Metagame np: SV DOU Stage 6: Barracuda - Basculegion Banned

[Actuarily]

You lying so low in the weeds
I bet you gonna ambush me
You'd have me down, down, down, down on my knees
Now wouldn't you, barracuda? Oh

​

Onto the next suspect! Many community members have been calling for Basculegion’s head, so now is the time to put it to a suspect vote!

Basculegion has emerged as one of the biggest threats in DOU thanks to its two great abilities in Swift Swim and Adaptability, as well as its great movepool with attacks like Wave Crash and Last Respects. While the female version has access to all of these attributes, the male version boasts a respectable 112 Attack stat compared to the female’s 92. On rain, Swift Swim allows Basculegion to outspeed everything that doesn’t hold a speed boosting item, allowing it to attack first with its strong rain boosted Wave Crashes or lets it clean up late with Last Respects. Basculegion is not limited to rain however, as it also has one of the most powerful abilities in Adaptability, that powers up its STAB moves to enormous levels - especially when considering the high base power of its moves. Once two of Basculegion’s teammates have fainted, Last Respects has 150 base power, and with Adaptability on top of that, it is able to OHKO most Pokémon, even without a damage boosting item. Speaking of items, Basculegion can make great work of so many different options such as a Choice Scarf, Choice Band, Life Orb, Assault Vest, etc. which makes it slightly unpredictable to play against.

Now, while there is another weather sweeper that gets access to Last Respects in Houndstone, Basculegion is on a different level. Firstly, Basculegion has more optimized stats, with higher Attack and Speed to get off its powerful Last Respects and KO an opposing slot. Secondly, with a much better movepool and typing, Basculegion is able to do more than just use Last Respects, either with rain boosted or Adaptability boosted Water moves. This typing advantage is notable, allowing Basculegion to hit prominent Ghost resists such as Chi-Yu, Ting-Lu, and Garganacl super effectively with its Water moves. Water also gives Basculegion a good defensive typing that allows Basculegion to resist attacks from top Pokémon such as Heatran, Volcanion, Palafin-Hero, and Goodra-H.

Basculegion is not perfect, however. It is often reliant on waiting for a few of its teammates to faint for it to be the offensive threat it wants to, which can require good positioning. It also has a rather mediocre speed tier, meaning that even in tailwind or rain, it still gets outsped and checked by many Choice Scarf or Booster Energy Pokémon, such as Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle, Roaring Moon, and Regieleki. On Trick Room builds, it is not very slow, meaning that it can often be undersped by opposing Trick Room Pokemon. On top of this, it can be pressured by some of the top offensive threats (if they move first) such as Rillaboom, Chi-Yu, Flutter Mane, Chien-Pao, & Gholdengo. Basculegion can also be heavily affected by redirection, as Amoonguss can take most of its hits, and Indeedee-F and Maushold are immune to Last Respects. As Basculegion really wants to move first and eliminate threats, it can be very limited by speed control - both Trick Room and Tailwind, as well as Thunder Wave from the likes of Grimmsnarl or Thundurus.

As usual, 60% of the vote must be in favor to ban Basculegion.

Important: For this suspect, there will be two ways to qualify. The first is the typical laddering period, where players must reach the minimum GXE. The second is by winning a live suspect tournament, to be held in the Smogon Doubles Room. You may compete in the suspect tournament on any account, and will need to post proof of you winning the suspect tournament on the voter ID thread.

There will be two live suspect tournaments:

Suspect Tournament Times
Saturday, July 8th at 12:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
Sunday, July 9th at 4:00 PM 5:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)

The laddering period will last for a total of nine days.

Laddering Period
Start: Friday, July 7th at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
End: Sunday, July 16th at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)

All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! Doubles OU ladder on a fresh alt with the prefix DOULR [name]. For example, I might register "DOULR Actuarily” to ladder with. You must follow this format to qualify.

To qualify to vote, you must achieve a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may subtract 1 game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. As always, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE is fine.

Minimum Games Needed

GXE	minimum games
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84	30

Basculegion will be legal during this suspect.

 

[Yoda2798]

Congratulations to zee for winning the first suspect tour! (Unsuccessfully rigged????)
Finals replay, semis 1 replay, semis 2 replay.

Bracket (23 Participants)

The second suspect tour will take place at 4pm GMT-4 tomorrow (Sunday).

 

[Yoda2798]

Congratulations to GenOne for winning the second suspect tour!
Finals replay, semis 1 replay, semis 2 replay.

Bracket (16 Participants)

 

[qsns]

Not able to ladder for suspect as I'm going away for most of the weekend, but Basculegion really needs a ban.

The level 0 thought is that saving Basc for the back where it has 300BP Last Respects is obscenely strong. Everyone's seen replays where it knocks out a bulky 100% Pokemon and proceeds to clean the game like no other Pokemon possibly could. Scarf is an obscene cleaner that often throttles both bulky and fast teams alike with the nuclear bomb.

The absolutely insane part about Basculegion is that I think there's a sizeable amount of games where it is played poorly. Scarf Basc doesn't need to be saved for Turn 11 for a 300BP Last Respects - this is often insane overkill. Last Respects after 1-2 KOs is still a nutty move on a Pokemon with reasonable attack, Adaptability, a solid defensive typing, and solid bulk. Here is a replay from my last OSDT game where both my opponent and I use it to great effect in the midgame as a revenge killer, and both of us try to save it until the end to clean. Thanks to its respectable defensive profile, it's hard to immediately knock out without a strong super-effective move and can just be preserved to do the same stupid thing that it can in the examples above, priority withstanding (it is also immune to Espeed lol). Thanks to Charlotte for helping me put this into words.

Basc's floor is usually a 300BP move that grabs OHKOs on resists or forces a Tera Normal (an otherwise useless Tera type), and I think it can still be put to much better use if left in the tier. Get this out of here.

e: wording

 

[GenOne]

Too busy this week to write anything too comprehensive but I’ll be voting to ban Basculegion. I somewhat disagree that saving Basculegion in the back is unwise, but I do agree that you shouldn’t always be leaving it until the dead end of a game. Usually when I use it I like to try and hold off until at least two of my Pokémon have fainted so that Last Respects at least hits 150 bp. On the Adaptability sets at least, 150bp has stood out to me as the break point where Basculegion starts being able to one-shot a lot of the metagame. The Swift Swim variant imo wants to be left until it can hit 200bp if it DOES NOT run a boosting item.

But anyways, I was on the fence about whether Basculegion warranted a ban or not but after having two weeks of OSDT data to go off of post-Ursaluna ban, it’s pretty clear to me that this Pokémon is too OP when it is used correctly; its sheer power levels when used correctly can literally reverse a losing game into a winning game.

 

[Actuarily]

At the beginning of the week, I was leaning no ban, but the OSDT games this week have really made me reconsider (especially games like this and this) and I am on the fence on whether Basculegion needs to be banned. I am not as certain on this as some, as there is some counterplay available. The Scarf Adaptability set is absurd as a late game cleaner, once it’s at 150-200 base power (2-3 fainted allies) it starts OHKOing most non-resisted Pokémon. However there’s a few counter options:

1. Sucker Punch, usually from , but there are a few others.
2. Bulky darks like , , , , or normal resists (especially if they have follow me) such as

These first two are the best way to game plan for Basculegion, essentially right now every team needs to pack a dark type in some form, which can be tough with how popular Pokémon like Flutter Mane, Diancie, Iron Hands, and U-turners like Rillaboom & Landorus-T are. The Follow Me normal mons typically get overrun earlier in games.

3. Defensive set up mons like

Diancie is a bit unreliable, especially because of how weak it is to Bascu’s water moves. Garganacl is a really effective counter, but the opponent can be easily prepared for it. Unfortunately can’t do much to Basculegion.

4. Tera-normal Pokémon.

This is a bit unrealistic as under typical circumstances Normal would be the worst Tera type.

5. Having proper speed control/positioning at the end.

This is most teams preferred method if their first option fails, basically game planning to have speed control up at the end of games, or to put themselves in a position where they can 2vs1 Basculegion. But this is basically always the solution to any threat, so this argument can kinda always be made.

This replay from JRL vs Ratpacker I think does a good job of showing just how hard it is to beat Basculegion if a player doesn’t have absolutely dedicated counters. Stuff like Diancie + speed control + having a few mons good into it in the right position often is not enough to prevent it from just sweeping:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9doublesou-702710

 

[Actuarily]

There are still votes remaining, but the result is decided. With Ban having received over 60% of the vote already, Basculegion will be banned from SV DOU. The current voting breakdown is as follows:

Ban: 33 (68.75%)
Do Not Ban: 11 (22.9%)
Votes Remaining: 4 (8.3%)
Total Voters: 48

Tagging DaWoblefet to implement, thanks!!

Post below your thoughts on how this may change the metagame, or any other Pokémon you feel should be considered for the next suspect!

 

[Teals]

Sv has been dogwater meta since the beginning but it's about to become worse

 

[AIRedzone]

I've finally made a huge update to the SV DOU Role Compendium to include all the new drops with Home! Check it out and hit me up with your feedback and recommendations, in either this thread, the role compendium thread, or on Discord.

 

[eragon]

On Open Tera in SV DOU
Over the last few weeks there’s been a decent amount of discussion about potentially having tera types be revealed upon team preview in DOU, sort of like a dialed back version of the open teamsheets from VGC (without information on movesets, which I think the vast majority of dou players would want to stay hidden). Given the recent conclusion of the Basculegion suspect and a lack of certainty about where the metagame will go next, I think it’s time to take this discussion to forums just to get a broader idea of where the community stands so here goes:

For most of SV DOU, there’s been some suspicion of Tera as a mechanic, given it’s ability to wildly swing games with the right timing and surprise factor, especially early on in sv with big threats that ended up being banned like Dondozo and Annihilape. While both Pokémon, especially Dondozo, were quite strong in their own right without Tera, the variety of possible Tera options was undeniably part of what made them so oppressive. This was also later seen with Iron Hands in the late pre home meta— although it didn’t get banned, part of what made it so strong was having the ability to run so many different possible Tera options, which could be quite difficult to find on preview (grass, fire, water, flying, and even the odd psychic or fairy all saw some level of play). Many games were decided by who won the Hands war, and the unpredictable Tera aspect was a major part that I (and probably at least a few others) found off putting. This issue could have been primarily resolved with an open Tera sheet, allowing for safer long-term planning around an opposing threat without having it be upended by a Tera type that wasn’t considered.
In the post home metagame, we’ve seen several Pokémon (primarily offensive) get banned from dou, and while for the most part these mons haven’t really had too many common Tera types (both shifus primarily went the type of their crit move, ursaluna usually just went normal to utterly decimate things, and Basculegion was usually grass to ignore amoonguss), the same kind of variance in regards to Tera has still been seen a bit with Pokémon like cresselia in the ursaluna meta having the ability to pick from many viable options to enable setting tr (as the meta progressed, dark became more the norm to dodge prankster taunt, but there were still many viable Tera types that could swing games quite easily. As the meta comes to stabilize over the next few days and weeks, I expect the removal of some of these relatively consistent offensive nukes to encourage more “creative” Tera selections and a rise in game states where a more unpredictable type change will have a deciding impact.

Personally, while I do very much enjoy the creativity tera brings to team compositions, I don’t find the guessing game regarding Pokémon that have a trove of many different possible Tera types to be particularly healthy for gen 9, and I really don’t see a downside to a system where one doesn’t have to blindly risk a turn wisping into a random physical attacker and praying it isn’t Tera fire. I don’t think open Tera sheet hurts the experience of teambuilding at all, a Tera fire physical attacker is still strong in the right matchup and a viable set, but it could in theory allow both players to more effectively cover for all their options over the course of a game and hopefully lead to a more enjoyable and less tilting experience. Although vgc’s reasons for having teamsheets are much different than the rationale here, I don’t think it’s irrelevant that the official format has a similar system— it’s not like I’m proposing something that’s totally out there and unconnected to anything previously done before. One potential way to try out this idea would be an open Tera mini tour, which has already been brought up in doucord and I think that would be a great next step to see if this kind of system really is worth further exploring. Anyways that’s just my two cents, I’d love to see more people discuss this in the thread!

 

[xqiht]

My viewpoint is similar to that of eragon, but I think it's good to be like this now. Guessing the tera type is also a part of this game, just like an all switch. 不爽不要玩. Many times, a unique tera type can give the team the hope of winning at a disadvantage.

Of course, it is also possible to display the tera type, which can reduce the pressure of guessing for players

 

[Schister]

On Open Tera in SV DOU
Over the last few weeks there’s been a decent amount of discussion about potentially having tera types be revealed upon team preview in DOU, sort of like a dialed back version of the open teamsheets from VGC (without information on movesets, which I think the vast majority of dou players would want to stay hidden). Given the recent conclusion of the Basculegion suspect and a lack of certainty about where the metagame will go next, I think it’s time to take this discussion to forums just to get a broader idea of where the community stands so here goes:

For most of SV DOU, there’s been some suspicion of Tera as a mechanic, given it’s ability to wildly swing games with the right timing and surprise factor, especially early on in sv with big threats that ended up being banned like Dondozo and Annihilape. While both Pokémon, especially Dondozo, were quite strong in their own right without Tera, the variety of possible Tera options was undeniably part of what made them so oppressive. This was also later seen with Iron Hands in the late pre home meta— although it didn’t get banned, part of what made it so strong was having the ability to run so many different possible Tera options, which could be quite difficult to find on preview (grass, fire, water, flying, and even the odd psychic or fairy all saw some level of play). Many games were decided by who won the Hands war, and the unpredictable Tera aspect was a major part that I (and probably at least a few others) found off putting. This issue could have been primarily resolved with an open Tera sheet, allowing for safer long-term planning around an opposing threat without having it be upended by a Tera type that wasn’t considered.
In the post home metagame, we’ve seen several Pokémon (primarily offensive) get banned from dou, and while for the most part these mons haven’t really had too many common Tera types (both shifus primarily went the type of their crit move, ursaluna usually just went normal to utterly decimate things, and Basculegion was usually grass to ignore amoonguss), the same kind of variance in regards to Tera has still been seen a bit with Pokémon like cresselia in the ursaluna meta having the ability to pick from many viable options to enable setting tr (as the meta progressed, dark became more the norm to dodge prankster taunt, but there were still many viable Tera types that could swing games quite easily. As the meta comes to stabilize over the next few days and weeks, I expect the removal of some of these relatively consistent offensive nukes to encourage more “creative” Tera selections and a rise in game states where a more unpredictable type change will have a deciding impact.

Personally, while I do very much enjoy the creativity tera brings to team compositions, I don’t find the guessing game regarding Pokémon that have a trove of many different possible Tera types to be particularly healthy for gen 9, and I really don’t see a downside to a system where one doesn’t have to blindly risk a turn wisping into a random physical attacker and praying it isn’t Tera fire. I don’t think open Tera sheet hurts the experience of teambuilding at all, a Tera fire physical attacker is still strong in the right matchup and a viable set, but it could in theory allow both players to more effectively cover for all their options over the course of a game and hopefully lead to a more enjoyable and less tilting experience. Although vgc’s reasons for having teamsheets are much different than the rationale here, I don’t think it’s irrelevant that the official format has a similar system— it’s not like I’m proposing something that’s totally out there and unconnected to anything previously done before. One potential way to try out this idea would be an open Tera mini tour, which has already been brought up in doucord and I think that would be a great next step to see if this kind of system really is worth further exploring. Anyways that’s just my two cents, I’d love to see more people discuss this in the thread!

I have seen very little agreement on reasons AGAINST open tera in discussions regarding the topic, and I myself very much want to see the idea explored and implemented in full. I tossed the idea of doing a few roomtours with open tera around in discord to litmus how matches play out with it implemented and I stand by that idea here. I see no harm in trying it out at the very least, and the potential benefits of removing the variability of surprise tera gotcha moments that can feel random at times is very appealing in my eyes

 

[Teals]

My issue with open team sheets is ps tries to keep the game as close to cartridge as possible. Modding the game to show Tera on preview is a bit whack because vgc didn't just stop at Tera. As it was pointed out to me, open team sheet was only a result of gamefreak designing a shitty game and TD's trying to compensate for it, rather than it being a result of a game mechanic. I think if Tera were to be tested no complex bans should be considered, and rather it be a black and white situation where you either ban it or you don't.

 

[qsns]

I would be on board with discussing and testing some restrictions to Terastallization. However, I am most likely going to vote DNB on both.

Banning Tera Entirely

I don't see Tera as broken in the slightest, so I'm obviously against this. Tera rewards creative teambuilding and fosters cool board states that previous mechanics didn't offer. There have been very few times where Tera pushes a Pokemon over the edge (IMO, probably just Annihilape and Dondozo) and we can ban these if they become an issue. I'm not frothing at the mouth to have either of these in the tier at the cost of Tera. Happy to expand on this point in a further post but I don't see a ton of advocates for this.

Open Tera

Meh? I don't see what this would actually solve, besides malding about an opponent's "random tera type" every one in ten or so games. If we look at the OSDT Tera usage, they tend to gravitate towards the same 1-3 types, usually being STAB boosting or the most obvious defensive type. There are few "random tera types" that actually work out super well, as we can see by their low usage and a giant spread of 0% winrates in the 1-2 usage range. Of the other tiers discussing Open Tera (namely OU), we don't see 5-10 viable types for each Pokemon just because Doubles board states necessitate more neutral types to not get immediately sniped by the partner.

When people bring Tera types outside of these, it's usually just well-positioned metagame teambuilding/preparation. I'm reminded of losing to Tera Poison Garganacl in my last round of OSDT - specifically chosen to beat my style of teams in prep. I'd love to see more discussion on this as a lot of the discussion (besides eragon's, good post) has just been pointing at a "guessing game" that I don't see as any different than guessing a Pokemon's sets.

I'm not terribly opposed to this option but I'm not sure what problem it actually solves. I think a minitour would be a good idea as it might be more fun in practice but would rather just play full open teamsheet at that point.

 

[xqiht]

DOU tour in PSChina!
Hey,everyone,I am xqiht.As a Dou player from China, I want to promote the development of PSChina's Dou. I also organized this tour for the friendly exchange between PSChina and Smogon doubles. I hope everyone has a good time.
http://47.94.147.145/topic/3076/国服dou振兴计划part1-dou-tour/6
room：http://china.psim.us/doublesou
“每周五”means every week Friday，“每周六”means every week Saturday，：每周日“means every week Sunday
Have a good day！

 

[eragon]

On the state of DOU:
It has now been a few weeks since the Basculegion Male suspect concluded and we banned the red Last Respects user. We've now gone through (I believe) 3 rounds of OSDT since and I believe we have seen enough of the blue Last Respects user to warrant another suspect, and in my opinion, a ban. Although the 20 points off of attack does make a significant difference to the raw numbers Basc-F can output, and can cause the mon to miss out on kills that the male form would have collected, the important shared traits of two STABs+ Adaptability+a serviceable speed stat remain. We're still seeing obscene gamestates where the fish totally takes over as a late game cleaner, overpowering whatever remains of the opponent's team- 1, 2, 3, 4. While it may not be quite as overpowering as the male version was (notably a little weaker in the early to midgame), I still think these games (just from this last week, mind you- after people have started preparing more for it) show an unhealthy mon that can totally warp play with its damage output in the late game and really steal games in ways that are unimaginable without it being in the tier. I think there's definitely enough of a distaste among the general playerbase and evidence of high level replays to justify a suspect.

On the topic of Banning Last Respects vs Basc-F:
Personally I don't really lean to hard in either direction on this one, although I do think just banning the mon makes more sense in this instance- Houndstone is clearly not a problem- it was mid to downright terrible for pretty much all of pre-home. I think its really adaptability + last respects and the second stab that pushes both Basculegion forms over the edge, they're far less of a liability in the early stages of the game and can start picking up absurd kos earlier that way. If somehow (yes this is white striped Basculin and yes it learns last respects) becomes a problem (it won't) then we should definitely ban Last Respects but otherwise I think it's better to just get rid of the two problematic abusers due to the Houndstone situation.

 

[HeatEdgeSword]

While nowhere nightmarish as before, Flutter Mane is still a pain to deal with. Still boasting the near-perfect STAB coverage that only a few type combinations resist both and Protosynthesis boosting its speed all without the move locking, to the point that Heatran and Volcanion commonly hold Assault Vest against Flutter Mane simply because they resisted its Fairy-type attacks, the latter resorted to running Heavy Slam that isn't useful otherwise for it. Scizor rose back due to being able to threaten it with Bullet Punch, but without Flutter Mane, Scizor would not be seeing the day of light in DOU despite possessing some unique tools such as Tailwind and Feint. While Tornadus have Prankster Tailwind to improve the matchup of it, Trick Room teams struggle with its presence without Amoonguss or Indeedee, with even Cresselia shivers of the idea of taking its Shadow Ball and Tera into Dark means it's going to fall prey into its Moonblast instead. Granted, Flutter Mane usually Tera into Fairy-type to bolster the power of it, but there's going to be some curveballs thrown in. All in all, Flutter Mane is simple yet ridiculous at the same time.

Another topic I want to discuss is Covert Cloak, which can be best described as the Heavy-Duty Boots for Doubles, which probably is an exaggeration. Being able to block secondary effects from attacks is huge since the holder can't be interrupted by Fake Out and not having its speed reduced by Icy Wind or Electroweb. Post-HOME, it started to see more noticeable traction. Unlike Murkrow before it, Tornadus has just enough bulk to forgo Focus Sash in favor of Covert Cloak to guarantee a Tailwind without worrying about Fake Out. Mew appreciates Covert Cloak as well since it can set up Tailwind and hazards without being interrupted. Not much else to add on as these are the more notable users, although Covert Cloak can still come in handy on others such as Trick Room setter or offensive Pokemon such as Chi-Yu that holds it from time to time.

Not saying that it should be suspect tested yet (although I would have said it earlier), but Covert Cloak definitely needs to keep an eye on.


and i'm just going to put it here

 

[shaian]

i don't like this metagame tis in a poor state (probably)

 

[qsns]

hi, just wanted to write a post on screens and how I think they should be built. Feel free to disagree with me - this is a sentiment that definitely goes against the popular community thought, but me and Paraplegic (who I have given teams/has taken his own spin on them) have had pretty great success with this theory so far.

SCREENS ARE REALLY MEDIOCRE IF YOU'RE NOT DOING DAMAGE

- Screens take 2 turns to setup. This is 2 turns you could be using to mitigate damage with better Pokemon than Grimmsnarl or Klefki. If the other 6 turns aren't impactful, this buff to your Pokemon isn't worth it. Bad tempo

- Setting up screens a second time sucks. Your 'mon is already chipped. Your low damage, low tempo support Pokemon has to come on the field again and spend another two turns setting them up, and by being forced to keep them alive, you lose the switch initiative on letting them die. If you end the game 5-6 turns after you click Screens, you do not have to worry about this!

- I do not care about screen breakers if you're clicking an unSTAB coverage move with Rillaboom to take away one of my turns clicking Reflect. It does not meaningfully affect the gamestate, and if my Pokemon are threatening and actually dealing damage, this is actively negative for you. This is actually threatening against slow Screens teams because they can't punish the Pokemon clicking Brick Break.

- There is not a meaningful difference between your Palafin taking 10% damage on a resisted hit setting up vs. 15%, and then still needing 4 more turns to threaten a KO. There is a gigantic difference between your Chi-Yu taking 50% vs. 75% and being able to threaten a Choice Specs or Nasty Plot boosted Heat Wave on the next turn, or against faster opponents.

Here are games where me or Paraplegic click dual screens and actually do damage (this strategy remains undefeated in an extremely high sample size of 3 relatively high level tour games):

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9doublesou-713295
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9doublesou-710459
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9doublesou-1922316353

This post is probably slightly reactionary from seeing a Grimmsnarl be sad and die while helping the sad Palafin or Hoodra set up for the 800th time this OSDT but I think it is a fundamental misuse of the move. Singles Dual Screens teams don't use the turns after setting them up to go into Blissey and click Soft-boiled 3 times - they set up with the most aggressive setup sweepers known to humanity that get one extra free hit! Thanks to Nails 's worlds top 32 team for inspiring me :D

also on another note - VR is unlikely to get updated until DLC but klefki is way better than grimmsnarl

 

[Amaranth]

i am passionate about screens so have some words from me as well

echoing the "screens fat is bad" part of the qsns post as one of the biggest screens fat enthusiast; the archetype isn't really worth it without a really, really broken abuser that just autowins off of them (unless the metagame conditions are especially conductive to it)
the core axiom of screens fat is: my setupper shits on all the slow counterplay by itself. i will run screens and redirection to neutralize the fast counterplay, and my mon will win by itself.
the general concept rose to prominence with Annihilape but it can still apply with other threats. getting free setup is pretty good, and it can be snowballed into giant leads. the thing is, if the enemies have counterplay, you are just cooked.
ape was insane because it could OHKO all slow counterplay with rage fist after a base power boost or two, and fast counterplay usually comes in the form of outdamaging it. it could neutralize other forms of counterplay like sleep with vital spirit or goggles, intimidate with defiant, and the list goes on - ape could basically tech itself to beat any defensive counterplay. so when you disabled the option of offensive counterplay for the opponent, by artificially pumping up your ape with screens and pollen puffs and drain punch healing to ensure that it could always take the hit from the faster mon(s) and come out ahead, you were left with an actual literal unkillable war machine.
ape also had the extremely unique ability of its set up partially persisting through switches. once rage fist was 200bp, it was staying like that. you could pivot around, pollen puff and regenerate everything to full for eternity, reposition a thousand times until you found the exact perfect moment to send it in again. this made ape screens teams way less onedimensional in a way that no other setupper can really replicate (but it did add a slight weakness to hazards at least).

palafin does not need to worry about faster counterplay so much. just. fucking jet punch it. who cares? they die. so the main benefit of screens is lost on him. you'd want support that beats the slower mons. which isn't nearly as easy or universal as "click screens and they're gonna be useless for the next five years", you need to position well to be able to taunt an amoonguss etc. it's a lot harder to shut down all counterplay the same way it was for annihilape.
drain punch / jet punch are kind of at odds with one another in general, drain punch supports "take a hit and outtrade", jetpunch supports "kill before they even attack", these two styles of set up don't work the same, so it's hard to support both; it means he's OK in situations where you can use one of these approaches, but he just doesn't have the durability of an annihilape or the immediate pressure of a chi-yu, so he's at best a flexible complementary piece and not something that you can really dedicate your whole team to

hoodra is interesting because it automatically ticks off the "fine against sleep" box, which is very nice. the problem with hoodra is that it Fucking Sucks.
body press is a non-STAB 80bp move coming off 100 base. this is just super bad. if it doesn't win defensively, then it doesn't win at all, because it takes so stupidly long to get anything going offensively. this is not unlike leech ferro or celesteela in some oldgens, where the mon just kinda sits there and says "i'll win eventually if you didn't load and sufficiently preserve some pretty specific offensive answers". but if you just send him in from turn 1, screens and iron defense and go... they just fucking have those answers lol. i mean look at this game, bro is on the field jerking off doing absolutely no damage to anything and getting constantly outtraded by other, better setuppers with better stats/moves, while everything around it dies because the hoodra is pretty easy to ignore or to force into life dew spam

back when i played more actively (around ape meta) i did seek out an Ape Alternative, and the best answer I landed on was actually Garganacl. purifying salt is fantastic, salt cure means you have active nagging offensive threat on everything constantly. Garganacl automatically beats pretty much every slow counterplay in existence (saltcure destroys any attempts to wall it and especially to set up alongside it), and it forces you to overpower it with damage if you want to get anywhere. which means that if screens are up to deny you the ability to do that, it's quite good. i see that paraplegic had a garg in one of the screens replays qsns posted, which does not surprise me - garg straight up just has great synergy with screens.
it is less reliant on Amoonguss to support/redirect stuff away than most slow fat setuppers, which is neat, and makes it more adaptable to offensive structures too. fun mon. the main problem is probably that its stats are a touch too low and he still just gets nuked out of existence by tera fairy flutter and/or chiyu darkpulse type stuff, even through screens sometimes. at least ape threatened to OHKO them back, and especially with redirection that can be a sufficient answer - your redirector dies but so does the one mon that can nuke you, so you're fine to win from that position. Garg cannot do this (another reason why it's not particularly good with Amoong)

another tempting mon is Gholdengo, but it falls for the same reasons as Garganacl most of the time - just not enough stats, gets nuked before it can really get going even through screens. its natural bulk isn't that good and it cannot even invest in it so much if it wants to hurt at +2, not to mention speed issues. conceptually though, it appreciates screen just as much - by itself it bodies all the slow counterplay, so screen up to neutralize the fast answers and you're cooking. just a matter of how effectively do your screens actually neutralize anything when you are still not really tanking too many hits with Gholdengo

note that none of these abusers existed before gen 9. they are all fresh introductions. i think there is some merit to the observation that if an archetype never existed in older gens, it probably cannot exist in the current one either, and this is the case for screens fat. however it clearly dominated the meta when a good enough abuser existed (Annihilape) which in my eyes is evidence enough that it can exist as an archetype provided good abusers are introduced, and gen9 did at least offer some interesting options on top of just Ape.

---

Screens offense on the other hand is powered by a completely different concept as Screens fat. As I said near the start of this post, Screens fat aims to shut down offensive counterplay by nerfing the damage output of your opponent to the point that you can out-heal and out-trade it. Completely opposite of that, screens offense shuts down a majority of counterplay by OHKOing it or at least dealing more damage than you're taking, and the screens are only really used to give yourself those 1-2 turns of "I can actually get in position and NP without dying on the spot here". Another big difference is that screens offense likes hazards because hitting an OHKO instead of a 2HKO is a crazy upgrade, given that they really don't want to take hits in return - Screens fat doesn't really care because you're taking like 6 turns to get in position already, not a big deal to find a seventh for that extra boost that gets you over the line for that OHKO.

I don't have a ton of experience piloting screens off in DOU, but at the very least I see the vision. I don't think it's "the correct way to use screens" or anything like that, but it's another playstyle that didn't really exist pre-gen9 and it does seem to function now, so, you know. there's something there. it probably has better odds of staying relevant long term in SV DOU, but that's because a lot of fantastic screens offense users still exist (baxcalibur chiyu etc) while the fantastic screens fat user was a bit too fantastic (rest in peace ape thanks for carrying my dwcop record)

i will say screens offense seems more generally applicable - "strong fast setup that deals hella damage" is pretty easy to find, compared to "bulky setup + sufficient long term offensive threat + not susceptible to intim cycles + not susceptible to status + like a million other things". but, you know, they did print out a bunch of mons that kinda fit the bill, so there's that.

i also think screens fat can never really exist in a meta where pokemon that set up to absurd threat levels very quickly exist. i tried it slightly with garg in DUU but enam+thund just has +2 tera fairy moonblasts coming your way within two turns and no amount of light screens or salt cures will save you from that, it's coming and it's killing you faster than you're killing it, end of

so, like, yeah. i love it, but use with caution

 

[Schister]

i am passionate about screens so have some words from me as well

echoing the "screens fat is bad" part of the qsns post as one of the biggest screens fat enthusiast; the archetype isn't really worth it without a really, really broken abuser that just autowins off of them (unless the metagame conditions are especially conductive to it)
the core axiom of screens fat is: my setupper shits on all the slow counterplay by itself. i will run screens and redirection to neutralize the fast counterplay, and my mon will win by itself.
the general concept rose to prominence with Annihilape but it can still apply with other threats. getting free setup is pretty good, and it can be snowballed into giant leads. the thing is, if the enemies have counterplay, you are just cooked.
ape was insane because it could OHKO all slow counterplay with rage fist after a base power boost or two, and fast counterplay usually comes in the form of outdamaging it. it could neutralize other forms of counterplay like sleep with vital spirit or goggles, intimidate with defiant, and the list goes on - ape could basically tech itself to beat any defensive counterplay. so when you disabled the option of offensive counterplay for the opponent, by artificially pumping up your ape with screens and pollen puffs and drain punch healing to ensure that it could always take the hit from the faster mon(s) and come out ahead, you were left with an actual literal unkillable war machine.
ape also had the extremely unique ability of its set up partially persisting through switches. once rage fist was 200bp, it was staying like that. you could pivot around, pollen puff and regenerate everything to full for eternity, reposition a thousand times until you found the exact perfect moment to send it in again. this made ape screens teams way less onedimensional in a way that no other setupper can really replicate (but it did add a slight weakness to hazards at least).

palafin does not need to worry about faster counterplay so much. just. fucking jet punch it. who cares? they die. so the main benefit of screens is lost on him. you'd want support that beats the slower mons. which isn't nearly as easy or universal as "click screens and they're gonna be useless for the next five years", you need to position well to be able to taunt an amoonguss etc. it's a lot harder to shut down all counterplay the same way it was for annihilape.
drain punch / jet punch are kind of at odds with one another in general, drain punch supports "take a hit and outtrade", jetpunch supports "kill before they even attack", these two styles of set up don't work the same, so it's hard to support both; it means he's OK in situations where you can use one of these approaches, but he just doesn't have the durability of an annihilape or the immediate pressure of a chi-yu, so he's at best a flexible complementary piece and not something that you can really dedicate your whole team to

hoodra is interesting because it automatically ticks off the "fine against sleep" box, which is very nice. the problem with hoodra is that it Fucking Sucks.
body press is a non-STAB 80bp move coming off 100 base. this is just super bad. if it doesn't win defensively, then it doesn't win at all, because it takes so stupidly long to get anything going offensively. this is not unlike leech ferro or celesteela in some oldgens, where the mon just kinda sits there and says "i'll win eventually if you didn't load and sufficiently preserve some pretty specific offensive answers". but if you just send him in from turn 1, screens and iron defense and go... they just fucking have those answers lol. i mean look at this game, bro is on the field jerking off doing absolutely no damage to anything and getting constantly outtraded by other, better setuppers with better stats/moves, while everything around it dies because the hoodra is pretty easy to ignore or to force into life dew spam

back when i played more actively (around ape meta) i did seek out an Ape Alternative, and the best answer I landed on was actually Garganacl. purifying salt is fantastic, salt cure means you have active nagging offensive threat on everything constantly. Garganacl automatically beats pretty much every slow counterplay in existence (saltcure destroys any attempts to wall it and especially to set up alongside it), and it forces you to overpower it with damage if you want to get anywhere. which means that if screens are up to deny you the ability to do that, it's quite good. i see that paraplegic had a garg in one of the screens replays qsns posted, which does not surprise me - garg straight up just has great synergy with screens.
it is less reliant on Amoonguss to support/redirect stuff away than most slow fat setuppers, which is neat, and makes it more adaptable to offensive structures too. fun mon. the main problem is probably that its stats are a touch too low and he still just gets nuked out of existence by tera fairy flutter and/or chiyu darkpulse type stuff, even through screens sometimes. at least ape threatened to OHKO them back, and especially with redirection that can be a sufficient answer - your redirector dies but so does the one mon that can nuke you, so you're fine to win from that position. Garg cannot do this (another reason why it's not particularly good with Amoong)

another tempting mon is Gholdengo, but it falls for the same reasons as Garganacl most of the time - just not enough stats, gets nuked before it can really get going even through screens. its natural bulk isn't that good and it cannot even invest in it so much if it wants to hurt at +2, not to mention speed issues. conceptually though, it appreciates screen just as much - by itself it bodies all the slow counterplay, so screen up to neutralize the fast answers and you're cooking. just a matter of how effectively do your screens actually neutralize anything when you are still not really tanking too many hits with Gholdengo

note that none of these abusers existed before gen 9. they are all fresh introductions. i think there is some merit to the observation that if an archetype never existed in older gens, it probably cannot exist in the current one either, and this is the case for screens fat. however it clearly dominated the meta when a good enough abuser existed (Annihilape) which in my eyes is evidence enough that it can exist as an archetype provided good abusers are introduced, and gen9 did at least offer some interesting options on top of just Ape.

---

Screens offense on the other hand is powered by a completely different concept as Screens fat. As I said near the start of this post, Screens fat aims to shut down offensive counterplay by nerfing the damage output of your opponent to the point that you can out-heal and out-trade it. Completely opposite of that, screens offense shuts down a majority of counterplay by OHKOing it or at least dealing more damage than you're taking, and the screens are only really used to give yourself those 1-2 turns of "I can actually get in position and NP without dying on the spot here". Another big difference is that screens offense likes hazards because hitting an OHKO instead of a 2HKO is a crazy upgrade, given that they really don't want to take hits in return - Screens fat doesn't really care because you're taking like 6 turns to get in position already, not a big deal to find a seventh for that extra boost that gets you over the line for that OHKO.

I don't have a ton of experience piloting screens off in DOU, but at the very least I see the vision. I don't think it's "the correct way to use screens" or anything like that, but it's another playstyle that didn't really exist pre-gen9 and it does seem to function now, so, you know. there's something there. it probably has better odds of staying relevant long term in SV DOU, but that's because a lot of fantastic screens offense users still exist (baxcalibur chiyu etc) while the fantastic screens fat user was a bit too fantastic (rest in peace ape thanks for carrying my dwcop record)

i will say screens offense seems more generally applicable - "strong fast setup that deals hella damage" is pretty easy to find, compared to "bulky setup + sufficient long term offensive threat + not susceptible to intim cycles + not susceptible to status + like a million other things". but, you know, they did print out a bunch of mons that kinda fit the bill, so there's that.

i also think screens fat can never really exist in a meta where pokemon that set up to absurd threat levels very quickly exist. i tried it slightly with garg in DUU but enam+thund just has +2 tera fairy moonblasts coming your way within two turns and no amount of light screens or salt cures will save you from that, it's coming and it's killing you faster than you're killing it, end of

so, like, yeah. i love it, but use with caution

I too, have a fair bit of passion regarding screens in the tier, and I've spent a vast amount of my tenure in Doubles OU toying with fat screens as it's the best archetype for my favorite pokemon to play, Skeledirge. But putting that aside, there's a few aspects of fat screens that have been overlooked in this thread so far that I feel are just as important as what's been discussed. While the win conditions of choice are important, and there is no one size fits all solution, I feel that not only has the general discussion overlooked a few win conditions, but also vastly overlooked the supportive options available to the archetype to make it great.



This pokemon is a defining piece on many fat screens teams.Lunar blessing single-handedly elevates the archetype by providing a consistent and splashable answer to status conditions and mandating a certain damage output threshold be reached just to even wear down pokemon on the cresselia's team. Cresselia is such a problem that almost every team in the tier is required to have some way to deal with it because of this fact alone, and the immense value its trick room can provide. But Cresselia is not just limited to playing support, though it is exceptional at it. Cresselia can leverage its bulk and ability to sustain itself and threaten to be a calm mind Stored power spamming win condition, playing to the archetype's strength of generally ignoring how many turns setup may take by just outhealing everything and utilizing other threats or defensive resources to force out offensive responses until the opponent gets overrun. It has its share of weaknesses but by and by I feel like its overall presence in the tier through this archetype, and others, and the pressure it applies teams to respond to it with in builder alone is worth some respect not properly shown in this discussion so far.


This thing is demented with its newfound access to taunt. It compresses critical utility denial, threat suppression through intimidate, and the extremely important stealth rocks all at once for fat screens while being able to easily bring in other members of the team to outmaneuver opposing responses. Everybody knows how effective Landorus is at its job but there strangely hasn't been much discussion about how perfect it is for fat screens on the whole. Rocks provides critical progress for fat screens to make, especially into hyper offense teams that really can't afford to take the chip damage on mons like chi yu and chien pao. Hazards in general is something largely being overlooked on this team archetype despite the incredible lack of viable removal in the tier and the undeniable value it provides. And the next mon I have listed here can really show off how effective utilizing hazards can be


While most teams opt to use grimmsnarl thanks to access to fake out, spirit break, and parting shot; Klefki is an oft overlooked alternative screener
for fat screens as an acrhetype that supports the team beautifully. It's typing is much better into Flutter mane and generally allows it to lead into most pokemon quite safely and access to spikes allows it to be far less passive than grimmsnarl at times, providing a much needed long-term win condition for the screens team that the archetype very much has ample time to exploit. My Round 1 Seasonal game against Enzonana demonstrates the strengths of Klefki working excellently into the Bulky Balance team archetype that preforms quite well without screens, Playing around the win condition of Garganacl and showcasing the utility compression of landorus and rillaboom that the archetype so greatly appreciates.


Kleavor's innate offensive matchup spread into the metagame is second to virtually none, being able to vaporize fires and flyings with TEMPO, cut down Indeedee, Chien-pao, Cresselia, Rillaboom, Dragonite, and Samurott with its bug stab like it's nothing, and vaporize kingambit, Heatran unboosted Hoodras with Close combat. It does immense damage into Flutter mane regardless of its spread, can trade well into Heatran even just with stone axe, has access to Feint to deny protect counterplay from offensive teams (especially from chien pao) and can even cover for Gholdengo with Night Slash. Kleavor's rocks and incredible matchup spread into the offensive threats that commonly give fat screens problems shouldwarrant much greater discussion and consideration on such teams than I've seen, being able to Scarf very effectively or run AV and be surprisingly difficult to take down; or even run a seed/sash set (grassy or psyseed) if you want access to Tailwind (or even defog). If Kleavor needs to it can even flip it's water and steel weaknesses in one with tera water and become truly difficult to answer immediately, given that it OHKOes the only offensive grass user in the tier and the only electric type is far slower than it and will just get pivoted out on. I'll even leave my favorite spread for it here since i think this pokemon is criminally undervalued on this archetype to deal with the big offensive problems that Amaranth noted this structure can struggle with.

Kleavor @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 188 HP / 196 Atk / 124 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stone Axe
- X-Scissor
- Feint
- U-turn / Close Combat



Not really much to say other than it seemed strange to me that iron hands was not mentioned in amaranth's discussion of win conditions for the structure, given just how effective it's known to be. Bdrum, Swords dance, AV, you name it hands can run it and abuse just how absurdly long battles can go with fat screens.


If this thing gets back Grassy Glide in DLC, (it probably will) we can all look forward to what's already a defining member of many fat screens teams becoming the structure's number one way of dealing with many of the fast offensive problems that hinder it. Definitely something to look out for in the future and worth bringing up here as we discuss the structure's potential. Aside from that, the amount of free momentum this thing provides is universally known in this tier, and fat screens is no stranger to benefitting from it immensely.
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There are other pokemon to discuss but in general I feel that a lot of fat screens teams are missing out on the opportunity to capitalize on Hazards chip as a win condition/means of progression given the longevity of the teams, as well as some options like Kleavor which could really exploit the matchups that fat screens teams find themselves in, and the archetype is definitely not done developing yet.