SM Doubles OU Checkmater Fixes His Runes

Arcticblast

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It's been a while since I posted a thread in this forum. Hello! I've been playing a bunch more Doubles OU lately than I have over the last year or so, and I thought I'd share the team I've been playing with. I built this two or three weeks before the release of USUM and I thought it'd be totally outdated, but it's been holding up well. It's not my usual style of team, however, and is definitely not without its issues, so I think the best way to address its flaws would be to post an RMT. Better than bugging every single god damn player in the community, at least...

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I'd love to give you a proper teambuilding process, but I'm about 90% sure it looked like this:
okay this is a good Pokemon, these are some good Pokemon, oh this is also a good Pokemon, now here's a Fire type and here's a Grass type. cool we have a team
So ignoring that, let's get right into the team.


Marshadow @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 228 Atk / 28 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Shadow Sneak
- Close Combat
- Spectral Thief​

Marshadow's one of the cutest Pokemon to be stupidly powerful in Doubles OU, and its cry ingame sounds like an exotic bird and I adore it. But that's not the reason it's here. Probably one of the best Pokemon in the metagame right now, Marshadow hits incredibly hard before most other meta threats have an opportunity to attack with its completely unresisted STAB, and heavily discourages setup with Spectral Thief. Life Orb gives it a hefty power boost at all stages of the game, and really makes Landorus-T think twice about switching in. I opted for Shadow Sneak over HP Ice because if I learned anything from XY Talonflame (RIP), it's that priority is always good. I think 28 Defense lived something with enough HP left to take a round of Life Orb damage, but I honestly can't remember what. [EDIT: it doesn't do this, but it does live Tectonic Rage from Lando-T. Might be -1 TecRage, idk.]


Tapu Fini @ Mago Berry
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 156 SpA / 28 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Muddy Water
- Moonblast
- Taunt
- Protect​

I've been playing a lot of TCG and I need to remind myself that this is the video game, and I am not about to have my Pokemon knocked off the board by Tapu Storm GX... Tapu Fini is one of those Pokemon that's sort of good at everything, so I felt it was a bit of a no-brainer to include. I originally had Calm Mind over Taunt, and I think the team's good matchups were better with CM Fini, but the Trick Room matchup was really hard without Taunt. Regardless, Fini serves as a solid backbone in combination with Zapdos, bringing a lot of survivability while still dealing reasonable damage to uninvested targets.


Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Superpower
- U-turn​

The classic. Landorus-T is just a great Pokemon. Intimidate is an excellent ability, the Ground typing is incredibly useful, and its high speed with Choice Scarf makes it effective in just about every match - even if said effectiveness is just flinching things with Rock Slide. Superpower might not be the best choice over Knock Off or even Stealth Rock, but it gets the job done.


Zapdos @ Misty Seed
Ability: Static
EVs: 244 HP / 56 Def / 52 SpA / 80 SpD / 76 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tailwind
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Roost​

Adding Zapdos was probably one of the easiest decisions I made when building this team: it pairs extremely well with Tapu Fini, it can stand next to Landorus-T's Earthquake, it provides Tailwind, and it's just a generally powerful Pokemon. Zapdos forms the second part of the FiniZap defensive core that keeps this team alive when things get rough; I often find myself sitting on the field for way longer than I deserve with the boost from Misty Seed and sustained use of Roost. Like with Fini, the EV spread was taken from somewhere in the DOU Teambuilding Frameworks thread. It's a good thread, you should go check it out! free checkmater


Charizard @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Flamethrower
- Solar Beam
- Heat Wave​

Mega Charizard Y hasn't been seeing much success lately in DOU, especially with the rise of Stealth Rock, but ever since XY I've had a soft spot for it, and I think it's effective even in the harshest of environments. Charizard's best attributes are its dominating weather control and consistently high damage - it's probably second only to Mega Tyranitar in keeping the weather game in my hands, should I need it, and Sun boosted Heat Waves are an absolute terror. Rather than play with bulky Charizard, I've gone max/max Timid; I think outrunning Tapu Lele is too important (and honestly I've never been a huge fan of bulky Zard anyway). Flamethrower is chosen over Overheat or a coverage move because it has no drawbacks and hits a single target, to get around Wide Guard.


Kartana @ Grassium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Detect
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Substitute​

Even after winning a premier challenge in September with FAKEPG, I was never sold on Kartana's performance. It's such a weird Pokemon to use, both in VGC and in DOU. However, I recently saw some Kartana teams tear it up in DOU, so I figured it was worth a shot too. I can honestly say I'm impressed. Kartana's ability to trade one for one at absolute worst is incredible, and its ability to switch in on Landorus-T and Tyranitar is much appreciated on this team as well. I'm not 100% sold on Substitute yet (I was actually going to use Defog for the High Quality Memes, but I mindlessly clicked Substitute, as if my subconscious knew it was a mistake), but the games it's been useful have gone very well for Kartana. I went with Bloom Doom for the absolutely massive damage it can put out to get a Beast Boost snowball started.

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I've always hated the threatlist portion of RMTs, so I'll keep it short: I've had more trouble with opposing Lando-T than any other Pokemon that I can think of off the top of my head. A relatively frail team with three physical attackers generally has that problem!

Marshadow @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 228 Atk / 28 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Shadow Sneak
- Close Combat
- Spectral Thief

Tapu Fini @ Mago Berry
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 156 SpA / 28 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Muddy Water
- Moonblast
- Taunt
- Protect

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Superpower
- U-turn

Zapdos @ Misty Seed
Ability: Static
EVs: 244 HP / 56 Def / 52 SpA / 80 SpD / 76 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tailwind
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Roost

Charizard @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Flamethrower
- Solar Beam
- Heat Wave

Kartana @ Grassium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Detect
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Substitute


Quick shoutout to the squad: Checkmater who always dies, finally who never dies, Hashtag who should really stop building Ghostblade, and Colbrushie who sort of silently carries the team. Also shaian who doesn't play League of Legends but has achieved physical immortality and will remain on this realm long after our kind.

In summary, this is a team I've been playing with for a little while now that focuses on a strong offense, but isn't out of the game against heavier offense thanks to some defensive tools. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a good day!
 
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Fran

formerly Frania
is a Tiering Contributor
DPL Champion
hey baby, some suggestions:
- hp ice marsh is prefered on most sun teams for its ability to ohko mence and landot
- defog on fini could be very useful for rocks removal, while i dont think any of the other 3rd move options (taunt, nature madness, calm mind, heal pulse) fit well here
- if you run 252 HP / 128 Def / 100 SpA / 28 SpD with bold on fini that lets you take zygardes tec rege + tarrows after and shaymins seed flare and i believe thats more optimal than the cm spread youre currently using
- with the wide guard users not beeing as common generally zard prefers something more effective in the 3rd slot. id suggest you drop flame and run one of: hp ice, tailwind or overheat
- you should concider running a diffrent steel as currenly deo-a is able to ohko all of your mons (fini and zap with psychium), so id run ferro over kart just to be safe against that
 
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