Introduction:
My name is Quizzy AKA F0XHOUNDD, formerly known as TheCyberSage, and I’ve been playing competitive Pokémon on ladder since ORAS. I’ve been very inconsistent during that near ten year time span, but in gen 9 OU I’ve found my ladder play the greatest it's ever been. While I’m not particularly fond of gen 9’s current state, I do enjoy the flexibility it can offer with team building. One of my recent bouts on the ladder has brought me the greatest success I’ve ever seen, peaking with an elo of 1966 at number 6 on ladder with one of my old favorites, Salamence. Hope you all enjoy the squad!
The Team:
https://pokepast.es/9c663958550fa5f5
Teambuilding Process:
This team has gone through many iterations, but it spawned primarily from the popularity of Rillaboom and grassy terrain as a play style since the teal mask dlc. Gorilla has seen high success on both the ladder and tournament play which has persisted even after the ban of its main partner in crime, Sneasler. My original hazard stacking core of
Salamence
Monster Zero (Salamence) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 16 SpA / 152 Spe
Naive Nature
- Hurricane
- Earthquake
- Dragon Tail
- Roost
Salamence is unironically the defensive glue of the team. It provides a consistent check to fighting types, Rillaboom, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Cinderace, and Heatran. Its ability to intimidate key physical threats make it a more persistent answer to these Pokémon than defensive Dragonite, which needs to worry about keeping multiscale intact to maintain its full potential. Additionally, intimidate excellently synergizes with defensive Gholdengo and Zamazenta, which appreciate taking reduced damage from physical threats they are meant to check. For example, I often pivot into Salamence before Gholdengo when facing opposing Zamazenta to reduce crunch damage to a measly 20-25%. Flying/ground coverage is extremely hard to switch into for many HO and BO structures lacking Pokémon like Ting Lu or Zapdos. Dragon tail provides a surprise option which helps prevent setup sweepers like Tera Ogerpon-W, Ceruledge, Dragonite, etc. from gaining an advantage over you. EVs speed creep Great Tusk while simultaneously ensuring an OHKO with hurricane against max HP variants. Tera Fairy helps negate your ice type and fairy weaknesses in a pinch. I prefer it over steel because it allows you greater leeway to miss hurricanes vs Great Tusk, and can help in matchups vs. Kingambit and opposing H-Samurott. Steel can still be considered to reduce ice and fairy damage even further.
Gholdengo
Fazers (Gholdengo) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 188 Def / 12 SpA / 60 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Dazzling Gleam
- Nasty Plot
- Recover
Gholdengo provides the team with a consistent answer to Iron Valiant, Zamazenta, Amoonguss, and other fairy and fighting types. Covert cloak generally helps you avoid hax, while notably allowing you to beat Garganacl and avoid Zamazenta crunch defense drops. I’ve experimented with many Ghold sets, but the classic bulky nasty plot with dazzling gleam really improves your matchup into fat BO and Balance structures where H-Samu and Maushold can get worn down over long matches. I’ve had similar success with focus blast over dazzling gleam to snipe dark type switchins, and thunder wave over nasty plot to cripple offensive threats like Dragapult, Tornadus, Iron Valiant, and Cinderace. Thunder wave has saved me from many game losses to Iron Valiant in particular. I encourage people to try out both sets, so I will link a variant of the team with t-wave Ghold. EVs Speed creep Kingambit and Ursaluna. 12 SpA lets you 2HKO offensive Great Tusk with shadow ball (or OHKO with tera fairy dazzling gleam)
Samurott-Hisui
Next Levels (Samurott-Hisui) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Aqua Cutter
- Sucker Punch
- Knock Off
- Ceaseless Edge
Hisuian Samurott is your primary breaker that doubles as a hazard setter. The goal of this choice banded set is simple: blow things up. There is very little in the metagame that can switch into the banded stab combination of water and dark, and the immediate power of the choice band helps Samurott muscle through bulky cores and threaten immediate damage against ground types like Ting-Lu, Landorus-T, and Garchomp which Zamazenta and Maushold will appreciate in the late game. Knock off allows for a consistent dark type option which removes items, rather than risking the miss on a ceaseless edge. Aqua cutter is your strongest stab before tera and avoids contact, while sucker punch helps for surprise kills on weakened targets or Dragapult.
Slowking-Galar
Anti-Matter (Slowking-Galar) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psyshock
- Sludge Bomb
- Chilly Reception
- Slack Off
Slowking-Galar adds an important backbone to the defensive core, allowing you to stand up to special powerhouses like Zapdos, Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, and Enamorus. The need for role compression restricted the set on Slowking. As much as I would like to add an option like t-wave, focus blast, or yawn to punish common switch ins, slack off is needed in the fourth moveslot to beat threats like specs Walking Wake and Zapdos. Since most Slowking opt to run a status move or coverage in the fourth slot, slack off can unexpectedly turn the tide in the aforementioned 1v1s. Psyshock is needed over future sight to immediately pressure Iron Moth, as you have no other check bar full health Salamence. It also allows you to immediately pressure other Galar Slowking, Toxapex, and chip Blissey. Chilly reception and sludge bomb are must-haves in order to beat fairies and pivot out. Tera water allows you to more consistently beat Walking Wake without fearing their own tera water or potential hydro pump.
Zamazenta
The Fine Print (Zamazenta) @ Leftovers
Ability: Dauntless Shield
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 180 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Body Press
- Crunch
- Iron Defense
- Substitute
Zamazenta is your primary late game cleaner while simultaneously beating or pressuring key setup threats like Ceruledge, Dragonite, and Kingambit. 180 Speed EVs allow you to outspeed Adamant Dragonite after a boost, as well as Manaphy running 260 speed when sticky webs are up. The extra speed compared to Zamazenta commonly running 168 to creep Dnite is also useful in the 1v1. Zamazenta synergizes well with Maushold, as they can lure in and overwhelm each other’s ghost type checks over the course of a game. Tera fire allows you to resist fairy type attacks, aids in tera fairy Kingambit and Ceruledge 1v1s, avoids will-o-wisp from Dragapult (and Cinderace), and allows you to completely steamroll sun teams without booster speed on Walking Wake.
Maushold
Fastlane (Maushold-Four) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Population Bomb
- Bite
- Tidy Up
- Encore
Maushold offers excellent role compression in the sixth and final slot of the team. It can act like a wallbreaker using its powerful population bomb to cleave through teams, it can remove hazards in a pinch with tidy up, and pester both offensive and defensive threats with encore coming off a 111 base speed stat. It's no secret that encore is one of the greatest moves in the gen 9 OU metagame, most notably allowing Maushold to check slower setup sweepers like Manaphy or Kingambit locked into sucker punch. Lead Maushold is your primary way to combat sticky webs teams, pressure slow defensive cores without a good normal resist, or lure in ghost types to chip down for either itself or Zamazenta. Its convenient speed tier also allows you to revenge kill several threats like boosted Ogerpon-W, Enamorus, and Walking Wake. I've recently been using tera electric on Maushold to better the Zapdos matchup by dodging static paralysis. Tera ghost was originally used and can still be considered to better the Iron Valiant, Zamazenta, and espeed Dragonite matchups by granting immunity to strong fighting type and normal type hits.
Common Threats:
- Zapdos is perhaps the most significant threat to the team overall. There is no bulky ground type to stomach hurricane hits, so you rely on slowking for the 1v1. This brings with it two issues: One, Slowking can potentially be haxxed by para-fusion from thunder wave and repeated hurricanes. Two, Zapdos can just volt switch out on Galar Slowking. If the Zapdos player has a dark type like Ting-Lu or Kingambit in the back this can make the matchup extremely frustrating. As such, I’ve started to population bomb with Maushold to deal with Zapdos. You only need a little chip to guarantee the OHKO:
252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 104 Def Zapdos: 360-430 (93.7 - 111.9%) -- approx. 68.8% chance to OHKO
This not only eliminates a premier threat to the team, but also frees up Zamazenta for a potential late game sweep. If you do not tera, your Maushold will likely be paralyzed, but it can still outspeed and/or pressure Pokémon like G-King, Clefable, Ting-Lu, and choice locked Dragapult. I consider it a win in most cases. I did this enough times to change Maushold to tera electric. If you tera you bypass static entirely, but make sure to assess whether you should. Sometimes sacrificing Maus to a paralysis and preserving your terastallization for another Pokémon will serve you better over the course of a match.
- Dragapult represents a significant threat to the team overall. I often pivot into Galar-Slowking to scout the set, but be wary if there is another threat that G-King needs to handle such as Iron Moth or Iron Valiant. Will-o-wisp hex sets can be handled well enough by Gholdengo, who can threaten them even without terastallizing. Specs variants can be worked around with aggressive switches into Maushold who is immune to ghost, Samurott who can snipe with a sucker punch, or G-King who can sponge one hit and pivot out. Dragon dance variants can do great damage before you eventually go for the 1v1 with Zamazenta or Tera Ghold/Salamence to deal with them. Regardless, you need to play with extreme caution around a well played Dragapult, and you may be forced to tera or use aggressive doubles to prevent it from snowballing.
- Iron Valiant can cause another guessing situation. As you often don’t know the set you will be facing, you may have to sack Slowking or Gholdengo in order to find out. Special calm mind sets can be beaten by slowking if tera is expended, but tera steel or ghost will stone-wall you. SD sets will straight up beat Ghold or Slowking without using your own tera. A tera with Ghold is your most consistent answer to revenge kill knock off sets. I like to immediately pressure in Iron Valiant early by threatening setup with Zamazenta, or in a pinch going for the hurricane with a terastallized Salamence.
- Great Tusk with ice spinner is also very scary. If you encounter tera poison bulk up with booster speed you either need to tera Salamence and go for a dragon tail, or tera Ghold to chip it down. You need to avoid giving up free bulk up turns to tera poison variants at all costs. The alternative t-wave Ghold set is good at crippling tera poison Great Tusk sets. Non-setup Great Tusks can be more immediately pressured by Salamence or Zamazenta.
- Salamence is a great Pokémon for the scenarios you need it, but its biggest problem is inconsistency. Having to hit a hurricane sucks. Click the move with caution: do you really need to go for it? With Ogerpon-W for example, I often use dragon tail at this point to avoid the hurricane miss chance, even if there is potential for an OHKO. On the topic of thematchup: you can still be overwhelmed by SD, play rough, or terastallization, alongside Ivy Cudgel's high crit ratio which will ignore your intimidate. Ogerpon-W essentially does not have hard counters, Salamence is only a check.
- Iron defense Zamazenta is a Pokémon I often see less experienced players save until it's time for them to set up and win, but I would advise against doing so in every scenario. Zamazenta is your fastest Pokémon , allows you to check a plethora of physical threats, and can setup for its own sweep by getting early chip Pokémon like Iron Valiant and Dragapult. On the flip side, don’t succumb to sunk-cost fallacy. You can switch a boosted Zamazenta out if it will bring you into an advantageous situation. Zamazenta does often serve as a good “final boss” Pokémon to send out and wrap up a game, but you have to assess your matchup first and foremost and base your gameplan with it accordingly.
Replays:
As we all know the current replay situation is not ideal. If you want to watch any replays to get an idea of how to use the team, use this link to download a folder containing some battles from my climb. If replays are restored before DLC2 I'll come back to post the links.
Shoutouts:
Shoutouts to Firer4 who also made it to top ten using a defensive Salamence recently, and big shoutouts to the TrainerAid discord made by NJNP which fosters a chill environment to help new and experienced players alike.
Link To T-Wave Ghold Variant
Thanks for reading or using the team! I expect to see more
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