ORAS Doubles OU 10 Day

[ryo yamada2001]

Hi everyone, it's everyone's favourite e-girl Elise here back with a new RMT. Since I've made my last RMT quite a lot happened. I lost my motivation for Doubles (yet again), tried picking up singles (and failed rather badly), and struggled a bit with real life issues. Thankfully, in the meanwhile I picked up many new friends and became closer to many people on Pokemon Showdown as well.

Today I tried playing a few games of Doubles again and noticed that I played rather well versus very good opponents. Even though I'm totally venuSORE of venusORAS I wanted to make a RMT for a long while now, and I decided I'd pull out this squad I built together with FloristtheBudew a while ago. It's actually super good and has very little poor matchups. Honestly, this might be one of the best teams I've built in my (rather unprestigious) Doubles career so far.

I got 10 days off, and I'm a big Chance the Rapper fan, so I felt like it would create a nice link between the RMT and the song.

Teambuilding Process

Florist and me wanted to build around something that was not really commonly used but still posed a big threat in the metagame. Venusaur was also a quite refreshing Mega to play with, as you play with it much more defensively than you would do with the Big 4.

A good Fire and Talonflame check felt necessary and Heatran does a great job at checking these threats. It also switches in on Psychic-type attacks from threats such as Latios and Hoopa-Unbound, which are threatening to Venusaur. Lastly, it is a nice check to Dragon spam, being able to switch in to Draco Meteors from Latios and Hydreigon.

Gyarados allows us to switch in to Ground-type attacks such as Landorus-Therian's Earthquake, something that neither of our previous Pokemon like switching in to. Intimidate is also valuable and Dragon Dance allows for another win condition.

Hydreigon freely switches into Thunderbolts. Having another solid check to Psychic-types was valuable too, and Tailwind support can come in extremely handy to overwhelm opponents. Dragon spam is also never bad, and there is little that wants to actually switch in to powerful Dark Pulses.

Sylveon created a nice synergy with Heatran, allowing it to pin many opponents by overwhelming them with spread attacks. The Sylveon set that is used is rather unconventional but works perfectly for the team.

Lastly, we added Terrakion, which threatens nearly everything with powerful Close Combats, Kangaskhan in particular, while being able to support with Rock Slide flinches and Quick Guard.

Team in-depth

Venusaur-Mega @ Venusaurite
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 96 SpA / 84 SpD / 56 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Leech Seed
- Protect

Venusaur-Mega is actually a fairly underused Pokemon right now, which is a complete shame because it has an exciting niche and works great defensively. Offensively you can still pose a threat while you also can outstall your opponent with Leech Seed and Protects. Many people also do not properly prepare for this at all. When people look for Grass checks they will probably go for something like Heatran, Charizard, or Jirachi for it defensively.

We went for two STAB attacks to make Venusaur a potent threat both defensively as offensively. Giga Drain allows for some nice regeneration, which paired with Leech Seed can be extremely tough to break down. Sludge Bomb bothers Sylveon and Mega Gardevoir, as well as opposing Grass-types such as Amoonguss, or Dragons such as Hydreigon and Latios, which suddenly don't have a free switch-in any more and have to risk damage and a 30% poison chance. Leech Seed obviously gives it more longevity, as already explained previously.

The EV spread was made by Yoda and me quite a while ago and lives a 252+ Talonflame Life Orb Brave Bird, a 140+ Hoopa-Unbound Life Orb Hyperspace Hole, a 252+ Mega Gardevoir Psychic, a 252 Life Orb Latios Psychic, and lastly outspeeds bulky Rotom variants

Other options: You could drop one of the STAB attacks or Protect for Sleep Powder. The one drawback to using Venusaur over Amoonguss is the lack of Sleep Powder without having to drop another vital move. Protect is too crucial in order to keep yourself alive and improve longevity while you also want both STAB attacks to not get entirely walled.

For the EV spread you could also shift your Speed EVs into Special Attack EVs to increase your power if you don't consider outspeeding Rotom-Wash important. It is quite useful to outspeed it before a potential Volt Switch or Will-O-Wisp though.

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 56 HP / 4 Def / 192 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
- Substitute
- Protect

Heatran is such a powerful Pokemon in the metagame currently, being a powerful Special attacker, being able to pivot out Fairies and other opponents, beat Sun and opposing Fires almost completely, and being able to just close out games once it finds the opportunity to set up a free Substitute. We chose Leftovers for more longevity once you're behind a Substitute, because you usually keep your Heatran alive longer to heal more than 25% from a Sitrus Berry.

Heat Wave and Earth Power are just the standard coverage moves for Heatran. Eruption would obviously not mesh well with Substitute whilst Flash Cannon doesn't hit anything in particular that your other moves do apart from Dragons, which is not relevant. Protect just finishes the set.

The EVs make sure it is on a SubLefties number, which isn't too relevant so if you don't care about it you can just go 252/252.

Other options: Shuca Berry is an option, albeit not a very powerful one. You should generally just avoid getting attacked by Landorus-Therian in general. Also you're chipping your own health away with Substitutes, so Shuca isn't really that useful.

Flamethrower is a possibility over Heat Wave, even though I haven't tried that myself. I prefer Heat Wave for the spread, but you can give Flamethrower a go, I guess. Another option is Fire Blast, which is more risky but is even more powerful.

Gyarados @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge
- Dragon Dance
- Protect

I have never really been an avid user of Gyarados but I was surprised with how much work this actually puts in during games. Intimidate is incredibly powerful versus all the common physical attackers. For that reason, Gyarados works well as a lead most of the time, being able to bother Landorus-Therian with an Intimidate. I chose Safety Goggles because I always like having two sleep switch-ins on my team, so I don't get entirely dominated by Amoonguss under Trick Room.

The purpose of the set is to both pivot physical attackers out while trying to find free opportunities to set up Dragon Dance. Once Dragon Dance is up, Gyarados usually freely gets a few powerful attacks off. Waterfall is its STAB, which comes with the added benefit of a flinch chance. Stone Edge hits Volcanion and other Waters, I guess. Just a powerful move to chip your opponent in general.

The EV spread is simple and its purpose is to just outspeed threats after a Dragon Dance while still hitting powerful attacks.

Other options: A defensive Gyarados is possible too, with Thunder Wave and Taunt and stuff, even though I don't think that's entirely necessary.

Lum Berry could be nice, to beat Will-O-Wisp Heatrans or people fishing for burns with Steam Eruption with Volcanion. Alternatively, Wacan Berry :^)

Also Bounce could be used over Stone Edge so you don't get dunked on by Grasses but honestly they'll just Protect on you and you'll lose momentum.

Hydreigon @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 212 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Tailwind
- Protect

Hydreigon is probably one of my favourite, if not the favourite, Special attacker in Doubles OU. It is incredibly potent as a special attacker while also being able to support with Tailwind.

The set is rather standard. Draco Meteor just heavily dents and OHKOs such a significant part of the metagame, even though it can make it easy to force Hydreigon out on good switches due to the special attack drop. Dark Pulse is more spammable but does no damage to Fairies either.
Tailwind is for the support and giving the edge versus hyper offense teams that don't have speed control.

The EV spread makes sure Hydreigon outspeeds max speed base 80s, with a little added bulk so you take hits a bit better.

Other options: Fire Blast can be used if you're afraid of struggling versus Grass-types such as Amoonguss and Ferrothorn. Earth Power can also be used to improve the Heatran matchup. Neither of these moves are truly recommendable though, as your teammates benefit extremely from Tailwind.
Roost can also be used over Tailwind to give Hydreigon more longevity.

Chople Berry (flex)

Sylveon (F) @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 188 SpA / 4 SpD / 36 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 1 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 SpD
- Hyper Voice
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Helping Hand
- Protect

Sylveon is actually a really fantastic Pokemon right now, with impressive defensive stats and the ability to threaten so much simply with extremely powerful Hyper Voices. The set is rather unorthodox but works fantastically well. Pixie Plate gives it that one little bump in damage that's actually extremely useful.

Hidden Power Ground punishes Steel-types such as Heatran and Aegislash for making easy plays. Helping Hand supports Heat Wave Heatran, Close Combats from Terrakion, or just anything in general. The set works surprisingly well, throwing off opponents that play with Heatran as their Sylveon check, or people that think Jirachi + Azumarill is a check to Sylveon Heatran, but you just dunk them with Helping Hand Heat Wave.

The EV spread makes sure it outspeeds base 100s in Tailwind, 252 HP / 28 Def lives a 252+ Kangaskhan Return.

Other options: Leftovers gives you more longevity, but you lose out on the significant damage improvement from Pixie Plate. Life Orb in return gives you more damage but you lose out on longevity. Hitting Steel-types harder with Hidden Power Ground is pretty significant though.

Terrakion @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Quick Guard
- Protect

Terrakions great speed tier, powerful physical attacks, and good coverage makes it such a potent physical attacker. Having offensive pressure against many common threats such as Kangaskhan and Charizard-Y is just amazing. Even though it gets crippled significantly by the most common Pokemon in the tier and annoying Will-O-Wisps I feel like this is actually a very underrated Pokemon in the tier. Life Orb is a reliable item for extra damage output.

Close Combats hits extremely hard, being able to pressure Steels which Venusaur and Sylveon struggle with. Rock Slide is the secondary STAB attack that is spread and has a lovely flinch chance. Quick Guard reduces the pressure AzuRachi usually has on a game, while also ignoring Yellow Magic from Thundurus, Fake Outs from Kangaskhan, and other silly priority moves.

Other options: Stone Edge can be used over Rock Slide for extra damage, but you miss out on the spread and the sick flinch chance.

Taunt can be used to shut down stuff like Trick Room more easily but honestly you have Substitute Heatran and Hydreigon so

Florist used Rock Tomb on this team but florist is a baddie confirmed

Threatlist

Terracott
Terracott is becoming increasingly popular due to the amount of bulky teams there are right now and this team is just a perfect example of what Terracott 6-0s. I have no answer to this and anyone with a brain just wins. My only hope is winning the Terrakion mirror.

Gardevoir-Mega + Amoonguss under Trick Room
Once Gardevoir gets Trick Room up it can be quite difficult to play around it. My one switchin, Venusaur, can't switch in to attacks, and my other switch in gets heavily dented by Hyper Voice and doesn't do anything to Amoonguss. Obviously this can be played around with Heatran.

Hax
In testing I noticed that this team loses to hax exclusively. Especially if you play against DaAwesomeDude1 :|

Shoutouts

So recently I've made quite a few RMTs so I don't want to spam any shoutouts and annoy you guys with my attention whoring. I still wanted to shoutout a few people I didn't really talk to before.

Camilas, you're my favourite Ubers girl (◕◡◕✿) just stop outplaying me so much in friendlies okay?

Drake'sProdigy muy bonito persona, you're a busy as fuck person and I'm still disappointed you cut me off for the ghosting tour but talking to you is just really comfortable and nice so I wanted to compliment you on that :D

hellpowna I really hope you won't quit because I like you as a person and we'll just win SPL soon okay?

Ice Tea we don't talk that much but I just wanted to tag you for support for grand slam. I really hope you'll win because you keep stylin on these people like wew
also your dog is really cute
and so are you

Threw (flex)

DaAwesomeDude1 we didn't talk much before but I played like 3 epic games versus you that inspired me to write this RMT to waste my monday on. also you're super good at doubles :D

Checkmater i just wanted to

you

Matame OMG IM SO SORRY I FORGOT

So I'm not done yet guys
I want to make SPL, this isn't the last time u've heard of me ;D

And I ain't even mad yo, I'll stab you with a screwdriver
That shit ain't even rhyme nigga, I'm fucked up out my mind nigga

 

[Matame]

thought I deserved two shoutouts after no shoutout in tears but ok,,,,(edit: nvmm)

Cool team. Mega Venusaur is a solid af mega that gives you a lot of options defensively, and I think you've supported it thoroughly. I think Heatran is a solid enough answer to Gard room ft Amoong but I agree with Terracott being a big weakness. With your fastest mon being Terrakion, and your only form of speed control realistically being Hydrei (i wouldn't really count Hydrei) Terracott is a big weakness, along with Whims gar, Weavile Terrak and other combinations that are used to exploit slower fat teams that are becoming popular. I'd try out Scarf Hoopa-U. This gives you both a way to instantly threaten it and prevent setup (or they can't recognise its scarf and you bait them into staying in) and also a back up plan vs it if in the worse case scenario it is able to set up. I also feel you have sufficient enough Fire resists in Terrakion and Heatran.

Hoopa set

Hoopa-Unbound @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magician
EVs: 192 Atk / 64 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Hyperspace Fury
- Hyperspace Hole
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Gunk Shot
(You could probably change hp ice for ice punch and add hp steel if you really dislike your Diancie Matchup, although i think Venu is sufficient enough)

Good luck with your team and future tournaments!

 

[Idyll]

This team looks good for the most part, the structure seems sound and from an offensive perspective you can hit most stuff that you need to. However, this teams has problems against faster stuff for sure; opponents using fast Pokemon such as Mega Diancie, Mega Metagross, Latios, Talonflame, and probs even Terrakion (like you mentioned, you're really vulnerable to TerraCott) can just pick and pop your mons with ease while you don't have much counterplay since you have nothing that can directly pressure them. This is because the team is really slow and is overreliant on Speed control to have a better chance against said threats; playing defensively with your bulky stuff will eventually leave you really weakened, opening yourself up to a simple cleanup job. There are also some little quirks with the team that could be changed in order to just fare better.

First chance I'd recommend is using Choice Scarf Landorus-T over Terrakion (haha classic Memo xDDD). This is because Scarf Dog gives you the speed safety net mon that the team really needs; in particular, it helps a great ton against Mega Diancie, which looks like it can DStorm as much as it wants if Mega Venu isn't on the field or it has the right partner. Simply put, Scarf Dog gives you better matchups against the faster stuff that looked problematic before. It also helps against TerraCott! Landorus-T can check the same things that Terrakion does too, meaning you lose little of consequence; you only have somewhat worse matchups against Fire-types and Mega Kangaskhan for losing resistances, but in all honesty your team still fares well against them (and Lando-T can still win against the latter). Bisharp looks p manageable even with two intims, too.

My next suggestion is changing to Mega Venu set with Synthesis over Leech Seed and Sleep Powder over Protect. The main draw of Mega Venusaur, especially over Ferrothorn, is that it's a really bulky mon with respectable offensive presence that's also a pain in the ass to take out. However, without reliable recovery in Synthesis, it becomes easier to whittle and take down. Synthesis helps more with Mega Venusaur's longevity compared to Leech Seed as it's much more reliable; it doesn't need to hit something in order to actually heal, and the recovery is actually pretty sizable and comes more instantly. Sleep Powder over Protect is so that you can just neuter opposing threats, helping it last longer, give teammates more breathing room, and generally just helping you out a lot more; in particular, it's useful for times where you're just getting pinned, it's nifty for stopping bs against opposing Amoong, and it can give Gyara opportunities to DD up. With Mega Venusuar's really high bulk, it can actually get away with not using Protect since it's able to take a hit with ease and with Synthesis it's usually healthy and safe.

Last changes I'd recommend are on some spreads. The SubLefties thing with Heatran will rarely, if ever, be relevant due to the dynamic nature of doubles play; you'd be better with a simpler 24 HP / 232 SpA / 252 Spe spread on Heatran, which gives you more power while preventing Scarf Lando-T Rock Slide from ever breaking a Sub. On Hydreigon, I suggest just straight 252s with Timid in order to better check opposing Kyurem-B; the said threat can actually just demolish you even if you're still using Terrakion as it has a good matchup against your team across the board, Sylveon still being outrun and pressured depending on situations. Without max Speed, you're opening yourself up to Timid Kyu-Bs, a trend in this world where Jolly Lando-T's exist. (Timid also helps against those!) One last thing: I calced your Sylveon spread and it doesn't live "252+ Kangaskhan Return" (assuming Mega? lol). You'd need 252 HP / 92 Def or 56 HP / 200 Def for that, the choice between either depending on whether you prefer having EVs on offenses or balanced bulk. If you're not interested, just take 24 Def off and put them on SpA for the sake of efficiency.

Lando-T

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- U-turn
- Superpower

Stone Edge is fine too if you care

Whatever you decide to do, GL

 

[Drake'sProdigy]

Saw this between going from school to work (busy person alert) I'm touched for your shoutout, it's been a pleasure to help develop your horrific OU skills, this team is fresh according to my extensive doubles knowledge (I made it to 1200 on the doubles ladder once).

 

[FloristtheBudew]

One last thing: I calced your Sylveon spread and it doesn't live "252+ Kangaskhan Return" (assuming Mega? lol). You'd need 252 HP / 92 Def or 56 HP / 200 Def for that, the choice between either depending on whether you prefer having EVs on offenses or balanced bulk. If you're not interested, just take 24 Def off and put them on SpA for the sake of efficiency.

It was meant to be jolly mega kangaskhan as the benchmark. Elise muddled that up :)