I'd like to share a weird offensive core that I have been trying out a bit today:
Regieleki @ Magnet
Ability: Transistor
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Reflect
Zoroark @ Ring Target
Ability: Illusion
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Trick
- U-turn
- Dark Pulse
- Sludge Bomb
*insert regular banded shifu here*
Now why this specific core, you might ask yourself? Since people constantly say regieleki sucks, I took it as a personal challenge to do something with it and in this iteration of my efforts ran into this
I have been asking myself, even though regieleki allegedly sucks, is there anything that it can do reliably, and oh boy is there one thing that it can do reliably, it can absolutely reliably force their ground type in, and thats where this core comes together. You see, what if their ground type comes in on to your "regieleki" just to get a nice welcome present, a ring target? At this point your real regieleki can just click it's stabs without repercussions. But I hear a voice in the back; "glava222 you dolt, surely no one with two brain cells will bring his ground type in on an obvious real fake regieleki, have you been sniffing bath salts?". To them I say, well what else are they gonna do, risk it being an actual regieleki and just get a massive electric move in the face? but what happens if they still read you, your ring target goes to waste and you make yourself look like a fool, surely christmas is ruined? Well not actually. You see, zoroark has another trick up his sleeve, it actually learns u-turn. So when the opponent is confident your ring target tomfoolery is ruined, and they can switch in their ground type on your regieleki with impunity. But then your "regieleki" u-turns into an angry manbearpig, that is perfect for killing ground types, and just got you the tempo which you should have by all acounts lost and a free switch into a terrifying breaker.
Well that was just the basic gist of it but there are some additional synergies here:
1. urshifu hates bulky waters, and what conveniently makes bulky waters go away? Yup it's leki
2. since regi doesn't need more than two attack moves, it can learn rapid spin to compress hazard removal, but the more important thing here is that it can set up reflect, which is great to facilitate hard switch ins of a powerful breaker that also conveniently has decent physical bulk, i.e. urshifu.
3. if their ground type is in you can still do some bluffs, since they will want to switch in some fast resists into your regieleki to try to ward it off, the prime examples here being tapu koko and dragapult. But if your regieleki is actually zoroark it can dispatch both of those with a super effective move(dark pulse for pult, or sludge bomb for koko).
4. getting a ring target onto specs pult means not only that your zoroark is now specs and capable of dishing out some serious hurt, but also that cc from urshifu now obliterates it, and so it cannot switch into urshifu-rs safely anymore.
5. specially defensive ferro is quite annoying for zoroark and regi to deal with, but urshifu disposes of it easily with cc.
6. all of the members of this core know pivoting moves, so if you actually get a ring target on their ground type, the opponent will soon be welcomed to volt turn hell, population: their team. this is further facilitated by regieleki also being able to clear hazards
other considerations:
zeraora owns this core, so you probably want to support it with something that handles it; I personally like landorus-t, as it's secondary flying type allows it to also come in on predicted ground switch ins, it has rocks to support the team, and it learns u-turn to keep momentum.
For people sying "hurr durr regieleki still doesn't do anything in my games with this core", it's not exactly supposed to be an offensive behemoth. Think of it as a cheerleader that forces exploitable plays from your opponent, and occasionaly goes ape when the conditions are right.
You might want an additional source of hazard removal, since if you don't take residual damage, it will be possible to keep your ruse up for longer. For that reason you also shouldn't try to go for boots on eleki, since it will be obvious that the fake one takes rocks, while the real one doesn't
If you put a choice item onto zoroark instead of ring target for ruining defensive pokemon, you are bad and should feel bad. This isn't even because of regieleki hurr durr, but because not being choice locked allows you to get a hit off and then u-turn out, which can be vital in overwhelming defensive grounds and getting tempo at the same time
sample team:
https://pokepast.es/97b22e8dbd5c0000 - This is not 100% fleshed out, which you can probably guess since corvi is serious, but if you want to mess around with the core, something like this might be a decent starting point.
replay:
The replays are in middish ladder so some plays might not be perfect, but the point is to see how the core plays out and I think these replays do show some of it.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1371800813 (some hilarious stuff here, showcases screen support for shifu, and this might be the only time in the history of the universe where a ground type switches out into a fricking corviknight against "regieleki", and it is correct, also zoroark puts in some work, zoroark taking specs lets me know it's not a defensive zap, which means I know shifu can kill it in rain with aqua jet)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1371806238 (again, reflect helps here, regieleki does some hazard cleaning, both of which save my glowking in the long run, zoroark surprises tapu koko with coverage)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1371753261(meh replay, but I have it so whatever)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1372204523 (it looks like I got lucky by not getting parad on my zoroark there, but corvi is bulk up so I dont think that pult was getting through anyways, also take note of the awkward plays regi forces, and the moment they think I am bluffing I take out slowbro and leave in reflect urshifu which they can't deal with. zoroark also used it's coverage to demonstrate the koko point here; cool thing to notice is that regi put in some nice work even without the ring target)
EDIT: wanted to drop another replay that IMO is the best one yet at showing how the core works. In this game everything came together and all member of the team played a part, with zoroark getting the trick off and surprising victini, urshifu destroying mew and then getting sacked for tempo, glowking doing the same to magnezone, regieleki shredding the rest of the core, and corvi wrestling tempo back twice, while lando was waiting if I needed it for rachi. It really has great examples of mindgames the core forces on the opponent, and shows how rewarding it can be to play
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1382848536