Hi all, motherhate here with my first RMT which, surprisingly enough, will be a Balanced Hackmon RMT. Reason being that recently I've been getting a little bored of how the BH ladder seemed to be. With every team being some similar bulky balance with the same 5 mons and repeating the same series of plays every game. So I'm glad I can bring up a team that I've had a ton of fun using. And while not being some super gimmicky shit, I feel adds something somewhat new to the pool of similar teams BH already has.
So yeah, here's the team :o
Building History(you can skip this part):
There's three reasons that led me to build this team, first one being a team I had during the Protean meta that I absolutely loved using because of how simple and effective it was, it was based around a dual Mega Diancie core, one with Pixilate and tail Glow and the other with Protean running Bolt Strike, Precipice Blades, Espeed and Boomburst providing it with not only the necessary coverage to take out most common counters to the other Diancie, but also with the tools to be a stand alone thread with wallbreaking and revenge killing capacities. I still think the -ate + Protean lure combination was one of the most effective ever, which is why from time to time I’ve been trying to recreate something similar in usage. Lures are nothing new in Pokemon, but good lures are somewhat hard to come by and after a short history of failures I'm glad to finally come up with something that sticks.
Second one being that Poison Heal set-up sweepers, as a whole, have been on the rise for a bit of time now and for good reason, they’re immensely hard to pressure because of how easily they heal, they’re immune to status, defensive pokemons have a hard time even touching them most of the time and because of their naturally good bulk, are harder to revenge kill with the ever so present -atespeed. One that always stood out for me was Regigigas which has the classic combination of bulk and power common with every PH set up sweeper, but has access to a Stab boosted facade which has enough power to give Unaware walls a hard time at tanking two hits, but also deprives Chansey of any powerful Stab move, reducing its ability at checking it significantly.
Now I’ve always had a hard time building an effective team around Poison Heal Regigigas. To put it simply, the meta is a bitch to him. Normal type STAB has its fair share of checks in BH where every team has at least one bulky Steel type to take care of -ates and Giratina is the most prominent Physical wall. So for a while I wanted to build a team based around PH Regigigas paired with a weird lure that could swiftly and consistently take out his most common counters. I’ve had numerous mediocre attempts at good Giratina lures like Tinted lens Blaziken or pixilate random stuff, but nothing that really came even close to being reliable or consistent, and most importantly, swift, because weakening a counter is not enough, I want to OHKO it.
Then one day while I was chilling on Smogon, checking out the stuff I missed in the [thread=3553761]Creative sets in BH thread[/thread], I stumbled upon Nyan Kat’s Final Gambit Slaking set which just strengthened my believe that Nyan Kat is a holy being who descended on earth to teach us plebeians how to properly play BH. This was EXACTLY what I needed, Slaking is not only completely walled by Giratina, but is also one of the rare few offensive mons that has enough HP to OHKO Giratina on Final Gambit which makes it perfect for a lure. That was the third reason that pushed me to build this team, so I immediately hopped on showdown and started building... which ended up being a surprisingly fast process considering I usually tweak a team for weeks.
So evidently the first two mons were the combination of that Godly scrappy slaking and Poison Heal Slaking because that’s the whole reason of why built this team.
I thought I might as well add another Slaking in case I need to remove Registeel and Giratina or something unplanned for happens like killing my Slacking on the wrong mon or taking too much damage.
The necessary -ate check was in order, I went for my trusty RegenVest Megagross because of it’s ability to tank Specs Boomburst and Kill both most used -ate mons, Rayquaza and Diancie. Regenvest is also a lot better to keep momentum on an offensive team.
At this point my team got absolutely molested by MMX so I added Poison heal Giratina with Shadow ball to handle it and shuffle out mons that might set up before me.
I really needed a Special Attacker at this point, conveniently enough I hadn’t used my -ate slot yet and was already packing megagross so Rayquaza was an easy pick.
The only major change I made after that was changing Giratina to Mold Breaker because I had no reliable way to beat Shedinja. It also gave me reliable hazards at the cost of durability.
The Team:
Slaking (M) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Final Gambit
- Extreme Speed
- Fake Out
- Spikes
Now Nyan Kat ran a support set to lure in any magic bouncer, I don't care about magic bouncers, I just wanted to lure Slaking counters and a support mon with a base 160 attack just doesn’t feel right. One of the best thing about Diancie was the fact that it wasn't relegated to just being a lure and being dead weight if the dedicated Pokemons it's suppose to take on are absent, it was also a standalone threat and revenge killer. Slaking had this potential, so I did what anybody would do with a powerful normal type and slapped fakespeed onto it. Just revealing Espeed will often bait in Giratina, it also pairs quite well with Scrappy because it means I can switch on and kill Mega Gengar. Spikes was kept for a multitude of reasons, for one Nyan Kat ran it, it’s much better to click spikes on a predicted Giratina to not reveal scrappy straight away, and Final Gambit means that even if I don’t kill the opponent, hazards will be kept up. There’s also the fact that hazards are just super annoying in general.
Slaking (M) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Final Gambit
- Extreme Speed
- Fake Out
- Rapid Spin
For the second Slaking I opted for Rapid Spin because having two Slots with Spikes really didn’t do anything for me, and who would miss an opportunity to run Scrappy Rapid Spin? Worth noting that because of this change this is often the Slaking I end up leading with out of the two because if I need to commit suicide straight away I'd rather keep the Slaking with hazards, and it makes Chansey just that bit less annoying.
The Evs and Item on both of them are pretty obvious, max Attack and Silk Scarf to hit as hard as possible without locking myself, taking recoil or revealing any item and max HP for Final Gambit purposes. 30 Speed IVs makes both of them one point lower than my Poison Heal Slaking.
Slaking (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 196 Atk / 68 Def
Adamant Nature
- Facade
- Knock Off
- Shift Gear
- Dank Void
Now for the star of the show, tremble in fear in front of the King of Poison Healers, Powerful enough that you can’t wall it, Bulky enough that you can’t revenge kill it and fast enough that you can’t, well… beat it. This somewhat weird EV spread is to survive a +2 Extremespeed from Refrigerate Kyurem Black since the King’s Shield + Swords Dance set molests my entire team. Facade + Knock off is great Coverage and annoys the shit out of Chansey, the combination of Shift Gear and Dank Void is what makes Slaking into the monster it is, outspeeding the entire meta after a Shift Gear and either using his 140 base power Stab move to run through teams, or incapacitating the opposition with a Dark Void, giving it not only set up opportunities, but also additional recovery. Dark Void is important to deal with offensive threats that Slaking can't OHKO at +1 like Diancie, Imposter Chansey and Groudon or defensive walls that would otherwise give it a hard time like Groudon and Maudino. People often rely on Safety Goggles to check sleep spam and avoiding that is well worth the lowered accuracy from Dank Void since sleep is so hard to handle for most teams. This thing manhandles unprepared teams and usually only has one or two answers on any given team.
Keep in mind that it is in your best interest to make all three Slakings as similar as possible, which is why they are all males and none of them are shiny.
Metagross-Mega @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- U-turn
- Icicle Crash
- Bullet Punch
- Rapid Spin / Circle Throw?
The most obvious slot on this team, switches on Rayquaza (including Specs Boomburst), switches on Diancie, kills both. The neat typing also helps against Tinted Lens Latios and such.
Now just because it's basic doesn't mean it's bad and AV Metagross constantly impresses me with his ability to never die, tanking two Magma Storms from Standard Ray and living hits after a Tail Glow or some insane shit like that (which hopefully can be demonstrated in the replays).
Circle Throw is untested, but should realistically help me deal with contrary mons or Special Bulky Set-Ups like Kyogre or Latias.
Giratina @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Pursuit
- Roar
- Roost
Giratina was added to perform a very modest role, switching on MMX which would otherwise destroy me, but ends up doing so much more and is definitely the unseen hero of this team, in an average battle Giratina would remove the #1 most annoying mon in BH, set up Stealth Rocks and… die. It almost never sees a battle to the end and while that may not seem impressive, Giratina just saves my ass constantly. Whirlwind is just a second chance at winning after Kyogre, Groudon or Tyranitar has set up which is huge. Giratina is doomed to die almost every time it comes in because I just can’t risk other set ups and would rather rocks than live. A rather sad role, which is why I dedicate this RMT to him. This is for you Gira, trusty boy Gira saving my ass. Shoutouts to all Giratinas everywhere holding the meta together.
Rayquaza-Mega @ Sky Plate
Ability: Aerilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 216 Atk / 40 Def / 252 SpA
Rash Nature
- Secret Sword / Boomburst
- Extreme Speed
- Techno Blast
- Fake Out
There is very little reason to not run your own -ate mon on an offensive team, it consistently puts work against any playstyle and in this case, provides the team with much needed Special offence, which is why the Special Attack receives Maximum investment. Before you ask I feel like Specs fits better on fatter builds which is why I opted for Sky Plate, Sky Plate FakeSpeed is also really important to Revenge Kill anything that gets out of hand. You might think that with two Slakings I already have enough FakeSpeed but NO, YOU NEVER HAVE ENOUGH FAKESPEED. I need the revenge killing potential way too often to ever remove either Fake Out or Espeed, I've been alternating between Boomburst and Secret Sword, Boomburst is just the go to huge damage move for any -ate attacker, having higher PP and damage output than Techno Blast, it also baits in Soundproof walls because who the hell runs Boomburst AND Techno Blast? Secret Sword instead of Boomburst helps handle Tyranitar a bit better since I don't have a lot of things to deal with it and often end up having to sack a Slaking to take it down with me, it also helps me deal with Registeel (in theory more than in practise, I usually Final Gambit Registeel early on anyway). Since I run Megagross I can afford to run Fighting coverage without further imposterproofing measures (Boomburst does more to Megagross than Secret Sword does). Now as you've probably already guessed Techno Blast is important to be able to hit Groudon or Slowbro through Soundproof, when I'm not running Boomburst it also takes its place as the go to huge damage move, I much prefer getting rid of Boomburst than Techno Blast on this team, the PP hasn't proven to be that much of an issue since my battles are usually fairly short and Techno Blast kills what it needs to kill, the utility of hitting Soundproof walls is much better than any extra damage Boomburst can provide. Of course with only Flying type moves I don’t need anything else than Sky Plate, but not revealing a item can be hugely beneficial in a lot of matchups, which is why I keep Sky Plate even when I run Secret Sword. Rayquaza also has surprisingly useable bulk so I'm not a big fan of Life Orb recoil. The Defence EVs allow me to live an unboosted V-Create from Primal Groudon.
Keep in mind that I'm not saying this is the best Rayquaza set, just that it's the one that fits best on this particular team.
End Words:
Now this isn’t an unbeatable squad by any means, but it's definitely not bad. It’s just another thing that I tried out and ended up working way better than I originally expected. Still I decided to leave a few tips in case you want to have a go with it on the ladder.
This team can be a bit complicated to play and it has proven incredibly important to read an opponent's team on team preview so I wouldn't recommend it to someone completely new to BH. There's also a fair bit of surprise factor that comes into play, which is why I wasn't planning to run this same team for too long anyway. I'm not saying you can't beat people who already know the team, I'm just saying it becomes a lot harder and you might have to play risky.
Never lead with Giratina, you can’t afford to get it damaged as it might lead to you getting swept by common set-up sweepers like Ttar or Groudon, revealing Moldy early on also isn’t a smart move at all. In fact the ideal scenario would be to only reveal Moldy when you're in front of Shedinja.
Don't Final Gambit recklessly, in some matchup keeping the FakeSpeed in the back can be really beneficial especially if you were planning on hitting a not-so-threatening Registeel set like Mold Breaker, Levitate or Regenerator, as Poison Heal Slaking can overpower those.
At the same time, don't shy away from Final Gambit, Final Gambit shouldn't be used to kill Registeel or Giratina specifically, but to give you the best chance of winning possible, this can mean Final Gambiting on a weakened Chansey or a Kyogre. Then again that's really up to a case by case basis and I'm not there to teach you how to playbut if you play badly don't come crying that my team is shit.
Last Mon Slaking ALWAYS has a shot at winning, the reason I'm saying this is that a lot of people run Whirlwind or Dragon Tail on Giratina and rely on that to deal with Slaking. In a case where this happens and the battle isn't going your way, concentrate on giving PH Slaking the best shot at a last mon sweep, possibly sacking your other mons just to get a good set up opportunity. Remember Slaking only needs to Click Shift Gear once.
This is sorta the same as the previous points, but if there's a threatening set-up sweeper on the enemy team, set up before they can. Meaning provide Slaking with an opportunity to set up and sweep as soon as possible.
Anyway I don't want to give a full shoutout, but I do want to give credit to nyan kat for pretty much coming up with the leading idea of this team.
Major Threats:
If Ttar gets one opportunity to set up, you can shuffle it. If it gets two... you might be in trouble. Not letting it set up, setting up before him, hazard, healing Giratina, always Pivoting out with Megagross... you really need to be careful around it to be sure it doesn't sweep your team.
I can't afford to run speed so a speed invested Kyurem Black will outspeed my entire team. If it's paired with ground coverage, Swords dance and King's Shield it can be immensely annoying to deal with. Don't let it set up, ever.
King's Shield as a whole is a real pain to deal with.
Now I'm putting Reshiram because it's the most common example, but anything running contrary with V-Create and Special Coverage like Draco Meteor or Psycho Boost will take down at least one Pokemon, but most likely more, because it OHKOs both members of my defensive backbone and become increasingly hard to revenge kill as they boost their Bulk.
Too many Normal resist on the same team will be annoying because I can't possibly Final Gambit them all, so pick and choose which ones you want to get rid of base on their sets and how the opponent is playing.
I haven't battled a lot of Fur Coat Latias, and I'm really glad for that since I can't really revenge kill it with FakeSpeed. Circle Throw on Megagross should help me deal with it but I haven't really had the chance to test it out.
That's really all I can think of right now, there's a lot more that can easily get kills against me but having three FakeSpeeders helps me Revenge Kill most of what I can't wall.
Replays:
VS Testing bh alt
VS powdat (OM room tour final)
VS Capnlizard (Good example of how the team works)
VS Duckymomo 25
VS cvcvcvcv (hard matchup)
VS Popyv
VS joseluismurcia (last mon Slaking getting a 5 mon sweep)
VS Shedmiddlefinga (a high ladder dude, 1800+)
VS Shed musn't linga (I think it's the same person but not sure)
VS Gigglebomb
VS sheep12 (Metagross living a +3 Magma Storm)
VS NotTyler's
So yeah, here's the team :o
Building History
There's three reasons that led me to build this team, first one being a team I had during the Protean meta that I absolutely loved using because of how simple and effective it was, it was based around a dual Mega Diancie core, one with Pixilate and tail Glow and the other with Protean running Bolt Strike, Precipice Blades, Espeed and Boomburst providing it with not only the necessary coverage to take out most common counters to the other Diancie, but also with the tools to be a stand alone thread with wallbreaking and revenge killing capacities. I still think the -ate + Protean lure combination was one of the most effective ever, which is why from time to time I’ve been trying to recreate something similar in usage. Lures are nothing new in Pokemon, but good lures are somewhat hard to come by and after a short history of failures I'm glad to finally come up with something that sticks.
Second one being that Poison Heal set-up sweepers, as a whole, have been on the rise for a bit of time now and for good reason, they’re immensely hard to pressure because of how easily they heal, they’re immune to status, defensive pokemons have a hard time even touching them most of the time and because of their naturally good bulk, are harder to revenge kill with the ever so present -atespeed. One that always stood out for me was Regigigas which has the classic combination of bulk and power common with every PH set up sweeper, but has access to a Stab boosted facade which has enough power to give Unaware walls a hard time at tanking two hits, but also deprives Chansey of any powerful Stab move, reducing its ability at checking it significantly.
Now I’ve always had a hard time building an effective team around Poison Heal Regigigas. To put it simply, the meta is a bitch to him. Normal type STAB has its fair share of checks in BH where every team has at least one bulky Steel type to take care of -ates and Giratina is the most prominent Physical wall. So for a while I wanted to build a team based around PH Regigigas paired with a weird lure that could swiftly and consistently take out his most common counters. I’ve had numerous mediocre attempts at good Giratina lures like Tinted lens Blaziken or pixilate random stuff, but nothing that really came even close to being reliable or consistent, and most importantly, swift, because weakening a counter is not enough, I want to OHKO it.
Then one day while I was chilling on Smogon, checking out the stuff I missed in the [thread=3553761]Creative sets in BH thread[/thread], I stumbled upon Nyan Kat’s Final Gambit Slaking set which just strengthened my believe that Nyan Kat is a holy being who descended on earth to teach us plebeians how to properly play BH. This was EXACTLY what I needed, Slaking is not only completely walled by Giratina, but is also one of the rare few offensive mons that has enough HP to OHKO Giratina on Final Gambit which makes it perfect for a lure. That was the third reason that pushed me to build this team, so I immediately hopped on showdown and started building... which ended up being a surprisingly fast process considering I usually tweak a team for weeks.
So evidently the first two mons were the combination of that Godly scrappy slaking and Poison Heal Slaking because that’s the whole reason of why built this team.
I thought I might as well add another Slaking in case I need to remove Registeel and Giratina or something unplanned for happens like killing my Slacking on the wrong mon or taking too much damage.
The necessary -ate check was in order, I went for my trusty RegenVest Megagross because of it’s ability to tank Specs Boomburst and Kill both most used -ate mons, Rayquaza and Diancie. Regenvest is also a lot better to keep momentum on an offensive team.
At this point my team got absolutely molested by MMX so I added Poison heal Giratina with Shadow ball to handle it and shuffle out mons that might set up before me.
I really needed a Special Attacker at this point, conveniently enough I hadn’t used my -ate slot yet and was already packing megagross so Rayquaza was an easy pick.
The only major change I made after that was changing Giratina to Mold Breaker because I had no reliable way to beat Shedinja. It also gave me reliable hazards at the cost of durability.
The Team:
Slaking (M) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Final Gambit
- Extreme Speed
- Fake Out
- Spikes
Now Nyan Kat ran a support set to lure in any magic bouncer, I don't care about magic bouncers, I just wanted to lure Slaking counters and a support mon with a base 160 attack just doesn’t feel right. One of the best thing about Diancie was the fact that it wasn't relegated to just being a lure and being dead weight if the dedicated Pokemons it's suppose to take on are absent, it was also a standalone threat and revenge killer. Slaking had this potential, so I did what anybody would do with a powerful normal type and slapped fakespeed onto it. Just revealing Espeed will often bait in Giratina, it also pairs quite well with Scrappy because it means I can switch on and kill Mega Gengar. Spikes was kept for a multitude of reasons, for one Nyan Kat ran it, it’s much better to click spikes on a predicted Giratina to not reveal scrappy straight away, and Final Gambit means that even if I don’t kill the opponent, hazards will be kept up. There’s also the fact that hazards are just super annoying in general.
Slaking (M) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Final Gambit
- Extreme Speed
- Fake Out
- Rapid Spin
For the second Slaking I opted for Rapid Spin because having two Slots with Spikes really didn’t do anything for me, and who would miss an opportunity to run Scrappy Rapid Spin? Worth noting that because of this change this is often the Slaking I end up leading with out of the two because if I need to commit suicide straight away I'd rather keep the Slaking with hazards, and it makes Chansey just that bit less annoying.
The Evs and Item on both of them are pretty obvious, max Attack and Silk Scarf to hit as hard as possible without locking myself, taking recoil or revealing any item and max HP for Final Gambit purposes. 30 Speed IVs makes both of them one point lower than my Poison Heal Slaking.
Slaking (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 196 Atk / 68 Def
Adamant Nature
- Facade
- Knock Off
- Shift Gear
- Dank Void
Now for the star of the show, tremble in fear in front of the King of Poison Healers, Powerful enough that you can’t wall it, Bulky enough that you can’t revenge kill it and fast enough that you can’t, well… beat it. This somewhat weird EV spread is to survive a +2 Extremespeed from Refrigerate Kyurem Black since the King’s Shield + Swords Dance set molests my entire team. Facade + Knock off is great Coverage and annoys the shit out of Chansey, the combination of Shift Gear and Dank Void is what makes Slaking into the monster it is, outspeeding the entire meta after a Shift Gear and either using his 140 base power Stab move to run through teams, or incapacitating the opposition with a Dark Void, giving it not only set up opportunities, but also additional recovery. Dark Void is important to deal with offensive threats that Slaking can't OHKO at +1 like Diancie, Imposter Chansey and Groudon or defensive walls that would otherwise give it a hard time like Groudon and Maudino. People often rely on Safety Goggles to check sleep spam and avoiding that is well worth the lowered accuracy from Dank Void since sleep is so hard to handle for most teams. This thing manhandles unprepared teams and usually only has one or two answers on any given team.
Keep in mind that it is in your best interest to make all three Slakings as similar as possible, which is why they are all males and none of them are shiny.
Metagross-Mega @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- U-turn
- Icicle Crash
- Bullet Punch
- Rapid Spin / Circle Throw?
The most obvious slot on this team, switches on Rayquaza (including Specs Boomburst), switches on Diancie, kills both. The neat typing also helps against Tinted Lens Latios and such.
Now just because it's basic doesn't mean it's bad and AV Metagross constantly impresses me with his ability to never die, tanking two Magma Storms from Standard Ray and living hits after a Tail Glow or some insane shit like that (which hopefully can be demonstrated in the replays).
Circle Throw is untested, but should realistically help me deal with contrary mons or Special Bulky Set-Ups like Kyogre or Latias.
Giratina @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Pursuit
- Roar
- Roost
Giratina was added to perform a very modest role, switching on MMX which would otherwise destroy me, but ends up doing so much more and is definitely the unseen hero of this team, in an average battle Giratina would remove the #1 most annoying mon in BH, set up Stealth Rocks and… die. It almost never sees a battle to the end and while that may not seem impressive, Giratina just saves my ass constantly. Whirlwind is just a second chance at winning after Kyogre, Groudon or Tyranitar has set up which is huge. Giratina is doomed to die almost every time it comes in because I just can’t risk other set ups and would rather rocks than live. A rather sad role, which is why I dedicate this RMT to him. This is for you Gira, trusty boy Gira saving my ass. Shoutouts to all Giratinas everywhere holding the meta together.
Rayquaza-Mega @ Sky Plate
Ability: Aerilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 216 Atk / 40 Def / 252 SpA
Rash Nature
- Secret Sword / Boomburst
- Extreme Speed
- Techno Blast
- Fake Out
There is very little reason to not run your own -ate mon on an offensive team, it consistently puts work against any playstyle and in this case, provides the team with much needed Special offence, which is why the Special Attack receives Maximum investment. Before you ask I feel like Specs fits better on fatter builds which is why I opted for Sky Plate, Sky Plate FakeSpeed is also really important to Revenge Kill anything that gets out of hand. You might think that with two Slakings I already have enough FakeSpeed but NO, YOU NEVER HAVE ENOUGH FAKESPEED. I need the revenge killing potential way too often to ever remove either Fake Out or Espeed, I've been alternating between Boomburst and Secret Sword, Boomburst is just the go to huge damage move for any -ate attacker, having higher PP and damage output than Techno Blast, it also baits in Soundproof walls because who the hell runs Boomburst AND Techno Blast? Secret Sword instead of Boomburst helps handle Tyranitar a bit better since I don't have a lot of things to deal with it and often end up having to sack a Slaking to take it down with me, it also helps me deal with Registeel (in theory more than in practise, I usually Final Gambit Registeel early on anyway). Since I run Megagross I can afford to run Fighting coverage without further imposterproofing measures (Boomburst does more to Megagross than Secret Sword does). Now as you've probably already guessed Techno Blast is important to be able to hit Groudon or Slowbro through Soundproof, when I'm not running Boomburst it also takes its place as the go to huge damage move, I much prefer getting rid of Boomburst than Techno Blast on this team, the PP hasn't proven to be that much of an issue since my battles are usually fairly short and Techno Blast kills what it needs to kill, the utility of hitting Soundproof walls is much better than any extra damage Boomburst can provide. Of course with only Flying type moves I don’t need anything else than Sky Plate, but not revealing a item can be hugely beneficial in a lot of matchups, which is why I keep Sky Plate even when I run Secret Sword. Rayquaza also has surprisingly useable bulk so I'm not a big fan of Life Orb recoil. The Defence EVs allow me to live an unboosted V-Create from Primal Groudon.
Keep in mind that I'm not saying this is the best Rayquaza set, just that it's the one that fits best on this particular team.
End Words:
Now this isn’t an unbeatable squad by any means, but it's definitely not bad. It’s just another thing that I tried out and ended up working way better than I originally expected. Still I decided to leave a few tips in case you want to have a go with it on the ladder.
This team can be a bit complicated to play and it has proven incredibly important to read an opponent's team on team preview so I wouldn't recommend it to someone completely new to BH. There's also a fair bit of surprise factor that comes into play, which is why I wasn't planning to run this same team for too long anyway. I'm not saying you can't beat people who already know the team, I'm just saying it becomes a lot harder and you might have to play risky.
Never lead with Giratina, you can’t afford to get it damaged as it might lead to you getting swept by common set-up sweepers like Ttar or Groudon, revealing Moldy early on also isn’t a smart move at all. In fact the ideal scenario would be to only reveal Moldy when you're in front of Shedinja.
Don't Final Gambit recklessly, in some matchup keeping the FakeSpeed in the back can be really beneficial especially if you were planning on hitting a not-so-threatening Registeel set like Mold Breaker, Levitate or Regenerator, as Poison Heal Slaking can overpower those.
At the same time, don't shy away from Final Gambit, Final Gambit shouldn't be used to kill Registeel or Giratina specifically, but to give you the best chance of winning possible, this can mean Final Gambiting on a weakened Chansey or a Kyogre. Then again that's really up to a case by case basis and I'm not there to teach you how to play
Last Mon Slaking ALWAYS has a shot at winning, the reason I'm saying this is that a lot of people run Whirlwind or Dragon Tail on Giratina and rely on that to deal with Slaking. In a case where this happens and the battle isn't going your way, concentrate on giving PH Slaking the best shot at a last mon sweep, possibly sacking your other mons just to get a good set up opportunity. Remember Slaking only needs to Click Shift Gear once.
This is sorta the same as the previous points, but if there's a threatening set-up sweeper on the enemy team, set up before they can. Meaning provide Slaking with an opportunity to set up and sweep as soon as possible.
Anyway I don't want to give a full shoutout, but I do want to give credit to nyan kat for pretty much coming up with the leading idea of this team.
Major Threats:
King's Shield as a whole is a real pain to deal with.
That's really all I can think of right now, there's a lot more that can easily get kills against me but having three FakeSpeeders helps me Revenge Kill most of what I can't wall.
Replays:
VS Testing bh alt
VS powdat (OM room tour final)
VS Capnlizard (Good example of how the team works)
VS Duckymomo 25
VS cvcvcvcv (hard matchup)
VS Popyv
VS joseluismurcia (last mon Slaking getting a 5 mon sweep)
VS Shedmiddlefinga (a high ladder dude, 1800+)
VS Shed musn't linga (I think it's the same person but not sure)
VS Gigglebomb
VS sheep12 (Metagross living a +3 Magma Storm)
VS NotTyler's
Slaking (M) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Final Gambit
- Extreme Speed
- Fake Out
- Spikes
Slaking (M) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Final Gambit
- Extreme Speed
- Fake Out
- Rapid Spin
Slaking (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 196 Atk / 68 Def
Adamant Nature
- Facade
- Knock Off
- Shift Gear
- Dark Void
Metagross-Mega @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- U-turn
- Icicle Crash
- Bullet Punch
- Circle Throw
Giratina @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Pursuit
- Roar
- Roost
Rayquaza-Mega @ Sky Plate
Ability: Aerilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 216 Atk / 40 Def / 252 SpA
Rash Nature
- Secret Sword
- Extreme Speed
- Techno Blast - Fake Out
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Final Gambit
- Extreme Speed
- Fake Out
- Spikes
Slaking (M) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Final Gambit
- Extreme Speed
- Fake Out
- Rapid Spin
Slaking (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 196 Atk / 68 Def
Adamant Nature
- Facade
- Knock Off
- Shift Gear
- Dark Void
Metagross-Mega @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- U-turn
- Icicle Crash
- Bullet Punch
- Circle Throw
Giratina @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Pursuit
- Roar
- Roost
Rayquaza-Mega @ Sky Plate
Ability: Aerilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 216 Atk / 40 Def / 252 SpA
Rash Nature
- Secret Sword
- Extreme Speed
- Techno Blast - Fake Out
- Icicle Spear > Icicle Crash on Megagross.
- Circle Throw > Rapid Spin on Megagross.
- Poison Heal / Fur Coat Giratina > Mold Breaker Giratina.
- Mold Breaker on one of the Slakings (not impressed by this change after a bit of testing).
- Magma Storm > Secret Sword on Rayquaza.
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