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badass_tiger) wrote2021-08-16 10:25 am
badass_tiger) wrote2021-08-16 10:25 am
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Same Double Beat: Team Report
Unfortunately, I couldn't do any battles on day 3 because of unstable internet connection, and I wasn't feeling well anyway, so I took my first DC as a sign that I should just take the night off. Overall, I'm quite pleased with this team. First of all, I made it myself. Quite a feat for someone like me. Secondly, it's the perfect blend of cute and brawny. Finally, it actually kind of works. So that's very cool.
Pokepaste
I ended up with 20 wins and 11 losses, but one of those losses was that DC, so let's say it's exactly 2:1.
This team report will just be a quick review of the team and how things went, since the team is fairly self-explanatory, so I don't feel the need to go into each Pokemon.
1. Initial metagame thoughts
Very quickly, this competition only allows Pokemon that are in the Sword and Shield Pokedexes, including DLCs, disallows all legendaries, and allows duplicate Pokemon and items. This metagame/competition first debuted in the Singles format, which I also played in.
When you look at this ruleset, most people's first instinct is to use duplicate Pokemon, or perhaps even a whole team of the same Pokemon. For the Singles version (Fair and Square), it was fairly easy for me to decide on using a Cinderace team. Its extreme flexibility in the Singles format, its huge movepool, and great offensive stats meant I could go for a Cinderace for every situation, and complement it with three support Pokemon. (The team wasn't great, but let's not go into that right now.)
Doubles is a bit different, because you can't exactly just go in with an offensive frontline and start taking names. I mean, you can, but it's much easier to disrupt your opponent with Fake Out, priority moves, redirection, etc. so pinning down a good Pokemon to use multiple of was a bit harder. I felt that the key difference between this metagame and series 9 (obviously series 10 is incomparable) would primarily be the absence of Incineroar, and secondarily the absence of legendaries.
In the end, what this mostly meant to me was that I couldn't just use Wolfey's Coalossal team. Which, I guess, was a good thing.
I went back to earlier seasons to get some ideas. I would have really loved to use double Indeedee, but the idea didn't inspire me. I looked through some old early season teams and, in the end, decided to build around the Hatterene+Indeedee Trick Room combo. I threw in some Pokemon to counter what I thought might trouble them, and landed on a full TR team. Full TR teams aren't the greatest, but in my experience with Fair and Square, there's less people trying to counter the metagame and more people focusing on their own fun teams and wincons, so a TR team would do better in this format than others. Is what I thought.
2. Team composition
Pretty straightforward. Hatterene doesn't enjoy taking Steel-type attacks, so I threw in Metagross, which is okay in TR. It's also standard to put WP on it, and one of my initial ideas had been a WP team, so that sounded good. Then I thought I could put Dusclops to self-activate WP, and it's a staple on TR teams as well. That made me pretty weak to T-Tar, so I put in Conkeldurr. The whole team at this point was pretty Ghost-weak as well, but I had Indeedee for that, and the whole competition, no one took a Ghost-type attack they weren't meant to take.
I wasn't able to test this team on Pokemon Showdown, but watching the few replays around, I was a bit spooked by Coalossal so I ended up putting on Rotom-W. It is very much the afterthought of the team though, and I rarely needed it. I also only ended up seeing Coalossal once in team preview. But if this ruleset ended up applying to, say, a Battle Stadium series, I think Rotom-W would've seen more use. All the same, something else would've been better (not that I've yet figured out what).
Most games, I ended up bringing Hatterene, Indeedee, Dusclops, and Metagross, and only changed the leads as needed. Sometimes I brought Conkeldurr instead of Hatterene or Metagross, and it very much pulled its weight whenever I did. I did bring Rotom-W sometimes, but I rarely actually needed it.
3. Games and match-ups
As I expected, most teams were people just having fun with tech or full teams of their favourite Pokemon. Some of them were decently-ranked too, like a team in the 1600s that was all Dragapult. I don't know how they got there since they Shadow-Balled my Follow Me Indeedee 3 times, but there you have it.
It really surprised me how many people don't seem to know that Hatterene has Magic Bounce. This thing was fairly popular back in the day, and was featured in the recent Players Cup 4, so I thought more people would be alive to that fact. But she Bounced Taunts, T-Waves, spikes/rocks, etc. in maybe a third of all my matches. She isn't the perfect counter to status, but she's definitely huge in minimising status issues.
Even in watching other people's matches, I felt that the thing about Hatterene is that she either steamrolls the opposing team, or she just doesn't do much. Unlike G-Max Pokemon like Coalossal and the Kantrio, who only need to set up their residual damage and are then free to go, losing Hatterene in the middle of G-max is generally a huge waste. If she's not in the position to just KO things, then she's not the best Dynamax candidate. Besides which, there can be an advantage to her staying out of Dynamax thanks to 2 great STAB spread moves, so sometimes I'd keep her in base form even after TR was up. But a lot of the time, the wincon is letting Hatterene Dynamax and getting off 3 powerful attacks.
Metagross was also very good, although a lot of the time, I'd send it out only once Hatterene had died. As mentioned, the leads are usually Hatterene+Indeedee or Metagross+Dusclops, but after a few games, I very much saw the benefit in sometimes having Indeedee next to Metagross as well. Neither can set up TR, but Metagross doesn't strictly need TR either. It's bulkier than Hatterene, and can keep its defenses up with Max Quake or Steelspike as well. It can also reset the terrain for Indeedee.
Speaking of whom, Indeedee was far and away the team member who impressed me the most. I suppose I've always known the power of Hatterene and Metagross, but Indeedee's support moves, bulk, and even decent Special Attack stat, combined to make a beastie of this Galarian Audino. Expanding Force can be huge in picking things off or weakening them, and I found it perfect for breaking Disguise in particular.
A matchup that I had trouble with both times I ran into it was Torkoal. It either makes Venusaur super fast, or it can just go first in TR and knock things out. Venusaur is less of an issue for me than this Torkoal. And both times I saw it, it was paired with its own Dusclops, so I couldn't even just avoid setting up TR. I still don't know what I could have done about it other than 'play better', which is frankly an impossible ask of me lol.
Some of the fun stuff I came up against were a Lance team (although it just bounced a T-wave against Hatterene then quit), a Snorlax team which G-maxed a Special Snorlax holding a Petaya berry then rolled me, and a Rotom team that Tricked a Choice Scarf onto my Indeedee, which ended up being my wincon in the match. I would say less than half of the teams I played were more conventional teams - not to say that those who were running multiples of the same Pokemon weren't trying to win themselves. But I felt like people were more focused on winning with the Pokemon they wanted to use, which lead to playing differently than one would expect on the regular ladder.
4. Improvements
If I'd been able to test the team, I definitely think I would've given Indeedee something other than Sash. It didn't come into play at all, and I don't think something like keeping Sash and investing more in Special Attack would have helped. I'm currently using this team in the Battle Tower, and I've given it a Psychic Seed, which does synergise well with the Def EVs, but I still feel like it isn't the perfect fit. Maybe Safety Goggles, although as mentioned, status isn't a huge problem for this team in the first place. Besides which, the only time I got slept that caused a problem was by a Sing (frankly one of the worst moves ever), which Safety Goggles doesn't help against. I must mention that Sash did help against a Sheer Cold Lapras, which in a general metagame is somewhat common-ish, but that feels like way too niche a situation. So maybe Safety Goggles if I had to do the competition again, but I'm not positive.
Conkeldurr is very powerful, but I think bulk from AV would've been better. I wanted Guts Flame Orb because that has a much better chance of KOing Dynamax T-Tar, but first of all, that requires being burnt, which it won't be first turn (Detecting in front of Dynamax doesn't help much, and T-Tar will always identify it as a threat). Secondly, Conkeldurr is generally my late-game wincon, in which case T-Tar has hopefully already taken some damage somehow, or if I have to get Conkeldurr out early, then something like Indeedee might be around to take the focus off of it for a turn.
I still don't know what would be better than Rotom-W. I want to say more redirection support, but that might just be my fondness for the move speaking. Possibly something bulky with a Rock or Ground-type move that can stop Torkoal. Like offensive Gastrodon. lmao. I mean, it matches up well against Coalossal as well, and, like, Dracovish. So I think it would've been as fair a pick as Rotom-W.
5. Final thoughts
Like I thought, the absence of Incineroar and legendaries made a huge difference. The two most major Intimidate users being gone meant there was hardly any Intimidate in play at all - not that it would have made a huge difference to my team, but a very interesting factor nonetheless. No Incineroar is the one that worked best to my advantage. Parting Shot is just awful, and a half-decent Incineroar player could force Hatterene out by aiming Parting Shot at it, causing it to Bounce and switching Hatterene out. It's something you can play around with Follow Me Indeedee, but honestly, not having to think about it at all was the best. I think that in a regular metagame, Landorus-T or perhaps Glastrier would have made a lot of sense for my Rotom-W slot, but it also would have dominated the team quite a bit and taken the focus off of Hatterene, which I wouldn't have loved.
I am not a fan of series 10, and lost a lot of motivation to play since it started. But I had a lot of fun this competition, and I've found some of my mojo to play Pokemon again.
Can't wait for series 10 to be over now. Love Indeedee. Think that's all I got.
I ended up with 20 wins and 11 losses, but one of those losses was that DC, so let's say it's exactly 2:1.
This team report will just be a quick review of the team and how things went, since the team is fairly self-explanatory, so I don't feel the need to go into each Pokemon.
1. Initial metagame thoughts
Very quickly, this competition only allows Pokemon that are in the Sword and Shield Pokedexes, including DLCs, disallows all legendaries, and allows duplicate Pokemon and items. This metagame/competition first debuted in the Singles format, which I also played in.
When you look at this ruleset, most people's first instinct is to use duplicate Pokemon, or perhaps even a whole team of the same Pokemon. For the Singles version (Fair and Square), it was fairly easy for me to decide on using a Cinderace team. Its extreme flexibility in the Singles format, its huge movepool, and great offensive stats meant I could go for a Cinderace for every situation, and complement it with three support Pokemon. (The team wasn't great, but let's not go into that right now.)
Doubles is a bit different, because you can't exactly just go in with an offensive frontline and start taking names. I mean, you can, but it's much easier to disrupt your opponent with Fake Out, priority moves, redirection, etc. so pinning down a good Pokemon to use multiple of was a bit harder. I felt that the key difference between this metagame and series 9 (obviously series 10 is incomparable) would primarily be the absence of Incineroar, and secondarily the absence of legendaries.
In the end, what this mostly meant to me was that I couldn't just use Wolfey's Coalossal team. Which, I guess, was a good thing.
I went back to earlier seasons to get some ideas. I would have really loved to use double Indeedee, but the idea didn't inspire me. I looked through some old early season teams and, in the end, decided to build around the Hatterene+Indeedee Trick Room combo. I threw in some Pokemon to counter what I thought might trouble them, and landed on a full TR team. Full TR teams aren't the greatest, but in my experience with Fair and Square, there's less people trying to counter the metagame and more people focusing on their own fun teams and wincons, so a TR team would do better in this format than others. Is what I thought.
2. Team composition
Pretty straightforward. Hatterene doesn't enjoy taking Steel-type attacks, so I threw in Metagross, which is okay in TR. It's also standard to put WP on it, and one of my initial ideas had been a WP team, so that sounded good. Then I thought I could put Dusclops to self-activate WP, and it's a staple on TR teams as well. That made me pretty weak to T-Tar, so I put in Conkeldurr. The whole team at this point was pretty Ghost-weak as well, but I had Indeedee for that, and the whole competition, no one took a Ghost-type attack they weren't meant to take.
I wasn't able to test this team on Pokemon Showdown, but watching the few replays around, I was a bit spooked by Coalossal so I ended up putting on Rotom-W. It is very much the afterthought of the team though, and I rarely needed it. I also only ended up seeing Coalossal once in team preview. But if this ruleset ended up applying to, say, a Battle Stadium series, I think Rotom-W would've seen more use. All the same, something else would've been better (not that I've yet figured out what).
Most games, I ended up bringing Hatterene, Indeedee, Dusclops, and Metagross, and only changed the leads as needed. Sometimes I brought Conkeldurr instead of Hatterene or Metagross, and it very much pulled its weight whenever I did. I did bring Rotom-W sometimes, but I rarely actually needed it.
3. Games and match-ups
As I expected, most teams were people just having fun with tech or full teams of their favourite Pokemon. Some of them were decently-ranked too, like a team in the 1600s that was all Dragapult. I don't know how they got there since they Shadow-Balled my Follow Me Indeedee 3 times, but there you have it.
It really surprised me how many people don't seem to know that Hatterene has Magic Bounce. This thing was fairly popular back in the day, and was featured in the recent Players Cup 4, so I thought more people would be alive to that fact. But she Bounced Taunts, T-Waves, spikes/rocks, etc. in maybe a third of all my matches. She isn't the perfect counter to status, but she's definitely huge in minimising status issues.
Even in watching other people's matches, I felt that the thing about Hatterene is that she either steamrolls the opposing team, or she just doesn't do much. Unlike G-Max Pokemon like Coalossal and the Kantrio, who only need to set up their residual damage and are then free to go, losing Hatterene in the middle of G-max is generally a huge waste. If she's not in the position to just KO things, then she's not the best Dynamax candidate. Besides which, there can be an advantage to her staying out of Dynamax thanks to 2 great STAB spread moves, so sometimes I'd keep her in base form even after TR was up. But a lot of the time, the wincon is letting Hatterene Dynamax and getting off 3 powerful attacks.
Metagross was also very good, although a lot of the time, I'd send it out only once Hatterene had died. As mentioned, the leads are usually Hatterene+Indeedee or Metagross+Dusclops, but after a few games, I very much saw the benefit in sometimes having Indeedee next to Metagross as well. Neither can set up TR, but Metagross doesn't strictly need TR either. It's bulkier than Hatterene, and can keep its defenses up with Max Quake or Steelspike as well. It can also reset the terrain for Indeedee.
Speaking of whom, Indeedee was far and away the team member who impressed me the most. I suppose I've always known the power of Hatterene and Metagross, but Indeedee's support moves, bulk, and even decent Special Attack stat, combined to make a beastie of this Galarian Audino. Expanding Force can be huge in picking things off or weakening them, and I found it perfect for breaking Disguise in particular.
A matchup that I had trouble with both times I ran into it was Torkoal. It either makes Venusaur super fast, or it can just go first in TR and knock things out. Venusaur is less of an issue for me than this Torkoal. And both times I saw it, it was paired with its own Dusclops, so I couldn't even just avoid setting up TR. I still don't know what I could have done about it other than 'play better', which is frankly an impossible ask of me lol.
Some of the fun stuff I came up against were a Lance team (although it just bounced a T-wave against Hatterene then quit), a Snorlax team which G-maxed a Special Snorlax holding a Petaya berry then rolled me, and a Rotom team that Tricked a Choice Scarf onto my Indeedee, which ended up being my wincon in the match. I would say less than half of the teams I played were more conventional teams - not to say that those who were running multiples of the same Pokemon weren't trying to win themselves. But I felt like people were more focused on winning with the Pokemon they wanted to use, which lead to playing differently than one would expect on the regular ladder.
4. Improvements
If I'd been able to test the team, I definitely think I would've given Indeedee something other than Sash. It didn't come into play at all, and I don't think something like keeping Sash and investing more in Special Attack would have helped. I'm currently using this team in the Battle Tower, and I've given it a Psychic Seed, which does synergise well with the Def EVs, but I still feel like it isn't the perfect fit. Maybe Safety Goggles, although as mentioned, status isn't a huge problem for this team in the first place. Besides which, the only time I got slept that caused a problem was by a Sing (frankly one of the worst moves ever), which Safety Goggles doesn't help against. I must mention that Sash did help against a Sheer Cold Lapras, which in a general metagame is somewhat common-ish, but that feels like way too niche a situation. So maybe Safety Goggles if I had to do the competition again, but I'm not positive.
Conkeldurr is very powerful, but I think bulk from AV would've been better. I wanted Guts Flame Orb because that has a much better chance of KOing Dynamax T-Tar, but first of all, that requires being burnt, which it won't be first turn (Detecting in front of Dynamax doesn't help much, and T-Tar will always identify it as a threat). Secondly, Conkeldurr is generally my late-game wincon, in which case T-Tar has hopefully already taken some damage somehow, or if I have to get Conkeldurr out early, then something like Indeedee might be around to take the focus off of it for a turn.
I still don't know what would be better than Rotom-W. I want to say more redirection support, but that might just be my fondness for the move speaking. Possibly something bulky with a Rock or Ground-type move that can stop Torkoal. Like offensive Gastrodon. lmao. I mean, it matches up well against Coalossal as well, and, like, Dracovish. So I think it would've been as fair a pick as Rotom-W.
5. Final thoughts
Like I thought, the absence of Incineroar and legendaries made a huge difference. The two most major Intimidate users being gone meant there was hardly any Intimidate in play at all - not that it would have made a huge difference to my team, but a very interesting factor nonetheless. No Incineroar is the one that worked best to my advantage. Parting Shot is just awful, and a half-decent Incineroar player could force Hatterene out by aiming Parting Shot at it, causing it to Bounce and switching Hatterene out. It's something you can play around with Follow Me Indeedee, but honestly, not having to think about it at all was the best. I think that in a regular metagame, Landorus-T or perhaps Glastrier would have made a lot of sense for my Rotom-W slot, but it also would have dominated the team quite a bit and taken the focus off of Hatterene, which I wouldn't have loved.
I am not a fan of series 10, and lost a lot of motivation to play since it started. But I had a lot of fun this competition, and I've found some of my mojo to play Pokemon again.
Can't wait for series 10 to be over now. Love Indeedee. Think that's all I got.