Snake Draft 2: Doubles Discussion Thread

MajorBowman

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Welcome to the second edition of the Smogon Snake Draft tournament!

This thread is for discussion of everything DOU-related during Snake Draft 2. The draft was this morning and the results are in:

snake 2.png


These are the drafted players that will likely be playing DOU:

Gliders - emforbes and AuraRayquaza
Taipans - Demantoid and Croven
Bushmasters - EmbCPT and Vallex
Serpents - Biosci and talkingtree
Cobras - SMB
Leviathans - MajorBowman
Nagas - Ezrael
Mambas - miltankmilk
Sidewinders - Lunar.
Astrotias - stax and Nido-Rus

Feel free to discuss whatever you'd like!
 

n10siT

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N10SIT POWER RANKINGS: (of just doubles talent)

1. Taipans - Demantoid/Croven: Are y’all kidding me what is this core??? I can only imagine the doubles chat being these two e-cumming over Shed Shell Blissey and whatever little boy manga is the flavor of the week. This team won’t lose a doubles week as long as Demantoid keeps annoying the shit out of all of his teammates

2. Bushmasters - Edu/Vallex: Ignoring that Bushmasters is a hilarious team name, the Portuguese speaking duo is gonna do extremely well, provided they can agree what 6th Pokémon goes on gengar/zygarde/fini/zapdos/incineroar

3. Leviathans - Bowman: Putting Bowman by himself probably bums him out, but he’s one of the few players who will be perfectly fine to build and test on his own terms. Jake could play a fox out of a foxhole, he’s gonna do great

4. Serpents - Biosci/Tree: tree is a fantastic Biosci support, one of the most conscientious builders and testers in the community, and has recently exploded onto the scene as “oh fuck tree is good now!” Interrupting Bioscis cryostasis for a non SPL tour may fuck with him, but it’s biosci. I think it might be physically impossible for him to have a negative tournament

5. Gliders - AuraRay/Emilio: this team dynamic is kind of weird to me, i don’t know how well these guys know each other, but they’re both fantastic players and get along with mostly everyone so they’ll be just fine. If marshadow gets freed during this tournament this team shoots up to number 1 for a brief moment and then back down to the bottom after Aura dies of an erection lasting longer than 4 hours

6. Astrotias - Stax/nido: im probably ranking these guys too low, i just don’t know where on the nido rus scale stax will let their teams land (1 = normal and 10 = Lenny face). If they can keep it around a 5 or 6 i think these guys will do well

7. Cobras - SMB: y’all know i love my hero but i don’t like putting him by himself, I’d rather have another support because a well prepared sm:boat: is a whole different beast

8. Mambas - miltankmilk: I’ve got milk too low for sure, he’s been playing again since his hiatus, and is competent enough to be just fine on his own. A real reincarnation of the white mamba playing for the mambas

9. Nagas - Ezrael: not being able to physically flip off the disgusting crowd on smogtours is going to kill :teamjon: but he’s obviously an extremely competent player who knows how to prep, so my only knock here is metagame knowledge, which will be worsened by him being alone. Ezrael’s talented enough to win any game he’s in.

10. Sidewinders - Lunar: Lunar’s obviously a fantastic player, but he’s been gone for a while and is alone as far as DOU players go, so he’s starting with a bit of a disadvantage compared to the rest of the field. If 2011-2014 Lunar is playing this tournament everybody should be terrified

Edit: I didn’t realize Lunar is playing on Sam’s team (big congrats to him for managing) and that will help Lunar a lot
 
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General thoughts:
  • Happy SMB is playing, happier I won’t have to face his ally switch BS in my group stage.
  • Uncertain what kind of support Croven is bringing when he doesn’t build, but if buying Croven got qsns in the channel its certainly a win.
  • happy to see a lot of DOU pairs. Tree and Vallex im especially happy to see getting recognition but really happy for all of them.
  • only 3 true Solo acts for dou as Sam is managing Lunar: myself, bowman, ezrael. Bowman is no stranger to this and I guess i’m not either, not sure what Ezrael has up his sleeve but should be interesting no matter what
  • Stax and Nido are very much going to make teams I have no interest in playing, but I expect them to do well.
 

MajorBowman

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Phase 1

Sun Division

Lanakila Nagas vs. Berry Forest Bushmasters
Lanakila Nagas vs. Goldenrod Gliders
Celadon City Cobras vs. Goldenrod Gliders
Celadon City Cobras vs. Sootopolis Sidewinders
Berry Forest Bushmasters vs. Sootopolis Sidewinders

Probable matchups:

Ezrael vs EmbCPT
Ezrael vs emiforbes
SMB vs emiforbes
SMB vs Lunar.
EmbCPT vs Lunar.

Moon Division

Black City Mambas vs. Shinto Ruin Serpents
Black City Mambas vs. Lake of Rage Leviathans
Ambrette Astrotias vs. Lake of Rage Leviathans
Ambrette Astrotias vs. Terminus Taipans
Shinto Ruin Serpents vs. Terminus Taipans

Probable matchups:

miltankmilk vs Biosci
miltankmilk vs MajorBowman
stax vs MajorBowman
stax vs Demantoid
Biosci vs Demantoid

Discuss!
 

n10siT

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N10sit does predictions (group stage):

Ezrael vs. Edu: o número 6 é pokemon é tapu bulu and edu will ride it to victory
Ezrael vs. emiforbes: U-turns clicked in this game: 38 turns taken: 45
SMB vs. emiforbes: Holding Out for a Hero: Jennifer Saunders (Theme of the original film "Shrek 2")
SMB vs. Lunar: HES GOTTA BE STRONG AND HES GOTTA BE FAST AND HES GOTTA BE FRESH FROM THE FIIIIIIIIGHT
Edu vs. Lunar: this weirdly feels like the closest matchup in the group? feel like edu pulls it out though

miltankmilk vs Biosci: milk uses mega gengar
miltankmilk vs MajorBowman: maybe jake will stop posting on instagram about how cool he is for going to an Atlanta Braves game and remember how to play pokemon
stax vs MajorBowman: gonna be thrilled for this game, feels like the hype match of the group stage, nido-rus built team will turn jake into majorthrowman
stax vs Demantoid: hope nobody paid 20k for demantoid to not win any of his games
Biosci vs Demantoid: who am i kidding they probably did
 

talkingtree

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Power Rankings are up!

For Doubles, the rankings ended up as follows:
1. MajorBowman - Moon
2. EmbCPT - Sun
3. stax - Moon
4. SMB - Sun
5. Demantoid - Moon
6. miltankmilk - Moon
7. Biosci - Moon
8. emiforbes - Sun
9. Lunar. - Sun
10. Ezrael - Sun

Do you agree with these rankings or was someone placed far from where you expected them? From this, it looks like the Moon division is expected to have the tougher competition, but I'm looking forward to all the games in this tournament.
 

Biosci

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Looks like Hikari collected the 6 infinity stones and wiped out half the field. RIP Lunar, emforbes, miltankmilk, and Demantoid

Lots of interesting take aways from phase 1, and kind of unique scenarios with the new snake format rematching people from phase 1 so will be interesting to see how people prep for the 2nd phase.

Go Serpents btw
 
I think this has always been true but I wanted to comment on how even the field was this first phase. At least in moon division, basically every game was close and came down to a couple key turns and from what I saw in Sun group this was true as well.

While biosci and I like to joke about how we get ranked low in PR every season, its clear after this tour how evenly matched everyone in the field is, should lead to some exciting games in phase 2!
 

talkingtree

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A few observations on Phase 1:

Winners
Kartana - Fourth highest in usage and a very impressive 72.7% winrate speaks for itself; Kartana's found its way onto a variety of teams and thrived so far. This makes some sense as a response to some of the surging bulky Normal-types, and its sets have changed to reflect that - Fightinium, Sub, and bulky Tailwind sets are all proving pretty successful. It should be interesting to see how this changes for Phase 2, since it's never had this much usage before.

Chansey - Speaking of something that hasn't had this much usage before, 6 uses may not seem like a lot but when Chansey's record was 5-1, it's pretty notable. One way or another, this Pokemon inspires strong opinions from pretty much everyone, as its staggering bulk and hugely beneficial support movepool can make it a huge pain to take down. Porygon2, another bulky Normal-type, has also had a decent tour thus far, though 3-1 isn't really enough data to say for sure yet.

Assault Vest Victini - The set that originally got Victini ranked, its Choice Scarf Final Gambit set, hasn't shown up yet, but other Victini sets are absolutely thriving, with a 4-1 record and the only loss recorded inside of a mirror. The biggest noteworthy change has been the appearance of Incinerate Assault Vest Victini, enabling it to support its team through *double* berry removal. It might seem strange that a set which completely folds to Incineroar is showing such success, but outside of Incineroar this Victini does incredibly well against the meta right now.

Losers
Kyurem-B - Every tour up until now, Kyurem-B's performed up to expectations, but a 1-6 start is very unconvincing. Despite its versatility and access to coverage that hits most of the metagame, Kyurem-B can't seem to pull through when it counts. Some of this can be explained by the winners listed above, as well as by Mega Metagross having the most usage and most wins out of every Mega, surpassing even Gengar.

Diancie - The Diamond Storm pixie can't seem to propel its team to victory, going winless across three uses in its base form and two as a Mega. It's difficult to say for sure what's caused it to struggle so much, but notably Trick Room-based teams have been quite rare, and the teamstyle where Diancie has shown the most success - Mega Camerupt TR, was entirely absent.

Power Rankers - Once again the preseason power rankings have been shown to be pretty irrelevant; with no 4-0 players, the best record is shared by players ranked 3, 7, 8, and 10. Four games isn't enough to say for sure who will have standout tours, but the field is clearly quite even and remains difficult to predict.
 

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