Battle Maison Discussion & Records

The important key benchmark for Adamant that I remember from my time playing Kangliscune is that Adamant has a guaranteed OHKO on Tyrantrum4, which for that team is a Very Big Deal™.
252+ Atk Parental Bond Kangaskhan-Mega Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyrantrum: 159-189 (101.2 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Jolly only has coinflip odds on the OHKO, so there's about a 40% chance Jolly Kang doesn't survive the turn.
252 Atk Parental Bond Kangaskhan-Mega Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyrantrum: 147-174 (93.6 - 110.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
 
The important key benchmark for Adamant that I remember from my time playing Kangliscune is that Adamant has a guaranteed OHKO on Tyrantrum4, which for that team is a Very Big Deal™.
252+ Atk Parental Bond Kangaskhan-Mega Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyrantrum: 159-189 (101.2 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Jolly only has coinflip odds on the OHKO, so there's about a 40% chance Jolly Kang doesn't survive the turn.
252 Atk Parental Bond Kangaskhan-Mega Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyrantrum: 147-174 (93.6 - 110.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
That's a good point! However, hitting 129 speed on Gliscor has the added benefit of outspeeding Tyrantrum 4 at 123, so this has never been an issue.
Plus, accounting for Head Smash's 80% accuracy, it's only really around a 35% chance of OHKO on Kanga, which is approximately the same as any other OHKO move, so I feel fine about that.
 
I'm not sure how to start this off, but I was streaking and I got to 85 wins on Super Singles before losing.
20230506_213452.jpg

I was going to wait until I at least got to 100 before posting, but I decided to do so anyways because I've recently been testing the limits of Mega Medicham. The game is almost 10 years old, but I still feel as though there's plenty of room for testing. How far can you get with building around more niche mons such as Medicham, contrary Serp, Zard X, etc? I think these Pokemon all deserve a chance to shine, so here I present you with...

THE TEAM

Medicham Explanation:

The star of the show, Cham-Li, is a Medicham that I bred for in order to get the IV spread and Bullet Punch. I decided on the moveset Fake Out, Bullet Punch, Ice Punch, and Drain Punch because it seemed, at the time, to be as consistent as Medicham was going to get. Typical moves used on Medicham such as Hi-Jump Kick and Zen Headbutt are inaccurate, so I opted out of using them. Drain Punch paired with max health evs allows for some semblance of longevity and a reliable STAB option. There are a few games where I straight up just send out Cham-Li, Fake Out + Drain Punch(x3), and win. That of course, doesn't happen much though. Bullet Punch is there to get the kill on faster mons that just barely survive the first hit of Drain Punch. Bullet Punch has also been useful when I run into a bad matchup for Medi and end up switching, but I get unlucky and my switch in goes down. Fake Out + BP serves me well in that situation as a revenge kill option. Ice Punch is pretty much a filler slot, but I choose it so that Medi could take care of mons like Gliscor, Landorus, dragons that are 4x weak to ice, ect. In hindsight, there's probably a better move for that slot, but I'm too stupid to figure that out for now. For the EVs I decided to go Max HP, ATK, and 4 SPE. It probably has room to be optimized, but I'm not sure yet. I added the 4 points in speed so that medicham could narrowly outspeed some threats like regigigas. For example, let's say I'm fighting a veteran and the lead is a regigigas. I could fake out + drain punch, and all of the regi sets would be guaranteed gone except regigigas4, which still only has a slim chance of living(It would need 2 low rolls in a row). Now, I could go on for a couple paragraphs explaining how painful the mono ghost/mono psychic mu is for this team, but that would be a waste of time lol. Some threats for Cham-Li include, but are not limited to: will-o-wispers, ghost types, flame body, psychic types, non-lead fairy types, SOME poison types(see weezing), hax+hex users, sleep setters, pursuit trappers, and more. This mon is hard to use, lol.

Suicune Explanation:

My Suicune is pretty standard, so I don't think much explaining is needed. Aurora is used to stall and set up when I don't have any other answer for my opponent's threats. I opted for Substitute over Icy Wind because I noticed that I was running into a lot of status setters. It definetly paid off.

Gliscor Explanation:

I originally had an SD bulky garchomp in this slot, but I noticed that it was too prone to getting statused. I didn't want to choose between a lum berry and leftovers, so I eventually evened up switching to gliscor since it does both, even despite the fact that I love the type resistances Garchomp gave me. Poison Heal Gliscor is such a cheat code sometimes, lol. I think the only controversial thing about this Gliscor set is that I have Knock Off over Substitute, and I myself am not sure about this pick. On one hand it allows me to have more coverage on the ghost types that medicham struggles with, but on another hand, having it hinders Gliscor's ability to stall out the opponent. Having protect as my only line of defense also feels flimsy sometimes, as I have to know EXACTLY what my opponent is going to do sometimes or they get a free setup on me. I may honestly switch it back to the sub set.

Alright, I think that's enough team explanation for now. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask em'. If there are any ways you can see to improve this team, PLEASE PLEASE tell me, lol. Next I'm going to be testing out if an Acupressure set from Medicham is better than my current one.

Oh btw, here's my replay on how I lost:
KCRW-WWWW-WW67-F2M7
 
I'm not sure how to start this off, but I was streaking and I got to 85 wins on Super Singles before losing.

I was going to wait until I at least got to 100 before posting, but I decided to do so anyways because I've recently been testing the limits of Mega Medicham. The game is almost 10 years old, but I still feel as though there's plenty of room for testing. How far can you get with building around more niche mons such as Medicham, contrary Serp, Zard X, etc? I think these Pokemon all deserve a chance to shine, so here I present you with...

THE TEAM

Medicham Explanation:

The star of the show, Cham-Li, is a Medicham that I bred for in order to get the IV spread and Bullet Punch. I decided on the moveset Fake Out, Bullet Punch, Ice Punch, and Drain Punch because it seemed, at the time, to be as consistent as Medicham was going to get. Typical moves used on Medicham such as Hi-Jump Kick and Zen Headbutt are inaccurate, so I opted out of using them. Drain Punch paired with max health evs allows for some semblance of longevity and a reliable STAB option. There are a few games where I straight up just send out Cham-Li, Fake Out + Drain Punch(x3), and win. That of course, doesn't happen much though. Bullet Punch is there to get the kill on faster mons that just barely survive the first hit of Drain Punch. Bullet Punch has also been useful when I run into a bad matchup for Medi and end up switching, but I get unlucky and my switch in goes down. Fake Out + BP serves me well in that situation as a revenge kill option. Ice Punch is pretty much a filler slot, but I choose it so that Medi could take care of mons like Gliscor, Landorus, dragons that are 4x weak to ice, ect. In hindsight, there's probably a better move for that slot, but I'm too stupid to figure that out for now. For the EVs I decided to go Max HP, ATK, and 4 SPE. It probably has room to be optimized, but I'm not sure yet. I added the 4 points in speed so that medicham could narrowly outspeed some threats like regigigas. For example, let's say I'm fighting a veteran and the lead is a regigigas. I could fake out + drain punch, and all of the regi sets would be guaranteed gone except regigigas4, which still only has a slim chance of living(It would need 2 low rolls in a row). Now, I could go on for a couple paragraphs explaining how painful the mono ghost/mono psychic mu is for this team, but that would be a waste of time lol. Some threats for Cham-Li include, but are not limited to: will-o-wispers, ghost types, flame body, psychic types, non-lead fairy types, SOME poison types(see weezing), hax+hex users, sleep setters, pursuit trappers, and more. This mon is hard to use, lol.

Suicune Explanation:

My Suicune is pretty standard, so I don't think much explaining is needed. Aurora is used to stall and set up when I don't have any other answer for my opponent's threats. I opted for Substitute over Icy Wind because I noticed that I was running into a lot of status setters. It definetly paid off.

Gliscor Explanation:

I originally had an SD bulky garchomp in this slot, but I noticed that it was too prone to getting statused. I didn't want to choose between a lum berry and leftovers, so I eventually evened up switching to gliscor since it does both, even despite the fact that I love the type resistances Garchomp gave me. Poison Heal Gliscor is such a cheat code sometimes, lol. I think the only controversial thing about this Gliscor set is that I have Knock Off over Substitute, and I myself am not sure about this pick. On one hand it allows me to have more coverage on the ghost types that medicham struggles with, but on another hand, having it hinders Gliscor's ability to stall out the opponent. Having protect as my only line of defense also feels flimsy sometimes, as I have to know EXACTLY what my opponent is going to do sometimes or they get a free setup on me. I may honestly switch it back to the sub set.

Alright, I think that's enough team explanation for now. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask em'. If there are any ways you can see to improve this team, PLEASE PLEASE tell me, lol. Next I'm going to be testing out if an Acupressure set from Medicham is better than my current one.

Oh btw, here's my replay on how I lost:
KCRW-WWWW-WW67-F2M7
The boring answers would be that Sub/Protect/Double Team/Bulldoze is a much, much better set on Gliscor and replacing Suicune with Durant would allow you to get a longer streak with some Acupressure version of Medicham. Even then, Mega Medicham is a tough one because if you're gonna boost with Acupressure (which I would be very confident in saying would be better than running Fake Out in singles since not even Mega Kangaskhan with STAB and un-nerfed Parental Bond is at its best using Fake Out) the extra stats of the Mega would not be that useful compared to something like Focus Sash or Leftovers on regular Medicham.

Really you're just bumping into the fact that some combination of Gliscor/Chansey/Aegislash/Suicune can carry pretty much any lead that's not totally slow and passive to 50-100, and to consistently get beyond that requires you to cut the dead weight and not use lower-tier stuff. Even that is underplaying that like a Focus Sash Pikachu with a dedicated crippling moveset is probably giving Gliscor/Chansey enough support that you could get a few hundred with enough luck.
 
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I come to report, with great sadness, an aborted streak of 88 wins in Super Singles with Masquerain / Chansey / Gliscor (yes, really). No loss—I had to force-quit the game without saving due to emulator being a piece of shit(rus), which is honestly just worse, since now the record in-game stands at 55 and I'm missing out on 200-odd BP on a semi fresh file where it'd be nice to have, but well, never mind that.

Anyway, yes, this was an emulator streak, I actually did this whole streak on stream in three segments: 1-50, 51-55, 56-89 (which was two sittings, really, but I had to clear out my battle videos after 55 because I didn't clean up after the previous streak to 45...).

Masquerain (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 6 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 21 Atk
- Bug Buzz
- Quiver Dance
- Scald
- Substitute

Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 50
EVs: 30 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 20 Atk
- Minimize
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss
- Substitute

Gliscor (F) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Level: 50
EVs: 228 HP / 4 Atk / 76 Def / 4 SpD / 198 Spe
Impish Nature
IVs: 16 SpA
- Double Team
- Protect
- Bulldoze
- Substitute

This is, you know, obviously not a good team. Like, look, I'm running gen 6 Masquerain, the thing has 80 base SpA and 60 base Spe. No, this is a team built to *make a point*. Whether that point should be taken as "Intimidate + ground immunity is actually really good, even if with the shittiest user that still has a one-move setup option", "No, really, two appropriately coordinated chaegliscunes really can carry whatever the fuck you want to 100", or "look, Masquerain is totally better than Megacham", well, I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

The centerpiece is, of course, Masquerain rocking a Sub/QD set with an underconceived spread. Real talk, there's no good justification for it to be running 123 Speed; like, sure, I just have a lot of experience playing another Intimidate lead with that exact speed stat, but literally the only thing Masquerain does with that speed stat is try to QD once against Starmie4 (which is Chansey bait anyway) and probably get forced out by the backups. If you were going to build a replica of this team for some ungodly reason, you'd probably rather run Modest, since the only things in the 108-123 speed tiers that sort of interact with +0 Masquerain in any meaningful way are Roserade4 and Regigigas, both of which are susceptible to Bulldoze; +6 Masquerain outspeeds literally everything anyway, and it only takes 104 to creep Manectric4 at +3, which is approximately the lowest you ever want to see Masquerain "set up" against an incoming backup, so I don't think the extra speed is all that useful, whereas, you run into calcs where Timid misses out on a guaranteed OHKOs/2HKOs *all the time*.

One point of note is that, yes, Masquerain does in fact have Roost access, and no, I'm not running it, I'm running two attacks. Because Masquerain, uh, doesn't really have the stats to make mono-attacking work. Getting good value out of Roost is kind of predicated on, well, being put in situations where restoring half your HP in a turn buys you more than one turn, which, for Masquerain, is not really a thing that happens. You just need to get enemies stalled down to only moves with no lasting negative impact, sorry. Which you can pull off surprisingly often, actually, since Masquerain's, ahem, fabulous typing lets it set up on such powerhouses as Heracross4's 20 BP Reversal, Cradily4's completely uninvested Giga Drain, Shiftry's 20 BP Low Kick that it gets to use exactly once due to Sash because it's too busy trying to Sucker Punch you as you QD, and Shuckle4's Wrap, along with, more commonly, anything that can be stalled down to EQ, a setup move, or something that can be blocked by Sub.

Intimidate + ground immunity is just actually really strong. It's not even that great here, it would really be much nicer if I could run an Aegislash here, since it's rather harder for Masquerain to switch in safely from Chansey or Gliscor, but alas, third place doesn't make the cut; that conveniently-placed quad-resist on fighting still gets a hilarious amount of use, though. Being "able" to run Leftovers helps out a lot on that front and compensating for the lack of healing, actually, since it makes it a lot more comfortable to eat those negative fighting/grass moves in the understanding that those moves are eventually going to net negative damage after enough Intimidate drops/SpD boosts.

And while I've been a bit flippant about Masquerain being a shitmon, it actually pulls nonzero weight on this team even outside of its turn 1 Intimidate by actually being able to kill stuff like Rest users and floating ghosts without being subsequently dead weight for lack of PP. It's a real role! One that wins matchups that could easily go south for e.g. the dedicated crippler Focus Sash Pikachu version given an extra bad backup! There are real advantages using non-contact special moves and Buzz being sound-based!

(With that said, one of these days, I'd like to give EQ > Roost on Salamence a shot...)

Chansey is the by now familiar Minimize/Seismic Toss set; I'm running it at the empty 107 speed tier because Timid is just barely capable of outspeeding Articuno2, which is really quite excellent, and it's just one more point to avoid speed-tying with Marowak4; everything else in the 108-112 speed tiers is a job for Gliscor anyway. 8 SpD EVs maximize psychic damage (to readers), though in retrospect 28 HP / 10 SpD is obviously the better set.

Chansey is probably the most vital piece of glue on this team; it laughs at most of the the fire/ice moves that Gliscor hates switching in on, it absorbs status to let Gliscor get in with no lasting consequences, and it's nearly as good as Gliscor at PP-stalling in its own right just because 50% of a pink blob is so hard for most of the Maison to bust through.

(Dragon Rush vs Minimize has turned out to be relevant more often than I'd like against this particular team to the point that I've considered running Double Team over Minimize but eh, I'm not spending the PP Ups on something that niche for a meme team and the faster setup is still better most of the time, probably.)

And Gliscor is the slightly exotic DT/Bulldoze set with a physically-tuned slightly-fast spread. 196 Speed EVs hits a speed stat of 140, which is intended, if you'll believe it, to outrun Tyrantrum4 at 123 speed, but in the process of trying to find a nice empty speed tier crept up to outspeed Absol4, which I'm probably just overly conscious of, and Articuno4, which is actually kind of a joke with a Chansey, so it's probably actually fine to run, like, 127 speed; I'm not actually sure if anything else in that range is particularly important for Gliscor to outspeed (experience with using Gliscor on better teams suggests no), but I haven't exactly thought through the needs of this particular team that well. It needs a lot, and we don't have enough resources elsewhere to compensate for running a Masquerain.

Speaking of the needs of this team in particular, though, this team in particular? Probably prefers a Toxic set; its current solution to every floating ghost is "PP stall it down to either a Masquerain setup (preferred) or, if needed, down to Struggle instead". This in the generation where the Roller Skater and generic Psychic/Hex Maniac pools are what they are.

A digression: DT/Bulldoze Gliscor really is excellent. I already really appreciated the speed drop pickups (also, extra PP) from running Bulldoze > EQ on a Team Marathon variant, but on that particular team, DT Gliscor really doubles down on its support role with a 24 PP "skip turn" button that incidentally also sometimes saves Sub/Protect PP by randomly negating incoming attacks. It opens up quite a few situations for a Gyarados setup that would've just spent too much Sub/Protect PP against things that would've gotten killed by Toxic, which, for a team with good setup candidates, is a drawback in its own right.

On top of its function as a drawback-free skip turn button against things you don't want to kill, the ability to set up Gliscor in its own right against enemies that kill themselves too fast unassisted to set anything else up makes most of the incoming backups that could potentially cost a lot of Sub/Protect PP (e.g. for that team, all the stuff with water/ice coverage) instead just outright killable if not just stalled into a setup with the massive amount of extra PP to spare from being able to spend DT PP instead of Sub/Protect.

And of course, on a DT stall set, Bulldoze becomes far and away the clear best choice of a fourth move, since the ability to Sub before your opponent's next move after seeing if they actually managed to land a hit is key to DT actually saving precious Sub/Protect PP (the valuable resource) instead of just randomly saving a chunk of hp by failing to re-Sub because the old sub didn't die yet. It also still performs its non-DT function of slowing down the odd threat that would otherwise outspeed your preferred setup with status.

The thing is, though, this leans really hard into pure support; uninvested mono-Bulldoze Gliscor is abysmal at actually killing things. Like, it's hard to understate just how much "coverage" the loss of Toxic loses you in practical ability to 1-3 teams. There are so, so many things that can come out second that a "set-up" Gliscor is just going to have to PP-stall, and while Gliscor can usually pull off stalling one backup down (if it's, you know, not something Salamence2), actually stalling secondmon down to Struggle burns through so much PP that you can't reliably expect it to handle thirdmon; you need to be able to convert that PP-stall into a setup.

And that's like, fine on a team that has a good setup candidate, which is practically a given on the long-streak teams, and in that context, DT/Bulldoze is fantastic. On this team though? +3 Masquerain is uh, still pretty miserable (and doesn't even always have the easiest time keeping a sub up against Struggle), while +6 Chansey has its own share of backups that force it to either switch out or lose a bunch of PP.

Set options here include Toxic/EQ (the classic, and still "easiest to play" in terms of 1-3ability), Toxic/Bulldoze (because this is still a team that benefits from the speed drops, Chansey appreciates them a lot and Masquerain is, at the end of the day, still a setupmon that hates getting statused before it can Sub), DT/Toxic (this isn't such a good team that it's sensitive to the slight unreliability of maybe losing the sub on the turn that the foe goes down), Sand Attack/Bulldoze (the matchup against suicidal leads is clearly worse, but Masquerain has good odds of benefiting from the support since it's actually running Leftovers), DT/Baton Pass (giving up speed control to retain the ability to set up on suicidal leads and hand over a sub (which obviates some though not all of the value of speed control) and evasion boosts to Masquerain which, again, actually has decent odds of boosting off them, or Chansey just to not lose momentum when going up against floating non-ghosts; it also just has PP for days in a 1v3 PP stall scenario). Torment is an interesting option that I don't think fits onto this team, which well, run two other mons which aren't meaningfully affected by enemy move choice.

Of these options, I feel like DT/BP is the most promising but it'd be a rebreed and 12 PP Ups because uhhhh I bred my batch of Impish Gligar without that egg move, oops, fortunately I have the 5v Surskits to breed up a new batch, but still...

Speaking of breeding BP down from Surskit, that is, in fact, a move Masquerain can run with Quiver Dance, and definitely an interesting option, though I'm not sure there's an appropriate receiver that doesn't open holes in the team for lack of pink blob.

Realistically speaking, I'm pretty confident that this team makes it 100 reasonably reliably; the first genuinely scary matchup (like, not just me not immediately knowing what the right play was, which, well, it's my second run with a meme team, that happened plenty of times) I ran into was at 87 vs Jensen (Intimidate all sets) leading Salamence2(34), which granted isn't the only sketchy-looking DD user matchup (which this team doesn't have good general answers for), but is scarier than all the common set 4 users (Feraligatr4, Gyarados4, Haxorus4) by virtue of basically just actually having more PP that can damage Gliscor than you can Sub/Protect through. I didn't actually lose that one, and also going straight to Gliscor was probably a misplay anyway just because this specific set is less unsafe to 4hko with Chansey than to fully stall out with Gliscor and the others are all more "manageable" to deal with even after getting Chansey chipped for No Reason. This is one of a few leads that make me really wish I could run an Aegislash for, but Chansey as a catch-all special "resist"/status sponge pivot just covers so much that I couldn't seriously afford to drop it while carrying, well, a Masquerain.

I think, with some adjustments, you can absolutely build a Masquerain team that makes it up to 200 semi-reliably. It won't be pretty to play, it'll be a PP-stall-heavy monstrosity whose plan A plays like a 4-digit team and still manages to have losing lead matchups, but it feels within reach.

I mean, not that I have any plans to attempt that streak, but I wouldn't ... put it past myself to have the urge again...
 
I mean, not that I have any plans to attempt that streak, but I wouldn’t … put it past myself to have the urge again…
So yeah, well, obviously it took all of like 25 hours before I’d gone and rebred my Masquerain and Gliscor, and started a new streak with slightly different sets:

Masquerain (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 252 SpA / 246 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Bug Buzz
- Quiver Dance
- Scald
- Substitute

Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 50
EVs: 30 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 20 Atk
- Minimize
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss
- Substitute

Gliscor (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Level: 50
EVs: 230 HP / 172 Def / 108 Spe
Impish Nature
IVs: 8 SpA
- Double Team
- Protect
- Baton Pass
- Substitute

This time I actually used PP Ups on all of Masquerain’s moves after battle 100 after an encounter with one of the Rest users that +6 Masquerain cannot reliably 3-shot, maybe Registeel1? because gen 6 Masquerain kinda sucks and basically needs to tap it 10 times over 30 turns to burn through its Rest PP then land a Scald burn, look at this absolute travesty:

+6 252+ SpA Masquerain Scald vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Registeel on a critical hit: 118-139 (63.1 - 74.3%) – guaranteed 2HKO

And yeah, that + the new Gliscor is a combined total of 21 PP Ups (I didn’t actually bother for BP…), but it’s fiiiine because while trying to make up the deficit I discovered that you can actually grind for PP Ups at the Battle Institute! I feel like this doesn’t get mentioned nearly as much as it deserves, because it’s pretty amazing that you can grind for PP Ups as much as you want, even if it would’ve taken something like 3-4 hours to get that many PP Ups, I think it’s still faster than Wonder Trade if you have a sufficiently competent doubles team and, you know, works even if you can’t Wonder Trade.

Anyway, the biggest change here is clearly to Gliscor; Chansey is exactly the same as before, and while I switched up Masquerain’s nature and spread slightly, the difference was pretty inconsequential (and honestly a downgrade).

Gliscor has traded its speed down to 129 for added phys bulk (which is of fairly minor consequence in context), but more importantly is now running Double Team with Baton Pass, which I find absolutely hilarious and you will not believe how much faster this makes the team play in practice. The secret in plain sight is that Gliscor is running not one passable boost, as I totally thought until I actually took the team into a battle, but two, because it can also pass a sub, and Gliscor actually stands a pretty good chance of passing +6 evasion and a sub in the face of a wide range of opposing leads.

Now, because +6 evasion makes attacks only hit about ~1/3 of the time, this is frequently enough to let Masquerain set up directly against an enemy that hasn’t even been PP-stalled out, since it takes them 3 attacks on average to break a sub, netting 2 QDs for -1/16 hp with Leftovers, and that’s when the enemy actually attempt an attack that breaks sub each turn, which is regularly not the case against sets that carry status moves that Masquerain can Sub in the face of, weaker special attacks after enough QD boosts, and resisted physical attacks after a few Intimidate drops, which also can be achieved much more easily by having Gliscor BP a raw sub to Masquerain to get the drop in total safety than by hard switching; it’s also just very funny that -4 Archeop4 just straight up does not break a Masquerain sub with Aerial Ace once it’s in Defeatist range from 3 Buzzes.

Usually being at +6 evasion also mitigates one of Masquerain’s biggest issues after being set up, which is that there’s a fuckton of stuff it doesn’t reliably one-shot even at +6 SpA. When the enemy backup is only going to hit you ~1/3 of the time, you can usually expect to be fine just re-Subbing until you have one again. This also mitigates the thing where you want to Scald but it risks not one-shotting but burning an enemy that can break your sub before going down to the burn, since most backups are totally fine to not already have a sub against (but not all, so you still really prefer to have a sub).

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that, in the average state of the world, the DT/BP set letting you skip a lot of PP stalling makes this version of the team almost twice as fast to play, and also produces a lot more Masquerain sweeps than the version where setting up Masquerain basically requires stalling something down to moves that don’t do anything to it, which is great and obviously the main reason to play this team in the first place.

The loss of Bulldoze hurts much less than you’d expect! It loses speed control, of course, but one of the biggest reasons you’d want speed control is to get Masquerain safely against something faster with Toxic/WoW/Leech Seed, and being able to pass Sub directly to it kind of obviates that as a problem. Moreover, with a few notable exceptions (read: Taunt users; looking at you, Crobat4), most of the situations where Gliscor can get away with spamming Bulldoze are also situations where it can get away with DTing up to +6 and passing +6 evasion and sub to Masquerain, which will probably be able to set up and sweep the rest of the team way faster than uninvested Bulldoze Gliscor.

That said, setting up with evasion and Sub actually turns out to make Masquerain care a lot more about what stuff it outspeeds at +1 and +2 on this team than on the non-BP version. This is what I mean by Modest Masquerain being a downgrade for this team in particular; I was originally running 104 Speed up to battle 100 since it didn’t feel like Masquerain’s speed mattered that much when its setup stage wasn’t very exciting, but with evasion/Sub maneuvers sometimes you do have sketchier setups against faster enemies with e.g. rock or electric moves that don’t break a sub against Gliscor but that you just really hope you can QD up to enough speed before it breaks your sub.

Anyway, this time I’m reporting a completed Starf streak of 223 wins in Super Singles with Masquerain / Chansey / Gliscor. As I said, within reach to achieve semi-reliably with some adjustment! The assessment was accurate!

Also accuate: yeah, this team still has some sketchy-ass lead matchups that could plausibly be auto-lose with a CH and/or some bad evasion luck:

  • Faster setup; e.g. I ran into another Puck Salamence2 around 150-ish and this time Chansey just bopped it but it that could easily have gone south. Also, Talonflame4 in particular, which also threatens to burn with Flare Blitz.
  • Really just anything that that threatens Chansey but could burn on a Gliscor switch-in, like aforementioned Talonflame4, but also like Darmanitan4, because it’s scarfed and I do not understand why it doesn’t consistently choose to Stone Edge on Masquerain.
  • A bunch of the Banded stuff just hits too hard for any of the team to face head-on, not just Tyrantrum4 (which obviously goes for Head Smash on Masquerain and 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 186-220 (102.2 - 120.9%); recoil damage: 91 (58%) – guaranteed OHKO, there’s really no recourse here without ditching the dead weight, just don’t get crit lmao) but also just stuff like Staraptor3 (252 Atk Choice Band Reckless Staraptor Brave Bird vs. 230 HP / 172+ Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 172-204 (96.1 - 114%); recoil damage: 57-60 (35.6 - 37.5%) – 75% chance to OHKO) which blocks a sub on two hits and just has to be killed off its own recoil from ramming into Chansey.
  • Taunt users are so much more of a pain with Gliscor running a no attacks set; e.g. it can no longer basically try to DT on Crobat4 whenever not Taunted (which will eventually cause Taunts to start missing) and Bulldoze through the rest of its Taunt duration, so you need to actually do some risky switch-stalling. Toxicroak is a risky switch-stall where you try to bring Gliscor in on Cross Chop as much as possible and hope it goes for Taunt as you switch out instead of Gunk Shot. Weavile4 is a race to land three Seismic Tosses without getting Chansey frozen (though I guess it always was, Gliscor wasn’t doing anything in that matchup anyway).

These are not what I actually lost to, but instead this hilarious turn of events where I (completely avoidably) blunder away Gliscor after it fails to Sub and then get Chansey PP-stalled down to Struggle by Infiltrator Chandelure4 on a difference of 1 PP, a margin which could’ve gone differently if, say, I’d actually switched Gliscor out earlier, or just like if the Chandelure had gone for CM instead of Shadow Ball on the exact turn I switched Masquerain in?

… well alright, but that battle included an obvious catastrophic misplay, right, what if I just played properly and don’t switch Gliscor in on something it’s not going to set up on? haha nope it turns out that getting Chansey Icy Winded is also catastrophic and leaves it unable to reliably stall out Infiltrator Chandelure4’s Heat Waves while burned. Froslass4 seems to want to go for Blizzard > Destiny Bond > Icy Wind > Shadow Ball strongly in that order against Chansey, too, so the only ways around this are Subbing aggressively into incoming Icy Winds to avoid getting speed dropped or swapping into Gliscor/Masquerain to reset the drops, both of which are not obviously fantastic ideas against unknown backups. Maybe the best move is not Minimizing while it Icy Winds when coming back in after swich-stalling Destiny Bonds, so as to stall out IW with a consistent ~5 Subs, then Minimize against Shadow Ball? In any case, it seems clear that backup Infiltrator Chandelure4 is a sketchy matchup in its own right for this team that will “usually” go right because the AI doesn’t really understand the concept of boosting fully before attacking but is kind of always just a sequence of lucky hits away from doom since +6 0 SpA Chandelure Heat Wave vs. 30 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 186-220 (56.5 - 66.9%) – guaranteed 2HKO actually outdamages healing and b2b hits even potentially 2-shot when burned (and +6 0 SpA Chandelure Heat Wave vs. 30 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey on a critical hit: 280-330 (85.1 - 100.3%) – 6.3% chance to OHKO is a pretty hard kill to avoid).

I don’t know, I’m out of ideas; I really don’t think any more moth streaking is forthcoming, since this was pretty much the best idea I had and it played out roughly as expected. I feel like I got a pretty normal amount of luck, faced like a handful of sketchy-looking “just don’t get crit lmao” sorts of matchups and just didn’t get crit, then lost to blatant misplays + sketchy matchup combo that had a substantial loss chane even without overt misplays.

Like, you could for sure take the team further by playing consistently properly and not like a dumbass? But that still seems constrained to maybe 3-4x this streak length tops before the known loss chances from inopportune crits rear their heads, let alone the unknown unknowns (like “turns out two ghosts is extra bad if the second one is Infiltrator Chandelure4!” lol). So uh, yeah, probably semi-reliable at 100-200 (and that “semi” is carrying a lot of weight), but definitely a 3-digit team, nowhere near a 4-digit one.
 
So yeah, well, obviously it took all of like 25 hours before I’d gone and rebred my Masquerain and Gliscor, and started a new streak with slightly different sets:

Masquerain (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 252 SpA / 246 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Bug Buzz
- Quiver Dance
- Scald
- Substitute

Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 50
EVs: 30 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 20 Atk
- Minimize
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss
- Substitute

Gliscor (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Level: 50
EVs: 230 HP / 172 Def / 108 Spe
Impish Nature
IVs: 8 SpA
- Double Team
- Protect
- Baton Pass
- Substitute

This time I actually used PP Ups on all of Masquerain’s moves after battle 100 after an encounter with one of the Rest users that +6 Masquerain cannot reliably 3-shot, maybe Registeel1? because gen 6 Masquerain kinda sucks and basically needs to tap it 10 times over 30 turns to burn through its Rest PP then land a Scald burn, look at this absolute travesty:

+6 252+ SpA Masquerain Scald vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Registeel on a critical hit: 118-139 (63.1 - 74.3%) – guaranteed 2HKO

And yeah, that + the new Gliscor is a combined total of 21 PP Ups (I didn’t actually bother for BP…), but it’s fiiiine because while trying to make up the deficit I discovered that you can actually grind for PP Ups at the Battle Institute! I feel like this doesn’t get mentioned nearly as much as it deserves, because it’s pretty amazing that you can grind for PP Ups as much as you want, even if it would’ve taken something like 3-4 hours to get that many PP Ups, I think it’s still faster than Wonder Trade if you have a sufficiently competent doubles team and, you know, works even if you can’t Wonder Trade.

Anyway, the biggest change here is clearly to Gliscor; Chansey is exactly the same as before, and while I switched up Masquerain’s nature and spread slightly, the difference was pretty inconsequential (and honestly a downgrade).

Gliscor has traded its speed down to 129 for added phys bulk (which is of fairly minor consequence in context), but more importantly is now running Double Team with Baton Pass, which I find absolutely hilarious and you will not believe how much faster this makes the team play in practice. The secret in plain sight is that Gliscor is running not one passable boost, as I totally thought until I actually took the team into a battle, but two, because it can also pass a sub, and Gliscor actually stands a pretty good chance of passing +6 evasion and a sub in the face of a wide range of opposing leads.

Now, because +6 evasion makes attacks only hit about ~1/3 of the time, this is frequently enough to let Masquerain set up directly against an enemy that hasn’t even been PP-stalled out, since it takes them 3 attacks on average to break a sub, netting 2 QDs for -1/16 hp with Leftovers, and that’s when the enemy actually attempt an attack that breaks sub each turn, which is regularly not the case against sets that carry status moves that Masquerain can Sub in the face of, weaker special attacks after enough QD boosts, and resisted physical attacks after a few Intimidate drops, which also can be achieved much more easily by having Gliscor BP a raw sub to Masquerain to get the drop in total safety than by hard switching; it’s also just very funny that -4 Archeop4 just straight up does not break a Masquerain sub with Aerial Ace once it’s in Defeatist range from 3 Buzzes.

Usually being at +6 evasion also mitigates one of Masquerain’s biggest issues after being set up, which is that there’s a fuckton of stuff it doesn’t reliably one-shot even at +6 SpA. When the enemy backup is only going to hit you ~1/3 of the time, you can usually expect to be fine just re-Subbing until you have one again. This also mitigates the thing where you want to Scald but it risks not one-shotting but burning an enemy that can break your sub before going down to the burn, since most backups are totally fine to not already have a sub against (but not all, so you still really prefer to have a sub).

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that, in the average state of the world, the DT/BP set letting you skip a lot of PP stalling makes this version of the team almost twice as fast to play, and also produces a lot more Masquerain sweeps than the version where setting up Masquerain basically requires stalling something down to moves that don’t do anything to it, which is great and obviously the main reason to play this team in the first place.

The loss of Bulldoze hurts much less than you’d expect! It loses speed control, of course, but one of the biggest reasons you’d want speed control is to get Masquerain safely against something faster with Toxic/WoW/Leech Seed, and being able to pass Sub directly to it kind of obviates that as a problem. Moreover, with a few notable exceptions (read: Taunt users; looking at you, Crobat4), most of the situations where Gliscor can get away with spamming Bulldoze are also situations where it can get away with DTing up to +6 and passing +6 evasion and sub to Masquerain, which will probably be able to set up and sweep the rest of the team way faster than uninvested Bulldoze Gliscor.

That said, setting up with evasion and Sub actually turns out to make Masquerain care a lot more about what stuff it outspeeds at +1 and +2 on this team than on the non-BP version. This is what I mean by Modest Masquerain being a downgrade for this team in particular; I was originally running 104 Speed up to battle 100 since it didn’t feel like Masquerain’s speed mattered that much when its setup stage wasn’t very exciting, but with evasion/Sub maneuvers sometimes you do have sketchier setups against faster enemies with e.g. rock or electric moves that don’t break a sub against Gliscor but that you just really hope you can QD up to enough speed before it breaks your sub.

Anyway, this time I’m reporting a completed Starf streak of 223 wins in Super Singles with Masquerain / Chansey / Gliscor. As I said, within reach to achieve semi-reliably with some adjustment! The assessment was accurate!

Also accuate: yeah, this team still has some sketchy-ass lead matchups that could plausibly be auto-lose with a CH and/or some bad evasion luck:

  • Faster setup; e.g. I ran into another Puck Salamence2 around 150-ish and this time Chansey just bopped it but it that could easily have gone south. Also, Talonflame4 in particular, which also threatens to burn with Flare Blitz.
  • Really just anything that that threatens Chansey but could burn on a Gliscor switch-in, like aforementioned Talonflame4, but also like Darmanitan4, because it’s scarfed and I do not understand why it doesn’t consistently choose to Stone Edge on Masquerain.
  • A bunch of the Banded stuff just hits too hard for any of the team to face head-on, not just Tyrantrum4 (which obviously goes for Head Smash on Masquerain and 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 186-220 (102.2 - 120.9%); recoil damage: 91 (58%) – guaranteed OHKO, there’s really no recourse here without ditching the dead weight, just don’t get crit lmao) but also just stuff like Staraptor3 (252 Atk Choice Band Reckless Staraptor Brave Bird vs. 230 HP / 172+ Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 172-204 (96.1 - 114%); recoil damage: 57-60 (35.6 - 37.5%) – 75% chance to OHKO) which blocks a sub on two hits and just has to be killed off its own recoil from ramming into Chansey.
  • Taunt users are so much more of a pain with Gliscor running a no attacks set; e.g. it can no longer basically try to DT on Crobat4 whenever not Taunted (which will eventually cause Taunts to start missing) and Bulldoze through the rest of its Taunt duration, so you need to actually do some risky switch-stalling. Toxicroak is a risky switch-stall where you try to bring Gliscor in on Cross Chop as much as possible and hope it goes for Taunt as you switch out instead of Gunk Shot. Weavile4 is a race to land three Seismic Tosses without getting Chansey frozen (though I guess it always was, Gliscor wasn’t doing anything in that matchup anyway).

These are not what I actually lost to, but instead this hilarious turn of events where I (completely avoidably) blunder away Gliscor after it fails to Sub and then get Chansey PP-stalled down to Struggle by Infiltrator Chandelure4 on a difference of 1 PP, a margin which could’ve gone differently if, say, I’d actually switched Gliscor out earlier, or just like if the Chandelure had gone for CM instead of Shadow Ball on the exact turn I switched Masquerain in?

… well alright, but that battle included an obvious catastrophic misplay, right, what if I just played properly and don’t switch Gliscor in on something it’s not going to set up on? haha nope it turns out that getting Chansey Icy Winded is also catastrophic and leaves it unable to reliably stall out Infiltrator Chandelure4’s Heat Waves while burned. Froslass4 seems to want to go for Blizzard > Destiny Bond > Icy Wind > Shadow Ball strongly in that order against Chansey, too, so the only ways around this are Subbing aggressively into incoming Icy Winds to avoid getting speed dropped or swapping into Gliscor/Masquerain to reset the drops, both of which are not obviously fantastic ideas against unknown backups. Maybe the best move is not Minimizing while it Icy Winds when coming back in after swich-stalling Destiny Bonds, so as to stall out IW with a consistent ~5 Subs, then Minimize against Shadow Ball? In any case, it seems clear that backup Infiltrator Chandelure4 is a sketchy matchup in its own right for this team that will “usually” go right because the AI doesn’t really understand the concept of boosting fully before attacking but is kind of always just a sequence of lucky hits away from doom since +6 0 SpA Chandelure Heat Wave vs. 30 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 186-220 (56.5 - 66.9%) – guaranteed 2HKO actually outdamages healing and b2b hits even potentially 2-shot when burned (and +6 0 SpA Chandelure Heat Wave vs. 30 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Chansey on a critical hit: 280-330 (85.1 - 100.3%) – 6.3% chance to OHKO is a pretty hard kill to avoid).

I don’t know, I’m out of ideas; I really don’t think any more moth streaking is forthcoming, since this was pretty much the best idea I had and it played out roughly as expected. I feel like I got a pretty normal amount of luck, faced like a handful of sketchy-looking “just don’t get crit lmao” sorts of matchups and just didn’t get crit, then lost to blatant misplays + sketchy matchup combo that had a substantial loss chane even without overt misplays.

Like, you could for sure take the team further by playing consistently properly and not like a dumbass? But that still seems constrained to maybe 3-4x this streak length tops before the known loss chances from inopportune crits rear their heads, let alone the unknown unknowns (like “turns out two ghosts is extra bad if the second one is Infiltrator Chandelure4!” lol). So uh, yeah, probably semi-reliable at 100-200 (and that “semi” is carrying a lot of weight), but definitely a 3-digit team, nowhere near a 4-digit one.
Yeah Infiltrator Chandelure is an annoying lead for teams like that where even when it's out of Heat Wave, you either have to sacrifice something or are more or less trading all of Chansey's PP (in this gen I wouldn't consider it that big of a deal because I'm pretty sure Chandelure is the only stat-boosting Ghost you'll see afer battle 50 or whatever) for it since its move choice is so random. IIRC that's what I lost to when I first used Salamence/Aegislash/Chansey where I was way too cavalier with Chansey and in that battle it was both more aggressive than usual in terms of setting up more CMs before it attacked and lucky in terms of how often it was hitting Heat Wave against +6 evasion.

On your team I would be comfortable sacrificing Masquerain (obviously less of an opportunity cost than saccing something like Mega Salamence/Gyarados) once Chandelure's out of Heat Wave; that way, you'd be able to safely bring in Gliscor, use Protect, and then you could save a lot of Chansey PP by switch stalling because the Chandelure would be baited into using Shadow Ball against a poisoned Gliscor and Will-o-Wisp against a non-burned Chansey (I guess it could also use Calm Mind if it isn't already at +6 but either way, same difference where you're not taking any damage). A 2v2 with a max evasion Chansey/Gliscor behind a Sub, the other one in reserve, and both with ample PP remaining is still pretty great odds for a 'bad' lead scenario.

That is a hard tendency to overcome where inevitably the most 'novel' Pokemon you're using is going to receive some favoritism where you'll want to sweep with it more often than what would be the mathematically best play, and you might be less likely to consider sacrificing it when the situation calls for it. Durant is obviously amazing in singles formats (like you could almost certainly get a longer streak simply replacing Masquerain with standard Scarf Durant even though Chansey and Gliscor are not the first things you'd think of in terms of Durant-abusing set-up sweepers lol), but I think a good bit of why I've gotten the longest streak in a lot of generations is that a Durant team more or less railroads you into a situation where you only have one way to win the battle and you can be more focused on maximizing your likeliness of winning rather than getting into a groove where you have a bunch of quick and easy battles and then are more likely to make a critical error like "eh setting this up to +6 is gonna take too much time, I should be fine at +2" or "lately I've been sweeping with this thing so much that it's getting kind of boring, so I want to switch it up by instead trying to sweep with something that gives me lower odds of winning."

I think this also manifests itself where you are more or less wasting a moveslot on Gliscor in order to try to win battles more quickly/sweep more often with Masquerain when that doesn't really increase your likelihood of winning since as you said, even a +6 Masquerain fully invested in Special Attack with an additional coverage move on top of its main STAB is not that potent of a sweeper - like in your loss, just PP stalling Froslass with Chansey and then setting up a Sub and a few DTs with a Gliscor that had Bulldoze instead of Double Team while Froslass Struggled would've been fine.

It's funny you mention the 'not getting crit' strategy when Masquerain happens to be one of a select few Pokemon that actually has some method of reducing your team's harm from crits via Power Split. There is definitely some room for improvement by either replacing the least-important attacking move on Masquerain with it (from messing around with both Tentacruel and Volcarona in the Subway, I found that when you use Gliscor, having a set-up sweeper that's walled by either Water Absorb or Soundproof really isn't that damning since you can just PP stall them and set up a 2nd time while they KO themselves with Struggle) or just going all-in on crippling with like 0 IVs in the attacking stats, Sash and moves like Power Split, Struggle Bug, or even Whirlwind if you want to get out of a bad lead matchup.

Also I think you're short-selling the team a little bit because a lead Froslass into Infiltrator Chandelure is pretty rare (there are teams here with 1000+ that are weak to more common things). Like yeah there are Ghost/Psychic specialists, but if you played the exact same way against Froslass and that trainer's 3rd Pokemon was something with a higher-BP move against Chansey (not that hard to do since a lot of them have Focus Blast), it would've come out before the Chandelure and you could've set up one of your other 2 against it, and even then you definitely had a way of playing around Chandelure with the Masquerain sacrifice.
 
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Blazing Through the Blue Flames: A Charizard - X Maison Doubles Team Report

Buckle Up everyone! This is going to be a veeeeeeeery loooooong post. And I’ll greatly appreciate if you read this from start to finish!

Introduction

  • Greetings! I am PkmnTrainerRod, posting a completed streak of 418 in Battle Maison Super Doubles (X/Y) and I am thrilled to announce that I have successfully pulled off Charizard X in Maison Super Doubles, and also achieving the highest streak I have ever attained in any battle facility I played. Notably, I hold the distinction of being the first and only player in the (World) Maison Doubles Format who used Charizard X. This historic achievement fills me with immense joy! But then, I would like to express my gratitude to all of the members of Battle Facility Discord server and to all of my supportive friends who have been with me throughout this blazing journey from the very beginning. Without your unwavering support, this accomplishment would not have been possible. Without further ado, let’s blaze through the blue flames!
    Rods.jpg
  • Team Paste: https://pokepast.es/68d356732fc1b17e
    P.S. Biggest Thanks to @Joshuarts03 for making this wonderful art! I highly recommend checking his twitter if you want some awesome Pokemon fanarts!

Teambuilding Process (Story how the team was built)
  • It all began on Father's Day when my family and I decided to celebrate at the mall. Before leaving home, I made sure to bring along my 3DS to stave off my boredom during our outing. Once we arrived at Shakey's Restaurant, I seized the opportunity to play Pokemon while we’re waiting for our orders. As I contemplated which game to play, I decided to have a "SERIOUS" Maison Run in Pokemon X. It had been quite some time since I last explored the Kalos Region, and I was eager to EXPERIMENT teams in the X/Y Maison. While patiently waiting for our food, I checked the Doubles Maison Leaderboards to search for a fun team, which led me to Turskain's Nasty Plot Mega Lucario + Greninja Team.
"Mega Lucario / Greninja / Talonflame / Garchomp
  • I was immediately attracted by the team's "Mat Block and Sweep" composition, which aligns perfectly with my preference for hyperoffensive strategies. Mega Lucario's devastating damage output, particularly after a Nasty Plot boost, was simply NASTY on its own right. Its Adaptability-boosted Aura Sphere and Flash Cannon can obliterate opponents. What made this team even more formidable was Greninja's ability to protect Lucario with Mat Block, virtually guaranteeing a successful Nasty Plot setup on the first turn. Once this combination was set in motion, victory was easy. Furthermore, Talonflame provided invaluable support with its Tailwind, granting speed control and immediate damage with Brave Bird (thanks to Gale Wings, Brave Bird and TW becomes a priority move). Lastly, let's don’t forget Garchomp, the backline sweeper that could close out most of the games. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about grinding for a Lucario, as I had a Modest Nature one from last year's breeding. A Jolly Gible, traded by a friend, and a Hidden Ability Talonflame from the Friend Safari completed my team. Just as I was about to begin my streak, I noticed a child wearing a "CHARIZARD X" shirt. The sight struck me with astonishment (what a coincidence, lol). I found myself gazing at the shirt for several seconds, truly impressed by its design. In that moment, a wave of inspiration washed over me, and I made a decision to create a brand-new team of my own. This unexpected encounter compelled me to reset the game, eager to make a team with a blazing fashion.
  • Inspired by that shirt, an intriguing idea sparked in my mind, "what if I incorporated Charizard X into my Maison team?" Admittedly, I felt a sense of hesitation initially, as Charizard X faced tough competition within the Maison metagame. Its liability made it challenging to thrive in lengthy streaks. Among the notable mega evolutions commonly used were Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Salamence, Mega Mawile, and even its counterpart, Mega Charizard Y (ironically, the latter enjoyed ZardY more, lmao). Nevertheless, I decided to trust my instincts and construct a team centered around Charizard X, driven by the possibilities it presented within the Maison environment.
Charizard - X / Greninja
  • After our meal at the restaurant, I delved into theorycrafting without any hesitation. Ultimately, I settled on a Dragon Dance variant on Charizard X, confident in its compatibility with Mat Block and Sweep compositions. In essence, it mirrored the strategy employed by Turskain's NinjaMence that I was already using on my ORAS save file. The concept remained the same - Mat Block combined with Dragon Dance to gain momentum and sweep afterwards. One of the main reasons why I opted to replace Mega Lucario was not solely due to its overwhelming damage potential, but rather because Lucario sometimes relied on Tailwind support to secure victories in certain situations. Charizard X, on the other hand, possessed the advantage of speed boosts from Dragon Dance. This single adjustment resolved all my concerns regarding speed control, as at +1, I could effortlessly outpace the Maison opponents while inflicting substantial damage.
  • Once I had successfully established a core focused on the Mat Block and Sweep strategy, reminiscent of the NinjaMence team I used in the OR/AS Maison Doubles, I decided to add a "spicy pick" to provide support for my leads. As I mentioned earlier, I was eager to explore and EXPERIMENT new ideas. While taking a break at a food stall, I stumbled upon Josh C's World Record Tree Team Report. Interestingly, the team featured some "stall antics" (sounds familiar?). This piqued my curiosity, particularly regarding "Poison Heal Gliscor." Although it was my first time using a singles Pokémon in a doubles format because I was a Hyperoffensive player. But lately, I was imitating Wolfey’s defensive playstyle in some of my showdown battles. As a result, it convinced me to give Gliscor a shot
Charizard - X / Greninja / Gliscor
  • At first glance, the team may appear unconventional, but please bear with me as the team is not yet complete. The rationale behind incorporating Gliscor stems from its ability to resist all the weaknesses of both Greninja and Charizard X (Rock, Ground, and Electric). This provides me with a reliable switch-in option in case things don't go well in my favor. Additionally, I noticed a potential issue with Heatran that my leads couldn't effectively handle, but Gliscor has the capability to dispatch it with STAB Earthquake even with little to no Atk investment. 4 Atk Gliscor Earthquake (spread) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 156-184 (94 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO (Sayonara Heatran!) Additionally, in theory, Gliscor also provides valuable defensive options and I also don’t want my team to rely solely on Mat Block + Sweep. But instead, adding Gliscor gives flexibility on the team, granting me various approaches against myriad of team combinations. But then, a significant realization dawned upon me - I identified two major threats that if left unchecked by Charizard X immediately, it could potentially bring an end to the streak. These formidable adversaries are Minimize Blissey and Double Team + Roost Zapdos. The good news is that Gliscor proves to be an impenetrable wall against both of them.
  • With the team almost complete, I recognized the need for a backup sweeper to provide additional firepower in the endgame, particularly in case Charizard X is fainted. Additionally, I aimed to address Gliscor's vulnerability to Ice-type while further bolstering its stall capabilities. Considering these factors, I concluded that Life Orb Scizor would be an excellent addition to the team.
Charizard - X / Greninja / Gliscor / Scizor
  • Scizor is always been one of my all-time favorites when it comes to competitive pokemon. I’m consistently using Scizor in my Gen 4 and 5 Battle Tower runs due to its sheer strength. It serves as the perfect glue to hold the team together. With Life Orb + Technician-boosted Bullet Punch, Scizor consistently delivers powerful blows to easily pick off dented opponents. Additionally, Bug Bite is a very useful move to dispatch Psychic and Dark types, as well as removing berries like Sitrus and Lum Berry. Lastly, Superpower allows Scizor to eliminate key bulky threats. Its role in this team is self-explanatory - it hits hard, covers Gliscor's weaknesses, and provides crucial support in case things go wrong. However, you have to be aware that it’s very weak to Fire, as Scizor is susceptible to being crisped to death.

  • The moment I finished building and theorymonning the team, I thought at first that the team looks really solid on paper. But I found myself again struggling with a lingering concern. Greninja stood as my sole Special attacker, while the rest of the team primarily hitting on the physical spectrum. I worried that these imbalances could hinder the team's overall potential. Moreover, I feared that if either my key damage dealers were fainted, the team will basically fall apart under pressure. Recalling the moment when I evolved Gliscor, I even contemplated releasing it, convinced that it might not work well within the team. However, my initial judgment to this team was a mistake.
  • I instantly jumped into conclusion that this team won’t work without even testing it in-game. And to prove the teams’ full strength, I decided to finally take it into the Maison. And to my surprise, it performed exceptionally well. Of course, there were some glaring weaknesses, which we will discuss later in the "threats section." Nevertheless, the combination of hyperoffense in the lead, coupled with a remarkably durable wallbreaker and backup sweeper in the backline, allowed the team to function seamlessly. Upon achieving a streak of 50, I started taking the team even more seriously, recognizing its true potential.
The Team

Charizard > Mega Charizard X

Ability: Blaze > Tough Claws
Item: Charizardite - X
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 108 HP / 140 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Moveset
Flare Blitz / Dragon Claw / Protect / Dragon Dance

Details

  • I used a very standard Dragon Dance Charizard set. It’s capabilities within the Maison environment caught me by surprise. Its true strength as a premier sweeper in the Maison Doubles was something I didn’t anticipated. Through extensive battles, I've had the privilege of witnessing Charizard X's sheer power, cementing its status as a dominant lead sweeper on the field. Even though its role in the team was similar to Mega Salamence, Charizard X had unique attributes that Mega Mence don’t have. One of these distinctions is Charizard X's immunity to burn, this immunity ensures that Charizard X’s can sweep very easily without the annoying attack drop from burn. Additionally, Charizard X can break through steel types much better than Salamence, and it also had a strong hax prevention that safeguards it against the ever notorious freezes. This protection stems from its STAB Flare Blitz. A very strong Fire-type move that not only inflicts astronomically high damage but also possesses the extraordinary ability to thaw out Charizard X when used. This unique trait preventing freeze gives Charizard X a huge advantage to turn things around. Additionally, Charizard X remains steadfast as a brute force both with and without Dragon Dance. This is largely due to the effects of Tough Claws, a boost that bolsters Charizard X's damage output significantly. After going mega, it’s x4 vulnerability to Rock-type moves is reduced to a x2. Instilling me with the confidence to withstand both STAB and non-STAB Rock Slides with relative ease. Moreover, Charizard X's dragon typing converts its once-debilitating electric weakness into a resistance. However, this transformation won’t save Charizard X from paralysis. Imo, the exchange between resisting Electric-type moves while being x2 to Rock and Ground types is a fair trade-off. However, despite of its strengths, Charizard X had some glaring drawbacks that couldn’t be ignored. The most notable among them is the recoil damage incurred from Flare Blitz. This is like a "Risk and Reward." The reward of securing an always guaranteed OHKO (One-Hit Knock Out) is accompanied by the risk of being sniped down in the next turn. As such, its absurdly high damage output comes hand in hand with a liability. But then, it’s still a very versatile pokemon if used properly.
Short story about the EV Spread I wanted to use
  • The initial EV spread I’m considering while theorymonning Charizard X was the 252 HP / 76 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe variant. This spreads’ specific purpose is to allow Charizard X tank more hits, particularly to minimize the recoil damage from Flare Blitz. With 252 HP investment, Charizard X can guarantee survive powerful attacks such as Stone Edge from Choice Scarf Darmanitan, Dragon Pulse from Kingdra and Hydro Pump from Ludicolo, and Kingdra even in rain! Furthermore, the 76 points in Attack with an Adamant nature still provide significant damage output, especially after a Dragon Dance boost. This spread ensures that Charizard X can guarantee a one-hit KO Blissey4 and Zapdos2. Despite the excellent bulk provided by this EV spread, one notable issue is the lack of speed and potential damage output if Charizard X fails to set up a Dragon Dance. The 172 Speed investment allows Charizard X to reach a speed stat of 223 after +1, which is still decent to outpace the Maison, but falls short of outspeeding Choice Scarf Pinsir (213 vs. 225). The thought of being outsped by a Choice-locked Guillotine from Pinsir can be really scary. Moreover, without a Dragon Dance boost, Charizard X's offensive capabilities against bulky Pokemon that can neutralize its attacks become significantly weaker. Additionally, the investment of 252 HP may pose an issue as the bulk was too excessive. In theory, this approach may not be ideal due because of random critical hits, which can be really annoying in some cases. And as a result, I decided to readjust the EV spread to maximize Charizard X's speed, specifically to outspeed Choice Scarf Pinsir, and its bulk, while still ensuring that it can deal significant damage without heavily relying on Dragon Dance boost.
Calcs (Offensive)
  • +1 76+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Blissey: 373-441 (113 - 133.6%); recoil damage: 110 (65.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • +1 76+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Zapdos: 202-238 (102.5 - 120.8%); recoil damage: 66 (39.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • 76+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 206-246 (110.2 - 131.6%); recoil damage: 62 (37.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • 76+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Dragon Claw vs. 168 HP / 0 Def Kingdra: 182-216 (106.4 - 126.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Calcs (Defensive)
  • 252 Atk Darmanitan Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 112-132 (60.5 - 71.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • 168+ SpA Kingdra Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Charizard X in Rain: 133-157 (71.9 - 84.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • 252+ SpA Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Charizard X in Rain: 138-163 (74.6 - 88.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • 252 Atk Garchomp Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X on a critical hit: 158-186 (85.4 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
  • 252+ Atk Garchomp Earthquake (spread) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 128-152 (69.2 - 82.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • 252 Atk Salamence Dragon Rush vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 162-192 (87.6 - 103.8%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
  • 168+ Atk Life Orb Excadrill Earthquake (spread) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 159-190 (85.9 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
Second Spread (108 HP / 140 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe)
  • I think by far; this is the optimal spread for Charizard X as a lead sweeper in the Battle Maison. The reasoning of this spread is to maximize Charizard X's speed while maintaining a balance between its bulk and damage. With a full investment of 252 EVs in Speed, Charizard X reaches a speed stat of 228 after +1. This ensures that it can finally outspeed Choice Scarf Pinsir, which is a nuisance. While it does speed tie with Staraptor and Typhlosion, it’s not a significant issue as Staraptor often targets Greninja, providing an opportunity for Charizard X to gain a free boost. Additionally, Typhlosion poses little threat as both of my leads resist its attacks. Take note that Charizard X falls just one point short in speed compared to Scarf Landorus, which can be really scary if it choice locked to Earth Power. However, as long as Greninja is still on the field, Scarf Landorus will always be choice-locked into Focus Blast. Furthermore, the allocation of 140 EVs in Attack provides Charizard X with enough firepower to dispatch frail and neutral opponents who dislike taking a hit from a Tough Claws-boosted Flare Blitz. However, when combined with a Dragon Dance boost, the damage output becomes truly absurd, making Charizard X terrifying on the field. Because I maximized its speed, I have chosen to sacrifice some of Charizard X's bulk. Thus, I only invested 108 EVs in HP. It turns out that the reduced bulk was still decent to guarantee live against powerful moves I mentioned earlier.
Greninja
Ability: Protean
Item: Focus Sash
Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Moveset:
Dark Pulse / Ice Beam / Mat Block / Grass Knot

Details

  • A very standard Greninja set. It’s one of the most versatile Doubles Pokemon available in battle maison. It’s exceptional speed stat, wide range of movepool, and its ability Protean granting all of his moves STAB. Because of this, it can hit or OHKO a wide variety of pokemon. But in doubles, you can also use its broken signature move via Mat Block to its full potential. In most of the matches, Mat Block is very essential to protect ZardX from attacks, giving it a free turn to setup Dragon Dance and snowball the game easily if used succesfully. Take note that Mat block isn’t a priority move like protect. Thus, it can’t block status moves like Paralysis. The moveset is pretty self – explanatory; Ice Beam to keep Dragons in check, Dark Pulse for Anti – TR, and grass knot to deal with heavy ground/rock types that charizard X hates. Focus Sash is the standard item of choice for consistency + baiting opponents’ attacks. In general, Greninja + Charizard combo was super strong in practice, as they are able to cover each other’s weaknesses. And at the same time, Greninja provides Charizard X an opening to sweep the game easily.
Gliscor
Ability: Poison Heal
Item: Toxic Orb
Nature: Careful
EVs: 244 HP / 4 Atk / 12 Def / 220 SpD / 28 Spe
Moveset:
Earthquake / Toxic / Protect / Substitute

Details

  • Using a singles pokemon for the first time in Doubles format. Gliscor occupies a pivotal role that contributes significantly to the team's overall synergy and success. Gliscor complements and synergizes seamlessly with its teammates. I was inspired on Josh C’s Tree Run as he used Gliscor. Thankfully, it worked well on me too! Its role is just as same as what it’s doing in Singles, Stall and Toxic into Death. Gliscor can do a lot of things in this team, you can use it as a defensive pivot in case Charizard or Greninja is vulnerable to strong attacks. But I usually use Gliscor on setting up win-conditions. It can basically shut down passive mons that the team really hates, most notably Blissey4, Zapdos2, Shuckle, and Cresselia2. This mon can also 1v3 on Its own because of how tanky it is. Plus, the recovery from the Poison Heal makes it unkillable most of the time. The moveset was pretty much self-explanatory. The EVs 244 HP / 4 Atk / 12 Def / 220 SpD / 28 Spe was built to tank physical and special defensive attacks, allowing Gliscor to endure a myriad of attacks from both spectrums. This balanced distribution adds to Gliscor's durability against varied opponents, allowing it to function as a long-lasting pivot and support element for the squad.
Scizor
Ability: Technician
Item: Life Orb
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 44 Spe
Moveset
Bullet Punch / Bug Bite / Protect / Superpower

Details

  • Also a very standard LO Scizor set (EVs copied from turskain). Even though it’s a staple doubles mon in Battle Maison, it plays a very crucial role on the teams’ success, especially on protecting Gliscor in the endgame. There’s nothing much to say about Scizor as it’s one of the most used Pokemon in the Maison Doubles Format.
Threats Section
  • After hundreds of streak, I realized that these Pokemon represented a substantial threat to the team. And whenever I faced these opponents in the lead, I always take the opportunity to use my time to develop a solid game plan in order to secure victory. Anyway, these threats are quite challenging to deal with.
Rain Team (Refer to Streak #76)
  • I consider this as a TRUE threat to this team. One thing I didn't consider during the teambuilding part was the rain team. I realized that they could rip this team apart. Furthermore, it is basically prediction reliant if things didn't go well in our favor... But it's still winnable, but difficult to find ways to win. (Beauty Claire is a notable NPC in Maison that has Rain Team. So she's very scary to go against.) The main gameplan against rain is to IMMEDIATELY remove rain dance setter or swift swim mon depending on the situation. GUYS remember, THE ABILITIES ARE RANDOM so there's a chance that Kingdra or Ludicolo rolls Swift Swim. but if I was quite lucky and no rain dance, drizzle, or swift swim in the lead, I automatically go for Mat Block + DDance combo turn 1 to finish things off ASAP. Don't forget that sometimes there are some cases that Politoed rolls "DRIZZLE" (lul) Fortunately, in my case, I'm so pretty lucky because in my 419 streak run, I encountered for like only 30-ish rain matchups and even if there's Politoed in the front, it often rolls Damp/Water Absorb. But there are some cases even Drizzle is active, I can still play the main idea of this team ONLY if there's no swift swimmers in the lead. But if the opponent had a pokemon that had "Rain Dance" on its arsenal, I will double target the setter before it can setup.
  • Here's the difficult part. If Politoed leads + rolls drizzle and there's swift swim kingdra in the lead, I'm telling you... I'M TELLING YOUUU, it's pretty much prediction reliant and super hard to play. One thing I want to mention is that if rain is active on the field, it’s pretty much 3v4!!! Gliscor don't have much play here. I only use it as a "sacrificial lamb" to redirect super effective moves and gain a free turn from its partner to retaliate. And if that's the case, the gameplan is to burn rain turns by protecting and playing defensively until rain is over. Good thing however, was Charizard X could tank at least one water type even in rain. Well, thanks to its dragon typing. And also, sacrificing some of its HP to stall a rain turn is also a possibility, but extremely risky due to critical hits. These notable rain abusers that you should watch out are: Kingdra34 (The Set 4 was the scariest one, it had Draco Meteor that can instantly dispatch ZardX) Ludicolo34 (Set 3 is very irritating especially if it rolls Rain Dish, making it a very solid wall. Though set 4 is also scary, Hydro Pump in rain does a lot on ZardX), Floatzel (Not much threatening but if rain is active, it can be a very scary mon to abuse rain), and Gastrodon (Super bulky + does well with ZardX and Gliscor.)
Paralysis (Static)
  • Yey! ZardX is immune to burn and doesn’t care about getting poisoned. You can’t shut down Charizard X with your status moves. Well, paralysis does. Despite Charizard X can resist all of electric type moves. It doesn’t mean ZardX is safe from getting a paralysis. It could pose a huge threat to the team, as they can slow the momentum of ZardX sweeping the game easily. Additionally, the 75% speed drop and 25% of getting paralyzed every turn is a very big deal, as they can basically change the outcome of the match. Be cautious with this Electric Types in the Maison (Raichu, Electrode, Zebstrika, Scarf Manectric, Ampharos, etc.) My advice was to play defensively against Electrics by positioning Gliscor properly until it can stall opponents with Toxic.
Luxray4
  • I really hate this one. Luxray4 with Intimidate is a real threat to this team. It can tank both physical and special hits well. Additionally, you can’t hit it with Gliscor because of the fucking Air Balloon, making it a very annoying paralysis spamming machine if not treated properly. Furthermore, you can’t just easily pivot out Gliscor as Luxray4 has access to Ice Fang. My gameplan against Luxray lead was to pivot out Zard into Gliscor (to cover Twave option into Zard) + hitting it w/ grass knot and removing it w/ EQ on the next turn. Another option was to double it immediately (but not recommended as it depends on Luxray’s Partner) I highly advice to remove this electric cat Immediately before it can spread paralysis.
Regigigas
  • Wait, it’s one of the worst pokemon ever right? Well, not in Battle Maison. Its ability to disrupt your entire gameplan with Confuse Ray makes it a very annoying pokemon to deal with. It can also survive a +1 Flare Blitz from ZardX 15/16 of the time. My advice here was to stall it w/ Gliscor or Killing it ASAP. But if you’re going to see Regigigas on the lead, I wish you good luck.
Gyarados4
  • This thing is really scary to go against. Having access to intimidate and chesto resto makes it really difficult to remove. The potential Moxie can also be really threatening if not respected. I usually double target it before it can setup 2-3 DD that could potentially steamroll my team. Be cautious with this one.
Heatran4
  • ScarfTran outspeeds Greninja and Charizard before it uses mat block or setup Dragon Dance. It also walls ZardX and Greninja’s well. Moreover, it usually goes for Scarf Dragon Pulse into my leads that makes my Turn 1 Mat Block + DD unplayable. My usual play everytime there’s a potential Heatran was to pivot out Gliscor to dispatch it immediately, then perform a late game sweep with Zard X.
Talonflame4
  • Priority Brave Bird does a decent amount of damage. My usual plan here was to stall w/ Gliscor or Remove it immediately. Treat this thing with respect.
Walrein4
  • A potential Thick Fat Walrein can be really scary. I usually go for Dclaw + Grass Knot to remove this infamous Lax Incense Walrein before it can hax you with its Sheer Cold shenanigans. I think it still deserves a spot in the threat list because of how scary it is (Imagine avoiding 2 of your attacks and landing an OHKO move. It can be really infuriating, lol).
Snorlax34
  • Both sets are really bulky especially if it rolls Thick Fat. The Snorlax4 was the scariest one to face because of the Assault Vest. Additionally, Snorlax4 also had Fissure which is really bs if it lands. On the other hand, Snorlax3 is also a threat because of its LO Boosted EQ and Double Edge. I highly advice to use Dragon Claw on this one instead of Flare Blitz (You’re going to be in trouble if it rolls Thick Fat.) and use Grass Knot on Greninja to change its typing to grass in order to resists Snorlax’s EQ.
Sample Calc: +1 140+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Thick Fat Snorlax: 103-123 (43.8 - 52.3%); recoil damage: 34-41 (20.4 - 24.6%) -- 16.4% chance to 2HKO (EQ will snipe you down after recoil damage from Flare Blitz.)

Crobat4

  • Fast taunt can ruin your Mat Block + Dragon Dance play. Plus, hypnosis can mess you up if it landed successfully.
Lanturn4
  • You can check this thing by double targeting it w/ Dragon Claw + Dark Pulse/Grass Knot (I highly recommend to use Dark Pulse for the 20% Flinch chance.) But this thing is really annoying especially if you let it stockpile up to +3. Additionally, it also has access to Ice Beam which hits Gliscor decently. Remove this thing immediately, I promise.
Notable Battles
  • Here are some of the notable battles that I recorded! Feel free to watch it on my YT! (And also, the progress to 400 Pt.2 will be posted soon. I was really busy on college, lol.)
(Highlights Link: https://youtu.be/GMAkRBDoVlM)

Progress to 400 Vid Pt.1 (Link:
https://youtu.be/JGUh7KbH5Wk)


  • Close Matches
Battle No. 76 – FJWW – WWWW – WW67 – Q5MK

Battle No. 251 – 4N4G – WWWW – WW67 – QM5T


  • Stall Mania Ft. Gliscor
Battle No. 79 – XFAW – WWWW – WW67 – QM63 (Link: https://youtu.be/2l7pryaCSW4)

Battle No. 205 – 9G3G – WWWW – WW67 – QM62

Battle No. 407 – MYQG – WWWW – WW67 – QM5N


  • Milestone Matches
100 Streak – L9NG – WWWW – WW67 – QM5V

200 Streak – 27KW – WWWW – WW67 – QM6B

300 Streak – SB8G – WWWW- WW67 – QM5Q

400 Streak – DLRG – WWWW – WW67 – QM5Z

  • Losing Battle
419 Streak – W57G – WWWW – WW67 – RAQ3

I might post a warstory of this battle in the future, including the nailbiting matches! (college life has been so busy)

Conclusion

  • This has been a wildest ride I had in Battle Facilities so far! one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. The untimely end of the streak still makes me sad, but the moments I had with Charizard X will continue to live on my memory forever. I'd want to express my appreciation for this blazing journey I had in Battle Maison. It was one of the most remarkable runs that I had so far. I’m very excited that If this run is officially verified, I’ll be the first player in the world who used ZardX in Maison Doubles! Despite my run fell short into top 10 worldwide, this setback won’t deter my determination. The quest of becoming one of the best facility player is an unchanging goal for me. And I'm dedicated to continuously improve and play, play, play… Until I retire. But then, expect my blazing return with Charizard X in the future, as we will come back stronger than ever. Thank you for reading my team report!
 
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NoCheese

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth!"
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I've updated through here. Makes me happy to see that people are still giving the Maison some love. Very sadly, I've had to start cutting a couple of the lower win streaks because we are out of allowed character space in the opening post, even with pretty aggressive cutting of the intro and rules text. I should have reserved more space back in the day, but it is pretty cool to see how many great streaks we've had over the years!
 
I'm diving into the Maison, but I don't have anything in the way of battle experience beyond being overleveled and smashing my way through the main game. I'm hoping to do some battling in the ORAS Maison, but I'm being a little hard on myself by wanting to do it with only Pokémon in the Hoenn dex and could use some advice. I've looked at Mastering the Maison and built the Salamence listed there, but need help filling out the team. It seems like Metagross might be a good backup for Salamence when Fairy, Ice, Dragon, or Electric types come out, as a bulky damage dealer. I would think that some sort of bulky utility would be good to have as well, but I'm not sure which mon could fill that role well, or if that's even the best path to go. Recommendations would be very welcome. I'd love to begin understanding battles better.
 

NoCheese

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth!"
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I'm diving into the Maison, but I don't have anything in the way of battle experience beyond being overleveled and smashing my way through the main game. I'm hoping to do some battling in the ORAS Maison, but I'm being a little hard on myself by wanting to do it with only Pokémon in the Hoenn dex and could use some advice. I've looked at Mastering the Maison and built the Salamence listed there, but need help filling out the team. It seems like Metagross might be a good backup for Salamence when Fairy, Ice, Dragon, or Electric types come out, as a bulky damage dealer. I would think that some sort of bulky utility would be good to have as well, but I'm not sure which mon could fill that role well, or if that's even the best path to go. Recommendations would be very welcome. I'd love to begin understanding battles better.
Metagross does indeed play pretty well with Mega Salamence. Absent the Hoenn Dex limitaation, I'd push Suicune or Chansey for the third slot, but since those are out, Milotic can fill in okay, and I used it to modest success in the Subway. Note that its inability to set up on things it dominates makes it less attractive than the non-Hoenn options I mentioned, but it is usable.
 
Metagross does indeed play pretty well with Mega Salamence. Absent the Hoenn Dex limitaation, I'd push Suicune or Chansey for the third slot, but since those are out, Milotic can fill in okay, and I used it to modest success in the Subway. Note that its inability to set up on things it dominates makes it less attractive than the non-Hoenn options I mentioned, but it is usable.
Thank you for the advice! I've built a team around this and have made it through regular Singles and am so far at 25 in Super Singles. For the most part, I'm able to handle what gets thrown out, but I have a few issues if the opponent leads Electric, and I've struggled badly with two battles that led Magnezone, as I don't really have a decent means of countering it. Both times I had to cross my fingers and chip, ending with only one mon standing. The team is as follows:

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 238 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: Perfect
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
- Return

Milotic @ Leftovers
Ability: Marvel Scale
Level: 50
EVs: 172 HP / 100 Def / 4 SpA / 198 Spd / 36 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Toxic
- Haze
- Recover

Metagross @ Assault Vest
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: Perfect
- Iron Head
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
- Bullet Punch
 
I am posting my Super Singles streak of 151 straight wins in ORAS that is no longer ongoing with a team consisting of Greninja, Mega Scizor, and Garchomp.

The Team:
Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Sp Atk / 252 Spe
IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/31
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Dark Pulse
-Grass Knot

Scizor @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician —> Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 6 Sp Def
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Sp Atk)
-Swords Dance
-Roost
-Bug Bite
-Bullet Punch

Garchomp @ Lum Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 6 Sp Def / 252 Spe
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Jolly (+Spe, -Sp Atk)
-Swords Dance
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide

The EVs are fairly straightforward and need no introduction. I chose for Garchomp to use Dragon Claw instead of Outrage because I didn’t want to take any chances of KOing something and have the opponent send a Fairy type out to bring it down. I opted for Lum Berry to shrug off any unlucky status thrown its way.

The strategy:
The team’s strategy is fairly straightforward. Lead Greninja does typical Greninja things while Mega Scizor and Garchomp serve as the Swords Dance sweepers while also providing type synergy. When Scizor is out, all it has to do is set up against a Pokémon that cannot threaten it. Metagross4 and Dusknoir4 being a couple of examples. Scizor can Roost if its HP runs too low. Once fully set up, Scizor is ready to go to town. +6 Bullet Punch is strong enough to OHKO even frailer fire types such as Blaziken, Charizard, Delphox, etc. Garchomp doesn’t always use Swords Dance but it will use it if you’re confident that you can mow through the team without switching if Garchomp is healthy enough and is against a Pokémon that doesn’t threaten it straight away.

Threatlist:

Donphan4: Quite troublesome especially in the lead slot. If quick claw activates on turn 1, you are in for a rough time, especially if Fissure lands a hit in the following turn.

Landorus2: Sheer Force Focus Blast will ensure that you are in a bad spot assuming it doesn’t miss.

Minor:
Terrakion 1/2: You would have to switch to Scizor if this thing leads on turn 1.

Walrein4: The infamous rest talk Sheer Cold Fissure set is only a nuisance if Greninja is out or if Greninja’s Grass Knot misses or doesn’t OHKO straight away.

The Loss: Perhaps this loss could have been prevented if I didn’t make the mistake of letting Greninja stay in vs Luxray4 in the lead slot. Greninja came out first vs Luxray4. Luxray used Thunder Wave after Greninja uses Ice Beam. As mentioned above, I should have switched Greninja out on turn 1. Luxray KOs Greninja after landing two Thunder Fangs. Next, I send Garchomp out to finish Luxray. The next Pokémon sent out is Electivire #4. I go for Earthquake but Electivire lived thanks to the Shuca Berry and OHKO’d Garchomp with Ice Punch. However, the chip damage from Rough Skin was enough to finish off Electivire. I sent out Scizor as my last Pokémon but once I see that my opponent sends out Rapidash, it was game over. And that concludes my streak. I may try to continue in the future to see if I can go higher but at the time of this post, that’s my Super Singles streak.

Tagging NoCheese to implement the update. Thank you.
 

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Posting an ongoing streak of 50 (Technically 70ish as of now but i'm too lazy to take a new photo lol) wins (and my first trophy in ORAS!) in Super Triples.
I love using rain teams in doubles and triples and used rain teams a lot throughout gen 5 and gen 6 vgc so I had to do something like that here!


Salamence-Mega (M) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature

- Double-Edge

- Dragon Claw

- Protect

- Tailwind

Mega Salamence is a great tailwind user to help support my team, and can use its Aerilate boosted Double Edges to hit troublesome grass and bug types that give Ludicolo trouble, and Dragon Claw hits Goodra (it can hit other dragons but Sylveon is decidedly better into other dragons lol). I decided to run bulk evs since Mence's attack stat is already super high as it is even without investment (Mega Mence has Landorus-T's attack stat! You can absolutely sacrifice attack evs for bulk!), and the added bulk helps it tank my partner Ludicolo's surfs better and deal with Double Edge recoil better as well.

Ludicolo (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Surf

- Giga Drain

- Ice Beam

- Scald
Ludicolo is my main spread move abuser and general damage dealer, and Choice Specs Surf in the Rain is a MONSTER of an attack, even bulky resists take a good chunk from the move, especially with a helping hand boost, and anything that doesn't resist water is not going to like taking a surf to the face. Giga Drain hurts other waters, Ice Beam hits dragons and grasses if Mence can't hit those (but ice beam isn't going to be clicked much, because again, Mence's job is to hit dragons and grasses) and scald is a single hit water move that won't hurt Ludicolo's partners and can also thaw ludicolo out from freezes in the off chance it does get frozen.


Politoed (F) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

- Scald

- Helping Hand

- Protect

- Rain Dance

Politoed. Do I need to say anything? I might run a sp. def. spread for tanking Ludicolo's side surfs better but this def. spread has come in clutch against a lot of physical attackers though (in particular, against sand setters tyranitar and hippowdon).

Metagross @ Assault Vest

Ability: Clear Body

Level: 50

EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD

Adamant Nature

- Iron Head

- Earthquake

- Thunder Punch

- Bullet Punch

Metagross fulfills a number of roles for me, with its held Assault Vest, it is a good switch in to fairy moves, and metagross is my only real switch in to freeze-dry as well. Iron head and earthquake are staples, bullet punch snipes frail ice and fairy types (as well as weakened Pokemon), and thunder punch hits water types that could be troublesome for it (in particular hits water - flying dual types like pelipper who could also give ludicolo trouble)

Toxicroak (M) @ Focus Sash

Ability: Dry Skin

Level: 50

EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Sucker Punch

- Drain Punch

- Toxic

- Fake Out

Toxicroak is a glue Pokemon for the team. Sucker punch is useful priority for finishing off something that's weakened, drain punch has fighting stab which is useful for a variety of troublesome pokemon including ferrothorn, bulky normal types, and ice types (namely abomasnow). Fake out is an obvious move that helps generate momentum, and toxic helps against many different bulky, otherwise hard to deal with Pokemon, including Blissey4 (minimize), Dusknoir3 (double team), Cresselia2 (double team) and Cradily1 and Cradily4. Toxic ignores accuracy checks too because Toxicroak is a poison type (thank the Gen 6 buff to the move for that!)

Sylveon (F) @ Leftovers

Ability: Pixilate

Level: 50

Shiny: Yes

EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD

Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Hyper Voice

- Shadow Ball

- Protect

- Light Screen
Sylveon hits dragons for good damage and is more reliable at the job against dragon types than salamence (because it isn't weak to their stab), and provides an alternative strong spread move to hit foes with if ludicolo goes down or water isn't a strong offensive typing to my opponent. Light Screen is a filler move but can help my team's ability to tank surfs better. Usually Moonblast (or a single target pixilate move) would be considered, but considering that Pixilate spread hyper voice still has similar power to moonblast (hyper voice's BP is 90, multiplied by spread nerf of x0.75 and by pixilate's power buff of x1.3 equals about 87.75 base power, versus moonblast's 95 base power)

Freeze Dry user aka Aurorus:
While the entire frontline is weak to the move, you don't have to worry as much because the 1 pokemon with the move in the maison is Aurorus, who drowns to Surf (and also gets 4x crushed by metagross and toxicroak's stabs), however, DO NOT get complacent against Aurorus, unless you're a fan of seeing it ohko something in the front line lol.
Ferrothorn:
This Pokemon has been the bane of rain teams since the dawn of time, and is just as annoying to deal with as ever. Ferrothorn2 and Ferrothorn4 are the most annoying sets since they have curse to boost defense and get quite annoying to deal with, however, a burn from scald from politoed or ludicolo will hamper all ferro sets and, if played well, you can force something like a 2v1 or 3v1 against it to overwhelm it. It definitely helps that Ferrothorn is pretty passive without curse boosts too.
 
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Posting an ongoing streak of 50 (Technically 70ish as of now but i'm too lazy to take a new photo lol) wins (and my first trophy in ORAS!) in Super Triples.
I love using rain teams in doubles and triples and used rain teams a lot throughout gen 5 and gen 6 vgc so I had to do something like that here!


Salamence-Mega (M) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature

- Double-Edge

- Dragon Claw

- Protect

- Tailwind

Mega Salamence is a great tailwind user to help support my team, and can use its Aerilate boosted Double Edges to hit troublesome grass and bug types that give Ludicolo trouble, and Dragon Claw hits Goodra (it can hit other dragons but Sylveon is decidedly better into other dragons lol). I decided to run bulk evs since Mence's attack stat is already super high as it is even without investment (Mega Mence has Landorus-T's attack stat! You can absolutely sacrifice attack evs for bulk!), and the added bulk helps it tank my partner Ludicolo's surfs better and deal with Double Edge recoil better as well.

Ludicolo (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Surf

- Giga Drain

- Ice Beam

- Scald
Ludicolo is my main spread move abuser and general damage dealer, and Choice Specs Surf in the Rain is a MONSTER of an attack, even bulky resists take a good chunk from the move, especially with a helping hand boost, and anything that doesn't resist water is not going to like taking a surf to the face. Giga Drain hurts other waters, Ice Beam hits dragons and grasses if Mence can't hit those (but ice beam isn't going to be clicked much, because again, Mence's job is to hit dragons and grasses) and scald is a single hit water move that won't hurt Ludicolo's partners and can also thaw ludicolo out from freezes in the off chance it does get frozen.


Politoed (F) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

- Scald

- Helping Hand

- Protect

- Rain Dance

Politoed. Do I need to say anything? I might run a sp. def. spread for tanking Ludicolo's side surfs better but this def. spread has come in clutch against a lot of physical attackers though (in particular, against sand setters tyranitar and hippowdon).

Metagross @ Assault Vest

Ability: Clear Body

Level: 50

EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD

Adamant Nature

- Iron Head

- Earthquake

- Thunder Punch

- Bullet Punch

Metagross fulfills a number of roles for me, with its held Assault Vest, it is a good switch in to fairy moves, and metagross is my only real switch in to freeze-dry as well. Iron head and earthquake are staples, bullet punch snipes frail ice and fairy types (as well as weakened Pokemon), and thunder punch hits water types that could be troublesome for it (in particular hits water - flying dual types like pelipper who could also give ludicolo trouble)

Toxicroak (M) @ Focus Sash

Ability: Dry Skin

Level: 50

EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Sucker Punch

- Drain Punch

- Toxic

- Fake Out

Toxicroak is a glue Pokemon for the team. Sucker punch is useful priority for finishing off something that's weakened, drain punch has fighting stab which is useful for a variety of troublesome pokemon including ferrothorn, bulky normal types, and ice types (namely abomasnow). Fake out is an obvious move that helps generate momentum, and toxic helps against many different bulky, otherwise hard to deal with Pokemon, including Blissey4 (minimize), Dusknoir3 (double team), Cresselia2 (double team) and Cradily1 and Cradily4. Toxic ignores accuracy checks too because Toxicroak is a poison type (thank the Gen 6 buff to the move for that!)

Sylveon (F) @ Leftovers

Ability: Pixilate

Level: 50

Shiny: Yes

EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD

Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Hyper Voice

- Shadow Ball

- Protect

- Light Screen
Sylveon hits dragons for good damage and is more reliable at the job against dragon types than salamence (because it isn't weak to their stab), and provides an alternative strong spread move to hit foes with if ludicolo goes down or water isn't a strong offensive typing to my opponent. Light Screen is a filler move but can help my team's ability to tank surfs better. Usually Moonblast (or a single target pixilate move) would be considered, but considering that Pixilate spread hyper voice still has similar power to moonblast (hyper voice's BP is 90, multiplied by spread nerf of x0.75 and by pixilate's power buff of x1.3 equals about 87.75 base power, versus moonblast's 95 base power)

Freeze Dry user aka Aurorus:
While the entire frontline is weak to the move, you don't have to worry as much because the 1 pokemon with the move in the maison is Aurorus, who drowns to Surf (and also gets 4x crushed by metagross and toxicroak's stabs), however, DO NOT get complacent against Aurorus, unless you're a fan of seeing it ohko something in the front line lol.
Ferrothorn:
This Pokemon has been the bane of rain teams since the dawn of time, and is just as annoying to deal with as ever. Ferrothorn2 and Ferrothorn4 are the most annoying sets since they have curse to boost defense and get quite annoying to deal with, however, a burn from scald from politoed or ludicolo will hamper all ferro sets and, if played well, you can force something like a 2v1 or 3v1 against it to overwhelm it.
Edit: Apparently the image didn't load into initial post properly so I'm replying with the proper proof.
Battle Maison Super Triples as of 10-28.jpg
 
Posting an ongoing streak of 50 (Technically 70ish as of now but i'm too lazy to take a new photo lol) wins (and my first trophy in ORAS!) in Super Triples.
I love using rain teams in doubles and triples and used rain teams a lot throughout gen 5 and gen 6 vgc so I had to do something like that here!


Salamence-Mega (M) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature

- Double-Edge

- Dragon Claw

- Protect

- Tailwind

Mega Salamence is a great tailwind user to help support my team, and can use its Aerilate boosted Double Edges to hit troublesome grass and bug types that give Ludicolo trouble, and Dragon Claw hits Goodra (it can hit other dragons but Sylveon is decidedly better into other dragons lol). I decided to run bulk evs since Mence's attack stat is already super high as it is even without investment (Mega Mence has Landorus-T's attack stat! You can absolutely sacrifice attack evs for bulk!), and the added bulk helps it tank my partner Ludicolo's surfs better and deal with Double Edge recoil better as well.

Ludicolo (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Surf

- Giga Drain

- Ice Beam

- Scald
Ludicolo is my main spread move abuser and general damage dealer, and Choice Specs Surf in the Rain is a MONSTER of an attack, even bulky resists take a good chunk from the move, especially with a helping hand boost, and anything that doesn't resist water is not going to like taking a surf to the face. Giga Drain hurts other waters, Ice Beam hits dragons and grasses if Mence can't hit those (but ice beam isn't going to be clicked much, because again, Mence's job is to hit dragons and grasses) and scald is a single hit water move that won't hurt Ludicolo's partners and can also thaw ludicolo out from freezes in the off chance it does get frozen.


Politoed (F) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

- Scald

- Helping Hand

- Protect

- Rain Dance

Politoed. Do I need to say anything? I might run a sp. def. spread for tanking Ludicolo's side surfs better but this def. spread has come in clutch against a lot of physical attackers though (in particular, against sand setters tyranitar and hippowdon).

Metagross @ Assault Vest

Ability: Clear Body

Level: 50

EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD

Adamant Nature

- Iron Head

- Earthquake

- Thunder Punch

- Bullet Punch

Metagross fulfills a number of roles for me, with its held Assault Vest, it is a good switch in to fairy moves, and metagross is my only real switch in to freeze-dry as well. Iron head and earthquake are staples, bullet punch snipes frail ice and fairy types (as well as weakened Pokemon), and thunder punch hits water types that could be troublesome for it (in particular hits water - flying dual types like pelipper who could also give ludicolo trouble)

Toxicroak (M) @ Focus Sash

Ability: Dry Skin

Level: 50

EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Sucker Punch

- Drain Punch

- Toxic

- Fake Out

Toxicroak is a glue Pokemon for the team. Sucker punch is useful priority for finishing off something that's weakened, drain punch has fighting stab which is useful for a variety of troublesome pokemon including ferrothorn, bulky normal types, and ice types (namely abomasnow). Fake out is an obvious move that helps generate momentum, and toxic helps against many different bulky, otherwise hard to deal with Pokemon, including Blissey4 (minimize), Dusknoir3 (double team), Cresselia2 (double team) and Cradily1 and Cradily4. Toxic ignores accuracy checks too because Toxicroak is a poison type (thank the Gen 6 buff to the move for that!)

Sylveon (F) @ Leftovers

Ability: Pixilate

Level: 50

Shiny: Yes

EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD

Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Hyper Voice

- Shadow Ball

- Protect

- Light Screen
Sylveon hits dragons for good damage and is more reliable at the job against dragon types than salamence (because it isn't weak to their stab), and provides an alternative strong spread move to hit foes with if ludicolo goes down or water isn't a strong offensive typing to my opponent. Light Screen is a filler move but can help my team's ability to tank surfs better. Usually Moonblast (or a single target pixilate move) would be considered, but considering that Pixilate spread hyper voice still has similar power to moonblast (hyper voice's BP is 90, multiplied by spread nerf of x0.75 and by pixilate's power buff of x1.3 equals about 87.75 base power, versus moonblast's 95 base power)

Freeze Dry user aka Aurorus:
While the entire frontline is weak to the move, you don't have to worry as much because the 1 pokemon with the move in the maison is Aurorus, who drowns to Surf (and also gets 4x crushed by metagross and toxicroak's stabs), however, DO NOT get complacent against Aurorus, unless you're a fan of seeing it ohko something in the front line lol.
Ferrothorn:
This Pokemon has been the bane of rain teams since the dawn of time, and is just as annoying to deal with as ever. Ferrothorn2 and Ferrothorn4 are the most annoying sets since they have curse to boost defense and get quite annoying to deal with, however, a burn from scald from politoed or ludicolo will hamper all ferro sets and, if played well, you can force something like a 2v1 or 3v1 against it to overwhelm it. It definitely helps that Ferrothorn is pretty passive without curse boosts too.
Battle Maison Super Triples as of 12-09 (200 wins).jpg
Reporting that the triples rain team just hit the 200 win streak!
 
I finally did it. Great way to start off 2024 with 50 wins in Super Multi-Battle which felt impossible but I did it. since X&Y replays don’t work feel free to dm me on discord: splashhy, if u have any questions or need help for the maison.(Lost run at 62)
image.jpg
The team I used was Aron and Greninja and my AI had porygon2(choice specs) and Darmanitan(assault vest).

I was trying different combos like Greninja Lucario and Greninja Garchomp(ones I used for triple and double). But none seemed to work but then I saw another smogon multi win with Aron and thought why not try it.

My exact team:

Greninja(Timid with Max Evs on Sp Atk and Speed and rest on Hp). Protean(obviously) and Focus Sash. Dark Pulse, Scald, Ice beam, Grass Knot.

Level 1 Aron(sturdy) with berry juice. Endeavor and Protect was all that mattered but also had swagger and toxic since that’s what I saw on most builds.

AI team:
image.jpg

Moves: Thunderbolt, Ice beam, Tri Attack, Psychic
image.jpg

Moves: Psychic(never used), Earthquake, Overheat, Flareblitz

My first attempt with this team I thought life orb might affect Greninja better but then here I was 2v2 Greninja and Darmanitan vs lanturn and Sawk and the Sawk one shotted me then shorty after Darmanitan died. So I decided to use focus sash and kept losing out at the 30s and 40s. The biggest problem I encountered was Ninetales and fighting types. Ninetales I feel like was a user error since you could prob switch between grass knot and scald to damage it while resisting its fire type moves and energy ball. I used Matblock in double and triple so never knew what killed Greninja when using scald. 3 mons to note are Ninetales(Energy Ball), Gengar and Lapras(both can learnThunderbolt). But fighting types were really frustrating especially if they went to KO Porygon2 instead of Aron and make me have a 3v4. But other than that the team was mostly successful and always got me to the 30s and 40s. But my 50 win attempt I played it very smart and only got scary one time when Auroarus somehow one shotted the Porygon but Greninja and Darmanitan cleaned it up(happened again after 50 wins with Infernape 1 shoting Porygon).
 
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I finally did it. Great way to start off 2024 with 50 wins in Super Multi-Battle which felt impossible but I did it. since X&Y replays don’t work feel free to dm me on discord: splashhy, if u have any questions or need help for the maison.(Lost run at 62)
View attachment 589985The team I used was Aron and Greninja and my AI had porygon2(choice specs) and Darmanitan(assault vest).

I was trying different combos like Greninja Lucario and Greninja Garchomp(ones I used for triple and double). But none seemed to work but then I saw another smogon multi win with Aron and thought why not try it.

My exact team:

Greninja(Timid with Max Evs on Sp Atk and Speed and rest on Hp). Protean(obviously) and Focus Sash. Dark Pulse, Scald, Ice beam, Grass Knot.

Level 1 Aron(sturdy) with berry juice. Endeavor and Protect was all that mattered but also had swagger and toxic since that’s what I saw on most builds.

AI team:
View attachment 589979
Moves: Thunderbolt, Ice beam, Tri Attack, Psychic
View attachment 589980
Moves: Psychic(never used), Earthquake, Overheat, Flareblitz

My first attempt with this team I thought life orb might affect Greninja better but then here I was 2v2 Greninja and Darmanitan vs lanturn and Sawk and the Sawk one shotted me then shorty after Darmanitan died. So I decided to use focus sash and kept losing out at the 30s and 40s. The biggest problem I encountered was Ninetales and fighting types. Ninetales I feel like was a user error since you could prob switch between grass knot and scald to damage it while resisting its fire type moves and energy ball. I used Matblock in double and triple so never knew what killed Greninja when using scald. 3 mons to note are Ninetales(Energy Ball), Gengar and Lapras(both can learnThunderbolt). But fighting types were really frustrating especially if they went to KO Porygon2 instead of Aron and make me have a 3v4. But other than that the team was mostly successful and always got me to the 30s and 40s. But my 50 win attempt I played it very smart and only got scary one time when Auroarus somehow one shotted the Porygon but Greninja and Darmanitan cleaned it up(happened again after 50 wins with Infernape 1 shoting Porygon).
And now I am done right before online shuts down time to do same thing on Y now
 

Attachments

This post is something like a year in the making, and that is entirely intended to be a factual statement, before I picked it back up (a couple of weeks ago at this point) the last draft of this post was quite literally the ides of March (yes, even before the moth streaks). It’s been so, so much harder to just do this writeup than to grind out another few hundred, another few thousand battles, and if not for the impending online services shutdown, I would probably have pushed this out another few weeks or months or year(s).

But since it’s come to this, I’m here to announce completed streaks of an ongoing streak of 3807 wins in Super Singles in X (with an ORAS tradeback move though) with minor variants of a minor variant &c. of Team Marathon (Mega Gyarados / Aegislash / Gliscor), the last in a series of streaks that I’ve been putting off writing up since last February, completed at 136, 1071, 1967, and 908 wins. Some of them used to be uploaded but I think are long gone by now and I don’t have enough slots to reup them all so a quick rundown:

Loss at #137: VQ2W-WWWW-WW67-59EG vs SpA Ace Jai Togekiss3: This one is from last January, basically my first “real” steak picking up mons again this time. There’s a couple of things I could’ve played better (I have long since learned to go to Gliscor first against really Togekiss in general but especially ones that could be this on in particular), and then I should’ve switched out after the flinch, but it’s still a silly level of bullshit from a multi-set trainer with a dumb set getting a King’s Rock Shadow Ball flinch.

Loss at #1072: 2MFG-WWWW-WW67-59EB vs Punk Guy Puck Gyarados3/Arcanine2/Krookodile4: Way back last Februrary, this one pretty much comes down to missing that it’s the Intimidate trainer, playing as if it’s Gyarados4, get instantly punished as Gyarados3 crit one-shots with Stone Edge (oops) and everything goes downhill from there. Despite this, it takes some extra weird blunders with KS because I think I need +4 Aegislash IH + SS for the kill (but actually Aegislash would be in Blade form so +2 would’ve been fine…), and get clean oneshot because I let it boost too much. Gliscor cannot salvage a battle out of a set-up Gyarados3 and I don’t even get to see the backups, which is really sad because Gliscor would’ve 1v2ed them. In principle, the Tree thing where the trainer is rendered all the time could’ve saved this run…

(“If I’d just clicked the Mega Button, or if I hadn’t gone for the extraneous boost on Aegislash, I would’ve won anyway” is just the authentic Team Marathon experience anyway I guess lmao)

Loss at #1968: vs 1/2 Veteran Hera Suicune2/Articuno1/Cobalion2: This one starts with some sketchy play into a turn 1 freeze, but really just goes downhill when I forget to stall out Shadow Ball entirely and Gyarados does not appreciate getting nailed on the switch and not being able to complete its setup, ends up without a sub as Cobalion2 comes in and I don’t correctly switch out. Gliscor has to finish it off and Pressure Articuno1 comes in, and at this point we probably would’ve been fine if I were still running Toxic Gliscor. Alas, this is last August, after the Masquerain Starf steak, so I’ve converted to a DT set, which just barely does not have enough PP and gets stalled out. Obviously winnable matchup, I just threw horrendously. This is not actually the scenario that made be decide that it’s not worth it to full stall Suicune12 (which is easy with an Aegislash sac on set 1 but really annoying against set 2 because Mirror Coat usage is pretty random), but that would also have surely prevented this loss.

Loss at #909: vs Sand Worker Rasmus Gliscor2/Tyranitar3/Dugtrio3. I see SD out of lead Hyper Cutter Gliscor, and I mistakenly assume that we’re looking at Gliscor1, which is annoying but can barely touch Aegislash, and miss the possibility that it’s set 2. It BPs out into an unknown Tyranitar set as I don’t immediately Iron Head; at this point, sets 2 and 3 at +1 are I think threatening a genuine (still pretty small) loss chance even with no further misplays. This doesn’t happen, because I promptly switch to Gliscor, which in hindsight is a misplay and definitely threatens a (somewhat more likely) loss with no further misplays. This still doesn’t happen, because I just let it DD on a Protect turn and that’s pretty much game.

This one’s a rare matchup where I’m actually not sure there was any sequence I could’ve played that wouldn’t have had a nontrivial loss chance without knowing the backups, though I think immediate Head on seeing SD is correct, which would’ve nailed Tyranitar on the switch and put it at least in range to be finished off by SS, which also beats a second boost out of Gliscor and I don’t see anything in the sand pool that it would lose to, but this is hardly obvious even in hindsight.

Battle videos for the current streak further down, since I want to talk about some stuff first.

How did we get here?

Well, Team Marathon hardly needs me to introduce it, mari’s written reams on it as is, ft. elaborate and very helpful lead guide, which I think makes it pretty much the the best-documented team in the thread in that it’s the only one with a lead guide that really goes into enough detail to get a feel for how someone manages to play a team to 2k and beyond. It’s very appreciated, and very importantly a jumping-off point for feeling out the situations where it makes sense to PP stall, which btw is “most of the time” but this is not remotely intuitive without experience piloting other long-streak comps like Aegimensey or, like, Kangliscune on a really bad day, and ime this team prefers to full stall significantly more often than either of those.

One of the fascinating things to me about this team composition is how … affordable? it is—not literally, of course (I have no idea what that would even mean), but at a glance we’re working with hilariously off-the-shelf parts: one Adamant 5v Magikarp of the sort you could plausibly have picked up off Wonder Trade back in the day, a 4v + 28-29 Spe Honedge (and the speed is just for one particular edge case), and an HA Gligar which seems like it could well be any generic standard facility Gliscor set (everyone has one of those, right?), which sounds a little fancy but Immunity Gligar is, like, maybe the easiest HA to find in X/Y, since it’s a semi-common swarm encounter that you can Poison Gas to weed out (… okay, that sounds bad). No once-per-playthrough mons, no egg moves or anything, not even tutors, just level-ups, relearns, and TMs. You’d be forgiven for imagining that it could be a single-cartridge team in X/Y, because with the exception of one tiiiiiny detail, it almost would be except that for some ungodly reason Gyarados doesn’t actually learn Crunch before ORAS, and that’s definitely a mistake I made waaaay back in what must have been, like, 2016-2017 when I first built the team and had to ask a (… ex-)friend to take my freshly bred Gyarados and a Heart Scale to the move reminder in OR. Still, that’s a far shorter ask than procuring a 5v Bold Suicune!

Honestly, with the team sitting at the top of the board for a good half decade, it’s a little surprising that we’ve never actually seen much in the way of a copycat streak (until now lol)—there’s a pre-ORAS predecessor Mega Gyara/Ferro/Gliscor, there’s a vaguely similar Mega Gyara/Aegislash/Garchomp built without Sub TM access, but apparently nobody took this team out for a spin to see any particular level of success. And I get that it’s a hard team to play, and to be sure it’s not a team I can wholeheartedly recommend for, say, polishing off a 50 or 200 streak and calling it a day, but my best streak from 2017 still made it to 434, and I was definitely holding it wrong then. Probably still am, but back then I hadn’t clued in to the whole “you’d rather stall down to a full setup than try to 1v3 with Gliscor” thing, whereas now I’d hope at least some of my choices can be chalked up to, eh, call it legitimate playstyle differences. It’s a surprisingly solid, resilient team with a lot of backup plans even when you’re playing like a dumbass (source: just look at my battle videos lmao).

The actual goshdarn team

So I call this a minor variants of a minor variant &c. of Team Marathon, because this is the result of a series of individually quite minor changes, and at a high level I think the team still very much maintains its identity and core game plan. Gyarados and Aegislash have only really seen fairly minor spread tweaks; Gliscor … has gone through a lot.

Gyarados (M) @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate -> Mold Breaker
EVs: 100 HP / 196 Atk / 36 Def / 6 SpD / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 8 SpA
- Waterfall
- Dragon Dance
- Crunch
- Substitute

There is a very marginal improvement to the spread: 2 points moved from attack into hp. So the original writeup claims that 212 EVs are “just enough” to Mega OHKO Chandelure4, but it turns out that’s not quite right: 196 EVs read the exact same damage ranges as 212. In fact, our min damage in that matchup remains the same (168 hp) all the way up to 252 Atk. In fact, when we do the mass calcs, it turns out the 196 Atk EV spread differs from the 212 Atk EV spread in surprisingly few matchups, few of them relevant and basically none of which push a roll over a guaranteed HKO threshold.

If you are a huge nerd, you might already recognize that 196 EVs hits a nature boost threshold for base stat numbers ending in 5, and expect a priori that of course it’s going to be twice as impactful as the previous and next points in attack. This is true, but it’s not what’s going on. If you are a Huge Nerd (looking at you, Magpie), you might recognize that 196+ Atk Mega Gyarados hits exactly 220 attack.

… yeah, it’s a rounding thing. Being a multiple of both 10 and 11 means this stat number tends to bump Atk*BP over exact integer multiples of uninvested Def with base stat divisible by 5 and nature-boosted uninvested with base stat divisible by 10. Chandelure4, being a Bold base 90, has exactly 121 defense.

The bulk investment, eh, isn’t actually that relevant. It’s a benchmark-based defense number, but it turns out we don’t actually need to care that much about the Garchomp matchup (see Gliscor). The extra hp is a marginal improvement since we’re running a Sub set, since it means we can takes 2 more damage unsubbed and make the same number of subs, but that’s a pretty minor effect on Gyarados in particular (though it is relevant when we have to facetank a few Struggles to set up). I’ve contemplated moving an extra 4 points from Def into HP, but Gyarados has a janky base Def ending in 9 that makes sticking 4 points in Def profoundly pointless; 45 hp subs already exactly survive the extremely relevant +2 base 90 neutral nature 3-way-split 90 BP resisted STAB benchmark (read: Entei2 Flamethrower exactly), and shifting more HP doesn’t seem to make my subs survive crit Struggles any better.

Cutting bulk down to 68/252/12/0/4/172 to run max attack is a conceivable option for this blessed calc:

+3 252+ Atk Mold Breaker Gyarados-Mega Waterfall vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Greninja: 147-173 (100 - 117.6%) – guaranteed OHKO

but it doesn’t really seem to solve any other problems and I’m not actually sure how affordable the bulk loss is… worth trying in a throwaway run, though, maybe.

The gender is relevant mostly because Rivalry Pyroar4 is a bit more likely to be more threatening when you’re female, partly because Serperior1 matters way more than Blissey1 (still not much), and then because we want Gliscor’s gender to differ from both Gyarados and Aegislash because Milotic2 is actually threatening and that’s not possible if Gyarados and Aegislash have different genders. It’s really not that big a deal, but I did actually select the specific combination deliberately this time.

Side note, if you really need to make this a single-cartridge team, I think the version with Bite > Crunch is probably still a 4-digit team, there are a couple of matchups that would be a bit jankier, Haxorus4 gets a little sketchier (but it’s generics only and two +1 Bites should still have decent odds), Drought Ninetales4 needs +3 (might be harder to carry a sub), getting to +6 becomes somewhat more relevant, and you’d lose the fast path on the Hex/Psychic pool, but it still nails Starmie and on the whole there’s not that much stuff you’d DD once and Crunch. I guess some Def boosters (read: Umbreon4) become sillier when you absolutely need to fish for a 1/16 crit because you don’t have the 1/5 drop chance to back you up? That’s definitely not a recommendation, but I can see it working.

Aegislash (M) @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 6 SpD
Adamant Nature
IVs: 19 SpA / 28 Spe
- Shadow Sneak
- King’s Shield
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance

Not much to say here. I’ve swapped in a more “standard” 79 speed Adamant, which incidentally is exactly the same speed IV as 71 speed Brave, so that’s nifty and saved a lot of pain breeding. The “relevant” matchups between 71 and 79 speed are Scrafty4, Obamasnow4, Tyranitar4, and then a bunch of stuff (in particular the base 55 normals, Blissey, Bouffalant, and Ursaring) that it makes more sense to outspeed and use your non-priority move on anyway. Obama’s Protect alternation is hilariously predictable even when you don’t outslow it since it barely does damage to Aegi even with Blizzard, Tyranitar4 is not only utterly humiliated by Gliscor but it is preferred to stall it into a full Gyarados setup, and Scrafty, it turns out, has the janky Payback AI that makes it Protect or set up way less often than you’d expect and Payback its way down to -6 into KS against fast Aegi.

I think Iron Head as the non-priority move is … underappreciated. Actually, let me rephrase that, because Head still kind of sucks actually, what I should really be saying is that I think Sword’s perfect coverage alongside Sneak is grossly overvalued and gets it used even when it doesn’t actually do anything special. Yeah, sure, the matchup spread matters for this team in particular, but even in general you’re approximately never choosing Sword over Sneak because it does hilarious overkill SE damage to stuff that resists Sneak anyway, you’re picking your actually pretty rarely resisted priority move (except, I guess, into the generic Beauty pool) when it’s good enough to land a kill, and then you’re picking your non-priority move over your priority move so you’re either moving after something faster than you and thereby avoiding a hit in Blade form, or just outright doing more damage to something slower than you and killing it that way. The baseline difference is pretty minimal even if your team doesn’t specifically hate a few things that Head hits harder, and the Maison just … doesn’t have Sword targets, like what are you going to use it on, Ferrothorn? Defiant Bisharp4? Bulky waters that happen to be slower than you but also aren’t slowthings or Quagsire, i.e. pretty much Gastrodon exactly because Lanturn4 is fundamentally unthreatening and set 3 demands Sneak anyway in the Roller Skater pool? People should try it more on other comps, it’s good value.

Funny spread notes: unlike with Gyarados, cutting attack down to 220 is probably not worth missing out on guaranteed KOs against Moxie Gyarados4 and Entei3, and anyway there’s nothing I really want to invest two points into: it’s not really desirable to outrun Empoleon4, Lapras4, or Swampert4 on this team, and bumping defense/spdef by 1 point doesn’t actually change move any relevant benchmarks except like, while it’s actually slightly relevant that we cause an Atk Download because +1 PZ4 has a cursed set of Shadow Ball crit Aegislash + Tri Attack crit Gliscor calcs.

One of the funniest things about running three 220-222 attack 80 BP moves and one attack 40 BP moves is that the damage calcs are all the same. This is one argument for sticking with 222 attack Gyarados…

Gliscor (F) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 166 HP / 252 SpD / 92 Spe
Careful Nature
- Double Team
- Protect
- Bulldoze
- Substitute

Everyone has their own favorite Gliscor sets, and this is … not my favorite spread (that’s 228/4/4/0/252/20), but a particular carefully tuned set of compromises which has had to go through a bunch of iterations:

In the distant past I ran the original 212/4/36/0/252/4 Toxic/EQ set, but the oldest Gliscor I have (presumably from 2016—it’s dated 2012/5/16, but that’s obviously wrong and other mons that should’ve been traded roughly contemporarily are dated May–July 2016) is already (presumably re-EVed to) 228/5/20/0/252/5. (My Gyarados from that era, incidentally, is 100/204/30/0/4/172, which is a funny kind of mangled spread that I’m not sure isn’t a mistake.)

Fast-forward to 2020 and, the story I like to tell goes, I’m rebuilding the team after replaying Y in Japanese but was (still am tbh) bad at reading all-kana text and teach じならし instead of じしん and locked in the PP Ups before the difference came to light. Of course this should’ve been an easy problem to fix in gen 6 with reuseable TMs, but first of all I suspect I straight up just hadn’t done the Strength puzzle and didn’t even realize that I had a different ground-colored TM with a vaguely similar-looking name, and second of all, as we can see from the fact that I’m still running it, I actually do genuinely think Bulldoze is a better move than EQ in this slot—there are very few situations where it’s even particularly relevant than Gliscor is doing 40% less damage (I think the main ones in the lead position are Aurorus4 and Probopass4, both of which I handle dramatically differently now anyway), but there are a few leads that become full combo when speed dropped to allow Gyarados to Sub, and fundamentally I just have to trust that individual lead matchups are like an order of magnitude more common than backup matchups where specifically Gliscor is out.

Anyway, back in the land of living memory (last January), I was playing with Toxic/Bulldoze 230/4/20/0/252/4 (very smooth spread to EV train btw) until I realized that bumping up to 118 speed would let me outspeed max speed base 108s at -1, which is a surprisingly large weird speed tier that includes Infernape134 and the Unova gerbils musketeers swordsgerbils and swapped to 230/4/4/0/252/20 (second easiest re-EV of my life tbh), which I was running until last summer when I flirted with more exotic Gliscor sets on the moth runs. At that point I’d been off “serious” streaking for a few months (as in, I’d last streamed up to 2995 in April before life stuff came up that kept me away from it for weeks and then months, by which point I was kind of terrified of continuing, started playing on a different file and then kind of just forgot I still had the almost-3k-streak on hold?? eventually thinking I’d already lost it but wasn’t clear on the details until I dug it up and it turns out that no, it was just still sitting there all along) and started yet another new file in X, this time with a fresh mind, newfound appreciation of Double Team, and fear of Tyrantrum4 leading me to seriously consider bumping up the speed as a backup plan for a turn 3 crit.

What the spread actually does is that164 HP EVs puts us at 171 hp, which is 3 more than a multiple of 8, and the remainder is just enough to run max spdef. Like with Gyarados, I opt for Sub number +3 rather than +1 to maximize the amount of single-hit damage we can take and still Sub. For singles Gliscor, the ability to subtect/PH hp loop is also a relevant consideration (yes, I still think heal% optimization is wrongheaded though) in that leaking hp over a subtect cycle likewise cuts into the amount of damage we can safely take and still stall some amount of PP, and because that number is overwhelmingly going to be more than 4, I’m comfortable with staying just under 4 mod 8. So long story short, this spread tries to maximize effective special bulk we can bring to bear alongside a speed stat in the 123-127 range.

Incidentally, I kind of wish I could afford to cut hp another PH tier down to 163 and bump speed up to 134 (i.e. 100/4/4/0/252/150) since all four things in the 129 tier, Tornadus23 at 131, and Togekiss4 at 132 would be kind of nice to outspeed. Ultimately, though, there are always these nifty pickups that could justify cutting a little more bulk, but in practice it concretely does matter that we’re not leaking much hp switching into e.g. Vaporeon4 Shadow Balls “on average”, and the marginal benefit to going up to 134 seems is way more, ah, marginal than picking up Ludicolo4 and Tyranitar23, the former of which btw was the main reason I thought it made sense to cut bulk for this speed benchmark, up until I discovered last month that it can in fact go for the turn 1 Hydro miss into Gyarados because Grass Knot AI is a sick joke. 127 also picks up Sceptile2 as a Bulldoze target to stall down to full combo, which is considerably rarer but without outspeeding at -1 technically carried a small chance to SD twice and ript hrough the whole team with limited counterplay from that point; that set is like 0.3% (1/3600 inferred) to appear as a lead post-40 but I’ve met it twice this streak, so I’m not exactly regretting the decision to run the full 127 speed instead of a little more Def. I’ve never really found Gliscor’s Def inadequate, though granted I really don’t play Gliscor on non-Intimidate teams very often these days…

Anyway, Bulldoze is actually fantastic because, as I was saying, lead machups are fundamentally way more common than specific backups showing up on Gliscor, because in order for a backup to come in on Gliscor we need the lead to leave (usually by dying) while Gliscor is on the field, and contrary to what 2017 me seemed to think, we do not actually prefer for Gliscor to be on the field as the lead dies, we in fact strongly prefer to get a Gyarados setup because even a modestly set-up Gyarados at +2 or +3 with a sub is a near-unassailable position that only a small range of backups can actually out, not all of which will even be brought in second, and the list of things that out +6 sub Gyarados is basically Static/Effect Spore + para proc, multiple Lax Incense/Bright Powder procs, forced Mega + Accelgor4, and egregious misplay. The upshot of this is that, essentally, making a single sketchy lead matchup “safe” is worth 5-10x as many sketchy Gliscor secondmon matchups, and is substantially compensated for by reducing the number of Gliscor setups we get in the first place.

(Concretely: Bulldoze lets us safely stall down stuff like Garchomp4, Lilligant4, Sceptile4, Slaking4, Tauros4, Typhlosion4, Cobalion1, Virizion1, and non-Clear Body Klinklang4. Before the hp cut, Ludicolo4 and Tentacruel4 too. The extra PP is also nifty to solo stall Crobat4 so that we get a full Gyarados setup no matter whether it has Infiltrator or not. Garchomp4 in particular is a huge pickup.)

Double Team is … an adequate skip turn button. I mean, I’ve talked about this, and calling it a skip turn button is only like half facetious, it really does get clicked a lot just to waste the least critical PP against a non-floater like Blastoise4 or Poliwrath4, against which we now have full combo because the problem with the Toxic set was literally just that Focus Punch had too much PP to stall out with other attacking moves on the set. This alone is extremely valuable.

Evasion boosts also sometimes blank an incoming attack. This is not exactly reliable on a turn-to-turn basis, but there’s a reasonable expectation that we can get e.g. Heatran1 to miss at least 7 times over the course of 40 attacks, with the chance of a miss rising further each time it does as we get a free turn to DT again. This lets us stall it down to Earth Power and represents something like >98% chance of full combo out of Heatran1 (without needing to sac Aegi). Even funnier, misses mean the attacker doesn’t take recoil damage, which isn’t always good (fuck Talonflame4 btw) but gives us good chances to stall down Life Orb users Probopass4, Bouffalant4, Cobalion4, Victreebel4, and the like.

You’d think we’d miss Toxic a bit more but surprisingly … not really? It turns out that the vast majority of situations where you’d want to use Toxic are really just mistakes that could’ve been stalled down to a proper setup instead of leaving a heavily depleted Gliscor on the field, since as we know there’s no prize for killing the lead in 6 turns but there is a pretty good reward for stalling it down to EQ as its last move. Even when there’s nothing good to stall down to fully set up on, though, Gliscor with 56 non-attacking PP can afford to stall quite a lot of things down to Struggle, and it turns out that in itself is a decent consolation prize, since the +2 or +3 Gyarados we finagle out of that, at least 15/16 of the time behind a sub, 1v1s almost everything and thereby eliminates otherwise potentially problematic backups.

(To wit: the record indicates that the most popular way to handle Luxray4 on a Gliscor team is to switch Gliscor in, stall out Ice Fang, then Toxic and carry a sub, spending 16 subtect PP and 6 Toxic/EQ PP in the process. With this team composition, Luxray4 can be stalled out of attacking PP without using any moves by switching between Gliscor and Aegislash, ideally getting Aegislash frozen in the process to avoid paralysis while switching into Thunder Wave to stall out the last few Thunder Fang PP, but having Gliscor fully stall out elec PP at the end or just getting Aegi paralyzed is an acceptable sacrifice. At thais point, Gyarados can switch in from Gliscor on a turn where Light Screen is down, guaranteeing safe entry, and immediately Sub and set up freely. Interestingly, this maneuver is even easier with Suicune, which can Rest off paralysis and can just afford to facetank a crit Thunder Fang if it wants.)

The combination of DT and Bulldoze also has the synergy that, when making use of evasion, it’s really nice to move first against the opponent so that you can know when you need to re-Sub instead of wasting a bunch fo Sub PP on turns where it doesn’t break. This buys you free turns on which you can do something else, often DTing further to buy more free turns, but in some situations (e.g. backup Starmie4, lastmon Jynx4) it even makes sense to spend spend the extra turn to straight up attack and do damage to and eventually even kill things. At this point, a great fan of Chansey sweeping might wish to pipe up that he always knew evasion sets were good at slow-sweeping, but I submit for the record that he would be wrong, that (and I’ve said this before) uninvested mono-Bulldoze Gliscor is abysmal at actually killing things, should not be burning through hilarious amount of PP trying to do so, and is not the setup we want on the field when a backup comes out, because Claydol or Feraligatr or God’s gift to this world Talonflame can show up and then you will have small PP and a bad time. Dropping Toxic is a real trade-off that does actually reduce Gliscor’s sweeping capability to make it better at PP stalling things so that its teammates can set up, and on a team where we already had two solid setupmons and “Gliscor with a sub” was always the easiest setup to get into trouble with anyway that’s a sacrifice we are well-equipped to take, but you need to be able to convert that PP-stall into a setup. You need to be able to convert that PP-stall into a setup. This is honestly even more true here than where I said it before, because we don’t have a pink blob involved so Gliscor actually has a pretty hard time switching out from arbitrary backups, so it can easily end up committed in a position where it has to stay in for 15+ PP before it wants to switch out if it gets the wrong backup in its face. You need to be able to convert that PP-stall into a setup. It’s like, the main point of the team.

Grumbling about goodstuffs

On that note, I’ve seen it said that this is a generation where “goodstuff” teams came into their own and were “more than a joke”, and I get that in common parlance what that’s intended to mean in context is “not a Durant team (and probably not trickscarf either),” but frankly I think that’s a fundamental mischaracterization of what’s going on here.

And yes, this is a facility where a singles team whose organizing principle rounds off to “three individually strong pieces that consistently generate enough advantage to scrape out a win” sees a moderate level of success, and the goodstuff mons available do have enough of an edge over the opposition that yes, you honeslty can pretty much pick any 2-3 and have decent odds at a Starf streak if piloted competently. (I should know…) And superficially, this team even fits that mold, in that leaning hard on Aegislash and Toxic-stall Gliscor and basically writing on the possibility of setting up Gyarados in all but the most straightforward situations is solidly Good Enough for mid 3 digits (I should know), and we’ve seen similar results replicate a good few times here and even in Tree. That’s not an unimportant part of the team’s success story.

It’s not enough, though. 4 digits kind of demands more. No, this is a team whose plan A is to abuse the AI’s tendency not to switch out to fully set up a sweeper that semi-reliably beats Everything. In its preferred position, it functions kind of like an elaborate sort of crippler team, except that the crippled state of choice is “has a bunch of PP that can’t touch a floater behind a sub”, which can take quite a while to inflict, has a lot of variations, isn’t even always possible. And we have backup plans for that, lots of backup plans that try to lead to perhaps doing the setup anyway but eating a little of damage in a safer setting, or setting up something else and hoping to get back on track to plan A later. Trying to get back to plan A is an important piece of the puzzle too.

All in all, reviewing my last batch, I estimate we’re walking out of the lead with a full Gyarados setup a bit shy of half the time, various other Gyarados setups a bit over 20%, +6 Aegislash a bit short of 20%, Gliscor with a sub under 10%, and assorted sketchy positions (no sub, other Aegi positions; no Starmie4 in this batch but that’d definitely count) probably under 5%. So when I was saying backups coming out on Gliscor specifically was an order of magnitude less common, well, no, that wasn’t a figure of speech, or even as a particularly great exaggeration, it’s pretty much a factual statement.

(Is that higher than you’d expect? Lower? I imagine if you’ve played Aegimensey, especially in Tree, that this Gyarados setup rate weirds you out because even with a recovery move Salamence isn’t managing to get itself set up nearly that often, at least in my experience. And to be totally fair, Gyarados on this team wouldn’t set up nearly this often in Tree either—in fact, I suspect this team barely functions at all in Tree due to the switching out when out of useful attacking PP mechanic, because I suspect the secret sauce here is in Gyarados’s and Gliscor’s shared immunity to the single most common move in the Maison, which happens to have a convenient 10 PP, just enough to pivot Gliscor into via Aegislash and stall until the second use to signal for Gyarados to switch in on the third and set up over the next 7 turns. Part of it, I guess, is also that stalling something dry to steal a minor Gyarados setup winds up being a more appealing option than it is for Salamence, because without a recovery move, Gyarados “gets to” run its actually pretty decent dual STAB coverage, which is still pretty much always breaking through at least one backup and doesn’t really get forced out by a threatening resist. Or it could be that I’ve always just been holding it wrong. I like to imagine that this is the Gliscor advantage at work, though.)

Matchup blabber

Honestly, I really just want to paste my whole lead guide and notes in here, but that would be hilariously unworkable since (a) it’s full of holes for less common leads, which okay isn’t necessarily a problem in its own right, but also (b) there’s a bunch of stuff I wrote down that I don’t really endorse anymore but also just haven’t rewritten, and most importantly (c) it’s currently scattered over two documents of 127k and 189k that overlap substantially in content but I haven’t gotten around to reunifying but also either one of those would be well over the 64k post size limit here lmao. Granted, part of it is because I just write too much sometimes, a few amusingly egregious cases that are also maybe interesting (i.e. not the same):

  • Aggron4: This one is rarely dangerous, but requires careful PP counting and some improv because its move choices are a little random. Because it does so little damage, it usually (but not 100%) goes for either Taunt or Metal Burst against an untaunted target; however, notably, it randomly Shadow Claw or EQ against Aegislash, so it’s not safe to switch Gyarados back in from taunted Aegislash. Moreover, only Gliscor really wants to take Shadow Claw to the face (for 34% on a crit—fine to Protect off unless you get catastrophically unlucky several times in a row); while Aegislash takes non-crit Shadows Claws “fine” in moderation, the crit is a 2hko. The upshot here is that you don’t really want to Gliscor to take a Taunt, because then you don’t have any “good” switchins (obviously you just risk the crit on Aegislash anyway, since it’s still recoverable). However, because it’s actually really likely to go for Metal Burst, you can often get Aegislash in on Metal Burst and go to Gyarados, which is still risking a Shadow Claw, and also really doesn’t want to take a Shadow Claw crit, but is sufficiently unlikely to switch in on Shadow Claw at all when the other three moves are all “higher-priority” that it’s more or less worth risking it, especially since Intimidate will make it easier to heal off crit damage in the face of non-crits; having Aegislash KS and going back to Gliscor instead if it does get Taunted is also a solid option, though going back to Gliscor without seeing Taunt first risks Aegislash facing a Shadow Claw crit on the switch back. Eventually it’ll run out of Metal Burst first, at which point depending on its Atk drops and EQ PP, you can make a judgement call on which setup is most appropriate (usually Gyarados setup, but this is potentially risky on its hp if there isn’t enough EQ PP left; Aegislash is almost always safe to set up on Struggle, but is a worse setup while also requiring a full PP stall which can risk getting it hit with more Shadow Claws; Gliscor can Sub + Bulldoze 2-3hko as soon as Metal Burst is gone, but risks not having a setup at all if Aggron crits a Shadow Claw, or having a turn of Taunt left on high rolls).
  • Ambipom4: Go to Gliscor to absorb Fling, go to Aegislash on expected Taunt, swap with Gliscor to stall out Payback (KS to absorb the incoming Taunt if it uses Payback on the switch from Gliscor, to realign so that Gliscor takes most Payback hits, as it heals more and isn’t weak to it); once it starts using Return on the switch from Gliscor, swap Aegislash with Gyarados down to -6 (up to 9 times is fine), then swap with Gliscor until it’s out of Taunt and goes for Fling on the switch, then Sub/Protect stall the remaining ~10 Return PP (prefer not to Bulldoze). If you’ve been counting Return PP carefully, you can go to Gyarados on its third Fling once it’s out of Return; if you’re a bit lazier, feel free to just have a sub take one Struggle, which can’t break the sub even on a crit.
  • Samurott4: Go to Aegislash on probably Grass Knot(!) or Protect, KS until you actually block a Hydro Pump, then try to get in a +0 Iron Head (probably into Protect, but you might get unlucky) to set up a +6 SS kill later, repeat until it’s out of Hydro Pump; since you’re slower and Hydro Pump is the only attack it can really hurt you with, this is safer than trying to trade Protects and guarantees you only take Hydro Pump at most twice, which can only kill you if it goes for b2b Hydro Pumps twice, hits and crits on both non-KS turns, and gets high rolls unless it went for 4 Hydro Pumps in a row. Once it’s out of Hydro Pump, trade Protects to set up Aegislash; if you get 10% frozen off a stray Ice Beam, just spam KS until you defrost since it’ll probably do negative damage going for Protect every other turn. If Aegislash dies, just go to Gliscor, stall out any remaining Ice Beam, probably stall it out and set up +2 Gyarados if it’s still at full hp, otherwise just get a couple of DTs times and Bulldoze it to death (GK doesn’t break a sub).
  • Vaporeon4: Go to Aegislash on Ice Beam, switch/Protect/KS-stall Ice Beam and as much Shadow Ball as possible (under ideal circumstances, you might switch ~7 times, absorbing ~20 PP on switches and Aegislash; in practice, Gliscor might get crit and Aegislash might get frozen), then once that’s no longer possible (Gliscor under 93 hp can no longer safely switch into a max roll crit Shadow Ball, Protect, and Sub; Aegislash cannot switch into more than two Surfs or one Shadow Ball; Gliscor cannot safely switch in from Aegislash once Shadow Ball is empty because it risks dying to Surf), then Sub/Protect stall whatever is left of Ice Beam (if any) and and continue until it’s out of Shadow Ball—you will need to pay attention and count after it runs out of Surf, because it’s not super consistent about what moves it picks after the “strongest” one, although it does disproportionately prefer Surf. Once Gliscor is out of PP, it’ll probably have used more Surfs than Signal Beam, so you can bring Aegislash in to sit around on Signal Beam until you feel comfortable with how much PP it has left for you to switch Gyarados in—Vaporeon4 is a 5-Struggle set. Ideally you only use ~3 Protects during the stall, but that’s honestly pretty unrealistic—not because you’d take too much damage, although potentially you do, but because it requires Aegislash to take 7 Ice Beams without getting frozen. It’s kind of annoying if Aegislash gets frozen too early, but a frozen Aegislash can still take a lot of Ice Beams, so it mainly just means you only stall half as many Shadow Balls, which is uh, not fantastic because this is a 50 PP stall, but even KS-less switching between Gliscor and Aegislash is knocking at least 10 PP (probably a little more) and Aegislash can stall 3-4 Surfs at the cost of its life even if it’s frozen. If it’s really not looking like you’re going to make it, Toxic stall as soon as you have a free sub, so basically after stalling out Ice Beam if Aegislash got frozen too early.
  • Weavile4: Go to Aegislash; improvise a switch-stall on Ice Punch + Taunt + Night Slash (which probably gets Aegislash frozen, but also probably gets a fully set-up Gyarados); kind of unusually, you want to Protect on the Ice Punches but probably prefer not to KS, because it often goes for Taunt on Aegislash before attempting Night Slash, but will always Night Slash against already-Taunted Aegislash, and it’s preferable for Gliscor to switch in on Taunt over Night Slash—Aegislash can pretty much afford to take 15 Ice Punches to the face, even if 2-4 of the crit, it’ll just be frozen and useless after, which is fine, whereas Gliscor actually takes damage from Night Slash and will die to two crits and a hit. If you’re feeling slightly cheeky, you can probably even afford to switch Gyarados back in on 1-3 Taunts—it can afford to take one mispredicted Night Slash crit (Accelgor is in the same pool for generics, but hey, Accelgor4 vs frozen Aegislash is a free defrost and full setup for Aegislash, it’ll be fiiiine—as long as you don’t mega, any Accelgor will probably won’t show up second unless the other backup is profoundly unthreatening anyway, in which case you can be pretty sure that switching out to Aegislash won’t hurt), actually baits Ice Punch very consistently, and -3 Weavile is nice enough to average negative damage on non-crits vs both Gliscor and Aegislash, which doesn’t really solve the problem with getting stacked out by three crits but at least lets you stay close to full hp over non-crit switch-ins.
  • Zapdos2: From Gliscor: Sub/Bulldoze/Protect-stall Heat Wave (non-crit Heat Wave hit is only 3/16 to break Sub and does 67 hp max on crit, also Zapdos often goes for DT instead, so prefer to spend Bulldoze pp over re-sub with fresh subs). If Pressure, switch-stall Charge Beam with Aegislash, set up Gyarados (don’t undercount—you have plenty of leeway with DT PP in this case) and go for the kill. then switch-stall Charge Beam with Gyarados, set up Gyarados (don’t miscount, you have plenty of leeway with DT pp). If Static, instead switch-stall with Gyarados to Intimidate down to -5 (-6 doesn’t change the ranges) or to 2 DT PP if you’re counting, then just keep clicking DD until it starts to Struggle and Sub on its last Struggle from 1 hp, which can’t break your sub on a crit.
(It’s not all like this! A lot of entries just look like “Go to Gliscor?” “Go to Aegislash?” with no further elaboration because I expect myself to look at the set and make an obvious judgment, but then there are the ones that look exactly the same but are like that because it’s actually not obvious what the right turn 1 switch is but I made the assessment once and wrote it down. It’s just kind of hard to wade through the short ones to distinguish the ones where it’s just a normal thing and the ones where something interesting is happening, where if there’s a huge block of text there’s almost certainly something going on.)

A few major threats and things I hate seeing: 3/4 Moltres sets are pretty bad, and even set 2 (the “good” one) threatens a burn while pivoting back through Gyarados to stall Fire Blast (though I’m a bit happier with it being a +3 sub Gyarados setup). Talonflame is awful no matter what you do with the Flame Body but also threatening +1 Gale Wings Brave Birb if you try to set up on it. Arcanine and Rapidash have annoying hard-to-avoid burn chances. Nothing good comes out of Skarmory4, which isn’t really threatening by itself per se but I’m really just waiting for the accursed day when it rolls along with something that actaully demands a switch-stall that isn’t possible because I’d take too much damage from hazards. Starmie4 is never good news. Togekiss just does too much damage no matter what, can just delete Aegi with a crit or burn, leaks a bunch of hp to switch-stall. Noivern in the same boat, with the extra complication of requiring a Mega to bring Gliscor in without risking a burn. Tornadus1 clicking Hurricane on Gyarados just sucks. One of these days Andrei’s 0.019% Cryogonal3 is going to commit murder.

Some things I hate less now: Absol4 and Infiltrator Spiritomb4 can actually be stalled into a Gyarados setup, although the former is still an inconsistent pain in the ass for the first few turns, which is cool. Vanilluxe4 can be stalled down to a full Gyarados setup, it just requires risking switching it into a few potential Ice Beams that are usually Taunt, but it’s fine because it can almost just facetank them and defrost when it runs out of attacking PP. Probopass is Usually™ full combo now. Some more fun examples below.

Battle video recaps

#2420 NP2G-WWWW-WW68-YHVS vs 1/2 Veteran Dorian Heatran1/Terrakion1/Cresselia2: A case for DT. Contrasts with a battle I uploaded last January where I tried to PP stall Heatran1 with toxdoze Gliscor, which is not a good idea. With DT, though, you’re likely enough to get at least a couple of free turns that you’ll be able to spam out enough DT at it to avoid running out of subtect PP before getting to EP. Notice that we let it Struggle itself to death instead of touching it, because it could be (and in this case is) Flame Body.

#2725 67HG-WWWW-WW68-YHVU vs 3/4 Veteran Alfie Heatran3/Entei4/Raikou4: Stalling a different Heatran, this is the sun one. This one isn’t Flame Body, but there’s no real way to know that.

#2799 EZZW-WWWW-WW68-YHVV vs 1/2 Veteran Hera Thundurus2/Tornadus/Landorus2: funny Nita cosplayer, there’s nothing really going on here except that I do a sloppy job substalling the hurrrrnadus.

#3120 SSZW-WWWW-WW68-YYW2 vs generic Beauty Lucetta Absol4/Snorlax4/Bisharp4: Really smooth example of stalling Absol4 out of WoW so we can actually get a decent Gyarados setup on it.

#3459 CVTG-WWWW-WW68-YYW4 vs SpA Ace Jai Zoroark2/Magnezone1/Exeggutor2: By far the narrowest escape I’ve had on the streak—lead “Exeggutor” goes for GK as I switch to Aegislash; satisified that it appears to set 1, I SD as it NPs, which really should’ve blown its cover but I don’t notice and assume it was actual ggu2 going for LS. I think at this point the play is to go straight Head into it, but I SD again (egregious misplay), it NPs again, and I think at this point I do notice and click Head but get one-shot. This is a hilariously bad position and I need Gliscor to come in, Bulldoze it to outspeed, subtect a while until it steals a sub once it’s out of Flamethrower, DT once, then grind it down off the free turns. This brings out the real Exeggutor, which is set 2, the Curse setup set, which has too much PP for me to safely stall out, but I manage to get it down to 5 Egg Bombs when Gliscor goes down, one of them misses, the others break all of Gyara’s subs but the remaining Curse and Synthesis PP is enough to let Gyarados set up fully off of it, though I end up having to Mega for Crunch to outpace Synthesis healing and not end up facing +6 Struggle into 3 hp.

#3703 LU7W-WWWW-WW68-YYW7 vs “A” Tourist Chelsey Marowak4/Skarmory4/Dewgong4: I would just like to say that wak4 has always been hilariously easy to stall down to a Gyarados setup, and is kind of a good example of it being a bad idea to get too caught up in the urge to switch-stall rock/ground coverage, because stalling down to EQ is one to the best positions this team can maneuver into.

#3805 66FG-WWWW-WW68-YYW9 vs generic Beauty Lucetta Tauros4/Braviary4/Blissey4: The case for Bulldoze, ft. dozing the bull.

#3807 V7LW-WWWW-WW68-YYWA vs generic Worker Axel: Mostly just a progress indicator, but also an example of one of the funnier things running DT lets us do. “Normally”, Probopass is a pretty annoying lead, since it does too much damage to both Gyarados (with TB) and Aegislash (with EP) to let them set up, and consistently breaks Gliscor’s sub with its STABs, and can’t be stalled because it kills itself with Life Orb. With DT, though, we only need it to miss 5/15 attacks not blocked by Protect, so >99% of the time we can actually get it down to just TB and EP, at which point for … reasons, it’ll consistently spam out TB over EQ (this is a recurring theme with elec/ground coverage…), then we can just go to Gyarados and set up. Even it hits too many times early on to stall fully, the ability to make it miss also let Gliscor plausibly carry a sub while killng it.

(… yes, I really did choose (jumbo) shrimp fried rice jokes for the nicknames this time. Look, I’ve bred this set of pokemon like at least five times, I’m out of good ideas…)

A few comments

… that you can imagine to be answers to some mundane questions that nobody actually asked:

  • The median time per battle is about 5m20s. I don’t have usable data to compute a proper mean, but the mean on intervals between my battle videos filtered to under 1h is about 6m15s. This is, like, pretty darn slow but probably not as slow as people think this genre of team plays.
  • I have at least 11629 Maison Super Singles battle videos starting from 2023-01-08, when I started systematically saving almost every battle except on outright misclicks and dumping them every time I hit the cap. Not all, but something like 95%, are with minor variants of this team.
  • My misplay rate is ridiculously high, I miscount PP something like a quarter of the time if I’m doing it mentally, the #1 biggest thing imo that improved my play on this streak is that I wrote myself a one-hand-operable PP counter over Christmas lmao
  • Yes, I’m still playing this streak, though this time of year I’m probably going to get busier again until summer. Hopefully this time it’ll be harder for me to just forget I have this streak ongoing…
  • No, I don’t really recommend you play this team if you just want the ribbon or something. It’s very slow, and it probably takes few hundred or thousand rounds to really get a feel for it anyway. It’s a good experience if you really want to to get a feel for handling this genre of team, though.
  • No, I don’t really recommend singles unless you’re an inveterate control freak comfortable with unlearning all your preconceptions about how pokemon plays; facility singles, even if you’re only going for a small streak, is a really degenerate format, in many ways more akin to so-called hardcore nuzlocke than to competitive singles (which is also a pretty degenerate format tbf, but differently so). If you must play singles in this generation for a quick steak, just pick a Kangaskhan team with coherent backups, I promise you it’ll be less painful than whatever else you were thinking of.
  • You can go slower. You can always go slower. There are still as-yet undiscovered ways to go even slower.

Some useless notes

And now for something completely different, an ultrashort summary 1-40 sets by trainer class. Better here than lost in chat where anyone who’s finding it is already in deep enough not to need it…

  • Battles 1-10: Everyone uses set 1s. Chefs are Fire/Water/Grass, Fairy Tale Girls are Normal/Psychic/Fairy, Hikers are Ground/Rock/Steel (not Fighting!), Lasses are Normal/Fairy, Punks are Poison/Fire/Dark as usual, and Youngsters are Normal/Bug specialists.
  • Battles 11-20: Returning Butlers/Maids, Chefs, Fairy Tale Girls, and Punks use set 1s; added Artists, Roller Skaters, and Workers use set 2s. Rising Stars Jamie and Tilde specifically use set 1s; the others (Carol, Giacomo, Gillaume, Lena) use set 2s. Beauties are Normal/Dark/Fairy and Workers are Ground/Rock/Steel specialists as usual; Roller Skaters are set 2 Flying/Electric specialists but can also carry Empoleon2.
  • Battles 21-30: Returning Artists, Rising Stars, Roller Skaters, and Workers use set 2s; added Chef (Dylan), Furisode Girls, Gardeners, Mesdames/Messieurs, Breeders, and Tourists use set 3s. Beauty Apollo/Bunnie specifically and Chef Dylan/Berger are set 3 Water/Ice specialists; the other two Beauties (Lucy and Lucinda) are returning set 2 Normal/Dark/Fairy specialists. Furisodes are set 3 Eevee specialists, and Gardeners are Ground/Bug/Grass specialists.
  • Battles 31-40: Returning Beauty Apollo/Bunnie, Chef Dylan/Berger, Furisode Girls, Gardeners, Mesdames/Messieurs, Breeders, and Tourists use set 3s; added Battle Girls/Black Belts, Hex Maniacs/Psychics, Owners, and Scientist are the familiar set 4 users.
 

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