Gen 9 NU Grassy Terrain Sweeper
Grafaiai @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Dark / Flying
EVs: 132 HP / 252 Atk / 124 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Gunk Shot
- Knock Off
- Encore / Taunt / Facade / Acrobatics
An up-to-date Grassy Terrain Sweeper set that Grafaiai currently uses in Gen 9 NU. With Unburden letting Grafaiai outspeed most of the boosted and unboosted metagame and Swords Dance to raise its attack stat, Grafaiai makes for a potent sweeper. Gunk Shot is used to provide Grafaiai with a powerful STAB move that hits most of the meta for neutral or super effective damage. Knock Off provides Grafaiai with a coverage move that lets it hit Pokemon immune to or resist Gunk Shot such for neutral or super effective damage as Munkidori, Basculegion, Bronzong, Copperajah, and Flygon. Knock Off removing items is also useful to make progress against teams. The last slot usually seen is Encore, as it can provide Grafaiai with more setup opportunities after locking an opponent into a status move like a setup move or a move Grafaiai is immune to. Tera Dark helps with this by having the ability to lock Pokemon into using a Psychic move after using Tera to turn Grafaiai into a Dark-type. Taunt can be used to prevent Pokemon from recovering HP using a move such as Wish or from using moves such as Roar, Whirlwind, and Haze to disrupt Grafaiai's sweep. Facade is a funny tech option to potentially have a powerful STAB move should you get statused from something like Scald from Vaporeon or Will-O-Wisp from Incineroar. Acrobatics can be used as a powerful coverage move that can accurately hit Pokemon such as Flamigo, Tauros-Paldea-Aqua, and Scrafty, as well as being able to do more damage to Flygon without using your Tera.
Because Grassy Seed is the item, Thwackey is a required teammate in order to consume Grassy Seed to activate Unburden. Tera Dark is the common Tera Type, as it allows Grafaiai to have a STAB move in Knock Off as well as being able to turn Grafaiai's Psychic weakness into an immunity, which pairs nicely with Encore. Tera Flying is used if you use Acrobatics in the last slot to get STAB on the move. Do keep in mind Tera Flying means you lose out on the passive HP recovery from Grassy Terrain. The given speed EVs I have here allows Grafaiai to outspeed the most common Grafaiai EV spread of 140 HP / 252 Atk / 116 Spe. (This EV spread is the one used on the Grassy Terrain sample, with the speed letting it outspeed non Choice Scarf Chandelure.)
Other move options
Throat Chop can be a funny alternative over Knock Off to be able to prevent Pokemon from using Roar to remove Grafaiai from the field while still being able to deal damage to them. Low Kick can be used on the last slot to allow Grafaiai to OHKO Copperajah at +2 without using Tera, but Copperajah already takes a lot of damage from Tera Dark Knock Off, and Klefki doesn't really take a lot of damage from Low Kick. Tera Blast with Ground as the Tera Type can be an option to deal super effective to Klefki while also being able to deal more damage to Duraludon(regardless of if its Heavy Metal or Light Metal), though it requires you to have to Tera in order to have the coverage move for those Steel-types.
