Other [RMT] Battle Spot-style Doubles (Without Legendaries)

[destinedjagold]

Hello and good day.

I am going to join an upcoming doubles tournament this coming October that will be held in my neighborhood. Rules are standard clauses, no legendaries, and you can only use 4 out of 6 'mons in your team.

This team I came up with has two functions depending on what my foes' teams are: (1) fast disable+encore set, and (2) Trick Room.

So far, testing this team in Battle Spot Doubles (both free and rated) has given me a lot of wins (and a lot of rage quits from my foes). But I can still see a lot of problems with my team though. Heck, any team has one, right? So I'm posting my team here in hopes that you guys can give your thoughts and suggestions.

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Casper (Gengar) (M) @ Gengarite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 52 HP / 20 Def / 172 SpA / 12 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Disable
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Bomb

I send Gengar out, usually paired with Raichu and rarely with Talonflame. Mega-evolve and use Protect on first turn so I can both scout the foe's moves and trap them in. Disable a threatening move and then sweep them off.

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Shock (Raichu) (M) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 252 SpA / 6 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Protect
- Encore
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Usually paired with Gengar, I use Protect on the first turn to scout foe's moves. Rarely do I let Raichu attack on the first turn, but when I do, I'll usually use Encore on a Disabled foe in the second turn. HP is Ice to deal with ground-types, though it barely KOs a Landorus, but thankfully, this competition I'll be joining bans legendaries.

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Derpy (Slowbro) (M) @ Slowbronite
Ability: Oblivious
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Scald
- Slack Off
- Trick Room
- Psyshock

When I want to run a Trick Room set, I send Slowbro out first together with Gothitelle. With Oblivious, I'll be able to use Trick Room without worrying about Taunt. Haven't tried handling a foe that uses Fake Out on him though. After a successful TR, I'll Mega Evolve him in the next turn.

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Gothitelle (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 136 Def / 122 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 0 Spe
- Protect
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Charm

I usually send him (yeah, I settled with a male) alongside Slowbro for a TR set, so I can trap the foes. Use Protect on the first turn and then I'll try and KO foes the next turns. HP Fighting is there to deal with Dark and Steel types, like Bisharp. Charm is to lower physical attacks of foes.

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Sylvie (Sylveon) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 6 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Protect
- Hyper Voice
- Shadow Ball

Filler 'mon that I use. Her job is to slay dark/fighting/dragon/ghost types. That's about it, I guess.

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Amber (Talonflame) (F) @ Sharp Beak
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 27 HP / 252 Atk / 231 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 17 SpA
- Brave Bird
- Tailwind
- Flare Blitz
- Taunt

Talonflame is there to KO foes when the first two of my 'mons are KO'ed and have already weakend my foes. Sometimes, if I send him out first alongside Gengar, his job is to set up Tailwind and/or Taunt before I start using him to attack. I haven't used Flare Blitz yet in my test battles though. I'm planning to replace that with Overheat to deal with Ferrothorns. Gale Wings still gives him the first move (if I use a flying-type move) in a turn even under Trick Room, which is nice.

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Set 1: Gengar, Raichu, Talonflame, Sylveon

Set 2: Slowbro, Gothitelle, Talonflame, Sylveon

So that's my team. I try and study my foe's team before I decide on what set I'll be using against them.

The problem I'm seeing with my Trick Room team is Fake Out users, especially if they target Slowbro first. Plus I believe having two psychic-types out at the same time is a bad idea. To solve this, I've thought of sending Talonflame out first and give/use Quick Guard to a predicted Fake Out, and giving TR to Goth instead, but then that would mean Goth's open to Taunt, disabling me from casting TR.

For my fast encore+disable set, I'm thinking that Priority Brave Bird Talonflame will give me problems, especially if it targets M-Gengar. :/

I'm sure there are other problems though, but those are the things I've thought about as of this moment.

So what do you guys think of my team?

 

[destinedjagold]

I've changed both Raichu's and Talonflame's held items. I still need some feedback on my team though...

I've been testing this team some more on Battle Spot Doubles, and I am thinking of just getting rid of my Trick Room team and change it to something else.

 

[ethan06]

You wouldn't happen to be a Western Australian, would you? The local community in Perth is holding a tournament in early October with this exact ruleset... Anyway, looking at your team, there's a couple of small optimisations that can be made in a number of places but I feel like, first, you need to address your huge and glaring weakness to Dark and Ghost-types. I know that Sylveon is meant to check Dark-types to an extent, but Pokémon like Bisharp and Hydreigon give this team a really hard time, and a well-played Aegislash can back you in to a corner pretty effortlessly. I'd say that Gothitelle is hugely redundant on this team if you're not using it as a secondary Trick Room setter, especially given that you already have a perfectly functional trapper in Mega Gengar and an equally functional Psychic-type in Slowbro. Therefore, the first suggestion I'd make is to replace Gothitelle with a usable Ghost-type resistance - I'd go with something like Scrafty to give your team some offensive presence on the physical side and also offer Fake Out support. Scrafty is also a good call because its naturally low speed allows it to function in Trick Room, while not being so slow that it can't be used with your Tailwind option. It's known as one of the better Aegislash checks due to being naturally slower and therefore able to hit Aegislash while it's in Blade Forme and OHKO it with Knock Off on the turn that it attacks. Tread lightly around Bisharp, however: Intimidate will trigger Bisharp's Defiant and give it a boost.

Next, I'd like to suggest a few small changes to moves and items: Firstly, Focus Sash > Expert Belt on Raichu. Raichu has some serious frailty issues and more often than not will go down in one hit to any moderately strong attack that it tries to tank. Expert Belt also doesn't give Raichu any truly tangible offensive benefit as it isn't known for running Choice sets in Doubles and therefore won't be able to effectively bluff. Focus Sash guarantees that it will survive an OHKO from full health, giving it a boost to longevity and therefore usefulness. Secondly, try running a Sitrus Berry > Slowbro's Mega Stone. Slowbro isn't getting a lot of mileage out of its Mega with the set you're running, and Oblivious can come in useful more than once a match so I feel like Slowbro would benefit a lot more from using its itemslot on passive recovery from an item such as Leftovers or Sitrus Berry. Running only one Mega will improve your team's flexibility as you'll be able to bring both Gengar and Slowbro to any matchup that requires it, without having to compromise the effectiveness of one or the other.

I have some more stuff I wanted to touch on but I also really need to get some rest - I'll probably come back to this after I've slept c:

 

[destinedjagold]

...

Many thanks for your reply!

The reason why I chose Expert Belt for Raichu instead of Focus Sash is, most of the time, I try and lock both my foes with the Encore + Disable combo, rendering two of my foes to use Struggle, making Focus Sash kinda useless. I've yet to encounter a battle where Raichu gets KO'ed in one turn (not including legendaries(Landorus)).

As for Slowbro, yeah, I believe you brought up a good point. I'm more of a singles battler so doubles is kinda difficult for me to work around with. I'll take your suggestion and get rid of Goth, replace it with Scrafty (I started breeding one) and give Slowbro a Sitrus Berry.

I'm going to test these new changes once I breed a good Scrafty and level him with my Blissey base. :P

Thanks again!