Metagame Partners in Crime

[yuki]

Hey guys, quick update for you all!

As most of you have already seen, we won Other Metagame of the Month, and our ladder is now live on Pokemon Showdown. I implore you all to go give it a go while we're live.

Second thing, the council is currently getting a VR together. Votes are still coming in, so just give us a little bit of time to finalise everything and they will be added to one of the first posts in this thread. We have updated our samples. If you're lacking in ideas or just need a starting point, every one of these is something we've had a lot of fun or success with, and they're a great place to start.

Lastly, I'd like to just give a PSA on building. I love the creativity and some of the ideas I have seen in this thread, but it's very important to remember this isn't 2v2 doubles. This is far more akin to Doubles OU with its building, and while some of the 2 Pokemon cores that I've seen are super cool, sometimes they're not always the most practical. When you're building, try to make sure everything synergises as much as possible as you're going to have a cohesive unit of 6 Pokemon, rather than 3 separate cores of 2 that don't necessarily overlap well. When you're putting cores together based on moves or abilities, just think about how these work when they don't have the absolute optimal partner next to them. Also think if your idea needs your opponent to basically ignore what you're doing to work. When you build a fully synergistic team, you're going to find a lot more success!

 

[Cuddly]

Here is a team I've just made based off that Mew + Kyurem duo discussed earlier.

Mew is near perfect speed control with its Imprison, disallowing 8 moves at once, 3 are Triple Axel, Fake Out, and Tailwind. It also provides Synchronize, which isn't too special, but does provide a neat discouragement of status. Triple Axel is used on Mew because it allows Kyurem-Black and Mamoswine

Kyurem-Black provides a meaty attack stat to abuse the many Ice STABs its teammates provide. Additionally, it makes sure its supporters have Icy Wind as well to use. Let's not forget about Teravolt either, which is useful for itself, its partners, and also Icy Wind as well.

Clefairy is a neat option to boost Kyurem-B and Mamoswine's bulk with Friend Guard, heal them, and give them Ice Punch when needed.

Edit: After some play testing, Clefairy isn’t good on the team. Being slightly bulkier while doing nothing just bad. So I replace it with Araquanid, which has an insanely powerful Water attack it shares with its partner, but also Wide Guard and an immunity to Burns.

Incineroar is Incineroar. But in this Meta, Intimidate initially is -2 and can be easily cycled through. Fake Out is fantastic for this meta since it can help you eliminate duos reliant on their abilities.

Mamoswine is the other meaty Ice attacker that benefits from Triple Axel from Mew and Mr. Mime, but also provides High Horsepower, Intimidate immunity, Taunt immunity, and Icy Wind for similar reasons to Kyurem. When paired with Kyurem, it at least gives Kyurem decent Icy STAB and also Ground coverage that Levitate can't bypass.

Galarian Mr. Mime is an out of leftfield pick, but makes sense since Vital Spirit provide near complete immunity to Spore. That isn't the only thing either. Mr. Mime also has a great support movepool with Triple Axel, Fake Out, Helping Hand, and Sucker Punch.

 

[DeepFriedMagikarp]

Edit: If link above broke again: https://pokepast.es/13974f7b1312966d

Been laddering up to 1400ish with this team, its pretty neat. The ev spreads are like really simple optimize them if you want.
Team is very nice at giving you spots to outplay with + it handles alot of the gimmicks in the format really well with TR + double fakeout.
It does however sometimes struggle with not having enough damage output though, but luckily most things in the format are squishy enough or cant do much back to you.

has been the MVP though, realllly good mon. Lives like everything even with an offensive spread, gets up room, passes and uses water spout. passes Wisp to shut down stuff. Can also experiment with taunt/strength sap/etc, very good movepool.
also deserves a mention in how it still puts in work even though literally everybody is prepping for it with defiant/contrary/inner focus/etc.
A really cracked play is going Trick Room with Incin, fake out with the trick roomer, always works in the midgame.

The takeaway is this is very likely an unoptimal team (the Pelipper feels kinda useless, etc.) but explore more with Jellicent!

Also Sleep is very dumb if you dont have a koko/fini :P

 

[Knight who says "Ni"]

Two teams I've been enjoying moderate success with as an inexperienced doubles player. Ferrothorn is really neat for punishing fake out users, leading to the helmet on Victini. The first team was my first foray into building with those two while the second is probably better although less focused on that pairing itself. That second team has been very useful for me though and I've never found myself just gooned on team preview when I use it (you have work arounds for basically every form of hyper offense that people are spamming atm although it probably gets clapped by the spikestack sample)



Honestly a relatively brainless team I built - electric spam + kyub are a pretty good pairing that cover eachothers weaknesses relatively well. This team doesn't have alolan raichu so the kyurem is assault vest. Incin is great on this team because the offensive core scare out every viable competetive/defiant mon. Urshifu shores up the trick room matchup a tiny bit but it's still rocky honestly.



This team is a bit memey honestly although some elements of it are definitely noteworthy. Weezing shuts down all the two mon cores that people seem to be building their teams around and the rest of the team is somewhat built around keeping weezing healthy. Claydol is a weird pick but if I remember right I added it because we were pretty ground weak and hazard removal is just kinda nice on a team that wants to drag games out really long. Definitely needs revising but I think weezing as a mon has a lot of potential in this format.

Honestly this meta is a whole lot of fun and I feel like it's one ban away (kyurem) from becoming elite. Whole lot of diversity in the builder and a doubles based OM is so refreshing.

 

[PSLY PRK]

Thank you so much for bringing one of my favorite OMs back, PiC is genuinely one of the most creative metagames out there. Anyway, self-proc Competitive? Self-proc Competitive.

Skill Swapping with Lando immediately gets you +4 Special Attack whilst Goth is on the field, which can then be used to click Expanding Force and melt stuff. Weezing can shut off abilities for a turn, letting you potentially get another boost if you switch it before the opponent's Intimidate mon or get a second Download boost on Porygon - and it also shuts down the ability based strategies that like 90% of teams are based around. Even outside of the main gimmick it's still a semi-competent TR team, though obviously it isn't perfect.

It also seems like Skill Swapping with an opponent that also has Competitive causes it to proc four times for the Skill Swap mon instead of two (like it would if both pokemon naturally had Competitive) while Goth is on the field, leading to a +6 boost. You can see it here on turn 5 with Galarticuno. Sorry if that's a well known bug or if its an intended feature or something, just seemed a little weird.

 

[Hyper-Go-ons]

I'm so excited to see this OM again.

Giving Kommo-o Punk Rock Will Make Clanging Scales Hit like an Truck at +2 Special Attack and Toxtricity can give Stored Power to Kommo-o for more trouble. Mienshao gives Some recovery with Drain Punch, Regenerator and Wide Guard support. Incineroar and Grimmsnarl are the Fake Out supporters but Grimmsnarl can swap Attack and Special Attack buffs and drops with Power Swap, Galvantula gives Compound Eyes to Kommo-o for more accuracy with Focus Blast.

While Intimidate pressures physical Attackers and Power Swap Foils Competitive and Defiant.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I really want to use Noivern because it has both Boomburst and Telepathy, but I'm having difficulty fitting it onto teams because the only movesets I can think of are slapping on four powerful special moves or Defog.

 

[HiZo]

I really want to use Noivern because it has both Boomburst and Telepathy, but I'm having difficulty fitting it onto teams because the only movesets I can think of are slapping on four powerful special moves or Defog.

Try using Kommo-o, who has Soundproof and Clangorous Soul to function as a setup sweeper who gives its partner immunity to boomburst. You can pair it with a Pokemon such as Porygon-Z or Sylveon for powerful STAB boombursts. An alternative for boomburst spam is to try Specs Exploud with either Plus/Minus Klingklang or Porygon2 as a Trick Room team.

 

[Hyper-Go-ons]

Try using Kommo-o, who has Soundproof and Clangorous Soul to function as a setup sweeper who gives its partner immunity to boomburst. You can pair it with a Pokemon such as Porygon-Z or Sylveon for powerful STAB boombursts. An alternative for boomburst spam is to try Specs Exploud with either Plus/Minus Klingklang or Porygon2 as a Trick Room team.

I just did that.
Here's a little detail about my team: https://pokepast.es/8f8ec2cdb3faece4

 

[master oden]

Hey!

This is a very fun metagame, I suppose I shall share my... um.... trick room team I made to joke/experiment, but it turns out that it was somewhat good? Wow. Anyway, this is the team. It probably could be more optimized but as I said, this was both an experimental team and a somewhat joke team that just happened to do somewhat solid. I'll leave an in depth description of the team and it's members overall:

Steel Spam Fullroom overview

The main objective of this team is, of course, to set trick room and then go blasting. Perrserker+Hatterene is a good lead, one can fake out while the other one sets trick room, Chansey + Stakataka can work too but it's a bit harder to pull off, but has more explosive results than doing it with perrserker+hatterene. Steely Spirit is amazing for both Dhelmise and Stakataka, stakataka's gyro balls are absolute nukes and Dhelmise's Steelworker stacks with Steely Spirit, making both perrserker and dhelmise's Iron Head absolutely brutal. Chansey is mainly the offhand support, it's helpful with providing serene grace with stakataka's rock slide for flinches, and activating it's Weakness Policy with earthquake.

Chansey

The support queen. Allows her teammates safety through ally switch, huge bulk, and heal pulse allows chansey to keep weakened teammates healthy. Earthquake is there for Stakataka in mind.

Stakataka

The core of the team. Allows trick room to be set, where it then can proceed to use it's very powerful gyro ball to deal massive damage with Perrserker or Dhelmise on the field alongside it.

Dhelmise

Mainly here for Steelworker, it's great stabs come in large handy for destroying bulky Water-types and chunking things neutral to steel very well.

Hatterene

The consistent Trick Room Lead, with it's high bulk and when supported by Magic Bounce and Perrserker's Fake Out, trick room can go up relatively freely without worrying about Taunt.

Heatran

Spread move spammer which provides a fire immunity and has a strong flash cannon.

Perrserker

Has valueable support in Fake Out and provides the amazing Steely Spirit for the team, alongside giving Close Combat for coverage makes Perrserker the face of this team.

I suppose that is all for now, hopefully I will return with an updated version of this team+ more teams!

If you haven't played this metagame, PLEASE give it a try! It is so much fun

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I encountered a Justified + Rattled + Beat Up gimmick team twice in a row. On the second time, I realised I could completely shut it down using Follow Me.

 

[tPg]

Plus Minus

Bit more of a silly one here, but I just love how these interact. When both Toxtricity and Klinklang are active, they effectively both have 2 pairs of Choice Specs active at once. With Overdrive being spread, this can be an absolutely silly amount of damage. Klinklang can be used to make the team semi-room, as well as provide moves such as Gear Up to increase the offense of the whole team. Ally Switch gets a special shoutout in this format for somehow being even more annoying as now you can share it with the partner too, making 50/50s even worse. I think that a Levitate user will be absolutely mandatory

This is not nearly as silly as you probably thought, cause apparently you don't need both abilities for them to activate. Like, Plus already activates if your partner also has Plus. So in this meta either ability is just a free choice specs for both your active mons.

 

[master oden]

yk what since I'm really enjoying this metagame atm I will make a team dump on this post(teams that i used and preformed relatively well on ladder) which i will update whenever i make a team i feel is good yada yada i think you understand

Steel Spam Fullroom
/ Boomburst Spam
Minus Plus Unburden(OUTDATED, SWAGGER WAS BANNED)
Fake Beat Up Offense

likely more to come at some point

 

[Hyper-Go-ons]

The consistent Trick Room Lead, with it's high bulk and when supported by Magic Bounce and Perrserker's Fake Out, trick room can go up relatively freely without worrying about Taunt.

Except someone with Mold Breaker uses Taunt which it bypasses Magic Bounce, also Inner Focus can block Fake Out Flinch easily.

 

[Greenman]

I am not sure if this is intentional or not but you can have no gaurd and sleep inducing moves like sing on the same team, this seems to me like a problem, especially with no sleep cause

 

[master oden]

Except someone with Mold Breaker uses Taunt which it bypasses Magic Bounce, also Inner Focus can block Fake Out Flinch easily.

I said this was a test team, I updated this team with an inner focus pokemon alongside other improvements. If inner focus/Mold Breaker is in play it can be played around.

 

[yuki]

Let's talk about sleep! (An abridged version of this will be going into the FAQ)

I'm hoping to address a few questions that I've seen asked a few times at this point, and to hopefully alleviate any concerns that people might have over the health of sleep.

Why don't we have Sleep Clause?
In Doubles, sleep is generally a more present idea thanks to the viability of things like Spore Amoonguss and Sleep Powder Venusaur - amongst other things, with the main idea being to utilise the free turns to make significant progress and get things like setting up or taking out something threatening which would otherwise be difficult. Sleep Clause is generally less present in doubles formats as there are a fair few ways around it, and with good building and good play you can minimise the effects it can have.

But aren't things like Prankster + Spore, fast Pokemon having access to Spore, No Guard + Hypnosis/Sing etc. a problem?
Let's break down the main things that are used to enable sleep ideas, and try to give you some insight as to why we removed sleep clause and haven't restricted it.


First and foremost, we need to talk about Tapu Koko and Tapu Fini. Electric Surge and Misty Surge both set terrain that can block sleep altogether, and with both of these being pretty viable (Koko on Elecspam, Fini being splashable on a lot of teams), it's very common to see these in use.

Amoonguss and Venusaur are currently by far the most common Pokemon that are used for sleep moves. Amoonguss has access to Spore and Venusaur has access to Sleep Powder, with the former being 100% accurate and the latter being 75% accurate. Notably with both of these, Grass-types are immune and Safety Goggles can be used to block the effects of them.


While not the only users of Sing and Hypnosis, these are the Pokemon that could reasonably fit them into their moveset. The biggest problem is their accuracy, making them much much less reliable than the alternatives above. All 3 also aren't necessarily the most viable of Pokemon, making them a bit harder to slot onto a team for this purpose rather than something far more dedicated.


No Guard might seem problematic, but honestly these 3 Pokemon just aren't good. So even if we get a funny 100% accurate sleep gimmick, it still relies on actually using one of these three and still runs into the problem of things like Electric and Misty Terrain. You're also a lot lot more predictable at team preview, meaning the opponent has a lot of time to think and prepare. If you lose your No Guard Pokemon, there is also a good chance the rest of your team is just left with some unreliable moves, making No Guard gimmicks generally a bunch less usable.


Prankster sleep actually seems alright, but it still requires you to be putting a Prankster Pokemon next to something with sleep (typically this is just going to be Amoonguss as you don't want to risk missing). With this, you're less likely to be able to take advantage of the free turns you gain with sleep as your Prankster Pokemon aren't really going to be doing a great deal of setting up, you might still need to set Tailwind for the long term plan, and you're just not gaining maximum value from sleep. All of this while still running into the problems from before, plus now making Tapu Lele and Indeedee's Psychic Terrain and Tsareena's Queenly Majesty much more valuable. Equally, Incineroar's Dark-typing also makes it immune to Prankster, making this fall flat against one of the most common Pokemon in the meta. With that being said, it can be fine to pass Tornadus Amoonguss' Sludge Bomb, and attempt to bait in the aforementioned checks.

In Conclusion:
We do recognise that there are genuine ways to make sleep very strong, but we also believe that there are sufficient ways to play around it and build against it that it's not remotely a problem. In all of our testing, nobody was suddenly caught out by any of the big sleep ideas in a significant way, and it's no more impactful than it is in other doubles formats. All of the big gimmicky ways that might seem really strong on paper just fall victim to the same counterplay as the more standard ways to put things to sleep. I hope this has addressed any of the major concerns.

 

[Cuddly]

Let's talk about sleep! (An abridged version of this will be going into the FAQ)

I'm hoping to address a few questions that I've seen asked a few times at this point, and to hopefully alleviate any concerns that people might have over the health of sleep.

Why don't we have Sleep Clause?
In Doubles, sleep is generally a more present idea thanks to the viability of things like Spore Amoonguss and Sleep Powder Venusaur - amongst other things, with the main idea being to utilise the free turns to make significant progress and get things like setting up or taking out something threatening which would otherwise be difficult. Sleep Clause is generally less present in doubles formats as there are a fair few ways around it, and with good building and good play you can minimise the effects it can have.

But aren't things like Prankster + Spore, fast Pokemon having access to Spore, No Guard + Hypnosis/Sing etc. a problem?
Let's break down the main things that are used to enable sleep ideas, and try to give you some insight as to why we removed sleep clause and haven't restricted it.


First and foremost, we need to talk about Tapu Koko and Tapu Fini. Electric Surge and Misty Surge both set terrain that can block sleep altogether, and with both of these being pretty viable (Koko on Elecspam, Fini being splashable on a lot of teams), it's very common to see these in use.

Amoonguss and Venusaur are currently by far the most common Pokemon that are used for sleep moves. Amoonguss has access to Spore and Venusaur has access to Sleep Powder, with the former being 100% accurate and the latter being 75% accurate. Notably with both of these, Grass-types are immune and Safety Goggles can be used to block the effects of them.


While not the only users of Sing and Hypnosis, these are the Pokemon that could reasonably fit them into their moveslot. The biggest problem is their accuracy, making them much much less reliable than the alternatives above. All 3 also aren't necessarily the most viable of Pokemon, making them a bit harder to slot onto a team for this purpose rather than something far more dedicated.


No Guard might seem problematic, but honestly these 3 Pokemon just aren't good. So even if we get a funny 100% accurate sleep gimmick, it still relies on actually using one of these three and still runs into the problem of things like Electric and Misty Terrain. You're also a lot lot more predictable at team preview, meaning the opponent has a lot of time to think and prepare. If you lose your No Guard Pokemon, there is also a good chance the rest of your team is just left with some unreliable moves, making No Guard gimmicks generally a bunch less usable.


Prankster sleep actually seems alright, but it still requires you to be putting a Prankster Pokemon next to something with sleep (typically this is just going to be Amoonguss as you don't want to risk missing). With this, you're less likely to be able to take advantage of the free turns you gain with sleep as your Prankster Pokemon aren't really going to be doing a great deal of setting up, you might still need to set Tailwind for the long term plan, and you're just not gaining maximum value from sleep. All of this while still running into the problems from before, plus now making Tapu Lele and Indeedee's Psychic Terrain and Tsareena's Queenly Majesty much more valuable. Equally, Incineroar's Dark-typing also makes it immune to Prankster, making this fall flat against one of the most common Pokemon in the meta. With that being said, it can be fine to pass Tornadus Amoonguss' Sludge Bomb, and attempt to bait in the aforementioned checks.

In Conclusion:
We do recognise that there are genuine ways to make sleep very strong, but we also believe that there are sufficient ways to play around it and build against it that it's not remotely a problem. In all of our testing, nobody was suddenly caught out by any of the big sleep ideas in a significant way, and it's no more impactful than it is in other doubles formats. All of the big gimmicky ways that might seem really strong on paper just fall victim to the same counterplay as the more standard ways to put things to sleep. I hope this has addressed any of the major concerns.

There is another No Guard user. Doublade.
Now Doublade isn’t too fancy, especially in such a Special Spam meta. However, it does carry some good moves in Wide Guard, Metal Sound, and Destiny Bond, as well as an immunity to Fake Out.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Ooh, I might use Doublade. I honestly forgot it existed.

 

[Steam Buns]

I'm surprisingly really enjoying this meta and I wanted to share the team I've been having a lot of success with.



It's a very simple but effective rain, focused around the potent offensive duo of kingdra and thundurus-t. I think that kyurem is a must if you don't wanna autolose to immunity abilities and scizor provides some much needed defensive utility, while also having great synergy with kyurem and toxicroak.

I'm sure the sets aren't perfect but the structure feels very solid to me, keen to see what else people come up with :)

 

[SliferSkyD]

Greetings. I'd like to report what I think is a bug. Neither of my mons had Inner focus and Mienshao Fake Out failed to flinch twice

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8partnersincrime-1657484287-bxr3x6nviplb3z1bhu5nlyymn4l9qjspw

 

[HiZo]

Greetings. I'd like to report what I think is a bug. Neither of my mons had Inner focus and Mienshao Fake Out failed to flinch twice

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8partnersincrime-1657484287-bxr3x6nviplb3z1bhu5nlyymn4l9qjspw

Your opponent has Landorus-I out, whose ability sheer force negates Fake Out’s flinch for both pokemon on their side of the field.

 

[yuki]

We've been informed that Swagger is currently unbanned. This is an oversight due to a change of formatting in our banlist. It is now banned as it should have been from the start.

Scheduled programming may now continue.

 

[master oden]

We've been informed that Swagger is currently unbanned. This is an oversight due to a change of formatting in our banlist. It is now banned as it should have been from the start.

Scheduled programming may now continue.

Aw darn, guess my swagger fini team is outdated then... Rip.

 

[Hyper-Go-ons]

I'm surprisingly really enjoying this meta and I wanted to share the team I've been having a lot of success with.



It's a very simple but effective rain, focused around the potent offensive duo of kingdra and thundurus-t. I think that kyurem is a must if you don't wanna autolose to immunity abilities and scizor provides some much needed defensive utility, while also having great synergy with kyurem and toxicroak.

I'm sure the sets aren't perfect but the structure feels very solid to me, keen to see what else people come up with :)

Toxicroak gets annihilated psychic moves even with your phys def set.

252 Atk Sniper Mew Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxicroak on a critical hit: 816-972 (220.5 - 262.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 Atk Excadrill Power Spot boosted Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxicroak: 614-726 (165.9 - 196.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dry Skin Toxicroak: 399-472 (107.8 - 127.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Choice Band Zapdos-Galar Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxicroak: 540-636 (145.9 - 171.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Cloud Nine can also entirely counter Rain and Sun teams. Altaria, Lickilicky, Drampa and Golduck have access to this ability

Wide Guard stops Surf and Discharge.