Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
The important key benchmark for Adamant that I remember from my time playing Kangliscune is that Adamant has a guaranteed OHKO on Tyrantrum4, which for that team is a Very Big Deal™.
252+ Atk Parental Bond Kangaskhan-Mega Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyrantrum: 159-189 (101.2 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Jolly only has coinflip odds on the OHKO, so there's about a 40% chance Jolly Kang doesn't survive the turn.
252 Atk Parental Bond Kangaskhan-Mega Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyrantrum: 147-174 (93.6 - 110.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
The important key benchmark for Adamant that I remember from my time playing Kangliscune is that Adamant has a guaranteed OHKO on Tyrantrum4, which for that team is a Very Big Deal™.
252+ Atk Parental Bond Kangaskhan-Mega Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyrantrum: 159-189 (101.2 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Jolly only has coinflip odds on the OHKO, so there's about a 40% chance Jolly Kang doesn't survive the turn.
252 Atk Parental Bond Kangaskhan-Mega Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyrantrum: 147-174 (93.6 - 110.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
That's a good point! However, hitting 129 speed on Gliscor has the added benefit of outspeeding Tyrantrum 4 at 123, so this has never been an issue.
Plus, accounting for Head Smash's 80% accuracy, it's only really around a 35% chance of OHKO on Kanga, which is approximately the same as any other OHKO move, so I feel fine about that.
I'm not sure how to start this off, but I was streaking and I got to 85 wins on Super Singles before losing.
I was going to wait until I at least got to 100 before posting, but I decided to do so anyways because I've recently been testing the limits of Mega Medicham. The game is almost 10 years old, but I still feel as though there's plenty of room for testing. How far can you get with building around more niche mons such as Medicham, contrary Serp, Zard X, etc? I think these Pokemon all deserve a chance to shine, so here I present you with...
The star of the show, Cham-Li, is a Medicham that I bred for in order to get the IV spread and Bullet Punch. I decided on the moveset Fake Out, Bullet Punch, Ice Punch, and Drain Punch because it seemed, at the time, to be as consistent as Medicham was going to get. Typical moves used on Medicham such as Hi-Jump Kick and Zen Headbutt are inaccurate, so I opted out of using them. Drain Punch paired with max health evs allows for some semblance of longevity and a reliable STAB option. There are a few games where I straight up just send out Cham-Li, Fake Out + Drain Punch(x3), and win. That of course, doesn't happen much though. Bullet Punch is there to get the kill on faster mons that just barely survive the first hit of Drain Punch. Bullet Punch has also been useful when I run into a bad matchup for Medi and end up switching, but I get unlucky and my switch in goes down. Fake Out + BP serves me well in that situation as a revenge kill option. Ice Punch is pretty much a filler slot, but I choose it so that Medi could take care of mons like Gliscor, Landorus, dragons that are 4x weak to ice, ect. In hindsight, there's probably a better move for that slot, but I'm too stupid to figure that out for now. For the EVs I decided to go Max HP, ATK, and 4 SPE. It probably has room to be optimized, but I'm not sure yet. I added the 4 points in speed so that medicham could narrowly outspeed some threats like regigigas. For example, let's say I'm fighting a veteran and the lead is a regigigas. I could fake out + drain punch, and all of the regi sets would be guaranteed gone except regigigas4, which still only has a slim chance of living(It would need 2 low rolls in a row). Now, I could go on for a couple paragraphs explaining how painful the mono ghost/mono psychic mu is for this team, but that would be a waste of time lol. Some threats for Cham-Li include, but are not limited to: will-o-wispers, ghost types, flame body, psychic types, non-lead fairy types, SOME poison types(see weezing), hax+hex users, sleep setters, pursuit trappers, and more. This mon is hard to use, lol.
Suicune Explanation:
My Suicune is pretty standard, so I don't think much explaining is needed. Aurora is used to stall and set up when I don't have any other answer for my opponent's threats. I opted for Substitute over Icy Wind because I noticed that I was running into a lot of status setters. It definetly paid off.
Gliscor Explanation:
I originally had an SD bulky garchomp in this slot, but I noticed that it was too prone to getting statused. I didn't want to choose between a lum berry and leftovers, so I eventually evened up switching to gliscor since it does both, even despite the fact that I love the type resistances Garchomp gave me. Poison Heal Gliscor is such a cheat code sometimes, lol. I think the only controversial thing about this Gliscor set is that I have Knock Off over Substitute, and I myself am not sure about this pick. On one hand it allows me to have more coverage on the ghost types that medicham struggles with, but on another hand, having it hinders Gliscor's ability to stall out the opponent. Having protect as my only line of defense also feels flimsy sometimes, as I have to know EXACTLY what my opponent is going to do sometimes or they get a free setup on me. I may honestly switch it back to the sub set.
Alright, I think that's enough team explanation for now. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask em'. If there are any ways you can see to improve this team, PLEASE PLEASE tell me, lol. Next I'm going to be testing out if an Acupressure set from Medicham is better than my current one.
Oh btw, here's my replay on how I lost:
KCRW-WWWW-WW67-F2M7
I was going to wait until I at least got to 100 before posting, but I decided to do so anyways because I've recently been testing the limits of Mega Medicham. The game is almost 10 years old, but I still feel as though there's plenty of room for testing. How far can you get with building around more niche mons such as Medicham, contrary Serp, Zard X, etc? I think these Pokemon all deserve a chance to shine, so here I present you with...
The star of the show, Cham-Li, is a Medicham that I bred for in order to get the IV spread and Bullet Punch. I decided on the moveset Fake Out, Bullet Punch, Ice Punch, and Drain Punch because it seemed, at the time, to be as consistent as Medicham was going to get. Typical moves used on Medicham such as Hi-Jump Kick and Zen Headbutt are inaccurate, so I opted out of using them. Drain Punch paired with max health evs allows for some semblance of longevity and a reliable STAB option. There are a few games where I straight up just send out Cham-Li, Fake Out + Drain Punch(x3), and win. That of course, doesn't happen much though. Bullet Punch is there to get the kill on faster mons that just barely survive the first hit of Drain Punch. Bullet Punch has also been useful when I run into a bad matchup for Medi and end up switching, but I get unlucky and my switch in goes down. Fake Out + BP serves me well in that situation as a revenge kill option. Ice Punch is pretty much a filler slot, but I choose it so that Medi could take care of mons like Gliscor, Landorus, dragons that are 4x weak to ice, ect. In hindsight, there's probably a better move for that slot, but I'm too stupid to figure that out for now. For the EVs I decided to go Max HP, ATK, and 4 SPE. It probably has room to be optimized, but I'm not sure yet. I added the 4 points in speed so that medicham could narrowly outspeed some threats like regigigas. For example, let's say I'm fighting a veteran and the lead is a regigigas. I could fake out + drain punch, and all of the regi sets would be guaranteed gone except regigigas4, which still only has a slim chance of living(It would need 2 low rolls in a row). Now, I could go on for a couple paragraphs explaining how painful the mono ghost/mono psychic mu is for this team, but that would be a waste of time lol. Some threats for Cham-Li include, but are not limited to: will-o-wispers, ghost types, flame body, psychic types, non-lead fairy types, SOME poison types(see weezing), hax+hex users, sleep setters, pursuit trappers, and more. This mon is hard to use, lol.
Suicune Explanation:
My Suicune is pretty standard, so I don't think much explaining is needed. Aurora is used to stall and set up when I don't have any other answer for my opponent's threats. I opted for Substitute over Icy Wind because I noticed that I was running into a lot of status setters. It definetly paid off.
Gliscor Explanation:
I originally had an SD bulky garchomp in this slot, but I noticed that it was too prone to getting statused. I didn't want to choose between a lum berry and leftovers, so I eventually evened up switching to gliscor since it does both, even despite the fact that I love the type resistances Garchomp gave me. Poison Heal Gliscor is such a cheat code sometimes, lol. I think the only controversial thing about this Gliscor set is that I have Knock Off over Substitute, and I myself am not sure about this pick. On one hand it allows me to have more coverage on the ghost types that medicham struggles with, but on another hand, having it hinders Gliscor's ability to stall out the opponent. Having protect as my only line of defense also feels flimsy sometimes, as I have to know EXACTLY what my opponent is going to do sometimes or they get a free setup on me. I may honestly switch it back to the sub set.
Alright, I think that's enough team explanation for now. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask em'. If there are any ways you can see to improve this team, PLEASE PLEASE tell me, lol. Next I'm going to be testing out if an Acupressure set from Medicham is better than my current one.
Oh btw, here's my replay on how I lost:
KCRW-WWWW-WW67-F2M7
The boring answers would be that Sub/Protect/Double Team/Bulldoze is a much, much better set on Gliscor and replacing Suicune with Durant would allow you to get a longer streak with some Acupressure version of Medicham. Even then, Mega Medicham is a tough one because if you're gonna boost with Acupressure (which I would be very confident in saying would be better than running Fake Out in singles since not even Mega Kangaskhan with STAB and un-nerfed Parental Bond is at its best using Fake Out) the extra stats of the Mega would not be that useful compared to something like Focus Sash or Leftovers on regular Medicham.
Really you're just bumping into the fact that some combination of Gliscor/Chansey/Aegislash/Suicune can carry pretty much any lead that's not totally slow and passive to 50-100, and to consistently get beyond that requires you to cut the dead weight and not use lower-tier stuff. Even that is underplaying that like a Focus Sash Pikachu with a dedicated crippling moveset is probably giving Gliscor/Chansey enough support that you could get a few hundred with enough luck.
I come to report, with great sadness, an aborted streak of 88 wins in Super Singles with Masquerain / Chansey / Gliscor (yes, really). No loss—I had to force-quit the game without saving due to emulator being a piece of shit(rus), which is honestly just worse, since now the record in-game stands at 55 and I'm missing out on 200-odd BP on a semi fresh file where it'd be nice to have, but well, never mind that.
Anyway, yes, this was an emulator streak, I actually did this whole streak on stream in three segments: 1-50, 51-55, 56-89 (which was two sittings, really, but I had to clear out my battle videos after 55 because I didn't clean up after the previous streak to 45...).
This is, you know, obviously not a good team. Like, look, I'm running gen 6 Masquerain, the thing has 80 base SpA and 60 base Spe. No, this is a team built to *make a point*. Whether that point should be taken as "Intimidate + ground immunity is actually really good, even if with the shittiest user that still has a one-move setup option", "No, really, two appropriately coordinated chaegliscunes really can carry whatever the fuck you want to 100", or "look, Masquerain is totally better than Megacham", well, I leave that as an exercise for the reader.
The centerpiece is, of course, Masquerain rocking a Sub/QD set with an underconceived spread. Real talk, there's no good justification for it to be running 123 Speed; like, sure, I just have a lot of experience playing another Intimidate lead with that exact speed stat, but literally the only thing Masquerain does with that speed stat is try to QD once against Starmie4 (which is Chansey bait anyway) and probably get forced out by the backups. If you were going to build a replica of this team for some ungodly reason, you'd probably rather run Modest, since the only things in the 108-123 speed tiers that sort of interact with +0 Masquerain in any meaningful way are Roserade4 and Regigigas, both of which are susceptible to Bulldoze; +6 Masquerain outspeeds literally everything anyway, and it only takes 104 to creep Manectric4 at +3, which is approximately the lowest you ever want to see Masquerain "set up" against an incoming backup, so I don't think the extra speed is all that useful, whereas, you run into calcs where Timid misses out on a guaranteed OHKOs/2HKOs *all the time*.
One point of note is that, yes, Masquerain does in fact have Roost access, and no, I'm not running it, I'm running two attacks. Because Masquerain, uh, doesn't really have the stats to make mono-attacking work. Getting good value out of Roost is kind of predicated on, well, being put in situations where restoring half your HP in a turn buys you more than one turn, which, for Masquerain, is not really a thing that happens. You just need to get enemies stalled down to only moves with no lasting negative impact, sorry. Which you can pull off surprisingly often, actually, since Masquerain's, ahem, fabulous typing lets it set up on such powerhouses as Heracross4's 20 BP Reversal, Cradily4's completely uninvested Giga Drain, Shiftry's 20 BP Low Kick that it gets to use exactly once due to Sash because it's too busy trying to Sucker Punch you as you QD, and Shuckle4's Wrap, along with, more commonly, anything that can be stalled down to EQ, a setup move, or something that can be blocked by Sub.
Intimidate + ground immunity is just actually really strong. It's not even that great here, it would really be much nicer if I could run an Aegislash here, since it's rather harder for Masquerain to switch in safely from Chansey or Gliscor, but alas, third place doesn't make the cut; that conveniently-placed quad-resist on fighting still gets a hilarious amount of use, though. Being "able" to run Leftovers helps out a lot on that front and compensating for the lack of healing, actually, since it makes it a lot more comfortable to eat those negative fighting/grass moves in the understanding that those moves are eventually going to net negative damage after enough Intimidate drops/SpD boosts.
And while I've been a bit flippant about Masquerain being a shitmon, it actually pulls nonzero weight on this team even outside of its turn 1 Intimidate by actually being able to kill stuff like Rest users and floating ghosts without being subsequently dead weight for lack of PP. It's a real role! One that wins matchups that could easily go south for e.g. the dedicated crippler Focus Sash Pikachu version given an extra bad backup! There are real advantages using non-contact special moves and Buzz being sound-based!
(With that said, one of these days, I'd like to give EQ > Roost on Salamence a shot...)
Chansey is the by now familiar Minimize/Seismic Toss set; I'm running it at the empty 107 speed tier because Timid is just barely capable of outspeeding Articuno2, which is really quite excellent, and it's just one more point to avoid speed-tying with Marowak4; everything else in the 108-112 speed tiers is a job for Gliscor anyway. 8 SpD EVs maximize psychic damage (to readers), though in retrospect 28 HP / 10 SpD is obviously the better set.
Chansey is probably the most vital piece of glue on this team; it laughs at most of the the fire/ice moves that Gliscor hates switching in on, it absorbs status to let Gliscor get in with no lasting consequences, and it's nearly as good as Gliscor at PP-stalling in its own right just because 50% of a pink blob is so hard for most of the Maison to bust through.
(Dragon Rush vs Minimize has turned out to be relevant more often than I'd like against this particular team to the point that I've considered running Double Team over Minimize but eh, I'm not spending the PP Ups on something that niche for a meme team and the faster setup is still better most of the time, probably.)
And Gliscor is the slightly exotic DT/Bulldoze set with a physically-tuned slightly-fast spread. 196 Speed EVs hits a speed stat of 140, which is intended, if you'll believe it, to outrun Tyrantrum4 at 123 speed, but in the process of trying to find a nice empty speed tier crept up to outspeed Absol4, which I'm probably just overly conscious of, and Articuno4, which is actually kind of a joke with a Chansey, so it's probably actually fine to run, like, 127 speed; I'm not actually sure if anything else in that range is particularly important for Gliscor to outspeed (experience with using Gliscor on better teams suggests no), but I haven't exactly thought through the needs of this particular team that well. It needs a lot, and we don't have enough resources elsewhere to compensate for running a Masquerain.
Speaking of the needs of this team in particular, though, this team in particular? Probably prefers a Toxic set; its current solution to every floating ghost is "PP stall it down to either a Masquerain setup (preferred) or, if needed, down to Struggle instead". This in the generation where the Roller Skater and generic Psychic/Hex Maniac pools are what they are.
A digression: DT/Bulldoze Gliscor really is excellent. I already really appreciated the speed drop pickups (also, extra PP) from running Bulldoze > EQ on a Team Marathon variant, but on that particular team, DT Gliscor really doubles down on its support role with a 24 PP "skip turn" button that incidentally also sometimes saves Sub/Protect PP by randomly negating incoming attacks. It opens up quite a few situations for a Gyarados setup that would've just spent too much Sub/Protect PP against things that would've gotten killed by Toxic, which, for a team with good setup candidates, is a drawback in its own right.
On top of its function as a drawback-free skip turn button against things you don't want to kill, the ability to set up Gliscor in its own right against enemies that kill themselves too fast unassisted to set anything else up makes most of the incoming backups that could potentially cost a lot of Sub/Protect PP (e.g. for that team, all the stuff with water/ice coverage) instead just outright killable if not just stalled into a setup with the massive amount of extra PP to spare from being able to spend DT PP instead of Sub/Protect.
And of course, on a DT stall set, Bulldoze becomes far and away the clear best choice of a fourth move, since the ability to Sub before your opponent's next move after seeing if they actually managed to land a hit is key to DT actually saving precious Sub/Protect PP (the valuable resource) instead of just randomly saving a chunk of hp by failing to re-Sub because the old sub didn't die yet. It also still performs its non-DT function of slowing down the odd threat that would otherwise outspeed your preferred setup with status.
The thing is, though, this leans really hard into pure support; uninvested mono-Bulldoze Gliscor is abysmal at actually killing things. Like, it's hard to understate just how much "coverage" the loss of Toxic loses you in practical ability to 1-3 teams. There are so, so many things that can come out second that a "set-up" Gliscor is just going to have to PP-stall, and while Gliscor can usually pull off stalling one backup down (if it's, you know, not something Salamence2), actually stalling secondmon down to Struggle burns through so much PP that you can't reliably expect it to handle thirdmon; you need to be able to convert that PP-stall into a setup.
And that's like, fine on a team that has a good setup candidate, which is practically a given on the long-streak teams, and in that context, DT/Bulldoze is fantastic. On this team though? +3 Masquerain is uh, still pretty miserable (and doesn't even always have the easiest time keeping a sub up against Struggle), while +6 Chansey has its own share of backups that force it to either switch out or lose a bunch of PP.
Set options here include Toxic/EQ (the classic, and still "easiest to play" in terms of 1-3ability), Toxic/Bulldoze (because this is still a team that benefits from the speed drops, Chansey appreciates them a lot and Masquerain is, at the end of the day, still a setupmon that hates getting statused before it can Sub), DT/Toxic (this isn't such a good team that it's sensitive to the slight unreliability of maybe losing the sub on the turn that the foe goes down), Sand Attack/Bulldoze (the matchup against suicidal leads is clearly worse, but Masquerain has good odds of benefiting from the support since it's actually running Leftovers), DT/Baton Pass (giving up speed control to retain the ability to set up on suicidal leads and hand over a sub (which obviates some though not all of the value of speed control) and evasion boosts to Masquerain which, again, actually has decent odds of boosting off them, or Chansey just to not lose momentum when going up against floating non-ghosts; it also just has PP for days in a 1v3 PP stall scenario). Torment is an interesting option that I don't think fits onto this team, which well, run two other mons which aren't meaningfully affected by enemy move choice.
Of these options, I feel like DT/BP is the most promising but it'd be a rebreed and 12 PP Ups because uhhhh I bred my batch of Impish Gligar without that egg move, oops, fortunately I have the 5v Surskits to breed up a new batch, but still...
Speaking of breeding BP down from Surskit, that is, in fact, a move Masquerain can run with Quiver Dance, and definitely an interesting option, though I'm not sure there's an appropriate receiver that doesn't open holes in the team for lack of pink blob.
Realistically speaking, I'm pretty confident that this team makes it 100 reasonably reliably; the first genuinely scary matchup (like, not just me not immediately knowing what the right play was, which, well, it's my second run with a meme team, that happened plenty of times) I ran into was at 87 vs Jensen (Intimidate all sets) leading Salamence2(34), which granted isn't the only sketchy-looking DD user matchup (which this team doesn't have good general answers for), but is scarier than all the common set 4 users (Feraligatr4, Gyarados4, Haxorus4) by virtue of basically just actually having more PP that can damage Gliscor than you can Sub/Protect through. I didn't actually lose that one, and also going straight to Gliscor was probably a misplay anyway just because this specific set is less unsafe to 4hko with Chansey than to fully stall out with Gliscor and the others are all more "manageable" to deal with even after getting Chansey chipped for No Reason. This is one of a few leads that make me really wish I could run an Aegislash for, but Chansey as a catch-all special "resist"/status sponge pivot just covers so much that I couldn't seriously afford to drop it while carrying, well, a Masquerain.
I think, with some adjustments, you can absolutely build a Masquerain team that makes it up to 200 semi-reliably. It won't be pretty to play, it'll be a PP-stall-heavy monstrosity whose plan A plays like a 4-digit team and still manages to have losing lead matchups, but it feels within reach.
I mean, not that I have any plans to attempt that streak, but I wouldn't ... put it past myself to have the urge again...
So yeah, well, obviously it took all of like 25 hours before I’d gone and rebred my Masquerain and Gliscor, and started a new streak with slightly different sets:
This time I actually used PP Ups on all of Masquerain’s moves after battle 100 after an encounter with one of the Rest users that +6 Masquerain cannot reliably 3-shot, maybe Registeel1? because gen 6 Masquerain kinda sucks and basically needs to tap it 10 times over 30 turns to burn through its Rest PP then land a Scald burn, look at this absolute travesty:
+6 252+ SpA Masquerain Scald vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Registeel on a critical hit: 118-139 (63.1 - 74.3%) – guaranteed 2HKO
And yeah, that + the new Gliscor is a combined total of 21 PP Ups (I didn’t actually bother for BP…), but it’s fiiiine because while trying to make up the deficit I discovered that you can actually grind for PP Ups at the Battle Institute! I feel like this doesn’t get mentioned nearly as much as it deserves, because it’s pretty amazing that you can grind for PP Ups as much as you want, even if it would’ve taken something like 3-4 hours to get that many PP Ups, I think it’s still faster than Wonder Trade if you have a sufficiently competent doubles team and, you know, works even if you can’t Wonder Trade.
Anyway, the biggest change here is clearly to Gliscor; Chansey is exactly the same as before, and while I switched up Masquerain’s nature and spread slightly, the difference was pretty inconsequential (and honestly a downgrade).
Gliscor has traded its speed down to 129 for added phys bulk (which is of fairly minor consequence in context), but more importantly is now running Double Team with Baton Pass, which I find absolutely hilarious and you will not believe how much faster this makes the team play in practice. The secret in plain sight is that Gliscor is running not one passable boost, as I totally thought until I actually took the team into a battle, but two, because it can also pass a sub, and Gliscor actually stands a pretty good chance of passing +6 evasion and a sub in the face of a wide range of opposing leads.
Now, because +6 evasion makes attacks only hit about ~1/3 of the time, this is frequently enough to let Masquerain set up directly against an enemy that hasn’t even been PP-stalled out, since it takes them 3 attacks on average to break a sub, netting 2 QDs for -1/16 hp with Leftovers, and that’s when the enemy actually attempt an attack that breaks sub each turn, which is regularly not the case against sets that carry status moves that Masquerain can Sub in the face of, weaker special attacks after enough QD boosts, and resisted physical attacks after a few Intimidate drops, which also can be achieved much more easily by having Gliscor BP a raw sub to Masquerain to get the drop in total safety than by hard switching; it’s also just very funny that -4 Archeop4 just straight up does not break a Masquerain sub with Aerial Ace once it’s in Defeatist range from 3 Buzzes.
Usually being at +6 evasion also mitigates one of Masquerain’s biggest issues after being set up, which is that there’s a fuckton of stuff it doesn’t reliably one-shot even at +6 SpA. When the enemy backup is only going to hit you ~1/3 of the time, you can usually expect to be fine just re-Subbing until you have one again. This also mitigates the thing where you want to Scald but it risks not one-shotting but burning an enemy that can break your sub before going down to the burn, since most backups are totally fine to not already have a sub against (but not all, so you still really prefer to have a sub).
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that, in the average state of the world, the DT/BP set letting you skip a lot of PP stalling makes this version of the team almost twice as fast to play, and also produces a lot more Masquerain sweeps than the version where setting up Masquerain basically requires stalling something down to moves that don’t do anything to it, which is great and obviously the main reason to play this team in the first place.
The loss of Bulldoze hurts much less than you’d expect! It loses speed control, of course, but one of the biggest reasons you’d want speed control is to get Masquerain safely against something faster with Toxic/WoW/Leech Seed, and being able to pass Sub directly to it kind of obviates that as a problem. Moreover, with a few notable exceptions (read: Taunt users; looking at you, Crobat4), most of the situations where Gliscor can get away with spamming Bulldoze are also situations where it can get away with DTing up to +6 and passing +6 evasion and sub to Masquerain, which will probably be able to set up and sweep the rest of the team way faster than uninvested Bulldoze Gliscor.
That said, setting up with evasion and Sub actually turns out to make Masquerain care a lot more about what stuff it outspeeds at +1 and +2 on this team than on the non-BP version. This is what I mean by Modest Masquerain being a downgrade for this team in particular; I was originally running 104 Speed up to battle 100 since it didn’t feel like Masquerain’s speed mattered that much when its setup stage wasn’t very exciting, but with evasion/Sub maneuvers sometimes you do have sketchier setups against faster enemies with e.g. rock or electric moves that don’t break a sub against Gliscor but that you just really hope you can QD up to enough speed before it breaks your sub.
Anyway, this time I’m reporting a completed Starf streak of 223 wins in Super Singles with Masquerain / Chansey / Gliscor. As I said, within reach to achieve semi-reliably with some adjustment! The assessment was accurate!
Also accuate: yeah, this team still has some sketchy-ass lead matchups that could plausibly be auto-lose with a CH and/or some bad evasion luck:
Faster setup; e.g. I ran into another Puck Salamence2 around 150-ish and this time Chansey just bopped it but it that could easily have gone south. Also, Talonflame4 in particular, which also threatens to burn with Flare Blitz.
Really just anything that that threatens Chansey but could burn on a Gliscor switch-in, like aforementioned Talonflame4, but also like Darmanitan4, because it’s scarfed and I do not understand why it doesn’t consistently choose to Stone Edge on Masquerain.
A bunch of the Banded stuff just hits too hard for any of the team to face head-on, not just Tyrantrum4 (which obviously goes for Head Smash on Masquerain and 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 186-220 (102.2 - 120.9%); recoil damage: 91 (58%) – guaranteed OHKO, there’s really no recourse here without ditching the dead weight, just don’t get crit lmao) but also just stuff like Staraptor3 (252 Atk Choice Band Reckless Staraptor Brave Bird vs. 230 HP / 172+ Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 172-204 (96.1 - 114%); recoil damage: 57-60 (35.6 - 37.5%) – 75% chance to OHKO) which blocks a sub on two hits and just has to be killed off its own recoil from ramming into Chansey.
Taunt users are so much more of a pain with Gliscor running a no attacks set; e.g. it can no longer basically try to DT on Crobat4 whenever not Taunted (which will eventually cause Taunts to start missing) and Bulldoze through the rest of its Taunt duration, so you need to actually do some risky switch-stalling. Toxicroak is a risky switch-stall where you try to bring Gliscor in on Cross Chop as much as possible and hope it goes for Taunt as you switch out instead of Gunk Shot. Weavile4 is a race to land three Seismic Tosses without getting Chansey frozen (though I guess it always was, Gliscor wasn’t doing anything in that matchup anyway).
These are not what I actually lost to, but instead this hilarious turn of events where I (completely avoidably) blunder away Gliscor after it fails to Sub and then get Chansey PP-stalled down to Struggle by Infiltrator Chandelure4 on a difference of 1 PP, a margin which could’ve gone differently if, say, I’d actually switched Gliscor out earlier, or just like if the Chandelure had gone for CM instead of Shadow Ball on the exact turn I switched Masquerain in?
… well alright, but that battle included an obvious catastrophic misplay, right, what if I just played properly and don’t switch Gliscor in on something it’s not going to set up on? haha nope it turns out that getting Chansey Icy Winded is also catastrophic and leaves it unable to reliably stall out Infiltrator Chandelure4’s Heat Waves while burned. Froslass4 seems to want to go for Blizzard > Destiny Bond > Icy Wind > Shadow Ball strongly in that order against Chansey, too, so the only ways around this are Subbing aggressively into incoming Icy Winds to avoid getting speed dropped or swapping into Gliscor/Masquerain to reset the drops, both of which are not obviously fantastic ideas against unknown backups. Maybe the best move is not Minimizing while it Icy Winds when coming back in after swich-stalling Destiny Bonds, so as to stall out IW with a consistent ~5 Subs, then Minimize against Shadow Ball? In any case, it seems clear that backup Infiltrator Chandelure4 is a sketchy matchup in its own right for this team that will “usually” go right because the AI doesn’t really understand the concept of boosting fully before attacking but is kind of always just a sequence of lucky hits away from doom since +6 0 SpA Chandelure Heat Wave vs. 30 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 186-220 (56.5 - 66.9%) – guaranteed 2HKO actually outdamages healing and b2b hits even potentially 2-shot when burned (and +6 0 SpA Chandelure Heat Wave vs. 30 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey on a critical hit: 280-330 (85.1 - 100.3%) – 6.3% chance to OHKO is a pretty hard kill to avoid).
I don’t know, I’m out of ideas; I really don’t think any more moth streaking is forthcoming, since this was pretty much the best idea I had and it played out roughly as expected. I feel like I got a pretty normal amount of luck, faced like a handful of sketchy-looking “just don’t get crit lmao” sorts of matchups and just didn’t get crit, then lost to blatant misplays + sketchy matchup combo that had a substantial loss chane even without overt misplays.
Like, you could for sure take the team further by playing consistently properly and not like a dumbass? But that still seems constrained to maybe 3-4x this streak length tops before the known loss chances from inopportune crits rear their heads, let alone the unknown unknowns (like “turns out two ghosts is extra bad if the second one is Infiltrator Chandelure4!” lol). So uh, yeah, probably semi-reliable at 100-200 (and that “semi” is carrying a lot of weight), but definitely a 3-digit team, nowhere near a 4-digit one.
So yeah, well, obviously it took all of like 25 hours before I’d gone and rebred my Masquerain and Gliscor, and started a new streak with slightly different sets:
This time I actually used PP Ups on all of Masquerain’s moves after battle 100 after an encounter with one of the Rest users that +6 Masquerain cannot reliably 3-shot, maybe Registeel1? because gen 6 Masquerain kinda sucks and basically needs to tap it 10 times over 30 turns to burn through its Rest PP then land a Scald burn, look at this absolute travesty:
+6 252+ SpA Masquerain Scald vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Registeel on a critical hit: 118-139 (63.1 - 74.3%) – guaranteed 2HKO
And yeah, that + the new Gliscor is a combined total of 21 PP Ups (I didn’t actually bother for BP…), but it’s fiiiine because while trying to make up the deficit I discovered that you can actually grind for PP Ups at the Battle Institute! I feel like this doesn’t get mentioned nearly as much as it deserves, because it’s pretty amazing that you can grind for PP Ups as much as you want, even if it would’ve taken something like 3-4 hours to get that many PP Ups, I think it’s still faster than Wonder Trade if you have a sufficiently competent doubles team and, you know, works even if you can’t Wonder Trade.
Anyway, the biggest change here is clearly to Gliscor; Chansey is exactly the same as before, and while I switched up Masquerain’s nature and spread slightly, the difference was pretty inconsequential (and honestly a downgrade).
Gliscor has traded its speed down to 129 for added phys bulk (which is of fairly minor consequence in context), but more importantly is now running Double Team with Baton Pass, which I find absolutely hilarious and you will not believe how much faster this makes the team play in practice. The secret in plain sight is that Gliscor is running not one passable boost, as I totally thought until I actually took the team into a battle, but two, because it can also pass a sub, and Gliscor actually stands a pretty good chance of passing +6 evasion and a sub in the face of a wide range of opposing leads.
Now, because +6 evasion makes attacks only hit about ~1/3 of the time, this is frequently enough to let Masquerain set up directly against an enemy that hasn’t even been PP-stalled out, since it takes them 3 attacks on average to break a sub, netting 2 QDs for -1/16 hp with Leftovers, and that’s when the enemy actually attempt an attack that breaks sub each turn, which is regularly not the case against sets that carry status moves that Masquerain can Sub in the face of, weaker special attacks after enough QD boosts, and resisted physical attacks after a few Intimidate drops, which also can be achieved much more easily by having Gliscor BP a raw sub to Masquerain to get the drop in total safety than by hard switching; it’s also just very funny that -4 Archeop4 just straight up does not break a Masquerain sub with Aerial Ace once it’s in Defeatist range from 3 Buzzes.
Usually being at +6 evasion also mitigates one of Masquerain’s biggest issues after being set up, which is that there’s a fuckton of stuff it doesn’t reliably one-shot even at +6 SpA. When the enemy backup is only going to hit you ~1/3 of the time, you can usually expect to be fine just re-Subbing until you have one again. This also mitigates the thing where you want to Scald but it risks not one-shotting but burning an enemy that can break your sub before going down to the burn, since most backups are totally fine to not already have a sub against (but not all, so you still really prefer to have a sub).
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that, in the average state of the world, the DT/BP set letting you skip a lot of PP stalling makes this version of the team almost twice as fast to play, and also produces a lot more Masquerain sweeps than the version where setting up Masquerain basically requires stalling something down to moves that don’t do anything to it, which is great and obviously the main reason to play this team in the first place.
The loss of Bulldoze hurts much less than you’d expect! It loses speed control, of course, but one of the biggest reasons you’d want speed control is to get Masquerain safely against something faster with Toxic/WoW/Leech Seed, and being able to pass Sub directly to it kind of obviates that as a problem. Moreover, with a few notable exceptions (read: Taunt users; looking at you, Crobat4), most of the situations where Gliscor can get away with spamming Bulldoze are also situations where it can get away with DTing up to +6 and passing +6 evasion and sub to Masquerain, which will probably be able to set up and sweep the rest of the team way faster than uninvested Bulldoze Gliscor.
That said, setting up with evasion and Sub actually turns out to make Masquerain care a lot more about what stuff it outspeeds at +1 and +2 on this team than on the non-BP version. This is what I mean by Modest Masquerain being a downgrade for this team in particular; I was originally running 104 Speed up to battle 100 since it didn’t feel like Masquerain’s speed mattered that much when its setup stage wasn’t very exciting, but with evasion/Sub maneuvers sometimes you do have sketchier setups against faster enemies with e.g. rock or electric moves that don’t break a sub against Gliscor but that you just really hope you can QD up to enough speed before it breaks your sub.
Anyway, this time I’m reporting a completed Starf streak of 223 wins in Super Singles with Masquerain / Chansey / Gliscor. As I said, within reach to achieve semi-reliably with some adjustment! The assessment was accurate!
Also accuate: yeah, this team still has some sketchy-ass lead matchups that could plausibly be auto-lose with a CH and/or some bad evasion luck:
Faster setup; e.g. I ran into another Puck Salamence2 around 150-ish and this time Chansey just bopped it but it that could easily have gone south. Also, Talonflame4 in particular, which also threatens to burn with Flare Blitz.
Really just anything that that threatens Chansey but could burn on a Gliscor switch-in, like aforementioned Talonflame4, but also like Darmanitan4, because it’s scarfed and I do not understand why it doesn’t consistently choose to Stone Edge on Masquerain.
A bunch of the Banded stuff just hits too hard for any of the team to face head-on, not just Tyrantrum4 (which obviously goes for Head Smash on Masquerain and 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 186-220 (102.2 - 120.9%); recoil damage: 91 (58%) – guaranteed OHKO, there’s really no recourse here without ditching the dead weight, just don’t get crit lmao) but also just stuff like Staraptor3 (252 Atk Choice Band Reckless Staraptor Brave Bird vs. 230 HP / 172+ Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 172-204 (96.1 - 114%); recoil damage: 57-60 (35.6 - 37.5%) – 75% chance to OHKO) which blocks a sub on two hits and just has to be killed off its own recoil from ramming into Chansey.
Taunt users are so much more of a pain with Gliscor running a no attacks set; e.g. it can no longer basically try to DT on Crobat4 whenever not Taunted (which will eventually cause Taunts to start missing) and Bulldoze through the rest of its Taunt duration, so you need to actually do some risky switch-stalling. Toxicroak is a risky switch-stall where you try to bring Gliscor in on Cross Chop as much as possible and hope it goes for Taunt as you switch out instead of Gunk Shot. Weavile4 is a race to land three Seismic Tosses without getting Chansey frozen (though I guess it always was, Gliscor wasn’t doing anything in that matchup anyway).
These are not what I actually lost to, but instead this hilarious turn of events where I (completely avoidably) blunder away Gliscor after it fails to Sub and then get Chansey PP-stalled down to Struggle by Infiltrator Chandelure4 on a difference of 1 PP, a margin which could’ve gone differently if, say, I’d actually switched Gliscor out earlier, or just like if the Chandelure had gone for CM instead of Shadow Ball on the exact turn I switched Masquerain in?
… well alright, but that battle included an obvious catastrophic misplay, right, what if I just played properly and don’t switch Gliscor in on something it’s not going to set up on? haha nope it turns out that getting Chansey Icy Winded is also catastrophic and leaves it unable to reliably stall out Infiltrator Chandelure4’s Heat Waves while burned. Froslass4 seems to want to go for Blizzard > Destiny Bond > Icy Wind > Shadow Ball strongly in that order against Chansey, too, so the only ways around this are Subbing aggressively into incoming Icy Winds to avoid getting speed dropped or swapping into Gliscor/Masquerain to reset the drops, both of which are not obviously fantastic ideas against unknown backups. Maybe the best move is not Minimizing while it Icy Winds when coming back in after swich-stalling Destiny Bonds, so as to stall out IW with a consistent ~5 Subs, then Minimize against Shadow Ball? In any case, it seems clear that backup Infiltrator Chandelure4 is a sketchy matchup in its own right for this team that will “usually” go right because the AI doesn’t really understand the concept of boosting fully before attacking but is kind of always just a sequence of lucky hits away from doom since +6 0 SpA Chandelure Heat Wave vs. 30 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 186-220 (56.5 - 66.9%) – guaranteed 2HKO actually outdamages healing and b2b hits even potentially 2-shot when burned (and +6 0 SpA Chandelure Heat Wave vs. 30 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey on a critical hit: 280-330 (85.1 - 100.3%) – 6.3% chance to OHKO is a pretty hard kill to avoid).
I don’t know, I’m out of ideas; I really don’t think any more moth streaking is forthcoming, since this was pretty much the best idea I had and it played out roughly as expected. I feel like I got a pretty normal amount of luck, faced like a handful of sketchy-looking “just don’t get crit lmao” sorts of matchups and just didn’t get crit, then lost to blatant misplays + sketchy matchup combo that had a substantial loss chane even without overt misplays.
Like, you could for sure take the team further by playing consistently properly and not like a dumbass? But that still seems constrained to maybe 3-4x this streak length tops before the known loss chances from inopportune crits rear their heads, let alone the unknown unknowns (like “turns out two ghosts is extra bad if the second one is Infiltrator Chandelure4!” lol). So uh, yeah, probably semi-reliable at 100-200 (and that “semi” is carrying a lot of weight), but definitely a 3-digit team, nowhere near a 4-digit one.
Yeah Infiltrator Chandelure is an annoying lead for teams like that where even when it's out of Heat Wave, you either have to sacrifice something or are more or less trading all of Chansey's PP (in this gen I wouldn't consider it that big of a deal because I'm pretty sure Chandelure is the only stat-boosting Ghost you'll see afer battle 50 or whatever) for it since its move choice is so random. IIRC that's what I lost to when I first used Salamence/Aegislash/Chansey where I was way too cavalier with Chansey and in that battle it was both more aggressive than usual in terms of setting up more CMs before it attacked and lucky in terms of how often it was hitting Heat Wave against +6 evasion.
On your team I would be comfortable sacrificing Masquerain (obviously less of an opportunity cost than saccing something like Mega Salamence/Gyarados) once Chandelure's out of Heat Wave; that way, you'd be able to safely bring in Gliscor, use Protect, and then you could save a lot of Chansey PP by switch stalling because the Chandelure would be baited into using Shadow Ball against a poisoned Gliscor and Will-o-Wisp against a non-burned Chansey (I guess it could also use Calm Mind if it isn't already at +6 but either way, same difference where you're not taking any damage). A 2v2 with a max evasion Chansey/Gliscor behind a Sub, the other one in reserve, and both with ample PP remaining is still pretty great odds for a 'bad' lead scenario.
That is a hard tendency to overcome where inevitably the most 'novel' Pokemon you're using is going to receive some favoritism where you'll want to sweep with it more often than what would be the mathematically best play, and you might be less likely to consider sacrificing it when the situation calls for it. Durant is obviously amazing in singles formats (like you could almost certainly get a longer streak simply replacing Masquerain with standard Scarf Durant even though Chansey and Gliscor are not the first things you'd think of in terms of Durant-abusing set-up sweepers lol), but I think a good bit of why I've gotten the longest streak in a lot of generations is that a Durant team more or less railroads you into a situation where you only have one way to win the battle and you can be more focused on maximizing your likeliness of winning rather than getting into a groove where you have a bunch of quick and easy battles and then are more likely to make a critical error like "eh setting this up to +6 is gonna take too much time, I should be fine at +2" or "lately I've been sweeping with this thing so much that it's getting kind of boring, so I want to switch it up by instead trying to sweep with something that gives me lower odds of winning."
I think this also manifests itself where you are more or less wasting a moveslot on Gliscor in order to try to win battles more quickly/sweep more often with Masquerain when that doesn't really increase your likelihood of winning since as you said, even a +6 Masquerain fully invested in Special Attack with an additional coverage move on top of its main STAB is not that potent of a sweeper - like in your loss, just PP stalling Froslass with Chansey and then setting up a Sub and a few DTs with a Gliscor that had Bulldoze instead of Double Team while Froslass Struggled would've been fine.
It's funny you mention the 'not getting crit' strategy when Masquerain happens to be one of a select few Pokemon that actually has some method of reducing your team's harm from crits via Power Split. There is definitely some room for improvement by either replacing the least-important attacking move on Masquerain with it (from messing around with both Tentacruel and Volcarona in the Subway, I found that when you use Gliscor, having a set-up sweeper that's walled by either Water Absorb or Soundproof really isn't that damning since you can just PP stall them and set up a 2nd time while they KO themselves with Struggle) or just going all-in on crippling with like 0 IVs in the attacking stats, Sash and moves like Power Split, Struggle Bug, or even Whirlwind if you want to get out of a bad lead matchup.
Also I think you're short-selling the team a little bit because a lead Froslass into Infiltrator Chandelure is pretty rare (there are teams here with 1000+ that are weak to more common things). Like yeah there are Ghost/Psychic specialists, but if you played the exact same way against Froslass and that trainer's 3rd Pokemon was something with a higher-BP move against Chansey (not that hard to do since a lot of them have Focus Blast), it would've come out before the Chandelure and you could've set up one of your other 2 against it, and even then you definitely had a way of playing around Chandelure with the Masquerain sacrifice.
Blazing Through the Blue Flames: A Charizard - X Maison Doubles Team Report
Buckle Up everyone! This is going to be a veeeeeeeery loooooong post. And I’ll greatly appreciate if you read this from start to finish!
Introduction
Greetings! I am PkmnTrainerRod, posting a completed streak of 418 in Battle Maison Super Doubles (X/Y) and I am thrilled to announce that I have successfully pulled off Charizard X in Maison Super Doubles, and also achieving the highest streak I have ever attained in any battle facility I played. Notably, I hold the distinction of being the first and only player in the (World) Maison Doubles Format who used Charizard X. This historic achievement fills me with immense joy! But then, I would like to express my gratitude to all of the members of Battle Facility Discord server and to all of my supportive friends who have been with me throughout this blazing journey from the very beginning. Without your unwavering support, this accomplishment would not have been possible. Without further ado, let’s blaze through the blue flames!
P.S. Biggest Thanks to @Joshuarts03 for making this wonderful art! I highly recommend checking his twitter if you want some awesome Pokemon fanarts!
Teambuilding Process (Story how the team was built)
It all began on Father's Day when my family and I decided to celebrate at the mall. Before leaving home, I made sure to bring along my 3DS to stave off my boredom during our outing. Once we arrived at Shakey's Restaurant, I seized the opportunity to play Pokemon while we’re waiting for our orders. As I contemplated which game to play, I decided to have a "SERIOUS" Maison Run in Pokemon X. It had been quite some time since I last explored the Kalos Region, and I was eager to EXPERIMENT teams in the X/Y Maison. While patiently waiting for our food, I checked the Doubles Maison Leaderboards to search for a fun team, which led me to Turskain's Nasty Plot Mega Lucario + Greninja Team.
"Mega Lucario / Greninja / Talonflame / Garchomp
I was immediately attracted by the team's "Mat Block and Sweep" composition, which aligns perfectly with my preference for hyperoffensive strategies. Mega Lucario's devastating damage output, particularly after a Nasty Plot boost, was simply NASTY on its own right. Its Adaptability-boosted Aura Sphere and Flash Cannon can obliterate opponents. What made this team even more formidable was Greninja's ability to protect Lucario with Mat Block, virtually guaranteeing a successful Nasty Plot setup on the first turn. Once this combination was set in motion, victory was easy. Furthermore, Talonflame provided invaluable support with its Tailwind, granting speed control and immediate damage with Brave Bird (thanks to Gale Wings, Brave Bird and TW becomes a priority move). Lastly, let's don’t forget Garchomp, the backline sweeper that could close out most of the games. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about grinding for a Lucario, as I had a Modest Nature one from last year's breeding. A Jolly Gible, traded by a friend, and a Hidden Ability Talonflame from the Friend Safari completed my team. Just as I was about to begin my streak, I noticed a child wearing a "CHARIZARD X" shirt. The sight struck me with astonishment (what a coincidence, lol). I found myself gazing at the shirt for several seconds, truly impressed by its design. In that moment, a wave of inspiration washed over me, and I made a decision to create a brand-new team of my own. This unexpected encounter compelled me to reset the game, eager to make a team with a blazing fashion.
Inspired by that shirt, an intriguing idea sparked in my mind, "what if I incorporated Charizard X into my Maison team?" Admittedly, I felt a sense of hesitation initially, as Charizard X faced tough competition within the Maison metagame. Its liability made it challenging to thrive in lengthy streaks. Among the notable mega evolutions commonly used were Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Salamence, Mega Mawile, and even its counterpart, Mega Charizard Y (ironically, the latter enjoyed ZardY more, lmao). Nevertheless, I decided to trust my instincts and construct a team centered around Charizard X, driven by the possibilities it presented within the Maison environment.
Charizard - X / Greninja
After our meal at the restaurant, I delved into theorycrafting without any hesitation. Ultimately, I settled on a Dragon Dance variant on Charizard X, confident in its compatibility with Mat Block and Sweep compositions. In essence, it mirrored the strategy employed by Turskain's NinjaMence that I was already using on my ORAS save file. The concept remained the same - Mat Block combined with Dragon Dance to gain momentum and sweep afterwards. One of the main reasons why I opted to replace Mega Lucario was not solely due to its overwhelming damage potential, but rather because Lucario sometimes relied on Tailwind support to secure victories in certain situations. Charizard X, on the other hand, possessed the advantage of speed boosts from Dragon Dance. This single adjustment resolved all my concerns regarding speed control, as at +1, I could effortlessly outpace the Maison opponents while inflicting substantial damage.
Once I had successfully established a core focused on the Mat Block and Sweep strategy, reminiscent of the NinjaMence team I used in the OR/AS Maison Doubles, I decided to add a "spicy pick" to provide support for my leads. As I mentioned earlier, I was eager to explore and EXPERIMENT new ideas. While taking a break at a food stall, I stumbled upon Josh C's World Record Tree Team Report. Interestingly, the team featured some "stall antics" (sounds familiar?). This piqued my curiosity, particularly regarding "Poison Heal Gliscor." Although it was my first time using a singles Pokémon in a doubles format because I was a Hyperoffensive player. But lately, I was imitating Wolfey’s defensive playstyle in some of my showdown battles. As a result, it convinced me to give Gliscor a shot
Charizard - X / Greninja / Gliscor
At first glance, the team may appear unconventional, but please bear with me as the team is not yet complete. The rationale behind incorporating Gliscor stems from its ability to resist all the weaknesses of both Greninja and Charizard X (Rock, Ground, and Electric). This provides me with a reliable switch-in option in case things don't go well in my favor. Additionally, I noticed a potential issue with Heatran that my leads couldn't effectively handle, but Gliscor has the capability to dispatch it with STAB Earthquake even with little to no Atk investment. 4 Atk Gliscor Earthquake (spread) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 156-184 (94 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO (Sayonara Heatran!) Additionally, in theory, Gliscor also provides valuable defensive options and I also don’t want my team to rely solely on Mat Block + Sweep. But instead, adding Gliscor gives flexibility on the team, granting me various approaches against myriad of team combinations. But then, a significant realization dawned upon me - I identified two major threats that if left unchecked by Charizard X immediately, it could potentially bring an end to the streak. These formidable adversaries are Minimize Blissey and Double Team + Roost Zapdos. The good news is that Gliscor proves to be an impenetrable wall against both of them.
With the team almost complete, I recognized the need for a backup sweeper to provide additional firepower in the endgame, particularly in case Charizard X is fainted. Additionally, I aimed to address Gliscor's vulnerability to Ice-type while further bolstering its stall capabilities. Considering these factors, I concluded that Life Orb Scizor would be an excellent addition to the team.
Charizard - X / Greninja / Gliscor / Scizor
Scizor is always been one of my all-time favorites when it comes to competitive pokemon. I’m consistently using Scizor in my Gen 4 and 5 Battle Tower runs due to its sheer strength. It serves as the perfect glue to hold the team together. With Life Orb + Technician-boosted Bullet Punch, Scizor consistently delivers powerful blows to easily pick off dented opponents. Additionally, Bug Bite is a very useful move to dispatch Psychic and Dark types, as well as removing berries like Sitrus and Lum Berry. Lastly, Superpower allows Scizor to eliminate key bulky threats. Its role in this team is self-explanatory - it hits hard, covers Gliscor's weaknesses, and provides crucial support in case things go wrong. However, you have to be aware that it’s very weak to Fire, as Scizor is susceptible to being crisped to death.
The moment I finished building and theorymonning the team, I thought at first that the team looks really solid on paper. But I found myself again struggling with a lingering concern. Greninja stood as my sole Special attacker, while the rest of the team primarily hitting on the physical spectrum. I worried that these imbalances could hinder the team's overall potential. Moreover, I feared that if either my key damage dealers were fainted, the team will basically fall apart under pressure. Recalling the moment when I evolved Gliscor, I even contemplated releasing it, convinced that it might not work well within the team. However, my initial judgment to this team was a mistake.
I instantly jumped into conclusion that this team won’t work without even testing it in-game. And to prove the teams’ full strength, I decided to finally take it into the Maison. And to my surprise, it performed exceptionally well. Of course, there were some glaring weaknesses, which we will discuss later in the "threats section." Nevertheless, the combination of hyperoffense in the lead, coupled with a remarkably durable wallbreaker and backup sweeper in the backline, allowed the team to function seamlessly. Upon achieving a streak of 50, I started taking the team even more seriously, recognizing its true potential.
The Team
Charizard > Mega Charizard X
Ability: Blaze > Tough Claws
Item: Charizardite - X
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 108 HP / 140 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Moveset Flare Blitz / Dragon Claw / Protect / Dragon Dance
Details
I used a very standard Dragon Dance Charizard set. It’s capabilities within the Maison environment caught me by surprise. Its true strength as a premier sweeper in the Maison Doubles was something I didn’t anticipated. Through extensive battles, I've had the privilege of witnessing Charizard X's sheer power, cementing its status as a dominant lead sweeper on the field. Even though its role in the team was similar to Mega Salamence, Charizard X had unique attributes that Mega Mence don’t have. One of these distinctions is Charizard X's immunity to burn, this immunity ensures that Charizard X’s can sweep very easily without the annoying attack drop from burn. Additionally, Charizard X can break through steel types much better than Salamence, and it also had a strong hax prevention that safeguards it against the ever notorious freezes. This protection stems from its STAB Flare Blitz. A very strong Fire-type move that not only inflicts astronomically high damage but also possesses the extraordinary ability to thaw out Charizard X when used. This unique trait preventing freeze gives Charizard X a huge advantage to turn things around. Additionally, Charizard X remains steadfast as a brute force both with and without Dragon Dance. This is largely due to the effects of Tough Claws, a boost that bolsters Charizard X's damage output significantly. After going mega, it’s x4 vulnerability to Rock-type moves is reduced to a x2. Instilling me with the confidence to withstand both STAB and non-STAB Rock Slides with relative ease. Moreover, Charizard X's dragon typing converts its once-debilitating electric weakness into a resistance. However, this transformation won’t save Charizard X from paralysis. Imo, the exchange between resisting Electric-type moves while being x2 to Rock and Ground types is a fair trade-off. However, despite of its strengths, Charizard X had some glaring drawbacks that couldn’t be ignored. The most notable among them is the recoil damage incurred from Flare Blitz. This is like a "Risk and Reward." The reward of securing an always guaranteed OHKO (One-Hit Knock Out) is accompanied by the risk of being sniped down in the next turn. As such, its absurdly high damage output comes hand in hand with a liability. But then, it’s still a very versatile pokemon if used properly.
Short story about the EV Spread I wanted to use
The initial EV spread I’m considering while theorymonning Charizard X was the 252 HP / 76 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe variant. This spreads’ specific purpose is to allow Charizard X tank more hits, particularly to minimize the recoil damage from Flare Blitz. With 252 HP investment, Charizard X can guarantee survive powerful attacks such as Stone Edge from Choice Scarf Darmanitan, Dragon Pulse from Kingdra and Hydro Pump from Ludicolo, and Kingdra even in rain! Furthermore, the 76 points in Attack with an Adamant nature still provide significant damage output, especially after a Dragon Dance boost. This spread ensures that Charizard X can guarantee a one-hit KO Blissey4 and Zapdos2. Despite the excellent bulk provided by this EV spread, one notable issue is the lack of speed and potential damage output if Charizard X fails to set up a Dragon Dance. The 172 Speed investment allows Charizard X to reach a speed stat of 223 after +1, which is still decent to outpace the Maison, but falls short of outspeeding Choice Scarf Pinsir (213 vs. 225). The thought of being outsped by a Choice-locked Guillotine from Pinsir can be really scary. Moreover, without a Dragon Dance boost, Charizard X's offensive capabilities against bulky Pokemon that can neutralize its attacks become significantly weaker. Additionally, the investment of 252 HP may pose an issue as the bulk was too excessive. In theory, this approach may not be ideal due because of random critical hits, which can be really annoying in some cases. And as a result, I decided to readjust the EV spread to maximize Charizard X's speed, specifically to outspeed Choice Scarf Pinsir, and its bulk, while still ensuring that it can deal significant damage without heavily relying on Dragon Dance boost.
Calcs (Offensive)
+1 76+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Blissey: 373-441 (113 - 133.6%); recoil damage: 110 (65.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 76+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Zapdos: 202-238 (102.5 - 120.8%); recoil damage: 66 (39.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
76+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 206-246 (110.2 - 131.6%); recoil damage: 62 (37.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
76+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Dragon Claw vs. 168 HP / 0 Def Kingdra: 182-216 (106.4 - 126.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Calcs (Defensive)
252 Atk Darmanitan Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 112-132 (60.5 - 71.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
168+ SpA Kingdra Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Charizard X in Rain: 133-157 (71.9 - 84.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Charizard X in Rain: 138-163 (74.6 - 88.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Garchomp Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X on a critical hit: 158-186 (85.4 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Garchomp Earthquake (spread) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 128-152 (69.2 - 82.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Salamence Dragon Rush vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 162-192 (87.6 - 103.8%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
168+ Atk Life Orb Excadrill Earthquake (spread) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 159-190 (85.9 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
Second Spread (108 HP / 140 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe)
I think by far; this is the optimal spread for Charizard X as a lead sweeper in the Battle Maison. The reasoning of this spread is to maximize Charizard X's speed while maintaining a balance between its bulk and damage. With a full investment of 252 EVs in Speed, Charizard X reaches a speed stat of 228 after +1. This ensures that it can finally outspeed Choice Scarf Pinsir, which is a nuisance. While it does speed tie with Staraptor and Typhlosion, it’s not a significant issue as Staraptor often targets Greninja, providing an opportunity for Charizard X to gain a free boost. Additionally, Typhlosion poses little threat as both of my leads resist its attacks. Take note that Charizard X falls just one point short in speed compared to Scarf Landorus, which can be really scary if it choice locked to Earth Power. However, as long as Greninja is still on the field, Scarf Landorus will always be choice-locked into Focus Blast. Furthermore, the allocation of 140 EVs in Attack provides Charizard X with enough firepower to dispatch frail and neutral opponents who dislike taking a hit from a Tough Claws-boosted Flare Blitz. However, when combined with a Dragon Dance boost, the damage output becomes truly absurd, making Charizard X terrifying on the field. Because I maximized its speed, I have chosen to sacrifice some of Charizard X's bulk. Thus, I only invested 108 EVs in HP. It turns out that the reduced bulk was still decent to guarantee live against powerful moves I mentioned earlier.
Greninja
Ability: Protean
Item: Focus Sash
Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Moveset: Dark Pulse / Ice Beam / Mat Block / Grass Knot
Details
A very standard Greninja set. It’s one of the most versatile Doubles Pokemon available in battle maison. It’s exceptional speed stat, wide range of movepool, and its ability Protean granting all of his moves STAB. Because of this, it can hit or OHKO a wide variety of pokemon. But in doubles, you can also use its broken signature move via Mat Block to its full potential. In most of the matches, Mat Block is very essential to protect ZardX from attacks, giving it a free turn to setup Dragon Dance and snowball the game easily if used succesfully. Take note that Mat block isn’t a priority move like protect. Thus, it can’t block status moves like Paralysis. The moveset is pretty self – explanatory; Ice Beam to keep Dragons in check, Dark Pulse for Anti – TR, and grass knot to deal with heavy ground/rock types that charizard X hates. Focus Sash is the standard item of choice for consistency + baiting opponents’ attacks. In general, Greninja + Charizard combo was super strong in practice, as they are able to cover each other’s weaknesses. And at the same time, Greninja provides Charizard X an opening to sweep the game easily.
Using a singles pokemon for the first time in Doubles format. Gliscor occupies a pivotal role that contributes significantly to the team's overall synergy and success. Gliscor complements and synergizes seamlessly with its teammates. I was inspired on Josh C’s Tree Run as he used Gliscor. Thankfully, it worked well on me too! Its role is just as same as what it’s doing in Singles, Stall and Toxic into Death. Gliscor can do a lot of things in this team, you can use it as a defensive pivot in case Charizard or Greninja is vulnerable to strong attacks. But I usually use Gliscor on setting up win-conditions. It can basically shut down passive mons that the team really hates, most notably Blissey4, Zapdos2, Shuckle, and Cresselia2. This mon can also 1v3 on Its own because of how tanky it is. Plus, the recovery from the Poison Heal makes it unkillable most of the time. The moveset was pretty much self-explanatory. The EVs 244 HP / 4 Atk / 12 Def / 220 SpD / 28 Spe was built to tank physical and special defensive attacks, allowing Gliscor to endure a myriad of attacks from both spectrums. This balanced distribution adds to Gliscor's durability against varied opponents, allowing it to function as a long-lasting pivot and support element for the squad.
Also a very standard LO Scizor set (EVs copied from turskain). Even though it’s a staple doubles mon in Battle Maison, it plays a very crucial role on the teams’ success, especially on protecting Gliscor in the endgame. There’s nothing much to say about Scizor as it’s one of the most used Pokemon in the Maison Doubles Format.
Threats Section
After hundreds of streak, I realized that these Pokemon represented a substantial threat to the team. And whenever I faced these opponents in the lead, I always take the opportunity to use my time to develop a solid game plan in order to secure victory. Anyway, these threats are quite challenging to deal with.
Rain Team (Refer to Streak #76)
I consider this as a TRUE threat to this team. One thing I didn't consider during the teambuilding part was the rain team. I realized that they could rip this team apart. Furthermore, it is basically prediction reliant if things didn't go well in our favor... But it's still winnable, but difficult to find ways to win. (Beauty Claire is a notable NPC in Maison that has Rain Team. So she's very scary to go against.) The main gameplan against rain is to IMMEDIATELY remove rain dance setter or swift swim mon depending on the situation. GUYS remember, THE ABILITIES ARE RANDOM so there's a chance that Kingdra or Ludicolo rolls Swift Swim. but if I was quite lucky and no rain dance, drizzle, or swift swim in the lead, I automatically go for Mat Block + DDance combo turn 1 to finish things off ASAP. Don't forget that sometimes there are some cases that Politoed rolls "DRIZZLE" (lul) Fortunately, in my case, I'm so pretty lucky because in my 419 streak run, I encountered for like only 30-ish rain matchups and even if there's Politoed in the front, it often rolls Damp/Water Absorb. But there are some cases even Drizzle is active, I can still play the main idea of this team ONLY if there's no swift swimmers in the lead. But if the opponent had a pokemon that had "Rain Dance" on its arsenal, I will double target the setter before it can setup.
Here's the difficult part. If Politoed leads + rolls drizzle and there's swift swim kingdra in the lead, I'm telling you... I'M TELLING YOUUU, it's pretty much prediction reliant and super hard to play. One thing I want to mention is that if rain is active on the field, it’s pretty much 3v4!!! Gliscor don't have much play here. I only use it as a "sacrificial lamb" to redirect super effective moves and gain a free turn from its partner to retaliate. And if that's the case, the gameplan is to burn rain turns by protecting and playing defensively until rain is over. Good thing however, was Charizard X could tank at least one water type even in rain. Well, thanks to its dragon typing. And also, sacrificing some of its HP to stall a rain turn is also a possibility, but extremely risky due to critical hits. These notable rain abusers that you should watch out are: Kingdra34 (The Set 4 was the scariest one, it had Draco Meteor that can instantly dispatch ZardX) Ludicolo34 (Set 3 is very irritating especially if it rolls Rain Dish, making it a very solid wall. Though set 4 is also scary, Hydro Pump in rain does a lot on ZardX), Floatzel (Not much threatening but if rain is active, it can be a very scary mon to abuse rain), and Gastrodon (Super bulky + does well with ZardX and Gliscor.)
Paralysis (Static)
Yey! ZardX is immune to burn and doesn’t care about getting poisoned. You can’t shut down Charizard X with your status moves. Well, paralysis does. Despite Charizard X can resist all of electric type moves. It doesn’t mean ZardX is safe from getting a paralysis. It could pose a huge threat to the team, as they can slow the momentum of ZardX sweeping the game easily. Additionally, the 75% speed drop and 25% of getting paralyzed every turn is a very big deal, as they can basically change the outcome of the match. Be cautious with this Electric Types in the Maison (Raichu, Electrode, Zebstrika, Scarf Manectric, Ampharos, etc.) My advice was to play defensively against Electrics by positioning Gliscor properly until it can stall opponents with Toxic.
Luxray4
I really hate this one. Luxray4 with Intimidate is a real threat to this team. It can tank both physical and special hits well. Additionally, you can’t hit it with Gliscor because of the fucking Air Balloon, making it a very annoying paralysis spamming machine if not treated properly. Furthermore, you can’t just easily pivot out Gliscor as Luxray4 has access to Ice Fang. My gameplan against Luxray lead was to pivot out Zard into Gliscor (to cover Twave option into Zard) + hitting it w/ grass knot and removing it w/ EQ on the next turn. Another option was to double it immediately (but not recommended as it depends on Luxray’s Partner) I highly advice to remove this electric cat Immediately before it can spread paralysis.
Regigigas
Wait, it’s one of the worst pokemon ever right? Well, not in Battle Maison. Its ability to disrupt your entire gameplan with Confuse Ray makes it a very annoying pokemon to deal with. It can also survive a +1 Flare Blitz from ZardX 15/16 of the time. My advice here was to stall it w/ Gliscor or Killing it ASAP. But if you’re going to see Regigigas on the lead, I wish you good luck.
Gyarados4
This thing is really scary to go against. Having access to intimidate and chesto resto makes it really difficult to remove. The potential Moxie can also be really threatening if not respected. I usually double target it before it can setup 2-3 DD that could potentially steamroll my team. Be cautious with this one.
Heatran4
ScarfTran outspeeds Greninja and Charizard before it uses mat block or setup Dragon Dance. It also walls ZardX and Greninja’s well. Moreover, it usually goes for Scarf Dragon Pulse into my leads that makes my Turn 1 Mat Block + DD unplayable. My usual play everytime there’s a potential Heatran was to pivot out Gliscor to dispatch it immediately, then perform a late game sweep with Zard X.
Talonflame4
Priority Brave Bird does a decent amount of damage. My usual plan here was to stall w/ Gliscor or Remove it immediately. Treat this thing with respect.
Walrein4
A potential Thick Fat Walrein can be really scary. I usually go for Dclaw + Grass Knot to remove this infamous Lax Incense Walrein before it can hax you with its Sheer Cold shenanigans. I think it still deserves a spot in the threat list because of how scary it is (Imagine avoiding 2 of your attacks and landing an OHKO move. It can be really infuriating, lol).
Snorlax34
Both sets are really bulky especially if it rolls Thick Fat. The Snorlax4 was the scariest one to face because of the Assault Vest. Additionally, Snorlax4 also had Fissure which is really bs if it lands. On the other hand, Snorlax3 is also a threat because of its LO Boosted EQ and Double Edge. I highly advice to use Dragon Claw on this one instead of Flare Blitz (You’re going to be in trouble if it rolls Thick Fat.) and use Grass Knot on Greninja to change its typing to grass in order to resists Snorlax’s EQ.
Sample Calc: +1 140+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Thick Fat Snorlax: 103-123 (43.8 - 52.3%); recoil damage: 34-41 (20.4 - 24.6%) -- 16.4% chance to 2HKO (EQ will snipe you down after recoil damage from Flare Blitz.)
Crobat4
Fast taunt can ruin your Mat Block + Dragon Dance play. Plus, hypnosis can mess you up if it landed successfully.
Lanturn4
You can check this thing by double targeting it w/ Dragon Claw + Dark Pulse/Grass Knot (I highly recommend to use Dark Pulse for the 20% Flinch chance.) But this thing is really annoying especially if you let it stockpile up to +3. Additionally, it also has access to Ice Beam which hits Gliscor decently. Remove this thing immediately, I promise.
Notable Battles
Here are some of the notable battles that I recorded! Feel free to watch it on my YT! (And also, the progress to 400 Pt.2 will be posted soon. I was really busy on college, lol.)
I might post a warstory of this battle in the future, including the nailbiting matches! (college life has been so busy)
Conclusion
This has been a wildest ride I had in Battle Facilities so far! one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. The untimely end of the streak still makes me sad, but the moments I had with Charizard X will continue to live on my memory forever. I'd want to express my appreciation for this blazing journey I had in Battle Maison. It was one of the most remarkable runs that I had so far. I’m very excited that If this run is officially verified, I’ll be the first player in the world who used ZardX in Maison Doubles! Despite my run fell short into top 10 worldwide, this setback won’t deter my determination. The quest of becoming one of the best facility player is an unchanging goal for me. And I'm dedicated to continuously improve and play, play, play… Until I retire. But then, expect my blazing return with Charizard X in the future, as we will come back stronger than ever. Thank you for reading my team report!
I've updated through here. Makes me happy to see that people are still giving the Maison some love. Very sadly, I've had to start cutting a couple of the lower win streaks because we are out of allowed character space in the opening post, even with pretty aggressive cutting of the intro and rules text. I should have reserved more space back in the day, but it is pretty cool to see how many great streaks we've had over the years!
