WINTER IS HERE, AND IT'S TIME TO PLAY IN THE SNOW!!
Ok everybody, we all know how overpowered weather can be in Pokemon. Rain teams have been extremely popular in ORAS, and I'm sure everybody is familiar with the Tapu Koko rain teams flooding the SUMO OU ladder. Tyranitar and Excadrill continue to be major threats, although everybody and their mom is running defensive Landorus-T, so most people are familiar with how to go about checking this common weather duo. With the new sun and moon metagame, I wanted to try out a hail team, because it seemed like it would be extremely fun and pretty bad, and if you are anything like me you love using crappy teams if they are fun enough to use. People also seem to not have very good ice resistances on the ladder, relying on steel types and bulky water types to soak up powerful ice type attacks. These pokemon are typically handled by mega Charizard-Y, with fire and grass coverage. While I made this team as a complete joke, thinking it would work about as well as a mono-eeveelution team, I was astonished at how effective it is in practice.
EVERY WEATHER TEAM NEEDS A WEATHER SETTER:
Sexy Ice (Ninetales-Alola) @ Icy Rock
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 64 HP / 192 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hypnosis
- Moonblast
- Blizzard
- Aurora Veil
Ninetales-Alola isn't very good on its own, in my opinion, however it offers excellent support to the team. Hypnosis is the most interesting thing about this set, and it is generally unreliable and a bad move to use in general. However, I thought that dual stab + aurora veil was really all this set needed, and struggled to fill the last moveslot. Hidden Powers such as HP ground for heatran and marowak, or HP fire for scizor and ferrothorn, are generally ineffective in my opinion, because they are quite weak compared to ninetales' STAB moves, and I think ninetales is valuable to the team as a weather setterand generally should not be staying in when heavily threatened. Hypnosis should only be used to hit pokemon on a predicted switch, or when Ninetales is not threatened and a free turn can be used to safely bring in Sandslash. Aurora Veil is an excellent move, as it makes up for the teams general lack of bulk, and allows for safer switches. The HP EV's allow ninetales to take three seismic tosses from chansey, should you be faced with a stall matchup. Blizzard hits surprisingly hard even against neutral and resisted targets, and makes up for ninetales' relatively mediocre special attack. Icy Rock is used because it's damn cold outside, and we want to keep it that way.
STEALTH ROCKS SHOULD ALWAYS BE GUARANTEED:
Fat Ice (Mamoswine) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Oblivious
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
Mamoswine is an absolutely amazing pokemon to use, and if you have never used one before I would highly suggest it. While it's speed isn't great, its' STAB combination is fairly difficult for most teams to handle, and it can pick off many faster pokemon from a respectable amount of HP with ice shard. Oblivious is chosen over thick fat, because against teams that rely on taunt leads such as azelf, it is nice to be guaranteed stealth rocks. It also prevents encore from pokemon such as shuckle, which preserves momentum early game. Adamant nature is chosen to maximize damage output from ice shard, KO'ing garchomp after Stealth Rock damage. Focus Sash is used to allow mamoswine to act as an emergency check to sweepers such as Mega Sharpedo and Mega Charizard X, and get stealth rocks up in crucial matchups. It also eases the need for prediction early game, as even if mamoswine is threatened it can at least get its KO or rocks.
EVERY FREEZER NEEDS A HEAT SINK:
Icy Hot (Charizard-Mega-Y) @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Drought
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Focus Blast
- Solar Beam
- Roost
Charizard acts as the glue of the team, and prevents it from being 6-0'd by Scizor. No team can really function without some diversity, even in the monotype metagame. The Set is extremely self explanatory, with max speed to make sure that non-scarf Genesect and tapu lele can't get cheeky with us. If your name isn't chansey, toxapex, or mantine, then you really arent getting a free switch into Charizard. Many people say that Charizard is best paired with pursuit trapping (in order to catch latios and chansey). I would like to think that latios already has enough problems to worry about on this team, and any competent stall player should be able to work around mono ice + charizard (however this is not always the case, as many stall players seem to be completely incompetent). So we don't have pursuit on this team. That being said, Charizard helps break down bulky and balanced teams, and should usually be able to get at least one KO even versus hyper offensive teams.
EVERYBODY HAS A FAVORITE POKEMON
Fast Ice (Weavile) @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Knock Off
- Low Kick
I love Weavile. It's good for so many reasons. Primarily, people seem to have pretty crappy dark resists. Throughout ORAS I would use Weavile on most of my teams and people would switch Keldeo into Weavile, taking 30% and losing their choice specs. The same can be said this generation, as none of the Tapus really want to lose their item, and I would love to knock Celesteela's leftovers off any day. Unfortunately, the rise of Scarf Tapu lele and Tapu Koko make weavile's job slightly harder to perform, but it really doesnt matter. Weavile is best used mid-to-late game on this team after all of the bulky physical mons have taken considerable damage, and faster pokemon are in range of ice shard. Low Kick is used to kill off Tyranitar, and nearly kill Magnezone, which otherwise threaten the team. Posion jab is a very viable alternative to 2HKO most variants of Tapu Fini, which could otherwise give this team trouble as one of the best bulky water types currently in the tier.
EVERY WEATHER TEAM NEEDS A THREAT
Spiky Ice (Sandslash-Alola) @ Life Orb
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Icicle Crash
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
Sandslash can seriously threaten a large portion of the metagame with this set, with the main issue being the lack of a way to boost its' attack stat. There should never be a game where sandslash does absolutely nothing, as at a minimum it will remove hazards for Charizard. Sandslash has decent physical bulk, but obviously we aren't here to take hits; Sandslash is a huge threat due to slush rush. You can hit every single Mega Evolution, Ultra Beast, and Tapu for neutral or supereffective damage, so when hail goes up somebody on the opposing team is most likely dying to Sandslash. Sandslash works best as a mid-game breaker, although it should be saved for late-game situations where the speed is necessary.
WHEN ONE THREAT ISN'T ENOUGH, ADD ANOTHER
Scary Ice (Beartic) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 172 Atk / 84 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Icicle Crash
Beartic isn't really that bulky, but with an assault vest it can take hits fairly well, letting it come in on threats such as Tapu Lele, Tapu Koko and Mega Alakazam. The given EV Spread gives Beatric a 50% chance to OHKO max HP 0 Def Heatran with superpower after rocks, which is pretty good for freeing up Charizard to spam fire blast and preventing the opponent from burning through this icy squad. Play Rough is used to hit Sableye, and Stone Edge is really only for Volcanion, although it can also hit Mega Charizard X for good damage. Beartic is an excellent early game offensive pivot for the team, usually sacrificing itself to get off good damage versus one of the opposing team's ice resists, paving way for Weavile and Sandslash to wreak havoc.
Conclusion:
Nobody is prepared for a well-played hail team right now, and it functions similarly to how a rain team functions; the continuous offensive pressure of ice type attacks can overwhelm the opponent's resistance to these moves, leaving the player with the ability to spam these attacks late game for more KO's. It is also extremely helpful that common checks to water cores (bulky dragon and grass types) as well as sand cores (landorus, bulky ground mons) are largely inneffective at dealing with Ice Spam.
Pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/ZRryC9Fe
I might upload some replays if people want to see them. Honestly you should just try the team out its really fun to use.
Ok everybody, we all know how overpowered weather can be in Pokemon. Rain teams have been extremely popular in ORAS, and I'm sure everybody is familiar with the Tapu Koko rain teams flooding the SUMO OU ladder. Tyranitar and Excadrill continue to be major threats, although everybody and their mom is running defensive Landorus-T, so most people are familiar with how to go about checking this common weather duo. With the new sun and moon metagame, I wanted to try out a hail team, because it seemed like it would be extremely fun and pretty bad, and if you are anything like me you love using crappy teams if they are fun enough to use. People also seem to not have very good ice resistances on the ladder, relying on steel types and bulky water types to soak up powerful ice type attacks. These pokemon are typically handled by mega Charizard-Y, with fire and grass coverage. While I made this team as a complete joke, thinking it would work about as well as a mono-eeveelution team, I was astonished at how effective it is in practice.
EVERY WEATHER TEAM NEEDS A WEATHER SETTER:
Sexy Ice (Ninetales-Alola) @ Icy Rock
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 64 HP / 192 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hypnosis
- Moonblast
- Blizzard
- Aurora Veil
Ninetales-Alola isn't very good on its own, in my opinion, however it offers excellent support to the team. Hypnosis is the most interesting thing about this set, and it is generally unreliable and a bad move to use in general. However, I thought that dual stab + aurora veil was really all this set needed, and struggled to fill the last moveslot. Hidden Powers such as HP ground for heatran and marowak, or HP fire for scizor and ferrothorn, are generally ineffective in my opinion, because they are quite weak compared to ninetales' STAB moves, and I think ninetales is valuable to the team as a weather setterand generally should not be staying in when heavily threatened. Hypnosis should only be used to hit pokemon on a predicted switch, or when Ninetales is not threatened and a free turn can be used to safely bring in Sandslash. Aurora Veil is an excellent move, as it makes up for the teams general lack of bulk, and allows for safer switches. The HP EV's allow ninetales to take three seismic tosses from chansey, should you be faced with a stall matchup. Blizzard hits surprisingly hard even against neutral and resisted targets, and makes up for ninetales' relatively mediocre special attack. Icy Rock is used because it's damn cold outside, and we want to keep it that way.
STEALTH ROCKS SHOULD ALWAYS BE GUARANTEED:
Fat Ice (Mamoswine) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Oblivious
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
Mamoswine is an absolutely amazing pokemon to use, and if you have never used one before I would highly suggest it. While it's speed isn't great, its' STAB combination is fairly difficult for most teams to handle, and it can pick off many faster pokemon from a respectable amount of HP with ice shard. Oblivious is chosen over thick fat, because against teams that rely on taunt leads such as azelf, it is nice to be guaranteed stealth rocks. It also prevents encore from pokemon such as shuckle, which preserves momentum early game. Adamant nature is chosen to maximize damage output from ice shard, KO'ing garchomp after Stealth Rock damage. Focus Sash is used to allow mamoswine to act as an emergency check to sweepers such as Mega Sharpedo and Mega Charizard X, and get stealth rocks up in crucial matchups. It also eases the need for prediction early game, as even if mamoswine is threatened it can at least get its KO or rocks.
EVERY FREEZER NEEDS A HEAT SINK:
Icy Hot (Charizard-Mega-Y) @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Drought
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Focus Blast
- Solar Beam
- Roost
Charizard acts as the glue of the team, and prevents it from being 6-0'd by Scizor. No team can really function without some diversity, even in the monotype metagame. The Set is extremely self explanatory, with max speed to make sure that non-scarf Genesect and tapu lele can't get cheeky with us. If your name isn't chansey, toxapex, or mantine, then you really arent getting a free switch into Charizard. Many people say that Charizard is best paired with pursuit trapping (in order to catch latios and chansey). I would like to think that latios already has enough problems to worry about on this team, and any competent stall player should be able to work around mono ice + charizard (however this is not always the case, as many stall players seem to be completely incompetent). So we don't have pursuit on this team. That being said, Charizard helps break down bulky and balanced teams, and should usually be able to get at least one KO even versus hyper offensive teams.
EVERYBODY HAS A FAVORITE POKEMON
Fast Ice (Weavile) @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Knock Off
- Low Kick
I love Weavile. It's good for so many reasons. Primarily, people seem to have pretty crappy dark resists. Throughout ORAS I would use Weavile on most of my teams and people would switch Keldeo into Weavile, taking 30% and losing their choice specs. The same can be said this generation, as none of the Tapus really want to lose their item, and I would love to knock Celesteela's leftovers off any day. Unfortunately, the rise of Scarf Tapu lele and Tapu Koko make weavile's job slightly harder to perform, but it really doesnt matter. Weavile is best used mid-to-late game on this team after all of the bulky physical mons have taken considerable damage, and faster pokemon are in range of ice shard. Low Kick is used to kill off Tyranitar, and nearly kill Magnezone, which otherwise threaten the team. Posion jab is a very viable alternative to 2HKO most variants of Tapu Fini, which could otherwise give this team trouble as one of the best bulky water types currently in the tier.
EVERY WEATHER TEAM NEEDS A THREAT
Spiky Ice (Sandslash-Alola) @ Life Orb
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Icicle Crash
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
Sandslash can seriously threaten a large portion of the metagame with this set, with the main issue being the lack of a way to boost its' attack stat. There should never be a game where sandslash does absolutely nothing, as at a minimum it will remove hazards for Charizard. Sandslash has decent physical bulk, but obviously we aren't here to take hits; Sandslash is a huge threat due to slush rush. You can hit every single Mega Evolution, Ultra Beast, and Tapu for neutral or supereffective damage, so when hail goes up somebody on the opposing team is most likely dying to Sandslash. Sandslash works best as a mid-game breaker, although it should be saved for late-game situations where the speed is necessary.
WHEN ONE THREAT ISN'T ENOUGH, ADD ANOTHER
Scary Ice (Beartic) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 172 Atk / 84 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Icicle Crash
Beartic isn't really that bulky, but with an assault vest it can take hits fairly well, letting it come in on threats such as Tapu Lele, Tapu Koko and Mega Alakazam. The given EV Spread gives Beatric a 50% chance to OHKO max HP 0 Def Heatran with superpower after rocks, which is pretty good for freeing up Charizard to spam fire blast and preventing the opponent from burning through this icy squad. Play Rough is used to hit Sableye, and Stone Edge is really only for Volcanion, although it can also hit Mega Charizard X for good damage. Beartic is an excellent early game offensive pivot for the team, usually sacrificing itself to get off good damage versus one of the opposing team's ice resists, paving way for Weavile and Sandslash to wreak havoc.
Conclusion:
Nobody is prepared for a well-played hail team right now, and it functions similarly to how a rain team functions; the continuous offensive pressure of ice type attacks can overwhelm the opponent's resistance to these moves, leaving the player with the ability to spam these attacks late game for more KO's. It is also extremely helpful that common checks to water cores (bulky dragon and grass types) as well as sand cores (landorus, bulky ground mons) are largely inneffective at dealing with Ice Spam.
Pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/ZRryC9Fe
I might upload some replays if people want to see them. Honestly you should just try the team out its really fun to use.
