GBU Doubles - A Mixed Bag of Counters

[Golden Piloswine]

Hello all, this is a GBU Doubles RMT. It can also work for VGC'12, but that metagame's over so it's now just GBU. This team I literally put together in 20 minutes, but it's doing surprisingly well in PO. I took inspiration from standard goodstuff, sandstorm, and FEAR. So without further ado here is the team.

The Team...

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Escavalier
Ability: Swarm
Nature: Brave
Item: Occa Berry
144 HP/ 252 Atk/ 60 Def/ 52 SpDef
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~Iron Head~
~Megahorn~
~Flail~
~Protect~
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This may seem like a standard Escavalier until you reach the bottom half of it's moveset. I know what the official VGC'12 Smogon page says for it, (that it should use Double-Edge), but I feel like that's a wasted moveslot. It's not gonna do much anyway, and chances are Flail will be better due to it's power based on HP. Obviously if Escavalier is up against a Metagross I'll use Megahorn, but other types that resist the two moves, I'll have a chance to pull of a successful Flail. It does'nt give recoil, so that's another plus over Double-Edge. The Ev is spread out to better cover it's defensive areas. Swarm and Occa Berry, is to make Megahorn a very threatening move to any Cresselia, due to Swarm of course, and the likleness that it will be brought down to 1/3 HP, with Occa. Escavalier also serves as a great counter to Trick Room, because base 20 speed is almost bottom of the barrel. Why is it on this team though?
o Low Speed (Trick Room Counter)
o Great Attack
o Ability to switch into Draco Meteors
o 1 weakness

Tyranitar
Ability: Sand Stream
Nature: Brave
Item: Iron Ball
100 HP/ 200 Atk/ 208 Def

~Fling~
~Rock Slide~
~Fire Punch~
~Protect~
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This , by no means, is a standard Tyranitar. Sand Stream sure, but everything else, besides Rock Slide and Protect, is completely different. Fling, why Fling? Well, after contemplating the, "Elimination of opposing weather method", I could'nt find a way for Tyranitar to be slower than Iron Ball Politoed. So, I gave it Iron Ball too. I know it leaves it open to the dreaded fighting type moves, but then this take us into the EV spread. 208 into Defense. It is to help with fighting type moves, which are by and large, physical. Let's talk more about Fling. It usually OHKO's most Cresselia's, you know, with STAB in all, and it's a pretty powerful move all together. Fire Punch is to give my team some much needed fire type coverage, and is good for OHKOing non-Occa Scizor, plus it has the element of surprise. Rock Slide is standard, and I believe needs no explanation. As well as Protect.

Hitmontop
Ability: Technician
Nature: Adamant
Item: Dark Gem
44 HP/ 252 Atk/ 152 Def/ 60 SpDef

~Fake Out~
~Mach Punch~
~Sucker Punch~
~Detect~
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A standard priority Hitmontop. I chose priority over CC/Fight Gem because of Aron's Endeavor, plus most expect CC so a Mach Punch finish might come as a surprise. Sucker Punch is good for those ghost types, who think that they can stop Endeavor, and Dark gem almost guarantees a OHKO against most ghost types, the only two I can think of off the top of my head that would survive, are Cofagrigus, and Dusknoir.
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Froslass
Ability: Snow Cloak
Nature: Timid
Item: Ghost Gem
4 HP/ 252 SpAtk/ 252 Speed

~Ice Shard~
~Shadow Ball~
~Blizzard~
~Substitute~
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I know what' your thinkin' ; "WTF FROSLASS!" Well yes, there are a few reasons I chose Froslass. First off, it's one of the few Pokemon on my team that are fast and have a good chance of out-speeding most threats, such as Latios (I know they're tied, but with a 31 IV, you know, it has a chance.), Garchomp, Hydreigon, and some others. It has a standard Ev set, so let's move on to the moveset. Ice Shard is also to help with Aron's Endeavor, and to finish off low HP Pokemon. Shadow Ball is it's main attacking move, and hits Cresselia hard especially hard with Ghost gem. Blizzard is good in hail, which is a good time to mention that this Froslass is mostly meant to be a counter to hail. Blizzard is not resisted by Abomasnow, or Mamoswine, so it works there, or I can hope for it to hit another mon, if needed on other occasions. Substitute > Protect for strategy reasons, it's fast so it can pull it off.
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Garchomp
Ability: Sand Veil
Nature: Jolly
Item: Bright Powder
4 HP/ 252 Atk/ 252 Speed

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~Rock Slide~
~Dragon Claw~
~Earthquake~
~Protect~
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I hate this Pokemon. This set ^^^^^^^^^^ cost me top cut at Philly do to stupid hax, so I hope it'll work the same magic for me. It is a standard Garchomp, which is meant to be used in conjunction with Tyranitar. Not much else to say...

Aron
Ability: Sturdy
Nature: Quirky
Item: Berry Juice
0 Ev's

~Toxic~
~Endeavor~
~Sleep Talk~
~Protect~
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It is standard FEAR Aron, I chose Quirky nature because it is my favorite nature, and it really does'nt matter. Toxic is to wear down those ghost types, while Protect/stalling. Sleep Talk is for the off chance of a Spore from Amoonguss, or Breloom. Protect is extra useful with Aron so it can make your opponent potentially waste a turn. This Pokemon can be paired with Hitmontop, or Froslass, more so Hitmontop, because of Fake Out, and the higher power of Mach Punch, over Ice Shard.

 

[TheMantyke]

Okay, you have some huuuuuge problems all across the board here.

• One thing that concerns me about the title is the phrase "A Mixed Bag of Counters". If by chance this means you tried building the team with the idea to counter the most common team archetypes around, you should be dodging this team building strategy like the plague. Building a team off of that premise will often lead to you throwing together a bunch of random Pokemon in an attempt to counter a bunch of crap and end up with a horrible mess of Pokemon with little synergy between them and no underlying goal that ironically falls to just about everything.
• You don't have a single water resist across the entire team. Even if they're in the sand, a rain team can just spam surf until you're done for.
• Throughout the whole RMT, you list specific EVs but never elaborated on what these specific EVs accomplish. What do the offensive EVs allow you to KO, the defensive EVs allow you to live, and the speed EVs allow you to outrun? The only Pokemon I see you mentioning why you ran a certain EV spread for is Tyranitar, but even then, you never talk about the specifics and what advantages it lends you over another spread.
• Escavalier's normal type coverage is there simply because he lacks any better options and that's all he has to hit Pokemon resistant to Iron Head and Megahorn (like Zapdos). You should be using it once in a blue moon. Your goal should not be to have him pull off a successful flail, especially considering you have no way to control how low your HP goes and Escavalier's dismal speed.
• Fling Tyranitar is really bad. In exchange for a whole extra 10 base power from a Dark Gem Crunch, you can only attack once and it's completely wasted if your foe protects. You shouldn't really need an Iron Ball on a Tyranitar anyway if you just switch it in turn 1 instead.
• Froslass is pretty dismal as well. You can't OHKO much of anything off of a mighty 80 base Special Attack and you still run the possibility of speed tying many of the things you want it to be able to deal with. If you're using it just for the sake of something to deal with hail and a source of priority, there are much, much better options out there. That's not even mentioning you have no way to fire off accurate Blizzards
• None of your Pokemon are immune to Earthquake. This seriously inhibits the effectiveness of Garchomp.
• Beyond Hitmontop and Tyranitar, none of your Pokemon offer any really solid form of support to help Aron get off endeavors. No Wide Guard users to shield from spread attacks, no Trick Room for the only form of speed control Aron can use... You should be throwing on a bit more support than just random priority to help this thing out.
• Though not relevant to the RMT, this is a problem I've started noticing in many of your recent posts. When contracting two words using the word not, the apostrophe is placed between the o in not. Examples include can't, don't, won't, and shouldn't.

I would honestly consider scrapping the team and starting from square one. It looks like a jumbled mess of Pokemon thrown together without any rhyme or reason. Try to build it from the ground up focusing on some aspect you liked (I don't know, I suppose Aron?) then try to build up a nice array of support options for it without over relying on Aron and keeping some nice underlying basic offensive and defensive synergy. If you need some more in depth 1v1 help, when the new rule set is announced, the folks at Battling 101's VGC program would love to help out.

 

[Golden Piloswine]

True, Mantyke. The title comes from the fact that it looks to some people on PO that I was trying to counter everything. The grammar I'll work on, I've been doing the same thing for years, and it's hard to get out of that old habbit. I'll take your recommendations, and put them into action, by no means would this team would've came to regionals with me. I put it together using Pokemon I like, and it worked well on PO, with about a 75% succession rate, so I decided to post an RMT, because it does look very shaky to me. I will keep Escavalier though, and I'll start re-building later today in the morning. Thank you for your rating, and expect this thread to be updated soon.