Double Dragon

[Kietharr]

I've never made a pure offensive team, in all of my time playing. I'm doing this to see how it turns out.

The Lineup:

Metagross, Jolly nature, 200atk/252hp/58spe@ Choice Scarf
Trick
Stealth Rock
Bullet Punch
Explosion

Suggested by Twist of Fate, trickscarfing 'gross seems to be a good idea, providing speedy stealth rock, crippling potential walling attempts while still having an explosion as a 'just in case' measure. . Played around with this set a little and I'm loving it so far, though the EVs probably need a bit of work. Bulletpunch is really just there to provide a priority move to stop sweeps if Deoxys fails or is dead, I never used meteor mash anyways, I didn't use it once in 20 battles with this version of the team today.

Heatran, Naive, 4hp/252sp. atk/252spe @ Choice Scarf
Fire Blast
Earth Power
Hidden Power (Ice)
Explosion

Standard revenge killer and such, also a pretty reliable answer to most of the new threats in the game, with an x4 grass/x2 flying resist to help with Skymin, bug/steel resist to deal with Scizor, ect. He takes prediction to properly use but is totally beastly. He also has a superb x4 ice resist to help cover my dragons. Did a little EV swapping at Ancien Regime's suggestion.

Dragonite, Jolly nature, 252atk/252spe/4hp @ Yache Berry
Dragon Dance
Outrage
Earthquake
Fire Punch

Dragonite is pretty much wholly outclassed by Salamence, why use him? He lures out and wears out Salamence's counters. Most things that will 'counter' outragemence need to be in tip top shape to do so. Switched from agilinite in order to defend against ice shard.

Salamence, Jolly nature, 252atk/252spe/4hp @ Life Orb
Dragon Dance
Outrage
Earthquake
Fire Blast

All I have to say is I hope you're carrying two counters for this because it's going to rape you if Dragonite nails your counter.

Deoxys - S, Naive nature, 58atk/252spe/200sp. atk @ Expert Belt
Psychic
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Superpower

Revamp suggested by Ancien Regime, this is the older sweeping set. Highly effective at scoring revenge kills, can pull off a clean sweep with zero setup provided his counters (mostly things he doesn't hit for SE damage) are out of the picture. Switched Shadow Ball to Psychic so I can hit things like Infernape, Heracross, ect for SE damage, The fast psychic/ghost sweepers are generally dealt with through Snorlax anyways.

Snorlax, Adamant nature, 252atk/252sp. def/4hp @ Choice Band
Pursuit
Body Slam
Fire Punch
Earthquake

Suggested by Stathakis, this is actually a pretty good set. Pursuit rapes the psychic/ghost sweepers whether they stay in or not. It provides a bit of bulk to this team which is quite welcome, I'm usually a stall/bulky sweeper player so full on offense is a bit disorienting. Earthquake over Selfdestruct for legality issues, not like he managed to use it often due to his lack of speed and my reluctance to blow him up before I know what my enemy has.

So far, this team has done pretty well for me, I just blow the shit out of anything that I don't want to deal with the hard way and clean up with Mence/Deoxys (Dragonite always dies before I even reveal mence). I'm currently 17-3 with it.

 

[Stathakis]

cool team, I like it. using dragonite to set up quickly, take out deoxys and scarfgar, etc. my only qualm is 3 eq weaks and not too much to show for it. personally, with your life orbed dragons taking a hit or two, with ss and sr and whatnot, you may as well not use tar. pursuiting cblax helps you out more imo, giving you a switch into starmie, gengar, and azelf, who currently are kinda mean to this team. cblax allows you to come into moderately special hits and punish them with pursuit, while still hitting hard, and with body slam, spreading around a tiny bit of paralysis, which makes mence and gross 100% more deadly off the bat. cblax also allows you to switch into very weak eqs and should magnezone kill metagross, you no longer have to take big damage on an important scarfer like heatran or sac a dragon just to take out his sub. earth power (aka choiced) skymin also has some trouble with snorlax, and of course if it uses seed flare or something, in comes heatran. other than that, no real suggestions other than things that are up to preference, like possibly mamoswine or azumarill over metagross. good job!

edit: okay no more ten minute rates for me. uhh, go with what ancien regime said mainly, though over dragonite you could try something crazy, yache skymin, which will throw everyone off guard, something like seed flare / airslash / hp ice / synthesis, with like a bulky spread. that should catch any and all mamoswines attempting to ice shard you, seeing as mamo usage is on the rise. now, that helps you also to take out mences ice sharding counters, as well as smashing other shaymin that may try to switch in, though this isnt that reliable or whatever. I still like snorlax > tar, resttalk pursuit / body slam, helping you to spread the para, which helps you to smash things with, well, everything. dunno, will add later, smogoning during school is kinda dodgy and I can't really think very much.

 

[Ancien Régime]

I think that at the moment Deoxys is better used in an offensive role, with threats like Salamecne and Shaymin running around. Use Leftovers @ Ice Beam/Thunderbolt/Shadow Ball/Superpower, with 58 Atk / 252 Spd / 200 SAtk Naive.

Heatran should be Naive, in order to outspeed max speed Timid Shaymin-S (and to maximize the power of Explosion) Max its speed as well.

I'd remove Dragonite for something else - the biggest threat to DDMence/Nite are Ice Sharders like Mamoswine and Weavile. If anything, I'd make it a bulky Yache variant in order to get past the Sharder. Since you seem to be focusing rrimarily on offense, I think an SD Lucario set could be very effective in that slot as well, to put more pressure on the opposing team, and to be another check to pokemon like Shaymin-S.

I actually prefer a super defensive Curse/Rest/Sleep Talk/Crunch Tyranitar, with 252 HP / 252 SDef Careful, which can take status for you (something that your team lacks somewhat, especially with Thunder Wave rising in usage to cripple Shaymin-S and Salamence).

Metagross is fine as is, though I think Trick could be an option somewhere to cripple a defensive/utility/specially oriented pokemon that might attempt to switch in on a CB attack.

 

[ToF]

You are pretty Mamo weak. Double dragons works well only if you can dodge the ice weakness, and as of now, you're pretty vulnerable. I would definitely consider running Yache Berry on Dragonite, and run the defensive Salamence in the analysis ( 252 HP, 176 Def, 80 Speed IIRC).

I also agree with Ancien Regime about running the offensive Deoxys-S as opposed to the suicide lead. Too many Heatran's and Skymins running around for you not to use it.

Since you lose out on a Stealth Rocker, I would consider moving Metagross to the lead position, and exchanging the Band for a Scarf. This allows you to utilize two important moves (Trick and Stealth Rock), effectively letting you set up rocks and possibly crippling the opponents defense.

 

[Kietharr]

Monkied around with the sets a bit and cut Ttar for a CB snorlax, it's working fine for me atm but my ladder rating is pretty low due to a lack of playing so I'm facing a lot of noobs.

 

[Bogmire]

Aqua Tail>EQ on tyranitar. Aqua tail can 2HKO hippowdon and gliscor switch ins and hits the rarer rhyperior much harder than eq (I'm not sure if its a OHKO on bulky versions). It still retains very much the same coverage that eq does, only lol empoleon will wall you.

 

[Accipender]

If I were you, Id make Gross Jolly, so he has max speed possible to hopefully get Trick off without getting Taunted. Also, later game he'll be a bit faster.

You also have 3 Choice Users, which is not good...

 

[blasphemy1]

Aqua Tail>EQ on tyranitar. Aqua tail can 2HKO hippowdon and gliscor switch ins and hits the rarer rhyperior much harder than eq (I'm not sure if its a OHKO on bulky versions). It still retains very much the same coverage that eq does, only lol empoleon will wall you.

Bulky Lucario likes to switch in far more often on Aqua Tail than EQ...

Anyways, wouldn't running Yache Berry Salamence with a Lonely nature and Draco Meteor pretty much accomplish the exact thing both of them accomplish? Lead with Dragon Dance, Fire Blast away steels, Draco Meteor physical walls like Gliscor+Hippowdon, then Outrage once weakened. Seems to me like Dragonite should focus on countering Shaymin-S this gen.

 

[Kietharr]

If I were you, Id make Gross Jolly, so he has max speed possible to hopefully get Trick off without getting Taunted. Also, later game he'll be a bit faster.

You also have 3 Choice Users, which is not good...

Funnily enough I noticed this on the first battle I did with him, he's now jolly and running more speed. And in reality I only have two choicers as metagross dumps his item asap and is mostly expendable anyways after rocks are up, though I tend to try keeping him around a bit because I also went Bullet Punch > Meteor Mash just to stop enemy sweeps after a Salamence survived Deoxys's ice beam with 3% while getting another dd up and proceeded to bend me over. In this vein, how many EVs can I drop into s. atk on Deoxys while retaining the speed advantage over everything and the critical OHKOs on the stuff superpower hits?

As far as the dragonite comment goes, his purpose is to draw out counters and nail them. Salamence is vulnerable to ice sharders and has to run yache berry to survive them. Overall it leads to aborted sweeps much more often than I'd like. I send Dragonite out the first chance I get for a DD so he generally dies quickly but almost always takes a mence counter down with him. I like him going out early so I can get him in before Stealth Rock, because he actually has to take a hit unlike mence. Dragonite is basically my lure, built to take a hit and strike back with a kill (and possibly start a sweep if the enemy doesn't have anything that stops him) so Salamence can be full on offense.

 

[Stathakis]

If I were you, Id make Gross Jolly, so he has max speed possible to hopefully get Trick off without getting Taunted. Also, later game he'll be a bit faster.

You also have 3 Choice Users, which is not good...

3 choicers is just fine?

also btw pursuit / selfdestruct is illegal on snorlax iirc unless platinum has anything to do with it.

 

[ShoddykingAzza]

The double dragons is a sick idea and im pretty sure that hetran can stop ice so whoever said you need a counter you can also use gross later if you switch instead of explode!

Coz usually you have like one PURE dragon counter or atleastr one strong ice move capable of OHKOing without a yache, even then if he DDs in the right time you can be screwed! But with two dragons the only thing i recon can stop those is Curse swine with ice shard. Well skarm could also phase if your stuck in an outrage but heatran's got that covered!