Resource OU Underdogs - The Niche Heat Brigade

[Morkal]

Approved by OU moderators

Generation 9's OU has been a wonderfully hospitable environment for creative team building, moveset experimentation, and varied competitive compositions thanks to the bevy of unique Pokemon, new items/moves, and, of course, terastallizing. This thread is dedicated to discussing the OU underdogs; niche Pokepicks such as lower-tier Pokemon, unconventional specialized sets, team cores, strategies, and more! If you're looking to talk about creative sets for your OU favorites that fulfill unique team needs, or you're looking to talk about Pokemon below OU that carry some valuable weight for your team, look no further than this thread!

What this thread is for:​

• Viable sets of sub-OU Pokemon that occupy a unique role in OU due to role compression, handling specific meta threats (anti-meta picks), or fulfilling the specific needs of a playstyle (such as Balance, Stall, or Hyper Offense).
• Viable unique sets of OU Pokemon that either utilize unconventional moves or Tera-typings to change their functionality in the meta.
• Viable team cores, combinations, and strategies that are otherwise underutilized (for example, Regenerator Trick Room + Snow Combination Offense).
• Posting detailed information or cited information about your unconventional Pokepick; replays, damage calculations, and explanations of the role the Pokemon or set occupies are all wonderful options and highly encouraged so people understand exactly how your Pokepick functions.

What this thread is not for:​

• "Meme" sets; this isn't a thread for obvious joke picks such as LC Pokemon, Choice Band Glimmora, or Trick Room Sweeper Jumpluff. Operate under this rule of thumb, "if you have to force the set to work, rather than the set working for you, it likely needs work or a refocus."
• Common meta sets with only a single change or two; aka swapping one commonly used move to another commonly used move (for example; Great Tusk switching between Earthquake and Headlong Rush).
• Deriding players who experiment with unconventional Pokemon or sets. Everyone is at different stages of competitive understanding, and the only thing that making fun of them accomplishes is giving Smogon and the competitive Pokemon community as a whole a negative reputation for gatekeeping and not being beginner friendly. Every single person on this site was a beginner at one point including those of us who have been playing for a decade or more, please treat people with the respect you'd want to be treated with yourself.
• One-liners asking people to test your favorite lower-tier Pokemon for you, this isn't a request thread. If you'd like to talk about a Pokemon, please test your Pokemon set on Showdown in the OU meta, learn what works and what doesn't, and then come here to talk about it!

Example Sets:

Shiftry

Shiftry @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Wind Rider
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Tailwind
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Rock Slide

Spidops

Spidops @ Choice Band
Ability: Stakeout
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- First Impression
- Throat Chop
- U-turn
- Sticky Web

Hydreigon

(Credits to Zmaslan256 for this wonderful set)

Hydreigon @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 64 HP / 192 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Spin
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute

We additionally have a Discord server specifically for this OU project! If you're confused about anything in the thread, please feel free to send me a message either in private messages here or on Discord and I'd be happy to help you as best as I can!​

 

[UUTS]

Meme" sets; this isn't a thread for obvious joke picks such as Choice Band Glimmora or Trick Room Sweeper Jumpluff. This thread is for unexpected sets with legitimate tested potential that have unique meta functions such as Choice Scarf Tera-Fighting Honchkrow, Shell Smash White Herb Cloyster, or Choice Band Stakeout First Impression Spidops.

You’re going to have to do a lot explaining on these choices. I get Cloyster, don’t really think it’s that good but I get it. Spidops and Honchkrow though? You’re already lost me.

I get stakeout first impression is “strong” but it’s effectively the same as tinted lens on resists. Look at OU filled with Pokémon like dirge, pex, corviknight, garg, and the all important tusk. What are you aiming to hit that tinted lens can’t? Amoongus? Don’t forget that Lokix has 20+ base attack more than Spidops, and dark stab that lets it threaten Dirge. It’s not like Lokix is that that good either, and being a shitty webs setter doesn’t seem like fair compromise.

Honchkrow truly just baffles me. I look at it and see 0 redeeming qualities. All I can think of is “Moxie + Uturn with a dark resist for gambit and a strong stab move that is super effective vs tusk”. If that’s all you’re looking for then why not Quaq? It’s got Uturn, better Stab options with step/crash and cc while still being super effective vs tusk, and a dark resist from fighting. Quaq has 5 less attack but it comes with so many benefits like rocks resist over a weakness, stronger secondary stab, not needing tera fighting blast, and better immediate speed with an actual boosting option as well. For example adamant scarf Honchkrow has 361 speed, losing to iron valiant. Quaq has 403 adamant, allowing it to outspeed valaint.

These Pokémon just seem straight up bad, and most certainly memes. So what’s the line? The examples of memes not allowed are actively detrimental to themselves, but where’s the drawing point? Is choice band Grimmsnarl a meme? Is hydration rest Goodra a meme? I would like to present my set and see where it falls

Gamefreak hates st (Pawmot) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Volt Absorb
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Revival Blessing
- Dig

Behold, the ultimate stall killer. Dig to pp stall, rest talk with a 50% chance to cast revival blessing. You bring this thing and it’s almost impossible to lose to stall. No stall player can withstand 7 kingambit assaults while Pawmot takes his eepy little naps

 

[Storm Zone]

i was lovin these sets while testin

1. Torrent (Azumarill) (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Huge Power
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Play Rough
- Belly Drum
- Aqua Jet
- Substitute

subs on rotom swap, tera ground and drum on volt now they die.

2. Liberacy (Quaquaval) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Moxie
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Aqua Step
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance
- Ice Spinner

aqua step and tera to revenge dnite, immune to mach from loom and spin.

3. Triple 9 (Maushold) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Population Bomb
- Encore
- Tidy Up
- Beat Up

encores on gambit sucker and dnite espeed if it teras, technician boosted beat up.

4. Smile.exe (Scream Tail) @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Flamethrower

stall killer and is good vs offense.

5. Don Corleone (Honchkrow) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Moxie
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Tera Blast

dangerous moxie sweeper that can nuke corv and valiant if it teras.


Couldnt pick a favorite between these

 

[Morkal]

You’re going to have to do a lot explaining on these choices. I get Cloyster, don’t really think it’s that good but I get it. Spidops and Honchkrow though? You’re already lost me.

I get stakeout first impression is “strong” but it’s effectively the same as tinted lens on resists. Look at OU filled with Pokémon like dirge, pex, corviknight, garg, and the all important tusk. What are you aiming to hit that tinted lens can’t? Amoongus? Don’t forget that Lokix has 20+ base attack more than Spidops, and dark stab that lets it threaten Dirge. It’s not like Lokix is that that good either, and being a shitty webs setter doesn’t seem like fair compromise.

Honchkrow truly just baffles me. I look at it and see 0 redeeming qualities. All I can think of is “Moxie + Uturn with a dark resist for gambit and a strong stab move that is super effective vs tusk”. If that’s all you’re looking for then why not Quaq? It’s got Uturn, better Stab options with step/crash and cc while still being super effective vs tusk, and a dark resist from fighting. Quaq has 5 less attack but it comes with so many benefits like rocks resist over a weakness, stronger secondary stab, not needing tera fighting blast, and better immediate speed with an actual boosting option as well. For example adamant scarf Honchkrow has 361 speed, losing to iron valiant. Quaq has 403 adamant, allowing it to outspeed valaint.

These Pokémon just seem straight up bad, and most certainly memes. So what’s the line? The examples of memes not allowed are actively detrimental to themselves, but where’s the drawing point? Is choice band Grimmsnarl a meme? Is hydration rest Goodra a meme? I would like to present my set and see where it falls

Gamefreak hates st (Pawmot) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Volt Absorb
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Revival Blessing
- Dig

Behold, the ultimate stall killer. Dig to pp stall, rest talk with a 50% chance to cast revival blessing. You bring this thing and it’s almost impossible to lose to stall. No stall player can withstand 7 kingambit assaults while Pawmot takes his eepy little naps

Hi there, thank you for bringing this to my attention - I've edited that rule with a more clear definition thanks to the information you and SetsuSetsuna provided for me. I've also removed the Honchkrow set as, despite my personal success testing it, I'm seeing it probably isn't the best choice for an example here. As for Spidops, however, if you'd like to understand why I'm so confident about the mustache assassin bug, I wrote a 5000+ word dissertation about it here in the OU metagame discussion thread. Here are the Spidops cliff notes from my original post -

• Spidops has a surprisingly useful defensive profile with HP investment; 60/92/86 with resistances to Fighting, Ground, and Grass means that it resists moves like both of Great Tusk's STABs, Garchomp and Ting-Lu's Earthquake, and more.
• Spidops's Stakeout-boosted STAB First Impression is the single strongest priority move available in the OU meta, and thanks to a bevy of impressive coverage options, it can hit a lot harder than you think with proper investment and item distribution. With Choice Band + Stakeout, STAB First Impression OHKOs Swords Dance Garchomp, has a chance to OHKO Bulky Garchomp, and can 2HKO almost every variant of Garganacl; those are just a few quick examples to show how mind-numbingly dumb Spidops's power can be, (more calculations are in the main post).
• Spidop's Stakeout First Impression also discourages your opponent from switching by punishing players who have lost their double resists and heavily physically defensive single-resist Pokemon, leaving your opponent with the difficult choice of sacrificing frail powerful sweepers like Greninja and Meowscarada or risking taking nuclear levels of damage from the Stakeout boost.
• Spidops's Stakeout additionally boosts all of its coverage moves, meaning that, given the right prediction, not much can reliably switch into Spidops at all.
• Spidops's wide movepool means it can fit a variety of roles suited to your team, meaning that the two movesets I will be talking about below can be tailored to your team's specific needs based on your teammates.
• Spidops can utilize Tera to turn the tables on would-be checks and counters like Skeledirge, Ceruledge, Garganacl, and more!
• Spidops's role compression is very flexible, and its low speed actually works in its favor thanks to slow STAB U-Turn (which can additionally be boosted with Stakeout on switch-ins).

i was lovin these sets while testin

1. Torrent (Azumarill) (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Huge Power
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Play Rough
- Belly Drum
- Aqua Jet
- Substitute

subs on rotom swap, tera ground and drum on volt now they die.

2. Liberacy (Quaquaval) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Moxie
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Aqua Step
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance
- Ice Spinner

aqua step and tera to revenge dnite, immune to mach from loom and spin.

3. Triple 9 (Maushold) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Population Bomb
- Encore
- Tidy Up
- Beat Up

encores on gambit sucker and dnite espeed if it teras, technician boosted beat up.

4. Smile.exe (Scream Tail) @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Flamethrower

stall killer and is good vs offense.

5. Don Corleone (Honchkrow) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Moxie
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Tera Blast

dangerous moxie sweeper that can nuke corv and valiant if it teras.


Couldnt pick a favorite between these.

I didn't even think about Tera Blast Fire on Honchkrow, I assumed that Dark/Fighting would apply better coverage due to its neutral reach, but now I'm seeing that SE based off of that power works better here. I need to look into some of these sets! The Azumarill Tera-Ground Sub setup especially is a brilliant Tera-tech, really nice job!

How has Scream Tail been working for you overall? I've been struggling to find more consistent set clarity for it!

 

[Hades_049]

Altaria @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Cloud Nine
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Dragon Pulse/Haze
- Substitute/Haze
- Will-O-Wisp


Behold, Altaria the Weather obliterator


First off Altaria's abiltiy allows it too consistently switch-in on Great Tusk, Brute Bonnet, Choice Band Wave crash, etc.
Roost is for it's longevity with Substitute to block status moves meant to cripple it

Dragon Pulse is a reliable attack against weather as there are currently no Fairy types that are commonly used in them whilst still chipping neutral targets

Wisp is mainly there to cripple physical attackers that it switches in, It allows it to chip non weather team pokemon as well such as Kingambit, Meowscarada, Potential Iron Valiant Switch, and so much more

Essentially this is a defensive backbone towards weather teams (and great tusk) whilst providing support through wisp


One can try Haze to prevent being setup fodder for common threats such as Volcarona, NP Gholdengo, Curse Dozo, BU Ceruledge and much more


(Now no backlashing alright, Me just thought this "could" work as a weather wall that can sometimes kinda provide support outside of it)

 

[Morkal]

Altaria @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Cloud Nine
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Dragon Pulse/Haze
- Substitute/Haze
- Will-O-Wisp

Behold, Altaria the Weather obliterator

First off Altaria's abiltiy allows it too consistently switch-in on Great Tusk, Brute Bonnet, Choice Band Wave crash, etc.
Roost is for it's longevity with Substitute to block status moves meant to cripple it

Dragon Pulse is a reliable attack against weather as there are currently no Fairy types that are commonly used in them whilst still chipping neutral targets

Wisp is mainly there to cripple physical attackers that it switches in, It allows it to chip non weather team pokemon as well such as Kingambit, Meowscarada, Potential Iron Valiant Switch, and so much more

Essentially this is a defensive backbone towards weather teams (and great tusk) whilst providing support through wisp
One can try Haze to prevent being setup fodder for common threats such as Volcarona, NP Gholdengo, Curse Dozo, BU Ceruledge and much more

(Now no backlashing alright, Me just thought this "could" work as a weather wall that can sometimes kinda provide support outside of it)

This looks like a really cool set idea, I had never thought of Altaria as an answer to Pokemon like Great Tusk and Brute Bonnet, but it seems to have some really unique and powerful tools and attributes! I'd just like a little clarification based on your last sentence. Have you tested this set yourself? This thread is for sets like this, but only if they've been tested by you so that any issues with them can be worked out through trial and error on Showdown! If you have tested it, it looks wonderful, and Haze is a really underrated tech tool (especially in the reign of Volcarona)!

 

[Hades_049]

This looks like a really cool set idea, I had never thought of Altaria as an answer to Pokemon like Great Tusk and Brute Bonnet, but it seems to have some really unique and powerful tools and attributes! I'd just like a little clarification based on your last sentence. Have you tested this set yourself? This thread is for sets like this, but only if they've been tested by you so that any issues with them can be worked out through trial and error on Showdown! If you have tested it, it looks wonderful, and Haze is a really underrated tech tool (especially in the reign of Volcarona)!

I've tested it a few times, But I'll try testing this out on more higher ladder as I was on my alt at around 1300-1400ish

Also about the last sentence I didnt test it at first in gen 9 OU, I tested it in different tiers, Should've been more specific about that
I have just tried testing it and it works ATM

Appreciate the Feedback :)

 

[Storm Zone]

Hi there, thank you for bringing this to my attention - I've edited that rule with a more clear definition thanks to the information you and SetsuSetsuna provided for me. I've also removed the Honchkrow set as, despite my personal success testing it, I'm seeing it probably isn't the best choice for an example here. As for Spidops, however, if you'd like to understand why I'm so confident about the mustache assassin bug, I wrote a 5000+ word dissertation about it here in the OU metagame discussion thread. Here are the Spidops cliff notes from my original post -

• Spidops has a surprisingly useful defensive profile with HP investment; 60/92/86 with resistances to Fighting, Ground, and Grass means that it resists moves like both of Great Tusk's STABs, Garchomp and Ting-Lu's Earthquake, and more.
• Spidops's Stakeout-boosted STAB First Impression is the single strongest priority move available in the OU meta, and thanks to a bevy of impressive coverage options, it can hit a lot harder than you think with proper investment and item distribution. With Choice Band + Stakeout, STAB First Impression OHKOs Swords Dance Garchomp, has a chance to OHKO Bulky Garchomp, and can 2HKO almost every variant of Garganacl; those are just a few quick examples to show how mind-numbingly dumb Spidops's power can be, (more calculations are in the main post).
• Spidop's Stakeout First Impression also discourages your opponent from switching by punishing players who have lost their double resists and heavily physically defensive single-resist Pokemon, leaving your opponent with the difficult choice of sacrificing frail powerful sweepers like Greninja and Meowscarada or risking taking nuclear levels of damage from the Stakeout boost.
• Spidops's Stakeout additionally boosts all of its coverage moves, meaning that, given the right prediction, not much can reliably switch into Spidops at all.
• Spidops's wide movepool means it can fit a variety of roles suited to your team, meaning that the two movesets I will be talking about below can be tailored to your team's specific needs based on your teammates.
• Spidops can utilize Tera to turn the tables on would-be checks and counters like Skeledirge, Ceruledge, Garganacl, and more!
• Spidops's role compression is very flexible, and its low speed actually works in its favor thanks to slow STAB U-Turn (which can additionally be boosted with Stakeout on switch-ins).

I didn't even think about Tera Blast Fire on Honchkrow, I assumed that Dark/Fighting would apply better coverage due to its neutral reach, but now I'm seeing that SE based off of that power works better here. I need to look into some of these sets! The Azumarill Tera-Ground Sub setup especially is a brilliant Tera-tech, really nice job!

How has Scream Tail been working for you overall? I've been struggling to find more consistent set clarity for it!

scream tail has been amazing, great check to most offensive mons like valiant, you may wanna try mixed defensive encore, it completely stomps ho, and on the contrary, if u put the cm set on ho like shed tail, youll find your opponents sacking like half their team just to deal with it, and by then, something else on your team would win

 

[Eeveeto]

Nice thread. Time to comment some sets.

Regarding Cloyster, I think Shell Smash one currently is bad, it's completely walled by Dondozo. Of course, Dondozo outside of Stall is rarely seen nowadays, but playing with 5 vs 6 is suboptimal, especially since it's walled too by other bulky Waters like Toxapex, Tera Unaware Skeledirge or the S Rank Kingambit.
The set that I like more is Band with Icicle Spear, Liquidation, Ice Shard and Tera Blast (Electric) with enough HP to survive from full a +1 Tera Flying Acrobatics from Roaring Moon (this HP still allows Cloyster to outspeed min Speed Room) . BoltBeam is almost flawless coverage and this set is much less match-up dependant, even vs fast teams it will have enough bulk to wistand some physical move and retaliate with powerful Icicle Spear or to pick off a weakened threat with Ice Shard.

Regarding Altaria. This Mon already does 0 damage, so it doesn't really lose much if it runs Dragon Breath instead of Dragon Pulse. Yellow magic is good.

 

[Motor Hawk]

Let me know if I am completely missing the point of this thread... But I have two mons that I have had success and fun with:

Critquaval (Quaquaval) @ Razor Claw
Ability: Moxie
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Focus Energy
- Aqua Step
- Close Combat
- Ice Spinner

Critting Moon (Roaring Moon) @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 220 Atk / 36 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Focus Energy
- Night Slash
- Stone Edge
- Acrobatics

If you can get off a focus energy with either of these mons, they have a 100% crit rate. Quaquaval can cook with 100% crit aqua step + moxie while roaring moon gets strong 50% crit chance acrobatics and 100% crit chance night slash and stone edge.

I usually pair these two with orthworm to allow the maximum opportunity to get off a focus energy.

Have fun :)

 

[Morkal]

Let me know if I am completely missing the point of this thread... But I have two mons that I have had success and fun with:

Critquaval (Quaquaval) @ Razor Claw
Ability: Moxie
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Focus Energy
- Aqua Step
- Close Combat
- Ice Spinner

Critting Moon (Roaring Moon) @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 220 Atk / 36 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Focus Energy
- Night Slash
- Stone Edge
- Acrobatics

If you can get off a focus energy with either of these mons, they have a 100% crit rate. Quaquaval can cook with 100% crit aqua step + moxie while roaring moon gets strong 50% crit chance acrobatics and 100% crit chance night slash and stone edge.

I usually pair these two with orthworm to allow the maximum opportunity to get off a focus energy.

Have fun :)

I didn't realize that Focus Energy grants Night Slash and Stone Edge 100% crit even without Razor Claw, that has some serious potential to break defensive cores, I need to try this

What an awesomely creative couple of sets!

Nice thread. Time to comment some sets.

Regarding Cloyster, I think Shell Smash one currently is bad, it's completely walled by Dondozo. Of course, Dondozo outside of Stall is rarely seen nowadays, but playing with 5 vs 6 is suboptimal, especially since it's walled too by other bulky Waters like Toxapex, Tera Unaware Skeledirge or the S Rank Kingambit.
The set that I like more is Band with Icicle Spear, Liquidation, Ice Shard and Tera Blast (Electric) with enough HP to survive from full a +1 Tera Flying Acrobatics from Roaring Moon (this HP still allows Cloyster to outspeed min Speed Room) . BoltBeam is almost flawless coverage and this set is much less match-up dependant, even vs fast teams it will have enough bulk to wistand some physical move and retaliate with powerful Icicle Spear or to pick off a weakened threat with Ice Shard.

Regarding Altaria. This Mon already does 0 damage, so it doesn't really lose much if it runs Dragon Breath instead of Dragon Pulse. Yellow magic is good.

I'm going to give this variant of Cloyster a whirl and see how it works out, I might replace the example variant with this set, also I definitely agree about replacing Dragon Pulse with Dragonbreath, that paralyze chance can be deadly along with not much of a damage differential

 

[Motor Hawk]

I didn't realize that Focus Energy grants Night Slash and Stone Edge 100% crit even without Razor Claw, that has some serious potential to break defensive cores, I need to try this

What an awesomely creative couple of sets!

Well, its focus energy + any move that has a high crit chance. It essentially gives your +1 crit chance move a +2 (or +3 overall which = 100% chance to crit). That's the same with a crit chance boosting item. The item gives you a +1 and focus energy gives you the addition boost to get you to +3. I found that these two mons work best because quaquaval can still cook with a speed-boosting move and an attack-boosting ability, whereas roaring moon can boost itself with a booster energy and its speed is still great regardless.

 

[Motor Hawk]

And at the risk of creating too many posts after another, another set that I haven't been able to make work as well as I want but that I really want to make work is blunder policy medicham.

Medicham @ Blunder Policy
Ability: Pure Power
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dynamic Punch
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch/ whatever
- Fire Punch/ whatever

Blunder policy gives you a +2 to speed when you miss a move. So either you miss dynamic punch (50% accuracy) and get a +2 boost to speed (which medicham desperately needs), or you hit dynamic punch and get an automatic confuse.

Your medicham has the potential to turn into a mid-game monster.

 

[Lobby Eeveee]

GLACEON

"By controlling its body heat, it can freeze the atmosphere around it to make a diamond-dust flurry."
-BW Dex Entry

"nooo, you can’t just oneshot me with a resisted move, that’s not fair at all!"
-quaquaval

"haha specs tera ice blizzard go brrrr"
-glaceon

HP 65

ATK 60

Def 110

SpATK 130

SpDef 95

SpD 60

CHOICE SPECS
Glaceon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Ice Body/Snow Cloak
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Blizzard
- Freeze Dry
- Water Pulse/Shadow Ball
- Mud Slap/ Shadow Ball

Blizzard 2HKOs a huge portion of OU and when Tera ice and specs deals up to 38% to blissey.

Freeze Dry can be paired with Water Pulse or mud slap for wide coverage. Shadow Ball deals great neutral damage to everything.

The reason why this set works is that it counters 2 of the most popular archetypes currently: Balance and Bulky Offense. A staple of these teams is Ting-Lu, which has massive bulk and can set up hazards and phase easily. However, glaceon can counter it hard. It also counters 2 popular Ting-Lu defensive partners: Rotom-Wash and Amoonguss. Being able to easily destroy balance teams is a great factor, and it cannot be walled by another very popular special wall also used in balance and most stall teams, clodsire, as blizzard freezes the sire.

All glaceon sets must have a snow setter, either slowking or abomasnow.

AV+Trailblaze
Glaceon @ Assault Vest
Ability: Ice Body
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Freeze-Dry
- Shadow Ball
- Blizzard
- Trailblaze

This set is made by Morkal, credits to them. AV+ Trailblaze form a great combo. AV grants bulk to successfully pull off trailblazes, an attack that boosts speed. This patches up it’s speed issue. Then, Freeze-Drys, Blizzards and shadow balls can be fired against faster mons, allowing it to break more offensive teams.

Hail Stall
Glaceon @ Leftovers
Ability: Ice Body
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
- Freeze-Dry/ Ice Beam
- Substitute
- Protect
- Calm Mind

This allows glaceon to beat special attackers and non CM blissey. Simply substitute and protect, then use CM until the substitute can survive a hit, then unleash attacks. Ice beam has worse coverage but deals more damage,

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Let me know if I am completely missing the point of this thread... But I have two mons that I have had success and fun with:

Critquaval (Quaquaval) @ Razor Claw
Ability: Moxie
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Focus Energy
- Aqua Step
- Close Combat
- Ice Spinner

Critting Moon (Roaring Moon) @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 220 Atk / 36 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Focus Energy
- Night Slash
- Stone Edge
- Acrobatics

If you can get off a focus energy with either of these mons, they have a 100% crit rate. Quaquaval can cook with 100% crit aqua step + moxie while roaring moon gets strong 50% crit chance acrobatics and 100% crit chance night slash and stone edge.

I usually pair these two with orthworm to allow the maximum opportunity to get off a focus energy.

Have fun :)

this gives me a fun idea for focus energy snipe shot sniper inteleon once home drops. can't really test it right now for obvious reasons, but calcs on rain teams look promising. it can hit really hard on some stuff that people might normally switch into inteleon:

252 SpA Sniper Inteleon Snipe Shot vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dondozo in Rain on a critical hit: 304-358 (60.3 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Sniper Inteleon Snipe Shot vs. 116 HP / 0 SpD Azumarill in Rain on a critical hit: 258-304 (69.7 - 82.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Sniper Inteleon Snipe Shot vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Rotom-Wash in Rain on a critical hit: 202-238 (66.4 - 78.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

azu and rotom-w are usually very comfortable switching into inteleon because its standard coverage is ice beam, dark pulse, and air slash, so this is a nice way to break through stuff inteleon would normally need to run tera blast for.

and these are without an item, so you can also slap life orb on it, which allows you to net some very desirable 2hkos for rain teams:

252 SpA Life Orb Sniper Inteleon Snipe Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Water Garganacl in Rain on a critical hit: 216-255 (53.4 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Life Orb Sniper Inteleon Snipe Shot vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking in Rain on a critical hit: 189-224 (48 - 56.9%) -- 91% chance to 2HKO (more than Dark Pulse)

252 SpA Life Orb Sniper Inteleon Snipe Shot vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Roaring Moon in Rain on a critical hit: 279-328 (79.4 - 93.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (more than Ice Beam)

252 SpA Life Orb Sniper Inteleon Snipe Shot vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Toxapex in Rain on a critical hit: 197-232 (64.8 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

[Lobby Eeveee]

as there are currently no Fairy types

Hatterene in sun:

 

[AM]

Kingambit @ Focus Sash
Ability: Defiant
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Steel Beam
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock

Suicide Lead Gambit to get rocks up on Hatt builds and psyspam structures mostly. This is probably the only unique thing I've used recently, I only spam the brokens/boring stuff when playing OU anyways in my limited time these days. Either ability is probably fine, it only lasts like 2-3 turns anyways. I had Metal Burst over Taunt originally but it wasn't good in practice and Taunt stops Orthworm builds from Shed Tailing for free.

 

[RKOtaku]

Iron Valiant @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Encore
- Moonblast
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power

I had a decent amount of success on high ladder with this set. It is a fun variant when paired with Orthworm. The best way to abuse this set is to use Encore when an opponent uses a poison attack (by making Iron Valiant Tera Steel) or a status move which allows you to set up multiple times. What I like about this set is that it can sweep entire teams with ease. I won't lie though it is kind of match up dependant but sometimes Stored Power can be more useful than Psyshock.

Iron Valiant @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ghost / Steel / Flying
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Calm Mind
- Destiny Bond

A little bit more classic but Destiny Bond makes the difference. Iron Valiant kind of possess 4MSS (or rather it has the freedom to chose what it wants to beat) and I found Destiny Bond to be quite good to open the door to other set up sweepers by killing a Skeledirge for example (especially good when paired with Iron Moth).
As far as the Tera type is concerned they each have different purpose :
- Ghost allows you to beat Extreme Speed Dragonite and often make the opponent waste their Tera
- Steel lets you resist Extreme Speed while also resisting Fairy/Poison moves
- Flying is quite good when paired with Orthworm (again) when your opponent only answer to Iron Valiant is Clodsire because a lot of them only have Earthquake as an attacking move and they become set-up fodder.

I like each of these sets but the second one is probably more consistent overall.

 

[incorolla]

Everyone's going to hate this but they hated Christ so here I go


Nia (Cacturne) (M) @ Eject Pack
Ability: Water Absorb
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Spiky Shield
- Taunt / Spikes
- Leaf Storm

You may be asking, what on earth does Cacturne bring to the table that other Mon don't? The answers are:
A handy water immunity to check Walking Wake and rain teams
Powerful priority, even with minimal investment it's the third strongest sucker punch in the tier
Craps over more passive Pokémon with Taunt
A very powerful Leaf Storm

I personally like using Eject Pack to hit a resisted target relatively hard and get a free switch in to a dangerous Mon of my own, usually Walking Wake or Dragapult. Spiky Shield is fun too - I like stacking hazards and spreading poison with Glimmora, and both Mon have spiky shield to stall for poison and rack up extra chip damage.

This team isnt perfect by any means but it's very fun to play with and Cacturne always pulls her weight!

Replays:

Cacturne cleans up late game

 

[sims796]

It says 404, broken Cacturne link.

 

[VTMagno]

Everyone's going to hate this but they hated Christ so here I go


Nia (Cacturne) (M) @ Eject Pack
Ability: Water Absorb
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Spiky Shield
- Taunt / Spikes
- Leaf Storm

You may be asking, what on earth does Cacturne bring to the table that other Mon don't? The answers are:
A handy water immunity to check Walking Wake and rain teams
Powerful priority, even with minimal investment it's the third strongest sucker punch in the tier
Craps over more passive Pokémon with Taunt
A very powerful Leaf Storm

I personally like using Eject Pack to hit a resisted target relatively hard and get a free switch in to a dangerous Mon of my own, usually Walking Wake or Dragapult. Spiky Shield is fun too - I like stacking hazards and spreading poison with Glimmora, and both Mon have spiky shield to stall for poison and rack up extra chip damage.

This team isnt perfect by any means but it's very fun to play with and Cacturne always pulls her weight!

Replays:

Cacturne cleans up late game

Just as a heads up, EVs here aren't fully optimized. If you go with a Rash Nature instead of Naughty and invest 120 EVs into Attack and 136 into Special Attack, you end up with 296 Attack and 330 Special Attack, as opposed to 293 Attack and 329 Special Attack.

 

[incorolla]

https://pokepast.es/5a481262f1c30a58

Just as a heads up, EVs here aren't fully optimized. If you go with a Rash Nature instead of Naughty and invest 120 EVs into Attack and 136 into Special Attack, you end up with 296 Attack and 330 Special Attack, as opposed to 293 Attack and 329 Special Attack.

Thank you! Great spot, I'll do that for sure :)

 

[Zmaslan256]

Feedback's Feel (Hydreigon) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel / Poison / Fire
EVs: 64 HP / 192 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Spin
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute

If you've been playing OU recently, you might have noticed the influx of hydreigon usage on ladder, specifically the Substitute + Nasty Plot variant. This set is good enough on its own, shredding through common Bulky Offense and Balance teams that struggle to deal with it subbing up and boosting. This set, however, aims to maximize the boosts achievable by using Fire Spin to trap common passive mons that can break Hydreigon's sub easily, like Amoongus, Clodsire, and to an extent, Toxapex. This set also eviscerates stall, which is always good.

The choice of Fire Spin does hinder Hydreigon's power, but makes it a much more versatile threat. It can still smack steel types like Kingambit when boosted, but it can also prevent double switches by Fire Spinning on the opponent's switch to a fast wallbreaker like Iron Valiant or Dragapult. If they send in a wall to try and passively absorb hits (for instance, Amoongus) on your Fire Spin, congratulations, you have an free setup opportunity! In both instances, Fire Spinning on the opponent's potential switch lets Hydreigon either switch safely to a teammate, or set up with relative ease.

Hydreigon the stall killer

Hydreigon finds a unique setup opportunity with Tera Poison, opening the game for a surprise Scarf Great Tusk

 

[Morkal]

Feedback's Feel (Hydreigon) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Steel / Poison / Fire
EVs: 64 HP / 192 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Spin
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute

If you've been playing OU recently, you might have noticed the influx of hydreigon usage on ladder, specifically the Substitute + Nasty Plot variant. This set is good enough on its own, shredding through common Bulky Offense and Balance teams that struggle to deal with it subbing up and boosting. This set, however, aims to maximize the boosts achievable by using Fire Spin to trap common passive mons that can break Hydreigon's sub easily, like Amoongus, Clodsire, and to an extent, Toxapex. This set also eviscerates stall, which is always good.

The choice of Fire Spin does hinder Hydreigon's power, but makes it a much more versatile threat. It can still smack steel types like Kingambit when boosted, but it can also prevent double switches by Fire Spinning on the opponent's switch to a fast wallbreaker like Iron Valiant or Dragapult. If they send in a wall to try and passively absorb hits (for instance, Amoongus) on your Fire Spin, congratulations, you have an free setup opportunity! In both instances, Fire Spinning on the opponent's potential switch lets Hydreigon either switch safely to a teammate, or set up with relative ease.

Hydreigon the stall killer

Hydreigon finds a unique setup opportunity with Tera Poison, opening the game for a surprise Scarf Great Tusk

So I've been testing this set lately, and I've found that Tera Poison has been the most consistently useful out of the three tera types you slotted in up top because of its access to Levitate + newly gained resistances. With Tera Steel, Hydreigon still has nasty weaknesses in Fighting / Fire attacks, while Tera Poison means that Hydreigon only has a weakness to Psychic (which Psychic types don't want to come in anyway because of Dark Pulse) thanks to the Ground immunity.

Tera Poison gives Hydreigon resistances to Fighting (previously a weakness) and Fairy (previously a quad weakness), and Fighting resistance is absolutely crucial. Additionally, only having a neutrality to Fire with Tera Poison rather than a weakness with Tera Steel means that it's not as scared of switching in on Torch Song or Flamethrower/Fire Blast.

Also; I've put the Tera Poison variant of this set over my original Cloyster as a great example of the type of creative work I love seeing for established threats in the metagame. I'm going to be testing each of the sets in here individually and adding a few of them up to the main post.

 

[Qwerty328]

Bambi (Sawsbuck-Summer) @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Swords Dance
- Seed Bomb
- Body Slam
- Stomping Tantrum

I've been rocking this on an OU sun team and it's a really good cleaner, with sun up only plus speed nature choice scarf dragapult outspeeds it without a boost. It's damage is sometimes a little underwhelming, however with a good speed stat and swords dance it tends to be able to always pick up at least a couple kills with proper chip, even against bulkier mons. I experimented with Double Edge over Body Slam but it typically racked up too much damage on itself which limited it's ability to get kills like it needed to. But at +2 Sawsbuck can get a lot of damage off. It does struggle to find a place to set up but usually it has the bulk to take at least one hit.

Example Calcs:
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Sawsbuck Stomping Tantrum vs. 112 HP / 0 Def Kingambit: 304-359 (82.3 - 97.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Sawsbuck Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Valiant: 329-387 (113.8 - 133.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Sawsbuck Body Slam vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hatterene: 224-265 (70.4 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Sawsbuck Stomping Tantrum vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 225-265 (70.7 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Sawsbuck Seed Bomb vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Garganacl: 338-400 (83.6 - 99%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Sawsbuck Seed Bomb vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Protosynthesis Great Tusk: 260-307 (59.9 - 70.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers