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OU DPP OU Metagame Discussion Thread

I'll be posting my teamdump I've built myself in 2025 that I've still used in 2026. Will ramble about specific teams and structure without much planning, as I'm on my way to take a break/leave from the tier/smogon for a long time. Explained it more in my previous posts, but this isn't rlly relevant to the post anyway so dw. There's not much else where I can talk about things that interested me, so better now than never.

Skjermbilde 2026-08-16 161742.png

This is my go-to click team whenever I feel like wanting to flowchart with little thoughts or when certain ladder periods encourage me to use this. It's basically a Sash-focused team where your game plan is to remove hazard users in an overwhelming brute force way. Sash Gliscor + Scizor is designed to combat Scarf Rotom + Gengar, along with SpA invested Starmie to dish out damage. The SpDef bulk on Scizor helps massively against Timid Starmie and other Specs attacks in order to give it a bit more longevity to abuse Scarf + U-turn. Originally the 4th move was Bullet Punch, but I didn't like the lack of damage gave some mons the opportunity to just stay in and roost freely. Knowing I ran Toxic on Scarf Scizor on one of George's builds, I implemented it here, and it gave me some critical success. I forgot the Starmie's 76s Def on bulk on specific rolls, but it helped me to minimize chances to die to any CB Ttar, probably like surviving +1 Jolly Crunch from Ttar as my assumption. The last three are just synergistic mons to just overwhelm and force trades tl;dr. Dragonite and Lucario both tend to force trades, but are often played with ppl assuming it's Life Orb or Choiced on Luc, or it's just clicking strong moves on Dnite as a trade. Sash just don't rlly give a fuck, and I've honestly just won by maintaining sash at the games pretty well lol. The NP Celebi covers certain scenarios vs like Steel types, DD HO, and Suicune, as my team is rather awkward, as my intuition told me. Now the team is extremely flawed regardless lmao. Good hazard stack, Sub Rotom as a whole, and just prone to para and being forced to mixture 3-4 mons for Sub Rachi is not ideal for consistency, but I found it worthwhile to talk about it as I've been around 1450-1650 consistently, as it kinda takes advantage of how "conditions on scenarios" in a very straightforward way.

Skjermbilde 2026-08-16 163632.png

Definitely one of the 2 am building moments I built back in Machamp suspect lmao. This team carried me so much, specifically on Machamp ladder, and it's a team I still think of this day occasionally. Not sure if this is a weird structure that can be optimized or not look as goofy like this, but I've always found double spin kinda awesome af, and the concept of Zapdos abusing hazards in DPP OU a strong possibility despite the tricky synergy alr. Here are other similar builds I think I used along with this one.

https://pokepast.es/e95fff391c4da3f7
https://pokepast.es/82685dd737782d34

Skjermbilde 2026-08-16 164421.png

Another unorthodox I've made is a Sub Jolteon team, inspired by one Kristyl and Tycarter's Jolt teams. This team is definitely designed without Loom, as I've built two SkarmJolts teams before in the sleep meta: https://pokepast.es/30ad792a3ba03372 and https://pokepast.es/8dee542ed9028db0
I'm not rlly good at explaining the process except that most of them are built like that due to defensive + offensive synergy meshes well. I've used SkarmJolt twice in tours, once in DPP PL and DPP Trio vs George with the Zong one. If you wonder, the Lucario set has the most unhinged EV spread like that; I like sub not breaking, and this was designed with that in mind to tank on CB Ttar's guaranteed. And the Occa Bronzong is there bc of Heatran and Infernape, which was an intuitive reason. Pretty fun team until the opponent knows it, so you will see some of the wackiest ct plays on ladder like lmao. But otherwise I enjoyed using this whenever I felt like laddering with one of my many alts.

Skjermbilde 2026-08-16 171606.png

If you've played ladder a few years ago, or encountered me or know me decently enough, you are somewhat aware of the existence of this cheesy strategy. Lady Bug used the top one vs Laurel as SPL, but unfortunately there was a bit of unluck, but more on misplays rip. Despite how infamous I am with this cheese in DPPCord, I've never talked about it in here and only briefly with Probobass for DPP Ladder Achievements. The whole theory of this concept is that you're trapping a Steel type and cripple it in some way, so your endgame Magnezone sets up with Starf + Recycle and then proceeds to sweep the whole team. This concept should always work in any DPP OU metagame in theory because of as the 99% of the teams are always Steel-type, and there's a high chance the Steel-type mon runs any hazard moves, or clicks a non-super effective move on the Magnets. It's always an unspoken rule to understand that if you want to build viable teams, you're forced to bring a Steel-type, and I'd say if you observed the teambuilding and Top Players, this rule will always be applied as timeless.

I've done that enough in plenty of times that people had to make absurd adjustments to avoid the cheese, and gotten DMs about the cheese by some ladder specifics, funny enough. I'd pull it out in tours against inexperienced players, and even if the strategy doesn't work, some of the teams are good enough for me that I still have a chance to win it out despite the failed moment. To use this, you've to approach the game from a very different angle and use heavy emphasis on conditioning your opponent and luring them out. So this requires a slightly more technical understand how the tier is played, in short. I'll make a quick comment that the spinning is more consistent than non-spinning, as it gives you many more opportunities to condition your opponent, thinking that you want rocks away, and eventually force them to use hazard once the spinner is gone, which is a strong conditioned opportunity for you to take advantage of. As for some sets, most Rachi leads are designed with the bulk of taking on any Heatran sequences at lead, but otherwise not much else to say, I guess.

1786910189130.png

Roserade in itself is where I'm the most known for in the community, for better or worse lmao. Now, when it comes to the teams themselves, it has a problem that hasn't been completely solved or found a satisfying answer yet. Roserade teams are capable of handling all archetypes in my mind, but the dilemma is how much it can cover against playstyle in one team. And the big obstacle is whether it's capable of handling Stall + Offense, specifically Bulky Offense and Hyper Offense types of builds at the same time. My answer to that is no atm, and I find it a huge challenge that's not answered rlly. The difficulties can come in many different ways, such as awkward timing to pressure for Lefties Metagross/Heatran in certain builds with no spikes and lack of long-term switch-ins vs both of them, Taunt Gyarados being a nuisance against lots of Roserade teams, esp with Swampert paths. Stall with Tspikes + Hippo or fat steels like Protect Metagross, etc. My point is that the problem is a problem that I failed to answer for now, as the closest in my mind is Hazard Stack Roserade+ Sub CM Rachi, as ngl, that Osgoode set is lowkey cheating and with Tspikes it simplifies the gameplan in so many ways lol.

As for the teams, the top one is most updated and obviously my own take on the sample team from Osgoode. The EV specifics are like adding more speed on Roserade + Heatran to maneuver around vs 220 Empo and Adamant CB Ttar, but I've changed the sets in a way to be more unfair. Tspikes + Phazing is honestly so broken that I'll talk bout it later, but using double Phazing gives me so many weird long-term plays and cripples mons that Rachi appreciates a ton. It makes the team super lame to play against as it's tedious and you're prone to get flinched by Rachi, etc n such. It has some struggles handling vs Metagross Lefties, Taunt Gyarados, Bronzong, and especially Mixgon that kinda don't rlly give a fuck on half of the tiers. But otherwise it does its job. All teams up here besides the top 2 and 3 are built in Pre-Sleep, and that SpDef team was used only once vs George at DPP trio. Lowkey cringe and evil team, but that's just how I can be at times lol.

While I like Roserade for casual + competitive reasons, eventually I was more interested in T-Spikes in DPP OU as a whole. I've built and used different T-Spikes mons; I even tried T-Spikes Smeargle because there was something that caught my attention about the move as a whole. With sleep being banned and indirectly reducing Breloom's usage in the tier, a heavy amount of increase in grounded mons surged in 2026. Less Breloom matters for the T-Spikes users as Loom tends to overwhelm most viable T-Spikes users in the long term, despite many of them having the typing to check it, and that's a death rule of having a supposed Loom check being reduced by chip damage, and that's not accounting for sleep, mind you. T-Spikes users have a much better time managing around Loom without the need to slow down the pace bc of Spore, and therefore the team has a slightly easier way to map out the sequences vs generally. As mentioned, with the higher usage on Grounded Mon, Tyranitar, and Donphan, structured teams became more popular here, and the same goes for certain offensive teams that bring mons like Suicune, Swampert, Infernape, etc. So after seeing/playing the tour games and having been overusing it a lot on ladder, I think it's extremely overtuned in a cheap way. Its biggest weakness has always been the users and awkward time to fit, but atm, how the meta has shaped itself, I'd also believe they've gotten enough interactions to be active in the field that it can easily bypass many teams by the threat of T-Spikes alone. An opinion of mine is that it should be able to win against two grounded mons unless that team has a grounded poison mon; examples on cores are CB Ttar + Donphan/Starmie, Celebi + Starmie, Infernape + Ttar Suit/Water mons, etc. A what-if theory I've always been thinking of is that if there is a state where oppressive mons like Defensive Latias and Zapdos(think with like Protect/Roar w/ T-Spikes) have found the perfect structure to invalidate Ttar by T-Spikes pressure alone, and then the team has a perfect response to handle the Steel types, for Latias it's most likely Metagross, Scizor, and Empo, while Zapdos is lowkey Heatran, and some specific Rachi sets alr. Just in a very flowchart way where it kinda centralizes the meta. I wonder if that's something people complained about in the past, as BKC mentioned smth with that before Clef was popular; people were frustrated with hazard stack, and that kinda lived behind my mind occasionally. The thing with me is that I'm a type of player that likes to try and push the meta to its limits, often pushing the meta in a way that it's "feeling" to be solved. Basically the worst type of player you can have lowkey. Unfortunately, DPP OU is one of the few tiers I've struggled to do so as there are so many obstacles and "rules" you have to take into account, and being inaccurate on that matters enough for me. It's pretty much the biggest reason why I've a hard time building and adapting to it, as it's just a very complex tier with many things to factor in, and it's just "impossible" for me to make a satisfied team with these rules intact. That was in the Loom-meta, of course, but now my intuition tells me there's something that can feel "solved or aging very well" as the meta's pace on offense and defense has made the tier inherently slower in my mind. If there's something I'd like to figure out, if it's true, it's if there's another path of using T-Spikes but having oppressive mons/structures against the current stall teams without the reliance of Thunder Ihead Rachi, maybe...

If I'll be back on this tier and site again, I'll approach the tier differently than I would do now, both in building style and mindset, and find out an appropriate style for this tier since DPP OU is fun af. I did not build teams for shit post-sleep ban, and it infuriates me to no end when I tried; I lost the motivation to continue, not fun af. But it can be; I'll not come back for 5 years to a decade, idk. Not worth worrying about that, and best to focus on what's important.

With that said, I played a good amount of DPP tours for 2026 and did better than I expected, not gonna lie. But I wouldn't get these results if I didn't have strong connections to the high/top players' teams lol, so all credit to them. With that said, there are some shoutouts I feel that deserve to carry me in here.

Student of Sinnoh One of my closest buddies in this tier and one of the longest ones within the DPP community. I remember meeting you back when I was a 1300-ish noob, and honestly didn't expect our relationship to bloom so hard. You've helped me so much in team tours before I was known. In Pokemon Perfect team tours, RoaPL and gotten me in DPP playoffs by the end of the year, but not only that, I've gotten much better as a player bc of your builds and discussions we have had. Nowadays we are both a little chilled out from talking mons and talking more about general things instead, but still I wouldn't be here if I didn't continue our discussions back from the BKCcord when that was the DPPcord before the server existed haha!

TyCarter Even to this day, I don't know when we started to talk so much together. You mentioned one of the Pokemon Perfect PL was when we first met, but I think at some point you asked me to help with preparation and building style, and it just never really stopped since then. SoS may be a bit jelly, but I def talked to you more than him in 2024, which is crazy for me. I'm glad you've evolved and have found some place in the community on DPP/Smogon overall, and I wish you the best to achieve the goals you want from here. It's been a huge pleasure to get to express myself, and I'm glad I had an important impact on your tournament runs <3

PDC Not sure why and when you continued to talk to me, but I suppose after our numerous ladder games at 1500/1600 ratings, you eventually came to talk to me about building teams, eventually some preparation and things just exploded from there. Admittedly, at that point I didn't know your rep or impact on the tier, despite seeing you play here and there from SPL, e.g. With that said, I've talked to you most in terms of DPP discussions in 2025 and 2026, and highkey been carried by you even if they are tricky to pivot for most other people. Congratulations on succeeding at so many things in 2025, and eventually you may hunt down DPP in SPL specifically alone or with others; you got it, boss. I'll say I'm sorry for putting you in the last 30 min prep vs my opponent on certain builds and deciding moves so many times; the worst ones are pivoting teams with piss poor performance!! But seriously though, it was super fun to talk with you, and I cannot be thankful enough to you.

There are more players I would talk about, like Le Don, Byrum, Hugo, Aubury, etc, but I'm pretty emotionally drained from these damn posts in the past weeks lol. I can say thanks to the DPP community for making my time as enjoyable as possible. I've been playing the tier for 5+ years, I'd believe, and damn, I feel a little old rn lol.

Thanks for reading my metagame posts. Here's the full builder before I wipe the teams from showdown: https://pokepast.es/804f33af0f6bd02a
 
I'll be posting my teamdump I've built myself in 2025 that I've still used in 2026. Will ramble about specific teams and structure without much planning, as I'm on my way to take a break/leave from the tier/smogon for a long time. Explained it more in my previous posts, but this isn't rlly relevant to the post anyway so dw. There's not much else where I can talk about things that interested me, so better now than never.

View attachment 856186

This is my go-to click team whenever I feel like wanting to flowchart with little thoughts or when certain ladder periods encourage me to use this. It's basically a Sash-focused team where your game plan is to remove hazard users in an overwhelming brute force way. Sash Gliscor + Scizor is designed to combat Scarf Rotom + Gengar, along with SpA invested Starmie to dish out damage. The SpDef bulk on Scizor helps massively against Timid Starmie and other Specs attacks in order to give it a bit more longevity to abuse Scarf + U-turn. Originally the 4th move was Bullet Punch, but I didn't like the lack of damage gave some mons the opportunity to just stay in and roost freely. Knowing I ran Toxic on Scarf Scizor on one of George's builds, I implemented it here, and it gave me some critical success. I forgot the Starmie's 76s Def on bulk on specific rolls, but it helped me to minimize chances to die to any CB Ttar, probably like surviving +1 Jolly Crunch from Ttar as my assumption. The last three are just synergistic mons to just overwhelm and force trades tl;dr. Dragonite and Lucario both tend to force trades, but are often played with ppl assuming it's Life Orb or Choiced on Luc, or it's just clicking strong moves on Dnite as a trade. Sash just don't rlly give a fuck, and I've honestly just won by maintaining sash at the games pretty well lol. The NP Celebi covers certain scenarios vs like Steel types, DD HO, and Suicune, as my team is rather awkward, as my intuition told me. Now the team is extremely flawed regardless lmao. Good hazard stack, Sub Rotom as a whole, and just prone to para and being forced to mixture 3-4 mons for Sub Rachi is not ideal for consistency, but I found it worthwhile to talk about it as I've been around 1450-1650 consistently, as it kinda takes advantage of how "conditions on scenarios" in a very straightforward way.

View attachment 856187

Definitely one of the 2 am building moments I built back in Machamp suspect lmao. This team carried me so much, specifically on Machamp ladder, and it's a team I still think of this day occasionally. Not sure if this is a weird structure that can be optimized or not look as goofy like this, but I've always found double spin kinda awesome af, and the concept of Zapdos abusing hazards in DPP OU a strong possibility despite the tricky synergy alr. Here are other similar builds I think I used along with this one.

https://pokepast.es/e95fff391c4da3f7
https://pokepast.es/82685dd737782d34

View attachment 856188

Another unorthodox I've made is a Sub Jolteon team, inspired by one Kristyl and Tycarter's Jolt teams. This team is definitely designed without Loom, as I've built two SkarmJolts teams before in the sleep meta: https://pokepast.es/30ad792a3ba03372 and https://pokepast.es/8dee542ed9028db0
I'm not rlly good at explaining the process except that most of them are built like that due to defensive + offensive synergy meshes well. I've used SkarmJolt twice in tours, once in DPP PL and DPP Trio vs George with the Zong one. If you wonder, the Lucario set has the most unhinged EV spread like that; I like sub not breaking, and this was designed with that in mind to tank on CB Ttar's guaranteed. And the Occa Bronzong is there bc of Heatran and Infernape, which was an intuitive reason. Pretty fun team until the opponent knows it, so you will see some of the wackiest ct plays on ladder like lmao. But otherwise I enjoyed using this whenever I felt like laddering with one of my many alts.

View attachment 856189

If you've played ladder a few years ago, or encountered me or know me decently enough, you are somewhat aware of the existence of this cheesy strategy. Lady Bug used the top one vs Laurel as SPL, but unfortunately there was a bit of unluck, but more on misplays rip. Despite how infamous I am with this cheese in DPPCord, I've never talked about it in here and only briefly with Probobass for DPP Ladder Achievements. The whole theory of this concept is that you're trapping a Steel type and cripple it in some way, so your endgame Magnezone sets up with Starf + Recycle and then proceeds to sweep the whole team. This concept should always work in any DPP OU metagame in theory because of as the 99% of the teams are always Steel-type, and there's a high chance the Steel-type mon runs any hazard moves, or clicks a non-super effective move on the Magnets. It's always an unspoken rule to understand that if you want to build viable teams, you're forced to bring a Steel-type, and I'd say if you observed the teambuilding and Top Players, this rule will always be applied as timeless.

I've done that enough in plenty of times that people had to make absurd adjustments to avoid the cheese, and gotten DMs about the cheese by some ladder specifics, funny enough. I'd pull it out in tours against inexperienced players, and even if the strategy doesn't work, some of the teams are good enough for me that I still have a chance to win it out despite the failed moment. To use this, you've to approach the game from a very different angle and use heavy emphasis on conditioning your opponent and luring them out. So this requires a slightly more technical understand how the tier is played, in short. I'll make a quick comment that the spinning is more consistent than non-spinning, as it gives you many more opportunities to condition your opponent, thinking that you want rocks away, and eventually force them to use hazard once the spinner is gone, which is a strong conditioned opportunity for you to take advantage of. As for some sets, most Rachi leads are designed with the bulk of taking on any Heatran sequences at lead, but otherwise not much else to say, I guess.

View attachment 856185

Roserade in itself is where I'm the most known for in the community, for better or worse lmao. Now, when it comes to the teams themselves, it has a problem that hasn't been completely solved or found a satisfying answer yet. Roserade teams are capable of handling all archetypes in my mind, but the dilemma is how much it can cover against playstyle in one team. And the big obstacle is whether it's capable of handling Stall + Offense, specifically Bulky Offense and Hyper Offense types of builds at the same time. My answer to that is no atm, and I find it a huge challenge that's not answered rlly. The difficulties can come in many different ways, such as awkward timing to pressure for Lefties Metagross/Heatran in certain builds with no spikes and lack of long-term switch-ins vs both of them, Taunt Gyarados being a nuisance against lots of Roserade teams, esp with Swampert paths. Stall with Tspikes + Hippo or fat steels like Protect Metagross, etc. My point is that the problem is a problem that I failed to answer for now, as the closest in my mind is Hazard Stack Roserade+ Sub CM Rachi, as ngl, that Osgoode set is lowkey cheating and with Tspikes it simplifies the gameplan in so many ways lol.

As for the teams, the top one is most updated and obviously my own take on the sample team from Osgoode. The EV specifics are like adding more speed on Roserade + Heatran to maneuver around vs 220 Empo and Adamant CB Ttar, but I've changed the sets in a way to be more unfair. Tspikes + Phazing is honestly so broken that I'll talk bout it later, but using double Phazing gives me so many weird long-term plays and cripples mons that Rachi appreciates a ton. It makes the team super lame to play against as it's tedious and you're prone to get flinched by Rachi, etc n such. It has some struggles handling vs Metagross Lefties, Taunt Gyarados, Bronzong, and especially Mixgon that kinda don't rlly give a fuck on half of the tiers. But otherwise it does its job. All teams up here besides the top 2 and 3 are built in Pre-Sleep, and that SpDef team was used only once vs George at DPP trio. Lowkey cringe and evil team, but that's just how I can be at times lol.

While I like Roserade for casual + competitive reasons, eventually I was more interested in T-Spikes in DPP OU as a whole. I've built and used different T-Spikes mons; I even tried T-Spikes Smeargle because there was something that caught my attention about the move as a whole. With sleep being banned and indirectly reducing Breloom's usage in the tier, a heavy amount of increase in grounded mons surged in 2026. Less Breloom matters for the T-Spikes users as Loom tends to overwhelm most viable T-Spikes users in the long term, despite many of them having the typing to check it, and that's a death rule of having a supposed Loom check being reduced by chip damage, and that's not accounting for sleep, mind you. T-Spikes users have a much better time managing around Loom without the need to slow down the pace bc of Spore, and therefore the team has a slightly easier way to map out the sequences vs generally. As mentioned, with the higher usage on Grounded Mon, Tyranitar, and Donphan, structured teams became more popular here, and the same goes for certain offensive teams that bring mons like Suicune, Swampert, Infernape, etc. So after seeing/playing the tour games and having been overusing it a lot on ladder, I think it's extremely overtuned in a cheap way. Its biggest weakness has always been the users and awkward time to fit, but atm, how the meta has shaped itself, I'd also believe they've gotten enough interactions to be active in the field that it can easily bypass many teams by the threat of T-Spikes alone. An opinion of mine is that it should be able to win against two grounded mons unless that team has a grounded poison mon; examples on cores are CB Ttar + Donphan/Starmie, Celebi + Starmie, Infernape + Ttar Suit/Water mons, etc. A what-if theory I've always been thinking of is that if there is a state where oppressive mons like Defensive Latias and Zapdos(think with like Protect/Roar w/ T-Spikes) have found the perfect structure to invalidate Ttar by T-Spikes pressure alone, and then the team has a perfect response to handle the Steel types, for Latias it's most likely Metagross, Scizor, and Empo, while Zapdos is lowkey Heatran, and some specific Rachi sets alr. Just in a very flowchart way where it kinda centralizes the meta. I wonder if that's something people complained about in the past, as BKC mentioned smth with that before Clef was popular; people were frustrated with hazard stack, and that kinda lived behind my mind occasionally. The thing with me is that I'm a type of player that likes to try and push the meta to its limits, often pushing the meta in a way that it's "feeling" to be solved. Basically the worst type of player you can have lowkey. Unfortunately, DPP OU is one of the few tiers I've struggled to do so as there are so many obstacles and "rules" you have to take into account, and being inaccurate on that matters enough for me. It's pretty much the biggest reason why I've a hard time building and adapting to it, as it's just a very complex tier with many things to factor in, and it's just "impossible" for me to make a satisfied team with these rules intact. That was in the Loom-meta, of course, but now my intuition tells me there's something that can feel "solved or aging very well" as the meta's pace on offense and defense has made the tier inherently slower in my mind. If there's something I'd like to figure out, if it's true, it's if there's another path of using T-Spikes but having oppressive mons/structures against the current stall teams without the reliance of Thunder Ihead Rachi, maybe...

If I'll be back on this tier and site again, I'll approach the tier differently than I would do now, both in building style and mindset, and find out an appropriate style for this tier since DPP OU is fun af. I did not build teams for shit post-sleep ban, and it infuriates me to no end when I tried; I lost the motivation to continue, not fun af. But it can be; I'll not come back for 5 years to a decade, idk. Not worth worrying about that, and best to focus on what's important.

With that said, I played a good amount of DPP tours for 2026 and did better than I expected, not gonna lie. But I wouldn't get these results if I didn't have strong connections to the high/top players' teams lol, so all credit to them. With that said, there are some shoutouts I feel that deserve to carry me in here.

Student of Sinnoh One of my closest buddies in this tier and one of the longest ones within the DPP community. I remember meeting you back when I was a 1300-ish noob, and honestly didn't expect our relationship to bloom so hard. You've helped me so much in team tours before I was known. In Pokemon Perfect team tours, RoaPL and gotten me in DPP playoffs by the end of the year, but not only that, I've gotten much better as a player bc of your builds and discussions we have had. Nowadays we are both a little chilled out from talking mons and talking more about general things instead, but still I wouldn't be here if I didn't continue our discussions back from the BKCcord when that was the DPPcord before the server existed haha!

TyCarter Even to this day, I don't know when we started to talk so much together. You mentioned one of the Pokemon Perfect PL was when we first met, but I think at some point you asked me to help with preparation and building style, and it just never really stopped since then. SoS may be a bit jelly, but I def talked to you more than him in 2024, which is crazy for me. I'm glad you've evolved and have found some place in the community on DPP/Smogon overall, and I wish you the best to achieve the goals you want from here. It's been a huge pleasure to get to express myself, and I'm glad I had an important impact on your tournament runs <3

PDC Not sure why and when you continued to talk to me, but I suppose after our numerous ladder games at 1500/1600 ratings, you eventually came to talk to me about building teams, eventually some preparation and things just exploded from there. Admittedly, at that point I didn't know your rep or impact on the tier, despite seeing you play here and there from SPL, e.g. With that said, I've talked to you most in terms of DPP discussions in 2025 and 2026, and highkey been carried by you even if they are tricky to pivot for most other people. Congratulations on succeeding at so many things in 2025, and eventually you may hunt down DPP in SPL specifically alone or with others; you got it, boss. I'll say I'm sorry for putting you in the last 30 min prep vs my opponent on certain builds and deciding moves so many times; the worst ones are pivoting teams with piss poor performance!! But seriously though, it was super fun to talk with you, and I cannot be thankful enough to you.

There are more players I would talk about, like Le Don, Byrum, Hugo, Aubury, etc, but I'm pretty emotionally drained from these damn posts in the past weeks lol. I can say thanks to the DPP community for making my time as enjoyable as possible. I've been playing the tier for 5+ years, I'd believe, and damn, I feel a little old rn lol.

Thanks for reading my metagame posts. Here's the full builder before I wipe the teams from showdown: https://pokepast.es/804f33af0f6bd02a
Interesting, I thought only sash & utility Rose is viable since sleep is banned. But good work on scarf Rose!
 
I'll be posting my teamdump I've built myself in 2025 that I've still used in 2026. Will ramble about specific teams and structure without much planning, as I'm on my way to take a break/leave from the tier/smogon for a long time. Explained it more in my previous posts, but this isn't rlly relevant to the post anyway so dw. There's not much else where I can talk about things that interested me, so better now than never.

View attachment 856186

This is my go-to click team whenever I feel like wanting to flowchart with little thoughts or when certain ladder periods encourage me to use this. It's basically a Sash-focused team where your game plan is to remove hazard users in an overwhelming brute force way. Sash Gliscor + Scizor is designed to combat Scarf Rotom + Gengar, along with SpA invested Starmie to dish out damage. The SpDef bulk on Scizor helps massively against Timid Starmie and other Specs attacks in order to give it a bit more longevity to abuse Scarf + U-turn. Originally the 4th move was Bullet Punch, but I didn't like the lack of damage gave some mons the opportunity to just stay in and roost freely. Knowing I ran Toxic on Scarf Scizor on one of George's builds, I implemented it here, and it gave me some critical success. I forgot the Starmie's 76s Def on bulk on specific rolls, but it helped me to minimize chances to die to any CB Ttar, probably like surviving +1 Jolly Crunch from Ttar as my assumption. The last three are just synergistic mons to just overwhelm and force trades tl;dr. Dragonite and Lucario both tend to force trades, but are often played with ppl assuming it's Life Orb or Choiced on Luc, or it's just clicking strong moves on Dnite as a trade. Sash just don't rlly give a fuck, and I've honestly just won by maintaining sash at the games pretty well lol. The NP Celebi covers certain scenarios vs like Steel types, DD HO, and Suicune, as my team is rather awkward, as my intuition told me. Now the team is extremely flawed regardless lmao. Good hazard stack, Sub Rotom as a whole, and just prone to para and being forced to mixture 3-4 mons for Sub Rachi is not ideal for consistency, but I found it worthwhile to talk about it as I've been around 1450-1650 consistently, as it kinda takes advantage of how "conditions on scenarios" in a very straightforward way.

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Definitely one of the 2 am building moments I built back in Machamp suspect lmao. This team carried me so much, specifically on Machamp ladder, and it's a team I still think of this day occasionally. Not sure if this is a weird structure that can be optimized or not look as goofy like this, but I've always found double spin kinda awesome af, and the concept of Zapdos abusing hazards in DPP OU a strong possibility despite the tricky synergy alr. Here are other similar builds I think I used along with this one.

https://pokepast.es/e95fff391c4da3f7
https://pokepast.es/82685dd737782d34

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Another unorthodox I've made is a Sub Jolteon team, inspired by one Kristyl and Tycarter's Jolt teams. This team is definitely designed without Loom, as I've built two SkarmJolts teams before in the sleep meta: https://pokepast.es/30ad792a3ba03372 and https://pokepast.es/8dee542ed9028db0
I'm not rlly good at explaining the process except that most of them are built like that due to defensive + offensive synergy meshes well. I've used SkarmJolt twice in tours, once in DPP PL and DPP Trio vs George with the Zong one. If you wonder, the Lucario set has the most unhinged EV spread like that; I like sub not breaking, and this was designed with that in mind to tank on CB Ttar's guaranteed. And the Occa Bronzong is there bc of Heatran and Infernape, which was an intuitive reason. Pretty fun team until the opponent knows it, so you will see some of the wackiest ct plays on ladder like lmao. But otherwise I enjoyed using this whenever I felt like laddering with one of my many alts.

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If you've played ladder a few years ago, or encountered me or know me decently enough, you are somewhat aware of the existence of this cheesy strategy. Lady Bug used the top one vs Laurel as SPL, but unfortunately there was a bit of unluck, but more on misplays rip. Despite how infamous I am with this cheese in DPPCord, I've never talked about it in here and only briefly with Probobass for DPP Ladder Achievements. The whole theory of this concept is that you're trapping a Steel type and cripple it in some way, so your endgame Magnezone sets up with Starf + Recycle and then proceeds to sweep the whole team. This concept should always work in any DPP OU metagame in theory because of as the 99% of the teams are always Steel-type, and there's a high chance the Steel-type mon runs any hazard moves, or clicks a non-super effective move on the Magnets. It's always an unspoken rule to understand that if you want to build viable teams, you're forced to bring a Steel-type, and I'd say if you observed the teambuilding and Top Players, this rule will always be applied as timeless.

I've done that enough in plenty of times that people had to make absurd adjustments to avoid the cheese, and gotten DMs about the cheese by some ladder specifics, funny enough. I'd pull it out in tours against inexperienced players, and even if the strategy doesn't work, some of the teams are good enough for me that I still have a chance to win it out despite the failed moment. To use this, you've to approach the game from a very different angle and use heavy emphasis on conditioning your opponent and luring them out. So this requires a slightly more technical understand how the tier is played, in short. I'll make a quick comment that the spinning is more consistent than non-spinning, as it gives you many more opportunities to condition your opponent, thinking that you want rocks away, and eventually force them to use hazard once the spinner is gone, which is a strong conditioned opportunity for you to take advantage of. As for some sets, most Rachi leads are designed with the bulk of taking on any Heatran sequences at lead, but otherwise not much else to say, I guess.

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Roserade in itself is where I'm the most known for in the community, for better or worse lmao. Now, when it comes to the teams themselves, it has a problem that hasn't been completely solved or found a satisfying answer yet. Roserade teams are capable of handling all archetypes in my mind, but the dilemma is how much it can cover against playstyle in one team. And the big obstacle is whether it's capable of handling Stall + Offense, specifically Bulky Offense and Hyper Offense types of builds at the same time. My answer to that is no atm, and I find it a huge challenge that's not answered rlly. The difficulties can come in many different ways, such as awkward timing to pressure for Lefties Metagross/Heatran in certain builds with no spikes and lack of long-term switch-ins vs both of them, Taunt Gyarados being a nuisance against lots of Roserade teams, esp with Swampert paths. Stall with Tspikes + Hippo or fat steels like Protect Metagross, etc. My point is that the problem is a problem that I failed to answer for now, as the closest in my mind is Hazard Stack Roserade+ Sub CM Rachi, as ngl, that Osgoode set is lowkey cheating and with Tspikes it simplifies the gameplan in so many ways lol.

As for the teams, the top one is most updated and obviously my own take on the sample team from Osgoode. The EV specifics are like adding more speed on Roserade + Heatran to maneuver around vs 220 Empo and Adamant CB Ttar, but I've changed the sets in a way to be more unfair. Tspikes + Phazing is honestly so broken that I'll talk bout it later, but using double Phazing gives me so many weird long-term plays and cripples mons that Rachi appreciates a ton. It makes the team super lame to play against as it's tedious and you're prone to get flinched by Rachi, etc n such. It has some struggles handling vs Metagross Lefties, Taunt Gyarados, Bronzong, and especially Mixgon that kinda don't rlly give a fuck on half of the tiers. But otherwise it does its job. All teams up here besides the top 2 and 3 are built in Pre-Sleep, and that SpDef team was used only once vs George at DPP trio. Lowkey cringe and evil team, but that's just how I can be at times lol.

While I like Roserade for casual + competitive reasons, eventually I was more interested in T-Spikes in DPP OU as a whole. I've built and used different T-Spikes mons; I even tried T-Spikes Smeargle because there was something that caught my attention about the move as a whole. With sleep being banned and indirectly reducing Breloom's usage in the tier, a heavy amount of increase in grounded mons surged in 2026. Less Breloom matters for the T-Spikes users as Loom tends to overwhelm most viable T-Spikes users in the long term, despite many of them having the typing to check it, and that's a death rule of having a supposed Loom check being reduced by chip damage, and that's not accounting for sleep, mind you. T-Spikes users have a much better time managing around Loom without the need to slow down the pace bc of Spore, and therefore the team has a slightly easier way to map out the sequences vs generally. As mentioned, with the higher usage on Grounded Mon, Tyranitar, and Donphan, structured teams became more popular here, and the same goes for certain offensive teams that bring mons like Suicune, Swampert, Infernape, etc. So after seeing/playing the tour games and having been overusing it a lot on ladder, I think it's extremely overtuned in a cheap way. Its biggest weakness has always been the users and awkward time to fit, but atm, how the meta has shaped itself, I'd also believe they've gotten enough interactions to be active in the field that it can easily bypass many teams by the threat of T-Spikes alone. An opinion of mine is that it should be able to win against two grounded mons unless that team has a grounded poison mon; examples on cores are CB Ttar + Donphan/Starmie, Celebi + Starmie, Infernape + Ttar Suit/Water mons, etc. A what-if theory I've always been thinking of is that if there is a state where oppressive mons like Defensive Latias and Zapdos(think with like Protect/Roar w/ T-Spikes) have found the perfect structure to invalidate Ttar by T-Spikes pressure alone, and then the team has a perfect response to handle the Steel types, for Latias it's most likely Metagross, Scizor, and Empo, while Zapdos is lowkey Heatran, and some specific Rachi sets alr. Just in a very flowchart way where it kinda centralizes the meta. I wonder if that's something people complained about in the past, as BKC mentioned smth with that before Clef was popular; people were frustrated with hazard stack, and that kinda lived behind my mind occasionally. The thing with me is that I'm a type of player that likes to try and push the meta to its limits, often pushing the meta in a way that it's "feeling" to be solved. Basically the worst type of player you can have lowkey. Unfortunately, DPP OU is one of the few tiers I've struggled to do so as there are so many obstacles and "rules" you have to take into account, and being inaccurate on that matters enough for me. It's pretty much the biggest reason why I've a hard time building and adapting to it, as it's just a very complex tier with many things to factor in, and it's just "impossible" for me to make a satisfied team with these rules intact. That was in the Loom-meta, of course, but now my intuition tells me there's something that can feel "solved or aging very well" as the meta's pace on offense and defense has made the tier inherently slower in my mind. If there's something I'd like to figure out, if it's true, it's if there's another path of using T-Spikes but having oppressive mons/structures against the current stall teams without the reliance of Thunder Ihead Rachi, maybe...

If I'll be back on this tier and site again, I'll approach the tier differently than I would do now, both in building style and mindset, and find out an appropriate style for this tier since DPP OU is fun af. I did not build teams for shit post-sleep ban, and it infuriates me to no end when I tried; I lost the motivation to continue, not fun af. But it can be; I'll not come back for 5 years to a decade, idk. Not worth worrying about that, and best to focus on what's important.

With that said, I played a good amount of DPP tours for 2026 and did better than I expected, not gonna lie. But I wouldn't get these results if I didn't have strong connections to the high/top players' teams lol, so all credit to them. With that said, there are some shoutouts I feel that deserve to carry me in here.

Student of Sinnoh One of my closest buddies in this tier and one of the longest ones within the DPP community. I remember meeting you back when I was a 1300-ish noob, and honestly didn't expect our relationship to bloom so hard. You've helped me so much in team tours before I was known. In Pokemon Perfect team tours, RoaPL and gotten me in DPP playoffs by the end of the year, but not only that, I've gotten much better as a player bc of your builds and discussions we have had. Nowadays we are both a little chilled out from talking mons and talking more about general things instead, but still I wouldn't be here if I didn't continue our discussions back from the BKCcord when that was the DPPcord before the server existed haha!

TyCarter Even to this day, I don't know when we started to talk so much together. You mentioned one of the Pokemon Perfect PL was when we first met, but I think at some point you asked me to help with preparation and building style, and it just never really stopped since then. SoS may be a bit jelly, but I def talked to you more than him in 2024, which is crazy for me. I'm glad you've evolved and have found some place in the community on DPP/Smogon overall, and I wish you the best to achieve the goals you want from here. It's been a huge pleasure to get to express myself, and I'm glad I had an important impact on your tournament runs <3

PDC Not sure why and when you continued to talk to me, but I suppose after our numerous ladder games at 1500/1600 ratings, you eventually came to talk to me about building teams, eventually some preparation and things just exploded from there. Admittedly, at that point I didn't know your rep or impact on the tier, despite seeing you play here and there from SPL, e.g. With that said, I've talked to you most in terms of DPP discussions in 2025 and 2026, and highkey been carried by you even if they are tricky to pivot for most other people. Congratulations on succeeding at so many things in 2025, and eventually you may hunt down DPP in SPL specifically alone or with others; you got it, boss. I'll say I'm sorry for putting you in the last 30 min prep vs my opponent on certain builds and deciding moves so many times; the worst ones are pivoting teams with piss poor performance!! But seriously though, it was super fun to talk with you, and I cannot be thankful enough to you.

There are more players I would talk about, like Le Don, Byrum, Hugo, Aubury, etc, but I'm pretty emotionally drained from these damn posts in the past weeks lol. I can say thanks to the DPP community for making my time as enjoyable as possible. I've been playing the tier for 5+ years, I'd believe, and damn, I feel a little old rn lol.

Thanks for reading my metagame posts. Here's the full builder before I wipe the teams from showdown: https://pokepast.es/804f33af0f6bd02a
Shing you’re a legend but remember this match we had -

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-900065

My team got wiped out by yours lol… wondering if you have any thoughts on it
 
paralysis is a deeply unserious mechanic. the range of variance it introduces into the outcome of a match can only be described as embarrassingly uncompetitive. is it on the docket for a suspect or no?

the combination of thunder wave's broad distribution and the fact that would be absorbers struggle to actually win the 1v1 vs frequent paralysis spreaders themselves makes dealing with paralysis more about praying than strategizing. paralysis spreaders like zapdos have a debateably acceptable list of answers that properly absorb the para attempt, with hippo, swampert, quag, clef, celebi(?), and blissey on offer, but after that, the landscape of paralysis's balance is just complete nonsense---even then, discharge + toxic on zapdos is a possible move combination that cuts that list down dramatically. twave gyara gets absurd mileage from mindless clicks unless it runs into quag or celebi, and last i checked quag and celebi arent exactly paragons of splashability. jirachi can body slam all the grounds if it wants, and can tech its moveset to 1v1 fat lefties empo with tbolt/thunder or run refresh/fire punch to turn the lefties twave mag matchup into a scrappy mess---and can also just gk pert and quag outright. lefties heatran is the only measurably consistent answer, and even then your heatran is going to lose all of its speed and all of its moves are capped at 75% accuracy for the rest of the game. twave celebi is only competely answered by clef and blissey. i would also argue the mileage azelf gets out of twave broadens its consistency too much, but ill stop there.

gyarados and jirachi alone are just completely ridiculous to account for with paralysis in their toolkit. i can understand being hesitant to kill jirachi itself due to how much it holds together teambuilding, but like, the degree to which paralysis creates pointless games that are just complete wastes of time is egregiously high. just axe para already.
 
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paralysis is a deeply unserious mechanic. the range of variance it introduces into the outcome of a match can only be described as embarrassingly uncompetitive. is it on the docket for a suspect or no?
Protect + Thunder Wave + Iron Head (with SG only)

the 3 horsemen of DPP OU.

Most spammable moves with high returns esp when you’re cornered with no other way out.

T wave is the best though yeah since you just throw it out and cripple whatever for good.
 
paralysis is a deeply unserious mechanic. the range of variance it introduces into the outcome of a match can only be described as embarrassingly uncompetitive. is it on the docket for a suspect or no?

the combination of thunder wave's broad distribution and the fact that would be absorbers struggle to actually win the 1v1 vs frequent paralysis spreaders themselves makes dealing with paralysis more about praying than strategizing. paralysis spreaders like zapdos have a debateably acceptable list of answers that properly absorb the para attempt, with hippo, swampert, quag, clef, celebi(?), and blissey on offer, but after that, the landscape of paralysis's balance is just complete nonsense---even then, discharge + toxic on zapdos is a possible move combination that cuts that list down dramatically. twave gyara gets absurd mileage from mindless clicks unless it runs into quag or celebi, and last i checked quag and celebi arent exactly paragons of splashability. jirachi can body slam all the grounds if it wants, and can tech its moveset to 1v1 fat lefties empo with tbolt/thunder or run refresh/fire punch to turn the lefties twave mag matchup into a scrappy mess---and can also just gk pert and quag outright. lefties heatran is the only measurably consistent answer, and even then your heatran is going to lose all of its speed and all of its moves are capped at 75% accuracy for the rest of the game. twave celebi is only competely answered by clef and blissey. i would also argue the mileage azelf gets out of twave broadens its consistency too much, but ill stop there.

gyarados and jirachi alone are just completely ridiculous to account for with paralysis in their toolkit. i can understand being hesitant to kill jirachi itself due to how much it holds together teambuilding, but like, the degree to which paralysis creates pointless games that are just complete wastes of time is egregiously high. just axe para already.

i agree para hax is annoying and uncompetitive to a certain extant. however there are strategies to defend against it and i even see para improving team flow for teams that use it - like giving the ability to disable a fast switch-in.

also i made a para spam team and it never did too well competitively - it had its moments but wasnt great overall.

also want to mention that if para was banned creating a match like this would never be possible - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2230229324-0kgqd62mezbw8b2xi1nnfe1vpjimyctpw

like even if it was deemed para was actually broken, it would not be possible to create a match like the one above (a beautiful combination of skill and luck - cutting some OG DPP - turns 102 and 103 were edge of seat for sure)

overall i think it may be worth a shot to test a para ban and see how it goes, but as of now i dont mind playing with para in the metagame
 
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Would anybody actually be sad to see paralysis leave the tier? What exactly is the argument in favor of keeping it in the meta? Mostly here to echo dk 's sentiments in his above post. Paraspam is by far the least competitive playstyle in the meta, and adds an unreasonable amount of variance to an unreasonable amount of tournament games, even at a high level. I thought (as I think many did) that Machamp being gone would temper Paraspam teams and push them out of the meta, but it has proven to still be an outrageously easy pick that players turn to when they are not confident enough in playing an honest game. Maybe this is overly harsh and assumptive of tournament players' intentions, but the fact that an entire play-style exists to eschew player agency and turn high-leverage games into coin-flip-fests is alarming and to me, the definition of uncompetitive. The fact that this playstyle is viable (and frequently picked!) at the highest level is even more alarming.

Even beyond dedicated Paraspam teams, paralysis has far too little drawback and is far too widely distributed for the outrageous long-term benefit it grants. Its ability to flip games in ways that do not feel fair, competitive, or reasonably "outplayable" is (to me) by far the biggest stain on the competitive health of DPP. I'd be interested in hearing some high-level tournament players' thoughts on the matter--I just simply do not see its additive properties to the tier even coming close to outweighing how cancerous it often is. In my eyes, it's even more uncompetitive and deserving of a ban than sleep was, thanks to its omnipresence and far-reaching impact. Curious to know others' thoughts.
 
Would anybody actually be sad to see paralysis leave the tier? What exactly is the argument in favor of keeping it in the meta? Mostly here to echo dk 's sentiments in his above post. Paraspam is by far the least competitive playstyle in the meta, and adds an unreasonable amount of variance to an unreasonable amount of tournament games, even at a high level. I thought (as I think many did) that Machamp being gone would temper Paraspam teams and push them out of the meta, but it has proven to still be an outrageously easy pick that players turn to when they are not confident enough in playing an honest game. Maybe this is overly harsh and assumptive of tournament players' intentions, but the fact that an entire play-style exists to eschew player agency and turn high-leverage games into coin-flip-fests is alarming and to me, the definition of uncompetitive. The fact that this playstyle is viable (and frequently picked!) at the highest level is even more alarming.

Even beyond dedicated Paraspam teams, paralysis has far too little drawback and is far too widely distributed for the outrageous long-term benefit it grants. Its ability to flip games in ways that do not feel fair, competitive, or reasonably "outplayable" is (to me) by far the biggest stain on the competitive health of DPP. I'd be interested in hearing some high-level tournament players' thoughts on the matter--I just simply do not see its additive properties to the tier even coming close to outweighing how cancerous it often is. In my eyes, it's even more uncompetitive and deserving of a ban than sleep was, thanks to its omnipresence and far-reaching impact. Curious to know others' thoughts.
I feel like I’d be okay with this as a more casual player, but my question is, how exactly would you limit this? Would you ban Body Slam? Would you ban Thunder Wave? What about other moves with 30% paralysis rates? IMO Sleep and Paralysis both have their issues but it’s much easier to test sleep as a whole than it is to test paralysis.

The other problem too, is that Sleep is much more species-specific in which Pokémon benefit the most from its existence and by extension its removal. “Sleep user” is a much more concrete thing than “Paralysis user” and that kind of ambiguity could lead to the metagame looking much different than it currently does to the point of players possibility losing interest in the metagame. Paralysis’s Speed drop has both offensive and defensive application and while the 25% full paralysis rate can be annoying, I do think there is enough counterplay to this available, especially with one of ParaSpam’s biggest assets in Machamp no longer legal on the tier. Previously, DPP OU was headed in a direction where the combination of Jirachi, Machamp, Tyranitar, Latias, and Clefable were becoming close in nature to solving the meta in an almost superteam like fashion, but losing Machamp throws a major wrench into the success of the desired win conditions of that strategy to say nothing of teams that diversify 1-2 out of six team slots to other Pokémon for other roles like hazard removal, a secondary win condition, spinblocking, etc.
 
I feel like I’d be okay with this as a more casual player, but my question is, how exactly would you limit this? Would you ban Body Slam? Would you ban Thunder Wave? What about other moves with 30% paralysis rates? IMO Sleep and Paralysis both have their issues but it’s much easier to test sleep as a whole than it is to test paralysis.

The other problem too, is that Sleep is much more species-specific in which Pokémon benefit the most from its existence and by extension its removal. “Sleep user” is a much more concrete thing than “Paralysis user” and that kind of ambiguity could lead to the metagame looking much different than it currently does to the point of players possibility losing interest in the metagame. Paralysis’s Speed drop has both offensive and defensive application and while the 25% full paralysis rate can be annoying, I do think there is enough counterplay to this available, especially with one of ParaSpam’s biggest assets in Machamp no longer legal on the tier. Previously, DPP OU was headed in a direction where the combination of Jirachi, Machamp, Tyranitar, Latias, and Clefable were becoming close in nature to solving the meta in an almost superteam like fashion, but losing Machamp throws a major wrench into the success of the desired win conditions of that strategy to say nothing of teams that diversify 1-2 out of six team slots to other Pokémon for other roles like hazard removal, a secondary win condition, spinblocking, etc.
It would just be thunder wave. Body slam is nowhere near the issue that thunder wave is or any other paralysis inducing move with lower than 100% odds or accuracy.

In DPP electric types are not immune to thunder wave, nor is t wave 90% accuracy as it is later on. Even gamefreak realized how inherently low risk and spammable this was and made electrics immune to it and lowered its accuracy and reduced the percentage that the paralyzed Pokémon’s speed is lowered in future gens.

We are forced to run Lum berry almost as much as we were forced to when sleep was allowed and that is because paralysis is essentially a death sentence to any offensive pokemon that doesn’t have the defenses to trade or is a ground type. A ground type almost always feels mandatory at this point just for t wave.
 
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paralysis ban is silly. competitive pokemon in general revolves around this mechanic to counteract speed which is arguably the most important stat. paralysis is of course overly prominent in dpp ou and adds a level of rng that can feel uncompetitive. it would be nice if we could implement modern thunder wave mechanics (90% accurate, half speed, electric type immunity), but that's obviously not an option. i would argue the only feasible way to counteract this would be to ban jirachi altogether. the majority of paraspam teams utilize jirachi and serene grace body slam neuters the capabilities of ground types as a reliable answers to paraspam structures

it seems obvious that jirachi isnt a good figurehead for a competitive tier given the entirely rng dependant nature of serene grace. jirachi is imo solely responsible for dpp ou's bad reputation. jirachi is most prominent on balance and stall teams and i dont see an issue with nerfing these within the tier due to their over-reliance on paralysis. there are plenty of steel types in dpp ou that can fill its roll as a check to powerful dragon attacks. i really think the only reason jirachi has maintained its place in the tier is because it is so central to the metagame that prominent members of the community would basically have to start from scratch with team building

to be clear, i like the tier with or without jirachi or paralysis for that matter. the sleep ban in particular has done wonders for the enjoyability of the game for me as breloom caused far too many constraints when it came to team building. i just think dpp ou is a really unique tier in that it is the last gen without team preview and has really great improvements over previous gens with the phys/special split, held item diversity, and versatility in team building. kinda sad to me that dpp ou has garnered the reputation it has when i think it could be the idyllic version of competitive pokemon
 
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It's been over nine months since sleep was banned from the tier, so i wanted to share some quick thoughts on the new metagame, alongside a few teams I've built. These teams come from DPP PL VI and DPP WC 2026, the two most recent tournaments I've played in.

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:gyarados: :tyranitar: :jirachi: :suicune: :rotom-heat: :heatran:
(played on week 3 of dpp pl vi)

Before the ban, this archetype was both great with breloom and very weak to it, as preventing spore meant packing one or multiple lum berries (or even worse, fast chople fire blast tar).

At the time I wasn't feeling good about any of the choice scarf users, so i tried to build a team that could destroy stall without crumbling to dragon dance sweepers. Choice band ttar and gyara break defense, while bulky suicune, wisp rotom and shuca jirachi patch the team's defense. Finally, passho tran lures and eliminates starmie.

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:hippowdon: :jirachi: :magnezone: :milotic: :clefable: :gengar:
(played on week 6 of dpp pl vi)

Even though a team like this is very vulnerable to non spore breloom, breloom's usage dropped through the roof, making this build much more justifieable to bring.

I felt very comfortable piloting this 6. It did very good at walling offense (rain, in this case), but the stall matchup can get tricky since this team stacks 4 spikes weak pokemon and relies on gengar to clean through.

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:heatran: :starmie: :tyranitar: :flygon: :lucario: :gyarados:
(played on week 1 of dpp wc 2026)

After a period where i was stuck building mag balances and donphan paraspams, i finally decided to try cm lucario, which the dpp cord had been hyping for months.

They weren't lying: special lucario finds plenty of opportunities to set up, and becomes a big threat right after a boost, all while providing defensive utility against choice locked tyranitar and various u-turns.

To build this team i took an old BKC team and replaced breloom with lucario, with some minor adjustments. In particular, hp grass tar is used for swampert (and quagsire / gastrodon to a lesser extent), a major threat to offense that has become very popular with breloom's decline.


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:heatran: :scizor: :latias: :rotom-wash: :suicune: :tyranitar:
(played on week 3 of dpp wc 2026)

Finally, for this team, i just wanted to double up on offensive pressure with both dd tar and sd scizor with pursuit. I think this 6, if nothing new, is very strong and offers a lot of customizable options. And while it isn't necessarily better because of the sleep ban, here i could afford taunt over fire punch to improve the stall matchup.

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Closing thoughts:

Overall i believe the metagame is in a great state right now, with no single playstyle feeling explicitly dominant, and players are constantly coming up with awesome innovations.

Anyways, thanks for reading all the way through.

Cheers. <3
 
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Hello DPPers !

As you prob know, I'm dropping DPP OU for an indefinite period. I tried my best to have fun this year but almost every attempt was a disaster. My last RoAPL was litt the cherry on top. I'm not gonna talk too much about it cause I feel like the problem mostly come from me and my mentality when I'm playing the tier but I feel like I've been very unlucky overall esp in my solo tours since 2025. A terrible cocktail.
I guess I will still build when I want to but don't expect me to seriously play OU in tours ( unless special occasions ! ).

I will now focus on lower tiers cause you know " grass is always greener on the other side ". I will play UU / NU / NFE ( yes ! and the tier is very cool ! I just won DPP NFE Cup btw ) + prob CAP and LC.



Before I go, let me give you some teams I built / updated this year ( I will not post the teams I " stole " and modified even if they're many of them in my tryhard folder of my builder ). They are flexible, you can change some items / spreads or w/e ; read the descriptions and most importantly the sections " options " ( don't limit yourself to the sections, teams can surely still be improved ! ).

I will prob add more replays, just gimme time to find some. If you have questions about anything, reach me !
And s/o to everyone who used my teams this year, that always means a lot to me.





Offensive teams :


:metagross: :dragonite: :starmie: :tyranitar: :lucario: :latias:




My fav team of early 2026. Not the greatest in terms of concept but in practice, very very good at doing what it has to do. Litt the opposite to what I used to build before.

What I like with this team is that she's very good at keeping the momentum; dual TWave really helps for this. I've become a big advocate of TWave support in offense : paralyzing threats like Jirachi or physical walls like Zapdos and improving speed control is the key to make a good modern physical offense ( and prob just offense overall ). Not having Scarf Latias is breath of fresh hair, this mon gives too much momentum while being completely useless in some MUs.

Meta is Meta while CB Nite gives you the raw power you need to burst through physical walls. Starmie is huge in these teams cause the speed + the utility it offers is god tier ( eved to tank Scarf Lati from full ). White Herb Latias is my personal touch : I've always been enjoying " support " Latias but not being able to make progress cause you have to click Draco is zzz. But now with White Herb, I can freely click Draco, proc White Herb and then click HP Fire to weaken Steel types. Pair it with winconds that abuse of a locked TTar and you will see. Ada DD Tar really makes the diff with dual TWave; Babiri is mostly here for Scarf Meta / Rachi and helps vs Zor ofc. IPunch on Lucario for Zapdos / Queen / Celebi / Latias / Gliscor. Btw, the dual priority really helps vs offense.


Options :

Chople > Babiri on Tar.
EQ > Superpower on Dragonite.
Jolly > Adamant on Lucario.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-927062 some 6 AM gaming for DPP Trios Tiebreak.


---


:scizor: :donphan: :heatran: :gyarados: :lucario: :latias:




I wanted to build around Elec Tran x CM Luc during DPPPL and I ended up with that 6. Yeah this is very similar to the 6 that marcop used for SPL finals but I swear this is my build and not an edit.

TWave Gyara is good at shutting down scarfers like Rotom and annoying mons like Zapdos so Lucario has easier time vs them. Elec Tran and HS Phan both bait Defensive Gyara / Zap making the game playable vs them; Phan is fast cause I want to outspeed CB Zor, Pert and Nidoqueen ( maybe not necessary though ). Another White Herb Latias cause why not after all ( targeting CB Zor + Nape is always good imo ) ? Utility is always appreciated. Rest is pretty simple to understand.


Options :

EQ > Return on Gyara.
148 Speed ( 48 EVs ) on Phan ( faster than regular Bliss ).
Thunderbolt > HP Fire on Latias.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967441 CM Luc doing CM Luc things thx to Shitrock enjoyer .


---


:flygon: :scizor: :bronzong: :starmie: :magneton: :abomasnow:




The OG team with OG vibes. After watching 76538387 games of 199 using Aboma, I had to try it myself. So I built a first prototype with Sub Mamo + Aboma ( went wrong in RoAPL lol ) and then I did CB Flygon > Mamo. I discussed a bit with the OG, he told me I had this 6 with CB Zor and a diff move on Starmie ( and he also told me that he prefered my version).
I like this team so much, so many good vibes when I use it; discovering a new teamstyle and enjoying it is always a great pleasure for DPP addicts like me.

CB Gon will catch off guard many opps that feels safe with their Rachi or their Metagross for ex which is super good for the team. Scarf Zor is needed for Starmie, Gengar, Off Lati etc aka CB Gon soft checks or RKillers. Custap Zong is the mon you want here : its defensive utility is perfect for these teams and since we have MagMie it's " ok " to give free spikes to Skarm. HP Fire for Scizor cause it will always click U-Turn so you can't trap it and Blizzard is to 2HKO defensive Latias. Since I'm scared of Max Speed Ada CB Tar and Agility 230 Metagross, I went Jolly on Aboma; it's prob overkill but well.


Options :

Jolly > Adamant on Gon.
Classic Pump IBeam TWave > Pump Zard Fire on Starmie.
Adamant > Jolly on Aboma.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-941679 Shing should have won this game 566568 times but since he's not an OG ...
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967087 NoName6293 is an actual OG ( + 1000 aura ).


---


:kingdra: :tyranitar: :metagross: :starmie: :gliscor: :latias:




SPOILER : I've a feeling that someone did this 6 this year before me but not sure if I'm smoking or not. If it's really the case please reach me so I will apologize and remove the team from the post.

Another exemple of " modern offense ". It has been used by many players this year, notably the Smogon Classic winner Real FV13. I've always been high on SD Glisc since Spore ban cause I realised it was a good anti-meta mon but somehow I kinda forgot it. So during DPPPL, when I was exploring " Zoomer Meta " ( the PDC set ), I figured it had a great synergy with SD Gliscor, esp the BoltBeam one. Being able to remove annoying waters and chip Skarm in the same time is wonderful.

HP Elec Kingdra removes the annoying RT Gyara right on turn 1 since RT Gyara has no reason to switch out vs it; if it's switching out, that means it's offensive so it's totally fine. Custap TWave Tar goes crazy once the ground type has been baited by Meta; it also catches off guard Jirachi, Gyara, Skarm, Zapdos etc ( remember, I told you speed control is very important for offensive teams ). Starmie for speed control, SD Glisc as balance / stall teams killer and this time Scarf Latias cause this time it is needed ...


Options :

Chople > Custap on TTar.
Another item on Gliscor : Lum berry looks great, Passho too ! And Leftovers ofc. Yache and Soft sand ? Nope. But I like EBelt since it gives you some extra important damage.
TWave > TBolt on Latias.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-955559 Specs Kingdra buen trabajo.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-962673 For DPP Cup Finals. But it went wrong cause we overplayed vs Gyara alas.







Anti-offense teams :


:nidoqueen: :milotic: :latias: :blissey: :metagross: :magnezone:




Hmmm ... prob the best example of my builder when I say " anti-offense ". Mid-RoAPL : I was omega tilted by my games, my team ( in particular by useless managers ! ) and by the fact that I was almost only facing weird offensive teams. So I was like " ok then I'm gonna coinflip games myself if no one wants to actually play the game normally " and started building hard anti-offense teams. It had been sometime since I wanted to bring Blissey and Milotic so I combined both and it gave this very unique 6.

Counter Queen is a wonderful idea I had to catch off guard anything that want to click EQ on my face; with Taunt, you also force Clefable to SToss you, taking 50% in return while preventing Skarm to get Spikes up or Zapdos / Celebi to regen ! This Milo is made to destroy bulky offensive teams by doing a lot of damage on Steel types and 2HKOing the majority of TTars; it outspeeds Def Zap / Cele / Breloom and every non-scarf Tar + it can threaten Zap / Lati with Toxic so Meta can now beat them. Latias can afford Recover which perfect here to improve the fighters MU and the stall MU. Bliss is fast with IBeam so Def Loom won't 6-0 my team and hitting Dragons is huge. Impish Meta is unkillable for offense and with TPunch, Gyara will never counter you; Tect is needed to regen and to abuse of TSpikes.


Options :

Sash > Black Sludge on Queen for tricky leads like Dragonite.
Super Fang > Counter on Queen which is better into Zong and Clef.
Elec > Tox on Milotic + Toxic > TPunch on Metagross.
Replacing Queen by King like I did here (<-- more details about the team right there ).

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-944113 a good example of what the team wants to face.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2650247682-40lfwwgpmxel7netn38h2lnfeol21hnpw my friend Rubyblood getting away in a bad MU on paper.


---


:starmie: :nidoqueen: :breloom: :blissey: :metagross: :scizor:




Tbh, I didn't expected this team to have some success since I don't really like it ( I have better Flame Orb Starmie teams but 0 replays with them ). But let me explain it :

Flame Orb Starmie has always been around but never had its glory time that it deserved so much; if you have the lead MU, you will get most of the time an insane advantage while still being able in the future to assume your bulky water + spinner role aka you will hard snowball the game. Queen is this time Roar cause I wanted to flip more games by clicking Roar and catch something like Nape or Pert. TPunch is my personal touch since 2025 on Def Loom ; it allows you to destroy Taunt Gyara while still being able to hit Starmie ( perfect pairing with TSpikes, particularly Nidoqueen ). Blissey is FlameT since I didn't want to run it on Queen; being able to shutdown Scizor is satisfying as f ( hitting Meta aswell ). Impish Meta is also here but this time with Ice Punch since I was really worried about Dragonite, Flygon and Gliscor; more pressure on Zapdos is always a good thing too ! Aaaaand Scarf Zor with Aerial Ace to assassinate Infernape ( OHKO after Rocks ) and Breloom.


Options :

Simply doing regular Bold Mie and putting Zor / Queen as lead.
Protect > Roar on Queen.
Ice Beam > FlameT on Bliss with OR without ( and vice-versa ) FlameT > Ice Beam on Queen.
Toxic > IPunch on Meta ( cautious to Dragonite if you do that ).


Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-958972 well that's why Mamo is broken ... !
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-980933 Indulge in dreams chadmaxxing Mag Balance with IPunch Meta in DPP Wcop.


---


:tyranitar: :forretress: :clefable: :magneton: :milotic: :jirachi:

:tyranitar: :nidoqueen: :clefable: :magneton: :milotic: :jirachi:




These are surely the most standard of this category. Back to the basics, back to TTar / Clefable & co. The basic idea was to bring Mixed Milo vs BIG WILL since every of is teams were kinda 6-0 by it. So I built two versions and ended using the second one that gave me a free win cause MU was too good.

Nothing crazy in this team as we can see. Tar is EQ + Tox so I don't get 1v1ed by Heatran + I can cripple Waters, Grounds ( Phan ++++ ) and again ... Zapdos ! Then you either have Forre or Queen ( depending on what you wanna target ); Forre will help you vs Spikes, Fireless Jirachi and CB Tar while Queen will help you vs Rotom and vs Breloom / Jirachi on short/mid term. Magneton blabla traps blabla speed control blabla. Mixed Milo is our MixNite, Specs Kingdra, Nape, Gyara, Suicune and Petaya Empo switch in ( 50% of them takes TSpikes btw, making the job really easy ). And Wish Jirachi to finish the team with both Fire Punch and U-Turn cause we need both of them ( Zor + Meta / not getting trapped by Magnezone and keeping or reversing the momentum ).


Options :

Protect > EQ on Forretress ( it was like this before I decided to snipe Steels with EQ ).
IBeam or Tox > Haze on Milotic.

Replays :

Forre :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-939317 Shing for DPPPL.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-958968 Sossa showing perfectly Forre utility vs offense.
Queen :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-926618 the perfect example.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-960804 Donphan crumbling under TTar pressure.







Stall teams with dedicated winconds :


:latias: :rotom-wash: :skarmory: :clefable: :scizor: :magnezone:




SPOILER : When I built this 6 in 2024, I forgot that it already existed with SpD Clef and classic Defensive Latias. I assure you that it is MY Build and it is not an edit.

For those who remembers well, I used this team vs 16bit in DPPPL 2024. At the time it was Scarf Latias lead to trick TTar / Steels and stack Spikes on their face for Clef. Recently, we saw a big resurgence of CB Tar and Metagross so I did Flame Orb > Scarf and it feeled good !

Flame Orb Latias is kinda the same as Flame Orb Starmie but gets the trick off more often on Steel types which is super good for the team. Rotom is SpD since Phan is usually hard walled by it + I want SpD for Starmie since I don't have Pursuit on this team + if Tar gets tricked by Latias then the SpD gets insane value. SpD Skarm with Dual Hazards so I can stack very quickly vs offense without getting off guard too much by Fire Blast TTar for ex; Phan will almost never be able to spin anyway. If you can't win by stacking hazards, it's important then to have two winconds and if they complete each other, it's even better; that is the case for CM Clef and SD Zor : if the first one can't win then the second one will surely do it and vice-versa ! We finish with HP Ground Zone cause after all this is a triple Steel team; we don't change what makes the archetype good right ?


Options :

Another move > Sleep Talk on Rotom : idk if Sleep Talk is still the " best " 4th move with Rest ... I saw Pain Split, Shadow Ball, Spite ... try w/e you want since I never tried to find the answer to this question.
Impish > Careful on Skarm ( 248 16+ 244 ).
Fire > Ground on Zone.
Magneton > Magnezone.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-961583 some maxi trolling but a good t1 for sure
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967207 my teams are cursed, be cautious when you're using them lol ( again look at t1 ).


---


:zapdos: :hippowdon: :clefable: :tentacruel: :celebi: :jirachi:




THIS IS THE ONLY EXCEPTION I WILL DO IN THIS POST.

Yeah, you prob saw this 6 many times in 2025. I give credit to Osgoode for this one I think ? It was an insane innovation at the time featuring both Tentacruel ( Spin + TSpikes ) and " Demon Rachi " ( that enjoys Tenta's utility ).
When I was building anti-offense teams, I remembered that 6. I copied it and made my own updated version with notably what I call " Demon Zap ", a set supposed to annihilate almost every offensive team.

" Demon Zap " is fast enough to outspeed Tran lead, Modest Cune, Gyara, Dragonite and Adamant Lucario; it will Toxic anything you want to activate the " Demon Rachi " path ( it's also able to tank from full a Modest Specs Lati Draco Meteor allowing you to stay in front of her ). Phys Def Hippo acts as one of the best CB Tar check and if it is able to tank the Metagross Explosion then you will at 99% win the game ( that's why it's max max ). Clef is HWish cause I noticed that " Demon Rachi " sometimes needs to trade paras for its HPs so giving it another chance to bullshit the game is total madness but very effective in defensive MUs, particularly balance paraspam. Tenta is Knock to target Starmie and Celebi has leaf Storm to burst TTar, Suicune, Gyarados, Flygon and Gliscor.


Options :

Protect > Sub on Zapdos.
Toxic > Ice Fang on Hippo.
Wish + Protect > Healing Wish + Soft Boiled on Clefable ( maybe Heal Bell can also work )
Ice Beam > Knock Off on Tenta to remove MixNite but then it becomes hard vs Starmie teams even if " Demon Rachi " is great into them.

Replays ( I will not include some replays where this 6 is played cause I'm not sure if it's my version of it ) :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-939695 a very very good showcase of what " Demon Zap " can do. ( if I live Explosion T10, game is instantly over btw ).








Enjoy people, you are a fantastic community and I'm happy to be part it. Peace out !

​

.​
 
Last edited:
" Demon Zap " is fast enough to outspeed Tran lead, Modest Cune, Gyara, Dragonite and Adamant Lucario; it will Toxic anything you want to
Cool post but you showed the wrong demon zap set
1793477207760.png
 
Hello DPPers !

As you prob know, I'm dropping DPP OU for an indefinite period. I tried my best to have fun this year but almost every attempt was a disaster. My last RoAPL was litt the cherry on top. I'm not gonna talk too much about it cause I feel like the problem mostly come from me and my mentality when I'm playing the tier but I feel like I've been very unlucky overall esp in my solo tours since 2025. A terrible cocktail.
I guess I will still build when I want to but don't expect me to seriously play OU in tours ( unless special occasions ! ).

I will now focus on lower tiers cause you know " grass is always greener on the other side ". I will play UU / NU / NFE ( yes ! and the tier is very cool ! I just won DPP NFE Cup btw ) + prob CAP and LC.



Before I go, let me give you some teams I built / updated this year ( I will not post the teams I " stole " and modified even if they're many of them in my tryhard folder of my builder ). They are flexible, you can change some items / spreads or w/e ; read the descriptions and most importantly the sections " options " ( don't limit yourself to the sections, teams can surely still be improved ! ).

I will prob add more replays, just gimme time to find some. If you have questions about anything, reach me !
And s/o to everyone who used my teams this year, that always means a lot to me.





Offensive teams :


:metagross: :dragonite: :starmie: :tyranitar: :lucario: :latias:




My fav team of early 2026. Not the greatest in terms of concept but in practice, very very good at doing what it has to do. Litt the opposite to what I used to build before.

What I like with this team is that she's very good at keeping the momentum; dual TWave really helps for this. I've become a big advocate of TWave support in offense : paralyzing threats like Jirachi or physical walls like Zapdos and improving speed control is the key to make a good modern physical offense ( and prob just offense overall ). Not having Scarf Latias is breath of fresh hair, this mon gives too much momentum while being completely useless in some MUs.

Meta is Meta while CB Nite gives you the raw power you need to burst through physical walls. Starmie is huge in these teams cause the speed + the utility it offers is god tier ( eved to tank Scarf Lati from full ). White Herb Latias is my personal touch : I've always been enjoying " support " Latias but not being able to make progress cause you have to click Draco is zzz. But now with White Herb, I can freely click Draco, proc White Herb and then click HP Fire to weaken Steel types. Pair it with winconds that abuse of a locked TTar and you will see. Ada DD Tar really makes the diff with dual TWave; Babiri is mostly here for Scarf Meta / Rachi and helps vs Zor ofc. IPunch on Lucario for Zapdos / Queen / Celebi / Latias / Gliscor. Btw, the dual priority really helps vs offense.


Options :

Chople > Babiri on Tar.
EQ > Superpower on Dragonite.
Jolly > Adamant on Lucario.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-927062 some 6 AM gaming for DPP Trios Tiebreak.


---


:scizor: :donphan: :heatran: :gyarados: :lucario: :latias:




I wanted to build around Elec Tran x CM Luc during DPPPL and I ended up with that 6. Yeah this is very similar to the 6 that marcop used for SPL finals but I swear this is my build and not an edit.

TWave Gyara is good at shutting down scarfers like Rotom and annoying mons like Zapdos so Lucario has easier time vs them. Elec Tran and HS Phan both bait Defensive Gyara / Zap making the game playable vs them; Phan is fast cause I want to outspeed CB Zor, Pert and Nidoqueen ( maybe not necessary though ). Another White Herb Latias cause why not after all ( targeting CB Zor + Nape is always good imo ) ? Utility is always appreciated. Rest is pretty simple to understand.


Options :

EQ > Return on Gyara.
148 Speed ( 48 EVs ) on Phan ( faster than regular Bliss ).
Thunderbolt > HP Fire on Latias.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967441 CM Luc doing CM Luc things thx to Shitrock enjoyer .


---


:flygon: :scizor: :bronzong: :starmie: :magneton: :abomasnow:




The OG team with OG vibes. After watching 76538387 games of 199 using Aboma, I had to try it myself. So I built a first prototype with Sub Mamo + Aboma ( went wrong in RoAPL lol ) and then I did CB Flygon > Mamo. I discussed a bit with the OG, he told me I had this 6 with CB Zor and a diff move on Starmie ( and he also told me that he prefered my version).
I like this team so much, so many good vibes when I use it; discovering a new teamstyle and enjoying it is always a great pleasure for DPP addicts like me.

CB Gon will catch off guard many opps that feels safe with their Rachi or their Metagross for ex which is super good for the team. Scarf Zor is needed for Starmie, Gengar, Off Lati etc aka CB Gon soft checks or RKillers. Custap Zong is the mon you want here : its defensive utility is perfect for these teams and since we have MagMie it's " ok " to give free spikes to Skarm. HP Fire for Scizor cause it will always click U-Turn so you can't trap it and Blizzard is to 2HKO defensive Latias. Since I'm scared of Max Speed Ada CB Tar and Agility 230 Metagross, I went Jolly on Aboma; it's prob overkill but well.


Options :

Jolly > Adamant on Gon.
Classic Pump IBeam TWave > Pump Zard Fire on Starmie.
Adamant > Jolly on Aboma.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-941679 Shing should have won this game 566568 times but since he's not an OG ...
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967087 NoName6293 is an actual OG ( + 1000 aura ).


---


:kingdra: :tyranitar: :metagross: :starmie: :gliscor: :latias:




SPOILER : I've a feeling that someone did this 6 this year before me but not sure if I'm smoking or not. If it's really the case please reach me so I will apologize and remove the team from the post.

Another exemple of " modern offense ". It has been used by many players this year, notably the Smogon Classic winner Real FV13. I've always been high on SD Glisc since Spore ban cause I realised it was a good anti-meta mon but somehow I kinda forgot it. So during DPPPL, when I was exploring " Zoomer Meta " ( the PDC set ), I figured it had a great synergy with SD Gliscor, esp the BoltBeam one. Being able to remove annoying waters and chip Skarm in the same time is wonderful.

HP Elec Kingdra removes the annoying RT Gyara right on turn 1 since RT Gyara has no reason to switch out vs it; if it's switching out, that means it's offensive so it's totally fine. Custap TWave Tar goes crazy once the ground type has been baited by Meta; it also catches off guard Jirachi, Gyara, Skarm, Zapdos etc ( remember, I told you speed control is very important for offensive teams ). Starmie for speed control, SD Glisc as balance / stall teams killer and this time Scarf Latias cause this time it is needed ...


Options :

Chople > Custap on TTar.
Another item on Gliscor : Lum berry looks great, Passho too ! And Leftovers ofc. Yache and Soft sand ? Nope. But I like EBelt since it gives you some extra important damage.
TWave > TBolt on Latias.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-955559 Specs Kingdra buen trabajo.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-962673 For DPP Cup Finals. But it went wrong cause we overplayed vs Gyara alas.







Anti-offense teams :


:nidoqueen: :milotic: :latias: :blissey: :metagross: :magnezone:




Hmmm ... prob the best example of my builder when I say " anti-offense ". Mid-RoAPL : I was omega tilted by my games, my team ( in particular by useless managers ! ) and by the fact that I was almost only facing weird offensive teams. So I was like " ok then I'm gonna coinflip games myself if no one wants to actually play the game normally " and started building hard anti-offense teams. It had been sometime since I wanted to bring Blissey and Milotic so I combined both and it gave this very unique 6.

Counter Queen is a wonderful idea I had to catch off guard anything that want to click EQ on my face; with Taunt, you also force Clefable to SToss you, taking 50% in return while preventing Skarm to get Spikes up or Zapdos / Celebi to regen ! This Milo is made to destroy bulky offensive teams by doing a lot of damage on Steel types and 2HKOing the majority of TTars; it outspeeds Def Zap / Cele / Breloom and every non-scarf Tar + it can threaten Zap / Lati with Toxic so Meta can now beat them. Latias can afford Recover which perfect here to improve the fighters MU and the stall MU. Bliss is fast with IBeam so Def Loom won't 6-0 my team and hitting Dragons is huge. Impish Meta is unkillable for offense and with TPunch, Gyara will never counter you; Tect is needed to regen and to abuse of TSpikes.


Options :

Sash > Black Sludge on Queen for tricky leads like Dragonite.
Super Fang > Counter on Queen which is better into Zong and Clef.
Elec > Tox on Milotic + Toxic > TPunch on Metagross.
Replacing Queen by King like I did here (<-- more details about the team right there ).

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-944113 a good example of what the team wants to face.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2650247682-40lfwwgpmxel7netn38h2lnfeol21hnpw my friend Rubyblood getting away in a bad MU on paper.


---


:starmie: :nidoqueen: :breloom: :blissey: :metagross: :scizor:




Tbh, I didn't expected this team to have some success since I don't really like it ( I have better Flame Orb Starmie teams but 0 replays with them ). But let me explain it :

Flame Orb Starmie has always been around but never had its glory time that it deserved so much; if you have the lead MU, you will get most of the time an insane advantage while still being able in the future to assume your bulky water + spinner role aka you will hard snowball the game. Queen is this time Roar cause I wanted to flip more games by clicking Roar and catch something like Nape or Pert. TPunch is my personal touch since 2025 on Def Loom ; it allows you to destroy Taunt Gyara while still being able to hit Starmie ( perfect pairing with TSpikes, particularly Nidoqueen ). Blissey is FlameT since I didn't want to run it on Queen; being able to shutdown Scizor is satisfying as f ( hitting Meta aswell ). Impish Meta is also here but this time with Ice Punch since I was really worried about Dragonite, Flygon and Gliscor; more pressure on Zapdos is always a good thing too ! Aaaaand Scarf Zor with Aerial Ace to assassinate Infernape ( OHKO after Rocks ) and Breloom.


Options :

Simply doing regular Bold Mie and putting Zor / Queen as lead.
Protect > Roar on Queen.
Ice Beam > FlameT on Bliss with OR without ( and vice-versa ) FlameT > Ice Beam on Queen.
Toxic > IPunch on Meta ( cautious to Dragonite if you do that ).


Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-958972 well that's why Mamo is broken ... !
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-980933 Indulge in dreams chadmaxxing Mag Balance with IPunch Meta in DPP Wcop.


---


:tyranitar: :forretress: :clefable: :magneton: :milotic: :jirachi:

:tyranitar: :nidoqueen: :clefable: :magneton: :milotic: :jirachi:




These are surely the most standard of this category. Back to the basics, back to TTar / Clefable & co. The basic idea was to bring Mixed Milo vs BIG WILL since every of is teams were kinda 6-0 by it. So I built two versions and ended using the second one that gave me a free win cause MU was too good.

Nothing crazy in this team as we can see. Tar is EQ + Tox so I don't get 1v1ed by Heatran + I can cripple Waters, Grounds ( Phan ++++ ) and again ... Zapdos ! Then you either have Forre or Queen ( depending on what you wanna target ); Forre will help you vs Spikes, Fireless Jirachi and CB Tar while Queen will help you vs Rotom and vs Breloom / Jirachi on short/mid term. Magneton blabla traps blabla speed control blabla. Mixed Milo is our MixNite, Specs Kingdra, Nape, Gyara, Suicune and Petaya Empo switch in ( 50% of them takes TSpikes btw, making the job really easy ). And Wish Jirachi to finish the team with both Fire Punch and U-Turn cause we need both of them ( Zor + Meta / not getting trapped by Magnezone and keeping or reversing the momentum ).


Options :

Protect > EQ on Forretress ( it was like this before I decided to snipe Steels with EQ ).
IBeam or Tox > Haze on Milotic.

Replays :

Forre :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-939317 Shing for DPPPL.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-958968 Sossa showing perfectly Forre utility vs offense.
Queen :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-926618 the perfect example.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-960804 Donphan crumbling under TTar pressure.







Stall teams with dedicated winconds :


:latias: :rotom-wash: :skarmory: :clefable: :scizor: :magnezone:




SPOILER : When I built this 6 in 2024, I forgot that it already existed with SpD Clef and classic Defensive Latias. I assure you that it is MY Build and it is not an edit.

For those who remembers well, I used this team vs 16bit in DPPPL 2024. At the time it was Scarf Latias lead to trick TTar / Steels and stack Spikes on their face for Clef. Recently, we saw a big resurgence of CB Tar and Metagross so I did Flame Orb > Scarf and it feeled good !

Flame Orb Latias is kinda the same as Flame Orb Starmie but gets the trick off more often on Steel types which is super good for the team. Rotom is SpD since Phan is usually hard walled by it + I want SpD for Starmie since I don't have Pursuit on this team + if Tar gets tricked by Latias then the SpD gets insane value. SpD Skarm with Dual Hazards so I can stack very quickly vs offense without getting off guard too much by Fire Blast TTar for ex; Phan will almost never be able to spin anyway. If you can't win by stacking hazards, it's important then to have two winconds and if they complete each other, it's even better; that is the case for CM Clef and SD Zor : if the first one can't win then the second one will surely do it and vice-versa ! We finish with HP Ground Zone cause after all this is a triple Steel team; we don't change what makes the archetype good right ?


Options :

Another move > Sleep Talk on Rotom : idk if Sleep Talk is still the " best " 4th move with Rest ... I saw Pain Split, Shadow Ball, Spite ... try w/e you want since I never tried to find the answer to this question.
Impish > Careful on Skarm ( 248 16+ 244 ).
Fire > Ground on Zone.
Magneton > Magnezone.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-961583 some maxi trolling but a good t1 for sure
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967207 my teams are cursed, be cautious when you're using them lol ( again look at t1 ).


---


:zapdos: :hippowdon: :clefable: :tentacruel: :celebi: :jirachi:




THIS IS THE ONLY EXCEPTION I WILL DO IN THIS POST.

Yeah, you prob saw this 6 many times in 2025. I give credit to Osgoode for this one I think ? It was an insane innovation at the time featuring both Tentacruel ( Spin + TSpikes ) and " Demon Rachi " ( that enjoys Tenta's utility ).
When I was building anti-offense teams, I remembered that 6. I copied it and made my own updated version with notably what I call " Demon Zap ", a set supposed to annihilate almost every offensive team.

" Demon Zap " is fast enough to outspeed Tran lead, Modest Cune, Gyara, Dragonite and Adamant Lucario; it will Toxic anything you want to activate the " Demon Rachi " path ( it's also able to tank from full a Modest Specs Lati Draco Meteor allowing you to stay in front of her ). Phys Def Hippo acts as one of the best CB Tar check and if it is able to tank the Metagross Explosion then you will at 99% win the game ( that's why it's max max ). Clef is HWish cause I noticed that " Demon Rachi " sometimes needs to trade paras for its HPs so giving it another chance to bullshit the game is total madness but very effective in defensive MUs, particularly balance paraspam. Tenta is Knock to target Starmie and Celebi has leaf Storm to burst TTar, Suicune, Gyarados, Flygon and Gliscor.


Options :

Protect > Sub on Zapdos.
Toxic > Ice Fang on Hippo.
Wish + Protect > Healing Wish + Soft Boiled on Clefable ( maybe Heal Bell can also work )
Ice Beam > Knock Off on Tenta to remove MixNite but then it becomes hard vs Starmie teams even if " Demon Rachi " is great into them.

Replays ( I will not include some replays where this 6 is played cause I'm not sure if it's my version of it ) :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-939695 a very very good showcase of what " Demon Zap " can do. ( if I live Explosion T10, game is instantly over btw ).








Enjoy people, you are a fantastic community and I'm happy to be part it. Peace out !

​

.​
I hope we run into each other during the DPP UU spotlight ladder by Nov.

I’ve been tinkering with paraspam in DPP UU
 

As mentioned, I preferred your take on the 6. My original version had twave > fire on star and cb > scarf sciz. Which I have since changed to match your sets.

I do miss twave on star sometimes (broken click). I’ve tried pump / fire / twave / spin. It’s decent, but in general I like the water / ice / fire coverage more.

Where my version differs to yours is the zong set. I prefer payback > gyro ball. With enough atk to always break rotom subs through burn. (168 atk w/ spdef nature). I also use a mix of custap and occa berry. Leaning a bit more towards occa due to my paranoia of mach ape lol. Both are fine options imo.

Re: Adamant vs jolly aboma. I liked jolly more on sd earlier this year, when everyone was going turbo on their cb tars. I feel that trend has eased enough to where I now prefer adamant again. However when I do run jolly it’s always max speed. Jumping ada mach loom and timid hp fire zone is too good to pass up imo.

Sik teams ;)
 
Last edited:
Hello DPPers !

As you prob know, I'm dropping DPP OU for an indefinite period. I tried my best to have fun this year but almost every attempt was a disaster. My last RoAPL was litt the cherry on top. I'm not gonna talk too much about it cause I feel like the problem mostly come from me and my mentality when I'm playing the tier but I feel like I've been very unlucky overall esp in my solo tours since 2025. A terrible cocktail.
I guess I will still build when I want to but don't expect me to seriously play OU in tours ( unless special occasions ! ).

I will now focus on lower tiers cause you know " grass is always greener on the other side ". I will play UU / NU / NFE ( yes ! and the tier is very cool ! I just won DPP NFE Cup btw ) + prob CAP and LC.



Before I go, let me give you some teams I built / updated this year ( I will not post the teams I " stole " and modified even if they're many of them in my tryhard folder of my builder ). They are flexible, you can change some items / spreads or w/e ; read the descriptions and most importantly the sections " options " ( don't limit yourself to the sections, teams can surely still be improved ! ).

I will prob add more replays, just gimme time to find some. If you have questions about anything, reach me !
And s/o to everyone who used my teams this year, that always means a lot to me.





Offensive teams :


:metagross: :dragonite: :starmie: :tyranitar: :lucario: :latias:




My fav team of early 2026. Not the greatest in terms of concept but in practice, very very good at doing what it has to do. Litt the opposite to what I used to build before.

What I like with this team is that she's very good at keeping the momentum; dual TWave really helps for this. I've become a big advocate of TWave support in offense : paralyzing threats like Jirachi or physical walls like Zapdos and improving speed control is the key to make a good modern physical offense ( and prob just offense overall ). Not having Scarf Latias is breath of fresh hair, this mon gives too much momentum while being completely useless in some MUs.

Meta is Meta while CB Nite gives you the raw power you need to burst through physical walls. Starmie is huge in these teams cause the speed + the utility it offers is god tier ( eved to tank Scarf Lati from full ). White Herb Latias is my personal touch : I've always been enjoying " support " Latias but not being able to make progress cause you have to click Draco is zzz. But now with White Herb, I can freely click Draco, proc White Herb and then click HP Fire to weaken Steel types. Pair it with winconds that abuse of a locked TTar and you will see. Ada DD Tar really makes the diff with dual TWave; Babiri is mostly here for Scarf Meta / Rachi and helps vs Zor ofc. IPunch on Lucario for Zapdos / Queen / Celebi / Latias / Gliscor. Btw, the dual priority really helps vs offense.


Options :

Chople > Babiri on Tar.
EQ > Superpower on Dragonite.
Jolly > Adamant on Lucario.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-927062 some 6 AM gaming for DPP Trios Tiebreak.


---


:scizor: :donphan: :heatran: :gyarados: :lucario: :latias:




I wanted to build around Elec Tran x CM Luc during DPPPL and I ended up with that 6. Yeah this is very similar to the 6 that marcop used for SPL finals but I swear this is my build and not an edit.

TWave Gyara is good at shutting down scarfers like Rotom and annoying mons like Zapdos so Lucario has easier time vs them. Elec Tran and HS Phan both bait Defensive Gyara / Zap making the game playable vs them; Phan is fast cause I want to outspeed CB Zor, Pert and Nidoqueen ( maybe not necessary though ). Another White Herb Latias cause why not after all ( targeting CB Zor + Nape is always good imo ) ? Utility is always appreciated. Rest is pretty simple to understand.


Options :

EQ > Return on Gyara.
148 Speed ( 48 EVs ) on Phan ( faster than regular Bliss ).
Thunderbolt > HP Fire on Latias.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967441 CM Luc doing CM Luc things thx to Shitrock enjoyer .


---


:flygon: :scizor: :bronzong: :starmie: :magneton: :abomasnow:




The OG team with OG vibes. After watching 76538387 games of 199 using Aboma, I had to try it myself. So I built a first prototype with Sub Mamo + Aboma ( went wrong in RoAPL lol ) and then I did CB Flygon > Mamo. I discussed a bit with the OG, he told me I had this 6 with CB Zor and a diff move on Starmie ( and he also told me that he prefered my version).
I like this team so much, so many good vibes when I use it; discovering a new teamstyle and enjoying it is always a great pleasure for DPP addicts like me.

CB Gon will catch off guard many opps that feels safe with their Rachi or their Metagross for ex which is super good for the team. Scarf Zor is needed for Starmie, Gengar, Off Lati etc aka CB Gon soft checks or RKillers. Custap Zong is the mon you want here : its defensive utility is perfect for these teams and since we have MagMie it's " ok " to give free spikes to Skarm. HP Fire for Scizor cause it will always click U-Turn so you can't trap it and Blizzard is to 2HKO defensive Latias. Since I'm scared of Max Speed Ada CB Tar and Agility 230 Metagross, I went Jolly on Aboma; it's prob overkill but well.


Options :

Jolly > Adamant on Gon.
Classic Pump IBeam TWave > Pump Zard Fire on Starmie.
Adamant > Jolly on Aboma.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-941679 Shing should have won this game 566568 times but since he's not an OG ...
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967087 NoName6293 is an actual OG ( + 1000 aura ).


---


:kingdra: :tyranitar: :metagross: :starmie: :gliscor: :latias:




SPOILER : I've a feeling that someone did this 6 this year before me but not sure if I'm smoking or not. If it's really the case please reach me so I will apologize and remove the team from the post.

Another exemple of " modern offense ". It has been used by many players this year, notably the Smogon Classic winner Real FV13. I've always been high on SD Glisc since Spore ban cause I realised it was a good anti-meta mon but somehow I kinda forgot it. So during DPPPL, when I was exploring " Zoomer Meta " ( the PDC set ), I figured it had a great synergy with SD Gliscor, esp the BoltBeam one. Being able to remove annoying waters and chip Skarm in the same time is wonderful.

HP Elec Kingdra removes the annoying RT Gyara right on turn 1 since RT Gyara has no reason to switch out vs it; if it's switching out, that means it's offensive so it's totally fine. Custap TWave Tar goes crazy once the ground type has been baited by Meta; it also catches off guard Jirachi, Gyara, Skarm, Zapdos etc ( remember, I told you speed control is very important for offensive teams ). Starmie for speed control, SD Glisc as balance / stall teams killer and this time Scarf Latias cause this time it is needed ...


Options :

Chople > Custap on TTar.
Another item on Gliscor : Lum berry looks great, Passho too ! And Leftovers ofc. Yache and Soft sand ? Nope. But I like EBelt since it gives you some extra important damage.
TWave > TBolt on Latias.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-955559 Specs Kingdra buen trabajo.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-962673 For DPP Cup Finals. But it went wrong cause we overplayed vs Gyara alas.







Anti-offense teams :


:nidoqueen: :milotic: :latias: :blissey: :metagross: :magnezone:




Hmmm ... prob the best example of my builder when I say " anti-offense ". Mid-RoAPL : I was omega tilted by my games, my team ( in particular by useless managers ! ) and by the fact that I was almost only facing weird offensive teams. So I was like " ok then I'm gonna coinflip games myself if no one wants to actually play the game normally " and started building hard anti-offense teams. It had been sometime since I wanted to bring Blissey and Milotic so I combined both and it gave this very unique 6.

Counter Queen is a wonderful idea I had to catch off guard anything that want to click EQ on my face; with Taunt, you also force Clefable to SToss you, taking 50% in return while preventing Skarm to get Spikes up or Zapdos / Celebi to regen ! This Milo is made to destroy bulky offensive teams by doing a lot of damage on Steel types and 2HKOing the majority of TTars; it outspeeds Def Zap / Cele / Breloom and every non-scarf Tar + it can threaten Zap / Lati with Toxic so Meta can now beat them. Latias can afford Recover which perfect here to improve the fighters MU and the stall MU. Bliss is fast with IBeam so Def Loom won't 6-0 my team and hitting Dragons is huge. Impish Meta is unkillable for offense and with TPunch, Gyara will never counter you; Tect is needed to regen and to abuse of TSpikes.


Options :

Sash > Black Sludge on Queen for tricky leads like Dragonite.
Super Fang > Counter on Queen which is better into Zong and Clef.
Elec > Tox on Milotic + Toxic > TPunch on Metagross.
Replacing Queen by King like I did here (<-- more details about the team right there ).

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-944113 a good example of what the team wants to face.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2650247682-40lfwwgpmxel7netn38h2lnfeol21hnpw my friend Rubyblood getting away in a bad MU on paper.


---


:starmie: :nidoqueen: :breloom: :blissey: :metagross: :scizor:




Tbh, I didn't expected this team to have some success since I don't really like it ( I have better Flame Orb Starmie teams but 0 replays with them ). But let me explain it :

Flame Orb Starmie has always been around but never had its glory time that it deserved so much; if you have the lead MU, you will get most of the time an insane advantage while still being able in the future to assume your bulky water + spinner role aka you will hard snowball the game. Queen is this time Roar cause I wanted to flip more games by clicking Roar and catch something like Nape or Pert. TPunch is my personal touch since 2025 on Def Loom ; it allows you to destroy Taunt Gyara while still being able to hit Starmie ( perfect pairing with TSpikes, particularly Nidoqueen ). Blissey is FlameT since I didn't want to run it on Queen; being able to shutdown Scizor is satisfying as f ( hitting Meta aswell ). Impish Meta is also here but this time with Ice Punch since I was really worried about Dragonite, Flygon and Gliscor; more pressure on Zapdos is always a good thing too ! Aaaaand Scarf Zor with Aerial Ace to assassinate Infernape ( OHKO after Rocks ) and Breloom.


Options :

Simply doing regular Bold Mie and putting Zor / Queen as lead.
Protect > Roar on Queen.
Ice Beam > FlameT on Bliss with OR without ( and vice-versa ) FlameT > Ice Beam on Queen.
Toxic > IPunch on Meta ( cautious to Dragonite if you do that ).


Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-958972 well that's why Mamo is broken ... !
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-980933 Indulge in dreams chadmaxxing Mag Balance with IPunch Meta in DPP Wcop.


---


:tyranitar: :forretress: :clefable: :magneton: :milotic: :jirachi:

:tyranitar: :nidoqueen: :clefable: :magneton: :milotic: :jirachi:




These are surely the most standard of this category. Back to the basics, back to TTar / Clefable & co. The basic idea was to bring Mixed Milo vs BIG WILL since every of is teams were kinda 6-0 by it. So I built two versions and ended using the second one that gave me a free win cause MU was too good.

Nothing crazy in this team as we can see. Tar is EQ + Tox so I don't get 1v1ed by Heatran + I can cripple Waters, Grounds ( Phan ++++ ) and again ... Zapdos ! Then you either have Forre or Queen ( depending on what you wanna target ); Forre will help you vs Spikes, Fireless Jirachi and CB Tar while Queen will help you vs Rotom and vs Breloom / Jirachi on short/mid term. Magneton blabla traps blabla speed control blabla. Mixed Milo is our MixNite, Specs Kingdra, Nape, Gyara, Suicune and Petaya Empo switch in ( 50% of them takes TSpikes btw, making the job really easy ). And Wish Jirachi to finish the team with both Fire Punch and U-Turn cause we need both of them ( Zor + Meta / not getting trapped by Magnezone and keeping or reversing the momentum ).


Options :

Protect > EQ on Forretress ( it was like this before I decided to snipe Steels with EQ ).
IBeam or Tox > Haze on Milotic.

Replays :

Forre :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-939317 Shing for DPPPL.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-958968 Sossa showing perfectly Forre utility vs offense.
Queen :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-926618 the perfect example.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-960804 Donphan crumbling under TTar pressure.







Stall teams with dedicated winconds :


:latias: :rotom-wash: :skarmory: :clefable: :scizor: :magnezone:




SPOILER : When I built this 6 in 2024, I forgot that it already existed with SpD Clef and classic Defensive Latias. I assure you that it is MY Build and it is not an edit.

For those who remembers well, I used this team vs 16bit in DPPPL 2024. At the time it was Scarf Latias lead to trick TTar / Steels and stack Spikes on their face for Clef. Recently, we saw a big resurgence of CB Tar and Metagross so I did Flame Orb > Scarf and it feeled good !

Flame Orb Latias is kinda the same as Flame Orb Starmie but gets the trick off more often on Steel types which is super good for the team. Rotom is SpD since Phan is usually hard walled by it + I want SpD for Starmie since I don't have Pursuit on this team + if Tar gets tricked by Latias then the SpD gets insane value. SpD Skarm with Dual Hazards so I can stack very quickly vs offense without getting off guard too much by Fire Blast TTar for ex; Phan will almost never be able to spin anyway. If you can't win by stacking hazards, it's important then to have two winconds and if they complete each other, it's even better; that is the case for CM Clef and SD Zor : if the first one can't win then the second one will surely do it and vice-versa ! We finish with HP Ground Zone cause after all this is a triple Steel team; we don't change what makes the archetype good right ?


Options :

Another move > Sleep Talk on Rotom : idk if Sleep Talk is still the " best " 4th move with Rest ... I saw Pain Split, Shadow Ball, Spite ... try w/e you want since I never tried to find the answer to this question.
Impish > Careful on Skarm ( 248 16+ 244 ).
Fire > Ground on Zone.
Magneton > Magnezone.

Replays :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-961583 some maxi trolling but a good t1 for sure
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-967207 my teams are cursed, be cautious when you're using them lol ( again look at t1 ).


---


:zapdos: :hippowdon: :clefable: :tentacruel: :celebi: :jirachi:




THIS IS THE ONLY EXCEPTION I WILL DO IN THIS POST.

Yeah, you prob saw this 6 many times in 2025. I give credit to Osgoode for this one I think ? It was an insane innovation at the time featuring both Tentacruel ( Spin + TSpikes ) and " Demon Rachi " ( that enjoys Tenta's utility ).
When I was building anti-offense teams, I remembered that 6. I copied it and made my own updated version with notably what I call " Demon Zap ", a set supposed to annihilate almost every offensive team.

" Demon Zap " is fast enough to outspeed Tran lead, Modest Cune, Gyara, Dragonite and Adamant Lucario; it will Toxic anything you want to activate the " Demon Rachi " path ( it's also able to tank from full a Modest Specs Lati Draco Meteor allowing you to stay in front of her ). Phys Def Hippo acts as one of the best CB Tar check and if it is able to tank the Metagross Explosion then you will at 99% win the game ( that's why it's max max ). Clef is HWish cause I noticed that " Demon Rachi " sometimes needs to trade paras for its HPs so giving it another chance to bullshit the game is total madness but very effective in defensive MUs, particularly balance paraspam. Tenta is Knock to target Starmie and Celebi has leaf Storm to burst TTar, Suicune, Gyarados, Flygon and Gliscor.


Options :

Protect > Sub on Zapdos.
Toxic > Ice Fang on Hippo.
Wish + Protect > Healing Wish + Soft Boiled on Clefable ( maybe Heal Bell can also work )
Ice Beam > Knock Off on Tenta to remove MixNite but then it becomes hard vs Starmie teams even if " Demon Rachi " is great into them.

Replays ( I will not include some replays where this 6 is played cause I'm not sure if it's my version of it ) :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-939695 a very very good showcase of what " Demon Zap " can do. ( if I live Explosion T10, game is instantly over btw ).








Enjoy people, you are a fantastic community and I'm happy to be part it. Peace out !

​

.​
Noob, but my favorite one
 
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