Welcome to the Sample Teams and Team Showcase thread! This thread is meant to highlight the best of the best teams in the Doubles OU tier. Sample Teams are exemplary teams that have proven themselves to be good and are basic enough for beginners to use, allowing them to pick up the fundamentals of teambuilding and doubles play. Sample Teams will be hosted in the 2nd post in this thread.
Teams are to be labeled as samples at the discretion of Doubles OU staff, including but not limited to the DOU Council, VR ranking team, and forum moderators. In any case, do not ask us to put your team here. If we think a team is a good fit for sampling, it will be included.
What is the Team Showcase?
The Team Showcase is meant to highlight the best teams posted in the Team Bazaar thread or elsewhere in the Doubles OU forum. The Samples and Showcase thread (which you are currently reading) will be permanently locked, but everyone is welcome to post their teams in the Bazaar thread. If a team from the Bazaar thread (or another public thread like team tournament team dumps) is deemed worthy of higher praise, it will be moved here! Showcase teams are, in principle, different from Sample Teams in that they are maybe a bit more intricate, harder to pick up and use, or slightly weaker to common threats, but still great teams nonetheless. Teams in the Team Showcase are generally well-known, successful teams that either highlight some uniquely doubles strategies or embody the state of the tier at a given time. Again, please do not message us asking for your team to be added to the Showcase - we will see which teams are posted and decide to highlight the best! While Sample teams will be the 2nd post in this thread, all subsequent posts will comprise the Team Showcase.
Additional Resources
The sample teams listed below have been curated as effective, yet easy-to-use teams that new and experienced players alike can use with good success. However, it is by no means an all-inclusive list of teams that are worth trying out. Here are some other places worth checking if you're still wanting more teams:
- Team Bazaar 2.0
Just because sample teams are included in this thread, doesn't mean every team posted in the DOU forum has to be top-tier. Remember the core purpose of the Team Bazaar thread, which is to be simply a thread where anyone can share teams they like! If someone liked a team enough to post it, chances are you might like it enough to use it! Feel free to make suggestions to other people's teams and talk about them!
- Teambuilding Frameworks (hosted by Checkmater and Frania)
This thread contains a comprehensive list of teams that have been successful in high-level play, organized by the archetypes that are commonly built around. It also teaches you how to start building your own teams, based on commonalities in how veteran players are building theirs.
- Teambuilding Competition (hosted by laptops)
Each week, Doubles OU players are challenged to build the best team around a particular Pokemon or theme. At the end of each week, people vote for the best team, which is inducted into a "Hall of Fame." Some really solid teams have emerged from this competition, including my Camerupt Trick Room team listed in the samples!
- Post-tournament "team dump" threads
After high-level tournaments like Smogon Premier League, Smogon Snake Draft, and Doubles Invitationals conclude, it is common for players from those tournaments to post "team dump" threads where they provide importables and descriptions of the teams they used. Keep your eyes peeled for these types of threads!
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