I know this thread is minimally active these days, but I’d still like to keep it occasionally alive by documenting my best runs of one of my niche hobbies of breaking personal records in the Battle Tree. Last time I posted was actually my first ever post on Smogon, and I used a completely different team for my first run of 120 wins. This time I managed to break 145 wins in Super Doubles with the following team. I doubt the leaderboard will ever be updated again as it looks like it has been defunct for a while now, but if it ever is updated again I’d be happy to see my streak make it up there despite being paltry compared to the topmost scores on the list. Nonetheless, let’s get down to the team report. First, here’s photographic proof of the streak:
View attachment 622547
Replays are included at the end of the report.
The Team:
Spaquette3.0 (Ninetales-Alola) (F) @ Light Clay
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 29 Atk
- Freeze-Dry
- Dazzling Gleam
- Aurora Veil
- Protect
My girlfriend’s all-time favorite Pokemon are the Alolan forms of the Vulpix family. We made it a goal early into our relationship to get all of the trainer stamps available in Ultra Sun, and since she still has yet to do that, I figured I’d build a team to both motivate her and honor her favorite Pokemon in the process. There’s only one reason to ever bring A-Ninetales to any battle, especially in Gen 7. I’m sure anyone bothering to read this knows that A-Ninetales is the only Pokemon with both access to Snow Warning and Aurora Veil (as of Gen 7, this distribution was widened to include Abomasnow and Vanilluxe in Gen 8). This means it is the only Pokemon that can set up Aurora Veil in a single turn without outsourcing the Aurora Veil setup to a different Pokemon. Aurora Veil is a nearly unmatched level of team support, as it makes every Pokemon, even incredibly frail ones, able to take game-breaking hits. Even though doubles are incredibly quick matches, some of the computer trainers use annoyingly stall-reliant tactics that can make games a bit of a crapshoot in terms of length. On average though, I’d say games usually end in about five to six turns with this team. Even though there were several times where a Focus Sash probably would have been the ideal item for Ninetales, I personally preferred using Light Clay to make the effort of building a team around A-Ninetales all the more worth it. A-Ninetales has just enough of a movepool to be decent. Freeze-Dry was crucial coverage, as it is the best ice type move it learns in my opinion. I could have run Blizzard, but hail wasn’t guaranteed to be up, and Dazzling Gleam was a perfectly fine spread move. However, anyone who has used A-Ninetales (or heck, even Kantonian Ninetales) knows that it is an incredibly high-maintenance Pokemon. Its typing is pretty crummy, it is super frail, and oddly enough, its speed is a bit problematic. In most scenarios, its blazing speed would be great - and it is great, don’t get me wrong. However, the key problem with its speed is that it is a fast weather setter. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the fastest weather setter in Gen 7. For the uninitiated, which I’m certain anyone reading this already knows (but just in case), if two weather setting Pokemon are sent out simultaneously, the slower weather setter prevails because passive abilities that set up field conditions activate based on speed. This is one of the reasons that, when it comes to setting up Sun, Torkoal is much preferred over Kantonian Ninetales. This was one of the main challenges I had, as weather setters are actually really common in the Battle Tree. However, this is where our next member comes in…
Sparky (Manectric-Mega) (M) @ Manectite
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Overheat
- Volt Switch
- Protect
A-Ninetales has really poor defensive stats, so I searched through several Intimidate Pokemon. Incineroar was a candidate for obvious reasons, and I did use Incineroar for a while in a previous run, but then I found out Manectric has amazing utility to ensure that Aurora Veil can go up. As I mentioned before, if a slower weather setter (which is basically all of them) is sent out and changes the weather, Aurora Veil can’t go up. However, if I switch out Ninetales on turn one, then Volt Switch with Manectric, I can reset the weather back into Hail and perform a sort of ramshackled Ally Switch, keeping A-Ninetales safe. This also has the added benefit of cycling Intimidate, which is a nice plus. Manectric’s main job for the team was to help get Aurora Veil set up, and then blast the opposing team with Thunderbolt. It really had a simple game plan that doesn’t need much of an explanation outside of that. The only nuance is that there were certainly some scenarios where I probably would have benefitted from a Timid nature instead of Modest, but the extra power was appreciated in so many scenarios that I didn’t really care. Also, I felt I didn’t need HP Ice because Manectric was standing right next to an Ice-Type Pokemon. Let’s just ignore the fact that I’m lazy and don’t breed for the right Hidden power types basically ever. That probably explains why I can’t break into higher streaks though, huh?
Metagrass (Ferrothorn) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 108 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 23 SpA / 18 Spe
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Protect
Honestly, looking at the EV spreads and movesets for these Pokemon makes me realize this is a pretty stock team. I’m still proud of it nonetheless. Do I even need to say anything about Ferrothorn? This thing is a win condition, plain and simple. Ferrothorn is an incredibly good Pokemon in every way. Even having a -Speed nature powers up its Gyro Ball. A-Ninetales and Manectric were the leads for this team, so I needed something incredibly bulky in the back to shore up this glaring flaw. I also wanted a Steel type to cover Kommo-o’s glaring weakness to Fairy types. As such, it was really a no brainer to slap Ferrothorn on the team and call it good. In my run, there were a handful of battles that Ferrothorn genuinely could have beaten on its own due to how good its typing + Leech Seed recovery were. Leftovers were chosen over anything else to ensure it was always recovering and to offset hail damage. Ferrothorn is such a well-known Pokemon that honestly you could skip over this entire paragraph because I’m not adding anything new to the conversation. I will say though - props to whoever came up with that nickname. I can’t take credit for that one, I found it from someone online years ago.
Komodo Joe (Kommo-o) (M) @ Kommonium Z
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 4 HP / 196 Atk / 252 SpA / 56 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Clanging Scales
- Drain Punch
- Flamethrower
- Protect
Kommo-o is the team’s star player. Every Pokemon on this team did great, but it won’t surprise you to know that the Pokemon with a 185 base power spread move that provides an omniboost did all of the heavy lifting offensively. When choosing to design a team around A-Ninetales, I needed to find ways to negate hail damage. This narrows it down to three options essentially: 1) a team with multiple ice types, 2) Pokemon with Magic Guard and 3) Pokemon with Overcoat. I could slap Safety Goggles on anything to be fair, but they would be practically useless outside of that effect in the Battle Tree. Magic Guard has a few good choices, but honestly there was no point in debating it when I noticed Kommo-o had Overcoat as an ability. Drain Punch was chosen over Close Combat so as not to lose the boosts accrued from using Clangorous Soulblaze It also ensured that Kommo-o could stick around to take advantage of the omniboost for as long as possible. Flamethrower ensures that I hit the most things super effectively combined with Clanging Scales and Drain Punch. The only Pokemon to resist all three of these types in the tree is Primarina, which is destroyed by Ferrothorn. It was tempting to just throw out Kommo-o, get the boosts, and try to sweep, but I had to play carefully with him on the field. Kommo-o works especially well with Ferrothorn, but if Ferrothorn can’t pick up a KO quickly enough, it would occasionally put too much pressure on Ferrothorn to handle the rest of the battle. Just something for me to think about in a future run I suppose. Overall, Kommo-o was the main offensive member of the team, and I think he performed admirably. I just need to tweak some aspects about the team to better support him if I want to use Kommo-o again for another team.
Threats:
Fire-types are the main issue this time around. A-Ninetales and Manectric offer BoltBeam coverage together, and that alone hits almost the entire Battle Tree for neutral damage except for Magnezone, Togedemaru, and Rotoms Heat and Frost. All of those were covered by Kommo-o super effectively, so coverage was never the issue. The key problem this team faces is a lack of synergistic resistances. Aside from A-Ninetales switching into Dragon moves meant for Kommo-o, which is a scenario that virtually never happened, switching felt somewhat undesirable. This was always the case against Fire-types. Kommo-o is the only Pokemon with a resistance to Fire, and Kommo-o isn’t really on the team to switch in and take hits. He needs to stay in pristine condition, so switching him in to absorb Fire-type attacks is something I avoided doing unless I felt it was completely necessary. It’s not that Fire-types are insurmountable, they can just be a nuisance because if they aren’t taken care of quickly enough they can cause serious problems. One reason I was so shocked this team did so well was because, after a while, I just kind of noticed that there is not even a single form of speed control on this team. No Tailwind, Trick Room, Icy Wind, Electroweb… anything. I was also lacking in Taunt, which meant stopping Trick Room was next to impossible. However, I was generally totally willing to trade Trick Room for a free set usage of Aurora Veil. Nonetheless, Trick Room was awfully annoying at times. Bulky Fairy-types like Aromatisse could be a nuisance as well. Honestly, the team has pretty good type coverage all around and Ferrothorn carried the defensive side. It’s not perfect by any means seeing as it of course lost, but really the team only ever got into dire straits because of shoddy plays on my part or bad positioning from the lead matchup. I felt the team was very competent at handling most Pokemon, the proper Pokemon just needed to be out front at the right time - a statement that’s as obvious as it is true for this team.
Replays:
The Loss: PXRG-WWWW-WWXF-DLQ4
I lost to Scientist Cadel. Fitting to his trainer class, his team almost seemed engineering to perfectly screw over my team. His team consisted of Dusknoir, Drampa, Shiinotic, and Turtonator. Obviously a Trick Room team, I lost due to a mix of poor plays on my part, my team lacking defensive synergy against this specific team, and a hint of bad luck. I set up Aurora Veil on turn 1 while using Thunderbolt on the Dusknoir. Drampa uses Glare to paralyze A-Ninetales and Dusknoir sets up Trick Room. I used Protect to burn a turn of Trick Room with Manectric and have A-Ninetales Dazzling Gleam. Dusknoir wastes his turn with Pain Split into Manectric, but Drampa uses Devastating Drake which chunks Manectric through the Protect. Next turn, I’m able to take down both Drampa and Dusknoir, but the Dusknoir uses Destiny Bond which takes out Manectric with him. Shiinotic and Turtonator were honestly the most perfect Pokemon Cadel could have had on his team at this point, especially with their particular movesets. I sent out Ferrothorn because I figured it would be prudent to get a Leech Seed off whatever he sent in, but I wasn’t able to do that easily. I had Ferrothorn Protect and used Freeze-Dry on Shiinotic. From previous runs (and from the list of Trainers on Serebii) I knew Shiinotic could have a Weakness Policy, and this happened to be that set. Freeze-Dry procs the Weakness Policy, and the Turtonator uses Shell Smash. Trick Room was still active so I was able to get a Leech Seed on the Turtonator, but it didn’t matter. Fire Blast wipes out Ferrothorn, and Moonblast gets a Sp. Attack drop on Ninetales, so I’m looking pretty bad here. Trick Room ends, and Turtonator wipes out Ninetales with a Fire Blast. I tried to block it with Protect, but the paralysis from Drampa finally came back to haunt me and immobilized me. I’m able to get off a Clangorous Soulblaze and knock out Turtonator, but a Moonblast from Shiinotic knocks out Kommo-o and ends the run. Honestly, rewatching that replay, I’m not sure what I could have done differently. I was sitting on the couch watching TV when it happened, so I guess I could have googled Cadel’s potential sets, but really I just made bad calls and got outplayed. It’s a shame, but this team was super successful and I still had a lot of fun using it.
Extra Match #1: 92UW-WWWW-WWXF-DLQ2
Extra Match #2: XTNG-WWWW-WWXF-DLQ3
Here are two other matches I had with this team if you wanted to see how it functioned. One match was just funny because of how often I had to switch out Pokemon just to make it through without taking too many risks. I won’t do any other play-by-plays because this document is already six pages long and frankly I’m sure only like 5 or 6 people on planet Earth will even see this. I’m posting this 2 days before 3DS online shuts down altogether, so there’s a nonzero chance these replays will never be visible to anyone other than myself. Nonetheless, thank you for reading and I hope you’re having a fantastic day.
- Spaku
