Chronicles of an Endless Ladder: A History of the Battle Maison Singles Leaderboard
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Introduction
Traditionally, Pokémon play can be split into two categories: competitive play against other humans and in-game play dedicated to completing the games' stories, catching Pokémon, and completing sidequests. But starting with the Battle Tower in Pokémon Crystal, and really coming into its own with the Battle Frontier in Pokémon Emerald, the games introduced a hybrid pursuit: in-game play with a competitive element, where you work to build the longest possible winning streak in a series of battles versus AI controlled trainers at a battle facility. Pokémon in battle facilities have at least reasonable movesets, passable EV spreads, and perfect IVs (beginning fairly early in a streak), while your Pokémon are capped at the same level as your foes, making battles more interesting than typical in-game fights. Of course, since the opposing teams are controlled by a weak AI and are quasi-randomly constructed, they tend to be pretty weak, so winning most fights remains a trivial endeavor. But though winning any individual battle is easy, winning many in a row is remarkably difficult. With small teams, it's hard to cover all threats, and over a long streak, you'll run into specific Pokémon that match up very well against your squad. Similarly, bad luck is bound to happen. 90% accurate attacks will miss twice in a row. Your opponent will land a critical hit at the worst possible time. Walrein will hit with Sheer Cold a couple times in a row, and boom, a hundred-win streak is done. Some competitive players, unable to handle such swings, ragequit and give up on facility play after their first few streaks, writing it off as a luck-based haxfest, or worse, make unsubstantiated claims about cheating AI. But others take streak building more seriously and devote considerable efforts to the unique challenges each generation's battle facility presents.
In facility play, the golden rule is to minimize risk. Competitive players who are used to competing on the ladder usually have an almost opposite mindset, where risk = reward, as you only have to win most games. Here, you have to win every game, and a single miss, critical hit, or status infliction can cost you your entire streak! For this reason, conservative teambuilding is paramount; since a good team should easily win most battles anyway, it should be focused on surviving battles where one's luck turns sour, rather than maximizing expected damage output or the like. While the extra OHKOs that Fire Blast nets may make it a better choice than Flamethrower in most competitive battles, in the battle facilities, relying on such an inaccurate move is asking for trouble. 2.25 percent of the time, you're going to miss twice in a row, and that can easily be streak ending. Beyond moveset choice, players must also learn to play conservatively, anticipating possible disasters and playing around them, even where such plays might slow the battle way down. Good teams typically have a means to handle status and include some protection against OHKO attacks, which many competitive players, accustomed to Smogon's banlist, are not used to facing. Substitute is accordingly an extremely popular move.
In addition to minimizing risk, successful teams also tend to build around the knowledge of the AI. Since the AI draws Pokémon movesets from a limited list, it's often possible to quickly determine the exact set your foe is running and play to counter it. Additionally, with a few exceptions, the AI hardly ever switches out. This means that in a matchup you dominate, you can often set up a Pokémon all the way to +6, making subsequent foes much easier to face. This makes setup moves particularly valuable, and many successful teams will run multiple setup Pokémon. Stallish defensive Pokémon can be extremely useful, as even when they can't break through a foe, if they can stall it out, the enemy will stubbornly Struggle itself to death rather than switch to a more suitable attacker. The AI is also vulnerable to certain gimmicks that would never work against a human player. Have Durant use Entrainment to replace the enemy Pokémon's ability with Truant, for example, and it will stay in and loaf around, buying free setups for Protect-using sweepers.
Smogon began tracking comprehensive records of top teams in battle facilities in generation 4, and this tradition has continued for each subsequent Pokémon game up to today. The battle facility in XY and ORAS is the Battle Maison. The Maison quickly became a hit with players, and records were being shared fairly early in this generation's lifetime. But the question remained: could players hit the same big win totals as in previous generations? Could they do better? A lot better? The competition among Smogon's Maison elite was on! This article documents their progress and the strategies they used. For more detailed information, and to read the top players' writeups of their successful teams, check out Smogon's official Battle Maison Discussion and Records thread. While players can also compete in doubles, triples, rotations, and multi battles with an AI partner in the Maison, this article focuses on singles play, where players use teams of three Pokémon to face an endless series of enemy teams (while getting fully healed after each battle) until the player loses.
Old Streaks and Attempts
Early on, many of the successful teams in the Maison were influenced by teams and strategies used by players of the fifth generation's Battle Subway, which was similar enough to the Maison to enable an easy transfer of these teams. Basic goodstuff teams utilizing Subway staples such as Scizor and Dragonite were achieving strong results very early in the Maison's lifetime. These teams would generally involve multiple setup Pokémon, with at least one hard-hitting sweeper and one bulky status absorber, and proved to be reliable.
With its typing, ability to boost, and Multiscale-boosted bulk, Dragonite was one of the first leads to find success in the Maison, just like in the Subway. Even with the addition of Fairy-types making Outrage a more risky proposition, Adamant Lum Berry Dragonite with Outrage / Earthquake / Dragon Dance / X could set up on a ton of foes and often smash through entire teams on its own. Once you were leading with Dragonite, a defensive Water- or Steel-type partner became important to help cover Dragonite's weaknesses, while the third slot was fairly flexible. Many people found early success using variations of this approach. Cardio, for example, reached 363 wins with Assault Vest Azumarill as a bulky and hard-hitting partner for Dragonite, rounding out the team with the incredible power of Mega Kangaskhan, perhaps the most devastating Mega Evolution for singles play. Thanks to Parental Bond, a powerful STAB attack, and access to the potent priority of Sucker Punch, Mega Kangaskhan could usually muscle through the few things that the Dragonite / Azumarill core couldn't handle. VioletPumpkin reached 340 wins by instead using Mega Scizor as a bulky pivot and cleaned up with Life Orb Greninja, which, though incapable of boosting, had the speed and power to outspeed and OHKO many foes and finish off bulky Pokémon wounded by its allies. Artic did even better, accumulating 473 wins by teaming lead Dragonite with Aegislash and Mega Kangaskhan, again benefiting from a Dragonite + bulky Steel-type pairing, with a powerful finisher as backup. This Dragonite + Aegislash pairing, with its exceptional typing synergy, was so effective that it became the backbone of many future teams, particularly since, by switching back and forth, the two could even stall out and then set up on Pokémon with otherwise threatening move combinations like EdgeQuake. While these teams had their differences, their central strategy was the same, and their shared success proved clearly that lead Dragonite was a powerful option in Singles play.
Another Subway team archetype that found early success in the Maison was teams built around Truant Durant, which involved setting up on foes after having Durant use Entrainment to pass them the Truant ability, taking advantage of the AI's refusal to switch out. Equipped with a Choice Scarf, Durant could outrun almost all foes and use Entrainment to overwrite their abilities. Durant could then switch out to a sweeper equipped with a boosting move and Protect, which could then freely boost by alternating between using Protect on the foe's active turn and the boosting move on the foe's loafing turn. The first Durant teams to achieve success in the Maison were relatively simple, pairing lead Durant with two sweepers. lolnub, for example, reached 315 wins with Durant / Garchomp / Mega Gyarados, which took huge advantage of Mold Breaker allowing Mega Gyarados to OHKO through the relatively common Sturdy ability. Somewhat later, NoCheese used his exact same Battle Subway team of Durant / Cloyster / Garchomp in the Maison and achieved similar success, losing his streak at 611 wins. Focus Sash Cloyster was the primary sweeper, which played well with Durant because Shell Smash boosts incredibly quickly, both saving time and maximizing boosts against self destructive foes with a Flame Orb or the like, while Skill Link Icicle Spear hits really hard, avoids contact, and bypasses both Focus Sash and Sturdy. These Durant + two sweeper teams were solid, but all were vulnerable to effects that interfered with a first turn Entrainment, including Protect, Fake Out, Magic Bounce, and Lax Incense. While skillful play could mitigate this weakness, teams relying on an unsupported Durant lacked the rock-solid reliability typically needed for thousand-win streaks. Additional innovation would be required to propel Durant to the true pinnacle of Maison success.
Great Players Standing Up
Battle Hax (Haxorus) @ Lum Berry
Holy Water (Suicune) @ LeftoversVeteran player Jumpman16 experimented with new Pokémon before bringing back a team he had originally used in the Battle Subway, consisting of Haxorus, Scizor, and Starmie. Finding Starmie lacking, he replaced Starmie with Suicune to great results—with XY giving Scizor a Mega Evolution and new critical hit mechanics increasing Suicune's reliability, the team outperformed its Subway counterpart and took first place on the leaderboards with a streak of 402 wins.
As a lead holding Lum Berry, Haxorus outspeeds most of the Maison enemy sets after a single Dragon Dance and hits slightly harder than Dragonite. Substitute is used on the set for additional status protection and capitalizing on non-attacking enemy sets, as well as to handle OHKO move users such as Walrein holding Lax Incense. Mold Breaker most importantly allows Haxorus to OHKO Pokémon with the ability Sturdy. Its EV spread maximizes Attack and lets it outspeed Jolteon at +1 and Jolly Tyrantrum prior to using Dragon Dance; the remainder is invested into bulk to hit an HP number that allows it to use Substitute four times. Mega Scizor deals with the Fairy-types introduced in XY that stop Haxorus's Outrage cold; it also is able to wall a much larger number of foes with Roost and its high defenses to set up Swords Dance and sweep at +6.
Suicune running a CroCune set completes the Dragon / Water / Steel core for defensive synergy. Scizor is suspectible to status moves and Fire-type attacks, which CroCune doesn't mind thanks to Rest and its typing and bulk. It can also switch into Ice-type moves threatening Haxorus and thaw out with Scald in case of a freeze—in Battle Maison play, Scald is preferred on Suicune not for its burn chance, but for its property of thawing out the user if it's frozen.
Instead of the more common Ice Beam, Jumpman chose the weaker Icy Wind as the Ice-type coverage move for its Speed drop effect. Suicune's EV spread takes advantage of this by giving it exactly enough Speed to outspeed Garchomp after one Icy Wind, while 196 HP / 252 Defense with a Bold nature allows it to survive a +2 Earthquake critical hit from Garchomp. This particular Garchomp set holds Focus Sash and threatens the whole team with Swords Dance-boosted Earthquake while defeating lead Haxorus, which is why Suicune is EVed specifically to 2HKO it with Icy Wind and outspeed it after the first hit.
Sweet Dreams (Togekiss) @ Lum BerryWhile Jumpman was laddering back up with Suizorus, a new challenger arose in VaporeonIce, who, like many other people, decided to put Mega Kangaskhan to the test. His first order of business was to find teammates that could alleviate its vulnerability to Fighting-type moves and grant it a free turn to set up, after which it would usually be able to close out the game. Aegislash ended up being a straightforward pick, but Togekiss was an unorthodox yet effective choice.
The team ended up being a hybrid between goodstuffs and crippler teams, with lead Togekiss ideally enabling Kangaskhan or Aegislash to set up fully and sweep the opposing team. In addition to its Fighting resistance, Togekiss was mainly chosen for its access to Yawn, not only allowing it to put a foe to sleep without fail but even delaying the sleep by one turn to give Kangaskhan or Aegislash the maximum number of turns h setup possible. Togekiss could provide further support with Safeguard, not only blocking status moves but also preventing secondary effects on the switch from throwing a wrench into Kangaskhan or Aegislash's setup. Lastly, its STAB moves allowed it to immediately threaten and eliminate select troublesome foes like Life Orb Honchkrow, with its access to Insomnia to block Yawn, Swagger + Punishment Absol, and a notorious threat in general in bulky Volcarona, making it excellent at paving the way for a Kangaskhan setup.
This team was also one of the first ones to highlight Aegislash's amazing potential in singles. Though a laughingstock in competitive play, Aegislash's StanceDance set could use King's Shield to shut down most physical attackers and proceed set up on them while being sustained by an outrageous amount of Leftovers recovery; then, Aegislash usually could sweep thanks to its great bulk, power, and two-move coverage in Sacred Sword and priority Shadow Sneak. Aegislash also notably provided additional synergy with Togekiss by virtue of its Rock resistance and the latter's Ground immunity, which allowed the two of them to stall out move pairs like EdgeQuake. This was the first team to bring that tactic to prominence, and it would be a centerpiece of many more Aegislash teams, usually featuring Dragonite rather than Togekiss.
VaporeonIce's team ended up netting a streak of 543 wins, which briefly put him on top of the leaderboard, until Jumpman's Suizorus reclaimed the #1 spot with a 602-win streak. This was definitely not the last we'd see of VaporeonIce, though, but first, Jumpman's throne was attacked by yet another new challenger.
Following Suizorus's success, StarKO experimented with a similar team consisting of Dragonite / Mega Lucario / Suicune. He reached a streak of 336 wins utilizing a bulky Swords Dance set on Mega Lucario, before replacing it with Mega Kangaskhan to better handle threats such as Babiri Berry Gardevoir, which survives Bullet Punch and threatens Suicune with Thunderbolt.
Dragonite is very difficult to OHKO due to Multiscale, allowing it to set up one or more boosts on many foes. With Roost reactivating Multiscale, it can stall many foes out of PP on their strongest move due to AI Pokémon lacking maxed out PP and set up even further. A simple EV spread maximizing Attack and Speed is used to maximize its sweeping potential, with Lum Berry as the item for protection against status and confusion from Outrage. While Dragonite has lower Attack and Speed than Haxorus and lacks Mold Breaker to sweep through Sturdy, the addition of Multiscale allows it to safely set up against a larger number of foes. With Mega Kangaskhan on the team, Dragonite's resistance to Fighting is also valuable.
CroCune functions similarly as with Suizorus, covering Dragonite's Ice-type weakness and stalling with Rest. StarKO utilized the same Suicune set as Jumpman16, with a small tweak to the EV spread. Jumpman's spread was designed to outspeed Garchomp, but this team deals with it differently, preferring to attack with Outrage immediately and then revenge kill Garchomp with Kangaskhan in order to avoid the risk of Icy Wind missing. Instead, Suicune's EV spread aims to outspeed -1 Salamence, which can threaten the team if Outrage lands a critical hit.
With Dragonite and Suicune as setup sweepers with recovery and Dragonite in the lead position, Mega Kangaskhan is relegated to a cleaner role and forgoes Power-Up Punch, opting for Fake Out over it to better close out battles against weakened opposition. Its EV spread is designed to survive a Moonblast critical hit from Modest Gardevoir prior to Mega Evolving, the team's previous version's nemesis, allowing it to switch in safely and KO it with Fake Out and Return. Even without Power-Up Punch, Mega Kangaskhan OHKOes a large number of opponents outright with Parental Bond-boosted attacks, and extra damage from Fake Out allows it to defeat nearly any foe one-on-one.
After initially claiming first place on the leaderboards with a 658-win streak, StarKO later reached 991 wins using the same team.
Two Top Teams Clashing
Up until then, the most notable streaks had been set by goodstuff teams. While crippler teams, specifically the ones centered around Durant, had been moved to their own leaderboard because of their perceived brokenness, the tactic just didn't seem as powerful as in BW; hence, the "goodstuff" and "Durant" leaderboards were merged back. Experimentation with Durant was far from dead, though. Most Durant teams had employed the "Durant + two sweepers" format; however, it was a well-known fact that those teams were far from flawless, as while they're incredibly hard to stop once a sweeper has set up, getting the crucial Entrainment off in the first place can prove unreliable. Common troublemakers include Fake Out, Protect, and hax items like Lax Incense and Bright Powder, and foes that KO themselves through moves like Self-Destruct, Explosion, and High Jump Kick or are running a Choice item can mess with setup as well. Therefore, a different approach was to use only one sweeper and, instead of a second sweeper, employ a disruptive lead meant to cripple whatever problematic opposing leads you might face. It was with a team composition like this that VaporeonIce and GG Unit started experimenting with the Durant strategy, and though VaporeonIce couldn't get a crazy team centered around Moody Smeargle to work, he ended up becoming the first one to break 1000 with his new team, consisting of Whimsicott, Durant, and Drapion.
Fluffy Bunny (Whimsicott) @ Focus SashWhimsicott is what sets this team apart from teams utilizing two sweepers—its sole purpose is to pave the way for a smooth Entrainment and setup. Taunt is crucial in this way, blocking moves like Protect and Double Team, and Switcheroo is used to remove troublesome items like Choice items (which make a foe run out of PP way too quickly), Bright Powder, and Quick Claw. The final two moves' main purpose is to help Durant survive setting up Entrainment more easily, since a big reason for this team's success is how it focuses on keeping Durant alive as often as possible in case it would have to switch back in to use Entrainment on a backup foe like Unaware Quagsire. Encore is primarily used to ease prediction and lock foes into weaker moves, and Memento is used to reliably bring in Durant and ease setup in general. And naturally, Whimsicott nullifies the threat of Fake Out simply by being on the field on the first turn. Durant's set, at this point in time, was pretty straightforward, with the most notable move being Aerial Ace, which is used to KO a troublesome foe in Toxic Orb Breloom, which prevents Drapion from setting up reliably while fainting to its dumb item. Similarly, for this purpose Durant uses an EV spread that allows it to tank a critical hit Focus Punch; it also runs enough Speed to outrun Choice Scarf Manectric, the fastest foe that roams the Maison.
Drapion is used as the sweeper for a multitude of reasons. While Dragonite was the best sweeping option in BW for a Durant + crippler team, the addition of the Fairy-type removed all viability it used to have in this role; on the other hand, Drapion, the king of crippler teams in Gen IV, was completely unviable in the Subway because Cobalion existed, but it was handed a new leash of life in the Maison with the Steel nerf and the Knock Off buff. While its set is fairly standard for a Durant sweeper, with a boosting move, Protect, Substitute, and an attacking move, what sets Drapion apart from the crowd is a crit immunity courtesy of Battle Armor and the ability to boost all of its stats with Acupressure. Drapion may be more reliant on Entrainment being successful than Pokémon like Cloyster, but when it does manage to set up fully, victory is 99% assured.
Team Plaguarism eventually went on to win 1174 battles in a row before losing, enough to convincingly clinch the #1 position but also leaving it within reasonable range for challengers. After turskain fell just short of the top spot with Dragonite / Aegislash / Greninja, VaporeonIce's record was broken by none other than a returning Jumpman16 himself, who had been crafting a new team after he realized Suizorus wouldn't be able to hit the numbers StarKO and VaporeonIce had been putting out. The squad he eventually arrived at consisted of Mega Kangaskhan, Suicune, and Gliscor.
Despite how disgustingly broken Mega Kangaskhan was in OU, in some ways it was a surprising choice for Jumpman to build his team around. The commonness of Lum Berry Dragonite up to that point as a lead made one thing very clear: people considered it absolutely imperative to make their lead as hax- and statusproof as possible. Mega Kangaskhan, on the other hand, cannot run Lum Berry by virtue of being a Mega Evolution, and it doesn't have the moveslot to run the next best thing, Substitute, forcing Jumpman to address this weakness in a different way. Since, aside from its vulnerability to status, Kangaskhan is only really weak to Fighting-types, Jumpman picked a Pokémon that essentially answers those by itself in Gliscor. Then, all that was left was to round out his squad with something that could cover the one status this core was vulnerable to, burn; he quickly arrived at his old brother in arms, Suicune, which happens to perfectly cover Gliscor's type weaknesses as well. Suicune's set and spread were left unchanged from Suizorus, since there was honestly nothing really wrong with them, and especially Icy Wind still saw a bunch of mileage to help Gliscor and Kangaskhan outspeed and take on foes more easily.
Gliscor is an interesting Pokémon in the Maison, and this was the first team to truly highlight how incredibly good it is at what it does. While its standard SubToxic has been pushed out of the limelight in competitive play because of the prominence of certain threats that are handled more easily by different sets, it takes advantage of the AI in a way that nothing else does—since the AI generally doesn't switch, Gliscor becomes effectively invulnerable against anything that is slower or cannot prevent it from getting up a Sub simply by alternating Substitute and Protect, allowing it to easily PP stall a foe's most threatening move to pave the way for a teammate, and naturally its Toxic stall shenanigans are still as sadistic as ever. A couple earlier teams used a Jolly Gliscor, and Jumpman himself initially used a physically defensive one, but in the end he settled on a Careful Gliscor to handle Life Orb Tornadus, the threat that had made him shelve Suizorus, as effectively as possible.
After Plaguarism's loss, Jumpman ended up engaging in a tense race with turskain, who was using a team of Dragonite, Aegislash, and Greninja; and after the latter ended up missing the top spot just barely with a streak of 1010 wins, Jumpman soon confirmed he beat VaporeonIce's record with an ongoing streak of 1180 wins. Having clinched the record, and with no one else around to threaten him, his progress slowed down, and it became quiet at the top of the leaderboard. A potential shakeup ended up not happening when Jumpman actually lost his streak at 1267 wins but furiously laddered back up right away and ended up effortlessly getting back to 1268 wins before he even got around to posting his loss, further demonstrating Kangliscune's potential.
However, Jumpman16's crown was challenged by the man he had already taken it away from twice. Foreshadowing his coup with several theorymon posts about losses against tricky opponents, VaporeonIce reached 1500 wins with an improved Team Plaguarism. To improve the team's risky matchups, Durant's EV spread was adjusted for higher bulk, allowing Durant to survive two Power Gems from offensive Carbink, which threatens the team if it uses Explosion early before Drapion is able to set up fully. Durant's Speed was reduced significantly to enable this, leaving it outsped by several Choice Scarf sets—but Whimsicott could remove Choice Scarf using Switcheroo to negate the speed disadvantage. Additionally, he optimized his strategy against other potentially threatening leads that KO themselves early, including Toxic Orb Breloom and Explosion Skuntank.
The race that was to ensue was met with a tragic end, however, when every player's worst nightmare ended up happening to Jumpman: losing a streak to hardware failure. After 1560 straight wins, his game suffered an unprompted cart eject, killing his motivation to try again in the process. VaporeonIce had already broken 2000 at this point and would post a—for the time being—final update at 2366 straight wins, tying Jumpman's legendary Battle Tower record from Platinum.
Honorable Mentions
VaporeonIce ended up holding the top spot for a very long time, but that didn't mean the leaderboard didn't see any action. On the contrary, both before and after Plaguarism's second rise to power, several players thought up diverse and successful teams—and while they never ended up topping the leaderboard, they absolutely were instrumental in shaping it.
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A Shakeup
Jormungand (Gyarados) @ GyaradositeWhile VaporeonIce was playing with Team Growl, Lumari independently designed a team of Mega Gyarados / Aegislash / Gliscor.
Mega Gyarados was originally thought to be a subpar choice in Super Singles with the availability of Mega Kangaskhan, Dragonite, and Mega Salamence, which have a better damage output and require fewer boosts to sweep. Prior to Team Marathon, the highest streak utilizing Mega Gyarados was Carl's 354-win streak using Mega Gyarados / Ferrothorn / Gliscor. However, after Lumari achieved a win streak using Greninja / Mega Scizor / Gliscor, she theorized various changes to improve the team's rough matchups. First, she toyed with the idea of using Aegislash over Mega Scizor—but that alone didn't help the team very much. Searching for a replacement to Greninja that would beat specially defensive Dragon Dance Gyarados, the nemesis of the previous team, she came up with Mega Gyarados, which had identical typing to lead Greninja after Mega Evolving and a Water / Flying typing prior, giving it just the right defensive synergies with Aegislash and Gliscor, both before and after Mega Evolution. The, at first glance potent, Aegislash / Gliscor core had not been explored as much as it should have (with its best record being a 528-win streak by VaporeonIce with Dragonite in the lead position) because the holes in their synergy proved hard to cover with a single Pokémon. Mega Gyarados succeeded where other options had failed by effectively providing two Pokémon in one slot by virtue of its typing change; regular Gyarados's Flying typing allowed it to play the same way with Aegislash as Dragonite and Mega Salamence had done before, whereas Mega Gyarados's Water / Dark typing helped it set up from turn 1 on foes that would threaten both Gliscor and Aegislash.
One of Mega Gyarados's problems prior to ORAS's release was its coverage—Waterfall, Dragon Dance, and Substitute were necessary moves on it, but both Earthquake and Return left holes in its coverage. ORAS introduced Crunch to its movepool, giving it nearly perfect coverage with two potent STAB moves. Its EV spread is intended to accomplish several things—firstly, the physical bulk investment allows Mega Gyarados to beat Focus Sash + Swords Dance Garchomp as a lead, always surviving +1 Earthquake with enough HP left to tank two rounds of Rough Skin damage and 2HKO it with Waterfall after using Dragon Dance. Its Speed investment lets it outspeed bulky Volcarona to safely set up on it, as well as outrun Starmie after a single Dragon Dance. The remaining EVs are invested into Attack with an Adamant nature to maximize damage output, allowing it to OHKO max HP Chandelure without boosts. Most of the time, Gyarados is kept in its non-Mega forme unless Mega Gyarados's typing change or Mold Breaker is needed, in order to preserve Intimidate and keep its options open.
Similarly to Team Growl, Gyarados cripples physical attackers with Intimidate, and Aegislash covers its Rock-type weakness and helps cripple physical attackers completely via switch-stalling. After initially using a set with Shadow Sneak and Sacred Sword as attacking moves, Lumari found Aegislash lacked coverage against specific foes: Yanmega, Togekiss, Noivern, and Taunt Tornadus, which resisted Sacred Sword and required multiple boosts to KO with Shadow Sneak while threatening its teammates with only a little bad luck required. To better handle them, Iron Head was opted for over Sacred Sword—while its overall coverage for sweeping is inferior, the change improved the team's worst matchups dramatically, while Aegislash's teammates were able to cover the loss of Sacred Sword's coverage and ability to break through boosts. Aegislash's Speed IVs are tailored for the team's specific needs, hitting exactly 71 Speed with a Brave nature.
Rounding out the lineup is Gliscor, boasting excellent defensive synergy with Gyarados and Aegislash and having the ability to stall a staggering number of foes out of attacking PP to cripple them fully using Substitute and Protect. Its EV spread is the same as on Lumari's previous team, emphasizing special bulk.
True to its name, Team Marathon utilizes a slow and steady playstyle emphasizing completely shutting down enemy leads with a combination of Intimidate, King's Shield, Substitute, Protect, and switch-stalling, in order to fully set up Gyarados behind a Substitute. If setting up Gyarados is not viable, Aegislash boosted to +6 with Swords Dance and Gliscor behind a Substitute can also sweep teams on their own. If all of the team is alive, it's also possible to start setting up Gyarados on a second foe after KOing the lead with Aegislash or Gliscor for additional insurance. While strikingly similar to Team Growl, Team Marathon took the commitment to unbreakable setup one step further and ended up eclipsing VaporeonIce's Mega Salamence / Aegislash / Chansey streak, despite Mega Gyarados seeming like the underdog when compared to Mega Salamence.
Lumari ended up claiming #1 on the Singles leaderboard after a lengthy race against VaporeonIce's Team Plaguarism, reaching an astounding 3668 consecutive wins and outdoing the previous longest streak using Mega Gyarados by a factor of more than ten.
Return of the King
After Marathon claimed the number 1 spot, there were no remaining long streaks that were still ongoing—as far as was confirmed, that is. One player had been lurking in the shadows, one who wouldn't bother posting for anything less than the top spot anyway—and after Marathon lost, but before the loss was posted, Jumpman16 posted an ongoing streak, using the same Kangliscune of old with just a few tiny modifications; Suicune's EV spread had been optimized for slightly better all-around bulk, and Gliscor had been given one more Speed point in order not to tie with Modest Greninja after an Icy Wind. The edits surely hadn't left the team any less effective, and the lack of hardware failure didn't hurt either, since Jumpman's streak at that point had reached an astounding 3633 wins, ironically just short of Marathon's final record. While Jumpman hasn't posted any further updates, there's little doubt in anyone's mind that he has long since reclaimed the number 1 position, and so, with the generation coming to a close, the Maison singles leaderboard has gotten the champion that it deserves.
Conclusion
In the years since the initial release of Pokémon X and Y, top Maison streaks have grown substantially longer, indeed to lengths never before seen in a battle facility. While simply having more time for new attempts played some role in this expansion, this article has attempted to show that careful planning and creative team design were much more significant factors. Unique among Pokémon formats, Maison play allowed players to meticulously plan against a precisely known set of opposing spreads and movesets, and with years to rethink and refine strategies, the top teams on the leaderboard are the fruits of very careful building. Although certain obvious new powerhouses like Mega Kangaskhan indeed found Maison success, and stalwarts from the Battle Subway like Durant and Suicune retained their effectiveness, many of the most successful streaks depended on the use of Pokémon and movesets that players wrote off or ignored early on, demonstrating the teambuilding creativity needed to build not just a good streak, but a great one. Maison play may lack the raw excitement and chess match feel of a head-to-head battle against another person, but building a top team is still a heavily skill-based endeavor that rewards preparation and practice.
When Pokémon Sun and Moon are released, a new battle facility will surely be released with them, and the Maison will fade into the background. But whatever surprises and challenges the new facility holds, players looking for success will surely still benefit from the principles of conservative play, careful planning, and creative teambuilding that led to the top Maison streaks. And you can bet that here on Smogon, players are going to be working hard to build claim the top spots on the new facility's leaderboard. It will be an exciting time! Won't you join us?
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