#hoopa-u

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Hoppa-Undbound has been banned from OU!

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My thoughts on the Hoopa-Unbound Suspect Test

You want my opinion on Hoopa-Unbound? My opinion is that Hoopa-U is toxic for the metagame and should be banned. Hoopa-U heavily restricts team building by making an entire playstyle basically unviable. The only reason Hoopa has lasted this long is because its choice specs set has just been discovered recently and how godlike it is, and the playstyle that Hoopa-U restricts the most happens to be stall. The main arguments for not banning Hoopa-U that I’ve seen is that it holds back stall and that Hoopa-U is basically useless against offense. I find both of these arguments to be untrue or invalid especially in the case of the first one. The fact that Hoopa-U restricts tall is in my opinion a reason to ban it not a reason for keeping it. Hoopa-U, as previously stated, restricts stall to the point that it is basically unviable due to how it limits the team building of the playstyle to run faster less bulky pokemon and/or pursuit trappers just to deal with Hoopa-U basically changing any viable stall team into a semi-stall team. A pokemon that has the ability to restrict an entire playstyle to the extent of making an entire playstyle unviable is frankly unhealthy and reason enough to ban the pokemon in itself. The second argument is that Hoopa-U has little to no use against offense and can often even be a liability. I disagree as these days many offensive teams carry bulkier pokemon like Tankchomp and Klefki in order to deal with the numerous threats to the playstyle such as Bisharp and Mega Diancie and also provide hazard support. Hoopa-U can easily take advantage of these pokemon by switching into them with the assistance of a pivot and then essentially getting a free kill as nothing on offense can tank more than one hit from Hoopa-U. Hoopa-U can also take advantage of special attackers such as Latios as it can easily live a hit from these pokemon and easily ohko them in return. A pokemon that can do all of this against a playstyle that is said to pretty much counter Hoopa doesn’t sound countered. Hoopa-U also limits team building on balance teams as they are forced to run Pursuit trappers like Choice Scarf Tyranitar in order to keep Hoopa-U from breaking its defensive core. (I’m not joking, anymore if your team doesn’t have a pursuit trapper then its behind on the metagame.) Hoopa-U has other benefits to it as well such as an incredibly spammable stab move due to the brokenness of dark types, an insane movepool that leaves Hoopa-U with absolutely amazing coverage on both the physical and special side, and amazing attacking stats that allows Hoopa-U to two hit ko the entire metagame and easily run a physical, special, or mixed set. Hoopa-U is toxic for the metagame for the extreme limits it places on team building, its ability to literally make an entire play style unviable, its amazing movepool, and its usefulness against any playstyle if you play it right and for all of this it should be banned. 

[pokemon-strategy-dex]

Hoppa-U is now being suspect tested in OU!

[pokemon-strategy-dex]

Hoopa-Unbound (OU)

Hoopa-Unbound @Life Orb -Psychic -Hyperspace Fury -Gunk Shot -Hidden Power Ice Ability: Magician Nature: Hasty EVs: 160 atk, 96 spatk, 252 spe

Moves: For the first move on this set we’ve got Psychic. Psychic is Hoopa’s strongest Psychic stab move and one of the moves you will likely be spamming. Its best features is ohkoing Mega-Venusaur. The second move on this set is Hyperspace Fury. You will most likely be spamming this move the most as dark is an extremely spam-able type and it is very powerful. Hyperspace Fury also has the additional effect of going through Substitute and Protect making it very good against clerics that rely on Wish. The third move on this set is Gunk Shot. Gunk Shot is a very important coverage move that hits Fairy types that will often try to come in on a Hyperspace Fury. In fact you can even ohko Clefable with this which is amazing. The final move on this set is Hidden Power Ice which is here because it will ohko Defensive Garchomp which is a staple on Hyper Offense. Basically it actually gives Hoopa-U some use against offense other than death-fodder. Now there are several other moves you can run on Hoopa-Unbound that are just as viable as the ones I’ve already listed. One of those moves is Dark Pulse if you are wanting to go more on the special side of things. You can also run Knock Off if you want the utility of the move. Fire Punch is a very popular move on Hoopa as it allows you to take out Ferrothorn and Scizor which are very common pokemon. Drain Punch is also a very common move as it has very good coverage with Hyperspace Fury and Gunk Shot. Finally if you want to go all physical you can run Zen Headbutt instead of Psychic if you so wish however mixed is generally just better. 

Spread: Max speed with a Hasty nature is used so that you are as fast as possible because Hoopa-U needs as much help to its speed as it can get. 96 special attack EVs are used so that you can ohko defensive Venusaur with Psychic. The remaining 160 evs are put into attack and just happen to work out so that you can ohko Clefable with Gunk Shot. Now if you are runing purely Phsyical obviously you will want to go Jolly with max attack investment as you won’t need the special attack EVs. If you go with Dark Pulse then I would recommend adding on some special attack EVs to what this set already has so that your stab moves are stronger however it is not completely necessary. Life Orb is the chosen item as it boosts your damage output without locking you into any move. Magician is the only ability that Hoopa-Unbound gets. 

Team Support/Usage: Hoopa can fit on most balance and offense teams and is best used as an early to mid game wallbreaker. It can even preform well as a lead in some situations. Hoopa-Unbound is incredibly strong, but it is also incredibly frail on the physical side(it is actually quite bulky on the special side by even taking a Latios’s Draco Meteor) and will die to most moves. This coupled with its poor speed make it terrible in matches against offense and is only decent at taking out things like Garchomp and maybe if you can live a special hit weakening something. This in turn is opposite against slower balance teams and stall teams which it can absolutely destroy with its fantastic wall breaking skills and its great coverage. Hoopa-U is best paired up with pokemon that can take advantage of its wallbreaking capabilities such as Mega Gyarados and Mega Charizard who will then set up and sweep the opponents. Hoopa-U also likes to be paired up with slow Volt-turners such as Scizor and Rotom-W as Hoopa-U can’t switch in to most any attacks by itself that isn’t a free switch. Finally pokemon like Keldeo are very nice as they can easily deal with Pursuit trappers that would otherwise give Hoopa-U trouble. 

Thanks everyone for reading! If anyone has any quesitons, comments, concerns, or requests then don’t hesitate to leave me an ask and I will try to get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks!

Source for art: http://icaro382.deviantart.com/art/Hoopa-Unbound-499347986

[pokemon-strategy-dex]

Now that Hoopa-Unbound has been released for a bit, what do you think about it as a Pokemon in OU?

I was actually writing a post about this topic when I saw that I had this. Anyways, in my opinion Hoopa-U isn’t necessarily good or bad in ou. It’s just a very situational pokemon. It does fantastic against stall and basically can take it on by itself. It does ok against balance and may get a kill or two if you play well and against offense well…it’s basically death fodder. I honestly don’t see it staying OU though. With how offensive the metagame because of everyone just spamming HO Hoopa-U is basically a worthless team slot 2 out of every 3 games. In my opinion you’re probably better off running Kyurem-B over Hoopa-U as Kyurem-B outspeeds, hits just as hard on the physical side, and is several times more bulkier. Kyurem-B is just more consistent (especailly against balance and bulky offense). I see Hoopa-U sitting comfortably in BL or being a very low OU pokemon like Conkelldur and Sylveon.