Battle Tree Discussion and Records

Mimikium Z is a free 15 power over Fairium Z with no downside at all, so unless you're on the original pair of games, that's an obvious item switch to make.
 
Mimikium Z is a free 15 power over Fairium Z with no downside at all, so unless you're on the original pair of games, that's an obvious item switch to make.
I didn't even realize Mimikum Z was a thing, I'm on Ultra Sun so I will track that down. Thanks.

Simple mechanics questions: If you use a Z move and the AI uses Encore, I assume Encore fails since you can't re-use the Z move?
 
Encore will fail against a target that hasn't used a move, or one whose last move was Assist, Copycat, Me First, Metronome, Mimic, Mirror Move, Nature Power, Shell Trap, Sketch, Sleep Talk, Transform, a Z-move, a move with no PP left, or a move that's not in their current moveset.
 
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EDIT: Streak just ended at 121 wins.

My ongoing streak is currently at 120 with a team of Kartana, Salamence, and Tapu Fini. I was planning to farm 50-win Gold Caps and did not expect to go this far at all. It turns out that smashing your keyboard A button with Kartana is a viable strategy.

Kartana @ Focus Sash
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Sacred Sword
- Smart Strike
- Psycho Cut

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Sp.Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Return
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Roost

Tapu Fini @ Choice Scarf
EVs: 28 HP / 252 Sp.Atk / 228 Spe
Modest Nature
- Moonblast
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Grass Knot

Quick notes:
  • 228 Speed EVs on Scarfed Fini allows it to outspeed max speed base 130s. This is crucial for beating Jolteon and Aerodactyl.
  • Earthquake is used over Substitute because I'm lazy and don't care to find the conditions to Dragon Dance several times. This team isn't designed for that anyways. I'm also lazy to move 16 EVs from speed to HP / Sp.Def.
  • Knock Off is probably better than Psycho Cut on Kartana, though Psycho Cut does have its niche against the likes of Crobat and a few Mega Evolutions / Z-move users.
  • Kartana can handle most teams; the Fire and Fighting types that threaten Kartana can be easily handled by a Fini or Salamence switch-in.
  • Fini provides much needed protection against status hax. It synergizes well with Kartana's anti-evasion hax.
 
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Hello. First time writing in here.
I have a couple questions about the top leaderboard team (the entrainment Durant).

-Why Glalie? I mean probably It's the best among the other mons that have access to moody but is it really necessary to increase all your stats? Why not a Dragonite (or whatever, I dont even know if Dragonite can learn taunt) with DD and once it gets to +6 on speed and attack start sweeping? I guess it's because there are some opponents with focus sash that are able to resist and in the worst cases knock you out. But it still sounds weird to me.

-Why Mimikyu to face threats for Durant? The only Durant's weakness is fire so I guess that would be the only case in which you won't risk using Entrainment because you could be knocked out first. So why Mimikyu and not a fire-resistant pokèmon?

Sorry If I sound ignorant but I didn't undestand these choices and probably there are many mechanics I don't know, that's why I am asking.
 
A Red Card will only work if you survive the hit, and if the hit is not Sheer Force-boosted. Mimikyu is the most reliable Red Carder due to its unique mechanic: not even worrying about types it may be weak to, it's guaranteed to survive one hit of anything that doesn't come from a Mold Breaker (and if it does come from a Mold Breaker, the only one that has any kind of defense against Durant is Rampardos4). Even on potential fire moves, it's often acceptable to go ahead and Entrain anyway in exchange for losing Durant; the only ones it needs to run away from are potential nasties like Quick Claw Incineroar or Drampa if you're not prepared to try and win in the case where you don't get the Entrainment.

The drawback of Moody is that you never have any guarantee that any given stat will be boosted in any finite amount of time (in the worst-case scenario, you could get to +6 Attack/+5 Accuracy early on, and just keep wobbling back and forth between those stats forever), and along the bumpy road there's a chance that a key stat might still be in the negatives at a time when you would otherwise be ready to move forward. The benefit is that over time (like a casino with the house edge), it has a tendency to give you boosts in all stats including evasion, and to do so without taking up one of your four moveslots, even do so while you're in the middle of what would otherwise be an idle Protect loop. An unlucky boost turn can lower an individual stat, but the overall sum of all your stat boosts will never decrease through Moody, only stay the same or increase by 1. Casinos are set up so that one lucky gambler who makes some money from them for a short stretch isn't going to wipe them out; likewise if you're using a team that's using likely-but-not-100%-certain elements such as Icy Wind or Moody, you should build the team to be resilient in the face of an untimely miss or a few turns of bad boosts.
 
Oh I see why Mimikyu then. Yeah, it makes sense.

For what concerns Moody, yeah you are likely to end up having all stats maxed out and you don't even have to use a moveslot for that. But wouldn't a pokèmon with better stats and with one single move to set up (speed and attack/special attack) be a better option than Glalie? That would be a guaranteed OHKO (unless you are facing a focus sash user) and way less time consuming. Plus you can consider using some other useful ability to face AI.
I mean, what does make Glalie better than this? The fact that it increases defensive stats as well so he is more likely to survive opponent's attacks?

Also, thinking about a solution against focus sash pokèmon, could knock off OHKO them? I mean, I don't know if the damage you deal is calculated before or after they loose their item.
 
Knock Off doesn't OHKO Focus Sash users, Focus Sash activates before it would be knocked off. Out of the Focus Sash users in the Tree, I'm not sure many would take a OHKO from Knock Off anyway. Gengar is the only one that jumps to mind.

Can still be a useful move I think, but doesn't help with Focus Sash users.
 
Focus Sash does work long enough to protect them from Knock Off, and about one out of every 20 Pokemon you face in endgame tree will have a sash (the second-most-common single item overall, after Leftovers) so it's by no means a rare scenario that you'll have to work around one of those. Furthermore, one out of every 50 brings the Sturdy ability, which has the same effect.

Substitute is often used as insurance for this purpose: even if they survive and manage to attack back, the worst they can generally do with the opportunity is break the sub, and you can try again next turn, and thanks to item clause you're assured of never facing more than one opposing sash per team.
 
Oh ok, thanks. Now It's clear. In order to do what I said you should have more moveslots, that's why you should use Moody so you don't need a move to set up.

Well, at least until it won't exist a move or an ability that can bypass effects that prevent from being knocked out in one hit, but sounds like something that can be exploited easily.
 
Oh I see why Mimikyu then. Yeah, it makes sense.

For what concerns Moody, yeah you are likely to end up having all stats maxed out and you don't even have to use a moveslot for that. But wouldn't a pokèmon with better stats and with one single move to set up (speed and attack/special attack) be a better option than Glalie? That would be a guaranteed OHKO (unless you are facing a focus sash user) and way less time consuming. Plus you can consider using some other useful ability to face AI.
You can click on the links to the team and find all you'd ever need to know about why it's constructed the way it is and hours of footage of it in action. Simple logic would dictate that if there were a better option that took less time, someone else would've used it to get a much higher streak than what I have.
 
Sorry if I made you misunderstand what I asked.

I did click on the team but didn't find an answer to my doubts there. There It's explained how to use them or the reason of the EV distribution.

I wasn't advancing a new innovative idea, I took for granted that your choices were probably the best for this strategy.
I just wanted to learn why these choices were better than what I said (which is probably something everyone could have come up with) and I also pointed out my lack of knowledge on this topic. I wasn't proposing a better option. I asked why what I said wasn't a better option.
 
Sorry if I made you misunderstand what I asked.

I did click on the team but didn't find an answer to my doubts there. There It's explained how to use them or the reason of the EV distribution.

I wasn't advancing a new innovative idea, I took for granted that your choices were probably the best for this strategy.
I just wanted to learn why these choices were better than what I said (which is probably something everyone could have come up with) and I also pointed out my lack of knowledge on this topic. I wasn't proposing a better option. I asked why what I said wasn't a better option.
I really don't know what to say. It should be pretty straightforward that in addition to Sturdy and Focus Sash, Quick Claw, Bright Powder, and Lax Incense will mean that you can't just outspeed and OHKO stuff at will no matter how beefy something's offensive stats happen to be.
 
I really don't know what to say. It should be pretty straightforward that in addition to Sturdy and Focus Sash, Quick Claw, Bright Powder, and Lax Incense will mean that you can't just outspeed and OHKO stuff at will no matter how beefy something's offensive stats happen to be.
I already apologised for making an ignorant question. For me that wasn't obvious, I have almost no expirience in the battle tree so I didn't know what kind of strategies NPCs use. Your replies were really useful to me even though it may seem basic knowledge.
 
Any crowd favorites for countering Gengar/M Gengar in singles? Always feels like a threat to me. Assault Vest Tyranitar seems like good for that specific purpose, but I've not had much luck using it in a general sense.
 
Any crowd favorites for countering Gengar/M Gengar in singles? Always feels like a threat to me. Assault Vest Tyranitar seems like good for that specific purpose, but I've not had much luck using it in a general sense.
Chansey walls and PP stalls it (other specially bulky Normals with recovery can do the same but with less general usefulness). Durant outspeeds it and turns it into set-up bait for anything with Protect. You wouldn't want to switch Mega Scizor directly into Shadow Ball, but it can SD and KO with +2 Bullet Punch; Dragonite is in kind of the same boat where it can take even a crit with Multiscale and boost and KO the following turn. Other than that, not preparing for it in particular and just hoping you don't get hit with an untimely crit if it shows up (95.8% of the time, it works every time) would most likely be the 'crowd favorite' method of dealing with it. It's one of those threats that shows the importance of having a sweeper that can boost its speed or at least boost its attack and hit hard with priority so that even if your team is weak to it on paper, you can at least make it irrelevant if it comes out 2nd or 3rd.
 
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STONE OCEAN
I want to be free from this stone ocean

mega scizor.png


Hey everyone, it's been a while since I posted on the Tree forums. Today I am submitting an on-going streak of 520 wins in USUM Super Singles with a team of Garchomp / Tapu Fini / Mega Scizor. The most basic of basic DFS cores on this generation.

Before we move on, here is a disclaimer:

I continued my streak from battle ~200 in Citra due to my 3DS bricking while I was in the middle of its progress. I don't mind if this streak is not leader-board eligible but since I didn't had any option to continue, I resorted to Citra by exporting my latest 3DS save file into it. I just want to share how this team worked and my experiences with it. I hope everyone enjoys it and for anyone who uses this team, it becomes quite useful and enjoy it.


Here's one for the good times:

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Garchomp (Harribel) @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 6 Def / 252 Spe
IVs: 31 / 31 / 31 / 24 / 31 / 31
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Substitute
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance

USUM-Stand-Garchomp.jpg


Garchomp has always been a personal favorite in Tree teams. It's great bulk, power and Speed makes it the ideal candidate as a lead for an offensive build like this team. Immunity to Electric and a resistance to Fire is always a huge plus for this team as its defensive synergy with Tapu Fini and Scizor is perfect. Z-Outrage lets Garchomp nuke something like Zapdos, Bulkarona, Slaking, and its Dragon/Flying kin without worrying about Outrage's and Misty Terrain's side effects. At +2 Garchomp is strong enough to pretty much OHKO almost anything with Devastating Drake and once used, Outrage is still a decent STAB to use for the next two turns (unless the AI has a Steel type as a last mon). Earthquake is pretty basic and its your best STAB to destroy anything that resists Outrage. Both of Garchomp's moves have good enough coverage to hit the mayority of the Tree for neutral damage leaving Levitate Bronzong, Togekiss and Skarmory as the only mons resisting or being immune to its STAB combination. Substitute is a really amazing move. Despite sacrificing coverage like Fire Fang, Poison Jab or Rock Slide being decent options, Substitute eases up being able to set up. It also eases setting up against the likes of Golem 2 or Regirock 2/4 who commonly carry Explosion and scout for these moves before taking heavy damage on the process. Rough Skin is the gift that keeps on giving as it lets Chomp deal damage to any physical sweeper that uses a contact move against it. Salazzle 3 and Mega Kangaskhan, two common Fake Out users, end up punishing themselves against Chomp.

The EV spread is rocket science-proof: Max Attack and Speed for maximum potential. The 4 EVs on Defense prevents Gyarados 3 from ever OHKO-ing Garchomp with Ice Fang (252 Atk Gyarados Ice Fang vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Garchomp: 152-180 (83 - 98.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) which I found very important specially when facing Gyarados lead scenarios where 3 mostly just uses up Ice Fang instead and it ends up with Garchomp surviving.




Tapu Fini (Marina) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 36 HP / 4 Def / 230 SpA / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
IVs: 31 / 0 / 31 / 31 / 31 / 31
Modest Nature
- Surf
- Confide
- Grass Knot
- Moonblast

USUM-Stand-Tapu-Fini.jpg


I love Tapu Fini. It has been featuring on almost every team I have been tested so far and its abilities do come in handy in the Battle Tree. Thanks to Misty Surge, Fini gives the team a 5 turn immunity to status effects allowing Garchomp and Scizor to set up more reliably without the fear of getting burned / paralyzed by an ability's side effects. Because both team members are grounded, they are able to abuse Fini's terrain effects. Also, Garchomp gets a pseudo-neutrality from Misty Surge allowing it to even survive Draco Meteors from Latios 2 if the situation calls for it. For the first 300 battles I was using a CM set with a Bold nature (originally with the intention of making my team a bit original since I wanted to avoid using Scarf), however, with how glaring my weakness to Tornadus 1 and other fast Flying types like Staraptor 3 was, I decided to test out Scarf since it has been proven before on this thread. Surf is the best move that takes advantage of Fini's Water STAB and has decent power to punish anything that hits super-effectively, Moonblast slays Dragons and Grass Knot is exclusively for Mega Swampert 3. Confide is really amazing. On a Scarf set, it pretty much makes stuff like Starmie 3/4, Milotic. Pelipper, Porygon2 and Audino 4 irrelevant with the SpA drops which simply makes it easier for Scizor to set up all the way to +6. The extra Speed from the Choice Scarf comes in handy as Fini can reduce an Special attacker's stats before dying to an unfortunate critical hit if necessary.

You'll notice that my EVs are slightly different from the other Confide sets featured on this forum, however, my EVs have specific benchmarks and purposes. 36 HP and 4 Def reduces the chance Mega Gyarados 4 has to OHKO Tapu Fini with a critical hit +1 Stone Edge to a ~12%. This is the most I can sacrifice on bulk considering that lowering the SpA means missing out on OHKOs and 2HKOs Tapu Fini desperately needs considering its average Special Attack stat. The EVs also allows Tapu Fini to always survive Tornadus 1's Supersonic Strike from full health (252 SpA Tornadus Supersonic Skystrike (185 BP) vs. 36 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Fini: 123-145 (82 - 96.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) which was another reason why I swapped from CM to Scarf. 236 Speed is what you need to outspeed the base 130s like Jolteon and Crobat.




Mega Scizor @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Atk / 54 Spe
IVs: 31 / 31 / 31 / 11 / 30* / 31 (* = Hyper Trained)
Adamant Nature
- Roost
- Knock Off
- Bullet Punch
- Swords Dance

USUM-Stand-Mega-Scizor.jpg

Mega Scizor is the best Mega sweeper for the Tree. Higher bulk than cancer stall swiss blade (Skarmory), colossal power, reliable recovery in Roost and access to STAB boosted priority? Sing me in. It's pretty evident how Scizor is used, however, unlike the other G/S/F teams I use max Attack for a simple reason:

+6 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Charizard-Mega-Y: 153-180 (100 - 117.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Typhlosion: 153-180 (100 - 117.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pyroar: 162-192 (100.6 - 119.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Starmie: 143-168 (105.9 - 124.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Greninja: 172-203 (117 - 138%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 165-194 (107.8 - 126.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Delphox: 162-192 (108 - 128%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Blaziken: 166-196 (107 - 126.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Thundurus: 166-196 (107.7 - 127.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Of course, I do believe investing more in SpD is a valid alternative as well, however, taking into account the amount of KOs you miss at +2 and let alone at +6, I simply felt it wasn't worth to drop the Atk investment. I mean, can you really imagine yourself having Fini losing health and setting Confides only for Mega Scizor to be later forced out when the AI shows up with any of the above Pokemon because you don't have enough power to OHKO them? With Tapu Fini providing Confide, Scizor can pretty much set up with impunity against the likes of Starmie 3, Milotic and Porygon2 while Roosting off the damage. It's actually scary how this strategy effectively works as Mega Scizor can easily end up with a +4 or +6 most of the time. Of course, I also had to make a choice on the secondary attack choosing between Bug Bite and Knock Off, but I ended up with Knock Off for good reasons. It overall provides much neutral coverage against the Tree meta and it has the bonus of removing hax items like Bright Powder and Quick Claw. It also hits super-effectively Trick Room mons like Cofagrigus, Reuniclus, Jellicent and Bronzong making Mega Scizor a very good answer to these threats.

The EVs are quite simple. 54 Spe gives you enough to outspeed all Milotic sets and Chandelure 3/4. This means you can hit the scientist's Chandelures with Knock Off without fear of being burned to a crisp while keeping momentum against Milotic so you can Roost off the damage in case it gets a CH. Max Attack is the magic stat that let's you murder frail Bullet Punch resistants like Typhlosion, Charizard Y, Thundurus, etc with a +6 Bullet Punch. The rest goes into HP which overall provides Mega Scizor with the best bulk possible.


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This team is very easy to use. Usually this is what I do:
  • If the AI leads with something that can´t threaten Garchomp, set up a Swords Dance and watch how they start to fall like flies.
  • Substitute is an important tool for scouting. Not only it protects Chomp from status moves and Explosion, but will also let you scout any different sets as long as Garchomp outspeeds the opponent.
  • If the AI leads with something that Garchomp can defeat but can´t risk to set-up against, go for a straight attack. Draconium Z is not something you should use conservatively or save it for later purposes unless it is really necessary. Think: It removes for one turn Outrage's awful side effects and if you land a OHKO, the AI is left with two mons which means that you'll have less turns to be punished for locking. You want OHKOs asap, so don't be a greedy bitch and use it.
  • Tapu Fini should avoid being locked into attacks unless it is absolutely mandatory. Choiced mons are momentum killers, so be ready.
  • Confide should be used when you need to absolutely weaken a special attacker that is troublesome for the team (like Starmie 4). Get as many special redux as needed and switch Fini back to reestablish the terrain if needed once you are ready to set up with Chomp/Scizor. If Fini is lost but you already gained >3 reductions, it should be mandatory to set up the +6 so that Scizor gains as many KOs as possible to compensate for Fini's loss. Otherwise, save Fini for later as Confiding can be useful for later.
  • Always take into account how much a CH does especially when facing faster opponents that are Confided. Roost off the damage before falling into CH range as otherwise, you might end up losing Scizor for nothing.
  • If the AI leads or carries something that relies on confusion moves like Swagger: 1) Switch into Tapu Fini 2) Switch into Chomp / Scizor 3) Profit $$$$
This is pretty much a fast paced team that focuses on sweeping the floor with the opponent with two sweepers and Tapu Fini providing support. Misty Terrain is what makes this team's Disney magic work like a charm with both members having perfect defensive synergy between each other: Fini and Chomp can switch into the Fire attacks that threaten Scizor. Fini and Scizor can switch into Dragon and Ice attacks, with Scizor resisting Fairy. Chomp can switch into the Electric attacks that scares Fini while Scizor eats alive Grass and Poison attacks. All team members have great bulk which makes it easy to switch into resisted attacks and while this team is meant to be fast-paced and offensive, it actually shines because of the sheer bulk of its three members. Both members are grounded (All team members are hit neutrally by Ground) in order to fully abuse Misty Terrain's status immunity. Draconium Z should be mostly used from start, but in case you have saved it, it is your best sweeping tool when you can't KO an opposing lead with Outrage. It's also useful against evasion users (Brightpowder or Double Team) due to its never-miss accuracy. Scizor is the team's main sweeper and due to its great bulk and access to Roost, it should be your main weapon to set up, in tandem with Fini when you're reducing an opponent's special attack. Keeping Fini in good health is very helpful specially when you're up against a threat that must be weakened with Confide. In terms of who's the sacrificial goat, Fini ends up being sacked if necessary in order to re-activate Misty Terrain and guarantee Scizor's set up safely once the opponent has been Confided (or if Scizor simply needs the turns). On other times (*cough* Veteran Xio) Garchomp ends up being expendable.


I'll be listing in here some battle strategies against some of the Pokemon that show up in the Tree. Mind you, this is not complete but I will be posting the most interesting ones I can remember so far.
  • : Set 2 is the most dangerous of all sets. Confiding is counterproductive as it can set up Mind Reader + Sheer Cold and if you switch, you put your next switch-in at risk of being KO'd for nothing. I usually sack Fini and lock into Moonblast with the hope that I can do as much damage as possible before it decides to do Mind Reader + Sheer Cold. After that, Scizor will finish it off with Bullet Punch. Plan carefully if Set 2 comes as a lead.
  • : Scizor shits on all sets.
  • : Fini 2HKOs both sets with Grass Knot / Moonblast, but if you feel confident, you can also Confide it to -3 so that Scizor has a good chance to set up on it regardless of the flinching. Just make sure its HP doesn't goes down from a crit Surf range (252 SpA Starmie Surf vs. 204 HP / 0 SpD Scizor-Mega on a critical hit: 99-117 (57.8 - 68.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. Possible damage amounts: (99, 100, 100, 102, 103, 105, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111, 111, 112, 114, 115, 117)).
  • : Garchomp Z-nukes both of them
  • : Usually the best play against this lead is to Z-move immediately considering that both sets are quite threatening if they pull out a SD and they have Gale Wings. Set 4 is immediately KO'd as it will use SD most of the time. Assuming Set 3 plays intelligently, at worst it will take 59%-71% but RS will finish off the job.
  • : Fini laughs at both sets. Protean can take an extra turn to kill because of the type change, but if Set 3 transforms into Rock type, go get em with a Bullet Punch.
  • : Due to its access to coverage moves that can hit SE Tapu Fini and Scizor, Chomp is simply your best bet. A bit tricky to handle mid-game but as a lead you're good to go with a Devastating Drake. You'll take damage first as it will Sky Drop though.
  • : If it doesn't gets lucky with crits, you can even set up a Sub on it and kill it with Earthquake after. I usually just EQ anyways as SP is always a possibility (Never seen it using it vs Chomp, but you never know).
  • : LMAO
  • : Z-move ASAP as Set 2 Bright Powder + Fissure is a hellish combination. The good thing is that it is easier to deal with as a lead since it will use Sandstorm most of the time from turn 1.
  • : I don't recommend staying on Chomp as trainers who usually carry this mon, like Youth Athlethe Thamina, will usually carry Raikou and I need Chomp as healthy as possible for that. Fini can take the Earthquake (bar a CH) and Surf is a nifty KO.
  • : Set 4 has a 25% chance to OHKO Chomp from full health with Dazzling Gleam and sadly Scizor switching into Psychic (as regular Scizor) and eating a Focus Blast 2HKOs as Bullet Punch fails to OHKO Mega Alakazam. The best play is to usually switch into Fini and Confide it. Set 4 won't 3HKO Fini which means that you can save her for later, but Set 3 will be able to do so. Against set 3, you'll usually have to sacrifice Fini in order to avoid a SpD drop on the switch-in so that Mega Scizor can set up cleanly against this thing.
  • : Gengar 1 is pretty much nullified with some Confide drops (you'll want to reestablish Terrain though for Scizor set-up). Gengar 2 is a dank meme. Against Set 3 you'll want to simply EQ and same for Mega set 4.
  • : One of the worst lead scenarios specially if it carries Intimidate. Both will usually DD first turn, so you'll want to dish out damage asap. Set 3, however, usually Ice Fangs and since we have those 4 leftovers EVs on Def (you're paying attention to me, right?) Chomp will be able to live it. Set 4 however is the most troublesome as usually it means I'll have to sack Chomp on the process. After that, it is finished off by Scizor.
  • : Sub first to scout whether you are facing the non-Mega sets or the Mega set. If Mega, Z-nuke it as unfortunately Earthquake won't KO. The other sets though, are killed by Earthquake.
  • : A pretty awful lead due to set 3 having Focus Sash it can strike back with Ice Beam and Clear Body prevents it from being Confided. Any other set is Scizor fodder but for set 3, you'll want to switch Fini into Ice Beam, get some chip damage off while tanking Sludge Bomb and get back to Chomp and EQ to death.
  • : Confide pretty much makes it a non-deal, but be mindful in case it grabs a Download boost and it is Set 3 as it will leave you with very few turns for Scizor to set up and being at risk of getting haxxed.
  • : Shark food basically.
  • : Switch into Fini to avoid the classical Blizzard freeze hax (Fini can take Freeze Dry as a champ) then switch into Scizor and ORA ORA ORA the living shit out of it.
  • : Set 3 is annoying because of Bright Powder but if things go well, EQ and it case it survives with Sturdy, Z-nuke it to ensure the OHKO if it has already used Magnet Rise.
  • : Fini makes this an adorable Christmas toy after a few Confides. After that, let it feel the piano's power with Scizor.
  • : Confide and then kill with Scizor. Pray to RNGesus for Muddy Water.
  • : Nani?
  • : Garchomp be like...
  • : Confiding never hurts although you can just make a dry Scizor switch and kill it off.
  • : MUDA MUDA MUDA
  • : Swap into Fini, then switch into Scizor and profit $$$$
  • : Pretty tricky lead if played well, but usually I sub first in order to scout the set. Set 4 is straight OHKO'd by Devastating Drake but Set 3 can survive and Ice Punch back. Against Set 3, you'll want to swap into Fini and 2HKO with Grass Knot.
  • : I always let Chomp stay turn 1 in order to let Rough Skin damage kick in. After that, I swap into Fini and OHKO with Surf.
  • : Stay and take the Head Smash, then Z-nuke it. Does a lot of damage but Chomp is the only resistant and in case it comes mid-game, RS will mostly take it to 50% where it becomes weaker.
  • : God bless Fini for being faster than this thing even after Rain. Grass Knot has a slight chance of OHKOing, but regardless Fini will always defeat it.
  • : The best part about having Knock Off on Scizor is that it will always beat this thing quickly. A +2 Knock Off is good enough to OHKO Bronzong 3 and it does decently vs Set 4.
  • : One of the most massive threats to this team. It's sheer bulk means that Chomp only has a 50% chance to OHKO without Intimidate so it almost always ends up with Garchomp getting sacrificed so that another teammate can finish it off.
  • : I simply swap into Fini and 2HKO it with Surf. You'll never know if it will attack from 1st turn, spam Yawn or use Curse. If it doesn't attacks, then congratulations: You gained an extra turn without damage.
  • : From all the Rotom appliances, Rotom-Fan Set 3 is the most dangerous one because it usually locks into Air Slash as a lead, it is faster than Fini and there's always the risk of this thing being able to flinch one of my Pokemons to death. Always exercise caution when facing this set. If you can pull out at least one Confide, it becomes set-up fodder for Scizor.
  • : Deserves a special mention as it has the tools needed to fuck up my three team members (Scizor hates burns / paralysis, Chomp hates taking Leaf Storm damage and has two STABS that can ravage Fini with Volt Switch destroying my momentum) and Set 3/4 has tools to compensate for a SpA drop once (Set 3 has a Z-Crystal and Set 4 uses a White Herb). As a lead, Garchomp can simply Z-nuke it (252 Atk Garchomp Devastating Drake (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Mow: 153-181 (97.4 - 115.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO). Just pray you will be on the 88% side or Chomp is going to take heavy damage from Leaf Storm.
  • : You'll want to Z-nuke immediately just like the rest of any Rotom app. I never faced this thing as a lead though, and it's very easy to defeat mid-game.
  • : Because the team lacks Flying resistance, it can hit decently hard. As a lead, I usually switch into Fini and scout for a possible Hypnosis, then switch Scizor into the predicted Cross Poison and pull out an SD. Bullet Punch will always OHKO at +2.
  • : Deserves a mention due to Contrary completely nullifying Confide. My play is always to send out Scizor and kill ASAP before it grabs too may boosts. Set 3 can be a bitch due to Bright Powder & Sub although it is a lot weaker. If you're being very unlucky on landing your hits, resort to stalling it out as you can't afford to lose Scizor against this thing. (+6 0 SpA Serperior Hyper Beam vs. 204 HP / 4 SpD Scizor-Mega: 88-104 (51.4 - 60.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO).
  • : The most common sets (3 and 4) are beaten by Devastating Drake but Set 1/2 are troublesome as Set 1 carries a Focus Sash + Endeavor and Set 2 has a Choice Scarf (Reckless buffs the damage). Chomp will get the job done regardless but at the expense of losing a lot of HP.
  • : Easy to defeat with Substitute once you bait a Hyper Beam. Once done, swap into Scizor and *piano intensifies*
  • : Set 1 is the most dangerous due to Agility and it has White Herb to re-establish its stat loss. Baiting Overheat by swapping back and forth between Scizor and Fini is a good idea, but watch out for Fini's health as flinches and crits from Air Slash will hurt.
  • : Pretty annoying mon, specially when you're dealing with Set 3. Destiny Bond and Trick Room makes up for an annoying combo and Scizor / Chomp don't want to get burned from Will-o-Wisp. The best way to defeat it is to Confide it and then stall out Destiny Bond. DO NOT KILL ON THE NEXT TURN TRICK ROOM RUNS OUT AFTER IT HAS USED DESTINY BOND. Sucks, but due to the game's mechanics, DB's effects still persists and you'll end up losing Scizor/Chomp. Only attack once it has used all Destiny Bonds and swap back into Fini as necessary in order to protect you from Burns.
  • : It's sheer bulk means that it can even take two Earthquakes from Garchomp in a row. This pretty much means it beats Chomp 1-v-1. The best stategy against this lead is to switch into Fini as it Sandstorms and go for the Surf 2HKO. Fini will lose a big chunk of HP in the process, but it is better than to lose Chomp.
  • : Earthquake it as it Nasty Plots and this will bring it to its Sash. Then swap into Fini and finish it off.
  • : Sadly, Fini is not strong enough to get a OHKO, but it 2HKOs it without issues. Don't let Set 3 grab too many Bulk Up boosts though or else it becomes quite frightening.
  • : 1 Sub = 1 Like.
  • : Fini trolls this thing so hard lmao. Confide will even beat Calm Mind variants and all you have to do is set up with Scizor once it accumulates enough SpA drops.
  • : While this cat will forever be Garchomp's bitch, you'll want to be conservative with Garchomp, especially against trainers who carry it on their rooster (Veterans, Youth Athletes, Youngsters).
  • : As a lead it means bad news as something has to go down in order to beat this thing. Worst part is that due to the Mega's sheer bulk it has a chance (albeit small) to survive Earthquake + Moonblast from Chomp & Fini. Depending on the rooster, one of Garchomp or Fini has to go.
  • : SD and then kill asap with Earthquake if it is Set 4. Set 3 will usually reveal itself with Protect though, so you'll want to swap into Scizor instead and set up on it.
  • : Let Chomp get Fake Out'd, then swap into Fini and laugh menacingly and flamboyantly inside.
  • : Set 4 is arguably the most dangerous one due to its access to Nasty Plot and STAB Shadow Ball to hit hard. Add Bright Powder and it is a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, it gets destroyed by Devastating Drake, but without the Z-move, your best shot is to aim for a 2HKO with Scizor by Knocking off the Bright Powder first and then Bullet Punch.
  • : Confide is your best friend in here. It becomes quite less threatening at -2 but you'll want to aim for -3 in case it starts to spam Baby Doll Eyes when you're setting up with Scizor.
  • : Man, life is really unfair. Tapu Fini narrowly misses the OHKO on Set 3, but Set 4 gets cucked by Moonblast. Neverless swapping into Fini is your best play unless you feel lucky and just decide to go for the Draconium nuke (It has an 87% chance to OHKO it, but you have been warned).
  • : Imagine bringing a fish in order to fight against a shark... In all seriousness though, Confide is your best bet although Set 3 has U-turn. Set 4 becomes inoffensive to Scizor at -3 and due to its lack of coverage against Fini, it is quite easy to weaken (Sometimes it will just spam Endeavor while Fini is confiding it). PS: If you want to feel like a troll, you can drop a +2 Knock Off and make its life more miserable on its wimpy fish forme.
  • : Annoying mofo due to Effect Spore which makes mandatory a Tapu Fini switch-in so that Scizor can get to set up. Strength Sap means you won't get many boosts but a +2 is good enough to cream it.
  • : MUNCH
  • : This mon is pretty much the main reason why I swapped into Confide Scarf Fini. Set 1 has a very strong Supersonic Strike and it may end up with losing Fini as I can't risk Chomp considering the trainers that carry this mon. Fini will die a proud death but it will let Scizor come unscathed and finish it off with BP. Sets 2/3/4 can be Confided to ease Scizor's matchup against these although a Scarfed Moonblast will do the trick as well.
  • : Swapping into Fini will let you know what set are you facing and then, going back into Chomp (unless it is Set 2, for which you will want to Moonblast it instead if locked into Focus Blast) to take advantage of the immunity. Another option is to Z-nuke it from turn 1 but be careful if it turns out to be Set 2 as a Specs boosted FB will claim a big chunk of HP from Chomp.
  • : I always have to think twice when I find this thing as a lead. Mostly I let Chomp stay and EQ it to death as Sacred Sword from sets 2/3/4 don't do a lot of damage. But Set 1 has CC and it hurts Chomp, so it isn't easy to make that decision.
  • : Confide trolls this thing so hard. Nothing beats the pleasure of having Set 3 playing itself with Protect as Confide still brings down its SpA. Once it starts using Overheat, it pretty much gives up on life lol.
  • : Cobalion 3 gets trolled so hard by Tapu Fini and Garchomp gets free Atk boosts without doing anything :-D. Your best play anyways is to switch into Tapu Fini as the Defense drop from Set 4's Close Combat and the LO recoil, will put it on Moonblast's range most of the time.
  • : Hits hard like a truck, but Scizor manages it nicely. You aren't getting a lot of boosts as you'll be roosting most of the time, specially if it has Reckless, but a +2 is good enough to put it on its place.
  • : As a lead, it is pretty annoying because of Disguise and Set 3 can boost with SD which is something I can't allow. I usually swap into Scizor and simply go for Bullet Punch to break the Disguise and kill next turn.
  • : I usually Sub first always because most of the time it gives me a free turn if Set 3 decides to Sunny Day or Set 2 decides to Protect / Will-o-Wisp. Against the others, Fini can do the job as well and 2HKO with Surf.
  • : Fini will sent this thing back to the Crane Game it came from. Watch out for the occasional Quick Claw though.
  • : Always Sub first as sometimes Set 3 gets trigger happy with its Protect. Devastating Drake and Earthquake will make this matchup short.
  • : My hate for set 4 is freaking intense. Devastating Drake ravages it, but without it, it will 2HKO Chomp first though.
  • : Always Sub first as Set 4 has Focus Sash + Metal Burst and sometimes it will waste a turn Taunting you. Once you're under a Sub, Chomp is safe to EQ.
  • : Arceus knows why it doesn't use Bullet Seed and insists on Close Combat, but that's the better for Fini anyways.
  • : Sub and then smash.
  • : Confide and then HM01 it with Scizor. The best part is that since Scizor is EV'd to outspeed it always, you can Roost off the damage in case of a CH.
  • : Sub up first as sometimes Set 3 can pick W-o-W and Set 4 will usually Protect from 1st turn. Earthquake has a ~75% chance to OHKO, so you'll be pretty much safe once you get a Sub up.
  • : Set 3 is the most annoying one, specially if it has picken up a Cotton Guard boost which pretty much forces Scizor to grab SD boosts. It makes the fight long and annoying as sometimes I may have to switch back to Fini just to drop the Leech Seed. Without Prankster it is easier to handle, but overall still annoying. It's better to find this thing as a lead as Garchomp baits Moonblast and it let's Scizor pick up an SD boost and hammer it continously with BP while preventing it from getting a Sub up.
  • : Sub is important in order to scout for Set 3. If it is Set 3, another Sub will prevent a potential Explosion.
  • : It's pretty fun to watch this thing giving me enough damage thanks to Rough Skin recoil so that Chomp gets the OHKO with Devastating Drake. A true hero.
  • : maison.jpg
I could still go on, but these are the ones mostly on top of my head.


  • Will have some replays soon uploaded! Sadly, the replays that were inside my 3DS before bricking are lost, but I saved plenty that I plan to upload on YouTube soon enough :)


Still active, but will post a video once it ends.


Special Thanks:

Would like to thank everyone at the Battle Tree Discord for their support and love. Special thanks to SadisticMystic, Smuckem, atsync, Eisenherz, Frazone, turskain, paperquagsire and HeadsILoseTailsYouWin for always being there! I have learned a lot from reading your discussions at the Discord server and it was really fun to share my experiences with you. I have grown a lot as a player and learned from the best. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and all I can say is that I love you guys <3.
 
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I'm submitting an 168 win streak in super doubles in Ultra Moon, here is the code :C9SW-WWWW-WWXB-7SLR
Now this was quite some time ago, and don't really remember much about the team. Looking at it now I have multiple things I'd like to change, like Togedemaru instead of Aron for fake out, and dragonium z draco meteor drampa instead of specs(I got inspired by ReptoAbysmal's Drampa, was looking for a good one)
The game plan is to turn 1 trick room and protect with aron, then click endeavor until Aron dies, then sweep with either Drampa or mega Mawile, depending on what pokemon are left.
Without further ado, here is the team:
Oranguru @ Lum Berry
Ability: Telepathy
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 140 Def / 24 SpA / 92 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 27 Atk / 30 Def / 28 SpD / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psychic
- Instruct
- Energy Ball
My lead with aron, trick room protect, afterwards endeavor+attack, and if aron died sweep with instruct+ mawile or drampa.
Only just recently I learned that inner focus was an option, I had telepathy for doubles when I bred it and forgot all about inner focus. Anyway, the reason it has energy ball is the amount of dark types I encountered, with psychic not doing anything I had no way to kill them.
The EV's were for VGC, and didn't bother breeding a new one.

Aron (F) @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 1
Serious Nature
- Tackle
- Toxic
- Endeavor
- Protect
Classic level 1 Aron, got me to 50 with Kangaskhan in ORAS (not posted here), and is the exact same one.
Just Endeavor+ attacking, if for some reason Oranguru died before trick room was set up, it would tank the hits while either Mawile or Drampa took care of the opposing mons.

Drampa (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Berserk
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 16 Atk / 5 Spe
- Dragon Pulse
- Energy Ball
- Flamethrower
- Hyper Voice
This Drampa has had quite a few sets, life orb, choice specs, but since it was so long ago for me I don't remember which one I used the most, Life orb was the set when I lost so I'll post that.
It was the special attacker for the team, and would take care of mons that were left that Mawile couldn't deal with.

Diana (Mawile-Mega) @ Mawilite
Ability: Huge Power
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 29 SpD / 5 Spe
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Iron Head
- Play Rough
The physical sweeper of the team, and one of my favorite megas, Mawile is here.
When Aron died after a few turns of Endeavor+attacking, either this or Drampa was brought in to deal with the rest.
I had rock slide for the fire weakness, and so that Mawile could attack both opponents at once, even if it's 90% accuracy
 
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guru is perhaps not the best setter to support a FEAR tactic due to its speed, though toge is indeed better for the job

im not the best at eyeballing teams but, if you were to make the other changes you suggested (zmeteor drampa) rebred guru for that inner focus, aaaaand mebbe dumped the aron for another full-on attacker, a water type to kill stuff for mawile, mebbe take that lorb off drampas hands, get some dark-killing attack on it, mebbe think of a way to avoid flame body

im not the best at eyeballing teams but that sounds like it could go places for a lil while
Araquanid would fit all three, water bug against dark and fire, and can't be burned due to water bubble, so I'm going to breed for that.
I'm thinking about z focus blast on drampa, instead of z draco meteor, since mawile kan kill dragon types with play rough.
It would be good against dark and steel types, but then a move on drampa would have to be replaced, and I wouldn't be able to use draco meteor.
I guess I'll just try it out when araquanid is done, I already used an ability capsule on oranguru, so it has inner focus
 
Araquanid would fit all three, water bug against dark and fire, and can't be burned due to water bubble, so I'm going to breed for that.
I'm thinking about z focus blast on drampa, instead of z draco meteor, since mawile kan kill dragon types with play rough.
It would be good against dark and steel types, but then a move on drampa would have to be replaced, and I wouldn't be able to use draco meteor.
I guess I'll just try it out when araquanid is done, I already used an ability capsule on oranguru, so it has inner focus
The perk to Z-meteor really isn’t for killing dragons but as an extra ace up your sleeve as TR is wearing off, or OHKOing threats just bulky enough to withstand anything else you can throw at it. Guru’s speed will let the team down in these cases more than it’ll help, such as with Mega Slowbro.

There aren’t any steels which pose issues that Drampa/Mawile can’t handle just fine with Flamethrower or Crunch, aside from Heatran; but if you do end up running Araquanid and keep it relatively intact until the backline is proven Heatran-free, that solves that. Plus Focus Blast by itself without Gravity is pretty terrible.

Not to discourage more FEAR use, Dusclops or Aromatisse will be much more effective with Toge and the team would probably often be more braindead.
 
Reporting a Singles streak in Sun with 281 wins. At a glance, the team is Tapu Fini, Mega-Scizor, and Gliscor (details below). The Fini is an offensive Waterium-Z variant with Rain Dance, a set I didn’t see in the leader board.

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Losing video: UVUW-WWWW-WWWR-A7D2

Team and Description

The overall goal of this team is to minimize hax and have great defensive type synergy, allowing at least one team member to set up and defeat the opposing team. This team has 4 immunties, and the only types that aren’t resisted by at least one team member are Ghost, Flying, and Rock.

Tapu Fini @ Waterium Z

Ability: Misty Surge

Level: 50

EVs: 52 HP / 4 Def/ 196 SpA/ 4 SpD/ 252 Spe

Timid Nature

- Rain Dance

- Calm Mind

- Surf

- Moonblast


A versatile lead. One of its main purposes is to set Misty Terrain for Scizor. It also can set up and sweep, using Z-Rain Dance to boost speed and Surf and/or using Calm Mind. I also have the option of a strong Hydro Vortex if I need something gone or heavily dented and my other moves won’t cut it. Its ability to check Fire types is also essential for Scizor. Surf > Scald because of Misty Terrain and the increased power. Moonblast gets STAB provides great neutral coverage with Surf. This spread has just enough bulk to take a Double-Edge from Mega-Salamence and Solar Beam from Mega-Charizard Y 100% of the time given no critical hit. Max speed and Timid because Fini sits in a crowded speed tier zone and can use as much speed as it can get. I try to play Fini conservatively, given the lack of recovery and offensive EV spread. That being said, Fini is generally the most expendable team member once it sets the terrain.


Scizor @ Scizorite

Ability: Technician

Level: 50

EVs: 244 HP/108 Atk/ 4 Def/ 108 SpD/44 Spe

Adamant Nature

- Swords Dance

- Bug Bite

- Bullet Punch

- Roost


Scizor benefits greatly from Misty Terrain, allowing it avoid status from secondary effects and status moves without using Substitute. Swords Dance also fortuitously only takes 3 turns to set up, meaning that Scizor can max its Attack stat and Roost once before the terrain expires. Fini tends to draw Grass and Poison moves, which Scizor easily switches in on. Most Normal and Grass types without Fire coverage are pure setup bait for Scizor. Scizor is also my best answer to most bulky Water types. The moveset is pretty standard; I chose Bug Bite because it is the stronger move Scizor can learn, and it helps against Water types. The above EVs allow survival of Primarina-4 Hydro Vortex in Mega form, and they avoid a 2HKO from the same set’s Sparkling Aria all but 0.4% of the time. 44 Speed EVs lets you outspeed uninvested base 80 Speed Pokemon, like Mega Venusaur, Goodra, Mesprit, Shiftry, Mandibuzz. The remainder goes into Attack, and 4 leftover EVs end up in Defense.

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb

Ability: Poison Heal

Level: 50

EVs: 212 HP / 236 SpD / 52 Spe

Careful Nature

- Substitute

- Protect

- Earthquake

- Toxic

A staple of many battle facility teams since the introduction of its Hidden Ability of Poison Heal in Gen 5. I don’t think it needs too much introduction. It’s a great switch in for Electric and Poison moves that Tapu Fini tends to draw. I opt for a specially bulky spread over a fast spread to better deal with Pokemon like Salazzle-3 and 4, barely surviving both Inferno Overdrive and +2 Fire Blast 100% of the time without a crit. HP EVs hit a nice Poison Heal number. It has enough speed to outspeed Landorus-1 so Smack Down + Fissure can’t KO me before I can outstall it. Also outspeeds uninvested neutral base 100 Speed Pokemon. Unfortunately speed ties Decidueye-3, but Scizor can handle that set OK if it switches into a Leaf Blade and not a Spirit Shackle. Toxic doesn’t have great synergy with Misty Terrain, but it was never a real issue.

As is wont to happen in the Battle Tree, I lost as a result of Bright Powder user, Decidueye-4.

I tried to set up a Swords Dance, then Scizor missed a Bug Bite against a +4 SpA Decidueye-4 and got KOed with Shadow Ball. I send out Gliscor and stupidly Protect instead of Subbed while Decidueye Baton Passed to Nidoqueen-3. I virtually use up my Protect/Substitute against the Nidoqueen instead of switching to Fini earlier. I try switching to Fini to at least pick up a KO with Hydro Vortex, but I get slammed with Sludge Bomb because Nidoqueen ran out of Ice Beam PP (probably didn’t matter because Gliscor was low on PP). I KO the Nidoqueen, then lose the rest of my PP stalling out Hydro Pump against Wash Rotom-3. (probably wouldn’t have made a difference at this point). If I would have Subbed with Gliscor instead of Protected on the Baton Passed this would have probably been a doable match, so long as I didn’t get too unlucky with Toxic against Decidueye. My future game plan if I do this again is to use Gliscor as an initial switch in to Decidueye and against this set sub and spam Substitute and Toxic.

I have an Ultra Sun Team theorymonned that features a Grassium-Z Tapu Bulu with Worry Seed and Horn Leech, a specially bulky Aegislash, and a fast Suicune with Substitute. Not sure if it will work or if I'll have time to build and pilot it with the combination of Sword/Shield coming out and grad school, but we'll see. Hopefully I can get Tapu Bulu on the singles leaderboard!
 
Like an epic, straight-to-DVD monster disaster film, Mega Shark has returned and churned out a sequel without much warning – bringing along a bolder and better cast than the original, it appears!

Reporting an ongoing Ultra Sun Super Doubles streak of 2222 wins.


~:tapu lele: :sharpedo-mega: :arcanine: :gliscor:~
Sharkanine 2:
mayday, mayday, airspace is now compromised!

2222.jpg


Introduction:-
What I wish I could put here to kick off M-Sharpedo’s second reckoning is some grand theorymon war story – a stunning revelation that led to me changing an entire one Pokemon species from the first iteration, how I lost many times along the way trying to adapt to this new addition, or how movesets and EV spreads demanded several fixes before things fell into place. Alas, as unexciting as it sounds, essentially none of these trials or tribulations surfaced; this is a straight 0-2222 streak. I reserved praise before the 1000 mark in case this was a profoundly lucky first run, filling me with a false sense of accomplishment; but it didn’t take long to get into an arguably better groove than the ‘16/17 Tree days, and anticipating v2’s potential in reaching similar, or greater heights than its predecessor.

This is in large part due to the leads which, aside from minor set updates, function just the same as they did in their heyday. With Move Tutors being accessible, I remember one of the first things I did in USUM’s tree was give the original team with Liquidation > Waterfall a whirl; I lost at a modest number and didn’t bother documenting that or any part of the team’s Ultra debut. At the time I think I was still suffering from Sharkanine fatigue that one new move couldn’t hope to remedy, which likely contributed to some poor play. The AI alterations compared to SM’s Tree were certainly not drastic enough to make me suddenly doubt M-Sharpedo’s viability, but it seemed boxing the team was for the best in favour of fresh ideas. My interest in climbing throughout 2018 and this year was shaky at best, so this amount of time away from SharkLele wasn’t planned beforehand, nor was returning to it at all for that matter. But something eventually clicked – perhaps it was the imminent release of SwSh igniting that fire in my belly once more, to give my most successful team a final send-off.

Something I’d like to note here is aside from benching Bruxish after discovering it could pass on its best STAB through breeding to Sharpedo, I wasn’t too adventurous with the original Sharkanine; it was fully assembled without the use of Pokemon Bank, and even after the app released, I didn’t consider alternatives along the way. Lele/Sharpedo staying was mandatory, but there was ample opportunity for a backline reinvention. For example, something like Aegislash/Groundium Landorus-T with Crunch offsetting the Ghost weaknesses would probably work well enough, but I’ve retained the soft spot for Arcanine, so Garchomp ended up on the chopping block; its replacement would have to provide equal, if not better support to the existing trio to be considered a worthy one, and thanks to a little role reversal, I believe the detour to Generation 6 for some brief Horde hunting has proven to be very much worth my time.

Arriving at the decision to fill that last slot with a Toxic Orb Gliscor is about as uninspiring as you can get
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; one night I contemplated filling that last slot with another Ground type primarily for the Electric immunity, but bringing something to the plate that Garchomp couldn’t was a necessity. Being a relatively flexible format, ripping the Toxic staller set right from Singles to Doubles was on the cards, and I was optimistic in blending this slower playstyle with the hyper offensive leads. Within a couple days I had procured an Immunity Gligar from Gen 6, Banked it up to US, bred for a 5IV offspring, trained it, robbed a wild Bruxish of its Razor Fang and was ready to jump in. With that said, it’s time to formally introduce v2! In the following sections I’ll try as succinctly as I can to communicate the differences from the original, and why certain changes have been made.


The team:-

:sm/tapu lele:

Tapu Lele (“Psy Kid”) @ Choice Scarf
Nature: Modest
Ability: Psychic Surge
IVs: x[HT]/0/31/31/31/31
EVs: 12 HP / 4 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Dazzling Gleam

Lele is one dominant offensive force, with its Terrain providing a free temporary boost to Psychic moves on top of STAB, while simultaneously protecting itself and grounded allies from Fake Out and other priority attacks. Without a doubt, these factors are what makes Lele rank among the best Scarfers in the game – essentially a Psychic Choice Specs supplementing Base 130 SpA, 220 Speed to work with, backed up by an excellent Fairy typing. Not denying it’s a versatile bringer of destruction, but Lele’s affinity for a Scarf is clearly evident, and Sharpedo particularly appreciates it more than any other item.

Psychic:- front and centre for the most powerful STAB attack, selected the vast majority of the time. There has to be ample reason not to lock into this move on super-effective/neutral targets – the few cases where Psyshock edges it out in possible OHKOs/2HKOs, covering for Zoroark, or if the leads troublesome enough to the point of me wanting to use Moonblast instead for a potential M-Gyarados, Tyranitar, Hydreigon etc. running through a weakened team with Lele having to switch.

Moonblast:- complements the Psychic side very nicely by nailing the bevy of immune Dark-types. Not much else to say, it’s also the move of choice for Dragon leads like Salamence, Garchomp, Altaria.

Psyshock:- when teamed up with the shark, Lele’s need for coverage moves becomes even less than what it already was; I’m cringing a little rereading my old writeup regarding Energy Ball, where frankly the one legitimate use for that was OHKO’ing M-Swampert before it could Rain Dance. Cue the perfect opportunity for a secondary Psychic STAB move that differentiates itself just enough to hit a select few Pokemon a little better! I’ll provide Psyshock’s hitlist below in the calcs section, but just to name a few targets, it edges out Psychic on Snorlax4 (2HKO), Jolteon (guaranteed OHKO), Toxapex4 (guaranteed OHKO) Flareon (high OHKO chance); it basically streamlines Lele’s task of scoring quick KOs even further.

Dazzling Gleam:- the least clicked move but still proves useful mainly to cover for frail Focus Sash mons, like Grimsley’s Sharpedo/x or the speed trainers with Weavile, Accelgor etc. where applying weaker, two-target crosshairs is actually more favourable if the other slot gets put in range for a second Gleam or other attack. Experience may vary from player to player, but for this team, I’d still prefer having access to Gleam over any coverage attack.

EV spread:- I originally made Lele occupy the empty 217 speed tier, but have changed this to max speed to get the jump on +1 Gyarados and M-Altaria; my reasoning behind this for the former lead in particular is back then, I didn’t see it as a code red situation given the combo of T1 Moonblast + T2 Sharpedo outspeeding and KO’ing either set, regardless of Intimidate (which I haven’t strayed from now, by the way). Gyara would almost always DD twice to outspeed M-Sharpedo as well, providing an additional opening to dispatch it if events were dire. But now, Lele being faster relieves pressure on -1 Sharpedo potentially staying in to pick Gyara off – now he can afford to switch out and come back in later at full power. I also made this alteration with backline Gyara in mind, mainly provided Lele’s still around; with Garchomp no longer around to initially outspeed and land a HH Dragon Claw, or to tank +1 Mega’d Waterfall and retaliate with Tectonic Rage. Old Arcanine was bulky enough to survive +0 Waterfall (after Intimidate) as well, so improving the Gyara matchup where possible at any point in a battle was more of a priority here. Mass calcing the SpA cut to afford the slight all-round defences buff saw negligible negative returns.
Defensive:-

0 SpA Chandelure Shadow Ball vs. 12 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 110-132 (74.8 - 89.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Cresselia Shadow Ball vs. 12 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 62-74 (42.1 - 50.3%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

252 Atk Crobat Cross Poison vs. 12 HP / 4 Def Tapu Lele: 116-140 (78.9 - 95.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

168+ Atk Excadrill Poison Jab vs. 12 HP / 4 Def Tapu Lele: 122-144 (82.9 - 97.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 12 HP / 4 Def Tapu Lele on a critical hit: 121-144 (82.3 - 97.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Golem Explosion vs. 12 HP / 4 Def Tapu Lele: 126-149 (85.7 - 101.3%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 12 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 134-158 (91.1 - 107.4%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Incineroar Flare Blitz vs. 12 HP / 4 Def Tapu Lele: 129-153 (87.7 - 104%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Magnezone Flash Cannon vs. 12 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 122-146 (82.9 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Regirock Explosion vs. 12 HP / 4 Def Tapu Lele: 123-145 (83.6 - 98.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Registeel Iron Head vs. 12 HP / 4 Def Tapu Lele: 120-144 (81.6 - 97.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Salazzle Sludge Bomb vs. 12 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 122-146 (82.9 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Offensive:-

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Aerodactyl in Psychic Terrain: 160-189 (103.2 - 121.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Altaria-Mega: 170-204 (113.3 - 136%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Articuno in Psychic Terrain: 102-121 (51.7 - 61.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Barbaracle in Psychic Terrain: 142-168 (96.5 - 114.2%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Blastoise in Psychic Terrain: 114-135 (61.2 - 72.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (avoids high roll Custap activation)

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey in Psychic Terrain: 198-234 (54.6 - 64.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Charizard-Mega-X in Psychic Terrain: 144-171 (94.1 - 111.7%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Cobalion in Psychic Terrain: 165-195 (99.3 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Drampa: 192-228 (103.7 - 123.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Flareon in Psychic Terrain: 169-199 (98.2 - 115.6%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Florges in Psychic Terrain: 153-181 (100 - 118.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Gallade-Mega: 158-188 (110.4 - 131.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Garchomp: 204-240 (111.4 - 131.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 168 HP / 0 SpD Kingdra: 186-218 (108.7 - 127.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Latios-Mega: 152-182 (98 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mimikyu in Psychic Terrain: 135-159 (103.8 - 122.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Porygon-Z in Psychic Terrain: 160-189 (100 - 118.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Salamence-Mega: 194-230 (114.1 - 135.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 168 Def Samurott in Psychic Terrain: 108-127 (63.5 - 74.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (avoids Custap activation)

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Snorlax in Psychic Terrain: 157-186 (58.8 - 69.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

236+ SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Thundurus in Psychic Terrain: 153-180 (99.3 - 116.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO


-->

Sharpedo
male.png
(“Megalodon”) @ Sharpedonite
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Speed Boost --> Strong Jaw
IVs: x[HT]/31/31/3/31/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
- Protect
- Psychic Fangs
- Crunch
- Liquidation

An average Mega pick under normal conditions, Sharpedo’s viability skyrockets next to Lele; a paperweight shark that succumbs easily to attacks, but excels so greatly in the power and speed departments, contributing so much to the team’s success that this severe lack of bulk is a comparatively small thorn in his side. Much like Lele, Sharpedo’s movepool and pre-Mega ability are tailored superbly towards moving first to scoring fast KOs, and establishing a commanding board position early. His Dark typing plays very efficiently off of Lele, and for a hyper offense pairing whose prime enemy #1 is Trick Room, the ability to take out offenders so reliably before they get to move cannot be understated.

Protect:- is the move Sharpedo often opens up with, serving the dual purpose of attack scouting and safely triggering Speed Boost (bar Z-moves), which in turn maximises the chances of drawing as much blood as possible; as this is imperative to Sharpedo’s effectiveness, it’s fully deserving of the top moveslot!

Psychic Fangs:- becomes M-Sharpedo’s strongest attack on neutral targets after factoring in the Strong Jaw + Psychic Terrain boosts – not only does this Gen 7 addition further diversify the number of sets Sharpedo can hit, but that 5 base power increase over Crunch makes a notable difference, and plays no small part in riding the early momentum wave. Sharpedo’s purpose in the Tree is pretty straightforward so I don’t feel much of a need to ramble on, but I will say that Psychic Fang’s side effect is rather nice – it breaks Reflect/Light Screen/Aurora Veil before dealing damage. Granted, these moves are fairly infrequent, but one particular Kukui battle kicking off with problematic leads had me putting the Fangs to good use..

scaryish kukui a-ninetales (snow warning)/incineroar leads - I moonblasted incin for the very high 2HKO chance and protected, z-move KO'd lele and aurora veil set

despite lele being lost T1 I still considered this the most ideal play out of any, and no intimidate proc had its part in swaying my decision

protect + lele staying in basically guaranteed something being 2HKO’d, and obviously shielding sharpedo from attacks but also hypnosis, which dissuaded me from switching

e.g. psyshock (for backline snorlax4) 2HKO ninetales + arcanine switch was an option, but sounds pretty bad on paper considering -1 overdrive is still not in lele's favour to survive; and an a-tales/-1 incin field is kinda troublesome if the non-nuked slot gets put to sleep

while gliscor especially can take care of a -1 incin, I prioritized getting damage into it first since a backline primarina would trouble gliscor/arcanine the most; despite hypnosis potential I thought tales deserved less attention early in favour of scouting incin’s set, my overdrive could OHKO through veil if needed

things worked out great afterwards thanks to arcanine getting the free switch, incin3’s lack of a fighting move, and psychic fang’s momentum-stealing ‘break screens then deal damage’ mechanic: 252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Helping Hand Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Ninetales-Alola in Psychic Terrain: 179-211 (99.4 - 117.2%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

arcanine/sharpedo still around half health from -1 EQ + hail, snorlax entered which I protected against and z-moved on for over half – no thick fat set3 – double-edge into protect + throat chop putting arcanine in red

both snorlax and incin now in KO range for shark/burn up, braviary last which was picked off with HH fangs
Crunch:- handles Ghost and opposing Psychic types with high efficiency, such an effective tool for Lele and the team as a whole. If my brief sweep of the spreadsheet is correct, all 13 TR setters that appear post-40 can be KO’d by the leads, and 8 of these by M-Sharpedo alone. Crunch additionally sees use from time to time against Empoleon, Registeel, or to 2HKO the odd Greninja4 if Lele’s Psychic-locked/MIA.

Liquidation:- the new slightly more powerful, 100% accurate STAB option provides just enough fringe benefits aligning with Sharpedo’s main endeavour in killing before he gets killed, that it’s definitely still valued over surviving an extra turn from the occasional flinch. There’s always the potential for Liquidation Defense drops to incite a similar sense of ‘false longevity’, but I can’t recall any particular battle across the streak where such an occurrence bailed me out of a tight spot.
Offensive:-

252+ Atk Sharpedo-Mega Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aerodactyl-Mega: 194-230 (103.7 - 122.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Sharpedo-Mega Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Armaldo: 168-200 (92.3 - 109.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Crunch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Cofagrigus: 174-206 (105.4 - 124.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Electivire in Psychic Terrain: 174-205 (95.6 - 112.6%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Florges in Psychic Terrain: 171-202 (111.7 - 132%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Crunch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gardevoir-Mega: 169-199 (96.5 - 113.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Goodra in Psychic Terrain: 169-199 (102.4 - 120.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Greninja: 82-97 (55.7 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Crunch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Latias-Mega: 204-242 (109 - 129.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ludicolo in Psychic Terrain: 169-199 (109 - 128.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Metagross-Mega: 168-200 (108.3 - 129%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Politoed in Psychic Terrain: 160-189 (96.9 - 114.5%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Raikou in Psychic Terrain: 160-189 (96.9 - 114.5%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Sylveon in Psychic Terrain: 178-210 (104.7 - 123.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Thundurus in Psychic Terrain: 169-199 (109.7 - 129.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Sharpedo-Mega Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar-Mega: 120-144 (57.9 - 69.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Crunch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Uxie: 192-228 (105.4 - 125.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Virizion in Psychic Terrain: 224-264 (113.1 - 133.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO


:sm/arcanine:

Arcanine
male.png
(“ExtraMustard”) @ Firium Z
Nature: Modest
Ability: Intimidate
IVs: 31/0/31/31/31/31
EVs: 228 HP / 4 Def / 156 SpA / 12 SpD / 108 Spe
- Burn Up {Inferno Overdrive}
- Helping Hand
- Snarl
- Protect

An appropriate analogy I could offer for Arcanine is that he’s much like a Swiss army knife – he possesses a selection of traits allowing him to perform quite aptly in a variety of matchups, but is often a lesser consideration when a more specialised tool would complete a smaller assortment of tasks with greater consistency, and therefore be the more reliable option. For Lele/Sharpedo however, Arcanine ticks an impressive number of boxes well enough, and seems to be almost uniquely tailored to Sharkanine for the price of one slot; answer to most Grass types, Intimidator, high BP STAB move that doesn’t inflict recoil, can raise his paw to make Lele or Sharpedo even more potent, and can potentially reduce special attackers to the equivalent of a wet noodle. He also doesn’t need to overcommit in the Speed department to outspeed key threats thanks to a respectable base stat, allowing for some fair bulk once offensive benchmarks have been established.

The desire to try Firium Z and make Arcanine a little less awkward on the attacking front actually came first in the theorymon, since Garchomp originally didn’t afford him the opportunity. This variant resultingly has a greater offensive presence but with slightly less bulk and no means of recovering lost HP. Overall though, seeing it in action for an extended time now has convinced me this reimagining is indeed better, contributing substantially to the team’s overall quality of life.

Burn Up/Inferno Overdrive:- a definite part of what makes good use of Arcanine’s ‘balanced but nothing exceptional’ stats, Burn Up is a strong, accurate, anti-freeze attack that isn’t hampered by Intimidate and doesn’t jeopardise bulk investment. The first obvious difference here in v2 is the Z-move – Arcanine can OHKO or at least chunk something he wasn’t previously able to, and use regular Burn Up after if desired before having to switch out. A fresh Arcanine staring down a KO with said standard attack might sound like a no-brainer (and probably 95% of the time it is) to not blow Inferno Overdrive then and there, but for my benefit as well I’d just like to reaffirm the value in keeping the Z-move intact for as long as possible; preserving Arcanine’s highest means of damage almost always outweighs the potential detriment of turning typeless afterwards (excluding maybe two Fire-weaks on field where Z- one first to preserve typing and Burn Up the other is actually the ideal play, but that’s pretty rare). It’s also worth noting typeless Inferno Overdrive; essentially a very slightly stronger STAB Burn Up, but with the Z-trimmings.

Being a new move, I probably overhyped Burn Up’s side effect a bit with the original Sharkanine, and with Arcanine relegated to a more offensive playstyle, it feels like any defensive boons have become even less of a factor; sure, he might survive an extra couple turns against a Water/Ground/Rock type in conjunction with the Toxic timer for instance, but these are circumstantial events and should merely be considered an afterthought.

Helping Hand:- should Arcanine see fit, this excellent +1 priority support move can give Lele or Sharpedo that extra oomph to KO a threat they couldn’t normally. Being able to disregard his own lower Speed to boost a partner’s damage significantly places a certain importance on finding safe switches, if that extra boost in turn results in said partner KO’ing a target and avoiding damage/being taken out; I always take the time to assess lead combos and calc like crazy even now. It’s a balancing act at times but Arcanine’s aptitude at being a team player cannot be denied – these opportunities to secure an advantage for the duration of a battle should be sought after wherever possible.

Snarl:- is an interesting move that I had never used until now, but extends Arcanine’s team support role by debuffing the special side in addition to physical attackers. It’s most commonly used on bulky stuff that Burn Up wouldn’t make much of an impact on, synergizing particularly well with Gliscor who benefits from Helping Hand noticeably less than the other two – weakening the AI’s damage output and keeping Gliscor healthier for setting up Substitutes repeatedly/hiding behind an intact one. Snarl’s usefulness fluctuates case by case and sometimes sees no action for successive battles in favour of quicker kills, but I for sure appreciate its utility over something like Morning Sun, which only directly helps Arcanine – even Sharpedo has survived longer than initially anticipated a couple times against Snarled special attackers!

Protect:- necessary for scouting attacks, buying an extra turn and/or staying safe next to friendly Earthquake. This Arcanine uses it around the same as the old one I think – more reliant due to no recovery berry and slightly less bulk, but less reliant at the same time with a higher KO capacity.

EV spread:- with a Modest nature these SpA EVs reach a jump point, and was basically my preferred cut-off point to avoid subtracting from bulk investment further; adding to the base OHKOs like M-Metagross, M-Mawile, Excadrill etc., Arcanine now can meaningfully damage a range of sets on his own, whether it’s just an Inferno Overdrive or followed up with regular Burn Up – e.g. Regice134 surviving the Z-move guaranteed. I’ve made this variant slightly faster to outspeed Lilligant4, Kingdra34, Virizion4, Pelipper4 and Emboar4, while still affording a solid amount of bulk.
Defensive:-

+1 252+ Atk Bisharp Iron Head vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 65-77 (33.5 - 39.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 152-182 (78.3 - 93.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Gyarados Waterfall vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 158-188 (81.4 - 96.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Landorus Earthquake vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 162-192 (83.5 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Lickilicky Breakneck Blitz (200 BP) vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 168-198 (86.5 - 102%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

+1 252+ Atk Lurantis Solar Blade vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 90-106 (46.3 - 54.6%) -- 61.3% chance to 2HKO

252 SpA Analytic Magnezone Thunder vs. 228 HP / 12 SpD Arcanine: 144-171 (74.2 - 88.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

-1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 143-172 (73.7 - 88.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Tough Claws Metagross-Mega Zen Headbutt vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine in Psychic Terrain: 172-204 (88.6 - 105.1%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

0- SpA Milotic Surf vs. 228 HP / 12 SpD Arcanine: 80-96 (41.2 - 49.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

252 SpA Porygon-Z Breakneck Blitz (160 BP) vs. 228 HP / 12 SpD Arcanine: 166-196 (85.5 - 101%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Aerilate Salamence-Mega Double-Edge vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 159-187 (81.9 - 96.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 SpA Salazzle Sludge Bomb vs. 228 HP / 12 SpD Arcanine: 162-192 (83.5 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Slowbro-Mega Surf vs. 228 HP / 12 SpD Arcanine: 150-176 (77.3 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Tauros Giga Impact vs. 228 HP / 4 Def Arcanine: 165-196 (85 - 101%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

Offensive:-

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Amoonguss: 236-278 (106.7 - 125.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Articuno: 192-228 (97.4 - 115.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 169-201 (103 - 122.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Thick Fat Mamoswine: 212-252 (97.6 - 116.1%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mimikyu: 135-160 (103.8 - 123%) -- guaranteed OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Porygon-Z: 178-211 (92.7 - 109.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Registeel: 200-236 (106.9 - 126.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. +2 168 HP / 168 SpD Ribombee: 152-182 (97.4 - 116.6%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tornadus: 169-201 (109.7 - 130.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

156+ SpA Arcanine Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Zapdos: 171-202 (103.6 - 122.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO


:sm/gliscor:

Gliscor
female.png
(“Mithridatic”) @ Toxic Orb
Nature: Careful
Ability: Poison Heal
IVs: 31/31/31/16-17/31/31
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Atk / 12 Def / 220 SpD / 68 Spe
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Toxic
- Protect

With the Z-Crystal swapping slots to keep offense at a high, a more defensively inclined Ground type was on the cards; fortunately, Gliscor was there to fill the brief, ready to bring her Singles set into the Doubles arena. Once upon a time I probably would’ve thought that a complete staller had no right locking into the 4th slot on a primarily hyper offensive, Psychic Terrain team – but sometimes things work out in wacky and wonderful ways, and since my team was already predisposed to wackiness, Gliscor was akin to pulling out a jigsaw piece from a different puzzle and having it fit with the rest anyway.

It’s probably difficult to root for this thing over a Garchomp at face value, and in writing I’m not going to attempt to compare every matchup just because they’re two Ground-types. Don’t get me wrong, the Electric immunity first and foremost is important, but when played correctly, Gliscor can achieve a lot on her own and in some ways become an even more consistent win condition. Sub/Toxic/Protect are non-negotiable, applied in unison with the opening changing according to what’s most needed for the matchup at hand. Sub first is great after switching in to immediately punish passive sets that can’t touch Gliscor behind one, such as all Regigigas, Cresselia2, Blissey4, Shuckle. I’ll generally try to Sub first and keep one intact if I know an AI slot will be going down and getting a free switch; essentially a pre-emptive scout which takes priority over getting something Toxic’d or EQ’d the majority of the time. By nature, Gliscor isn’t easy to use – her usefulness varies from one battle to the next. She might not get a look-in against Rain specialists that Lele/Sharpedo are primed to take on, or she might capitalize on a free switch right away and proceed to stall out the whole team from behind a Sub. Intimidate and Snarl are great tools that expand the pool of stuff Gliscor can effectively ‘checkmate’, provided they’re either not immune to Toxic or at least take decent damage from EQ. In this fashion Gliscor doesn’t really need to be piloted the same way as a more traditional win condition, which I guess Lele/Sharpedo don’t lend themselves to anyway – I take every safe opportunity I get to bring Gliscor in if it means saving one of the leads, and using Sub is a rarely punishable play even if the backline mon threatens her immediately; the team is a consistent enough frontrunning type that such run-ins have thus far never proved to be deal breakers, despite the backline sharing a Water weakness. However, Gliscor must be treated with respect and not switched in recklessly; sizeable amounts of lost HP before the Toxic Orb has ticked in emphasizes early Protect use/greater pressure placed on the teammate, or eating a premature Will-O-Wisp massively cuts her ability to stall for the battle.

EV spread:- closely resembles the specially defensive Singles set, forming a more favourable dynamic than Impish with Arcanine’s Intimidate (and not placing overbearing weight on Snarl), but made a little faster to outspeed stuff that Gliscor Subbing/moving first against may prove handy – Regigigas after Slow Start, Electivire34, Uxie34, Entei4, Zapdos24, Landorus14, Ludicolo4 etc.. HP maximises Poison Heal efficiency.
Defensive:-

252+ Atk Bewear Ice Punch vs. 204 HP / 12 Def Gliscor: 152-180 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

+1 0 SpA Blissey Ice Beam vs. 204 HP / 220+ SpD Gliscor: 144-172 (81.8 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 204 HP / 12 Def Gliscor: 163-193 (92.6 - 109.6%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Sniper Drapion Night Slash vs. 204 HP / 12 Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 87-103 (49.4 - 58.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

168+ Atk Emboar Flare Blitz vs. 204 HP / 12 Def Gliscor: 84-99 (47.7 - 56.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

252 SpA Empoleon Blizzard vs. 204 HP / 220+ SpD Gliscor: 152-180 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Gengar-Mega Shadow Ball vs. 204 HP / 220+ SpD Gliscor: 75-88 (42.6 - 50%) -- 32.8% chance to 2HKO after toxic damage

252+ Atk Golisopod Liquidation vs. 204 HP / 12 Def Gliscor: 128-152 (72.7 - 86.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

252+ Atk Life Orb Golisopod Aqua Jet vs. 204 HP / 12 Def Gliscor: 81-96 (46 - 54.5%) -- 96.5% chance to 2HKO after toxic damage

252+ Atk Incineroar Inferno Overdrive (190 BP) vs. 204 HP / 12 Def Gliscor: 135-159 (76.7 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

168+ SpA Kingdra Blizzard vs. 204 HP / 220+ SpD Gliscor: 136-164 (77.2 - 93.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs. 204 HP / 220+ SpD Gliscor: 148-175 (84 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

252+ SpA Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 204 HP / 220+ SpD Gliscor: 144-170 (81.8 - 96.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

252 SpA Moltres Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs. 204 HP / 220+ SpD Gliscor: 144-171 (81.8 - 97.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

252+ SpA Rotom-Mow Bloom Doom (195 BP) vs. 204 HP / 220+ SpD Gliscor: 141-166 (80.1 - 94.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

252 Atk Choice Band Staraptor Giga Impact vs. 204 HP / 12 Def Gliscor: 148-175 (84 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after toxic damage

Offensive:-

4 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 84-98 (48.8 - 56.9%) -- 89.5% chance to 2HKO (if behind a Sub)

4 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Darmanitan: 92-110 (51.1 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

4 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 168 Def Emboar: 92-110 (49.7 - 59.4%) -- 98.4% chance to 2HKO

4 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 168 Def Excadrill: 98-116 (52.9 - 62.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

4 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Muk-Alola: 102-122 (48.1 - 57.5%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO

4 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 90-108 (54.2 - 65%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

----------
Battle Replays:-
Here's every battle saved along the way that I deemed reasonably entertaining - perhaps in the future I'll feel more motivated to collate earlier and not let them gather into one clump - oh well! I'd meant to speed up the first compilation 2x but mistakenly grabbed the original file to export/upload overnight; didn't make the same mistake with the second even larger file. Fair warning, the runtimes here aren't friendly.

Conclusion:-
In closing, I’m very pleased that v2 has now managed to surpass the original Sharkanine – with considerable time away to reset and even before I’d decided on the 4th to pair with Firium Z Arcanine, I was determined to go the distance in tribute of my favourite Doubles core this Generation. I’d say this variant of Arcanine is more user friendly than before, but Gliscor is a stark contrast to Garchomp; she isn’t as fast and doesn’t deal anywhere near the same realm of traditional, physical damage. The payoff however, though not always immediately apparent can be immense, and in my opinion, Gliscor’s collective number of pleasant traits here do indeed outclass the sand shark. The team still has its share of weaknesses, and there’s obviously instances where having Tectonic Rage at my disposal instead would be preferred to more quickly off a threat, but succeeding so consistently against an assortment of matchups is a testament to how well-constructed it turned out; there’s a natural correlation between Psychic Terrain and big damage, but wins aren’t dished out on a silver platter. A decent comparison to non-Lele teams could be they (on average) are lacking more in lead bulk and might possess a lesser capacity to safely reposition during backline reveals with no Fake Out to ease switches; whereas Lele (Scarf especially since I’m most familiar with it) lends itself more to securing early momentum, and/or making a trade to maintain it once you have a clear of an idea as possible of your win condition for the battle. Playing to Lele’s strengths is of course important, but grasping the opportunity to blend playstyles to answer hard stops to your own leads is equally vital.

This will most likely be my last thread post before SwSh release, but since this is an ongoing and not completed streak still, I’ll definitely follow up in some fashion down the track. And who knows, as of yet we don’t have confirmation of an offline Battle Facility existing in the new games, with this in mind I’m not prematurely planning to pack up shop in Gen 7 completely or anything. Regardless, thanks for reading.
 
Wanna see what destruction looks like? Here it is in human formit's your boy Spooky Megamite reporting a streak of 666 wins in UM Doubles!
Loss: BBNW-WWWW-WWXB-YG57

I hope everyone is enjoying this fine and spooky holiday season! It's been a long time, but I'm back with another write-up of my janky shenanigans. This team has been gathering dust in the attic for a while, as I was anxious this might end up being my highest streak. I'm hopeful I'll be able to cover mostly everything thoroughly though. Tangent aside, you have nothing to FEAR about my bad Halloween puns... unless you venture deeper into this cursed post.

I'd like to shout out silverangel's website and turskain's damage calculator really quick. They carried me through this entire run.

The theory behind the team came from an observation I made while reading up on the other FEAR reports of the time. A lot (if not all) if the streaks met their end due to a freeze, so I asked myself how I could make the team as resilient to that threat as possible, while still being able to function normally. In hindsight this wasn't very necessary. While I don't regret my team choice, my decision to play on UM removed possibly the biggest threat of freezes in Sina and her Glaceon.

aroma.png

Aromatisse @ Lum Berry
Ability: Aroma Veil
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 180 Def / 84 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Protect
- Dazzling Gleam
- Odor Sleuth
- Trick Room

I chose to use Aromatisse as my Room setter early on, as I felt like Lum + Aroma Veil makes her potentially the most consistent setter for Tree. Plus I really like the 30 speed stat, and it comes into play for my Mega. The spread is mostly ripped from one of Repto's teams iirc. The one thing I changed is moving 8 EVs from HP to SpDef to hit the nature boost, as being 1 point below it always bugs my ocd to no end. Luckily this change also minimizes weather chip damage. Dazzling Gleam was the attack of choice for the other FEAR teams I saw running Aromatisse, so I went with it and was not disappointed! The consistent chip damage it provides while also picking off the Endeavor target lead to very clean games. I was originally planning to run Disable as the last move, but discovered Aromatisse actually learns Odor Sleuth from browsing her moveset on showdown! Considering it's a staple of FEAR strategies, and provides a nifty evasion check, I was sold.

toge.png

Cpt. Blubber (Togedemaru) @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 1
Adamant Nature
- Spiky Shield
- Endeavor
- Toxic
- Fake Out

The scariest rodent alive, and the terror of the Tree; Togedemaru! This little chonker has a special place in my heart from the early days of SuMo leaks, as I had very heated and entertaining debates with a friend about his viability. That aside, the combination of Fake Out, Endeavor, and Sturdy makes him the go-to FEAR abuser for good reason. Being able to safely Trick Room and even get a little AI bait potential in a majority of games lead to a lot of easy wins. Toge usually would "get two KOs" before finally going down. But if it got just one that could be parlayed into a win, as the AI did just spend 3 attacks going after a level 1 Pokemon instead of my TR setter (most of the time). I chose Toxic for the occasions that I didn't need to, or couldn't set up Odor Sleuth plays, as I felt Encore wouldn't do much without Disable to pair with it. U-turn could be good in lieu of Toxic. I can imagine scenarious where Protect + U-turn to Incin turn 1 is a good play. Potentially sacrificing both Sturdies to safely get Incin out seems like a worthwhile trade if necessary.

greg.png

Incineroar @ Groundium Z (previously Incinium Z)
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Fake Out
- Flare Blitz
- Knock Off (previously Darkest Lariat)
- Earthquake (previously U-turn)

Incineroar was the first addition to the FEAR core that would attempt to make my backline resilient against freezes. Beyond that, I felt its Dark coverage would help clean up any Ghosts the FEAR lead didn't deal with. Incineroar is also an incredibly strong Pokemon regardless, with its biggest downside here being its poor speed for hard Trick Room. I couldn't come up with any solid defensive calcs, so I decided to crank the offensive pressure with my spread. While I was initially using the signature Z move for the coverage and damage output, I noticed that U-Turn never felt like a good play to go for. Beyond that, I felt like Incineroar could do more to cover some threats that I was discovering. This lead to the item change of Groundium Z and the addition of Earthquake. Earthquake alone was quite useful whenever I used it, thanks to the team's nature of dealing spread damage. Incineroar also gave me the potential to support a second Trick Room going up, or the option to Protect Aromatisse + switch Toge out on turn 1 and still safely Trick Room. I honestly don't regret this set. It worked great.

aboma.png

Abomasnow @ Abomasite
Ability: Soundproof (previously Snow Warning)
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 1 Spe
- Protect
- Blizzard
- Energy Ball
- Hidden Power [Ground]

Mega Abomasnow was an invaluable last member of the team, the out of season attire aside. When building the team I was greatly concerned with covering Ground and Water types. For the longest time I could not figure out an option I was satisfied with. And then I noticed Abomasnow. Its coverage and defensive typing helped me against the aforementioned types and bolstered my Dragon breaking ability as well. Finally, it was within 1 speed of Aromatisse, allowing it to immediately fire off attacks after a Dazzling Gleam. I believe I used Energy Ball just for conserving Abomasnow's HP, but I wouldn't fault anyone for using Wood Hammer instead to hit Primarina and the like harder. I've debated its moveset a lot, going over the merits of Protect vs Ground coverage vs Ice Shard again and again. In the end I would say Protect was worth it for making guaranteed plays and getting Hail chip. HP Ground was equally useful. After doing calcs it turned out that 4 Atk Stomping Tantrum does more damage to my desired targets on average though, so I'd use that if ever using Abomasnow again. I changed to Soundproof very early on. While Snow Warning wasn't that bad, it wasn't good either. I eventually decided that the effort of getting a new Abomasnow would be worth it (wasted effort considering the Tantrum revelation).


Battle 667 vs. Sightseer Alice (
409MS.png
486MS.png
/
567MS.png
534MS.png
)
If I remember correctly I broke two of my rules when this loss happened. The first was playing tired (as I'm hardly good at making the right play in the first place), and playing without access to any trainer lookups.

From turn 1 the battle already isn't looking good. I'm up against Mold Breaker Rampardos and Regigigas, a big threat and a nuisance Pokemon. Fake Out Trick Room is met with Togedemaru being hit with Confuse Ray. Now I consider my options and decide to conserve Toge for dealing with Regigigas. Unfortunately my Incineroar takes Focus Blast Earthquake on the switch and faints. Toge comes back in.

This turn is where everything goes downhill. I either don't remember it can be, or take a gamble on it not being Sitrus Berry Rampardos and double into it. Sure enough it is and manages to survive Dgleam. Needless to say Togedemaru goes down and things aren't looking good.

With Abomasnow out and two turns of Trick Room left I need to hope I can break through the backline swiftly. Rampardos and Regigigas both go down to my double attack and the backline of Archeops + Conkeldurr take the stage.

I've faced Conkeldurr enough times to know that the 34 set items are Sitrus and Iron Ball (idk if that's respectively). This means I'm facing down a guaranteed IB Conkeldurr and my last turn of Trick Room has become null. I give it some thought and figure my best chances are to Protect and Dazzling Gleam this turn, as all the chip will hopefully put Conkeldurr in range of Blizzard if Aromatisse goes down. I get lucky and Archeops goes for its Head Smash into Abomasnow.

In the final turn I have two outs. If Archeops fails to land Head Smash into Aromatisse I'll win, and failing that I can crit/freeze/ko the Conkeldurr with Blizzard. Unfortunately for me Archeops picks the correct target and lands head on, and Blizzard fails to do enough to win me the game.

What I learned: Do not be impatient, and make a better effort to memorize threatening Pokemon. Unlike Battle Spot or Pokemon Showdown I was not actually required to play this match as soon as I queued it. I should have closed my DS until I was ready, and I feel like this distinction is not something I've been able to fully grasp mentally. Aside from that, I need to develop more as a player. This loss made it evident that I've been crutching on the resources provided to me and the abundance of information, rather than developing my ability to take matches slow when needed and think through every decision critically in rough spots.


It has been a long time since this streak was played and lost. I will do my best to cover what I can piece together from memory/replays, but I fear I will miss some things. I apologize in advance for how cluttered this section looks, as I haven't figured out a better method of presenting it yet.

On Lead:
094MMS.png
,
409MS.png
4,
460MMS.png
,
462MS.png
3,
530MS.png
34,
567MS.png
3,
long rat.png
34, Ghost type TR users/double TR lead.
Neither of my support Pokemon can disrupt a lead Gengar4 from threatening Aromatisse. Every time I encountered it I had to hope it would either target Togedemaru or not crit my setter, and if paired with another Pokemon potentially immune to Fake Out (1/3 Zam for instance) it could be ugly.
Rampardos and Excadrill only cause problems if Mold Breaker. The problem with Rampardos4 is that Sitrus allows it to tank Endeavor Dgleam, while I cannot just switch to Incin without risking it fainting. iirc my preferred line against it was to knock out its partner and trade Toge. Excadrill presents the same issue of pinning Incineroar with the added dillema of potentially being Bright Powder.
Magnezone sticks out in my memory as a nuisance. The threat of Bright Powder is bad enough, but both sets 3 and 4 could OHKO Aromatisse with a crit (43.8% and 93.8% respectively). Although looking back on some replays, they Thunderbolt into Toge quite a bit.
Abomasnow represents Snow Warning on lead, as it either will force a switch or force me to give up the second Sturdy activation. Aboma4 is a threat in its own right though, as it outspeed Incin during TR and threatens big damage with Focus Blast onto my sweepers.
Archeops represents Pokemon that can guaranteed OHKO Aromatisse (I only remember this and Metagross4 off the top of my head). Archeops3 is a special case where Incineroar isn't safe to come in, so if partnered with another tough matchup I could be in some trouble. To my recollection I usually felt safe going for the Fake Out on it turn 1 however.
I have no replays against Mienshao, but from what I recall whenever facing it on lead I had quite the problem deciding what to do. Luckily I don't remember it ever being paired with another threatening lead.
Coming up against a lead that's "guaranteed" to reverse my first Trick Room was always annoying. This is a scenario where having Incineroar in the back paid off hard.

Backline:
462MS.png
4,
534MS.png
4.
No other Pokemon jump out from my replays or memory that fit this section. Beyond that, it's harder to quantify backline threats due to variables such as "what Pokemon do I still have alive?". That aside, there most likely are some Pokemon I'm forgetting or merely did not encountered.

If you're wondering why Magnezone isn't in the next section, it's because I felt like its 34 sets threatened in different ways enough to treat them as "different" Pokemon. Once Trick Room is active the issue of Bright Powder becomes less pressing, as missing Fake Out is no longer a concern. AV Mag on the other hand can tank both Dgleam and HP Ground, while Sturdy potentially coming into play (not likely unless set 3 dodges Dgleam admittedly) can afford it at least one attack on my sweepers or Aromatisse. Stomping Tantrum Abomasnow should mitigate this threat a good deal. But I must present the information relevant to the streak as the team was.

Conkeldurr4 is more than just a scary clown... it's a downright nightmare. On lead it can luckily be targeted down. But in the back it becomes considerably harder to play around, as without Togedemaru barring the way it can be allowed to wreak havoc on my sweepers. Conkeldurr3 is easier to deal with since Incineroar outspeeds it in Trick Room, but the Sitrus forces Abomasnow to Protect if Aromatisse is the adjacent partner to secure chip. Conk4 on the other hand gets to attack with impunity into my sweepers, and preferrably gets saved for last so Aromatisse can defeat it or my team will outspeed it. I do remember breathing many sighs of relief at the sight of Sitrus Berry. But that set isn't to be underestimated either.

Always:
486MS.png
,
768MS.png
34.
Whether lead or backline, these two Pokemon would have a lasting impact on the match. As with the backline section, there are probably more threats that could slot in here. But none come to mind at the time of writing. This section doesn't particularly showcase the biggest threats you won't be missed Mega Gengar. Rather, just how these Pokemon influence the match regardless of where they initially start the battle.

Regigigas ranges from being a nuisance to downright threatening. Its titanic bulk makes it difficult for my sweepers to break, Gigas2 carries Zoom Lens Focus Blast to threaten a lot of consistent damage on my sweepers (and a willingness to attack Toge), it's one of the few Pokemon to carry Wide Guard in the Tree, and it can spread problematic status like no one's business. The last part even being evidenced in my loss. With how frequently I encountered this goliath of a pain, I'm honestly not surprised it delivered this team the killing blow.

Considering how my rivalry with Pod in VGC 17 played out, I never thought it'd be a threat to one of my teams. And yet, here we are. Golisopod3 gets the nod because of Quick Claw. Otherwise it's not so threatening outside of First Impression. Meanwhile Pod4 threatens huge damage with Orb First Impression and Aqua Jet onto my sweepers. Pod is also bulky enough to tank hits from them, and can eliminate Toge with its priority if I'm not able to abuse Emergency Exit. This matchup becomes easier if Pod is lead, but with its tendency to hit Toge it usually comes at the cost of the frightening rodent. Even then I cannot simply "OHKO" it with the double thanks to Emergency Exit. Golisopod threatens so much damage (and Quick Claw) that often it can still cause me a headache if it chooses a good target for its last resort attack.


No replays for the time being. I might update this with some after I've slept, but from the few I watched while writing I found none very informative or interesting.

As I was writing this I came to the realization that this streak is around a year old! It also happened in such a short timespan (I did 50+ battles a day for a while iirc), which could explain my burnout afterward. I don't remember when the loss happened, but I can't believe I was hesitant to post this streak for so long. I would like to thank Eisenherz for convincing me to change my mind on it. I had a lot of fun coming back to write it! It was also a reminder that the community here is what kept me coming back and reading the new posts/checking the discord during my absence. You guys are all great!

While the experiment was interesting, I would call the team far from optimal. It had some glaring flaws like Incin not being able to pivot for Toge well, and being somewhat at the mercy of leads due to how many threats the team has. I'm looking forward to Gen 8 and the Battle Pub, so even if I don't attempt another Tree climb I'll most likely be around again. At least until something else captures my peabrain attention span. Hope everyone has a great Halloween!
 

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