Metagame XY Doubles OU (VR Post #2, Samples Post #3)

[talkingtree]

I didn't have the greatest tour performance this year, but I wanted to share some of the teams that did work and some of the ideas that are actually worth sharing. Click the sprites for a pokepaste; I don't remember what a lot of the spreads do but if you really need to know, feel free to ask and you might get lucky with my remembering the answer (Scroll down for my favorite, the Mega Camerupt team).

Week 1 vs Yellow Paint --
I wanted to go with something more comfortable for week 1, and after I made a few quick uninspiring builds Bagel also noticed that Diancie + Gastro looked pretty solid into Paint's teams from last year. This was largely inspired by the team Idyll made last year, with a few other changes for things that I prefer and slight changes to the meta. Substitute Mega Gengar is a huge comfort pick for me, but also helped with Amoonguss. Diancie should probably be Safety Goggles on this team, Hard Stone was a greed pick because Paint wasn't a huge Amoonguss user. Gastrodon is typically better off with Toxic > Protect as well, but with Paint's more offensive style I felt Protect was better here. The game itself was a bit of a haxfest, but I felt alright about how the team performed and somehow squeaked out a win with some well-timed flinches.

As far as possible changes, Conkeldurr could maybe be Iron Fist on this team since Gastrodon already discourages the usage of Steam Eruption. Speaking of Gastrodon, my spread here was also a bit greedy (and I later fixed in in my Week 6 team, more on that later). Here, the greed got punished because Paint's Conkeldurr shouldn't have been able to get that KO with a better, more defensive, spread. I also am probably using the wrong Gastrodon forme for the vibes of the team -- blue Gastro here is just my bias showing.

Week 2 vs Idyll/Memoric --
Normally I wouldn't bother talking about a pretty standard-looking Kang Deo-S team, but there were a few techs that I think paid off even if the game didn't end up the way I'd hoped. Fran brought up the idea of Substitute Mega Kangaskhan, which was a great twist on the general idea and really popped off in testing. Many people will play around Mega Kang by switching to a Helmet user or using Protect to dodge Fake Out, giving it a free chance to set up Substitute. This also helps it evade Toxic users like Gastrodon and Aegislash. I should've been more careful to not target a Helmet mon with Seismic Toss, but the set definitely has potential if anyone else wants to run with it.

As far as other techs, Volcanion was originally Flame Charge > Hidden Power Ice as a 4th move, but I was too eager to use my clever tech in testing and kept clicking it at times where it lost me the game, so I reluctantly changed to something that would give me a panic button answer to Mega Salamence... which later proceeded to crush me along with redirection from Blastoise. Oh well. I almost also brought Lum Berry Taunt Deoxys-S (and Helmet SR Lando-T) instead, geared towards preventing non-Taunt Thundurus from paralyzing it, but Taunt was becoming more and more popular as time went on anyway, so I stuck with the more standard Deoxys-S variant.

Week 6 vs SingleThunder --
I had really underperformed to my expectations up to this point in the season, and finally inspiration struck with this squad. In tests and actual games I was getting rolled by CB Genesect, so I was on the lookout for anything that had a decent matchup into it. Enter Mega Camerupt, a forgotten legend of ORAS past and, conveniently enough, a fun pick for my opponent in particular due to their history with it. I immediately realized that it might also be able to do some fun things into other common threats like Volcanion, Thundurus, and Amoonguss, and got to work crafting a team around it. The key set appeared to be Substitute with Stealth Rock support, which accomplished the following:

calcs

252+ SpA Sheer Force Camerupt-Mega Earth Power vs. 248 HP / 204 SpD Assault Vest Volcanion: 270-318 (74.3 - 87.6%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Sheer Force Camerupt-Mega Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Amoonguss: 390-462 (90.2 - 106.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock (many run more SpDef than this, so I never played as if it was guaranteed)
Sub takes:
4+ SpA Thundurus Hidden Power Ice vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Camerupt-Mega: 56-66 (16.3 - 19.2%) -- possible 6HKO
0 SpA Amoonguss Giga Drain vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Camerupt-Mega: 67-81 (19.5 - 23.6%) -- possible 5HKO
56 Atk Kangaskhan-Mega Sucker Punch vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Camerupt-Mega: 73-87 (21.2 - 25.3%) -- 0.2% chance to 4HKO
-2 252 Atk Landorus-Therian Superpower vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Camerupt-Mega: 71-84 (20.6 - 24.4%) -- guaranteed 5HKO (Intimidate + using it once)

Bronzong was the perfect Camerupt partner, with its ability to set all of TR, SR, and Sun. I almost greeded Heatproof, thinking that everyone would just presume Levitate and never bother to check, but I'm very glad I didn't because it might've lost the game when SingleThunder kept me honest. Gastrodon was another obvious bring, supporting Camerupt with Storm Drain and Helmet/Toxic chip to help it clean, and it had done so well beside Diancie earlier that I brought back that duo. For the last two slots, I committed to full TR which felt like it was due for a bit of a resurgence. Cresselia just doesn't die and also offers a secondary wincon, and Hitmontop enables TR setting and offers Intimidate support for Camerupt's Sub and Cresselia's setup.

There are definitely a few choices here that lean on this team's strength into SingleThunder's tendencies from the tour, but it's honestly strong into a lot of the meta right now and almost won me a few tests that I had no business making close. The game went about as smoothly as possible, with the key turn being Turn 5, where I realized there was a good shot I could set up a Sub and give Camerupt free reign to start spamming attacks. Even with two missed Heat Waves, it still got 4 kills this game. I understand why half of this team is UR on the current VR, but I honestly wasn't making team choices to flex or be different; these are just the best 6 Pokemon for the job I had in mind.

This is the fixed Gastrodon spread I alluded to earlier -- instead of substantial SpA investment, it leans more into the defensive niches filled by our favorite slug. The new spread underspeeds min Speed Conkeldurr, takes +SpA Deo-A Psycho Boost, and takes two Knock Offs from LO Bisharp since the second hit will be targetting itemless Gastro. There are surely better benchmarks out there, but the key is that Gastrodon can tank more hits, especially physically. Bronzong almost had random Hypnosis somewhere (probably over Sunny Day), but I didn't feel confident in my ability to hit. Hitmontop has a variety of different viable items, including Eject Button and Shed Shell, both of which I tested but neither quite came in handy.

~~~

There was a pretty clear connection between the weeks where I found/made the time to prep and the weeks where I at least had a solid game -- it took a while, but the lesson has finally sunk in that I have to try to be good at the game. With how busy life has kept me, this might mean that this was my last tournament (a bold claim, I know). Just in case it is, I wanted to give a big thank you to everyone on Thieves for making it as positive an experience as possible, especially Fran bage1 and Toxigen for helping me with significant testing, building input, and moral support over the weeks.

 

[laptops]

I had a lot of fun playing xy this dpl; it's become my favorite tier by far! It was my first dpl as a starter and I am more than satisfied with my 5-2 record.

as a student of qsns i was very encouraged to just bring the brokens. This is exactly what I did for the entirety of the time the storms were in playoff contention and it worked quite well. I feel like mega+conk+ltv teams are readily available and you can check memo's ltv dissertation for more info on why this structure is so potent. The rest of my teams included sample rain (lol) and two unserious teams (gorgeist sun/stoutland sand) which I likely wouldn't have brought had those games mattered. If you're interested in any of these teams shoot me a dm and maybe i'll throw them in the dump thread

I was, however, really proud of the team I brought in my final dpl x game vs talkingtree

Team Report

It is one of my favorite teams I've built in quite a while and I think shows that you can get away with bringing unconventional/unmeta structures and still be competitive. I believe Kyle put it well in his dpl 8 wrapup post

As I have famously said, I think you can win in XY with just about anything and I still believe that. I think what is in tier 4 and what is just outside of it exist in this weird cloud of viability where we see a few bits at a time--there are only so many games in a tournament--but if you’re feeling a little wild stuff... Try some cool Pokémon in xy if you’re feeling it.

The xy metagame has seen a large move towards bulky offense, with many mons opting to max out defensive investment and look to win the game through outtrading their opponent. This week I was wanting to show that you don't have to use low t sets in xy to win.

I started off with the combination of offensive mence+ aegi. With bulky toxic aegi seeing a crazy surge in usage I felt like an offensive set could could get the jump on my opponent and surprise them with its damage output. Mence is a great partner for aegi because it can help chunk common aegi switchings like av volcanion with its flying stab, while wide guard aegislash can keep mence save from threatening spread moves (ie. hyper voice and rock slide).

I wanted fighting coverage in this slot. AV conk probably also does well enough here, but with only mence outspeeding base 100's I wanted something that could be immediately threatening to kang, and given that I would be setting up rain, another water resist definitely helps being able to switch into steam eruptions.

Mence teams naturally need to have a hard stop to thundurus-i to be able function well, and I gave this job to its brother thundurus-t. This guy hits like a truck, especially with specs. Most people who run this guy in xy opt for a wimpy low t av set and just like with aegi I thought the surprise factor of fully offensive could catch opponents off guard and net some surprise ko's, which is exactly what happened t1 of my game vs ttree.

I initially thought the best way to round out the team would be a rain sweeper. I was looking to style again like I did with stoutland and almost had kabutops in this slot. Thankfully zee talked me out of it and got me to use a real guy. Thunder p2 gave me a mode of speed control and thunders in the rain hit hard with a download boost. Without a swift swimmer there was no reason to run the traditional eject button set on toed to be able to set up rain and pivot into said sweeper. Unfortunately, politoed is kinda a huge momentum sink a lot of times. This is where zee came in clutch again and suggested a bulky helmet set with hypnosis. In situations where it doesn't wanna click scald it can just fish for sleep. If you're lucky like I was vs ttree this can make the game near unplayable for your opponent.

VR Noms

https://tiermaker.com/create/xy-dou-tiermaker-625518-2

this is my rough impression of the tier after dpl and i will make some short noms about the guys i feel strongly about.
-> t1 I think this guy is a clear step above gar in general, but with deospeed being everyone's new favorite toy it's realllly hard to justify using gar>kang in the mega slot. literally no reason not to bring kang.
->t2 band gene feels so strong on every single playstyle, not just ho like many other priority spammers. this thing is far away the best steel in the tier and deospeed is able to get rocks up every single game which makes it very easy to get things into espeed range.
->t2/3 the spdef toxic set does really well into the current meta and can sit on the field forever. i think the offensive set is still usable, but i think the spdef set it really what should cause it to rise.
->t2 i echo the fraud allegations zee has made about lando-t, but aim them at its genie counterpart. this guy feels like the least mandatory part of the ltv gang. i feel like it kinda bricks into some matchups and stealth rocks being up every single game hurts its bulk. the main problem i have with it now is that its primary utility tool in speed checking the tier with prankster twave has become considerably harder now that band gene is everywhere and can drop it from full.

Shoutouts

thank you qsns and eragon for taking a chance on me despite me never having played an xy game in tour. thank you Croven for being my favorite guy to team with, you've got an incredible mind for doubles and i love sitting in vc. zee is the greatest mind to touch xy thank you for help testing or building and ty to all of church for being such an encouragement this season.

 

[zee]

Welcome to my post-DPL XY post. Looking at my teams and play from last DPL, I knew I could do better going into this tournament. So I set out to do just that. zaaya's Deoxys-S team from XY Cup had caught my eye since its debut and I had messed around with it here and there in the months leading up to the tournament. I really liked using my Deoxys-S variants but I don't think I could've foreseen the types of teams I would've brought to regular season ahead of time. So what made me believe in Deoxys-S so much?

Kangaskhan + Deoxys-S Synergy
+

These two are such a perfect lead in the metagame if you're facing anything that isn't fullroom or mega sableye stall. The obvious play is Fake Out + Stealth Rock and it's good for a reason, a lot of XY is quite vulnerable to Stealth Rock. One common set you'll see on Kangaskhan teams these days is Rocky Helmet Landorus-T, which Deoxys snipes with Ice Beam before Kangaskhan can lose 1/3 of its health. Psycho Boost + Seismic Toss picks up Conkeldurr, which is generally a team's most offensive way to handle Kangaskhan, but oftentimes they're forced to take the hit or practically lose another Pokemon on switchin, such as in the linked game. Deoxys isn't actually hitting that hard unless you're hitting things for weakness, but that's where Kangaskhan picks up the slack, since a Seismic Toss and round of rocks chip is enough to put a lot of things in range of an attack from Deoxys. People have picked up on Aegislash as an antilead for this core during DPL, and while it is a decent annoyance, it isn't exactly immune to getting Scrappy Fake Out'd while Deoxys sets rocks and pivots out to Thundurus or Volcanion or something.

This duo is surprisingly flexible. Kangaskhan really only has two moves it needs to run while Deoxys has about 2.8 (I don't think I'd ever really drop Ice Beam but maybe someone could sell me on it). Kangaskhan's other viable moves (imo) include Low Kick, Protect, Crunch, Sucker Punch, Helping Hand, Safeguard, Fire Punch, and Disable, while Deoxys's options include (but certainly aren't limited to) Spikes, Ally Switch, Taunt, Skill Swap, Magic Coat, Knock Off, Thunder Wave, Fire Punch/HP Fire, Energy Ball/Grass Knot, Light Screen/Reflect, or even just Protect. These flex moves are imo really important to take into account when building and shouldn't be taken for granted. For instance, against SMB I gave my Deoxys-S Taunt because I figured he would play a slower strategy that would give me room to punish with Taunt, whereas vs Jello I used Energy Ball with Helping Hand Kangaskhan to pick up Gastrodon and Mega Swampert, since 1) I lost to Gastrodon in the previous week and 2) Jello was coming off a win with Mega Swampert where I gave him a tech specifically to help with the Genesect Deoxys Kangaskhan matchup.

The Genie


In chronological order, I used Landorus-T for week 1, Landorus-I for weeks 2-4, and Thundurus for weeks 5-7. Landorus-T is regarded as one of the best, if not the best Pokemon in XY DOU, but I must admit sometimes I find it a bit of a challenge to actually fit on teams. Running LandoT just seems to lead to having to make a lot of concessions in the builder: physical scarf needs to built with Earthquake partners in mind, which isn't exactly the easiest to accomplish in the Stealth Rock spam era. Special/Mixed Scarf bypasses this problem by running Earth Power, but is met with the new issue of settling for Earth Power on the 105 SpAtk mon in a tier where everything has giga spdef. Rocky Helmet compresses an Intimidate pivot and a Rocks Slot into one mon, but it's slower and imo a bit less reliable than Deoxys, and certainly nowhere near as powerful with Kangaskhan save turning 0 Atk Guts Conkeldurr Drain Punch into a 3HKO... Assault Vest hasn't seen a ton of play this DPL and for good reason, the metagame is getting more physical and assault vest gives you 0 utility since it's a slot that doesn't outspeed Kangaskhan nor punish its Seismic Toss.

Landorus-I was a very pleasant experience for me. Week 2 I used Earth Power / Psychic / Rock Slide, Week 3 I used HP Ice over Rock Slide (in the week I pulled Charizard no less, sorry Paint for having to force the speedtie because of this unoptimal choice), and Week 4 I used Choice Scarf with Grass Knot to outrun Mega Swampert in the rain because I had a hunch that tree would look at the teams I'd been using this season and say "yeah rain makes sense". Funny enough the Choice Scarf never really came into play because Landorus hit the field at the very last turn of the match. Anyway, the reason I like it is because it's everything Landorus-T isn't. It outspeeds Kangaskhan and hits hard without having to make those previously mentioned concessions. It can run Psychic to hit the new Big Man On Campus Conkeldurr for a big chunk instead of just turning its 2hkoes/ohkoes into 3hkoes/2hkoes, and gets a powerful flex slot which I think I've beaten to death how important that is (but it won't be the last you hear about it). But yeah, I had already thought about Aegislash from week 2 onwards and added Landorus as a means to pressure it and Volcanion, as Earth Power will pop AV Volc after Rocks should I not have Kangaskhan to chunk it with Seismic Toss.

For the backend of regular season I switched to Thundurus. My friends will know I've always been a bit of a Thundurus doubter, especially after my loss to SingleThunder where I ranted the entire weekend that Thundurus is only good for parafishing and nothing else. However, there were a few things that made me switch to Thundurus that I'll elaborate on a bit more in their sections, but the main thing is that Sky Drop + HP Ice turbo Thundurus opens up the game for Bisharp and Conkeldurr a lot, especially because I started switching to Iron Fist Conkeldurr over Guts. Having fast Sky Drop is genuinely incredible, I think being able to pick up something before Mega Kangaskhan can move is a massive gamechanger that puts the ball in your court a lot. The other thing about Thundurus was that, like I said, I'm a bit of a hater, and 2/3 of the Thundurus I used in last DPL were Defiant (I'm now a massive Defiant Thundurus hater), and I didn't want my opponents to get the idea that they could start building for me without the fear of Prankster Thunder Wave coming for them. Unfortunately I didn't Yellow Magic anyone but I still got plenty of value out of the Pokemon.

If you're looking at my regular season scout you might notice that I had 7/7 Conkeldurr usage and 6/7 Volcanion usage, so why talk about Pokemon I didn't even use for more than half of regular season? Well, it's because Flying types are important. Really important. Although I dislike Landorus-T, I certainly respect it and Earthquake, and you should too. This tier doesn't really have a large amount of Grass types and the ones that we do have are mostly neutral to Ground anyways. You need an Earthquake immunity on most teams, preferably one that can annoy LandoT, which ironically all of the genies that I brought do pretty well. In the modern metagame I'd also add LandoI to this, but it can be shutdown by just having special sponges with strong Ice moves.

Oingo Boingo the Clown and Big Steamy
+

Physical attacking glue and special attacking glue. As strong Pokemon with high natural Defense and high artificial Special Defense thanks to Assault Vest, Conkeldurr and Volcanion are two of the tier's best Pokemon when it comes to winning damage trades, right behind Kangaskhan. Winning damage trades is huge in XY in general but especially for a team like this. If you can successfully get Rocks up and have Kangaskhan pressure on the field, are you as the opponent really going to switch and take Rocks + Seismic Toss + Rocks on re-entry from the Pokemon you switched out? That's a lot of free damage. Volcanion hits Steels, checks rain, and in general just throws out strong attacks and flaunts its bulk at you for several turns. Conkeldurr is just plain obnoxious. You can't burn it until you confirm Iron Fist damage or you risk ruining your day, but if you fuck around and find out, that Iron Fist Drain Punch or Hammer Arm isn't a hit you're just gonna shrug off, and it's not exactly hard to Ice Punch a Flying type on an obvious switch. Knock Off is even an excellent utility move, removing Assault Vests and Rocky Helmets to create a path for your other attackers. Its low Speed even makes it so that just clicking TR on Kangaskhan Deoxys isn't exactly an autowin button. All in all these are mid-late game demons and don't take too much effort to position properly and will pretty much always generate positive value.

Metal Sonic and Shadow the Edgehog


These guys hit the field to force the issue. They put pressure on the opponents which often puts the ball in your court. Getting one read right in XY is so huge, there's no 50% berry to recover with, no tera to swing momentum, and no 12 fake outs per team to re-establish a losing position. Due to their speed and power, getting around them without giving up a Pokemon -- especially with Stealth Rock active -- is no easy feat. I think having these Pokemon is really important, the structure would probably be too weak to Diancie/Sylveon without them, and the strong priority options are another reason why this team can thrive on little to no speed control. Genesect's Extremespeed going before Thundurus's Thunder Wave and Talonflame's Brave Bird, but Bisharp having Defiant + Knock Off is strong into a lot of things, such as Aegislash, Cresselia, and the aforementioned Mega Sableye stall. Genesect has the added benefit of getting the flex slot. I used Psychic against laptops where it laughably did like 55% to Conkeldurr with a Special Attack boost so I can't say I really recommend that one too much, but Explosion, Zen Headbutt, Thunderbolt, Blaze Kick, Flamethrower, and Ice Beam are all fine choices.

????


I brought Goggles Jellicent w/ Taunt / WoW / Recover / Shadow Ball to week 1. It was fine. The theory was that it breaks up something like tvalks pretty well in the context of Thundurus being in range of a +1 CB Espeed and Sylveon being pummeled by Iron Head. I don't think I would really recommend Jellicent too highly but I also can't say I regret bringing it even if the stats will show its winrate to be losing.

And those are the only 10 Pokemon I used in XY regular season! Going into playoffs I felt quite tempted to switch things up a bit and deviate from Kangaskhan Deoxys, so instead I decided to use another potent offensive core that I think is pretty undervalued.



This is a hyper offense core centered around creating pressure with priority and utilizing three really broken abilities. Diancie keeps rocks off for Talonflame and is one of the few offensive Pokemon that actually has a positive Thundurus matchup, which is quite important when Thundurus is often the only Flying resist a standard Kang LTV team will employ. Bisharp punishes slow structures well since these teams often revolve around Intimidate and Fake Out to outposition offense, only for the Intimidate to work against my opponent and the Fake Outs to be blocked by Quick Guard from Talonflame. Talonflame takes out foes after Diancie's Diamond Storm bruises them up a bit, and notably pops Bisharp's number one enemy, Conkeldurr. This core is quite fragile, so you have to be very aware of the game state when running it, but overall the payoff is pretty huge and definitely a nice change of pace from my standard style. I added Landorus-I to have another Pokemon pressuring Volcanion, Conkeldurr, Gardevoir/Sylveon, and Aegislash, multiple of which I assumed ST was quite likely to end up running. Rounded it out with Thundurus + Conkeldurr as glue Pokemon to have some more speed control, a check in case I had to fight through Trick Room, and above all else, a chance to rob my opponent.

I'll be clear about one thing: this six as is absolutely crashes and burns if you end up fighting rain. There are definitely ways to make the rain matchup better and I don't think it's that hard to figure out what they are, but ST is someone who had a very rigid list of picks throughout the season, none of which were rain, and I had already had a pretty convincing win against rain earlier in the season. If you're gonna rip this team for future tours just keep this context in mind and don't get mad when you get 6-0d by Swampert.

Old Reliable


Sorry to disappoint if anyone was looking for some insane cookage for the finals (for that, look at the team jello brought to our game tbh), but I really wanted to keep things simple going into the game. Jello had only played XY for half the season which meant his scout was 4 weeks deep, with 4 pretty distinct teams, 2 of which were slightly modified samples. All that to say I don't think jello was similar to SingleThunder, since vs ST I could come up with an original flow that was good into all of their picks.

Interestingly, tvalks did have some pretty nice things going for me leading up to the game. I hadn't used Amoonguss or Sylveon all season, which I figured would throw a wrench into the Spindas' team choice. I also decided to use scarf PHYSICAL Landorus-T, which I haven't had a recorded game with in ages. I wanted a fast and powerful Earthquake to get the jump of Mega-Diancie and Genesect, which was pretty fortunate. At the end of the day, tvalks was a reliable team I could fall back on and it did its job in a tough finals game.

I'd also like to write some short blurbs about other archetypes in the tier that I didn't get to use this DPL.



I think rain is soooo scary in the tier and honestly not too hard to get good at using. Having rain in your scout is going to influence how your opponents pick teams into you (I wanted Amoonguss + Volcanion + Landorus-T for Jello to have two water resists and a way to intimidate swampert and talonflame). Rain had a pretty strong winrate this DPL with Mega Swampert going 3-1 and an additional win with laptops's Salamence rain.



I would place Gardevoir as the 5th best mega on paper but probably the 4th mega I would bring to a tournament game, I think its spot in the meta is quite solid. Between CM + 2x redirection and fat trick room builds, I think Garde has a lot of potential in the current metagame. I had a scrapped Gardevoir draft for finals but I won't get too much into that in case I choose to use it again :^)



Gengar is the mega I would rank at 4th but probably 5th in terms of bringing it to a tournament game. I think Gengar structures have got to evolve in the current metagame, for the longest time I felt like Gengar and Kangaskhan were practically interchangeable, but now I think Gengar structures need to lean harder into abusing Shadow Tag and punishing the common boards that [Mega LTV Conk X] will force. I don't think Deoxys-S has entirely killed Gengar, but any new Gengar team is going to have to be pretty heavily against Kang + Deos because that archetype won't be going anywhere for a while I feel.



Stall is really good. Huge props to SMB and anyone else involved in coming up with this build cuz I am actually a big fan; I had to take a super risky turn 1 with decent matchup in DPL to beat it the first time but without bisharp it just absolutely bodies kang + deos comps the majority of the time. Stall is slow and requires not getting haxxed + smart position management, but I think the matchup spread alone puts it way higher than some other archetypes. I think everyone should be thinking a little bit about the stall matchup when going forward.



I think if you're looking for a team to punish Kang LTV spammers the aforementioned stall is probably the safer option but I just have to shoutout tree for the great fullroom team again. Fullroom has been pretty uncommon for the majority of the time I've been playing XY, will be interesting to see if people decide to pick this team up in the following months.



I think Mence Goth is one of the worst archetypes in the tier :(

Gothitelle has a 0% winrate across the entire tour and Mence only has a 25% winrate. Are winrates everything? Absolutely not, but certainly winrates this drastic are highlighting some trends. I just don't think Goth is an active enough slot, and while Mence is great into a lot of the metagame, no high tier mega has as bad as matchup as Mence's Thundurus matchup for how common the Pokemon is. I would stay away from this archetype in the future. This isn't to say that Mence itself is unusable, but I'm not really a fan of the styles that were used this DPL and every time I tried to build it for myself I couldn't get anything I was happy about. Skill issue for me maybe...


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Thanks fellow XYers for the advice and games throughout the season: variationonatheme laptops SingleThunder sir jelloton Idyll and congrats to the spindas on the win!

 

[zee]

was asked to make formal VR noms

rises

2 - > 1

Right now Kangaskhan is the best choice for a mega. While that has arguably always been the case, the rise of the Deoxys and/or Genesect offense structure has improved the overall viability of Kangaskhan across the field, giving it answers to Gengar, Conkeldurr, and pokemon aiming to take a pot shot at it before it can move. Teams are basically limited to checking Kangaskhan by spamming rocky helmets, preserving health on Conkeldurr, or taking extreme measures like loading fullroom or stall (not to disrespect these archetypes, but Kang goodstuffs teams are just by far their best matchups imo) to gain a matchup advantage.

3 -> 2

CB Gene is simply amazing. Download preys on the metagame's average SpDef investment to give it attack boosts more often than not, and turns those CB + Download boosted attacks into murder buttons. Extremespeed has a decent shot to kill Thundurus after Stealth Rock, and will always kill after a Seismic Toss from Kangaskhan even with Sitrus Recovery. Even without clicking Espeed it has an excellent speed tier for the metagame and strong steel damage is important for fairies.

4 -> 3

Strong against Kang+Deo as well as Diancie which is a pretty uncommon combination of traits. Good variety of moves to customize to a specific team's needs, and I think offensive and spdef sets are both good.

UR -> 4

Like I mentioned above, I think stall is pretty legit in the meta atm as long as Kang goodstuffs is as dominant as it is. Arcanine and Chansey are currently unranked but I think it's probably fine to leave them that way unless someone else wants to nom them up.

+aforementioned Landorus-I UR -> 3

falls:

1 -> 2

genies are amazing and splashable but I think this also applies to conkeldurr and genesect. if you look at the teams used in DPL, they are built to play around the existence of thunder wave. people generally know not to get 6-0d by thundurus, and it's pretty easy to brick or just get off one attack and die. see my post above for my issues with landorus.

in general kang ltv gene conk were the top 6 mons in dpl and this is how i would tier them for tiers 1/2

2 -> 3

Kyurem-B was met with tier 3 allegations for a while but after a pretty quiet DPL I'm ready to say that I think this is where it deserves to go. The presence of rocks and conkeldurr are imo the two biggest things going for it. Still has a lot of great traits but those traits aren't tier 2 level. Gengar just feels hard to work with right now. Between Deoxys-S being an extremely common Kangaskhan partner, the rise of multiple Assault Vest checks to it, and just a general more aggressive metagame, I find myself asking why I would ever use Gengar as the mega on a goodstuffs squad. Dishonest shadow tag stuff is pretty lit though.

3 -> 4

Deoxys-Speed. The additional offense is not worth all the downsides that come with running this instead.

3 -> 4

Tyranitar preys on Gengar but Gengar has fallen off pretty hard. I guess there's some appeal for Deoxys until you realize three of his best buddies are Kangaskhan, Conkeldurr, and Genesect. Sand is viable but fringe viable. Tier 4.

 

[qsns]

Played a lot of xy over the past few weeks and watched dpl, tl;dr i think deoxys-s is probably the most important? metagame shift since the rise of mega gengar in terms of impacting the viable playstyles. Unless you have a very specific antilead into Kang + Deo-S, which is really tough, I don't think you're allowed to durdle much anymore. Most teams have to play assuming SR and a Spike up, meaning offensive play becomes much more viable.

Not going to make formal noms, as I think zee covered most of mine and my Lando-I in 2 might be a bit premature, but the mon is extraordinarily strong as we see in every DOU format ever and pairs quite well with MMence.

Quick things:
- Spdef Aegislash is a terror. I've moved away from max Spdef on every single mon but this is the exception. Holy hell you cannot kill this ever
- Modest Thundurus (w/ 24 SpA) could probably see some more use to OHKO Lando-I after Rocks. I think the SpDef is less useful atm since most teams have a Conkeldurr to check opposing Volcanion and Thundurus, and damage good.
- I have been Mega Diancie hater #1 for a while and I am changing my tune. Mon is incredible into Deo-S matchups and punishes the most common steel being CBG, especially with HP Fire.
- Rain good
- Gengar is on fraud watch and I'm probably ranking it far too high for its current usage/perceived viability
- Amoonguss is a fraud and IMO only justifies usage in redirecting for the CM fairies
- The stall team is T4 I just did not want to add the mons because I'm lazy

edit: formal nom for Mew -> 3

Has a million different sets, as shown by the Demon Mew brought by Gma, but can also just do support Mew things without Gengar constantly looming over it. Faster Fake Out than Kangaskhan can allow you to antilead Kang/Deo much more easily, and can get up Rocks, spread status, and use speed control. One of Fire/Ice/Psychic coverage on a speed stat of 100 can also do wonders for patching up team weaknesses.