Metagame DPP Doubles OU

[fespy]

Great post by Zee. I'm on the fence about whether anything actually needs to be suspected but want to expand on some of the points made and take this opportunity to talk about DPP now that my alt and I are out of the tournament.

It cannot be understated how big a part of building and playing the "information game" is in DPP. Moreso than any other generation by far. Gens 1-3 do not have enough flexibility in teambuilding to really exploit the lack of team preview- fewer mons, fewer moves, no physical/special split. Gens 5 and beyond do have team preview, which means that in the early game the player has substantially more information with which to make inferences about the composition of their opponent's team. In DPP there is a uniquely large advantage to be gained by misleading your opponent, preserving information, scouting your opponent, and making inferences on their sets and mons in the back.

As Zee pointed out, Kegged's week 5 team was designed to exploit this. Lead Mew has several totally different but all viable sets it could run: life orb or specs special attacker, SD physical attacker, fake out stealth rocks support, dual screens, or trick room as the main five. The optimal gameplay into each of the five is very different and in the first few turns of the game you have almost no information with which to infer what Mew is going to do. The Mew that Kegged brought was meant to convince the opponent that it had four special attacks, lure them into a false sense of security, and then get huge value out of an unexpected boom. Mew or boom could be worthy of a suspect, but in the long run I don't believe either is too unhealthy and that the current state of the meta is well balanced. If anything should be suspected, it's explosion, since most relevant mons learn self destruct anyways so it'd just be a de-facto nerf to the move. Mew is too cool of a mon to ban.

Moving on beyond just mew and explosion: the current VR is out of date. They were a bit stale already, then thunder wave got banned, and now the meta is totally different. Some suggestions:


Tier 2 -> tier 1. The sheer number of viable sets this mon can run makes it extremely difficult to properly play around. Probably the best mon in the entire tier.


Also fantastic and can stay tier 1. Tyranitar can run lots of different but equally viable sets, Latias too but one (specs) is superior in most cases. Hard to go wrong with either on your team.


Tier 1 -> tier 2. They're both great mons but not quite as splashable as Mew/Tyranitar/Latias. Zapdos is objectively worse with the ban of twave and Metagross was never worthy of tier 1 to begin with.


Tier 2 -> tier 4. Should have been tier 3 pre-twave ban, and now tier 4 given that it lost one of its main value propositions which was magic guard being immune to full paralysis.


Tier 2 -> tier 3. Gyarados's best set was spdef twave, and now that twave is banned, it's lost two things: access to that set and any sort of information advantage. When I see a Gyarados switch in, I know it is dragon dance with waterfall and protect and a coverage move and can play around it appropriately. That certainty makes Gyara worse.


Tier 2 -> tier 3. It's good at setting screens and setting rain dance, everything else you'd rather a Zapdos for.


Tier 2 -> tier 3. Lost a lot of utility now that teams don't need a ground type or two to switch into twave.


Tier 3 -> tier 2. Slightly better now that there isn't a ground type or two on every single team for reasons mentioned above.


Tier 3 -> tier 2. Surprisingly good. Not many good fake out mons in the tier, not many good intimidators, exactly one mon that compresses both roles into one. CC hits a lot of the tier hard and sucker punch does a hefty chunk to Latias. Almost nothing in the tier hits it for supereffective damage.


Tier 4 -> tier 3. Criminally underrated. Steel types are super good, especially steel types that aren't weak to fire. Empoleon's main weakness is ground, and it can KO most threats back with hydro pump or grass knot. Its biggest value is its ability to sit on the field for turn after turn and spam icy wind, which after the twave ban became one of the only viable forms of speed control in the tier.


Rotom-Mow should be in the same spot as Rotom-Heat (tier 4). They're both roughly equal in utility.


Tier 4 -> tier 2. Most players have already caught on to this recently, but Salamence is good. Intimidate, ability to run a special (lorb with draco and flamethrower) or a physical (choice band with dragon claw and outrage). Scarf and sitrus are also viable. Another winner of the twave ban.


Tier 4 -> tier 3. Pretty much always CM. Can be run as a lead (usually with Kang or Hitmontop) or as a late game wincon. Very few mons hit it for supereffective damage, and the ones that do still struggle to do damage after a CM or two.


Tier 4 -> tier 5. One of the biggest losers of the twave ban. Very little reason to run this mon.


Tier 4 -> tier 5. Underwhelming. Desperately needs a choice scarf to outspeed threats like Latias/Mew/Heatran but is easy to play around after being locked.


UR -> tier 5. Adamant Life Orb ice shard hits threats like Zapdos and Latias surprisingly hard. EQ does massive damage. Main drawback is its weakness to Hitmontop which is everywhere right now and lack of resistances.


UR -> tier 5. Fast fake out, ice+fighting+dark coverage hits a massive portion of the tier for supereffective damage, unmatched speed stat.

And lastly: do not unban thunder wave. The health of the meta improved significantly after its ban. Should stay this way.

 

[bagel]

WARNING LARGE DPP POST INCOMING

Had a blast building and playing dpp this derby, really made me exited about mons for the first time in a while and I'm looking forward to playing more of the tier in the future. This post is just going to be a teamdump + noms + response to some of the meta discussion above all in one to hopefully get all my thoughts out.


TEAMS (click sprites)

I spent all week trying to build Toxic + Protect Bronzong balance stuff but unfortunately it was not good and never will be good in this meta, so I pivoted to a similar core but more offensive with the Big Boss. Unfortunately I lost my fire type in the process and didn't respect fespy's love for Scizor enough. This team is bad, wouldn't reccomend.

This is just an extremely basic sctructure designed to enable Specs Latias as much as possible. Facing Nadando I didn't really have any scout to go off of so I just went with a solid offensive structure. In the game I think i was in a strong position to win but then between poor plays by me and good plays by nadando I ended up losing. I really like this team but it probably needs to be better into water types (o7 Swampert you served me well).

I think I watched Kegged bring screens 2 weeks in a row and went "damn that shit is annoying time for me to bring it." I'm addicted to Sub CM Lati I think it makes games very linear and forces opponents into easily punishable lines + its not difficult to cover for its main checks.

Beginning of exploiting the lack of water resists in the tier. Shoutout to a DPP goat Lolk for the inspiration with some of his classic Toxicroak and Quagsire squads. This was just me scrolling through mons that learned spread water moves and seeing Manaphy with its boosting move. Was really impressed with the calcs and just went from there.

Pretty basic balance stuff, wanted to make sure I would match up well into any Bronzong stuff that Laptops might potentially bring while staying solid into most other stuff.

Was inspired by a BKC video about Specs Kingdra in DPP OU and thought it made sense to try out in Doubles despite not usually being a rain enjoyer. I like this because its not super commital and I think Specs Kingdra has the firepower to work outside of rain as well if that mode isn't feasible. Haban Lati is very fire as well (in general I am a fan of non Choiced Lati sets being explored).

Another Top/Tran/Mowtom balance, big fan of this defensive core right now as long as its paired with solid water resists. Hys cooked me with Custap Metagross a while back and I had been meaning to try it, and I like it paired with Lati because both mons demand so much immediate attention that its pretty common for custap to activate.


TIER LIST

My rough (and lopsided) tierlist of DPP DOU. Unordered within tiers. Generally I feel like at least half your team should be the big guys and then you get to have fun with everybody else. I agree with 90% of Fespy's noms so I only need to make one nom.

Rotom-Mow + Rotom-Heat -> Tier 3. Ghosts typing is really nice to fit and they can be really annoying for some teams to remove. I don't really care about the other two as Overheat and Leaf Storm are the best coverage on these imo (maybe Hydro is cool too but there are so many more things you'd want to click a water move with).

THOUGHTS

On T-wave: I 1000% don't want T-wave back in the tier, it's made the tier so much more enjoyable to play and opened up much more skill expressive gameplay overall. I was initially scared about lack of speed control but so far I've found Icy Wind or TR to be sufficient speed control for the most part (Rain is much scarier to deal with now that you can't just invalidate the most important mons with one click). But honestly most games additional speed control isn't super relevant compared to taking smart damage trades.

On Mew: I think its tier 1 but definitely not banworthy. Yes it has a lot of sets and a lot of options, but no one set ever really takes over a game in a way that a well built team shouldn't be able to recover from. I think Mew rewards creative building in a really engaging way, even when Boom is involved.

On Explosion: Perhaps its a boomer (or not?) take but I actually don't think Explosion is that good. You can absolutely do some funny things with it but overall I think most of the best explosion clickers (Mew, Metagross) can offer more value doing other things. In such an offensive metagame willingly letting go of one of your Pokemon is a huge risk, and I think getting value out of that more often than not rewards skillful playing and building. When building I always try to include a ghost type, or substitute mons, or a fake out core that can let me position around Boom users. And on the flip side I think that forcing a board state that guaruntees value from Explosion is a reflection of skill and good positioning more often than not. Lastly I just think Explosion is part of the tier's identity and vibe and I think DPP would lose some of its uniqueness if Explosion was gone. I speak with waaaay way less authority on this (and am probably in the minority) but I know I personally enjoy playing and watching ADV less now that Boom is banned. It feels like a large facet of the gameplay that made the tier unique is now gone, but I also don't play the tier very much so maybe that is just me (or maybe the situations aren't that comparable).

Ok finally done if you read all of this thanks

 

[Actuarily]

Instead, I think the best action would be making DPP team tour slots best of 3, similar to how ADV was changed. I think this format makes the most sense for no-team-preview tiers, as there's just so much variance depending upon what undiscovered Pokemon your opponent has in the back. Too often teams find themselves having their best check for threat X incapacitated, and then X was in the back on their opponents team. Singles doesn't have this issue as much as the games are much slower with a lot of switching, but in doubles these games are often played in ~15 turns, there just isn't the same opportunity to play around your opponent and scout their team.

I don't think building multiple teams for no-team-preview tiers each week is that hard, as there isn't nearly as big of an emphasis on making teams "perfect" the way you have to when your opponent knows exactly what you have at the beginning of the match. Beyond that, because your team is hidden, it's much easier to re-use teams without your opponent knowing, so I don't think there's nearly the same burden as a best of 3 slot in more modern gens with team preview.

Totally agree with looking to make team slots in DPP BO3, as I mentioned after I played DPP in Derby last year.

As with regards to whether we should look at Mew/Explosion, I think explosion really should be the element considered, seeing as I don’t think any Mew set without the move is problematic, and explosion can be seen as problematic on other pokemon like Azelf, Metagross, etc.

I’d lean ban on explosion, while it’s obviously a dual edged sword, the damage it can do to even resisted threats is pretty insane, leaving the only real counters being ghost types or predicting the move & protecting. If you incorrectly predict explosion, next turn there’s a very good chance you’ll be punished by it.

 

[zee]

Proper DPPPost now that our tournament is over. I got to slot into DPP twice this tour and I think even though I went 0-2 in the tier I made some cool squads that I'd like to share (click sprites).



This is my edit of Redzone's edit of Dad1's double Waters team. I mentioned I wanted to load Zong Rhyp this week, originally with Grass Knot Bronzong but quickly found that to be overcooked. In the end I decided throwing all these threats at Kegged's face would be the best option, and ultimately didn't quite get there but I still think this skeleton is quite solid, I really prefer bulking out the Rhyperior and giving it some space to be more than a Lightning Rod slow guy with TR support. I'm kind of low on Gyarados in the tier these days (see below) but I think this is one of the best structures to play it on, since the opponent's Water check(s) can get overloaded by Suicune and Hitmontop wants to check like 4 different mons on the team and just doesn't have the gas to do them all.



Pretty high octane boomspam team that I built to play bagel in tiebreaks. Bagel offered to play me still after TB was decided and I took him up on it because I felt like I had to show off this team. Unfortunately he also had some heat up his sleeve and owned me with Custap Metagross but I digress. I liked Azelf as opposed to Metagross for the rain lead setup because you can U-turn on passive plays and attack before the majority of the tier, but you do kinda brick into steels without the pressure of a strong EQ that gross provides so I think you could consider changing Metagross to the lead with back Azelf. I really liked the idea of Protect Hitmontop with Double Boom, and the Latias was also a cute set to provide additional rain and check opposing Waters and Dragons. Probably gonna keep working on this archetype in some future stuff if boom doesn't get touched.

I'm gonna say my VR looks something like this. Won't cover every mon but I think the top 3 are a pretty sizeable gap from the others. Mew and Metagross have an infinite amount of useful sets between the two of them, and most teams really, really want Latias still. Stocks are up on Hitmontop, Salamence, Heatran, and Rotom-H/C to me, while stocks are down on Tyranitar, Rhyperior, Raikou, and Gyarados. Most of the tier 5 guys are ones that I think have fallen off (Hera/Rotom-W/Ludicolo/Togekiss) or I've just messed with in testing (Vaporeon/Gliscor/Snorlax/Abomasnow). We'll be doing a full vote on the VR soon so get your noms in.

Lastly, there is a new tiering survey that has just been created. If you have thoughts on the tier I'd urge you to respond to the brief form.

 

[DaAwesomeDude1]

Here's my annual post-tourney DPP post. I had a ton of ideas prior to derby but unfortunately got really busy during the last few weeks so was unable to flesh some of it out. Nonetheless, still had a lot of fun. Big shoutouts to everyone I bugged for team checks but especially bagel, actuarily, and fespy lmao. Otherwise, I didn’t really step out of my comfort zone too much. A lot of the stuff barring rain is the standard balance stuff I’ve used every time I play DPP. Like always, teambuilding process is me wanting to use something and then building around it. Click sprites if you want the team.

I didn't know what to use week 1 so just rolled up with tried-and-true bulky balance. Nothing really special about this team although I did like Leftovers Scizor a lot.

We expected either rain or Clamperl from Hugo so I know I wanted to use a Grass-type. Originally it was Celebi but I was convinced to switch to Shaymin, which ended up working out. Otherwise, nothing too special about the team - just a bunch of stuff you'd normally find on balance.

Definitely my favorite team of the whole tour. This is inspired from qsns's 2 dragon 2 steel sample. CB Mence + fast Fake Out felt really good to use since you're almost always guaranteed a free Outrage (especially since many leads don't run Protect). Lead CB Mence clicking Outrage is as close to a dopamine rush as you can get in this tier. Rest of the team is your balance staples to support Heatran.

I sorted by Attackdex Muddy Water and landed on Vaporeon but unfortunately chose the worse niche water type smh. It relies on avatar Mew a little too much to cover some of the weaker matchups like Zapdos but still a fun team.

This team is ass btw, shouldn't have suggested rfn without testing the team first but the idea is based on the DPP OU teams that try to overwhelm you with like 5 setup mons. I was thinking the same can be done in doubles with offensive pressure from one setup mon giving you the opportunity to setup with the partner but in practice it doesn't usually play out like that. Screens setup is definitely the way to go if you're wanting to use setup spam.

fespy joined for playoffs and suggested regirock which I liked using. This is my edit of his version that kegged used. Scarf Salamence was a bagel idea that I stole cause I wanted something with Intimidate that can also revenge Specs Lati.

I wanted to use rain since like week 1. I spent most of the season trying to perfect rain but honestly sample rain is as good as it gets. The only major change I made was SD Scizor > Heracross since Heracross can be deadweight against stuff like TR while also giving you the opportunity to position better to prepare for Kingdra, whereas Scizor takes advantage of Kingdra’s pressure for free SDs. They functionally do the same thing anyways (force out ttar, beat lati). I experimented with double electric over Gengar to spam Thunder but those teams played like ass and then I realized the whole point of rain is to set up Kingdra (and Ludicolo ig...).

Here's my personal somewhat ordered VR:

Nothing too crazy, agree with everyone else the big three is Latias, Mew, Metagross in whatever order. Tier 5 is random niche mons that either sound good on paper or cooked me in testing.

Random Thoughts:
Rain:
If you looked through my posts in teamcord, I swear every week I mention how my team doesn’t have enough rain checks. It’s the matchup I think about the most and I don’t think any team is truly prepared against it. There’s really nothing else to add about rain, tier doesn’t have any water resists and rain spams water moves. Specs Kingdra is definitely the way to go though. Specs Muddy Water in rain calcs is insane and the random chip damage like Fake Out, Sand, Sucker Punch etc adds up so you don't really want LO on top of that. In testing, I didn't feel like I missed Protect that much since I was switching Kingdra out if my opponent went Fake Out/Ttar anyways.

Intimidate Users:
I think there was only one team I used in derby that didn’t have an Intimidate mon. Hitmontop and Mence feel really good to use right now and is mandatory to have on your team unless you're using hard offense like rain imo.

Gyarados:
I spammed the hell out of Gyarados last year but only used it once during derby. Honestly just haven’t been very impressed with it and I think a big reason is all the Intimidate users. Being slower than Scarf Lati feels bad too but running Jolly makes you hit like a wet noodle. Maybe CB really is the play.

Explosion:
I go 50-50 on how I feel about it. On one hand, I think it restricts creativity in your leads, which is one of the charms of DPP. Using two bulky leads lends yourself to getting boomed on by Mew and losing the game, and I think it forces you to almost always use either Fake Out or two fast offensive lead that can pressure Mew. On the other hand, I do agree with bagel that mid/late game positioning for Explosion gives a lot of room for skill expression. If I had to pick right now, I’d lean no ban though.

Other mons that I’ve liked using but I don’t want to do a writeup on are Heatran, Infernape, Gengar, and Shaymin. If you've read this far, thanks for reading. Huge shoutout to mimi and idyll for putting together Spacial Week.

 

[sir jelloton]

Was going to pass on doing one of these but realized I have quite a few differing opinions from the majority of other DPP enthusiasts so figured I'd share them. (Please note: writing this at 12:30 am after a long shift. mistakes likely. Also list not ordered)

General Notes

* I think the turn 1 is the most important turn of the game in nearly every game In the current DPP meta. most of my teams games in derby were decided by the turn 1 play, and thus was the biggest influence on where things were put on the tier list.

* I think weather control Is incredibly valuable in a metagame where things like rain or trick room sand/sun exist and thus mons that can provide it or enable it are rated higher

* Fake out is broken

* Intimidate is broken

Notable Placements
* Tier 1
- Mew: Is the best lead in the tier which means best mon in the tier. so much set variety makes it nye impossible to punish consistently

- Latias: is simultaneously the best breaker, best set up mon and one of the best scarfers in the tier

- Ttar: Provides weather, 1 million sets, good check to 2 of other tier ones. guy can't be lower

- Gross: Was considering putting it lower but this guy is just too versatile. viable win con with both sub and agilagross sets. really underrated choiced mon it's crazy strong with a scarf and band. arguable best rocker etc etc.

* Tier 2
- Gengar: Yes, I think Gengar is that good. Second best lead in the tier next to Mew. Incredibly disruptive with taunt/willo/destiny bond. Best rain setter by a mile. Great speed tier at 110 especially since lati rarely wants to take the tie since trading Latias health for Gengar sash opens up a likely kingdra in the back. Gar is not even limited to rain however as specs as a perfectly viable option. there are 4 or 5 so switch ins to specs shadow ball in the tier and they all Hate eating a potential coverage move. not to mention that it gets trick for more disruptive options. and a huge deal is being immune to earthquake but more notably explosion. it's an incredibly strong enabler of explosion and can easily be used in the back to lure someone into thinking one isn't coming. This is not at all everything I think Gengar is capable of and I may go on later at not 1 am but I think this guy is really underrated and needs more exploring.

- Heatran: Almost put it lower because of how dead weight it can be into rain sometimes but it's thanoss outside of that

*Tier 3
- Rotoms: pretty strong scarfers and can kind of fill pre t-wave ban Zapdos roll of support. glad to see people agree with it's placement

- Kingdra: Really strong guy. I think Solo Kingdra rain should be explored more this guys capable

* Tier 4
- Suicune: I've been thoroughly unimpressed by suicune this derby. on non screen teams I did not see it actually threaten to win the game a single time. Yes it's bulky but still not enough to withstand the offense of any well built team while also not having a whole lot of offensive pressure in the many games it can't win. Possible there's a proper way to use this guy outside of screens but I genuinely think Vaporeon is better than it in that context as at least it has really solid offensive pressure.

- Kangaskhan: Definitely really hates mew being so strong right now. In a post explosion world it could be back to previous viability

- Raikou: Sticking it here for now but I'm sure this guy is just a bit unexplored. very strong screens and rains setter and I'd wager it's capable of more but I haven't found it yet so tier 4 it go's

- Regirock: this shit is unfair in the sand. really really dangerous win con. fishy but dangerous fish.

- Cresselia: I think cress + tran with Sunny Day and cress + clamp with rain are both pretty sick trick room structures.

- Azelf: would be a lot higher if it wasn't so outclassed by mew


In this moment I can't be bothered to make a team dump. especially because I didn't actually end up getting to use a lot of my teams in tour Will probably do one later in the year when there are actual replays behind a lot of the concepts I came up with. Love u all

 

[AIRedzone]

Post-Derb DaPeePee​

Like Jello, some of my tiering takes differed from the council consensus, so I figured I'd explain some of the more standout votes I made on the upcoming VR slate.

- T2: Massive bulk + good typing + doesn't actually need CM to make an impact. It trades favorably into 3/5 of the other top 5 mons, and depending on the set, it can trade favorably into Latias as well (Specs Latias locked into Grass Knot is super exploitable, Tbolt lock less so). Just click an attack before clicking CM to make quicker progress, or do funny stuff like Roar and Icy Wind.

- T2: Not surprising in any way, but I wanted to note that Dragon Dance is no longer the best set and hasn't been for some time. Utilize TTar's deep support movepool alongside naturally strong unboosted attacks for max value.

- T3: I think this very reasonably fits in T2 as well, I just felt that its power level is not as high as the other T2s. Unmatched role compression (outside of Mew) but suffers from 4/6 top mons dunking on it.

- T3: Fake Out lead that's faster than Mew is one of the most important categories of DPP Pokemon. As Dad1 described above, leads are everything, and Ape exerts so much pressure from the get-go. More TTar on lead and slightly more grass- and steel-type usage are all meta trends Ape loves.

- T3: The Rotoms are back in the mainstream, owing at least in part to their favorable matchup into the psychics and Boom immunity. I think Heat is a bit better than Mow, since Pert is on the downtrend.

- T3: Read Jello's post - super super good mon. I just rate it slightly lower than the other T2s, since they dunk on Gar.

- T3: Super fast and fairly strong, you can go the utility route with rocks (outclassed by Mew in this role) or give it a band and boom like God intended. Psychics are oversaturated so teams are carrying checks, but Azelf can just U-turn on the hoes.

- T3: Took us all long enough to realize Rain was mildly broken post-twave. Kingdra hits just hard enough to be scary in the rain, meaning you can run a rain mode on an otherwise regular offense team (I tried to make this work last Derby, but a better builder than me can probably figure it out).

- T3: Intim + Good Stats + great coverage is a recipe for a good mon. I think Special mence is more common at the moment but Band holds promise too (CB Outrage Dopamine button doesn't have to be exclusive to BW Kyub).

- T4: I wanted to put this hedgehog in T3 and will do so once I win more games with it. This tier is lacking in water resists, and Shaymin's solid statline + ultra strong Seed Flare give it a very solid niche. Slap Specs on it, give it Earth Power, deal with Scizor otherwise, and you're in a good spot.

Here's the team I used week 1 of derb - I didn't do the best job of dealing with Scizor, but I think this has solid bones.


(Sidenote: scarf zap is amazing)

- T4: A little harder to justify using because it adds more shared weaknesses to the Latias and Mew every team wants. Still carries a useful set of tools (CM, healing).

- T4: Couldn't find it on the tiermaker that Jello passed me but read his post (scary in sand)

- T4: Good on rain - can unironically bring back the yellow magic with Thunder and has solid utility.

- T5: I want to see people building a good Dnite team; 134 attack with Espeed is criminally underused.


On Boom and Mew

I don't think Boom is broken - I think everything that clicks Boom in this tier is far more useful alive than dead, and too many people give up their Metagross far too early for the allure of the funny button. The exception to this is Mew - it can click its rocks or bait with a special move and then Boom to put you out of position for the rest of the game. Mew is the problematic element here, not Boom. Life Orb gives it the juice to blow past some of the more bulky neutral targets, but it can realistically run anything it wants and then just Boom to clean up/create a one-time pivot into a sweeper. In my view, it leans towards the unhealthy side - do you protect on turn 1, 2, or 3? If you protect to scout Fake Out, you often end up eating Rocks for the rest of the game, or get some form of speed control set up on you. There are too many potential outcomes backed by the disruptive combination of Fake Out and Boom. I don't know if this makes it banworthy just yet, but I'd be very open to a suspect test of some sort.

(inb4 l2p)