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Congrats to n1n1 (though you could have waited a couple more days/weeks till you hit that #1 spot on the ladder, which you did).
I also appreciated the team from Sunrose, though it's not my style at all. One of the things I really like about the Gen 7 DOU ladder is the diversity of teams, where very different builds/playstyles can be successful. It looks like Sunrose allocated a total of only 240 EVs to Atk/SpA for the whole team, out of possible total of 1512 (252 x 6; though could theoretically be higher with mixed attackers), with only one mon with a +Atk/SpA nature! By contrast, my best team currently has 1472 EVs allocated to Atk/SpA with four mons +Atk/SpA.
Anyway, the Crown Tundra DLC is supposed to drop in a couple days. It will fundamentally change the Gen 8 DOU Meta, hopefully for the better, but it won't replace Gen 7 DOU. With grassy glide (essentially a 105 BP priority move), expanding force and rising voltage, terrain wars are likely to be insane with the return of the Tapus. Z Crystals won't come back (not sure about mega stones). Even in a best case scenario, it's likely to take a long time to achieve a balance, as a number of mons will no doubt get tested and some banned.
I just hope the PTB here don't try to use the DLC drop as an excuse to quietly dump the Gen 7 DOU ladder. It's still fun and very playable (a lot more so than Gen 8 DUU for instance). OU does just fine with 7 past generations available to play; no reason we can't have 1. The ladders are all most folks have to get games. Please discuss with the community first and, if we decide it's better to discontinue the ladder at some point, at least send it out in style. I get that you only have official tours in the current generation, but there's nothing stopping folks from doing something unofficial and giving us a couple months to work something out.
I actually should have expected that response based on my previous experiences here, but didn't think the knife would come from Memoric. I've been unfailingly polite and reasonable, and some here reciprocate it no doubt, but it makes many dislike me more intensely apparently.
When I mentioned "discussing with the community", I guess I was thinking of waiting at least till the Meta in Gen 8 DOU settles a bit and having a poll in the Doubles room or something like that, rather than getting 11 dudes (most of whom probably don't even mind the Gen 7 DOU ladder personally) to try and prank me, but things don't really work that way I guess. You could also let people vote with their feet so to speak, and see if people naturally abandon the Gen 7 DOU ladder, but the preferences of the people who actually play on the ladders (including Gen 8 DOU, which most of you don't even like so far--and I can't say I blame you) don't seem to count for much.
I worked hard to get the Gen 7 DOU ladder back when there was a noticeable demand for an alternative to a very unsatisfying Gen 8, even when people laughed and said it couldn't be done. Now it looks like I'll be an instigator of its demise. All good I guess. FWIW, whatever you all may think of me, I don't consider any of you my enemies. I was surprised and sad to hear that Stratos got banned again. Was looking forward to finding him on the ladder one day, but it may never happen now. Enjoy your battles while you can, gentlemen.
The three posts above yours are not serious, apologies if they came across as such. "X toise reacts for Y" has become a running meme in our discord, so it was just a continuation of that joke. We have no plans to take down the SM DOU ladder, at least through the end of gen 8. I think the only reason it would happen would be if the powers that be on PS decide it becomes unnecessary, but I doubt they will object to the ladder staying up for a while.
I'll post this trash team here, please tell me if it could use improvement, I've had moderate success with it and Kommo-o/Manectric are great backup.
I think the contrary part of the team is the weakest part so don't hesitate to tell me how it could be improved or use it and change whatever you want.
Honestly this tier hasn't got much players left but i find this game infinitely better with megas.
I would like to partition the lifting of the ban for dark void for gen 7 doubles ou reasons as stated:
1.dark void after it's nerf has a 50%acc this putting it below the hypnosis with 60% technically they are both same move difference being one is used mostly in doubles and act like the other in singles
2.with the addition of tapu fini and tapu Koko both of which nullify the potency of dark void for 5-7 turns respectively (if terrain extender is equipped)
3.stripping Darkrai of it signature move is completely debilitating this pokemons potential to excel at what I does best in it specific of darkrai being a walking nightmare that puts everyone to sleep and give bad dreams.
On personal grievances: during a course of 10-20 matches in gen 7 DOUBLES OU I have missed 2-3 hypnosis per game trying to set a combo with spirit tomb by trying to sleep one mon with max SPD while using curse and then dream eater with spirit tomb and out of 20 of those games it's only hit about 5 times.
On ending note: the ban on dark void is completely outdated after game freaks executive decision to drop dark void's acc to 50% to compensate for the abuse that darkrai inflicted in gen 4 effectively taking the potency it used to have at 80%. Dark void is now a coin flip that can either be good decent or bad. And if want to say smergle just make a clause for one dark void move per team or just completely ban smergle from using it.
I'm guessing that you never played a single competitive match in gen 7 dou ever. If you had you would know that first, it has a 75% to hit at least 1 target, and 2 with support such as BPing Accuracy, Darkari becomes a monster because sleep clause is not present. With all of these combined you can see how dark void is banned.
I'm not at all an authority on this but I'm hopping in because I don't like this response.
First of all, it's not helpful to insult other players. While I also disagree with the point that alucard_wolf made, it's a genuine opinion and they're doing their best to contribute to the community in a respectful way. That should be encouraged and not made fun of.
Secondly, and again emphasizing that I'm not an expert on this, I highly doubt dark void was banned because of accuracy baton pass into Darkrai. That's not a reliable strategy and would likely not be very good. You'd probably be better off using gravity or smeargle.
Regardless of whether dark void is good or bad competitively, it won't be unbanned. It's unhealthy in the same way as OHKO moves like Sheer Cold and Fissure - they can frequently reduce games to low-ish probability dice rolls. Nobody wants to play against dark void, it dramatically increases the role of random chance, and is best characterized by the puke face emoji
I'm not at all an authority on this but I'm hopping in because I don't like this response.
First of all, it's not helpful to insult other players. While I also disagree with the point that alucard_wolf made, it's a genuine opinion and they're doing their best to contribute to the community in a respectful way. That should be encouraged and not made fun of.
Secondly, and again emphasizing that I'm not an expert on this, I highly doubt dark void was banned because of accuracy baton pass into Darkrai. That's not a reliable strategy and would likely not be very good. You'd probably be better off using gravity or smeargle.
Now to respond to the actual issue at hand:
Regardless of whether dark void is good or bad competitively, it won't be unbanned. It's unhealthy in the same way as OHKO moves like Sheer Cold and Fissure - they can frequently reduce games to low-ish probability dice rolls. Nobody wants to play against dark void, it dramatically increases the role of random chance, and is best characterized by the puke face emoji
How can you compare a OHKO with dark void that is completely beyond the move because it can one shot someone and even then you would have to learn laser focus or mind reader to hit sheer cold and for fissure it was always the ability no guard that allowed. Darkrai gets neither of those and we go back to the 75% sleep powder... hypnosis is 60% 65% with wide lens. We are talking about a move with the same acc as inferno and how many ppl do you see using inferno Nealy ru. Plus sleep clauses are only in singles not doubles so which is worse in singles a 75% sleep powder, a 100% spore, a 60% hypnosis, or a 50% Dark void. Add 5% to each with wide lens that's still 80%,105%,and 65% it's only 55% for dark void. The only difference between all of them was that dark void is for doubles I wish game freaks only lowered it by 20% to make it 60% but hey it's 50% dark void in singles sleep clause it that's fine but when it's completely banned in doubles that almost like saying kyorge is banned from using water spout and Groudon is banned from using eruption it doesn't make sense.
How can you compare a OHKO with dark void that is completely beyond the move because it can one shot someone and even then you would have to learn laser focus or mind reader to hit sheer cold and for fissure it was always the ability no guard that allowed.
As Fespy said, OHKO moves aren't banned because they are too powerful, nor because they can be used with Mind Reader or other moves to secure guaranteed OHKOs, but because they add an element of randomness that the community has decided makes the outcome of the game overly reliant on luck rather than the players' skill. Dark Void is almost certainly not broken in the same way that Magearna or Primal Groudon are broken but it does force teams without Tapu Fini/Koko to rely on luck to not lose the game, much like OHKO moves introduce luck elements into the game. If your opinion is that the randomness that Dark Void introduces is insufficient to warrant a ban that's completely fine but it appears that you would be in the minority here.
As Fespy said, OHKO moves aren't banned because they are too powerful, nor because they can be used with Mind Reader or other moves to secure guaranteed OHKOs, but because they add an element of randomness that the community has decided makes the outcome of the game overly reliant on luck rather than the players' skill. Dark Void is almost certainly not broken in the same way that Magearna or Primal Groudon are broken but it does force teams without Tapu Fini/Koko to rely on luck to not lose the game, much like OHKO moves introduce luck elements into the game. If your opinion is that the randomness that Dark Void introduces is insufficient to warrant a ban that's completely fine but it appears that you would be in the minority here.
It is what it is I just want Darkrai's specifically designed doubles ability to not be banned in doubles. If your telling me getting tailwind off and get double - triple spored and sleep powder off with to sleep procs I guess. The procs in themselves are random.
It is what it is I just want Darkrai's specifically designed doubles ability to not be banned in doubles. If your telling me getting tailwind off and get double - triple spored and sleep powder off with to sleep procs I guess. The procs in themselves are random.
While yes they are random, thats the entire point on why its banned. Fespy explain this pretty well, its not broken like in gen 4-6, but daam this is super uncompetitive. Yeah sometimes you might never hit one in a match, and other times you hit everyone. Like the OHKO's that hit 30% percent of the time, but still is uncompetitive due to being able to not only make sure it hits with stuff like Lock-On, even a 30% chance to OHKO a pokemon instantly is bad, so it was banned. Preservation of Darkari's move is not the actual tiering policy for this, since it doesn't call to favor a pokemon. Considering that litterally any pokemon would be able to abuse this to unseen levels of bad, there is a good reason why DVoid is banned.
Gen 7 is still the best gen for doubles! Hope people will enjoy the ladder while they can. I would love more company from good players there (I have been happy to see Stratos back on a bit recently). It's been almost 2 years (well more like 21 months) since I made my first post on Smogon and shared my Offensive Suicune team: Resource - Doubles OU Team Bazaar 2.0 | Page 2 | Smogon Forums. Though there's always further to go, I've grown a lot as a player since then, and hit various personal milestones (90, 91, 92, 93+ GXE, multiple teams at the top spot on the ladder, winning more against tough opponents). The Gen 7 DOU ladder still features many great regulars and periodic appearances from some of the best (and it's actually tougher to get #1 ELO wise than at many times in the past couple years). When I shared my Suicune team here, I was sort of afraid to give out a valued secret, but maybe no one reads this stuff or cared about my team, because it didn't seem to greatly impact my use of that team, which recently spent a lot of time at number 1 (after many months of plugging away at one game a day, mostly in the 1600s at first--a fun, recent, typical game: Replays - Pokémon Showdown (pokemonshowdown.com) ). Meanwhile, I finally saw a worthy player try to copy one of my other teams, and it made me feel pretty good! I like the idea of trying to contribute if I can.
With that in mind, here are a few other decent teams I've cooked up, for those who may be interested:
This is my most creative and maybe most successful team overall. It has caught a lot of great players by surprise. It features Terracott, but has so much more. It is constantly threatening beat up, but taking advantage of opportunities to get other kills, particularly with nature power Whimsi. Hyper-offense. High-risk/High reward. Great fun to play! I'm happy to field any questions about spreads/coverage. One I can anticipate (from anyone taking a close look at the team) is why is Terracott so slow? Answer: I've found it to be more useful for Whimsi to survive a +6 EQ from Terrakion or a -1 Flare Blitz from an opposing Incin than to max speed. Whimsi is OK defensively bulkwise with some HP investment. Also, Terrakion can't outspeed Mega Zard (its other beat up partner), and realistically you can use beat up to beat an opposing Fini, but wouldn't want to try your luck against a Lele anyway (so many are scarfed) without TW up. Ice beam on Fini is one of many "surprises" on this team and very useful against opposing Lando, since muddy water doesn't do much damage in the sun. Might use taunt over encore on Whimsi in a tour or playing against a good opponent.
I saw so many "rain" teams with just Kindgra and Politoed, and I wanted to try one with 2 swift swim users. This is my favorite one in that genre. It's meant to be somewhat balanced. It has two fake out users, a terrain setter, an intimidator and a TR fighter. It also features decent coverage (for a rain team) against perennial threats like Kommo-o, Tapu Fini, Mega Venu and Ferrothorn. It's somewhat predictable, but when I lose with it I usually feel like I didn't do the right reads, rather than that I didn't have the firepower on my team to handle a particular threat. I've figured out that, especially for ladder usage, surf is a better alternative to hydro pump for Peli--Ludi and Kingdra barely notice it, and it provides 100% accuracy and a spread move to avoid redirects and cause massive damage in the rain.
I've always found the concept of monotype teams interesting. But those teams didn't seem to fare so well in practice. However, a few months ago, I saw another player find himself at number 1 on the Gen 7 DOU ladder with a mono water team, only for a few hours and in the low/mid 1700s (and after he had been playing the team probably for like a year, usually at a somewhat lower ranking), but I was intrigued, as I love rain teams. So I came up with the best mono water team I could. I quickly discovered that having 2 rain setters was highly beneficial and that Mega Pert was the best physical attacker. The rest is mostly trying to provide the most useful coverage (not easy for a mono team), including a terrain setter, FO user and a fast pivot. Perish song Poli helps clean up a lot of messes when coverage is lacking against a particular mon. This team has been over 1800 ELO on multiple occasions and has reached the top spot on the ladder. It has its weaknesses to be sure, but has gotten more good wins than I would have thought possible. It does well against teams with Incin and Lando (many of these). Feel free to give it a try. If anyone has a better/more successful Gen 7 DOU mono team of any kind, I'd be interested to check it out.
1. We now have a large recent body of tour stats for SM DOU in the form of SM Cup usage.
2. It's been over a year since we did SM DOU VR updates and it would be healthy to update the VR at least annually, particularly since we still have an active ladder..
3. I might be the only one who would get the ball rolling on this (as I did last year)... so here goes.
Last year I was 0-12 in getting my suggested VR noms. I'd like to think my understanding of the Meta has deepened since then, playing SM DOU almost every day. So I'm going to choose to view it as a victory if I can beat that previous stat, and since I'm going to rely primarily on Tour Bro data instead of Ladder data, who knows, maybe it could happen. Maybe not.
I'll post links to the SM Cup usage and recent high ladder usage below, with the raw data below the folds (for those who want to take a deep dive), and then follow with my noms (Note: I edited this post to remove a couple noms that were from Tier 4' to Tier 4, after being informed that those are not really intended to be separate tiers, but just to indicate special usage for the ' tiers. After reviewing my initial noms, I also added noms for Tapus Bulu and Lele to round out Tier 2 a bit, and because I think the data support this.):
Tier 2 --> Tier 1
The current Tier 1 VR actually perfectly tracks the recent SM Cup stats. It's hard to argue with that (and, yes, I get that usage and viability rankings are not synonymous, but I believe usage by top players is highly correlated with "viability" as properly understood)! Kart is hot on the heels of Gross in SM Cup usage (and there might be a non-Mega Gross or 3 hidden in the stats). Kart is actually much higher than Mega Gross in recent high level ladder usage. I think, given that and the recent focus on this mon (banned from Gen 8) for his awesome offensive prowess and capacity to sweep with Beast Boost, he deserves to be T1. He's very splashable and kind of Meta defining right now.
Tier 3 --> Tier 2
This mon's SM Cup usage is clearly showing T2, and it was even higher for the final 4. She sees a little less high ladder usage, but in my experience she's usually a game changer. Her mere presence on the opposing team changes the way you would play significantly, since you have to worry that any mon you send in will get trapped and destroyed, and if you believed there was a good chance your opponent would bring her (a good bet these days in tours, though not as much on the ladder), you'd want to plan accordingly in team selection. If there were any mon that might be banned from Gen 7 DOU, Goth would get my vote because of her abuse of Stag. In the meantime, let's get her up to T2 where she belongs in terms of impact on the current Meta.
Tier 3 --> Tier 2
Clanger's SM Cup usage is showing T2 and high ladder usage is showing T1. This is a mon that is central to the SM Meta. He is one of the most difficult to play around and he must be respected in the team building process. Once he sets up, he has the capacity to sweep easily. Besides Clanging, he's got a decent bunch of secondary tools, which hit hard after he has powered up, and Sub Clanger can be particularly nasty to deal with.
Tier 3 --> Tier 2
Surprisingly enough, the data from Bulu's SM Cup clearly shows T2 type usage. After being unloved for some time, Bulu is coming into his own a bit more (maybe partially because people see grass is so good in SS DOU). Having a terrain setter is really critical in SM DOU team building. Fini and Koko are kind of defaults, but Bulu is a very viable alternative, even on good teams that are not TR focused. He sets grassy terrain, which is often useful to knock out other terrains (and allow sleep moves for instance), but, together with Wood Hammer, also allows him to threaten many 0HKOs, even when he can't hit super effectively. He can run some different sets (Scarfed is awesome), but is often very bulky.
Tier 3 --> Tier 2
Lele's SM Cup usage lags Bulu's a bit, but is still impressive. She's used quite a bit more on the high ladder, however. She's often the preferred terrain setter for TR teams. I think she deserves to go along for the ride with Bulu to Tier 2. Terrain setters really are important for good teams and there are 4 viable setters. Fini and Koko are rightfully Tier 1, but Bulu and Lele deserve to be Tier 2, as they are very important, central players in a Meta dominated by terrain wars.
Tier 2--> Tier 3
This mon's SM Cup usage is in the toilet. He may have even been less used than Mega Scizor (though there might be a few CB Scizors mixed in the usage stats). He's showing T4 by SM Cup usage and is even lower in high ladder usage. Recently, he struggles to compete with Kartana, Mega Scizor and Mega Gross. Choice Scarf usage is predictable.
Tier 2--> Tier 3
Volcanion's SM Cup usage is showing T3, and he's much lower on the high ladder. He's still a great mon, but has a bad speed tier and struggles to find a place on many teams, especially with all the Incins and Finis that take up fire and water slots, and he doesn't enjoy the huge number of Kokos out there.
Tier 2--> Tier 3
Borderline in overall SM Cup usage (with no usage in the Final 4), but much lower on the high ladder. This is a mon who is very predictable and is hindered by ever present Intimidates and an abundance of Ice and Fairy users in the Meta.
Tier 4--> Tier 3
This mon saw as much usage in the SM Cup as Mega Zard and Volcanion. She's genuinely a top mon who hits extremely hard with a powered up spread move that few can resist and she is one of the best (and least predictable) TR setters for Semi Room. Intimidate support helps patch up her low Defense. She's almost universally respected by top players. It's honestly embarrassing to have her in the same tier as Aegitrash currently.
Tier 4'--> Tier 3
This mon saw almost as much usage as Politoed in the SM Cup and sees much more that Poli on the high ladder. He's got a great offensive presence with Hurricane and is a decently reliable TW setter when running Focus Sash. Pairs very synergistically with both Ludi and Mega Pert.
Tier 4--> Tier 5
Usage in SM Cup and ladder is down. Too passive and predictable with King's Shield and too much competition from other Steels.
Tier 4--> Tier 5
Usage in SM Cup and high ladder not impressive. Very passive and not very popular on top teams these days.
Tier 4--> Tier 5
Not much usage in SM Cup or on ladder. Doesn't enjoy Meta filled with rain and Landos.
Tier 5--> Tier 4
SM Cup and ladder usage is better than Tier 5. Fast Fake Out is extremely useful. There are more Volt Switch Zeraoras lately for positional advantage.
Tier 5--> Tier 4
More versatile and higher usage than Aegitrash.
Tier 5'--> Tier 4'
Usage is Tier 4/4' in SM Cup and much higher on ladder. One of the fastest Fake Outs in the game (in rain), making him one of the best leads, especially when holding a Z-Crystal nuke.
UR--> Tier 4 or 5
SM Cup usage is better than UR. Still a good mon on a number of teams with tons of resists, a useful ability that discourages the opponent from using any Fire moves and an incredibly powerful spread move.
UR--> Tier 5/5'
Usage was T4 in SM Cup. One of the best TR weather setters and a nightmare to deal with for rain teams and the many mons weak to Ice.
UR--> Tier 5/5'
Very strong attacker with the ability to set TR and break through Protect. Usage in SM Cup and high ladder shows he doesn't deserve UR.
UR--> Tier 5/5'
Very good (and one of the fastest) on Full Room teams with the ability to snowball power boosts and sweep. Usage is better than UR.
UR--> Tier 5
Very good as a TR and rain check. Usage is better than UR.
UR--> Tier 5
Come on man. Free Skymin! Also Serene Grace with Air Slash and Seed Flare, in addition to being one of the fastest TW setters.
Tier 5'-->UR
Minimal usage in SM Cup and ladder shows she doesn't deserve to be ranked.
[Note regarding Latias/Mega Latias: "Latias" was ranked 38 in SM Cup usage, which potentially justifies a T4 ranking, so I didn't think to mention it in my original post. However, the SM Cup stats don't differentiate between Mega and non-Mega, so, thinking about it, I'm not sure how many could be normal Latias, and normal/non-Mega Latias has much higher usage on the ladder. Frankly, I probably wouldn't use my Mega slot on Latias, as it works pretty well with a pinch berry, Z crystal or even AV. In light of that, I'd probably drop Mega Latias to T5 or even UR and/or raise non-Mega Latias to T5.]
Hope the PTB will see that the above list is very reasonable in light of recent usage stats. FWIW, I still believe in my heart that Whimiscott should be ranked too, but I know it's gonna take some changing of hearts and minds for that to happen...
I am usually not a fan of normal "balance teams", but I honestly believe this is the best all-around team I've ever played with. It led me to an 8-1 win loss ratio on the ladder with well over 200 games under my belt, which is a personal best and something I frankly haven't seen anyone else pull off, though I admittedly tried to avoid the most difficult matchups when possible.
I actually "borrowed" this team from observation of Therazer456, who had the highest GXE on the ladder for quite a while, though the spreads are all mine, and I have added some of my own touches, including giving Lando Scarf and Fini Haze. I'm not sure if this combination of mons has been posted elsewhere on Smogon (though competitors have told me the team was too "common", because all the mons are commonly used by good players I guess). If it has, I haven't seen it, and I honestly believe this team is at least as good as many of the Sample Teams. Most of these mons have middling speed tiers and aren't wasting their EV on speed, so they have a lot of bulk and power and can benefit from either Tailwind or Trick Room. I'm often setting both in the same match with this team! Incin and Lando cover for Gard's weak Defense and make her pretty durable. Scarfed Lando pairs very well with Zapdos, often allowing it to set up Tailwind, while Incin's Fake Out is usually all Gard needs to get up TR. Heavy HP and SpD investment, along with Misty Seed, actually gives Kart decent (and usually unexpected) special bulk, while it is still a very strong attacker. I've come to believe that, especially for purposes of laddering, it's really important to have something to counter opposing set-up, but I don't really have room for Roar on Incin (who uses Snarl very productively in TR), so I added Haze on Fini. Because there are many other hard hitters on this team, I find I don't need Calm Mind that much anyway.
My version of a perish trap team--the main idea being you can fight straight up as a strong water team and/or pull shenanigans with Politoed and Goth. If Poli goes for Perish Song, Goth can immediately switch in and seal the trap. Then all she has to do is Protect and Ally Switch on the subsequent two turns and your opponents are gone (if they can't kill her or find a way to escape the trap)--works great on relatively passive, but hard to kill water checks like Fini or Milotic. It involves too much guesswork to be really great for laddering, which is largely about consistently dispatching inferior teams, but could be decent competitively. I experimented with different supporting mons and I discovered that vested Staraptor is a joy to play with. The AV allows it to take a hit usually (as it's often switching in to Intimidate, while Brave Bird and Close Combat both hit very hard without any further boost, Quick Attack is a surprise priority STAB attack and U-turn allows for a switch.
This team is the latest fruit of a lot of pondering regarding why my Water Balance team doesn't perform better than my Mono Water team (both posted above in my earlier team drop). They both do reasonably well, but aren't my top performing teams. What would be the optimal water-based team? One thought I had is that Fini is just really good, and more consistent than Koko, so here I kept the core of Ludi, Mega Pert, Peli and Fini and threw on Thundy and Incin (the initial results are pretty decent). Another, more conservative version would have Zapdos and Scrafty instead, but it's definitely more fun to potentially 0HKO a Ferrothorn with Specs Focus Blast from Thundy, who conveniently outspeeds Mega Charizard.
I went into SM for my team Week 5 because, at that point, our SM slot was 0-4. While I could have stayed in XY for a higher likelihood to win personally, we were in a position as a team where we needed to win the week so I went with the riskier lineup.
My basic requirements for preparing into Umbry (3-1 at the time) was as follows: a) don't be weak to Cresselia; b) don't be weak to Stealth Rock; and c) don't be weak to Toxic stall. Looking at her scout, her teams seemed to steer towards being slow and reliant on defensive backbones, so things that were good at forcing the issue were what I kept in mind. As much as I wanted to use QD Volcarona into her, it was weak to SR so it was out. Another idea I had was an SemiRoom that had TR Victini / Waterium Z Araquanid / Lurantis, a composition that I had an old team prepared for which I only had to edit. However, I eventually steered away from this as I stumbled into a composition that I felt was quite good into her.
While watching last year's Classic Playoffs replays for inspiration, I happened upon DaWoblefet's game against umbry, fittingly enough, and thought to myself that the team DaWob used might be the one. I was also considering Aegislash because of how illegal it looked relative to umbry's scout, but I didn't really have any teams with Aegislash at all in my stash and was unsure on how to approach building with it. This six basically gave me what I wanted: a) not weak to SR with Volcanion only weak to it and double Steels giving two resists; b) good into Cresselia because of Metagross and Aegislash; c) and good into Toxic stall because of triple Toxic immunes. I didn't actually have a genuine copy of DaWob's team on-hand though, so I did what any respectable competitive Pokemon player would: I built a team inspired by it. That is to say, I jacked the team and gave it my own personal touch...
The sets, all things considered, are quite default. Basically every set is boring save for Volcanion and maybe Amoonguss. I went AV Volcanion on this team, perhaps as an extension of my XY experience but also because I wanted it to go into special attackers in general. Looking at the SM meta, it looked similar enough to XY wherein Volcanion is typically a tank & spank attacker that relies on absurd bulk and super effective coverage, so giving it AV looked really nice so it can be better into opposing special attackers. While I could have given this a pinch berry instead, I also really wanted HP Grass so I could have a punish to Gastrodon, which I marked as a possibility considering it's umbry. The decision to go AV Volcanion informed my decision to go physdef Lando-T, which in the meta is typically more SpDef; considering I had Amoonguss, I was good into Tapu Koko, so I wanted to be better into opposing Mega Metagross and Kartana without overrelying on my Aegislash. I went with Occa Berry Amoonguss on this team over pinch because I felt that this was generally a higher impact move in tight lines of play, getting something Spored when an opponent doesn't expect it is huge and I wanted this kind of surprise advantage. The team doesn't necessarily need Occa Berry and can probably run Sitrus or 50% pinch if needed. Dazzling Gleam on Tapu Koko over HP Ice is so the team doesn't lose to Kommo-o, it's not really weak to opposing Lando-T and Zygarde by any means.
The game itself went pretty okay, all things considered. The team looks sussy versus rain, especially one that has Landorus for some reason, but to be honest it felt pretty neutral while I was in the moment. I knew the lines of play I had to take going into Mega Swampert (who looks very dangerous to this team and is probably a reason to go Energy Ball on Amoonguss), and in case of Ludicolo (or Kingdra) I had AV Volcanion to be a bastard with. If I wanted to use this team more generally, I might go Sludge Bomb over HP Grass on Volcanion specifically for the rain matchup. Not much else to say about the game except 2x Fake Out misclick was very fortunate for me, because I went from possibly staring down Lando-I + Ludicolo with Aegislash + Volcanion to getting a double KO. Of course, we take those to the bank.
With the conclusion of another DPL (and to a lesser extent SMPL), I think it’s time for a voting round on the SM VR. It’s been a long time since the last vote, and even though the metagame hasn’t changed that much, it’s still been through quite a few tours and has an active ladder, and deserves an update.
There were some nominations made above by variationonatheme, and I have a few to add below. Hopefully anyone else will add as they see fit and we can do an update.
tier 5 -> 3. Zera has seen a lot of successful play recently, the AV variant with snarl is exceptionally good at neutralizing special attackers while still offering fake out support & pivoting. It can fit a Hidden Power to help patch up your teams weaknesses, usually either HP fire for steels or HP ice for ground/dragons, and its fantastic speed lets it get these attacks off.
Tier 4 -> 3
Aegislash is a really good anti-meta pick, good into nearly all the megas you expect to see. It’s even good against zard y if you get a sub up first, as it can either wall it with wide guard or make them burn an overheat to break the sub. It does struggle with the omnipresence of incineroar, but as long as you account for that in the team builder, it can be difficult to remove.
Replays: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7doublesou-1534130859 https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7doublesou-1543732855
Tier 3 -> Tier 2.
Kommo is very challenging for every non-fini team, and even then good Kommo teams have thought out their Fini matchup. It’s the best Z move user in the tier and is above anything else in tier 3.
Tier 2 -> Tier 3.
Zard Y needs more support than most megas: it really wants another mon to set tailwind for it, it hates how common stealth rocks are, fire resists are everywhere, etc. It’s also not really seen enough to justify it being a tier 2 mega, with only a handful of uses (and wins) in recent tours.
Agreeing with an Aegislash rise, it might just be a fad but it's pretty good right now. Actuarily mentioned needing to worry about Incineroar, but that's less fun than just using Aegislash to beat Incineroar with Z-Head Smash.
Aegislash @ Rockium Z
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 104 HP / 152 Atk / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Flash Cannon
- Head Smash
- King's Shield
Memoric suggested that I use this set when prepping for umbry, since it pairs well with the Zard Y HO I was going for. Z-Head Smash one-shots Incineroar, Volcanion, and 252/0 Kyurem-B. The real kicker though is max speed. Hitting 240 is enough to easily outspeed all Incineroar, but also creeps 252 Volcanion and will outrun most bulky Kyurem-B and Lando-T. With a Helping Hand boost, you can do 99% to a full health bulky Lando using Rockium.... even running 252 Atk isn't enough to guarantee that roll though so I'm at peace with Aegis falling slightly short in the actual game. Aegis still does its thing outside of that though, with Shadow Ball and Flash Cannon hitting their necessary targets pretty hard even without investment. A negative SpDef nature is definitely a little bit rough when it comes to tanking hits from Lele or Garde, especially when it can only afford 104 HP EVs, but I felt that Aegis couldn't afford to have lowered Def in case of a Mega Metagross sighting.
Since the SM DOU VR hasn't been updated in a while, and there's now a number of noms warranting a vote, a new unofficial council is needed! The new team will consist of emforbes, SMB (both of whom were on the previous one), Spurrific, umbry, and myself. Any noms since the last vote will be on the slate, so this post and any of the more recent ones above.
To give a chance for any remaining noms, I'll hold off voting until thisSunday night, so if there's any last noms you want to make then do it this weekend.
Time for a VR update! Interestingly, the latest changes have resulted in a small Tier 2 and massive Tier 3, so hopefully that encourages some post-Classic noms to help balance it out!
It has now been over a year since my last Gen 7/SM DOU VR noms and we have new data from the latest SM Cup. So I'll go ahead and do what I did last year, which is propose some VR changes based mostly on SM Cup data, with input from recent high ladder usage stats (both of which are available immediately below if you want to take a look) where helpful. Again, I think actual usage by good players (as in the SM Cup) is a very good objective measure of viability and such usage actually tracks our current viability rankings extremely well, so it can be a useful indicator as to when something may be a little off in the VR.
I appreciate the fact that my noms from last year were considered more seriously. Looks like about 1/4 of my noms were accepted, which beats the zero acceptances I had gotten previously.
I understand the individual votes and how you guys want to keep up quality by not giving too many up votes on proposed rises, but I think the VR Council didn't carefully consider the overall effect of all that stinginess. It really doesn't make sense to have only 4 mons in Tier 2 and 18! mons in Tier 3.
Anyway, without further ado:
Tier 2 --> Tier 1
The recent SM cup usage stats show Kart has significantly more usage (65) than Metagross (54-which number for Gross may include one or more non-Mega versions) now. Kart has a number of different viable sets, including Z move, Sash and bulky attacker. If you want to use a Mega not named Metagross or Venu, and you are not running TR or stall, Kart usually belongs on that team. Yes, I tried for this nom last year and failed, but the numbers back me up even more this time.
Tier 3 --> Tier 2
What can I say? This was also a swing and a miss last year, but Goth was the 8th most used mon in the latest SM tour, coming in at 3rd through the final 5th and 6th weeks!!! It also sported a ridiculous 65% win percentage. Based on that, I could make a case for Tier 1 (don't worry I won't). She's not used all that much on the ladder (harder to win consistently against lower level players when Goth invites guessing games), so this isn't the ladder hero in me speaking, I assure you. Goth just definitely belongs in Tier 2 given the game changing effect she has on the current SM Meta and the extremely high usage she has seen in recent tours because of that.
Tier 3--> Tier 2
I made the nom to bring this beast down to Tier 3 last year. However, the SM Cup numbers this year are clearly showing T2, as Volc is tied with Goth at 8th in cumulative usage and also sporting an awesome win percentage. Volc has a ton of good matchups and is a particularly good partner for Goth, since so many mons don't want to be trapped with him.
Tier 3--> Tier 2
I didn't touch this toadstool last time around, but in the last couple years it has done very well in SM cup usage, now tied with Diancie at 10th. It can fit on a lot of teams, even some that have Fini. There is a lot of TR out there and Amoonguss can help on such teams or against them and is the best redirector in the Meta, in addition to being the Meta's premiere sleep aid.
Tier 3--> Tier 2
This is another reversal from my recommended drop last year based on the data. I said Zyg was borderline last year. It still may be, but I think it belongs at T2, given the composition of the tier. It's a very strong mon with several viable sets.
Tier 3 --> Tier 2
Lele's SM Cup usage is very solid and a little better than last year. Its high ladder usage is even better. I believe it belongs in Tier 2. It's the best alternative to Fini and Koko as a terrain setter and the preferred option for many kinds of teams. It's great on TR or teams trying to use status and can function well on other teams that want the terrain boost for something like a Mega Metagross or Deoxys Attack or that just don't appreciate Fake Out. So, to take a step back, if all my noms were accepted (yeah right ), we'd have 6 mons in Tier 1 and 8 in Tier 2. Given the much larger size of the later tiers, I think this is perfectly reasonable and would be more helpful to players than the current lopsided VR.
Tier 4 --> Tier 3
OK, so this is weird, but it's fair to say Gastrodon is kinda wet (lolz) atm. This thing is showing borderline T2/T3 based on the SM Cup usage (14th most used). It's up a LOT from last year. I think that deserves to be reflected in the VR. It can pull its weight (all 66 pounds!) on a lot of teams and is one of the best water counters out there (water being a pretty big thing in SM).
Tier 4 --> Tier 3
I was pushing to get this into T2 last year. SM Cup usage actually justified T2 then. It doesn't this year, but it definitely belongs in T3 at least. It still had more usage this year (19) than T3 staples like Zapdos and Kingdra. As one of 4 terrain setters (and one that can KO all the rest in one hit with its terrain set), fitting well on a number of teams (including ones seeking to exploit status or wanting healing for stall--it can be set up for use in TR or Tailwind), it's really a key part of the Meta for this Gen and doesn't deserve to be relegated to T4.
Tier 3 --> Tier 4
So, after being 29th in SM Cup usage last year, this bug now clocks in at 43th in usage, tied with Bronzong, and with less uses than Celesteela and only 1 more than Heatran. It's potentially a very good mon, and we all remember it as such, but the Meta seems to have shifted even further away from it, given other steel choices (particularly Kart for teams Genesect wants to be a part of). There are also a number of other good pivots out there.
Tier 3 --> Tier 4
Am I just anti-bug? No. This was tied with Lurantis, Camerupt and Excadrill at 35th/38th in SM Cup usage this year, down significantly from last year. It's almost never seen on the high ladder. It wants to set up and the opposition knows that and has plenty of viable options to stop it from doing so. It's also quite allergic to rocks in much the same way Mega Zard (who was taken down a notch last year) is.
Tier 4 --> Tier 5
"Latias", which includes the Mega and non-Mega versions, only had 7 uses (tied for 48th) in the recent SM Cup (such that usage for this particular mon was more likely 3-5), less than Heatran or an "Ampharos" (whatever that is--no I'm not nomming everything based only on one tour's usage stats). It's very rarely seen on the high ladder. It's just not that great--always getting pegged by U-turns and Icebeams and not as good at support as Cress.
Tier 4--> Tier 5
With only 3 uses in the recent SM Cup, less than many UR mon, Nihilego isn't showing Tier 4. Although potentially powerful, it's a niche mon that doesn't easily fit on most teams and its numerous weaknesses, especially to the everpresent ground, can be tough to overcome.
Tier 5' --> Tier 4'
I don't get the Ludi disrespectors. He's great on rain. He was 32nd in usage in SM Cup with 17 uses, well ahead of Swampert with 10 (Mega and non-Mega versions), tied with Pelipper and only one behind Kingdra (Ludi had a much better win percentage). He's used much more than Kingdra on the high ladder. The numbers for him are very consistent. Maybe T3 could be a stretch (though I personally think he belongs with Kingdra), but he's not a 'T5 mon any more than other rain team staples would be.
Tier 5' --> Tier 4'
At 35th, this mon got as much usage as Volcarona in the recent SM Cup and more than Suicune. Both Tyranitar and Mega Tyranitar are ranked, and Excadrill is really their only viable choice for a Sand Rush partner. Groundium Z and Sash sets are both great and, with a Swords Dance, this thing can be an unstoppable sweeper.
Tier 5 --> Tier 4
This mon was tied for 18th in usage in the SM cup. That's def T3, but I'm just going to recommend her for T4. She's very versatile, a premiere Room setter and support mon with a useful ground immunity.
Tier 5 drops and adds: and only had 1 usage each in the recent SM Cup. had 0. I'd make them UR. Meanwhile, the following currently UR mons saw more significant SM Cup usage: (8), (5), (5) and (5). I'd put them in T5 (or 5'). TR is very viable and having slow mons on non TR teams is a common TR defense. These mons are all very solid and commonly seen in the SM Meta. T5 should also follow actual use--Tsareena, for instance, is a good mon with an awesome ability, but in SM I see Ferrothorn (and worry about how to ensure my team can KO it) much more and I'd frankly find it easier to fit Ferrothorn on my own team (e.g., for stall or water/TR defense).
I signed up for olympics on a whim this year after seeing that the format was changed to SM and Swiss. Not sure if I'll play classic next year or not since I abstained from it this year so figured it was a nice time to get some SM games in. I built all my teams and while they're probably not the best this thread has a noticeable lack of teamdumps so why not. Spreads are mostly from calc sets because even after winning SMPL I still have no clue what like 20% of the tier runs. I went 3-1 in sets/6-2 in games which I think is a bit better than the 4-3 I pulled out of SMPL.
I used this against spurrific and enzonana. Basically I just wanted a Charizard + Phero offense but I like a bit more control than a full button clicker psyspam so I went for bulky lando, goth, and aegislash for support. Goth + Pheromosa is an optimal lead in a lot of matchups, as you have to respect charizard either with its natural checks or your rocker, and phero matches up well into both. This is probably my favorite team of the bunch.
Another team I really liked, used against meminger in its first iteration and against spurrific in the second. I originally was gonna make some super dumb bulksquad for meminger with like 6 recovery mons and infinite bulk but I figured since he was on ducks with SMB he could probably load venusaur at any time and I should respect that. I played the meminger game really bad but the burns game pretty well so I guess it events out. The double z here is a little interesting, but I think elec z zera is a cool way to check charizard balances, while the HOs should be owned by goth + volc + prio. Ground z kb is for things that dont expect a 170 bp ground move their way. I would probably refine this a few more times before bringing it to something like a DPL game but yeah I enjoyed it!
- i lost the paste to this but its like all default calc sets oops
uhhh cruch told me we had to play a bo3 and not a bo1 and I went into panic mode. I just loaded metagross into charizard and only won because I got hella turns right so I figured I should load the most I hate charizard team of all time. I only won the game because crunch is bad and his scarf lando tied my koko and i won the tie, the team is pretty clickery, wouldn't really use again.
really fun concept i thought of based on vgc 18 teams, i brought this to g2 vs enzo and pulled stax hail where I thought the team performed really well. just a bulk squad with a lot of nice synergy between double steel / double intim / the longevity of triple recovery. there's probably a few combos this team wouldn't like facing but overall I felt pretty confident with it.
metalele because I didnt wanna get venusaured. this team was a result of my paranoia over the venusaur mu after playing it twice in SMPL. I pulled a metagross squad instead and felt like i was behind the whole time bc meminger just loaded something better. maybe i'll try to fix this.
VGC 18 metafini but amoon -> chansey because i dont respect amoon in this tier or something. after the game stax called me bad and said i shouldve used naga > zap which feels correct but zap did help somewhat in the games. i used the full six metafini guys once or twice in smpl and felt like Amoonguss was mid even when I hit into hard tr, this team (and the SMPL games I played with metachans) are really what sent me into full chansey addiction.
Wow. It’s November already. Gen 9 is going to drop in a couple of weeks and will get a lot of attention. I wanted to get a post on the fate of the Gen 7 DOU ladder out before then.
I actually ran into DaWoblefet on the Gen 7 DOU ladder recently and he said he was taking a last moment to enjoy it before it came down next (i.e., this) month. I understand that’s been planned for a while. However, to me and many other regular players on the Gen 7 DOU ladder I’ve spoken with, that seems like a terrible idea. I'd like to share some thoughts on behalf of that community, who largely have no other voice here.
Without further ado, here are the Top 10 Reasons to Save the Gen 7 DOU Ladder:
1. Reinstating the Gen 7 DOU ladder after Gen 8 dropped has been a huge success. According to the stats, there were 41,639 battles fought on the Gen 7 DOU ladder in September 2021. It was 39,968 in September 2022. After nearly 3 years of being an Old Gens ladder, that’s incredibly stable, and it's almost twice the number of battles played on the Gen 8 DUU ladder. For comparison, the BDSP Doubles (i.e, Gen 4) ladder was added recently and had 109,845 battles in May 2022, but that collapsed to 3,706 battles by September 2022! For the Gen 7 DOU ladder, It’s still pretty easy to get matches at a high level during peak play times and the top of the ladder is more competitive than it has been in quite a while (a couple years back, a mid-1700s ELO would often get you to the top, whereas currently several players are over 1800 and vying for the top spot).
2. Gen 7 DOU is the best format for Doubles. I'm sure that will offend some people, but it's true (and surveys back that up). I know there is a lot of love in the Doubles tour bros community for Gens 5 and 6, and that’s fine. However, Gen 7 is the culmination of that line, with Megas supplemented by Z Crystals, pinch berries, HPs and of course terrain and weather wars. It is the height of Doubles gaming. Frankly, I’d be happy enough to have a permanent Old Gens doubles ladder that rotated (say 3 months for each of Gens 5, 6, 7 and 8). However, I’m told that previous attempts at putting up other Old Gens doubles ladders didn’t work out well, and I am not sure if the unwashed masses (i.e., average ladder players) would be able to keep the ladder active with those constant changes. However, trying this option would be much much better than having no Old Gens ladder option at all for doubles going forward!
3. Gen 8 DOU had serious problems and Gen 9 looks likely to have similar issues. I know many grew to enjoy Gen 8 DOU, but let’s be honest and admit it had issues. The primary gimmick of the generation (Dynamax) got banned, so there was nothing to replace Megas and Z Crystals (also, the changes in Tailwind and weather effectiveness, the addition of powered up priority Grassy Glide and ridiculous mon like Regieleki messed up established speed control mechanics). Although we don’t yet know all the specifics about how the new gimmick in Gen 9 will be implemented, having a Pokemon essentially be able to change its typing in battle, without spending a turn to do so (such that there’s no way to know how to counter it before it does so and attacks), seems like it could be problematic as well, and there’s a non-trivial chance that it winds up banned.
4. Pokemon Showdown and the Doubles Community have shown impressive growth. Showdown has enjoyed tremendous growth in recent years. See: User Stats. The Doubles ladders have done great too. The Gen 8 DOU ladder (i.e., current gen) featured 157,459 battles in September of 2020. By September 2022 that number was 274,814! The presence of the Gen 7 DOU ladder clearly did not seem to harm the Gen 8 DOU ladder's growth.
5. Singles has 7 (soon to be 8) Old Gens ladders for OU, and that hasn’t led to major problems. Some of these ladders have less traffic than the Gen 7 DOU ladder: Gen 2 OU, for instance had 9,321 battles in September of 2022. If Singles can support 8 Old Gens ladders, we in the Doubles Community can at least support 1! (and, as discussed above, Gen 7 is the most viable of the Old Gens--If Gen 8 DOU ends up very similar to Gen 9, with no Megas or Z-Crystals and a banned central gimmick, I don't see any point in replacing the Gen 7 ladder with it.)
6. Just because most Doubles players no longer frequent the Gen 7 DOU ladder is no reason to ditch it. So you no longer like the Gen 7 DOU ladder (of course, the mark of the true Tour Bro is that you don't even like the current gen ladder)? OK. Others do. Why not respect that? I personally have no interest in the Old Gens Singles ladders (and most players don’t), but that’s no reason to ditch those ladders either. The Gen 7 DOU ladder has more traffic than many other ladders that aren't under threat.
7. Keeping the Gen 7 DOU ladder hasn’t divided the Doubles community, but rather expanded it. The “dividing the community” line is one of the most frequently used arguments against maintenance of the Gen 7 DOU ladder. Yet, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Do we say that about DUU or DUbers? There are people who prefer those formats and may play them almost exclusively, but they are still part of the Doubles community. By having more options, people are more likely to stick around in the community (e.g., when Gen 8 first dropped it was less playable and enjoyable, with fewer Pokemon and the unpopular Dynamax). If we ditch the Gen 7 DOU ladder and Gen 9 turns out to be a stinker (as many felt about Gen 8), or even just not very playable in the beginning of the generation, we risk losing significant numbers of doubles players (either to other formats, or [shudder] to other online games). There have recently been a number of Chinese players getting interested in Gen 7 DOU. The current top Chinese player is basically writing a book length analysis, with over 40K characters so far (in Chinese), though he hasn't published it yet. Here is a different take on the VR from the top Japanese player: alternate ranking analysis. It may seem a bit amusing, given our VR, but there are some interesting ideas that are out of the box at least.
8. Remember Da Badda Fa Da Ladda! Link: Badda Fa Ladda. Last year one of the best doubles players in history, with incredible superpowers as a Global Admin, mounted a surprise assault on the Gen 7 DOU ladder, threatening to take it down immediately. Only the bravery of 6 Pomemon (2 of whom are sadly unranked in the VR) and a cheesy set-up strategy were able to stop him at the last minute. Let us never forget the sacrifices made.
9. Doing something (like taking down all Old Gens ladders for Doubles) for no other reason than that that’s the way it has been done in the past is silly. 'Nuff said.
10. Everyone said the Gen 7 DOU ladder couldn’t be saved after Gen 8 dropped. Somehow it got reinstated and the last 2.5+ years have been great for those of us who love it. The odds are even longer this time, but nothing is impossible.
Last time there was a November new Gen drop (2019), the Gen 7 DOU ladder stayed up till January (and the Doubles chat room thereafter filled up with people begging for Gen 7 DOU matches). Then the ladder was reinstated in March (not sure if my e-mail to Zarel made a difference in that decision, but I really appreciated their response).
My personal recommendation would be to at least leave the Gen 7 DOU ladder up for a few months and see how things shake out. I’m sure traffic would go down a lot with people trying out the new gen, but would it bounce back to something sustainable? If there’s no traffic at all after 5 or 6 months, that’s a decent reason to take down the Gen 7 DOU ladder, but if the demand is still there, we as a community of doubles players have much more to lose than to gain by taking it down and eliminating Doubles playing options, even as the Doubles player base massively expands.
My 2 cents. Thank you for reading and considering.
Background: After getting to the top of the ladder a number of times over the years, I partly turned my attention to GXE, which seemed to me a better measure of player skill generally than ELO. After playing for several years, I’d upped my game incrementally from 90, 91, 92, 93 and 94. I was playing a team that had gotten up to 94.4 as a main alt, and I just got pretty stressed about it (worried I’d lose that ranking) and gave up (I know it doesn’t make much sense, but a lot of players deal with similar self-induced stress).
I saw a couple of really good players, including DaWob and someone who must remain nameless (think Voldemort), come on the ladder after significant hiatuses and rack up incredible GXEs (though those could fall fast too), and I realized that the GXE calculation system heavily prioritizes new games, such that when you haven’t played for a while, your GXE becomes incredibly volatile, to the downside, but also, intriguingly, to the upside.
Strategy: As a man of many alts, I dusted off a number or my older alts that I hadn’t played in quite a while (generally, over a year), but that had decent records (most previously corresponding to low 90s GXE if there were enough games on them). Might have been around 8-10 of these (most had fewer than 50 games played, but the ones with 100+ seemed to do better in terms of juicing GXE). I played loosely at first and simply ditched the alts where I lost). Later on, I more carefully cultivated the few where I was winning. The one referenced above in particular had good results.
I then used extensive scouting to pick my battles. The ideal opponent had between 65-80 GXE (and usually 1300-1500 ELO ranking, which ranking was only meaningful for matching ease, since ELO was not important for this strategy)—easy enough to consistently beat with a good team, but not so easy that there would be no GXE payoff. I developed a list of around 10 names of good players and/or really bad match ups (my No Fly List) and would search for each of them before playing any games. I’d also be looking at the public matches being played to make sure I didn’t see anything too worrisome. Then I had a designated scouting team to check for surprises. Generally, only after the scouting team had played a match or two and was searching but couldn’t find anyone for a few minutes (indicating an absence of very high level players) would I play. I’d also want to identify at least one positive match candidate online. The negative scouting was much more effective (though I still ran into a couple of people on my No Fly List during this GXE run, including a guy who was beating me, but then went AWOL and timed out, though he has a habit of doing that--can't say I didn't have good luck--though it felt almost spiritual to me at times and drove home to me that so much is beyond our control), but maybe 1/4-1/3 of the time I did run into the team I had hoped to match with and the results were good.
Results: Playing an old alt was weird. At first, I’d have wins and the Glicko would go up significantly, but the +- on the Glicko score (which seems to represent the system's uncertainty with a player's ability and generally goes down the more frequently matches are played) would actually go up too. This is relevant because only at or under 99 or sometimes 100+- will the GXE actually show up. So I started playing with a +- of around 120 or 130 I guess. It took about 20 games (according to my best estimates after checking some replays), though it seemed like more, to get to 100+-, and at that point I had a 96 GXE and saved the screen shot. I was pretty amazed, since I had conservatively been hoping to get a 95 GXE, but I kept playing and for some reason kept winning.
Since I had GXE screenshots, I can say that it then took 27 battles to get from 96 to 97.6 GXE. It was getting a lot tougher toward the end (4 battles just to get from 97.4 to 97.5). Any single loss would likely result in about 1 point of GXE disappearing and any streak effectively being over. So that’s really it. It took me several months, as for the last couple months I was only playing about once or twice a week. It was hard to find safe battles many days (people I don’t want to risk playing can stay on for hours at a time), but I also intentionally let the Glicko get back up to 100+- (it moves about 1/3-1/2 of a point up every day you don’t play), thinking it might increase the volatility. It was a streak of around 47 wins, which is no doubt a personal best for me. It’s not uncommon for good players to get 30+ straight wins in ladder suspects, but I will say it may be a bit harder when you are starting from 1500 or 1499 ELO (where ladder decay leaves old teams that previously were higher ranked) and mostly you are playing ranked around 1600 ELO, meaning you will draw people from the top of the ladder if they are on and searching.
I got the team makeup from a Chinese friend who was a great ladder player. The spreads and move choices are my own. Just a couple of thoughts: Seems most people dump Chansey's extra EVs into HP, when they are more efficiently deployed in Special Defense. This makes it even more of a special wall, while it still has good physical bulk. Zygarde probably doesn’t have to have so many EVs in speed, but I lost a mirror match with my Chinese creator friend when his outsped mine, so I’ve just kept this spread for my run. This team has good switches for almost everything, but you need to be wary of unexpected Fighting, Fire and Ice coverage, which can be tough, as if you start losing team members the switching ability can collapse. Since this is largely a stall team, with Chansey and Ferrothorn often serving as wincons, set up teams can be very tough to deal with, which makes Haze on Fini really amazing.
(Side Note: My runner up alt (which happened to be my namesake, variationonatheme) had gotten to 96.4 GXE. Then I ended up rushing a match, after an overly emotional win on a different alt, and I totally thought this guy had set Trick Room when he actually just set Sunny Day. I got clobbered the next turn. Ooops. Very hard to maintain the concentration necessary to maximize wins.)
So that’s something interesting to do on the ladders, other than chase ELO rankings. I don’t expect many people to try something like this with GXE (since few seem to care about it), but hopefully this can serve as at least a rough roadmap in case someone ever wants to give it a shot.
1. Reinstating the Gen 7 DOU ladder after Gen 8 dropped has been a huge success. According to the stats, there were 41,639 battles fought on the Gen 7 DOU ladder in September 2021. It was 39,968 in September 2022. After nearly 3 years of being an Old Gens ladder, that’s incredibly stable, and it's almost twice the number of battles played on the Gen 8 DUU ladder. For comparison, the BDSP Doubles (i.e, Gen 4) ladder was added recently and had 109,845 battles in May 2022, but that collapsed to 3,706 battles by September 2022! For the Gen 7 DOU ladder, It’s still pretty easy to get matches at a high level during peak play times and the top of the ladder is more competitive than it has been in quite a while (a couple years back, a mid-1700s ELO would often get you to the top, whereas currently several players are over 1800 and vying for the top spot).
I'm not sure what success you are describing. You're comparing a last gen meta to a side game format. Those numbers are pretty comparable when looking at the OU stats. 38431 BDSPOU matches in the month of October this year, compared to 265157 Gen 7 OU matches. I speculate that Gen 8 formats will see a similar trend, as people don't always like change and take time to transition to new formats.
2. Gen 7 DOU is the best format for Doubles. I'm sure that will offend some people, but it's true (and surveys back that up). I know there is a lot of love in the Doubles tour bros community for Gens 5 and 6, and that’s fine. However, Gen 7 is the culmination of that line, with Megas supplemented by Z Crystals, pinch berries, HPs and of course terrain and weather wars. It is the height of Doubles gaming. Frankly, I’d be happy enough to have a permanent Old Gens doubles ladder that rotated (say 3 months for each of Gens 5, 6, 7 and 8). However, I’m told that previous attempts at putting up other Old Gens doubles ladders didn’t work out well, and I am not sure if the unwashed masses (i.e., average ladder players) would be able to keep the ladder active with those constant changes. However, trying this option would be much much better than having no Old Gens ladder option at all for doubles going forward!
This is a rather subjective claim and I don't think it has much to stand on in terms of being an argument. We all have our formats we think of as the "best" but there is no definitive best. I'm not sure of what survey you are thinking of but I doubt it has the opinions of all of the most active users on the site. When it comes to a rotating ladder, ROA spotlight is what that is used for. It's unfair to think DOU should get its own rotating ladder when there are plenty of other sub formats that would ask for the same thing.
3. Gen 8 DOU had serious problems and Gen 9 looks likely to have similar issues. I know many grew to enjoy Gen 8 DOU, but let’s be honest and admit it had issues. The primary gimmick of the generation (Dynamax) got banned, so there was nothing to replace Megas and Z Crystals (also, the changes in Tailwind and weather effectiveness, the addition of powered up priority Grassy Glide and ridiculous mon like Regieleki messed up established speed control mechanics). Although we don’t yet know all the specifics about how the new gimmick in Gen 9 will be implemented, having a Pokemon essentially be able to change its typing in battle, without spending a turn to do so (such that there’s no way to know how to counter it before it does so and attacks), seems like it could be problematic as well, and there’s a non-trivial chance that it winds up banned.
This argument is based around speculation and I don't quite see how it argues why sm dou should keep a ladder.
Pokemon formats don't need gimmicks to be good. Gen 8 establishes itself as the dynamic speed meta, and that alone carves it a huge niche in doubles. Dynamic speed offers unique interactions between pokemon that hasn't been seen till now. Gen 9 might release with some issues, but that is common to see within pokemon. Give it a few years though and those problems will be ironed out.
4. Pokemon Showdown and the Doubles Community have shown impressive growth. Showdown has enjoyed tremendous growth in recent years. See: User Stats. The Doubles ladders have done great too. The Gen 8 DOU ladder (i.e., current gen) featured 157,459 battles in September of 2020. By September 2022 that number was 274,814! The presence of the Gen 7 DOU ladder clearly did not seem to harm the Gen 8 DOU ladder's growth.
While this is a cool statistic, I don't see how it shows that sm dou ladder is doing anything for the growth of the dou scene. There is no real way to determine what caused the spike in interest just by looking at this statistic, and I don't think there is any argument that featuring old gens in things hurts a format's popularity
5. Singles has 7 (soon to be 8) Old Gens ladders for OU, and that hasn’t led to major problems. Some of these ladders have less traffic than the Gen 7 DOU ladder: Gen 2 OU, for instance had 9,321 battles in September of 2022. If Singles can support 8 Old Gens ladders, we in the Doubles Community can at least support 1! (and, as discussed above, Gen 7 is the most viable of the Old Gens--If Gen 8 DOU ends up very similar to Gen 9, with no Megas or Z-Crystals and a banned central gimmick, I don't see any point in replacing the Gen 7 ladder with it.)
OU is the main format on forums. Dou is in a similar to formats like UU and NU, etc. and is considered a sub category. The doubles playerbase is considerably small and considering that formats like UU only have current gen ladder to play on despite being around longer than dou, I'd consider us lucky to have our one old gens ladder.
The argument of sm being the most "viable" format is a moot point. It's impossible to determine why sm ladder is so active compared to formats like gsc. It could be like you said, where multiple people think that having a form of gimmick is what makes a format good, or it could be due to the format still being more recent than the others. It could also be due to ss lacking a real national dex. Regardless of what it is, it's impossible to determine the reasoning and silly to make decisions on assumptions.
6. Just because most Doubles players no longer frequent the Gen 7 DOU ladder is no reason to ditch it. So you no longer like the Gen 7 DOU ladder (of course, the mark of the true Tour Bro is that you don't even like the current gen ladder)? OK. Others do. Why not respect that? I personally have no interest in the Old Gens Singles ladders (and most players don’t), but that’s no reason to ditch those ladders either. The Gen 7 DOU ladder has more traffic than many other ladders that aren't under threat.
A lot of this goes back to the point of Doubles not being a main format, and that if there is going to be a single old gens ladder it should be the most recent gen. While many "tour bros" don't care to play on ladder, I don't think such opinions on ladder are what determine if a ladder should stay or not. If that was the case, there wouldn't be a ladder because the tour bros hate it.
7. Keeping the Gen 7 DOU ladder hasn’t divided the Doubles community, but rather expanded it. The “dividing the community” line is one of the most frequently used arguments against maintenance of the Gen 7 DOU ladder. Yet, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Do we say that about DUU or Dubers? There are people who prefer those formats and may play them almost exclusively, but they are still part of the Doubles community. By having more options, people are more likely to stick around in the community (e.g., when Gen 8 first dropped it was less playable and enjoyable, with fewer Pokemon and the unpopular Dynamax). If we ditch the Gen 7 DOU ladder and Gen 9 turns out to be a stinker (as many felt about Gen 8), or even just not very playable in the beginning of the generation, we risk losing significant numbers of doubles players (either to other formats, or [shudder] to other online games). There have recently been a number of Chinese players getting interested in Gen 7 DOU. The current top Chinese player is basically writing a book length analysis, with over 40K characters so far (in Chinese), though he hasn't published it yet. Here is a different take on the VR from the top Japanese player: alternate ranking analysis. It may seem a bit amusing, given our VR, but there are some interesting ideas that are out of the box at least.
Old gens are supported very heavily in the doubles community. We have our own Classic Cup, and if you were to join the Official Doubles Discord you would see there is plenty of interest in old gens that takes place, with many people talking about the different old gens as roa olympics tour takes place. With adv doubles being part of the roa spotlight this month, lots of active dou players are playing the format and are enjoying it. I don't think there is any argument that an old gen ladder will divide the community. I think this is again a case of you not recognizing that this is a decision based around a game's release, and not around personal opinion.
It is cool that some Chinese players have been playing sm dou, but there have also been a number of Chinese players that have gotten into ss dou. Not sure how this is an argument for keeping a gen 7 ladder.
8. Remember Da Badda Fa Da Ladda! Link: Badda Fa Ladda. Last year one of the best doubles players in history, with incredible superpowers as a Global Admin, mounted a surprise assault on the Gen 7 DOU ladder, threatening to take it down immediately. Only the bravery of 6 Pomemon (2 of whom are sadly unranked in the VR) and a cheesy set-up strategy were able to stop him at the last minute. Let us never forget the sacrifices made.
9. Doing something (like taking down all Old Gens ladders for Doubles) for no other reason than that that’s the way it has been done in the past is silly. 'Nuff said.
10. Everyone said the Gen 7 DOU ladder couldn’t be saved after Gen 8 dropped. Somehow it got reinstated and the last 2.5+ years have been great for those of us who love it. The odds are even longer this time, but nothing is impossible.
This argument can be applied to many things. I love adv and bw doubles. However I understand that it wouldn't make sense to just have my favorite formats be the only ones available. You can still ask people for old gen games, and sign up for old gen tours hosted on here. I know you hate "tour bros" and think you don't have time to enter tournaments, but with how much time you spend on ladder I think you could manage a tour. I implore you to try signing up for SM Cup next year as you should enjoy it.
But yeah, a lot of your points seemed to be fueled by personal bias or speculation so felt like saying something.
Tier 2 --> Tier 1
Tier 3 --> Tier 2
Tier 3 --> Tier 2
Tier 2--> Tier 3
Tier 2--> Tier 3
Tier 2--> Tier 3
Tier 4--> Tier 3
Tier 4--> Tier 5
Tier 4--> Tier 5
Tier 4--> Tier 5
Tier 5--> Tier 4
Tier 5--> Tier 4
UR--> Tier 4 or 5
UR--> Tier 5/5'
UR--> Tier 5/5'
UR--> Tier 5/5'
UR--> Tier 5
UR--> Tier 5
Tier 5'-->UR
Tier 3--> Tier 2
), we'd have 6 mons in Tier 1 and 8 in Tier 2. Given the much larger size of the later tiers, I think this is perfectly reasonable and would be more helpful to players than the current lopsided VR.
Tier 4 --> Tier 3
Tier 3 --> Tier 4
Tier 5' --> Tier 4'
Tier 5 --> Tier 4
only had 1 usage each in the recent SM Cup. 
had 0. I'd make them UR. Meanwhile, the following currently UR mons saw more significant SM Cup usage: 
(5) and 
