OU Spotlight: Gliscor

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Introduction

Gliscor is one of the best examples of how a Pokémon can adapt to a new metagame to keep itself relevant over time. Since the beginning of the XY metagame, the standard sets Gliscor runs have shifted in order to account for new metagame trends. And not only did it not lose any viability over time, but it actually consistently gained some instead. If you look at the old XY OU Viability Rankings, you'll notice that it was ranked B+ when Aegislash and the Deoxys formes were rampant and ranked A for the entirety of the post-Mawile metagame. It now stands firmly at A+ rank in ORAS. Each of these metagame stages heralded a different standard Gliscor set. At the start, it was mainly known for its physically defensive SubToxic set which, while very annoying, was also very flawed and easy to shut down. It was checked by most special attackers with relative ease, walled by certain Pokémon such as Air Baloon Excadrill, Magic Guard Clefable, Gengar, Skarmory, Mega Venusaur, and Air Balloon Aegislash (the set being unable to fit both Earthquake and Knock Off) and was setup fodder for the likes of Scizor and, generally speaking, was very easy to take advantage of. Nowadays, this set is very outdated, despite being the set many people associate with Gliscor. But at one point during mid-XY, somewhere between the implementation of the Baton Pass clause and the Aegislash ban, a specially defensive Taunt Gliscor set gained a huge amount of popularity for its ability to counter Gengar, Aegislash, and Landorus and break opposing stall teams as well. And, once ORAS arrived, despite initial concerns that Gliscor would be unable to stallbreak due to Mega Sableye countering the Taunt set, which caused it to temporarily drop to A- rank, it quickly adapted once again by running Swords Dance, turning the tables on Sableye by acting as a counter, leading it to quickly rise in usage and viability once the set became the norm. Now, it's one of the most defining threats in the tier and something every team needs to prepare for.

Gliscor's Qualities

As a defensive Pokémon, Gliscor obviously has some pretty solid bulk, 75 / 125 / 75 not being anything to scoff at. However, this kind of bulk pales in comparison to some of OU's bulkiest threats; for instance, Hippowdon has a gargantuan 108 / 118 / 72 bulk, and its far higher HP stat enables it to take hits significantly better. But Gliscor does have one huge advantage over other walls: its amazing ability in Poison Heal. This ability not only gives Gliscor incredible passive recovery, enabling it to restore an enormous 12.5% of its health per turn, and therefore give it more opportunities to attack as opposed to recover but also prevents Gliscor from being crippled by burn or bad poison, the former of which significantly wears down defensive Pokémon and the latter of which completely disables them unless they are paired with Heal Bell support. And finally, Poison Heal enables it to act as a good status and Knock Off absorber, which turns Gliscor into a great all-around team supporter. This is accentuated by Gliscor's great movepool, featuring utility moves like Taunt and Knock Off, as well as Swords Dance, which enables it to set up. Furthermore, it has an excellent defensive typing also shared by Landorus-T. Interestingly enough, despite their identical typings, Landorus-T is more adept at walling physical threats and offensive Pokémon, while Gliscor is more adept at handling special attackers and defensive Pokémon. This is because Intimidate enables Landorus-T to take very powerful hits from physical attackers such as Mega Charizard X and Terrakion, which Gliscor cannot handle as easily, while Gliscor's reliable recovery lets it more consistently check the likes of Gengar, and status immunity gives it an easier time switching into defensive status users such as Heatran and Jirachi.

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

This is arguably Gliscor's best and most relevant set in ORAS OU. It works slightly differently depending on what kind of team you're facing. When facing more offensive teams, this set functions as a standard wall, as it is able to handle Pokémon such as Gengar, Landorus, and Magnezone. Knock Off is a very spammable move which enables Gliscor to cripple a lot of Pokémon that try to switch into it, such as Keldeo or Kyurem-B, so don't hesitate to use it. However, Gliscor must still use Roost regularly to keep itself healthy. While Poison Heal does give it a lot of freedom to attack where another Pokémon would need to recover, Gliscor, like any wall, still needs to stay relatively healthy to take on the offensive threats it wants to.

Against defensive teams, Swords Dance becomes a very useful tool, turning Gliscor into an offensive threat as well as a defensive one. Gliscor can easily set up on slower defensive Pokémon that are 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. Swords Dance also enables Gliscor to counter Mega Sableye, as opposed to being countered by it. Poison Heal really comes into play against slower teams, since their response to both setup sweepers and defensive Pokémon is often status, and bulkier ones have a hard time catching up to the amount of HP Gliscor is able to heal per turn. Notably, Poison Heal negates Leech Seed damage, which enables it to set up on Ferrothorn that lack Power Whip. Gliscor also keeps a lot of its defensive utility against slow teams, being able to counter very common defensive Pokémon such as Heatran, Clefable, and Jirachi.

In addition to its standard moveset, Facade can also be a good move depending on what Gliscor wants to beat; it enables it to handle Talonflame, Breloom, Togekiss, Mandibuzz, and, of course, opposing Gliscor. However, it misses out on hitting Gengar, one of the more important Pokémon Gliscor checks as well as a lot of utility against offensive and defensive teams alike.

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 could otherwise phaze Gliscor out, and it helps against Ferrothorn by preventing Leech Seed from negating Gliscor's Poison Heal recovery.

A physically defensive set can also be used. Physically defensive Gliscor misses out on being able to handle a few special attackers, but it does handle physical attackers 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 without too much difficulty. There are a lot of situations where Gliscor will be forced into using Roost, Taunt, or Swords Dance, which you can take to your advantage by sending in a check without having it get worn down, which means it can switch into Gliscor repeatedly over the course of the battle. When it comes to specific checks and counters, fast Water- and Ice-types like Keldeo, Kyurem-B, Weavile, and Mamoswine check it well. Flying-types such as Mega Charizard Y, Talonflame, and Thundurus are immune to Earthquake and often do not fear Knock Off much, especially if they happen to be Mega Evolutions, so they serve as good checks to Gliscor too.

Some defensive Pokémon can also take it on; however, there are very few of these compared to offensive checks. 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 Swords Dance variants decently, as it can 2HKO Gliscor with Scald after a Calm Mind boost, but it fails against Taunt variants. One way to handle Gliscor is to take advantage of the fact that Roost removes Gliscor's neutrality to Grass, enabling Ferrothorn and Venusaur to 2HKO it with their Grass-type STAB moves.

Finally, Gliscor's 4x weakness to Ice means that a lot of Pokémon Gliscor is supposed to check can run Hidden Power Ice to break past it, particularly Landorus and Heatran. Furthermore, Gengar can run Icy Wind, which is superior to Hidden Power Ice because; while it is weaker by 5 Base Power, its Speed drop is very useful. The same applies to physical attackers like Mega Lopunny and Mega Metagross, which often find themselves running Ice Punch in order to prevent Gliscor from countering them.

Fitting Gliscor Onto Your Team

Gliscor fits very well on balanced or stall teams that require a check to the kind of threats it handles and a stallbreaker to beat opposing balanced teams. The Pokémon it deals with are generally big threats to balanced teams and not so much to offensive teams, which makes it a rather poor choice on offense, especially given its lack of initial power gives away momentum to the opposing team.

A Water-type such as Starmie, Keldeo, or Rotom-W is able to cover Gliscor's weaknesses perfectly. Calm Mind Mega Slowbro in particular has great synergy with Gliscor, since it is a massive threat to offensive teams, but falters against defensive teams, while for Gliscor, it's the other way around. However, this Water-type also needs to be paired up with a good answer to fast Electric-types, almost all of which commonly carry Hidden Power Ice.

Clefable is a very good partner for Gliscor, as it is able to handle Thundurus, Kyurem-B, Keldeo, and Weavile for the most part. In return, Gliscor beats Gengar, Heatran, Landorus that lack Hidden Power Ice, Magnezone, and Venusaur to some extent, which are all big threats to Clefable. However, this core is vulnerable to Fire-types such as Talonflame and Mega Charizard Y, so answers to those two need to be carried as well.

Like most Pokémon, Gliscor appreciates Stealth Rock support. Since most of Gliscor's checks are Flying-types like Mega Charizard Y or Ice-types like Kyurem-B, Stealth Rocks will severely limit Gliscor's checks and counters.

Get Out There!

Gliscor went from being little more than a simple annoying Pokémon with limited impact on the metagame in the early days of XY to an absolute staple of balanced teams with the ability to bend opposing balanced teams backwards nowadays. And even now that the metagame has adapted to it and that we're seeing a lot more Ice-type moves, there's no reason to believe Gliscor won't keep changing its sets to combat these new trends. As it stands, it's still an absolute force to be reckoned with and one of the most potent bulky sweepers in the tier. Be sure to try it out; you will not be disappointed.

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