T-WRECKS + FRIENDS - A POKEBANK DUBS LADDER TOPPING TEAM

[BLOOD TOTEM]

Sup RMT forum.
This here is my first ever RMT for my first ever ladder topping team. I had a lot of fun playing with this team at the start of the gen 6 meta but it's done its duty now and I feel it's time to share it with the rest of the community, and hey, you might just make a suggestion that inspires me to pick it up again.

Sand Offense has always been my preferred play style in Doubles so I decided I'd stick to what I was familiar with for my first team of the new generation. I was however, interested in a new toy we'd been given to play with; Talonflame.

The team at a glance ~

In depth look ~

T-Wrecks (Tyranitar) @ Tyranitarite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Stone Edge / Rock Slide
- Pursuit / Crunch
- Taunt
- Protect
How You Like Me Now - The Heavy

Tyranitar is just great. Sand is brilliant for that extra chip damage and the big fuck you it says to Focus Sash users and that extra 6 percent damage makes a world of difference. Coupled with three users of U-turn and a Volt Switch user on my team it's just fantastic. Tyranitar itself has a fantastic typing and great bulk. I prefer Stone Edge over Rock Slide because I want the immediate power, the lack of spread damage doesn't bother me and Tyranitar isn't getting many flinches because it's pretty slow. I tend to run Pursuit over Crunch. Sure the power drop is noticeable but for the most part I'm using Tyranitar as a utility Pokemon and Pursuit is there to catch people off guard; it's especially good when combined with Taunt. Taunt is arguably the crux of the set. Without it, Trick Room teams can run riot and leave me so far behind from the get go. What I like about Taunt on Tyranitar is that it isn't always expected and has great synergy with Pursuit. Protect is standard in doubles but is notably good on Tyranitar since it's just a magnet for attacks.

Dentures (Garchomp) @ Yache Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SAtk
Naive Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Blast
- Protect
Jurrasic - I.Y.F.F.E

Garchomp is fantastic for a multitude of reasons. First of all it finds itself populating a wonderful speed tier. 102 base speed is wonderful as it beats the plethora of 100s that are so popular in doubles. Next up is Garchomp's big offensive pressure. A huge attack coupled with a great spread move in Earthquake is a formula for success and Garchomp does not disappoint. Dragon Claw is there as the obligatory dragon STAB and hits Flying-type Pokemon or Pokemon with Levitate. Fire Blast is there to hit Steel-type Walls, most notably Ferrothorn. It catches a lot of people off guard and hits a large amount of Pokemon that I'd otherwise have a little more difficulty with such as Scizor. Yache is a lifesaver and helps me to waste Pokemon that don't expect it like Weavile and Mamoswine. Once again Protect is there to ease on prediction and increase longevity.

Spin Cycle (Rotom-Wash) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 240 HP / 16 SDef
Modest Nature
- Discharge
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Trick
Carried Away - Passion Pit

Rotom-W is so brilliant in so many ways. It's fantastic typing / ability means that it has just one weakness and it's a weakness to one of the least common offensive types, grass. Levitate is particularly important given I have two users of Earthquake meaning it synergises really well with the rest of the team. It also has decent natural bulk so I opted for a bulky Choice Specs set. Discharge is great for my team because I have two Ground-types who are unaffected by it. The 30 Percent paralysis chance also makes it an appealing choice. Hydro Pump is standard for Rotom-W and hits the ground types that discharge can't. Volt Switch eases on prediction and allows me to adapt to whatever is happening on the field. Combined with Landorus-T's Intimidate it really is a great move. Trick cripples pokemon that I might otherwise struggle with. Walls such as Cresselia, Trevenant and Dusclops hate receiving Choice Specs, especially Trick Room variants.

Animal (Landorus-Therian) (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- U-turn
- Protect
Animal - Miike Snow

Landorus-T is one of my favorite Pokemon in the Doubles metagame. Immune to Ground and Electric-type moves, Intimidate, good bulk, 145 base Attack; what's not to like? Landorus switches in on so much thanks to it's excellent typing and ability. The move set is pretty standard really. Earthquake is the obligatory STAB with the bonus perk of being a spread move. U-turn is great to get the upper hand on the opponent and works great given Landorus' ability to force switches. Rock Slide is there to hit stuff that Earthquake doesn't and can get that nifty bit of hax that wins the game. Protect is there for the same reason everything carries it. I opted for usage of the Sitrus Berry as it helps Landorus switch in and dish out a healthy dose of intimidate more often. Landorus often gets used to soak up Fighting-type attacks aimed at Tyranitar so it's a key player for the team.

Boogie Bug (Genesect) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Download
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 Atk
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Energy Ball
Killin It - Krewella

The Boogie Bug is one of my favorite Pokemon and it works wonders for my team. Whilst it isn't quite as good in Doubles as it is in Singles I still think it's a valuable Pokemon. I opted to run a pretty standard Choice Scarf set with a little twist. U-turn is great for adapting to switches and getting in the Pokemon I need on the field. It also allows me to stop MegaZard Y blitzing me early game with those strong Heat Waves. BoltBeam coverage is so good and is resisted by only a handful of pokemon. It allows Genesect to really utilize it's Choice Scarf to revenge any threats or just dish out some hurt from the offset. In the final slot I opted for Energy Ball over Flamethrower for the following reason:
+1 252 SpA Genesect Energy Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 262-310 (108.7 - 128.6%)
Nailing a Rotom-W before it can do anything feels so damn good, similar to the way Fire Punching a Genesect with Deoxys-S does. I could probably get off to it.

KACAW (Talonflame) @ Life Orb
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 208 Spd / 252 Atk / 44 HP
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Brave Bird
- Tailwind
AMERICA FUCK YEAH

A priority 120BP Flying-type STAB move boosted by a Life Orb. Sure. Talonflame is so strong and can really help you get out of a tough situation late game or punch holes from the start. Gale Wings is also nice as it provides a shaky answer to Trick Room in a pinch, notably hitting stuff like Conkeldurr for super effective damage. U-turn is important because Talonflame is very frail. It gives you the opportunity to pick of weakened threats and escape from predicted attacks. Flare Blitz is your next option in terms of nuking the opposition and hits a couple of the things that resist the flying attacks. The final move is arguably the most important for my team, especially late game. If I'm left in a situation where I only have slow Pokemon alive Tailwind provides the boost they need to finish the fight. There have been many final stand situations where Tailwind has saved me, Talonflame is often the hero of the battle.

Proof of peak

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Dentures (Garchomp) @ Yache Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SAtk
Naive Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
- Protect

Spin Cycle (Rotom-Wash) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 240 HP / 16 SDef
Modest Nature
- Discharge
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Trick

T-Wrecks (Tyranitar) @ Tyranitarite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Pursuit
- Stone Edge
- Taunt
- Protect

Animal (Landorus-Therian) (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Rock Slide
- Protect

KACAW (Talonflame) @ Life Orb
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 212 Spd / 252 Atk / 44 HP
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Brave Bird
- Tailwind

Boogie Bug (Genesect) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Download
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 Atk
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Energy Ball

I hope you enjoyed my RMT and the songs that I chose for my Pokemon. Feel free to spam this on the ladder to get a feel for the meta or suggest some changes. Don't forget to like it so I can brag to all my friends about how good I am at Pokemon.

 

[SomeoneStoleTheNameIWant]

See, now I feel like I have to, just because you have The Heavy in there...

My only big issue is Talonflame's frailty + Life Orb + Recoil + Sand. That being said, I think I'm in love with your team everything looks great.

If you don't mind, I'm going to test this a bit on Showdown!. Congrats on your peak! Now if only my team would get there...

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

See, now I feel like I have to, just because you have The Heavy in there...

My only big issue is Talonflame's frailty + Life Orb + Recoil + Sand. That being said, I think I'm in love with your team everything looks great.

If you don't mind, I'm going to test this a bit on Showdown!. Congrats on your peak! Now if only my team would get there...

Yeah Talonflame's frailty is a bit of an issue but really it's the only Pokemon I see that can fill the role of maintaining high offensive pressure and giving Tailwind support bar something like Skymin which doesn't really add too much to the team. You could try Shaymin out though, might be cool.
I did siphon some EVs off speed and into HP but felt I had to leave enough to beat max mega Pinsir so it is still pretty frail.

Thanks for the rate.

 

[SomeoneStoleTheNameIWant]

I did siphon some EVs off speed and into HP but felt I had to leave enough to beat max mega Pinsir so it is still pretty frail.

Yeah, I remember reading something about 212 Spe EV's to make sure you outspeed Pinsir.
I used your team a bit on Showdown!, and it wrecked.

Who do you typically lead with? I've been going with T-Tar and Genesect, which is amazing.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

Who do you typically lead with? I've been going with T-Tar and Genesect, which is amazing.

Naturally it depends on the match up but I tend to lead with at least one of my faster U-turn mons, typically either Genesect or Talonflame, with my Rotom-W.

 

[youngjake93]

I think one of the things that makes this team great is that I have no idea what everything is running at first glance. For example, Rotom W can commonly run Scarf, Sitrus, Life Orb and even Lefties, but you have TrickSpecs. Likewise, Lando-T is offensive with Sitrus.
I also really like the way you use Tyranitar with Taunt+Pursuit since Crunch doesn't OHKO all TR setters and the team would otherwise struggle with those teams.
Even Fire Blast>Rock Slide on Garchomp is a great example of playing to your team's needs in terms of offensive synergy.

I could see a properly constructed goodstuffs team beating out this team IF they could figure out everything you were running(reading an RMT helps) and outplay you just because you don't have as many support options, but that's hardly a real weakness.

You could run LO Lati@s with Draco Meteor+TailWind over Talonflame. It covers Ground, Grass and Fire defensively like Talonflame but has much more survivability and hits quite a bit harder initially. You can play with the set since you obviously have the experience with the team, but I wanted to give at least one idea to play with.

 

[D-Quag]

Hey TOTEM! This team makes my eyes gush because the synergy between everything is great. Having fought this team myself (even when I didn't know it was you behind it) I know its super hard to crack open. I probably broke it through hax though. As we discussed on IRC, the main wall to this team is gastrodon, even though you can kill it with genesect or with talonflame's brave bird. Genesect doesn't go boom though, so -10 points. Otherwise, congrats on your peak with such a good team!

 

[BlankZero]

Giving Rotom-W 252 hp/16 SpDef will let you survive LO Giga Drain from modest Ludicolo and lets you OHKO with Thunder... At least it fed in Gen 5.

A Yache or Focus Sash on Landorus would definitely be a better item.

You might try Roseli Berry Chomp with Iron Head to help take care of Fairies.

Otherwise, looks like a pretty good and standard Tailwind team.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

You could run LO Lati@s with Draco Meteor+TailWind over Talonflame. It covers Ground, Grass and Fire defensively like Talonflame but has much more survivability and hits quite a bit harder initially. You can play with the set since you obviously have the experience with the team, but I wanted to give at least one idea to play with.

This is a nice suggestion and certainly makes sense. Lati@s also add support to the team with Helping Hand which is quite nice.
I'm not sure if this is anything I'd run though simply because the priority Talonflame provides is fantastic.

Hey TOTEM! This team makes my eyes gush because the synergy between everything is great. Having fought this team myself (even when I didn't know it was you behind it) I know its super hard to crack open. I probably broke it through hax though. As we discussed on IRC, the main wall to this team is gastrodon, even though you can kill it with genesect or with talonflame's brave bird. Genesect doesn't go boom though, so -10 points. Otherwise, congrats on your peak with such a good team!

Yeah Gastrodon is an issue, that said, a lot of teams struggle with it because the typing / ability just makes it irritating to hit. I'm glad you like the team and I'm sorry for not running BoomGene, it just wasn't right for the team </3

Giving Rotom-W 252 hp/16 SpDef will let you survive LO Giga Drain from modest Ludicolo and lets you OHKO with Thunder... At least it fed in Gen 5.

A Yache or Focus Sash on Landorus would definitely be a better item.

You might try Roseli Berry Chomp with Iron Head to help take care of Fairies.

Otherwise, looks like a pretty good and standard Tailwind team.

I feel like a Sash would be wasted on Landorus because it switches in on so many hits, Yache is certainly a viable item choice but I still lean more towards Sitrus beacuse I have a couple of mons that can switch into an ice attack
I really like that chomp set and I have used it to interesting effect on the ladder but in all honesty I haven't had that much trouble with fairies and Yache is a real lifesaver.



Thanks for the rates guys.

 

[gallolala]

I would totally run mega garchomp instead of mega ttar, i mean SAND FORCE EARTHQUAKE and maybe rock slide, you could run AV ttar with fire blast over taunt to still have that fire blast, or even a smooth rock :/ for the rest it looks like a great team!

 

[Electrolyte]

Hey basedTOTEMgod.

This team looks pretty solid, and being that it's a Doubles team it's really not too difficult to play past the minor chinks in its armor. I'd say that this team would probably find the most amount of trouble from Rain based teams in general. Muddy Water / Surf in particular rips through this team pretty easily, especially from Pokemon such as Kingdra, Politoed, Ludicolo, and Greninja. Belly Drum Azumarill is a huge threat as well, as its powerful priority AJet can deal heavy blows to this team's framework.

Obviously, in a team like this in Doubles, it isn't easy to make major changes without severely messing up synergy. You do have some forms of checking Rain- mainly, Talonflame's Tailwind and Tyranitar's Sand to erase the Rain, but unfortunately you still lack things that can 1. readily sponge Water-type attacks and 2. reliably reply with constant damage. I would say that giving Rotom-W a slightly bulkier spread of 240 HP / 252 SpA / 16 SpDef Modest. Although it might not seem like much of a change it does give Rotom-W some added special bulk to avoid crucial 2HKOs, mainly from things such as Ludicolo. You could also try Thunder Wave instead of Discharge, simply because 1. The paralysis is guaranteed and will be essential in certain situations and 2. Can be used regardless of what your partner is. Of course, this is just a small change that scratches the surface of the team but could definitely be beneficial. Another thing you could try is Thunderbolt instead of Discharge, purely because it nets a crucial OHKO against Azumarill and guarantees the 2HKO against 4 HP Kingdra, and again can be used regardless of what Rotom's partner is. Being that Rotom-W has a very important job of countering rain, you don't want to restrict its ability to do so by using something such as Discharge (though if you feel that your team handles Rain well enough you can definitely keep Discharge for damage + paralysis chance.)

That's all I'm going to really suggest here. There are probably other smaller tweaks you can make, such as added special bulk on Tyranitar to help take off some of the walling pressure on Rotom-W, or just a bulk oriented, non Specs Rotom-W for even more security. The team is already solid, however, so I'm going to leave you with the decision on what to do.

Nice team and good luck, TOTEMO!

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

I would totally run mega garchomp instead of mega ttar, i mean SAND FORCE EARTHQUAKE and maybe rock slide, you could run AV ttar with fire blast over taunt to still have that fire blast, or even a smooth rock :/ for the rest it looks like a great team!

I'd really love to run Mega Garchomp. The trouble is it's just too slow for the team and my Tailwind support isn't reliable enough to make it work.
Taunt is too important to my TTar to drop as much as I'd like to run some special coverage on it. I trialed out Ice Beam for a time but the lack of Taunt let Trick Room tear through the team.

Hey basedTOTEMgod.

This team looks pretty solid, and being that it's a Doubles team it's really not too difficult to play past the minor chinks in its armor. I'd say that this team would probably find the most amount of trouble from Rain based teams in general. Muddy Water / Surf in particular rips through this team pretty easily, especially from Pokemon such as Kingdra, Politoed, Ludicolo, and Greninja. Belly Drum Azumarill is a huge threat as well, as its powerful priority AJet can deal heavy blows to this team's framework.

Obviously, in a team like this in Doubles, it isn't easy to make major changes without severely messing up synergy. You do have some forms of checking Rain- mainly, Talonflame's Tailwind and Tyranitar's Sand to erase the Rain, but unfortunately you still lack things that can 1. readily sponge Water-type attacks and 2. reliably reply with constant damage. I would say that giving Rotom-W a slightly bulkier spread of 240 HP / 252 SpA / 16 SpDef Modest. Although it might not seem like much of a change it does give Rotom-W some added special bulk to avoid crucial 2HKOs, mainly from things such as Ludicolo. You could also try Thunder Wave instead of Discharge, simply because 1. The paralysis is guaranteed and will be essential in certain situations and 2. Can be used regardless of what your partner is. Of course, this is just a small change that scratches the surface of the team but could definitely be beneficial. Another thing you could try is Thunderbolt instead of Discharge, purely because it nets a crucial OHKO against Azumarill and guarantees the 2HKO against 4 HP Kingdra, and again can be used regardless of what Rotom's partner is. Being that Rotom-W has a very important job of countering rain, you don't want to restrict its ability to do so by using something such as Discharge (though if you feel that your team handles Rain well enough you can definitely keep Discharge for damage + paralysis chance.)

That's all I'm going to really suggest here. There are probably other smaller tweaks you can make, such as added special bulk on Tyranitar to help take off some of the walling pressure on Rotom-W, or just a bulk oriented, non Specs Rotom-W for even more security. The team is already solid, however, so I'm going to leave you with the decision on what to do.

Nice team and good luck, TOTEMO!

I totally agree there is a pretty big weakness to water and it has proved troublesome on multiple occasions. Thankfully rain is way less common this gen but your advice still applies to the games where those rain threats are present. I think I'll probably change Rotom's EV spread in the OP but I'll keep the Specs because they make rotom look like a baller really do help me hit hard.

In all honesty I was quite lazy with my EV spreads because I was eager to get onto the Gen 6 ladder and there's probably a fair bit of room for improvement especially in Tyranitar now. As the meta establishes itself I'm sure we'll have more defensive benchmarks to set that will help optimize EV spreads.

Thanks for the rates.