Battle Tree Discussion and Records

Are opposing weather setters an issue for your team? Or do you just switch Pelipper out and in again to reset the rain?

I ran Politoed/Swampert in the Maison a long time ago and the opposing Tyranitars/Aurorus/Abomasnows really gave me problems. I ended up going with 0 speed IVs and a negative nature on Politoed to underspeed all other weather setters.
Yes they are, but I do like to switch Pelipper in and out and reset the weather back into my favour. Sandstorm and Hail are the more annoying ones since they can break Pelipper's sash, or even KO it if it's left with 1HP when either are up for whatever reason. Luckily, I haven't seen much Abomasnow and all the Aurorus I run into don't seem to have Snow Warning, so thank god for that. Every single Tyranitar, however, always have Sand Stream but they also don't usually appreciate a Waterfall to the face from Swampert so I haven't had too much issue.
 
I've been lurking this thread for awhile (and similarly watched the Battle Subway one when I played Pokemon White, although I never got anywhere close to achieving anything there...) but I finally felt like I needed to post to see if anyone has some insight to help me out here.

I took the following team into super doubles to test the behavior of priority Tailwind, and somehow ended up winning 43 matches:
Talonflame @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Gale Wings
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • Brave Bird
  • Flare Blitz
  • Protect
  • Tailwind
Gyarados @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Jolly
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • Crunch
  • Waterfall
  • Dragon Dance
  • Earthquake
Alakazam @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
Nature: Timid
stats: 31/x/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
  • Protect
  • Focus Blast
  • Psychic
  • Shadow Ball
Dragonite @ Leftovers
Ability: Wonder Scale
Nature: Adamant
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • ThunderPunch
  • Protect
  • Dragon Dance
  • Outrage


Most of those setups are lifted from the smogon dex, or were originally, and all but the Talonflame were singles builds that I often hastily slapped protect on. I bred Alakazam because I was given the Alakazite, and I bred the Gyarados, Dragonite, and Talonflame because I got mostly-perfect baselines out of wonder trade while breeding other things I was more directly interested in. The team I actually intended to take into doubles is still on lockdown from last month's international, where I did okay but not amazing, mostly due to inexperience. (It's rain hyper offense, basically.)

The way I played the team was also basically hyper offense, in fact rarely using tailwind at all: since the most effective status effect is dead, Talonflame would use a Z attack on something turn 1 while Gyarados set up a dragon dance. Turn 2, I'd usually blast another thing with Brave Bird and start doing damage with Gyarados. I occasionally set up tailwind here if the opponents looked particularly fast, but, honestly, the whole team is so fast that tailwind rarely mattered. Usually around turn 2-3, the AI will have cleaned up Talonflame, and I'd send out either Dragonite (if I wanted to earthquake more) or Alakazam (if I needed a no-setup followup sweeper). I have to admit, I mostly used Dragonite for the electric attack, and only sometimes with Outrage for generic sweeping.

The game I lost, I stopped following all my standard procedures. I was against a Scientist who led Slowking and Rotom-Fridge. I panicked about the electric type (which flying is, of course, not super effective against) and used flare blitz turn 1 against it, rather than seeing if I could get a pick on the Slowking (which I figured was too beefy). My opponent scientist sent out Komala next. Slowking used Trick Room, and I forgot everything about how to play the game. Rather than protecting my Talonflame for Gyarados to crunch, I tried to skystrike something and got wiped away by surf. Then, Komala Z-attacked Gyarados, wiping my entire lead team out in one turn... under trick room. I guessed a little wrong the next turn, but it's not like Alakazam and Dragonite are going to do anything but go last under trick room. Worse yet, Slowking also knew Ice Beam, which Dragonite is x4 weak against. I did manage to do in the Slowking with a lucky two-turn-protect, but I just didn't have the resources to clean up after falling apart with trick room.

Things I need to work on:
Obviously, Gyarados shouldn't have a Sitrus Berry, he should have a mega stone. The raw defense boosts of the mega stone are approximately the same 25% that you get out of a Sitrus Berry. (I didn't have the mega stone because I didn't realize how quickly you get battle points with a decent winning streak, and I'm just starting out at this.) There were also several times that I really wished I could either have a Dark typing to boost Crunch (like, say, against a Slowking) or lose the flying type weaknesses (particularly against rock attacks, but it'd make electric less totally disastrous as well). Earthquake did a huge amount of work, and it would do even more with Mold Breaker, so I'm not inclined to take anything out for protect, however. I know this breaks with "Protect on everything" doubles orthodoxy, but it seemed to be working for me. (I will admit I did get good use out of protect on Dragonite, which often also came in on opponents who would all want to destroy it, though.)

The back line is totally incoherent.
Like, the only thing it has in synergy with the leads is that Dragonite is a flying type. The things that make the front line sad are not actually dealt with anywhere in the back, and the main saving graces right now are that Mega Alakazam comes out swinging, and Dragonite is absurdly tanky as a secondary setup sweeper. It's not clear that the ability to set up was necessarily good, though. I often just needed another attacker, and needed that damage now to be immune to ground or electric typed, so Dragonite would come out and do whatever but not actually use Dragon Dance. At that point, why are we using Dragonite? Similarly, if Gyarados is getting a mega stone, Alakazam can't use his.
That means I ought to replace one of the back line and need to replace the other. I think one of the two needs to be flying (and not levitating because of Mold Breaker) while the other one probably shouldn't be. I've seen suggestions of Togedemaru for rain teams and it seems like it might work here too. What other ideas do people have?

Also, how the heck did this work so well against the tree? I just sort of threw it together without intent to do well.
 
I seem to be in some sort of curse. Scarf Tapu Lele can't seem to break past 78 wins, at least for me. Much like my Charjabug being unable to break past 60 wins...

Posting a completed streak of 75 wins in Super Doubles...grr...



Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 12 SpD / 236 Spe
Rash Nature
IVs: 25 HP / 2 Atk / 25 Def
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Dazzling Gleam
- Shadow Ball

Metagross @ Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 6 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 12 SpA
- Meteor Mash
- Zen Headbutt
- Earthquake
- Protect

Arcanine (M) @ Mago Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 2 SpA
- Flare Blitz
- Wild Charge
- Extreme Speed
- Protect

Gyarados (M) @ Waterium Z
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 6 SpA
- Waterfall
- Ice Fang
- Dragon Dance
- Protect

Pretty basic team I just randomly threw together with what I had on hand, as I wanted to give Charjabug a break. Basically, it combines the speed and power of Tapu Lele, while having an abuser of Psychic Terrain beside it in the form of Mega Metagross. Gyarados is the main switch in, as it is immune to Metagross's Earthquake and resists Fire types aimed at Metagross and Steel types aimed at Tapu Lele. Double Intimidate makes the team decently bulky, even without investment in bulk. Arcanine ended up being somewhat of a dead weight, contributing very little towards the defensive core of the other members.

Tapu Lele is again the Choice Scarf spread that Josh C. created that I've come to love. Everything else is a basic 252/252 set that I created for general purposes, and with no general benchmarks whatsoever. They can be optimized, probably with more special bulk due to Intimidate, but I don't have any plans on doing so and figuring the bulk I may want.

Tapu Lele carries the basic moves that a normal Choice Scarf Tapu Lele would have. Metagross is also pretty generic, with dual STAB and Earthquake for coverage. Gyarados is essentially a VGC 2017 moveset, as is the Arcanine. One interesting thing to note is the Extremespeed on Arcanine. However, by the time Arcanine comes on the field, Psychic Terrain is almost out, makin it a non issue. Plus, I can still use it on weakened Flying types and Levitate users, letting it's partner focus on the other threat at no risk from the Extremespeed target.

I didn't spend too much time making this team, which also means I didn't take too much time to analyze what's good and what's not. I did notice these though.

Intimidate: With 3 Physical attackers, I'd rather not have to deal with these. Thankfully, in my run, I ran into very few Intimidate users. As a bonus, Intimidate leads are a non-issue thanks to Clear Body Metagross.

Water Types: Only Tapu Lele and Arcanine can hit these decently hard, but Arcanine naturally can't handle them for more than a turn, and Tapu Lele may have to deal with other threats. Gyarados can't touch them at all, and Metagross has one of it's STAB moves resisted as well. Zen Headbutt does chunk them pretty well, especially in Psychic Terrain. However, bulkier ones like Suicune, Milotic, and Empoleon can either take the STAB moves of my leads decently well or resist all of them.

Battle 50: Q4TW-WWWW-WWW7-B7V6

Just a basic Blue battle, and the only battle I saved besides my loss.

Battle 76: T6UG-WWWW-WWW7-B7Z3 (Loss)

I didn't want to deal with the Mespirit, so I double into it, but it uses Protect, and Milotic gets it's first Surf off. Not too bad, but a wasted turn. Paralysis on Metagross and a critical hit on Tapu Lele severely cripple my leads, and Metagross gets taken down shortly after. I try to preserve Tapu Lele by switching in Gyarados for it, hoping for Arcanine to bait Mespirit into it's slot, but instead Gyarados eats a Thunder in the face, basically ending my run right there. I could have saved it at the end with Arcanine against Primarina and Lapras, if Hydro Pump had either missed twice or I got a critical hit Wild Charge on Lapras, but chances are so slim that it was basically done.

Somehow, a lack of initial care in teambuilding made this team work out. Arcanine is definitely the weak link in my opinion, and I'm thinking of using an Assault Vest Kartana in place of it to deal with the Water types, something that I don't think I've seen in this thread. Honestly, while this team worked out, I doubt I'll be playing it again for a little while, since I do want to figure out the Assault Vest Kartana spread before I use it again. And I wasn't even going to post this originally (hence the lack of detail in this post, in comparison to my other team posts), seeing how close it was to my last run, length wise. But, I figured it could have helped out someone, being the only (I think, I'm not skimming 83 pages to find out) Tapu Lele/Mega Metagross lead team.
 
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Prepare for trouble and make it double!

Reporting a streak of 103 in Super Multis with ProjectTitan313. That's right, we're taking the top spot. ;o

Our team consisted of Mega Salamence, Mega Metagross, Ferrothorn, and Tapu Fini.

Mega Salamence is good. Mega Metagross is good. So we figured they'd be good together. And they were.

This team isn't perfect and does have some glaring weaknesses (mostly electric types and Heatran Who Must Not Be Named), but it still worked pretty well. We basically just picked solid Pokemon that had decent bulk and type synergy. The leads were able to muscle through most lesser mortals without the help of the backup Pokemon.

Cause of Loss: Cannibal took the name of the Devil in vain.

If Tapu Fini is no longer an option, Heatran is pretty much unstoppable for this team. In hindsight, we should have used Waterium-Z on the Zapdos, predicting that it would Roost. This would have turned it into a 2 vs. 1 battle and been an easy victory with Tapu Fini to take out the Heatran.

But I also mostly blame myself for saying "inb4Heatran!" aloud right as the Mesprit died.

(As a sidenote, Heatran is the bane of @ProjectTitan313.)


Losing battle:
BYHG-WWWW-WWW7-BKS4

Other battles:
C4BG-WWWW-WWW7-BKSK
VS3W-WWWW-WWW7-BKSQ
SDZG-WWWW-WWW7-BL3F
PTPW-WWWW-WWW7-BL3J


Thrashy (Salamence-Mega) (F) @ Salamencite
Ability: Aerilate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Protect
- Roost
- Flamethrower


Metagross-Mega @ Metagrossite
Ability: Tough Claws
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Protect
- Ice Punch
- Zen Headbutt


StickMeInYou (Ferrothorn) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Protect
- Leech Seed
- Power Whip


Nereid (Tapu Fini) @ Waterium Z
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 196 SpA / 60 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Muddy Water
- Protect
- Soak
- Moonblast




ProjectTitan313 has a slightly higher streak from cheating on me doing a few battles before with a different friend, so we're going with my streak of 103, as this is the accurate number between the two of us.
 
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Ongoing streak of 400 wins in Super Doubles. Since I can't see a reason for changing the spreads and moves any further, I thought I'd just share them to get some suggestions and possibly help out other newer players! I'll be posting the video once the streak ends.



Pheromosa @ Focus Sash
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 12 SpA / 244 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Low Kick
- Lunge
- Ice Beam
- Protect
Standard tree Pheromosa, EV'd to hit an empty speed tier of 202 outspeeding scarf Skarmory3. Max attack and the remaining EVs go into SpA. I thought about cutting either attack or speed for more SpA to guarantee Ice Beam KOs on certain mons, but it just wasn't worth the huge investment. For reference, Pheromosa can't OHKO Landorus1, Noivern1, Garchomp1, Garchomp4 (Mega), Salamence1 and Salamence3 with Ice Beam (probably also a few more 4x weak mons which I forgot to mention); none of these pose a real threat to my two leads anyway. 60 SpA EVs are required to guarantee an OHKO on Garchomp1; I felt that was way too much of a investment to warrant it.

Poison Jab vs Lunge / Ice Beam was another debate I thought really hard about but ultimately I decided to drop it for better coverage in the latter two moves. The only two opposing critters I can think of that really suffer from Poison Jab are Whimsicott and Shiinotic; both of which can be either double-targetted for an instant KO or 2HKO'd by either lead's moves. By the way, Poison Jab also doesn't OHKO Florges and Aromatisse; if it had a chance to OHKO Aromatisse before it can setup a potential Trick Room, then I would definitely run it.

While High Jump Kick is a really tempting move to run (I actually ran it for a while in previous streaks, and a miss almost always costed me the battle), considering it nails KOs that Low Kick can't guarantee - such as on Togedemaru and Rotom formes, its inaccuracy simply isn't viable for long streaks in the tree. Every crash usually means I lose Pheromosa immediately.



Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
Modest Nature
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Energy Ball
- Taunt
I feel that Scarf is the only item that maximises Lele's potential, given its high base SpA. Giving it a speed burst in the form of Choice Scarf only makes it a monster that tears through most of the tree with terrain boosted Psychic before they can even land a hit.

I originally ran 156 Spe EVs to outspeed Pheromosa by 1 point and 92/4/4 EVs in defenses. It was only after getting OHKO'd by Mega Beedrill's Poison Jab somewhere in an early run that I realised how stupid I was to not EV to outrun it, considering Psychic is a guaranteed OHKO on Beedrill3. Modest max SpA is pretty much mandatory imo, it gets many KOs and 2HKOs that Timid can't.

As for the moves, Psychic and Moonblast are the necessary STABs which also cover Pheromosa's weaknesses. I've alternated between many moves for the last two slots, including HP Fire, Thunderbolt, Dazzling Gleam, Psyshock, Shadow Ball, Thunder, etc; these were ultimately narrowed down to HP Fire, Dazzling Gleam and Energy Ball. However after a few runs I noticed that HP Fire was ridiculously weak; it never OHKOs any 4x fire weak mon, most notably Escavalier which returns an OHKO with Iron Head. I left the fire coverage option to Salamence instead, and went with Energy Ball for a guaranteed KO on Mega Swampert. As for Dazzling Gleam, there was never a situation where I felt the need to attack both opposing Pokemon with a fairy move, save for certain matchups like Grimsley. Pokemon 4x weak to Fairy are usually easily OHKO'd by Pheromosa without the need for Lele's intervention.

The team is obviously weak to Trick Room considering how frail Pheromosa is; and since Lele has a mostly unused 4th move slot I decided to add Taunt in. Having Taunt on a scarf set makes it really crucial to decide when to use it, especially since the next turn is wasted switching to another Pokemon. I usually only Taunt when Pheromosa+Lele are unable to guarantee a combined KO on the target; more details added below in the team threats.



Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Return
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower
- Protect
I've experimented with Mega Gyarados in this slot before. It was great, having the ability to break through Levitate with Mold Breaker, but too slow and too reliant on getting up a Dragon Dance before being able to sweep. Nothing fit this role as well as Mega Salamence did, with its ability to punch holes in practically everything with Aerilate-boosted Return. As for the EVs, I never really saw a need to run anything less than max speed to speedtie with all the other base 120s. SpA investment for Flamethrower is also largely unnecessary as it doesn't turn any significant 2HKOs into OHKOs.

I chose Return over Double-Edge after seeing just how much recoil Salamence takes from Double-Edge and opening itself up to many revenge KOs; I felt that the extended longevity was worth the trade-off. Earthquake and Flamethrower are there for coverage to hit through certain Rock- and Steel-types that Pheromosa can't, be it due to a lack of power or the fact that it's already dead by the time Salamence comes in. I made a few calcs with Fire Fang and realised that 4 SpA Flamethrower generally does more damage than 252 Atk Fire Fang for some reason.

No Dragon Dance or Roost since the AI usually doesn't give me the opportunity to setup; I wouldn't sacrifice a valuable Protect slot for it anyway.



Celesteela @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 4 Atk / 188 Def / 68 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Leech Seed
- Wide Guard
- Heavy Slam
- Protect
I've read a few similar team writeups before and noticed many others use Aegislash for this slot instead. While I don't deny that Aegislash has better offensive presence and possibly a more defensive matchup, I feel that it lacks the potential to close games. Often when using Aegislash after Phero/Lele are both down, I almost always have to take a hit before getting damage off, and that was convincing enough for me to not use it. Besides, you're basically screwed if Aegislash is left as your last Pokemon and staring down a bad matchup, or two attackers.

Celesteela is a great finishing answer to practically everything that doesn't carry strong Electric- or Fire-type attacks. As long as the opponent doesn't have a powerful attack to take it down in a few hits, Leech Seed + Protect combined with a 120BP Heavy Slam is more than enough to seal the game. There have been a few occasions where I screwed up at the beginning and Celesteela managed to pull out a win vs a 1v3 onslaught. Besides, using Leech Seed on a Blissey is hilariously fun! Oh, and also, being a Flying type has an added bonus of letting Salamence Earthquake freely. Overall, I haven't once regretted using Celesteela in this slot.

I EV'd Celesteela to survive a Thunder from Zapdos3 and throw a Leech Seed in before dying, and for special bulk in general. The rest went into physical bulk. 4 Speed EVs let it hit an empty speed tier of 82, outrunning a few mons (thanks turskain for the speed tier list) -
81 - Tyrantrum-1
81 - Breloom-1
81 - Honchkrow-1
81 - Samurott-2
81 - Politoed-2
81 - Honchkrow-2
81 - Metagross-2
81 - Tyranitar-4

Heavy Slam, even without Attack investment, OHKOs a surprising number of fairies including Mimikyu, Aromatisse23, Florges234 and Sylveon34. Wide Guard came in useful a few times, most notably for protecting Salamence from opposing Blizzards, as well as the occasional Discharge and Explosion. It sometimes (albeit rarely) also lets Pheromosa get in another hit at 1HP while the opponent tries to use a spread move to finish it off.


Team threats:


Trick Room
This is a big problem for the team considering how fast and (relatively) frail all my Pokemon are (barring Celesteela, but even that gets undersped by every TR user), which is why I run Taunt for the TR setters that can't be eliminated on Turn 1.

There are just general notes on how I handle all the TR users, they're not necessarily optimal plays; my actions may also vary depending on the TR user's partner.

Aromatisse (4) - Might have Aroma Veil to block Taunt. Lunge, then switch Lele into Celesteela and Heavy Slam next turn. Or yolo Taunt and pray it isn't Aroma Veil, although it's usually not worth it since only one set carries TR.
Audino (4) - Only set 4 carries TR, Psychic + Low Kick KOs it.
Bronzong (1,4) - Taunt.
Carbink (3) - Heavy Slam OHKO. Beware of Sturdy.
Cofagrigus (3) - Taunt. Only one set has TR, but the other sets all have annoying status moves making it an instant Taunt target in my book.
Cresselia (4) - Taunt. Only one set has TR, but sets 2 and 3 also get severely crippled by taunt. You'll also avoid lame Double Team shenanigans this way.
Dusknoir (2,4) - Taunt. All sets are taunt bait; the Pain Split variants are rather annoying as well.
Jellicent (3) - Don't taunt since it carries Mental Herb. Psychic it immediately to weaken Water Spout, then Psychic again next turn to KO.
Reuniclus (2) - Moonblast/Psychic (depends on which move you want to get locked into) + Lunge KO.
Slowbro-Mega (4) - EnergyBall/Moonblast + Lunge KO.
Slowking (1,4) - Lunge OHKOs set 1 and has 9/16 chance to OHKO set 4, but to be safe just double target it (Psychic does enough to guarantee the KO)
Trevenant (4) - Typically doesn't go for TR immediately (I could be wrong), Psychic + Lunge/IceBeam KO.


Faster scarf users aren't really a threat for me, considering they're really frail and usually OHKO'd by my two leads. They usually target Pheromosa, so I just protect and OHKO with Lele. Entei3 is one of my favourites to deal with - I just Protect on Pheromosa, tank the Eruption on Lele (it survives crit Eruption) then Psychic it down to the red where its Eruptions start doing pitiful damage even on paper-thin bulk Pheromosa.


I've also been experimenting a little with my previous gimmicky Oricorio team on regular Doubles. Managed to get my previous streak in Super Doubles to 95 or 96 before losing terribly to a Scarfed Terrakion.

Smeargle @ Focus Sash
Ability: Moody
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Whirlwind
- Transform
- Baneful Bunker

Oricorio-Sensu @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Dancer
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 172 Def / 28 SpA / 12 SpD / 52 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Revelation Dance
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Calm Mind
- Protect

Tapu Fini @ Leftovers
Ability: Misty Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 252 SpA / 12 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Moonblast
- Psych Up
- Protect

Pheromosa @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Focus Blast
- Bug Buzz
- Ice Beam

Haven't been making much progress in this team so I don't have much to share regarding the spreads. I gave Oricorio HP Fighting to cover Dark- and Normal-types, and Calm Mind so it isn't completely useless while waiting for Quiver boosts. The Weakness Policy also allows me to setup a sweep much earlier, since Oricorio usually doesn't get OHKO'd.
Streak is over at 505 wins :(

Losing battle video (#506): S4VW-WWWW-WWW7-BMGP vs Veteran Demiathena

I'm really ashamed at how badly I played this, but then again I wasn't paying full attention to the screen.

Mesprit and Zapdos in the lead, and I always double into Zapdos on sight with Psychic/Moonblast + Ice Beam in case it's Zapdos2. Suicune then comes out to replace it. I bring in Salamence to replace Pheromosa immediately, which probably wasn't a good idea, but I really wanted to get rid of Suicune before I get haxed by a potential Blizzard. Doubled into Suicune's Protect, wasting my turn. Turns out Mesprit had Blizzard from the very beginning, which caught me off guard because I didn't bother looking up the sets, and Salamence immediately dies. When I bring in Celesteela (my last Pokemon) against Raikou, I only thought about using Wide Guard to preserve Lele from Blizzard, which was another stupid move as Raikou turned out to be the Z-move variant and blasted out Celesteela's brains. Since Psychic Terrain is gone and Lele is locked into Psychic with less than 50% HP against a Mesprit, it's over.

In hindsight this was one of the worst matches I played and I completely deserved that loss. I still do think the team has potential to score a consistent 1000 wins though.


Other videos:
#497: FSNG-WWWW-WWW7-BMGN vs Ace Trainer Levi

With Incineroar and Starmie leads, I was completely certain that the AI would double into Pheromosa; combined with the fact that I know Moonblast needs 2 hits to KO Incineroar, I greedily Protected Pheromosa to absorb the move to try getting a free Moonblast in. Instead QC activates on Incineroar and it targets Lele for some reason, OHKOing with Flare Blitz. Somehow managed to pull this one off since the last two Pokemon aren't really threatening.


#419: EXXW-WWWW-WWW7-BMGJ vs Scientist Cal

Taunted the wrong lead (Cofagrigus), as it turned out Slowbro was the mega variant and the TR setter of the team, forcing me to double switch the following turn. With Salamence out on the field, the AI's Slowbro is baited into spamming Blizzard which is easily blocked every turn by Wide Guard, so this didn't turn out too bad.


Oh well, I was really hoping to reach 1000 wins, but that's probably a really faraway goal for someone relatively new to competitive play. Until then I'll be working on developing the Oricorio team and hopefully get some decent progress out of it.
 
I've been lurking this thread for awhile (and similarly watched the Battle Subway one when I played Pokemon White, although I never got anywhere close to achieving anything there...) but I finally felt like I needed to post to see if anyone has some insight to help me out here.

I took the following team into super doubles to test the behavior of priority Tailwind, and somehow ended up winning 43 matches:
Talonflame @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Gale Wings
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • Brave Bird
  • Flare Blitz
  • Protect
  • Tailwind
Gyarados @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Jolly
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • Crunch
  • Waterfall
  • Dragon Dance
  • Earthquake
Alakazam @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
Nature: Timid
stats: 31/x/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
  • Protect
  • Focus Blast
  • Psychic
  • Shadow Ball
Dragonite @ Leftovers
Ability: Wonder Scale
Nature: Adamant
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • ThunderPunch
  • Protect
  • Dragon Dance
  • Outrage


Most of those setups are lifted from the smogon dex, or were originally, and all but the Talonflame were singles builds that I often hastily slapped protect on. I bred Alakazam because I was given the Alakazite, and I bred the Gyarados, Dragonite, and Talonflame because I got mostly-perfect baselines out of wonder trade while breeding other things I was more directly interested in. The team I actually intended to take into doubles is still on lockdown from last month's international, where I did okay but not amazing, mostly due to inexperience. (It's rain hyper offense, basically.)

The way I played the team was also basically hyper offense, in fact rarely using tailwind at all: since the most effective status effect is dead, Talonflame would use a Z attack on something turn 1 while Gyarados set up a dragon dance. Turn 2, I'd usually blast another thing with Brave Bird and start doing damage with Gyarados. I occasionally set up tailwind here if the opponents looked particularly fast, but, honestly, the whole team is so fast that tailwind rarely mattered. Usually around turn 2-3, the AI will have cleaned up Talonflame, and I'd send out either Dragonite (if I wanted to earthquake more) or Alakazam (if I needed a no-setup followup sweeper). I have to admit, I mostly used Dragonite for the electric attack, and only sometimes with Outrage for generic sweeping.

The game I lost, I stopped following all my standard procedures. I was against a Scientist who led Slowking and Rotom-Fridge. I panicked about the electric type (which flying is, of course, not super effective against) and used flare blitz turn 1 against it, rather than seeing if I could get a pick on the Slowking (which I figured was too beefy). My opponent scientist sent out Komala next. Slowking used Trick Room, and I forgot everything about how to play the game. Rather than protecting my Talonflame for Gyarados to crunch, I tried to skystrike something and got wiped away by surf. Then, Komala Z-attacked Gyarados, wiping my entire lead team out in one turn... under trick room. I guessed a little wrong the next turn, but it's not like Alakazam and Dragonite are going to do anything but go last under trick room. Worse yet, Slowking also knew Ice Beam, which Dragonite is x4 weak against. I did manage to do in the Slowking with a lucky two-turn-protect, but I just didn't have the resources to clean up after falling apart with trick room.

Things I need to work on:
Obviously, Gyarados shouldn't have a Sitrus Berry, he should have a mega stone. The raw defense boosts of the mega stone are approximately the same 25% that you get out of a Sitrus Berry. (I didn't have the mega stone because I didn't realize how quickly you get battle points with a decent winning streak, and I'm just starting out at this.) There were also several times that I really wished I could either have a Dark typing to boost Crunch (like, say, against a Slowking) or lose the flying type weaknesses (particularly against rock attacks, but it'd make electric less totally disastrous as well). Earthquake did a huge amount of work, and it would do even more with Mold Breaker, so I'm not inclined to take anything out for protect, however. I know this breaks with "Protect on everything" doubles orthodoxy, but it seemed to be working for me. (I will admit I did get good use out of protect on Dragonite, which often also came in on opponents who would all want to destroy it, though.)

The back line is totally incoherent.
Like, the only thing it has in synergy with the leads is that Dragonite is a flying type. The things that make the front line sad are not actually dealt with anywhere in the back, and the main saving graces right now are that Mega Alakazam comes out swinging, and Dragonite is absurdly tanky as a secondary setup sweeper. It's not clear that the ability to set up was necessarily good, though. I often just needed another attacker, and needed that damage now to be immune to ground or electric typed, so Dragonite would come out and do whatever but not actually use Dragon Dance. At that point, why are we using Dragonite? Similarly, if Gyarados is getting a mega stone, Alakazam can't use his.
That means I ought to replace one of the back line and need to replace the other. I think one of the two needs to be flying (and not levitating because of Mold Breaker) while the other one probably shouldn't be. I've seen suggestions of Togedemaru for rain teams and it seems like it might work here too. What other ideas do people have?

Also, how the heck did this work so well against the tree? I just sort of threw it together without intent to do well.
If you wanna try Mega gyarados, try replacing Alakazam with Tapu Lele holding a choice scarf. I'd also try to get a Pokémon that resists ice and rock, Garchomp maybe?
 
I've been lurking this thread for awhile (and similarly watched the Battle Subway one when I played Pokemon White, although I never got anywhere close to achieving anything there...) but I finally felt like I needed to post to see if anyone has some insight to help me out here.

I took the following team into super doubles to test the behavior of priority Tailwind, and somehow ended up winning 43 matches:
Talonflame @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Gale Wings
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • Brave Bird
  • Flare Blitz
  • Protect
  • Tailwind
Gyarados @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Jolly
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • Crunch
  • Waterfall
  • Dragon Dance
  • Earthquake
Alakazam @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
Nature: Timid
stats: 31/x/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
  • Protect
  • Focus Blast
  • Psychic
  • Shadow Ball
Dragonite @ Leftovers
Ability: Wonder Scale
Nature: Adamant
stats: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
  • ThunderPunch
  • Protect
  • Dragon Dance
  • Outrage


Most of those setups are lifted from the smogon dex, or were originally, and all but the Talonflame were singles builds that I often hastily slapped protect on. I bred Alakazam because I was given the Alakazite, and I bred the Gyarados, Dragonite, and Talonflame because I got mostly-perfect baselines out of wonder trade while breeding other things I was more directly interested in. The team I actually intended to take into doubles is still on lockdown from last month's international, where I did okay but not amazing, mostly due to inexperience. (It's rain hyper offense, basically.)

The way I played the team was also basically hyper offense, in fact rarely using tailwind at all: since the most effective status effect is dead, Talonflame would use a Z attack on something turn 1 while Gyarados set up a dragon dance. Turn 2, I'd usually blast another thing with Brave Bird and start doing damage with Gyarados. I occasionally set up tailwind here if the opponents looked particularly fast, but, honestly, the whole team is so fast that tailwind rarely mattered. Usually around turn 2-3, the AI will have cleaned up Talonflame, and I'd send out either Dragonite (if I wanted to earthquake more) or Alakazam (if I needed a no-setup followup sweeper). I have to admit, I mostly used Dragonite for the electric attack, and only sometimes with Outrage for generic sweeping.

The game I lost, I stopped following all my standard procedures. I was against a Scientist who led Slowking and Rotom-Fridge. I panicked about the electric type (which flying is, of course, not super effective against) and used flare blitz turn 1 against it, rather than seeing if I could get a pick on the Slowking (which I figured was too beefy). My opponent scientist sent out Komala next. Slowking used Trick Room, and I forgot everything about how to play the game. Rather than protecting my Talonflame for Gyarados to crunch, I tried to skystrike something and got wiped away by surf. Then, Komala Z-attacked Gyarados, wiping my entire lead team out in one turn... under trick room. I guessed a little wrong the next turn, but it's not like Alakazam and Dragonite are going to do anything but go last under trick room. Worse yet, Slowking also knew Ice Beam, which Dragonite is x4 weak against. I did manage to do in the Slowking with a lucky two-turn-protect, but I just didn't have the resources to clean up after falling apart with trick room.

Things I need to work on:
Obviously, Gyarados shouldn't have a Sitrus Berry, he should have a mega stone. The raw defense boosts of the mega stone are approximately the same 25% that you get out of a Sitrus Berry. (I didn't have the mega stone because I didn't realize how quickly you get battle points with a decent winning streak, and I'm just starting out at this.) There were also several times that I really wished I could either have a Dark typing to boost Crunch (like, say, against a Slowking) or lose the flying type weaknesses (particularly against rock attacks, but it'd make electric less totally disastrous as well). Earthquake did a huge amount of work, and it would do even more with Mold Breaker, so I'm not inclined to take anything out for protect, however. I know this breaks with "Protect on everything" doubles orthodoxy, but it seemed to be working for me. (I will admit I did get good use out of protect on Dragonite, which often also came in on opponents who would all want to destroy it, though.)

The back line is totally incoherent.
Like, the only thing it has in synergy with the leads is that Dragonite is a flying type. The things that make the front line sad are not actually dealt with anywhere in the back, and the main saving graces right now are that Mega Alakazam comes out swinging, and Dragonite is absurdly tanky as a secondary setup sweeper. It's not clear that the ability to set up was necessarily good, though. I often just needed another attacker, and needed that damage now to be immune to ground or electric typed, so Dragonite would come out and do whatever but not actually use Dragon Dance. At that point, why are we using Dragonite? Similarly, if Gyarados is getting a mega stone, Alakazam can't use his.
That means I ought to replace one of the back line and need to replace the other. I think one of the two needs to be flying (and not levitating because of Mold Breaker) while the other one probably shouldn't be. I've seen suggestions of Togedemaru for rain teams and it seems like it might work here too. What other ideas do people have?

Also, how the heck did this work so well against the tree? I just sort of threw it together without intent to do well.
Which pokemon are you willing to keep and which are you willing to swap out?

I actually do have a suggestion for an alternative Talonflame spread, it's from one of my Doubles theorymon set:

Talonflame @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 204 SpA / 52 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Brave Bird
- Overheat
- Tailwind
- Protect

Idea kinda comes from Sejun Park's Talonflame set in worlds '14. Since Talonflame doesn't live long enough anyway to suffer the aftereffects of the SpA drop of Overheat, it's quite a nice option to do huge Fire-type damage without taking any recoil damage. Gale Wings also stays intact assuming you don't take any damage that same turn. The speed EVs put you at 153 which is an empty speed tier and also lets you outspeed everything after Tailwind, the rest of the EVs go into Atk/SpA. But it's really up to you to decide the speed tier, this is just my suggestion!


Have you tested if taking damage the same turn you click a Gale Wings-boosted flying move will still give it priority for the turn? I'm not very sure on this, but if it immediately cancels the ability effect you might need something to deal with T1 Fake Out on Talonflame?

If Trick Room is really hard for you to deal with perhaps you can add Taunt on one of the leads.
 
Okay, here we go. Originally, when I made the ongoing streak post, I didn't think I would end up doing around another 300 battles over the entire weekend, but god dammit, I did. This is a completed streak of 514 wins in Super Doubles. Here is a quick recap of the team. Proof photo as well.

Anyway, this post is mostly just going to contain some Battle Videos. I chose these videos simply because they were the only ones I ended up saving, lmao. I don't really save a whole lot of battles but I tried saving some of the closer ones that I remembered to save. I only did the write-up for the loss, sorry in advance. Anyway here goes:

Battle 515 vs Scientest Cal (loss): 5BFW-WWWW-WWW7-BQYW
- Dusknoir-? / Wishiwashi-4 / Slowking-4 / Cofagrigus-3
I end up doubling into the Dusknoir with Swampert's Waterfall and Pelipper's Scald, as I always fear Trick Room with this team. I end up taking out the Dusknoir, and Wishiwashi uses Endeavor but it fails. Next, Slowking-4 comes out, and I knew I was going to be unable to take this thing out. I use EQ and Hurricane to, at least, get some damage on it, and possibly confuse it with said Hurricane. Wishiwashi uses Hydro Pump into Swampert and it ends up surviving with 23HP. Trick Room goes off. Now, this is where the stupidity starts. Instead of trying to switch out Swampert, I protect with it, expecting Slowking to just use Surf, but it activates its Hydro Vortex and finishes off Swampert. Wishiwashi uses Hydro Pump into Pelipper, and Pelipper is able to get a Hurricane off and finish off the Slowking. Xurkitree ends up coming out, and the opponent sends out Cofagrigus-3, I believe. I protect with Pelipper, thinking Wishiwashi would end up targeting it because it was low HP, but it ends up using Hydro Pump into Xurkitree and takes it out. Now, I'm in panic mode as Kartana comes out. I go for the double Protect, and it fails, of course. Wishiwashi finishes off my Pelipper and Kartana uses Leaf Blade into the Rindo Berry Wishiwashi. Cofag uses Shadow Ball on Kartana. Cofag then uses WoW, lands it, and Wishiwashi uses Hydro Pump into Cofag. Now, instead of using Leaf Blade into Wishiwashi, I end up using it on COFAGRIGUS, and lose my Beast Boost. I don't know what came over me with that, but it ends up doing nothing, and the next turn, I take out Wishiwashi, and Cofagrigus finishes the battle with Shadow Ball.

Battle 454 vs Madame Gracie: YUGG-WWWW-WWW7-BQYM
Articuno-4
/ Latias-4 / Latios-3 / Zapdos-3

- Really close battle, paralyzed Kartana ends up getting a lucky 2HKO on Zapdos-3 for the win.

Battle 400 vs Pokemon Trainer Anabel: Z72G-WWWW-WWW7-BQYR
Raikou-?
/ Entei-4 / Alakazam-3 / Snorlax-4

- Nothing too special in this one. I just never run into Anabel, so I decided to save it and share.

Battle 260 vs Pokemon Trainer Wally: Q5UG-WWWW-WWW7-BQJ6
Gallade-?
/ Altaria-3 / Garchomp-4 / Magnezone-4

- This battle was frustrating only because I missed two attacks on Garchomp because of Sand Veil. Again, nothing too special.

Also, here's the QR Code for the team: Enter the BRUH
 

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Which pokemon are you willing to keep and which are you willing to swap out?

I actually do have a suggestion for an alternative Talonflame spread, it's from one of my Doubles theorymon set:

Talonflame @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 204 SpA / 52 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Brave Bird
- Overheat
- Tailwind
- Protect

Idea kinda comes from Sejun Park's Talonflame set in worlds '14. Since Talonflame doesn't live long enough anyway to suffer the aftereffects of the SpA drop of Overheat, it's quite a nice option to do huge Fire-type damage without taking any recoil damage. Gale Wings also stays intact assuming you don't take any damage that same turn. The speed EVs put you at 153 which is an empty speed tier and also lets you outspeed everything after Tailwind, the rest of the EVs go into Atk/SpA. But it's really up to you to decide the speed tier, this is just my suggestion!


Have you tested if taking damage the same turn you click a Gale Wings-boosted flying move will still give it priority for the turn? I'm not very sure on this, but if it immediately cancels the ability effect you might need something to deal with T1 Fake Out on Talonflame?

If Trick Room is really hard for you to deal with perhaps you can add Taunt on one of the leads.
For the next go-round I fully intend to swap out both Alakazam and Dragonite. I have a HA Snivy (thanks again, wonder trade!) in breeding right now, so I was going to try using that to see if it works, but I wasn't certain what to do on the other slot. Garchomp, as you mentioned, is certainly solid. I was also looking at a few fliers and was thinking about Life Orb Sigiliph, admittedly partly because the LO/Magic Guard interaction amuses me. (For reference, aside from wonder trading, I have VC Red and White 1 to get mons from.)

That Talonflame build is really interesting, and I'll have to think about it. If not for this, then maybe for something similar with a lead that doesn't speed boost.

I haven't tested what happens if Talonflame gets hit with one of the quick attacks (Fake Out doesn't matter: I'd get a flinch anyway) because, well, I haven't actually run into any. However, everything else I've seen suggests that speed ordering is determined for the turn immediately after activating mega stones, and speed changes mid-round do not change that. (Functionally, it also looks like Tailwind only starts ticking down on the next turn, which may be why it is on a 4 turn timer instead of a 5 turn timer like weather.)
 
Hey guys, not that it's any more informative than what we have here, but I made a Battle Tree guide on Bulbapedia. What they lack in completeness, they make up for in visuals.
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Battle_Tree_Trainers

Also, another question:

Does anyone know the IVs for the NPCs battled?

I think when I scout any of them, they will have 31 IVs as Multi Battle partners, but I'm wondering if they're always 31 IVs when battled. Historically, NPCs have IVs that scale towards 31 after the streak has gone on far enough. I used to Pain-Split test them for the Battle Subway, but currently don't have Pain Splitters trained in my Sun.
 

atsync

Where the "intelligence" of TRAINERS is put to the test!
is a Pokemon Researcheris a Contributor to Smogon
From some brief testing I did a while ago, IVs of the opponents should be very similar to how they were in the Maison, starting at 19 and gradually increasing up to 31, with a rough correlation between when the trainers are encountered during the streak and what their IVs are (i.e. low IV trainers appear first and are gradually replaced by the high IV ones). Based off the Bulbapedia data:

Trainers 001-050 should have IVs=19
Trainers 051-070 should have IVs=23
Trainers 071-090 should have IVs=27
Trainers 091-190 should have IVs=31

Battle Legends and other special trainers have IVs=31 no matter when they appear, so unlike the Maison, you WILL encounter 31 IV trainers prior to battle 31.

Also, I think that the Normal modes use the same trainers as the ones used in the first 20 battles of the Super modes, right down to their IVs (unlike the Maison, which had unique trainers/Pokemon with lower IVs in their Normal modes). The Battle Legends of the Normal modes also have IVs=31.

Take all of this as an educated guess rather than 100% absolutely confirmed fact - my testing wasn't as thorough as it was in the Maison and more testing from other users who are interested in doing so might be helpful :)
 
Two somewhat unrelated things (to each other) that I wanted to ask:

1. NoCheese, What's the stance on Multi Battles with both human players played by me, on two systems? They good for leaderboard?
2. turskain, A lot more specific, but is there any possibility of Battery-boosted attacks being included in the damage calculator? I don't expect this to happen though, as I think I'm the only known Battery user at the moment.
 
Not quite, because setting it up as a multi allows a potential two megas and two Z-moves, plus if one system loses both of its Pokemon first, it will be 1-on-2 for the rest of the battle--the other system doesn't get to put its backup into the vacant slot.
 
Another gimmicky team I've been playing around with recently; currently at 115 wins. This is more of a "for fun" team and not something I'm expecting to get a high streak on.




Greninja @ Focus Sash
Ability: Battle Bond
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Water Pledge
- Ice Beam
- Dark Pulse
- Mat Block

Protean vs Battle Bond is a real dilemma for me. They both have their pros and cons; Protean giving Ice Beam more power and being rather useful in manipulating the AI into wasting a Psychic attack. That said, Greninja is a pretty weak Pokemon that doesn't do much damage anyway, so I used Battle Bond for a situational power boost whenever it gets to immediately KO a 4x water/ice weak Pokemon.


Decidueye @ Grassium Z
Ability: Overgrow
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Def / 188 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Grass Pledge
- Shadow Ball
- Nasty Plot
- Protect

Decidueye's EVs allow it to survive every single Sucker Punch from the tree if I'm not mistaken. Speed investment is mostly unnecessary since it outspeeds everything under swamp, and its mediocre speed tier doesn't make any speed investment worthwhile either. Despite all the bulk it still feels like Decidueye dies too easily...


Blaziken-Mega @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Low Kick
- Flare Blitz
- Fire Pledge
- Protect


Thundurus-Therian @ Choice Specs
Ability: Volt Absorb
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Grass Knot
- Hidden Power [Ice]


Will be doing a more detailed writeup if I manage to achieve more success with this team!

Idea of the team is to abuse the Pledge moves to sweep. Grass+Water pledge creates a swamp for 4 turns that cuts opposing Pokemon speed to 1/4 of its original amount, which means the entire team outspeeds the entire tree for the next 3 turns given that you only need a raw speed stat of 75 to outrun the fastest tree mon (Aerodactyl1). Since I can't rely on such a risky setup 100% of the time, Blaziken is there to function as a "Helping Hand + After You" utility in the form of Fire Pledge, which allows either Decidueye or Greninja to immediately use their respective pledge move after Blaziken. It's also an excellent sweeper on its own.

Finally for the last slot - since Mat Block doesn't stop users faster than Greninja, I need a switch-in that can take Electric-type moves directed at that slot, which is why I used Thundurus. I've tried Raichu (better ability in Lightning Rod) but it feels very lacking in offensive presence.

This team isn't easy to play; considering the Grass+Water pledge setup requires Greninja to not attack for the turn. Sometimes on turn 1 it feels very hard to decide between using Mat Block + Nasty Plot, or immediately going for the double pledge; especially when the opposing leads both could potentially outspeed Greninja.
 
Idea of the team is to abuse the Pledge moves to sweep. Grass+Water pledge creates a swamp for 4 turns that cuts opposing Pokemon speed to 1/4 of its original amount, which means the entire team outspeeds the entire tree for the next 3 turns given that you only need a raw speed stat of 75 to outrun the fastest tree mon (Aerodactyl1). Since I can't rely on such a risky setup 100% of the time, Blaziken is there to function as a "Helping Hand + After You" utility in the form of Fire Pledge, which allows either Decidueye or Greninja to immediately use their respective pledge move after Blaziken. It's also an excellent sweeper on its own.

Finally for the last slot - since Mat Block doesn't stop users faster than Greninja, I need a switch-in that can take Electric-type moves directed at that slot, which is why I used Thundurus. I've tried Raichu (better ability in Lightning Rod) but it feels very lacking in offensive presence.

This team isn't easy to play; considering the Grass+Water pledge setup requires Greninja to not attack for the turn. Sometimes on turn 1 it feels very hard to decide between using Mat Block + Nasty Plot, or immediately going for the double pledge; especially when the opposing leads both could potentially outspeed Greninja.
Did they change Swamp from last gen? Last gen it cut speed in half, not 1/4th. I crushed BSD and the Maison with it last gen so I'm quite familiar with Pledges. :P

Protean Greninja interacts very interestingly with Pledges; so that also helps with the Protean / Battle Bond moments.

1. NoCheese, What's the stance on Multi Battles with both human players played by me, on two systems? They good for leaderboard?
Pretty sure that's allowed, iirc there's one or two such records on the Maison thread.
 
Did they change Swamp from last gen? Last gen it cut speed in half, not 1/4th. I crushed BSD and the Maison with it last gen so I'm quite familiar with Pledges. :P

Protean Greninja interacts very interestingly with Pledges; so that also helps with the Protean / Battle Bond moments.
Yeah, the info icon on the bottom screen specifically states 1/4. It definitely isn't 1/2, as I recall my paralyzed Greninja was still fast enough to outrun anything.
 
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turskain

activated its Quick Claw!
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
2. turskain, A lot more specific, but is there any possibility of Battery-boosted attacks being included in the damage calculator? I don't expect this to happen though, as I think I'm the only known Battery user at the moment.
I work by using copy-paste mainly, and adding new features even if minor is above my nonexistent programming ability. As posted above, adjusting the Pokemon's Special Attack base stat and EVs to make the Special Attack 30% higher, or increasing move base power by 30% to simulate the effect should work.

On a similar note, I ditched the trainer list feature since I ran into merge conflicts with upstream showdown changes that were too difficult to resolve with just copy-paste - the trainer list is still in yournamehere's calculator if you used this feature.
 
I work by using copy-paste mainly, and adding new features even if minor is above my nonexistent programming ability. As posted above, adjusting the Pokemon's Special Attack base stat and EVs to make the Special Attack 30% higher, or increasing move base power by 30% to simulate the effect should work.

On a similar note, I ditched the trainer list feature since I ran into merge conflicts with upstream showdown changes that were too difficult to resolve with just copy-paste - the trainer list is still in yournamehere's calculator if you used this feature.
Fair enough there. I don't know anything about programming either, so I get it. I guess I'll try out the increasing other stats by 30% and see what happens.
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
just call me yung ma$ter sl42

completed streak of 92 wins in singles with nihilego / kartana / mega gyarados. probably should have lost before then but oh well


Nihilego @ Focus Sash **Ultra Beats
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
Stats at L50: 180/64/74/179/152/146
- Power Gem
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Stealth Rock
- Sludge Bomb

the sash lead. basically nihilego aims to get a ko or two in most battles, and it can usually take two special hits (pretty sure salamence hydro pump is a 3hko). sludge bomb is actually really good vs. defensive stuff because that extra 12% can make a big difference.


Kartana @ Choice Scarf **Katagami
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Rash Nature (+SpA -SpD, thanks GTS)
Stats at L50: 134/233/143/83/45/149
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Sacred Sword
- Aerial Ace

this thing did ok i guess but i would not use it again considering how much i despise scarf kartana as a set. it never cleans because of its awful offensive coverage, it can't switch in on special attacks at all, etc. beating waters is ok tho. actually the only reason i used this thing was because i was too lazy to breed a garchomp lol so in the next attempt i will use that.


Gyarados (F) @ Gyaradosite **Orochi
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
Stats at L50: 170/194/100/68/120/133 | 170/227/130/77/150/133
- Substitute
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Dragon Dance

man oh man this thing is so good. dragon dance is amazing, substitute is the best move in the game. even without bulk investment it lives everything, like i 1v1'd a zapdos with it one time. the type change is really cool as well. gyarados won about two-thirds of the games by just setting up and winning.

i lost to a lead mega mawile that i just played horribly against, i kept predicting it to sucker punch and making bad plays. kartana also let me down. where is my garchomp?????

to change this team i plan on acquiring an hp fire nihilego to smack guys like ferrothorn. garchomp makes my team slightly weaker to water types so thunderbolt on nihilego might also work. after that i'm gonna build around an ice type like mega glalie or maybe cryogonal.

battle videos:
KS6W-WWWW-WWW7-D8H6
52CW-WWWW-WWW7-D8H4
N3CG-WWWW-WWW7-D8GV
VS5W-WWWW-WWW7-D8GU

shoutouts to my man RNGIsFatal for getting so many wins the tree glitched, and shoutouts to everyone from the battle tree discord Giratina93 Smuckem Josh C. HeadsILoseTailsYouWin and some other people i'm forgetting (sorry, haven't been on discord in a while). it's honestly such a good place to get feedback on an aspiring team or just chat with fellow tree traversers and i recommend it for anyone who has the time for discord.

see you later everyone o/
 
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Small update:

→ 550*

I lost at 364 but was angry about a misplay or two, so I rebuilt the streak with the same team (available here) up to where it is now. That said, the fact that this team has me in second place on the leaderboard is far beyond what I was expecting to accomplish. I'll write more when the streak ends.

Also, I'm driven to keep going with this team because I want to scout Anabel, being the only "special" Trainer I haven't yet scouted. And across more than nine hundred battles with this team, I have never faced her once. On this current run, I ran into Grimsley on 460, 470, 480, and 490. I seem to run into him and Sina the most, then maybe Cynthia or Kiawe, then Wally, then Colress, then Plumeria. But never Anabel. If I somehow reach one thousand with this team, maybe she'll be waiting for me like it's the Battle Tower back in Hoenn and she's the actual Tree Brain but you only get the symbol after winning a thousand in a row. And with Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon on the way, there's really only five months and a day that I'm probably going to have to focus on getting to a thousand. Only time will tell.
 
After many battles at the Battle Tree. The Double Battle streak on Pokemon Sun ended with a total of 110 wins. I gotta say, it was quite an achievement.

The team used were 4 Pokemon team members who were originally used for the Tiny Tourney competition. It's pretty much an offensive Trick Room team altogether.

Here's the team:

Charol (Torkoal) (F)
Item: Charcoal
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Nature: Quiet
IVs: Fantastic/Decent/Best/Best/Fantastic/No good
Flamethrower
Eruption
Solar Beam
Protect

The main engine of this team. When Trick Room is up and running, it'll be like using Typhlosion back in Diamond and Pearl. With her slow Speed and the Drought ability. This Pokemon can leave many opponents shell shocked! The first turn usually consists of protecting itself or try to OHKO or do as much damage to Pokemon.

Little Ghost (Mimikyu) (M)
Item: Mental Herb
Ability: Disguise
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpA / 3 Spe (Need to do some quick EV fixes.)
Nature: Brave
IVs: Very good/Best/Best/Pretty good/Best/No good
Shadow Claw
Play Rough
Protect
Trick Room

Every slow Pokemon must always rely on a Trick Roomer to become speedy Gonzales. That's when Mimikyu comes in. It's sad to see such a Pokemon left alone without any friends. That all changed because it's one of the best Pokemon to use with it's sweet moves. On the first turn, it's important for this team to set up Trick Room and sweep. However, if it faces Pokemon that are considered slower than it, it would just attack or protect.

Seashore (Gastrodon) (F)
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 100 HP / 80 Def / 252 SpA / 76 SpD
Nature: Quiet
IVs: Best/Decent/Best/Best/Best/No good
Earth Power
Scald
Ice Beam
Recover

This Pokemon from ORAS is used for backup in case the team faces any Water type Pokemon with the Storm Drain ability. Plus, she has great coverage against Dragon, Flying, Rock, Ground, Fire, Steel and Grass types.

Summer (Leafeon) (M)
Item: Grassium Z
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 80 Spe
Nature: Adamant
IVs: Hyper trained!/Hyper trained!/Hyper trained!/Pretty Good/Hyper trained!/Hyper trained!
(As an Eevee, this Pokemon was caught in ORAS with a random number of IVs before hyper trained.)
Leaf Blade
Knock Off
Swords Dance
Protect

Ah, Leafeon. One of the least used Eeveelutions...Now thanks to Torkoal with her Drought ability, this Pokemon is a credit to the team! Leafeon with his Chlorophyll ability is there in case Mimikyu goes down before Trick Room is set up so there's still a chance to out speed Pokemon. Knock Off is there on Leafeon for more type coverage against Psychic and Ghost types and Swords Dance is to make sure it can OHKO certain Pokemon with Leaf Blade and Bloom Doom. Plus, it's great to get rid of opposing held items.

Battle 42:
B4QG-WWWW-WWW7-FXPS

Battle 50 (vs Blue):
ESKW-WWWW-WWW7-FXQ2

Battle 57:
D7PW-WWWW-WWW7-FXQA

Battle 70 (vs Colress):
8NZG-WWWW-WWW7-FXQM

Battle 73:
GFJW-WWWW-WWW7-FXRW

Battle 90 (vx Kiawe): (You will not believe the comeback here!)
PDCW-WWWW-WWW7-FXR5

Battle 100 (100-win milestone/vs Grimsley):
2ADW-WWWW-WWW7-FXRA

Battle 111 (Defeat):
QMXW-WWWW-WWW7-FXRD

All in all, a great achievement and the Pokemon are definitely ready for the Tiny Tourney! The Trainer name in Pokemon Sun is Twilight by the way.

HNI_0037.JPG
 
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Hey guys! I've been lurking around on this thread for about two years now (doesn't feel that long to be frank, time flies) and I recently completed Super Singles with Giratina93's Sal/Lele/Aegi team. Im extremely grateful for his contribution as I used the QR code- I don't really have the time anymore to breed competitive pokemon, so the new feature is a godsend. I doubt I'll lodge many streaks on the leaderboard, I don't even know if QR teams are allowed on it, but I made a few interesting observations over my brief run so far that may be worth sharing.

-Salamence, a god during the first 40 or so matches, really dropped off in usefulness (in relative terms) and I was relying more and more on the back two. This isn't saying that he didn't achieve anything, and it may change as I forge ahead, but it was just interesting to see the change in usefulness

- I faced 5 veterans in battles 41-49. They are obviously not as scary as they were in ORAS, I guess, but 4 of them were running legendaries, and were therefore still a pain in the ass. I don't know if thats inherently common, but it was an interesting phenomenon I suppose.

-I actually got very lucky during my run, especially due to matchups. In recent memory, this is mostly for my Lele, as when it was my last pokemon and on low health I was forced to lock it into Moonblast due to its choice scarf, and prayed for the best. Both times the last pokemon was weak to fairy (terrakion and drampa) and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I know that the Tree and Maison before it have been riddled with hax, but it's nice to have a bit of luck every once in a while.
 
It's probably about time I wrote up my 112 streak in Doubles with my Trick Room team of Oranguru/Hariyama/Sylveon/Torkoal.



Oranguru @ Mental Herb
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 84 SpD / 8 Spe
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Instruct
- Psychic
- Protect

When SM came out I straight away wanted to have a shot at running a this with the intention of spamming Instruct on spread moves under trick room. Having Inner Focus was a huge bonus too and made a big difference against both rock slide and fake out. But that is about where the list of pros ends for Oranguru. Without intimidate support, it goes down in one shot to a long list of bug and dark types (and some HJK users) on top of being susceptible to thunder wave, swagger and OHKO moves. Too often I was unable to set trick room (at least 1/15-20 battles) and this team cannot survive without it. The 8 Speed EVs allow it to underspeed Sylveon in trick room to allow for better use of instruct while thee rest are taken off other spreads in this thread.


Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 252 Atk / 108 Def / 116 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
- Close Combat

Hariyama is both what made this team so great (3 turn wins everywhere with instruct CC) but also one of the biggest problems. Very often I was forced to choose between sacking Hariyama on turn 1 or risk not getting TR off (either to crit or para/fusion). Even if Hariyama lived, once one or two Close Combats came out it dropped to virtually anything. EV Spread is also poached of other teams.


Torkoal @ Grassium Z
Ability: Drought
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Eruption
- Solar Beam
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power

One of the first eyecatchers at the releese of SM was drought Torkoal and I had a lot of success in VGC with him alongside Hariyama and Oranguru but when I moved to the Tree I swapped specs out for a Z crystal and the loss of power leaves a lot of moves underwhelming. The biggest problem with Torkoal is that its always a toss-up between bringing it out early and risking losing the sun to another weather setter or bringing it later when TR is ending and risking it being dead weight if the game reaches turn 6. Earth Power was to ease Tyranitar and Heatran matchups.


Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
Level: 50
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swift
- Hyper Voice
- Shadow Ball
- Psyshock

This was the last addition to the team and the one I was least confident in but really turned out to be the strongest. While I have doubts about the bulk of Hariyama and Oranguru and the offensive power of Torkoal, Sylveon delivered on all fronts. The set is standard with Swift to deal with Soundproof and Brightpowder.


Most games played out the same, with Fake Out + TR turn one. I would then just spam Instruct+CC until Hariyama died when I would replace the Instructed CCs with Instructed Hyper Voice or Eruption. Unfortunately the team couldnt stand up to tyranitar if Sylveon was down and any failure to set up TR created a very dicey game. Finally the pokemon that this team struggled most with was actually Palossand (especially set 3) who could tank anything I threw at it and respond by OHKOing Torkoal and Hariyama. Finally, the Slowfam were an issue, being able to tank anything I threw at them (especially Mega-Slowbro taking little from knock off) and dealing serious damage to both torkoal and hariyama.

I finally lost in a very silly way that I don't entirely remember. All I know is I chose to fake out a thunder-waver instead of Vespiqueen on turn one who decided to crit Oranguru and OHKO it with attack order. As soon as sylveon got paralysed on turn two I knew it was over and as predicted, she failed to move three turns in a row and I lost the match. Too pissed off to save it unfortunately.



For the record, I'm binman on discord so those who frequent that chat might recognise the team.
 

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