
Hope you all had happy holidays! Delibird was a fun festive choice to close out 2024's teambuilding project. I still remember hosting Victim of the Week a while back so it's time to jump back in with a fun team!

Delibird is greatly outclassed by numerous hazard setters in the metagame, including but not limited to Lycanroc, Froslass, Sandslash, Qwilfish...but one thing it does have is compression as a lead. As a spikes lead, having the combination of Endeavor, Rapid Spin, and Destiny Bond makes it capable at messing with slower attackers like Magneton and Clawitzer. To ensure it more reliably pulls off Endeavors, I reduced its bulk as much as possible and gave it Tera Ghost in the event hazard removal for the other team is lacking.

Due to Delibird's lack of usefulness after setting up hazards (and possibly taking a foe down with it), Oricorio-G is ideal to discourage Rapid Spin while maintaining a Fighting, Ground, and Normal immunity. Aside from Quiver Dance and its STAB moves, the last slot for Roost was to maintain longevity against bulky walls like Cramorant and Weezing. Taunt can also be thrown in to stop other hazard setters like Orthworm and Sandaconda from setting up their utility moves, though Roost's longevity was more important as aside from Shaymin (I'll get to it later), the team has no means of recovery.

Time and time again, Qwilfish has been a fantastic duel threat for its offensive and defensive prowess since the SS ZU days. Swords Dance has been a standard wincon for quite a while now, but while Leftovers (Black Sludge in SS) is easier to fit, Life Orb raises its power to even more dangerous levels - now, it can 2HKO defensive Qwilfish-H after getting Intimidated and Stealth Rock, OHKO Snorlax without Rocks, and OHKO Muk after Stealth Rock, something Leftovers/Black Sludge could not accomplish. Intimidate also is a boon against opposing physical attackers like Floatzel and Hitmonlee, surviving attacks it otherwise would've struggling without the Attack drop.

Probably would rise to PU, but while you can fit Stealth Rock or Swords Dance there, Rock Polish makes for one of the scariest cleaners in the tier, outspeeding everything barring Jolteon. Tera Poison gives it defensive utility against Fighters, and Poison Jab makes it surprisingly good against Grasses like Dipplin, Virizion, and Decidueye-H. It's a formidable tank and deserves more usage in this meta. The nice Poison chance also annoys physical walls like Palossand and Sableye looking for safe entry points. Bonus points for Lightning Rod causing opponents to forget post-Terastalization that it completely stuffs Jolteon.

I needed natural Speed control and another pivot, as otherwise I was very reliant on double-switching or 1v1s to win. Jolteon helped check those two boxes, and provided a secondary Electric immunity and a wincon that could quickly spiral out of control if not accounted for. The moves were otherwise pretty standard.

More Speed control? Jolteon alone was quite vulnerable to being outpaced by Scarfers like Qwilfish, Passimian, and Grafaiai, but Shaymin provided some decent defensive utility through a Water resistance and Natural Cure. A fast healing wish is nice to give otherwise chipped offensive behemoths a second wind of life. Seed Flare also provided some odds to break through bulky titans like Porygon2 or Snorlax that other special attackers have a difficult time with.
Here's another team with Passimian over Shaymin to give the team a VoltTurn offensive core:

