Plotting Something Nasty - Doubles Series 2 Team Report

This is the team that used for the entirety of the Battle Spot Doubles Series 2 ruleset. This is an adaptation of my Double Toge team from my previous report where I fixed a number of the shortfalls of the team to create something a bit less meme-y and a bit more properly balanced. At the time, as I grew comfortable using the team I wasn't too sure whether I wanted to write a report on this team at the end of February when the current monthly season ended, or whether I wanted to hold onto the team for a bit longer in case I wanted to use it at a few more tourneys, but the addition of mons like G-Max Lapras, Venusaur, and Incineroar in Series 3 create enough of a shakeup to the metagame for me to feel okay to just put my team out and move on. While it is possible this team still can work effectively in Ruleset 3, it seems like a good point to shelve it for the time being and try something new.

 Team Adaptation Process

Let's start off with how we got from Point A, to Point B. I'll start with the original team, then go through each of the major changes to come up with my final team. For a refresher, here are the original six:

Step 1: Inteleon -> Whimsicott
                       

The first change is a response to my previous report. I mentioned that for that team, Inteleon was not a proper fit and that something else should be used instead. I experimented with a few mons, such as Dragapult and Rotom-W, but ended up with similar problems to having Inteleon. So instead of having a replacement offense Pokemon, I had the idea to use Whimsicott instead. One of the big issues of my previous team was that it struggled dealing with opposing Whimsicott Tailwinds, as they pull ahead with a Speed advantage much quicker than my own team. By having my own Whimsicott to counter-tailwind, it creates more opportunity for me to run Togekiss's Nasty Plot set up, as it once again gains Speed superiority over the opponent when it's got +1 from Max Airstream and a Tailwind to neutralize the opponent's.

Step 2: Togetic -> Indeedee (F)

                           

The second change is one to remove redundancy. While Togetic is generally more bulky than Indeedee, having a Fairy/Flying mon redirect for another Fairy/Flying mon is not the greatest of ideas. Especially with how often Togetic runs the risk of being flat out OHKO'd by STAB Max Steelspike from various Pokemon in the format. Indeedee can still be OHKO'd on occasion, but the situations where it goes down in one hit are generally more manageable to play through. Psychic Terrain from Indeedee is also an extremely useful tool, but we'll get into more detail about that later.

Step 3(a): Hitmontop -> Crawdaunt
                        

After my two initial changes, I found that trying to use a Fake Out support mon like Hitmontop was difficult because I would almost always bring Indeedee as a Follow Me support resulting in generating Psychic Terrain, blocking my own Fake Out from being used. My team at the time was also struggling a bit against certain Trick Room Pokemon. I gave Iron Ball Crawdaunt a try, which was able to underspeed Rhyperior, and do huge amounts of damage with Adaptability Max Geyser.

Unfortunately, Crawdaunt was very awkward to use due to my team's lack of real support to put it into a position where it can do big damage. Psychic Terrain was still an issue for Crawdaunt's utility as it blocked usage of Aqua Jet, and the low Speed was often difficult to work with when the team itself is not a Trick Room team. To top it off, I found out that Crawdaunt gets OHKO'd by 252 SpA Moonblast from Whimsicott. That's when I knew it was not the right choice.

Step 3(b): Crawdaunt -> Gyarados
                       

As a result, Crawdaunt became a Gyarados, which was sort of a middle ground in between Hitmontop and Crawdaunt. This provided me with both Intimidate support, and some Water-type (and Grass-type) moves to help work with some matchups. Since this change, I've felt happy with Gyarados's contribution to the team, and its presence has allowed it to play a pivotal role in some matchups, even getting to be the Dynamax mon of choice.

Team:

After the adjustments, this is what the team ended up looking like. Compared to my previous team, it solved some of the issues with regards to being overwhelmed by simple aggressive Tailwind offense teams, and had a bit more flexibility in strategy, both in terms of what I could bring into battles, and the ability to adapt on the fly in the middle of a battle as they played out. Today's nickname theme is of playable characters of the Touhou shmup series.

Sanae (Togekiss) @ Razor Claw
Ability: Super Luck
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Air Slash
- Dazzling Gleam
- Heat Wave
- Nasty Plot

Nasty Plot Dynamax Attacker. This is the same Togekiss as before, the only change I made was to have Heat Wave over Fire Blast, mostly for the scenario of using Heat Wave to roast Durant while bypassing Follow Me support. To refresh on what it does, Togekiss sets up +2 SpAtk with Nasty Plot while covered by redirection then powers through the opponent's team with +2 Max Moves and a 50% Crit rate. +2 Crits hit hard enough that Dynamax Pokemon may start getting OHKO'd by it, but it's not always the most reliable thing to bet it all upon.

A simple 252/252 Timid spread was used in order to maximize Togekiss's Speed so that it can mobilize quickly given that it has to make up for taking a passive opening turn for Nasty Plot set up. Set up with Togekiss isn't always easy given how much of a target it has on it, but it is still the feature strategy of this team, and very scary to face off against due to the risk of it popping off and going on a critical hit rampage at any time.

Over time with using the team, you learn that there are times when you bring Togekiss and are free to go for set up, times when you bring Togekiss to Dynamax and attack immediately, and times when you just don't go with Togekiss and revolve the gameplay around Dynamaxing something else.

Sakuya (Indeedee-F @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 236 HP / 212 Def / 60 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Mystical Fire
- Reflect
- Helping Hand
- Follow Me

Follow Me Support. Indeedee provides the backbone to the entire team, providing a wide array of supportive aids through its presence. It takes the role of Follow Me support from Togetic, but also helps in providing methods of damage reduction from both Physical and Special attacks, along with Psychic Terrain.

Indeedee's EV spread allows it to survive LO Max Steelspike from Jolly Excadrill, and other similar attacks around that benchmark. On the special side, due to Psychic Terrain allowing it to instantly activate Psychic Seed for +1 SpDef, it's special bulk benchmark is that it is able to take a Helping Hand Boosted LO Max Wyrmwind from Duraludon.

As Fake Tears strats become more popular, Indeedee providing Psychic Terrain becomes a more valuable tool at shutting down opponent strategies. Despite my two set up mons both being Flying on this team, simply by having Indeedee and Psychic Terrain active means that it can redirect and negate Prankster moves such as Thunder Wave, Fake Tears, Trick, Swagger, Charm, etc. forcing them to play a bit more honest and allows me to create opportunities for safe set up.

As before mentioned, my Indeedee has capabilities to reduce damage on both ends through use of Mystical Fire and Reflect, while having a method to boost damage capabilities with Helping Hand. While Indeedee can use other moves such as Heal Pulse, or take advantage of its own Terrain to deal damage with Psychic, I found that all four of my moves were used a respectable amount for me not to consider any of them expendable or interchangable. Maybe Reflect for Heal Pulse. But that's a big maybe.

Youmu (Excadrill) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Iron Head
- High Horsepower

Choice Scarf attacker. Unchanged from my previous team and the set is pretty straight forward. I feel that Excadrill's role on this team is a bit less important than it was on the previous team, but it still fills a niche of being an immediate fast offense option for this team, and used to cover a few specific Pokemon such as Scarf Darmanitan, and to be used in general as a clean up option to close out games. Mold Breaker allows you to increase the viability of setting up for an endgame where Excadrill can freely throw around Earthquakes to wrap things up.

Marisa (Duraludon) @ Life Orb
Ability: Stalwart
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Thunderbolt
- Steel Beam
- Protect

Dynamax Attacker. After having a bunch of troubles dealing with opposing Duraludon in the mirror, amongst other things, I decided to go all in and change my Modest Duraludon for Timid and just go max speed. For the context of this team, in ended up being the correct choice.

The moveset is unchanged from before, and its role on the team is generally the same as before where it just goes immediately in on the offensive and tries to punch holes into the opponent's formation as quick as possible, while being covered by redirection support, or boosted through use of Helping Hand. Thunderbolt is used as a coverage move to help the Corviknight matchup, and to provide a Sleep prevention option for the team. Steel Beam over Flash Cannon is a preference choice, though I will admit that Flash Cannon would allow for Duraludon to be a bit more flexible as a mon to use when not Dynamaxed.

Reimu (Gyarados) @ Charti Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 156 HP / 116 Atk / 12 Def / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Power Whip
- Bounce
- Dragon Dance

Intimidate Support, Dynamax Set Up. Red Gyarados because this is player 1 Reimu, not player 2. Using Gyarados on the team allowed me to retain Intimidate presence on the team while creating a new avenue of offense as well. A lot of teams have numerous Pokemon weak to Water-type moves, but also tend to have a few Pokemon that shield the team from the advances of Water-type Pokemon, such as Rotom-W and Gastrodon. Gyarados having access to Power Whip in this generation allows it to be put in a strong position to crash through these kinds of teams as it has a way to hit hard against both the Pokemon weak to Water and the Pokemon trying to protect the mons that are weak to Water. After a Dragon Dance, Gyarados becomes a massive threat to the opponent's team as its STAB Max moves allow it to either increase speed, or further increase its damage output.

The EV spread for Gyarados  was focused a bit more on providing a bit more bulk. It is EV'd to outspeed Timid Pelipper and Adamant Dracozolt, has as Atk EVs to hit 176 stat so it's offense is roughly comparable to Jolly Gyarados, and the remainder was placed into HP with a point or two for each defense. While this does mean that my Gyarados fails to outspeed certain Pokemon after +1 Speed, I usually did not find that to be much of an issue for its performance.

My choice of item for Gyarados ended up being Charti Berry. While Wacan would help remove the dangers of being OHKO'd by Electric-type moves, I specifically wanted to make sure Gyarados could improve its match up vs Rhyperior or Tyranitar, both of which could be big threats to my team. Charti Berry allowed me to safely know that I can take a Max Rockfall and fire back with a powerful Max Geyser in attempts to deal with the opposing Dynamax.

Reisen (Whimsicott) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Tailwind
- Helping Hand
- Trick Room

Prankster Support. As I mentioned earlier, Whimsicott's placement on the team was to help me maintain momentum in a battle, where I could bring Whimsicott in after Indeedee was KO'd and set up a counter-tailwind and regain control over a battle. For the most part, Whimsicott's moveset is straight forward. Moonblast and Tailwind are staple moves. Helping Hand is on the set as Psychic Terrain is often active, making offensive status moves hard to use.

Whimsicott has a variety of moves to choose from for its final move. For this team, I chose Trick Room as the option of choice. Why Trick Room? Because it is the kind of surprise tech move I enjoy putting onto teams. One that has a specific purpose and is easy to conceal, so in a tournament setting it will be nearly impossible to scout that I have the move, unless I come across the specific situation where it would be used. And when the situation arises for its use, I can usually expect to be able to take that battle off of that one move alone.

The two main situations for use of Trick Room are:

1. In a Whimsicott Mirror where you can force them to Tailwind
2. vs a Trick Room team where you can reverse Trick Room and regain momentum

While I often worry about the lacking offense of my team when bringing both Indeedee and Whimsicott, it is often a necessity to do so to maintain momentum vs certain teams.

While Trick Room was my tech move of choice for this team, other moves to consider would include Endeavor, Taunt, Charm, Fake Tears or Energy Ball. Just remember that if you choose offensive status moves that you will need to play around your own Psychic Terrain to make use out of them.

Using the Team

The team has two main Dynamax options, between Togekiss and Duraludon, with an additional third option in Gyarados if needed. You usually want to ask yourself, "how do they stop Togekiss, or how do they stop Duraludon?"

For about 90% of games, you will lead Indeedee and either Togekiss or Duraludon. Gyarados is usually used as a switch in as opposed to an immediate lead, even if you're planning to use Gyarados to lead the offense, simply to avoid opening Intimidates, or risk triggering Defiant or Competitive. Whimsicott and Excadrill are often back end members, though there are some occasions where they can lead. One example for Excadrill would be vs Darmanitan.

Sometimes the path to victory is not immediately obvious. It takes some practice and exposure to various teams to be able to grow confidence in making reads and move choices to go the extra distance needed to ensure a victory in a hard matchup.

Threats / Points of Interest

Dusclops

One issue for this team is that Trick Room isn't always its strongest matchup. The issue with Dusclops is with just how much variety it has with supportive options at its disposal. Bulldoze to Weakness Policy is usually what you look out for, but its ability to just choose between Helping Hand, Ally Switch, Haze, Pain Split, Will-o-Wisp, etc. can make dealing with its supportive ability difficult. Especially when playing against it in best of 1.

Durant

Durant is fairly restricting towards this team due to its immense offensive pressure, and the general lack of Fire-type moves on this team outside of Togekiss (who can get destroyed easily by Durant). However, from experience it isn't always as scary as it seems. If they don't lead Durant, it gives time for you to get into a position where you can handle it when it comes in. If they do lead Durant, they put themselves in a position where they may have to trade Durant for Indeedee and lose it to a Togekiss Heat Wave or Max Flare.

Duraludon

As my team is one where redirection is crucial, naturally Duraludon is a dangerous opponent. However, if you play smartly it is possible to keep ahead in the fight. One issue that a lot of Duraludon have is that they will immediately go for Dynamax and want to try to get as much damage in as possible. But between the use of switches and Mystical Fire from Indeedee, you can quickly create a situation where a Duraludon's offense becomes pedestrian and they've taken a small amount of chip damage that puts them in range to be taken out by one of your own harder hitting special attacks. Once the opponent's Duraludon's Dynamax ends, it can be pretty easy to start a counter attack, even with something like Togekiss who was initially threatened a large amount by Duraludon's damage potential.

Vanilluxe + Inteleon

This is a matchup that I found harder to deal with than initially expected. Both Vanilluxe and Inteleon can hit hard against my entire team and depending on Vanilluxe's item choice of Focus Sash or Choice Scarf, it can lead to very bad things happening if I guess wrong. This would have been one instance where Modest Duraludon fares a bit better because it has a much more favourable roll to OHKO Dynamax Inteleon with LO Max Lightning.

Sand

Excadrill itself is usually not the big issue when it comes to Sand teams. The main concern is knowing what kind of Togekiss you will be facing and to be on the look out for Dynamax Tyranitar. A lot of times the opponent may lead Excadrill and Arcanine to try to catch a Duraludon lead, but it leaves them extremely vulnerable for an easy switch in to Gyarados and to set up a Reflect with Indeedee. Once this happens, Gyarados is put in a very good position to set up for a sweep.

Due to the wide variety of how Sand teams are made and ran, there's no real one flowchart strategy to defeat them, sometimes you need to get a bit creative.

Critical Togekiss

This team knows how much of a pain it is when Togekiss goes on a critical hit rampage. Because this team does that to other people. Critical hits can be the difference between Indeedee taking about 30-40% from Max Airstream, and taking 90%+ from a bit. And that difference can be game deciding, and can be hard to adapt to. The only real answer for it for me is to try to threaten an OHKO with Duraludon's HH Steelspike, or simply pray for no crits.

Charizard

Charizard's damage output can be extremely dangerous. G-Max Charizard's Wildfire passive damage does a lot of extra damage over time, while Solar Power Dynamax Charizard hits hard enough to OHKO Indeedee. A Whimsicott + Charizard, this is one of the prime examples of matchups where Togekiss needs to Dynamax and start attacking immediately. Charizard can be KO'd by a combination of Airstream + HH Airstream or Critical Hit Airstream, which usually results in a trade of Indeedee for Charizard. After Indeedee faints, you can bring in your own Whimsicott and set up a Tailwind in order to keep Togekiss's speed advantage in the battle.

Overall I'm happy with how this team worked. I wouldn't say it is a top level team, due to the struggles it has with the increasingly popular addition of Dusclops even to teams that aren't reliant on Trick Room, but it was definitely one that expressed my usual style of gameplay in VGC.

Results:

1st at Vancouver MSS on Feb 2nd
27-7 in February International Challenge Wi-fi tourney
1-1 in NPA

Series 3 so far has me being a little bit lost and needing some time to get my bearing straight, but hopefully I'll be able to plot something else kind of nasty for a new team I can share with you in the future.

Stay healthy and safe out there.

Team Paste:
https://pokepast.es/14001ba9c9322b55

Rental ID: