It works, sure, but how often? That was my friend, by the way, who was in Skype with me at the time, and he was totally messing around with that team. He obviously understands its limitations, but wanted to see how many people he could actually beat with it. Turned out he won 61% of his battles by the end of the night, but that is 1) not a very good number if you want to call it a legitimate team, and 2) due to him playing pretty bad players while being a pretty experienced player himself. He’s been able to get top 50 on the ladder easily with a very standard, solid team, so it says a lot about how much the team was actually holding him back. He was also tired out of his mind that night and playing on autopilot, which was okay since that team seriously either instaloses or instawins at team preview. That’s not a stretch, it’s true. If anything has Priority, Fake Out + taunt or sleep, or Roar/Whirlwind/Perish Song, he INSTANTLY loses since his other Pokemon have nothing but 1 pretty bad move each.
Basically two lessons: one, gimmicks are not reliable and require good matchups rather than good playing, and two, if something is winning a few battles but in general not doing that well, or just winning a couple in a row and making you feel good, you can’t prop it up. Make it a goal to find and offer solid evidence so that you don’t accidentally misdirect other players (or yourself). Simply giving bad things a lot of pumping up and asserting that you know what you’re doing at the same time will understandably mislead newer players.
If you have fun using gimmicks, go for it, use them. But please, do not come back and state that they’re “viable” and “very good” in the thread because they won a battle against a certain team archetype. It needs to do well against the vast majority of teams to be good. Having fun and using them for fun is one thing, stating that they’re able to be viable and used consistently, however, is incorrect, and extremely misleading to boot.
Finally, if you want to post how your team works, you should know what it does and be able to explain this to other players by general rationale backed by good damage calculations and good battle examples. For example on how to show your team is legitimate, check this RMT by Darkmalice.
Just some other instances I saw of this type of thing happening...
(Stall is not at all viable in doubles, never has been, and nothing in the new format changes implies that it will ever be. Two mons attacking rather than one is the biggest problem. Setup moves mean nothing, double damage for three turns is better than a setup move and two turns of attacking. You also need tons of evidence to support this train of thought, much less assert it.)
(Its typing is often considered its bane because of fire, flying, psychic, and ice weakness, fire and ice being extremely common. It has fire weakness, so how can you say it walls SUN TEAMS? Ice Beams and Flamethrowers/Fire Blasts/Heat Waves are more than “occasional”, and I’ve never seen a Sludge Bomb from a team that actually threatened me yet in over 250 battles. None of those moves are occasional. Technician allows Breloom to actually do damage and use its better stat and typing layout, its attack. Its defenses are far too poor to have it bulky, SQUIRTLE has higher base special defense...without eviolite, and also has less type weaknesses. Finally, be sure you identify exactly what you are trying to wall, and do damage calculations and show them to help people understand if it actually works. Also be honest and point out calcs that DON’T help its cause as well, since people need to know both pros and cons to succeed with a more specialized Pokemon such as the one you’re advertising.)
(That’s my Kingdra. And Swift Swim in Trick Room makes Substitute totally useless. I never brought Kingdra to beat TR.)
(It almost always has Psyshock, not Psychic, and very rarely has screens. Only seen two Cresselias with even one screen in this tier since beginning.)
(Observations are fine and often fun to read, but make sure you clearly state that they’re observations instead of asserting things based on a few weeks’ worth of play...)
(Then you haven’t ever faced an even half-decent player using one...I’ll show you one if you want.)
SHAAAAME
(Sidenote: don’t call people names, especially potentially offensive ones, openly. I know you’re totally messing around because you’re friends, but other people might just think it’s okay anytime...sadly :l)
Actually I saw this too when running Perish Trap...and lost to it... so I advocate myself for the Wall of Shame. I also called the person a scrub. Twice. :l
It needs at least 168 Special Attack with Modest Nature and Grass Gem to OHKO a standard Tyranitar in Sand. That means it can’t outspeed neutral stat 120s (base 100s) or can’t survive important hits, such as Specs Politoed Ice Beam. It’s a pretty awful mon, honestly, and is outclassed by Serperior, Tangrowth, and a lot of other mono Grass types. It wasn’t even used more than 1% of the time in VGC 2011 when it was one of the only Grass-Type Pokemon available...:l
Broken as in cannot work properly ever? That makes sense. I thought that’s what you meant until the second part where you made hilariously Amoonguss/Togekiss/Taunt-tested, Amoonguss/Togekiss/Taunt-disapproved statements. Also, evidence for this please.
Politoed has awful base attack, a movepool of pretty poor moves, and is never the thing attacking inside of Rain that is the real offensive threat. I’ve noticed people piling my Politoed as my Kingdra rips right through their team and wonder what the heck they did that for. I’ve been running bulky support (Icy Wind / Helping Hand) Politoed rather than flat out attacking...and have reached the top of the ladder with this Politoed and stayed there for over 3 weeks. Even the offensive Politoeds are not scary, since they rarely outspeed and OHKO a well-EV’d mon that’s actually threatening. The ONLY reason toed is used is because of Drizzle. If it did not have Drizzle, it would be utterly useless, even if Rain was in play.
Also, things that are shameful that belong here:
-Pressing the Toxic button
-Hi Health Loss Kick
-Eeveelution teams
-Gimmicks that instalose to common Pokemon
-Double Protecting turn 1
-Protecting when you’re inevitably going to lose
-Fake Out + Protect
-Rage Powder + Protect, simply when you thought it couldn’t get worse
-Monotype teams
So, just a quick recap of things that can be improved
~ Don’t mislead people. This sort of goes with backing up your claims, but don’t overhype something that isn’t winning the VAST majority of the time (75%+ as a benchmark). Make sure if you’re just posting thoughts you clearly state that it’s just a work in progress, but an interesting idea, rather than asserting it’s legendary and on a killing spree.
~ Back up your claims. I typically like to see, like I said in the first post, 3 solid wins and 5 solid damage calcs. Give me a reason to use it, and something to watch out for as well (add another 2-3 damage calcs and another battle replay or two to prove your case) so I know whether or not it will fit on my team. This is really necessary when challenging the norm when claiming something. It also can catch a flaw before you post it to the world and look silly.
~ Try it before you hate it. And show that you tried it, if possible. Playing 1-2 months is not enough time to know everything, and rightfully so.
~ On that note, never be afraid to learn. Not even the 8 year veterans are done learning. There is always something you can take away from each battle, and never be afraid to accept a loss or accept defeat when it happens. Learn from it and bounce back.
~ Gimmicks rely on matchups. Even though that sounds good at first, it’s really not. Almost every single gimmick, if not every single one, either wins or loses or comes close to doing so in team preview. If you’re using it to have fun, that is fine, enjoy yourself! However, if you’re doing so, please do not suddenly change from fun-loving gimmick user to veteran doubles guru and post that the gimmick is amazing because it won a few excellent matchups. Also, since gimmicks are typically all-or-nothing teams, they don’t encourage good play, and battling against them is a drag since the result is often determined way before the end of the battle.
~ Things are still yet to be discovered. Not all discoveries will turn out to be gimmicks. Some may be viable strategies or sets.There are a lot of things we have to learn yet about how this format changes the doubles metagame that we already know of. Most of the things being posted on this wall of shame are ideas we mostly look back at a few months later and realize how far we’ve come and chuckle a little, like Firestorm said: “Reading some of your posts where you discover things for the first time in particular bring a bit of a smile to my face because I can remember back when we discovered those things for the first time as well and how excited we were!” We need to first understand what is currently working so that the development of the metagame is less painful. So touch up on your history! Use resources that more experienced doubles players are giving, such as players like Darkmalice, Firestorm, Makiri, Audiosurfer, and myself have listed in the forums (such as the spreadsheet linked above!).
From transitioning from one game to the other, I have seen very minimal difference so far, in my opinion mostly because players are not yet settled into doubles, much less this format. I do believe that the mechanics of this format will influence the metagame down the road and encourage really developmental testing. We just have to get to that point first, and repeating the same general mistakes that we’ve already made years ago isn’t necessary. So first things first: understand what is already known. Make that your goal. After that’s achieved, we’ll naturally make the movement to exploration. If I can be of any assistance, let me know, I'm willing to help you with understanding this as much as I can.
