Hopes and Dreams 2.0 - Ultra Edition
The sequel and finale to Hopes and Dreams
1604 Elo - Rank #1
Introduction (Part 1)
The story of Hackmons and its key variants primarily based on my interpretation.
Phase V (2018-2019)
After the removal of Classic Hackmons, there was little to no hope of a return for discussion or accessible methods to play the metagame. Classic Hackmons became a project lost in memory. However in mid 2018, Pure Hackmons was given another chance! Its return was approved in the form of an OM Mashup and it was to begin its revival in the Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon version of the metagame. During the submission process, one person was appointed the position to spearhead the return of Pure Hackmons to ensure it had a smooth start. This person was an Other Metas Room Moderator at the time, regularly known to look for any opportunity to restore the life of Hackmons, but also having a solid work ethic and being dependable at the time. They were known to be none other than the name Ransei.
Pure Hackmons was planned to start off in a thread titled "OM Mashups Megathread" as a combination of Anything Goes and Balanced Hackmons. Alongside all other OM Mashups, the metagame was planned to released out into the public simultaneously. On May 31st 2018, the OM Mashups Megathread was released. Less than two weeks later, on June 10th 2018, Ransei decided to create a subroom groupchat in order to host Pure Hackmons and the wide variety of all other OM Mashup formats. From there, he also decided to co-lead the OM Mashups project and help with the development of multiple other OM Mashups. Prior to the release of the OM Mashups Megathread, Ransei created a discord server to ready up for discussions about Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Pure Hackmons and its resources for development. On June 19th 2018, Ransei opened up the discord server and let in Gen 7 Pure Hackmons players to discuss the metagame. The server was not very active, but it was enough to contribute to the making of Pure Hackmons's first ever viability rankings. The viability rankings was posted on August 1st 2018 as Ransei's 1000th post on Smogon. Nearly a week later, on August 7th 2018, Ransei decided to revamp the discord server into an official OM Mashups discord server.
Several months in and Gen 7 Pure Hackmons has received a notable amount of development. It was looking to be on its way to a more successful path. In the midst of this, Ransei was promoted to Other Metas Room Owner and within a few days, Let's Go Hackmons was chosen as OM Leader's Choice ladder for December 2018. Let's Go Hackmons was active for a couple of days and then its popularity dropped to 0 due to the limited amount of Pokémon and the extremely overcentralized state of the metagame. In spite of this, both OM Mashups and Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Pure Hackmons persisted in their development. Due to the success of OM Mashups and its community, OM Mashups was able to have its own official hidden subroom on January 10th 2019.
Throughout late 2018 and early 2019 Ransei also received a string of promotions. On December 25th 2018, he received global promotion and became a part of the PS! Global Staff team; on January 12th 2019, he became part of the OM Forum Staff team, and on March 2nd 2019, he was promoted to PS! Global Moderator. This rise in power has given Ransei the opportunity to bear much more influence on the state of Pure Hackmons, its rising community, and how it would all be shaped down the line.
Pure Hackmons went on to have multiple significant resources made for its development between the era of late 2018 through 2019. Firstly, an article made to introduce new players to Gen 7 Pure Hackmons was published on October 24th 2018. Several months later, Gen 7 Pure Hackmons had its first ever forum tournament hosted from February 25th 2019 to April 10th 2019. Within the same month, an Old Gen Hackmons Megathread was made on April 24th 2019 in order to not only promote the development of older gen Pure Hackmons, but to create a fail-safe for Pure Hackmons in case future games become unsuitable for the metagame. A month later, on May 25th 2019, the first ever RMT of Gen 7 Pure Hackmons got released. It was an iconic RMT post that gave inspiration for the Pokémon Mega Audino and Mega Lopunny to serve as significant personifications of Wonder Guard and No Guard in Pure Hackmons respectively. The RMT was made by none other than Ransei, the same person spearheading Pure Hackmons. After this post, he made plans to tell the story of Hackmons through another RMT. On August 18th 2019, Ransei's 2nd Pure Hackmons RMT was released. This time, it was a Generation 6 RMT and served as the very prequel of what would eventually become another RMT nearly 5 years down the line. It contains the story of Hackmons from its origins on Pokémon Showdown down the RMT's release in 2019.
While Pure Hackmons was having great amounts of success, OM Mashups became hardcarried by the emerging OM Mashups community. They helped liven up the room to such an extent that on September 4th 2019, OM Mashups became a public subroom for Other Metas. Around this time, Ransei also requested for a hidden room to discuss the older generations of Pure Hackmons. It was intended to be a private hangout room with a purpose to justify it. The request received approval, but it was made into a new hidden Other Metas subroom instead, as PS! Upper Staff deemed it more fitting. The room Ransei requested was named Old Shark as a combination of "Old" for old gens and "Shark" as a reference to the original name Hackmons had on Smogon, Sharkmons. Old Shark was made on September 5th 2019.
Generation 8 was approaching, but by this point, Ransei had already set nearly all the building blocks necessary for Pure Hackmons to keep thriving. There's been a few threads, a few PS! rooms, a few discord servers, and plenty of resources for players to learn from. He felt the community was ready for Generation 8 Pure Hackmons. Due to the success of Pure Hackmons during Generation 7, plans were made for Pure Hackmons to separate from OM Mashups and become its own full-fledged Other Metagame. These plans were to take course when Generation 8 begun. Ransei was getting ready for Generation 8, but in his excitement, he noticed one thing in the next game's datamines that would lead to great concern...
Phase VI (2019-2021)
Ransei noticed the makers of main series Pokémon games have set a shocking precedent for the series. A legendary Pokémon with a base stat distribution of 255/115/250/125/250/130, 1125 BST, was confirmed to be present in the data of Generation 8 Pokémon games. The odds of this Pokémon carrying a strongly negative impact on the Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame were undeniably high, but Ransei hoped the Pokémon would not be hackable in the games. If confirmed to be hackable, Ransei would alternatively wish for the Pokémon to bear little to no harm on the state of the metagame outside overcentralization. On November 15th 2019, the Generation 8 Pokémon games came out but there was no confirmation on whether or not the aforementioned Pokémon was hackable. The Pokémon in question was officially given the name Eternamax Eternatus, but it was often shortened to the name Eternamax. 10 days after Generation 8 Pokémon games were released, Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was given its own official thread on the Other Metagames subforum and made full departure from being a part of OM Mashups. Nearly one month later, on December 15th 2019, it was fully brought to the attention of Other Metas leadership that Eternatus-Eternamax was indeed hackable in Generation 8 Pure Hackmons. As the focus became Generation 8, Generation 7 Pure Hackmons moved to the Old Gen Hackmons Megathread and this was officially announced on January 1st 2020. The development of Generation 7 Pure Hackmons would proceed to slow down.
One month later, Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was chosen as OM of The Month for February 2020. The world has proven its desire to play with Eternamax Eternatus--the new legendary Pokémon given 1125 BST. During this time, there was much left to be explored in the data of Generation 8 Pokémon games. Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was made to begin with only the information known about the games up to this point. To the surprise of Ransei and the rest of the Pure Hackmons community, Generation 8 Pure Hackmons had a surprisingly well start after the just a few days of players getting used to the metagame. During this time, Eternamax seemed to be more of a net positive than a net negative for Generation 8 Pure Hackmons. This was because the mechanics implemented for Generation 8 were discovered to be wilder than most previous generations, leading to the metagame having extreme levels of powercreep from its predecessors. Eternamax Eternatus was the only Pokémon holding back the powercreep in Gen 8 Pure Hackmons, but it could only hold it back to a limited degree. Despite the sheer bulk of Eternamax Eternatus, the most effective strategy in Gen 8 Pure Hackmons became Hyper Offense. The Pure Hackmons community was relieved by the thought of Eternamax holding the metagame together and arguably not even being the most threatening force on the battlefield. The month of February 2020 was considered a successful start for the Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame.
As time moved on, Ransei developed into a powerful leadership figure in the Other Metagames and Pokémon Showdown communities as a Forum Moderator and PS! Global Staff. On March 23rd 2020, he was appointed to Other Metagames Leader. Less than 3 months later, on June 18th 2020, Ransei was promoted to Administrator on Pokémon Showdown. These positions gave Ransei great potential to further shape the future of Pure Hackmons down the line and support the community in the most meaningful way, but he was rather focused on learning the ropes of leading the Pokémon Showdown community as a PS! Admin and making sure Other Metagames would remain in good standing. Ransei was also promoted to Forum Moderator in Ruins of Alph on May 16th 2020 for the potential to help various OM formats collaborate with their older generation counterparts.
On June 17th 2020, the Generation 8 Pokémon games released their first DLC. Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was particularly inactive during this era as most players decided to focus on older generations, but the DLC gave room to discuss possible changes that would affect the Gen 8 metagame. The most noteworthy addition was theorized to be Chansey and Blissey for their high base HP, but the metagame was not given much spotlight during the era of this first DLC. There was a second DLC said to be arriving on October 22nd 2020.
Throughout 2020, older generations of Pure Hackmons were becoming more popular and its influence was being spread around to not only the Other Metagames community, but the Ruins of Alph community. To much surprise, thanks to Ransei and the community frequently bringing older generations of Pure Hackmons to the attention of Ruins of Alph, the Ruins of Alph staff decided to give Generation 6 Pure Hackmons a month-long ladder for July 2020. The month-long ladder turned out to be a success for the Pure Hackmons community with multiple resources receiving updates from great discoveries made. The most notable discovery found during this month was the sheer splashability of Giratina, which would eventually reveal itself as evidence for Giratina being the definitive best Pokémon in the Generation 6 Pure Hackmons metagame.
Within months following Generation 8's 1st DLC, a major discovery was made for the Generation 8 Pokémon games. On October 18th 2020, four days prior to the release of Generation 8's 2nd DLC, it was officially revealed to the Smogon community that Eternamax's defenses were high enough to create an overflow with the right nature and the right amount of EVs. This overflow would allow for players to choose whether they wanted Eternamax to have invincibility against all physical non-fixed damage attacks or invincibility against all special non-fixed damage attacks. This change would permanently alter the course of Generation 8 Pure Hackmons.
The discovery of Eternamax's overflow overshadowed all new information regarding Generation 8's 2nd DLC for Pure Hackmons. This would lead for Generation 8 Pure Hackmons to slowly shift into revolving around one strategy; the use of 20-30% accuracy OHKO moves. As such, most of the Pure Hackmons community decided to keep focusing primarily on the older generations of Pure Hackmons while only a handful made attempts to salvage Generation 8.
Phase VII (2021-2023)
Not much changed for the Pure Hackmons community between late 2020 and early 2021. However, due to the high amount of development made within the Pure Hackmons community, a string of odd circumstances that occurred outside Pure Hackmons throughout 2020 and early 2021, the negative impact Generation 8 had on multiple OM formats, and Ransei's position as Other Metas Leader and Pokémon Showdown Administrator, all the stars aligned, giving Ransei the perfect opportunity to re-establish a permanent Pure Hackmons ladder for Pokémon Showdown. By this point, it had been six and a half years since Hackmons last had a permanent ladder, but now it was suddenly being revived. Ransei had always felt the implementation of a permanent ladder was the final step needed for any metagame to truly be explored and developed. He had also felt it was important for Pure Hackmons to have a permanent ladder on Pokémon Showdown since it was one of the most widely fantasized concepts for battling ever made within the Pokémon community. Many Pokémon fans in and out of the Pure Hackmons community often enjoyed theorizing common sets they never knew were usable on Pokémon Showdown, such as Wonder Guard Spiritomb and No Guard Deoxys-Speed. Many people wanted to use these sets but most were not aware of the places they were accessible to use. The addition of a permanent ladder fixed this issue by making Pure Hackmons at its most widely accessible to everyone and spreading more awareness of the metagame's existence. Ransei decided Generation 6 would be the best choice to serve as the permaladder for Pure Hackmons as he determined it to be the most stable generation and the most ideal for emulating the sets most popularly fantasized for its time. He considered this implementation to be the single biggest contribution he's ever made for the Pokémon community at large, as well as one of the biggest he has ever made to Pokémon Showdown, Other Metagames, and Ruins of Alph respectively. As an Other Metas Leader who took their chances after being drawn by rocky situations he could have never anticipated, resulting in him leading Other Metas by himself, Ransei was not comfortable with an old gen OM permaladder being given solely to Pure Hackmons. He instead wanted to create a potentially long-running project where multiple older gen OM formats could receive a chance to shine. He noticed frequent demands over the previous year given from all over Pokémon Showdown for the return of Generation 7 Balanced Hackmons. To fulfill those high demands, he used these moments as an opportunity to restore the Generation 7 Balanced Hackmons ladder with the intent of having it pair up with Generation 6 Pure Hackmons. Ransei eventually added more old gen OM ladders for formats known to be popular for their time.
While the addition of a permaladder was letting the development of Generation 6 Pure Hackmons grow more prosperously, multiple strings of bad news were slammed for Generation 8 Pure and Balanced Hackmons throughout 2021. First, Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was suddenly given the opportunity to serve as the OM Leader's Choice ladder of the month for July 2021 nearly a week into the month, as the metagame previously chosen faced notable issues with bugs. The month of July 2021 exposed the complications Eternamax's overflow had on Gen 8 Pure Hackmons, repelling nearly every member of the Pure Hackmons community who was previously an expert determined to play the metagame, including Ransei himself. It was proven that this metagame shifted negatively beyond recognition. The only consistent strategy anyone could perform in high level games was to have every single one of their Pokémon carry 20-30% accuracy OHKO moves in hopes they would hit the opponent. While there were ways to mitigate the odds of being hit, the metagame still ultimately became more strongly influenced by luck than nearly all previous generations of Pure Hackmons and more than almost any other format in Pokémon Showdown history.
During the month of July 2021, Ransei was also involved in making a new article for Pure Hackmons. The article was titled "What is Hackmons?", which aimed to teach others about the philosophy behind Hackmons as well as provide examples of Pokémon who best follow under its philosophy. It then followed with tips on how to start playing any generation of the metagame. The article was released on July 15th 2021 to celebrate Ransei's 7th anniversary on Smogon.
Several months later, on October 17th 2021, it was officially revealed that in Generation 8, Pokémon could be hacked to have their HP doubled prior to Dynamaxing, then further double their HP when they do Dynamax, allowing each Pokémon to effectively have 2 to 4 times their own HP depending on whether or not they Dynamax. 10 days later, on October 27th 2021, it would also be revealed that for Generation 8, a Pokémon's HP can be edited to 65,000 and then used in local pvp battles through hacking. From there, the OM leadership team decided there needed to be a change in the definition of Hackmons for both Pure Hackmons and Balanced Hackmons to sustain. For Pure Hackmons, the continuous downward spiral of discoveries ruining Generation 8 led to OM leadership deciding to move the official Gen 8 Pure Hackmons format to the next Pokémon games. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were near their release, so OM leadership waited until those games came out in order to make a full transition. The transition to Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl was finally made on November 19th 2021. 10 days later, on November 29th 2021, Ransei resigned from Pokémon Showdown Administrator for unrelated reasons as it was determined he was no longer in need of PS! Administrator powers to fulfill the responsibilities he was able to carry by this point. Despite this, Ransei still carried OM Leadership responsibilities and remained an Other Metas Leader.
As time moved on it was discovered that using Pokémon with their HP edited to 65,000 in local battles was possible in every generation except Generations 6 and 7. The Pure Hackmons community was more focused on Generation 6 than ever and a new policy to redefine Hackmons was on its way, so these discoveries did not bring much concern. It was to be played as always, similar to how Hackmons sets were able to be made in the past through DNS exploits of the DS era without the use of a cheating device. On June 22nd 2022, the definition for Hackmons finally changed. It went from "Anything that can be hacked in-game and is usable in local battles is allowed" to "Anything directly hackable onto a set (EVs, IVs, forme, ability, item, and move) and is usable in local battles is allowed."
While Other Metas leadership were looking for a way to change the definition of Hackmons, the Pure Hackmons community went through multiple new stages of advancement. Throughout the few years prior, the Pure Hackmons community had grown bigger than ever before, with plenty of rising contributors and plenty of new leadership figures, such as Bahamut, berry, NToTheN, and aerobee (who would end up carrying the name "Pure Hackmons" on Pokémon Showdown). The new leadership figures were being appointed to help Ransei run the Pure Hackmons community. By this point, Pure Hackmons had gotten successful enough for the Pure Hackmons community leadership to request for Old Shark to be made into a public OM subroom. The request was approved by Other Metas leadership and PS! Upper Staff, leading to Old Shark being made officially public on April 25th 2022. Throughout the few months following, Pure Hackmons community leadership also worked with the Smogon Contributions & Corrections leadership to request analyses to be opened up for Generation 6 Pure Hackmons as it became a highly developed metagame with a consistently active ladder. The Smogon Contributions & Corrections leadership approved of this and on June 23rd 2023, analyses for Generation 6 Pure Hackmons were finally open.
As for the case of Generation 8 Pure Hackmons, things would take a strange turn. Attempts were made to develop Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Pure Hackmons, but the metagame never received more than minimal traction. Within several months, the very few members of the Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Pure Hackmons playerbase abandoned the metagame. It should be noted that those few members in this playerbase were mostly the same people leading the Pure Hackmons community at the time. Additionally, on March 10th 2022, a special YouTube video was created by a competitive Pokémon player named freezai, who would turn out to become a YouTube sensation within the competitive Pokémon community. The video was titled "How Eternatus Ruined Competitive Hacked Pokemon" and would detail how the presence of Eternamax Eternatus ultimately led to Generation 8 Pure Hackmons transitioning to Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. This sparked significant attention towards the original Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame and led to many players from all around Pokémon Showdown wanting to try out Eternamax Eternatus. With Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Pure Hackmons's decline, the high demand for the original Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame, and a change in the definition of Hackmons along the way, both Pure Hackmons leadership and Other Metas leadership decided it would be best for the official Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame to transition back to the original Generation 8 Pokémon games. On July 17th 2022, the official Pure Hackmons metagame of Generation 8 finally transitioned from Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl back to the original Generation 8 Pokémon games, which were named Pokémon Sword and Shield. By the time of this transition Generation 8 was nearing its end. Some additional development was made for the metagame in the form of high quality posts, but there was not much more development to foresee, as the change in Hackmons's definition had not changed the metagame. The Pure Hackmons community continued to focus primarily on further developing Generation 6 Pure Hackmons instead and Generation 8 was slowly becoming a closed chapter. On October 30th 2022, Other Metas leadership decided to have Generation 8 Pure Hackmons serve as the final OM Leader's Choice Ladder of Generation 8, running throughout November 2022 while the other OM formats make their smooth transition to Generation 9. The month of November 2022 was the most popular a Pure Hackmons ladder had ever been up to this point, with exactly 67,000 games played. It was evident that the demand to access Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was genuine, making for a great final sendoff for Generation 8 Other Metagames.
The year of 2023 was quite a calm one for the Pure Hackmons community. Analyses kept running, Generation 6 Pure Hackmons was still active, and the community was still in on making new discoveries for the metagame. Generation 9 Pure Hackmons released on December 6th 2022, but Generation 9 alongside Generation 8 proved that Pure Hackmons was never going to be an ideally playable metagame in the long-run, and so by this point, Ransei determined the majority of development would be indefinitely confined to older generations. Despite this, the Pure Hackmons community started feeling that the Generation 6 Pure Hackmons ladder was getting old and stale. By 2023, it had lasted for two years with significant chunks of development made. The metagame looked to be almost finalized. Pure Hackmons leadership were losing interest in Generation 6 Pure Hackmons and instead, they and the community gained newfound interest in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Pure Hackmons. This, by coincidence, was the same version of the Pure Hackmons metagame Ransei first ran to spearhead the return of Pure Hackmons as well as the metagame that ultimately led to the sheer advancement of everything regarding Pure Hackmons and its community. There were concerns over the stability of Generation 7 Pure Hackmons due to mechanics such as Crystal-Free Z-Moves and abilities such as Innards Out, but this did not stop the growing demand for a playable Generation 7 Pure Hackmons ladder. In addition, despite the growth Pure Hackmons made during Generation 7, and it being responsible for the community's advancement, Generation 7 Pure Hackmons had never received a ladder. In result of these factors, Ransei made a request to the rest of the OM leadership team for a Generation 9 Pure Hackmons ladder to be replaced with Generation 7 when the time comes for a Pure Hackmons metagame to be chosen as OM of the Month or OM Leader's Choice. The OM leadership team approved of this decision. Later, on August 30th 2023, Generation 7 Pure Hackmons was officially announced to be the OM Leader's Choice ladder of September 2023. The decision behind this would be Ransei's last notable action taken as an Other Metas Leader.
While this was ongoing, Pure Hackmons leadership decided to have Old Shark renamed to Pure Hackmons to make it easier for newcomers to understand what the room was for. They've also decided to officially support discussion of the current Pure Hackmons generation since it became the go-to place for any Pure Hackmons discussion. OM leadership and PS! Upper Staff approved of this and Old Shark was officially renamed to Pure Hackmons on August 18th 2023.
By September 2023, Ransei had served as Other Metas Leader for nearly three and a half years, becoming one of the longest-reigning OM leaders in Smogon history up to this point. Over the course of time, plenty of new great new blood with fresh ideas and new perspectives rose, and there became powerful members who were better fit to fulfill the demands of what the Other Metas community had become. On September 15th 2023, Ransei formally resigned from Other Metas Leader and appointed new leaders to take his previous position. Despite this, he remained OM Forum Moderator and was still within the line of contact with Other Metas leadership.
Phase VIII (2023-This post)
The month of September 2023 was mostly successful for Generation 7 Pure Hackmons, leading to higher reception towards the metagame and eventual demands for the Gen 6 Pure Hackmons permaladder to transition to Generation 7 Pure Hackmons. Ransei was hesitant at first, but eventually came to agree with the demands, supporting it. Ransei brought this situation up with the Other Metas leadership and on December 28th 2023, he was able to create a thread for the Pure Hackmons community to make a decision. Their decision was for whether or not the permaladder transition from Gen 6 Pure Hackmons to Gen 7 Pure Hackmons would be in their best interest. On January 8th 2024, the permaladder transition was officially approved by Other Metas leadership and on January 19th, the Generation 6 Pure Hackmons permaladder made its change to Generation 7.
By today, everything has changed to place Pure Hackmons in a great light. It can be loved and played by everyone across the Pokémon community, with accessible channels to discuss, accessible resources to learn, and accessible ladders to play in. This tale was written to share the history of Hackmons, where it all started for Pokémon Showdown, how its concept became divided, and how it developed into growing passion for many.
After the removal of Classic Hackmons, there was little to no hope of a return for discussion or accessible methods to play the metagame. Classic Hackmons became a project lost in memory. However in mid 2018, Pure Hackmons was given another chance! Its return was approved in the form of an OM Mashup and it was to begin its revival in the Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon version of the metagame. During the submission process, one person was appointed the position to spearhead the return of Pure Hackmons to ensure it had a smooth start. This person was an Other Metas Room Moderator at the time, regularly known to look for any opportunity to restore the life of Hackmons, but also having a solid work ethic and being dependable at the time. They were known to be none other than the name Ransei.
Pure Hackmons was planned to start off in a thread titled "OM Mashups Megathread" as a combination of Anything Goes and Balanced Hackmons. Alongside all other OM Mashups, the metagame was planned to released out into the public simultaneously. On May 31st 2018, the OM Mashups Megathread was released. Less than two weeks later, on June 10th 2018, Ransei decided to create a subroom groupchat in order to host Pure Hackmons and the wide variety of all other OM Mashup formats. From there, he also decided to co-lead the OM Mashups project and help with the development of multiple other OM Mashups. Prior to the release of the OM Mashups Megathread, Ransei created a discord server to ready up for discussions about Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Pure Hackmons and its resources for development. On June 19th 2018, Ransei opened up the discord server and let in Gen 7 Pure Hackmons players to discuss the metagame. The server was not very active, but it was enough to contribute to the making of Pure Hackmons's first ever viability rankings. The viability rankings was posted on August 1st 2018 as Ransei's 1000th post on Smogon. Nearly a week later, on August 7th 2018, Ransei decided to revamp the discord server into an official OM Mashups discord server.
Several months in and Gen 7 Pure Hackmons has received a notable amount of development. It was looking to be on its way to a more successful path. In the midst of this, Ransei was promoted to Other Metas Room Owner and within a few days, Let's Go Hackmons was chosen as OM Leader's Choice ladder for December 2018. Let's Go Hackmons was active for a couple of days and then its popularity dropped to 0 due to the limited amount of Pokémon and the extremely overcentralized state of the metagame. In spite of this, both OM Mashups and Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Pure Hackmons persisted in their development. Due to the success of OM Mashups and its community, OM Mashups was able to have its own official hidden subroom on January 10th 2019.
Throughout late 2018 and early 2019 Ransei also received a string of promotions. On December 25th 2018, he received global promotion and became a part of the PS! Global Staff team; on January 12th 2019, he became part of the OM Forum Staff team, and on March 2nd 2019, he was promoted to PS! Global Moderator. This rise in power has given Ransei the opportunity to bear much more influence on the state of Pure Hackmons, its rising community, and how it would all be shaped down the line.
Pure Hackmons went on to have multiple significant resources made for its development between the era of late 2018 through 2019. Firstly, an article made to introduce new players to Gen 7 Pure Hackmons was published on October 24th 2018. Several months later, Gen 7 Pure Hackmons had its first ever forum tournament hosted from February 25th 2019 to April 10th 2019. Within the same month, an Old Gen Hackmons Megathread was made on April 24th 2019 in order to not only promote the development of older gen Pure Hackmons, but to create a fail-safe for Pure Hackmons in case future games become unsuitable for the metagame. A month later, on May 25th 2019, the first ever RMT of Gen 7 Pure Hackmons got released. It was an iconic RMT post that gave inspiration for the Pokémon Mega Audino and Mega Lopunny to serve as significant personifications of Wonder Guard and No Guard in Pure Hackmons respectively. The RMT was made by none other than Ransei, the same person spearheading Pure Hackmons. After this post, he made plans to tell the story of Hackmons through another RMT. On August 18th 2019, Ransei's 2nd Pure Hackmons RMT was released. This time, it was a Generation 6 RMT and served as the very prequel of what would eventually become another RMT nearly 5 years down the line. It contains the story of Hackmons from its origins on Pokémon Showdown down the RMT's release in 2019.
While Pure Hackmons was having great amounts of success, OM Mashups became hardcarried by the emerging OM Mashups community. They helped liven up the room to such an extent that on September 4th 2019, OM Mashups became a public subroom for Other Metas. Around this time, Ransei also requested for a hidden room to discuss the older generations of Pure Hackmons. It was intended to be a private hangout room with a purpose to justify it. The request received approval, but it was made into a new hidden Other Metas subroom instead, as PS! Upper Staff deemed it more fitting. The room Ransei requested was named Old Shark as a combination of "Old" for old gens and "Shark" as a reference to the original name Hackmons had on Smogon, Sharkmons. Old Shark was made on September 5th 2019.
Generation 8 was approaching, but by this point, Ransei had already set nearly all the building blocks necessary for Pure Hackmons to keep thriving. There's been a few threads, a few PS! rooms, a few discord servers, and plenty of resources for players to learn from. He felt the community was ready for Generation 8 Pure Hackmons. Due to the success of Pure Hackmons during Generation 7, plans were made for Pure Hackmons to separate from OM Mashups and become its own full-fledged Other Metagame. These plans were to take course when Generation 8 begun. Ransei was getting ready for Generation 8, but in his excitement, he noticed one thing in the next game's datamines that would lead to great concern...
Phase VI (2019-2021)
Ransei noticed the makers of main series Pokémon games have set a shocking precedent for the series. A legendary Pokémon with a base stat distribution of 255/115/250/125/250/130, 1125 BST, was confirmed to be present in the data of Generation 8 Pokémon games. The odds of this Pokémon carrying a strongly negative impact on the Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame were undeniably high, but Ransei hoped the Pokémon would not be hackable in the games. If confirmed to be hackable, Ransei would alternatively wish for the Pokémon to bear little to no harm on the state of the metagame outside overcentralization. On November 15th 2019, the Generation 8 Pokémon games came out but there was no confirmation on whether or not the aforementioned Pokémon was hackable. The Pokémon in question was officially given the name Eternamax Eternatus, but it was often shortened to the name Eternamax. 10 days after Generation 8 Pokémon games were released, Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was given its own official thread on the Other Metagames subforum and made full departure from being a part of OM Mashups. Nearly one month later, on December 15th 2019, it was fully brought to the attention of Other Metas leadership that Eternatus-Eternamax was indeed hackable in Generation 8 Pure Hackmons. As the focus became Generation 8, Generation 7 Pure Hackmons moved to the Old Gen Hackmons Megathread and this was officially announced on January 1st 2020. The development of Generation 7 Pure Hackmons would proceed to slow down.
One month later, Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was chosen as OM of The Month for February 2020. The world has proven its desire to play with Eternamax Eternatus--the new legendary Pokémon given 1125 BST. During this time, there was much left to be explored in the data of Generation 8 Pokémon games. Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was made to begin with only the information known about the games up to this point. To the surprise of Ransei and the rest of the Pure Hackmons community, Generation 8 Pure Hackmons had a surprisingly well start after the just a few days of players getting used to the metagame. During this time, Eternamax seemed to be more of a net positive than a net negative for Generation 8 Pure Hackmons. This was because the mechanics implemented for Generation 8 were discovered to be wilder than most previous generations, leading to the metagame having extreme levels of powercreep from its predecessors. Eternamax Eternatus was the only Pokémon holding back the powercreep in Gen 8 Pure Hackmons, but it could only hold it back to a limited degree. Despite the sheer bulk of Eternamax Eternatus, the most effective strategy in Gen 8 Pure Hackmons became Hyper Offense. The Pure Hackmons community was relieved by the thought of Eternamax holding the metagame together and arguably not even being the most threatening force on the battlefield. The month of February 2020 was considered a successful start for the Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame.
As time moved on, Ransei developed into a powerful leadership figure in the Other Metagames and Pokémon Showdown communities as a Forum Moderator and PS! Global Staff. On March 23rd 2020, he was appointed to Other Metagames Leader. Less than 3 months later, on June 18th 2020, Ransei was promoted to Administrator on Pokémon Showdown. These positions gave Ransei great potential to further shape the future of Pure Hackmons down the line and support the community in the most meaningful way, but he was rather focused on learning the ropes of leading the Pokémon Showdown community as a PS! Admin and making sure Other Metagames would remain in good standing. Ransei was also promoted to Forum Moderator in Ruins of Alph on May 16th 2020 for the potential to help various OM formats collaborate with their older generation counterparts.
On June 17th 2020, the Generation 8 Pokémon games released their first DLC. Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was particularly inactive during this era as most players decided to focus on older generations, but the DLC gave room to discuss possible changes that would affect the Gen 8 metagame. The most noteworthy addition was theorized to be Chansey and Blissey for their high base HP, but the metagame was not given much spotlight during the era of this first DLC. There was a second DLC said to be arriving on October 22nd 2020.
Throughout 2020, older generations of Pure Hackmons were becoming more popular and its influence was being spread around to not only the Other Metagames community, but the Ruins of Alph community. To much surprise, thanks to Ransei and the community frequently bringing older generations of Pure Hackmons to the attention of Ruins of Alph, the Ruins of Alph staff decided to give Generation 6 Pure Hackmons a month-long ladder for July 2020. The month-long ladder turned out to be a success for the Pure Hackmons community with multiple resources receiving updates from great discoveries made. The most notable discovery found during this month was the sheer splashability of Giratina, which would eventually reveal itself as evidence for Giratina being the definitive best Pokémon in the Generation 6 Pure Hackmons metagame.
Within months following Generation 8's 1st DLC, a major discovery was made for the Generation 8 Pokémon games. On October 18th 2020, four days prior to the release of Generation 8's 2nd DLC, it was officially revealed to the Smogon community that Eternamax's defenses were high enough to create an overflow with the right nature and the right amount of EVs. This overflow would allow for players to choose whether they wanted Eternamax to have invincibility against all physical non-fixed damage attacks or invincibility against all special non-fixed damage attacks. This change would permanently alter the course of Generation 8 Pure Hackmons.
The discovery of Eternamax's overflow overshadowed all new information regarding Generation 8's 2nd DLC for Pure Hackmons. This would lead for Generation 8 Pure Hackmons to slowly shift into revolving around one strategy; the use of 20-30% accuracy OHKO moves. As such, most of the Pure Hackmons community decided to keep focusing primarily on the older generations of Pure Hackmons while only a handful made attempts to salvage Generation 8.
Phase VII (2021-2023)
Not much changed for the Pure Hackmons community between late 2020 and early 2021. However, due to the high amount of development made within the Pure Hackmons community, a string of odd circumstances that occurred outside Pure Hackmons throughout 2020 and early 2021, the negative impact Generation 8 had on multiple OM formats, and Ransei's position as Other Metas Leader and Pokémon Showdown Administrator, all the stars aligned, giving Ransei the perfect opportunity to re-establish a permanent Pure Hackmons ladder for Pokémon Showdown. By this point, it had been six and a half years since Hackmons last had a permanent ladder, but now it was suddenly being revived. Ransei had always felt the implementation of a permanent ladder was the final step needed for any metagame to truly be explored and developed. He had also felt it was important for Pure Hackmons to have a permanent ladder on Pokémon Showdown since it was one of the most widely fantasized concepts for battling ever made within the Pokémon community. Many Pokémon fans in and out of the Pure Hackmons community often enjoyed theorizing common sets they never knew were usable on Pokémon Showdown, such as Wonder Guard Spiritomb and No Guard Deoxys-Speed. Many people wanted to use these sets but most were not aware of the places they were accessible to use. The addition of a permanent ladder fixed this issue by making Pure Hackmons at its most widely accessible to everyone and spreading more awareness of the metagame's existence. Ransei decided Generation 6 would be the best choice to serve as the permaladder for Pure Hackmons as he determined it to be the most stable generation and the most ideal for emulating the sets most popularly fantasized for its time. He considered this implementation to be the single biggest contribution he's ever made for the Pokémon community at large, as well as one of the biggest he has ever made to Pokémon Showdown, Other Metagames, and Ruins of Alph respectively. As an Other Metas Leader who took their chances after being drawn by rocky situations he could have never anticipated, resulting in him leading Other Metas by himself, Ransei was not comfortable with an old gen OM permaladder being given solely to Pure Hackmons. He instead wanted to create a potentially long-running project where multiple older gen OM formats could receive a chance to shine. He noticed frequent demands over the previous year given from all over Pokémon Showdown for the return of Generation 7 Balanced Hackmons. To fulfill those high demands, he used these moments as an opportunity to restore the Generation 7 Balanced Hackmons ladder with the intent of having it pair up with Generation 6 Pure Hackmons. Ransei eventually added more old gen OM ladders for formats known to be popular for their time.
While the addition of a permaladder was letting the development of Generation 6 Pure Hackmons grow more prosperously, multiple strings of bad news were slammed for Generation 8 Pure and Balanced Hackmons throughout 2021. First, Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was suddenly given the opportunity to serve as the OM Leader's Choice ladder of the month for July 2021 nearly a week into the month, as the metagame previously chosen faced notable issues with bugs. The month of July 2021 exposed the complications Eternamax's overflow had on Gen 8 Pure Hackmons, repelling nearly every member of the Pure Hackmons community who was previously an expert determined to play the metagame, including Ransei himself. It was proven that this metagame shifted negatively beyond recognition. The only consistent strategy anyone could perform in high level games was to have every single one of their Pokémon carry 20-30% accuracy OHKO moves in hopes they would hit the opponent. While there were ways to mitigate the odds of being hit, the metagame still ultimately became more strongly influenced by luck than nearly all previous generations of Pure Hackmons and more than almost any other format in Pokémon Showdown history.
During the month of July 2021, Ransei was also involved in making a new article for Pure Hackmons. The article was titled "What is Hackmons?", which aimed to teach others about the philosophy behind Hackmons as well as provide examples of Pokémon who best follow under its philosophy. It then followed with tips on how to start playing any generation of the metagame. The article was released on July 15th 2021 to celebrate Ransei's 7th anniversary on Smogon.
Several months later, on October 17th 2021, it was officially revealed that in Generation 8, Pokémon could be hacked to have their HP doubled prior to Dynamaxing, then further double their HP when they do Dynamax, allowing each Pokémon to effectively have 2 to 4 times their own HP depending on whether or not they Dynamax. 10 days later, on October 27th 2021, it would also be revealed that for Generation 8, a Pokémon's HP can be edited to 65,000 and then used in local pvp battles through hacking. From there, the OM leadership team decided there needed to be a change in the definition of Hackmons for both Pure Hackmons and Balanced Hackmons to sustain. For Pure Hackmons, the continuous downward spiral of discoveries ruining Generation 8 led to OM leadership deciding to move the official Gen 8 Pure Hackmons format to the next Pokémon games. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were near their release, so OM leadership waited until those games came out in order to make a full transition. The transition to Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl was finally made on November 19th 2021. 10 days later, on November 29th 2021, Ransei resigned from Pokémon Showdown Administrator for unrelated reasons as it was determined he was no longer in need of PS! Administrator powers to fulfill the responsibilities he was able to carry by this point. Despite this, Ransei still carried OM Leadership responsibilities and remained an Other Metas Leader.
As time moved on it was discovered that using Pokémon with their HP edited to 65,000 in local battles was possible in every generation except Generations 6 and 7. The Pure Hackmons community was more focused on Generation 6 than ever and a new policy to redefine Hackmons was on its way, so these discoveries did not bring much concern. It was to be played as always, similar to how Hackmons sets were able to be made in the past through DNS exploits of the DS era without the use of a cheating device. On June 22nd 2022, the definition for Hackmons finally changed. It went from "Anything that can be hacked in-game and is usable in local battles is allowed" to "Anything directly hackable onto a set (EVs, IVs, forme, ability, item, and move) and is usable in local battles is allowed."
While Other Metas leadership were looking for a way to change the definition of Hackmons, the Pure Hackmons community went through multiple new stages of advancement. Throughout the few years prior, the Pure Hackmons community had grown bigger than ever before, with plenty of rising contributors and plenty of new leadership figures, such as Bahamut, berry, NToTheN, and aerobee (who would end up carrying the name "Pure Hackmons" on Pokémon Showdown). The new leadership figures were being appointed to help Ransei run the Pure Hackmons community. By this point, Pure Hackmons had gotten successful enough for the Pure Hackmons community leadership to request for Old Shark to be made into a public OM subroom. The request was approved by Other Metas leadership and PS! Upper Staff, leading to Old Shark being made officially public on April 25th 2022. Throughout the few months following, Pure Hackmons community leadership also worked with the Smogon Contributions & Corrections leadership to request analyses to be opened up for Generation 6 Pure Hackmons as it became a highly developed metagame with a consistently active ladder. The Smogon Contributions & Corrections leadership approved of this and on June 23rd 2023, analyses for Generation 6 Pure Hackmons were finally open.
As for the case of Generation 8 Pure Hackmons, things would take a strange turn. Attempts were made to develop Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Pure Hackmons, but the metagame never received more than minimal traction. Within several months, the very few members of the Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Pure Hackmons playerbase abandoned the metagame. It should be noted that those few members in this playerbase were mostly the same people leading the Pure Hackmons community at the time. Additionally, on March 10th 2022, a special YouTube video was created by a competitive Pokémon player named freezai, who would turn out to become a YouTube sensation within the competitive Pokémon community. The video was titled "How Eternatus Ruined Competitive Hacked Pokemon" and would detail how the presence of Eternamax Eternatus ultimately led to Generation 8 Pure Hackmons transitioning to Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. This sparked significant attention towards the original Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame and led to many players from all around Pokémon Showdown wanting to try out Eternamax Eternatus. With Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Pure Hackmons's decline, the high demand for the original Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame, and a change in the definition of Hackmons along the way, both Pure Hackmons leadership and Other Metas leadership decided it would be best for the official Generation 8 Pure Hackmons metagame to transition back to the original Generation 8 Pokémon games. On July 17th 2022, the official Pure Hackmons metagame of Generation 8 finally transitioned from Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl back to the original Generation 8 Pokémon games, which were named Pokémon Sword and Shield. By the time of this transition Generation 8 was nearing its end. Some additional development was made for the metagame in the form of high quality posts, but there was not much more development to foresee, as the change in Hackmons's definition had not changed the metagame. The Pure Hackmons community continued to focus primarily on further developing Generation 6 Pure Hackmons instead and Generation 8 was slowly becoming a closed chapter. On October 30th 2022, Other Metas leadership decided to have Generation 8 Pure Hackmons serve as the final OM Leader's Choice Ladder of Generation 8, running throughout November 2022 while the other OM formats make their smooth transition to Generation 9. The month of November 2022 was the most popular a Pure Hackmons ladder had ever been up to this point, with exactly 67,000 games played. It was evident that the demand to access Generation 8 Pure Hackmons was genuine, making for a great final sendoff for Generation 8 Other Metagames.
The year of 2023 was quite a calm one for the Pure Hackmons community. Analyses kept running, Generation 6 Pure Hackmons was still active, and the community was still in on making new discoveries for the metagame. Generation 9 Pure Hackmons released on December 6th 2022, but Generation 9 alongside Generation 8 proved that Pure Hackmons was never going to be an ideally playable metagame in the long-run, and so by this point, Ransei determined the majority of development would be indefinitely confined to older generations. Despite this, the Pure Hackmons community started feeling that the Generation 6 Pure Hackmons ladder was getting old and stale. By 2023, it had lasted for two years with significant chunks of development made. The metagame looked to be almost finalized. Pure Hackmons leadership were losing interest in Generation 6 Pure Hackmons and instead, they and the community gained newfound interest in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Pure Hackmons. This, by coincidence, was the same version of the Pure Hackmons metagame Ransei first ran to spearhead the return of Pure Hackmons as well as the metagame that ultimately led to the sheer advancement of everything regarding Pure Hackmons and its community. There were concerns over the stability of Generation 7 Pure Hackmons due to mechanics such as Crystal-Free Z-Moves and abilities such as Innards Out, but this did not stop the growing demand for a playable Generation 7 Pure Hackmons ladder. In addition, despite the growth Pure Hackmons made during Generation 7, and it being responsible for the community's advancement, Generation 7 Pure Hackmons had never received a ladder. In result of these factors, Ransei made a request to the rest of the OM leadership team for a Generation 9 Pure Hackmons ladder to be replaced with Generation 7 when the time comes for a Pure Hackmons metagame to be chosen as OM of the Month or OM Leader's Choice. The OM leadership team approved of this decision. Later, on August 30th 2023, Generation 7 Pure Hackmons was officially announced to be the OM Leader's Choice ladder of September 2023. The decision behind this would be Ransei's last notable action taken as an Other Metas Leader.
While this was ongoing, Pure Hackmons leadership decided to have Old Shark renamed to Pure Hackmons to make it easier for newcomers to understand what the room was for. They've also decided to officially support discussion of the current Pure Hackmons generation since it became the go-to place for any Pure Hackmons discussion. OM leadership and PS! Upper Staff approved of this and Old Shark was officially renamed to Pure Hackmons on August 18th 2023.
By September 2023, Ransei had served as Other Metas Leader for nearly three and a half years, becoming one of the longest-reigning OM leaders in Smogon history up to this point. Over the course of time, plenty of new great new blood with fresh ideas and new perspectives rose, and there became powerful members who were better fit to fulfill the demands of what the Other Metas community had become. On September 15th 2023, Ransei formally resigned from Other Metas Leader and appointed new leaders to take his previous position. Despite this, he remained OM Forum Moderator and was still within the line of contact with Other Metas leadership.
Phase VIII (2023-This post)
The month of September 2023 was mostly successful for Generation 7 Pure Hackmons, leading to higher reception towards the metagame and eventual demands for the Gen 6 Pure Hackmons permaladder to transition to Generation 7 Pure Hackmons. Ransei was hesitant at first, but eventually came to agree with the demands, supporting it. Ransei brought this situation up with the Other Metas leadership and on December 28th 2023, he was able to create a thread for the Pure Hackmons community to make a decision. Their decision was for whether or not the permaladder transition from Gen 6 Pure Hackmons to Gen 7 Pure Hackmons would be in their best interest. On January 8th 2024, the permaladder transition was officially approved by Other Metas leadership and on January 19th, the Generation 6 Pure Hackmons permaladder made its change to Generation 7.
By today, everything has changed to place Pure Hackmons in a great light. It can be loved and played by everyone across the Pokémon community, with accessible channels to discuss, accessible resources to learn, and accessible ladders to play in. This tale was written to share the history of Hackmons, where it all started for Pokémon Showdown, how its concept became divided, and how it developed into growing passion for many.
Introduction (Part 2)
This RMT is part of a series of RMTs I'm making to commemorate events or achievements I've gone through since Natural, with this being the second in this series. Hopefully the next RMT will come in a little over a month ;). It'll be Generation 6 next time. I know I said The Royal Army would be my last Undertale-based RMT, but I'm treating this RMT as a direct Part 2 of the original Hopes and Dreams RMT. I'm also glad to say this is my 10th anniversary on Smogon University, so I'm using this post to celebrate that!
I'm gonna be honest, this team composition came off pure coincidence and I only just found out it was similar to Hopes and Dreams weeks after accomplishing my ladder peak. This was a random team I initially built in 2019 that my mind stumbled back upon while desperately trying to top the Generation 7 Pure Hackmons ladder. After facing so many Psychic-type Pokémon, I realized Mega Banette could be useful as a Huge Power Shadow Sneaker against them, then looked back to this team in retrospect. Several edits were made on the team and I made an all-out approach to top the Generation 7 Pure Hackmons ladder. This was during the beginning of September 2023 back when Gen 7 Pure Hackmons first had its ladder. It was very early and I wanted to prove I can keep up with all the experience I've had with the metagame. This ended up serving as a prerequisite for Whatever It Takes in the long-run as I was doing whatever it took to reach a simple ladder peak past 1500s, this was well before I built Whatever It Takes, and part of what inspired me to make the push to the metagame's first 90 GXE.
Did I manage to accomplish this peak? Actually yes! After what felt like intensive efforts and going out of my way to find the highest elo people on ladder, I finally managed to reach the peak! It reached 1604 elo, but since the ladder was still new and I was trying to get the hang of it, the GXE was only 81.6%
Evidence:
This was not the only team I used, but the one that ultimately pushed it this far after clearing through the 1500s. I alternated around lots of various teams on the account I was using and if I recall correctly, played over a hundred games on it prior to this point. The account I used was named "too many guards" as it was initially made to use a team centered around Wonder Guard, Magic Guard, and Zygarde. Just like with the Whatever It Takes RMT, I also made a different account high up on the ladder to use as back-up in case the other account failed. In this case the back-up account was just my main account.
Teambuilding Process
Mega Banette was the main focus on this team. I wanted to see how it would fair against the metagame's large batch of Psychic-types that dominated the metagame, especially during the time I used it during September's Leader's Choice ladder. It acts as a Huge Power revenge-killer who can potentially break many bulkier threats, including Wonder Guard.
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Primal Groudon was on the initial team, as I likely thought it'd turn out to be a good sweeper, but the set I used was not able to adjust to the ladder at all, and I needed an approach for the massive waves of Primal Groudon spam being thrown on ladder at the time. Ash Greninja was my go-to choice for this, but eventually, as the Primal Groudon spam temporarily eased, I alternated into Chansey as it was the best Pokémon in the metagame. Just like the Whatever It Takes RMT, I also felt silly for not having used the best Pokémon in the metagame as much earlier if I wanted to top the ladder.
Giratina, as a defensive Pokémon, was discovered to be too frail to hold up very effectively in the Generation 7 Pure Hackmons metagame. I decided to see if Innards Out could work on Giratina by testing it here and surprising many opponents with it. This was usually the go-to lead of the team.
I found Mega Audino to be the best Wonder Guard Pokémon of the metagame back in 2019. I added Mega Audino here because it was splashable enough to fit as the a solid Wonder Guard for many teams and Wonder Guard was generally needed in order to prevent opposing No Guard Pokémon from winning. Mega Audino was able to assist by providing cleric / and or hazard removal support for the team. I never removed it because its feats still hold up to this day.
To be honest I forgot why I initially added this Pokémon back in 2019. Maybe it was to create a theme about Ghost-types? Maybe it was because I wanted a special attacking sweeper but also needed a second Wonder Guard, and I wanted Moongeist Beam but Mega Gengar was not a consistent Wonder Guard for this job? Whatever the case was, I insisted on keeping it in 2023, believing it could make for a great sweeper as a Wonder Guard, especially in what was a Psychic-heavy metagame at the time. I used Dawn Wings Necrozma as the banner for this RMT since I found its design reminiscent of Asriel Dreamurr, the boss that has "Hopes and Dreams" play when you face them.
Zygarde-Complete is extremely good at providing defensive utility so I figured it could be used to hold this team up strongly. I kept it in 2023 because it was genuinely looking to be a top tier god, with the capabilities of walling almost everything in the metagame, and alternating its moves to block out some of its most potent checks.
Team Description
Banette-Mega @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shadow Sneak
- Spectral Thief
- Sunsteel Strike
- Sacred Fire
Mega Banette was the focus behind this team's usage. It was made to revenge-kill many of the metagame's threats and break whatever defensive walls it could. Huge Power with Choice Band and Adamant Nature allow Mega Banette to unleash maximum damage output and it's been given maximum EVs and IVs on all stats since that's usually the most effective spread. All other Pokémon on this team will have the same spread unless stated otherwise.
Move Descriptions
Shadow Sneak: The main attack equipped on this Pokémon. It seeks to outspeed and revenge kill many of the most dominant or widely-used Pokémon in the metagame, such as Mega Mewtwo X, Mega Mewtwo Y, Mega Gengar, Deoxys-Speed, as well as heavily punish Shell Smash sweepers if they aren't Wonder Guard. This move also eliminates opposing Dawn Wings Necrozma.
Spectral Thief: A STAB move with extra power provided for Mega Banette to serve better odds against defensive walls such as Zygarde-Complete, Doublade, Mega Slowbro, and Mega Steelix. This would OHKO most Pokémon with merely average defenses, but punish any hardcore tank that switches in.
Sunsteel Strike: Does great damage to opposing Wonder Guards such as Mega Audino, Meloetta, Ash Greninja, Hoopa-Unbound, or Alolan Muk, while also being able to KO them if their HP is chipped to small degrees.
Sacred Fire: Used to target Wonder Guard Steel-type Pokémon such as Kartana or Mega Scizor, who resist Sunsteel Strike.
Chansey @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Soft-Boiled
- Spectral Thief
- Baton Pass
- Spikes
Chansey is present to transform into targets in front of it in order to either scout, punish them, or pressure them out. It was handed a Choice Scarf since I felt it could successfully bluff Eviolite and suddenly win against opponents by ensuring it outspeeds everything it transforms into. Players of all sorts, even great ones, were more likely to make riskier plays in more desperate measures hoping they'd win the imaginary speed tie against Imposter Chansey, not realizing there was never a speed tie until it was too late. At the time, I was also hoping for Chansey to fight off strongly against the waves of Primal Groudon spam teams that plagued the metagame throughout September 2023. Occasionally, I alternated between Chansey and a poor Magic Guard Ash Greninja set. All of Chansey's EVs and IVs were maximized except Speed, which was minimized to build momentum through slow-pivoting, in case of a rare chance Chansey isn't able to transform through Imposter. Chansey's moves and non-HP stats rarely matter most of the time since it'll almost always be transformed, but it's been given a serious moveset in case of those rare circumstances. Relaxed Nature was given to maximize Chansey's low defense while further minimizing Chansey's speed.
Move Descriptions
Soft-Boiled: This move allows for Chansey to recover its HP by 50% whenever it's not transformed but is also chipped.
Spectral Thief: This move steals stat boosts from opponents behind their Substitute whenever they set up in front of Chansey, harshly punishing the target and allowing Chansey to Baton Pass into an offensive teammate.
Baton Pass: Baton Pass is an optimal pivoting move to pair with Chansey as it allows Chansey to pass any stats it steals with Spectral Thief onto a teammate. Otherwise, it's still generally fine as a means to escape opposing Pokémon and build momentum by pivoting to the Pokémon you want after your opponent moves
Spikes: An extra support move that can be used to further chip opponents on every switch-in they make through multiple layers of hazards.
Giratina @ Figy Berry
Ability: Innards Out
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 0 Def / 0 SpD
- Spectral Thief
- Shore Up
- Stealth Rock
- Baton Pass
Giratina was an oddball pick for the team designed to knock out powerful opponents with its Innards Out ability or brutally punish them by stealing their stats and Baton Passing. It naturally acts as a lead and uses Stealth Rock, but is also generally meant to be made into a sack when necessary. Its been given 0 Def and 0 SpD EVs to minimize defenses, allowing itself to be KOed by threats more easily. It's also been given Hasty Nature in order to be as fast as possible for efficiently laying hazards, while having even lower raw defense, as in Gen 7 Pure Hackmons, physical threats are often more dominant. Figy Berry was given in case Giratina survives a hit with low HP. It can quickly regain 33% of its HP back and be able to make a big impact with Innards Out again.
Move Descriptions
Spectral Thief: This move allows for Giratina to hit opposing Psychic-types hard with STAB, as well as brutally punish any Pokémon who dares to set up in front of it. It steals any stat boosts the opponent received, allowing it to Baton Pass those boosts into notable offensive teammates such as Mega Banette or Dawn Wings Necrozma.
Shore Up: A move that recovers Giratina's HP by 50%, but increases the recovery to 75% if sandstorm is up. Sand Stream and Sandstorm tend to never be used in battle, but it's sometimes good to equip this move just in case.
Stealth Rock: Sets rocks up for the team, chipping the opponent's team and deactivating their Focus Sash each time they switch into a non-Magic Guard Pokémon. Mega Banette and Dawn Wings Necrozma love this especially since the latter could need the extra support in order to consistently KO bulkier Pokémon every now and again.
Baton Pass: A great pivoting move that allows Giratina to pass any stats it has stolen onto its teammates.
Audino-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Wonder Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Calm Nature
- Defog
- Whirlwind
- Shore Up
- U-turn
Mega Audino serves as a defensive Wonder Guard for the team. It's meant to take most attacks, while defogging hazards away, phazing them out, or slowly pivoting into another Pokémon. Minimum Attack EVs were given to it to lessen U-Turn's damage against Innards Out Chansey, giving it a lesser chance of one-shotting it and losing to the Pokémon. Safety Goggles were given to allow Mega Audino to move against Pokémon using Spore and Calm Nature was given to not only reduce Attack for pivoting, but allow Mega Audino to work around some of its checks more proficiently. Calm Nature more notably, allows for Mega Audino to survive Sludge Wave Mega Mewtwo Y and serve better odds against Sludge Wave Dawn Wings Necrozma. Alternatively, it could switch to Relaxed or Bold Nature in order to raise its raw Defense to serve better against Sunsteel Strike attackers instead.
Move Descriptions
Defog: Clears hazards for the team, helping immensely against chip damage from Stealth Rock, Spikes, or infliction from Toxic Spikes.
Whirlwind: Useful for when Mega Audino attempts to deal with a boosted opponent. It can be used to phaze the stat-boosted Pokémon out into a different Pokémon either from a prediction during the turn they stat boost or surviving a hit after the stat boost. Whirlwind also helps to clear Substitues away and push out further chip damage with the hazards from this team's Giratina or Chansey.
Shore Up: Defensive Wonder Guards need some form of powerful recovery move in order to last long throughout battles. Shore Up was given here as it was deemed optimal enough. It works like most other 50% HP recovery moves, except if sandy weather is up for some reason, Mega Audino would be able to heal 75% of its health instead.
U-Turn: Allows for Mega Audino to pivot into a teammate while being able to break Focus Sashes and chip Innards Out Pokémon. Thanks to Mega Audino's low speed, it also uses this move to build momentum by usually moving after the opponent.
Necrozma-Dawn-Wings @ Lunalium Z
Ability: Wonder Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moongeist Beam
- Spore
- Shell Smash
- Secret Sword
Dawn Wings Necrozma serves as the special attacking sweeper and second Wonder Guard of the team. It's equipped with Lunalium Z to make itself very difficult to wall, even by the likes of Alolan Muk, Mega Steelix, and Zygarde-Complete. It has also been given Modest Nature to maximize special damage output, especially since one Shell Smash allows Dawn Wings Necrozma to outspeed Deoxys-Speed. Attack was automatically minimized to reduce Foul Play damage, but Foul Play is nonexistent in this current stage of metagame as of this post. This is a very good Pokémon who is able to threaten large portions of the metagame while not having many weaknesses on its own, and Wonder Guard further helps it in this regard.
Move Descriptions
Moongeist Beam: STAB move used to tear through opposing Wonder Guards and work alongside Lunalium Z. It deals lots of damage to the many Psychic-type and Ghost-type that dominate this metagame while hitting non Normal-type Pokémon. With Lunalium Z, Dawn Wings Necrozma can even KO resistances after one Shell Smash boost and some hazard chipping.
Spore: Helps free up turns for Dawn Wings Necrozma to set up by having it put opposing Pokémon to sleep.
Shell Smash: Given to provide Dawn Wings Necrozma a boost in Special Attack and Speed in order to sweep. Since it has Wonder Guard and Dawn Wings Necrozma itself struggles extra against the limited range of super effective moves it does get hit by, Dawn Wings Necrozma doesn't have to worry about defense drops.
Secret Sword: Deals super effective damage against most Pokémon who resist or are immune to Moongeist Beam. Is quite useful because when combined with Moongeist Beam and a filler support move, Dawn Wings Necrozma would only be left with a small portion of Pokémon it cannot consistently handle well.
Zygarde-Complete @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Shore Up
- Haze
- Thousand Waves
- Misty Terrain
Zygarde-Complete is the defensive backbone of this team. It's present to carry the team forward and stop it from losing against the plethora of Extreme Evoboost spammers or the miraculous amount of other offensive threats who could dominate teams in an instant. Its job is to run Prankster to outspeed the opponent with status moves, then run status moves in order to protect the team from sweeps. This Zygarde-Complete also helps prevent the whole team from receiving status effects, while also removing Misty Terrain and diminishing Mega Rayquaza's entire value. Safety Goggles is useful since it allows for Zygarde-Complete to switch into Spore users, ensuring safe usage more often than not and Careful Nature was chosen to allow Zygarde to wall special attacks more frequently. This set was used during an era where Clangorous Soulblaze in particular was more common in the metagame.
Move Descriptions
Shore Up: Just like with the other defensive Pokémon on this team, a 50% HP recovery move is mandatory if the aim is for the Pokémon to last long in battle. This is especially critical for Zygarde-Complete, as it often serves as the biggest contributor to stopping teams from breaking. This move was chosen above all other recovery moves for the rare chance someone could be running Sand Stream or Sandstorm, which would allow Shore Up to recover by 75% instead.
Haze: This move stops you from immediately losing the game by clearing any stat boosts the opponents carry. This especially helps against Shell Smash and Extreme Evoboost, which could turn any team into a creamy bowl of mashed potatoes within seconds.
Thousand Waves: Allows for Zygarde-Complete to 1v1 offensive threats such as Mega Mewtwo X, Mega Gengar, and non-Wonder Guard Kartana. It also traps Imposter users, forcing them to Struggle and lose the 1v1 against Zygarde-Complete.
Misty Terrain: Initially, this move was only given for Zygarde to remove Psychic-Terrain and allow Mega Banette to have a much easier time spamming Shadow Sneak. What I got instead was Zygarde saving the team from status inflictions many times over, including itself and
Turn 33
Zygarde used Misty Terrain!
Mist swirled around the battlefield!
The opposing Meteor eater (Rayquaza-Mega) used Clangorous Soulblaze!
It's super effective! (Zygarde lost 51.3% of its health!)
Zygarde used Misty Terrain!
Mist swirled around the battlefield!
The opposing Meteor eater (Rayquaza-Mega) used Clangorous Soulblaze!
It's super effective! (Zygarde lost 51.3% of its health!)
Checks and Counters
Zygarde-Complete: This team had to jump through hoops and hurdles to work around Zygarde-Complete and is disadvantaged against it most of the time. If it even runs the Reflect Zygarde-Complete set I came up with, this team is nearly done for, with the only hope being a graciously timed Lunalium Z strike.
Mega Diancie/Black Kyurem: A Pixilate Mega Diancie or Black Kyurem with great set up and Sunsteel Strike has advantages of this team for being able to solo almost anything in it. The only great way out of it is by sacking Innards Out Giratina before it's too late.
Spectral Thief Defensive Walls: Because both of this team's main attackers are Ghost-type, any powerful wall with Spectral Thief may be able to break the team before Mega Banette and Dawn Wings Necrozma can break them. Examples including opposing Zygarde-Complete, Doublade, Mega Steelix, or lesser used threats such as Yveltal.
King's Shield Mega Audino/Meloetta/Oranguru: The only way this team can properly hit these Pokémon is through Mega Banette's Sunsteel Strike. If that's taken advantage of with King's Shield, this team is in deep trouble.
Psychic Terrain + Taunt: With Psychic Terrain up, this team is much less effective since much of its progress often relies on Huge Power Shadow Sneak Banette. Zygarde-Complete can clear up Psychic Terrain with Misty Terrain, but if it gets inflicted by Taunt, this team will have a much more difficult time.
Magic Guard Sweepers: Magic Guard Sweepers tend to carry Focus Sash and are able to block Innards Out. If they are given an Ice-type or Fairy-type move for Zygarde-Complete, there is not much this team can do to efficiently work around them. A combined effort can be used to eliminate the sweeper, but it may take greater tolls on the team in the long-run.
Conclusion & Replays
This team is outdated, but I wanted to post about it to celebrate my 10th anniversary on Smogon as I found it so reminiscent of the original Hopes and Dreams RMT. I also wanted to finalize the story of Hackmons with what happened following the original Hopes and Dreams RMT, because a lot changed for Pure Hackmons within the past 5 years and it's all been heavily defining to the community. This run went by very differently from the one in 2015, as I was not avoiding any great players this time. In fact I was actively charging at them as I felt it was the only way I was gonna make ladder peak at the time. It was quite stressful but I was incredibly persistent and determined to make this accomplishment at the time. Thanks for reading everything. It's been a great adventure.
Unfortunately due to replay data being lost from Pokémon Showdown, all the relevant replays for this team are gone. I only have one great replay to share, which was against Eyeos a couple days ago
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2154440983.
I may edit this RMT to add in more replays down the line, but I will definitely add the old replays from 2023 if those ever get restored.
Importable
s/o to Smogon University.
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