[overview]
**Draft order**: Round 2 onwards
**Price range**: 16-17 points
**Overview**: Blaziken is a powerful offensive threat thanks to the combination of Speed Boost, its potent STAB combination, and a wide offensive movepool. It's able to perform effectively as either a physical, special, or mixed attacker due to it's high offensive stats. It can effectively run almost any offensive role you want it to, but it requires appropriate support in return due to it's frailty, which leaves it bringing almost no defensive support to its team whatsoever. Blaziken is also very reliant on setup, which is tricky to pull off well due to its below average defenses. It typically relies on Protect to initially gain speed, and Swords Dance or damage-boosting items are needed to become a menacing wallbreaker.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Cleaner**: Speed Boost turns Blaziken into a cleaner that is almost impossible to revenge kill outside of priority moves. This set usually drops setup moves outside of Protect—and on rare occasions may even drop Protect itself—so that it can run as many different coverage options as possible, preparing itself for a multitude of scenarios late-game. This set requires lots of support, such as entry hazards and wallbreaking teammates to weaken or remove obstacles that threaten to stop Blaziken from cleaning.
**Setup wallbreaker / sweeper**: Swords Dance is used to boost Blaziken's damage output and break defensive walls either for itself or its teammates. The nature of running Speed Boost as an ability means it can boost it's own Speed passively and turn into a sweeper and wallbreaker.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB moves**: Flare Blitz, Blaze Kick, Fire Blast, Overheat, Flamethrower, Close Combat, Low Kick, Focus Blast, Aura Sphere, Vacuum Wave
**Setup moves**: Swords Dance, Protect
**Utility moves**: U-turn, Substitute, Will-O-Wisp
**Coverage**: Knock Off, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Rock Slide, Poison Jab, Thunder Punch, Brave Bird, Acrobatics
Niche Moves
========
**Bulk Up**: Bulk Up can be used instead of Swords Dance for a less explosive damage increase in return for boosting Defense to patch up one of Blaziken's weaknesses—priority moves, many of which are physical. Combining this with Substitute + Protect and Leftovers gives Blaziken some extra longevity, which is hard to find among its other sets.
**Brick Break**: This move is weaker than most of Blaziken's other STAB moves, but it has the added benefit of removing opposing dual screens, allowing Blaziken to muscle past attempts to weaken its damage output and stop it.
**Temper Flare**: This can potentially pair with Protect if the move fails due to the foe switching out as you use it, doubling its power on the next turn.
**Solar Beam**: Strictly limited to Sunny Day sets, sun teams, or a Power Herb set, this powerful Grass-type move provides excellent coverage against many of the its common weaknesses.
**Reversal**: When combined with strategies involving the use of Focus Sash, Substitute, or Endure to get Blaziken to 1 HP, this becomes Blaziken's most powerful move, reaching a staggering 200 Base Power. However, this requires a lot of scouting and support, as priority and chip damage, such as Rocky Helmet or Sandstorm, will instantly KO Blaziken.
**Endure**: An alternative to Protect, Endure achieves the same effect of allowing Blaziken to survive a turn to boost Speed but usually leaves it at very low health. However, this can be used in combination with certain strategies like Reversal as mentioned above, as well as pinch Berries such as Liechi Berry.
Common Items
========
**Life Orb**: Life Orb is a standard item that can be used by almost all sets, mainly the cleaner, to increase damage output while allowing Blaziken to switch moves, though the recoil means Blaziken will be prone to KOing itself faster than usual.
**Charcoal / Black Belt / Expert Belt**: Damage-boosting items provide smaller and more specific damage increases than Life Orb, but they notably do not inflict recoil damage, extending Blaziken's lifespan while allowing it to hit certain benchmarks needed for a KO.
**Leftovers**: Many sets run Protect and Flare Blitz, which pair well with Leftovers to gain free turns of recovery and to help offset recoil damage.
**Heavy-Duty Boots**: Blaziken is frail and vulnerable to all entry hazards. As such, Heavy-Duty Boots can be used to conserve Blaziken's health for ease of setting up or using Flare Blitz.
Niche Items
========
**Air Balloon**: An alternative to Heavy-Duty Boots, Air Balloon sacrifices immunity to Stealth Rock for a temporary Ground immunity, allowing Blaziken to have an opportunity to setup or attack foes that're reliant on Ground-type moves to hit it.
**Choice Band**: Blaziken prefers to switch moves, such as using Protect to safely obtain Speed boosts. However, if wallbreaking is preferred over sweeping, Choice Band can be used to provide an even bigger boost than Life Orb, with the added benefit of being able to viably use U-turn as opposed to other sets.
**Choice Specs**: As it lacks moves that boost it's Special Attack directly, a surprise Choice Specs set can throw opponents off guard, allowing Blaziken wallbreak to more effectively on the special side.
**Eject Pack**: An alternate momentum strategy outside of U-turn, this should be paired with Overheat to fire off a big attack and then gain momentum as Blaziken switches out.
Tera
========
Blaziken is usually banned from utilizing Tera due to incredible amounts of versatility and additional wallbreaking power gained from it. If it is allowed, the best options would be either Tera Fire or Fighting, each giving significant boosts to its already high Base Power STAB moves. However, other offensive Tera types such as Ground and Dark can also be considered depending on what Pokemon Blaziken is tasked with breaking through, such as Toxapex and Latias, which otherwise resist its original STAB moves.
Draft Strategy
========
Blaziken should be drafted purely as an offensive Pokemon that can either take advantage of wallbreaking efforts to reliably clean up late-game or as a setup Pokemon that can either wallbreak or sweep by itself. No matter how you slice it, Blaziken is hard-pressed to take over games all by itself under most circumstances, and thus requires certain pieces of support depending on how you wish to use it.
**Bulky slow pivots**: Blaziken's frailty prevents it from entering the field safely by itself. Thus, a strong defensive backbone that can take hits and pivot to Blaziken safely will ease pressure and reduce the need to predict. Slow pivots, such as Alomomola and Corviknight, will usually prevent Blaziken from taking a hit on entry and thus should be considered more strongly over faster pivots.
**Alternate wallbreakers / sweepers**: Despite boasting wide coverage, Blaziken can find it hard to fit all the moves it wants onto one set without making serious concessions. As such, pairing it with other wallbreakers or sweepers allows for one to take over from the other should a sweeping or wallbreaking attempt be thwarted. Palafin and Garchomp are great round 1 picks that pair well with Blaziken's typing.
**Entry hazards**: Due to its frailty and its preference for damage-boosting items instead of Heavy-Duty Boots, Blaziken appreciates solid hazard removal on the team. Rapid Spin users such as Blastoise and Terapagos can clear the field and allow Blaziken to hit the field at full health, where it can more safely spam Flare Blitz and Life Orb-boosted attacks. Spinners will also leave hazards on the opponent's side of the field, which Blaziken also appreciates, as they will weaken the opposing team for Blaziken to clean up later. Hazard stackers such as Hisuian Samurott and Ting-Lu can easily get up multiple layers of hazards to chip down Pokemon that would otherwise take Blaziken's hits.
**Dual screens support**: Swords Dance combined with Speed Boost makes Blaziken almost impossible to wall or revenge kill safely, but its low defenses mean it relies on scaring foes out to set up. Dual screens support negates this issue, granting Blaziken a much safer environment to set up and potentially finish the game. Klefki and Grimmsnarl are two of the best users of dual screens thanks to Prankster while also providing extra utility to support Blaziken.
**Naturally fast teammates**: Blaziken's base 80 Speed is rather low, which means that even at +1 Speed, it can find itself outsped by opposing Choice Scarf Pokemon, especially since it wants to run Attack-boosting natures to gain as much power as possible. This makes naturally fast Pokemon excellent teammates to get the jump on them and either hinder or remove them to pave the way for Blaziken. Meowscarada and Iron Bundle are good examples of exceptionally fast Pokemon that boast high natural power.
Checks and Counters
========
**Priority attacks**: Since Blaziken is very difficult to outspeed after multiple Speed boosts, priority attacks are the best solution to bypass speed entirely and revenge kill it. This can be compounded further by Blaziken's frailty and the recoil it sustains from using both of it's main STAB attacks in Flare Blitz and Close Combat, as well as from Life Orb.
**Unaware walls**: As a wallbreaker, Blaziken is often reliant on stat boosts to muscle past walls. For this reason, Unaware walls like Dondozo and Skeledirge act as sturdy switch-ins to a wallbreaking Blaziken even after it sets up, with most Unaware users boasting a resistance to at least one of Blaziken's STAB moves. This allows them to either revenge kill Blaziken or hinder it with status.
**Passive / chip damage**: Against a healthy team, Blaziken often manages to KO itself before completing a sweep as a result of various factors, such as recoil from its STAB moves or Life Orb. Additional passive damage such as entry hazards and Rocky Helmet can be used to add even more damage to Blaziken, making it faint faster or more easily putting it into KO range of priority attacks.
**Fire / Fighting resistances**: Most of Blaziken's coverage options are rather weak without boosts compared to its high Base Power STAB attacks. This leaves Pokemon naturally resistant to its STAB moves as viable checks to it, where they can use their natural bulk or resistance Berries to stomach the coverage options Blaziken needs to deal with them. Some examples include Latias, Toxapex, and Azumarill.
**Lures**: Against some teams, Blaziken simply boasts exceptional power and coverage that make it very difficult to handle. As a result, opponents may attempt to use lures against Blaziken to bait it in and KO it. The most common of these are the resistance Berries, allowing the holder to potentially survive a super effective attack and successfully revenge kill Blaziken. Other lures may include Endure + Custap Berry, as well as Focus Sash. The opposing team should be scouted before attempting a sweep to ensure no surprise lures catch Blaziken off guard.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/deranged_lime.272077/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/nyx.564960/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno6377.527276/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/ken.594478/
**Draft order**: Round 2 onwards
**Price range**: 16-17 points
**Overview**: Blaziken is a powerful offensive threat thanks to the combination of Speed Boost, its potent STAB combination, and a wide offensive movepool. It's able to perform effectively as either a physical, special, or mixed attacker due to it's high offensive stats. It can effectively run almost any offensive role you want it to, but it requires appropriate support in return due to it's frailty, which leaves it bringing almost no defensive support to its team whatsoever. Blaziken is also very reliant on setup, which is tricky to pull off well due to its below average defenses. It typically relies on Protect to initially gain speed, and Swords Dance or damage-boosting items are needed to become a menacing wallbreaker.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Cleaner**: Speed Boost turns Blaziken into a cleaner that is almost impossible to revenge kill outside of priority moves. This set usually drops setup moves outside of Protect—and on rare occasions may even drop Protect itself—so that it can run as many different coverage options as possible, preparing itself for a multitude of scenarios late-game. This set requires lots of support, such as entry hazards and wallbreaking teammates to weaken or remove obstacles that threaten to stop Blaziken from cleaning.
**Setup wallbreaker / sweeper**: Swords Dance is used to boost Blaziken's damage output and break defensive walls either for itself or its teammates. The nature of running Speed Boost as an ability means it can boost it's own Speed passively and turn into a sweeper and wallbreaker.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB moves**: Flare Blitz, Blaze Kick, Fire Blast, Overheat, Flamethrower, Close Combat, Low Kick, Focus Blast, Aura Sphere, Vacuum Wave
**Setup moves**: Swords Dance, Protect
**Utility moves**: U-turn, Substitute, Will-O-Wisp
**Coverage**: Knock Off, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Rock Slide, Poison Jab, Thunder Punch, Brave Bird, Acrobatics
Niche Moves
========
**Bulk Up**: Bulk Up can be used instead of Swords Dance for a less explosive damage increase in return for boosting Defense to patch up one of Blaziken's weaknesses—priority moves, many of which are physical. Combining this with Substitute + Protect and Leftovers gives Blaziken some extra longevity, which is hard to find among its other sets.
**Brick Break**: This move is weaker than most of Blaziken's other STAB moves, but it has the added benefit of removing opposing dual screens, allowing Blaziken to muscle past attempts to weaken its damage output and stop it.
**Temper Flare**: This can potentially pair with Protect if the move fails due to the foe switching out as you use it, doubling its power on the next turn.
**Solar Beam**: Strictly limited to Sunny Day sets, sun teams, or a Power Herb set, this powerful Grass-type move provides excellent coverage against many of the its common weaknesses.
**Reversal**: When combined with strategies involving the use of Focus Sash, Substitute, or Endure to get Blaziken to 1 HP, this becomes Blaziken's most powerful move, reaching a staggering 200 Base Power. However, this requires a lot of scouting and support, as priority and chip damage, such as Rocky Helmet or Sandstorm, will instantly KO Blaziken.
**Endure**: An alternative to Protect, Endure achieves the same effect of allowing Blaziken to survive a turn to boost Speed but usually leaves it at very low health. However, this can be used in combination with certain strategies like Reversal as mentioned above, as well as pinch Berries such as Liechi Berry.
Common Items
========
**Life Orb**: Life Orb is a standard item that can be used by almost all sets, mainly the cleaner, to increase damage output while allowing Blaziken to switch moves, though the recoil means Blaziken will be prone to KOing itself faster than usual.
**Charcoal / Black Belt / Expert Belt**: Damage-boosting items provide smaller and more specific damage increases than Life Orb, but they notably do not inflict recoil damage, extending Blaziken's lifespan while allowing it to hit certain benchmarks needed for a KO.
**Leftovers**: Many sets run Protect and Flare Blitz, which pair well with Leftovers to gain free turns of recovery and to help offset recoil damage.
**Heavy-Duty Boots**: Blaziken is frail and vulnerable to all entry hazards. As such, Heavy-Duty Boots can be used to conserve Blaziken's health for ease of setting up or using Flare Blitz.
Niche Items
========
**Air Balloon**: An alternative to Heavy-Duty Boots, Air Balloon sacrifices immunity to Stealth Rock for a temporary Ground immunity, allowing Blaziken to have an opportunity to setup or attack foes that're reliant on Ground-type moves to hit it.
**Choice Band**: Blaziken prefers to switch moves, such as using Protect to safely obtain Speed boosts. However, if wallbreaking is preferred over sweeping, Choice Band can be used to provide an even bigger boost than Life Orb, with the added benefit of being able to viably use U-turn as opposed to other sets.
**Choice Specs**: As it lacks moves that boost it's Special Attack directly, a surprise Choice Specs set can throw opponents off guard, allowing Blaziken wallbreak to more effectively on the special side.
**Eject Pack**: An alternate momentum strategy outside of U-turn, this should be paired with Overheat to fire off a big attack and then gain momentum as Blaziken switches out.
Tera
========
Blaziken is usually banned from utilizing Tera due to incredible amounts of versatility and additional wallbreaking power gained from it. If it is allowed, the best options would be either Tera Fire or Fighting, each giving significant boosts to its already high Base Power STAB moves. However, other offensive Tera types such as Ground and Dark can also be considered depending on what Pokemon Blaziken is tasked with breaking through, such as Toxapex and Latias, which otherwise resist its original STAB moves.
Draft Strategy
========
Blaziken should be drafted purely as an offensive Pokemon that can either take advantage of wallbreaking efforts to reliably clean up late-game or as a setup Pokemon that can either wallbreak or sweep by itself. No matter how you slice it, Blaziken is hard-pressed to take over games all by itself under most circumstances, and thus requires certain pieces of support depending on how you wish to use it.
**Bulky slow pivots**: Blaziken's frailty prevents it from entering the field safely by itself. Thus, a strong defensive backbone that can take hits and pivot to Blaziken safely will ease pressure and reduce the need to predict. Slow pivots, such as Alomomola and Corviknight, will usually prevent Blaziken from taking a hit on entry and thus should be considered more strongly over faster pivots.
**Alternate wallbreakers / sweepers**: Despite boasting wide coverage, Blaziken can find it hard to fit all the moves it wants onto one set without making serious concessions. As such, pairing it with other wallbreakers or sweepers allows for one to take over from the other should a sweeping or wallbreaking attempt be thwarted. Palafin and Garchomp are great round 1 picks that pair well with Blaziken's typing.
**Entry hazards**: Due to its frailty and its preference for damage-boosting items instead of Heavy-Duty Boots, Blaziken appreciates solid hazard removal on the team. Rapid Spin users such as Blastoise and Terapagos can clear the field and allow Blaziken to hit the field at full health, where it can more safely spam Flare Blitz and Life Orb-boosted attacks. Spinners will also leave hazards on the opponent's side of the field, which Blaziken also appreciates, as they will weaken the opposing team for Blaziken to clean up later. Hazard stackers such as Hisuian Samurott and Ting-Lu can easily get up multiple layers of hazards to chip down Pokemon that would otherwise take Blaziken's hits.
**Dual screens support**: Swords Dance combined with Speed Boost makes Blaziken almost impossible to wall or revenge kill safely, but its low defenses mean it relies on scaring foes out to set up. Dual screens support negates this issue, granting Blaziken a much safer environment to set up and potentially finish the game. Klefki and Grimmsnarl are two of the best users of dual screens thanks to Prankster while also providing extra utility to support Blaziken.
**Naturally fast teammates**: Blaziken's base 80 Speed is rather low, which means that even at +1 Speed, it can find itself outsped by opposing Choice Scarf Pokemon, especially since it wants to run Attack-boosting natures to gain as much power as possible. This makes naturally fast Pokemon excellent teammates to get the jump on them and either hinder or remove them to pave the way for Blaziken. Meowscarada and Iron Bundle are good examples of exceptionally fast Pokemon that boast high natural power.
Checks and Counters
========
**Priority attacks**: Since Blaziken is very difficult to outspeed after multiple Speed boosts, priority attacks are the best solution to bypass speed entirely and revenge kill it. This can be compounded further by Blaziken's frailty and the recoil it sustains from using both of it's main STAB attacks in Flare Blitz and Close Combat, as well as from Life Orb.
**Unaware walls**: As a wallbreaker, Blaziken is often reliant on stat boosts to muscle past walls. For this reason, Unaware walls like Dondozo and Skeledirge act as sturdy switch-ins to a wallbreaking Blaziken even after it sets up, with most Unaware users boasting a resistance to at least one of Blaziken's STAB moves. This allows them to either revenge kill Blaziken or hinder it with status.
**Passive / chip damage**: Against a healthy team, Blaziken often manages to KO itself before completing a sweep as a result of various factors, such as recoil from its STAB moves or Life Orb. Additional passive damage such as entry hazards and Rocky Helmet can be used to add even more damage to Blaziken, making it faint faster or more easily putting it into KO range of priority attacks.
**Fire / Fighting resistances**: Most of Blaziken's coverage options are rather weak without boosts compared to its high Base Power STAB attacks. This leaves Pokemon naturally resistant to its STAB moves as viable checks to it, where they can use their natural bulk or resistance Berries to stomach the coverage options Blaziken needs to deal with them. Some examples include Latias, Toxapex, and Azumarill.
**Lures**: Against some teams, Blaziken simply boasts exceptional power and coverage that make it very difficult to handle. As a result, opponents may attempt to use lures against Blaziken to bait it in and KO it. The most common of these are the resistance Berries, allowing the holder to potentially survive a super effective attack and successfully revenge kill Blaziken. Other lures may include Endure + Custap Berry, as well as Focus Sash. The opposing team should be scouted before attempting a sweep to ensure no surprise lures catch Blaziken off guard.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/deranged_lime.272077/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/nyx.564960/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno6377.527276/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/ken.594478/
Last edited:
