Plain and Sporing - Doubles standard team

[Anty]

Credits for the art go to me
Introduction
Hi everyone, I am relatively new to the doubles community but most of you might know me by now after coming second in elytes fixed room tour. I only started a little over a month ago but i have been in the competitive seen for 1 and a half years (and before that with rse). I decided to start dubs because ou was getting boring after swagger ban and aegislash spam doesnt feel the same kanga spam is much better. I started with out a tutor just looking at spl games and botw. This taught me the basics then i decided to start playing with a boring sporing team. So far i lost in the semi-finals of dubers tour, second in elytes fixed room tour and im currently in r3 of the barrel tour. I know my team maybe boring and standard, but it is nice to start playing doubles and well balanced imo and pinoy had me at gunpoint forcing me to post it. I have peaked in the top 10 and what not but i never screenshotted it cuz i wasnt expecting to post a rmt >_>. Note: the mons in the poster arent all in my team and yes, that is a heatran

The team
This is a standard kanga team with bulky support.

Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Return
- Power-Up Punch
- Sucker Punch
Ah, the star of the show, the borderline broken mon. I decided to have kanga as my first mon. She is strong, bulky, not op and the biggest threat in doubles atm. I used the standard moveset as it is the best, as my team can deal with lando-t. Crunch could be an option as mega gengar is on the rise and jelli is just plain annoying. Max attack is obvious, but i chose a faster jolly spread to deal with other kangas, yzard and mega gard better and it has worked out well, but the power loss from adamant kinda sux. I mostly lead with kanga as 1st turn fakeout is nice and its a very threatening poke.

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Rock Slide
- Knock Off / Superpower
Scarf landoge, my other common lead. He brings momentum, pace, power and a nice kanga check and is vital to hold my team together. Again, a standard set. I was using knock off in the non kanga ladder, but superpower is great at smashing kanga and heatran without resorting to eq. Rock slide> stone edge for accuracy. I decided to go for adamant lando because the power is much more advantageous than the speed. There is not much more to say but lando-t is the best poke in the meta right now, intimidate is amazing and 140 attack is the cherry on top. Just be weary of lo bisharp and based braviary

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 76 Spd / 180 HP / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature
- Substitute
- Protect
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
So far my team has physical attack power, but are walled by ferro and aegislash. Then comes heatran, the fire spider. Heat wave gives a very strong spread move and earth power hits other tran and wg aegislash. Substitute is great as there are limited mons that can break its sub esp cuz eq hits your own mons. Protect is also great at allowing your other mon to hit the threat that is killing tran. I didnt feel like i need shuca or air balloon as ground moves arent common outside predictable lando, tran and skymin. This also gives my a nice fire absorber and a check to talon/yzard.

Rotom-Wash @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 132 SAtk / 124 SDef
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect
My team had enough offence and needed support and a counter to azu/landoge/snad exca. Rotom is a nice choice as it gives me another option for kanga and a way to cripple every physical attacker. Water was also a nice coverage, hitting grounds that threaten tan (skymin lawl) and another way to break trans subs without risking my own trans life. Volt switch>e web/thunderbolt as the momentum is nice and switching in and out whilt inflicting damage is great.

Scrafty @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 224 Atk / 240 HP / 44 Def
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
Going along with the support route, scrafty is a nice choice, fake out, intimidate, a way to threaten sharp and overall great bulk. Av is important, allowing it to tank every hit and get off damage or knock off an item. It also is a nice option vs trickroom, threatening most users with STAB knock off or first turn fakeout. Ice punch is much more important than stone edge. Hitting skymin and lando is better than talon and yzard. My team is very weak to skymin and a way of clean ohkoing (if i dont get fliched) is very amazing. Drain punch is nice recovery and hitting kanga is always nice.

Amoonguss @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 SDef
Calm Nature
- Rage Powder
- Protect
- Giga Drain
- Spore
My team was looking solid, but i needed glue, and thats where amoongus came in. Being able to tank status as well as inflicting it is vital for my team. Rage powder is also very helpful at sweeping with kanga or getting a free burn off with rotom. It also functions as a second anti tr mon being able to sleep most scary opps and alowing my faster mons to put in work. Amoongus is very vital and as you can see from my artwork™ and spore spam is invaluable. It also adds a poke to absorb other amoos spores.

Threatlist

Hide

Skymin- no1 threat has a move se against 4/6 of my team and the other dislike seedflares. My best choice is too ice punch with scrafty or ware down with kanga fo + lando uturn

Mega gengar- My best ways of hitting it hate burns and is overall very problematic.

In theory cress is very scary but i can easy deal with it in practise. There are other threats but those to are the scariest.

 

[Haki]

Hey, anty208! I have to admit, your team is very good as it possesses an effective balance of both offensive and defensive capabilities. You have amazing synergy due to the fact the members of your team cover each other's weaknesses adequately (for example, Rotom-W + Heatran paired together is pretty difficult to take down; Heatran covers Rotom-W's only weakness in Grass while Rotom-W covers Heatran's weakness to Water and Ground-types). This team is already very solid, but I would like to make a few suggestions that could help you just a little more. :]

I highly recommend utilizing Frustration on Mega-Kangaskhan (with 0 Happiness) over Return in the situation you encounter a Transform Mew or the occasional Ditto. Most likely, when either Mew or Ditto transforms into your Mega-Kangaskhan, they will be at max Happiness, meaning Frustration will be absolutely useless to those two Pokémon. I would also suggest using Crunch instead of Sucker Punch; Sucker Punch has become much too predictable in the Smogon Doubles metagame, and Aegislash can easily stall out the 8 PP by using King's Shield or Wide Guard. Substitute Mega-Gengar has also become commonplace and Sucker Punch will be unable to hit him as he sets up a decoy. Crunch enables you to hit those pesky Ghost-types with ease, not to mention it comes with a surprise factor against your opponent, potentially shifting the momentum of the match to your side.

As for Landorus-Therian, the only change I would make is to simply keep Superpower instead of Knock Off as your last moveslot; Superpower allows you to OHKO Max HP Mega-Tyranitar 100% of the time, something Earthquake is unable to do. Not only that, you are able to deal a solid 68.7 - 81% damage to Max HP Kyurem-Black, a guaranteed 2HKO even after the attack drop. You already carry Knock Off on your Scrafty, so it will not be necessary on Landorus-T.

Anyway, hope I helped! Good luck with this team. :D

tl;dr

Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Frustration
- Power-Up Punch
- Crunch

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Rock Slide
- Superpower

 

[Audiosurfer]

ok, here w/ a rate:

• disagree with crunch > sucker punch on kang. it loses its ability to check so many things without sucker punch and generally becomes less effective, so it's not worth losing for crunch, which is situational in comparison. keep it as is imo, it's the most effective kang set
• sludge bomb > giga drain on amoonguss could work as a way to wear down shaymin-s while keepin a STAB attack on amoonguss
• you have 2 intimidators and a bunch of slow pokemon, so bisharp could be a real issue. a fix to this is to change your spread on heatran to 56 HP / 252 SpA / 200 Spe @ Modest, so you outspeed Adamant Bisharp and no longer have to play any knock off vs sp mindgames since you can outspeed when settin up a sub or attacking.
• an interesting (read: unorthodox) way to check mgar could be to run earth power in the 4th slot with a naughty nature. this way it can still damage mgar a lot even through a burn, and it isn't really tryin to tank special hits anyways. can't say how well this would work but it could be nice to try

 

[Haki]

ok, here w/ a rate:

• disagree with crunch > sucker punch on kang. it loses its ability to check so many things without sucker punch and generally becomes less effective, so it's not worth losing for crunch, which is situational in comparison. keep it as is imo, it's the most effective kang set

True, Sucker Punch allows you to move first if the opponent is attacking and can enable MegaMom to finish off a weakened opposing Pokémon. In my opinion, both are viable, but it is all up to you anty208. If Mega-Gengar, Jellicent, Aegislash, and other Ghost-types are consistently a problem for you, then I would suggest you go with Crunch as most Ghost-types usually provide support (Trick Room, Will-O-Wisp) as opposed to being offensive-minded. But if Ghost-types aren't a major problem for you, then I'll agree with Audiosurfer that you should just simply keep Sucker Punch on Mega-Kangaskhan.

I also forgot to mention in my previous post that you should consider running STAB Flash Cannon on Heatran over Substitute in order to have a powerful super-effective move against pesky Fairy-types such as Mega-Gardevoir and Sylveon. A STAB Flash Cannon from Modest Max SpA Heatran OHKOs 4 HP Mega-Gardevoir 50% of the time, while pulling off a guaranteed 2HKO against Max HP Sylveon. Flash Cannon also provides you coverage against Rock-types such as Max HP Rhyperior without Solid Rock (common among Trick Room teams) 100% of the time and OHKOing Terrakion 100% of the time (note that Amoonguss can use Rage Powder to redirect an incoming Close Combat from Terrakion). If you do decide to run Flash Cannon > Substitute, I highly suggest using a Shuca Berry to survive most Ground-type attacks as opposed to Leftovers due to the fact Leftovers is only viable on Substitute Heatrans who can utilize Substitute + Protect for gradual HP recovery.

 

[pj]

Scrafty @ focus sash
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 224 Atk / 240 HP / 44 Def
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch

I would suggest to give this pokemon Focus sash to prevent it from OHKO and by all its nice

 

[Haki]

Scrafty @ focus sash
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 224 Atk / 240 HP / 44 Def
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch

I would suggest to give this pokemon Focus sash to prevent it from OHKO and by all its nice

I don't mean to be rude, but Scrafty should never have a Focus Sash, whether in the Smogon Doubles metagame or in any other tier. He is much too bulky, not to mention anty208 invested 240 HP EVs and 44 Def EVs into him. Scrafty will only be OHKOed by incoming Fairy-type moves such as a Hyper Voice from either Mega-Gardevoir and Sylveon. Besides incoming Fairy-type attacks, Scrafty will rarely get OHKOed by any other move with his impressive 65 / 115 / 115 bulk, therefore clarifying that he doesn't need a Focus Sash and should simply keep the Assault Vest for added extra bulk in his Special Defense stat.

 

[Anty]

Hey, anty208! I have to admit, your team is very good as it possesses an effective balance of both offensive and defensive capabilities. You have amazing synergy due to the fact the members of your team cover each other's weaknesses adequately (for example, Rotom-W + Heatran paired together is pretty difficult to take down; Heatran covers Rotom-W's only weakness in Grass while Rotom-W covers Heatran's weakness to Water and Ground-types). This team is already very solid, but I would like to make a few suggestions that could help you just a little more. :]

I highly recommend utilizing Frustration on Mega-Kangaskhan (with 0 Happiness) over Return in the situation you encounter a Transform Mew or the occasional Ditto. Most likely, when either Mew or Ditto transforms into your Mega-Kangaskhan, they will be at max Happiness, meaning Frustration will be absolutely useless to those two Pokémon. I would also suggest using Crunch instead of Sucker Punch; Sucker Punch has become much too predictable in the Smogon Doubles metagame, and Aegislash can easily stall out the 8 PP by using King's Shield or Wide Guard. Substitute Mega-Gengar has also become commonplace and Sucker Punch will be unable to hit him as he sets up a decoy. Crunch enables you to hit those pesky Ghost-types with ease, not to mention it comes with a surprise factor against your opponent, potentially shifting the momentum of the match to your side.

As for Landorus-Therian, the only change I would make is to simply keep Superpower instead of Knock Off as your last moveslot; Superpower allows you to OHKO Max HP Mega-Tyranitar 100% of the time, something Earthquake is unable to do. Not only that, you are able to deal a solid 68.7 - 81% damage to Max HP Kyurem-Black, a guaranteed 2HKO even after the attack drop. You already carry Knock Off on your Scrafty, so it will not be necessary on Landorus-T.

Anyway, hope I helped! Good luck with this team. :D

I keep forgetting to put frustration on kanga and thanks for the reminder x_x.
Superpower is something im definitely putting back, still have knock off from non kanga.
Crunch is interresting, it is very nice at preventing tr, something i can only do with a flinch from darkrai . I havent been using suckerpunch that much and i have to agree that it is very predictable and easy to outplay. Im just worried as sp is my only decent priority (fakeout is easier to predict/outplay),
and thanks for the rate ;)

With heatran: sub is very nice and flash cannon will also be great. But i feel I can deal with terrak and rhyp enough usually (ep does heavy dam ofc) but if im losing giga drain on amoo, it might be a better option, a single target STAB is really helpful

ok, here w/ a rate:

• disagree with crunch > sucker punch on kang. it loses its ability to check so many things without sucker punch and generally becomes less effective, so it's not worth losing for crunch, which is situational in comparison. keep it as is imo, it's the most effective kang set
• sludge bomb > giga drain on amoonguss could work as a way to wear down shaymin-s while keepin a STAB attack on amoonguss
• you have 2 intimidators and a bunch of slow pokemon, so bisharp could be a real issue. a fix to this is to change your spread on heatran to 56 HP / 252 SpA / 200 Spe @ Modest, so you outspeed Adamant Bisharp and no longer have to play any knock off vs sp mindgames since you can outspeed when settin up a sub or attacking.
• an interesting (read: unorthodox) way to check mgar could be to run earth power in the 4th slot with a naughty nature. this way it can still damage mgar a lot even through a burn, and it isn't really tryin to tank special hits anyways. can't say how well this would work but it could be nice to try

I will try out crunch then see what i like more.
I never thought of sludge bomb as an option, giga drain is barely used as amoo is so supportive, ill have to try that
Heatran i shall change
Im not sure with lando-t change, maybe if kanga goes (no need for superpower/megagar usage rise), but currently it is more situational than superpower.
Also thanks for the rate ;D

I really appreciate the positive feedback and i am continuing to make teams and i shall post some better teams (a bit less standard)