Project OM Orphanage

[Velcroc]

When I saw Iron Thorns, the first thing I thought about were the two sets from Convergence. You see, Golem-Alola is... a Pokemon. But what if it was good?

There are two possible pathways we can go down when we discuss Iron Thorns - a magnet pull set or a Dragon dance DON set. I intend to explore the Dragon Dance set in this post since Magnet Pull is kinda awkward

Dragon Dance Thorns


Iron Thorns @ Magnet
Ability: Galvanize
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Ice Punch
- Earthquake

I an adamant on Adamant because I'm a very greedy person. Jolly is fine if you're a square. Double Edge is the STAB move of Choice since I would love to maximise damage output, but you could opt for Body Slam as a safer option in exchange for less damage. Ice Punch hits Toxic Orb Poison Heal Landorus-Therian as well as the plethora of Poison Heal Grasses running amok. I opted for Earthquake over Stone Edge since it has better coverage hitting various Steels like Magnezone, and is the FAR safer option into something Iron Treads. Magnet for oomph but Boots is useable as well.

 

[Yoko]

did someone say... BH :D gotta do it before city can

Iron Thorns @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shift Gear
- Bolt Strike
- Diamond Storm
- Strength Sap
Team

Thought Process

I knew i wanted to start with our main guy first because it would be easier to adjust my team afterwords on what he needs, I went through a couple of sets before landing on my sheer force one, some of these include: Simple, Magic Guard, Rocky Payload, Sharpness

After deciding on my Iron Thorns set i decided to look at its weaknesses and realized its not that bad tbh, while the 4x weakness to Ground is definetely a issue, same with its fighting weakness, the Water and Grass weakness are something that u can handle as only like ash gren is the physical water attacker and idt anything uses grass coverage, so i decided on my Celesteela and Arceus-Ghost to help with the aforementioned Ground and Fighting weakness, Celesteela also helps with Grass weakness if u find a shitmon with it and can chip Ash-Gren down a lot, it also has the added benefit on being a spinner with Rapid spin over Spikes since in most games i didnt really need Spikes support and having mono removal was killing me, and uh Ghostceus is just Ghostceus :p, and is our main improof for the Iron Thorns since Celesteela folds vs it ngl

Since now i had my Physical walls decided i knew i wanted one Scaler and one Regenvester, perferably both of them have to have pivoting since Iron Thorns is not built out for this meta ngl, very suspectible to being ohkoed if it switches into a neutral hit, so having safe slow pivots was the way, after some thoughts i decided on my usual Mega Audino and Primal Kyogre with Earth Power, Mega Audino is legit the best special wall and walls everything nom named "Eternatus" or mixed, and Primal Kyogre is here to support it with being able to wall Eternatus and dent it hard with Earth Power, fyi my mega audino is lvl 99 to underspeed other mega Audinos, and also if u want u can change earth power on Primal Kyogre to something else to make it not be spinblocked by Celesteela (usually didnt have this problem but a friend suggested it)

Ok so at this point ive already had decided all of my defensive backbone, leaving me with 2 options, the first was just to use imposter and not have another progress maker thats more solid than iron thorns, or use a mixed or physical attacker that helps beat Iron Thorns check, so i decided on the former and went through a lot of pokemon (Mega Lucario, Mega Chomp, physical band necro, Blaziken-mega, and even other Ash Gren sets), before finally making my mind on Sheer Force Ash Greninja, this sets pretty underrated ngl, in the case of Iron Thorns, it helps vs Neutral Arceus forms like fairyceus and hits ground-types like Groundceus really hard, also can dissaude stuff like fur coat mega audino from coming in, which is another wall of Iron Thorns in some cases (u can techinically breakthrough with bolt strike but good have a more solid mon)

Lets talk a bit about the set, shall we?:D, yknow this mon isnt that bad tbh, its weaknesses while yes are annoying they can be pretty easy to deal with, it has a decent atk and overall good bulk so u can run setup with shift gear and most of the time live one hit (unless its some item boosted guy like life orb or choiced) and then have a chance to throughout everything, and even its resistances can be pretty useful in niche situations, as for example its resistance to flying and fire can let it switch into MG Ho-Oh, and either force it out or setup if the opponent doesnt have any counterplay, now lets talk about some damage, with Sheer Force Boosted Stabs + Life Orb this thing hits incredibly hard like if u arent a neutral fc Pokemon good like living 2 hits, some of the calcs are listed below:

calcs

all of these calcs will be at +1 btw since its p easy to get atleast one shift gear up with the pivoting support
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Iron Thorns Bolt Strike vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Dialga-Origin: 209-247 (51.7 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Iron Thorns Bolt Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Celesteela: 424-502 (106.5 - 126.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Iron Thorns Bolt Strike vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat Audino-Mega: 204-242 (49.7 - 59%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Iron Thorns Diamond Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Altaria-Mega: 157-187 (44.3 - 52.8%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO
even destory's some fc arc forms if u hit super effectively like:
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Iron Thorns Bolt Strike vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat Arceus-Water: 421-499 (94.8 - 112.3%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

final point probably of this pokemon is the current meta, while im not the best advised in the current meta trends i can still see that right now theres only a few Ground-Types in the meta that are defensive, these are Arceus-Ground, Mega Swampert, and Ting-Lu are the only ones who 100% wall it, the list kinda ends there tbh the rest of the defensive Ground-Types have fallen off a lot for various of reasons which makes running Electric moves / Electric Pokemon not the "worst" thing. anyways thats prob enough talk from me for a bad Pokemon:p here are the replays

Replays: (i did like a fuck ton of games but most of them, even some of these, dont fully showcase this sets potential since a lot of opponents i fought were using shit sets, so sorry abt that)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-2174456802
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-2174463458
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-2174470246
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-2174479631
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-2174497272
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9balancedhackmons-2174508600
hope these are enough, ladder is so shit atm and no one is avaliable to test, may add more
anyways hope i get atleast one vote for all of this talk:p, next week expect smt more crazy
edit: just realised my ash gren isnt fully improofed oop, oh well just outplay gg​

 

[rightclicker]

Arceus-Ghost

known ground type arceus-ghost


ConstructionWorker (Iron Thorns) @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Head Smash
- Volt Tackle
- Strength Sap
mglo aerodactyl but you have big elec stab with high pp to shit on fc waters/celesteela + more bulk and funnier defensive typing.
with a sd up you do surprisingly pretty good damage. here's some calcs

calcer

vs
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Iron Thorns Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat Arceus-Fairy: 250-294 (56.3 - 66.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

vs
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Iron Thorns Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Audino-Mega: 220-259 (53.6 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

vs
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Iron Thorns Volt Tackle vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Slowbro-Mega: 268-320 (68 - 81.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

vs
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Iron Thorns Volt Tackle vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Celesteela: 406-478 (102 - 120.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

vs.
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Iron Thorns Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Dialga-Origin: 248-292 (61.3 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (+spa draco over 2 turns has a 6% chance to kill from max)

vs
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Iron Thorns Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Eternatus: 585-688 (120.8 - 142.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (lorb denergy does 89 max)

vs
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Iron Thorns Volt Tackle vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Melmetal: 352-415 (74.2 - 87.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

here's a quick team i built around thorny guy. the basic idea is that chomp clicks uturn on steela to bring in thorns and then it pops off.
will edit replays in when i have time to play games.

 

[TDLoriat]

Iron Thorns @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake/Ice Punch
- Bolt Strike
- Diamond Storm
- Dragon Dance
The Wrath of Zues from the top rope

A strong dragon dance sweeper capable of leveraging its absurd stabs to slam through most things (that aren’t ground types).

 

[cat]

This time it's AAA!

Iron Thorns @ Life Orb
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Stone Edge
- Supercell Slam / Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch

The mecha has the raw power to overwhelm walls quickly, with Ice Punch OHKOing Tusk at +1. Its typing also blesses it with a quad resistance to Dragonite's ESpeed. Unfortunately, Adamant leaves it underspeeding Scarf Moon and Meow even with webs support and after a DD, but it does get the jump on Scarf Azelf.

https://pokepast.es/7b0e7f90f01ced36
Quick webs I built! Funnily enough, Swampert beats this after 1 DD while being favoured to win the interaction at +2 even with rocks up, so building a team based around overloading Swampert was my solution. With lures like Energy Ball Glimmora and Grass Knot Thundurus, and having Deo-S as a failsafe and excellent cleaner.

Managed to get one replay! because this mon is fucking ass
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-2174932643

 

[pannu]

Hawlucha (Iron Thorns) @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
- Thunder Punch
- Fire Punch

Inheritance posting! unburden helps thorns become an actually threatening sweeper, w/ swords dance boosts its kind of difficult to switch into too. Hawlucha gets both of its stab types as attacking moves and a plethora of interesting options to boot (CC/Fire punch for steel-types, taunt/encore/endeavour to interrupt and annoy opposing mons). Pair it up with some sorta set up sweeper that deals with the physical walls common in inh that bother thorns, like Regidrago!Gfire or Lycanroc!Roaring-moon, and you have yourself one nasty cleaner that your opponent is gonna struggle to deal with

(also as a bonus there's a semi decent set froslass can run receiving from iron thorns as it has taunt, both hazards and ice beam making it a decent HO lead but then the pokemon is froslass and not iron thorns so idk if that counts for this project)

 

[HiZo]

Iron Thorns @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Thunder Punch
- Dragon Dance
- High Horsepower / Ice Punch

PiC set. Suffers EXTREME competion from Iron Hands but has STAB Rock Slide so therefore its technically viable. So make sure to run something like Latios so you dont need to tera right away in the event of opposing ground coverage. High Horsepower beats Iron hands and deals with Ghold and Archaludon better while Ice Punch can 1v1 Ting Lu and Landos.

 

[April]

Shifting the schedule of this around to suit my new work schedule, many apologies. From now on, voting will be from Sunday to Tuesday and the new week will start on Wednesday!. OP post will be updated accordingly.

That being said, vote for your favorite niche!

Velcroc's Dragon Dance (Convergence)
Yoko's Sheer Force (BH)
rightclicker's Magic Guard (BH)
TDLoriat's Booster Sweeper (STAB)
cat's Sword of Ruin (AAA)
pannu's Hawlucha (Inheritance)
HiZo's Clear Amulet Dragon Dance (PIC)

 

[Yoko]

1) Velcroc
2) Hizo
3) cat

 

[rightclicker]

Shifting the schedule of this around to suit my new work schedule, many apologies. From now on, voting will be from Sunday to Tuesday and the new week will start on Wednesday!. OP post will be updated accordingly.

That being said, vote for your favorite niche!

Velcroc's Dragon Dance (Convergence)
Yoko's Sheer Force (BH)
rightclicker's Magic Guard (BH)
TDLoriat's Booster Sweeper (STAB)
cat's Sword of Ruin (AAA)
pannu's Hawlucha (Inheritance)
HiZo's Clear Amulet Dragon Dance (PIC)

1. hizo pic (it has amulet which means its an amulet vd referenc)
2. velcroc conv (it has galvanize which is a low ladder bh eleki set referenec)
3. yoko bh (why is dstorm sf boosted what)

 

[HiZo]

1) Pannu
2) rightclicker
3) cat

 

[April]

Velcroc and Hizo have tied, both earning spots in the hall of fame for Convergence and PiC respectively! Congrats!

For clarification, Inheritance sets can be submitted as either a base or a donor.

Here's your next OM Orphan!



The OM Orphanage presents you with the Big Rock Pokemon, Stonjourner!

Stonjourner's stat spread is rather curious. 100 HP is great, while it's Defense and Attack are both terrific. Everything else is, well... Stonjourner's 70 Speed may be good for Rock-type standards, but it's still quite average, and it's Special Defense rivals... Caterpie! Stonjourner's movepool doesn't bring many surprises, but what it has to work with is decent. Body Press is dangerous off of such a high Defense stat boosted further by Iron Defense or Curse, while it's heavy weight lends itself well to Heavy Slam and even the Fire-type Heat Crash, giving Stonjourner potential counterplay to pesky Grass-types. Aside from that, the most notable tools it has are Stealth Rock, Smack Down and, for doubles formats, Wide Guard. Stonjourner's ability is quite interesting as well, even if it is doubles exclusive, granting a 30% boost to any attacks your ally Pokemon uses.

Stonjourner might be the bottom of the barrel, but even an empty barrel has wine soaked into the wood. Can you find a home outside of England for Stonehenge?​

 

[Chessking345]

This mon is unbelievably awful

Stonjourner @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Atk / 84 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Imprison
- Protect / Wide Guard
- High Horsepower

I know nothing about PiC but it has a doubles ability, stab rock slide, and nifty imprison? I don't know what I'm doing with the EVs either it 2HKOs hands with high horsepower maybe it needs more SpD to not just get blown up by every special move in existence (Bleakwind does like 80). Some pic main submit something better. Oh look like the post right below

 

[HiZo]

Stonjourner @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock / Protect
- Wide Guard
- Rock Slide
- High Horsepower

This would probably work in either pic or triples

Wide Guard immediately gives this Pokemon a niche in multi-mon, but automatically puts this mon in 'can be unironically viable' for triples, especially with power spot. Meanwhile in PiC I have used this Pokemon in a grass spam team and won matches with some time ago.



Team needed a way to deal with Torn and also fire types alongside Ceruledge so stonjourner was (unfortunately) the best possible answer, does put in great work.

 

[chartung17]

Stonjourner @ Custap Berry
Ability: Power Spot
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Body Press
- Endeavor

Rock is a good offensive typing in Godly Gift, enabling Stonjourner to easily beat two of the four S-tier gods. However, what makes Stonjourner (nearly) unique is its ability to beat a third S-tier god without needing to tera:

+1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Stonjourner (inheriting HP from Arceus): 320-378 (83.7 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Stonjourner Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zacian-Crowned: 190-224 (58.4 - 68.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

The only other Rock-type I've found that can beat Zacian-Crowned without teraing is Regirock, but Regirock can't learn Endeavor, which gives Stonjourner a niche.

 

[rightclicker]

(bh)

stoney j (Stonjourner) @ Leftovers
Ability: Fur Coat
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Body Press
- Teleport
- Strength Sap
- Stone Axe
you might be wondering "why aren't you using the salt block over this guy" and thats a very good question. see, using this guy gave me a whole new perspective and i was able to see a hopper that i couldn't have seen before lets sflo agren ohko evio imposter from full whereas steam does like 60 to garganacl.

calcs

vs.
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Greninja-Ash Steam Eruption vs. +1 252 HP / 252 SpD Stonjourner: 775-915 (110 - 129.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

vs. (with predicts)
252 Atk Choice Band Sniper Greninja-Ash Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Stonjourner on a critical hit: 132-157 (32.6 - 38.8%) -- 4.8% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Def Stonjourner Body Press vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Greninja-Ash: 200-236 (57.4 - 67.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

vs. (also with predicts)
252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Garchomp-Mega Glaive Rush vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Stonjourner: 150-177 (37.1 - 43.8%) -- 99.7% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

vs.
252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken-Mega V-create vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Stonjourner in Harsh Sunshine: 123-146 (30.4 - 36.1%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken-Mega Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Stonjourner: 218-260 (53.9 - 64.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

vs.
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Kyurem-Black Glacial Lance vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fur Coat Stonjourner: 154-183 (38.1 - 45.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

here's a quick team i whipped up with stoney j. basic idea is stonjourner clicks pivot on imposter then you have free switch to agren and uhh win i guess

 

[April]

Voting time!

Chessking345's Clear Amulet (PiC)
HiZo's Sitrus Berry (PiC / Triples)
chartung17's HP Receiver (Godly Gift)
rightclicker's Fur Coat (BH)

 

[Imw0rstadP0keM0n]

1. Chessking345
2. HiZo
3. rightclicker

 

[April]

Such is the nature of forum projects, this one has underperformed (in large part due to my own inconsistency) and we've made the decision to archive it early instead of dragging it out thank you to everyone who participated and hopefully this idea can come back in some form next gen