Good Double Battle Combos

[Burgba]

Now, I’ve done a lot of double battling in the past few years, and I think it is a very fun alternative to the more common style of play-single battles. So I’m starting a thread for people to post their favorite, or in their opinion best combinations to use within a double battle. For example, my favorite combination is Swagger Prankster Whimsicott+ Unburden Hitmonlee with Lum Berry. On the first turn use fake out on the opponent, and swagger yourself, so that at the end of the first turn you are looking at +2 Atk, +2 Spd Fighting type.

So…..What’s the best?

[TheMantyke]

Originally Posted by Fat Burgba

Now, I’ve done a lot of double battling in the past few years, and I think it is a very fun alternative to the more common style of play-single battles. So I’m starting a thread for people to post their favorite, or in their opinion best combinations to use within a double battle. For example, my favorite combination is Swagger Prankster Whimsicott+ Unburden Hitmonlee with Lum Berry. On the first turn use fake out on the opponent, and swagger yourself, so that at the end of the first turn you are looking at +2 Atk, +2 Spd Fighting type.

So…..What’s the best?

At decent levels of play, complicated set ups are very rarely effective. Remember that even though you're Faking Out one Pokemon, there's still another Pokemon free to attack your Hitmonlee, set up Trick Room, or Tailwind. Not to mention that Hitmonlee lacks a STAB spread move, meaning it will not likely kill both foes or even survive the second turn.

There are a few effective set up combos out there like Swagger Cresselia + Metagross and Hitmontop + Volcarona, but they have a few things that allow them to shine, mainly good defensive typing, good defensive synergy, and that they don't need to set up to be useful.

I'd suggest that if you want to keep this thread going with discussion, you try one of two things. Either A) leave out gimmicky set ups in favor of cool cores with excellent synergy or B) dedicate the thread to openly silly, over the top ridiculous combos that have a snowball's chance in hell of working, but acknowledge how bad they are in reality and let the thread be a bit of speculative, theorymonning fun.

[Infinity.Cypher]

Swagger Metagross and Lum Cresselia. I have Metagross use Swagger on Cresselia, and then Cresselia gets +2 Attack, and no confusion due to Lum. Then Cresselia uses Zen Headbutt on the opposing Pokemon.
Hmm, wait a sec...

[Burgba]

Lol nice combo. Cresselia is my favorite sweeper too.

[The Knights of Wario Land]

Anger Point Tauros + Frost Breath/Circle Throw/moves with high crit rate is a very scary combo, abiet one hard to set up. I've seen it being used on GBU to great effect.

Also Belly Drum Snorlax/Hariyama + Heal Pulse Lucario/Slowking/Chansey is a similar strategy but one that is a wee bit more reliable.

Both are very gimmicky, though, and can easily be countered if you know what you're doing.

[Sprocket]

Originally Posted by Fat Infinity.Cypher

Swagger Metagross and Lum Cresselia. I have Metagross use Swagger on Cresselia, and then Cresselia gets +2 Attack, and no confusion due to Lum. Then Cresselia uses Zen Headbutt on the opposing Pokemon.
Hmm, wait a sec...

Hey, it's not often you see Cresselia make use of it's excellent 70 base attack.

Disquake combos used to be pretty popular. Probably the premier combo was Zapdos (or Thundurus) with Garchomp, but that also leaves you with a glaringly explotable Ice weakness (probably the reason why it's not a popular combo anymore). Rotom and Eelektross also work on the Discharge side with Levitate, while other Ground types include Rhyperior, Mamoswine, Landorus.

For that matter, Zapdos can make use of Heat Wave and Tailwind and just makes an excellent Pokemon all around.

[Nightwalkr]

From my experience, Tornadus and Infernape have great synergy. Infernape really eases any problems Tornadus has setting up Tailwind, and their combined STABs provide perfect coverage. Even if they don't outright sweep a team, they usually (for me at least) leave a dent in the team, and allow for the rest of the party to plow through riding on Tailwind.

...with all the talk of Swagger + Lum, now I kind of want to experiment with that a bit.

...

---

Swagger Thundurus and Lum Garchomp?

[Burgba]

Gastro Acid Shuckle+ Slaking. It works at least 2% of the time.

[Mosquito]

Skill Swap, HP Fire 70 Cress + Lava Plume Heatran. You Lava Plume to burn everything, while boosting Cresselia's HP Fire (LOL). If only Flash Fire boosted Sp Atk, not Fire moves....

[The Last Sheikah]

I've been using Volt Absorb Jolteon and Lightningrod Pikachu, both with Discharge, in the subway for a few days now; the Pikachu is utterly terrifying, often KOing even resisted things after light ball and one lightningrod boost... but it's outsped by anything vaguely fast, and I've never seen it take a single hit, so it's a pretty flawed strategy.
Maybe if I put fake out and a tailwind Zapdos in there instead, it'd be better.

[Burgba]

If zapdos's dream world ability ever does get released he'd work better in the pikachu or jolteon slot. Mainly the pikachu one though.

[TheMantyke]

Originally Posted by Fat Burgba

If zapdos's dream world ability ever does get released he'd work better in the pikachu or jolteon slot. Mainly the pikachu one though.

Why wait for Zapdos when you can use Motor Drive Emolga?

So, since we are sharing all sorts of pretty gimmicky combos, I'll share a few silly ones I was theorymonning around yesterday. No specific move sets or EVs are mentioned due to both laziness and that the movesets could vary heavily from team to team beyond the essential pieces.



Bulky Thundurus + Choice Scarf Serene Grace Rock Slide Blissey

There are only two fully evolved Pokemon in the game that can abuse the wonder of Serene Grace Rock Slide, the other being dunsparce. Out of the two, Blissey is faster. With maximum investment, Blissey is sadly just one point shy of speed tieing with Terrakion and friends, but at the very least, you can outrun key threats like Volcarona, Garchomp, and Zapdos. With Blissey's Rock Slides, there is only a 16% chance that both opponents will attack! Thundurus comes in to lessen those chances even more with Swagger and Thunder Wave, provide good defensive synergy alongside Blissey, and slow down those speed mongrels like Latios and Terrakion. I suppose you can opt out for the Choice Scarf all together and rely strictly on Thunder Wave to ensure Blissey moves first, but there are a lot of teams preparing for Thundurus nowadays, making it a littler more unreliable. Good team mates for a core like this might include something like Hitmontop or Metagross to stomp Terrakion into the ground.



Terrakion + Skill Swap Meloetta

This is not a core for regular VGC play, it's designed for use in the All Star cup going on in Japan. This carries on almost the same concept as the last core, but this time, you can have cool defensive and offensive synergy thanks to Meloetta! Skill Swapping to Terrakion not only restores Terrakion to his former glory of hax king in VGC 2011, but it could also make your opponent reluctant to attack you with Dark-type attacks when you could be carrying Relic Song. From there, it's a simple matter of spamming Rock Slide and Hyper Voice until the opponent's down. What's best is that this core doesn't rely on Skill Swap at all to be effective so it might actually be viable! A Chansey or Blissey could work in Meloetta's place, but I don't like the look of having two fighting weak Pokemon out at the same time with Hitmontop and enemy Terrakion everywhere.



Mantine + Life Orb Seismitoad

Again, not really a VGC core, but a core designed for the Beginning Cup which may just become our VGC 2013 rule set. Mantine and Seismitoad just happen to be two water types both with Water Absorb that share great defensive synergy. Mantine can set up Tail Wind or Icy Wind opponents to give Seisitoad the speed boost it so desperately needs. After that, you can spam surf and keep each partner healthy, stopping periodically to Earth Power Electric-types and Air Slash Grass-types.

If Mantine actually turns out to be viable in a metagame like the beginning cup, I can die a happy man...

[Project_Mars]

I had decent success with landorus + helping hand Musharna. Mushy isn't cress, but it is explosion-proof. And man does explosion hurt when it's boosted twice and coming off of Lando's attack stat. Plus helping hand Musharna just works nice with spread moves in general, and can deal a nice deal of damage in a pinch

Edit: doesn't work so well in practice in the vgc though. :/

[N8thePWNr]

Originally Posted by Fat Burgba

Gastro Acid Shuckle+ Slaking. It works at least 2% of the time.

Believe it or not, I've actually had pretty good success with dual screening Serperior w/ Gastro Acid and Slaking/Archeops. It also effectively shuts down Ludicolo/Excadrill.

[The Knights of Wario Land]

Of course, how can we all forget the lethal Guard Split Shuckle + Eviolite Chansey? After usage, Chansey become possibly the most durable Pokemon in existence, not even being 5HKO'd by Terrakion's Close Combat, and it can just keep recovering with Softboiled. Its high HP also makes it win the remaining HP decision if the timer runs out. I've only really seen this strategy used with Japanese players, but it can absolutely destroy an unprepared team.

[Sprocket]

Originally Posted by Fat TheMantyke

Why wait for Zapdos when you can use Motor Drive Emolga?

Motor Drive Emolga isn't VGC2012 legal. Though you could always use Electivire or Zebstrika.

[SevenSevenSeven]

Dry Skin Toxicroak and Suicune (with surf). That's a decent combo I guess..

[AuraRayquaza]

Im surprised no-one has mentioned the famed terracott combo. Turn 1: protect with terrakion and tailwind with whimsicott. Turn 2: beat up on terrakion to get it to +4 (+6 in triples) attack and rock slide with terrakion. Of course, you should run taunt as well to destory trick room teams from turn 1.

[CooltrainerAlan]

Swagger seems to me like an overrated move, but thats just me. Anyways, I think Rage Powder Amoonguss and Shell Smash+Sash Cloyster are a good combo. Cloyster can easliy set up and Amoonguss resists 2 of cloysters weaknesses. be aware of Rock Slide though (After you smash, he can probably take a Rock Slide before then.)

[N8thePWNr]

Also, I've been testing out Chandelure and Landorus:
On the first turn, have Landorus use Protect, then have Chandelure use Heat Wave. On the second turn, have Landorus use Explosion, while Chandelure uses Heat Wave again, taking out almost anything that managed to survive Explosion/Ghost types (and even then, Chandelure should use Shadow Ball).

[Burgba]

Originally Posted by Fat AuraRayquaza

Im surprised no-one has mentioned the famed terracott combo. Turn 1: protect with terrakion and tailwind with whimsicott. Turn 2: beat up on terrakion to get it to +4 (+6 in triples) attack and rock slide with terrakion. Of course, you should run taunt as well to destory trick room teams from turn 1.

Everyone knows about that combo. Mental herb for taunt/ encore on trick room guys. Couldn't you use lucario instead +4 extreme speed wrecks.

[The Knights of Wario Land]

Originally Posted by Fat Burgba

Everyone knows about that combo. Mental herb for taunt/ encore on trick room guys. Couldn't you use lucario instead +4 extreme speed wrecks.

Lucario lacks the bulk, regular speed, and power that Terrakion has, as STAB Rock Slide is a scary thing.

[CoolStoryBrobat]

I didn't make these up, but I had them used on me in Random Matchup, lol. They're VERY gimmicky, but if you can't play around the tactics, you're likely to find yourself screwed:

First one I saw was a lead with Starmie and a Swoobat. What I didn't see coming was that Starmie used Skill Swap on Swoobat and got simple. Swoobat used Tailwind to set up speed for its partners, then Starmie unleashes a Minimize and tries to get some Cosmic Powers in. I don't know the full set for the Starmie because I managed to taunt it 3 for 3 times despite +4 Evasion, but seeing as it struggled every time, my guess is that it probably had Toxic and some other support move. Not the most awesome tactic in the world when I look back on it, but it was something that you would NOT have had your guard up for. And YES, I do know Simple Swoobat isn't legal for VGC 2012. Possibly in '13 maybe? I dunno.

Next one is another one I faced on Random Matchup like, 30 minutes ago, lol. Person leads with a Spinda and a Latias. Person has Latias use Skill Swap on DW Spinda to gain Contrary. You already know where this is headed, don't you? A +2, +4, and a +6 Draco Meteor is something fearsome, especially from a Latias. However, the tactic was still beatable, and had to rely on support from using Protect and switching to Togekiss to sponge some attacks Latias would have been smashed by with Follow Me.

...Lol, I still lost due to a low damage roll on Togekiss, but these gimmicks are pretty annoying at best. I could probably bring a few original ones I thought up myself, but I think this'll do for now, lol. I like seeing the weird, interesting things that happen on Wi-Fi sometimes. Although I hate being the victim

[Project_Mars]

Originally Posted by Fat N8thePWNr

Also, I've been testing out Chandelure and Landorus:
On the first turn, have Landorus use Protect, then have Chandelure use Heat Wave. On the second turn, have Landorus use Explosion, while Chandelure uses Heat Wave again, taking out almost anything that managed to survive Explosion/Ghost types (and even then, Chandelure should use Shadow Ball).

Iirc, heat wave wouldn't hit landorus, so you don't have to protect with him.

[Sprocket]

Hmm, I just got an idea with Chlorophyll Lilligant using Entrainment on Ninetales. It's not like Ninetales needs Drought once Sun is set (as it will reset its ability back to Drought when it switches). For that matter, passing Chlorophyll with Entrainment would annoy the heck out of trick room teams while the Sun is out, and act as a pseudo-Gastro Acid (Lilligant could also Entrainment Own Tempo if needed).