Reasoning for Ditto:
As some of you may have noticed I used Ditto three times during this tournament and its been doing great for me. If you watch my games you'll notice that I dont leave the house without a scarfer/unaware or excessive speed control / possibilities to revenge kill. My reasoning for that is that I want to avoid being swept by specific threats and add another rock/paper/scissors element in matchups, which ideally allows you to win every game if you play well. Unfortunately SM OU does not have many good scarf user (things like Keldeo/Garchomp are very very niche and largely regarded to as bad as they only succeed in the revenge killing role - and maybe in the cleaner role if everything is suuuper weakened - efficiently) so what you'd ideally want is your scarfer to offer some additional form of utility be it removing items and learning Defog (Kartana), Healing Wish and gaining momentum with great specific defenive utility (Jirachi) or Intimidate, defensive utility and gaining momentum (Landorus-Therian).
Ditto accomplishes the following feats marvelously:
1. Revenge killing of speedboosting threats
2. Major player in the stall matchup with minimal team support
3. Steel-type protection against Magnezone (
Finchinator for example pointed out that my team against Hiye had only one Steel-type which was trapped by Magnezone, however, the combination of U-Turn Mega-Scizor and HP Ground Ditto is quite good at fixing that issue)
Moreover, Ditto is oftentimes useful as a midground or able to steal important moves such as Defog or Spikes and use them against its opposition.
Week 1
https://pokepast.es/7163922c8000cbcbInitially wanted to try out double AoA Nidoking + MMawile to specifically target ABR's prefered team style which was balance. I had to later fit Stealth Rock on my MMawile due to defensive reasons since Chansey needs confide to stop things like Reuniclus and Blacephalon etc.. I instantly realized that Rotom-W is very valuable post-Zygarde so I added a pivoting core of that + Helmet torn who I was also really high on (rightfully so). Electrium-Z was mainly for pex but it can also nail other things such as Tornadus and Fini & WoW burns the Grass-Types for Tornadus. Chansey+Ditto was chosen to solidify myself against special attackers whom I had nothing for up until that point as well as offense and stall. Ditto being able to trap Magnezone is of lesser significance here and was not the initial reason for its addition on this team. This team is indeed weak to the fighting type Megas and physical attackers but I was banking on physdef Tornadus + Intimidate Mawile + Ditto + Rotom-Wash to be able to handle those & ABR isnt really known for bringing Medichams or Gallades.
Week 2
https://pokepast.es/e8c4c88844940a5eThis was the first time I tried to build with Bronzong (it was a very retro looking Volc team with Fini+Bronzong which was a thing before Torn became popular) but it didnt quite make it due to the last builds being weak to a few threats on all variations. Tony suggested a mix of a different team of mine + the Volc team and it turned out nice (a tiny bit weaker to torn but still very weak to it) so thats what we went with. Ditto is not enough to handle stall on this team but we were confident Talah wouldnt bring that anyway, Metal Sound is to not lose to Reuniclus and it helps vs things like Mega Latias as well, Air Slash serves as a middle-ground between STAB and way to hit Leech Seed blockers with, it also benefits from Metal Sound. The only Grass-type it doesnt hit (Ferrothorn) gets abused hard by Volcarona (especially in terrain) which is noteworthy. Venusaur is a pretty good Pokemon overall since it handles huge threats like Mawile & Magearna and its seeds make progress as they cannot be switched into.
Week 3
https://pokepast.es/bbd57bb6003f4aaaGot inspired by Kickasser's Mega-Garchomp team and decided to use him + Ttar myself due to them being nice fire resists which is something hard to come by these days in SM OU. I had a few variations of this but I decided on Rotom+Torn and Scarf Jirachi to support Mega-Garchomp and Amoonguss rounded up the build nicely. Bit weak to the fighting Megas against but it does have a physdef Tornadus.
Week 4
https://pokepast.es/9fa51ec115162e37Decided to stall Tamahome since hes not exactly an SM OU main and the stall I decided on was Trosko Stall with something else over Tang since Zygarde was no longer a thing. Volc fits nicely to better the Mawile and Tran matchups and gives us another Defog. Sableye is physdef for Rockium Garchomp/Lando and to take on Medicham better, especially since ive been quite weak to it in my previous builds.
Week 5
https://pokepast.es/8be16a2ebd03e1e2Lando+Mag offense is actually super good and Im a bit disappointed I only brought it once. I actually developed a formula for how to run this archetype due to the amount of variations I tested out: Defensive (Scarf) Lando + AV Mage + 1-2 Fire-resists + 2 Water-resists + good Stealth Rock setter+fast breakers (these roles can overlap). By good Stealth Rock setter I dont mean sturdy and can get many opportunities to set them up but rather threatening offensively to keep them up and not be defogable like Mega-Diancie, Rockium Garchomp, Mega-Ttar, Z-move Kommo-o, etc (which also serve as a Fire-resist). Fire-resists are important since Magearna can take on every other special attacker as Ground-type special attackers do not really exist in this tier and Water-resists are necessary for the rain matchup and to cover Landorus-Therian's weakness, more often than not Kartana, particularly CB, found its way on my builds. Other things that are threatening to this archetype: Celesteela, Toxapex, Hawlucha; - be careful to cover these somehow (for example SpA Rotom-Wash). This team is relatively self-explanatory, the only thing that I would like to mention is the reasoning behind custap Rotom-Wash. At first I had Leftovers or Iapapa as consideration with Iapapa eventually winning out but getting an attack off seemed to be much more valuable for SpA invested Rotom-Wash and I had to get low anyway for Iapapa to work. This team was also a bit on the slower side of my Lando-Gear builds so the extra pseudo-priority really helps out and you can manipulate your HP with sand even.
Week 6
https://pokepast.es/ec09864ec9324ce8Kyurem looked good vs him & was a mon I really wanted to use, MegaZor+Ditto core handles offense and has the nice interaction vs Magnezone, Reuni+Pex core was something I wanted to use. Gliscor rounds up everything nicely. Team has its fair share of problems like no dark or flying resists but Kyurem lives z-fly from Landorus and Torn can get dealt with via Pex as long as it isnt Taunt, Ash-Gren is trouble but not unbeatable either. I just loved the cores and team overall against literally every other matchup in theory, having great tools for Stall, Offense and Balance as well as Rain so I still went with it.
Week 7
https://pokepast.es/158a01028c1b7889I tried out a few stall builds and this 6 turned out to be my favorite. Really wanted to stall Valentine since he's not the most knowledgeable person in SM OU and it managed to win despite running into 6 troublesome mons although I did have to play my heart out and rely on a few... not exactly chokes since the alternative plays didnt win 100% but premature steps by him.
Week 8
https://pokepast.es/5e77f87082c05d22Probably my favorite overall team. This just feels very complete, despite being rather slow I think that Mew+Lando-T are decent enough as speed control when coupled with things like BB pex, sand and sludge bomb tang which can all whittle down the opposition. Defensive core with offensive Rocks Ttar and Mag to make progress, you have to choose the moment perfectly tho since your mons that make progress can get chipped very easily.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-877185646 is a replay from the hispanic premier league a few days ago that showcases how this is supposed to be played (not saying the SPL replay is bad, this just allows every mon to showcase its purpose while in the other game mew for example was a sack to allow a switch)
Week 9
https://pokepast.es/35cedbfae13c1899At this point I was a bit out of new ideas outside of rain & Bronzong. I loved the double Leech Seed strategy I used in week 2 but wanted to remove the weak to Stealth Rock aspect and use a good rocker of my own. Knock Off Clefable helps the Suicune sweep since getting rid of Tang/Amoonguss/Pex/Fini items is very helpful. Torn is very annoying for this team and more specifically Taunt Torn rolls over this which was beautifully showcased in the actual game. I think that outside of that this team can be really dangerous against more offensive builds or balance due to Leech Seed being impossible to switch into, especially with Stealth Rock up. Chomp/Hydreigon fit in nicely for defensive and speed purposes, particularly Scarf Garchomp is pretty nice to allow Celesteela to do its thing.
Semi-Finals
https://pokepast.es/9ea0547dc73fac42I also wanted to use Rain at some point & blunder was the perfect opponent to do it against. I started off with my RMT and replaced Mimikyu with Torn to handle the Tangrowths hes been bringing a bit better and to allow Kartana to run z-move. I later changed to timid Kartana to better handle offense since that appreciates the additional bulk and Speed vs offense and without Mimikyu my offense matchup was a bit worse but Timid Kartana is by no means necessary. The spread here lives Celesteela Flamethrower in Rain after Stealth Rock while being as physically bulky as possible, it also lives things like random HP Fire in rain and 0 SpA Hurricane from Tornadus.
Funny thing I noticed is how I exclusively used Steel-types not weak to Focus Blast.
I got to use pretty much every core I REALLY wanted to use, the only thing I didnt get to show off was Bronzong with a simple mixed defensive spread which I have been trying to bring for a while due to his ability to handle a few very prominent threats (Z-Landorus, Z-Garchomp, Tapu Lele, SG Magearna) while getting up rocks reliably and not being able to get trapped by Magnezone. Here is one of the better builds I have done with Bronzong
https://pokepast.es/05950025de737503.