:arceus::groudon-primal::ho-oh::zygarde::fezandipiti::deoxys-attack: (click for team)
In a way, Ebony God gets to show off two of his Arceus sets he's been cooking up this cycle because Choice Specs Arceus was also an idea that I'm pretty sure he first came up with. Specs Arceus is actually very scary in a manner similar to Lunala where there's very little that's comfortable taking a hit from it. For example, after Terastalizing, Timid has a 98% chance to 2HKO your standard Offensive Ho-Oh. Thanks to Judgment being 16 PP it's also not terrified to actually click the button that does damage, and like its contemporaries in Eternatus and Lunala it has amazing coverage and pretty good bulk. For its other moves, Shadow Ball was a no-brainer, as was something to handle the Steels. Earth Power was tempting to do more to Primal Groudon and Eternatus before Terastalizing, but I ultimately chose Overheat instead for its ability to OHKO Zacian. There were other benefits to it too, such as threatening Ferrothorn and hitting Marshadow for solid damage in case you aren't sure if they're switch in it or Zacian, and ideally I'd Terastalize this most of the time anyways. There were plenty of choices for the last slot, but Extreme Speed stood out for the extra insurance against fast sweepers which I feel that this team appreciates very much. It also does more damage to Chansey. For the EV spread, I was tempted by Modest but ultimately decided getting the jump on other Arceus was of greater importance. After a bit of tinkering, I found that 104 HP and 4 SpD allowed me to survive a +1 Tera Dragon Dynamax Cannon after rocks, and the leftover EV's give me just enough points to put into speed to where I can reasonably expect that no Arceus is going to out-speed creep me unless they're fully investing into speed.
I immediately sought a strong defensive core to support Arceus, and ended up gravitating towards the classic trio of Groudon, Ho-Oh, and Zygarde for their generally comprehensive cohesion. After this, I decided I wanted a pivot. I was heavily considering just running Alomomola alongside these Pokemon because without it Arceus sounded like it might struggle heavily with longevity, but that was ultimately a dead end. Since my Arceus was both quite frail for an Arceus and didn't check Ultra Necrozma, any variation of the team either wasn't defensively sound enough or was just too passive. As such, Fezandipiti was the obvious choice for its defensive capabilities and ability to do many of the things Arceus would normally do had it not decided to put on the funny glasses. The last slot was difficult to decide. I wanted another Pokemon with defensive utility to deal with the many defensive traits my team still lacked, but after thinking for a while I ultimately found that the way to go was to add Deoxys Attack and that I had other ways to deal with the perceived vulnerability of this team.
I needed an Ice resist so Chien-Pao wouldn't make mincemeat of this team, so I put Tera Water on Zygarde. Since this removed its ability to check Dragon Dance Zygarde, I gave Fezandipiti Alluring Voice. For a bit I was worried that I'd have to drop Extreme Speed on Arceus to have something to take care of Garganacl, but then I realized I can just win the PP war with Zygarde. Of course, there was one Pokemon looming over all of this like an anvil. Without a Dark type, Ultra Necrozma posed a huge threat to my team. Fortunately, I believe I have developed a reliable strategy against it. In most cases, the Pokemon it will set up on are either Fezandipiti or an Arceus locked into a normal move. For both of these, the opponent will usually keep their Ultra Necrozma as NDM as they set up. Because they can't Ultra Burst and use Light That Burns the Sky on the same turn, this allows me to switch in Zygarde and, provided it is healthy, paralyze the threat before it can get out of hand. In the event that they do Ultra Burst on the first turn however, things get more dicey. I do have Alluring Voice on Fezandipiti, but realistically I'm never going to actually call out the Ultra Burst and click it and even if I did that wouldn't do that much anyways. For this reason, I decided to change Zygarde's Tera type again, this time to Steel. While long term it leaves Zygarde vulnerable to many of the things it usually walls, for the short term it can be used to parry attacks such as Light That Burns the Sky and Dynamax Cannon while also possessing the same resistances to Steel and Ice as Water. Yes, this does now leave Zygarde vulnerable to Sacred Sword from Chien-Pao, but I think most people don't actually use that anyways and even if they do even a super effective Sacred Sword only does 55-65% to base Zygarde, and clicking it is risky and something I can take advantage of. I need to stress that Sacred Sword is actually way, way less scary than it looks like at first. I also went back and forth on Tera Dark for Ho-Oh as a last resort against Ultra Necrozma but ultimately decided that Tera Grass would generally be better to be able to handle Primal Kyogre in more positions.
All in all, I think this team is quite swell. You've heard this story before. I don't know how to say "this team is good defensively and offensively" in new ways every single time, but I do think this team can consistently handle whatever comes its way and retaliate with devastating attacks from Arceus and Deoxys Attack with pivot support.
