Strategy & Metagame OU Spotlight : Gliscor

[Albacore]

I'd like to write an OU spotlight on Gliscor. Why Gliscor? Well, it's a Pokemon which has gained a huge amount of popularity recently, specifically, the Swords Dance set which can be a nightmare for slower teams to handle. But also becquase it's a great example of how a Pokemon can adapt to adjust to metagame changes. Throughout the gen, it went from SubToxic Phys Def to Taunt SpD and now to SD, and not only was able to keep itself relevant but actually go better and better over time.
Furthermore, a lot of people still have misconceptions over what Gliscor runs : many people still associate it with the SubToxic set which is pretty outdated nowadays, and this article will inform people on what Gliscor actually does in ORAS. Gliscor is a very interesting and important Pokemon in the OU metagame, and since I've had a lot of experience using it, I feel qualified to write this.

Basic skeleton :

Introduction

• Gliscor has evolved a lot since the beginning of XY
• At the start, it was mainly known for its physically defensive SubToxic set, but it was ultimately very flawed and easy to shut down.
• Around mix XY, SpD Gliscor gained popularity for handling Gengar, Aegislash and Landorus and breaking opposing stall teams
• Finally as ORAS arrived, SD gliscor became the dominant set, enabling it to set up on Sableye and post a huge threat to balanced teams.

Gliscor’s qualities

• Good mixed bulk, with access to reliable recovery
• Very good defensive typing which enables it to wall both physical and special attackers
• Good moveloop, with reliable recovery, utility moves like Taunt and Knock Off, and Swords Dance enabling it to set up
• Fantastic ability in Poison Heal, giving it passive recovery so that it can set up more easily

Playing with Gliscor

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 184 SpD / 72 Spe
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off / Facade
- Roost
- Swords Dance / Taunt

• Gliscor’s most common and most relevant set.
• Against offensive teams, functions as a standard wall, switching into Pokemon like Gengar, Landorus, Heatran, with Roost combined with Poison Heal enabling it to stall out a variety of offensive Pokemon, and Knock Off enabling it to cripple switchins
• Against defensive teams, Swords Dance becomes very useful, since Gliscor can oeasily set up on slower defensive Pokemon unable to 2HKO it or status it thanks to Poison Heal. Thus, it can often boost up to +6 and clean the rest of the team
• Facade can also be a good move depending on what Gliscor wants to beat : it enables it to beat Talonflame, Breloom, Togekiss, Mandibuzz and of course, opposing Gliscor. However, it misses out on hitting Gengar, one of the more important things Gliscor checks.
• Taunt can still be used over Swords Dance. While it leaves Gliscor walled by Sableye, Taunt also helps it break down defensive teams, specifically it beats Skarmory which oftherwise phases Gliscor out
• A physically defensive set can also be used. Physcially Defensive Gliscor misses out on a few special attackers, but it does handle physical attacklers such as non-Ice Punch Mega Lopunny and Mega Metagross

Playing against Gliscor

• The best way to defeat Gliscor is to put offensive pressure on it. Since its initial power is lacking, faster attackers can switch into it quite easily, and as long as they are able to 2HKO it they can handle it quite easily. There are a lot of situations where Gliscor will be forced into Roosting, Taunting or SDing, which you can take to your advantage.
• When it comes to specific checks and counters, Fast Water and Ice types like Keldeo, Kyurem-B, Weavile, Mamoswine, check it well. Flying types like Charizard-Y, Talonflame, and Thundurus are immune to Earthquake and often do not fear Knock Off much, so they serve as good checks to Gliscor
• Some defensive Pokemon can also take it on, however, there are few of them. Bulky Water types may seem like they can handle it, but Quagsire and Alomomola are too weak to threaten it, and even Slowbro needs to rely on a critical hit to beat it, while Rotom-W needs to hit a bunch of Hydro Pumps to win. Suicune can handle SD variants decently since it can 2HKO Gliscor with Scald after a Calm Mind boost, but fails against Taunt variants One way to handle Gliscor is to abuse the fact that Roost removes Gliscor’s neutrality to Grass, enabling Ferrothorn and Venusaur to 2HKO it with their Grass type STAB moves.
• Gliscor’s 4x weakness to Ice means that a lot of Pokemon Gliscor is supposed to check can run Hidden Power Ice to break past it, particularly Landorus and Heatran, while Genagr can run Icy Wind which is superior to Hidden Power Ice becuase of the speed drop it causes, at the very minor cost of 5 BP

Fitting Gliscor on your team

• Gliscor mainly fits on balanced teams which require a check to the Pokemon Gliscor usually handles, as well as a stallbreaker to beat opposing balanced teams
• A Water type like Starmie, Keldeo, or Rotom-W is able to cover Gliscor’s weaknesses perfectly. Calm Mind Mega Slowbro is particular has great synergy with Gliscor, since it is a massive threat to offensive teams but faltar against defensive teams, while for Gliscor, it’s the other way round. However, this water type also needs to be paired up with a good answer to fast Electric types, almost all of which commonly carry HP Ice.
• Clefable is a very good partner to for Gliscor, it is able to handle Thundurus, Kyurem-B, Keldeo, and Weavile for the most part. In return Glsicor beats Gengar, Heatran, non-HP Ice Landorus-I, Magnezone, and Venusaur to some extent, which are all big threats to Clefable. However, the core is vulnerable to Fire types like Talonflame and Charizard-Y, so answers to these two Pokemon need to be carried as well.

Get out there!

• closing phrase about how Gliscor is good and you should use it

 

[princessofmusic]

It would help if you could provide an outline with the different points you plan to feature under each paragraph, Albacore. Tagging trc Valentine Valmanway to see what they have to add.

 

[Valmanway]

I can see justification in Gliscor getting a spotlight, and I trust Albacore's knowledge on the subject, but can we see the sets you'll be writing about anyways?

 

[Albacore]

Mainly Roost / EQ / Knock Off / SD, with a SpD spread but I'll also mention Facade>Knock Off, Taunt>SD, and a physically defensive spread as options. I'll try to get the basic skeleton done soon.

 

[Valmanway]

I'd like to write an OU spotlight on Gliscor. Why Gliscor? Well, it's a Pokemon which has gained a huge amount of popularity recently, specifically, the Swords Dance set which can be a nightmare for slower teams to handle. But also becquase it's a great example of how a Pokemon can adapt to adjust to metagame changes. Throughout the gen, it went from SubToxic Phys Def to Taunt SpD and now to SD, and not only was able to keep itself relevant but actually go better and better over time.
Furthermore, a lot of people still have misconceptions over what Gliscor runs : many people still associate it with the SubToxic set which is pretty outdated nowadays, and this article will inform people on what Gliscor actually does in ORAS. Gliscor is a very interesting and important Pokemon in the OU metagame, and since I've had a lot of experience using it, I feel qualified to write this.

Basic skeleton :

Introduction

• Gliscor has evolved a lot since the beginning of XY
• At the start, it was mainly known for its physically defensive SubToxic set, but it was ultimately very flawed and easy to shut down.
• Around mix XY, SpD Gliscor gained popularity for handling Gengar, Aegislash and Landorus and breaking opposing stall teams
• Finally as ORAS arrived, SD gliscor became the dominant set, enabling it to set up on Sableye and post a huge threat to balanced teams.

Gliscor’s qualities

• Good mixed bulk, with access to reliable recovery
• Very good defensive typing which enables it to wall both physical and special attackers
• Good moveloop, with reliable recovery, utility moves like Taunt and Knock Off, and Swords Dance enabling it to set up
• Fantastic ability in Poison Heal, giving it passive recovery so that it can set up more easily

Playing with Gliscor

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 184 SpD / 72 Spe
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off / Facade
- Roost
- Swords Dance / Taunt

• Gliscor’s most common and most relevant set.
• Against offensive teams, functions as a standard wall, switching into Pokemon like Gengar, Landorus, Heatran, with Roost combined with Poison Heal enabling it to stall out a variety of offensive Pokemon, and Knock Off enabling it to cripple switchins
• Against defensive teams, Swords Dance becomes very useful, since Gliscor can oeasily set up on slower defensive Pokemon unable to 2HKO it or status it thanks to Poison Heal. Thus, it can often boost up to +6 and clean the rest of the team
• Facade can also be a good move depending on what Gliscor wants to beat : it enables it to beat Talonflame, Breloom, Togekiss, Mandibuzz and of course, opposing Gliscor. However, it misses out on hitting Gengar, one of the more important things Gliscor checks.
• Taunt can still be used over Swords Dance. While it leaves Gliscor walled by Sableye, Taunt also helps it break down defensive teams, specifically it beats Skarmory which oftherwise phases Gliscor out
• A physically defensive set can also be used. Physcially Defensive Gliscor misses out on a few special attackers, but it does handle physical attacklers such as non-Ice Punch Mega Lopunny and Mega Metagross

Playing against Gliscor

• The best way to defeat Gliscor is to put offensive pressure on it. Since its initial power is lacking, faster attackers can switch into it quite easily, and as long as they are able to 2HKO it they can handle it quite easily. There are a lot of situations where Gliscor will be forced into Roosting, Taunting or SDing, which you can take to your advantage.
• When it comes to specific checks and counters, Fast Water and Ice types like Keldeo, Kyurem-B, Weavile, Mamoswine, check it well. Flying types like Charizard-Y, Talonflame, and Thundurus are immune to Earthquake and often do not fear Knock Off much, so they serve as good checks to Gliscor
• Some defensive Pokemon can also take it on, however, there are few of them. Bulky Water types may seem like they can handle it, but Quagsire and Alomomola are too weak to threaten it, and even Slowbro needs to rely on a critical hit to beat it, while Rotom-W needs to hit a bunch of Hydro Pumps to win. Suicune can handle SD variants decently since it can 2HKO Gliscor with Scald after a Calm Mind boost, but fails against Taunt variants One way to handle Gliscor is to abuse the fact that Roost removes Gliscor’s neutrality to Grass, enabling Ferrothorn and Venusaur to 2HKO it with their Grass type STAB moves.
• Gliscor’s 4x weakness to Ice means that a lot of Pokemon Gliscor is supposed to check can run Hidden Power Ice to break past it, particularly Landorus and Heatran, while Genagr can run Icy Wind which is superior to Hidden Power Ice becuase of the speed drop it causes, at the very minor cost of 5 BP

Fitting Gliscor on your team

• Gliscor mainly fits on balanced teams which require a check to the Pokemon Gliscor usually handles, as well as a stallbreaker to beat opposing balanced teams
• A Water type like Starmie, Keldeo, or Rotom-W is able to cover Gliscor’s weaknesses perfectly. Calm Mind Mega Slowbro is particular has great synergy with Gliscor, since it is a massive threat to offensive teams but faltar against defensive teams, while for Gliscor, it’s the other way round. However, this water type also needs to be paired up with a good answer to fast Electric types, almost all of which commonly carry HP Ice.
• Clefable is a very good partner to for Gliscor, it is able to handle Thundurus, Kyurem-B, Keldeo, and Weavile for the most part. In return Glsicor beats Gengar, Heatran, non-HP Ice Landorus-I, Magnezone, and Venusaur to some extent, which are all big threats to Clefable. However, the core is vulnerable to Fire types like Talonflame and Charizard-Y, so answers to these two Pokemon need to be carried as well.

Get out there!

• closing phrase about how Gliscor is good and you should use it

Sorry for the late reply, but the skeleton looks pretty good so far. In Qualities, mention how Poison Heal protects Gliscor from status after Toxic Orb activates, as having a status immunity is pretty significant, especially for a wall. Other than that small nitpick, this looks good to me. Approved!