ORAS Doubles OU Double Bubble Poppers

[talkingtree]

Hello Smogon!

After being a lurker for almost a year and slowly getting acclimated to the many different metagames, I found myself drawn to doubles. Double battles have always been my favorites in-game, and competitively there's a bunch more cool moves like Helping Hand and Follow Me to mess with the opponent's strategies. I laddered a little bit and it got me up to ~1450s, and I started feeling like I could hold my own against most teams and players.

So when Summer Seasonal signups rolled around, I figured why not. It would be fun and I had time to waste, so I joined. At the time I didn't expect to make it nearly as far as I did - somehow reaching top 8 before my run ended. I built one or two teams each round, but this one was the one I kept coming back to and it did pretty well, going 7-2. I made small edits throughout as I got better and learned from the other players, but this is generally what I had each round. It's nothing overly innovative, but I'm proud of it and I'm curious to know what I can do to improve it!

Teambuilding Process

*Disclaimer: I don't remember a lot of this because this team went through many different versions, but this is my best guess*

Mega Diancie / Heatran​

I knew wanted to build a team centered around the 'mon that was, in my opinion, the best thing to come out of ORAS. Mega Diancie's biggest problem was how badly it lost to steels, so I added Heatran to cover her weaknesses and called it a core.

Mega Diancie / Heatran / Thundurus​

At this point Ground types were a big problem so I needed a ground immunity, and Thundurus also helped provide a sort of speed control and Taunts to help Heatran function well behind a sub.

Mega Diancie / Heatran / Thundurus / Amoongus​

Redirection, putting threats to sleep, crazy bulk, and the ability to beat waters that gave my core trouble? Amoongus was a pretty clear choice.

Mega Diancie / Heatran / Thundurus / Amoongus / Bisharp​

Lando-T looked like it would be awful to face, so I added a discourager of sorts in Bisharp, who benefitted in Lando's presence by gaining an Atk boost. This also gave me a little bit of priority, which I had none of at that point.

Mega Diancie / Heatran / Thundurus / Amoongus / Bisharp / Conkeldurr​

Conk acted as a status absorber, a second form of priority, and a heavy hitter in general. However, I brought the team in this early stage to a doubles room tour, and after the tour, some more experienced players told me that I was pretty rain weak but had a good starting point, so they suggested Kyu-B to alleviate some of those problems in place of Conkelderp.

Mega Diancie / Heatran / Thundurus / Amoongus / Bisharp / Kyurem-Black
​

The Team

Diancie @ Diancite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 208 Atk / 48 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature (+ Speed, - Def)
- Diamond Storm
- Protect
- Earth Power
- Moonblast

Diancie is the reason I built the team - basically I wanted to use Diamond Storm and that meant I was using Diancie. Diancie acts as a wallbreaker of sorts, meant to do chip damage to as many pokes as possible, and get rid of Zard-Y and dragons. The slow speed pre-mega can really hurt, but sometimes it helps because the Protect pre-mega is so obvious that the opponent will double target my other teammate that's out and Diancie gets a few free hits off, hopefully in addition to a Defense boost. Diancie rarely acts as a win-con, but if I can get enough Defense boosts then it becomes a very difficult 'mon to break.

Not much to say about the move choices here - Diamond Storm is obvious, Protect is even more obvious. Earth Power is primarily for opposing Heatran and so that I don't get walked over by steel types. Moonblast is strong STAB. I used the suggested spread which gets the KO on Bisharp with the SpA investment, maxes speed to tie with other 110s, and puts the rest in Atk. The one thing I have slightly different is I opted for a Hasty Nature over Naive, hoping that I could cover up the lower stat with a defense boost from Diamond Storm.

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 164 HP / 252 SpA / 92 Spe 56 HP / 252 SpA / 200 Spe (suggested by Meloetta<3)
Modest Nature (+ SpA, - Atk)
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Substitute
- Protect
- Earth Power

Heatran often acts as my win-con / cleaner, clearing out the opposite side from behind a sub. Sub Tran is a great moveset for a couple different reasons. Firstly, and more obviously, substitute shields it from Spores and T-Waves. This allows him to move when I want him to be able to. Secondly though, and I believe more importantly, Heatran's mere presence behind a sub is threatening enough to scare most teams into having to double-target. If predicted correctly, this can lead to my protecting against both my opponent's attacks while my partner goes to work on their team.

Heat Wave is the main attacking move, hitting both opponents for a lot of damage thanks to that base 130 SpA. Substitute is there for the reasons I listed above, and the same goes for Protect. Earth Power aids in his coverage. This slot could be exchanged for another coverage option (HP Ice, Flash Cannon, Ancient Power, Dark Pulse), but even though Heatran is one of three Earth Power users on this team, I still find that I miss EP when I don't run it. For the EV's, I started by maximizing SpA. Then I gave enough speed to outspeed most rotom forms, leaving enough HP EV's for a leftovers and substitute number. I'm speed creeping a fair amount because I don't like going after something I could outspeed just for a little bit of bulk. 0 Atk IVs because confusion is annoying enough without letting it do any noticeable damage. Leftovers help me heal back up from Substitute damage and are generally more useful than Sitrus in this situation.

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 220 HP / 104 Def / 76 SpA / 88 SpD / 20 Spe 252 HP / 120 Def / 44 SpA / 72 SpD / 20 Spe (suggested by Hashtag)
Bold Nature (+ Def, - Atk) Modest Nature (+ SpA, - Atk)
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Thundurus is really just a disrupter of teams. Thunder Wave and Taunt somehow mess up everything for them almost every time. Thundurus isn't meant for doing damage, but his attacking moves break sashes, drop weakened opponents, and put opposing threats into KO range. Thundy tends to be a good lead because many teams have something they need set up to function their best, and having that prevented by taunt or a major threat slowed down drastically can greatly improve my matchup.

Thunder Wave is for absolutely necessary speed control and can keep them from moving and save me in a jam if I'm lucky. Taunt prevents trick room, status, and opposing taunters from succeeding in their plans. Thunderbolt is STAB, HP Ice hits Skymin (if I don't flinch) and Landorus. I don't totally remember where I got the EV's, but they outspeed max speed Jolly Bisharp/Breloom, live a Mega Diancie Diamond Storm from full, live a Latios LO Draco, and the rest is in SpA. IVs are for the right HP type. Sitrus helps me stay alive a little longer.

Amoonguss @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 SpD
Sassy Nature (+ SpD, - Spe)
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Giga Drain / Sludge Bomb (suggested by Hashtag)
- Protect / Sludge Bomb

Everyone knows what Amoongus does, and this one is no different. I used Sludge Bomb over Protect a few times, and while doing some damage to grass-resists was nice, I found that Protect is usually preferable to help shift momentum in my direction. Amoongus comes onto the field whenever he's needed, but I usually try not to save him for late game, because he's not super useful then.

Rage Powder helps my two substitute users function to their maximum potential, Spore can pause a dangerous threat and set it up for one of my teammates to KO, Giga Drain is to avoid being total taunt bait, Protect stalls field conditions and fetches momentum in some cases. Sludge Bomb is another option for Breloom and grass resists. EVs are standard, with 0 Atk cause Foul Play/Confusion and 0 Spe because Amoongus is my biggest answer to TR teams and won't be outspeeding anything anyway. Sitrus helps Amoong redirect more attacks. I used to use Rocky Helmet but I realized my Kang matchup was already good and against any other threat, Sitrus was more useful. Rocky Helmet is useable to break sashes and get chip damage though.

Bisharp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature (+ Atk, - SpA)
- Protect
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

Bisharp tends to do the least work on the team, but I can't think of any better options and with Hoopa-U being around now, I'm glad to have it around. Bisharp tends to be dependent on getting a Defiant boost one way or another, because that makes him far more threatening physically and just as a presence in general. Even if I don't get any Defiant boosts though, knock off can disrupt item-based plans and sucker punch lets me pick off weakened targets.

Moveset is extremely standard. Protect protects. Knock Off knocks off items. Sucker does some damage and is my only form of priority. Iron Head is for Sylveon and Kyu-B. Sash is to live any one hit and hopefully punish with lots of damage. EV's are max/max because I want to do damage and Bisharp isn't meant to be bulky.

Kyurem-Black @ Leftovers
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 100 HP / 252 SpA / 156 Spe
Modest Nature (+ SpA, - Atk)
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Protect
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power

Substitute Kyub absolutely wrecks balance with its perfect coverage (Surskit doesn't count) and might be the best set on any poke in this meta. He tends to be my win-con, although this team isn't really built around trying to get any specific 'mon to the victory and is meant to be adaptable. Kyurem sets up mid-game, usually with Amoongus' help, and then breaks as much of the opposing team as possible.

Substitute is the point of the set, Protect is the best move in doubles, Ice Beam is STAB, Earth Power makes perfect neutral coverage with Teravolt. The one thing kind of interesting about this set, however, is the EV's. I maxed SpA and gave it Modest for the most Damage possible since Kyu-B is already naturally quite bulky and could afford to do so. 156 Spe EVs reach 265, which speed creeps the oh-so-popular 263 benchmark. This is more speed than most sets run, but it helps me get the jump on a few select threats. This also leaves enough HP EVs to hit a sub/lefties number.

Blue text = modifications

Threatlist

• CM Cresselia - only a problem if Bisharp is gone. Thundurus can Taunt it, Heatran can hope for burns, and Diancie can do a little bit of damage, but aside from Bisharp I don't have solid answers to it.

• Kyurem-Black - The balance breaker breaks my balance so badly. I have to play very carefully and if it gets a sub up then I'm in trouble. It hits all of my team for ridiculous damage.

• Shaymin-S - Flinches everything and I have nothing faster so I basically lose. I need Thundurus to paralyze it or for Heatran/Kyub to already be behind sub. Ban Skymin.

• Sand - Rock Slide spamming hurts basically all of my team, and I only have two sand immunites so the chip damage adds up.

• Lando-T - A threat to every team tbh. Amoongus is a check at best but doesn't do much in return. Kyube behind a sub deals with it just fine though.

• Terracott - +6 Terrakion literally wins against everything if I can't para and Terrakion has sash or tailwind to deal with Diancie. (Unless I'm ridiculously lucky and get a double rock slide miss.) I can't let this set up.

Replays

All these matches are from seasonals, and I definitely made some sub-optimal plays, but hopefully they will show how the team works.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-doublesou-64347
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/doublesou-242071847
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/doublesou-245714145
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/doublesou-252746050

Importable

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 56 HP / 252 SpA / 200 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Substitute
- Protect
- Earth Power

Diancie @ Diancite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 208 Atk / 48 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Diamond Storm
- Protect
- Earth Power
- Moonblast

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 44 SpA / 72 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Amoonguss @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Protect

Bisharp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

Kyurem-Black @ Leftovers
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 100 HP / 252 SpA / 156 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Protect
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power

And that's the team! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed playing with it. Let me know if there's anything you think can be improved, I'm always open to suggestions :^)

Also, this is my first RMT so let me know if I've done something wrong.

 

[Hashtag]

yo couple improvements
if you like sludge bomb on amoonguss, why not just run it over giga drain? i find myself defaulting to sludge bomb on it and i find that it doesnt really need the grass coverage, and the healing it provides is negligible. Additionally it lets you hit things like thundurus and other amoongusses, which it would otherwise be dead weight against.
also i think you should run this thundurus spread.
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 44 SpA / 72 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
its slightly less bulky than yours but it hits a lot harder. Defensively it survives an adamant kang return, and on the special side it survives a draco from life orb latios. there aren't really any notable benchmarks that it could hit above that other than a kyube ice beam, which would require taking some EVs out of defense, so it isnt worh it. On most bulky mons you should invest fully into HP before going into either defense, so i went ahead and changed that too. the rest of the EVs i dumped into special attack since you are using two attacks, although you could take out all of the spa EVs in favor of a defense, and it would still hit harder than the original spread. I believe modest is worth it because a 10% boost on a 125 base stat is so much bigger than a 10% boost on a 70 base stat.

 

[ryo yamada2001]

hi tree
im going to give you a quick opinion of all pokemons

diancie is a quite good pokemon, I wouldn't change anything about it

go 56 HP / 200 SpA / 200 Spe with a modest nature on Heatran so you can outspeed Bisharp, there are quite a lot of heatran that run this spread so you could always try to speed creep it with 204, 208, 212 or even more speed

on thundurus: go 252 HP / 28 Def / 80 SpD / 24 Spe, rest into SpA with a Calm nature, this is able to live an ice beam from subsitute kyurem-black, an ice punch from mega-metagross and it outspeeds other 20 speed thundurus

on amoonguss I generally run 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD but it seems like you have a decent spread already so you got that going for yourself, I recommend using protect over sludge bomb unless you keep getting dicked by skymin then use sludge bomb

use jolly nature on bisharp over adamant because speed = wins

this was not really an amazing rate or something but I hope you got something out of it

~nyu!

 

[talkingtree]

yo couple improvements
if you like sludge bomb on amoonguss, why not just run it over giga drain? i find myself defaulting to sludge bomb on it and i find that it doesnt really need the grass coverage, and the healing it provides is negligible. Additionally it lets you hit things like thundurus and other amoongusses, which it would otherwise be dead weight against.
also i think you should run this thundurus spread.
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 44 SpA / 72 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
its slightly less bulky than yours but it hits a lot harder. Defensively it survives an adamant kang return, and on the special side it survives a draco from life orb latios. there aren't really any notable benchmarks that it could hit above that other than a kyube ice beam, which would require taking some EVs out of defense, so it isnt worh it. On most bulky mons you should invest fully into HP before going into either defense, so i went ahead and changed that too. the rest of the EVs i dumped into special attack since you are using two attacks, although you could take out all of the spa EVs in favor of a defense, and it would still hit harder than the original spread. I believe modest is worth it because a 10% boost on a 125 base stat is so much bigger than a 10% boost on a 70 base stat.

Hey Hashtag thanks for the rate! I never thought of running non-giga amoongus, I'll definitely have to try that out it sounds really helpful. My only worry is Washtom matchups, since then all I have for it is Kyu-B.
The Thundy spread looks pretty nifty too and I have no idea where I got mine so yours is probably way better. I'll try both yours and Meloetta<3 's and see which one I prefer. Thanks again and I'll let you know how those go!

hi tree
im going to give you a quick opinion of all pokemons

diancie is a quite good pokemon, I wouldn't change anything about it

go 56 HP / 200 SpA / 200 Spe with a modest nature on Heatran so you can outspeed Bisharp, there are quite a lot of heatran that run this spread so you could always try to speed creep it with 204, 208, 212 or even more speed

on thundurus: go 252 HP / 28 Def / 80 SpD / 24 Spe, rest into SpA with a Calm nature, this is able to live an ice beam from subsitute kyurem-black, an ice punch from mega-metagross and it outspeeds other 20 speed thundurus

on amoonguss I generally run 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD but it seems like you have a decent spread already so you got that going for yourself, I recommend using protect over sludge bomb unless you keep getting dicked by skymin then use sludge bomb

use jolly nature on bisharp over adamant because speed = wins

this was not really an amazing rate or something but I hope you got something out of it

~nyu!

Hi Melo, thanks for looking into the team :]
Assuming that you mean 56 HP / 252 SpA / 200 Spe on tran, because you should use all your EV's ;) but that looks pretty nice and I like speed. Changed! (I'm not telling how much I decided to creep tho)
As I said above, I'll try out your spread along with Hashtag's and let you know.
I'll test out jolly bisharp but I'm not super convinced about it... I already feel like it doesn't hit that hard so I'm worried that with jolly I'll feel more dependent on needing defiant boosts. But speed is good so maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Arcticblast]

Surviving a Kyurem-B Ice Beam is a pretty useless benchmark for Thundurus honestly, it's doing absolutely nothing to Kyu-B in the first place except a last-ditch Taunt

 

[talkingtree]

Tried out all the above changes, stuck with Hashtag's Thundy spread as recommended, but using Meloetta's speed creep. Jolly Bisharp wasn't too helpful so I went back to Adamant. Still not convinced one way or another on the Amoongus moveset so I'll just leave it slashed. Thanks everyone for helping me out!