First Doubles RMT - Now Trick Room

[Adhrast]

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to competitive Pokémon, so I'm trying to learn the chops, especially in the VGC/GBU Doubles metagame.

But enough talking, let's take a look at the team!

EDIT: Thigs edited will be in RED


Core

Cresselia (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Icy Wind
- Psychic
- Trick Room
- Helping Hand

Metagross (M) @ Occa Berry
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Meteor Mash
- Bullet Punch
- Earthquake
- Protect

These two guys are the main core. Cresselia's Sitrus Berry can provide enough resistance to stay on the field for a while, while Reflect helps setting up a line of defense against physical attacks. Icy Wind lower opponents' Speed so that it's easier for Metagross to clean the field, thanks to priority Bullet Punch, and Earthquake is good with Cresselia due to Levitate.


Moving on...

Gallade (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Steadfast
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature (+Ark, -SAtk)
- Drain Punch
- Zen Headbutt
- Protect
- Trick Room

Gallade is IMHO a very underrated Poke, which despite its low Speed (that's where Cresselia's Icy Wind helps) and HP has a great Attack and Special Defense. Drain Punch helps healing off LO's and general damage, while Shadow Sneak can help against Psychic/Ghost such as Chandelure or Cresselia.

Gastrodon (M) @ Rindo Berry
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 236 SpDef / 20 SAtk
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
-Earth Power
-Muddy Water
-Ice Beam
-Recover

This is another Pokémon I love. It's got the looks, it's got the bulk. Extremely useful against Rain, that's why I was considering switching Earth Power or Muddy Water for HP Grass... Overall I'm quite satisfied with this defensive Gastrodon.

Zapdos @ Life Orb
Trait:
EVs: 252 HP / 124 SAtk / 132 SDef
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Discharge
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Roost

As Phozon suggested, I took a look at Zapdos, and god am I amazed. Awesome stats, great movepool an can counter the likes of Chomp no problem. Thanks, awesome input!

Marowak (F) @ Thick Club
Trait: Lightningrod
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
-Protect
-Bonemerang
-Rock Slide
-Earthquake

This is a Pokémon I took from Alison's team which I saw on Nuggetbridge, and I fell in love with it, being one of my favourite Pokes from Gen I. Lightningrod is awesome against the huge number of T-Wave spamming mons in this metagame, and Thick Club boost its attack, raising it to almost 300, which is great.



And with this last Pokémon we're done with my RMT thread :)
Hope you can help me become a better player. Please don't be too hard on me, I'm inexperienced, but willing to learn a lot of new things.
Thanks in advance if you'll decide to help me!

 

[Phozon]

Hey man, this is a pretty solid team here. One thing I will tell you is that in VGC you really shouldn't have "leads". Not every 2 pokes in the first 2 slots mean that their going to be starting off the match. You want to be able to switch up your leads depending on what pokes your opponet has.

Anyways, the first thing I noticed is that your team is very slow and most things in the VGC meta will be able to out pace you. Since you have both Cresselia and Gallade, I would recomend running Trick Room. This allows your pokes to be faster then the others. I would replace Reflect on Cresselia and for Gallade I would replace either Shadow Sneak or Protect for Trick Room. Also I would highly recomend Leftovers on Cresselia. This would make it harder for her to be taken down. ALso if you do go ahead with the Trick Room idea, I would put the Sitrus Berry on Gallade.

You say your Heatran is for dragons, but both Garchomp and Latios two of the most used dragons in VGC can take down your Heatran. Garchomp gets EQ and Latios sometimes carries Surf and both moves can either KO or put a serious dent in Heatran and due to the fact that most Garchomps carry a Yache Berry, HP-Ice won't kill and due to Latios' nice natural Sp.Def bulk HP-Ice will be a 2HKO. If you want a Dragon counter try Zapdos:

Zapdos- @ Lum Berry/ Life Orb/ Sitrus Berry
Modest/ Timid- 124 Sp.Atk/ 134Sp.Def/ 252 Speed
Discharge/ Thunderbolt
Heat Wave/ Thunder Wave
HP- Ice
Protect/ Roost

Zapdos acaually works extremly well with your team due to the fact that you have 2 Ground types so you could run Dischage, or T-Bolt for more power. This Spread allows you to live a Latios' Draco but only with a small amount of HP, but it will allow you to take him out w/ 2 HP-Ices. Zapdos accually is one of Garchomps best counters due to the fact it can't abuse EQ. A Dragon Claw from a Garchomp is normally a 2 or 3 HKO on Zapdos naturally. As long as you have T-Wave support, Zapdos can really solve your dragon problem.

Anyways, I hope this helped! Good Luck!

 

[Adhrast]

Made the changes you suggested, which are quite great I must say :D
I didn't want to be limited by TR or weather but trying it out, it seems quite a nice solution. This way even slow Pokémon like Gallade or Marowak can have their chance to shine!
Thanks again, hoping to have some other input :)

 

[Phozon]

Alright! Zapdos it is! In this case since he will be working under TR conditions you might want to try this set:

Zapdos- @Life Orb
Quiet- 252HP/ 124Sp.Atk/ 132Sp.Def
Discharge
Heat Wave
HP- Ice
Roost

This let's you "out pace" while being even bulkier. :] or you can stick to the other set. I don't know how much of your team you want to revolve around Tick Room but if you want a TR Zapdos set the one abouv would be best.

 

[Adhrast]

Edited Zapdos again, and it's in fact more bulky and resistant :D
My only problem is: where to practice? Nobody's playing Doubles on PO and Showdown doesn't support them yet :S

 

[Phozon]

I'm always willing to battle just drop a VM if you want one!

 

[Phozon]

One thing I'd like to comment on is that this team is incredibly standard. I could predict everything right down to every move.

Your Fire coverage is poor, a spread non-STAB heat wave is laughable to Scizor in the rain.

Other than that you'd might want to change your species so that it's more difficult to predict.

His fire coverage is just fine. Both Cress and Gallade could take an Eruption from a Typhlosion, which is arguable the stronget fire attack in the VGC meta, even in the sun that Typhlosion's Eurption has the chance to be a 2 or 3 HKO on his cress. He could then send in Gastro, Maro, of even Zapdos to handle it. Sun basted teams w/ Charizard and all that fun stuff will struggle with this team. Rain will have issues as well dude to TR and I would go to say that this team is a bit outside of standard. The idea in doubles is high synergy with in the team and he has that.

 

[pokemaster649]

His fire coverage is just fine. Both Cress and Gallade could take an Eruption from a Typhlosion, which is arguable the stronget fire attack in the VGC meta, even in the sun that Typhlosion's Eurption has the chance to be a 2 or 3 HKO on his cress. He could then send in Gastro, Maro, of even Zapdos to handle it. Sun basted teams w/ Charizard and all that fun stuff will struggle with this team. Rain will have issues as well dude to TR and I would go to say that this team is a bit outside of standard. The idea in doubles is high synergy with in the team and he has that.

Not exactly, overheat is the stongest (especially with fire gem, and eurption is not that common in the vgc meta)


edit: and plus rotom-h is a problem to your team if you don't have gastrodon on the field.

 

[tlyee61]

One thing I'd like to comment on is that this team is incredibly standard.

because Gallade, Marowak and Zapdos are on every single team.
On the other hand, for TR consider replacing Zapdos wit Eelektross. It get Thunderbolt, flamethrower and HP Ice, just like Zapdos. It also has relatively good bulk and power. It also has levitate, so it has no weaknesses! If you invest in Def. too, it can maul Chomp.

 

[Golden Piloswine]

because Gallade, Marowak and Zapdos are on every single team.
On the other hand, for TR consider replacing Zapdos wit Eelektross. It get Thunderbolt, flamethrower and HP Ice, just like Zapdos. It also has relatively good bulk and power. It also has levitate, so it has no weaknesses! If you invest in Def. too, it can maul Chomp.

Okay maybe not Gallade and Marowak, but everything else and the movesets.

 

[Adhrast]

Okay maybe not Gallade and Marowak, but everything else and the movesets.

Any suggestion as to what I should change?

 

[Golden Piloswine]

Well perhaps exchange Zapdos with a defensive Thundurus, or give something a different moveset. Just because the team's a little to standard, but don't be like me and give it a set that doesn't work, do your best to make it work, if your hard pressed for ideas, you should check out Smogon's Battling 101 VGC program, once it's available when Winter VGC rules are announced.

 

[hoult66]

One thing using icy wind on a TR team helps the opponent by increasing their speed, generally a bad thing.

 

[tlyee61]

Also, try Lum on Metagross and Swagger over Icy Wind on Cress. You could also try giving Gallade a Persim Berry so Cress could at least Swagger two Pokemon on your team.

 

[Adhrast]

That's actually what I was experimenting with, only with Swagger Cresselia + Persim Chomp. I've had a mixed bag of results, obviously, and Rain teams tend to destroy me pretty easily, so in these days I wanted to try something more "standard", like the usual Top+Volcarona to see how it goes.
I'm just getting started, so I'm trying whatever strategy to see what fits my style best, and I can honestly say I doubt TR is the answer... But I'll keep trying :D
Thanks everyone for your help!

 

[tlyee61]

try using a bluky spread on chomp with haban / yache berry. you don't need to invest alot in attack because of swagger. I've also had success with Swords Dance Chomp that has bulky EVs to survive DGem Draco Meteor and Politoed / Ludicolo Ice Beams

 

[Golden Piloswine]

So in a nutshell let me summarize the things you should improve on, based on some previous comments.

Get rid of some of your standard move sets because your opponent can read you like a book. As tlyee61 stated, try some bulky sets out with Garchomp, or some other Pokemon's like Zapdos. Icy Wind is counter-productive in Trick Room, you should replace it with Swagger, and you are able to run a Lum Berry on Metagross, which will make it a destructive force, and Meteor Mash will truly be feared. You should maybe replace a Pokemon that you feel is not needed with a fire type Pokemon. Heatran will be a good fit, because it's not fast, has tons of resistances, and if you can manage to get your hands on one withe Eruption, everyone else watch out!

 

[voodoo pimp]

Get rid of some of your standard move sets because your opponent can read you like a book.

Thing is, the standard sets are standard for a reason - they may be predictable, but they work. Unorthodox sets are much more difficult to do well, especially for a player who's new to the metagame.

@Adhrast: is there a particular reason you're running max Speed on Marowak? It's still slower than most of the metagame, and I feel like extra bulk would probably be more useful.