Battle Tree Discussion and Records

MrMarc · Feb 20, 2018

turskain said:
I think this loss involved key plays that would not be optimal in most circumstances:

1. Keeping in Kangaskhan against Virizion/Talonflame on Turn 1 - neither foe threatens Mega Salamence once intimidated, and both are likely 2HKO'd by Hyper Voice and outsped on Turn 2 with Gale Wings being gone by then. Switching in Aegislash on Turn 1 would at worst end up with Aegislash tanking a -1 Flare Blitz before the leads are taken out - but more likely Talonflame would use Swords Dance or a different attack in this situation.

2. Using King's Shield on Aegislash when double KOing Talonflame/Virizion with Hyper Voice - this one's more ambiguous, but I think purposefully entering Blade Form is overall more consistent, since it keeps King's Shield as an option for the back-ups, allows Blade Form baiting, and still retains the option of double protecting to take on the back-ups in Shield form if desired.

I've been struggling with proper lead preservation plays myself recently and this warstory reminded me of my own losses, heh.

First off, you're absolutely right, we've made some pretty sub-optimal --- I would even call it huge critical mistakes --- during the battle we lost.
We also could've used FO on Virizion, as Talonflame is not much of a threat to Kang at -1. (Thanks for the correction Smuckem ). But alas, we totally made a/multiple mistake(s).
After the fight we had a quick reflection on the fight (and the corresponding loss) and what we could've done differently.
The points you bring to our attention are certainly things that crossed our minds, but that's 20/20 hindsight.
Although it definitely helps you/us get better by reflecting upon the actions you/we have taken during the fight.

It also does not really help that a multi streak really bums you out when you play multiple matches in a row. Keeping your concentration at top level is quite challenging and frankly, we're kinda glad that the streak is over lol
We're currently checking if we ever finished the XY/ORAS Battle Maison Super Multis, so we're taking a quick look back in time for this one :D
We're also kinda glad to reaffirm that we are not the only ones crumbling under the Tree and the lead preservation we all struggle with, so bring on the warstories ;)
Thanks for reading once again and good luck with the runs in the Tree y'all!

donpablo21 · Feb 21, 2018

Hey everyone! I've been a lurker here for a long time, and I finally have 3 completed streaks worth posting. For the sake of simplicity, I'll break it up into 3 posts. Very new to formatting here, so if I make a mistake let me know and I'll fix it.

First, posting a USUM Doubles streak of 172 wins.

This team is a very standard tree team. There are somewhere around 10 teams with Lele-Mosa leads and MegaMence + Aegislash/Celesteela on the leaderboard. I don't believe anyone has this exact same team, but it plays the same way. Tapu Lele and Pheromosa have insane synergy, are incredibly fast, and hit like trucks. Mega-Salamence has a decent defensive synergy with the leads, notably being immune to ground types, and resistant to fire types (although burns are not ideal). Finally, Aegislash completes the fantasy core, and walls an incredible amount of tree sets. Here are the individual sets and comments on each.

Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf

Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
IVs: 31/x/31/x/31/x (Hyper-Trained)
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Shadow Ball
- Energy Ball

HP:145
Attack: 94
Defense: 95
Sp. Atk: 200
Sp. Def: 135
Speed: 147

I am a firm believer that scarfed Tapu Lele is the strongest battle tree set I have ever used. Psychic Surge is so incredibly valuable, negating any worry of fake-out or prankster, as well as keeping the relatively frail lLee and the glassiest of cannons Pheromosa safe from being picked off by a bullet punch or sucker punch. I almost exclusively use Lele as the base for my teams just because it removes so much of the headache of priority randomness throughout the tree. And psychic terrain also provides a substantial increase to power, allowing you to forgo the use of a boosting items such as life orb/choice specs/psychium-z in favor of going really fast. The IVs were originally meant for Hidden Power Fire, but it felt way too weak, with an 18.8% chance to OHKO Mega-Scizor and missing the OHKO completely on all Ferrothorn sets. A Modest nature provides as much damage as possible, while choice scarf and 252 EVs elevate your speed to a blistering 220, which is slower than only 16 sets in the whole tree. 252 EVs was used to speed tie with Darmanitan-4, but I reduced that in later teams (foreshadowing). If only we could just squeeze 1 more point in without giving up a modest nature, as the power drop is very noticeable. Nonetheless, it still outspeeds Mega-Beedrill and fast Accelgor, which is nothing to scoff at.

For this iteration of my Tapu Lele, I was focused on coverage. Click Psychic is the obvious number 1 strategy. Moonblast is used for dark types and sometimes opposing psychic types (although Pheromosa is usually able to deal with them alone, barring bulky sets like Slowbro-4 and Musharna-4). Shadow Ball was used to hit Metagross, Chandelure, and Delphox, and Energy Ball was used for Mega-Swampert and Gastrodon. These moves were used very sparingly, and were eventually removed.

Lele is used to grab kills fast. if something doesn't die on the first turn, things often go sour. Despite middling defensive stats, I found her surprisingly bulky. Not many moves kill her outright. Overall, Lele is definitely the most valuable member of the team.

Pheromosa @ Focus Sash

Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
IVs: 31/31/x/x/31/x (Hyper-Trained)
EVs: 252 Atk / 12 SpA / 244 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Low Kick
- Lunge
- Ice Beam
- Protect

HP: 146
Attack: 207
Defense: 57
Sp. Atk: 137
Sp. Def: 37
Speed: 202

I don't think there is a more purely offense-oriented mon that our beloved roach-lady. Beast Boost is an incredibly good ability, and a single boost can snowball a match out of control. She hits hard and fast, but falls over dead if someone looks at her too hard

I tried out a few different sets before I settled on this one. The one I had the most hope for was a special set using a Modest nature with Focus Blast, Bug Buzz, Ice Beam, Protect, and Fightinium-Z. Bug Buzz has 90 base power compared to Lunge at 80, and a 190 base power All-Out-Pummeling annihilated anything in it's path. Securing a special attack bonus that boosted Ice Beam in addition to the STABs was also a great bonus. However, as we all know Focus Blast will let you down in the worst ways. Not even close to consistent enough for the tree.

I eventually settled on a mixed focus sash set which combines great coverage, great accuracy, and a great big juicy target for the opponent. Pheromosa is just so perfect with Tapu Lele. Fighting and Bug STABS deal with the Dark and Psychic types that Lele can't handle. Ice beam was used for that sweet, sweet ice coverage, and protect was possibly the most useful move of all. Enemies loved to target Pheromosa, and a well predicted protect allowed her partner to fire with impunity. Low Kick was used over High Jump Kick for accuracy reasons, although it notably misses out on OHKOs of Porygon2 and Rotom-F. The slight loss of base power is partially made up for because the Steel and Rock types it is mainly used for are often big fat guys. Lunge is also sneaky useful for a guaranteed attack stat drop, sometimes allowing Lele to survive an extra physical attack.

I used a Naughty nature here to secure an attack boost without lowering special attack, and let's be honest defense is not one of her strong suits. Max attack EVs provide some power and grant her an attack boost on kill. 203 is an empty speed tier, so used 244 speed EVs to land at 202, outspeeding scarf skarmory and pretty much everything else. Only 10 sets sit between Pheromosa and Tapu Lele, so needless to say this thing is fast. More than 9 times out of 10 both of your leads will outspeed both of theirs, giving you complete control of the initial part of the battle. The remaining 12 EVs give a small bump to special attack for Ice Beam.

Focus Sash feels great on Pheromosa, giving her a kind of pseudo-bulk allowing her to tank almost anything turn one. Yes Darmanitan-4 Flare Blitz will deal upwards of 400% of her HP, but it only takes 1 HP to turn around and bop him with low kick. Playing around Sash is one of the biggest keys to success with this archetype, which admittedly is not my forte.

Salamence (M) @ Salamencite

Ability: Intimidate ==> Aerialate
Level: 50
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
EVs: 44 Atk / 212 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Flamethrower
- Hyper Voice
- Double-Edge
- Protect

HP: 170
Attack: 161
Defense: 100
Sp. Atk: 157
Sp. Def: 90
Speed: 167

HP: 170
Attack: 171
Defense: 150
Sp. Atk: 167
Sp. Def: 99
Speed: 189

The first thing of note about Salamence is his ability Initmidate. Just 1 attack drop can make all the difference in a battle, and because he sits in the back, it doesn't activate any competitive/defiant abilities from Milotic, Bisharp, Tornadus, or Thundurus. Due to his high natural bulk and resistance to types the leads struggle with (namely fire), it can often be worth shuffling him in and out with Aegislash if the situation warrants.

The real reason for using Salamence here is of course his mega evolution. An additional 50 defense makes him a solid response to physical attacks, and with 252 EVs his speed is bumped up to a respectable 189 with a Naive nature. Naive is used to avoid dropping either attacking stat while maximizing speed, but I am actually wondering if a Hasty nature might be preferred to avoid lowering his mediocre special defense even further. Unfortunately there are many threats sitting just above Mega-Salamence in terms of speed, such as Mega-Aerodactyl, Weavile, Ribombee, Greninja, and Noivern, and he ties with important mons like non-mega Alakazam, Kanto Dugtrio, and opposing Mega-Salamence. Ideally, the leads will take care of these, but if they slip to the back two, it could be an issue.

One of the biggest draws to Mega-Salamence is Aerialte-boosted Hyper Voice. Although Aerialte did receive a nerf in Gen 7, a 1.2X bonus in addition to the new found flying STAB moves still hits very hard. In particular, the spread Hyper Voice dents the enemy team, with flying being a less often resisted attacking type. I chose Double-Edge to be able to hit a single target as hard as possible with physical damage. I know I benchmarked his 44 attack EVs for something, but I can't for the life of me remember what that was. Flamethrower is used to get rid of Scizor and Ferrothorn, as this team lacks fire coverage. Protect is protect. Always useful. The remaining EVs are dumped into special attack.

Aegislash (F) @ Ghostium Z

Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
IVs: 31/30/31/31/31/0
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Flash Cannon
- King's Shield
- Wide Guard

HP: 167
Attack: 70
Defense: 170
Sp. Atk: 112
Sp. Def: 171
Speed: 58

HP:167
Attack: 170
Defense: 70
Sp. Atk: 222
Sp. Def: 71
Speed: 58

Aegislash is the standard 4th to round out this team. His typing is incredible, and his stats are absurd. The real difficulty in Aegislash comes from knowing when to switch forms and predicting opponents moves. This was often an issue for me, but she is just so strong that it often didn't matter.

I went with a Quiet nature as a sort of soft answer to Trick Room (although I realized I was still way too fast. This EV set put me in a speed tie with a few pokémon who present a huge issue namely Dusknoir and A-Marowak. Just above this tier at 60 speed is not friendly company either with Probopass, Camerupt-1, Hippowdon-4, and Dhelmise. None of these should be the end of the world, but for a sustained streak it should be addressed. 6-7 speed IVs and 0 EVs puts Aegislash at the empty 61 tier, where it can operate with full knowledge of who will attack first. The rest of the EVs were used to max HP and Sp. Atk.

King's Shield is mandatory for Aegislash in order to switch between stances. The 2 stage attack drop on physical contact is wonderful and can make an opponent's mon worthless. Shadow Ball along with Ghostium-Z is used to nuke Ghost and Psychic types that could not be deal with, most notably Mega-Metagross. I took Flash Cannon here for the STAB steel coverage with the intention of dealing with the Ice and Rock types that give Salamence trouble. The Sp. Def drop actually was useful more than once, and I was glad to have it. The last move was Wide Guard, which was incredibly useful for dealing with Blizzard spam and keeping Salamence alive. Blocking Rock Slide, Earthquake, and Surf were nice bonuses.

Here is a battle that shows a bit of the team. I misplayed a bit, but managed to win comfortably.
Battle No. 158 against Punk Guy Dustin: 2K5G-WWWW-WWWH-KBL3

Intimidate teams can be difficult for this team, as my Pheromosa is effectively neutered by -2 Atk. Here I should've noticed that Gyarados didn't have intimidate, which usually means it is a non-mega Dragon Dance set (can someone back me up on this? Not sure if that is accurate). I could've used Psychic on Gyarados to lock into the more powerful move and get the kill with Pheromosa. I guessed that Manectric would Overheat into Pheromosa, so I planned to protect and attack with Tapu Lele. Instead it used T-bolt on Lele and paralyzed her. This was very worrysome as this team relies on speed, and Lele was essentially dead weight. I tried to put some damage on Tauros as the evasion boosts were becoming an issue, but no such luck. I brought in Aegislash for Lele, and switched out Pheromosa for Salamence because I thought I was at -2 Atk. I now knew that he has Tauros-4, meaning he could only attack with earthquake. I should've realized this sooner and left him be. Instead I used Hyper Voice with Shadow Ball to KO Manectric, but left Aegislash vulnerable. I started in on Scrafty with Hyper Voice since I couldn't KO with Double-Edge at -1 Atk, but I left Aegislash wide open for a dark STAB. Really careless play that could have cost me more than it did. Thankfully, I was able to just spam Wide Guard to never get hit by the Tauros Earthquake, guaranteeing the win after I knocked out Scrafty.

Here is the losing battle. I played this poorly.
Losing Battle No. 173 against Scientist Cal: MQNW-WWWW-WWWH-KBLT

Double trick room setters is a nightmare for this team. I could only take out one, and I was hoping for Oranguru to be the Z-move set. But I guessed wrong and unfortunately locked Tapu Lele into Energy Ball way too early. Oranguru gets off the Trick Room and the fun begins. I made the huge mistake of not protecting Pheromosa and gave her up for free. Really huge blunder. Energy Ball into Wishiwashi does nothing due to Rindo Bery, and for some reason I switch out Lele giving up any pressure I had. I bring in Aegislash to deal with Oranguru...but I forget that he is part Normal. So instead I blow my Z-move on Wishiwashi. In the end, Lele just couldn't take down the Slowking alone. Overall a close but really sloppy fight that I deserved to lose, but hey thems the breaks.

This team has potential for huge streaks, as evidenced by the leaderboard. Here is some more quick information about the common threats to the team, as well as changes to make the team stronger.

The biggest threat to this team is Trick Room. My leads can't kill a couple Trick Room setters turn 1, so if I see them I know I am in trouble. A few examples are Jellicent, Aromatisse, Audino, Bronzong, Dusknoir, Cofagrigus, and Carbink. The first adjustment this team needs is a better way to handle Trick Room, either by killing the setters or having a slower threat than Aegislash.

Fast Choice Scarf users are the next big issue. In a team built around outspeeding and eliminating, no speed kills. Garchomp, Darmantitan, Typholosion, and Entei, as well as Terrakion, Aerodactyl, and Rotom-Fan and Rotom-Wash to a lesser extent. Careful switching and protecting can maneuver around these threats, but they are incredibly dangerous and need to be addressed immediately.

Bulky Ghost, Dark, and Psychic types also present a challenge; Escpecially those that have a secondary type. Lele can deal a lot of damage to most ghosts, but often relies of Pheromosa to clean up the KO. Unfortunately Bug and Fighting are underwhelming against Ghost types to say the least, and is not an effective answer. The best response to this is better Aegislash play, which as I mentioned earlier is sometimes easier said than done.

I make some changes to Tapu Lele in my next team, and changes to Pheromosa in my third team, so I will wait to address them there.

Aegislash needs to have 6-7 speed IVs to avoid crowded speed tiers. For this team, I did not calc anything for her, so I am sure there are benchmarks in bulk that she would be able to hit without sacrificing offensive pressure. As for moves, the only one I would consider changing is Flash Cannon. Substitute could be a nice way to avoid status and have more flexibility in stance choice. Toxic could be used to stall out some bulkier threats. And while it is contradictory to Tapu Lele and Psychic Terrain, Shadow Sneak might be worth looking into to hit levitating and flying mons, or as a priority when the terrain wears out, although this team plays fasts and battles don't usually last that long. A physical set might also work, as Aegislash can find plenty of opportunities to set up Swords Dance in the tree.

Salamence can certainly run either a Dragon Dance or standard physical set, but I have trouble setting him up in doubles in this fast paced team. Many of the teams on the leaderboard feature physical Salamence, so I highly recommend looking at them. Tailwind is also worth considering, as it will make 3 out of the 4 outspeed everything. With proper planning, it might even be possible to get the choice scarf off of Tapu Lele and invest more into bulk and damage without sacrificing speed. Finally, I have also been toying with using a Modest set with Hyper Voice, Flamethrower, and Hyper Beam. 90% accuracy is troubling, and the recharge can be crippling, but the damage is just absurd coming off max Sp Atk, Aerilate, and STAB, as well as being a single target move unlike Hyper Voice. I will not commit to saying it's good at all. In fact I'd wager heavily that it isn't. But more poking around will have to be done to draw a safe conclusion.

Thanks for taking the time to read my write-up! I'm sure it's mostly information you already know, but I am just glad to finally be able to contribute. I still have two more streaks to report, but I will probably end up posting them tomorrow.

Cheers!

Worldie · Feb 22, 2018

Level 51 where are you when there's a Pherolele streak reported???

turskain · Feb 22, 2018

Battle No. 158 against Punk Guy Dustin: 2K5G-WWWW-WWWH-KBL3

View attachment 102919

Intimidate teams can be difficult for this team, as my Pheromosa is effectively neutered by -2 Atk. Here I should've noticed that Gyarados didn't have intimidate, which usually means it is a non-mega Dragon Dance set (can someone back me up on this? Not sure if that is accurate). I could've used Psychic on Gyarados to lock into the more powerful move and get the kill with Pheromosa. I guessed that Manectric would Overheat into Pheromosa, so I planned to protect and attack with Tapu Lele. Instead it used T-bolt on Lele and paralyzed her. This was very worrysome as this team relies on speed, and Lele was essentially dead weight. I tried to put some damage on Tauros as the evasion boosts were becoming an issue, but no such luck. I brought in Aegislash for Lele, and switched out Pheromosa for Salamence because I thought I was at -2 Atk. I now knew that he has Tauros-4, meaning he could only attack with earthquake. I should've realized this sooner and left him be. Instead I used Hyper Voice with Shadow Ball to KO Manectric, but left Aegislash vulnerable. I started in on Scrafty with Hyper Voice since I couldn't KO with Double-Edge at -1 Atk, but I left Aegislash wide open for a dark STAB. Really careless play that could have cost me more than it did. Thankfully, I was able to just spam Wide Guard to never get hit by the Tauros Earthquake, guaranteeing the win after I knocked out Scrafty.

Here is the losing battle. I played this poorly.
Losing Battle No. 173 against Scientist Cal: MQNW-WWWW-WWWH-KBLT

Double trick room setters is a nightmare for this team. I could only take out one, and I was hoping for Oranguru to be the Z-move set. But I guessed wrong and unfortunately locked Tapu Lele into Energy Ball way too early. Oranguru gets off the Trick Room and the fun begins. I made the huge mistake of not protecting Pheromosa and gave her up for free. Really huge blunder. Energy Ball into Wishiwashi does nothing due to Rindo Bery, and for some reason I switch out Lele giving up any pressure I had. I bring in Aegislash to deal with Oranguru...but I forget that he is part Normal. So instead I blow my Z-move on Wishiwashi. In the end, Lele just couldn't take down the Slowking alone. Overall a close but really sloppy fight that I deserved to lose, but hey thems the breaks.

I believe abilities are randomly determined, and not related to which set you're facing, aside species that always announce ability not having one (Tyranitar without either Sand Stream or Unnverve) signaling that it's Zoroark.

Both Gyarados3 and Gyarados4 are Dragon Dance sets with a Jolly nature, and bad match-ups for PheroLele teams. I'm not sure how they should be approached - if Phero were running a +Speed nature, it would outspeed these at +1 and be able to get a move off before they attack or DD again. It's been a long time since I used these leads, but my personal preference would be going for a Speed-boosting nature on both Scarf Lele and Pheromosa, from having seen +Speed Lele proving itself on Josh's Sharkanine and theorymoning Speed boosts from Beast Boost to be more consistently useful than Attack boosts (outspeeding whole Tree at 1HP after a KO vs possibly being outsped by Scarfers with an Attack boost that doesn't help any in that situation). Naive/Hasty Pheromosa also outspeeds Mega Alakazam, a key threat against Tapu Lele teams.

Edit: after a discussion on Discord, against Gyarados lead there's the option of switching Pheromosa out for Salamence on Turn 1:

-1 252 Atk Life Orb Tauros Giga Impact vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele: 118-140 (81.3 - 96.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Gyarados is most likely to use Dragon Dance, and getting rid of Pheromosa's Attack drops while keeping its Sash is not a bad option - locking Lele into Psychic when there's a possible Mega Gyarados on the field can be a risk, so Moonblast (or Dazzling Gleam if it were on the set) is the move that retains the option to deal damage to Mega Gyarados on Turn 2. From there, if it's Tauros3 using Giga Impact, this set has to recharge, and if it's Tauros4 the offense is low and Gyarados can be doubled into after. Tauros3 might also use something else but from my experience it has a preference for Giga Impact in the absence of strong super-effective choices.

Eppie · Feb 22, 2018

Battle Tree Super Doubles 1646 wins (completed)
Battle #1,337 32KG-WWWW-WWWH-SUZB
Battle # 1,647 8GKW-WWWW-WWWY-5NBX

Foreword:
After a 2 month hiatus from Pokémon I watched the latest "Pokémon - I choose you!" movie and somehow it triggered me to grab my New Nintendo 3DS to play Pokémon Ultra Moon. After not having touched my 3DS since december 2017 I wasn't that surprised to see myself in front of the receptionist of the Battle Tree. She rewarded me with the standard rewards you get for a finished 200+ streak; the last time I touched my 3DS was after losing battle #769 with the team below, the same team I used to beat the AI a thousand times in a row. I played Sun and Moon briefly, using different strategies. From good stuff teams (Tapu Koko / Mega Kang / Golisopod / Talonflame) to a variety of Trick Room strategies, mainly Dusclops / Aron / Mega Kang / Conkeldurr, the "solid four" that made me write history in ORAS Battle Maison with a 4.000+ streak. The change in AI mechanics and the introduction of Z-moves made Trick Room Endeavor seem to be a non-effective strategy for high record streaks. I came back to show you that this is not true.

I am not good at doing write ups so I hope you'll enjoy this post while reading it.
To make this slightly more interesting I encourage you to watch the battle videos and read along while things take place.

Team:

Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Nature: Relaxed
IVs: 31/31/31/07/31/00
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 156 Sp.Def
- Trick Room
- Foresight
- Night Shade
- Brick Break

Dusclops, the Trick Room setter.
Same set as I used in Battle Maison, the EV spread is slightly different though.
Dusclops and I go way back; I have always considered it the best Trick Room setter there is because it has so much bulk thanks to Eviolite.
It also has the right move pool to do what I need it to do: Scout, set up Trick Room, identify Ghosts and finish those weakened by Endeavor.
The biggest drawback of Dusclops in comparison to other Trick Room setters is that, despite the insane bulk, it cannot set-up Trick Room when it flinches, get's frozen, paralysized or 1HKO'd by a STAB Z-Move or 1HKO move. And that is where Togedemaru comes in.

Togedemaru @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Nature: Brave
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/00
EVs: 100 Sp.Def
- Fake Out
- Endeavor
- Toxic
- Spiky Shield

Togedemaru, the "Aron replacement".
Just when you figured nothing would ever surpass a Pokémon like Aron as the number one, level one Endeavor baitmon, Gamefreak gave Togedemaru Endeavor in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon via tutoring. Togedemaru outclasses Aron in multiple ways; most importantly by having Fake Out in it's move pool. I could write a book about the importance of having Fake Out in a Doubles team, be it in a Trick Room strategy or any other strategy. Togedemaru also has a "damaging protect" in the form of Spiky Shield, being able to break Focus Sash or deal just that bit of chip damage when a physical orientated Pokémon tries to damage Togedemaru. Togedemaru is also part Electric which means it is not affected by paralysis through Thunder(bolt), Thunder Wave or Pokémon carrying the Static ability. Being able to scout which sets I'm up against through Frisk and act to that accordingly with either Fake Out or Spiky Shield makes Dusclops + Togedemaru the deadliest Trick Room Endeavor couple to date.

Conkeldurr @ Assault Vest
Ability: Iron Fist
Nature: Brave
IVs: 31/31/31/25/31/00
EVs: 108 HP / 252 Atk / 148 Sp.Def
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
- Mach Punch
- Knock Off

Conkeldurr, the powerhouse.
Destroys Normal, Steel, Rock, Flying and Dark types and is my first answer to Ghosts types.
Conkeldurr does everything I need it to do; when Dusclops or Togedemaru faint it is always the first back-up Pokémon I send out because the amount of Pokémon it cannot hit effectively is so slim. Conkeldurr's bulk and movepool allow it to operate extremely well if Trick Room isn't even up, which is a very important in a AI generation where getting Trick Room up in the first place is not as easy as it was in ORAS Maison.

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy (Parental Bond)
Nature: Brave
IVs: 31/31/31/05/31/00
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Sp.Def
- Fake Out
- Double-Edge
- Drain Punch
- Sucker Punch

Kangaskhan, the Mega kangaroo.
Scrappy, Fake Out, Parental Bond Double-Edge and priority Sucker Punch in the same set; godlike.
Many criticized Mega Kangaskhan because of the drop in damage output from Parental Bond and the Sucker Punch nerf.
Mega Kang is not as good as it was in ORAS Maison but it was so good in ORAS Maison that it is still better than almost anything suitable for USUM Tree. Mega Kang is usually preserved to enter the battlefield as last member because it has multiple tools to turn a difficult battle around. Where Conkeldurr is slightly more Trick Room dependent, Mega Kangaskhan is less because of Fake Out and Sucker Punch.

Basic strategy:
The basic strategy is quite simple but quite hard in excecution.
On turn 1 you want to get Trick Room up and either Protect or Fake Out with Togedemaru, depending on the AI's Pokémon you're up against.
This was way simpler in the previous generation were the AI would almost always attack the Level 1 Endeavor Pokémon.
The introduction of Z-Moves and change in AI mechanics do not guarantee a simple Trick Room set-up which means you really need to think twice before you select the moves you're going to make.

Threats:

(1) (Jolly / Bright Powder / Shadow Claw / Slash / Double Team / Thunder Wave / Atk / Spd)

(3) (Jolly / Fairium Z / Play Rough / Shadow Claw / Wood Hammer / Swords Dance / Atk / Spd)

(4) (Adamant / Rocky Helmet / Play Rough / Shadow Claw / Destiny Bond / Shadow Sneak / Atk / Spd)

Mimikyu is the biggest threat. Any set needs to be Foresighted in order for Kangaskhan to actually damage it. Set 1 isn't assured for me to connect, set 3 completely destroys Conkeldurr while set 4 breaks Berry Juice and has a priority move. Mimikyu is usually paired with other Pokémon my team has trouble with, mainly Alolan-Ninetales. In order to actually hit it on top of all that I also need to break it's abillity: disguise.

(1) (Timid / Icium Z / Aurora Veil / Hypnosis / Dream Eater / Blizzard / HP / Def)

(2) (Timid / Psychium Z / Freeze Dry / Dazzling Gleam / Extrasensory / Ice Shard / HP / Spd)

Alolan Ninetales isn't difficult to beat but I cannot afford to get frozen or put to sleep by set 1 while set 2 comes with priority and both sets have a Z move. Alolan Ninetales also comes with Snow Warning 50% of the time which makes Togedemaru a lot less effective. Set 2 basically forces me to Endeavor the Ninetales or it's partner and if that partner is Mimikyu I am in a lot of trouble at the very beginning of the battle.

(4) (Bold / Lax Incense / Sheer Cold / Fissure / Rest / Sleep Talk / Def / SpD)

While it is slightly better to control thanks to Fake Out Togedemaru, Walrein 4 is still a big threat.

(2) (Bold / Leftovers / Double Team / Moonlight / Toxic / Protect / HP / SpD)

While it cannot beat Togedemaru 1 vs 1 Cresselia 2 is still one of the most annoying stallers to face.

(2) (Bold / Bright Powder / Charge Beam / Ancient Power / Double Team / Roost / HP / SpD)

Conkeldurr walls Zapdos for a great deal but Zapdos2 can become very powerful and hard to hit once it get's Charge Beam and Double Team boosts.

(4) (Modest / Waterium Z / Sparkling Aria / Dazzling Gleam / Blizzard / Aqua Jet / HP / SpA)

This thing completely walls Conkeldurr while it is "faster" than Mega Kangaskhan. It comes with Blizzard, Aqua Jet and Hydro Vortex.
Primarina 4 is a very dangerous Pokémon.

(4) (Adamant / Quick Claw / Flare Blitz / Cross Chop / Crunch / U-Turn)

In worst case scenario it sits in the back and comes with Intimidate. Incineroar has a thing for activating Quick Claw, hits very hard with Flare Blitz, Crunch and Cross Chop. Conkeldurr has a 75% chance to 1HKO it with Drain Punch while Flare Blitz in return does 55% - 65%. It is guaranteed to 2HKO Mega-Kangaskhan while Crunch only 2HKO's Dusclops 10% of the time, Dusclops however, cannot defeat it on it's own.

I have considered using Incineroar as a back up replacement with the set below:

Incineroar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Brave
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/00
EVs: 200 HP / 252 Atk / 56 Sp.Def
- Fake Out
- Flare Blitz
- Knock Off
- Low Kick / Superpower

However: When I started looking for a HA Litten in january and not finding it I discovered it has not even been released yet...

(4) (Modest / Bright Powder / Nasty Plot / Shadow Ball / Grass Knot / Baton Pass / HP / SpA)

Deciduye 4 is an absolute nightmare. It has a tendency to flat-out attack Dusclops with Shadow Ball and when it boosts up via Nasty Plot it becomes public enemy #1. I know I simply hit it 80% of the time but only Conkeldurr 1HKO's it 25% of the time so I need to pray and hope I do not miss.

(1) (Rash / Quick Claw / Ice Shard / Blizzard / Mirror Coat / Helping Hand / HP / SpA)

(3) (Modest / Focus Sash / Hail / Blizzard / Mirror Coat / Hyper Beam / Def / SpA)

(4) (Modest Bright Powder / Blizzard / Shadow Ball / Aurora Veil / Detect / Def / SpA)

Glaceon is very tricky to play, I absolutely don't want it to Blizzard or Hail but need to watch out for Detect and Bright Powder too (set 4).

(3) (Relaxed / Leftovers / Moonblast / Giga Drain / Strenght Sap / Spore / HP / Def)

(4) (Sassy / Weakness Policy / Moonblast / Grass Knot / Moonlight / Spore / HP / SpD)

Shiinotic is a very dangerous enemy, set 3 and 4 both carry Spore and it may have Effect Spore as it's ability. Shiinotic cannot really damage me hard with attacking moves but the fact that these two sets carry Spore pretty much force me to Fake Out on it, hoping I do not end up being put to sleep through it's ability as well.

(2) (Timid / Bright Powder / Fissure / Toxic / Substitute / Sandstorm / HP / Spd)

I will not comment on this one, you all know what it is capable of doing.

(3) (Relaxed / Rocky Helmet / Rage Powder / Spore / Giga Drain / Sludge Bomb / HP / Def)

(4) (Calm / Black Sludge / Giga Drain / Spore / Clear Smog / Synthesis / HP / SpD)

Rocky Helmet, possible Effect Spore, Rage Powder (!!) ánd Spore make Amoonguss 3 and 4 really big threats. I lost to Amoonguss 3 before.

Battle videos:

Battle #116 vs.

GRJW-WWWW-WWWH-M3P3

This is a losing battle video where I did not figure out yet how to actually deal with Amoonguss 3 or actually understood how big of a threat it is/was. I lost at #116 against this and at #154 against Aurorus/Dhelmise/Talonflame/Mudsdale prior to winning 1.000 times in a row.

Battle #745 vs.

58NW-WWWW-WWWH-M9PP

In this battle the AI makes very weird decisions when it comes to the usage of priority and Z-moves.
This is a classic example to showcase how lucky I am for Alolan-Ninetales not to have the Snow Warning ability.

Battle #750 vs.

763G-WWWW-WWWH-M9QN

This battle is actually against a Snow Warning Alolan-Ninetales 1, paired with Decidueye 4, Incineroar 4 and Primarina 4. It involves quite some hax.

Battle #864 vs.

QAEW-WWWW-WWWH-M9QC

I go back way back when it comes to Pokémon, I have played each Frontier/Tower/Subway/Maison/Tree generation Gamefreak gave us and I've been upset, mad and emotional multiple times when the AI went massacre-haxing against me. But this must have been one out of thousands of battles were I was really emotional. I had one single mission and that mission was to get to 1.000 straight wins in a row. This is battle #864, this is 86.3% mission completed and this is Dugtrio 2.

Battle #945 vs.

C6WG-WWWW-WWWH-M9RF

As I stated in the comment of battle #864 my sole mission was to get to 1.000 straight wins. Every number below that would feel like a loss. Josh C. is too far out of reach to be even thinking of dethroning him and I have no single or double (Yea, you get that bad joke too) intention to even do so; all I wanted to do was to break the 1.000 win mark in two generations in a row, something no one ever did before in Doubles. But then you are at 944 straight wins and turskain is only 16 battles away from dethroning his second place. I want you to take that into account when watching this battle video, it ends with a 1 vs. 2 situation in the AI's advantage.

Battle #954 vs.

RJVW-WWW-WWWH-M9RP

This battle isn't that very interesting but it's a psychological battle -for me-, between me and Turskain. I'm still not at a thousand wins and I'm still not in second place. I make very bad decisions in this battle against Virizion 1, a Pokémon I used to Fake Out every time I faced it but I completely blurred in this battle because of the burden I carry to beat Turskain and get to a thousand wins.

Battle #958 vs.

XTHW-WWWW-WWWH-M9S7

One of the few battles were I am forced to send out Kangaskhan over Conkeldurr. I win this fairly easily but things could have gone into a different direction as easily too.

Battle #1,000 vs.

VAHG-WWWW-WWWH-M9SK

Mission accomplished! 1,000 straight wins in Super Doubles Battle Tree!

Afterword:
All in all this must have been the most thrilled run I ever did in "Eppie vs. AI" history.
Battle Tree is so much harder than Battle Maison to start with, getting to 1.000 wins is so much harder than getting to 2.000 wins in Battle Maison if you ask me. I went on a journey and this journey had to get me to 1.000 straight wins, everything below the 4-digit number would not have been good enough for me. If I would have lost during this last particular run before that 4-digit mark I honestly do not know if I would have ever made a post in this thread again, I even think that I would not have even tried to try again. My personal life and work don't allow me to play as much Pokémon as I want to do. This run was done in a three week period which means I averaged at 47-48 battles per day. I obviously played more in the weekend and less during work days. The last ~200 battles psychologically exhausted me as I could not or would not motivate myself again to actually try and achieve a thousand straight wins. Thankfully my team and the Pokégods have been kind to me to not ever worry about that personal dillema again.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as the time I spend to actually write this down because, once again, I am not really good at doing long write-ups.

I wish you all good fortune in achieving goals, be it in life or in Pokémon.
I have and will never forget the Pokémon series and the threads built for people like you and me that allow us joy or competition to achieve goals.

Kind regards,

Eppie

donpablo21 · Feb 22, 2018

turskain said:
I believe abilities are randomly determined, and not related to which set you're facing, aside species that always announce ability not having one (Tyranitar without either Sand Stream or Unnverve) signaling that it's Zoroark.

Both Gyarados3 and Gyarados4 are Dragon Dance sets with a Jolly nature, and bad match-ups for PheroLele teams. I'm not sure how they should be approached - if Phero were running a +Speed nature, it would outspeed these at +1 and be able to get a move off before they attack or DD again. It's been a long time since I used these leads, but my personal preference would be going for a Speed-boosting nature on both Scarf Lele and Pheromosa, from having seen +Speed Lele proving itself on Josh's Sharkanine and theorymoning Speed boosts from Beast Boost to be more consistently useful than Attack boosts (outspeeding whole Tree at 1HP after a KO vs possibly being outsped by Scarfers with an Attack boost that doesn't help any in that situation). Naive/Hasty Pheromosa also outspeeds Mega Alakazam, a key threat against Tapu Lele teams.

Edit: after a discussion on Discord, against Gyarados lead there's the option of switching Pheromosa out for Salamence on Turn 1:

-1 252 Atk Life Orb Tauros Giga Impact vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele: 118-140 (81.3 - 96.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Gyarados is most likely to use Dragon Dance, and getting rid of Pheromosa's Attack drops while keeping its Sash is not a bad option - locking Lele into Psychic when there's a possible Mega Gyarados on the field can be a risk, so Moonblast (or Dazzling Gleam if it were on the set) is the move that retains the option to deal damage to Mega Gyarados on Turn 2. From there, if it's Tauros3 using Giga Impact, this set has to recharge, and if it's Tauros4 the offense is low and Gyarados can be doubled into after. Tauros3 might also use something else but from my experience it has a preference for Giga Impact in the absence of strong super-effective choices.

Thanks for the response! I definitely like the idea of switching into Salamence, that makes a lot of sense. I have read a lot of team reports praising +Speed Pheromosa, and I did try running a Naive set after this streak. I often felt like I was lacking power without the attack boost. A couple sets I struggled with and checked calcs for after the change were Mega-Aggron (85% 2HKO -> 8% 2HKO) , Bronzong-4 (97% 2HKO -> 45% 2HKO), Empoleon-4 (50% OHKO -> Misses OHKO), Incineroar-3 (Guaranteed OHKO -> 56% OHKO), Lickilicky (62% OHKO -> 12% OHKO), Porygon2-3 and -4 (45% 2HKO -> .4% 2HKO), PorygonZ (81% OHKO -> 37% OHKO (although Lele OHKOs clean so not as much of a problem)), Mega-Slowbro (75% 2HKO -> 5% 2HKO), Mega-Latios (Guaranteed OHKO -> 56% OHKO (Lele Moonblast is 98% OHKO), and probably most importantly Oranguru (68% OHKO -> 18% OHKO). Granted none of these are a dealbreaker by any means, but they all can cause a huge headache. I have tossed around the idea of running Low Kick and High Jump Kick to compensate, but that is another set of headaches. Mega-Alakazam is a huge risk for PheroLele, but thankfully I've only managed to drop one good streak to him. I've been lucky enough to be able to deal with him with my back two. And with more careful planning my back two should be able to deal with most of these threats without having to give up my precious, precious Attack boost.

And now time for team 2!

Reporting a USUM Doubles streak of 145 wins.

One of my favorites Mega-Alakazam makes the board. This team came out of the frustration of not being able to hit 200 and thinking "Screw this, be faster, hit harder, die quicker". I will be the first to say that this team is really sub-optimal and does not lend itself to long streaks. I was incredibly lucky this whole run. PheroLele was great to me, so I decided to stick with them for my leads. Pheromosa stayed the same, but I made a few adjustments to Tapu Lele that felt great. My goal here was to find another abuser of Psychic Terrain and get even more hyper-offensive. Who better than our 5,000IQ superstar Alakazam? Not only does it naturally outspeed my Scarf Lele, it also packs an even stronger...mind...punch. He would also be used to shore up some of the Ghost matchup with Shadow Ball. Doubling down on fast frail Psychic types was a risk that I knew wouldn't pay off for long, but they carried me to a respectable streak. My last three things I wanted to accomplish from my new team member were a Z-move user, Fire offensive and deffensive pivot, and some sort of bulk and support for the rest of the team. Of course the only option was our G O O D E S T B O Y E Arcanine. Here are the details of each set.

This set is identical to the last one, so I'll copy-paste the last write up.

Pheromosa @ Focus Sash

Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
IVs: 31/31/x/x/31/x (Hyper-Trained)
EVs: 252 Atk / 12 SpA / 244 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Low Kick
- Lunge
- Ice Beam
- Protect

HP: 146
Attack: 207
Defense: 57
Sp. Atk: 137
Sp. Def: 37
Speed: 202

I don't think there is a more purely offense-oriented mon that our beloved roach-lady. Beast Boost is an incredibly good ability, and a single boost can snowball a match out of control. She hits hard and fast, but falls over dead if someone looks at her too hard

I tried out a few different sets before I settled on this one. The one I had the most hope for was a special set using a Modest nature with Focus Blast, Bug Buzz, Ice Beam, Protect, and Fightinium-Z. Bug Buzz has 90 base power compared to Lunge at 80, and a 190 base power All-Out-Pummeling annihilated anything in it's path. Securing a special attack bonus that boosted Ice Beam in addition to the STABs was also a great bonus. However, as we all know Focus Blast will let you down in the worst ways. Not even close to consistent enough for the tree.

I eventually settled on a mixed focus sash set which combines great coverage, great accuracy, and a great big juicy target for the opponent. Pheromosa is just so perfect with Tapu Lele. Fighting and Bug STABS deal with the Dark and Psychic types that Lele can't handle. Ice beam was used for that sweet, sweet ice coverage, and protect was possibly the most useful move of all. Enemies loved to target Pheromosa, and a well predicted protect allowed her partner to fire with impunity. Low Kick was used over High Jump Kick for accuracy reasons, although it notably misses out on OHKOs of Porygon2 and Rotom-F. The slight loss of base power is partially made up for because the Steel and Rock types it is mainly used for are often big fat guys. Lunge is also sneaky useful for a guaranteed attack stat drop, sometimes allowing Lele to survive an extra physical attack.

I used a Naughty nature here to secure an attack boost without lowering special attack, and let's be honest defense is not one of her strong suits. Max attack EVs provide some power and grant her an attack boost on kill. 203 is an empty speed tier, so used 244 speed EVs to land at 202, outspeeding scarf skarmory and pretty much everything else. Only 10 sets sit between Pheromosa and Tapu Lele, so needless to say this thing is fast. More than 9 times out of 10 both of your leads will outspeed both of theirs, giving you complete control of the initial part of the battle. The remaining 12 EVs give a small bump to special attack for Ice Beam.

Focus Sash feels great on Pheromosa, giving her a kind of pseudo-bulk allowing her to tank almost anything turn one. Yes Darmanitan-4 Flare Blitz will deal upwards of 400% of her HP, but it only takes 1 HP to turn around and bop him with low kick. Playing around Sash is one of the biggest keys to success with this archetype, which admittedly is not my forte.

Again, copy-most of my last write up, but I'll mention the changes I made here.

Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf

Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
IVs: 31/x/31/x/31/x (Hyper-Trained)
EVs: 12 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
Modest Nature
- Psychic
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Taunt

HP:147
Attack: 94
Defense: 96
Sp. Atk: 200
Sp. Def: 136
Speed: 145

I am a firm believer that scarfed Tapu Lele is the strongest battle tree set I have ever used. Psychic Surge is so incredibly valuable, negating any worry of fake-out or prankster, as well as keeping the relatively frail lLee and the glassiest of cannons Pheromosa safe from being picked off by a bullet punch or sucker punch. I almost exclusively use Lele as the base for my teams just because it removes so much of the headache of priority randomness throughout the tree. And psychic terrain also provides a substantial increase to power, allowing you to forgo the use of a boosting items such as life orb/choice specs/psychium-z in favor of going really fast. The IVs were originally meant for Hidden Power Fire, but it felt way too weak, with an 18.8% chance to OHKO Mega-Scizor and missing the OHKO completely on all Ferrothorn sets. A Modest nature provides as much damage as possible, while choice scarf and max EVs elevate your speed to a blistering 220, which is slower than only 16 sets in the whole tree. 252 EVs Can be used to speed tie with Darmanitan-4, but I decided this wasn't worth it in the end, using 236 EVs instead to reach a boosted speed of 217. If only we could just squeeze 1 more point in without giving up a modest nature, as the power drop is very noticeable. Nonetheless, it still outspeeds Mega-Beedrill and fast Accelgor, which is nothing to scoff at. I gave Defense and Sp. Def 4EVs each for a free point, and put the rest into HP for slightly (almost insignificantly so) more bulk.

As always, click Psychic is plan number 1. Moonblast is used for dark types and sometimes opposing psychic types (although Pheromosa is usually able to deal with them alone, barring bulky sets like Slowbro-4 and Musharna-4). I noticed that my previous coverage moves, Shadow Ball and Energy Ball, were not really doing anything of value. For this team, I decided to try running both Psychic and Psyshock to be able to get around an opponent with better Sp. Def. This makes it possible to pick up a few nice OHKOs like most Florges sets and offensive Flareon sets; make OHKOs possible (or more likely) such as Goodra, Jolteon, and Sylveon; and dent Sp. Def oriented mons like Mega-Gardevoir, Blissey, Milotic, and Primarina. This is especially important as Pheromosa lacks a good way to deal strong damage to most of these. And lastly, I went with Taunt to stop Trick Room setters, status dealers, and evasion boosters. This was a really nice way to eliminate a significant amount of hax in the tree, and I highly recommend this build to anyone wanting to use PheroLele.

Alakazam (F) @ Alakazite

Ability: Inner Focus ==> Trace
Level: 50
IVs: x/x/x/x/x/x (Hyper-Trained)
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Energy Ball

HP: 130
Attack: 63
Defense: 66
Sp. Atk: 187
Sp. Def: 115
Speed: 189

HP: 130
Attack: 63
Defense: 86
Sp. Atk: 227
Sp. Def: 125
Speed: 222

Stronger and faster than both of the two leads. This thing is an offensive monster. Psychic Terrain and a 227 Sp. Atk Psychic is insanity. With full speed investment, she hits 222 speed, tying fast Electrodes and opposing Mega-Alakazam. And unlike Tapu Lele, she isn't choice locked. Using full Sp. Atk investment MegaZam can easily clear out a team without resists to her moves. The last 4 points in defense is like putting another sheet of newspaper on a papier-mâché suit of armor, but hey what can ya do. Ideally, the ability would be magic guard for a free turn immunity against sand or hail, or staying at full health through stealth rocks, but whatever. The mega ability Trace is actually pretty wonderful. It's just a grab bag full of treats that might be able to help your team. Maybe copy an Intimidate for a free Attack drop. Or mimic a Porygon2's download for a free Sp. Atk boost. Sturdy? Why not? And just wait until you hit the turbo button with Swift Swim against a rain team.

Psychic should be obvious at this point. Shadow Ball helps against Psychic types, particularly ones that Pheromosa also has trouble with like Chandelure, Bronzong, and Metagross. In the last write-up I was disparaging of Focus Blast. Surprisingly, I am here too. Perhaps even more so. It is used as a last ditch effort against Dark and Steel types, but it is unreliable as classmates during a group project. For some unknown reason, I went with Energy Ball here. I think I was still upset about letting a Wishiwashi walk all over me at the end of my last streak, and I wanted to make him pay. Clearly Protect would have been better here, or even Substitute.

Another disadvantage of using Mega Alakazam is you cannot switch in. She will die to everything, and the switch is a gamble that you will eventually lose. This set in particular really needs improvement if this team is to have any success with a long streak.

Arcanine (M) @ Firium Z
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/31
EVs: 228 HP / 148 Def / 132 SpA
Timid Nature
- Burn Up
- Snarl
- Helping Hand
- Protect

HP: 194
Atk: 108
Def: 119
Sp Atk: 137
Sp Def: 100
Speed: 126

Inspiration for this set was taken from Josh C.'s team, so I'll post his original write-up here

Josh C. said:
The idea for a Burn Up Arcanine first came to fruition when turskain brought it up on the Discord server. At this stage the last member needed to be something that could handle the likes of Scizor and Ferrothorn, so a reasonably defensive Arcanine with Intimidate and Helping Hand support seemed ideal. Rather than simply using Flamethrower however, I was excited to get a little creative and test how much mileage I could get out of its newfound toy. Here's the two main reasons why Burn Up is good:
1. Thanks to its impressive 130 Base Power, I was able to focus on a more defensively oriented EV spread with minimal Sp. Attack investment; just enough to secure OHKO's on Mega Metagross & Mega Mawile. Yeah, I still need to run a Modest nature, but Calm/Bold would require significantly more SpA EVs and therefore less to dump elsewhere.
2. Burn Up's side effect makes Arcanine typeless after use, meaning he is now hit neutrally by every type and can't use Burn Up a second time (this resets upon switching out). In conjunction with the defensive investment, Sitrus Berry recovery, Toxic and Protect, this means he can actually 1v1 a slew of Water-types and other bulky annoyances that he is faster than, stalling them out if needed. Having to switch out Arcanine to use Burn Up again isn't great, so you need to make the most out of when and who you target with the move; by playing smartly enough however, you can still switch Arcanine out safely and preserve another Intimidate/Burn Up for later. Just be wary of that typeless status if you do stay in, since Ice or Grass moves will now deal neutral damage, for example. On the flipside to that, if I ever need to HH EQ while typeless Arcanine's on the field...

252 Atk Garchomp Helping Hand Earthquake vs. 228 HP / 156 Def Arcanine in Psychic Terrain: 96-114 (49.4 - 58.7%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO

... a very good chance of putting him into Sitrus Berry activation range from full HP.

Arcanine sits at 124 Speed with the EVs, allowing him to outspeed a large portion of things on the bulkier side up to Tyrantrum4, the majority of which he'd either Burn Up on or try for a last-ditch Toxic. Here's some calcs:

Since my Arcanine is Timid, I left him at 0 Speed EVs to sit at 126. With a little effort I could have bumped him up to 129 to sit in an empty tier outspeeding Pelipper-4, Cobalion-1, and Virizion-4, but I was not particularly worried about anything between 126 and 128. I kept my HP EVs the same despite not being at a calc that means anything to my team, but his bulk is great, sitting at 197 HP and 144 Defense (with slightly less Defense EVs). In order to make up for not having a Modest nautre, I put 132 EVs in Sp. Atk to catch Mega-Mawile and Mega-Metagross with Burn Up.

I loved the idea of Firium-Z to essentially give him the ability to use Burn Up twice (including the first time with more power). The only trade off here is that I lose the ability to become type-less after 1 Burn Up, which decreases his defensive utility. But this team barely acknowledges the existence of defense, so I was alright with keeping things fast and punishing. The other change I made to this set was for a similar reason, switching out Toxic for Snarl. I really didn't have the luxury of time to rack up poison damage, so I went hunting for other support options. I decided on Snarl to hit both opponents (useful for breaking sashes and sturdy) and to give a nice Sp. Atk drop. Between Intimidate and Snarl, the rest of the team was able to live through some weak hits that would otherwise annihilate them. Even one more turn of survivability could make all the difference.

Here are a couple of battle videos. The first one shows two things. First, Trick Room doesn't matter if you can just murder everything before they set it. And second, this team got continuously lucky throughout the run. If I wasn't able to kill Jellicent with a good damage roll on Psychic and a crit with Pheromosa, this battle is over. In addition, Cofagrigus doesn't go for trick room, saving my bacon once again. The second battle is an example of what should happen. I got taunts off to prevent Trick Room, but I just had no answers. I let Alakazam get destroyed on the switch in. Then I had to figure out how to deal with almost all of the common threats of this team in one fight. Bulky Ghost and Fairy types, Dark type without Pheromosa, Fire resists, and Double Trick Room leads were all just too much to overcome.

Battle No. 39 vs. Scientist Cal

SBAW-WWWW-WWWH-KBMY

Losing Battle No. 146 vs. Hiker Vivek

7CBW-WWWW-WWWH-KBMT

Overall, this was a very fun team to play. All offense and no defense. Unfortunately, that also makes it very unlikely to sustain a long streak. With more careful tuning and better play, this has some small potential. I'm glad to get Mega-Alakazam on the board at the very least. Thanks for reading, and I'll post my last streak tomorrow!

Worldie · Feb 22, 2018

It's noteworthy that while it doesnt offer any answer to Steel types, Dazzling gleam can be learned by Alakazam and does offer acceptable coverage vs dark types. Not great, but it's something.

donpablo21 · Feb 22, 2018

Worldie said:
It's noteworthy that while it doesnt offer any answer to Steel types, Dazzling gleam can be learned by Alakazam and does offer acceptable coverage vs dark types. Not great, but it's something.

I did actually end up trying a second run with this team and used Psychic, Dazzling Gleam, Shadow Ball, and Protect. I think that's probably going to be the best set I can find. Unfortunately I used up all of my luck in the first run and bombed out somewhere in the mid 30s. Decided that was a sign I should probably abandon that team for now.

cayZ5 · Feb 23, 2018

Eppie said:
Battle Tree Super Doubles 1.000 wins

Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Nature: Relaxed
IVs: 31/31/31/07/31/00
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 156 Sp.Def
- Trick Room
- Foresight
- Night Shade
- Seismic Toss

Eppie

Care to explain how you have Seismic toss, a gen 3 tutor move, on a pokemon with its Hidden ability?

Eppie · Feb 23, 2018

cayZ5 said:
Care to explain how you have Seismic toss, a gen 3 tutor move, on a pokemon with its Hidden ability?

Thank you for pointing that out, it's a mistake in my write-up.
Dusclops has Brick Break and not Seismic Toss, I fixed it now. You can watch the battle videos if you'd like to actually see for yourself that it has Brick Break and not Seismic Toss.

donpablo21 · Feb 23, 2018

Hey again everyone. Coming back for my final team post.

Reporting a USUM Doubles streak of 206 wins.

I've finally managed to get my 200+ win streak. As per usual, I started out with PheroLele leads, but I gave Pheromosa an interesting little tech move that you might like. It actually made a pretty big difference, and I'm pretty happy with this set. Once again I scrapped my back two, and went on a search for a new pair to round out the team. I had a few important objectives.

1) Find something to make use of Psychic Terrain
2) Find a switch in to Fire, both offensively and defensively
3) Have a better answer to Trick Room
4) Something that can switch into an opposing boosted Psychic move without being obliterated
5) A Poison resist and a Steel resist for Tapu Lele if needed, as it is difficult to kill two Poison or Steel leads in one turn with the leads
6) Have a backup plan for dealing with bulky Steel and Rock types
7) Z-move nuke, if possible

The first thing I was looking for was another Psychic Terrain abuser. I first tried Mega-Gardevoir, but found that doubling up on Lele's weaknesses exactly felt pretty terrible. The boost in power to Psychic felt nice, but I quickly realized that Mega-Gardevoir is most useful when firing off Pixilate boosted Hyper Voice, rendering Psychic Terrain rather under-utilized. In addition, she sits in a very awkward speed tier. Not enough to keep up with the hyper offense pace of the leads, and too much to function as a reliable Trick Room answer. I was unwilling to try to work Tailwind or Trick Room into this team, so Gardevoir headed back to the box.

The next one I tried was Mega-Slowbro. This was closer to working. I had an answer to Fire types ready to switch in, and he was slow enough to not mind Trick Room at all. I used a set with Slack Off, with Psychic, Scald, and Flamethrower as my attacking moves. My main issue I found was that Scald, while being useful for fishing for a burn against physical attackers, did not do enough damage to reliably answer Fire types. Flamethrower did even less damage to anything not named Scizor or Ferrothorn. I dropped Flamethrower for Calm Mind in an attempt to boost up to respectable damage levels. Momentum ground to a screeching halt with this set. I couldn't spare enough time to boost up without my passivity being my downfall.

I don't know why this didn't occur to me right away, but I found the answer in Mega-Metagross. This thing is a juggernaut. So with criteria 1, 4, 5, and partially 6 answered already, I looked for either a slow offensive mon that resists Fire (especially with the addition of another Fire weakness in Metagross), or some kind of support with speed control or redirect or something of the like. After a bit of searching, I settled for a slightly unconventional Araquanid. To the sets!

This set is identical to the last one, so I will just copy and paste that part here.

Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf

Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
IVs: 31/x/31/x/31/x (Hyper-Trained)
EVs: 12 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
Modest Nature
- Psychic
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Taunt

HP:147
Attack: 94
Defense: 96
Sp. Atk: 200
Sp. Def: 136
Speed: 145

I am a firm believer that scarfed Tapu Lele is the strongest battle tree set I have ever used. Psychic Surge is so incredibly valuable, negating any worry of fake-out or prankster, as well as keeping the relatively frail lLee and the glassiest of cannons Pheromosa safe from being picked off by a bullet punch or sucker punch. I almost exclusively use Lele as the base for my teams just because it removes so much of the headache of priority randomness throughout the tree. And psychic terrain also provides a substantial increase to power, allowing you to forgo the use of a boosting items such as life orb/choice specs/psychium-z in favor of going really fast. The IVs were originally meant for Hidden Power Fire, but it felt way too weak, with an 18.8% chance to OHKO Mega-Scizor and missing the OHKO completely on all Ferrothorn sets. A Modest nature provides as much damage as possible, while choice scarf and max EVs elevate your speed to a blistering 220, which is slower than only 16 sets in the whole tree. 252 EVs Can be used to speed tie with Darmanitan-4, but I decided this wasn't worth it in the end, using 236 EVs instead to reach a boosted speed of 217. If only we could just squeeze 1 more point in without giving up a modest nature, as the power drop is very noticeable. Nonetheless, it still outspeeds Mega-Beedrill and fast Accelgor, which is nothing to scoff at. I gave Defense and Sp. Def 4EVs each for a free point, and put the rest into HP for slightly (almost insignificantly so) more bulk.

As always, click Psychic is plan number 1. Moonblast is used for dark types and sometimes opposing psychic types (although Pheromosa is usually able to deal with them alone, barring bulky sets like Slowbro-4 and Musharna-4). I noticed that my previous coverage moves, Shadow Ball and Energy Ball, were not really doing anything of value. For this team, I decided to try running both Psychic and Psyshock to be able to get around an opponent with better Sp. Def. This makes it possible to pick up a few nice OHKOs like most Florges sets and offensive Flareon sets; make OHKOs possible (or more likely) such as Goodra, Jolteon, and Sylveon; and dent Sp. Def oriented mons like Mega-Gardevoir, Blissey, Milotic, and Primarina. This is especially important as Pheromosa lacks a good way to deal strong damage to most of these. And lastly, I went with Taunt to stop Trick Room setters, status dealers, and evasion boosters. This was a really nice way to eliminate a significant amount of hax in the tree, and I highly recommend this build to anyone wanting to use PheroLele.

Here is my old Pheromosa write-up, I'll just focus on changes in this post.

I don't think there is a more purely offense-oriented mon that our beloved roach-lady. Beast Boost is an incredibly good ability, and a single boost can snowball a match out of control. She hits hard and fast, but falls over dead if someone looks at her too hard

I tried out a few different sets before I settled on this one. The one I had the most hope for was a special set using a Modest nature with Focus Blast, Bug Buzz, Ice Beam, Protect, and Fightinium-Z. Bug Buzz has 90 base power compared to Lunge at 80, and a 190 base power All-Out-Pummeling annihilated anything in it's path. Securing a special attack bonus that boosted Ice Beam in addition to the STABs was also a great bonus. However, as we all know Focus Blast will let you down in the worst ways. Not even close to consistent enough for the tree.

I eventually settled on a mixed focus sash set which combines great coverage, great accuracy, and a great big juicy target for the opponent. Pheromosa is just so perfect with Tapu Lele. Fighting and Bug STABS deal with the Dark and Psychic types that Lele can't handle. Ice beam was used for that sweet, sweet ice coverage, and protect was possibly the most useful move of all. Enemies loved to target Pheromosa, and a well predicted protect allowed her partner to fire with impunity. Low Kick was used over High Jump Kick for accuracy reasons, although it notably misses out on OHKOs of Porygon2 and Rotom-F. The slight loss of base power is partially made up for because the Steel and Rock types it is mainly used for are often big fat guys. Lunge is also sneaky useful for a guaranteed attack stat drop, sometimes allowing Lele to survive an extra physical attack.

I used a Naughty nature here to secure an attack boost without lowering special attack, and let's be honest defense is not one of her strong suits. Max attack EVs provide some power and grant her an attack boost on kill. 203 is an empty speed tier, so used 244 speed EVs to land at 202, outspeeding scarf skarmory and pretty much everything else. Only 10 sets sit between Pheromosa and Tapu Lele, so needless to say this thing is fast. More than 9 times out of 10 both of your leads will outspeed both of theirs, giving you complete control of the initial part of the battle. The remaining 12 EVs give a small bump to special attack for Ice Beam.

Focus Sash feels great on Pheromosa, giving her a kind of pseudo-bulk allowing her to tank almost anything turn one. Yes Darmanitan-4 Flare Blitz will deal upwards of 400% of her HP, but it only takes 1 HP to turn around and bop him with low kick. Playing around Sash is one of the biggest keys to success with this archetype, which admittedly is not my forte.

Pheromosa @ Focus Sash

Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
IVs: 31/31/x/x/31/x (Hyper-Trained)
EVs: 12 HP /252 Atk / 244 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Low Kick
- Lunge
- Throat Chop
- Protect

HP: 148
Attack: 207
Defense: 57
Sp. Atk: 157
Sp. Def: 51
Speed: 202

With Mega-Metagross now carrying Ice Punch (spoiler oops), I decided to drop Ice Beam on Pheromosa and go for a full physical set. Since I no longer needed Sp. Atk EVs, I just moved them to HP. Obviously Naughty nature is no longer ideal, and if I had an Adamant Pheromosa lined up I would have used that. Thankfully the difference between 57 and 51 Sp. Def is fairly negligible, but every bit matters in a long run. I first tried using U-Turn to get out of bad spots while preserving momentum. This worked pretty well, but I was thirsty for something more cool and innovative. Next I went with Bug Bite to steal some berries, but that was really underwhelming in terms of damage and felt like a wasted slot. I briefly considered Outrage for a good chunk of neutral damage, but remembered how much I hate using it in doubles due to the random targeting. Less random is always better. The same argument goes for High Jump Kick. That 10% miss chance is brutal. Drill Run was next on the list, and I have to say I actually liked this a lot and think it has potential. 80 base power and a high crit rate means it still hits pretty hard off of her 207 Attack, even without STAB. It managed to give a decent answer to some Fire types who either resisted Fighting like Chandelure (Guaranteed 2HKO) and Salazzle (guaranteed OHKO) or were not heavy enough to take much damage from Low Kick like Kanto-Ninetales (37.5% OHKO) and Flareon-3 (50% OHKO).

But I eventually settled upon my answer: Throat Chop. With a Dark type move, I finally had a way to hit Ghost types for significant damage. That meant I was able to consistently double-target down threats like Cofagrigus, Chandelure, Dusknoir, and Jellicent. I ain't afraid of no Ghosts!! It also managed to provide a slightly better answer to Psychic types that also resisted bug like Bronzong (Guaranteed 2HKO on sets -2, -3, and -4) and Delphox (50% OHKO). There are a surprising number of sets where Throat Chop will actually deal the most damage. And it also silences sound based moves, which is a very small bonus, but a bonus nonetheless. It can stop Uproar, Noble Roar, Hyper Voice and more. Two particularly important moves it stops are Sparkling Aria from Primarina and Sing from Altaria (take that Wally!). Try it out, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Metagross-Mega @ Metagrossite

Ability: Clear Body ==> Tough Claws
Level: 50
IVs: 31/31/x/31/31/31 (Hyper-Trained)
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Zen Headbutt
- Ice Punch
- Stomping Tantrum

HP: 155
Attack: 205
Defense: 150
Sp. Atk: 103
Sp. Def: 111
Speed: 122

HP: 155
Attack: 216
Defense: 170
Sp. Atk: 112
Sp. Def: 131
Speed: 162

What can't Mega-Metagross do? Very solid in all categories. His typing is wonderful, with a Poison immunity to cover for Lele and 9(!) resists, including Rock and Flying to draw attacks away from Pheromosa, Steel from Lele, and most importantly a 4x resist to Psychic, which is crucial with Psychic Terrain up. A bulky behemoth without any investment, Metagross is a wonderful switch in for almost any situation.

His pre-mega ability Clear Body can't be overlooked, as you are often able to eat a move like Charm or an ability like Intimidate without worry. Sometimes it pays hold off on mega-evolving if you can get away with it, especially against teams that love to stack intimidate users. Tough Claws is a huge boost to his attacking power, adding a 1.3x multiplier to all 4 of his moves. For EVs, I decided to keep it simple and go with max Attack and Speed, with the bonus point in Sp. Def. I am sure that I would be able to sacrifice some Attack or Speed for bulk, but this was the first run with the team and it seemed to work out. Also, a Jolly nature brings him up to a very nice 178, but I was willing to let that go since my leads are so fast.

For moves, I started out with Iron Head and Zen Headbutt for STABs. I prefer Iron Head over Meteor Mash becuase the 30% flinch chance and 100% accuracy outweigh slightly more damage and a small chance of an Attack boost. Despite how much I hate inaccurate moves, Zen Headbutt was way too good to pass up. Good base power and a nice flinch chance, but with Psychic Terrain active things start to get out of hand. Think of the multipliers in play. 1.5x STAB, 1.5x Psychic Terrain, and 1.3x Tough Claws boost. That adds up to a multiplier of 2.925x. Coming off 216 Attack with a 80 base power move, you can imagine how easily it can rip through teams. I still wanted Ice coverage, so I picked up Ice Punch. I really would have liked to have Protect here, but the coverage provided by Stomping Tantrum in combination with his ability to take a hit made me okay with using 4 attacking move slots. Ground coverage gives a great answer to Fire types as long as you are careful to avoid getting hit first, and allows you to hit Steel types that you would otherwise struggle with.

I really think that Mega-Metagross should be considered a definite number 3 in most PheroLele teams. The synergy and coverage he provides is immense, and his base stats are high enough to let him do whatever you please.

Araquanid (F) @ Waterium Z

Ability: Water Bubble
Level: 50
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/0
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
- Liquidation
- Icy Wind
- Wide Guard
- Protect

HP: 175
Attack: 134
Defense: 112
Sp. Atk: 70
Sp. Def: 153
Speed: 42

Spider-Bro is the last member to join the team. Water Bubble is an excellent ability, giving Araquanid a Fire resist and essentially a free Choice Band on Water moves. This is pretty much the only way she can remain an offensive threat, but man that threat is surprisng. You really have one bullet loaded, but it packs a nasty punch. Using your Z-move Hydro Vortex, you get a68% OHKO on Reuniclus-4 and a guaranteed OHKO on Bronzong-2, -3, and -4 for example. EV spread was very simple, with as much Attack as possible, and max HP EVs to patch up an underwhelming base stat of 68. 0 speed IVs are used to function as well as possible in Trick Room. 42 speed is only faster than a handful of sets, which are dealt with by the fast attackers. The exception is Camerupt sets which are threatening to most of the team, but Araquanid salivates at that 4x Water weakness.

Liquidation is the highest base power Water move you can learn, which is crucial to boost Hydro Vortex as high as possible. After using your Z-move, Araquanid still fills its offensive role on the team as an answer to Fire types. As a small bonus, it also carries a 20% chance of a Defense drop, which the team always appreciates. Because this team already has a Bug attacker and without STAB Araquanid doesn't put out damage, I decided to go full support mode. Icy wind provides a little bit of speed control to counteract Scarf users and Dragon Dancers. It is also able to provide a little spread chip damage when needed to break sash or sturdy. I have grown to really love Wide Guard in the Battle Tree. Most mons with spread moves use them fairly predictably, which can give you a huge advantage. This can nullify Earthquake, essentially removing the Ground weakness from Metagross, as very few threatening Ground moves exist outside of Earthquake. Another move it blocks is Blizzard, which gets rid of the incredibly infuriating freeze hax. And lastly Protect is Protect. As two team members don't carry protect, I thought it was necessary to bring it here.

As is tradition, here are a couple battle videos.

Battle No. 74 vs. Youth Athlete Leena VKMW-WWWW-WWWH-KBZ8

Fast team is always worrysome. I protect with Pheromosa in case it is Scarf Aerodactyl. I thought I could get away with using Psychic on Accelgor to bring it down to Focus Sash, then let Pheromosa kill Aerodactyl for the Attack boost. Instead Accelgor Encores my Protect and Aerodactyl uses Iron Head on Lele instead. I should have prepared for another Sky Drop into the Phero spot, but I sill brought in the backup bug. I try to get rid of Accelgor but it Protects. Things are not going well. Thankfully once Metagross gets in, he is able to use Iron Head to pretty much wipe the floor with everyone. Horrible, horrible match I probably should've lost.

Battle No. 95 vs. Sightseer Christian YRUW-WWWW-WWWH-KBZL

I was stuck in a dilemma here. I couldn't really afford to switch out and let someone get hit by two Psychic moves. So I decided to try to trade Pheromosa for Alakazam, as the Mega would outspeed and bring her down to 1HP, but lunge would get him before he starts to snowball. Latios is only a guaranteed OHKO with Moonblast on sets -2, -3, and -4, but ya gotta risk it for the biscuit. Thankfully things went smoothly for me. I had to laugh because the next two she sent in were two of the most annoying hax creators in Tree in Glaceon and Magnezone. Fortunately they cooperated and we moved on the the next match.

Battle No. 105 vs. Madame Donny XAG-WWWW-WWWH-KBP6

More Psy-spam. Sweet. Used Taunt on Cresselia since I could not afford Trick Room or evasion boosting. Lunge only OHKOs 2 Latias sets, so I hoped that either Cress would be Taunted and not attack, or I got a friendly set Pheromosa and grabbed the KO. Both went in my favor. Next she brought out Azelf, which Phero outspeeds and OHKOs. I had a no pressure switch out ready, so I swapped Lele for Metagross. Thankfully Azelf wasn't sashed, as Cresselia brough Pheromosa down to hers. Since Cresselia-4 is the only set with Trick Room, I knew I could take her out with a +2 lunge. The rest of the team cleaned up Latios.

Battle No. 166 vs. Veteran Placido TQ2G-WWWW-WWWH-KBR6

This match had real nightmare potential. Heatran, Entei, and Terrakion all outspeed Lele with a Choice Scarf. Latias isn't a guaranteed OHKO with Moonblast, and Heatran could have a Focus Sash. I decided to see if I could get an OHKO with either of them, even one would be great. Nope. Yikes. Latias uses Calm Mind to begin setting up and Heatran uses Lava Plume, almost nabbing Latias and bringing Mosa to Sash. Thankfully, all 3 get burned, and it turns into a Pheromosa for Latias trade with Heatran at 1HP. Pretty great turn of events. Then Terrakion comes in and I am terrified of a Scarf EQ taking out Lele, but thankfully Lele goes first and takes it out with Moonblast. Then another horrible threat comes in with Eruption Entei. Once again, the threat doesn't materialize and I manage to take them out quickly and easily.

Battle No. 175 vs. Office Worker Savir 2GKG-WWWW-WWWH-KBRH

Really one of the worst leads I can imagine. Pheromosa is brought to -1 so she won't be doing much. Taunt manages to stop Bronzong's Trick Room and Phero uses Lunge into Mega-Mawile to at least drop his Attack a stage. That turned out to make a huge difference as Lele barely survives a Play Rough. I swap out Lele for Araquanid and he swaps out Mawile for Escavalier. My Lunge now goes into Escavalier, as Rock Slide brings my Bugs to half HP. He switches again for some reason, bringing Skarmory into Escavalier's spot. Throat Chop and Liquidation take out Bronzong (I calced this and Liquidation does 55.1-65.5% against Bronzong-4 (which I know this is from Trick room and Rock Slide) and -1 Pheromosa does 33.3-39.6% and 35.6-42.5% with Low Kick and Throat Chop, respectively. So Liquidation and Low Kick does 88.4-105.1% , while Liquidation and Throat Chop does 90.7-108%. That small friendlier roll might have made all the difference. Throat Chop number 1) and Skarmory uses Brave Bird on my helpless Pheromosa. Mawile comes back out but I'm ready for it this time with Stomping Tantrum from Metagross. The rest deal with Skarmory and I barely squeak by.

Losing Battle No. 207 vs. Pokémon Center Lady Perri 896G-WWWW-WWWH-KBRS

I hate seeing this trainer. It's always going to be a struggle. Luckily she didn't lead a Fairy in either slot, so I thought I was going to cruise through this. Psychic OHKOs Bewear, but Low Kick does nothing to Togedemaru, and Iron Barbs breaks her Sash. Togedemaru is holding a Red Card, so his Nuzzle paralyzes Araquanid instead. She brings in my arch-nemesis Slowbro and I start to panic, realizing this wasn't going to be an easy fight. I use Wide Guard with Araquanid to try to protect Lele from a potential Surf while she tries to KO Togedemaru with a good damage roll. Slowbro uses Calm Mind instead and Togedemaru survives. Lele gets paralyzed and I know I'm boned. I try to attack with Araquanid, hoping Slowbro uses another Amnesia. Lele tries to put some damage onto Slowbro while Togedemaru uses Zing Zap to bring Araquanid down to 1HP while knocking . Could this be the miracle?? No it could not. He surfs and takes out Araquanid. He brings out Musharna. I think I should have tried to double target it down with Psychic and Lunge, but I greed on that juicy Slowbro. I do no damage, Slowbro takes out my previously chipped Pheromosa, and he gets a Trick Room off. Not a great turn. Slowbro uses Slack Off and I realize there is no way I'm winning the fight. I'm sure this fight was littered with mistakes. But I was only aiming for 200, so no worries about this loss.

At the very least, I've achieved my goal of 200 wins. This team is pretty solid and I bet you could pull off a significantly longer streak with better play and similar luck. For now, I'm shelving the PheroLele teams. Hopefully I'll be back soon with another team to report. Thanks for reading everyone.

Cheers!

turskain · Feb 24, 2018

Minor idea: since Sun/US and Moon/UM have different special trainers as opposition - Kiawe, Plumeria, Sina exclusive to Sun, and Dexio, Guzma, Mallow exclusive to Moon, would it be useful to track the game version used on the leaderboards as well? It's a small difference, but possibly more relevant than the difference in opposing trainers/sets between vanilla SM and USUM, and on Discord I heard some players owning both games choosing which game to play on depending on their respective special trainer match-ups.

Worldie · Feb 24, 2018

While what Tursk says is agreeable, I also don't think everyone reminds where every single leaderboard entry is on though....

Also, glad to see someone else appreciated how good Throat Chop is on phero :O

Magicxgame · Feb 24, 2018

I'll throw my hat into the ring. Posting an Ultra Sun Super Doubles streak of 334 wins.

I actually used two teams during the streak. The main team is Mega Kangaskhan / Kartana / Tapu Fini / Landorus-T. The sets are fairly standard, so I'll only list brief comments.

QR version of the team: https://3ds.pokemon-gl.com/rentalteam/usum/BT-4CB1-9E7A

Team White CHALK

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy > Parental Bond
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 244 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Double-Edge
- Low Kick
- Sucker Punch

Standard Mega Kangaskhan. An Adamant Nature with Double-Edge is necessary for sufficient power after the Parental Bond nerf. The EV spread removes 1 point of Attack for 1 point of Defense and Special Defense.

Sucker Punch was largely unnecessary, since this is a Tailwind team, and the AI is somewhat unpredictable. Fire Punch is an option for Scizor, Escavalier, and Ferrothorn, but they never gave me trouble. Otherwise, the elemental punches are weaker than Double-Edge, unless you're hitting a quadruple weakness.

Kartana @ Focus Sash
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Tailwind
- Protect

Thanks toEisenherz for the Kartana. :)

Standard Tailwind Kartana. Sacred Sword is unnecessary since Mega Kangaskhan and Landorus-T have Fighting-type coverage moves.

Tapu Fini @ Choice Specs
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 232 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 3 Atk
- Scald
- Moonblast
- Dazzling Gleam
- Ice Beam

Ice Beam is chosen as the coverage move, since the team struggles against bulky Grass-types. I think Misty Surge is a little overrated in the Tree; sometimes, I wish I had a more offensive terrain like Electric Terrain or Psychic Terrain instead. However, its utility can't be denied if you're going for a long streak.

The EV spread comes from a Scarf Fini I used in the SM Singles Tree, and is sub-optimal for a Specs Fini. A better EV spread would be something like 108 HP / 20 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 132 Spe. This spread allows Tapu Fini to outspeed Landorus-1/4 outside of Tailwind, and outspeed Terrakion-2 after a Tailwind. The defensive EVs allows Fini to survive Jolteon-3's Thunder, Leafeon-4's Leaf Blade, and Rampardos-3 and 4's Head Smash, while minimizing residual damage.

Landorus-Therian @ Groundium Z
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 84 HP / 220 Atk / 4 Def / 28 SpD / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Superpower
- Protect

Although Landorus-T is the most common Pokemon in VGC18, I found it awkward to use on this team. None of my other Pokemon are immune to Earthquake, and its coverage moves are underwhelming since Rock Slide is too unreliable in the Tree. Tectonic Rage is a strong attack, but it can't hit Latias-1, Latios-1, and Zapdos-2, the most notorious evasion users. That said, Landorus-T still filled a valuable role on the team thanks to Intimidate, its resistances, and its strong Ground-type attacks.

The EV spread is ripped from a Landorus-T that I briefly used in the Maison. The Speed allows it to outrun base 80s naturally, and outrun the Tree after a Tailwind. The defensive EVs allow it to survive Archeops-3 and Tyrantrum-4's Head Smashes after an Intimidate, as well as Serperior-4's Leaf Storm, Milotic-4's Ice Beam, and Suicune-1's Ice Beam.

-1 252 Atk Choice Band Archeops Head Smash vs. 84 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian: 147-174 (84 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 84 HP / 28 SpD Landorus-Therian: 147-174 (84 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0- SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs. 84 HP / 28 SpD Landorus-Therian: 144-172 (82.2 - 98.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 84 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian: 144-171 (82.2 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Suicune Ice Beam vs. 84 HP / 28 SpD Landorus-Therian: 144-172 (82.2 - 98.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Sheer Force Life Orb Landorus-I is also a consideration, but it lacks Intimidate. Also, none of my Pokemon would have a Z-Crystal; Tapu Fini's Hydro Vortex seems underwhelming, while all of the other Pokemon need their items. Fly is also worthy of consideration, with or without a Flyinium Z, since it helps against bulky Grass-types. However, the 95% accuracy is unfortunate.

The team draws heavily from several other teams in the past, such as turskain's Sharpedo team in the Maison, D34N's team, and lolnub's team. You have a versatile lead combination that can pull off a fast Tailwind mode or just attack immediately, while Tapu Fini and Landorus-T are backup glue Pokemon that are powerful attackers in their own right. I've tried several teams in the Doubles Tree, but this feels the most reliable by far. It can also plow through opposing teams fairly quickly, which is a plus.

Issues include:

Mega Charizard Y is the most threatening Mega to the team, since it outspeeds everything except Kartana outside of Tailwind and deals massive damage to the whole team. I've had several close encounters against it, and have actually considered putting Smack Down on my Landorus-T to deal with it. (Smack Down also has other niche applications, such as making the Latis and Zapdos-2 vulnerable to Tectonic Rage.)
Salazzle leads are a headache, since they outspeed Mega Kangaskhan and are unpredictable. If it's paired with a faster lead, then Kartana can go down without setting up Tailwind. My closest battle involved a Salazzle lead and a Mega Charizard Y backup.
Bulky Grass-types typically aren't threatening. However, they can stick around for a while, which can be troublesome.
Virizion deals heavy damage to most of my team, and all versions except Virizion-4 outspeed my team outside of Tailwind. While Virizion-4 can't outspeed my team, it's the worst version to face, since it's a bulky ChestoRest variant. Mega Kangaskhan outspeeds and OHKOs Virizion-1 and 3 with Double-Edge, while Kartana outspeeds and 2HKOs them with Smart Strike.
In theory, Zapdos-2 is a threat since it's immune to Tectonic Rage, and most of my Pokemon match up poorly against it. Fortunately, I didn't have any issues against it in the streak. Mega Kangaskhan typically dispatches it before it can rack up Double Team boosts, while Misty Surge prevents it from getting paralyzed by Static.
The Latis are a headache, since they're unpredictable. Tailwind is useful against legendary trainers, but trying to use Fake Out + Tailwind can just get one of the leads paralyzed instead. Tapu Fini does good work, while Landorus-T's Knock Off can remove Lax Incenses.

Despite a lack of close calls, I started to lose faith in the team, and switched to a Trick Room team of Oranguru / Hariyama / Mega Camerupt / Araquanid for ~30 battles. This team was pretty bad (no offense to TR players) and I ended up losing to Firefighter Presta's team of Machamp / Gastrodon / Archeops / Golisopod after Araquanid lost to Golisopod in a one-on-one.

Bad Eruption Team

Oranguru @ Lum Berry
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 220 HP / 236 Def / 4 SpA / 44 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Instruct
- Psychic
- Protect

The EV spread allows it to survive Mega Gardevoir's Hyper Beam, Dragonite-3's Outrage, Scizor-3's U-turn, and Conkeldurr-4's Fling. I should've moved 8 Defense EVs to Special Attack to OHKO Salazzle-3 with Psychic. Lum Berry was chosen over the Mental Herb, since status is more common than Taunt.

252+ SpA Pixilate Gardevoir-Mega Hyper Beam vs. 220 HP / 44+ SpD Oranguru: 162-192 (83.9 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Scizor U-turn vs. 220 HP / 236 Def Oranguru: 159-190 (82.3 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Dragonite Outrage vs. 220 HP / 236 Def Oranguru: 160-189 (82.9 - 97.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Iron Ball Conkeldurr Fling (130 BP) vs. 220 HP / 236 Def Oranguru: 158-188 (81.8 - 97.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
12 SpA Oranguru Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Salazzle: 144-170 (100.6 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 28 HP / 236 Atk / 204 Def / 36 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Ice Punch

The EVs allow it to survive Talonflame-4's Brave Bird, and give Hariyama a bonus point in Attack.

Camerupt @ Cameruptite
Ability: Solid Rock > Sheer Force
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 244 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Eruption
- Earth Power
- Flamethrower
- Protect

I'm not sure why I ran 12 Defense EVs. Flamethrower is added over HP Ice for a consistent, single-target Fire attack.

Araquanid @ Waterium Z
Ability: Water Bubble
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Liquidation
- Leech Life
- Wide Guard
- Protect

I wanted to try out Eruption Mega Camerupt for a while, and it was pretty fun to use. The team progressed through most battles quickly, but it felt far too fragile for a long streak. Opposing Taunt users were miserable to face depending on their partner; Crobat-4 was especially bad, since it could have Inner Focus and smacked Hariyama hard with Brave Bird. Araquanid was very underwhelming, and it barely scraped by in several one-vs-one situations before the loss. I should've just stuck with the first team, but that's life.

I'm not done with Tree Doubles yet, and have already started a new streak with the first team. Good luck on your streaks, everyone!

EDIT: Clarified some of the EV spreads and comments.

ReptoAbysmal · Feb 24, 2018

donpablo21 said:
Araquanid (F) @ Waterium Z

Ability: Water Bubble
Level: 50
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/0
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
- Liquidation
- Icy Wind
- Wide Guard
- Protect

HP: 175
Attack: 134
Defense: 112
Sp. Atk: 70
Sp. Def: 153
Speed: 42

Spider-Bro is the last member to join the team. Water Bubble is an excellent ability, giving Araquanid a Fire resist and essentially a free Choice Band on Water moves. This is pretty much the only way she can remain an offensive threat, but man that threat is surprisng. You really have one bullet loaded, but it packs a nasty punch. Using your Z-move Hydro Vortex, you get a68% OHKO on Reuniclus-4 and a guaranteed OHKO on Bronzong-2, -3, and -4 for example. EV spread was very simple, with as much Attack as possible, and max HP EVs to patch up an underwhelming base stat of 68. 0 speed IVs are used to function as well as possible in Trick Room. 42 speed is only faster than a handful of sets, which are dealt with by the fast attackers. The exception is Camerupt sets which are threatening to most of the team, but Araquanid salivates at that 4x Water weakness.

Liquidation is the highest base power Water move you can learn, which is crucial to boost Hydro Vortex as high as possible. After using your Z-move, Araquanid still fills its offensive role on the team as an answer to Fire types. As a small bonus, it also carries a 20% chance of a Defense drop, which the team always appreciates. Because this team already has a Bug attacker and without STAB Araquanid doesn't put out damage, I decided to go full support mode. Icy wind provides a little bit of speed control to counteract Scarf users and Dragon Dancers. It is also able to provide a little spread chip damage when needed to break sash or sturdy. I have grown to really love Wide Guard in the Battle Tree. Most mons with spread moves use them fairly predictably, which can give you a huge advantage. This can nullify Earthquake, essentially removing the Ground weakness from Metagross, as very few threatening Ground moves exist outside of Earthquake. Another move it blocks is Blizzard, which gets rid of the incredibly infuriating freeze hax. And lastly Protect is Protect. As two team members don't carry protect, I thought it was necessary to bring it here.

For the way you use it, Waterium Z is probably the best hold item for Araquanid, but more people need to open their eyes to the benefit of Life Orb on that bugger. It gives way more punch to vanilla Liquidations and allows considerably more OHKOs and 2HKOs on some especially bulky pokes (if Instruct is in play) which you otherwise wouldn't get without having to use Hydro Vortex. It also allows it to reliably 2HKO Primarina which it could otherwise never do. If the AI is dumb enough to use Rain Dance, it's even worse (2HKOing Suicune and Rotom-Wash, notably.)

The other benefit to LO is its Leech Life/Lunge is actually able to guarantee OHKOs on a lot of defensively poorer pokes, like Latios, Espeon, Alakazam, Mega Sceptile, and so on. While many of these are still slain by Liquidation, in a battle where Araquanid is taking some damage, it easily refills him to max or near it.

But I digress. With no TR and Icy Wind in your set, and Araquanid serving more as some glue, there's not much benefit to LO, but I never see anyone even considering that item when it does a lot for it. <_<

Smuckem · Feb 27, 2018

A couple of people are investigating how dual Megas are handled in Doubles: both ReptoAbysmal and Worldie are seeing how the AI 'picks' which Mega to evolve when it leads with two such sets. The evidence as of now suggests that the AI always 'picks' Slot 1 (from the player's viewpoint, the right-hand side). Of course, both have pretty small sample sizes to work with, so a call for HELP~! I will be looking into this myself in the future, but in the meantime, if anyone can provide their own examples of what happens in such cases, please do so--more data never hurts. If anyone playing Multis can look into this from their end, that would be great too.

turskain · Feb 27, 2018

Smuckem said:
A couple of people are investigating how dual Megas are handled in Doubles: both ReptoAbysmal and Worldie are seeing how the AI 'picks' which Mega to evolve when it leads with two such sets. The evidence as of now suggests that the AI always 'picks' Slot 1 (from the player's viewpoint, the right-hand side). Of course, both have pretty small sample sizes to work with, so a call for HELP~. I will be looking into this myself in the future, but in the meantime, if anyone can provide their own examples of what happens in such cases, please do so--more data never hurts. If anyone playing Multis can look into this from their end, that would be great too.

I saved a battle video with Wally leading Garchomp4-Mega (slot 1) and Gallade4-Mega, and did 10-20 mock battles. Garchomp Mega Evolved every single time.

In Multis, both AI trainers have their own Z-, Mega- and Item clauses, and facing one Mega from each trainer should be possible.

Smuckem · Feb 27, 2018

turskain said:
In Multis, both AI trainers have their own Z-, Mega- and Item clauses, and facing one Mega from each trainer should be possible.

Hmmmm, my daily reminder that I don't play Multis enough...ignore the last bit from my last post, everyone.

Porpoise · Feb 27, 2018

So today I accidentally stalled out an Arena Trap Dugtrio on Battle Tree with a Choice Specs Xurkitree locked into Thunderbolt
It's moveset was Fissure, Substitute, Sandstorm, and a fourth move it never used for some reason (apparently it was Toxic)
It missed Fissure five times, set up a Substitute, switched into a Weavile (which went down to Focus Sash from Specs Thunderbolt), then switched back, set the Sandstorm up again, and let me die to Sandstorm.
I had Speed Boost Yanmega in the back, who completely walled the Dugtrio, and was able to outspeed and KO the 1HP Weavile left over.

This was a very interesting battle.

EDIT: I've also made it to 50+ wins with this team, Mega Altaria, Xurkitree, and Yanmega. I'll attempt a writeup later, but the streak is ongoing. Hoping to make it to around 70 wins.

Scythes · Feb 28, 2018

Scythes said:
I'm reporting a completed doubles streak of 114 wins. Not really impressive, but it's actually my best performance in doubles to date in any of the facilities - and I'm glad good ol' Alakazam finally gets a spot on this gen's leaderboard.

Anyway,

My team's frontline revolved around abusing Tapu Lele's psychic terrain as much as possible. I had Lele and Alakazam (non mega, holding a sash) attacking and generally wreaking havoc with powerful psychic/psyshocks. Now for the back line, I had my mega - Gyarados.

I felt bulky psychics and ghosts were a singificant hurdle for this team, and that mega G's dark typing would solve this issue easily. That proved to be correct for the most part- shadow ball just doesn't harm the likes of annoying walls like Cresselia or Uxie that much, while mega G dealt with them easily.

As for my fourth mon, I had Bewear at first holding a Fightinium Z. I chose him for: a) his immunity to ghost, a weakness for the psychic frontline,
b) countering dark types, who could sometimes be problematic, and c) just the fact that I liked his physical bulk, of course, given my frontline's frailty.
I tried Bewear with the fighting z crystal and later the assault vest. My main problem with him was that he didn't gel with the team too well - he had the nasty psychic weakness, which was more powerful in Lele's terrain.

Another issue I had was that my two leads, being pretty fast, simply despised paralysis. I decided a thunder wave immunity was essential to keeping this team's hopes alive.

So I replaced Bewear with Mudsdale, and stuck on an Assault Vest on him. I still had troubles and lost the streak pre-50 twice, mostly due to my own unfamiliarity with how to play the team and my own clumsiness with doubles. Once I got the hang of it though, the team didn't look back. Lele, with a Life orb, seemed to be able to one-shot half the Tree. Alakazam also hit crazy hard, and I didn't usually have to bring in the backline.

Tapu Lele,
Holding life orb,
Timid nature,
Hyper Trained,
Move-set:
Psychic
Moonblast
Hidden power (fire)
Protect

Ev's: Max Sp attack and speed

Alakazam,
Focus Sash,
Hyper Trained,
Timid Nature,
Magic Guard (had synchronize at first but later switched),
Move-set:
Psyshock
Dazzling Gleam
Shadow Ball
Protect

Ev's: Max sp attack and speed

Gyarados, nicknamed Pseudodragon
Jolly nature,
Hyper Trained,
Intimidate/Mold Breaker,
Gyaradosite
Move-set:
Dragon Dance
Waterfall
Crunch
Protect

Ev's: Max attack and speed (should i shift some speed to hp?)

Mudsdale
Adamant nature,
Hyper Trained,
Stamina,
Assault Vest,
Move-set:
High horsepower,
Close Combat,
Heavy Slam
Rock Slide

Evs- Max attack and hp. (Thought of shifting some attack ev's over to defenses but never did so.)

BB4W-WWWW-WWWH-ECQP

A previous loss. Mixture of quick claw hax and just my backline being overwhelmed by its weakness to grass. Also, the terrain changed, which almost never happens, and it ended terribly for me.

KP3W-WWWW-WWWH-ECV8
A very close fight involving Trick Room. If you're going to watch only one vid from this team, it should be this one.

X8UG-WWWW-WWWH-ED3D
Uploaded this because it's the 100th win, and it's against Wally, who some teams have issues with.

NKEW-WWWW-WWWH-ED4A
My final loss. Very disappointing as I felt this team could do better. Still, I misplayed here so I guess I deserved it. You really can't let your guard down against those speed specialists, they're pretty dangerous in my experience (especially when Starmie4 is included).

Threats included very fast pokemon like Accelgor, and grass teams like Captain Mallow's, since the backline was weak to grass. Also, any pokemon which could potentially change the terrain was annoying to deal with, like one of Comfey's sets.
Thunder wave spammers were obnoxious and the reason I needed a ground type.

In conclusion, I recommend this team for people who want something fun to play around with in psychic terrain. I'm hopeful someone with a little more skill than me can take this team to 200 or beyond :)

All right, I made another run with almost the exact same team, but with Latios instead of Alakazam. The Latios held a Dragonium Z, and the team was wonderful. I lost after 117 battles, so not too much of an improvement, but it was so much better than the first team. Devastating Drake is so powerful, and breaks through many threats in one hit that Alakazam could hardly touch.
But alas, I lost on the 118th battle, and that serves me right for playing when I'm right about to sleep. I misplayed against Regice and Cobalion and forgot Regice has electric coverage to hit Gyarados with.

Oh well. Here's the loss: E72G-WWWW-WWWY-334E

Latios was great, but not perfect. One of its weak points was its susceptibility to fake out, given it's not protected by Psychic Terrain. It also risks losing speed ties to other Lati@s's, and underspeeds Mega Salamence.

That's why I've decided to make one last run with this team, but with Naganadel replacing Latios. It has slightly less power, but is a lot faster, has beast boost, and is grounded. It also has much needed fire coverage (would've been so handy against Cobalion in that losing battle, too).

Anyway, a note to NoCheese - feel free to put this streak on the board, but not the previous one. It's a much better team, after all, even if my final result didn't overwhelmingly prove it.

Edit- I forgot to mention, I changed mudsdale’s ev spread the second time around. Despite it holding assault vest, I felt it could use more bulk, and so took 100 from attack and put it in sp. def instead. All in all I think it was a good change. He’s stupidly hard to kill now, and his damage output is still acceptable.

Worldie · Feb 28, 2018

Naganadel has one big issue on tree... it's squishy and weak to Ground.

I've ran a few hundred matches and even got it on 90+ once: it desperately requires support to not die against certain matchups, and also actually lacks raw power. Dragon/Poison is not as amazing as it seems as stabs.

Scythes · Feb 28, 2018

Worldie said:
Naganadel has one big issue on tree... it's squishy and weak to Ground.

I've ran a few hundred matches and even got it on 90+ once: it desperately requires support to not die against certain matchups, and also actually lacks raw power. Dragon/Poison is not as amazing as it seems as stabs.

This may be true. I only tried a few battles with Naga so far. He is frail, but so is latios. The ground immunity is more of an issue for me, not to mention opposing psychics. I think with smart play and support though, he can hold his own in doubles.

Also, with latios I kept running into issues with fairies. Naga should have no problem nuking them.

I certainly think he has power.
Have you tried him with Draco meteor’s devastating drake? It’s crazy strong.

Worldie · Feb 28, 2018

The set i used was Z-Dragon Pulse, Sludge Bomb, Flamethrower, Protect, it was timid EVd to get spatk boost, so actually only had 111 or so as speed tier all around. Fast, not as fast as you'd want for tree though.
Z-draco meteor as I experienced picks up a few extra notable KOs unboosted, but the spatk drop / accuracy is a notable drawback.

You can find the writeup here if you are bored:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ion-and-records.3587215/page-127#post-7627255

Scythes · Mar 1, 2018

Worldie said:
The set i used was Z-Dragon Pulse, Sludge Bomb, Flamethrower, Protect, it was timid EVd to get spatk boost, so actually only had 111 or so as speed tier all around. Fast, not as fast as you'd want for tree though.
Z-draco meteor as I experienced picks up a few extra notable KOs unboosted, but the spatk drop / accuracy is a notable drawback.

You can find the writeup here if you are bored:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ion-and-records.3587215/page-127#post-7627255

Thanks, I’ll take a look.

On another note, I’m wondering what speed tier I should aim for with my adamant gyarados in doubles. I already rebred him from jolly because I figured he doesn’t need the extra speed.

Worldie · Mar 1, 2018

Ideally you should check what you can reach at +1 and +0.
I think the best speed tier to aim at would be outspeed everything at 130 base or lower at +1

Battle Tree Discussion and Records

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