NP: Doubles OU Stage 2 - Monster | Mence is banned | Hoopa not Banned

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Yellow Paint

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oops, didn't actually mean to group diancie with stuff that can't touch mence, even diamond storm does like 60. I was more trying to say that mence meta definitely doesn't help diancie's viability, and mence competes for its mega slot.

As for vs rain, it's not too hard to get up a dd. Even against rain leads, it's at most a 50/50 whether you can ddance or not, as swamp has to decide whether to tect or not and ludi fears twave. Or, you could always bandwagon "Mence has redirection!" and use rachimence, which pretty often lets you set up bar a taunt thundy switch or some risky double targets.

On the other hand, why even mention swamp? I've heard many people say it does absolutely nothing for rain. (see what I did there? I made a tiny stab by calling out something petty.)
 
As for vs rain, it's not too hard to get up a dd. Even against rain leads, it's at most a 50/50 whether you can ddance or not, as swamp has to decide whether to tect or not and ludi fears twave. Or, you could always bandwagon "Mence has redirection!" and use rachimence, which pretty often lets you set up bar a taunt thundy switch or some risky double targets.
You cannot set up a DD vs rain at lead, like 100% cannot. When 3-4 Pokemon on a rain team (Poli/Ludi/Electric w Twave at least) threaten Salamence with an OHKO/para setting up with mence is not happening. "Its at most a 50/50" is a ridiculous stat pulled out of nowhere, without even breaking the pre-mence framework, Pokemon like Aegislash, Thundurus, Swampert, Will O or Taunt Talonflame, Bisharp, Mega Diancie, Mega Metagross, and Kingdra are ALL perfectly reasonable ways to stop Salamence, and that doesn't even include Politoed and Ludicolo. Speaking of Rain leads, Politoed can be EVd to survive a hit from Adamant mence and OHKO, so even the worst rain team is guaranteed to have at least 1 stop to Salamence. I'm not saying that Politoed Ludicolo covers every possible iteration of a lead with Salamence, but it covers many. Expanding on rain leads that aren't Politoed/Ludi, you can certainly carry checks to Mence + Steel on your team without losing to other threats to the point where calling lead Mence "At most a 50/50" from team preview is absurd.

As for the viability of rachimence being exaggerated for the billionth time, checks to Jirachi like Swampert, Aegislash, Thundurus, Bisharp, Talonflame, Landorus-T, and more have shown up on successful rain teams and again they haven't even had to adapt the framework to cover Salamence.

Rain just naturally has a good matchup vs Salamence. Covering Jirachi is something that Rain teams have to do now instead of something that they usually do, and before someone gets all up in arms about changing frameworks, adapting =/= centralizing.

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On the other hand, why even mention swamp? I've heard many people say it does absolutely nothing for rain. (see what I did there? I made a tiny stab by calling out something petty.)
I'm not sure if the petty comment is a jab at something I said in my first post but w/e I'll take it because I was a bit of C. As for Swampert doing nothing for rain I'm going to do a video analysis on Swampert & teams/cores around it because its actually insane how little respect it gets as a mon. The problem with Swampert is that rain in general is pretty poor, but Swampert is certainly just as good as rain as an archetype if that makes any sense. The short answer is that the HO core of Skymin/Keldeo/Talonflame can be adapted into rain using Ludicolo/Swampert/Talonflame. If you think about the coverage+Offence & support offered by the three Pokemon they match up pretty equally with some give & take (Swampert gives Para immunity + different coverage + defensive typing + more speed but you lose a support moveslot + Mega slot + fighting coverage that you get with Keldeo) but the cores are very similar, Swampert offers for rain roughly what Keldeo does for HO.
 
yeah, mence is broken
Like most other megas, its sheer power is great, but with mence, it has many sets, bulk, and with team support it just strains many builds in the meta. Having a naturally high base speed stat is also really nice, as it does not have to run as much speed as say, mega Kangaskan, or other mons would have to. In my experience, using mence + redirection support (usually jirachi) is such a problem for teams, as it makes it easier for Mence to dd, and sweep / dent the teams. I feel like mence is not healthy for the meta at all, so i ll be voting ban.
 

TheFourthChaser

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Waiting in a very long line at a restaurant and hearing a dude trying to explain EV training has driven me nuts so I've come to share more knowledge with you, my people. Excuse typos and blame the phone.

Bughouse brings up the point that something can be banned solely because it is undesirable. While something broken is undesirable, this leaves room for us to remove something because we simply may not like it. Broken may be a subjective term to some but liking something is much more so. Look throughout much of Smogon's banning history and things are banned because they are seen as bad for the game. This is why things like DPP Jirachi and BW's rise of Volt Turn stayed, they're only seen as undesirable. Dark Void may be undesirable but it's also broke as fuck. Salamence's standing in the metagame should matter more than whether or not one enjoys it.

This leads me to checkmaters post, only skimmed it but I like it. While usage definitely doesn't equate to viability (DPP Wobb) if people high on ladder aren't running it a few things can be taken from that: Mence isn't worth running higher up or the suspect test doesn't reveal enough information about Salamence.

Uh, before I'm done. Mence will obviously change viability, why should I care if talon is supposedly less effective? You can't compare that shit to Ho-oh.
 

Pocket

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How is everybody loving the current metagame? Good to see people exploring some different options, such as Blaziken and Darkrai, since the inception of ORAS. Relieved that people are realizing that Tyranitar is not actually trash! I cannot help but think that we are still gravitating to bog standard cores, though. The infamous bunny team. The Keldeos, Skymins, Landorus-Ts, Aegislashes, Amoongusses, and Kyurem-Bs (although the last one wasn't nearly as popular a year ago, so I consider this a change for the better). Megas almost never deviate from Kangaskhan, Charizard Y, Diancie, or Metagross.

I think it is inevitable to have a mon or two that end up becoming our crutch. We all have a crutch-mon that we can't help including in our teams. Mine is probably Talonflame - it checks a wide variety of threats with its powerful STAB Brave Bird. Keldeo? BB! Shaymin-S? BB! Rain? BB! Sun? BB! Trick Room is up? BB (maybe)! Gale Wings Brave Bird must be the strongest priority in the game; gives 0 shits about speed control. (PS - stop using LO guys... Talonflame already takes massive recoil from BB as is. My personal go-to item on bird is Sharp Beak).

What is your crutch? I can name a few for you just from what I've been seeing in recent matches, but I wanna hear from you guys :]
 

nyttyn

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landorus-t.

it might be the lamest fuckin mon in existence to have as a stape/crutch, but intimidate + two spread attacks + u-turn + boom if you're super cocky is just too good.



plus i rarely have time to organize an actual match against good players in the showdown/irc room and landoge is like the ultimate ladder hero mon
 
if i had a crutch 'mon, it'd definitely be the musketeers. looking through my recent teams, i've used one of the strong fighting types on all of them thanks to their shared ability to check mega-kang. fighting is such a great offensive typing for when you really just want to hit something neutrally for a solid amount of damage.

keldeo has a fantastic secondary typing that makes it really annoying to effectively check. terrak has a disgustingly powerful CC and a nice spread move to back it up. virizion can check waters like rotom-w and opposing keldeo while still having a life orb close combat that can OHKO kangaskhan. cobalion has a really unique typing that allows it to switch in and beat mons that the other musketeers can't. it's also the only one that can beat diancie one on one!!! they all fill different niches, but they all share a decent support movepool and an ability to dent stuff with strong fighting attacks.
 

GiraGoomy

when you see a good meme
I never really use to have a mon like this, but over the last couple months I've noticed Kyurem-B just intuitively being included in my teams.

Cube is just such a solid mon and I really find that once it gets behind a sub, there's not much that wants tot switch into it whatsoever. It's ability just makes it stronger. I feel the reason I've been using it so much is just because of how it's a Pokemon that can fit into a lot of teams if you're having trouble thinking of a 6th mon or whatever. It's versatility is decent and the coverage it gets in 2 moves is amazing. It's just strong ok ;_;

pls test cube :(
 
My crutch is safety goggles Jirachi. Redirects spores, and powerful attacks from the likes of M-Kanga, M-Metagross, M-Diancie, Skymin(fuk that mon), and Keldeo. Really gives you a second chance if a Kanga or Azu sets up and you don't have much to takes hits. I like pairing it with Hydreigon which takes care of Aegislash, Bisharp, and opposing Hydreigon the biggest threats to Jirachi. And who doesn't like flinches? :^)
 

DaAwesomeDude1

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hm I guess if I had to pick a crutch mon, it would either be Rotom-W or Skymin.

Rotom-W seems to always fit on my teams, since most of my teams are weak to lando. Not only that, but it is able to check so many mons like Diancie, Talonflame, Landorus, and Heatran while also providing burn support, though usually i prefer Thunder Wave :^). It's just a very solid mon in general with good bulk and good offenses

Shaymin-S is crazy though. Serene Grace Air Slash with good stats is insane; I've been able to hax my way to a win multiple times with this mon lol. It's also really splashable too. Being immune to Rage Powder is super nice alongside the fact that it checks so many common mons in the meta, like Diancie, Rotom-W, and Keldeo. I've also found that not many things want to switch in to this thing since Seed Flare can absolutely cripple them. Skymin suspect when
 

Fangame10

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Cresselia, bc literally I am unable to naturally live without it. If used any TR team w/o Cress I would die and be raped. It's bulk is absolutely required on a TR team and CM + Moonlight make it the only true staller in the doubles tier
 

antemortem

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on Tailwind teams, Tornadus ends up being my crutch for getting Tailwind up incredibly reliably and my physical spread is the best thing I've ever made lol. outside of that, Mega Kang is a good fallback for any team. little versatility but its existence almost always ensures one or two kills. it also works well under both Tailwind and Trick Room or without mass speed control. helps pretty much anything set up what it wants with fake out, never finds itself useless
 

Idyll

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My crutch mon is Scarf Landorus-T because it's just great and brings a lot to the table for my teams. It's a great utility check to everything thanks to its great neutral coverage, Speed which lets it support teammates in a way, and Intimidate which lets neuter most physical attackers. It being able to take on a lot of things means that I'll have a good "second check" to a significant portion of the meta which is always great to have in actual play. While it's a lame mon, its dominance in this meta is not to be questioned, and the good qualities it has makes it a justifable pick for any team of mine lol.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
to answer pocket's question: amoonguss or aegislash.

amoonguss is the best redirector in the game right now for defensive teams because it's more survivable than jirachi and togekiss isnt very good atm. redirection is good for so many reasons, so i often find myself slapping on amoonguss. problem: it has no offensive presence :(

aegislash is good at checking a variety of top threats, but i think the metagame has shifted to the point where the top threats that aegislash dumpsters are becoming less common (skymin also dumpsters most of them which is probably why) and things it doesn't beat as handily (like keld, not just things it outright loses to but things it can't straight up crush) are becoming more common, so i should use aegis less than i do. it used to be the best non mega pokemon in the meta though

sorry for the abrupt change in topic but
Okay, so you've never actually played VGC at a competitive level so I'm not sure why you're spreading that there are one to two switches per side in a typical VGC game.
this piqued my interest back when I saw it; i thought i had a pretty decent grasp on the vgc meta from spectating things like my friend shrop05's matches and watching a handful of regional, national, and world streams but i figured some hard data would be pretty nice to have so i recorded all of the switches in today's nationals stream. i think the data i got could be useful for someone, so if you want it, it's here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mjAZKjyexYwW5xpl29vulKxXXXjr8o8C3XYcHYJcxrc/edit#gid=0.

I chose to only use day 2 to ensure that I was getting a picture of the top of the metagame. The data I analyzed only doesn't include switches after a knockout—it includes the switches caused by U-turn and Volt Switch and the switches where wolfey was just preserving the 4-0, and the like. I did mark the switches caused by voltturn if you want to rerun the numbers with those out.

I only ran some really simple analysis (Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, IQR) and drew a basic histogram but i also included all of my raw data in case anyone wants to do anything more with it. Possible other things to analyze would be the number of switches of the winner vs the loser of the match (though I believe that won't be too useful without a larger sample size), or if there's a relation between how many switches one side has and how many the other side has. I took AP Stats four years ago so I definitely don't remember nearly enough to do the latter.

What I did find: The median number of switches was 1; the mean was 1.84. The data, as to be expected, skewed right, because you can't have less than zero switches per game but you can have as many as you want. 22 of the 38 "sides" (58%) switched either 1 or 2 times, and 15 of them (39%) switched exactly once. Also unsurprisingly, the standard deviation was incredibly high (1.61), because there is a high variance in how many times you need to switch in a given game.

tl;dr: though a larger sample size would be nice, there are one to two switches per side in a typical vgc game.
 
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Pocket

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Stunningly, I don't find myself using Landorus-T ever, unless it's from a favorite team that I stole from some other player. Sometimes it's hard for me to fit it in, b/c a) I don't find Intimidate mandatory (unlike SR in singles) and b) many of my teams lack EQ immunities. I've seen people using Landorus-T on teams with one or none other EQ immunities, and I personally don't see how that would work well, esp if Lando-T is scarfed. If I need Intimidate support alone, there are other options out there, like Gyarados or Salamence. The Electric immunity is undeniably a godsend, though.

qsns, i wouldn't really call using 4 diff mons a crutch. I would more likely call slapping a Keldeo or Terrakion whenever you need a Fighting-type to check Kangaskhan, Kyurem-B, Heatran, etc as a crutch. However, you obviously branched out from the big two, and have diversified your teambuilding options, which is kudos to you!

antemortem, why not use Talonflame for Priority Tailwind?

deoxys speed - Jirachi is another one of my crutch mons. Similarly to Talonflame, Jirachi must be in at least a third of my team. I'm pretty much a sucker for set-up mons, and Jirachi has Follow Me and amazing resistances to be their bodyguard. I thought Jirachi was on par with Togekiss or even better back in XY, but now it's undisputably the best Follow Me user around (unless you need an EQ immunity). I'm surprised Amoonguss is overwhelmingly the doubles favorite, though. It fails protecting its partner from many of the dangerous Grass types in Doubles, and Water- and Electric-types can wear Safety Goggles to render its Rage Powder and Spore support useless.

Safety Goggles make Jirachi a fool proof switch-in to Amoonguss, Venusaur, and Breloom, but I almost always opt for Sitrus Berry, as I think it serves its main purpose of creating free turns better. Safeguard is a nice option on Jirachi to avoid status from those three and Rotom-W. I guess it's a matter of sacrificing an item slot or a moveslot.

I also like Icy Wind on Jirachi, since it royally screws the common Ground-type switch-ins, as well as letting Jirachi flinch faster mons, such as the Charizard Y switch-in. Not a fan of Thunder Wave on Jirachi, since this mon attracts Electrics and Ground-types. Iron Head is mandatory, btw... I don't see any logic behind using a special Jirachi variant with Flash Cannon O.O. Jirachi is also decent at setting up Rain Dance and/or SR for Rain teams. It's the only Follow Me user that can also set up Trick Room (afaik). Very versatile mon that isn't seeing enough usage IMHO. I'm guessing Aegislash and Mega Gross is stealing Jirachi's usage.
 
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Stratos

Banned deucer.
on Tailwind teams, Tornadus ends up being my crutch for getting Tailwind up incredibly reliably and my physical spread is the best thing I've ever made lol. outside of that, Mega Kang is a good fallback for any team. little versatility but its existence almost always ensures one or two kills. it also works well under both Tailwind and Trick Room or without mass speed control. helps pretty much anything set up what it wants with fake out, never finds itself useless
Tailwind is not an archetype
 

Fangame10

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Landorus-T is like everyone's crutch pokemon :^^^^^^^^i. It's even highest usage on our ladder. Landorus takes up every1s ground type slot and we rarely see any other Ground types Why is this? simple, Lando-t has Intimidate + ground type, and every1 is too lazy to get a gyarados and a mamoswine so instead they just take one pokemon to fill this role. plus Landorus-t is ugly. We need to tear down the landorus ground type dynasty and free innocent ground types harmed by a dictator.
Landorus has harmed too many innocent ground types in usage and must pay the price for its evil

Ground types affected by Landorus-t monarch:

Excadrill (forced to work in low wage mining factories)

Mamowsine (went extinct)

Hippowdon: (Got beaten up by TTar-mega. Is currently hospitalized)

Camerupt (Half the Trick Room users in the meta are bad Ladder players. Camels are also abused by their bad trainers)

Rhyperior: (Had to move back to safari zone, Died in a fishing accident trying to catch Dratini)

Landorus-I: (Sexually abused by older brother, Landorus-T, Currently undergoing therapy)

Landorus i is actually ou on the ladder >:(

Propaganda:


With your help, we can end the tyranny and save the many innocent and neglected ground type that are not Landorus-T...thank you for your time ;__;

I spent an hour on this post pls like bc I have nothing better to do
 
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