General Doubles Metagame Thread

-FUCK- said:

VGC players use Garchomp competitively, but they get to take advantage of his evasion ability

Click to expand...

Bam, the ONLY reason people use it on any team that doesn't use its resistances at all.

This thread has slowed down a bit, so since I was playing around w/ a team I slapped together for a bit to test out some ideas I had, I figured I'd post on my findings:

Here's the team I used:
Ik it has flaws but it was mostly for testing, and it peaked in the 1930s and #19 on the alt tony the superhero, so it had some modest success.

On the topic of Garchomp, I agree with Ace Emerald. When I was using it, I found that while its Ground STAB was useful to hit Steels and it has a nice Speed tier, but Dragon Claw really is too weak. Combined with the fact that plenty of Pokemon run Ice type coverage moves, Garchomp will oftentimes find itself too weak to KO things before taking a lot of damage. I do think that its typing and Speed tier offer plenty of reason to use Garchomp on certain teams, but it's certainly not something I'd just put onto a team the way I might with Hitmontop or something.

In the past I discussed CM Suicune, but it was pretty lackluster when I was using it this time. While its physical bulk was great to ease my matchup against Sun, it is pretty weak without a few boosts, which it struggles to snag in the metagame (although me using Scald probably didn't help with that). Also, the fact that there's no room for Protect was problematic on more than one occassion.

The set that I found the most success with was an offensive support Volcarona I used. The EVs were meant to outspeed neutral Base 70s while giving it as much power as possible. The idea came from a few VGC teams I saw that used Rage Powder Volcarona, and since I didn't want to use other Rage Powder/Follow Me users since they didn't have as much offensive power, and it was very useful thanks to its Fighting resistance, high Special Attack, and Flame Body among other things. Sitrus Berry was chosen since the healing could be useful to redirect multiple attacks in one turn instead of having it die. So yeah, RP Volcarona, try it out.

I like the idea of Rage Powder, but I find Amoongus a better user overall, due to its Fighting resist, spore and regenerator, paired with its bulk. You could even troll with RP and Effect Spore for Fake Out leads, but Regenerator is such a great ability to abuse. I'll do some tests with a new team sometime soon and post my results.

In other news, my old Sun Team works. I did replace Heatran and Terrakion with Scarf Chandelure and Max Defensive Kyub, which is performing even better now, but the core of Tales/Lilligant/Cress/Ferro is still very, very effective.

RP + Effect Spore and RP + Flame Body are pretty similar except for the fact that you'll only get 1 status w/ Flame Body. It also screws over Fake Out users better due to higher Speed and the fact that most of them are physically oriented, meaning they won't enjoy being burned. Also, Volcarona also has a Fighting resistance, and while it does miss out on Spore, it also has higher Speed and Special Attack, meaning it can also dish out plenty of damage when necessary unlike Amoonguss, so that comparison isn't entirely true.

Audiosurfer said:

RP + Effect Spore and RP + Flame Body are pretty similar except for the fact that you'll only get 1 status w/ Flame Body. It also screws over Fake Out users better due to higher Speed and the fact that most of them are physically oriented, meaning they won't enjoy being burned. Also, Volcarona also has a Fighting resistance, and while it does miss out on Spore, it also has higher Speed and Special Attack, meaning it can also dish out plenty of damage when necessary unlike Amoonguss, so that comparison isn't entirely true.

Click to expand...

Why not use both??? RP Volc first turn while you spore something with Amoongus, then QD with Volc while you RP off of Amoongus. The only thing here is spread moves, but Amoongus can threaten Waters and Rock types, while Volc can threaten even Fire Types with its awesome SpAtk.

Like I said, I'll run some tests later and post the results before I make a definitive answer, but either setup should work, and Volc definitely has the surprise advantage.

What's the point of Abomasnow/Hail in this metagame?

No miss Blizzard that hits both opponents

Abomasnow not only cancels out other weathers, but provides your team with a 120 BP spread attack that can't miss, doesn't hit your teammate, and has great coverage. On top of that, hazards are rare, and the only common Rock move is Rock Slide. If you build your team right, it matches up well against all of the other weathers out there as well. There is literally no downside to Hail in this metagame.

You know what might be good for this thread? Changing the topic of the week. I've been waiting for that to happen since February.

New topic: Weather Vs Goodstuffs

Trick Room/Tailwind can fall under Goodstuffs in this discussion.

[5:54pm] Pwnemon: "New topic: Weather Vs Goodstuffs"
[5:55pm] carl: most good teams use both

^ Basically that. a team can absolutely function without weather, but it doesn't work both ways; a team that isn't prepared to work outside of its intended weather is gonna suck. Like Mantyke noted in his recent Smog article, a good Rain team will be prepared to beat non-rain—even if it means using things that don't benefit from Rain at all. This, obviously, extends to all other weather teams, and even every other team archetype, whether it be running a Scarfer on your TR team or what have you. overall though, there's not much to analyze here, mostly because:

[5:54pm] Pwnemon: weather teams work, goodstuff teams work
[5:54pm] Pwnemon: they are both similar in that they are teams that work if they are good teams
[5:54pm] Pwnemon: at least narrow it down to something where we can actually compare the two, like hail vs sun...

double posting because all must hail the words of grand master Zach:

[box][01:47am] Zach: it's singles players' mindsets in general
[01:48am] Zach: knee-jerk reaction to identify a team based on its main gimmick
[01:48am] Zach: "rain" "trick room" "tailwind"
[01:48am] Zach: "that team has a politoed LABEL IT RAIN AND WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN GIMMICK"
[01:48am] Zach: ^the type of thinking I'm talking about that drives me nuts
[01:49am] Zach: if it's
[01:49am] Zach: "rainroom"
[01:49am] Zach: well sure cool you told me its gimmicks
[01:49am] Zach: thank you I appreciate that, now what are the 6 mons besides Politoed[/box]

I admit, I personally happen to fall into this trap way too often. I got caught in the pervasive singles mindset of 'weather wars,' where it's not individual Pokemon but playstyles that win you games. Well, let me tell you folks that is wrong as hell in doubles. I spent far too many battles going 'he has hail, I have rain, I must ensure rain wins' rather than assessing each individual Pokemon based on its strengths and weaknesses and determining that Scizor, Hitmontop, Kyurem are going to be a lot more useful for my endgame strategy than my rain abusers. This probably led to a lot of losses I didn't have to take. After my mind was expanded / blown by this revelation, zach and i played a couple of matches together. the first was kind of shitty because he was using a vgc team that wasn't even particularly great in vgc, but the second is here. I'm certain that without that advice he just gave me, I would have lost. When I realized that Sun was going to be up nearly the entire battle, instead of frantically re-switching politoed like a madman (which would have led to a sure loss), I focused on taking down his Pokemon one-by-one, even when I was in the wrong weather. Because that's the secret: whether or not your opponent's favored field condition is up, they can't win if all their pokemon are dead. it sounds so stupid, but like most other people here, i came in with singles experience, and this is nothing short of a goddamn revelation.

What do you people think about Shifting Gears Genesect for doubles? It can carry a powerful Explosion, it can use Blaze Kick on the sun and has good resistances. I suppose a Blaze Kick set is sort of a dead weight against Rain, but you have a few other options.

Pwnemon said:

double posting because all must hail the words of grand master Zach:

[box][01:47am] Zach: it's singles players' mindsets in general
[01:48am] Zach: knee-jerk reaction to identify a team based on its main gimmick
[01:48am] Zach: "rain" "trick room" "tailwind"
[01:48am] Zach: "that team has a politoed LABEL IT RAIN AND WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN GIMMICK"
[01:48am] Zach: ^the type of thinking I'm talking about that drives me nuts
[01:49am] Zach: if it's
[01:49am] Zach: "rainroom"
[01:49am] Zach: well sure cool you told me its gimmicks
[01:49am] Zach: thank you I appreciate that, now what are the 6 mons besides Politoed[/box]

I admit, I personally happen to fall into this trap way too often. I got caught in the pervasive singles mindset of 'weather wars,' where it's not individual Pokemon but playstyles that win you games. Well, let me tell you folks that is wrong as hell in doubles. I spent far too many battles going 'he has hail, I have rain, I must ensure rain wins' rather than assessing each individual Pokemon based on its strengths and weaknesses and determining that Scizor, Hitmontop, Kyurem are going to be a lot more useful for my endgame strategy than my rain abusers. This probably led to a lot of losses I didn't have to take. After my mind was expanded / blown by this revelation, zach and i played a couple of matches together. the first was kind of shitty because he was using a vgc team that wasn't even particularly great in vgc, but the second is here. I'm certain that without that advice he just gave me, I would have lost. When I realized that Sun was going to be up nearly the entire battle, instead of frantically re-switching politoed like a madman (which would have led to a sure loss), I focused on taking down his Pokemon one-by-one, even when I was in the wrong weather. Because that's the secret: whether or not your opponent's favored field condition is up, they can't win if all their pokemon are dead. it sounds so stupid, but like most other people here, i came in with singles experience, and this is nothing short of a goddamn revelation.

Click to expand...

That's a damn good summation of Doubles mindsets, and probably something I should think about myself. My sun team would do well in rain because I built it to counter rain, yet it doesn't do so hot against something like SandStall, mostly because I'm not thinking correctly. A team that can function well in and out of its weather or setup will do a million times better than a team that dominates in one weather and flounders in anything else.

Great double post Pwnemon. Maybe it will help me out considering how poorly I played this week at OMPL.

Audiosurfer, super cool team you got there xP I particularly like Scizor, since it pairs well with Suicune, Hitmontop, Garchomp, and Volcarona to an extent. Rage Powder Volcarona also seems useful as an offensive partner to remove Ferrothorn, Abomasnow, and Cresselia that may give this team a headache.

I had played around with CM Rest Rain Manaphy, so I can understand your frustration with your CM Suicune, which shares identical pitfalls. Why not try Tail Glow Manaphy? All you need is 1 turn to end up with +3 Manaphy and Blizz Spam! You can also have a spare slot for Protect instead of Rest now.

Pwnemon, imo, your conclusion applies to Singles as well. A Rain team is merely a team with Politoed in it - the other 5 Pokemon can be as weather-dependent or weather-independent as the player may choose.

If your team is mainly using weather to disrupt the opponent's team, then keeping up your weather have little effect in winning the game. However, if your win condition (ie Kingdra) depends on weather, then not having it up would slow you down. Your replay illustrated that. You won despite not keeping Rain up, but you would have won more easily if you had kept Rain up longer by switching out Politoed. That is why I like having Rain Dance on my Rain team, because it doesn't force me to lose turns switching out and bringing back Politoed to re-summon Rain.

Topic of the Week 3

Sorry for 2x posting, but I want to put up a new Topic of the Week (or month / who knows? :X). Before I do, though, I want to reward the participants from the previous topic on Trick Room. Best Poster goes to Mr.Ehttp://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4598906&postcount=644 for nailing some big points in his post - namely that 1) TR is a powerful strategy because it circumvents other forms of speed control in Doubles, 2) Ghost-types are among the best TR setters thanks to their immunity to Fake Out, and 3) How TR teams can make use of their invested bulk outside of TR. Other Quality posters include Exeggutorhttp://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4599394&postcount=647, Braveriushttp://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4601498&postcount=652, Mr.lolhttp://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4600926&postcount=651, and Audiosurferhttp://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4604899&postcount=673. Exeggutor shared and explained in great detail about her Hail TR team, while Braverius told us the reason that makes Trick Room more potent in Doubles than in VGC. Mr.lol provided an wholesome response to this topic, as well as providing various ways to counter Trick Room. Audiosurfer also showed in his posts how his and his opposing team went about in dealing with Trick Room when building their teams. Joim also received many points for being an overall active participant in this topic! Here is the point breakdown:

+4 - Joim (4 posts)
+3 - Mr.E, Audiosurfer (2 posts)
+2 - Exeggutor, Braverius, Mr.lol,
+1 - youngjake93, Arcticblast, Firestorm, StarmanXL

OK, the Third Topic of the week is THIS: Benchmarks for EVs!



If you know the VGC crowd, you know how elaborate their EV spreads end up becoming to fully optimize their Pokemon. In this topic we'll be exploring the various benchmarks that one may use to help facilitate this process. The benchmarks can be divided into three groups - Attack, Defense, and Speed. Speed benchmarks are the most obvious ones, where people take note of various speed thresholds for their Pokemon to outrun. Attack benchmarks can mostly be seen in tanks or mixed sweepers, who must spread their EVs thinner than pure physical or special sweepers. For this benchmark, people aim to EV their offenses just enough to KO a defending mon of interest with high consistency (example Atk benchmarks - EVs to: OHKO a min HP Latios or a max HP Chople Tar). Defense benchmarks are useful when distributing EVs into Defense, to ensure your defensive Pokemon survives a common move from a prevalent threat (example Def benchmarks - EVs to survive: Close Combat from Terrakion).

Here is what we'll do for this topic:

• List and Explain some important Attack, Defense, and Speed benchmarks. Higher priority goes towards Defense, then Attack, and finally Speed.
• Create and / or Share some customized spread of your own that takes advantages of such benchmarks. Offer replays of this spread in action!

At the end of our discussion, I aim to compile a list of benchmarks and quality examples that were given in this topic as a reference that we can all use when teambuilding ;)

Since this has been around for a while and is a tad different then VGC and also is harder to get into then most metas I feel like a Viablity Ranking Thread would be nice to help newer people.

It depends on your team. If you use a bulky stall team with only one or two offensive powerhouses (likely to be bulky as well), you can run speed-lowering natures as well as 0 Speed IV's on a few mons (not all though), even without utilizing TR yourself, as you don't need that speed but are certainly going to need as much bulk as you can get.

If your team is fast and frail (not recommended because lol Trick Room, and some things that have hellish bulk and T-Wave), a lot of speed is obviously crucial.

Crucial to note is that, when you don't use Speed, you need bulk. If you don't have either, you suck. Something that can outspeed Terrakion and Volcarona without boosts and Scarf is nice (less necessary if you opt to run TR though, as TR is bulky in general and you outspeed them in the twisted dimensions).

If you opt the bulky way, you just need a whole whack of bulk. Think of Cresselia, Ferrothorn and other things that have similar bulk. You don't even need to hit hard in this case, as stall relying on passive damage (with a bulky powerhouse or two, like Conkeldurr or Reuniclus), is quite viable. It brought my mediocre alt straight into the top 50.

Out of interest, in the show Dome King Tucker uses Arcanine and Swampert as the PERFECT battle combination.
Does that work here? Fire and Water, Arcanine and Swampert as a lead pair when going in?

Finally! EV discussion! I'm definitely going to post a few spreads of my own as well as make some common spreads from VGC a little more accessible. I should have a good write up by this evening, so I guess I am reserving this post.

optimizing EVs is part of getting to know your own team. when making a new team, I stick to 252/252 spreads and then modify them after I've tested past my first draft when I get to know exactly what hits I need to take or what I need to outspeed. for example on a rain team I used, I found my kingdra often getting OHKO'd by gemmed hitmontop's close combat when i wanted to conserve my draco meteor, so i changed to a slightly bulkier spread of 108 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 144 Speed, which lived close combats and other stuff like thundurus-t thunderbolts, not to mention the fact that its subs were slightly bulkier (letting it handle amoonguss giga drain... I'm not asking for miracles here lol) and still let me outspeed ludicolo and ohko it with draco meteor because hot damn I fucking hate ludicolo. even though the difference in bulk wasn't all that great, the fact that I calculated what kingdra could and couldn't take made me more confident when I switched kingdra in and out and it gave me more leeway when muddy water missed. similarly, when calcing for damage I knew exactly how much damage I would do to a certain pokemon and how much prior damage I would need to ohko it. an example of this is my rotom-w whose thunderbolt does just enough damage to put metagross in kill range for my jolly landorus-t while the leftover evs go into its defenses to make it more efficient at spamming t-wave.

so in short I guess, it's good to have goals in mind when EVing but you should try to remember how much damage move x does against move y so you don't click rock slide and automatically assume it's going to ohko that tornadus.

Well when I EV for Doubles since there aren't too many established unique spreads I have to worry about outspeeding, I usually just look at the OU Speed Tier list and EV my mon to hit a certain Speed benchmark. Generally though, it depends on what role I'm trying to have a mon fulfill. For example:


Volcarona @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 96 Spd / 252 SAtk / 160 HP
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Bug Buzz
- Rage Powder
- Protect

I wanted my Volcarona to be an offensive support Pokemon when I made this moveset, so I started off with 252 EVs in Special Attack and a Modest Nature. Then, I looked at what it would need to outspeed to fulfill its role. I gave it enough EVs to outspeed neutral base 80s like Mamoswine and Venusaur so I could hit them with Heat Wave before they could strike back. Then I simply put the remaining EVs into HP since I wanted it to be able to redirect hits with Rage Powder

In terms of EVing to meet certain defensive benchmarks, an example of me doing this was with my Swampert set. I looked at the role I wanted Swampert to perform, then I played around with a damage calc to find a spread that would allow Swampert to take hts from notable Pokemon that I needed it to beat (since I wanted it to beat Fires and Steels, I calced against things like Metagross and Victini). In general, the best way to go about EVing a Pokemon for me is to think about what role I need to perform with a given mon relative to the rest of the team, and then allow it to either KO or live hits from common threats that it needs to beat to fulfill its role.

Here's a few sets that I've used that either I myself have come up with, or have found that are less than standard and still highly effective. Some are VGC sets too, but less than known here in Doubles.

First off, my favorite ChloroAbuser, Lilligant:


Lilligant @ Lum Berry
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 Spd / 72 SAtk / 184 HP
Modest Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power Fire/Ground
- Protect

This Lilligant makes a perfect Sun Team lead against opposing weather starters, Scizor/Heatran depending on the HP you run, Sleeps things, and just lives a bunch of things it normally wouldn't. I love it against Rain Teams, as Leaf Stom OHKOs Defensive Politoed everytime, does 80-95% to max SpDef Hippodown, 80-94% to 188 HP / 0 SpD Abomasnow with HP Fire outside of sun, and can even 2HKO TTar in Sand, except for the whole SpDef Drop thing. It's honestly just a great mon that no one ever really sees coming, so the surprise factor makes it even better. Give it a shit, as with Lum Berry, you can get out of a Sleep or a Paralyze and Sleep back, especially against things like Thundurus-I, which tend to give Sun Teams some issues. Protect is for the obvious fake Out leads you see everywhere at the moment. That's pretty much it for Lilligant.

The next set is a famous VGC set of Cresselia and Heatran.


Heatran @ Chople Berry
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 244 HP / 52 Def / 76 SAtk / 4 SDef / 132 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
- Protect
- Substitute

Meet one of the craziest Heatran sets you'll ever see. This is the WolfeTran, made famous during the VGC '12 Master's Tournament by Wolfe Glick.

The other partner is Cresselia of course.


Cresselia @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 52 Def / 4 SAtk / 124 SDef / 76 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Skill Swap
- Psyshock
- Sunny Day
- Icy Wind

And this is Skill Swap Cresselia with Icy Wind and Sunny Day, making it Heatran's awesome partner.

Why are the descriptions so short? Because Wolfey has already posted the entire write up on Nuggetbridge of his team, which is something anyone interested in Doubles should probably look at, as it gives a lot of sets, ideas, strategies, etc that have been used throughout VGC and can be adapted.

I'll look up a couple more of my sets at some point, but for now, I'll leave this here as is.

BlankZero said:

The next set is a famous VGC set of Cresselia and Heatran.

Heatran @ Chople Berry
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 244 HP / 52 Def / 76 SAtk / 4 SDef / 132 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
- Protect
- Substitute

Meet one of the craziest Heatran sets you'll ever see. This is the WolfeTran, made famous during the VGC '12 Master's Tournament by Wolfe Glick.

The other partner is Cresselia of course.

Cresselia @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 52 Def / 4 SAtk / 124 SDef / 76 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Skill Swap
- Psyshock
- Sunny Day
- Icy Wind

And this is Skill Swap Cresselia with Icy Wind and Sunny Day, making it Heatran's awesome partner.

Why are the descriptions so short? Because Wolfey has already posted the entire write up on Nuggetbridge of his team, which is something anyone interested in Doubles should probably look at, as it gives a lot of sets, ideas, strategies, etc that have been used throughout VGC and can be adapted.

I'll look up a couple more of my sets at some point, but for now, I'll leave this here as is.

Click to expand...

Before anyone just puts these on a team, keep in mind that those EVs are meant for the VGC metagame when all Pokemon are at level 50. For example, 252 HP / 52 Def on his Cress is there to always survive Dark Gem TTar's Crunch. At lvl 100, you need less EVs to survive the same hits; you only need 40 Def with Cress. Otherwise, these sets are excellent examples of EV optimisation.


EV optimization needs to dependent on the Pokemon, its moves and items, and the team it's on. I'll talk you to through the process i go through to EV a Pokemon. I'm going to use Scrafty as an example, as I feel that he's a good example to showcase.

Generally people use a standard EV spread of 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe Adamant nature. Max HP EVs to maximise his overall bulk, especially considering he has low HP and high Def. Max Attack to deal as much damage as possible. Remainder EVs in Spe. Whilst this is basic and easy, this generally isn't the best way to EV Pokemons.

What do we want to achieve with Scrafty? It's main perks are Fake Out + Intimidate support. We'd like to capitalise on this. To make the most out of this support, we'll be switching Scrafty in and out a lot. And to do that, it needs to be durable. However, we do not want to forget its offensive prowess; we don't want it to become a sitting duck (and remember that its main STABs only have 75 and 80 base power). So ideally we'll like it to survive most attacks, especially the common ons, whilst still hitting hard; that is how many VGC players EV their Pokemon. The best way to do this is to find Attack and Def benchmarks.

Let's start with defense, and a common attack in doubles. VGC players regularly EV their Pokemon to survive this attack.

• 252 SpA Dragon Gem Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Scrafty: 306-360 (91.61 - 107.78%) -- 50% chance to OHKO.

Not very good if we want Scrafty to be durable. Especially considering that if Scarfty survives the hit, it can hit hard Latios with STAB Crunch.

Now look at this:

• 252 SpA Dragon Gem Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Scrafty: 282-333 (84.43 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That's much better. Ideally, you'll like at least 84 SpD EVs for Scrafty to survive this hit. Given how common the attack is, it's worth the Attack drop.

What if the Latios was Modest though? It'll have a 56.25% chance to OHKO Scrafty. Latios rarely don't run a Modest nature, so usually it's not worth dropping your Attack to survive a rare attack. However, if your team would otherwise be very weak to Modest Latios, then it may well be worth the extra investment to survive this hit; you don't want most of your team to be OHKOed by Latios' Dragon Gem do you? Yeah we use Steel-types, but if you're only using one, do you want to have to switch it in every time your opponent's Latios comes out and if you know it's Modest? Or if you don't need a hard hitting Scrafty and don't care about the Attack drop, it may well be worth guaranteeing that your Scrafty cannot be OHKOed by Latios.

Now another common attack is Adamant 252 Atk Hitmontop's Close Combat.

• -1 252+ Atk Fighting Gem Hitmontop Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Scrafty: 306-362 (91.61 - 108.38%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

Another attack that is so common, you'll want to survive it. Normally Scrafty holds a Chople Berry for this, so you don't need to invest in Defense. However, if you run any other item (minus Focus Sash cause that's stupid on Scrafty), then this will become an issue.

To never be OHKOed, you need 100 Def. Assuming the Hitmontop gets hit by Intimidate; good luck surviving CC without it. This will also let you sruvive Jolly Terrakion's LO CC.

• -1 252+ Atk Fighting Gem Hitmontop Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 100 Def Scrafty: 282-332 (84.43 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

So if you want a Scrafty that survives common attacks, you should use a 252 HP / 100 Def / 84 SpD / 72 Atk with an Adamant nature. Or 252 HP / 156 Atk / 100 Def with a Careful nature (you get more stat points and more SpD whilst losing 2 Atk point; I'll talk about this later). I could EV Scrafty to always survive Fighting Gem Hi Jump kick in a similar vein ala Modest Dragon Gem Latios if I really wanted insurance, but I feel that such a move is far too unlikely to consider (even though Modest Latios is rare).

So now we have a Scrafty that can survive the common attacks I want it to survive. But with all this removal of Atk EVs, we've had to pay the price of losing out on offensive proweness: Let's look at Crunch vs Leftovers Cress:

• 252+ Atk Scrafty Crunch vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Cresselia: 168-200 (37.83 - 45.04%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
• 72+ Atk Scrafty Crunch vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Cresselia: 144-170 (32.43 - 38.28%) -- 2.08% chance to 3HKO

And against Sitrus Cress:

• 252+ Atk Scrafty Crunch vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Cresselia: 168-200 (30.27 - 36.03%) -- 43.58% chance to 3HKO
• 72+ Atk Scrafty Crunch vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Cresselia: 144-170 (25.94 - 30.63%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Considering how common and powerful Cress is, that's a big deal. If I were using Chople Berry Scrafty, I would not want to deal so little damage to Cress. With Chople Berry, I can afford to not invest in Def, as Chople protects me from Top's CC. So with 172 Atk vs Leftovers Cress
172+ Atk Scrafty Crunch vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Cresselia: 156-186 (35.13 - 41.89%) -- 83.52% chance to 3HKO.

Whilst not guaranteed, that's a good chance to 3HKO. Especially considering that Fake out may put it into 3HKO range.

If Scrafty is holding an Expert Belt instead of a Chople Berry, however, the 1.2x boost will more than compensate for the Attack lost from investing 100 EVs into Def to survive Top's Close Combat:

• 72+ Atk Expert Belt Scrafty Crunch vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Leftovers Cresselia: 173-204 (38.96 - 45.94%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
• 72+ Atk Expert Belt Scrafty Crunch vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Sitrus Berry Cresselia: 173-204 (31.17 - 36.75%) -- 72.68% chance to 3HKO

In fact, this Scrafty hits harder than Chople 252+ Adamant Scrafty

If I use the EV spread of 252 HP / 156 Atk / 100 Def with a Careful nature that I raised about earlier, this is how the damage calc changes against Sitrus Cress:
156 Atk Expert Belt Scrafty Crunch vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Cresselia: 168-202 (30.27 - 36.39%) -- 51.54% chance to 3HKO
I feel that despite gaining more stat points with this EV spread, the lowered likelihood of a 3HKO on one of the most common Pokemon in the game is not worth it. So i'll stick to my seemingly-inferior-on-paper EV spread but practically superior spread of 252 HP / 72 Atk / 100 Def / 84 SpD with an Adamant nature.

You may have realised that I left Speed out of the occasion. Speed benchmarks are more clearly defined than Atk and Def. If I wanted to outrun 60 base speed Pokemon like Jellicent with no Spe investment, I'd use 20 Spe EVs, or 28 if I wanted to outrun no Spe Tyranitar. However, I don't feel it's worth it. Those EVs would have to come from Def, SpD, HP, or Atk, which are needed to survive Timid Latios' Gem Draco Meteor, Hitmontop's Fighting Gem CC, and deal acceptable damage to Cresselia, and I consider all of these more important than outspeeding the aforementioned Pokemon (especially considering when they may be running Trick Room EV spreads, meaning I don't need Speed EVs to outspeed them). However, I may take 4 or 8 Spe EVs from Attack if I wanted to beat opposing Scrafty to the Fake Out.

If I wanted to use Scrafty on a TR team, I'd change the nature according e.g. Careful to Sassy. Would I lower the Spe IVs to 0? Maybe. This would enable me to speed-tie with other 0 Spe Scrafty in TR. But if I wanted to have a faster Fake Out outside of TR (as Scrafty commonly lead a match), I'd use 3 Spe IVs to outrun them whilst still being slower than -nature 0 Spe IVs base 60s. This would especially be the case if I prefer to keep TR off the field against other TR teams, and that depends on how slow the rest of my team is compared to my opponent's.

I hope you all find this helpful. Even if it's a long field, but when you're trying to make a team as strong as possible, then it's worth the time to maximize the efficacy of your EV spread, instead of trying to reach your team's peak on the ladder when your peak could be higher with a better EV spread.

Excellent example lucariojr! You raise a strong take-home point that these goal-oriented EV customization lets you know your team in a deeper level, particularly the team's shortcomings, which can be mitigated by creating these goal-specific spreads. Knowing better about the capabilities of your team members let you make smarter plays, which can be a difference between a win and a loss.

BlankZero, interesting Lilligant's spread, but you failed to really answer the questions I posed - what is the purpose of your EV spread? Particularly the HP EVs - do they allow Lilligant to survive a common move? Or does the SpA EVs allow Lilligant to O-2HKO some relevant threat to your team? If not, you're probably better off just maxing out its SpA, so it can actually OHKO the mons that it is unable to KO with the current spread.

Also, Wolfe's Heatran spread is a perfect example of making the most out of these benchmarks! Here's a revised spread to better suit our metagame:


Papa Fuego (Heatran) (F) @ Chople Berry
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Def / 56 SAtk / 132 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
- Protect
- Substitute

~ survives Gem Close Combat from Hitmontop with enough health to set up a Sub
~ survives CB / Gem Close Combat from Terrakion
~ It's substitute would not break from Terrakion's Rock Slide
~ Faster than Garchomp after Icy Wind drop

Notice that it is tailor-made for his team, which pairs Heatran with Cresselia. This spread makes the most out of Cresselia's Icy Wind and Skill Swap support, giving Heatran enough Speed to outrun and wall Garchomp after the speed drop and Levitate is passed to it.

lucariojr, Audiosurfer, and Wolfie have started showing some important benchmarks to hit in Doubles:

Attack Benchmark (Opposing Pokemon you want to inflict damage / KO)
- max HP / 40+ Def Cresselia
- max HP Metagross
- -1 Def max HP Victini


Defense Benchmark (Opposing Pokemon's moves you want to tank)

~~~Physical~~~
- CB / Gem V-create from Victini (in or out of sun)
- CB / Gem Close Combat from Terrakion
- Gem Close Combat from Hitmontop
- LO Hi Jump Kick from Blaziken
- +2 Zen Headbutt from Metagross
- Gem Crunch from Tyranitar
- Bug Bite from Scizor
- Rock Slide from Terrakion

~~~Special~~~
- Gem Draco Meteor from Latios

Speed Benchmark
- maximum base 102 Speed (to check Garchomp and below)
- maximum base 80 Speed (to check Mamoswine and Chandelure)
- minimum base 70 Speed (to check Metagross and Hitmontop)
- minimum base 65 Speed (to check Scizor)
- minimum base 61 Speed (to check Tyranitar)

~~~Under Trick Room~~~
- negative base 60 Speed with 0 Spe IVs (to check TR Jellicent)
- negative base 58 Speed with 0 Spe IVs (to check Scrafty)

I hope this post clarified what I am looking for in our discussion. Thanks for the solid start, homies~

PS - Phenomenal post by Darkmalice, will add some of the benchmarks he mentioned!

Sorry for being oblivious but how does Metagross get to +2 for that Zen Headbutt we want our mons to be able to tank?