SD Tera Normal Ace Offense
Introduction:
Alright so! I've been using this team on and off for a few months now, since late October of 2024 in fact. What prompted me to try this is that I wanted to use Cinderace but outside of the normal support role it does, or the inconsistent Choice Band. So I tried to use its newly gained move in Sword Dance and see what it could do as an offensive threat. So I took a page out of NatDex and settled with SD Double Edge Tera Normal to just try to nuke whatever is in front of it, plus life orb to boost it further. The reason I decided on this set is for the capabilities it has for breaking some of the defensive mons that would normally wall it, after researching on some calcs, I found:
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tera Normal Cinderace Double-Edge vs. 248 HP / 248+ Def Moltres: 486-572 (126.8 - 149.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tera Normal Cinderace Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 520-614 (97.3 - 114.9%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tera Normal Cinderace Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 497-585 (114.5 - 134.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tera Normal Cinderace Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tera Water Garganacl: 377-445 (93.3 - 110.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tera Normal Cinderace Double-Edge vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Multiscale Dragonite: 325-383 (100.6 - 118.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO (usually not worth going for but worth pointing out)
So yeah you can see why someone would look at this calcs and go ZAMN. So Cinderace becomes a breaker with this set, with the benefit that Ace is already a pretty good mon in the meta so you are not sacrificing anything. But of course damage isn't everything and it can't just win by itself (most of the time) so that's where its teammates come.
The Team:
Ok so before we jump into each one of the mons one thing you have to have in mind is that for this team you DON'T CARE about tera. The team is very flexible in terms of who and when you use a tera. If you need to spend tera early on Cinderace, Hatterene or using it to survive something with Garchomp it's usually worth it and often will make progress for your other teammates, since most of the mons here don't really rely on Tera to win. Apologies for the following nerd out.
Cinderace @ Life Orb
Ability: Libero
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Double-Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Pyro Ball
Cinderace is the breaker for this team, its primary role is to get rid of the aforementioned defensive mons and open for its teammates, in some rare cases and positions it might win by itself but it is here primarily to force progress. Your main targets are Alomomola and Moltres to open for your Tusk and Gambit to clean lategame; usually they don't expect the 1HKO so it is usually a free kill, and the opponent has no way of knowing beforehand if you are SD or not. Getting to setup is not the hardest in this meta since Ace has a lot of good matchups into the many steel types of the tier (Corviknight, Gholdengo, Iron Crown, non boosted Treads) so you usually get many opportunities to come in thanks to a parting shot from Pech or baiting a switch in with your Garchomp, Tusk, etc. If they opt to stay in against you they have no way of killing you in 1 so it's usually safe to SD, and if they pivot to a resist you can catch them with your Double Edge and Tera if necessary, or even play mind games if they know the team and just attack what's in front of you. Ace has options.
The difficult matchups are unfortunately not insignificant, primarily Pecharunt which you never 2HKO and Landorus-T which takes your attack and kills your momentum, both of which are common. In these matchups try to just Pyro Ball for 30%-40% and chip down. This team is good into stall but Ace will often not be the most useful thanks to Dondozo; although there's one beautiful calc that will help you against stall, but you have to be patient
252 Atk Life Orb Libero Cinderace Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 153-183 (30.3 - 36.3%) -- 53.7% chance to 3HKO
If you can chip Dondozo down with the pressure from your other mons to about the 64% range, you are in prime position to 2HKO it upon switch in with raw Double Edge, ALWAYS TAKE THE ROLL, killing it or forcing it to sleep is progress towards your team, and some foolish Dondozos will try to use Ace as a way to burn Rest turns so take advantage of that. Against stall teams that use double water (Toxapex/Alomomola and Dondozo) Cinderace will most likely be useless, you can try to use it to chip some stuff and force switches but it won't get much done, sometimes you can bait a Gliscor into sacking itself to you but more often than not it's not worth the risk, very bad match up for it.
Other things to note, always consider what Ace can do in the lategame and its good matchups, it can 1HKO a Valiant that has exhausted booster with minimal chip (or a high roll from full), 1HKOs Enamorus, 1HKOs Ogerpon water with rocks, 1HKOs defense invested Moth that has exhausted booster with Double Edge 1HKOs standard Primarina with rocks (or a roll in your favor from full), and if it comes down to it you can go for the speed tie and do massive damage against Roaring Moon. Stab Sucker Punch just comes in handy to pick up weakened mons and kills Dragapult in 1 (guaranteed with life orb).
Last thing, the Tera Normal boost is a one time thing, you SD and become a normal type, and then tera gives you an Adaptability boost, but after you switch it becomes just normal 1.5x stab damage, so be careful with it and time it right (it still gets fire and normal stab)
Ability: Libero
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Double-Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Pyro Ball
Cinderace is the breaker for this team, its primary role is to get rid of the aforementioned defensive mons and open for its teammates, in some rare cases and positions it might win by itself but it is here primarily to force progress. Your main targets are Alomomola and Moltres to open for your Tusk and Gambit to clean lategame; usually they don't expect the 1HKO so it is usually a free kill, and the opponent has no way of knowing beforehand if you are SD or not. Getting to setup is not the hardest in this meta since Ace has a lot of good matchups into the many steel types of the tier (Corviknight, Gholdengo, Iron Crown, non boosted Treads) so you usually get many opportunities to come in thanks to a parting shot from Pech or baiting a switch in with your Garchomp, Tusk, etc. If they opt to stay in against you they have no way of killing you in 1 so it's usually safe to SD, and if they pivot to a resist you can catch them with your Double Edge and Tera if necessary, or even play mind games if they know the team and just attack what's in front of you. Ace has options.
The difficult matchups are unfortunately not insignificant, primarily Pecharunt which you never 2HKO and Landorus-T which takes your attack and kills your momentum, both of which are common. In these matchups try to just Pyro Ball for 30%-40% and chip down. This team is good into stall but Ace will often not be the most useful thanks to Dondozo; although there's one beautiful calc that will help you against stall, but you have to be patient
252 Atk Life Orb Libero Cinderace Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 153-183 (30.3 - 36.3%) -- 53.7% chance to 3HKO
If you can chip Dondozo down with the pressure from your other mons to about the 64% range, you are in prime position to 2HKO it upon switch in with raw Double Edge, ALWAYS TAKE THE ROLL, killing it or forcing it to sleep is progress towards your team, and some foolish Dondozos will try to use Ace as a way to burn Rest turns so take advantage of that. Against stall teams that use double water (Toxapex/Alomomola and Dondozo) Cinderace will most likely be useless, you can try to use it to chip some stuff and force switches but it won't get much done, sometimes you can bait a Gliscor into sacking itself to you but more often than not it's not worth the risk, very bad match up for it.
Other things to note, always consider what Ace can do in the lategame and its good matchups, it can 1HKO a Valiant that has exhausted booster with minimal chip (or a high roll from full), 1HKOs Enamorus, 1HKOs Ogerpon water with rocks, 1HKOs defense invested Moth that has exhausted booster with Double Edge 1HKOs standard Primarina with rocks (or a roll in your favor from full), and if it comes down to it you can go for the speed tie and do massive damage against Roaring Moon. Stab Sucker Punch just comes in handy to pick up weakened mons and kills Dragapult in 1 (guaranteed with life orb).
Last thing, the Tera Normal boost is a one time thing, you SD and become a normal type, and then tera gives you an Adaptability boost, but after you switch it becomes just normal 1.5x stab damage, so be careful with it and time it right (it still gets fire and normal stab)
Kingambit @ Black Glasses
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 16 SpD / 240 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Kowtow Cleave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
If you have used black glasses Gambit before then you pretty much know the deal, gets in, puts pressure, pick up weakened enemies lategame and win. Kingambit is one of your best mons against stall so take advantage of it, it can force a lot of progress and even force some mons to tera fight to stop it (Dondozo, Corviknight, Bronzong), so preserve your Hatt and Pecharunt to get advantage of it. It can even force stuff without needing to tera so you can be a bit more reactive and alocate the tera where needed.
About the set specifically, it isn't max speed for one fairly specific interaction:
132 SpA Iron Moth Fiery Dance vs. 0 HP / 16 SpD Kingambit: 288-338 (84.4 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
With 16 spdef you are guaranteed to always live a Fiery Dance from speed booster Moth, and just get rid of the guessing on sub altogether. The reason it is Iron Head instead of Low Kick is that in my experience Iron Head is more useful in more matchups and improves your matchup against fat fairies (Clefable, Hatterene, Primarina, Tera Fairy Garg and others), and makes it so Valiant and Enamorus can't switch in for free, it just becomes a very solid neutral hit with Supreme Overload against most things, the only matchup you will miss Low Kick is against other Gambits, but without Iron Head fairy matchup becomes harder so it's worth it for me.
The playstyle is fairly straightforward, but Gambit will be your primary switch in to Pecharunt, it's fine if it allows a parting shot because your team really hates being poisoned. You can play Kingambit aggresively if needed, you don't really care about its HP too much, it will do the same at 100% or 20%. Usually Gambit will be the switch in against ghosts and Darkrai, and against Darkrai and Pult you can play with Hatt and make them status themselves. But in these tough match ups it's fine if you trade Gambit for the other mon.
The set isn't necessarily set on stone, if max speed or Low Kick give you better results then go for it.
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 16 SpD / 240 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Kowtow Cleave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
If you have used black glasses Gambit before then you pretty much know the deal, gets in, puts pressure, pick up weakened enemies lategame and win. Kingambit is one of your best mons against stall so take advantage of it, it can force a lot of progress and even force some mons to tera fight to stop it (Dondozo, Corviknight, Bronzong), so preserve your Hatt and Pecharunt to get advantage of it. It can even force stuff without needing to tera so you can be a bit more reactive and alocate the tera where needed.
About the set specifically, it isn't max speed for one fairly specific interaction:
132 SpA Iron Moth Fiery Dance vs. 0 HP / 16 SpD Kingambit: 288-338 (84.4 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
With 16 spdef you are guaranteed to always live a Fiery Dance from speed booster Moth, and just get rid of the guessing on sub altogether. The reason it is Iron Head instead of Low Kick is that in my experience Iron Head is more useful in more matchups and improves your matchup against fat fairies (Clefable, Hatterene, Primarina, Tera Fairy Garg and others), and makes it so Valiant and Enamorus can't switch in for free, it just becomes a very solid neutral hit with Supreme Overload against most things, the only matchup you will miss Low Kick is against other Gambits, but without Iron Head fairy matchup becomes harder so it's worth it for me.
The playstyle is fairly straightforward, but Gambit will be your primary switch in to Pecharunt, it's fine if it allows a parting shot because your team really hates being poisoned. You can play Kingambit aggresively if needed, you don't really care about its HP too much, it will do the same at 100% or 20%. Usually Gambit will be the switch in against ghosts and Darkrai, and against Darkrai and Pult you can play with Hatt and make them status themselves. But in these tough match ups it's fine if you trade Gambit for the other mon.
The set isn't necessarily set on stone, if max speed or Low Kick give you better results then go for it.
Great Tusk @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Headlong Rush
- Ice Spinner
- Bulk Up
- Rapid Spin
Bulk Up Tusk is absurdly underrated, decent against some SD Gliscor variants, will beat other Tusks, can surprise 1HKO more frail mons at +1, and makes it so Gambit can basically never beat you if you remain above a third of HP. Mons like Pex or Garg who can shrug off the hit, you put a lot of pressure on them; and you can pick up weakened Alomomla or force a kill; it also improves your matchup against Dnite. I've had many games where after rapid spin it just wins on its own because of the opponent not answering fast enough, it's just a really good set, and lefties allow for some insane longevity, where you can bring it back from low HP in Heatran fashion and still put in work with its bulk and damage. Some teams will rely on burning it with Wisp to stop it, but Tera Fire can give you another surprise free turn of setup and just put a lot of pressure on the opponent or straight up win; it can be a surprise tera against Valiant, Darkrai and Meowscarada. Also good Tera into non Roar Moltres.
Tusk is here primarily as a hazard removal since you want to protect Cinderace which is not wearing boots and the Sash on Hatterene in some matchups. Good into Rest Tera Ghost variants of Ting Lu since it can setup in front of it and force it to switch out so you can remove the hazards. Just a very good set, would recommend. Main thing to potentially experiment is on the tera; tera water, steel, ghost and dragon might be appreciated on it to cover for some hard match ups, but I haven't tested them myself so I can't vouch, tera fire has just been excellent in my experience.
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Headlong Rush
- Ice Spinner
- Bulk Up
- Rapid Spin
Bulk Up Tusk is absurdly underrated, decent against some SD Gliscor variants, will beat other Tusks, can surprise 1HKO more frail mons at +1, and makes it so Gambit can basically never beat you if you remain above a third of HP. Mons like Pex or Garg who can shrug off the hit, you put a lot of pressure on them; and you can pick up weakened Alomomla or force a kill; it also improves your matchup against Dnite. I've had many games where after rapid spin it just wins on its own because of the opponent not answering fast enough, it's just a really good set, and lefties allow for some insane longevity, where you can bring it back from low HP in Heatran fashion and still put in work with its bulk and damage. Some teams will rely on burning it with Wisp to stop it, but Tera Fire can give you another surprise free turn of setup and just put a lot of pressure on the opponent or straight up win; it can be a surprise tera against Valiant, Darkrai and Meowscarada. Also good Tera into non Roar Moltres.
Tusk is here primarily as a hazard removal since you want to protect Cinderace which is not wearing boots and the Sash on Hatterene in some matchups. Good into Rest Tera Ghost variants of Ting Lu since it can setup in front of it and force it to switch out so you can remove the hazards. Just a very good set, would recommend. Main thing to potentially experiment is on the tera; tera water, steel, ghost and dragon might be appreciated on it to cover for some hard match ups, but I haven't tested them myself so I can't vouch, tera fire has just been excellent in my experience.
Hatterene @ Focus Sash
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draining Kiss
- Psychic Noise
- Mystical Fire
- Nuzzle
Unexpected MVP of this team, needed more hazard control so this was my immediate thought aftert the win conditions; this set is probably one of the most slept on sets in SV OU right now for me, 70% of the time Hatterene will be your lead, I'm not the hugest fan of dedicated leads but Hatt just does really well into a lot of things, Darkrai and Dragapult which can be hard match ups will just be crippled and made useless for the rest of the match with lead nuzzle, most people don't expect sash and try to go for Tera Sludge Bomb or specs Shadow Ball, but trading Hatt to get rid of these giant threats is pretty worth it, it can also find surprise paras on Gholdengo and Iron Crown trying to switch in, also nuzzling into Slowking-G is worth to make it vulnerable to your Hex Pecharunt.
Take advantage of the team being flexible on Teras, if you can tera fly and take a surprise KO on Landorus-T or Great Tusk go for it, they will often times go for the 2HKO and just get really low in the case of Lando with Psynoise, or just straight up die and give you your HP back in the case of Tusk with Draining Kiss; if you see an opposing ground type being a tough match up dont shy from Teraing Hatt, it will wall Ting Lu and support Gliscor so it can do a lot for your team. The sash play is probably one of the things where you'll have to play a lot to get a good feel for when it's needed and when it's not, sometimes preserving it to later in the game in case of a Roaring Moon, Dragonite or even Walking Wake can be vital, just a thing you will have to pick up while playing the team.
The thing I just want to highlight is the spread and moves, max spatk Hatt is insanely underrated, Psychic Noise and the damage it can do makes a lot of matchups easier, Gliscor, Garganacl, Clefable, to name a few, if you are at high HP and Pech is in front of you, you can easily take the Malignant Chain and kill it with a single Psynoise in return, this trade will almost always be in your favor. Just the combination of recovering with draining, psynoise and nuzzle does a lot, highly recommend it, even in other teams.
Lastly, max spatk tera fly Hatt can legitimately just wall some stall teams. You can tera her in the first 3 turns if you see it fit and it will more often than not do a lot for your team.
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draining Kiss
- Psychic Noise
- Mystical Fire
- Nuzzle
Unexpected MVP of this team, needed more hazard control so this was my immediate thought aftert the win conditions; this set is probably one of the most slept on sets in SV OU right now for me, 70% of the time Hatterene will be your lead, I'm not the hugest fan of dedicated leads but Hatt just does really well into a lot of things, Darkrai and Dragapult which can be hard match ups will just be crippled and made useless for the rest of the match with lead nuzzle, most people don't expect sash and try to go for Tera Sludge Bomb or specs Shadow Ball, but trading Hatt to get rid of these giant threats is pretty worth it, it can also find surprise paras on Gholdengo and Iron Crown trying to switch in, also nuzzling into Slowking-G is worth to make it vulnerable to your Hex Pecharunt.
Take advantage of the team being flexible on Teras, if you can tera fly and take a surprise KO on Landorus-T or Great Tusk go for it, they will often times go for the 2HKO and just get really low in the case of Lando with Psynoise, or just straight up die and give you your HP back in the case of Tusk with Draining Kiss; if you see an opposing ground type being a tough match up dont shy from Teraing Hatt, it will wall Ting Lu and support Gliscor so it can do a lot for your team. The sash play is probably one of the things where you'll have to play a lot to get a good feel for when it's needed and when it's not, sometimes preserving it to later in the game in case of a Roaring Moon, Dragonite or even Walking Wake can be vital, just a thing you will have to pick up while playing the team.
The thing I just want to highlight is the spread and moves, max spatk Hatt is insanely underrated, Psychic Noise and the damage it can do makes a lot of matchups easier, Gliscor, Garganacl, Clefable, to name a few, if you are at high HP and Pech is in front of you, you can easily take the Malignant Chain and kill it with a single Psynoise in return, this trade will almost always be in your favor. Just the combination of recovering with draining, psynoise and nuzzle does a lot, highly recommend it, even in other teams.
Lastly, max spatk tera fly Hatt can legitimately just wall some stall teams. You can tera her in the first 3 turns if you see it fit and it will more often than not do a lot for your team.
Pecharunt @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 104 SpA / 152 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Parting Shot
- Malignant Chain
- Hex
- Recover
There's absolutely nothing deep about this Pech, it's just here for Zamazenta and Ogerpon and that's about it as far as thought process goes. With its good natural typing and bulk and the synergy with the team it will be your primary pivot, just the threat of poison is a lot for mons like Zapdos, Moltres and Alomomola so you can get free switches. Other very notable thing, is that this is one of your primary answers to Roaring Moon and Dragonite, it can handle most variants if they don't set up too much, in these match ups you will often be saving your Tera Fairy just for these two, and you can even still check Zama after Tera. Hex is more preferred than Shadow Ball to do more to Gliscor and just good synergy with Malignant Chain and Nuzzle from Hatt.
I think the moveset is set in stone for this team. But completely feel free to experiment on the spread, if you need more speed or more defense or something else. I tested tera ghost and it is decidedly not good, I have tried Tera Water to cover for some weaknesses but you really miss on not being able to check Zama anymore, and just weaker into Roaring Moon too. This speed is to be 1 point faster than modest Raging Bolt and be able to revenge kill it more easily, but I'm not married to this spread so feel free to adjust to what you think is best.
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 104 SpA / 152 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Parting Shot
- Malignant Chain
- Hex
- Recover
There's absolutely nothing deep about this Pech, it's just here for Zamazenta and Ogerpon and that's about it as far as thought process goes. With its good natural typing and bulk and the synergy with the team it will be your primary pivot, just the threat of poison is a lot for mons like Zapdos, Moltres and Alomomola so you can get free switches. Other very notable thing, is that this is one of your primary answers to Roaring Moon and Dragonite, it can handle most variants if they don't set up too much, in these match ups you will often be saving your Tera Fairy just for these two, and you can even still check Zama after Tera. Hex is more preferred than Shadow Ball to do more to Gliscor and just good synergy with Malignant Chain and Nuzzle from Hatt.
I think the moveset is set in stone for this team. But completely feel free to experiment on the spread, if you need more speed or more defense or something else. I tested tera ghost and it is decidedly not good, I have tried Tera Water to cover for some weaknesses but you really miss on not being able to check Zama anymore, and just weaker into Roaring Moon too. This speed is to be 1 point faster than modest Raging Bolt and be able to revenge kill it more easily, but I'm not married to this spread so feel free to adjust to what you think is best.
Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Stealth Rock
Now Garchomp is another surprise MVP of this team, people REALLY disrespect Garchomp, I think max speed max attack is one of the best sets for it, above the tank chomp set for me. I first experimented with SD Scale Shot but Garchomp just has too many immediate switch ins that won't allow it to make progress, so SD on it was just not worth it at all; so I decided to let go of SD and just go full offense with Rocks and just hit whatever is in front of me with a bat, and DAMN I was pleasantly surprised by it. People be forgetting Garchomp has a really good speed tier, faster than Iron Crown and in particular, faster than Kyurem is a huge deal, most people disrespect Garchomp so much they will just stay in with Kyurem and get picked up by an Outrage, but the role of Garchomp here is to force fast progress, in particular against the more offensive teams.
In the matchups where Hatt isn't your lead Garchomp will be your option, in particular if they have a Samurott-H, Rocky Helmet is still really good on Garchomp here, and one EQ against H-Sam means they cannot hit you twice with Ceasless, and you can just negate the second spike and put up rocks for yourself. Against some other match ups, what you really want is for Chomp to trade into Tusk: you throw rocks, Tusk comes in, you do massive damage with Outrage and rocky helmet + rough skin chip and you either kill the tusk or leave it at 10%, at which point it will be more than enough to open for your Gambit and other mons. Garchomp is just really good at forcing trades and putting up rocks on top of that. You can Tera Fire early to take on either Moth or Darkrai, or even pick up a Valiant on the way. Tera Fire is good on it for the same reasons it's good on Tusk, to avoid burns, with Stone Edge you can just pick up a Moltres (which most people don't expect since Garchomp is usually defensive). The Rocky Helmet + Rough Skin combo just gives you a lot of utility, chipping down U-Turning mons like Corviknight or forcing damage on a Blissey going for Seismic Toss on your Hatt. Garchomp is one of your primary Dragonite switch ins, they are forced to kill you and break its Multiscale with Ice spinner or take a huge Outrage. It just puts a lot of offensive pressure and it's another ground type faster than Pechrunt and you can easily take 60% or more from it. This is just a beautiful mon. I thought it was a shitter and I picked it kinda just for fun but I'm impressed by it, very underrated
Ability: Rough Skin
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Stealth Rock
Now Garchomp is another surprise MVP of this team, people REALLY disrespect Garchomp, I think max speed max attack is one of the best sets for it, above the tank chomp set for me. I first experimented with SD Scale Shot but Garchomp just has too many immediate switch ins that won't allow it to make progress, so SD on it was just not worth it at all; so I decided to let go of SD and just go full offense with Rocks and just hit whatever is in front of me with a bat, and DAMN I was pleasantly surprised by it. People be forgetting Garchomp has a really good speed tier, faster than Iron Crown and in particular, faster than Kyurem is a huge deal, most people disrespect Garchomp so much they will just stay in with Kyurem and get picked up by an Outrage, but the role of Garchomp here is to force fast progress, in particular against the more offensive teams.
In the matchups where Hatt isn't your lead Garchomp will be your option, in particular if they have a Samurott-H, Rocky Helmet is still really good on Garchomp here, and one EQ against H-Sam means they cannot hit you twice with Ceasless, and you can just negate the second spike and put up rocks for yourself. Against some other match ups, what you really want is for Chomp to trade into Tusk: you throw rocks, Tusk comes in, you do massive damage with Outrage and rocky helmet + rough skin chip and you either kill the tusk or leave it at 10%, at which point it will be more than enough to open for your Gambit and other mons. Garchomp is just really good at forcing trades and putting up rocks on top of that. You can Tera Fire early to take on either Moth or Darkrai, or even pick up a Valiant on the way. Tera Fire is good on it for the same reasons it's good on Tusk, to avoid burns, with Stone Edge you can just pick up a Moltres (which most people don't expect since Garchomp is usually defensive). The Rocky Helmet + Rough Skin combo just gives you a lot of utility, chipping down U-Turning mons like Corviknight or forcing damage on a Blissey going for Seismic Toss on your Hatt. Garchomp is one of your primary Dragonite switch ins, they are forced to kill you and break its Multiscale with Ice spinner or take a huge Outrage. It just puts a lot of offensive pressure and it's another ground type faster than Pechrunt and you can easily take 60% or more from it. This is just a beautiful mon. I thought it was a shitter and I picked it kinda just for fun but I'm impressed by it, very underrated
Playstyle:
In case you don't want to read the huge yapping above here's the tldr: this team is a lot about trades. Garchomp, Hatterene and Cinderace are here to open for your Tusk and Gambit and Pech just as a glue. Read your matchup and be comfortable sacrificing a mon to trade for one of the opponent's threats. With this team reall don't be afraid to use tera early just to make progress, most times you won't need it later, but this just comes with the experience of playing the team and recognizing when to do so. The way you win against hard matchups is exhausting tera to trade on their number 1 threat, after doing that the team is well rounded enough to close against most teams, even against opposing tera (exceptions included*). Hatt is probably the most tactical mon in the team, recognizing what to do with it will take a bit but it will be one of your biggest assets. Generally good matchup against BO and Stall, HO will be skill diff / matchup, ok into balance. Your weaknesses are more on what mons are on the opposing side than the archetype. gl!
Weaknesses:
The team does have some holes, in particular weakness against water and certain tera sets from some mons
Dragonite: depending on the tera it might just 6-0 on preview and there's not much you can do, tera fly and tera fairy can be really hard for this team, either don't allow it to setup or save your Pecharunt with tera and Hatterene.
Keldeo: this team just lacks a water resist and your only real option is to win before they can and keep up the pressure as much as you can.
Roaring Moon: somewhat 50/50, some matches you can handle it no problem, some it will just be absurdly strong, the bulky Fairy variants are definitely the hardest, especially if you exhausted tera. Moon being so fast makes things harder. Save your Pech and don't allow it to setup for free.
Webs: it can be hard to stop webs from going up, and since you aren't really running boots on anything stuff like offensive booster Valiant and others can make it really hard to do anything. Hatt will do well into Ribombee, but Surf Araquanid can outrun and outdamage Hatt first, your only option is to nuzzle it and try to go for lucky paras, or hope your opponent goes for greedy surf against Garchomp and die to stone edge. Just generally hard.
Walking Wake: if the opponent knows what they are doing, in sun it will just win in most cases. if you can get rid of the opposing Tusk you can try to win using your priority. Either Speed boost or SpA boost one shot most of your team, but you have an easier time against SpA since Ace outspeeds it and can kill it with minimal chip. Most of the time try to go for a nuzzle on it if you can, if not then teeheeClosing Thoughts:
I think this is a pretty decent team with some fairly unexplored sets, it has some obvious weaknesses but generally you rely more on how you pilot the team which makes it very rewarding. Mostly trying to put some of these sets on the radar. Stuff like SD Ace and offensive Garchomp are stuff people aren't really paying attention to and after having some decent success and good wins I think it's just definitely worth for people to keep exploring some mons more; would love to see people iterate on this team and optimizing it, I'm not the best so I'm sure other players will probably take the team even higher.
Also shoutouts Setsu for also finding success with another variant of SD Ace at the same time, just pretty unexplored and underrated
Importable: https://pokepast.es/af8a70a7cbf36726
Proof of peak:
hopefully the yap was at least a good read
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ninetales: easier match up, Ace is faster and KO's tales and your defensive backbone is usually enough to stop the opponent's mons in this type of structures without veil
grimmsnarl: fake mon but can be a bit troublesome, a good thing with grimmsnarl is that it's easier to make it waste turns of screens by blocking its parting shot with Kingambit and Hatterene
deo-s: toughest of the bunch, it enters, puts up screens and you really dont have any real way of punishing it immediately