Just remember: every puzzle has an answer. - Hershel Layton
Posting an ongoing streak of 1000 wins in ORAS Super Doubles.
#1000: WNLG-WWWW-WWXZ-DW6Z
...alright, so I was wrong. Spectacularly badly wrong. Not touching Greninziken for about four-five months had kinda made me brutally underestimate them I guess, and I'm known to be bad at gauging this sort of thing properly (see my singles team), so yeah... idk what to say haha. I know I have improved since then, but even then simply using the right backups made way more of a difference than I could possibly fathom.
Continuing where this part of the story leaves off, here is the video I was talking about. I knew literally nothing about doubles, and when googling for some useful strategies I came across some gamefaqs thread that basically came down to 'Mat Block is broken' and this video, which is part of a series where the player wins all trophies (with an EV-trained in-game team ffs); for Doubles, he used Greninja / Mega Blaziken / Garchomp / Aegislash. I didn't want to copy this team outright because that's lame, but because I knew nothing I needed a starting point and Greninja / Mega Blaziken looked fun and hilariously powerful, so I stole that and set out to find appropriate backups.
I used Assault Vest Metagross and Togekiss. My train of thought was basically 'alright, I should probably use some bulky stuff because I can be double targeted so I should be able to survive that', so I searched my boxes for some bulky Pokemon that were known to be good in doubles and knew a spread move; I settled on Metagross and Togekiss. I made it through the regular doubles no problem but lost at 25 of the super doubles because I got swept by a Dragon Dance Feraligatr.
I used Rotom-W. Losing against Feraligatr honestly wasn't too surprising, because I already had a feeling the team would have trouble with Water-types and I had no coverage on them whatsoever (the Greninja set I used was Hydro Pump / Ice Beam / Extrasensory and Blaziken had Sky Uppercut for a Fighting STAB move lel). Togekiss turned out to suck anyway, so I set out to replace it with a flier (in order to pair better with Metagross's Earthquake) that could take care of most Water-types no problem: Rotom-W it was. I beat Evelyn and got to 89, where I lost because I misplayed against a Veteran.
I used Garchomp. I didn't really intend to replace Metagross, but I intended to complete multi with an irl friend and use this doubles team - however, he didn't have a Metagross, so I set out to find something that should fill Metagross's roll of bulky attacker/Earthquake user/Greninja switch option as well; Garchomp it was, and Garchomp actually turned out to be better than Metagross because of STAB on Earthquake and ability to use Protect. (In the end, I ended up beating multi with the AI anyway, lol). On a first run I lost at 105 because I was inexperienced, didn't consult the trainer lists, and didn't run Sash on Ninja - I lost against a Roller Skater when I failed to anticipate lead Scarfmory, which OHKOed Blaziken and the Fighting-type Greninja, and couldn't overcome this. On a second run, having swapped out most inaccurate moves on my leads, I reached 147, where I lost because I misplayed against Trick Room.
I used Clawitzer. I was unimpressed with Rotom-W's performance - its only accurate move was Thunderbolt (I couldn't RNG yet so I lacked a hex 30 Ditto for breeding HP Water without fucking up its SpA IV), its role was more 'don't die' than 'kill stuff', and Thunderbolt's coverage was mostly redundant with Greninja's Grass Knot and Ice Beam (or so I thought at least lol, f*** Gyarados) and I was paranoid of Trick Room, so I wanted a powerful Water-type Trick Room check - Clawitzer it was, especially since ReptoAbysmal had adviced me to try it on my triples team and I wanted to try it out somewhere. It performed fine, and this iteration got me a 159 win streak, where I lost to a Latios3/Cresselia3 lead because I was paranoid of Cress4 (and because that's a horrible matchup for any Greninziken anyway). This was the last iteration I posted about in this thread in remote detail and my best Greninziken record until now.
I used Hydreigon and Azumarill. I had lost a 298 streak in triples, it was too short before ORAS to try cranking out a new attempt in triples, so I retreated to the mountains - which is a fancy way of saying I started randomly playing some doubles on the train for the sole purpose of gaining more experience - I knew Greninziken had potential for more than 159, and I just wanted to play a reasonable bunch of games solely to really observe their weaknesses. The team I used was Greninja / Mega Blaziken / Hydreigon / Azumarill - which is essentially team Clockwork Angels without the center gears of Manectric / Talonflame. I knew their synergy was at least alright so I just went with it. It was... okay. Azumarill performed fine, my main complaints were with Hydreigon because my backups were lacking in the Speed department and it brought a huge Fairy weakness (couldn't hit them super effectively and once my leads were down Azumarill couldn't kill them first either because it's So Darn Slow.) I wasn't being really serious at it either so I lost a couple of streaks before the 100 mark, mostly because of screwups (e.g. not Protecting on Blaziken after Latios4 had Dragon Danced under Mat Block lol, causing me to get swept cleanly by its Earthquakes) or teams overflowing with fairies.
I used (Balloon) Aegislash. I threw it on over Hydreigon in order to solve the Fairy weakness while preserving the same great defensive synergy with Blaziken, but this caused my entire team to lose to Tentacruel4 one-on-one, which I very very soon discovered to be a pretty bad idea (I think I lost that streak at like 65 while I had swapped in Aegislash after the chatelaine battle lol). So I went back to Hydreigon and netted my best streak with this iteration, which was somewhere in the high 130s. It was then that my triples bone started tickling again and I realised I didn't *have to* complete that streak before ORAS's release, so I set out on what was to become that ejected 606 streak. As for doubles, I knew I should be searching more methodically for the appropriate backups. I knew it was time to stop fooling around.
So, uhm, yeah. Greninja / Mega Blaziken. What do we have here? Especially Mega Blaziken. A cool Pokemon. A fanboy favourite. Not an instant win button, however, in spite of shit like this:
252+ Atk Mega Blaziken Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zapdos: 151-178 (91.5 - 107.8%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
...lulz. No setup, no boosting item, neutral hit, naturally bulky target... but Zapdos1 has to pray to RNGsus if muh chicken aims and fires. Additionally, Fire / Fighting have pretty great coverage together, and Flare Blitz and Low Kick generally reach a high Base Power. Mega Blaziken is not without its flaws, though: it
-is pretty frail and has a less than stellar defensive typing
-is initially slow
-still can't OHKO everything on sight
Obviously, this can be remedied: its Speed problem is always fixed after turn 1 because of a godly, broken ability in Speed Boost, whereas some chip damage is enough to secure many more KOs - in other words, there are not many Pokemon that benefit so much from a single free turn as Mega Blaziken. Obviously, if there's one move that can provide that single free turn, it's Mat Block - which is where the best Pokemon in Maison doubles / triples comes in, in the form of Mat Block Greninja. As for Blaziken’s frailty, that obviously doesn’t matter that much if you have him kill everything before it kills him or have his partner do so – and again, there’s none better than Greninja for this role, covering the shit out of Psychic-, Flying-, Water-, and Ground-types. With their astounding coverage and Blaziken’s great power, together Greninja and Mega Blaziken 2HKO at worst like more than 90% of the maison.
That’s basically Greninziken’s offensive synergy in a nutshell – but of course it isn’t perfect, nothing is. Both of them are really frail, and Greninja really isn’t that strong, so bulky opponents, really fast opponents, dual typings and the like can slip between their coverage. On top of that, Blaziken’s coverage movepool, put frankly, sucks – the only remotely useful options are Earthquake, Rock Slide, and Thunder Punch, of which Earthquake is undesirable with a grounded, non-Protect partner and has pretty redundant coverage with Fighting and Rock Slide and Thunder Punch are inaccurate and weak, respectively. (Rock Slide hits a bunch of targets four times super effectively and as such isn’t that weak in practice.)
Of course, we can just play and notice empirically what opponents are particularly problematic – or we can approach it methodically and see what typings resist Blaziken’s dual STAB and aren’t hit super effectively by Greninja’s standard set of Ice Beam / Grass Knot / Dark Pulse. These typings are few and far between, but in the Maison they’re the following:
-Fire / Flying
-Water / Poison
-Water / Flying
Fire / Flying obviously comes down to Moltres, Charizard, and Talonflame. Fortunately Greninja outruns all three of them, granting Blaziken two chances at hitting them with Rock Slide – but obviously Rock Slide can and will miss, so you need a backup plan for Moltres and Charizard. Talonflame is worse, for obvious Gale Wings reasons; the standard play is to Protect on Blaziken turn one and attack it with Dark Pulse. It always uses Brave Bird on Blaziken, so if it moves before Greninja, you know it’s Gale Wings – in which case you should switch out Blaziken to something that can take its Brave Bird as you have Greninja kill it. If it’s Flame Body, do whatever lol.
Water / Poison is solely Tentacruel, which actually loses to Greninja and Mega Blaziken together, but that involves them slowly muscling through it in a last-mon situation; otherwise, Tentacruel just sits there being a huge pain in the ass with Protect and spreading Toxic and Surf, putting Greninja and Mega Blaziken under huge, undesirable pressure – you need a reliable answer to it in order not to be in huge trouble if the remainder of the opposing team is anywhere near decent.
Water / Flying is... awful. It’s only one Pokemon you encounter on a regular basis:
889 | Gyarados4 | Careful | Chesto Berry | Dragon Dance | Aqua Tail | Earthquake | Rest | HP/SpD
...but then this happens:
252 SpA Protean Greninja Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gyarados: 64-76 (31.6 - 37.6%) -- 87.1% chance to 3HKO
-1 252+ Atk Mega Blaziken Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gyarados: 68-80 (33.6 - 39.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Between Gyarados most likely having a partner that demands some attention, the inevitable Rock Slide miss, ChestoRest saying ‘lol cute damage bro’, and the ease with which this monster gets out of control, Super Singles lead Greninja’s archnemesis returns as what’s basically Greninziken’s Hurrrrrrnadus. It never gave me any real trouble in triples, though, for obvious Mega Manectric reasons, so an Electric-type or at least an Electric-type attack would make sense for the backups. In the Clawitzer run, I considered jumping through a bunch of hoops to get a Blaziken with Thunder Punch over Rock Slide for Gyarados coverage + perfect accuracy, but Thunder Punch is a rather unfortunate case in that it misses the KO on every single one of these targets (assuming Intimidate Gyara iirc), aka the only targets it’s meant to hit – and when it comes down to it, I’d rather take a 90% to OHKO Moltres/Charizard over a 0% chance to do so. I even started considering Stone Edge on Garchomp for this sole target (whaaat...)
In addition to these threats, there are also a couple of things that resist Flare Blitz, are too light to be hit hard by Low Kick, and aren’t hit hard by Greninja, which are generally a couple of Water-types such as Vaporeon4 (lol@Carbink). Now, what covers all these Pokemon? ...why, none other than the legendary HP Electric Gastrodon of course! That honestly was the first thing that came to mind, but I quickly shelved it because it outright lost to Talonflame and struggled against Gyarados of all things (needs Storm Drain boost to even 2HKO, admittedly this was before I had heard of Clear Smog on it). Approaching it more methodically, I listed all characteristics the desired backup should have:
-a strong Electric-type move (i.e. Thunderbolt) in order to easily dispatch of all listed problematic threats;
-a Flying resistance in order to comfortably switch in on Talonflame’s Brave Bird;
-good natural bulk in order to function properly under Trick Room;
-a Ground immunity because you kinda need that with Blaziken’s Earthquake weakness;
-preferably a base Speed of (positive-natured) 87 or (neutral-natured) 100 in order to outrun +1 Gyarados4;
-ideally a base Speed of outright >90 (for Moltres) or >100 (for Charizard), but whatever on this one really
...yeah that should be it. Sounds easy, right? ....well honestly, no. The first two points basically mandate an Electric-type, Ground-immune Electric-types are virtually nonexistent without resorting to Air Balloon, and I didn’t really want to use Rotom-W because of its low Speed and horrible movepool (both getting outrun by +1 Gyarados and having to run HP Water as a secondary STAB move was too much really). I have nearly every main series game except the odd parallel version, and on all those games there was literally one Pokemon available that checked all the boxes: Zapdos.
(124 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gyarados: 204-240 (100.9 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO, yeaaah – and I obviously was planning on using more SpA anyway lol)
Fortunately I was gonna play through my friend’s HG anyway in order to RNG Suicune (which I unfortunately had already caught on my SS before I learned RNG) as well as a few other legendaries, so I had the opportunity to get a flawless one on short notice. However, I obviously had only one chance to catch one, so I had to get its nature and Hidden Power right immediately – as such, I asked our resident genius turskain if Timid HP Ice -which I was planning on using- was the way to go. However, he recommended me to ditch Zapdos altogether and go with Thundurus-T instead, for a multitude of reasons:
-better offensive movepool; Zapdos’s coverage movepool is basically limited to the highly iffy Heat Wave and super duper weak Hidden Power, whereas Thundurus trades Heat Wave for the extremely powerful Grass Knot as well as Dark Pulse and some niche shit like Psychic / Flash Cannon / Sludge Bomb if you feel like using that sort of thing;
-one extra Speed point; honestly, base 101 is just so much better than 100 it’s just stupid;
-an Electric immunity; very, very much appreciated with a lead Greninja, especially that one time I faced an Electrode / Jolteon lead lol.
Zapdos’s advantages over Thundurus-T are natural bulk, which can largely be patched up with a custom EV spread, and a better support movepool with Tailwind and Roost, which I wasn’t planning on using anyway – who really needs Tailwind with Greninziken? turskain was right. Of course he was. Unfortunately, the only Thundurus I had was an imperfect one from Dream Radar. So I went to the game store, bought a used copy of White, got the requisite eight badges in like fifteen hours (that’s fast for me, I’m not a speedrunner k), and another eight painstaking hours later (the first 6,5 of which were spent trying to hit a frame that was apparently rendered too awkward by the rain from the cutscene, honestly this was –well almost- as hard as breeding a Chansey on Emerald), I caught a flawless HP Ice Thundurus in only my third BW RNG (after a practise Volcarona on Black and Cobalion on White). After getting it transferred, I was all set for my third team member.
For my fourth team member, I followed my tried-and-true Maison doubles team building process:
-take a lead pair consisting of, preferably, a nuke and a supportive sniper;
-add a backup that covers most of their weaknesses;
-add Scizor.
...well obviously there was a little more to it than that, but Scizor was basically an immediate fit. I wanted a bulky-ish priority user, and Scizor was preferred over Conkeldurr and Azumarill because of its astouding defensive typing and because Conkeldurr seemed to have bad offensive synergy with Blaziken and Azumarill plays a much worse anti-counter game with Thundurus-T, with Scizor covering both of its weaknesses in Rock and Ice and Azumarill being a lot weaker and missing out on the more dangerous Ice.
That’s it. Thundurus-T was a drain plug patching up all major and most minor holes the already super-powerful Greninziken had, and Scizor’s awesome priority, bulk, power, and defensive typing added some much appreciated consistency and fall-back options. Without further ado:
By-Tor (Greninja) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Protean
Nature: Timid
IVs: 31/4-5/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
-Mat Block
-Dark Pulse
-Ice Beam
-Grass Knot
Greninja’s standard set in Triples works great in Doubles as well, featuring a great offensive type in Ice Beam, its potentially most powerful move in Grass Knot, and an anti-TR move in Dark Pulse. Because Thundurus-T runs Grass Knot as well, I considered swapping it out for Scald before starting my streak, but I decided to stick with GK at first because I knew it was better in a vacuum – and it was around battle 300 that I thought ‘oh yeah I was supposed to see if Scald might be better than GK,’ so I guess I didn’t really miss Scald. Grass Knot is probably worth sticking with for Gastrodon if anything, because that one isn’t hit hard by any other move and can get out of control rapidly, as well as its great power.
Flashheart (Blaziken) @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/21-24/31/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
-Flare Blitz
-Low Kick
-Rock Slide
-Protect
Completely standard, with its most powerful and reliable STAB options and its least useless coverage option, as well as Protect, which works especially great in tandem with Speed Boost. Rock Slide is used considerably more in doubles than in triples so I expect to lose this streak a lot sooner than that one, but until now I’ve managed to get away with it because it’s still got very specific targets and I’ve got a secondary check/backup plan to most of them....
Thundurus-T @ Choice Specs
Ability: Volt Absorb
Nature: Timid
IVs: 31/8/30/31/31/31
EVs: 164 HP / 8 Def / 84 SpA / 252 Spe
-Thunderbolt
-Grass Knot
-Dark Pulse
-Volt Switch
The elusive missing piece of the puzzle... Thundurus makes good use of Choice Specs, which also frees up Life Orb for Scizor, which needs it more. The bulky spread is essential in order not to have the team become too glass cannony, and its Special Attack is so stupidly high that it can easily afford it. The EV spread is turskain’s ‘Zapdos but not Zapdos’ spread, which he came up with when he wanted to replace Zapdos on one of his Triples teams with an Electric-immune Electric / Flying-type with a better offensive movepool. The SpA EVs put it one point below fully invested Timid Zapdos, allowing the rest to be invested into bulk, which results in around 5-10% less bulk than Zapdos, still allowing it to survive attacks such as Vaporeon4’s Ice Beam. Even with the bulky spread, Thundurus-T hits literally as hard as max SpA Specs Zapdos, which obviously is plenty. The bulk is essential, and those 21 HP have directly decided several battles in my favour. As for the moves, Thunderbolt obviously is the go-to STAB move, while Grass Knot is Thundurus’s best coverage option. For the third move, I was planning on using HP Ice, but upon further reflection I wasn’t sure that was the best option; it was obviously rather redundant with Greninja’s Ice Beam and has a rather low amount of targets (basically only the 4x Ice-weaks, not to mention Thundurus-T doesn’t stand a chance against Garchomp with or without HP Ice because of that one having Stone Edge and a base 102 Speed to counter-troll Thundy’s 101), while I was worried about my TR matchup. As such, I opted for Dark Pulse instead. With Protect’s unavailability, Volt Switch is the best fourth move on a Choiced set; essentially, it’s a STAB move that bypasses the lock-in effect. It also pairs wonderfully with Greninja’s Mat Block, allowing you to reset it after switching Greninja out of, for instance, an Electric-type lead. Volt Absorb is a pretty sweet ability because Greninja is often forced out by the faster Electric-types Electrode, Jolteon, and Manectric4, so having a Pokemon immune to those is excellent. It’s not entirely essential because Greninja is holding Focus Sash for a reason, but that doesn’t help when facing two of those opponents at once or in case of parahax + immediate full paralysis (which still happened on one occasion, when facing lead Altaria – which mandates an immediate Ice Beam – and Electrode; fortunately, Altaria targeted Greninja on turn 1, which allowed Blaziken to use Protect on its Sing turn 2 and Greninja – which didn’t get fully paralyzed – to kill it after all). Nevertheless, Volt Absorb is a far cry from Lightningrod, which is a tad ironic considering how cruelly GameFreak took the dream of Lightningrod Zapdos away from us haha. (On the flip side, that one would be an absolute terror to face in the maison, so I guess it’s not that bad.)
Gene (Scizor) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/6-7/31/31
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
-Bullet Punch
-Bug Bite
-Superpower
-Protect
Again, completely standard set, with enough Speed to reach 91, right above the crowded 90 tier and nasties such as Lanturn4.
Aside from the obvious Veterans and Mara, the trainer I fear most is probably Rasmus, specifically Sand Rush Excadrill (which is extremely hard to stop if Blaziken is dead; incidentally, regular Blaziken doesn’t outrun it with a single Speed Boost and as such is completely unviable on this team lol) and Scarfchomp (which Blaziken needs two Speed Boosts to outrun and dgaf about Greninja’s Sash with that usually having been broken by sand already. Having to guess the set isn’t fun either). This team doesn’t have Tailwind to counter those (which admittedly is too niche on a fast team like this if you have only sixteen moveslots available), so yeah. Roller Skaters are pretty darn scary as well, with the potential to run a bunch of Scarfers and other very dangerous sets; an Aerodactyl + Gyarados3 lead even is a likely streak-ender. That same Gyarados3 is one of the more dangerous foes too because it outspeeds and OHKOes my Gyarados counter Thundurus-T with Stone Edge after a single DD; fortunately, it ‘should’ prefer to attack Blaziken turn 1, but it doesn’t always do so and I’m forced to skip Mat Block to use GK on any lead Gyarados from a Roller Skater ‘just in case’. Trick Room in general also isn’t something I’m keen on facing, but it turned out to be less of a problem than I thought: Greninja can turn into a good defensive type via Protean (which against Psychics/Hex Maniacs generally is Dark and against Slowthings generally is Grass) and as such survive for a considerable amount of time, Blaziken usually demands total attention for at least one turn and can capitalise on that with Protect, and Thundurus-T’s and Scizor’s good bulk and defensive typing have always allowed me to pull through until now. As an additional note, Thundurus’s base 101 Speed conveniently is below most of the fast stuff used by Hex Maniacs e.a. (such as Starmie / Alakazam / Espeon / Froslass; also killed a boosted Volcarona under TR one time lol), which is pretty cool.
Regarding individual Pokemon, Volcarona is basically the only Rock Slide target that isn’t covered properly by Thundurus (basically everything) or Greninja (Chandelure) and as such requires a lot of caution. Fortunately Flare Blitz does only a bit less than Rock Slide and Speed Boost allows Blaziken to remain ahead of it so even in case of a miss there are ways around it, but this is basically the opponent that makes me curse Rock Slide’s inaccuracy most. Lanturn4 has a gr8 defensive typing and is as light as a feather and as such isn’t hit hard by anything Greninziken can throw at it – basically, I try to keep it under pressure and kill it last by spamming Dark Pulse + Rock Slide and haxing my way through it. I know, ‘how tf can you rely on hax in the maison,’ but Dark Pulse + Rock Slide have around a 41% flinch rate together iirc (taking accuracy into account) and once its Chesto Berry is used up a single flinch or crit is often enough to beat it, so it isn’t that bad... The non-Scarfed / non-Zapdos2 legendaries I’m probably least keen of facing are Latios/Latias1 because Flare Blitz + Greninja attack doesn’t KO them and they have Lax Incense for additional hilarity, so when facing them I’m forced to either waste Blaziken’s second turn with Protect or take the risk of sacking it outright – fortunately, it’s never had too drastic consequences yet. There probably are more that I’m forgetting right now, and of course there are also the fast nasties such as Aerodactyl and Darmanitan4 that I can handle fine by themselves but will obviously cause trouble if I face multiple of them at the same time, but hey, that’s doubles for you.
#441: TJXG-WWWW-WWXZ-DWA2
A battle against Rasmus that quickly went to hell because he brought his two most dangerous backups in Scarfchomp and Sand Rush Excadrill, with Scarfchomp also killing Greninja (which had its Sash removed by Tyranitar’s sand) and Blaziken (perfect targeting) with Outrage. It came down to Thundurus locked into GK versus (a damaged Excadrill), and I was one crit away from losing – however, Thundurus survived with exactly 21 HP lol.
#570: WUBG-WWWW-WWXZ-DWJ7
A horrible lead pair in Shiftry4 + Gale Wings Talonflame, with Shiftry using Fake Out on Greninja turn 1. Muk4 was another dangerous backup (as well as the always annoying Weezing4); however, it didn’t get really dangerous because of no hax going the AI’s way and an opportune Dark Pulse flinch on Muk.
#841: 7TFG-WWWW-WWXZ-DWDS
I’m not afraid of lead Gyarados – switch in Thundurus-T under Mat Block and click Volt Switch while laughing. I am afraid of a Roller Skater leading with Gyarados though, because it could be Gyarados3, which outspeeds both Thundurus and Greninja after one DD and OHKOes Thundurus with Stone Edge. As such, whenever a Roller Skater leads with Gyarados, I’m basically forced to switch out Blaziken for Thundurus and target it with GK – if it’s Gyara4 I can let Thundurus kill it, while GK 2HKOes it if it’s Gyara3 (which ‘should’ prefer to Waterfall the shit out of Blaziken anyway rather than set up – but unfortunately doesn’t always do so, which made a different battle that I didn’t save become really scary.) This time, it fortunately was Gyara4 using Aqua Tail – unfortunately, its partner was Ampharos, which paralyzed Greninja with Thunder and killed it next turn. The parahax probably would have caused an instant loss had that been Gyara3 using DD. Anyway, VS back to Blaziken and send out the weakened Thundurus to replace Greninja – as Talonflame is sent out. Standard play is Protect Blaziken + kill with Greninja, which Thundurus obviously does better – but Talonflame targets the less attractive Thundurus with Flare Blitz and KOes it. I send out Scizor, but at this point it’s once again an instant loss if Talonflame is Gale Wings. It’s Flame Body (or was targeting Scizor lol), Rock Slide kills it, and the last mon Yanmega isn’t too much of a problem. Ampharos paralyzed Blaziken with Thunder too somewhere along the way lol. While this battle didn’t come down to a sliver of HP on my part, my streak would have ended on the spot had I had a little more bad luck with the matchup :<
When I started using this team, I admittedly had forgotten how ridiculous Mega Blaziken’s power is, but even then I never would have expected it to perform this well. I was aiming to beat my Mega Gardevoir / Weavile record and reach top 10 (which in the light of a few other streaks being ongoing came down to reaching 325+), which I already considered to be enough of a challenge considering my previous Greninziken records, and after reaching that I aimed for the 545+ required for a secure top 5 spot (again in the light of other ongoing streaks) – but even after reaching second place I had a hard time believing I might actually be on my way to 1000, especially considering how elusive a benchmark this is in doubles. This streak felt way more like the 810 singles streak than the 1001 (1015 now but w/e) triples streak – in the triples streak everything short of 1000 would have been an underperformance considering the team’s potential, whereas I knew for both singles and doubles that the teams definitely were beatable but I maintained consistency and kept on somehow winning the difficult matchups, lucking out on a semi-regular basis, and avoiding that one /too/ difficult matchup. It's really really awkward standing among (or above ;_;) the giants on top of those leaderboards.
As for this streak, I don't like to leave stuff abandoned so I'll certainly wrap it up at some point, but I'm not sure how motivated I am right now. 1000 is already way, way more than I would have signed up for, and unlike in triples there are no reasonable targets ahead on the leaderboard (come on I'm not gonna beat Eppie, my luck just has to run out before then) - not to mention it might be smart to wait until somebody else (turskain???) hits 1000 because I seem to perform a lot better when I'm chasing something. The most satisfying part would be to have Greninziken *finally* play out their true potential, and no matter how far I'll end up bringing them, I hope I managed to do that. I don't have any other promising ongoing streaks right now (haven't touched singles since I lost, I lost rotations at 149 with an improved version of my X team because it's just way too vulnerable to crits and that was when the consecutive crits happened on Clefable - from what seemed to be a Super Luck Togekiss - and multi doesn't count), so I guess it's back to triples now. Whenever I get bored of the maison I seem to end up returning a week later and cranking out 100 battles per day (this streak was at 250-ish when I posted my triples streak and I resumed it last weekend) so idk when that will be, but whatever. I've got two ongoing 1000+ streak right now and that's kinda cool.
Thanks for reading, stay awesome, and good luck, everyone ^^
This is… a bit disappointing. Happened last Saturday but I couldn't get round to posting it sooner, so here we go.
#1029: QAUW-WWWW-WWXR-KVHM
battle #1029 recap: Vs. Roller Skater Ryker
Turn 1
vs.
A Roller Skater leading with Raichu is dangerous because of the possibility of Raichu3's Fake Out... however, on the other hand, if it's the set4s I don't feel like eating a powerful attack from Ampharos, and Raichu4's Encore is pretty damn annoying as well, as is Raichu's presence altogether because I have to anticipate Lightningrod. I decide to remove the annoyance as fast as possible, so I click Mat Block and attack Raichu with Flare Blitz.
-Greninja used Mat Block;
-Raichu used Thunder Wave on Greninja;
-Mega Blaziken used Flare Blitz on Raichu; The opposing Raichu hung on using its Focus Sash! The opposing Raichu's Static paralyzed Mega Blaziken!
-The opposing Ampharos used Thunder! Thunder was blocked by the kicked-up mat!
Turn 2
vs.
'lol'. Paralysis happens I guess if you face a Roller Skater without using Mega Manectric, but double paralysis is a bit more annoying. Raichu3 is now gonna be dangerous with a full-powered Reversal, but using Protect on Blaziken won't do any good – even if it does target Blaziken, due to the paralysis Blaziken will still be slower than Raichu next turn, so I'm just delaying the inevitable and taking the risk of seeing Greninja get double targeted. I do what makes most sense, which is attack Ampharos with Blaziken and finish off Raichu with Greninja.
-Raichu used Reversal on Mega Blaziken – KO;
-Ampharos used Focus Blast on Greninja – miss;
-Greninja used Ice Beam on Raichu – KO;
-Go! Scizor!
-Ryker sends out Charizard
Turn 3
vs.
In hindsight, locking Greninja into its most terrible defensive typing was not the greatest idea, but Charizard showing up is really, really bad. I chose to send out Scizor over Thundurus because Thundurus has to either lock itself into a non-STAB move or lock itself into Thunderbolt, which doesn't really do anything to Ampharos and might backfire tremendously when Zebstrika / Jolteon / Gliscor / Electivire / you name em shows up. Ryker counters with the worst possible Pokemon for Scizor to face from a Roller Skater in Charizard – my only choice is to Protect with Scizor and hope Greninja is KOed so that I can bring in Thundurus – Charizard has Heat Wave so that should be fine and Ampharos 'should' prefer to Focus Blast Greninja.
-Scizor used Protect;
-Charizard used Heat Wave – Greninja 1HP;
-Ampharos used Focus Blast on Greninja – miss;
-Greninja used Ice Beam on Ampharos – 70%. Ampharos is frozen solid!
Turn 4
vs.
...well, maybe Ampharos remaining frozen for a couple of turns will give Thundurus some breating room? Means I need to weaken that Ampharos a bit further though, so that Thundurus can one-shot it...
-Scizor used Bullet Punch on Ampharos – 30%;
-Charizard used Heat Wave – Greninja, Scizor KO;
-Ampharos is frozen solid;
-Go! Thundurus-T!
Turn 5
vs.
Come on Thundurus, you crazy idiot! Pray that this is Zard4 and outrun and OHKO it, pray that the last mon is something you can handle, and let that Ampharos remain frozen for a couple more turns...
-Charizard3 used Heat Wave – Thundurus-T 50%;
-Thundurus-T used Thunderbolt on Charizard – KO;
-Ampharos thawed out! Ampharos used Power Gem on Thundurus-T – KO.
...nope.
So how could I have prevented this? Obviously I made the right play on turn 5, but it's not like that turn could reasonably be screwed up, and turn 4 looks about right as well, considering how the only other possibility was a double Protect, which 'never works' and even then must be repeated next turn once again at the risk of the Charizard being the Scarf one – then it makes a lot more sense to secure that KO on Ampharos for Thundurus if it ever gets round to that.
As for turn 3 – I think my reasoning why I wanted to keep Thundurus on the bench is sound, because you really want to know the lastmon before choosing what to lock yourself into and it can't touch Ampharos anyway so you just have to hope Ryker sends out a Flying-type. I don't think I can be blamed for not guessing Charizard3 – which honestly had me put in a checkmate position at that point.
Turn 2 was horrible, but I don't think I could have done anything else – hard switching in Scizor wasn't an option because it's 2HKOed by all attacks, Protecting on Blaziken would only delay the inevitable and could result in even worse things if Greninja had been double targeted, and hard switching in Thundurus wasn't the greatest idea either because what was it gonna do lol. Incidentally, Ampharos's miss didn't really work in my favour either because the sooner the useless Greninja was dead and I could get a free switch to a fresh Thundurus and Scizor the better, but w/e.
So that leaves turn 1. Mat Blocking against possible Raichu3 and a Thunder Wave party is a misplay no matter how you look at it – but since Raichu initially outruns Blaziken and lolStatic I couldn't have prevented that double paralysis in practice, like at all, if I had kept Greninja and/or Blaziken in. Obviously Thundurus-T absorbs Thunder Wave, but it's not like I can predict who Raichu is gonna target. It possibly would have made most sense to switch out Greninja for Thundurus, pray that Ampharos doesn't do anything funky, and attack Raichu – then I should be able to KO Raichu turn 2 with Thundurus-T's Dark Pulse and go from there, with a 50% Thund and possibly a paralyzed Blaziken? At least I could have had reset Mat Block, but that wouldn't have mattered that much with Ryker having Zard3 in the wings. Just goes to show that the matchup was pretty nasty and the battle was essentially lost after turn 1 (unless 'guess Zard3' lol). The thing I was most afraid of was that I'd lose this streak because I'd derp around immensely because I'd just hit 1000, but even while it wasn't played that great (and some of the hax went my way lol), it wasn't your typical right after a milestone loss either, so that's a small consolation I guess.
As of right now, I think this is pretty much it for Greninziken. I'm definitely gonna revisit previous teams, but I'd rather pick one that has more than a snowball's chance in hell to beat its record, lol. It's kinda bizarre that a lead that I stumbled upon on youtube could have this much potential haha, and I guess it's been a pretty rewarding year playing with them. In spite of everything, 1028 is something I would have signed up for :p I genuinely think this is the best Greninziken variant possible, and with all lucky breaks I've had before I don't think it would make sense to be trying to beat this..
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VaporeonIce, you're probably gonna remain in the triples top 5 for a while longer because I lost battle 1421 earlier today when Zapdos2 decided to show up, go on a rampage, dodge a fuckton of attacks, and end up beating Azu one-on-one with like 5 HP remaining (using Protect the final turn would have secured the victory because of hail damage, but a high Aqua Jet damage roll was enough and I'd auto-lose if it Roosted.) I'll post that battle later, once I get over it, I guess... Was a pretty close battle obviously so should receive more than a picture and a battle video code, but now I'm not up to it at all and I'm not sure when I will be. Losing a streak of 'technically' 2000+ (sorry that I'm bitching once again about this) with precisely this team in only the second close call on the entire run(s) sucks pretty bad if it's not actually 2000+ and only puts you on the sixth place rather than the top 3 position that I really feel this team deserves – I still think I've let this team down and that I'm not at the proper playing level to bring this team where it belongs. I might do the first couple of hundreds of a new streak on the train and work on a new one during the summer, but on the other hand maybe this is the right moment to finally take a break for real >__> I'm probably gonna have to show some GG Unit / Eppie-level dedication if I actually want to bring this team to 2000 hehe; and I'm not gonna maintain multiple 1000+ streak at the same time again, to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.
(legit congrats though, even though I can imagine my disappointment with myself right now makes it come off a bit insincere; I'm really impressed how you managed to teambuild around all of Endeavor Aron's weaknesses... makes me curious what GG Unit would come up with in triples if he cared about that mode haha)
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(sorry about the negative post guys...)
VaporeonIce, you're probably gonna remain in the triples top 5 for a while longer because I lost battle 1421 earlier today when Zapdos2 decided to show up, go on a rampage, dodge a fuckton of attacks, and end up beating Azu one-on-one with like 5 HP remaining (using Protect the final turn would have secured the victory because of hail damage, but a high Aqua Jet damage roll was enough and I'd auto-lose if it Roosted.) I'll post that battle later, once I get over it, I guess... Was a pretty close battle obviously so should receive more than a picture and a battle video code, but now I'm not up to it at all and I'm not sure when I will be. Losing a streak of 'technically' 2000+ (sorry that I'm bitching once again about this) with precisely this team in only the second close call on the entire run(s) sucks pretty bad if it's not actually 2000+ and only puts you on the sixth place rather than the top 3 position that I really feel this team deserves – I still think I've let this team down and that I'm not at the proper playing level to bring this team where it belongs. I might do the first couple of hundreds of a new streak on the train and work on a new one during the summer, but on the other hand maybe this is the right moment to finally take a break for real >__> I'm probably gonna have to show some GG Unit / Eppie-level dedication if I actually want to bring this team to 2000 hehe; and I'm not gonna maintain multiple 1000+ streak at the same time again, to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.
(legit congrats though, even though I can imagine my disappointment with myself right now makes it come off a bit insincere; I'm really impressed how you managed to teambuild around all of Endeavor Aron's weaknesses... makes me curious what GG Unit would come up with in triples if he cared about that mode haha)
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(sorry about the negative post guys...)
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