np: Doubles Stage 2 - Slumber (THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, [SLEEP] FREE AT LAST)

[Lasagne]

ok finally posting here i guess

While I was laddering, I never really found myself having to prepare for the lack of sleep clause at all. I just used my standard Trick Room team which dominates the ladder, and made no adjustments to compensate for sleep. Even with this, sleep simply wasn't a problem most of the time. A well played Jumpluff could occasionally be an issue, but it wasn't hard to play around (especially with the presence of ChestoRest Cresselia on my team). Sure, teams that utilised sleep were an annoyance, but all I had to do was play smartly and switch at the right points, and it was'nt much of a problem. Most of my losses came from standard, solid teams that work with sleep clause implemented. Therefore, sleep definitely isn't broken and wouldn't break the metagame if sleep clause was taken away.

However, I still think sleep clause should stay. Don't worry, I do have reasoning. If I compare the time I spend playing Doubles with sleep clause, and the time I spend playing it without sleep clause, there is one major difference that sticks out. Doubles with sleep clause is significantly more fun. I don't know about you (though I know at least some people agree with me), but while sleep isn't particularly difficult to play around, it also isn't enjoyable to play around. Having to wait for your Pokemon to wake up so you can move, and then just getting them put back to sleep is plain annoying and not fun. I would much rather play a game that I find fun and enjoyable than one which has as much balanced stuff as possible. If the two coincide, then great! That would be the best situation, but that isn't the situation sleep provides. It simply creates a metagame that isn't as fun as the regular metagame, which is why I would like to keep sleep clause in doubles.

To be clear, the lack of sleep clause is not broken, but it is also not fun, so therefore sleep clause should stay in Doubles for the most enjoyable experience.

 

[Stratos]

I still do not like no sleep clause.

Everyone saying grass types are an answer to sleep spam how do they handle a sludge bomb from Venusaur?

So far I've noticed 4 different types of sleep combinations and there are probably more.

Mega Charizard-Y + Venusaur: The best check to this is weather preferably Sand... Charizard-Y can stall one turn with protect then switch out.

I didn't think I'd have to do this so soon after i did it to jake. Sadly there was some server bug when I tried to save a replay of our battle but let me recall the log:

Turn 1

Opponent's Charizard Mega Evolved into Mega Charizard Y!
The sun began to shine.

Thundurus used Rain Dance!
Rain begins to fall.

Opponent's Charizard used Overheat!
Thundurus lost 51% of its health!
Opponent's Charizard's Special Attack harshly fell!

Opponent's Venusaur used Sludge Bomb!
Kingdra lost 50% of its health!

Kingdra used Muddy Water!
Opponent's Charizard lost 100% of its health!
Opponent's Charizard fainted!
It missed the opponent's Venusaur! (Of course smh)
Kingdra lost some of its HP!

Laurel has left.

Let this also serve as a warning to anyone else—I will call you out if you say any sleep team you've been using is super great and challenge you to a battle on irc. Every single person itt gets a chance to convince me that sleep is broken! Nobody has yet.

Mega Venusaur: The bulkiest way to put things to sleep just slap a Mega Venusaur on your team and pair it with like an Aegislash for Psychics and Flying types, and spam Sleep Powder. The best way to deal with this guy is to attack it with everything you have... Usually thats not enough... Also it can't be put to sleep by Sleep Powder + Spore ... I might run this with max SpDef and Hidden Power [Rock] for Lulz to beat the 1st combination.

The best sleep abuser, probably, on the market, I'll admit I've only seen like two on the ladder (maybe once people stop using stupid shit like your other three suggestions?) but I did beat both teams that used it despite my team's only SE move on venu being a slow cress's Psyshock (so it was vulnerable to sleep powder). I will admit that both teams were bad and I don't deny that Mega Venu may have the power of heatran in forcing you to pack specific answers to it. Once I finally get around to trying to break sleep, this is how I plan to do it, but it hasn't been effectively used AGAINST me yet.

Jumpluff: Seen this a few times. Leech Seeds until you are forced to switch out, then it sets up a sub, then it puts everything to sleep. The best way to handle this is to just spam attack its position, or have an offensive grass type like Shaymin-S to hard wall it

So is the set sub / seed / sleep powder / protect then? If it's not carrying protect then you have no excuse for being unable to kill it; if it is then I shouldn't even have to outline the glaring flaws in such a ridiculously bad set. Infiltrator+Sleep is annoying, but that's why GF only gave it to a Pokemon with RIDICULOUSLY bad stats.

Gravity + Fast Hypnosis: This strategy is just stupid, but it works. Gravity boosts Hypnosis accuracy, Darkrai is base 125 Speed and gets Hypnosis, nothing is immune to its sleep, and you need to pray for a miss, or have priority mach punch and sand to threaten
it. People are running Sash for good reason.

I ran into user hashtag-smogon on the ladder on a mission to prove that sleep was broken by using gravity + mega gengar; all he really proved to me was that landorus-t's earthquake ohkoes mega gengar with ease. I ran into a darkrai variant once; same story except replace eq with superpower (it wasn't using sash).

There is just no way to counter all forms of Sleep spam on a team. Of course, you can never counter every play style or win vs everything, but against Pokemon just putting you to sleep, you do not even stand a chance.

I'm not saying relying on spamming sleep is broken because that as a strategy is terrible, and it more than likely loses, but having sleep spam as a piece of a team with 4 or 5 other mons is just awful to play against. So it takes me 1.5 mons to kill Jumpluff and it put something to sleep... I pretty much have no shot here unless I completely outplay or my opponent chokes.

If you want to counter sleep, how about just not being bad? I tried out two of my teams on the ladder—a rain team and that classic bulky balance team I'm known for. I got 9 losses, but literally zero of them were to sleep-using teams. With one team, I just had to play smart between amoonguss switches and subs with tran (my only two sleep answers) and letting things snooze, and make sure to actually kill things like normal instead of getting so hung up on not letting my pokemon sleep.

ok finally posting here i guess

While I was laddering, I never really found myself having to prepare for the lack of sleep clause at all. I just used my standard Trick Room team which dominates the ladder, and made no adjustments to compensate for sleep. Even with this, sleep simply wasn't a problem most of the time. A well played Jumpluff could occasionally be an issue, but it wasn't hard to play around (especially with the presence of ChestoRest Cresselia on my team). Sure, teams that utilised sleep were an annoyance, but all I had to do was play smartly and switch at the right points, and it was'nt much of a problem. Most of my losses came from standard, solid teams that work with sleep clause implemented. Therefore, sleep definitely isn't broken and wouldn't break the metagame if sleep clause was taken away.

However, I still think sleep clause should stay. Don't worry, I do have reasoning. If I compare the time I spend playing Doubles with sleep clause, and the time I spend playing it without sleep clause, there is one major difference that sticks out. Doubles with sleep clause is significantly more fun. I don't know about you (though I know at least some people agree with me), but while sleep isn't particularly difficult to play around, it also isn't enjoyable to play around. Having to wait for your Pokemon to wake up so you can move, and then just getting them put back to sleep is plain annoying and not fun. I would much rather play a game that I find fun and enjoyable than one which has as much balanced stuff as possible. If the two coincide, then great! That would be the best situation, but that isn't the situation sleep provides. It simply creates a metagame that isn't as fun as the regular metagame, which is why I would like to keep sleep clause in doubles.

To be clear, the lack of sleep clause is not broken, but it is also not fun, so therefore sleep clause should stay in Doubles for the most enjoyable experience.

I respect your opinion that sleep clause makes the meta more fun (though I disagree) but I would appreciate you not posting it here to legitimize the complaints of those who can't be smart enough to find a way around sleep.

One last thing I wanted to address was the idea that sleep kills bulky offense. What the hell? Other things are far more threatening to bulky offense, such as specs rotom. As probably (no ego intended) THE defense player in the tier (i hate the classification bully offense because it implies stall is viable), I have not only had no trouble adjusting to a sleep meta but I think bulky offense works better—it's the best type of team for spreading sleep, for one, since it can actually afford to take its time and establish a situation in which sleep can wreak havoc. Furthermore, if a hyper offense pokemon falls asleep, you better hope it was a one-turn sleep or you're fucked. Falling asleep isn't the end of the road for a bulky pokemon.

So yeah everyone stop spreading untrue lies please

 

[The Leprechaun]

I think one of the main reasons sleep isn't that game breaking in doubles is the same reason as why blaziken, mega kang or darkrai aren't broken in doubles. The simple fact that sleeping a poke will still leave you vulnerable to an attack form the opposing pokes partner means there is always a way to play around it. Alongside this, sleep has only become more counter-able this gen with the introduction of grass type immunity to powder moves and new threats like talonflame, togekiss (it got a new lease on life), mega charizard and a whole bunch of others which make bulky sleep inducers harder to use. One of the main problems with using sleep at the moment is that the execution of multiple sleep powders/ spores actually requires a fair amount of team support in the form of fake out, wide guard, quick guard, taunt, follow me, rage powder etc to make sure your inducer can both stay healthy and be able to pull off the move. While all good doubles teams carry one or more of these, it's not always simple to have this support in play at the same time as your sleep inducer and then, once you do have this support, it can still be played around through the use of prediction or even a dedicated sleep answer. As well as this, i found when using amoongus that once i had successfully put 2 opponents to sleep, i largely couldn't do all that much work against them because amoongus is piss weak and the mon i had at the time had a bad matchup against his pokes because its role in this situation was to support the mushroom. This means that the free turns I had gotten were deceptively short and though i had gained a significant advantage, it didn't make the game unplayable for the opponent, just like any good, non-game breaking strategy should.

 

[Bughouse]

For me this test has been very surprising. I surged out to the top of the ladder early on mainly using a standard manual Rain Dance team. I didn't suffer too many losses to people trying to abuse sleep. Moreso just losses when I played very stupidly (whether it was against sleep or not.)

After that, I started dabbling with some stupid teams aimed to abuse sleep, including one with a Wide Lens Venusaur and Darkrai along with Victini's Victory Star to make the moves even more accurate. And I plummeted. Put simply, I was totally unable to abuse sleep like I thought it would be possible. And my rank suffered a lot, so much so that if I were to repost my rating, I would no longer have reqs (fell below 1400.)

At the end of the day, I have not found removing Sleep Clause to break the metagame, nor am I convinced the meta is any less fun. I'm definitely leaning towards removing it, despite my initial gut feeling.

 

[Laurel]

Pwnemon

I don't know why you are posting of log of a battle in which I lagged and unselected my moves. In addition, I made that team in 4 minutes, and quit because the server lag was unbearable at like 2 AM. If you are going to post logs to support your argument at least state the scenario :x

Sleep spam is annoying x: and I easily got reqs when I used a team with sleep spam... and I am average at best at Doubles.

 

[Knight of Cydonia]

I'll say straight off that I just started doubles at the weekend so I definitely have an open mind about sleep clause. I played a lot of matches and got reqs with the same team tsunami did without any trouble (39/7). Although I can't say how the metagame was before beyond the matches I have watched for SPL etc, I don't think the removal of sleep clause has affected the game as much as it could have done. Tsunami's team was built before this test as he said and it did more than well enough in the new meta. Just having fake out and follow me was enough to deal with most of the sleep strategies I saw on the ladder. When the sleep inducers were better played/better supported they were definitely very effective - but crucially I think this can be said about most strategies.

Probably my favourite sleep strategy I saw was Trick Room Chandelure and Rage Powder Amoonguss. This was very threatening with the dual problem of a fast spore once trick room was up and powerful hits from chandy making double targeting Amoonguss less than ideal. As said already Zard Y and sleep user was one way to try and remove grass types to take advantage of no sleep clause, and this was reasonably effective when I saw it. In general though I haven't seen very much sleep and it wasn't as effective as other strategies available in doubles in my view.

Choice Specs Sylveon was the star of the team, with fake out or tailwind support it was really hard for a lot of teams to deal with considering fairy's good coverage against a lot of the meta. Against a typical team it would only be Heatran resisting the hyper voices which was not very hard to deal with. A surprising amount of teams would just lose if you could get tailwind up and sylveon out at the same time, partly due to poor teambuilding and partly thanks to the surprise value.

Overall I don't recall losing any games yet specifically due to the absence of sleep clause and although it can be potent/annoying to deal with it can be handled by most good teams. It is hard to tell when the average player on the ladder has a bad team and little idea what they are doing but purely from my (short) experience I would say it is manageable.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

Time for a U-turn on my part.
Initially I thought sleep clause was necessary for Smogon Doubles, I felt that it would be too easy to sleep multiple Pokemon at the same time and buy setup turns for Pokemon such as Mega Kangaskhan which would be able to stomp through teams, regardless of how well built they were.

Now my view has changes somewhat. I can't quite put my finger on what it is that Smogon Doubles playable and still fun without a sleep clause but it's been clear from my experience on the ladder that it isn't as ridiculous as I first thought it would be. There are many strategies that you can employ to help deal with sleep ranging from moves like Taunt and Safeguard to using items such as a Lum Berry. In addition to this, there are many Pokemon equipped to deal with sleep and the common strategies employed by it. I've been using Pokemon such as Skymin, Talonflame and Deoxys-A and all three have done a lot of work for me in dealing with the common sleep archetype. Smart switches and good teambuilding work wonders in combating sleep.

I only have two hangups about keeping sleep clause in doubles.
The first is the effect on the playerbase. I'm wary that removing sleep clause could have a negative effect on the playerbase of doubles, there is a possibility that players of a low skill level may not know how to effectively prepare for sleep and this could lead to people not wanting to continue with playing doubles. A lot of you don't really go in the doubles room but I've seen countless occasions where people have complained about sleep and want sleep clause to be reinstated. I'm unsure whether alienating a chunk of the playerbase is a good idea just because the #metagamepros think it's OK.
The second is, in my opinion, way more important. I really don't know how sleep effects Trick Room. TR is a central aspect of the doubles metagame and, since sleep clause was removed, I've barely seen it at all. I don't want to see such a large part of what makes Smogon Doubles such a fun metagame to play disappear. Part of the magic of Smogon Doubles is that there is a wide range of viable strategies which can be employed and if TR, which was previously very viable, becomes a subpar type of team then I want my sleep clause back.

It would be really great to see if someone could make an effective Trick Room team and describe the adaptions that made it successful in a sleep filled meta.
I'd also like to see some other views on TR and sleep so I know what it is I'm voting for on the 12th.

 

[Pocket]

I posted a thread specifically for debating on the suspect's placement in the Doubles metagame just now. Please share your views of the suspect in this thread.

Please abide by the posting rules detailed in the OP:

Posting Rules

This is the Metagame Discussion Thread. Suspect Discussion Thread would be posted after a week into the test. Do NOT debate in this thread whether or not Sleep is broken / Sleep should be claused. Such discussion is only permitted in the Suspect Dicussion Thread. The purpose of this thread:

• Talk about the various metagame trends you encounter in terms of strategies, cores, or particular threats in this new metagame.
• Share with us what you have tried to control sleep and what approach worked.
• Reveal what Pokemon, core, or tactics take the most advantage of removing Sleep Clause.
• Discuss the implications of removing sleep clause without committing to any particular stance on its tiering.
• Post replays to enhance your discussion point!
• Post anything about this new metagame regardless of its relevance to Sleep Clause

 

[Skore]

I think one of the main reasons sleep isn't that game breaking in doubles is the same reason as why blaziken, mega kang or darkrai aren't broken in doubles. The simple fact that sleeping a poke will still leave you vulnerable to an attack form the opposing pokes partner means there is always a way to play around it. Alongside this, sleep has only become more counter-able this gen with the introduction of grass type immunity to powder moves and new threats like talonflame, togekiss (it got a new lease on life), mega charizard and a whole bunch of others which make bulky sleep inducers harder to use. One of the main problems with using sleep at the moment is that the execution of multiple sleep powders/ spores actually requires a fair amount of team support in the form of fake out, wide guard, quick guard, taunt, follow me, rage powder etc to make sure your inducer can both stay healthy and be able to pull off the move. While all good doubles teams carry one or more of these, it's not always simple to have this support in play at the same time as your sleep inducer and then, once you do have this support, it can still be played around through the use of prediction or even a dedicated sleep answer. As well as this, i found when using amoongus that once i had successfully put 2 opponents to sleep, i largely couldn't do all that much work against them because amoongus is piss weak and the mon i had at the time had a bad matchup against his pokes because its role in this situation was to support the mushroom. This means that the free turns I had gotten were deceptively short and though i had gained a significant advantage, it didn't make the game unplayable for the opponent, just like any good, non-game breaking strategy should.

Wholeheartedly agree with this.

While it was sometimes advantageous to put both your opponents mons to sleep, I found it more vital to put specific targets to sleep and neutralise the threat they brought. For example Charizard Y. He activated the Focus Sash on my Breloom SOOOO many times, but it meant that I put that mofo to sleep and was able to get rid of an amazingly powerful part of my opponents team and also started the clock ticking on the weather, or used it to get my own weather going.

Sleep Clause being lifted DOESN'T mean that all sleep inducers MUST sleep 2 x pokemon or they have failed, it's just another thing to consider when choosing your next move - is it more advantageous for you to sleep that mon or attack it or switch or use a set up move etc.

 

[atomicllamas]

So, I kind of got into doubles somewhat recently and I wanted to talk about a move that I find really underrated in doubles right now. Encore. Encore is actually (in my opinion) one of the best support moves there is in doubles, due to the high use of protect and fake out. After Encoring one of these moves it (pretty much) forces your opponent to switch out, which can generate huge amounts of momentum for your team. There are also some pokemon in Doubles that are already pretty good that can take advantage of the use of this move, mainly Togekiss, Whimsicott, and Liepard (and Jumpluff I guess if you are into that @_@). While Togekiss is a better pokemon than the other two in general, the other two are better at using encore thanks to prankster, allowing them to lock even the fastest of opponents into fake out / protect (if you do use it on Togekiss you should speed creep something you want to encore, like sub tran!). Encoring an opponent into an unfortunate move allows your other pokemon to either get off an attack that it would otherwise be unable to get off, or to set up, which is obviously super useful.

 

[Plus]

I, too, got into doubles about a week ago after dabbling with the idea a couple months back. I wouldn't call myself an expert by any means but I recently got reqs and I'd like to vote! So here's my little rant on my first experiences, thoughts, and perceptions of the metagame. I'll try to relate it as much as possible to sleep since apparently that's what the big fuss is all about.

I started with a simple sun team with Zard Y and Venusaur trying to Sleep Powder and Heat Wave everything, though I found myself pretty vulnerable to things with priority like Fake Out. And while Sleep Powder Venusaur under Sun is really nice, I found myself contemplating as to whether it would be more beneficial to attack straight up because of my opponent's ability to use Protect. I found that while this team did relatively well for the first few matches I played on the ladder, it wasn't really up to snuff as I got destroyed by well played TR, Tyranitar, and Amoonbro teams. It was also a little annoying to face opposing Sleep teams if I lost my offensive pressure, so I decided to try a simple "goodstuffs" approach to teambuilding as you guys apparently like to call it (hope I did my research correctly). I've been rather successful with it and personally haven't found sleep to be too imposing on the metagame.

I think that Fake Out's a great move, Follow Me is a great move, Prankster is one of the greatest abilities in Doubles, and Taunt helps a lot too--especially when you combine it with Prankster. And honestly, they've helped me tremendously in trying to control sleep. Taunt Thundurus helped me a lot in trying to ease prediction not only against the Sleep users like Jumpluff, Darkrai, Amoonguss, or Venusaur, but it helps especially against pesky Trick Room setters. Follow Me Togekiss paired with a Substitute Pokemon like Heatran also helped me a lot against controlling status users, and also acts as a nice way to deal with set-up sweepers if you let them set up too much. As for Fake Out, I think the presence of a potential Fake Out alone is part of what makes it such a good move in doubles. It instantly puts you and your opponent into mindgame mode when you have a Fake Out user on the field who can potentially stop an opposing strategy for one turn, and one turn can be pretty damn crucial and gamechanging. You don't even have to use Fake Out, as I've found that when I use Mega Kangaskhan or Hitmontop that I'm better off making a risky play and PuPing or using Helping Hand to create some offensive pressure.

I've seen a lot of neat strategies that I personally thought were rather broken in theory, but that's probably because I've been a singles player for 7 years. I don't think anything is particularly broken in this metagame, and a lot of how you deal with specific threats is more play-based than team-based. There are ways to stop Mega Kangaskhan sweeps in Doubles, and it's a lot harder to do in Singles because there are less options for you to choose from. At least with Doubles, you can do something like using Protect to divert attention away from a sweep and have the game be dictated more on skill than actual team matchup. I like that about Doubles, and I feel that Sleep plays a similar game. The ways I've attempted to deal with Sleep not only deal with Sleep, but for a multitude of strategies that pretty much depend on how well you play as opposed to something being flat out broken.

I'm sure that certain strategies such as TR are still viable even with the lack of Sleep clause. I mean, sure--it definitely hinders how Trick Room is played just by the nature of how you go last when you play it, but then you have to consider the implications of WHEN Trick Room is on the field as well. Sleep doesn't 100% prevent you from getting up Trick Room, and I've personally found Trick Room to be a bitch to handle when it actually is up. Your opponent goes on the defensive for a couple of turns, and it's up to the Trick Room player to capitalize on it as much as possible. There are flaws to Sleep as well that have already been mentioned in the thread, such as lack of accurate sleep outside of Spore, the fact that you're not attacking and are rather vulnerable to attacks, and the uncertainty of when you're opponent is waking up.

The uncertainty of when you wake up is more of a factor in doubles than it is in singles, in my opinion. I find that winning in doubles is very reliant on timing your Fake Outs, Protects, and support moves with perfect precision. And honestly, just because you sleep something doesn't mean it's going to be a dead Pokemon. It could be asleep for one turn, or it could be asleep for three. What turn will it wake up, and how will you play on that specific turn so that Pokemon isn't a threat IF it actually does choose to wake up? You're essentially rolling the dice every turn you're not attacking a sleeping Pokemon, because every turn you don't attack is a turn it may potentially wake up and do something that hurts your chances of winning. A sleep isn't a kill especially now that the Sleep Timer doesn't reset upon switch.

That's all I have for now! Fun metagame =)

 

[Pocket]

Yea, atomicllamas, Encore is a very underrated utility. I'm actually surprised that I haven't seen more Togekiss with Encore (but then again I'm not, because it has other flashy support options like Tailwind, T-Wave, Helping Hand). You can actually see some Encore action in an SPL Game between Laga and kingofmars. I've actually used Encore on my Jumpluff, and it's more reliable in setting my offensive mons up than Sleep Powder. The only issue with Encore is that if your target switches out or uses Protect then Encore fails, but forcing switches or Protect can be exploited.

Plus, thanks for sharing your experiences of playing doubles for the first(?) time! Yea, speedy/offensive teams like the classic sun team needs to be particularly careful of Trick Room, since their speed advantage becomes a massive disadvantage. It's good to have a fast and a slow option on your team for this reason (but not necessary). Strong priority users (Talonflame's Brave Bird, Bisharp's Sucker Punch, etc) are great way of dealing with Trick Room, because they bypass the speed reversal. Clever use of Protect, Wide Guard, Follow Me, and Fake Out can also help stall out the turn timer, but it may not help you late-game when your resources (Pokemon) may most likely be depleted.

I am curious as to what neat strategies that you found to be subjectively broken. You are correct about Fake Out and Follow Me being great utility moves in Doubles. The latter is especially good at supporting it's partner's set up. Being walled by common RP/FM users like Amoonguss, Togekiss, and Jirachi is a bad thing for any team (See: Joim vs Laga). In a lot of SPL matches, a match is determined by how well a player can utilize and preserve his/her Togekiss. A player that plays Togekiss recklessly and let it die prematurely tends to lose the match. (See: Zach vs Nollan). The only caveat of Follow Me is that spread moves can bypass them.

Fake Out is somewhat more on par with Sleep, in that it only affects one Pokemon, and its effectiveness depends heavily on how well its partner can make use of the free turns to apply offensive pressure. That's why Fake Out is particularly devastating when paired with nukes like Deoxys-A, Kyurem-B, and Charizard Y or set up users like Sub Heatran, DDTar, or QD Volcarona. Otherwise, it can be used to safely switch in one of your Pokemon by forcing the opponent to play defensively or disrupt the opponent's strategy, thanks to its super exclusive +3 priority. The main caveat for Fake Out is that it can only be used once before your Pokemon has to switch out to use it again.

Sleep really does not affect a well-constructed Trick Room team imo. A simple Follow Me user + Trick Room setter can successfully set a Trick Room up. We have TR setters like Overcoat Reuniclus, which are immune to sleep. Even if the opponent has Amoonguss, you can utilize mons like Ferrothorn or Overcoat Escavalier, both of which are completely immune to Amoonguss's two support options - Rage Powder and Spore. You can attach Safety Goggles/Lum Berry to Follow Me Togekiss / Trick Room Jirachi / Trick Room Cresselia with Safeguard for practically foolproof sleep Protection, as well, but such dedicated measures are typically unnecessary (usually half measures would suffice when complemented with good play).

Thanks for having the courage to step into unknown territory, guys. I know it's intimidating to jump into a new metagame, but you guys have taken that leap of faith, and now doubles is a much more familiar game for you to enjoy. I hope you guys will stick around :)

 

[Laga]

OMG LLAMAS I LOVE YOU

Encore is indeed an amazing move for locking mons into scouting or status moves such as Protect, Follow Me, Fake Out, Thunder Wave vs a ground and electric type, Tailwind, etc., and personally I like using it mostly on Pokemon that people don't expect to carry it. So far, I have used it to great success on Politoed and Togekiss, but I'm sure there are other great users out there. Something like an obvious Encore Whimsicott is very underwhelming, as you can literally lure it with a Protect and get a free switch.

Also now that I got onto the subject of switching and read Plus's good point of not always having to use Fake Out with the mon you have out first turn. This is a very good point, because if a Fake Out is super duper obvious and you do decide to go for that move, you can get a completely free switch into a healthy (or normal-resisting) threat to turn the table to an extent and put yourself in a much better position. If you predict wrongly around a MKangas Fake Out and it goes for PuP, you're basically screwed.

I'm hyped to see a bunch of people start getting into Doubles and liking it :D

 

[TGMD]

Just a quick post, as I don't think anyone's mentioned this, but sound moves like completely wreck Jumpluff, as it thinks it's safe behind it's substitute then it just disappears off the face of the earth when you wake up.

 

[Mizuhime]

Encore can also back fire on you depending on the matchup and just be a wasted move it. Right laga ?

 

[finally]

With the removal of sleep clause, I expected not only more sleep-inducers, but also sleep counters. The primary answer I expected was "lol priority brave bird," but I've only seen like 2 talonflames on the ladder to this day.
Anyways, about talonflame
I believe it has not risen in usage primarily because of talonflame's yolo nature. It is very frail, and adds no defensive backbone to your team. Although an offensive monster, talonflame is hard to use to counter sleep-inducers, as it cannot switch in and counter (for fear of a lot of attacks).
It is also not that good of a check because of sash breloom, and my personal favorites, coba venusaur and amoonguss. Dudes, those two things are monsters, try them out. Anyways, those pokemon live the hit. And not only do they live the hit, they can proceed to either sleep talonflame, or sometimes outright kill it. (If you are running a rock move on breloom, then you can kill. If you are running more offensive venusaur, i think sludge bomb kills. Poor shroom, can't kill tho.)
This ultimately speaks to how the metagame is tending to a more defensive nature. We are not willing to risk not getting kills in one shot because of possible things like resist berries or sashes. And although SPL has seen a large amount of hyper offense, I believe as a whole, the metagame tends to bulky offensive / defensive (whatever you like to call it). The metagame uses things like goodra or thundurus to counter sleep instead of yolo bird. Goodra's defensive stats make it obvious as to what I mean by bulky offense. I seem to be the only one running defensive thundurus though. It is really fun, and can be super annoying/hard to kill (even for non sleep-inducers).
Anyways, here's my thundy spread
>vgc 2013 (Thundurus) (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 124 SDef / 12 Spd
Calm Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 124+ SpD Thundurus in Sun: 192-226 (53 - 62.4%)
3hkoed by char-y heat wave (100-62.4=37.6. 37.6+25 (sitrus)=62.6. 62.6=survivalllll)
252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 120 Def Thundurus: 306-361 (84.5 - 99.7%)
and you thought thundy couldn't be bulky
12 speed to outspeed 0 speed thundy = gg
if you wanna fit protect, rain dance, swagger, sub, nasty plot, etc onto the set, i cannot recommend something definite to remove. the only thing i can say to keep for sure is thunderbolt. if you wanted to remove anything, i'd say hp ice. you can swap out hp ice for swagger if you are evil. js it kinda works cause you are bulky, BUT I DO NOT COMMEND ANY USE OF SWAGGER.

anyways, talon = bad, thundy = good.

 

[ebeast]

Yeah, just like llamas and Plus I started playing Doubles recently. Never thought I would ever get into Doubles because it seemed way complicated, but after the Suspect Test caught my attention, I played a few games until I got the hang of it and really started to enjoy the meta; being fast paced and prediction heavy made games fun. Looking forward to having a chance to vote!

So I was using Shake's team throughout my laddering and ignoring the people using random stuff like mono-electric, I fought mainly goodstuffs and variations of Trick Room. Didn't get to fight any Sleep focused teams and for the teams that did have Sleep, I didn't feel like it was too powerful or anything, it wasn't overly difficult to get around with proper play and only got really nasty when you made a bad play and your opponent got to take advantage of it. In that situation however, anything really could do the trick like a misplay leading to a Mega Kanga getting +2 off PuP when they outplay you thinking they would Fake Out, etc. Trick Room was definitely threatening, but like Pocket said, a good use of priority and Protect moves helps stall it out. From my experience putting the pressure quickly while your opponent tries to get their Trick Room up in the first few turns helps in gaining that big advantage you need early on to have an easier time throughout the match. Having some bulky, slow Pokemon and priority and Protect, like previously mentioned, just stacks on top of this. In general the way Doubles works makes games more dependent on prediction than match-up as you have a second Pokemon and options with Follow Me to get around stuff, and I really like that aspect of the metagame.

Back to the team I used, it was a goodstuffs team focused on Specs Sylveon just spamming Hyper Voice and supporting it with mons that allow it to Hyper Voice away uninterrupted such as Fake Out mons, Jirachi with Follow Me, and Tailwind Salamence. Sylveon in general was a really strong mon, Specs Hyper Voice owns and it was probably my win condition is most of my games. Solid bulk and good typing meant it could take a hit in a pinch if needed and just fire off its strong attacks. However, lots of team pack resists to Hyper Voice such as Heatran and Zard-Y and carry Wide Guard which means you can't just send it out all willy nilly. Unless the opponent is really weak to Sylveon I generally don't like leading off with it as much as it's easy bait for Fake Out and if the opponent's Fairy resist is still healthy I'm just going to end up losing momentum. Mid to late game however it wrecks as it doesn't have to fear Fake Out as much and Fairy resist hopefully being weakened means it's free to Hyper Voice away. Late game Tailwind/Follow Me + Helping Hand and Sylveon is also devastating and fun to use.

 

[Pocket]

MAN SCREW TSUNAMI. Sharing his ez ladder team to everybody smh :/

I am gad that you're enjoying Doubles, though, EBeast :] As you have described, you can overcome team matchups more easily in Doubles with based plays. Follow Me is like Stealth Rock of Singles - it makes winning games easier.

ebeast have you made any changes to his team? Tsunami's Jirachi looks the iffiest to me - does HP Ground actually do any meaningful damage? Iron Head is always nice for some timely flinches, imo. Just so you know, you can use Feint to break Wide Guard. So Sylveon can Hyper Voice spam even if Wide Guard user is present :0

What are some cool trends have you guys noticed? It seems to me that many people have been using Aegislash in their minitour games :d Bisharp kinda shits on Aegislash, but otherwise Aegislash is quite a stellar mon. This Pokemon checks quite a number of top threats, including Terrakion, Kangaskhan, Cresselia, Latios, Scizor, Togekiss, Jirachi, Gardevoir, Sylveon, and Hitmontop. It's particularly great, because it makes short work of common Follow Me and Trick Room users like Jirachi/Togekiss and Cresselia, respectively. It is weak to Heat Wave, Earthquake, and Sucker Punch - all prevalent moves in Doubles. However, most good teams are well-prepared against these common Doubles moves, so supporting Aegislash should not be too arduous.

Ironically, Sleep kinda hampers it a bit, because now Sleep Clause isn't around to let it cockblock Grass-types like Breloom and Venusaur once they put something to sleep. King's Shield also does not protect Aegislash from Spore/Sleep Powder x_x. Aegislash can wear Safety Goggles if it really wants to shit on Grass-types, but it's probably not worth it IMO. Substitute may be a good move for Aegislash, just so it can block Amoonguss's Spore :d

Have any of you guys been playing with Aegislash? How does it fare? What set have been working for you? How do you support it? Any other noteworthy trends?

 

[ebeast]

Yeah Shake is my fren. His Jirachi set was definitely the iffiest, but in that particular team I think HP Ground is okish just because it needs a way to do heavy damage to Heatran which can be annoying without focusing multiple attacks on it; pretty much only Kanga and Top can touch it. I also considered changing the Mence set in some way, but I didn't know what so I just didn't. I'll try making my own team later once I lurk Doubles analyses and get an idea of what things are generally packing.

 

[Pocket]

ebeast, I'd definitely replace HP Flying for Hydro Pump. HP Flying is ass weak even with the STAB. With Draco Plate, 2 unresisted Draco Meteors are doing more damage than 2 super effective HP Flying. With Hydro Pump, Salamence can actually beat Heatran rather than getting walled by it. Hydro Pump is just a great offensive coverage move in general, inflicting lethal damage to Landorus-T, Terrakion, Tyraitar, and Fire-types (not named Charizard Y).

I'd also consider Fire Blast > Heat Wave. UnSTAB Heat Wave is weak sauce, and usually there's only one target for Salamence's Fire move out in the field anyways. You can also do cool shit like activating your Heatran's Flash Fire by Fire Blasting it.

And yea, give Jirachi Iron Head > HP Ground please. The flinch hax support can really be game-changing (preventing TR from going up or Breloom from Sporing you).

Sylveon really doesn't need all that Speed... most Pokemon in its shoddy Speed tier elect to go the TR route. The most you really need for Sylveon is enough Speed to outrun min Speed Rotom-W, so 209 or some few points above that. However, seeing you have plenty of speed support from your teammates in Tailwind and Icy Wind, I'd consider going with a target Speed of 200. This allows Sylveon to outrun Modest Charizard Y and Adamant Kangaskhan after an Icy Wind drop and Mild/Rash Deoxys-A after a Tailwind boost. This gives you 80 solid HP EVs for Sylveon to better weather chip damages and other elements.

I also think max Speed Heatran is a bit excessive, but seeing how Heatran is a common threat it's not as wasteful as Sylveon going max. I personally would go with the target Speed of 240 to be faster than Adamant Bisharp. After an Icy Wind drop, it's faster than Mega Lucario, which is as fast as it's going to get even with the extra Speed.

 

[ebeast]

Pocket Yeah thanks for the suggestions, with Hydro Pumper I feel more at ease changing Jirachee to Iron Head; Heatran's Speed I'll change as well. Looked back at my Sylveon set and seems I had already made the Speed changes tho, so that's cool. @_@ Anyways, I made my own team earlier today and it's been doing fine, probably a bit standard, but I just wanted to make a "safe" team to start things off. If I can catch you on irc, would be nice to hear some suggestion on how to improve that as well. Thanks for the help dude. =)~

 

[Laga]

Alright I'd like to mention a trend of speed tier that the metagame revolves around at the moment

IMO, there are three main speed tiers that you not only creep for, but also sort of "need" to outspeed if you don't have solid counters for mons in these speed tiers.

The first speed tier is min Spe Rotom-W. This is the speed tier that bulky attackers such as Heatran, Offensive Hitmontop, and Mega Scizor should aim for, since Rotom-W is one of the most common Pokemon in the metagame atm, and also doesn't take too many EVs to creep to for these mons. Another bonus of hitting this Speed tier is outspeeding min Spe Cresselia. This is definitely the Speed tier where most of the "creeping" happens, since many people like to run something like 12 Spe Rotom-W or a little extra speed on Scizor just in case.

The second speed tier is the one of WALLBREAKERS. Modest / Adamant 252 Spe base 100, aka MegaZard, MegaKangas, and Mega Waifu. This speed tier is fairly simple; if you don't have a Pokemon or two faster than this speed tier, then you will get destroyed by these Pokemon. This is also a good reason to use something like 252 Jolly Landorus-T or scarf Tyranitar.

The third tier is the top Speed tier; if you are faster than this and no Speed control is in effect, you can usually outspeed around 95% of the meta. Base 110 Timid / Jolly, aka Latios. Now this isn't something you should aim for just to outspeed Latios, because a lot of other Pokemon such as Terrakion, Keldeo, Garchomp, and Mega Pinsir sit in this "speed tier", which is around 100-110 with a +nature. This being kind of the "top" speed tier has produced its own trend which is using Modest Shaymin-S. Since most teams don't have anything much faster than Latios, Modest Skymin can put in much more work, for example OHKO Landorus-T with LO Modest Seed Flare.

Also in general, I think this new meta is very focused around hitting hard. Seeing things like Double Edge Kangaskhan and Fire Blast Modest Charizard Y and the mentioned Modest LO Skymin seems to be a popular trend in the metagame right now!

yeah just putting this here for Speed discussion, and also a bit of a guide for you creepers ;]

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

Speed creeping is fun.

Ephixa (Mawile) @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 86 HP / 252 Atk / 180 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
- Fire Fang / Substitute
- Protect
Mega Mawile is really fun to speed creep. Running 0 Spe on this thing is a real waste in my opinion since with a bit of speed you can deal with a whole bunch of threats a lot easier. The above spread is EVd to beat 12 Spe Hitmontop which is pretty significant since it can save you from having to take a Close Combat. It also beats Tyranitar, Scizor and slow variants of Sylveon which can be a pretty big deal in a lot of situations. If you don't want to invest that much 124 Spe is a nice number which beats 8 Spe Scizor.

Modest LO Skymin is always a risky one since you end up tying with both Tornadus and Thundurus-I as well as losing to anything higher than 111 with 252+ Speed EVs which can often be costly. The reward however, is the power to OHKO 0 / 4 Landorus-T with Seed Flare which is pretty significant.

 

[Pocket]

The thing about Speed creeping with Mawile, though is that a lot of the Pokemon you mentioned elect for "fast mode." As Laga mentioned before you, Hitmontop can easily be running 132+ Speed EVs to be faster than min Spe Rotom-W. Offensive Tyranitar with Focus Sash / Life Orb (or Dragon Dance) often go max Speed as well, although they are admittedly rarer. With ShakeItUp's team being circulated everywhere, Sylveon you face may more than likely be packing Speed. When there's a lot of these uncertainty around the Pokemon's Speed, I tend to avoid Speed creeping and go bulky instead.

124 Speed EVs on Mawile sounds more reasonable, though, since I don't think many Scizor would be running Speed too often (since they pack priorty). Although Laga does mention that Mega Scizor would be running Speed to outrun Rotom-W, and priority Bullet Punch would pretty much ignore your Speed creep efforts anyways (Mawile quad resists Bug Bite, so they would most likely Bullet Punch or Superpower if they have it). So again, I'd go with the bulky TR route ;0

I am not a big fan of using Modest Charizard Y and Adamant Kangaskhan as benchmarks, because they can easily be Timid / Jolly. I think a better speed benchmark would be Jolly Garchomp's 102 base Speed tier, since it's pretty close to Charizard Y and Kangaskhan's Speed tier while making you faster than Landorus and Thundurus-T, too. However Modest Charizard Y and Adamant Kangaskhan (or actually Modest Landorus), are great speed benchmarks for Pokemon whose base Speed lies in base 88-99 to achieve.

For Pokemon with Scarf / Icy Wind support / Tailwind support, you can achieve faster benchmarks. I think the bare minimum would be being faster than Scarf Tar. A solid benchmark would be outrunning Rash Deoxys-A. If fast enough though, you can aim to be faster than Scarf Adamant Landorus-T running max Speed, since that's one of the more common scarfers.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

I totally get what you're saying Pocket, but the increased speed isn't assisting only Mawile, if your partner is threatened by Scizors U-turn then the increased speed helps out since you can avoid mindgames with prediction and switching and just straight up attack safe in the knowledge you're going to be hitting first. Obviously this does not avoid the issue of dealing with Pokemon like ScarfTar that you might not exist but that's a risk I'm willing to take. MMaw still takes a -1 Lando-T EQ with both spreads so that's plenty bulky for me.