Common Roles

Omniboost Sweeper: While only possible once a game, No Retreat can give Falinks decent stats, and, with investment, it can outspeed and threaten many unboosted foes. However, weak defenses before a boost can make it more difficult for Falinks to boost without losing a large percentage of its health.

Wallbreaker: With a Choice Band, Falinks can do serious damage to foes expecting a setup sweeper. First Impression with a Choice Band boost can eliminate faster threats, with other powerful moves dealing significant damage without locking into never switching out.

Common Moves

Primary STAB Moves: Close Combat, Body Press

Setup Moves: No Retreat, Iron Defense, Trailblaze

Utility Moves: Rest, Knock Off, Sleep Talk, Substitute

Coverage: High Horsepower, Iron Head, Poison Jab, Rock Slide, Zen Headbutt, Body Slam, Megahorn, Lunge, First Impression

Niche Moves

Facade: While Falinks should not be statusing itself, if the opposing team is expected to respond to the threat of Falinks with a burn, Facade provides it a powerful attack that can allow a sweep to continue on despite the status.

Endeavor: A boosted Falinks is able to take a few hits before being knocked out, so Endeavor can be an option to quickly bring down a Pokemon's health in cases where the default STAB move options are less effective.

Throat Chop: Throat Chop prevents a number of dangerous moves, such as Roar and Parting Shot, from ruining Falinks's strategy. It also prevents Pokemon like Hatterene and Sylveon from using sound-based attacks like Psychic Noise and Hyper Voice.

Bulk Up and Swords Dance: Should Falinks want the flexibility of switching out, it has access to other Attack-boosting moves that don't involve the commitment of No Retreat, such as Swords Dance and Bulk Up.

Upper Hand: Falinks can avoid an interrupted sweep with Upper Hand, preventing priority moves from KOing it at low health.

Common Items

Sitrus Berry: Sitrus Berry greatly increases how long Falinks can function as a sweeper by increasing its functional HP pool by 25% in most circumstances. However, sufficient Defense drops from Close Combat can result in Sitrus Berry not getting a chance to activate, as Falinks gets KOed from beyond its range.

Lum Berry: With how essential it is for Falinks to remain free of status, Lum Berry can allow it to ignore Toxic Spikes or push through a single turn of a status-inducing move like Will-O-Wisp or Thunder Wave.

Heavy-Duty Boots: Falinks needs to wait for an opportunity to set up, increasing the chance that entry hazards will chip it when it comes in. With only so much damage it can take and no reliable recovery, Heavy-Duty Boots protect Falinks from being chipped simply by entering the field.

Choice Band: Falinks can be a decent wallbreaker with Choice Band, hitting hard while circumventing the standard responses to it. Choice Band also allows it to leave and return to the battle multiple times during a game, having impact throughout. Pairing Choice Band with First Impression also allows Falinks to act as a surprise revenge killer.

Niche Items

Resistance Berries: Without needing to commit Terastallization to Falinks, a held Payapa, Coba, or Roseli Berry can enable Falinks to survive certain super effective hits in order to set up and begin to sweep.

Mental Herb: Without boosted Speed before No Retreat, Falinks can suffer from Taunt preventing it from setting up at all. Mental Herb can give Falinks the turn it needs to set up, after which it has little worry of being Taunted.

Choice Scarf: In a similar approach to the Choice Band, Falinks can patch up a low Speed stat by using a Choice Scarf.

Tera

Falinks's cheap cost can allow for pairing with an expensive Tera Captain while also maintaining a niche use as one itself. While Falinks will struggle to make as much use out of Tera as most Pokemon, Tera is not completely wasted on it either. Defensive types like Steel and Poison can allow Falinks to avoid the types that hit it for super effective damage, enabling it to take a resisted hit and set up No Retreat. Tera Fighting can also work as another damage boost for its main damaging moves once No Retreat is set up, though it offers no benefit to enabling setup opportunities. Tera Bug can increase the damage of First Impression to secure needed KOs.

Draft Strategy

Falinks is a garnish on top of a nearly completed draft, adding little in the way of defense or utility but providing a cheap source of minor teambuilder pressure. Falinks should only be considered as a gimmicky option for a draft with one or two points left to spend and little need when it comes to standard roles.

Entry Hazard Setters: Falinks greatly appreciates the chip damage that comes from entry hazards, such as Garchomp's Stealth Rock and Greninja's Spikes. Toxic Spikes is less impactful when Falinks is hoping to KO Pokemon outright, but Sticky Web can help Falinks outspeed certain threats before setting up.

Entry Hazard Removal: The ability to run an item other than Heavy-Duty Boots without risking Falinks's HP is something that Corviknight, Iron Treads, or Brambleghast can provide by removing entry hazards with Defog or Rapid Spin.

Slow Pivots: Slow pivots like Galarian Slowking and Rotom-W allow Falinks to switch in safely, ensuring that Falinks gets in unscathed. If running a Berry like Sitrus Berry, this allows Falinks to keep its item intact. It also prevents double switches, ensuring that Falinks only enters the field against something it can comfortably use No Retreat against.

Checks and Counters

Phazing: If a Pokemon can stomach a hit from a boosted Falinks, holding a Red Card or using a move like Whirlwind will force Falinks out. With Falinks pressed to find good setup opportunities in general, forcing it out can provide a near complete stop to its ability to sweep. Haze can blank any No Retreat boosts without giving Falinks another opportunity to set up later in the game.

Status: Falinks struggles to accomplish a sweep when statused, with each status providing its own flavor of limitation. Sleep and burn are the two most detrimental, each potentially ending Falinks's run outright.

Revenge Killers: Even when boosted, there are a number of threats that Falinks can't outrun if they have their own way of increasing their Speed, like Choice Scarf and Booster Energy users. Pokemon like Choice Scarf Annihilape, Speed Booster Iron Valiant. and Unburden-activated Sneasler can outrun and OHKO a damaged Falinks.