SPL Doubles Discussion / Replays

[BLOOD TOTEM]

ORIGINAL IDEA DONUT STEAL

This is a thread to post, and discuss the doubles SPL matches as they get played. Hopefully we'll see some cool plays and innovative strategies utilized by the people at the forefront of the metagame and will have a lot to discuss.

Week One

Mizuhime vs Tanner
youngjake93 vs kingofmars
R Inanimate vs Zach
Laga vs Arcticblast
Joim vs Biosci

Week Two

kingofmars vs Zach
Joim vs Tanner
youngjake93 vs R Inanimate (who would have won without the timer?!)
TheFourthChaser vs Biosci
Mizuhime vs Laga

Week Three

Joim vs youngjake93
Laga vs Tanner
Biosci vs kingofkongs
Mizuhime vs R Inanimate
Zach vs TheFourthChaser

Week Four

Zach vs Joim
Biosci vs Laga
kingofkongs vs R Inanimate
Chase vs Tanner
Arcticblast vs Mizuhime

Week Five

R Inanimate vs Blingas
Laga vs kingofkongs
Nollan vs Braverius
Biosci vs Audiosurfer
Arcticblast vs Joim

Week Six

Nollan vs Blingas
Braverius vs Bisosci
R Inanimate vs Laga
Joim vs kingofkongs
Arcticblast vs Audiosurfer

Week Seven

Blingas vs Arcticblast
Laga vs Joim
Biosci vs R Inanimate
Nollan vs Youngjake93
kingofkongs vs Braverius

Week Eight

Nollan vs Bisoci

When looking at replays, try to think about what it is the player did to win. For example, keeping certain Pokemon alive to counter specific threats, how they chose their starting pair based on the matchup, significant plays and predictions they made. Also feel free to discuss which Pokemon you felt was the most valuable and contributed the most to the match or how effective the players play style is in the current meta. If any players want any replays withheld for any reason, raise that issue and it'll get sorted out.

Good luck to all players!
PS: SPL Doubles Weekly Usage
- Score = Usage x Win Points
- Win Points = 1 + # of Wins
PSII: SPL Player Rankings
- TOTAL = 5(# of wins) - 5(# of losses) + BONUS
- BONUS = # of wins of the opponents the player defeated

 

[youngjake93]

HP Ground Latios for S+ rank.

Tanner did a really great job blowing through 3 flying type checks to set up late-game for skymin+burd.

 

[kingofmars]

Laga won so easily with heatran because arcticblast didn't keep his rotom-w at enough health to deal with it, just by looking at lagas team he can tell that cresselia + heatran is an issue to anything on his team outside of rotom, and not preparing for that spot regardless of whether he had skill swap or not was a big mistake imo.

Also man Zach's team is good.
"Hey Gavin do you have a team I can use for spl?"
"Yeah sure"
"What the fuck is this ttar"
"Weakness policy dd tar"
"that sounds like shit, I should change it"
"I dont know why it works but it does"

 

[BlankZero]

Mizu got haxcrushed really bad tho

 

[Lasagne]

Mizu got haxcrushed really bad tho

*outskilled

 

[Ash Borer]

Laga won so easily with heatran because arcticblast didn't keep his rotom-w at enough health to deal with it, just by looking at lagas team he can tell that cresselia + heatran is an issue to anything on his team outside of rotom, and not preparing for that spot regardless of whether he had skill swap or not was a big mistake imo.

Also man Zach's team is good.
"Hey Gavin do you have a team I can use for spl?"
"Yeah sure"
"What the fuck is this ttar"
"Weakness policy dd tar"
"that sounds like shit, I should change it"
"I dont know why it works but it does"

admittedly though, the protect + boom lando is a VERY surprising play, rotom is quite safe against MEga pinsir and Lando-T besides that one move.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

admittedly though, the protect + boom lando is a VERY surprising play, rotom is quite safe against MEga pinsir and Lando-T besides that one move.

I agree with you here, Explosion was probably the last thing on ablast's mind. Bringing Rotom in there seemed like the strongest play given the match up as normally there is very little Lando / Pinsir can do about it. Laga was able to use this surprise factor to blitz through two of Arcticblast's key pivoting Pokemon and really clear up the field for his Trick Room core.

Laga won so easily with heatran because arcticblast didn't keep his rotom-w at enough health to deal with it, just by looking at lagas team he can tell that cresselia + heatran is an issue to anything on his team outside of rotom"

The trouble was, the opening play was pretty unpredictable so Arcticblast didn't realise the impact of switching in Rotom. He probably also felt comfortable that Zygarde would be able to deal with Heatran and didn't see Skill Swap coming at all, especially after tricking the scarf onto Laga's Cresselia.

tl;dr Laga managed to win by eliminating the traditional checks and counters to Heatran through the use of surprise tactics that baited in Pokemon he needed to clear out so Heatran could stay in safely.

 

[Joim]

Laga's plays were surprising and quite good, especially that Protect + Explosion, basically getting rid of Rotom-W, its main weakness. It was an example on top level Doubles play on how to get rid of your main's Pokémon counters.

I can see some mistakes on Mizuhime VS Tanner, I will comment more on it soon.

 

[BlankZero]

*outskilled

I completely disagree with this. There was so much Hax going on here, and just about all of it on Eggy's side was very negative.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

So, Joim vs Biosci was a good game to watch.
Obviously the most notable moment was when Joim forgot to enter his final form. Not sure how much it would have impacted the end result; Biosci did still have room to play. That said, it could have been the factor that crushed Joim's chances of the win. Togekiss' flinches affected also Joim as it stopped him from being able to set up Trick Room a couple of times.
I do feel there were times when Joim made the wrong plays, especially around the follow me Togekiss. I think he should probably have taken the risk and used Fake Out on Thundurus at the end rather than Keldeo as KOing Thundurus and hoping Keldeo would protect was probably his only way to win at that point. The Substitute from Biosci was probably pretty unexpected though, a good play on his part.

 

[Joim]

I'd like to point out my mistakes so everyone can learn from them:
-That one lost hit to Follow Me Togekiss was a huge mistake. I had Thunder Punch ready to hit Togekiss hard and try my luck (read below).
-When cancelling your move choices, mega form tick is reset. This has costed me the match, mainly. If you cancel moves, you have to tick it again.
-BD Marill requires Follow Me/Rage Powder support or Protect, ditching coverage, or be sure you can make it sweep safely.
-Dusclops isn't thaaat bulky :( It gave me a switch-in, though, so I had to measure chances and decided it was best to keep it on the field.
-Keldeo's Protect was very predictable. I choked there, even though I was sure that Knock Off would either break Substitute or KO Thundurus Either way. Boosted Knock Off from max attack Scrafty hurts.
-The second Mach Punch was probably my biggest choke. I should've attacked Togekiss directly again with Thunder Punch, granting me advantage on the situation. I didn't use Conkeldurr up to his possibilities due to hurrying in the match.
-Another big mistake: using Sucker Punch on Mega-Kangaskan and Aqua Jet on Azumarill, whilst the best choice was to switch Mega-K to Scrafty, thus making Azumarill survive, Faking Out his Mega-K next turn and aqua jet-KOing the other mon.

Also, learning from this Smog article:
-Had I had a low to medium roll on Sacred Sword, Keldeo would have failed to KO my Mega-Kangaskan and it would KO in return, giving me the win. You should never rely on rolls not KOing, though, unless, like me, it's your only choice.
-The two flinches were unlucky, but should have been accounted for in my chances. Always prepare for the worst. It would've been nice, though, to have no flinches for an increased chance.

 

[Lasagne]

I completely disagree with this. There was so much Hax going on here, and just about all of it on Eggy's side was very negative.

it was a joke. Outskilled is a term often used when someone gets haxed to death

 

[Kingler]

Cool matches for dubs spl n_n I hope to see more of these. Laga vs Arcticblast was a cool match, so was joim vs biosci
Yea Joim, Dusclops kinda sucks. It was literally just a sitting duck for everything and just set up TR.

 

[BLINGAS]

I completely disagree with this. There was so much Hax going on here, and just about all of it on Eggy's side was very negative.

I got like one flinch out of 5000 rock slides. I can guarantee those misses didn't matter especially the fire blast one

 

[Nollan]

I got like one flinch out of 5000 rock slides. I can guarantee those misses didn't matter especially the fire blast one

The Hydro Pump miss on turn 5 followed by the flinch was pretty important. It bought two more turns of Landorus being a troll. Apart from that the rest of the hax didn't matter. Whether those two extra turns actually affected the result is pretty arguable.

 

[BLINGAS]

The Hydro Pump miss on turn 5 followed by the flinch was pretty important. It bought two more turns of Landorus being a troll. Apart from that the rest of the hax didn't matter. Whether those two extra turns actually affected the result is pretty arguable.

the flinch didn't bring me anything other than another turn for her to kill lando while i did very little to thund. The game was barely affected by it. the miss probably the same. Rotom wouldve been at 10% and wouldve died to anything

 

[Arcticblast]

I got bored and collected usage stats from all five matches. I "weighted" them by assigning every Pokemon "win points" - every Pokemon starts with 1 WP, and when a Pokemon is used by a winning player it gains a WP. Final placement on the list is simply calculated by WP x usage. I'll probably improve this system eventually :\

Order is Rank / Score / Pokemon / Usage / Win Points (one WP is unlisted)
01 || 30 | Landorus-T:  6 | 5
02 || 24 | Rotom-W:     6 | 4
03 || 16 | Togekiss:    4 | 4
04 ||  9 | Latios:      3 | 3
05 ||  8 | Kangaskhan:  4 | 2
06 ||  6 | Cresselia:   3 | 2
07 ||  6 | Tyranitar:   3 | 2
08 ||  4 | Gardevoir:   2 | 2
09 ||  4 | Thundurus:   2 | 2
10 ||  4 | Conkeldurr:  2 | 2
11 ||  4 | Heatran:     2 | 2
12 ||  2 | Politoed:    1 | 2
13 ||  2 | Ludicolo:    1 | 2
14 ||  2 | Mawile:      1 | 2
15 ||  2 | Thundurus-T: 1 | 2
16 ||  2 | Lucario:     1 | 2
17 ||  2 | Pinsir:      1 | 2
18 ||  2 | Shaymin-S:   1 | 2
19 ||  2 | Talonflame:  1 | 2
20 ||  2 | Bisharp:     1 | 2
21 ||  2 | Chandelure:  1 | 2
22 ||  2 | Keldeo:      1 | 2
23 ||  2 | Amoonguss:   2
24 ||  1 | Machamp:     1
25 ||  1 | Salamence:   1
26 ||  1 | Dragonite:   1
27 ||  1 | Excadrill:   1
28 ||  1 | Gyarados:    1
29 ||  1 | Genesect:    1
30 ||  1 | Zygarde:     1
31 ||  1 | Dusclops:    1
32 ||  1 | Azumarill:   1
33 ||  1 | Scrafty:     1

Interesting stuff:
- Togekiss was used by every player known for VGC
- Amoonguss is the only Pokemon with more than one use but no wins
- No Charizard were used.

In following weeks, I will make both weekly and total usage stats.

 

[Soul Fly]

Did I see Joim lose a match because he forgot to megavolve?
wut. 9.9

 

[Pocket]

the flinch didn't bring me anything other than another turn for her to kill lando while i did very little to thund. The game was barely affected by it. the miss probably the same. Rotom wouldve been at 10% and wouldve died to anything

The Hydro Pump miss wouldn't have mattered, but the Rock Slide flinch actually did matter imo.

If Hydro Pump connected, Tanner would have brought in Shaymin-S 2 turns earlier, which would have had it subjected to sandstorm damage. This would have put Shaymin-S into Salamence's -2 Fire Blast's 2HKO range. Ultimately it would have been BLINGAS's Talonflame vs Mizuhime's -2 Salamence and 3% Machamp. Talonflame would then KO Machamp as Salamence fails to KO Talonflame with Draco Meteor. Talonflame would then finish off Salamence. Tanner still wins.

If Rock Slide didn't flinch, then Rotom-W (hopefully) disposed Landorus-T before it dies to sandstorm damage. This gives Thundurus a free switch-in and a turn saved from slaying Landorus-T with HP Ice. The match-up would have been Tanner's Rotom-W and Shaymin-S vs Mizuhime's Machamp and Thundurus a turn earlier, and Thundurus would have been around for an additional turn, because it didn't have to eat a Hydro Pump to kill Landorus-T. Shaymin-S would have definitely been paralyzed or killed, despite BLINGAS's good plays.

 

[Laga]

If Hydro Pump connected, Tanner would have brought in Shaymin-S 2 turns earlier, which would have had it subjected to sandstorm damage. This would have put Shaymin-S into Salamence's -2 Fire Blast's 2HKO range. Ultimately it would have been BLINGAS's Talonflame vs Mizuhime's -2 Salamence and 3% Machamp. Talonflame would then KO Machamp as Salamence fails to KO Talonflame with Draco Meteor. Talonflame would then finish off Salamence. Tanner still wins.

Holy shit this could have been a Brave Bird recoil draw.

edit@below: ah ok, still closer xd

Anyways, great usage statistics Arcticblast, especially noteworthy that no Charizards were used :o. I also like the fact that all the VGC players were using Togekiss. Other than that, I am actually quite happy to see that there is, in fact, some solid variation - 5 matches using 33 different mons is actually quite varying =)

 

[Pocket]

I actually took that into account, Laga:

-2 252 SpA Salamence Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Talonflame: 127-151 (42.7 - 50.8%)
1/3 of Salamence's current HP (66%) = 72 hit points lost from recoil (24%)

Talonflame would have safely survived the Draco Meteor and the recoil from Brave Bird.

 

[Joim]

Edited in kingofmars vs Zach

 

[Pocket]

I used Arcticblast's scoring system for Week 2 :] From SPL Doubles Weekly Usage

Dat Ludicolo and its 100% victory *-*

Also Cumulative Week 1 & Week 2 Score!

Pokemon Standings

Togekiss, Rotom-W, Landorus-T, and Kangaskhan are the top 4

 

[Mizuhime]

For everyone blessing the ground Talonflame walks on, don't you find it quite interesting it has only been used twice in the first 2 weeks?

 

[Pocket]

I'm more surprised that Charizard has seen 0 usage until these 2 games!

Laga vs BLINGAS ♥ : http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-smogondoubles-522 - was it really a bg?!

Biosci vs kingofkongs: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-smogondoubles-527

Some nice Terrakion action this week. I am also surprised to see the significant Deo-A usage in spl :]