-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
OU SM OU - Teambuilding Competition : October 2023 Revival (Week 1: Seismitoad on post #290)
- Thread starter zinnias
- Start date
LOrd Fernado
I COULD BE BANNED!
team 4
After the extended vote concluded, we finally have a winner of this week's competition. Congratulations to CM Reuniclus for your second consecutive win in the teambuilding competition! I will add you to the hall of fame asap. This week will be about a Pokemon, for the first time since week 1. Week 4 of the teambuilding competition will be about...
Week 4: Mega Diancie
Mega Diancie is an incredibly interesting presence in the SM metagame. It has monstrous attacking stats, both physical and special, along with a powerful movepool with the likes of Diamond Storm, Moonblast and Earth Power making this Pokemon a pain to answer. Diancie can function as a Stealth Rock setter, being able to set them up on the many Pokemon it threatens out with its strong stabs. Although Diancie can't sit on things like Mega Sableye can, Magic Bounce still forces the opponent to deal with it directly and not with status. Diancie does also have the interesting option to delay Mega evolving to keep the superior defensive stats of its form.
In order for your team to be counted, it must include a Diancie that is holding Diancite. You have until 11:59 pm, Sunday, 3rd of December to post your teams. Good luck and have fun!
Week 4: Mega Diancie
Mega Diancie is an incredibly interesting presence in the SM metagame. It has monstrous attacking stats, both physical and special, along with a powerful movepool with the likes of Diamond Storm, Moonblast and Earth Power making this Pokemon a pain to answer. Diancie can function as a Stealth Rock setter, being able to set them up on the many Pokemon it threatens out with its strong stabs. Although Diancie can't sit on things like Mega Sableye can, Magic Bounce still forces the opponent to deal with it directly and not with status. Diancie does also have the interesting option to delay Mega evolving to keep the superior defensive stats of its form.
In order for your team to be counted, it must include a Diancie that is holding Diancite. You have until 11:59 pm, Sunday, 3rd of December to post your teams. Good luck and have fun!
clematis
formerly EdDaBoss
Suicide Lead Explosion Mega-Diancie
Simple premise here. Lead Diancie, deny hazards, set up your own hazards, deal as much damage as you can, then explode, dealing a huge chunk of damage to whatever is in front of you, then bring in whatever you want with your free momentum and proceed to nuke the opposing team with one of the 5 other Pokemon here.
Diancie tends to bait in Steel-types, but that's exactly what we're looking for here, ironically enough. Lead, set up Stealth Rock, then spam Diamond Storm and Endeavour until you can explode and hopefully remove something from the match. It's a reasonably simple concept but Magic Bounce here is very good at denying the opposing team hazards and other annoyances. Diamond Storm is standard, but I find that a lot of Scarfed or faster mons will tend to click U-Turn or Volt Switch turn 1 so they can go into their Diancie answer, which you can then smack with an Endeavour into Explosion to deal maximum damage and go into your answer to that.
Kommo-O and Victini came next, as they're fearsome breakers that love to feast on the Steel-types Diancie lets in. Substitute Belly Drum Kommo-O is an absolutely lethal set imo, it shreds balance and stall if it's given even one free turn to Sub up, and outspeeds a scary amount of things at +1 (from Salac), while Choice Scarf Victini is terrifying to face if you're not ready for it - STAB V-Create does a disgusting amount of damage to most of OU and you can Final Gambit too to regain momentum if you need. A lot of the time, though, I find myself clicking U-Turn and simply going into something else, as it's slightly matchup situational.
At this point, the team directly lost to Quagsire, so SubSeed Serperior seemed like a natural fit. It abuses the shit out of Quag and can rapidly snowball given half a chance. It's also a good opportunity to whittle down some of the nastier mons for this team to run into with Leech Seed, though Glare is also an option instead to help Magearna late game. The HP EV's mean you can stomach Rotom's Hydro Pump and Ferrothorn's Power Whip behind a Sub, which is nice.
You can't run HO without Magearna. Click Shift Gear, click Fairium Z, sweep, accumulating boosts with Soul-Heart. I've gone ahead and dumped Focus Blast here as I didn't feel it was necessary to run it with Kommo-O being here too. STAB Twinkle Tackle is an absolute monster coming off of base 130 SpA, and Ice Beam and Thunderbolt provide some (arguably unnecessary) coverage. Honestly amazed how ridiculous Mag is, being able to win games on its own if given even one free turn. Shift Gear is an incredible cleaner, outspeeding almost everything you run into with the power to back it up.
I'm not explaining this one. Hydro Pump sweeps even weakened teams on its own, and being one-dimensional isn't really a problem when most teams need at least one and a half answers to this monster. There's really no need for Spikes here imo, so we're running U-Turn instead as a way to pivot out if needed, considering how much Greninja likes to let in stuff like Tapu Fini and Tangrowth, which get shredded by Serperior and Victini respectively. Fire/Water/Grass core moment. The combination of Gren, Mag, and the other mons on this team creates an offensive terror which is very difficult to deal with, and punishes misplays hard.
Simple premise here. Lead Diancie, deny hazards, set up your own hazards, deal as much damage as you can, then explode, dealing a huge chunk of damage to whatever is in front of you, then bring in whatever you want with your free momentum and proceed to nuke the opposing team with one of the 5 other Pokemon here.
Diancie tends to bait in Steel-types, but that's exactly what we're looking for here, ironically enough. Lead, set up Stealth Rock, then spam Diamond Storm and Endeavour until you can explode and hopefully remove something from the match. It's a reasonably simple concept but Magic Bounce here is very good at denying the opposing team hazards and other annoyances. Diamond Storm is standard, but I find that a lot of Scarfed or faster mons will tend to click U-Turn or Volt Switch turn 1 so they can go into their Diancie answer, which you can then smack with an Endeavour into Explosion to deal maximum damage and go into your answer to that.
Kommo-O and Victini came next, as they're fearsome breakers that love to feast on the Steel-types Diancie lets in. Substitute Belly Drum Kommo-O is an absolutely lethal set imo, it shreds balance and stall if it's given even one free turn to Sub up, and outspeeds a scary amount of things at +1 (from Salac), while Choice Scarf Victini is terrifying to face if you're not ready for it - STAB V-Create does a disgusting amount of damage to most of OU and you can Final Gambit too to regain momentum if you need. A lot of the time, though, I find myself clicking U-Turn and simply going into something else, as it's slightly matchup situational.
At this point, the team directly lost to Quagsire, so SubSeed Serperior seemed like a natural fit. It abuses the shit out of Quag and can rapidly snowball given half a chance. It's also a good opportunity to whittle down some of the nastier mons for this team to run into with Leech Seed, though Glare is also an option instead to help Magearna late game. The HP EV's mean you can stomach Rotom's Hydro Pump and Ferrothorn's Power Whip behind a Sub, which is nice.
You can't run HO without Magearna. Click Shift Gear, click Fairium Z, sweep, accumulating boosts with Soul-Heart. I've gone ahead and dumped Focus Blast here as I didn't feel it was necessary to run it with Kommo-O being here too. STAB Twinkle Tackle is an absolute monster coming off of base 130 SpA, and Ice Beam and Thunderbolt provide some (arguably unnecessary) coverage. Honestly amazed how ridiculous Mag is, being able to win games on its own if given even one free turn. Shift Gear is an incredible cleaner, outspeeding almost everything you run into with the power to back it up.
I'm not explaining this one. Hydro Pump sweeps even weakened teams on its own, and being one-dimensional isn't really a problem when most teams need at least one and a half answers to this monster. There's really no need for Spikes here imo, so we're running U-Turn instead as a way to pivot out if needed, considering how much Greninja likes to let in stuff like Tapu Fini and Tangrowth, which get shredded by Serperior and Victini respectively. Fire/Water/Grass core moment. The combination of Gren, Mag, and the other mons on this team creates an offensive terror which is very difficult to deal with, and punishes misplays hard.
252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Toxapex: 221-260 (72.6 - 85.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 108 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Wash: 300-353 (111.9 - 131.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 279-329 (70.8 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
-1 252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 0 HP / 68 Def Landorus-Therian: 215-253 (67.3 - 79.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Diamond Storm into Explosion kills at -1)
252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 421-496 (59.8 - 70.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (Endeavour into Explosion gets the blob)
There's probably more, but it's late and I really don't see anything else as leads other than Tornadus, which switches anyways fearing Diamond Storm (which happily OHKOs btw)
252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 108 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Wash: 300-353 (111.9 - 131.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 279-329 (70.8 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
-1 252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 0 HP / 68 Def Landorus-Therian: 215-253 (67.3 - 79.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Diamond Storm into Explosion kills at -1)
252 Atk Diancie-Mega Explosion vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 421-496 (59.8 - 70.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (Endeavour into Explosion gets the blob)
There's probably more, but it's late and I really don't see anything else as leads other than Tornadus, which switches anyways fearing Diamond Storm (which happily OHKOs btw)
Poisonium Zoroark HO
i didn't have gif sprites for all of them :(Despite Diancie's sky high attacking stats, I feel that its best attribute is its utility. Using this Mega Diancie set (I did not come up with the idea of sub endeavour Diancie) allows hyper offense teams to get a ridiculously good start, and could be argued to be the best lead for this archetype. Substitute and Endeavour are a nasty combo that allows Diancie to trade itself and put a gaping wound into the opposing team, while also being a fast Stealth Rock user.
Mega Diancie is commonly picked as the lead, because it can establish Stealth Rock early and also block opposing rocks from the likes of Landorus-Therian or Heatran. Speaking of Landorus-Therian, with the physical bulk investment, you can delay Mega Evolving and live an Earthquake from maximum attack Landorus-Therian and set up Stealth Rock. There are a lot of situations where you might prefer to stay in the regular form for a turn to survive a hit and Stealth Rock, only to Mega Evolve the next turn, outspeed, and Endeavor them, leading to a highly advantageous start to the match.
This Pokemon is incredibly difficult to use, but there is no better feeling than getting a signature Zoroark snipe. The idea of this team is to have Zoroark disguised as either Kommo-O or Dragonite while hazards are clear (thanks Diancie) and bait in a Fairy type. You can either Nasty Plot and enjoy your +2 Zoroark, or you can rip a Poisonium on the switch, which would be the optimal play against Unaware Clefable.
252 SpA Zoroark Acid Downpour (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Clefable: 392-462 (99.4 - 117.2%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
I would usually never want to use a Kommo-O without a Z move (except maybe defensive). However, I couldn't think of anything that lures fairies better than this monster who threatens to omniboost against anything that isn't Fairy-type. I could have also used belly drum Kommo-o but then I may run into the potential issue of BD Kommo-o being dogshit, so I opted for this slightly strange LO DD Kommo-o which can boost up and catch some things like defensive Landorus-Therian off guard with the additional power. This Pokemon is quite a standard fixture on modern HO teams, being reliable removal and a crucial part of the Chansey matchup, being able to force damage with Rocky Helmet + Taunt. It helps out a lot against Rain, and it's always great to have a naturally fast Pokemon to help against base 100's and base 110's.
This is a mon that likes rocks being clear from the field arguably as much as the likes of Charizard and Volcarona. The multiscale ability allows for you to get out of many pinches, being able to live some frankly absurd moves (too many to list). It hates Clef/Fini too, which Zoroark is happy to help with. Superpower allows it to hit Kart/Ferro super effectively while also being a generally strong move that can hit weakened Rotom-Wash, or basically anything that gets in the way of the tried and true coverage of Ice and Ground. Except Shedinja I guess. If you run into one of those Shedinja ppl then you're quite cooked.
My absolute favourite Volcarona set is this sub swarm variant, being able to act as a regular Volcarona with QD and stab moves, but also if it needs to be even more Volcarona it can sub down to swarm and grab neutral KO's it missed before such as Garchomp at +1. Not much needs to be said about the most broken and controversial Pokemon in the tier, its reputation as the matchup moth speaks for itself.Obviously this team isn't optimal, and is definitely on the heat side of things, but I thought it was a great example of how Mega Diancie can use its utility tools like Magic Bounce to facilitate its Stealth Rock weak teammates. I hope you like this team and good luck to all other posters!
Last edited:
where is the importable?Poisonium Zoroark HOi didn't have gif sprites for all of them :(
View attachment 575232View attachment 575234View attachment 575235View attachment 575236View attachment 575239View attachment 575242
Despite Diancie's sky high attacking stats, I feel that its best attribute is its utility. Using this Mega Diancie set (I did not come up with the idea of sub endeavour Diancie) allows hyper offense teams to get a ridiculously good start, and could be argued to be the best lead for this archetype. Substitute and Endeavour are a nasty combo that allows Diancie to trade itself and put a gaping wound into the opposing team, while also being a fast Stealth Rock user.
Significant targets include Clefable, Tapu Fini and Tapu Bulu. Tapu Koko/Lele is sometimes also thrown in against Kommo when the opponent is desperate to block a potential Clangorous Soulblaze.252 SpA Zoroark Acid Downpour (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Clefable: 392-462 (99.4 - 117.2%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
Obviously this team isn't optimal, and is definitely on the heat side of things, but I thought it was a great example of how Mega Diancie can use its utility tools like Magic Bounce to facilitate its Stealth Rock weak teammates. I hope you like this team and good luck to all other posters!
Fixed it lol mb
Shine bright like a Zapdos
(click on the sprites for the pokepaste)
I was eager to experiment with a Diancie + Zapdos team. I've often found Zapdos to be somewhat underwhelming compared to other Flying types, mainly due to its vulnerability to Stealth Rocks and my less-than-ideal experiences with paralysis. Hence, the decision to pair it with Diancie seemed promising. The combination of Diancie, Zapdos, and Kartana forms a powerful trio that applies pressure to Flying types for Kartana, Ground types for Diancie and Zapdos, while collectively exerting stress on opposing Steel types.
Tapu Fini + Magearna serves as a solid core alongside Zapdos. Although it's been a while since I played Assault Vest Magearna, it fits well here, especially being modest and enabling trades against a broad spectrum of the tier in a defensive and pivoting role. Thanks to Treeman, I discovered the effectiveness of physically defensive Tapu Fini—an all-around useful Pokémon with Defog and a safety net against threats like Zard X, Medicham, Swampert, and Hawlucha (definitely not losing to Stone Edge Hawlucha). Nature's Madness proves super useful, providing instant value to Tapu Fini, while Misty Terrain synergizes perfectly with the Swords Dance Kartana on this team.
Speaking of Kartana, its set is currently my favorite: Synthesis provides longevity, Swords Dance adds power and a genuine win condition to the team. With this setup, you can comfortably sit on Ferrothorn, set up Swords Dance daily, and wreak havoc. Z-Leaf Blade is impressively potent, particularly helpful against Ground types. Trading some coverage for Synthesis adds stability to the team, creating a formidable win condition throughout the game.
To round out the team, I opted for Scarf Garchomp in the last slot (I was inspired by skypenguin playing Egalvanc's set a few days ago). I wanted something faster than a 100 base speed stat, adding another layer against threats like Volcarona and Charizard X. Scarf Garchomp serves as a lure against Tapu Koko that might attempt to eliminate it after some chip damage, and it also functions as a reliable Latias trap. While I didn't have the courage to play the true Egalvanc set with Scarf Stealth Rocks, I reasoned that having a flexible Rocks setter in Diancie would better support Kartana during the game, especially against threats like Tornadus or Zapdos. (If I were to try the Scarf Stealth Rocks set, I might consider a raw Endeavor Diancie to surprise stall teams.)
Last edited:
CB Victini + HP Ice Diancie Offense
- The pokemon of the week, I actually think Diancie is a very solid pokemon in the meta with its great ability, high speed and good offensive stats. Protect honestly fits Diancie so well since it is able to scout choiced pokemon and stops things like Choiced Greninja from clicking spikes as you would go to your answer. Hidden Power Ice is here to help the team with ground types like Landorus-Therian and Gliscor which our main wincons can struggle with. Since it isn't running Diamond Storm, we no longer have to run a defense lowering nature which can help against some physical threats that don't just kill it.
- I am a believer in this pokemon. It comes in on many special pokemon that often are strong against offense such as Volcarona, Mega Charizard-Y, Heatran, Blacephalon and Greninja-Ash and is able to click Toxic or Defog on many more threatening pokemon. I think Diancie and Mantine fit together well as having Mantine as the only hazard control is bad. It also provides an immunity to water attacks that will often be thrown at Diancie. I considered running Haze but didn't really think it was necessary on an offense team like this compared to having Toxic and Defog. The special defence means it always lives two choice specs Shadow Balls from Blacephalon after Stealth Rocks and the speed creeps Mega-Scizor. - This thing hits like a truck. Alongside HP Ice Diancie, which helps to keep hazards off the field and removes Landorus-Therian for Victini, we can bring in this pokemon with more ease to start taking chunks out of the opposing team. I wasn't really sure about the last move but I was finding that Trick was often a bit useless whereas Zen Headbutt was a useful mid-ground option in some matches but i think both are probably viable options here.
- Wow Calm Mind Tapu Koko is a free 6-0 into most HO. Its biggest issue is how its kind of dead weight into Chansey or Ferrothorn and you really feel the lack of a pivot move so I think changing it to be Z-Wild Charge is a viable option. However, in the right match-ups, this set can just win. Calm Mind lets it boost its special attack but also lets it set up on special attackers that don't really threaten it. Fairium-Z allows it to kill pokemon such as Landorus-Therian, Gliscor and Tapu Bulu. The spread outspeeds Weavile and lives Kartana Leaf Blade after Stealth Rocks. 
- The teams speed control. It kinda just does scarf Landorus things; pivots into ground and electric attacks, revenge kills things, sweeps late game, it does it all. I chose to run Knock Off over Defog since we already had Diancie and Mantine as hazard control and I didnt yet have a Knock Off user. The spread always lives Jolly +0 Mega-Charizard-X Flare Blitz after Stealth Rocks and outspeeds +1 adamant Charizard. Also Stone Edge didn't want to hit so I ran Explosion instead. 
- Yeah this set is wack I know. I needed a steel type on here that had Stealth Rocks since I didn't have it on Diancie and Ferrothorn also gave me a good Tapu Koko switch in that could also punish U-turns and other physical attacks. I have often found Leftovers to be almost a bit useless in faster paced offense games where Ferrothorn just isn't getting the turns to heal much from them so I went with Iapapa Berry which also lets it stay in on some super effective attacks and click rocks with the knowledge it will just get it all back. I hated the look of our match-up against Choiced Kartana because it looked like it just came in and, if it clicked the right move, got a kill so I put HP Fire on it to snipe them if they tried to take advantage of Ferrothorn. I also think that Thunder Wave could be fine for Kartana while having other uses outside of that but our Ferrothorn match-up isn't even that great either and dealing like 25% while it can't Leech Seed to gain health back was enough to convince me to keep it for now. The defense and HP lives a Choice Band or +1 Scarf Sacred Sword from Kartana after Stealth Rocks while the special attack means it always OHKOs Kartana from full. The rest went into special defense. I have actually really enjoyed using this team when I tested it so I hope you all like it too!
With these 4 submissions, week 4 has come to a close. It is now time to vote for the winner of this week by replying in the thread. The choices are:
Team 1 by clematis
Team 2 by AcneAutist
Team 3 by Maktyum
Team 4 by CM Reuniclus
Thank you to those that have posted teams. You have until 11:59 pm GMT-5 on Tuesday, 6th of December to vote for the winner of this week. Good luck!
Team 1 by clematis
Team 2 by AcneAutist
Team 3 by Maktyum
Team 4 by CM Reuniclus
Thank you to those that have posted teams. You have until 11:59 pm GMT-5 on Tuesday, 6th of December to vote for the winner of this week. Good luck!
Last edited:
LOrd Fernado
I COULD BE BANNED!
1
team 4
