Doubles Overview, Benchmarks, and Q&A Thread—Read before asking!

Diancie helps cover for Darkrai by taking out pretty much every relevant Dark resist on its own and scaring away Talonflame, but Darkrai doesn't really do much for Diancie besides beat bulky Psychics (of which there is like one). Meanwhile, both of them have a marked weakness to Scarf Lando-T and both are rather vulnerable to speed control. I suppose Darkrai also helps with Aegislash, but you don't OHKO and might just expose yourself to +2 Flash Cannon.
 
I think Hoopa-U and Diancie is a much better core. They are super weak to scarf Lando like Arctic said but Hoopa ohkos Aegislash, Amoongus(most Amoongus), and can force Metagross to switch out before it evolves. Diancie beats the dark types that wall Hoopa's stabs, Keldeo, Terrak, and Talonflame among other things that give Hoopa troubles.
 
I find that darkrai can do a lot of the things hoopa can do (outside of the obvious protect break/psychic coverage) but has a much better mu vs physical attackers while also being faster
It's just that building a hoopa diancie team (which I have) feels incredibly reliant on tailwind as a way to beat landot

for example hoopa keeps having to run away from sucker/bbird whereas darkrai doesn't. Also idk the calcs but i think dark pulse+dstorm is an aegis ko
also I've been finding my ho builds of diancie to be just "click x vs talon landot" unless I build incredibly defensively or slap on a wg aegis so I was hoping darkrai+ eq immunity could help that mu tremendously
idk just my thoughts
 
checkmater75 said:
team we ended up building: http://pastebin.com/an0jAAMe

thoughts?
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Ice Beam > HP Steel on Darkrai
Scald > Hydro Pump to fish for burns + avoid misses. You can keep aegis out with Darkrai and bait with LO Thund so Hydro isnt really nescessary because it only increases the odds of you getting haxed.
204 Atk / 48 SpA / 252 Spe on Diancie because you have nothing for Bisharp besides Keldeo and WoW Darkrai.

on and all the team is good but you have a few weak links on your team that might detriment you against a player that knows how to create win-conditions and force you into bad situations. Example: Because you're not running Taunt on Thundurus anyone that can use Amoonguss properly will dumpster you by ruining your offensive momentum and setting up sweeps with smart switches and generally be a bigh bitch. Basically anyone that is not a jackass with Amoonguss has an easy time setting up a win condition.
If I were to fix this I'd replace Darkrai with Talonflame and then Thundurus with Amoonguss but that's just me.

this is probably the shittiest analysis ever but I hope you can get something out of it.
 
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idk hp steel is just filler, probably should be tbolt

Also I feel like aegis goggles with taunt keldeo and kyube is enough for amoonguss, especially if it's sludge? idk we tried for a while to think of amoonguss+x combos that could fuck this team up and we couldn't think of any
 
checkmater75 said:
idk hp steel is just filler, probably should be tbolt

Also I feel like aegis goggles with taunt keldeo and kyube is enough for amoonguss, especially if it's sludge? idk we tried for a while to think of amoonguss+x combos that could fuck this team up and we couldn't think of any
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That's the thing with Amoonguss though, Taunt Keldeo is honestly a shaky check since you're basically giving the opponent a free turn if he predicts correctly. I wouldn't really count Aegislash as an Amoonguss check but more of a switch-in (albeit it can be argued as a check because it can damage it, Amoonguss can Regenerate out and it leaves Aegislash open for attacks). Kube is the only true check you have honestly.

And that's the thing with Amoonguss vs your team, a good amoonguss player will easily play around all of your checks, because as of now your team does not provide many ways to deal with the sheer pressure that amoonguss provides without falling on the back foot and leaving room for your opponent to create an advantage, be it by killing something or setting up a win condition.

Example:
Amoonguss (QG)Keldeo vs Kanga Tflame on turn 1.

In this specific case, Amoonguss is the thing winning the lead. While it really can't do much vs Kangaskhan and Tflame, the sleep and rage powder pressure versus kangas player leaves him open for many plays that amoonguss can do, such as Quick Guarding with Keldeo and Sporing Kangaskhan.

This holds true for your team. Amoonguss will simply force plays to happen for the opponent swinging the momentum to his side. Imagine a pendulum, Amoonguss pushes it back so the enemy can release it and smash your face.

A team that's good vs Amoonguss (or at least not crumble when it comes it) can check it without losing momentum and manage to keep it out of the field so it can't really do anything on the game without putting you at a risk of getting predicted and losing. Going back to the pendulum analogy, a team that's does not crumble when facing Amoonguss simply stops him from pulling the pendulum back.

again im probably talking big shit but this is my view on the problem.
 
I get the momentum analogy I just can't readily think of any specific 2 mon combinations that I will lose to involving amoonguss+x.
Goggles aegis beats fullroom with amoonguss
Kyube beats heatran+amoonguss
kang+amoonguss is generally beat by keldeo+x

I mean I see the issue, which is that the team lacks "amoonguss killers" (a reason we heavily considered latios) but I found it difficult to fit on the composition and generally most of the team has counterplay

also in said situation kang+tflame wins easily
 
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Ice Beam on Darkrai over HP Steel can help a little bit against Amoonguss: 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 72+ SpD Amoonguss: 265-312 (61.3 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.

Other than that the team looks pretty solid to me, although I'm not sure why you're running so much speed on Kyube. Just run 100/252/156 to get the Lefties number since it still creeps 263 by two points.
 
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alright kind of scrapping team because it has an abysmal azu+amoong mu and nothing good for char y venu
 
I was thinking about this when The World Cup of Pokemon was going on. Could we have a Doubles World Cup in the future or do we lack the player base/diversity to do so? It could be like 3 dou slots and 1 slot for bw, duu, and dubers respectively. Thoughts? :x
 
i dont know if doubles has enough european players to field a team even if you merge uk and the continent lol
 
Stratos said:
WHAT ABOUT SUSPECT TESTING?

Doubles, being an official tier, does have its own suspect testing system. We have a semipermanent council of top battlers who periodically decide on suspects, with user input, and then ladder and activity requirements for a vote. As of now the council is Laga, Stratos, BLOOD TOTEM, kamikaze17, KyleCole, shaian, Memoric, and Bughouse and you can contact the tier's co-leaders Arcticblast and Mizuhime if you have any questions about the process. Stay tuned for the next suspect testing thread, too!
WHAT'S NEXT?
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I have questions this doesn't address.

What the purpose of suspecting and banning? Is it to prevent over powered pokemon, with few checks and counters, being thrown onto seeming every other team, which make the meta game stale, unoriginal, and un-fun?
If so should we consider banning certain 3 pokemon cores for the same reason? If not why?
Before you pick the easy, small minded answer and say there are checks to every core, the same goes to the pokemon we ban. (ever heard of an ice move?)(btw, on a side note keldeo+skymin is ban worthy but not skymin on its own, imo)

It has never been done by another meta and the only meta that would make since to try is doubles for obvious reasons.

Hypothetically if the core of Lando-T, Thundy, and mega-Kang got suspected and banned. (I believe this core is the most overpowering)
Ignoring you reasons for wanting to try or not wanting to try this idea; would the effect be bad to our meta or beneficial? And why? And does your answer conflict with suspecting individual pokemon?

Imo banning some 3 (even 2) pokemon cores would in the short run see a lot of new teams being built and in the long run a healthier meta where you would see a lot less match ups where 5 of 6 pokemon are the same.
Additionally in the short run our community would become more active with suspecting. And we might even gain more active players from doing that suspecting .
 
Just realized this but qsns is not listed in the DOU Council.
Edit: Also Skymin is still not listed as banned \o/
 
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