but it will be very hard. Against Slurpuff you can straight up QD, and against Shuckle you can try to Spin from the get go.

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Just like a lot other HOs and Offenses, the team struggles greatly vs Trick Room. Substitute Volcarona can help stall out turns once, but it doesn't 2HKO Alowak. Garchomp lives a hit from unboosted Alowak and OHKOs back, but Poltergeist + Life Orb recoil can KO Garchomp. Weavile is your best bet all game long while Atales is the most useless, so be pro active with Weavile and don't hesitate to sack Atales.

5. Replays


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This is how most games vs rain go. Scarf Atales outspeeds Barraskewda so the latter can't Flip Turn. You just have to chip Ferro in some way or another and try to not risk paralysis vs Thunder Zapos. Even in this very favorable mu you want to keep rocks off, as Atales is still weak to them and Crawdaunt's or Barra's Aqua Jet can turn the mu on it's head if you are not careful.

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Early on Cloyster hits Melmetal by a decent amount. With Melmetal chipped and 2 Ice types still in the back, Volcarona switches in and flames for chip on SpDef Lando. Later on Melmetal switches again vs Volcarona as it Subs and Quiver Dances this time. Volcarona then 2HKOs Lando and cleans from there, including a clean OHKO on Garchomp thanks to a Bug Buzz boosted by Swarm.

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In this game vs Storm Zone Landorus reveals to be Choice Scarf from the get go. The Dragapult is revealed to be Thunder Wave very early on too. Thus the goal is to chip Dragapult, find a way for Lando to take at least 2 rounds of rocks (but 1 might work too) and position Volcarona to set up. The first of these is achieved rather quickly on a switch in. The chip on Lando comes from it switching in once to scare out Garchomp. Finally, after Koko (which revealed to be Specs turn 12) KOs Garchomp with Dazzling Gleam, Volcarona can freely set up and win the game.

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Atales has the potential to OHKO or beat 5 of the pokemon on this team. Thus the goal just becomes to chip Melmetal with Weavile/Cloyster or force it in constantly so Volcarona can make progress vs the team, and win the sack war. Weavile comes in after Kartana claims a kill with Knock Off, and Melmetal comes in right away since the rest of the team is rather weak to SD Weavile. With Melmetal gone the turn after the game just becomes a game of sacks in which Atales has the advantage.

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Many sand builds right now use Excadrill, Choice Band Tyranitar and Thunder Wave Clefable/Rotom-Wash to help deal with Volcarona. Sub Volcarona beats both Drill and Tyranitar, while using Rotom-Wash and Clefable as an opportunity to set up.

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Against most stalls the idea is the same. You stack hazards, use Weavile and Cloyster to weaken Unaware mons, Toxapex, Buzzwole and if possible the birds, and try to clean up with Garchomp. Weavile missing Axel vs Clefable, Buzzwole or even Quagsire can just be an autolose.

5.5 Some more fun replays

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Sniping aim, who decided to go hard Landorus on Atales to try to Defog. The Volcarona mu here is very hard either way though.

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I dodged Stun Spore:D (they were not happy about it). As you can see though the mu looks straight up impossible, so there really isn't other play.

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The opposing Ninetales used Foul Play. Excadrill lost 97% of its health!. Excadrill fainted!

6. Importable


https://pokepast.es/002adeebdf8412c5
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A big thank you to the people whose teams inspired this one. Thank you to Stunfisk2140 for bringing up scarf Atales to my attention a few months ago. Thank you to Storm Zone for telling me to use Foul Play back then and for telling me the set was worth looking at. Thank you to sufys12 for the peak ss. Thank you to Weaselfie, Typhlosion4, Bluecliqse, innovamania and ironwater for being very cool. Thank you to Aqours and Setsuna for being the best thing in my life. And thank you to everyone who read up to this point, hope you find the team fun!

 

[Vroxxz]

Yoooo I love this team, its so fun to play with, especially Volcarona. I changed Cloyster a little bit to my liking and added Liquidation over Rapid Spin and put a Sash on it which I prefer more, so I can have a secondary revenge killer for Heatran if Garchomp is dead.

Great work overall!

 

[blooclipse]

Thank you to Weaselfie and Bluecliqse for being very cool. Thank you to Aqours and Setsuna for being the best thing in my life. And thank you to everyone who read up to this point, hope you find the team fun!​

real

also great team i had fun using this to slowly lose my mind on suspect ladder

 

[awyp]

So I'm not going to rate this team because it needs it but because its REALLY different and I had the experience to play (approx 30 games) with it because of this very transparent post here: Suspect Post (Melmetal)

One thing is weather is not a threat to this team because you do not have any Slush Rush Pokémon, so the importance of Ninetails is to keep other weather teams (Sun and Rain specifically) in check (AKA only reason to keep it alive aside from a scarf sweeper is to stop weather teams which is a common problem with HO teams in general because of speed checks).

You listed all the threats so I won't go break it down further aside from ways to suggest to prevent some threats.

Like Mimikyu Stardust's HO team, they also have a Mew lead. I wouldn't recommend changing the EVs since I think it gives you enough bulk, what I would suggest is considering Thunder-Wave to try to cripple certain sweepers that are not Excadrill or Garchomp like Blaziken which can be problematic for this team, it also gives you the potential to paralyze the Pokémon out and get some free spikes while you can.

Weavile is perfect, including with the Adamant nature, I tried Never-Melt Ice as an item since I feel Life Orb with Stealth Rocks sometimes was imposing too much damage on Weavile if you didn't want to go to Cloyster for the Rapid Spin and also incur 25% even there might be a Melmetal on the opposing team that you cannot touch (So might not be worth to to switch-ins Rapid Spin than Shell Smash). Back to my point Life Orb gives 1.3x extra damage on top of both ice moves and dark moves which is key with this set.

This is the part I feel 50/50 about (Volcarona) is fantastic definitely my favorite Pokémon on the team but Cloyster has too much responsibility like I listed above to come in death fodder (NEEDING to rapid spin for the other Pokémon on the team) and dying which I think is fine in Hyper Offense because you're supposed to use what will beat the other teams and sometimes certain Pokémon will just be causality to lift the other Pokémon on the team. Leftovers will let you free up a substitute eventually (With 6% HP each turn) and it is a fantastic way to manually activate Swarm and also just substitute stall and fish vs a miss against something with an inaccurate move like Magma Storm on Heatran (I've literally beat Heatrans with this set because I get enough Magma Storm misses and eventually activate Swarm which will do a lot of damage on a something that resists Bug x 1/4. That speaks volume to how good Leftovers and this set specifically is, but I will suggest Heavy-Duty Boots (Taking 50% damage on SR sucks) as an option to take some pressure off of Cloyster but it is not a strong suggestion based on how much I do appreciate Leftovers on Volc.

Like others have suggested with Cloyster I personally went with Rock Blast > Explosion to hit water types that would come in and try to wall Cloyster, Explosion is a good option but it just doesn't hit as hard as you want it like in previous generations.

For Garchomp, I would suggest Lum Berry because once Garchomp gets burned (Life Orb + Burn Damage + Hail Damage) turns it into Suicide Chomp just preparing to die and do as much rampage as it can. Lum Berry will give you a potentially free turn to setup Scale Shot / Swords Dance depending on the opposition. I'm not too firm on this opinion but is definitely a worthy option to try.

Ninetails is perfect, I've gotten so much ("Hurhur I never seen that before WTF!") on the ladder because Choice Scarf (Out speeding a lot of sweepers) is so unexpected but I'm sure this team will be used on the ladder a bit for the next month, so I don't see that being a surprise move anymore.

Anyway thank you for posting this team, it's a good HO team that's pretty different and really shows how good Hyper Offense can be in Generation 8 OU.

 

[SetsuSetsuna]

So I'm not going to rate this team because it needs it but because its REALLY different and I had the experience to play (approx 30 games) with it because of this very transparent post here: Suspect Post (Melmetal)

One thing is weather is not a threat to this team because you do not have any Slush Rush Pokémon, so the importance of Ninetails is to keep other weather teams (Sun and Rain specifically) in check (AKA only reason to keep it alive aside from a scarf sweeper is to stop weather teams which is a common problem with HO teams in general because of speed checks).

You listed all the threats so I won't go break it down further aside from ways to suggest to prevent some threats.

Like Mimikyu Stardust's HO team, they also have a Mew lead. I wouldn't recommend changing the EVs since I think it gives you enough bulk, what I would suggest is considering Thunder-Wave to try to cripple certain sweepers that are not Excadrill or Garchomp like Blaziken which can be problematic for this team, it also gives you the potential to paralyze the Pokémon out and get some free spikes while you can.

Weavile is perfect, including with the Adamant nature, I tried Never-Melt Ice as an item since I feel Life Orb with Stealth Rocks sometimes was imposing too much damage on Weavile if you didn't want to go to Cloyster for the Rapid Spin and also incur 25% even there might be a Melmetal on the opposing team that you cannot touch (So might not be worth to to switch-ins Rapid Spin than Shell Smash). Back to my point Life Orb gives 1.3x extra damage on top of both ice moves and dark moves which is key with this set.

This is the part I feel 50/50 about (Volcarona) is fantastic definitely my favorite Pokémon on the team but Cloyster has too much responsibility like I listed above to come in death fodder (NEEDING to rapid spin for the other Pokémon on the team) and dying which I think is fine in Hyper Offense because you're supposed to use what will beat the other teams and sometimes certain Pokémon will just be causality to lift the other Pokémon on the team. Leftovers will let you free up a substitute eventually (With 6% HP each turn) and it is a fantastic way to manually activate Swarm and also just substitute stall and fish vs a miss against something with an inaccurate move like Magma Storm on Heatran (I've literally beat Heatrans with this set because I get enough Magma Storm misses and eventually activate Swarm which will do a lot of damage on a something that resists Bug x 1/4. That speaks volume to how good Leftovers and this set specifically is, but I will suggest Heavy-Duty Boots (Taking 50% damage on SR sucks) as an option to take some pressure off of Cloyster but it is not a strong suggestion based on how much I do appreciate Leftovers on Volc.

Like others have suggested with Cloyster I personally went with Rock Blast > Explosion to hit water types that would come in and try to wall Cloyster, Explosion is a good option but it just doesn't hit as hard as you want it like in previous generations.

For Garchomp, I would suggest Lum Berry because once Garchomp gets burned (Life Orb + Burn Damage + Hail Damage) turns it into Suicide Chomp just preparing to die and do as much rampage as it can. Lum Berry will give you a potentially free turn to setup Scale Shot / Swords Dance depending on the opposition. I'm not too firm on this opinion but is definitely a worthy option to try.

Ninetails is perfect, I've gotten so much ("Hurhur I never seen that before WTF!") on the ladder because Choice Scarf (Out speeding a lot of sweepers) is so unexpected but I'm sure this team will be used on the ladder a bit for the next month, so I don't see that being a surprise move anymore.

Anyway thank you for posting this team, it's a good HO team that's pretty different and really shows how good Hyper Offense can be in Generation 8 OU.

Thank you very much for your post, I am glad you liked the team. You nailed the 2 changes I could see for the team that being Thunder Wave > Will-O-Wisp on Mew and a different item on Garchomp. I think Will-O-Wisp is overall much better for this team but it's not 100% required, while Thunder Wave helps the Blaziken mu a lot while also decently crippling Melmetal. As for Life Orb on Garchomp it's mostly a preference of mine since I like dealing with Tornadus better while also being able to KO a 40%-45% Quagsire/Clefable which non Soft Sand/Life Orb can't do. Roseli would help with the scarf Lele mu, while Lum is another nice item.

While Ninetales-Alola is definetely still on the rare side, it is something more and more people have been starting to catch up to. The usage stats for September in 1825 show Scarf at 15.330%. That being said I still tried to include replays that don't include "cheese" OHKOs with Atales and rather vs players that knew it was coming like Storm Zone and Sp0on. But you can for sure still catch people off guard.

Thank you again for your comments:)

 

[Max op boy]

I like the idea but its sort of weak to steel fighting rock and fire I’d replace the nine tales with offence heatran maybe useing a hawlucha as a wall breaker I’ve lately been playing with hawlucha and it’s been successful I’m also 1540 elo rn

 

[Smashburn]

I remember facing this in tours with Bloo, completely racked my brain and left me traumatized and scarred for life. Very cool team!

 

[Max op boy]

I remember facing this in tours with Bloo, completely racked my brain and left me traumatized and scarred for life. Very cool team!

Do you have a replay

 

[Youcant21]

how do i defeat flashfire heatran ?

 

[SetsuSetsuna]

how do i defeat flashfire heatran ?

One way is to overwhelm it. Heatran just as other steels is tasked with a lot against this team. All the hits it takes add up til it's weak enough to take on the rest of the team. Something very easy you can do is trade your Weavile for a big hit on Heatran. Take this replay for example; I sacked my Weavile to do 60% to Heatran so now it can't effectively check anything else and they just sack it the next turn

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Something else to keep in mind is that this Volcarona set can actually beat both Heatran and Blissey by outplaying them and by getting a bit lucky in Heatran's case. After 3 QDs, Magma Storm from offensive Timid Heatran NEVER breaks Sub, while Modest has a 12.5% chance of doing so. Add that to Magma Storm's acc and suddenly Volcarona is beating Heatran. In this replay I know this particular Heatran is not Toxic nor Taunt so I don't even have to play the sub/qd mindgame.

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[Scorcha9]

Nice team! I didn't realize how well this Ninetales-Alola set matches up against rain, that's crazy, considering most HOs struggle against rain. Well done :)

 

[irobutz]

ty for the team! :)