Okay, I'm going to pick on you (jackm) here not because I'm trying to single you out or anything but because you post sums up multiple false ideas that I hope to disprove. I'm even going to use a really annoying formatting just to make the ideas I'm trying to pass clearer and so I can attack one misconception at a time. (no offense to you or anybody, I'd just like this project to succeed even if it's just to serve as an example to learn from)
Once we paralyze Arceus-Ghost, a powerful physical wallbreaker (which we can and should add) that can take a hit will suffice as a method of getting around it.
Okay, there are two things wrong with this. The first problem is that the suggested answer to a top threat and one that has already many easy opportunities to come in and threaten our team is essentially a 2 for 1 trade. We aren't going to get any better than this as even something as physical powerful as a CB Zekrom could fail to OHKO. You even admit the possibility yourself.
and Terrakion can subsequently finish them off if necessary.
Things get even worse when we consider that we are going to have to respond with a choice locked attack meaning that it'll be all to easy for another setup sweeper or wall breaker to come in and pick up where the Ghostceus fell. Again, this is not a good situation to lock ourselves into when Ghostceus is such a common and generally intimidating threat. If it was for something obscure and fairly niche it wouldn't be such a big deal but this is a S rank Pokemon that is known for its ability to pester even prepared offensive teams.
The second problem in that first quote is what you stick in parentheses. Adding a physical wall breaker is a very bad idea when we already decided that we would build around a Latios. The reason why is that there isn't going to be any overlap between the two which means that any serious stall team is not going to have any problem walling Latios with something like Jirachi and then using a Landorus-T to make sure CB Zekrom is never doing anything either. (by the way, these are two solid picks for a rain stall team) Again, this is why an offensive team focuses on a overlap strategy in their core. For example, a Spdef Kyogre may be able to stop a Darkrai from sweeping the team but it is going to be far to weak afterwards to prevent that CM Steelceus from successfully stall breaking. (I think this was an SPL match) We need to focus on executing a similar plan using Latios. (Again, defensive Dialga has no punch so it isn't going to help us break any defensive cores either.)
If we don't use it then we're going to have serious problems with Genesect unless we run another counter
This is exactly what I was talking about when I warned about freaking out over a single threat in my
earlier post. Ghostceus was understandable then as it was a legitimate threat but something like Genesect (considering the team we had ATM of course) is the perfect example of a minor, almost non-existent, issue that an overreaction has lead to a poor decision. Genesect did not, in any way, pose a significant threat to our team. Deoxys-S could outrun it and pretty much OHKO it with Fire Punch while Terrakion could do the exact same thing with Close Combat. The only thing any sane Genesect would try to threaten is Latios and, even then, it can't switch in directly because of how fragile it is which means it'll have to rely on a revenge kill or smart double switch to begin to be annoying. Not just that, but it is also going to have to do something about the Scarf Terrakion that could easily switch into any of its attacks with the exception of Iron Head. (which isn't always present) It doesn't stop there, we already knew that there was a strong chance we would have added a spin blocker like Ghostceus to our team who would have given us even more options when it came to dealing with Genesect.
it provides a bit of backbone to our otherwise frail team.
Offensive teams are by their very nature frail. The only exception to this is Bulky Offense but we had already decided against that in the very early stages of this project. That isn't to say Offense doesn't appreciate having something bulky and/or good resists, but this doesn't excuse something like Dialga that offers no offensive Synergy or even any sort of strong general offensive presence.
Choosing any of the other checks to CM Arceus-Ghost would have been detrimental to our team in some way or another
Darkrai is not only a solid check but it also had strong Offensive synergy with Latios as well as with a possible Ghostceus pick later on. It would have admittedly made our team a bit more Genesect vulnerable but as I already mentioned this wasn't anything to be remotely worried about.
I view having a shaky check as just another detriment; the key thing to remember is, we can still repair a shaky check or augment its viability.
This would have been a fine bonus to a Dialga pick if Dialga had brought anything to the team in the first place. This is pretty much the only thing that is attractive about Dialga which is quite disappointing.
I hope I didn't come off as offensive in this post as my goal was to inform not to talk shit or belittle any of you. (Which is why I'm going to ignore this new-found Blaziken phobia in the hopes that some of you catch your own errors or until I'm in a better mood to nicely address it.)
