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Wow, this is a really nice and deep analysis. Actually, I think I can in general just agree to your points.
However, I had one double fight team performing the mentioned Psych Up strategy with that I got my record. The corresponding video is in post #4,464 and from that team I imported my Kommo-o simply to my Multi battle team. Mimikyu with Psych up makes somehow sense in that double fight team, because it is relatively likely that Mimikyu can copy a strong boost of Terrakion, Kommo-o or an enemy pokemon, which can as well be forced to repeat a boost attack by priority Encore. It happened during my streak, even if it was not too often, that Kommo-o made its Z-move and was then just barely alive and afterwards Mimikyu was coming in as last pokemon in still quite critical situations. When this happened, I thought, okay, I am still happy with the HP investment from my earlier considerations. If under such conditions my Kommo-o would have been down, very likely I would have lost earlier, since obviously Kommo-o would have been defeated, but additionally Mimikyu would have been not that strong as well. It has no access to any Z-move, Psych Up would be probably do nothing resulting in no boost option plus meaning one move would be completely wasted then. Nevertheless, it is for sure also true, that some situations could have been resolved differently, for example by different plays or immediately bringing down some opponents more with a stronger Z-move from Kommo-o. Anyway, after all, I think my double fight team worked quite well for me even if I was sometimes just lucky.
Here's another ongoing 1000 streak in USUM Doubles (been a while, actually). I had tried Cottonee/Xurkitree/Kommo-o/Kangaskhan before (in 2019, I think), but shelved it after winning 400 because it didn't seem that solid. However, it turns out that the "intuition" of using (level 1) Cottonee instead of a bulky priority Tailwind setter was wrong. Here's Team Neo-4K / Perfect Circle (Repto wants me to call it "XIKK", undoubtedly for great justice) -- note that it is all PKHeX'd, so not a leaderboard streak:
Illumise (F) @ Focus Sash
EVs: 244 HP / 124 Def / 140 SpD
Ability: Prankster
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Tailwind
- Fake Tears
- Encore
- Protect
Like Tapu Koko, Xurkitree is a fantastic Pokémon, fulfilling a similar role as an Electric/Fairy attacker. Not investing SpA is a trap (note that Primarina34 is already a 15/16 roll to OHKO), since you really need every point; I think I've found the pretty much optimal EV spread. Scarf Manectric, Garchomp, Entei and Terrakion outrun this in Tailwind, but Scarf Landorus-I is outsped (which is good, since it 2HKOs you with Focus Blast). Tail Glow is the most skillful button on the team; Xurk cannot always get away with boosting, but if you see e.g. Uxie lead, it's the right choice instead of the "standard" Protect. It synergizes well with Encore and Soulblaze double KOs, too. Unlike Specs Koko, +0 Xurkitree cannot OHKO Thundurus4; play carefully (Prankster Taunt danger). Beast Boost is a great ability, particularly on a lead, even though sleep immunity is very occasionally missed. Another point in Xurkitree's favor over anything else I could have run is that it cannot be paralyzed and attacks with a Fairy-type spread move (Fairy is necessary for opposing Kommo-o, and generally a good offensive type). Electroweb and Volt Switch are no longer needed with Illumise setting TW with priority and Xurk's low T1 speed respectively.
Priority Encore is the best move in the game. Aroma Veil, Mental Herb, Dazzling/Queenly Majesty and Z-moves get around it, but that's it; in every other situation, it makes the opponent lose at least two, and usually three, tempi for clicking a status move. Fake Tears makes Illumise contribute "chip damage" (Kangaskhan cannot use it, but this doesn't matter much) that amounts to about the same as having Kartana attack. However, you can no longer OHKO Aromatisse4 with the leads (all other TR setters generally aren't problems due to Encore; Oranguru and Jellicent die to FT Tbolt -- edit: actually Oranguru takes 85-100%, so maybe it is a problem; note that Dusknoir and Slowking may use their Z-move and then switch out).
I flamed Flash Cannon in my last post, but with Fake Tears and no Kartana to ease the Xio matchup, it's the right call. For the record, Mega Mawile takes 84-99% at -2 after Soulblaze. Mimikyu takes lethal damage at -2 /+0 after Disguise is broken. Drain Punch (with a Mild nature to enable it) improves Kommo-o at the cost of losing the Regice OHKO; I generally Tail Glow in front of Regice lead to mitigate this problem.
Illumise has a better defensive typing than Whimsicott (which gets to run the same set otherwise) and notably lures Rock moves, which Kommo-o may capitalize on every once in a while. Full bulk helps, as does the Sash (which is not antisynergic; super-effective moves can OHKO Illumise, and as noted, you actually want to avoid it being KO'd). 1 more point in SpD to make sure Porygons boost Attack.
As with 4K, Kangaskhan is the glue that allows me to survive when speed control isn't present, and has a good matchup against pretty much anything when it's dangerous for Kommo-o to be sent in (AV Tsareena comes to mind, even though that does have HJK; the point is to shut it off as a threat to Kommo-o, though). Seismic Toss is the superior move vis-à-vis Drain Punch/Low Kick/Power-Up Punch, no contest. Adamant 252+ Double-Edge is the way, no need for Speed or weirdly specific survival calcs.
Other teams: I had also tried Talonflame/Mega Mawile (HP, Speed; Iron Head / Sucker Punch / Swords Dance / Protect)/Kommo-o/Specs Primarina but lost at 402 to Aino setting TR + Psychic Terrain, disabling the crucial Sucker Punch. Furthermore, I tried Talonflame/PuP + Return Mega Kang/Kommo-o/Tapu Koko, but lost at 453; Kang just seems better from the backline on Kommo-o teams. Really bad team ideas included Specs Magnezone (~250 wins) and Sub LO Aegislash (~160).
After seeing the last team from Coeur7, I thought, that is cool and copied it partially. So finally, I have now a Mild Kommo-o with 244 SpA as well, which is almost same including the move Flash Cannon. It is really good in this kind of team and in general, without HP investment it cannot tank Mega-Absol’s Play Rough that good, but that is okay. Illumise is for me Modest and has Silver Wind instead of protect to have one attacking move. Similarly, I tried out different Megas and Ultra Beasts, which can benefit from the support of Illumise to get their boosts.
From priority Encore I am anyway a big fan and played it a lot, especially but not only against status moves and moves as Fake Out or First Impression. Anyway, I have also Dark type pokemons, Magic Bounce and no PP left (of you and the enemy actually) in my mind to come around priority Encore.
For me, also Helping Hand worked as possibly interesting variation to Fake Tears, even if the bonus factor is with 1.5 smaller. It is very fast, even faster than Fake Out. Kommo-o can achieve both sided OHKOs with neutral damage for round about 100 HP base and 100 SpD base and all partners can benefit from Helping Hand. Especially it was nice to use as well physical Ultra Beasts in that case, for example a Careful Buzzwole with Assault Vest, which has Fell Stinger, nice offensive recovery options and can have a strong overall defensive. Just the typing is not that great and it has some similar weaknesses to Kommo-o, but it was including Tailwind somehow manageable, so that Buzzwole was at least not permanently to slow.
In the future, I plan to investigate an Illumise with Flatter together with a Tapu Fini to boost. Thereby a Bold Illumise can be used with a Misty Seed, defensive investment and Infestation. In earlier versions I utilized Sableye instead, which is probably an option, which is beaten by Illumise, I think. My streak using this idea ended at fight 90, battle 85RW-WWWW-WWXF-CC9Y, whereby the modest Tapu Fini originates from an online Pokemon exchange, so I do not know if it is possibly cheated or something. The team used extra to the Choice Specs Tapu Fini and Illumise a modest Mega-Ampharos and a timid Porygon-Z with Z-Power to have the omniboost by Conversion together with the change to the Ghost type. Actually, the team was not completely stable along the way to the 90 fights regarding changes of some attacks and Effort Values. It is probably not my new best team, but anyway, such kind of a team might have some nice potential if it is played including a proper strategic planning. Also, I like the fast priority move boost of the special attack of the partners of Illumise by Flatter. Generally, there might be also better options than Mega-Ampharos here, it was not directly bad, but it fits not completely nice to Misty Terrain, because the Dragon Type attacks are suffering.
I have no idea if anyone plays this anymore or if this would help anyone, but if noting else I’d just like to report a streak of 342 in Super Singles just to have it archived somewhere since it would be fun to personally look back on as it exceeded any expectations I had and I didn't expect to get any berries out of it. (lol)
(all of Chanseys moves PP maxed and Kings Shield on Aegislash)
I’d like to credit a bunch of individuals whom I took ideas from.
@ AnonymousRandom and @DLNarshen : For the Lead Mega Gyarados(Gyarados happens to be my favorite pokemon so I was happy to see him be able to work)-Aegislash-electric switch in core. It also seems a bit poetic that my loss happened to be at the exact same match as Anonymousrandom meaning we now share the highest(reported) lead Mega Gary streaks. (lol)
@ GG Unit : I got the Chansey from him that I used in the previous Gen 6 games. The Growl Chansey moveset that he paired with Aegislash and Salamence (who I figured was similar enough to Garados that it should be pretty fun.) I chose Chansey over Garchomp primarily just because I like it more as a pokemon, but I also figured Chansey could cover all the switchins for Gyarados that Garchomp does(electrics) while also covering essentially every other special attacker and status user on top of electrics as well. I also copied his moveset and EV spread for Aegislash that I ended up deciding on after reading a number of posts on the speed debate of Aegislash. Perfect IV + 4 to break speed ties just made the most sense and was also the simplest haha.
My initial attempt at Super singles was with a team of Dragonite instead of Gyarados. Along with the same Aegislash and Chansey. I ended up losing at match 46 to my first all legendary trainer. a lead Terrakion that used my initial switching as a chance to get swords dances off and then he proceeded to sweep my team.
I would have never believed this team would have got as far as it did as I’m not exactly the best Singles player for battle facilities. Last Gen my highest streak was in the 160s while copying turksain I believe it was who had a 1000+ streak with Dragonite-Aegislash-Greninja. And that was with multiple attempts at using the team with some attempts barely clearing 50. With Sun and Moon I kept reading that the facilities were even more daunting with Z-moves, and Megas so my angus was peppered to say the least and I went in with little expectations.
Most of the matches go one of 4 ways in order of how likely they happened.
Switch to Chansey who either walls something completely(Special attackers), absorbs Status or wastes its PP(has Rest/a recovery move or something like Curse/Dragon dance where it can outgrowl it). Set up Minimizes, Heal when appropriate, and then Seismic Toss it to death.
Switch to Aegislash who sets up Swords Dances between kings shields. (mostly Physical attackers without earthquake)
Switch back and forth between Aegislash and Gyarados against something with Earthquake to neuter it to -6 attack and destroying its PP. I had experience doing this with Dragonite, but with the Intimidate debuff hitting it every turn it just felt incredible.
Gyarados sets up and sweeps.
There are some exceptions where you make adjustments such as against things with Taunt where I would just get hits in here and there without setting up, but that was essentially how it would play out.
Gyarados is pretty much a worse Salamence, but I feel he does have some advantages. The type change when mega evolving really does come in handy. I would often do this against things such as Lead Terrakion(and I saw A LOT of Terrakion, he has to be one of the most common pokemon) where I would dragon dance and mega evolve on turn 1. I also ran into a lot of sword Dance Mimikyu who on paper looks like it could be particularly dangerous for a Salamence-Aegislash-Chansey core. Moldbreaker makes Mimikyu sharkfood. Also useful for Sturdy and Levitate mons. I also believe Gyarados results in quicker matches since its less setting up, roosting, and subsituting (although most matches were still quite lengthy).
I also have no regrets of the Chansey choice and moveset. If I used Garchomp or the timid one(with subsitute over growl, speed investment over spdef) I would have never made it as far as I did. I really loved the unlimited PP of growl and the sheer bulk and unkillableness that the one I used offered. They were both extremely valuable. Chansey could even straight up neuter most physical attackers lacking a fighting move if it was already set up. With Chansey you very rarely felt actual danger or urgency. The advantage in the Timid Chansey was extremely niche in comparison (outspeeding 1HKO users to set up a subitute, ). but that advantage wouldn't have really applied to me(explained a bit down in threats). This Chansey was essentially more noob friendly and worked better for me, but if your goal is the highest streak possible to account for every single possible threat that could pop up while leaving smaller margins of error(meaning you are better at this and less prone to making mistakes, which I myself am prone to making) I am not going to argue that the timid one isn't the best in that instance.
Some Threats
Swords Dance users: If your not careful these guys are always particularly dangerous, I think this goes for pretty much every team.
Azelf-3: Has Nasty Plot and Psychock, and a Focus Sash. Chansey gets automatically sent out against Lake Guardians unless someone else is already set up, and man these hurt if it gets a nasty plot or two even to Chansey who is pretty much indestructible to anything other than Swords Dancers and Physical fighting attacks.
OHKO users: My team has no subsitute, and thus any carrier of a One Hit KO move had the potential to end it. Especially….
Walrein-4: probably the most famous meme-mon of the battle facilities? I was literally shitting my pants in fear of this guy. I never once ran into him, but if I did it would have probably been the loss. The absolute best case against this thing would either be Gyarados out there already with 4+ dragaon dances(which happened almost never), or Aegislash out there with a swords dance(Walrein would still AT LEAST one attempt to end it). My plan if I ran into him as a lead was just to throw Chansey out there as a sacrifice hoping to waste some of his PP. Followed by Aegislash who would Kings shield, Swords dance, KingS Shield, Sacred Sword hoping to waste additional Sheer Cold PP or kill him. And Gyarados as a last resort hoping that Sheer Colds PP would be out by this stage and I could just dragon dance until I can 1HKO him. A large part of my streak was probably in part to never running into this thing a single time (I never ran into Walrein-3 either, not sure if they are just super rare or don’t appear in Ultra Sun). As said before I am pretty sure people were running Timid Chansey exclusively for this thing. And since I never actually ran into it, the advantage of having all that extra bulk was HUGE for me and I didn't have any repercussions in doing so. (lol)
Mega-Lopunny: I lost to this thing so I have to give it a mention.
The Loss
1. Gyarados vs Arcanine. I dragon dance. Arcanine uses Flair Blitz. Good
2. Gyarados kills Arcanine with Waterfall.
3. Probopass enters and Gyarados mega evolves for the earthquake KO (in case he has sturdy).
So far so good
4. Lopunny comes in.
(shit, he is faster than MegaGyarados+1.)
5. I switch to Aegislash not thinking he would die to high jump kick. This thing has Scrappy(can hit ghost types with normal/fighting, Lol fuck)
(At this point the game is loss. Kings shielding Lopunny or having unmegaevolved Gyarados would have been the only way to win without getting lucky on this thing missing.)
6. M-Gyaradoes comes in and is killed.
7. Chansey comes in. Brought to 14 hp by high jump kick. Use Minimize.
8. it finishes chansey off next turn with quick attack.
(GG)
I should have known since I made that same mistake in an earlier battle with Aegislash, (being unaware of the Mega Lopunnys ability and switching to it when it came in on Chansey), but I believe I was able to recover in that instance since I still had Gyarados in its base form that offered an Intimidate and a not very effective resistance to High Jump Kick. definetly a silly loss, a bit sad, but also looking forward to moving on and doing Doubles and Multis.
All in all this was my fondest streak looking back on after me and my brother managed 450+ wins in Multis on ORAS(also done using a Gyarados!) so I wanted to conclude it with a write up that maybe I could look at in the future and get a smile. as well as sharing for once because I've got so much helpful information from people in this thread as well as the Gen 6 Maison one. much more than just the people I shouted out.
If you shuffle between Chansey/Aegi (on Close Combat)/Gyara on Arcanine4 lead, you can stall it out of Close Combat (this is to respect the crit chance), Growl it to -6 if it isn't already, and set up Gyarados to more than +1 (leaving aside that you could have gotten in more DDs against Probopass, since you couldn't control getting such a weak mon second). The initial switch to Chansey is useful anyway since it sets up on Arcanine3. That aside, I'm not seeing the targets for EQ, Substitute would be a better move (which also makes Walrein4 less effective; note that the Aegimensey team uses Salamence, not Chansey, to deal with it -- and it is no threat at all to that).
It is honestly astonishing that you mention Gyarados sweeping was the *least* likely scenario (unless you mean you sorted these in ascending order of likelihood), because on the Salamence team it is definitely most common (and safe, and the whole point) to have +6 Mence kill everything. I guess I can't argue with favoritism, though.
e: I'm also not sure how much the 252 SpD on Chansey helps at all, maybe against Raichu-A2 since it can't 2HKO you anymore at +6. You could achieve that with 164 SpD and have enough EVs for Speed to outrun base 60, which might help more than some extra points of SpD even if the overall stat total is lower (diminishing returns, "Speed is the most important stat", and all that). Or put the leftovers in HP to boost Chansey's physical bulk (against crits) a bit further.
If you shuffle between Chansey/Aegi (on Close Combat)/Gyara on Arcanine4 lead, you can stall it out of Close Combat (this is to respect the crit chance), Growl it to -6 if it isn't already, and set up Gyarados to more than +1 (leaving aside that you could have gotten in more DDs against Probopass, since you couldn't control getting such a weak mon second). The initial switch to Chansey is useful anyway since it sets up on Arcanine3. That aside, I'm not seeing the targets for EQ, Substitute would be a better move (which also makes Walrein4 less effective; note that the Aegimensey team uses Salamence, not Chansey, to deal with it -- and it is no threat at all to that).
It is honestly astonishing that you mention Gyarados sweeping was the *least* likely scenario (unless you mean you sorted these in ascending order of likelihood), because on the Salamence team it is definitely most common (and safe, and the whole point) to have +6 Mence kill everything. I guess I can't argue with favoritism, though.
e: I'm also not sure how much the 252 SpD on Chansey helps at all, maybe against Raichu-A2 since it can't 2HKO you anymore at +6. You could achieve that with 164 SpD and have enough EVs for Speed to outrun base 60, which might help more than some extra points of SpD even if the overall stat total is lower (diminishing returns, "Speed is the most important stat", and all that). Or put the leftovers in HP to boost Chansey's physical bulk (against crits) a bit further.
Gyarados sweeping was the least likely because it was generally the least forgiving since he has no recovery(unlike Salamence who has Roost) and once you commit to the mega evolve you lose that trap card of changing your type and giving out further intimidate boosts, switching into earthquakes which was his main use. which did end up costing me. I didn't really like to take damage on him at all even miniscule. definetly things could have, should have done different in hindsight like the Chansey/Aegi switch(Once I got to 200 wins I generally played less safe in general lol), but the real kicker was simply overlooking/being ignorant of the ability of the LoPunny Mega and losing Aegislash for nothing. Just coming in on equal footing and give it a Kings Shield would have pretty much neutralized it.
there were a couple pokemon that Earthquake would let me kill without having to go for further dances and take further hits, and Earthquaking Levitate users just felt extremely satisfying. but your probably right haha.
Valid point on the 252 spD. perhaps a bit overkill. it did feel really good though. the HP may have been better? I just saw spdef investment as better since it stacks with his item and Chanseys HP stat is already much higher than SpD. I'm sure someones done some math at sone point. I will say though that there wasn't really a single time I felt I needed to be just a little faster I think if you choose to invest in speed you got to go all in on outspeeding Walrein at 85 or other big threats with 1HKO moves. thanks for your comment
I have no idea if anyone plays this anymore or if this would help anyone, but if noting else I’d just like to report a streak of 342 in Super Singles just to have it archived somewhere since it would be fun to personally look back on as it exceeded any expectations I had and I didn't expect to get any berries out of it. (lol)
(all of Chanseys moves PP maxed and Kings Shield on Aegislash)
I’d like to credit a bunch of individuals whom I took ideas from.
@ AnonymousRandom and @DLNarshen : For the Lead Mega Gyarados(Gyarados happens to be my favorite pokemon so I was happy to see him be able to work)-Aegislash-electric switch in core. It also seems a bit poetic that my loss happened to be at the exact same match as Anonymousrandom meaning we now share the highest(reported) lead Mega Gary streaks. (lol)
@ GG Unit : I got the Chansey from him that I used in the previous Gen 6 games. The Growl Chansey moveset that he paired with Aegislash and Salamence (who I figured was similar enough to Garados that it should be pretty fun.) I chose Chansey over Garchomp primarily just because I like it more as a pokemon, but I also figured Chansey could cover all the switchins for Gyarados that Garchomp does(electrics) while also covering essentially every other special attacker and status user on top of electrics as well. I also copied his moveset and EV spread for Aegislash that I ended up deciding on after reading a number of posts on the speed debate of Aegislash. Perfect IV + 4 to break speed ties just made the most sense and was also the simplest haha.
My initial attempt at Super singles was with a team of Dragonite instead of Gyarados. Along with the same Aegislash and Chansey. I ended up losing at match 46 to my first all legendary trainer. a lead Terrakion that used my initial switching as a chance to get swords dances off and then he proceeded to sweep my team.
I would have never believed this team would have got as far as it did as I’m not exactly the best Singles player for battle facilities. Last Gen my highest streak was in the 160s while copying turksain I believe it was who had a 1000+ streak with Dragonite-Aegislash-Greninja. And that was with multiple attempts at using the team with some attempts barely clearing 50. With Sun and Moon I kept reading that the facilities were even more daunting with Z-moves, and Megas so my angus was peppered to say the least and I went in with little expectations.
Most of the matches go one of 4 ways in order of how likely they happened.
Switch to Chansey who either walls something completely(Special attackers), absorbs Status or wastes its PP(has Rest/a recovery move or something like Curse/Dragon dance where it can outgrowl it). Set up Minimizes, Heal when appropriate, and then Seismic Toss it to death.
Switch to Aegislash who sets up Swords Dances between kings shields. (mostly Physical attackers without earthquake)
Switch back and forth between Aegislash and Gyarados against something with Earthquake to neuter it to -6 attack and destroying its PP. I had experience doing this with Dragonite, but with the Intimidate debuff hitting it every turn it just felt incredible.
Gyarados sets up and sweeps.
There are some exceptions where you make adjustments such as against things with Taunt where I would just get hits in here and there without setting up, but that was essentially how it would play out.
Gyarados is pretty much a worse Salamence, but I feel he does have some advantages. The type change when mega evolving really does come in handy. I would often do this against things such as Lead Terrakion(and I saw A LOT of Terrakion, he has to be one of the most common pokemon) where I would dragon dance and mega evolve on turn 1. I also ran into a lot of sword Dance Mimikyu who on paper looks like it could be particularly dangerous for a Salamence-Aegislash-Chansey core. Moldbreaker makes Mimikyu sharkfood. Also useful for Sturdy and Levitate mons. I also believe Gyarados results in quicker matches since its less setting up, roosting, and subsituting (although most matches were still quite lengthy).
I also have no regrets of the Chansey choice and moveset. If I used Garchomp or the timid one(with subsitute over growl, speed investment over spdef) I would have never made it as far as I did. I really loved the unlimited PP of growl and the sheer bulk and unkillableness that the one I used offered. They were both extremely valuable. Chansey could even straight up neuter most physical attackers lacking a fighting move if it was already set up. With Chansey you very rarely felt actual danger or urgency. The advantage in the Timid Chansey was extremely niche in comparison (outspeeding 1HKO users to set up a subitute, ). but that advantage wouldn't have really applied to me(explained a bit down in threats). This Chansey was essentially more noob friendly and worked better for me, but if your goal is the highest streak possible to account for every single possible threat that could pop up while leaving smaller margins of error(meaning you are better at this and less prone to making mistakes, which I myself am prone to making) I am not going to argue that the timid one isn't the best in that instance.
Some Threats
Swords Dance users: If your not careful these guys are always particularly dangerous, I think this goes for pretty much every team.
Azelf-3: Has Nasty Plot and Psychock, and a Focus Sash. Chansey gets automatically sent out against Lake Guardians unless someone else is already set up, and man these hurt if it gets a nasty plot or two even to Chansey who is pretty much indestructible to anything other than Swords Dancers and Physical fighting attacks.
OHKO users: My team has no subsitute, and thus any carrier of a One Hit KO move had the potential to end it. Especially….
Walrein-4: probably the most famous meme-mon of the battle facilities? I was literally shitting my pants in fear of this guy. I never once ran into him, but if I did it would have probably been the loss. The absolute best case against this thing would either be Gyarados out there already with 4+ dragaon dances(which happened almost never), or Aegislash out there with a swords dance(Walrein would still AT LEAST one attempt to end it). My plan if I ran into him as a lead was just to throw Chansey out there as a sacrifice hoping to waste some of his PP. Followed by Aegislash who would Kings shield, Swords dance, KingS Shield, Sacred Sword hoping to waste additional Sheer Cold PP or kill him. And Gyarados as a last resort hoping that Sheer Colds PP would be out by this stage and I could just dragon dance until I can 1HKO him. A large part of my streak was probably in part to never running into this thing a single time (I never ran into Walrein-3 either, not sure if they are just super rare or don’t appear in Ultra Sun). As said before I am pretty sure people were running Timid Chansey exclusively for this thing. And since I never actually ran into it, the advantage of having all that extra bulk was HUGE for me and I didn't have any repercussions in doing so. (lol)
Mega-Lopunny: I lost to this thing so I have to give it a mention.
The Loss
1. Gyarados vs Arcanine. I dragon dance. Arcanine uses Flair Blitz. Good
2. Gyarados kills Arcanine with Waterfall.
3. Probopass enters and Gyarados mega evolves for the earthquake KO (in case he has sturdy).
So far so good
4. Lopunny comes in.
(shit, he is faster than MegaGyarados+1.)
5. I switch to Aegislash not thinking he would die to high jump kick. This thing has Scrappy(can hit ghost types with normal/fighting, Lol fuck)
(At this point the game is loss. Kings shielding Lopunny or having unmegaevolved Gyarados would have been the only way to win without getting lucky on this thing missing.)
6. M-Gyaradoes comes in and is killed.
7. Chansey comes in. Brought to 14 hp by high jump kick. Use Minimize.
8. it finishes chansey off next turn with quick attack.
(GG)
I should have known since I made that same mistake in an earlier battle with Aegislash, (being unaware of the Mega Lopunnys ability and switching to it when it came in on Chansey), but I believe I was able to recover in that instance since I still had Gyarados in its base form that offered an Intimidate and a not very effective resistance to High Jump Kick. definetly a silly loss, a bit sad, but also looking forward to moving on and doing Doubles and Multis.
All in all this was my fondest streak looking back on after me and my brother managed 450+ wins in Multis on ORAS(also done using a Gyarados!) so I wanted to conclude it with a write up that maybe I could look at in the future and get a smile. as well as sharing for once because I've got so much helpful information from people in this thread as well as the Gen 6 Maison one. much more than just the people I shouted out.
Sorry I have never advocated for (or even used) Growl on Chansey. Substitute is definitely better. I used an EV spread that I knew was suboptimal just to show that I could get a higher streak with Chansey solely off the strength of a better moveset. As Coeur7 mentioned you can switch stuff around to make Arcanine set-up bait and that loss was more a function of you being greedy and trying to sweep at only +1.
Sorry I have never advocated for (or even used) Growl on Chansey. Substitute is definitely better. I used an EV spread that I knew was suboptimal just to show that I could get a higher streak with Chansey solely off the strength of a better moveset. As Coeur7 mentioned you can switch stuff around to make Arcanine set-up bait and that loss was more a function of you being greedy and trying to sweep at only +1.
Ah apologies for the miscredit. Looking back at the Maison article it was actually VaporeonIce that was the originator of Growl chansey, And @Psynergyused it to success this gen as well. thanks fellas. and yea it was just a huge misplay on my part.
a lot of your posts definetly helped me out regardless of that little mixup, so thanks again for all the info you put out.
So far we're seeing a lot of Mega Salamence + Aegislash + Normal type on the leaderboards. Two Pokemon that more than hold their own in Ubers and resist all of each other's weaknesses save for Ghost, which is what the Normal is for (and when you consider that all your Pokemon essentially have Shadow Tag in addition to their regular ability, you can believe Shadow Tag Chansey would be beyond broken as well). With Salamence and Aegislash alone, you can set one of the two up on any physical attacker that has no means of boosting Attack (and several that do), and obviously a Pokemon like Chansey has special attackers on lock. I'm just past my pre-bank record now on my first run with Seismic Toss Chansey (obviously could have run it back with Toxic or Confide Chansey and taking better care to select the right moves, but no need to stick with an inferior team) and wanted to put the team here mostly to answer people's questions about how Chansey works.
Possible EV change: Mimikyu3 has a 1/16th chance of OHKOing MegaMence with a critical hit Play Rough, which could be avoided by moving the 12 Special Defense EVs to Defense (Mence could break the disguise and OHKO with Return). I guess that gets the Porygons a Special Attack boost, but Chansey could care less about that (and if things somehow got rough with a Ice Beam/Tri Attack freeze and a bunch of crits or something you could always switch stall Tri Attack and Shadow Ball). Right now, I deal with Mimikyu by switching to Chansey, using Evasion and Sub to stall out its Play Rough and then spamming Sub to get it to KO itself with Wood Hammer recoil. Obviously could lose to that if it gets really lucky with never missing, getting crits, etc. but it seems to be manageable for now. On the other hand, Mimikyu would definitely KO with Rocky Helmet and a crit Play Rough, so it probably is best to stay with the Chansey plan.
I was a relative latecomer to using Aegislash in the Maison but have gotten more comfortable with using Stance Change to manipulate what the opponent will use. For example, I switch Aegislash in on Tyranitar leads, and if it uses Dragon Dance on the switch I King's Shield. If Tyranitar DDs again (to get to +1 Attack) that's obviously not good, but then I do another switch back and forth between Mence and Aegislash so Aegislash can take some damage from Rock Slide, ensuring that Crunch would KO the following turn. Then I can be pretty much assured Tyranitar will Crunch into King's Shield and then DD again to get its Attack back up to at least +0, which buys a turn to Sacred Sword. That doesn't KO thanks to Chople Berry, but then Aegislash in Blade Forme is going to get Crunched again the following turn, so you can repeat the pattern.
While I like the creativity on the Silvally and Type:Null sets, Chansey has the flexiblity in many cases to decide whether it wants to cripple then opposing lead (through PP stalling) or set up and attempt to sweep on its own, and it has the special bulk (and ability) to care less than anything else does about critical hits, flinches, Special Defense drops, and status effects. RXHG-WWWW-WWW5-X92T is a good example of this versatility: normally I would have switched Chansey into Empoleon to set up, but it pissed me off by freezing it with Blizzard on the switch (and also for all the times I had to PP stall it for even longer before Seismic Toss Chansey was available), so I went on to PP stall it out of Surf and bring Salamence in to Sub stall the remaining 4 Blizzards and set up all the way. If you're constantly on the lookout for opportunities like that (and sometimes you may have to use Aegislash as a pivot to get Mence back in safely), you'll pretty much never have to worry about Chansey running out of PP.
So the team is working well, I'm at 400+ wins in a row, but it's not perfect. Different attack-boosting leads could punch pretty big holes in this team if they're getting crits or unexpectedly boost or attack when I'm expecting the opposite, and that would leave me at the mercy of the matchup of whatever 2-on-2 or 1-on-2 ensues. Hopefully this can get 1,000, 2,000, whatever, but I'm not going to act like I have enough experience in the Tree to know how it will hold up against every combination of threats out there.
Anyway, that brings me to my main point. I have a Truant team that I think is ready to go. I've been saving battles this streak against leads that I want to do some mock battles against. However, when I go to do a mock battle and select the Durant team, I get a message saying that there is a problem with one of the Pokemon and I can't do a mock battle. At first I thought it was due to some update issue where it had some issues with post-bank Pokemon or moves, but I'm able to do practice battles and upload videos with the above team. Then I thought it was maybe an issue with post-Bank Pokemon and not moves, but I was able to do a mock battle with a Charmander in Durant's place. As a final test, I actually did a battle in the middle of my streak with the Durant team to see if that video would fail to upload, but it actually was allowed to! So it seems like the only thing off limits right now is actually doing a mock battle with Durant. Has anyone else encountered problems like this?
So currently I *think* this team would be as good or better than the one I'm using in my streak, but I don't have enough confidence in it to toss aside what I have going right now and start winging it. Here's literally the only battle I've fought with it so far (D89G-WWWW-WWW5-X9KY) since I can't put it in any mock battles for whatever reason. Feel free to give it a try yourself , improve it, use it as a template for your own Durant team with a different sweeper, offer suggestions, or whatever.
Durant
Item: Choice Scarf
Ability: Truant
Jolly Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 4 Sp. Def / 236 Spe
Level 50 stats: 165/129/135/48/68/174
- Entrainment
- X-Scissor
- Substitute
- Iron Head (still not sure for this one)
X-Scissor hits possible Mega Absol as well as Espeon this generation (but then again, maybe it would be better to switch in Mimikyu and take on something different). Substitute is the best answer I can think of for Dugtrio 2, one of the leads I'd most like to mock battle. It outspeeds Scarf Manectric, with the rest of the EVs going to maximize physical defense and then 4 extra points left over for Special Defense.
Different EVs this time around. The old ones had some Defense for Glalie's Sub at +5 Defense to survive a non-crit Stone Edge from Donphan or Technician Bullet Punch from Scizor in the Maison. There's no more Donphan, and the Scizor sets hit a little harder than before, so I'm putting them into making Frost Breath more powerful now. The HP EVs maximize the number of turns Glalie can PP stall a move while fishing for the right boosts or a miss against a non-Truant opponent, and there's a little bit more Speed than before for +1 Glalie to beat a few of the things that sit just ahead of the base 130 crowd. Glalie got massively buffed this generation with the ability to see its stat changes at any given moment, and Drapion is most likely nerfed due to Choice-locked Pokemon now switching out rather than struggling and the Knock Off-resistant Megas that can overpower it if not fully boosted.
The panic button against leads that Durant can't or would rather not try to Entrain. Obviously the worst-case scenario would be the Red Card dragging another such Pokemon out, but that's what the moves are for. Even if Entrainment isn't possible, lowering the opponent's Speed and/or Special Attack can be more than enough to let Glalie set up easily.
Just tried this durant team, same tactics, lost at battle 15 due to toxicroak using taunt so i couldnt use my move, then i get switch get ohkod and its all down hill from there. I thought this durant team was op. Clearly not lol r.i.p
Lost at 35 now with same team. All it takes is one taunt from the first opposing pokemon and its pretty much over. Garbage glass cannon team. Op got lucky
Lost at 35 now with same team. All it takes is one taunt from the first opposing pokemon and its pretty much over. Garbage glass cannon team. Op got lucky
Lost at 35 now with same team. All it takes is one taunt from the first opposing pokemon and its pretty much over. Garbage glass cannon team. Op got lucky
If you're blindly Entraining on turn one into something that might have a faster Taunt, you're playing it wrong. Selecting Entrainment and having it fail to work due to Taunt or the like is indeed one of the easiest ways to lose, as you've now discovered twice. A team like this isn't something you can just pick up and play blindly. If you're not using the opposing trainer/set lists and really thinking through how to play around opposing leads you can't just immediately Entrain and win against, you're not going to do very well at all. Mimikyu is important to handling many of these situations.
Hope this is still active! About to play the 90th battle in super doubles. Wish me luck. It was been pretty smooth sailing so far. Wanted to build around Mega-Camerupt and this is what I got...
Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 220 HP / 236 Def / 52 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Night Shade
- Trick Room
- Pain Split
- Sunny Day
no specific defensive calcs but wanted to just be bulky and break sashes with night shade and pain split.
Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 236 Atk / 116 Def / 156 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
My Kill leader. Guts + CC pretty much OHKOs everything that doesn't resist it. Knock for ghost and psychics and heavy slam for fairies and Camerupt for bugs. Generally clops + hari clean no need for anything else
Under speeds dusc in TR so I can sunny day + fire move (Modest to also minimise confusion and foul play damage). This downs mons that resist which is funny AF.
Exeggutor-Alola @ Grassium Z
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SpA / 20 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Draco Meteor
- Energy Ball
- Sludge Bomb
- Trick Room
Last slot is most expendable but wanted a secondary TR setter + something that dunks on bulky waters. Ice moves are an issue. Wasn't sure about the last slot but Sludge Bomb has been clutch a few times.
Hari + Clops lead fake out + Tr generally and frisk lets me know exactly what 2 mons are in front of me. Generally it doesn't get past these 2 but when Hari does go down, thanks to the defense drops from CC, in comes Camerupt, I set sun and profit. Exeggutor is for a late game TR AND deal with bulky grass types but rarely hits the field. Pretty straight forward team. Will keep all posted on progress
Hope this is still active! About to play the 90th battle in super doubles. Wish me luck. It was been pretty smooth sailing so far. Wanted to build around Mega-Camerupt and this is what I got...
Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 220 HP / 236 Def / 52 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Night Shade
- Trick Room
- Pain Split
- Sunny Day
no specific defensive calcs but wanted to just be bulky and break sashes with night shade and pain split.
Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 236 Atk / 116 Def / 156 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
My Kill leader. Guts + CC pretty much OHKOs everything that doesn't resist it. Knock for ghost and psychics and heavy slam for fairies and Camerupt for bugs. Generally clops + hari clean no need for anything else
Under speeds dusc in TR so I can sunny day + fire move (Modest to also minimise confusion and foul play damage). This downs mons that resist which is funny AF.
Exeggutor-Alola @ Grassium Z
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SpA / 20 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Draco Meteor
- Energy Ball
- Sludge Bomb
- Trick Room
Last slot is most expendable but wanted a secondary TR setter + something that dunks on bulky waters. Ice moves are an issue. Wasn't sure about the last slot but Sludge Bomb has been clutch a few times.
Hari + Clops lead fake out + Tr generally and frisk lets me know exactly what 2 mons are in front of me. Generally it doesn't get past these 2 but when Hari does go down, thanks to the defense drops from CC, in comes Camerupt, I set sun and profit. Exeggutor is for a late game TR AND deal with bulky grass types but rarely hits the field. Pretty straight forward team. Will keep all posted on progress
Lost at 35 now with same team. All it takes is one taunt from the first opposing pokemon and its pretty much over. Garbage glass cannon team. Op got lucky
Hey now, everybody is starting from a different place. If you got that many in a row and did it without going poop or pee in your pants, that could be as good as someone who knows how to read getting 1000!
Together with one of my friends I played the Multi Battle and we were both very happy to a new record for both of us. The following members were in the team:
From my friend: Kommo-o @ Kommonium Z
DVs: all maximized
EVs: 68 HP / 12 Atk / 244 SpA / 52 SpD / 132 Spe
Ability: Bulletproof
Mild Nature
- Clanging Scales
- Drain Punch
- Flash Cannon
- Protect
From my friend: Celesteela @ Leftovers
DVs: all maximized
EVs: 36 HP / 212 Atk / 4 Def / 28 SpD / 228 Spe
Ability: Beast Boost
Jolly Nature
- Fly
- Iron Head
- Stomping Tantrum
- Protect
From me: Whimsicott @ Focus Sash
DVs: all maximized except for physical attack, which should be minimized.
EVs: 12 HP / 4 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Ability: Prankster
Timid Nature
- Moonblast
- Helping Hand
- Tailwind
- Encore
From me: Porygon-Z @ Normalium Z
DVs: all maximized except for physical attack, which should be minimized.
EVs: 244 HP / 4 Def / 20 SpA / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
Ability: Adaptability
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting type]
- Recover
- Conversion
With this team we got 101 consecutive wins (my edition is Pokemon Ultramoon). The losing battle was fight 102 with the code 2YTG-WWWW-WWXF-C6PH and I also stored fight 100 with the code ADKW-WWWW-WWXF-C6PG as example for a won fight.
Kommo-o should be, if needed, supported by Whimsicott to get safer to his Z power boosts. In parallel, it can deal with its Z attack usually much damage, but especially fairies are problematic. Protect enables the possibility to wait for setting up something as tailwind or for delaying a switch to Celesteela. Because of Drain Punch Kommo-o has not only a Fighting type attack, it has as well the possibility to get HP back, which is quite good, especially if it has his defensive boost. Anyway, the physical defense is after boosting sometimes reduced by Clanging Scales.
The Whimsicott allows a relatively good speed control by its Prankster Tailwind plus the Prankster Encore, so that Kommo-o can deal in many cases a lot of damage and boost before it gets attacked. Additionally, the Prankster Encore can be useful against a lot of boosters, which are not having the Dark type. With Helping Hand the Z move of Kommo-o is round about strong enough, of causing with neutral damage onehits to pokemon with 100 SpD and HP base, so that from time to time double KOs are possible. Helping Hand with the boosted Clanging Scales is a little bit weaker but still there are regularly some onehits. This is achieved by Komm-o finally having an almost maximized SpA.
Porygon-Z works from the idea a bit similar to Kommo-o and makes use of the fact, that to Z crystals can be there. First Porygon-Z should boost before it gets hit. If Whimsicottis still there, this is often manageable. It has no attack with its boosting Z move, but it also boosts all stats and has the advantage of changing its type to Ghost. This makes Fighting attacks against it for most of the cases useless. Attacks from the Dark type become unfortunately sometimes very effective, but in general the type change is helping a lot. If needed, the Z power can be used offensively by Hidden power and theoretically also by Recover, which did actually not happen. Hidden power provides a nice coverage for Ghost, since the Normal type and the Dark type are hit stronger. Shadow ball and also the Z Hidden Power have a strong boost from the ability Adaptability, whereby it is nice as well, that Ghost strikes the most types at least neutral.
Celesteela with Leftovers was chosen because of its ability and since it has a good defense in general, which makes it a nice option together with Kommo-o due to its typing. Also it fits with the rest of the team regarding avoiding multiple weaknesses. It is only weak to Fire and the Electro type and with that Kommo-o is typically not attacked. Additionally many further type advantages, especially from the Steel type, are there. Leftovers combine good with switches, which are mainly required against fairies. By Helping Hand one time boosts can be utilized to get permanent boosts. Protect and Fly support the effect of the leftovers. Protect is generally very important, since if Kommo-o is down, sometimes still Fire and Electro attackers were there and could be removed in a Protect round. Iron head is very good against most of the fairies, which are still one of the main problems due to Kommo-o.
With the 3DS servers closing soon, might as well hurry up an post my current streak.
Reporting an ongoing streak of 822 wins in Battle Tree Super Doubles (Moon) for the Leaderboard: CONQUEROR OF ENTROPY
The idea started in the Discord server, where I saw Coeur7 trying out several tailwind users, ending up with the Illumise+Xurkitree team, I went a different path.
The problem I always had with tailwind, trick room, rain, sun, whatever, both in Smogon OU when I used to play, and VGC/Doubles in general, is that, fundamentally, they’re a gimmick, that’s not necessarily a bad word, but there’s an implicit acceptance that these teams, at their core, are teams that work under the scope of matchup fishing, where you’ll demolish someone effortlessly, while some other times you’ll get destroyed, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Of course, this is, for something like battle facilities, unacceptable, so I set out attempting to fulfil two objectives:
1) a substitute for Kommo, because I cannot use its z move on a Moon cartridge, a ‘mon that it’s extremely common on tailwind teams
2) A tailwind team that will, of course, find excellent use in tailwind, but isn’t prone of falling apart if said move cannot be used, something that does not, under any circumstances, give up momentum, taking into account all erratic possibilities, and, basically, a Conqueror of Entropy.
The site I used for sprites disappeared many years ago, I don’t even know if posting sprites is still used in RMTs to begin with, frankly.
ETT:
Tapu Koko @ Choice Specs
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Dazzling Gleam
- Grass Knot
Talonflame @ Life Orb
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Atk / 52 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Tailwind
- Protect
Mawile @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 6 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Protect
- Swords Dance
All the ‘mons are at level 100, though I used the VGC 2018 setting on Showdown, as technically, that’s the battle tree format, excluding some exclusive old gen tutors like seismic toss. All ivs are at 31, except the respective useless attacking stat, with Tapu Koko being, originally, a hp ice user without max speed, but brought to its fullest thanks to bottlecaps.
As soon as you begin the battle, you can already grasp the momentum at hand, the fast and powerful Tapu Koko, accompanied by the surprisingly bulky Talonflame are relentless, most threats are ohkoed by Koko, and those that resists, are usually not able to ohko either of the two, Talonflame is, at least for me, the best tailwind partner for Koko, unlike Kartana, it has access to priority, both in tailwind, and brave bird, its primary stab, grass types that resist Koko, will not be able to fend off Talonflame’s assault, while water types will be offed by Koko, sometimes even grass knot is nice against rock/ground types, and Talonflame can also be used as protect bait, so to speak, vs opposing electric types, as you weaken them with Dazzling Gleam, just be careful with z electric Raikou (one of the sets has air baloon, so pay extra attention at the dialogue) and z rock Zapdos (wait, what?) finally, volt switch is when you want to escape the current predicament, but still do sizeable damage, most of the time, vs will bring the opponent to Talon’s ohko range, so next turn under tailwind, Dragonite will one shot the full health ‘mon, and Talonflame will kill the weakened one.
Wait, Dragonite? Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, hey, if subtoxicgliscor is used on the doubles team with the highest streak, anything can have a function. As I said, I’m playing this on a Moon cartridge, so no Soulblaze Kommo, at first it was disheartening, but after testing several dragons with a Z move, I’m confident Dragonite is the second best, or best in the case of this team, as it offers a tank role Kommo cannot replicate, and a serious Tree pick, Dragonite is, what one may refer as a “panic button” for every situation, a tank, capable of tanking 90% of the tree thanks to Multiscale, and destroy most, with Z Outrage. Outrage is a cursed move, outstanding power, but you cannot pick who it’ll be used on in doubles, and cannot switch out once the sequence has started, however, z crystals throw all that balancing away, and I get to nuke anything, by the time I used the z crystal, the team, and Z Outrage has already won me the battle, or just one opposing ‘mon is left. Earthquake might seem counterproductive, what with Koko and Mawi, but Mawile has protect, Koko can even tank an EQ at full health if necessary, and I really, REALLY need all the insurance I can get vs Heatran and Magnezone, Extremespeed is there so that I can always have a form of speed, even under trick room, or opposing tailwinds, it surprisingly has a strong synergy with Koko, as it finished off most of the things tbolt failed to kill. Finally Dragon Dance is a weird choice compared to, say, protect, but it’s for insurance against stall ‘mons.
That leaves us with MegaMawile, standard fair, max speed at level 50 allows you to outspeed base 130s under tailwind, very nice, yes, there’s no room for Play Rough, because I’d be damned in using moves below 100 accuracy after I missed a wide lens draco meteor, IH+SP has the same coverage of Bisharp, which isn’t bad, especially if you have clownishly levels of high strength, protect is your usual fair, and helps vs eq, swords dance basically makes Mawi able to ohko everything, and sucker punch was a life saver every single time I faced trick room aficionados like the scientist, it is also a priority in general, so Mawi isn’t deadweight without tailwind.
Threat List:
Rhyperior: this is the number one threat by far, you cannot predict if it’s the protect variant, or the sash+metal burst one, act accordingly with whatever is partnered up
Probopass: one of its variations is quick claw+ rock blast, it seems that it was made up specifically to fuck around with this team, fortunately it doesn’t have high offense
Zapdos: One of them has the damned Brightpowder item, another has z ancient power for some fucked up reason, either way, a threat to Talonflame, whether it’s worth it to sacrifice it for tailwind depends on Zapdos’ partner.
Raikou: multiple variations with z electric, same stuff with Zapdos, minus the brightpowder part, air baloon set can be scouted at the start.
Rotom-frost: this fuck ended my previous streak at 543 after freezing my Mawile for 7 turns, fuck that thing, incidentally, most of the time, this guy is used by trainers that I don’t really need tailwind for, so Flare Blitz one shots it.
Magnezone: another brightpowder fucker, this one resists z outrage though
Trick room in general: I have some ways to fight it, but it’s one of the battles where I need to be hyperfocused
Various videos showcasing the team:
M5VW WWWW WWXF DWSS (battle number 822, it also happens to be vs a trick room team, with Audino and Slowking lead potentially being trick room, I was forced to fight and win under troom)
5SGW WWWW WWXF DW5t (another troom, got lucky with the rotomfrost flinch, but I was planning to send espeed nite to finish it off alongside sucker punching cress next turn
STAG WWWW WWXF DW5U
(vs Wally)
TWSW WWWW WWXF DW5Q (vs Colress and Magnezone+Porygon 2, ouch)
4X6G WWWW WWXF DW5P (delicate entanglement vs Raikou and Salazzle lead)
Also have three other streaks with different teams, no way I’m typing a Wall of Text for those though, too old.
Team N. 2 (specskoko, bulkyddmence, z earthquake Lantherian, electricseed Milotic):
CUFW WWWW WWXF DW5Z lost at battle 565
Team N.3 (specskoko, ip+stmegagross, zwater Rotom-Wash, scarfearthpowerlantherian)
V67G WWWW WWXF DW5M lost at 294
Team N.4 z psychic bulky Lele, ip+stmegagross, psychic seed+tailwind zapdos, wide lens Hydreigob, yes, wide lens, sometimes I used White Herb to be fair)
NPEW WWWW WWXF DW5N lost at 273, this is merely me pretending I don’t use Koko in every team, I might try this team again with taint Lele though
Edit: lost at battle 865, an unfortunate combination of sandstorm Tyranitar, sitrus berry Palossand, alongside a very low roll regarding sucker punch, allowing it to live dazzling gleam+sucker punch and ohko mmawi, and finally, sand rush Lycanroc day, which outspeeds ddnite after a ddance, welp.
XSAW WWWW WWXF DE4N
Now that I have your attention, I'd like to submit a 197 win streak on Moon Super Doubles. Proof:
With the imminent closure of the 3DS and Wii U online, I wanted to finish up what little I had left to do in some of my favorite games. I also had an itch to try a serious Battle Tree run, seeing as I had yet to obtain the Starf berry. And so, I set out to do just that. Now was the time, after all!
But upon looking at the leaderboards for the Tree, I noticed a distinct lack of a certain vaguely-lagomorphic creature in the rankings. "I understand," I told myself. "It's not exactly a viable Pokémon. But you know? I think I'll make it work." Armed with nothing but a small sample of battles filed under "various Trick Room teams," I began the exciting process of theorycrafting a team this 'mon could call home. Consulted a few of the regulars here — you know who you are — first for help choosing an archetype, then for more tips and pointers. Ran some numbers. Tested some battles. Tinkered some more and ironed out the wrinkles. And at the end of it all, I'm quite pleased with the final team.
Meet the Decadent Delights!
Disclaimer: In the interest of promoting transparency and fairness, I must mention that this streak was performed on a 3DS system with custom firmware installed. However, during the process of obtaining the Pokémon, CFW was only used to help me identify egg seeds for RNG purposes, and was not used to generate Pokémon in any way, even legally. Additionally, during the battles, CFW was only used to take screenshots and alter my 3DS system display (to make low-light gaming safer for my eyes) and was not used to gain a gameplay advantage of any kind. Neither my cartridge nor save have been dumped for use in an emulator as of the publication of this post.
The star of the show, the Pokémon I wanted to get on the leaderboard, and somewhere in my Top 2 favorites despite me not liking Mega Evolution as a concept. While not a popular Pokémon and especially unpopular as a Mega, I've always been interested in its cute design, interesting defensive profile, and litany of fun support moves. It's got all this amazing potential as a Doubles Pokémon, and I really appreciate that even if it's not actually viable, because I love me a good underdog. Named after a French dessert.
Dacquoise ended up fulfilling the role of a Trick Room setter, supporting and enabling her allies first and foremost. Her EVs and nature are optimized to give her as much overall bulk as possible, with a slight bias to Special Defense. This serves to give Download users an Attack boost, dissuade the AI from attacking her as much as possible, and survive just about everything; only Mawile-M3's Iron head has a chance at OHKO'ing. When paired with Fake Out from Togedemaru, pretty much nothing that can kill her turn 1 with crits or doubling up will ever get the chance. No special attack EVs are invested because it only adds three guaranteed KOs with Dazzling Gleam in very specific circumstances (Togedemaru using Endeavor at 1 HP against Sitrus berry holders Hariyama4, Mandibuzz3, and Minior4 when in core form), although I would consider it if I ran a second direct damaging move.
Compared to other Trick Room setters, she has two major disadvantages in not being able to shrug off status effects and taking up a mega slot for a role that doesn't need it, and a minor one in having a situationally useful (read: unreliable) ability. Compared to the other popular TR setter who doesn't run Lum Berry, Dusclops, she has comparable bulk but no access to Foresight. However, she has fantastic bulk, two immunities in Ghost and Dragon, immunity to item manipulation, lack of weakness to Ghost, Dark, and Bug, and access to Encore. Her ability, Healer, should to be depended on as the cornerstone of an average battle, but it's always funny and nice to see the enemy's Will o' Wisp do literally nothing to Togedemaru.
Encore is a fantastic move that, at best, can buy several free turns, but can also cripple an opponent, introduce predictability in a turn, force switches, and lock the opponent into repeating yesteryear's unfunny memes. For example, if on Turn 1 I see an opponent use Protect, next turn I can Encore them. This has the benefit of protecting Togedemaru from one attack, opening up that opponent for another attack because that Protect will not have increase priority, and around 90% of the time, that opponent will switch, giving Togedemaru yet another turn of protection.
The last move slot is a bit contentious, and I had several ideas for it. I first ran Protect, given its nature as a Doubles staple, but I found myself hardly clicking it due to Audino-M's bulk, even as my Incineroar clicked Earthquake. For my record streak, I switched to Toxic, which I did find myself using more often. Sometimes, Dacquoise will find herself in a 1v1 against an enemy that she would last a long time against, but can't do much in return. Toxic solved most of those situations. I also wanted to play with Ally Switch and Gravity. There were situations where Ally Switch would have significantly increased longevity for both my active Pokémon; however, I felt that Encore did a good enough job at serving as my "Protect with extra steps" move, and inconsistencies with AI targeting was a concern. Gravity seemed like a very nice tech against Bright Powder / Lax Incense / Double Team, but again, I already had countermeasures in place, all of my moves were already at 100% accuracy, and I had trouble finding situations where she would have time to set up Gravity in a timely manner, if she was alive to begin with.
The one who strikes FEAR into the hearts of many. Probably the second-most famous Pika-clone, and shockingly, the most versatile of them all. Also a cute hedgehog. Named after an Italian dessert.
That's right, this is a FEAR team, and Tiramisu is the abuser. For those who are unaware of the basic premise, this breed of Togedemaru abuses their low level and Focus Sash-esque ability to do guaranteed 95% damage to the target and restore HP to full with Berry Juice. A typical match starts with her either using Spiky Shield to block all incoming attacks (and the AI will tend to target her), or use Fake Out to stop one attack from happening (usually something that will mess with your partner) while her partner sets up TR. Then, she outspeeds everything, takes everything down to near-single digit HP, finishes them off with the partner's attack, lives a hit, and restores her HP to full, rinse and repeat. Toxic is there to give her something to do when her main job is done, or a pesky Ghost type is in the way. Berry Juice is selected over 11 HP Oran Berry because Berry Juice is not affected by Unnerve. The IVs and nature are selected to output 5 Defense and 6 Special Defense so that Download users get an Attack boost.
The ruler of VGC himself! You know him, you love him, and the observant of you might recognize this particular one. That's right, I shamelessly ripped off Megamite's build, because it it ain't broke, don't fix it too much. But if you can believe it, this is my first time using an Incineroar, and I can definitely see why he's used so much. Named after a German dessert.
I had wanted to build an Incineroar for a while, and this team presented the perfect opportunity to do exactly that. The Fire typing covered the Steels that are immune to Toxic and gave him an immunity to burn. Intimidate increased my team's resilience against physical attackers. Dark secondary typing granted both an immunity to Psychic and an easy way to delete the Ghosts that are immune to Endeavor. Solid attack stat that could 2HKO many things, and solid bulk to do so easily. Flare Blitz to kill things and fend against freeze. More Fake Out support. Z-Earthquake for even more anti-Rock and Fire coverage, as well as anti-Evasion. Darkest Lariat for levitating evaders (I'm looking at you Cresselia-2 and Zapdos-2).
For those of you who might be wondering "why Darkest Lariat over Knock off?", the reasons are two-fold. One: the Ghosts who would faint to two Lariats but one Knock Off are either not a threat, or have taken enough chip from Dazzling Gleam to faint from one Lariat, or are part-Grass type and faint to one Flare Blitz. Two: the threat of an evasion spammer is a higher risk than most enemies with their items intact. Conveniently ignore that I was too lazy to transfer to UM just for a slight "upgrade".
Parfait
Clawitzer♂ @ Wiki Berry
Level: 50
Stats: 177/84/108/189/111/57
Ability: Mega Launcher
EVs: 244 HP / 252 SpAtk / 12 SpDef
IVs: 31/12/31/31/31/0
Nature: Quiet
- Water Pulse
- Dragon Pulse
- Heal Pulse
- Helping Hand
Confession time: I've never used a Kalos Pokémon before. Even when I played Pokémon X over a decade ago, I didn't use anyone besides the starter Fennekin that I boxed before the first Gym Leader. So when I was looking for a final teammate to fill in the gaps, I couldn't help but notice this little guy and his myriad of interesting traits. High-power single target special attacks? Check. Low speed and good enough bulk to take advantage of TR? Check. The funny 75%Heal Pulse??? Sold!
Clawitzer is my TR special attacker of choice, to pair with my TR physical attacker. Together, they both mow down a large number of enemy Pokémon without any difficulties whatsoever. Water Pulse is an obligatory move, but the choice to use Dragon Pulse and no other coverage stems from that move being his strongest option against bulky Waters, whom my backline have some difficulties handling. Heal Pulse is a situational move that has come in clutch during some battles. The problem with it is that if I need to heal Audino, she either needs just one or two more turns on the field to do her job, or I am in a situation where the opponents are piling on a little too hard and there's already no coming back. But also, if I need to heal Incineroar, he is probably getting piled on, too. So usually, it's a waste of a turn when I can just hit something for over 50%. There's also the problem of my teammate fainting before Clawitzer gets to fire off the heal. However, when it saves the day, it saves it big time.
Helping Hand was intended to be used alongside Incineroar in the event that an opponent has stacked several defensive and/or evasive boosts and is threatening to out-heal my progress. While this had happened in a previous streak, helping massively against a Blissey4 that had gotten away with Mud Bomb accuracy drops, I did not once click Helping Hand this streak. Both Heal Pulse and Helping Hand suffered from the "why not just click Water Pulse" dilemma, which was disappointing. I definitely got carried away with the fun support moves, and if I were to ever run this team again I would replace HH with Protect.
Oh, and he is named after a French dessert that is sometimes transformed into a savory application.
So there's my team! Even if it's not the most optimal TR team, I'm quite proud of it. I had a lot of fun using a composition of gens 5-7 Pokémon, given that it is outside my comfort zone of mostly using gens 1-4 Pokémon. This strategy was very effective for most battles, capable of often ending battles without ever reaching the backline. Whenever Tiramisu fainted, Clawitzer and especially Incineroar were fantastic at cleaning up the remains. Audino refused to get 4HKO'd many times, surpassing my expectations. And most importantly, it had many tools available to deal with common threats to FEAR.
This threatlist is really more of a "what to watch out for" checklist, because many items are often not a threat in isolation. Rather, it is a comprehensive list of all possible factors that can mess with my plans, so that I may identify them and see which ones should be prioritized in any given matchup.
Example: Crobat34 threatens to shut down my Audino with both Hypnosis and Taunt if set4, but might carry Inner Focus. His partner Weavile34 carries Fake Out. In such a situation, I would opt to Spiky Shield because it gives me the best odds of setting up TR (Crobat4 prefers to attack Togedemaru, Crobat4 could actually be Crobat3, using Fake Out on Crobat would either not solve anything if set3 or have a 66$ chance of failing if set4, and Weavile34 can easily stop me from using Fake Out with his own Fake Out).
Inner Focus
Mold Breaker
Parental Bond
Snow Warning
Contact abilities
Mawile-M Iron Head
OHKO Moves
Sky Drop
Fake Out
Taunt
Sleep
Freeze
Flinch
Attract
Paralysis
Confusion
Rocky Helmet
Sitrus berry
Ghost types
Poison or Steel types
Bulky waters
Hammer Arm
<50 speed mons (including Wishiwashi)
Evasion moves and items / accuracy-lowering moves
Falling asleep while playing inebriated
Random crashes (yes this happened multiple times)
In addition to a standard list of threats, I also calculated a list of Pokémon that don't faint to Endeavor + Dazzling Gleam, either due to Sitrus Berry or a combination of high Special Defense and resist.
At 1HP Endeavor:
Archeops4
Minior4 core (93.8% chance to OHKO)
Hariyama4 (87.5% chance to OHKO)
Mandibuzz3 (68.8% chance to OHKO)
Turtonator4 (50% chance to OHKO)
Umbreon3 (37.5% chance to OHKO)
Thundurus3 (25% chance to OHKO)
Will never KO:
Beartic3
Ribombee3
Rampardos4 :(
Toucannon3
Regirock4
Rotom-Wash4
Hippowdon3
Bouffalant3
Vespiquen3
Tauros4
Talonflame4
Suicune2
Regice1
Bastiodon4
Probopass4
Non-Sitrus Berry fail to KO:
Heatran1234
Registeel-13
Probopass34 (4 is Sitrus)
Toxapex4
Bastiodon3
Magnezone4 SM
Ferrothorn4 (6.3% chance to OHKO)
Registeel24 (6.3% chance to OHKO)
Darmanitan3 normal (6.3% chance to OHKO)
Toxapex3 (37.5% chance to OHKO)
Bastiodon4 (75% chance to OHKO) (it's Sitrus anyway)
Full playlist here
I did a hilariously bad job of remembering to save notable replays near the beginning, which is why there's huge gaps for the first 100 battle. Oops!
Battle 17
Normal battle up until Bronzong disables Trick Room and then promptly sleeps Audino before she restores it. Mienshao proves to be a threat, first by threatening Fake Out on my Togedemaru (forcing me to Spiky Shield), then when my Togedemaru is forced out, Mienshao OHKOs the switch-in even through Intimidate. Luckily, Bronzong wastes a turn powering up my Clawitzer, further helped by RNG proc'ing confusion on it. Heal Pulsing my Audino was a mistake, given that she was in range of fainting, but Mienshao took enough chip to die to a HJK crash. This replay shows why sometimes preserving Togedemaru is sometimes valuable; even at the end of a match, Fake Out utility and Endeavor into Spiky Shield or Toxic can help secure a win.
Battle 63
Turn 1 Hail is one of the most threatening things against Togedemaru. Combine that with the threat of Steel Move against Audino, and you have a situation where the backline has to come out early and finish the job. This is why it's important for me to Endeavor enemies that give my backline a harder time, such as bulky waters. In fact, I'd have probably lost this match if it wasn't for Hydro Pump missing. I would have probably had a better chance if I had targeted Metagross on Turn 3, since Vanilluxe was less of a threat to my entire team at that point. Freeze sucks, but is much less of an issue after Togedemaru faints and TR is up, and especially if Incineroar is on the field thanks to Flare Blitz.
Battle 113
Scientists are really annoying to deal with when your TR setter cannot reliably outslow them. This, along with priority, opens up Togedemaru to hits that it would otherwise not take. This time however, Scientist Cal decided to put his PhD to use by Z-Powering his Dusknoir4's priority move, thus decreasing its priority and allowing my Togedemaru to get off a Toxic, and also failing to target anything because Togedemaru fainted first and Audino is immune. This replay also shows Audino-M's amazing bulk, taking four relatively strong attacks and still holding on like a champ.
Battle 123
This battle starts off with one of the scariest opponents to deal with: Kanto Dugtrio2. You could do everything in your power to minimize the odds of it ruining your strategy and it will still find a chance to screw you over. In this case, the odds of Bright Powder activating (10%) was lower than the odds of it nuking Audino with a Fissure (~15%, please correct me if I'm wrong about that and Togedemaru's low level influences the AI's decision-making), but Fake Out missed and I almost paid the price for it. Thankfully, the following Endeavor and Dazzling Gleam hit, and the rest of the battle proceeds as normal.
Battle 155
Fake Out is a difficult move to deal with; either I lose a layer of protection on Togedemaru for no gain, or Audino fails to set up TR, and I have no way of stopping it because enemy Fake Out users are always faster than my Fake Out. Add a second user to the mix, and I just have to accept that Audino isn't getting TR on Turn 1 and Togedemaru will be vulnerable next turn. Luckily, the opposing Togedemaru sets up Electric Terrain, giving me the opening I need to proceed safely. This is one of the rare times where the Encore-locked enemy refused to switch, giving me a free win.
Battle 158
A surprisingly tricky battle. Their leads combined three factors that my leads have trouble with: enemies that don't die to 12HP Endeavor + Gleam, enemies that outslow Audino, and Sitrus Berry. Even scarier is that Probopass could've been Set 3 and OHKO'd my Togedemaru with Rock Blast, which is why I targeted it first. However, doing this opened up Audino to getting flinched and wasting Toge's protection anyway. On Turn 4, I Encored Probopass into Power Gem to limit its damage output against Audino. A few turns of bad paralysis luck, fantastic AI targeting luck, and Heal Pulse later, I finally get momentum back in my favor. The last Encore was meant to lock Cresselia into Trick Room, since I knew a Dazzling Gleam wouldn't have made a difference. This match easily could've ended the run. If I were to do it again, I'd start by targeting the Gigalith because it is more of a threat to Audino and Probopass3 could just as easily help me by exploding.
Battle 187
Did I mention that I really hate Scientists? This battle is a good example of when it is okay to deviate from the FEAR strategy. The Cofagrigus can't be touched, and the Ferrothorn has the ability to knock me out in one turn between Seed Bomb and Iron Barbs recoil (I cannot guarantee Anticipation because I'm not carrying a fire or fighting move on my frontline). On Turn 3, I swap out Incineroar because a Z-Earthquake from a non-Intimidated Tangrowth OHKOs. I decide to end TR on Turn 4 because the Ferrothorn was scaring me with all of those Curse boosts. Turn 5 Spiky Shield was a misplay given Turn 4's Trick Room reset, I really should have noticed that Audino-M was in death range of Steel Move and that Togedemaru had served its purpose upon doing so. One scary threat of Dragon Rush flinch later, I secure the win. Teams that have Pokémon both faster than 59 speed and slower than 49 always give me issues because then I lose speed control. Overall, a very scary battle.
Battle 195
Here's a fun trivia question for you: can you tell me what Z-Mist does without looking it up? That's right, it restores your health to full. Genius move on your part to do that first thing in the battle, "Ace Trainer" Hashim. This replay is otherwise unremarkable, although I should've suspect that it was really just the calm before the storm...
Battle 198
And now we get to my latest arrest. That's right! This isn't the first time this particular trainer, Rendor, has ended my streak! Facing this fucker at the home stretch was absolutely terrifying, putting me at a disadvantage before the battle even started. Coincidentally, this was also the first battle in this streak where I wished I kept Protect on Audino not that I think it would've helped much.
Turn 1:
vs.
I've never faced a Scizor before... somehow... but I did know that Rotom-W could be a real hassle to my Audino with parahax and flinch, and especially to my backline with stab water and electric moves. Meanwhile, Scizor only has three attacking moves and Roost, what's the worst that could happen? I Fake Out Rotom, let Audino mega and TR, Togedemaru eats an attack, nothing out of the ordinary this turn.
Turn 2:
vs.
Usually, against priority, I prefer to let them stay on the field so I don't let Togedemaru take two hits in one turn, even if the end result is two enemies down either way. In this case, I already identified Rotom as a huge threat, so I target it. Togedemaru eats another attack, and the washing machine breaks down right after warranty expires. So far, all is normal.
Turn 3:
vs.
Oh... Arcanine. I'm now facing two priority users, meaning Togedemaru is guaranteed death. Thinking that Togedemaru is done with this match, I sac her (MISTAKE #1) to let Incineroar in, while I let Audino Toxic the Arcanine. Here, I failed to realize a few thing: one, I should have realized that no amount of Trick Room will slow down priority attacks; two, Extremespeed out-prioritizes Bullet Punch (this mattered because of, ironically enough, Trick Room); three, once Togedemaru goes down, someone has to take the other hit, and; four,
252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 244 HP / 172 Def Audino-Mega: 90-108 (43 - 51.6%) -- 4.3% chance to 2HKO
that's a lotta damage. And I'm just now noticing it was actually a crit, so in reality Audino took from this mid-roll attack a "mere" 69.9%.
What I should've done: Swap Togedemaru for Incineroar. In this battle, with that exact Bullet Punch roll, I would've taken at most 91 damage, leaving me with 111 HP (54%). That would have been more than enough to tank two more priority attacks while I Z-Quake the VGC dog off the face of the Earth with my VGC cat. Or more likely, Z-Quake it and then have taken
-1 252+ Atk Scizor-Mega X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Incineroar: 61-73 (30.1 - 36.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
from it. Or even nothing at all, if Audino-M was a juicier target. This turn was the single biggest mistake I made, but it was still salvagable. I just needed to play diligently. I'm sure I am capable of doing exactly that.
Turn 4:
vs.
I see that I'm running out of TR turns, so I swap out Audino to preserve her let's ignore that I would have to find a way to reactivate it at such a low health. Clawitzer tanks the (also a mid-roll) expected Bullet Punch, Incineroar nukes the clearly threatening Scizor with Flare Blitz (MISTAKE #2) and after recoil has 148 HP remaining, then the VGC dog pulls out his Z-Close Combat and wipes my VGC cat off the face of the Earth. It was already at a 75% chance to OHKO thanks to the earlier recoil, but just to rub some more salt in the wound, that was a crit, which would've knocked-out a full HP Incineroar.
What I should've done: Click Z-Earthquake against Arcanine. Despite this team style not requiring a damage calculator for most battles, I fully blame myself for skipping the ten seconds it took to click Scizor-Mega 4 and see that it wouldn't have even 2HKO'd my Clawitzer, much less tickled my Incineroar. Additionally, I am guilty of letting my brain autopilot to "fire-type = free win" instead of recognizing that the Z-Fighting Arcanine is much more threatening. It is remarkably embarrassing that I considered myself to be "taking it slow" and "thinking things through" when I did this battle. After this turn, I started paying more attention to the damage calculator, but let's see how much that really helped.
Turn 5:
vs.
The turn starts with a 151 HP Clawitzer and 63 HP Audino-M against Archeops4 and Arcanine4. I look at the damage calculator carefully; its strongest attack simply cannot KO either of my guys.
252 Atk Archeops Aerial Ace vs. 244 HP / 0 Def Clawitzer: 60-72 (33.8 - 40.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Wiki Berry recovery
With my knowledge of how the AI works, I expect the Archeops to click Protect, since it cannot pick up a KO and it risks getting KO'd by my Clawitzer Water Pulse. Besides, Audino would surely die if it gets double targeted (I later learned that this isn't even guaranteed, especially if Archeops picks EQ). So, what do I do when the answer was clearly to blast Arcanine into the stratosphere like it's a member of Team Rocket? That's right, I Water Pulse the Archeops (MISTAKE #3) because it's a shame to let that Toxic damage go to waste. Dazzling Gleam does nothing, Water Pulse does literally nothing, and Arcanine low-roll CC's Clawitzer for 46 damage. Trick Room runs out.
What I should've done: I am sure you can figure this one out, dear reader. Extra credit if you answered "Heal Pulse the Audino" although I'll still count it wrong.
Turn 6:
vs.
Archeops, now no longer constrained by the twisted dimensions, fishes for a Rock Slide flinch, landing a minimum roll on Clawitzer and a highish-roll on Audino. Arcanine decides to go for a tasty treat, landing Crunch on Clawitzer. It's only a 75% chance to KO; she gets it. I'm not entirely sure why the AI didn't go for a guaranteed KO so I can only assume it's either to rub even more salt in the wound or because good girl wanted dessert, or both. (After further analysis, I remember the AI will avoid moves if they have drawbacks and other moves will KO, but Crunch was still not a guaranteed KO. I'm still surprised it selected Crunch.) Audino sets TR one last time.
Turn 7:
vs.
I finally come to face the consequences of my hubris. Outgunned and outmanned (err, outmonned?), I put up one last display of resistance by shouting obsenities and toxic anti-police rhetoric at my nemesis, while my trusty Audino partner mirrors my behavior and uses Toxic on the Archeops in a pathetically futile attempt at a reversal. However, it is too late, and the damage had already been done. Mere moments after that last outburst, she falls in a blaze of glory, and the next thing I know, I see nothing but floor. And then I feel him, corrupt Officer Rendor on my back, handcuffing me with the fervor that only a corrupt policeman could exhibit. At that point, I black out, too terrified of my life crumbling all around me to even hear what crime I had been accused of this time...
Later that evening, I booked a ferry to Ula'Ula to file a complaint with Officer Nanu, but he didn't give a shit, then mumbled "skill issue" and left for his nightly trip to the Sushi High Roller.
And that's the run! I'd like to give shout outs to the following people:
René/Coeur7 and Eisenherz, for helping me find Audino's niche and providing valuable calcs and insights to get me started in the right direction;
Magpie, for doing the above, in addition to helping me better understand technical aspects of the damage formula;
ReptoBismol, for being a god at Trick Room and showing that it's possible to use Audino in that archetype, and for making the Trick Room speed tiers list;
Megamite, for his awesome write-ups. I already mentioned using his Incineroar, but prior to this streak, I attempted Super Doubles with his Tailwind Suicine / Manectric-M team. His posts did a fantastic job at inspiring me to tackle the road to 200, and I just couldn't resist using a team with my other Top 2 favorite;
Hi, I’d like to submit a streak of mine in Super Singles that I started last week and is still ongoing. The team is quite simple now, though I have switched some Pokémon around as battles have progressed.
I began with:
Durant @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Truant
Nature: Jolly
EVs: 252 Spe / 252 Def / 4 HP
-Entrainment
-Crunch
-X-Scissor
-Iron Head
Tapu Fini @ Wiki Berry
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 228 HP / 60 Def / 20 SpA / 124 SpD / 76 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Scald
- Haze
- Taunt
** Yes, I dropped Rock Slide on Landorus for SMACK DOWN! Smack Down picks up the same 1/2HKOs with the added bonus of 100% Accuracy and the ability to put some Mons on the ground (being able to EQ Skarmory, Rotom-Wash/Heat, and Zapdos is wonderful).
When I NEED Rock Slide to hit a target, it always seems to hit the partner and the Mon I needed to hit somehow dodges the Attack and smokes Landorus back.
Landorus's little bit of extra bulk allows it to live Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump 100% of the time at full health. A calc that lets me be comfortable in front of a good amount of Water type attacks**
The Loss (story/excuses):
Despite a very unfortunate CRIT on Landorus, the loss was absolutely avoidable! Since the last update, I hadn't seen too many super offensive leads by the AI but Ezra led with Mega-Alakazam and Expert Belt Porygon-Z... Two mons that can already be problematic on their own.
I let Mega-Latias eat a lot, albeit manageable, of damage Turn-1 so it could set up Tailwind. Then a couple turns of switching that slot to absorb some less effective damage while getting off two Snarls with Incineroar.
Yache Berry Landorus-T is is usually CLUTCH but its EQ missed the KO on Porygon-Z and was subsequently CRIT by an Ice Beam. Landorus should have eaten that Ice Beam with EASE with PZ at -2 but c'est la vie
Later, I STUPIDLY didn't anticipate and let Incineroar go down to Gengar's Destiny Bond. That was basically the game right there. Without Incineroar, Latias and Landorus got smoked by Glaceon in the back.
Moving Forward:
For next time, I intend on dropping Snarl completely on Incineroar. Snarl can be very useful with how well it synergizes with the double Intimidate but U-Turn helps the team in a better way in my opinion. A little more Speed on Tapu Fini (124-156 EVs to hit 121 to 125Spe) would be nice to out-speed some Zapdos, Volcarona, etc
I often think of changing Landorus's item/moves too. A move like Superpower or an item like Groundium-Z would have helped me BIG TIME in this game. Yache Berry spends half the games in the Battle Tree being completely useless BUT... The other half of the time it can literally win games.
Another idea is running Mega-Latios over Mega-Latias?? It would turn a good amount of 3HKOs into 2HKOs or 2HKOs into OHKOs. Unfortunately, the missing bulk makes that same fact true defensively as well.
Threats:
Threats remain the same. OHKO-Walrein is just a menace to any team will it's dice-roll antics. Phys-Def Mega-Venusaur walls my team outside of Latias. My team's biggest weakness are any Dragon Dance Gyarados/Mega-Gyarados forms, Tyranitars with Ice coverage alongside Rock Slide and Crunch, and the handful of Defiant/Competitive Mons.
I know this thread is minimally active these days, but I’d still like to keep it occasionally alive by documenting my best runs of one of my niche hobbies of breaking personal records in the Battle Tree. Last time I posted was actually my first ever post on Smogon, and I used a completely different team for my first run of 120 wins. This time I managed to break 145 wins in Super Doubles with the following team. I doubt the leaderboard will ever be updated again as it looks like it has been defunct for a while now, but if it ever is updated again I’d be happy to see my streak make it up there despite being paltry compared to the topmost scores on the list. Nonetheless, let’s get down to the team report. First, here’s photographic proof of the streak:
My girlfriend’s all-time favorite Pokemon are the Alolan forms of the Vulpix family. We made it a goal early into our relationship to get all of the trainer stamps available in Ultra Sun, and since she still has yet to do that, I figured I’d build a team to both motivate her and honor her favorite Pokemon in the process. There’s only one reason to ever bring A-Ninetales to any battle, especially in Gen 7. I’m sure anyone bothering to read this knows that A-Ninetales is the only Pokemon with both access to Snow Warning and Aurora Veil (as of Gen 7, this distribution was widened to include Abomasnow and Vanilluxe in Gen 8). This means it is the only Pokemon that can set up Aurora Veil in a single turn without outsourcing the Aurora Veil setup to a different Pokemon. Aurora Veil is a nearly unmatched level of team support, as it makes every Pokemon, even incredibly frail ones, able to take game-breaking hits. Even though doubles are incredibly quick matches, some of the computer trainers use annoyingly stall-reliant tactics that can make games a bit of a crapshoot in terms of length. On average though, I’d say games usually end in about five to six turns with this team. Even though there were several times where a Focus Sash probably would have been the ideal item for Ninetales, I personally preferred using Light Clay to make the effort of building a team around A-Ninetales all the more worth it. A-Ninetales has just enough of a movepool to be decent. Freeze-Dry was crucial coverage, as it is the best ice type move it learns in my opinion. I could have run Blizzard, but hail wasn’t guaranteed to be up, and Dazzling Gleam was a perfectly fine spread move. However, anyone who has used A-Ninetales (or heck, even Kantonian Ninetales) knows that it is an incredibly high-maintenance Pokemon. Its typing is pretty crummy, it is super frail, and oddly enough, its speed is a bit problematic. In most scenarios, its blazing speed would be great - and it is great, don’t get me wrong. However, the key problem with its speed is that it is a fast weather setter. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the fastest weather setter in Gen 7. For the uninitiated, which I’m certain anyone reading this already knows (but just in case), if two weather setting Pokemon are sent out simultaneously, the slower weather setter prevails because passive abilities that set up field conditions activate based on speed. This is one of the reasons that, when it comes to setting up Sun, Torkoal is much preferred over Kantonian Ninetales. This was one of the main challenges I had, as weather setters are actually really common in the Battle Tree. However, this is where our next member comes in…
A-Ninetales has really poor defensive stats, so I searched through several Intimidate Pokemon. Incineroar was a candidate for obvious reasons, and I did use Incineroar for a while in a previous run, but then I found out Manectric has amazing utility to ensure that Aurora Veil can go up. As I mentioned before, if a slower weather setter (which is basically all of them) is sent out and changes the weather, Aurora Veil can’t go up. However, if I switch out Ninetales on turn one, then Volt Switch with Manectric, I can reset the weather back into Hail and perform a sort of ramshackled Ally Switch, keeping A-Ninetales safe. This also has the added benefit of cycling Intimidate, which is a nice plus. Manectric’s main job for the team was to help get Aurora Veil set up, and then blast the opposing team with Thunderbolt. It really had a simple game plan that doesn’t need much of an explanation outside of that. The only nuance is that there were certainly some scenarios where I probably would have benefitted from a Timid nature instead of Modest, but the extra power was appreciated in so many scenarios that I didn’t really care. Also, I felt I didn’t need HP Ice because Manectric was standing right next to an Ice-Type Pokemon. Let’s just ignore the fact that I’m lazy and don’t breed for the right Hidden power types basically ever. That probably explains why I can’t break into higher streaks though, huh?
Metagrass (Ferrothorn) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 108 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 23 SpA / 18 Spe
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Protect
Honestly, looking at the EV spreads and movesets for these Pokemon makes me realize this is a pretty stock team. I’m still proud of it nonetheless. Do I even need to say anything about Ferrothorn? This thing is a win condition, plain and simple. Ferrothorn is an incredibly good Pokemon in every way. Even having a -Speed nature powers up its Gyro Ball. A-Ninetales and Manectric were the leads for this team, so I needed something incredibly bulky in the back to shore up this glaring flaw. I also wanted a Steel type to cover Kommo-o’s glaring weakness to Fairy types. As such, it was really a no brainer to slap Ferrothorn on the team and call it good. In my run, there were a handful of battles that Ferrothorn genuinely could have beaten on its own due to how good its typing + Leech Seed recovery were. Leftovers were chosen over anything else to ensure it was always recovering and to offset hail damage. Ferrothorn is such a well-known Pokemon that honestly you could skip over this entire paragraph because I’m not adding anything new to the conversation. I will say though - props to whoever came up with that nickname. I can’t take credit for that one, I found it from someone online years ago.
Kommo-o is the team’s star player. Every Pokemon on this team did great, but it won’t surprise you to know that the Pokemon with a 185 base power spread move that provides an omniboost did all of the heavy lifting offensively. When choosing to design a team around A-Ninetales, I needed to find ways to negate hail damage. This narrows it down to three options essentially: 1) a team with multiple ice types, 2) Pokemon with Magic Guard and 3) Pokemon with Overcoat. I could slap Safety Goggles on anything to be fair, but they would be practically useless outside of that effect in the Battle Tree. Magic Guard has a few good choices, but honestly there was no point in debating it when I noticed Kommo-o had Overcoat as an ability. Drain Punch was chosen over Close Combat so as not to lose the boosts accrued from using Clangorous Soulblaze It also ensured that Kommo-o could stick around to take advantage of the omniboost for as long as possible. Flamethrower ensures that I hit the most things super effectively combined with Clanging Scales and Drain Punch. The only Pokemon to resist all three of these types in the tree is Primarina, which is destroyed by Ferrothorn. It was tempting to just throw out Kommo-o, get the boosts, and try to sweep, but I had to play carefully with him on the field. Kommo-o works especially well with Ferrothorn, but if Ferrothorn can’t pick up a KO quickly enough, it would occasionally put too much pressure on Ferrothorn to handle the rest of the battle. Just something for me to think about in a future run I suppose. Overall, Kommo-o was the main offensive member of the team, and I think he performed admirably. I just need to tweak some aspects about the team to better support him if I want to use Kommo-o again for another team.
Threats:
Fire-types are the main issue this time around. A-Ninetales and Manectric offer BoltBeam coverage together, and that alone hits almost the entire Battle Tree for neutral damage except for Magnezone, Togedemaru, and Rotoms Heat and Frost. All of those were covered by Kommo-o super effectively, so coverage was never the issue. The key problem this team faces is a lack of synergistic resistances. Aside from A-Ninetales switching into Dragon moves meant for Kommo-o, which is a scenario that virtually never happened, switching felt somewhat undesirable. This was always the case against Fire-types. Kommo-o is the only Pokemon with a resistance to Fire, and Kommo-o isn’t really on the team to switch in and take hits. He needs to stay in pristine condition, so switching him in to absorb Fire-type attacks is something I avoided doing unless I felt it was completely necessary. It’s not that Fire-types are insurmountable, they can just be a nuisance because if they aren’t taken care of quickly enough they can cause serious problems. One reason I was so shocked this team did so well was because, after a while, I just kind of noticed that there is not even a single form of speed control on this team. No Tailwind, Trick Room, Icy Wind, Electroweb… anything. I was also lacking in Taunt, which meant stopping Trick Room was next to impossible. However, I was generally totally willing to trade Trick Room for a free set usage of Aurora Veil. Nonetheless, Trick Room was awfully annoying at times. Bulky Fairy-types like Aromatisse could be a nuisance as well. Honestly, the team has pretty good type coverage all around and Ferrothorn carried the defensive side. It’s not perfect by any means seeing as it of course lost, but really the team only ever got into dire straits because of shoddy plays on my part or bad positioning from the lead matchup. I felt the team was very competent at handling most Pokemon, the proper Pokemon just needed to be out front at the right time - a statement that’s as obvious as it is true for this team.
Replays:
The Loss: PXRG-WWWW-WWXF-DLQ4
I lost to Scientist Cadel. Fitting to his trainer class, his team almost seemed engineering to perfectly screw over my team. His team consisted of Dusknoir, Drampa, Shiinotic, and Turtonator. Obviously a Trick Room team, I lost due to a mix of poor plays on my part, my team lacking defensive synergy against this specific team, and a hint of bad luck. I set up Aurora Veil on turn 1 while using Thunderbolt on the Dusknoir. Drampa uses Glare to paralyze A-Ninetales and Dusknoir sets up Trick Room. I used Protect to burn a turn of Trick Room with Manectric and have A-Ninetales Dazzling Gleam. Dusknoir wastes his turn with Pain Split into Manectric, but Drampa uses Devastating Drake which chunks Manectric through the Protect. Next turn, I’m able to take down both Drampa and Dusknoir, but the Dusknoir uses Destiny Bond which takes out Manectric with him. Shiinotic and Turtonator were honestly the most perfect Pokemon Cadel could have had on his team at this point, especially with their particular movesets. I sent out Ferrothorn because I figured it would be prudent to get a Leech Seed off whatever he sent in, but I wasn’t able to do that easily. I had Ferrothorn Protect and used Freeze-Dry on Shiinotic. From previous runs (and from the list of Trainers on Serebii) I knew Shiinotic could have a Weakness Policy, and this happened to be that set. Freeze-Dry procs the Weakness Policy, and the Turtonator uses Shell Smash. Trick Room was still active so I was able to get a Leech Seed on the Turtonator, but it didn’t matter. Fire Blast wipes out Ferrothorn, and Moonblast gets a Sp. Attack drop on Ninetales, so I’m looking pretty bad here. Trick Room ends, and Turtonator wipes out Ninetales with a Fire Blast. I tried to block it with Protect, but the paralysis from Drampa finally came back to haunt me and immobilized me. I’m able to get off a Clangorous Soulblaze and knock out Turtonator, but a Moonblast from Shiinotic knocks out Kommo-o and ends the run. Honestly, rewatching that replay, I’m not sure what I could have done differently. I was sitting on the couch watching TV when it happened, so I guess I could have googled Cadel’s potential sets, but really I just made bad calls and got outplayed. It’s a shame, but this team was super successful and I still had a lot of fun using it.
Extra Match #1: 92UW-WWWW-WWXF-DLQ2
Extra Match #2: XTNG-WWWW-WWXF-DLQ3
Here are two other matches I had with this team if you wanted to see how it functioned. One match was just funny because of how often I had to switch out Pokemon just to make it through without taking too many risks. I won’t do any other play-by-plays because this document is already six pages long and frankly I’m sure only like 5 or 6 people on planet Earth will even see this. I’m posting this 2 days before 3DS online shuts down altogether, so there’s a nonzero chance these replays will never be visible to anyone other than myself. Nonetheless, thank you for reading and I hope you’re having a fantastic day.
If you ever play Manectric again, you should consider Eerie Impulse, even with Aurora Veil (but really Aurora Veil is overkill with Manectric and Ninetales-A should be something else, ideally with a move like Calm Mind). Manectric is not Tapu Koko. It's meant to facilitate setup by crippling, it's not good at killing things. You don't need both TBolt and VS on it, choose one.
I would also never run less than 252 Speed (neutral nature) Kommo-o, particularly on a TW-less team. Indeed I would put Focus Sash on Ninetales instead of Light Clay and give it Icy Wind over Freeze-Dry (Manectric smashes most Waters anyway, Water/Ground is handled by Ferrothorn). Also Moonblast over Gleam because Gleam seriously hits for nothing.
I suggest ANTS Ferro (Zoom Lens) for Curseless sets (which makes sense to omit here because of Primarina; Power Whip brings it into Drain Punch range but not reliably -- miss is heart- and neckbreaking).
You definitely could have avoided your loss by just not attacking Dusknoir, especially with a Z-move already spent by your opponent (Z-DBond redirecting is about the scariest thing it can do). It is a do-nothing set. If Shiinotic or Turtonator comes in with Dusknoir next to it, it's gg (in your favor) because one of your backliners kills it and then the other while Dusknoir -1 Shadow Sneaks or whatever. Field control is the foremost principle of Kommo-o teams.
If you ever play Manectric again, you should consider Eerie Impulse, even with Aurora Veil (but really Aurora Veil is overkill with Manectric and Ninetales-A should be something else, ideally with a move like Calm Mind). Manectric is not Tapu Koko. It's meant to facilitate setup by crippling, it's not good at killing things. You don't need both TBolt and VS on it, choose one.
I would also never run less than 252 Speed (neutral nature) Kommo-o, particularly on a TW-less team. Indeed I would put Focus Sash on Ninetales instead of Light Clay and give it Icy Wind over Freeze-Dry (Manectric smashes most Waters anyway, Water/Ground is handled by Ferrothorn). Also Moonblast over Gleam because Gleam seriously hits for nothing.
I suggest ANTS Ferro (Zoom Lens) for Curseless sets (which makes sense to omit here because of Primarina; Power Whip brings it into Drain Punch range but not reliably -- miss is heart- and neckbreaking).
You definitely could have avoided your loss by just not attacking Dusknoir, especially with a Z-move already spent by your opponent (Z-DBond redirecting is about the scariest thing it can do). It is a do-nothing set. If Shiinotic or Turtonator comes in with Dusknoir next to it, it's gg (in your favor) because one of your backliners kills it and then the other while Dusknoir -1 Shadow Sneaks or whatever. Field control is the foremost principle of Kommo-o teams.
I really appreciate all of the constructive criticism here. I won't lie, I did not expect this team to make it anywhere beyond 50 matches, so the fact that it was my PB was a total shock. I totally get why it seems like this team is a mess, because it frankly is.
Zoom Lens Ferro is honestly a great suggestion! I'm not the most creative player (as the sets in my post show) so I love seeing suggestions like this that I would never think of. It's not like Ferro needs Leftovers if it also has Leech Seed, so I really like that suggestion.
You're also right about not attacking Dusknoir. I mentioned in my post that I was watching tv while I lost and was paying more attention to that than the game, so I have nobody to blame but myself for poor play. If I was thinking at all I would've left Dusknoir alone since all the Dusknoir sets in the Battle Tree are a joke lol.
If I ever attempt a run at the Battle Tree again, it'll likely be with an almost entirely new team. A-Ninetales was super high-maintenance and I don't like Hail in general because it barely provides any benefits. Nonetheless, I will gladly take these suggestions to heart because they were all super insightful and I agreed with basically everything you said. Thanks again!
Illumise (F) @ Focus Sash
Xurkitree @ Air Balloon
Kommo-o (F) @ Kommonium Z
Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite
