A Return to the Frontline - BS Doubles Team Write Up

You mean this blog isn't just about me playing through Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the Nintendo Switch?

It's been quite some time since I've really given a good go at VGC stuff, let alone write a team article. 7th Gen was a bit of a busier time for me, and while I didn't hate the formats in the SM era, it always often felt like there was something missing to really spark and hold interest for me. Issues with the circuit structure, having a bit of a dying local scene, and exams conflicting with major tournament event dates of NA IC and Worlds pretty much made attempts towards even a Day 1 invite during 7th gen a tall order. But anyways, we are not on 7th gen anymore. We are on SwSh. This is Galar, and it's a new day in VGC.

When Dynamax was introduced as a new mechanic, there were worries. A lot can go wrong with how it gets implemented as have already seen with how strong certain Megas were, and how Z-Moves could be. But so far, after playing around a bit on the BS Doubles Ladder, Dynamax as a mechanic feels... balanced? (At least in Doubles)

I feel like Dynamax makes gameplay in Doubles quite different to how it has been in previous generations. The move power of Max Moves not being unbearably strong like how Z-Moves often were, along with the turn limitation on Dynamax duration can allow for players to strategize to outmaneuver their opponents to stall out their Dynamax. But the secondary effects of Max Moves make for some potent effects when utilized well, and can quickly snowball out of control if players are not careful. The fact that Dynamax does not require an item and any Pokemon on a team can pop off if they choose to also adds a bit of an interesting layer of strategy to games that somehow is less of a trainwreck than one would think it would be. Currently it feels like there have been some Weakness Policy strategies rising up from the woodworks as of late, but we'll see over time what else people have in store.

After completing the game without looking much into spoilers regarding plot or mons that are in the game, I went through the dex to look at the new mons, and what old mons we have available. It took a couple of days to really let the flow of knowledge sink in, but afterwards I tried my hand and creating my first team.

I'm not sure why, but one of the first things that came up for me after seeing Dragapult and learning Dynamax mechanics was "What if I Fling something into Dragapult and activate a Weakness Policy?". I looked at what its +3 Max Move calcs looked like, was disgusted, then decided to make this the main focus of this team. "Policy Fraud" teams have existed in the past, but they were often gimmick teams at best, so I wasn't entirely sure how successful this team was going to be. As it turns out right now, it's a team that works well enough to have me climb into Master Ball Rank and has plateaued somewhere around the Top 20-50 range on the Master Ball Ladder through 70 battles or so. Thus, I feel like it works enough for me to share and talk about it. After all, a hallmark of a good team is one that can win even if people know about some of your tricks.

Now, let's talk about this team. My team's ingame EVs/IVs are actually not completely optimal for the team, and these stats will be reflected in the rental team I have created for this team. But, I will also have a pastebin for a PS version which will have stats be corrected.

The team is a bit of a work in progress, so I decided that parts of the team will highlighted in red as aspects that I feel can be changed or improved upon, should someone decide to build a version for themselves. Now, let's get started:

Team: Sangvis Scum

"Next time, please know the difference between a battlefield and a negotiation table.
But this time, please just die."

The nickname theme for the team is of characters from the mobile game Girls' Frontline, my units are named after boss units of the main enemy faction, Sangvis Ferri. There isn't anything too outlandish with regards to mon picks for this team, though perhaps that works in my favour, as it can make it harder to see what to expect out of my team.

Intruder (Whimsicott) @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 4 Atk
- Moonblast
- Tailwind
- Fling
- Helping Hand

Tailwind/Damage Boost Support. Let's start this write up with Whimsicott. Due to the new speed mechanic where turn order is adjusted after each action Prankster Tailwind becomes a much more powerful tool to use when applying offensive pressure for a team. So even if say a Corviknight decides to Tailwind immediately while I choose to do a different action with Whimsicott, I can freely choose to Tailwind the following turn and still get a jump on the opponent with Dragapult.

As for the other moves, Fling is a staple move towards the main strategy of this team, which is to Fling a Liechi Berry into Dragapult for +3 Atk. Helping Hand is used often as a move to get around Fake Out, as Whimsicott is very prone to be the target of Fake Out. For a final move, I chose to have Moonblast over other potential supportive options such as Taunt or Encore. While Whimsicott's SpA investment is minimal, Moonblast still does very respectable damage to opposing Dragons, and can be used as a way to help finish off targets or break Sash or Disguise ahead of Dragapult's attacks.

EVs are fairly straight forward. Max speed, max HP for bulk, 4 into SpA.

Dreamer (Dragapult) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Phantom Force
- Outrage
- Fly
- Protect

Primary Damage Dealer / Dynamax Mon. Fly and Outrage, in Doubles? As a regular mon, this is something that is to be laughed at, no doubt. But it's no laughing matter when this monstrosity is Dynamaxed up and is carving its way through teams with +3 Atk Max Moves. Bad things happen to those who do not respect the raw damage Dragapult can present on Turn 1 with +3 Atk Max Moves.

+3 252+ Atk Dragapult Max Wyrmwind (140 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Gyarados: 375-442 (109.6 - 129.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252+ Atk Dragapult Max Phantasm (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Sylveon: 406-478 (100.4 - 118.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252+ Atk Dragapult Max Phantasm (130 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 172-204 (95 - 112.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
+3 252+ Atk Dragapult Max Wyrmwind (140 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 232-273 (124.7 - 146.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Did I mention that +3 Calcs are disgusting? Basically, if you are not Dynamax and taking a neutral hit, you are likely a goner. If you resist an attack but aren't defensively bulky, it can take you out through resistance. And in certain cases, offensive Dynamax mons can be straight up OHKO'd by Dragapult once it has set up its +3. Clear Body pays of huge dividends for Dragapult in this set up as its Attack stat cannot be hampered through the still prevalent Intimidate, or by things such as Mirror Armor from Corviknight.

Once Dragapult starts picking up KOs, it also can very easily snowball providing extreme pressure on the opponent. Max Phantasm and Max Wyrmwind as STABs provide a very nasty combination as Dragapult can flexibly choose between weakening Defense for easier KOs and weakening Attack to render a physical mon harmless. Max Phantasm Defense drops can lead into situations where Dragapult can OHKO mons THROUGH PROTECT by sheer power as a result of -1 Def. Wyrmwind on the other hand can create a situation where an opponent is pressued to stay in with a physical mon, while I just ignore it and overrun their partner with Wyrmwind, stacking Attack debuffs. This can often lead to something like a 3v2 situation where I still have a Policy activated Dragapult, and one of their remaining Pokemon is a Physical attacker at -3 or -4 Atk, and it is very hard for the opponents to come back from that.

Dragapult's final move of choice is something that can be interchanged with a few other options. At the moment, I am currently using Fly. While Fly is a complete garbage move on its own, having access to Max Airstream has a few niche situations where Dragapult's ability to become a secondary Speed booster for the team can come in handy. Suggestions for other moves may include:

-Sucker Punch, to have a priority move outside of Dynamax
-Steel Wing, mostly so you have an attack to hit Grimmsnarl
-Flamethrower/Fire Blast, as a tech move vs Bisharp and Durant
-Dragon Dance, as an alternate Set Up move

Dragapult's EV spread is pretty straight forward. Max Atk EVs, Spd EVs to hit 183 and be one Speed slower than Whimsicott, and the remainder into HP. Incidentally, this allows Dragapult to survive a Max Move from another Dragapult, and a Fling from Whimsicott. However, this also requires the opposing Dragapult to not have a boosting item such as Life Orb or Dragon Fang/Spell Tag, so it's not the most reliable thing to bank on.

Gaia (Scrafty) @ Black Belt
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 228 HP / 236 Atk / 4 SpD / 40 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Crunch
- Protect

Fake Out/Intimidate Support. Now that Scrafty has access to Close Combat and is no longer oppressed by the omnipresent Tapus of the SM era, it has become a mon that can pull some real weight on the team again, both as a supportive role and as an attacker. Scrafty's moveset is pretty straightforward, with Fake Out, dual STAB, and Protect. Protect was chosen as its 4th move, but other moves may be considered in that spot.

Scrafty works very well as an Intimidate switch in to relieve some pressure away from Dragapult and maintain control over the situation, Scarfty normally isn't used as a lead for this team due to needing both Whimsicott and Dragapult in play to perform the strategy. But this tends to work in my favour as a lot of players will react to Scrafty and lead with something that can punish Intimidate, which can create an opening to commit Policy Fraud.

Scrafty's EV spread has enough Atk EVs to get the extra stat point at 154 stat, Speed to creep uninvested Tyranitar, and the remainder into HP. There's no special meaning to it having 30 IV Speed, breeding luck was just being really obtuse that day. The EV spread is adjusted accordingly to Spd being IV 30.

Black Belt, for all real purposes, is a placeholder item. But, it does give Scrafty a 50/50 chance of just downing 252 HP / 4 Def Dynamax TTar, so I guess that's something.

236+ Atk Black Belt Scrafty Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tyranitar: 384-456 (92.7 - 110.1%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

Agent (Togekiss) @ Wacan Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 236 HP / 148 Def / 4 SpA / 116 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Air Slash
- Extreme Speed
- Protect
- Follow Me

Follow Me Support. Togekiss is one of the few available Follow Me users in the format, and while I'm not entirely sure if Togekiss fits the role best for this team, Togekiss is my favourite Pokemon so it's only natural to want to run a team that wins using your favourites, right?

It's very early in the VGC 2020 meta, so I won't even pretend I know of anything specific I should be setting up my EVs for to have Togekiss survive against. As a result, the EV spread is a fairly generic one. While I opted out from doing so, it may be a good idea in the future to take some points out of bulk and add to Speed in order for Togekiss to outspeed mons such as Scarf Dracovish and Dragapult while Tailwind is up. (I'll have this EV change updated in the pastebin version)

Air Slash and Follow Me are generally givens for Togekiss's moveset. While I've seen a lot of rental teams with Togekiss choose to not run Protect on their set, I've felt that Protect has been very important for mine. I've had a lot of situations where having Protect has bought an extra turn for Togekiss and allowed it to last long enough to stall through an opponent's Dynamax, denying them the momentum they are looking for in order to turn the tides. For a fourth move, I feel like Togekiss has a few options, that include Dazzling Gleam, Flamethrower, Aura Sphere, Thunder Wave or Helping Hand. Instead, I chose none of these moves and went with Extreme Speed. While Togekiss's Attack is awful, doubly so in the case where I'm using this off of 0 IV Atk because I don't want to Hyper Train for use of an experimental move, Extreme Speed's main role is to defeat Whimsicott after it is dropped down 1HP hanging on to its Focus Sash. A lot of people will try to throw out a move with Whimsicott in these situations as a last ditch move with it before it goes down, and Togekiss can instead just deny Whimsicott from doing anything.

Wacan Berry was chosen as an item to slow down the efforts of enemy Rotom. While climbing the ladder, Togekiss was hit with Electric-type moves far more than Steel-type moves, but in Master Ball rank, Togekiss gets put in the line of fire of both fairly often, making Babiri Berry a good alternative.

Architect (Rotom-Wash) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 28 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Hydro Pump
- Nasty Plot
- Protect

Nasty Plot Special Attacker. When teambuilding, I heard that Rotom can now learn Nasty Plot, so I decided to give it a try. I'd say that its utility is a bit of a mixed bag. Having Will-o-Wisp can be crucial to help assist and wear down Physical attackers when Intimidate either isn't doing enough, or is being blocked. However, Nasty Plot can create an endgame situation where I can prevent an opponent from trying to bulk up the defenses of a single Pokemon in order to try to pull a last stand against my team. Due to Rotom-W's typing it can find opportunities to set up with Nasty Plot, but due to its middling speed stat, it often feels like it needs a bit more support than I'm willing to provide in order for it to be a real powerhouse. Still, Nasty Plot did win me a number of games, and was a generally fun set to try out, even if my team doesn't fully support its utility.

EV spread maxes HP, hits 147 Speed stat to outspeed Jolly Gyarados, then puts the remainder into Special Attack. This EV spread might be something to look at in the future if there is something that having some extra special attack can ensure a KO against.

Garm (Duraludon) @ Life Orb
Ability: Stalwart
EVs: 188 HP / 252 SpA / 68 Spe
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Thunderbolt
- Steel Beam
- Protect

Anti-Redirection Bot, Secondary Dynamax. At some point I came to a realization how badly my team gets messed up by redirection, Indeedee Hatterene teams in particular. So I looked over to Duraludon to see whether it can help solve my problems. I would say that it does its particular role fairly well, but sometimes I feel like I could take a bit more getting used to for Duraludon when I'm using it in situations where it isn't harassing TR teams in a rude way.

252+ SpA Life Orb Duraludon Helping Hand Max Steelspike (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Babiri Berry Hatterene: 172-203 (104.8 - 123.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Needless to say, Steel Beam / Max Steelspike does a lot to things. and both its STAB max moves help further bolster physical bulk. So Duraludon as a dynamax mon can do a lot of work in helping deal with Physical attacks, but its weak SpDef stat and lack of max moves to help it on that department can leave it vulnerable to taking a lot of damage from Special Attacks. Similar to my Dragapult, when Duraludon is not in Dynamax mode, its attacking options can be a bit awkward, as Draco Meteor will weaken its damage output while Steel Beam will shave 60% of its HP out of it. As a result, it kind of banks on doing a lot of damage early on so that the large draw backs of its STABs don't come into play as Duraludon fires attacks to close out the game.

For a fourth move, Thunderbolt was chosen as an option to help deal damage to Braviary, as Max Lightning can do a real number against it. However, other moves such as Body Press can be considered.

The EV Spread maxes SpAtk, has Speed to hit 114 Stat, outspeeding Scarf Rotom when Duraludon has a Tailwind, and the remainder into HP, which conveniently hits 169 HP that is Life Orb optimal.

Using the Team

The primary strategy of this team is to lead Whimsicott and Dragapult, and fling the Liechi Berry to commit Policy Fraud then go on a rampage. While there will be a lot of battles where this can be done with little repercussion there are times where the opponent can easily prevent you from setting up, eg Fake Out or Follow Me. There are also times where it can be ambiguous or is a risk to try to set up, eg vs lead Dragapult or vs potential Scarf mons like Hydreigon or Chandelure.

While the payoff of getting the strategy to work is big, getting caught off guard and losing Dragapult early while trying to cash in on Weakness Policy can be a huge blow to the team, and be too big of a deficit to recover from, so it is important to be on the lookout on team preview or with what an opponent leads with in order to see whether it is worth trying to go in or not.

The team in general will require a bit of "Reading Comprehension", by the nature of being a bit of an aggressive team with only single target moves. Even if Dragapult is at +3, it doesn't do you any good if you are constantly swinging into Protects or Max Guards while being whittled away at by their partner. Having the pressure game in your favour definitely helps make the reads easier to perform, but I feel like this team isn't one that is completely autopilot. Even when you have a monstrous killing machine, always keep in mind to consider use of Max Guard to allow for better positioning in the battle. It is more than worth it to sacrifice a turn of Dynamax if it means you can get Togekiss or Scrafty in position for free to help protect Dragapult. Additionally it can help bait out Max Guards or Protects from the opponent. Besides, even when Dynamax wears off, Dragapult is still at +3 and can do considerable damage with its moves.

As stated in Duraludon's write up, it works well as an anti-redirection mon, and can often do a number to Trick Room teams that rely on something like Indeedee to get itself started. Duraludon is usually paired with Whimsicott or Togekiss to lead, depending on the situation. Whimsicott is if I want to try to blow up something with HH Max moves, Togekiss if I want to try to draw attention away from Duraludon so that it has time to set up Defense buffs with Steelspike.

Fling Policy or Beat Up Justified?

I feel that the strategy of Fling + Weakness Policy and Beat Up + Justified are pretty similar so let's talk about why I chose one over the other. Beat Up Justified does not require items to get set up, but the mons that take advantage of Beat Up are a lot slower than Dragapult which can lead to there being more Pokemon that can stand in the way between Whimsicott providing Atk buffs and the recipient actually attacking. Fling Policy is a lot tighter in that regards for speed as Dragapult can be easily trained to be just a point slower than Whimsicott. One other advantage that Fling Policy with Whimsicott Dragapult has is that it can be harder to see coming, due to the wide variety of sets that both mons can run.

Threats

Defiant/Competitive

One of the downsides to have both STAB Max moves be debuffing attacks with Dragapult is that it is very hard to get around triggering Defiant or Competitive boosts. Bisharp and Braviary can both get very quickly out of hand if you are not careful around them with this team.

Trick Room

The team doesn't fare the best during Trick Room, and its main form of answer is trying to find ways to stop the room from going up in the first place, but that can be easier said than done at times. It is possible to outlast Trick Room, but you will need to be playing smart to get around stuff like Policy activated Rhyperior and the like.

Grimmsnarl

Grimmsnarl can easily handle both of Dragapult's STAB moves, has Prankster to set up screens or inflict Paralysis with Thunder Wave and is just an all round nuinsance to deal with. It is important to think about how to deal with this mon or else things can quickly become a nightmare to handle.

Duraludon

Opposing Duraludon are one of those mons that are just a bit hard for the team to handle with how it is set up. They can hit very hard against all my Pokemon and generally the mons best suited for damaging it are also the mons that are the slowest on my team, making it dangerous to try. Using Duraludon to defeat other Duraludon is probably the best this team can do against it, but it's pretty volatile as a matchup.

Whimsicott Dragapult Mirror

The issue with this is that as I mentioned earlier, Whimiscott and Dragapult can run a lot of different sets. This makes the mirror something that can be very volatile, and not in a good way as your own Dragapult is likely going to be the slower of the two.

Thanks for reading to the end. This team has been real fun for me to play around with in the Battle Stadium. I feel like it's still a work in progress and there's things I can still improve on it, both in terms of sets and my game plan in various matchups. I hope that you'll give it a try.

Paste: https://pokepast.es/efe71c5d8aa466c2
Rental Team Code: