Doubles (4th Topic in #959!)

[Lagalag4]

I would like to share a replay with you guys. It was a battle against the one and only GuyWhoLikesCapsLock where i use a paralysis goodstuff team and he uses a sand team with a bunch of huge threats. The point of this replay is to encourage switches, since a lot of the switches made in this match were gamechanging, and many of them were really good. It was also one of the two people I met on the ladder today who was really good at doubles, the other being Punchshroom :]

Lagalaga vs GTFOROTFLOL

Also, nice RMTs Punchshroom and Blank :]

[BlankZero]

I faced that same team yesterday, although I won it just using Suicune and Breloom :p

[Crow350]

I was bored last night so I decided to ladder for a few hours; I ended up #1 on the ladder as "the Batterwitch". Just thought I'd post something I noticed.

Why isn't trick room on every team? It really should be as it is the most overpowered move in this metagame, hands down. Honestly, I think it's fair to compare having trick room in doubles to having stealth rocks in singles. There is no team whatsoever that cannot make good use of trick room. With sleep clause in effect, amoonguss can't keep trick room in check. Middle speed trick room is by far the most dangerous type of team in this meta and I didn't even see it once. Anyone have an explanation?

[Aasgier]

Because TR has a few hard counters, most notably Taunt, but stall teams as well.
And don't say "Stall in Doubles? Lol?" because it is possible and I managed to peak at #7 with Rainstall just before the ladder reset, and I still win far more often with Rainstall than I lose (7-8 victories for each loss), and losses against Trick Room are even rarer because my team is built to deal with TR.

Yeah, TR is powerful, but does not ensure a victory.

That being said, TR is better than many give it credit for. But I think many (mostly noobs) also like to play with their OU powerhouses as well as their favorites ('Zard!), and most fan favorites aren't exactly slow, so yeah...
Also, many threat Doubles as an all-out attacking metagame, and as such they don't want to waste slots on "useless" moves like Trick Room.

[Lagalag4]

On every team i make, I always run a Trick Room buster core of 2 pokes that i lead with against Trick Room teams. A lot of people think that Trick Room is completely by far the best strategy, and sure, it is pretty darn good, but there are many ways to put a thorn in the side of it.

· If you want to run RP Amouunguss, it is almost a sitting duck, as well as your TR setter unless it is a Chandelure in which case EQ takes care of it, forcing you to switch out both pokes if you actually want to damage things

· It has -6 Priority, meaning it is extremely weak to Taunt and Sleep, even more so than Tailwind (This is why some people do run Tailwind)

· There is no 3, trick room is pretty dang good :P

[BlankZero]

I counter Trick Room with a combination of Sleep and Phazing. Roar is a great move in this Metagame, stopping setup, including Trick Room with its -7 Priority.

[Crow350]

Those are all fine ways of checking TR, but that wasn't really what I was getting at. What everyone has really said sorta proves there's this preconceived notion of what TR is. Break that notion for a moment if you will. Trick room is excellent utility on any team, being able to reverse the advantage after losing a weather war, slow down your opponent as they tailwind, in addition to the general reverse the opponent's trick room.

We could get ever farther into this by asking what happens when my opponent's trick room team has some fast pokemon, but that's probably a conversation for another day.

[Pocket]

Trick Room is a great utility move to have, no doubt! You don't really need to have a team dedicated to Trick Room to take advantage of it. Every day Pokemon like Tyranitar, Politoed, Heatran, or Scrafty can make good use of the reversal in speed. Equating Trick Room in Doubles to Stealth Rock in Singles is a bit of a stretch, but it's definitely a valuable move for all the reasons you've stated, Crow350!

Pure TR teams are probably less consistent, because it always has a turn or two of vulnerability when Trick Room isn't up. If you can take out the TR setter, then the source of Trick Room is gone, and the TR users are gonna be open to major damage.

TR HO is really effective in Doubles, though, and it probably has a greater impact in this format than weather. I've been laddering with a Sun Trick Room team, and I wreck shit with Heatran's Eruption and Victini's V-destroy. When the opponent tries to stall out the last 1 or 2 turns of Trick Room by using Protect or switching into resistances / death fodder, I like to foil their plans by using Trick Room with both of my Pokemon (ie Victini & Cresselia) to activate a new TR (another 5 turns of destruction!)

[Audiosurfer]

Ok guys, it's about time for a new Topic of the Week! First off, points for the last Topic of the Week. The award for Best Poster goes to Darkmalice for his in-depth post that went step by step and showed exactly how to go about optimizing the EV spread on a Pokemon, showing two very important things for EV optimization: 1) How to calculate spreads and 2) How to find out what you need your Pokemon to do for your team to succeed. Other good posters include Blankzero, Pocket, lucariojr and Braverius. Pocket and Blankzero showed multiple optimized EV spreads and also made sure to explain the benchmarks that the improved spreads met, lucariojr explained his process for finding benchmarks that he needs Pokemon to meet, and Braverius gave good critique on other people's sets as well as helping them optimize their own EVs while providing benchmarks that his own spreads met.

Points breakdown:
+ 3 - Darkmalice
+ 2 - Pocket, Blankzero, Braverius, lucariojr
+ 1 - Audiosurfer

Onto the new Topic of the Week: Teambuilding


For many people, one of the most intimidating parts of the Doubles metagame is teambuilding. Many people struggle with how to approach the creation of a Doubles team. For this topic, we will discuss what the best ways are to go about creating a Doubles team as well as things such as how to find the best Pokemon for your team, how to successfully execute an idea, what the best partners are for different team archetypes, etc. Here are some good things to try and address in your posts:

• What are good ways to come up with a starting point for a team?

• What do you do in teambuilding once you've come up with your initial core?

• How much of your team do you have rely on one strategy?

• How much of your team should be devoted to helping check opposing strategies?

• How do you go about revising your team once you've made it?

Remember that you can go to the front page and check the leaderboard for the Topic of the Week :)

[Lagalag4]

Nice with a new Topic of the Weak, this is a very interesting one indeed :]

What I usually like to do when I build a team is first of all think of a strategy. I think through a small list of things that will become the key to picking which pokemon I should use for the team. Here is a few points you can use to find out what direction your team is supposed to be heading.

1. Will my Team use Tailwind, Trick Room or try spreading Paralysis, and if so, which one?
   
   
2. Will my team have weather, and if so, which kind of weather?
   
   
3. What kind of playstyle do I want to use with this team (HyperOffense, Bulky Offense or Semi-Stall)

If you have followed all of these three guidelines, you should be able to get an idea on which type of pokemon would fit your team. Here are a few examples where I pick a few guidelines, and then pick a Pokemon or 3 to fit each of the team structures.

Pro Tip: Usually if you are using TR, TW or Paralysis teams, you will want to first pick a pokemon to use the respective move for your team unless you are using weather, in which case you can just place the weather pokemon in the first spot.

~ Example #1 ~

• I want to use a Trick Room team
• I want to use Sandstorm
• I want to use Bulky Offense

What pokemon should I use then?

---

Tyranitar is obvious, so I won't use that as an example

A good pokemon to fit a Bulky Offensive Trick Room Sandstorm team for setting up Trick Room would be a Reuniclus. This is because Reuniclus is
1) immune to sandstorm
2) is bulky enough to take a hit or 2
3) hits extremely hard


The set you then would want to run is this one ~


Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 172 HP / 28 Def / 252 SpA / 56 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psychic / Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball / Protect


You would now want a physical attacker to go alongside that has some good offensive synergy with it, whilst being slow enough to fit Trick Room. A pokemon that I would see working well alongside a Reuinclus as a lead on a Sandstorm Trick Room team would be Scrafty. Scrafty is effectively the Trick Room, half dark type version of Hitmontop, being slower but carrying the same handy feature in Intimidate + Fake Out. It can also use Moxie for semi-sweeping in Trick Room. Fake Out also renders one of the opposing pokemon useless the first turn, making it easier for Reuniclus to set up Trick Room. It also has access to Drain Punch, allowing it to heal some if it's health back to semi-negate Sandstrom damage that is taken throughout the match.

Here is the set I would use ~


Scrafty @ Chople Berry / Sitrus Berry
Trait: Intimidate / Moxie
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Fake Out
- Drain Punch
- Crunch
- Detect

As you can see, both of these pokemon are built to provide Trick Room support, whilst both being bulky hard hitters, and neaither of them are hurt that much by Sand damage.

That is all I feel like writing about for now, and I definately hope i helped someone out there with Doubles teambuilding.

I am Probably going to edit this post to give it more examples of different pokemon fitting with different strategies, but since it is 1 AM here, later will do fine for me.


P.S: Remember that offensive synergy usually comes before defensive, (at least imo) since there is a lot less switching than in singles.

[Half life]

Before I address the questions I think a problem a lot of people have while team building is that they try to have an answer for everything. This is impossible in real battle time and often weakens the team strategy as a whole.

I am going to explain my thoughts on the following questions.

• What are good ways to come up with a starting point for a team

To start any team, you need an idea that you think will be sucessful. This is either a pokemon set that you really find you play with well, or a play style.

• What do you do in teambuilding once you've come up with your initial core?

Examine weaknesses in the core you have built. Add pokemon that play with your strategy and help beat pokemon your core has trouble with.

• How much of your team do you have rely on one strategy?

This depends on the strategy that you choose. One can deviate into two routes here. Either build more of your team to rely on the strategy to overwhelm opponents, or add members that help counter other strategies.

• How much of your team should be devoted to helping check opposing strategies?

This is hard to judge. If one has too much devoted, his or her strategy can go awry. If one has too little, one's strategy is helpless. I think one should only add pokemon to their team that counter opposing strategies if, and only if, they contribute the teams strategy. This is not VGC.

• How do you go about revising your team once you've made it?

Someone can go through hours and hours looking for better movesets, better team members, but once your at a stop; you should just play with the team. A lot of people can't see weaknesses in the team unless they play with it.


I am going to lay out a team that I made and go through the team building process so you can see an example of how I build my teams.

...

---

For the Doubles laddering challenge, I couldn't have any members that were from fifth generation.



The starting point for my team was the thought that I wanted to use Abomasnow and Heatran. These two cover each others weaknesses well and can singlehandily bust rain and sun teams. They also take care of disquake comboes pretty well and are hard against teams that utilize multiple dragons.



I chose gliscor for the third spot for several key reasons. He takes on sand teams well, doesn't care about intimidate, and can set up tail wind if I'm in a rut. His flying/ground coverage is very good. He also resisted the fighting types my core was weak to.

I wanted a pokemon that was immune to earthquake, and rotom-w was there to complete my FWG core. It gives thunder wave support to my slow team and also helps against rain teams.




My team had a weakness to physical attackers and I wanted fake out, so hitmontop was the obvious choice. He gave me wide guard support as well as a powerful fighting stab that my team desperately needed.




When your team doesn't have something that can hit cresselia super effectively, you're in trouble. This is why I chose darkrai. He also gave my team another way to blizzspam and had focus blast to add to my teams wide coverage.

This team is a good example of a team that uses different strategies to succeed. My team is therefore not reliant on just one pokemon.

[youngjake93]

Whenever I make a good team it has to have a few things. First, you need disruptors. These include fake out, rage powder, paralysis, protect, weather, trick room, etc. Protect is the most popular option, but all of these can serve to advance your strategy and hinder the opponent's.
Next, it is important to have reliable fighting, ground, electric and water switch ins. They are very spammable without resists/immunities.
One thing about doubles is that win conditions are hard to come by since you have to knock out 2 mons each turn. You can accomplish this with paraflinch, speed control, fast spread users, or whatever, but outspeeding or tanking two mons is harder than 1 in singles.

CB terrakion is an example of something that can provide a win condition. Once everything is weakened, rock slide can finish them off especially with fake out or ragepowder support. It can spam close combat with support from a second fast attacker.

[BlankZero]

We really ought to keep up with the Topic of the Week more often, eh?

• What are good ways to come up with a starting point for a team?
  Whenever I want to make a new team, I look at different Pokemon, and try to form a general idea around that Pokemon. Say, I want to try Mandibuzz (lol yes, I did try it.), and I look through its moveset. Tailwind? Ok, that might work nicely. SO I go about finding good partners that either take care of checks, or just cover weaknesses. In Mandibuzz's case, you'd need something to cover Ice/Electric, for example.
• What do you do in teambuilding once you've come up with your initial core?
  Once I figure out a core, I look to patch up weaknesses and/or further my strategy. Sticking with the theme of Mandibuzz/Tailwind, I would look for other TW setters, as well as Pokemon that can abuse it to the fullest, usually middling speed Pokemon or those that don't quite hit the upper speed tiers, but are far too fast for Trick Room, like Breloom and Kyurem.
• How much of your team do you have rely on one strategy?
  I try to not have anything truly rely on the main strategy of the team, as building to an archetype will wreck you as soon as the archetype falls. Weather may be prevalent in Doubles, but it is not End All Be All. Nor is TW, or TR, which actually take advantage of weather in their builds more often then not. If I have Pokemon that are just 100% better under a certain condition, like Chlorophyll/Swift Swim/Sand Rush sweepers, I'll absolutely try and make them into a win-condition for later on, or at least wall-break mid game and clean up with something else later. But never purely rely on it.
• How much of your team should be devoted to helping check opposing strategies?
  I like to have 1-2 pokemon on the team to help disrupt, whether it be Taunt, Sleep, Phazing, or switching the weather out to deny an opposing team its advantage. The object is to not let your opponent get their win condition, but don't just disrupt to disrupt. Troll teams are fun and all (lol @ Divecats) but they are just that. Trolly. Not something built to win matches. I'd say no more than 3 members of your team should have Disruption. Anything more than that and you risk getting to wrapped up in your opponent's strategy, and forgetting your own.
• How do you go about revising your team once you've made it?
  Usually, you can tell if your team is ok after the initial build and a few matches. If you need to change more than 2 members of the team, you should go back to the drawing board and rethink the whole team.
  Once the team members are more or less set, the next step would be to get your EVs set up, and get your teammates sorted out with the right movesets for the job. After that, see how far you can ladder with it, or jump on IRC and ask for a couple test matches against some of the better players.

One thing I've noticed about doubles (and this is partially true in other formats as well) is that Ladder matches and IRC (or tour) matches play much differently in comparison. A team on the ladder that peaks #1 might not be great against, say, someone who has been playing Doubles a bit longer.