Black & White Battle Subway Records

[Coeur7]

The December streaks may not have resulted in a new personal best for me, but their lessons were valuable nonetheless. Turns out that all I needed was to ditch Latios after all (!) and reshuffle the order in which my team fights. Told you oldgens still have room for innovation.

I managed to hit 406 wins (ongoing) with the following (all-PKHeX'd) Super Doubles team. Undefeated, in fact. JetSawk is history, enter Team Land Umber:

Landorus (M) @ Life Orb
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Ability: Sheer Force
Timid Nature
- Earth Power
- Sludge Bomb
- Grass Knot
- Protect

Destruction in humanoid form. Earth Power 2HKOs Regigigas1-3 (set4 only has a 18% chance thanks to Leftovers). Functional immunity to paralysis is great, too. Knot is better than HP Ice when the latter coverage can be provided by its partner (and backline Suicune). Sludge Bomb is for Grass-types that trouble its co-lead, but also 2HKOs Salamence as a point of reference for its power on neutral hits against Ground immunities.

Raikou @ Choice Specs
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Ability: Pressure
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Snarl
- Volt Switch

No Aura Sphere. I would probably have lost battle #399 with Aura Sphere thanks to the -SpD nature (Raikou survived Archeops Rock Slide + non-freezing Glaceon Blizzard). Besides, Snarl is so much better: it's the pro-click against Latis, Cresselia (sometimes), Psychic trainers, and some situational threats. I can even nerf both the opposing Atk and SpA in one turn by switching out Landorus. Volt Switch is essential as well, since it allows me to go to Scrafty with "tempo". Raikou is so much better from the lead position than from backline, but you'd kind of expect that from a Choice user. Where are all the Raikou streaks? The leaderboard is almost devoid of this pokémon. 115 Speed is the best, all you need is a co-lead that deals with Electric, Grass, and Ground.

Scrafty (F) @ Fighting Gem
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Ability: Intimidate
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Drain Punch
- Crunch
- Protect

Mega Scrafty, as seen on the December streaks. The best Fighting-type, move over Hitmontop (I would surely have lost by now with Hitmontop). Nothing compares to the utility it provides (besides maybe Gen7 Incineroar); with Cune-like defenses even before Intimidate, Fake Out, Protect and Gem-boosted Drain Punch, it ensures its longevity thanks to its uncanny ability to only get 3HKO'd by enemy moves. Crunch over Payback for consistency in attacking e.g. Reuniclus and Musharna, or under Trick Room. Scrafty all but guarantees that I don't lose to Psychics or runaway CM Lati/Cress. Top can't do that. Protect is an essential move btw, but it's not like Scrafty has anything better. I could move the 4 EVs to Speed for opposing Scrafty, but I prefer to not get Downloaded if I'm down to my last two. Both are niche scenarios.

FO on demand is perhaps even better than frontline FO (lessons from 4K).

Suicune @ Sitrus Berry
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 SpA
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Ability: Pressure
Modest Nature
- Calm Mind
- Scald
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Ice Beam

CoeurCune. (Honorable mention to Peterko for using ChestoRest CalmCune in Doubles.) You've seen this on my December streaks, too; the backline role is nothing new for it but I did have to adapt to the idea. There's no room for Tailwind and it's not needed due to Raikou's amazing speed and the lack of dedicated speed trainers in the Subway; all three offensive moves are required for Cune to function optimally. I considered Milotic which has Recover but not Calm Mind, and dropped the idea because CM is too important for the wincon role. Cune is better than Cresselia here because of its higher SpA and ability to unfreeze itself; it switches into Landorus with ease, but can also tank "generic" hits coming in after Volt Switch.

---

The most dangerous enemy to face is probably Regice. Immune to Snarl, takes little damage from anything but Scrafty (who does 96% max with Gem Drain Punch, so chip is needed), unknown sets can fire Blizzard to make the Scrafty switch risky (sacrificing Landorus can be the smart play), the same set can Thunder Wave at will when Suicune is in against it, or it can have Amnesia if Scrafty is indisposed and start accruing Charge Beam boosts. The notorious Blissey4 and its ilk (Regigigas4 almost beat me at battle ~170) can be dangerous as well, particularly since I don't have a Steel-type.

Aside from that, it probably takes a combination of threats to take this team down. Legendary trainers and ice workers remain at the top of the threat list.

Will report back when I lose, and move on to making Clefable work if I can.

 

[Coeur7]

You are challenged by Gentleman Kavan!
Gentleman Kavan sent out Landorus and Tornadus!
Go, Landorus and Raikou!

1. Foe Landorus used Earthquake, Raikou KO, Landorus used Grass Knot on foe Landorus (40%), Tornadus used Hurricane, crit! Landorus KO, go Scrafty and Suicune
2. Scrafty FO Tornadus, Landorus used EQ (Scrafty 129/172, Cune 161/207), Tornadus flinched, Suicune CM
3. Scrafty Protect, Landorus used EQ (Cune 116/207), Tornadus used Hurricane, protected, Suicune Ice Beam Tornadus KO, Kavan sent out Regirock
4. Landorus used EQ (Scrafty 86/172, Cune 121/207 after Sitrus), Suicune Scald Landorus KO, Scrafty Drain Punch Regirock (35%), Regirock Superpower Scrafty KO, Kavan sent out Cobalion
5. Cobalion used Substitute, Regirock used Superpower (Cune 85/207), Cune used Scald on Coba, Sub broke
6. Cobalion used Iron Head (Cune 58/207), Regirock used Rock Slide (Cune 30/207), Cune flinched
7. Cobalion used Iron Head, Regirock used Rock Slide, Cune KO
0-2

The streak is over at 636 wins. In hindsight T1 was terrible play and switching Raikou for Scrafty should have been the move, I didn't think of Lando2 EQ because "it always uses Outrage" (but obviously not with Tornadus next to it). Even with this rather generous backline, Cune only had about a 50% roll to OHKO Cobalion3 after Sub. And curse Regirock4's 252+ Speed EVs on principle.

I encourage anyone who wants to have an easy Subway Doubles streak to use my team, though. Just avoid getting careless like me.

EDIT: Clefable is awful. Best attempt reached 92. If you want to use it, use a Calm Mind set, because it's not good with Follow Me even with Intimidate support. CM is just worse than Suicune, too, but since it was asked...

 

[GG Unit]

I am glad to report ongoing streaks of 200 in singles and doubles! I’ll talk about my singles team for now, and the doubles team in a later post. I was aiming to wait for 300 wins, but a rather big time commitment has appeared, so I haven't been able to battle much. My apologies.

Salamence’s Tea Party

View attachment 434047
Salamence @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 36 SpD / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Outrage
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
- Substitute

View attachment 434048
Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 220 SpD / 76 Spe
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Protect
- Substitute

View attachment 434049
Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 50
EVs: 132 HP / 252 Def / 124 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss
- Minimize
- Soft-Boiled
- Substitute

Some details on the sets

This team style heavily draws from successful Maison and Tree teams: a lead with good matchups around the board and 2 solid backups to stall troublesome sets. This rather intuitive strategy flourished in gen 6-7 for many reasons: megas made for incredibly consistent and solid leads (and the possibility to effectively use 2 abilities on the same set), and Truant Durant + Dragonite was dead because of fairies, forcing players to reconsider their teams. Even without megas, this strategy seems to work well in the Subway.

Salamence used to be a Multiscale Dragonite with the same moveset and item, and very similar stats (naturally a bit bulkier, and a bit slower). However, strong rock type attackers forced me to use a curse Registeel to tank some attacks, which quickly proved too unreliable. While I have found alternatives to Registeel since, I decided back then to switch Dragonite for Salamence instead. Intimidate is the sole reason it is used over Dragonite: it lets Gliscor and Chansey stall many key physical sets, and does not fear Mold Breaker. I don’t have much to say about the moveset: it’s the quintessential tryhard dragon dancer. Lum Berry mitigates Outrage’s drawbacks, lets you setup on faster Pokemon spreading status, and protects against Effect Spore / Static / Poison Point / Flame Body. There is no room for EQ, but its use would be extremely fringe anyway, since you setup to +6 an overwhelming majority of the time. Of the 27 sets (!!!) that can survive +6 Outrage, 9 of them are a 62%+ range, and 17 of them can have Sturdy, so EQ wouldn’t have helped anyway. The EVs, I must admit, are probably far from perfect. I am considering a faster Jolly version. This is an early guess, which I will not hesitate to revise. (any help is welcome)

Gliscor is the PP stalling magician, weathering even the most fearsome sets. As I will explain later, it sucks that it can’t hit Skarmory, but replacing EQ by Aerial Ace would not help much, and would be detrimental to many other matchups. I don’t think I need to talk too much about the set; stall Gliscor is self-explanatory and already well-known. The EVs are also somewhat of a guess here: I am rather satisfied with the special defense investment, but I haven’t seriously considered the other options yet. A more physically defensive set would more effectively deal with DD sets and fast Swords Dances.

It would seem that Chansey’s qualities have only been exploited in later gens because nobody seriously tried it before, and not because of the subway’s specific environment being hostile towards it. If anything, power creep and the introductions of more moves that ignore Minimize made Chansey weaker after the subway. With Eviolite and defense investment, it can withstand even the most fearsome special attackers while also handling many physical attackers (and Psyshock), using Natural Cure to heal status. While I originally considered Suicune in its place, Chansey’s immediate bulk proved more useful. While it can’t boost itself offensively, it can still setup really well: +6 evasion and a substitute are often enough to end the game. Aura Sphere and Sacred Sword suck, but they are a rather rare sight, and most other moves can be stalled regardless of their power with a 66.67% miss chance and Substitute spam. Having to use Eviolite over Leftovers is incredibly unfortunate, but sadly necessary to keep the desired bulk. This means that Chansey can be somewhat fragile in hail and sand, though. EVs are a mess again, no surprise here. I don’t think HP optimization for weather chip is worth it, but I don’t know how fast it should be exactly.

Strategy

Stall, setup something to +6, win

Notable Threats

I know that a streak of 200 and about 300 battles of testing on emulator is not enough to know about every situation, but here’s what I have found so far.

1: Dragon Dance
By far the scariest single move. Most setup moves can be dealt by stalling with Gliscor, but DD can become dangerous extremely quickly, because the opponent can get a hit before Gliscor can make a substitute. The course of action depends on the exact set, but Intimidate “forces” turn 1 DD on most enemies, so in general Salamence uses Sub-DD-Outrage on slower enemies, and switches to Gliscor on faster ones. Sets that have a OHKO even through Intimidate, like Haxorus 547 and Latios 984, can be beaten respectively with turn 1 Outrage (not the best solution, but a solution nonetheless) and turn 1 switch to Chansey.

A special mention goes to Tyranitar 553 (Rock Slide, Crunch, Ice Beam, DD) for keeping my blood pressure high. Ice beam is a 56% range, deals 67-80% to Gliscor, and Chansey doesn’t want to rely on its evasion boosts for 25 PP of physical attacks in sand, and while being slower. After thinking of countless methods to deal with it, I realized that none of them were viable against other Tyranitars. When I don’t know the set, I must use a turn 1 Substitute. This buys me one turn to hopefully figure out what I’m playing against. Against set 553, if it immediately uses Ice Beam, Salamence must be sacrificed on turn 2 by using Outrage. Gliscor will finish it off. This is by far one of the worst set in the subway, since it “forces” me to lose a member early on without gaining any opportunity to setup. At 200 wins, I have a 31% chance of never encountering one in the lead spot before battle 1000; my fingers are crossed.

3: Terrakion-959 (Swords Dance, Earthquake, Rock Slide, Sacred Sword)
Terrakion acts similarly to a DD set, since it naturally outspeeds every member. The only difference is that it gets +2 Atk when using Swords Dance instead of +1! The problems with this set are numerous. Yes, it always uses SD on turn 1, which would mean that (Substitute), DD, then Outrage would safely win. Unfortunately, every trainer that can have Terrakion has all 4 sets, and the other 3 demand an immediate switch to Gliscor. The problem with switching to Gliscor against set 959 (apart from the chance it gets a flinch on turn 2) is that you can’t stall all of its moves. Gliscor, with PP ups, can Protect/Sub for 32 turns, while Terrakion has 35 attacking PP (excluding EQ), plus the turns it decides to use Swords Dance, which are dangerous to predict. The PP staller gets PP stalled! This means that you need to use Toxic on turn 2, before Terrakion becomes too powerful, and stall 6 turns. If you don’t want to risk using Substitute (crit + flinch chance), you can always Protect, then switch around (applying Intimidate) and come back for another Protect. There’s a lot of RNG in this matchup, and that’s why it’s a set I dread.

3: Skarmory 759 (Stealth Rocks, Spikes, Whirlwind, Toxic)
Being mainly a Doubles player, I find it funny to fear such a set, but it is quite a pain to deal with. Setting up is near impossible without some Minimize luck at the very beginning of the fight, and Gliscor, the only member that doesn’t mind taking the hazards, can’t even do anything to a Steel/Flying type. Chansey, despite taking the most damage on entry, can always use Softboiled to heal (after all hazards are up, taking a Toxic is fine, since Skarmory will always use Whirlwind after, healing the status) but the real danger is poisoning Salamence. Always using substitute on entry is not sustainable, as you will have to use Roost eventually. The way to navigate this lead is to chip it gradually with Seismic Toss and Outrage, to kill it as soon as possible. One can also switch to Chansey turn 1, and try to Minimize while Skarmory is busy laying down hazards. This matchup is heavily dependent on the AI (which I have a hard time understanding for this set) and what Whirlwind throws in, so preparation is somewhat meaningless.

I have considered another backup of Magneton and Suicune. Magneton is a hidden gem, one I shame myself for not considering earlier (it seems like it would perform much better than Registeel, so maybe going back to Dragonite is viable after all). It effortlessly deals with rock and dragon attackers (including Tyranitar 533), ruins DD opponents with Thunder Wave, and baits Earthquake for Salamence to stack Intimidate triggers for an eventual setup. Its companion, Suicune, is equally competent, but I most definitely do not need to preach its virtues on this forum. While I want to explore Gliscor and Chansey for now, I will keep Magneton and Suicune in mind if the former pair proves to be lacking in some way.

I sincerely believe there is potential for a long streak. The overwhelming majority of foes are trivial to deal with, and even troublesome sets are met with incredible resilience. I will try to play even more optimally as the streak matures. Against many sets, I used to be satisfied KOing the opponent’s lead with only a Gliscor behind a substitute. However, whenever possible, I will now take the time to properly PP stall so that Salamence can setup to +6. While I am not overjoyed having to do this, as battles were already quite lengthy, I believe it will become necessary to consistently secure victories.

See you at 500!

Bulldoze is likely better than Earthquake due to reducing Speed and having more PP. In your Terrakion example, if you switch in Gliscor and hit it with Bulldoze (100% accurate rather than 90% Toxic), Gliscor and Salamence now outspeed it (you could easily EV Chansey to outspeed it at -2 as well). You'd actually have a small chance of getting a 2HKO the following turn, but more importantly you're moving first and can stall it as much as you can with the opportunity to keep a Sub on turns it SDs or misses Rock Slide; you might get to a point where if Terrakion only has 4 Sacred Swords left you could sacrifice Gliscor and then set up Salamence (although I'm not positive how the AI would react that gen in that situation).

For Salamence's EVs it's hard to go wrong with Jolly and whatever the highest open speed tier is (in other words you don't want to max speed and tie with a bunch of +nature base 100s), especially since the spread you're using is from the generation where it got use the Mega's 120 base speed turn 1. Being able to get a Sub up against something that is very likely going to continue spamming a status move while you set up freely (this goes for Chansey too) is going to pay off more than a handful of points in bulk when Chansey is already handling special attackers and you can get most physical attackers to -6 and/or stall out their moves.

Chansey/Blissey are definitely underexploited in past generations, but I guess it's easy enough to understand why as it sits in a weird spot where what became its objectively best set requires notably more full PP stalling than anything else and if you're fine with having battles take a long time, a well-made Durant team is going to get longer streaks.

 

[Meuhforever]

Well done, Coeur! It’s very easy when playing gen 5 to only look for the most broken things, and to forget how well a team of (merely) solid sets can perform. Your argument for Scrafty over Hitmontop is very convincing; I wouldn’t say it’s strictly better, but it definitely makes me want to breed an HA Scraggy.

Bulldoze is likely better than Earthquake due to reducing Speed and having more PP. In your Terrakion example, if you switch in Gliscor and hit it with Bulldoze (100% accurate rather than 90% Toxic), Gliscor and Salamence now outspeed it (you could easily EV Chansey to outspeed it at -2 as well). You'd actually have a small chance of getting a 2HKO the following turn, but more importantly you're moving first and can stall it as much as you can with the opportunity to keep a Sub on turns it SDs or misses Rock Slide; you might get to a point where if Terrakion only has 4 Sacred Swords left you could sacrifice Gliscor and then set up Salamence (although I'm not positive how the AI would react that gen in that situation).

For Salamence's EVs it's hard to go wrong with Jolly and whatever the highest open speed tier is (in other words you don't want to max speed and tie with a bunch of +nature base 100s), especially since the spread you're using is from the generation where it got use the Mega's 120 base speed turn 1. Being able to get a Sub up against something that is very likely going to continue spamming a status move while you set up freely (this goes for Chansey too) is going to pay off more than a handful of points in bulk when Chansey is already handling special attackers and you can get most physical attackers to -6 and/or stall out their moves.

Chansey/Blissey are definitely underexploited in past generations, but I guess it's easy enough to understand why as it sits in a weird spot where what became its objectively best set requires notably more full PP stalling than anything else and if you're fine with having battles take a long time, a well-made Durant team is going to get longer streaks.

Very interesting, thank you very much! I think we both arrived at the same conclusion that speed control would help a lot. I replaced Chansey’s Minimize with Thunder Wave, and I like it quite a bit. While Bulldoze is extremely promising – in so many ways it outclasses Twave - , I also think there are some things holding it back. For one it doesn’t really help against Terrakion 959. I made a mistake in my previous post when I said it had 35 attacking PP: Sacred Sword(20) + Rock Slide(10) = 30. This is huge, because Gliscor’s 32 PP are now enough to stall and let Salamence go wild. Even with Sword Dance being used 4 times (from -1 to +6), it works out: the first turn is a switch to Gliscor (so no PP is wasted), and the last Sacred Sword can KO Gliscor, which clears the way for Salamence. Bulldoze, then, has an equal chance of working than directly Sub stalling: both rely on getting one move with Gliscor. I don’t dismiss Bulldoze though; it’s true that the lower base power shouldn’t matter much, and that speed control (even the additional PP) could potentially help.



I reached 500… sort of. I wanted to reach 500 with both my singles and doubles teams. Unfortunately, after a dumb and avoidable loss in doubles around 450, and a subsequent cartridge failure at 234, I decided to take a break from doubles. At least, Salamence and friends held strong to 500 in singles. I’m really sad about my cartridge not being reliable anymore for the subway. This is the second incident in a week (the first one, luckily, wasn’t during a streak), but the cartridge had a quite rough and decade-long life, so I guess it was bound to happen. In the meantime, I have taken the precautions to prevent such failures, and to keep playing on my save file without abandoning the feeling of playing on a console, which is very dear to me. On the upside, my game is now in English (no need to translate trainer names manually!) and I have a beautiful C-Gear skin.



Going back to singles, I have made some modifications to the team. I already wrote about Thunder Wave on Chansey, which is a direct response to Tyranitar 553. My plan against it wasn’t convincing or reliable at all, and was a long-term weakness. A direct switch to Chansey, then TW removes the outspeeding issue for any member to take it out cleanly. In fact, most Dragon Dancers that don’t carry Superpower can be dealt with this way. Losing Minimize is unfortunate, since Chansey could quickly close many battles with +6 evasion, but by no means does it weaken the team. Yes, paralysis can sometimes be counterproductive to PP stalling. However, just as often (if not more), when full paralysis triggers, I get a free turn to heal, deal some chip damage, or use Dragon Dance. The other changes are in Gliscor’s EVs. His speed got dropped to 118, and his special defense got raised accordingly. 125 speed was only used for Tyranitar 553, and since that’s not a problem anymore, I can afford to be bulkier. 118 speed is for Ursaring 480. Guts boosted Facade is no joke, even with Intimidate, so Gliscor must outspeed to prevent a crit mattering.



I thought about a faster Jolly Salamence too. I am very tempted, but I won’t make the jump yet. For one, I don’t have enough PP Up to breed a new Salamence yet, but I also still need to do some research. 147 speed was specifically chosen for Gyarados 715, since it’s the last Dragon Dance user I can outspeed without losing the Adamant nature. Of course, this turned out to be a foolish choice: there’s no way Salamence can reliably get 2 free turns to setup for the OHKO anyway, and going straight for Outrage is just asking for a Stone Edge crit. With Chansey, this set is quite neutered, so I could afford to go slower and bulkier, or much faster. I vaguely remember the adamant nature being useful for certain matchups where I can’t get to +6, but maybe these ideas are now outdated with the recent changes in the team. Otherwise I agree, at +6 the extra attack doesn’t matter much (the difference is a OHKO on 7 non-Sturdy sets, which can’t do much with an extra turn anyway).



I will post an update when pertinent. I hope to bring the doubles team to 500, and then proceed from there.
See you soon!

 

[potatobagel]

Hello everyone,

I've been working on a way to put all the Battle Subway pokemon into a more portable format so the AI's sets can easily be input into damage calculator. With a bit of string manipulation, I was able to do so.

All Battle Subway Pokemon Importable

I tried importing these with the "Import/Export" set box in damage calc and it works! However, I do think there's a limit to how many you can import at once, so I wouldn't try doing all of them in one go.

FYI, I set all their abilities to Cloud Nine just because so many pokemon have multiple abilities. I hope this helps!

 

[potatobagel]

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to report that I've recently completed a 200+ streak in Super Singles for the first time! A very big thank you to Meuhforever, whose team I basically copied, with the exception of the Chansey.

The team:

Salamence (Salamence) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 220 Atk / 36 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Roost

Gliscor (Gliscor) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 220 SpD / 76 Spe
Careful Nature
- Bulldoze
- Protect
- Substitute
- Toxic

Registeel (Registeel) @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 172 HP / 208 SpD / 128 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 29 Atk / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Seismic Toss
- Substitute
- Rest
- Thunder Wave


I found that a specially defensive Registeel works better, in my opinion. Registeel is a much better switch in to Rock/Ice/Steel/Normal types that Salamence and Gliscor can have trouble with. Also, having passive recovery from Leftovers is very helpful against hail, and Rest allows you to burn opponents PP while saving your own. I think 86 Speed on Registeel is necessary to outspeed all Walrein, and max Speed on Salamence allows you to scout Fire types better, namely Entei/Ninetales (one small weakness of this team). I was able to get to +6/+6 pretty regularly with this team, so I don't believe Adamant would be as good. I also rarely boost with Salamence on turn 1, even if the opponent is another Dragon Dancer/Dragon type which I could OHKO with Outrage, since Registeel is such a safe switch. If possible, I try to PP stall to the point where the AI struggles to death, so Salamence won't have to burn its Lum Berry, in case I need 3 turns of Outrage. Bulldoze on Gliscor, a suggestion from GG Unit, was also very useful. Bulldoze is necessary for slowing down the Swords of Justice so Gliscor can PP stall, as well as removing any speed boosts from Volcarona/Tyranitar (in a pinch).

I would say the biggest threats I've faced to this team are any Belly Drum user, any Volcarona, Cryogonal 618 (Sheer Cold), Beartic 702 (Swords Dance), Tornadus 921 (Life Orb), and Floatzel 638 (Damp Rock). Volcarona is always in the back of my mind, because if your opponent's last is Volcarona and yours is Gliscor without a sub or Registeel, you could very well be screwed. Cryogonal is scary because if it hits the Sheer Cold on turn 2 against Registeel before it can sub, that essentially ends the streak. For the last 3, it's necessary to switch into Registeel, Thunder Wave, then switch to Gliscor on a fighting type move, then proceed to PP stall as best as possible.

I think I will stop my streak here and take a nice long break from Pokemon. I really just wanted to do this to get the Starf Berry. Thank you to everyone for the help!

 

[TailGlowVM]

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to report that I've recently completed a 200+ streak in Super Singles for the first time! A very big thank you to Meuhforever, whose team I basically copied, with the exception of the Chansey.

The team:

Salamence (Salamence) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 220 Atk / 36 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Roost

Gliscor (Gliscor) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 220 SpD / 76 Spe
Careful Nature
- Bulldoze
- Protect
- Substitute
- Toxic

Registeel (Registeel) @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 172 HP / 208 SpD / 128 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 29 Atk / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Seismic Toss
- Substitute
- Rest
- Thunder Wave


I found that a specially defensive Registeel works better, in my opinion. Registeel is a much better switch in to Rock/Ice/Steel/Normal types that Salamence and Gliscor can have trouble with. Also, having passive recovery from Leftovers is very helpful against hail, and Rest allows you to burn opponents PP while saving your own. I think 86 Speed on Registeel is necessary to outspeed all Walrein, and max Speed on Salamence allows you to scout Fire types better, namely Entei/Ninetales (one small weakness of this team). I was able to get to +6/+6 pretty regularly with this team, so I don't believe Adamant would be as good. I also rarely boost with Salamence on turn 1, even if the opponent is another Dragon Dancer/Dragon type which I could OHKO with Outrage, since Registeel is such a safe switch. If possible, I try to PP stall to the point where the AI struggles to death, so Salamence won't have to burn its Lum Berry, in case I need 3 turns of Outrage. Bulldoze on Gliscor, a suggestion from GG Unit, was also very useful. Bulldoze is necessary for slowing down the Swords of Justice so Gliscor can PP stall, as well as removing any speed boosts from Volcarona/Tyranitar (in a pinch).

I would say the biggest threats I've faced to this team are any Belly Drum user, any Volcarona, Cryogonal 618 (Sheer Cold), Beartic 702 (Swords Dance), Tornadus 921 (Life Orb), and Floatzel 638 (Damp Rock). Volcarona is always in the back of my mind, because if your opponent's last is Volcarona and yours is Gliscor without a sub or Registeel, you could very well be screwed. Cryogonal is scary because if it hits the Sheer Cold on turn 2 against Registeel before it can sub, that essentially ends the streak. For the last 3, it's necessary to switch into Registeel, Thunder Wave, then switch to Gliscor on a fighting type move, then proceed to PP stall as best as possible.

I think I will stop my streak here and take a nice long break from Pokemon. I really just wanted to do this to get the Starf Berry. Thank you to everyone for the help!

Have you considered running a Curse set on Registeel? This would let you set up on Pokemon you can take advantage of to make muscling through the backline easier, and could PP stall a lot of Pokemon similar to the way Chansey can. Running Substitute/Curse/Iron Head/Rest would probably be the best set. It also makes Volcarona backline, among other threats, a bit less dangerous:

+6 0 Atk Registeel Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Volcarona: 67-79 (34.8 - 41.1%) -- 67.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Registeel Seismic Toss vs. 252 HP Volcarona: 50-50 (26 - 26%) -- guaranteed 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

[Brucolac]

Hello,

I just want to briefly submit a finished streak of 93 wins. Basically I wanted to make Ninjasks unique qualities work in the subway. Here is the team:

Team

Ninjask @ Focus Sash
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 244 HP / 28 Atk / 236 Spe
Jolly Nature
- X-Scissor
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
- Final Gambit

Typhlosion @ Fire Gem
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Eruption
- Flamethrower
- Earthquake
- Protect

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Dragon Pulse
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Protect

Metagross @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Bullet Punch
- Thunderpunch
- Earthquake

Building and Playing

My focus first was Baton Pass, and you can often get it, and let +2+1 Metagross sweep its way (or Garchomp which I had in an earlier version). I did not want to have support with e.g. Fake Out, but tried to pair it with something, which, if left unbothered, really pressures the enemy team. So I tried Eruption Typhlosion, and I gotta say it kind of worked like intended - either one gets a really big damage on the enemy team, or Ninjask could do something. I however, when I progressed playing, found myself deviating from the Baton Pass strategy more and more, until it was only a very situational thing. For one reason, it is because of the risk involved with crits (status is no problem due to Lum), but for the other reason, it turned out to be quite effective to tear a hole into the enemy team with Ninjask! X-scissor sometimes helps to get OHKOs with Eruption, but Final Gambit turned out to be of great value. First I had it, to get rid of really nasty threats to Eruption-Typhlosion like faster Rockslide. For example if I see Aerodactyl, I immediately go for Final Gambit OHKO. But FG evolved into the main move to consider in turn 1, and whenever Fire Gem Eruption can OHKO something, often I can turn the battle into 3vs2 in turn one, because the second enemy most likely cannot stand Eruption after having lost 167HP to Final Gambit (e.g. even max SDef Tyranitar goes down). There are quite nice tendencies, like Virizion: Either It is speed invested and goes down to FG, or it is defense invested and survives FG, but is then slower than Typhlosion and gets KOed anyways. FG kills almost all of the faster Mons due to their speed investment. So, the way of playing this team shifted more and more to hyper offense. And in general, if both enemies get hit by Eruption but survive, while one of my Mons faint, often the following turn I can score a double KO.
Of course Mons faster than Ninjask (in turn 1) may be problematic (and Fake Out but that was not too bad). You don't want to go for 1HP FG. So, when facing Staraptor, Garchomp, ... always some nervousness occurs. Swords dance sometimes is an option then, or smart play (lol). I remember Scarf-Chomp locking into Firefang the only time I faced it, which is a joke then.
Oh and the EVs of Ninjask make not so much sense, better shift a point from attack to speed.

Losing Battle

I faced Salamence and Staraptor, which is troublesome, because Mence survives FG, and Staraptor can be scarfed. I now at writing looked it up, and find it hard to believe that Scarf-Staraptor does not know Bravebird, nor anything that threatens Ninjask seriously lol. This makes way things easier, but I was not aware of that in the battle. Staraptor is not scarfed, goes for Quick Attack into Typhlosion, Ninjask FG into Mence, survives, outspeeds Typhlosion (timid and HP Ice are desired optimations) and kills with Outrage. Still, the battle is all but lost, Latios and Meta in. Here I play a bit dumb. I knew Staraptor has Sash, and I cannot kill it in this turn. I should have went for Bullet Punch finishing Mence, and Latios attacking Staraptor. I thought it will attack anyways, so it does not make a difference. But I finish Mence with Latios, and before I hit Staraptor it U-turns out, and in comes Dragonite, which I hit for pityful Thunderpunch damage. Yanmega replaces Mence. I want to kill Dragonite with Dragon Pulse, but Quick Claw activates (imo the worst item), EQ, crits Meta (otherwise survive), and Yanmega kills Latios. Well... Some actions of me make 0 sense now in hindsight.

Improvements

As I mentioned, the team evolved into playing FG. This strategy may be exploited in another way even better. Here are 2 ideas:

Accelgor @ Focus Sash
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Final Gambit
- Protect
- Bug Buzz
- Acid Spray

Works in the same way, but stronger FG. Also Acid Spray to get -2SDef on one foe. Almost nothing survives Eruption then. Downside: Slower than Ninjask, no speed boost and no ground immunity, which all matters as I guess, but might be worth a try.

Staraptor @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 180 HP / 116 Atk / 212 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Final Gambit
- Bravebird
- Close Combat
- U-Turn

I think this is better than Ninjask and Accelgor. Faster than both in turn 1, and even stronger FG. Also kills some stuff aside from FG etc. If you go down the speed list from above, FG kills almost everything, aside from Ghosts and Sashs. HP EVs are in fact to kill Garchomp3. Speed to outspeed Scarf-Terrakion. Rest goes into attack. The whole team should benefit greatly from Intimidate. I think Metagross is important and should be kept (no matter where you go, Meta in the back is always good). Latios for sure does a good job, but maybe a Suicune like in Coeur7s team would be a good fit as well.
The team was quite fun and made it on I believe 2nd try to 93 wins. I probably will try Staraptor, but it will take a while.

 

[Brucolac]

Hi,
I just briefly want to present a team idea centered around this Murkrow and Perish Song:

Murkrow @ Sash
Ability: Prankster
EVs: Either min or max speed probably
... Nature
- Perish Song
- Protect
- Torment
- Sub/Feather Dance/Captivate/Roost/Fly/Spite/...

Obviously Perish Song is the thing one goes for. The second Mon is supposed to give support for this, either by drawing attacks in or preventing them. To mind comes Scarf-Spore, Fake Out and Spotlight/Ragepowder.

2nd Slot ideas

Smeargle @ Choice Scarf
Ability: ...
EVs: 252 Speed / SDef
Jolly Nature
- Spore
- Spotlight
- ...

Lanturn @ Rindo Berry
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 148 HP / 252 Def / 108 SDef
Bold Nature
- Spotlight
- Protect
- Stockpile/Scald/Thunderwave/...

Kangaskhan @ Chople Berry
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: Def / Speed
... Nature
- Fake Out/Disable/Dig/...

Or similar Hariyama, Scrafty.
Or Entrainment Durant!

The backrow of course should be bulky and stally, maybe also with Fake Out, and maybe the 4th Mon should be something like Latios, which with some support can carry the win home.
The Spore strategy I assign the best winning chances (I got to I think 94 wins with the ridiculous setup of Scarf Spore + Shell Smash Cloyster, so Scarf Spore is not completely unviable). Common situation should then be like this: Either Murkrow or Smeargle get hit. If it's Murkrow, Smeargle most likely can Spore the 2nd Mon in the next turn - this often should be a winning advantage. If it's Smeargle, it most likely goes down. Then something from the backrow comes in, probably with Fake Out, and the delaying of the enemy team can continue with priority Torment etc. and Murkrow can alternatingly Protect and Sub. The incoming mon could also have an opportune setup, abusing the sleeping enemy mon, endless Murkrow bait and priority torment (or spite, against 5PP moves). Suicune, Salamence, Gyarados to mention a few suggestions. A reason to play Murkrow with minimal speed is for the case he gets to Perish Song a second time. In a 2vs2 pinch the one with the slowest mon should win then.

Of course there is much that can go wrong, but it might be fun. To me it feels a bit less shaky than the Spore + Shellsmash setup, so maybe a half decent streak can be reached.

 

[whatsabuizel]

Hi,

Sorry if this isn't the place to ask this, but I severely need help with beating the Super Multi Train (with AI partner). I've been trying to reach the 49 wins with npc Hilda for the past month, but closest I ever got to was 48 and losing to Ingo and Emmet due to poor partner mons and Earthquake spam. I have not been able to go past about 30 wins with the following team since then:

Metagross (Adamant) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 Atk and Spe / 4 HP
- Iron Head
- Zen Headbutt
- Ice Punch
- Trick

Hydreigon (Timid) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk and Spe / 4 HP
- Dark Pulse
- Earth Power
- Heat Wave
- Draco Meteor

At this point it's difficult to tell if it's my fault for choking sometimes bad luck due to bad Hilda pokemon, or both. Worst of all I can't tell if my previous 48 record was a fluke or not and if I need to just make a better team (for personal reasons I'm pretty attached to these two so I want to replace them as a last option). I've noticed that it's extremely risky for me to switch into Hydreigon when dealing with enemies that Metagross can't handle, especially if they have moves with types of Hydreigon's plentiful weaknesses. Yet somehow these two also get the job done and wipe out many opponents without Hilda's "help." Are these two good enough or should I make a new duo?

 

[Meuhforever]

Obviously Perish Song is the thing one goes for.

You will soon find that the ai, in typical party pooping fashion, switches out on the last turn of Perish Song. :(
You would either need some nonsense to keep them from switching out, or KO 2 opponents before using it. I think this second strategy is much more viable, Maison's rotation streaks used it to great success. Using a rain team with Perish Song Politoed actually looks cool, it's a shame Politoed needs to be in the frontline though.

Sorry if this isn't the place to ask this, but I severely need help with beating the Super Multi Train (with AI partner). I've been trying to reach the 49 wins with npc Hilda for the past month, but closest I ever got to was 48 and losing to Ingo and Emmet due to poor partner mons and Earthquake spam. I have not been able to go past about 30 wins with the following team since then:

I like your team a lot! Trickscarf Metagross is nice!
I think you found that the main weakness of this team is that switching around is awkward. If you don't want to change the members, consider leading with a Hydreigon instead. Switching to Metagross is much safer than switching to your relatively frail dragon with many weaknesses, suboptimal speed.

The scarf should probably remain to the lead, which also fixes Hydreigon's speed (crucial in the Dragon speed tiers). Metagross can benefit from Lum Berry (to switch into most moves safely) and a Steel Gem for a Scizor-like Bullet Punch.

This setup of Dragon lead + Steel is very consistent, and can get you the 49 with proper play. I encourage you to also try other leads: Latios, Salamence, Garchomp; they all work slighly differently.

 

[potatobagel]

Hi everyone,

I realized in doing my 200 streak that I really loved using Poison Heal Gliscor as a PP staller, and was wondering if anyone had any experience with using Poison Heal Breloom in a similar role? Wondering what set/EV spread/teammates would pair well with it for a singles streak. Breloom even has the added benefit of learning Leech Seed, which definitely intrigues me...

Thank you all in advance!

 

[Meuhforever]

Salamence, Gliscor and Chansey reached 700 in singles! Everything with the team seems to work, I just need to be patient. My laziness is my biggest enemy, around 680 I had the scare of my life:

First was Gigalith-4 (Curse, Stealth Rock, EQ, Rock Slide). I switch to Gliscor and decide to kill it quickly with Toxic on turn 2, stalling while it goes down. Since Gigalith is slower, I end up without a sub. It used Stealth Rock too. Next is Electivire-4 (Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, EQ). That’s alright, Chansey can deal with it.

I switch in, take Stealth Rock, and take an Ice Punch. Freeze.

That’s fine, I’ll just trigger Natural Cure. I switch to Gliscor on the Thunder Punch, then start over.

I switch in, take Stealth Rock, and take an Ice Punch. Freeze.

Huuuuuuuh this is going to be very tight. I switch to Salamence on the Thunder Punch to trigger Intimidate. This my last chance, or else the streak is dead.

I switch in, take Stealth Rock, and take an Ice Punch. No freeze.

I seriously have no idea if I can take the next Thunder Punch, but I realize that calculating the damage is pointless, since staying in is my only option at this point.

Electivire uses Thunder Punch!
I survive at 8 HP (do you realize how tiny it is for a 342 HP Pokémon?)
Chansey is paralysed!
Chansey used Softboiled!
What a cruel way to play with my heart. I promptly close out the game with Chansey.

Should this be a lesson to not grab an easy kill when it can be used to setup. Salamence could have switched on Gigalith, but I decided on the quick Toxic instead. I did also get terrible luck afterwards, but it’s misfortune I deserved.

In doubles, I haven’t played much. I’m desperately trying to find a team with 4-digit potential that isn’t some form of rain, but so far I can’t find anything -_- Any ideas?

A long rant on Breloom

I’m really curious if someone has managed to succeed with it. Breloom is such a fun pick, but I find it quite hard to fit in teams. As a pure PP staller, I believe that Gliscor is almost strictly better: it’s bulkier and faster, so it can much more reliably start a Sub-Protect chain. It’s also immune to sand, which can be a deal breaker if the rest of your team can’t handle Tyranitar. Breloom’s strength here lies in its typing: grass/fighting has the rather unique property of resisting both ground and rock, a common combination of coverage that can be annoying to many cores. However, it also carries additional weaknesses, and does not resist fighting. How will a Breloom team deal with Terrakion, which is fast, can setup with Swords Dance, and use strong rock/ground/fighting moves? Until this question is answered, picking Breloom as a pure PP staller in the backline is risky.

A note of Leech Seed. It can be somewhat counterproductive to the team’s goal. If you want to stall a move for something else to setup afterwards, you do not want Leech Seed to KO the opponent. If you want to KO the foe (do you really though?), you might as well use Bulk Up to try to sweep the rest of the team. Toxic can also do a similar job, Gliscor-style. The healing part is redundant with Poison Heal, the reason why you chose the ability in the first place! Try instead Ferrothorn with Leech Seed + Leftovers, you will get the 12.5% healing necessary to be health-neutral when using Substitute + Protect. Ferrothorn has much, much better stats and typing, I think that as a Leech Seed staller it will serve you better.

If you really want to make Breloom work in stall, my best bet is to make a more linear, crippling, TrickScarf-like team. I would lead with something that can reliably use Thunder Wave (Magneton!) and Flash. Breloom can then come in to stall and potentially setup with Bulk Up. The last slot can be a mono-attack Dragonite with Leftovers, since it can setup as well as fight one on one. It also complements Breloom nicely. How about Substitute/Protect/Bulk Up/Seed Bomb? Grass stab has many resists, but it’s only completely walled by Bouffalant :) You can also sacrifice the setup opportunity for more crippling with Charm. I don’t know about the EVs in either case.

That doesn’t mean that outside this idea Breloom is unusable, just that it doesn’t really fill any role in traditional archetypes. I can’t think of many Pokémon with as many options in singles as Breloom, so if you’re willing to get creative, sky’s the limit. Cripple with Spore/Substitute or Leech Seed/Substitute, setup with Bulk-Up, use a 140 base power Facade, go-all in with Focus Punch, or ditch Poison Heal entirely for Technician Mach Punch / Bullet Seed. There’s also Charm and Double Team too. The potential is ridiculous.

 

[Brucolac]

Scarf-Spore-Breloom and Unnerve Aerodactyl with Sash may be nice in doubles. One might even try to go for Hone Claws and make use of Rock moves.

 

[Brucolac]

Lost at battle 129 against Clerk Bank. Oh, and merry christmas!

It was this team I already presented, with a small change on Metagross, with EQ > Protect and Expert Belt > Muscle Band. I got to 174 with it before, so this is nothing too special, but I want to share it.

Recap on Team

Whimsicott @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4SDef/ 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Tailwind
- Giga Drain
- Encore
- Endeavor (Protect)

Ursaring @ Toxic-Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 4Def / 4SDef / 244 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Facade
- Close Combat
- Crunch
- Protect

Hydreigon @ Life-Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Earthpower
- Protect

Metagross @ Muscle Band
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Bullet Punch
- Thunderpunch
- Protect

I did not really make mistakes, nor did I have bad luck in the rolls of events. It rather was a very good setup to defeat my team.

I face Scizor and Hydreigon, which seems not too problematic. I go for the usual Protect+Tailwind. Whimsi gets taken out as expected. What I did not expect (probably would have done the same still) is that Scizor swaps out with U-turn. Otherwise I would have had a double KO the following turn and easy game. However it switched out, and in comes enemy Ursaring, which is suboptimal, because now only my Ursaring can OHKO something. I bring in my own Hydreigon (now I realize it is Ursaring+Hydreigon vs Ursaring+Hydreigon lol), and make the right call: OHKO Ursaring with Facade and Protect Hydreigon against the incoming Draco Meteor. It's 3vs3 again. In comes Salamence, which again is just what the opponent needs as now Ursaring cannot OHKO something, nor my Hydreigon. I double for Hydreigon, it goes down, but Salamence hits Dragon Rush and OHKOs Hydreigon. There goes the easy chance to kill Scizor. Metagross in. I use the last turn of Tailwind, double on Salamence and take it out. Scizor LO-U-turn kills Ursaring (well, the toxic then did), and it is Full-HP Meta against Scizor with twice LO damage. Oh oh, a high roll U-Turn crit may even KO me. I maybe should have went for EQ, but I tried to flinch it, but it did not happen. Scizor first got a low roll, and it normally could not even KO without a crit then, but I forgot about Swarm and got taken out.

Nice that it was no hax-mess. Everything just came in for the right time for the opponent. Somehow he always preserved the advantage just barely from turn 1 till the end.

On this streak I became more affine to turn 1 attacks from Ursaring, which should be very well considered before you do it, but it saved some battles. One I remember against double intimidate from Gyarados and Arcanine, where I risked it, to get an OHKO on Arcanine afterwards (that set always goes for Flareblitz and then Extremespeed against Whimsicott. Switching it out for Meta on turn 2 is the way to go.). Maybe I should have attempted such a thing in the losing battle, too (well, no).

 

[IAmHeratic]

Yo :]

I'm reporting a 674 win streak at Super Doubles using a slightly revised rain team I used nearly a decade ago.

Team

Politoed (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Helping Hand
- Surf

Ludicolo (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Energy Ball
- Ice Beam
- Protect

Scizor (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 132 Atk / 4 Def / 116 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Superpower
- Swords Dance

Thundurus-Therian @ Focus Sash
Ability: Volt Absorb
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 18 Atk / 30 Def / 30 SpA / 30 SpD
- Thunder
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Grass Knot
- Protect

Strategy/Explanation

I remember building this team initially by just taking a singles OU team I had at the time and converting it to doubles. Good times.

Idea is straightforward:

• Overwhelm from the start with Scarf Drizzle Poli + LO Swift Swim Ludi.
• Scizor as a backup because it handles Grass/Poison types well and it fares better vs Trick Room teams than everything else.
• Thundurus-T as a backup because it's a fantastic switch in for Electric moves and it hits hard as fuck with Thunder that never misses in rain.

Politoed:

• As mentioned, Choice Scarf on Politoed to that it + Swift Swim Ludi can quickly overwhelm enemies with STAB Rain boosted Scalds ASAP. I went with Modest over Timid to hit as hard as possible. Truthfully I'm not sure if this earns me certain KOs/2HKOs to justify it but Modest isn't really an issue until it comes to Raikou, which is speed ties, and other fast Pokemon like Zebstrika. There aren't many Pokemon faster than Poli but slower than Ludi that Ludi can't take care of, let alone threatening enough to remember them :P
• Scald over Hydro Pump because 80% accuracy is.... not good and while I didn't calc, I don't imagine there are enough KOs worth the risk.
• Ice Beam because it's nice duh :]
• Surf. I had a hard time picking the last two moves but I went with Surf which was surprisingly useful. A lot of matches were just Poli + Ludi KOing everything. It was mainly used in scenarios where the opponent has Steel/Rock/Ground types and some of them could have a Focus Sash or Sturdy (i.e. Steelix + Forretress or Gigalith + Probopass).
• Helping Hand was my surprise choice. I thought about using Rain Dance but I never really liked it. I'd end up, likely, switching out into Scizor anyways since it'd be locked in so I might as well just switch it back in for permanent Rain. Psychic and Hidden Power Grass/Electric were options too but I felt they were too niche and Politoed is just not very strong to make me feel comfortable clicking Hidden Power. Anyway, Helping Hand was useful in scenarios where I wanted Ludi's Ice Beam or Energy Ball to KO things like Latios, Walrein, all Slowbro/Slowking sets IIRC, and notably all 4 Raikou sets with Scald.

Ludicolo:

• Scald over Hydro Pump because 80% acc is bad.
• Energy Ball over Giga Drain because it's slightly stronger and I value the 10% chance to lower SpDef over gaining HP on something that doesn't really need HP.
• Ice Beam because it's nice :]
• Protect because it allows me to reset Rain safely by protecting 1st turn and sometimes it's obvious when Flying/Poison type attacks are gonna target Ludi.

Scizor:

• Great backup for Politoed and Ludicolo with halved Fire weakness in Rain, immunity to Poison, x4 resist Grass, not weak to Electricity, and is a great switch in to the other weather setters - Hippowdon, Tyranitar, and Abomasnow.
• Does well in Trick Room too and priority in Bullet Punch is useful for finishing things off.
• Bug Bite because it gets boosted by Technician.
• Superpower for stuff like Blissey and Steel/Rock types.
• Swords Dance was rarely used but very nice to have when confronted with things like Blissey, Shuckle, Ferrothorn, non Ghost Curse users in general.
• Alternatively, I thought about using Quick Attack so Scizor does more damage to Water and Electric type Pokemon but it wouldn't be very strong anyways and I valued SD-ing up on fat Pokemon a lot.
• The EVs are a bit odd but I basically just added enough SpDef to tank two of Raikou's Thunderbolts after Leftovers. The rest dumped into HP for bulk and Attack of course.

Thundurus-Therian:

• Like Scizor, another switch in for things that threaten Politoed and Ludicolo, that mostly being Electric types as well as bulky Water types which can be kind of annoying.
• Thunder is nice. Doesn't miss in Rain and is extremely powerful from Modest Thundy.
• HP Flying for STAB and because greatly helps against Grass types. I wish he had Hurricane :(
• This things doesn't have a stellar movepool so Grass Knot is kind of meh. It helps I guess against things like Swampert, Lanturn, and Gastrodon but I don't think I used it all that much. Vaguely remember using it against Hippowdon and TTar possibly a few times.
• I considered Volt Switch or Psychic. But between those moves and Sludge Bomb, Dark Pulse, Nasty Plot, nothing really convinced me for the role Thundurus-T plays on this team.
• ... so Protect is the last move. Pretty standard move in doubles.

A lot of matches were just me clicking Scald/Ice Beam/Energy Ball about 4-6 times.

Proof

I recorded the entirety of my run with this team on YouTube into this playlist.

674 Loss

I lost to Maid Fesan with:

• (Lead) Scarf Charizard
• (Lead) Dual Screens Adamant Meganium
• Custap Berry Torterra
• Splash Plate Samurott.

Turn 1:

1. Ice Beam'd Meganium for ~75% with Ludicolo
2. Charizard Air Slash'd Ludicolo for ~90%
3. Politoed Scald KOs Charizard
4. Meganium used Light Screen

Turn 2: (Opponent sends out Torterra)

1. (Mistake) I swap out Politoed for Thundurus-T instead of Scizor. I think I felt to comfortable with what I was up against and didn't consider what'd happen next.
2. Ludicolo used Ice Beam and Torterra lives with ~10%. Ludicolo dies to LO recoil.
3. Meganium uses Overgrow boosted Seed Bomb to do ~35% on Thunudurus-T.
4. Torterra uses Overgrow boosted Seed Bomb and crits, KOing Thundurus-T.

Turn 3: (Send out Scizor and Politoed)

1. Scizor uses Bullet Punch to KO Meganium.
2. (Didn't expect this either) Torterra's Custap Berry activates and it uses Seed Bomb to KO Politoed.

Turn 4: (Opponent sends out Samurott)

1. Bullet Punch KO Torterra
2. Samurott Razor Shells for ~55% and defense drops.

Turn 5:

1. Samurott Razor Shell KOs Scizor.

Other Thoughts

I know rain is and was overused in Gen 5 and the Subway but I love this team. I took some Pokemon (Politoed/Scizor/Thundurus-Therian) from a singles team I used in OU and used them here in the Subway. I'm glad I got this far and further than I did the first time. Though I think I, or someone else, could still get a better run with this team.

I did not play this streak with data on trainers/sets/Pokemon up. Had I done so I could've avoided that loss easily and continued the run. But I had fun nonetheless.

I've noticed this is the same thread from the release of Black & White and OP is inactive. Are there plans to make a new thread that is kept up to date or is that something someone has to do themselves? Thanks all.

 

[GG Unit]

This time it's on an actual cartridge

 

[GG Unit]

A brief history of Glalie in Battle Subway

2013- Some noob suggests maybe Sub/Protect/Taunt Moody Glalie could be good with Entrainment support. They're not even on the leaderboard though so why would anyone listen to them?

2015(?) - After losing a Battle Maison Sableye/Durant/Glalie streak and definitely not having time to get to 3000+ before the release of Sun and Moon, I returned to the 5th gen where I had originally RNGed that Maison team to mess around a little. I briefly discuss the team and how I lost with it (tl;dr - dumbly) here. I think I was either confused or made a typo in that post and actually did the streak on White 2 because A) I'm currently playing on White B) I'd been looking on and off for White and White 2 the last couple years and I guess it makes sense that if White 2 wasn't working I probably gave it to a friend to see if they could fix it but ultimately forgot about it and C) while finalizing my current team it was a major slog to max out PP (see above where I got 1 PP up on 1 move for Durant before saying 'good enough') but in B2W2 you can buy those. Between that and Gravity for Sableye being a B2W2 tutor move, that team definitely had to go there at some point and in all likelihood ended up staying there.

I also remember was that it was a super convoluted process to acquire HA Sableye because the GTS was shut down by then and on the games I had, Prankster Sableye was only available in one of them as a gift from N if you were the female playable character. So there was a lot of trading back and forth between my DS and 3DS to salvage all the cool stuff I'd RNGed and of course was gonna transfer into future generations (there's technically still time - I think?) before restarting whichever file to play through as the female. If you saw the post above, you could probably guess that I don't currently have a Prankster Sableye.

2019 - I did an emulator run of Sableye/Durant/Glalie to 1008. Pretty good team if you ask me!

November 2022 - While packing for a trip I stumbled across my copy of White. It didn't have much that's battle ready, plus years of nature mints, bottle caps, and ability patches/capsules made me soft and sapped my will to re-learn RNGing. However, inspired by the 5th gen remakes being next up as well as the prospect of being the first person ever to see and talk to that Janitor NPC on cartridge, I elected to try making do with what's in my boxes first.

The Super Good Winning Team (TSGWT for short)

Durant: @ Choice Scarf
Jolly
Truant
252 HP, 16 SpD, 240 Spe
- Entrainment
- Protect
- X-Scissor
- Guillotine

Outspeeds everything post-Subway Boss and OHKOs everything that's not a Ghost or has Sturdy. I guess good old Durant here is somewhat interesting due to being a lead while it seemed like Durant teams that led with a crippler were outclassing Durant lead teams in the Subway. Compared to the other teams on the leaderboard, my initial hunch would be I'm just using Durant with more reliable sweepers. Compared to Sableye/Durant/Glalie, I'm not sure which is better - in the broadest strokes, the trade-off is between being more vulnerable to QC Fire moves and lead Perish trappers (none of the ones I've faced this run have used the trapping move turn 1 as I switched to Gliscor though) and getting to use this Gliscor set, which without exaggeration (but maybe some recency bias) feels like the most unkillable thing when set up that I've ever used in a battle facility. All that, AND it brings a new-ish wrinkle (I used this moveset some in the BDSP Tower, but it could have been justifiably assumed then that it was an attempt for Gliscor to work around having no access to Toxic rather than because I genuinely believed it was a better set) to a Pokemon that is now a Frontier standard but was hardly used in the Subway where it was first available with Poison Heal. Leading Durant, as opposed to bringing it in after a crippler, definitely means you don't have to worry as much about early U-turns, and combining that with Gliscor to set up on Volt Switch users without even needing Durant to take a hit first is really nice.

I hadn't read this thread in a long time, but Suspicious Derivative gave finding an optimal Durant moveset a nice go. 1000+ battles later I would have to come down somewhere between "it depends on the rest of the team" and "it really doesn't matter." The AI definitely seems less Explosion-happy than in subsequent generations as long as you're not knocking them down to low health, to the point that I don't think I even used X-Scissor on this run since every lead TR Exeggutor would let Gliscor get fully set up (and of course with no opponent HAs there's no Magic Bounce).

Protect is likely the 2nd most-essential move, and Guillotine does see some non-ironic use in speeding things up against stally 3rd mons. I even won an early-ish (like 200s) battle due to it! Against a Pilot I zoned out and either due to speed or accuracy drops got Glalie hit by Toxic from a Mandibuzz: Durant came back in and got it with the 2nd Guillotine, and whatever came out 2nd I was able to sacrifice Glalie to and then Gliscor was able to stall it and the next mon.

I think the EVs are pretty standard for Durant nowadays. Obviously Durant has low enough base HP that most of the non-Speed EVs are going there and the rest likely won't make a huge difference. You could probably even get by with a Timid 0 Atk IV Durant if Guillotine is the only damaging move; now that would be quite the evolution from the Entrainment + 3 attack and 252 Atk EV sets!

Glalie: @ Leftovers
Timid
Moody
172 HP, 166 SpA, 172 Spe
- Substitute
- Protect
- Frost Breath
- Taunt

177 HP is the standard Leftovers number. The speed is enough to outrun base 130s at +1 and Blaziken when both are the same number of boosts, which is kinda nice to make it more likely to use Flame Charge (which won't break your Sub after a few defense boosts and won't make it KO itself if it's the 2nd Pokemon and you knock it to low health) but not a huge deal in the Subway. Speed is obviously good but being aware of how much the stat is boosted at a given point is going to win you more battles than the specific number of EVs.

The set I used before had some defensive EVs to make a highly-boosted Glalie's Sub more likely to tank hits from Donphan and Scizor while it would 2HKO them, but since Gliscor handles them just fine and the scenario where they come out 2nd/3rd, have the relevant ability, and happen to hit a completely untouched Glalie Sub that happens to be boosted to the right stage would be super rare so I just dumped those points into SpA. Between the extra investment and Frost Breath hitting for 80 BP rather than Freeze Dry's 70, I was pleasantly surprised by how much damage Glalie was doing at times compared to the BDSP Tower where I was last using it. Looking at the level 50 stats and now some damage calculators, it seems I've continued a time-honored of misplacing a couple EVs on a record Glalie team. The EVs above should give it 121 vs. 120 SpA, but you have my permission to go wild and put that extra stat point wherever you want.

Oh yeah, the only Timid Moody Snorunt with perfect IVs left in my boxes was a shiny, so that was fun. I had a regular Jolly one and was looking forward to experimenting with Icicle Spear and making it Cloyster's wacky cousin, but unfortunately I allowed myself to get hyped from not closely reading Bulbapedia and that's only available on it as a TM in Sword and Shield. One last bit of Glalie minutiae is that I like the move order it has where Sub and Protect are on the right-hand side of the touch screen so I can play mostly one-handed.

Gliscor: @ Toxic Orb
Impish
Poison Heal
212 HP, 4 Def, 178 SpD, 116 Spe
- Substitute
- Protect
- Double Team
- Bulldoze

The Gliscor for patient, enlightened souls. The EVs are mostly random garbage. Poison Heal HP number, Speed outruns the White Herb Kingdra (which I actually overshot) and Special Defense because it seems enough people like to run Sp. Def on Gliscor that there's probably something to it. Impish nature because that's the one I had in my boxes and I figured it was within my capabilities to get the record using it rather than going through the hassle of breeding another one. There are certainly more optimal spreads, the most obvious being a little more Speed to outspeed Weavile at -1 and Jolly Medicham at +0. I'm sure you could play around with damage calcs and find some tweaks that would make a Gliscor Substitute more likely to take certain hits, but the main thing is that this has a lot more PP than opponents and as long as you're moving first you'll eventually get to the point where they can't damage at least one of the Pokemon on your team.

The moveset in a nutshell: even if Toxic had perfect accuracy there is very little that Gliscor actually beats with it that it wouldn't also beat by forcing it to Struggle (and of course in the vast majority of cases you don't need to stall that much with Gliscor to get yourself in an even better position where you can safely bring in another Pokemon that can then boost its offenses), and the combination of Bulldoze and boosting evasion against good lead matchups conserves Sub/Protect PP and makes Gliscor far more likely to sweep on its own. The moveset in another nutshell: Gliscor 1v3ed a team that prevented Entrainment with a QC Dragonite lead by PP stalling the Dragonite and taking out Vaporeon and Weavile backups, and it did so with 15-20 PP to spare.


Team Construction:

I had access to other Pranksters I could've tried replacing Sableye with and using as leads, but in my emulator run I already felt relatively iffy against Volt Switch and Sand Stream leads commonly found against Depot Agents and Workers that would force Glalie to use Protect every other turn, since even after 30-40 turns of Moody you can obviously still have bad boosts. Gliscor can makes short work of those teams, as well as the Black Belts/Battle Girls where basically everything has a super effective hit on Glalie; I'll generally set it up against HJK and some Explosion leads too. Glalie is certainly capable of all these on its own, but Gliscor generally just does it faster (even when it doesn't, that means it just ran into something it had to PP stall and the eventual win was never really in doubt). You don't typically think of Gliscor as a sweeper (let alone one on a Durant team), but it's already gonna have Protect and I'd bet when set up it can sweep through the final two Pokemon as frequently as a +6 Attack SD/Protect Garchomp would (just not dealing its damage in OHKO amounts) while fulfilling that same Ground type role as something that can come in and set up against Electric types that might threaten Durant teams with a turn 1 Volt Switch or turn 1 Protect followed by turn 2 Thunderbolt crit/paralysis.

Gliscor is also nice from a speed/peace of mind standpoint to have situations where you can just go for Frost Breath with Glalie without having to do a damage calc or try to stall until you get another Sub up first, knowing you have something in reserve that can finish off the battle for you.

There's a quote from chess (I'm not actually good at chess) that tactics flow from superior positions, and I feel Gliscor encapsulates this pretty well. Durant teams obviously tend to share most of the same threats where you have to have a plan for how to deal with hax items, Fake Out, Protect, VoltTurn, and leads that can KO themselves. This Gliscor set is just such a beast - and would function just as well outside of Durant teams in any generation from 5 on - that it handles the vast majority of them even though I wasn't really giving any special consideration to how Gliscor synergized with the other two beyond obvious "it's 4x weak to Ice and you can bring Glalie in on Ice moves" type of stuff.

A couple cases worth mentioning: with the Fighting resist it gives you much better odds when you suss out a Zoroark lead (even if it crits/gets a Sp. Def drop with Focus Blast you can switch back to Durant and use Entrainment the following turn because it will either have used Protect or used Dark Pulse, which doesn't OHKO with a crit and brings it in KO range of Focus Blast) and really dominates those Flame Orb Machamp/Hariyama sets that can prevent Entrainment turn 1 and KO Durant with Guts Close Combat turn 2, usually getting a Sub and +3 or so evasion after switching in turn 2 without Durant even needing to take any damage.

Threat list/warstories:

I've written a lot already and most of them are self-explanatory. Obviously Glalie is the better sweeper if you can afford to set up indefinitely, but we are only human and in lots of battles you can set up Gliscor more quickly, so if you do that just be aware of possible Ground immunities that can boost their stats (Gliscor can handle most of them 1v1, but if it's had to use a lot of PP prior to that there could be problems) or Quick Claw users that can hit Gliscor super effectively in reserve.

The biggest threat is just QC leads that can OHKO Durant. Gliscor can obviously switch in and set up on Donphan, but if the lead has a Fire move I'm just trying Entrainment on turn 1 and letting the chips fall where they may. The most intense battle of the streak was around 510 or so where lead Slowbro from Fisherman Humfrey QC Flamethrowered turn 1. It was a very white-knuckle affair where Gliscor managed to put up a Sub before a QC Ice Beam the first 2-3 opportunities, and then I was able to more safely stall the rest by bringing in Glalie. From there Gliscor was actually able to get set up thanks in large part to Slowbro going into random mode once out of Ice Beam rather than just spamming Water Pulse. That would have been the end of it but the 2nd Pokemon was Muscle Band Gyarados, literally the only remaining option with a chance of winning since Gliscor no longer had enough Sub/Protect PP to stall out the 25 combined Ice Fangs and Aqua Tails.

I don't remember exactly what the PP situation was going into the matchup, but I'm pretty sure Gyarados Dragon Danced just once before starting to attack Gliscor and missed a few times before getting the KO after Gliscor was finally out of Sub and Protect. When Glalie came out, it DDed turn 1 while I Subbed. I figured between Aqua Tail probably not having that many PP left (if any) and not being a guaranteed OHKO, a Dragon Dance was likely enough that I preferred my odds there to just Protecting and hoping for Speed or Evasion boosts that would not have been sufficient on their own to have won the matchup. I'm not sure how guaranteed the win was at that point in terms of how many attacking PP there were left to stall out, but Gyarados DDed some more to make Glalie comfortably slower (aka no having to worry about getting a Sub broken while faster and getting a speed drop to be outsped the following turn) and mixed enough DDs with the classic pre gen-6 maneuver of attempting a status move on a Sub so that Glalie continually stayed behind a Substitute and never got much further below 75% HP.

After 25 or so turns of just Sub and Protect, I just went for it while at 100% HP behind a Sub - I had pretty high special attack as well as some evasion, and it was using Thunder Wave often enough that I didn't want to risk it breaking my Sub with an attack or Struggle (my speed boosts were such that I was slower than the +6 Gyarados but would outspeed whatever came next). The last Pokemon was maybe Seismitoad - it was something unthreatening and neutral against Ice where I did like 90% on the first hit and it didn't break the Sub.

There are some other battles in the YouTube channel I linked to in the post above, including the QC Dragonite-Vaporeon-Weavile one; fear not, they are uploaded at 4x speed. I will probably continue the streak but at a slower pace. For all I know there's some other NPC you can talk to with a 2000 streak!

One last fun fact about the streak: starting after battle 203 I was simultaneously SRing for a shiny Rayquaza in BDSP. I didn't get it then (or in however many hours worth of attempts I had done prior to that) but did today while in the process of typing out this post lol.

 

[GG Unit]

Battle Subway Super Single Record: 123

Whimsicott @ Full Incense
Prankster, Bold
252 HP, 252 SpD, 4 Def
Stats: 167, 65, 116, 90, 127, 135
~Switcheroo
~Leech Seed
~Charm
~Flash

The idea of the team is to switcheroo the opponent first turn so that Butterfree is faster and the opponent won’t have items like Quick Claw, Chesto, Lum and Brightpowder. Full Incense also overrides Trick Room which is great. After Switcheroo I Flash or Charm depending on the situation, generally Flash opponents with Rock moves instead of Charming first. Leech Seed is mostly for Substitute threats but I hardly use it, I also use it if I want to set Chansey up on an opponent with Rest, Leech Seed and Seismic Toss almost always does enough damage to KO the opponent while Resting. If I retry this team I would definitely change the EVs to have max Defense because Special attackers aren’t a problem for the team.

Chansey @ Eviolite
Natural Cure, Bold
252 HP, 252 Def, 4 SpD
Stats: 357, 22, 62, 55, 126, 70
~Toxic
~Seismic Toss
~Minimize
~Softboiled

I tried the Butterfree-Whimsicott combo a bunch of times but could never find a good third teammate, it has to be able to switch in on weather inducers, Early Birds, Insomnia, some Taunters, Sap Sippers, Sound Proof Pokémon, and be able to set up on as many other Pokémon as possible in case something goes wrong. I tried things like Suicune, Porygon2, Togekiss and Garchomp, Porygon2 was the only one that did well (I got to 102 with it). I was really surprised at how defensive Chansey was and at how well she can take down a whole team after Minimizing. I switch into Chansey if the first opponent can’t defeat her otherwise I Switcheroo and set up with Butterfree. Chansey also did pretty well against taunters, after a Switcheroo followed by a Taunt, Chansey can switch in, outspeed the opponent to get to Toxic and then Seismic Toss.

Butterfree @ Leftovers
Compoundeyes, Modest
204 HP, 4 Def, 212 SpA, 84 Spe
Stats: 161, 58, 71, 139, 100, 101
~Sleep Powder
~Quiver Dance
~Substitute
~Bug Buzz

Back in the Battle Castle with my Smeargle-Breloom streak I realised that if you have a 100% accurate sleep move and you’re faster than the opponent then you’re almost guaranteed to win, so that’s basically how I got to this. Sleep Powder first turn, use Substitute and Quiver Dance when the opponent is asleep and make sure to always have a Substitute up. Sleep Powder was surprisingly accurate it missed 6 times in my streak, since I use Sleep powder about 5 times per battle that’s an accuracy of 99% that I had, and Butterfree only fainted twice because of a miss but Chansey was able to take the victory both times. The HP lets me rotate between Substitute and Sleep Powder for the most amount of turns, in case I get unlucky and the opponent wakes up on the second turn too many times. The speed lets me feel safe to knock out a dangerous opponent after 2 Quiver Dances, with 202 Speed Butterfree outspeeds all 130 base speed Pokémon. Dangerous opponents are Pokémon that will make me lose the battle if Sleep Powder happens to miss. Quiver Dance and Charm work great together, boosting Butterfree’s defences to let my Substitutes survive more than one attack. Bug Buzz is the best move Butterfree gets and it’s much better than having Signal beam just for Soundproof Pokémon, which I can Sleep Powder then switch to Chansey. After 6 Quiver Dances Butterfree OHKOs almost everything that doesn’t resist it, pretty much 50% of Pokémon do resist it though so if the opponents 2nd Pokémon is resistant I start with Sleep Powder. I also Sleep Powder if the Pokémon might have Sturdy or Focus Sash and I only Sleep Powder the last opponent if it might have something like Rock blast or if they can survive more than 2 Bug Buzzes. After set up the only thing Butterfree sometimes has trouble with is the Chandelure with leftovers and Calm Mind, but Chandelure will usually use Will-o-wisp instead of setting up. Butterfree’s low defense is actually an advantage against physical Taunters, if I don’t Charm them things that think they can OHKO Butterfree will rather attack the Substitute than Taunt


How I lost:
The opponent sends out Muk, I’ve never faced a Sticky Hold Pokémon before so I didn’t think it might have it, so I Switcheroo, it fails and Muk KOs with Gunk Shot, I send out Chansey and Minimize and KO it, opponent sends out Lickilicky, just before I KO it it uses Explosion, it hits and gets a CH and Chansey faints. I send out Butterfree and the opponent sends out Starmie, Starmie uses Ice Beam, Butterfree freezes, frozen solid and Starmie KOs with Ice Beam.

The team wasn’t a serious attempt but it did surprisingly well. It’s definitely the most fun team I’ve used and the battles are really interesting and stressful sometimes, which I really enjoyed. And sweeping with a Butterfree is just an awesome feeling!

I didn't play this gen contemporaneously (was busy barely graduating from college at the time) so never really read through this thread too much, but this was one of my favorite old teams that I came across while catching up. I used a very similar concept in the Battle Tree where the lead (Krookodile, since that was the first gen Prankster was nerfed to not affect Dark types) was dedicated to slowing things down for a set-up sweeper that abused sleep (Smeargle) with a Chansey in back to try to salvage things if the lead couldn't do anything.

That team was rolling along before it lost through my own ignorance (I threw Smeargle away assuming Mega Venusaur became slower upon Mega Evolution) and the team being pre-transfer where Chansey had no access to Seismic Toss (in addition to bad Moody luck that left Smeargle slower than -2 Mega Venusaur and unable to evade enough attacks to stay healthy behind its Sub, there was also bad matchup luck where the trainer used the only two Toxic-immune Pokemon on their roster and forced Chansey to run out of PP). I left it behind because I was just messing around with it until Durant became available, but I think an ironed-out version of such a team could easily get at least 500, probably 1000+ in the Tree. It has to have similar potential in the Subway where Prankster isn't nerfed, Grass types aren't immune to powder moves, sound moves don't bypass Subs (no Infiltrator either), there are no Megas or Z moves, and the AI is dumber/more forgiving.

Based on the team report and just common sense I'd assume Whimsicott does pretty well in its role of being a Prankster crippler, so I'm not going to look too much at that for now besides pointing out that Encore or Sunny Day could be good options over Leech Seed. In the 3rd slot, just switching Chansey to the more optimized set with more speed + Substitute over Toxic is low-hanging fruit for improvement in both the aggregate sense and in likely turning the quoted loss into a comfortable win if the Chansey was already lucky enough to boost against Muk before KOing it. Gliscor could certainly also fulfill a similar role as a super defensive mon that outstalls evasion users, doesn't use Leftovers, and can pull off sweeps on its own, and it would be easy to imagine Gliscor directly switching in on Muk (the only Sticky Hold Pokemon that also can KO itself) and either setting up on it or making it take itself out and bring in a 2nd Pokemon that a full health Whimsicott still has a great chance of crippling.

For the sleep abuser, probably the biggest opportunity to try something new comes from the fact that even Compound Eyes Sleep Powder is not accurate enough to trust over hundreds of battles when you're counting on it to hit multiple times per battle. Looking at Spore users, we have:

1) Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Poison Heal
Jolly
- Spore
- Substitute
- Low Sweep
- Double Team/Bulk Up/Protect/Leech Seed

potatobagel here's my shot at letting Breloom shine! I think Meuhforever addressed the main issues with it where with item clause it directly competes with Gliscor and the main unique moves it has over Gliscor to make up for its worse defenses/speed/defensive typing (Leech Seed and Spore) are counterproductive to PP stalling. Additionally, if I were dedicating at least one whole teamslot just to make the opponent slower so I could PP stall, my first question would be whether Breloom could set up so much more reliably than a Moody Pokemon to offset being a less potent sweeper against the two opposing non-crippled Pokemon.

Spore and Substitute would definitely be mandatory. Low Sweep echoes the use of Bulldoze on Gliscor where slowing something down so you can better stall it matters more than higher-damage options, especially since Breloom can't boost its Speed. Boosting stats is always my default option over more coverage when I'm using a Pokemon that can stall/wall a lot of stuff. Bulk Up worries me a bit since it seems like it would be relatively common to OHKO a 2nd Pokemon on the turn it wakes up, outspeeds Breloom, and breaks the Sub, leaving you vulnerable to being OHKOed by the 3rd. You could try playing around that by using Bulk Up a lower number of times against certain trainers, but I think Double Team is probably a bit safer. That would also echo my Gliscor set where being able to chip something down and KO it on your own terms while boosted and behind a Substitute can be preferable to trying to power through bulky defense boosters that you could just stall out of attacks. You could even say that being walled by Ghosts is better than being walled by Ground immunities since there aren't any speed boosting Ghost types, and obviously something like Chansey also does fine without hitting them.

Maybe you could even go extra stally with something like Spore/Sub/Protect/Double Team and a teammate that boosts its offenses, and at that point it would probably be worth seeing whether some Sub/Protect/Double Team Pressure users with Leftovers (Aerodactyl, Weavile, Dusknoir, Johto/Kanto legendaries) could fulfill a similar role with either more speed or bulk alongside a non-Leftovers set-up Pokemon like Gliscor, Drapion (or Tentacruel!), or Lum Dragonite/Salamence as the 3rd.

2) Smeargle @ Leftovers
Moody
Timid
- Spore
- Substitute
- Stored Power
- Low Sweep/Soak/Protect/???

Like Butterfree this doesn't have the most reliable sleep either due to the potential for Moody accuracy drops. However, you can work around this pretty well by either switching in the defensive teammate (in this case you'd most likely want Gliscor for the Sandstorm immunity plus ability to beat leads with physical priority) to reset bad stats and try again or trying to Sub/Protect stall for accuracy boosts; between possible accuracy reduction from the lead (edit: or probably even better, evasion reduction such as Sweet Scent), possible evasion boosts from Smeargle, the opponents' propensity for using status moves, and good old-fashioned PP stalling, even something as frail as Smeargle can buy itself more turns than you might think. Failing all that, risking an inaccurate Spore would be fine a lot of the time due to how safe Gliscor is as a sweeper. In fact, if you weren't running Protect it would probably be wise to set Gliscor up and go for a sweep first most battles, where the kinds of things it fails to KO tend to easily be stalled out of attacks for Smeargle to then come in safely.

With no later-generation moves for Smeargle such as Spiky Shield to chip down most physical attackers regardless of speed/accuracy boosts and Power Trip to reach ludicrous BP with no immunities, the main problem to solve is obviously the inability to hit Dark types. In my experience with Smeargle, its stats are bad enough that you should neither count on keeping an intact Substitute if the opponent connects with a damaging move nor OHKOing anything with any non-ludicrous BP move. Stat-wise, this means full Special Attack and likely full Speed (at the very least the highest speed tier it hits with no ties) EVs, a slightly reduced HP IV to hit a Leftovers number (too lazy to look up exactly what that would be right now, but 29 sounds right), and whatever's left in Defense. Movewise, this means you're not going to see me suggesting some 4th move like Aura Sphere simply because it hits most Dark-types super-effectively.

Low Sweep would be my first guess where Gliscor should be able to deal with any Dark type that's had its speed reduced even in the rare event that Smeargle couldn't just chip one down itself while continually putting it to sleep (just +2 with a 31 Attack IV is sufficient for Timid Smeargle to 2HKO Weavile, which is all pretty much anything besides a set-up Cloyster can hope to do against a Sash Weavile anyways). Reducing the 2nd/3rd mon's speed in the event of bad boosts/a lead that KOs itself too soon could turn quite a few battles, and due to Smeargle's horrible offenses it will even get plenty of opportunities to be used like Glalie's Taunt to just advance through another turn of Moody boosts while conserving PP of the more essential Sub/Spore and not KOing the crippled lead.

Soak does no damage so is an even better turn-waster, and of the moves that remove Dark's immunity to Stored Power I'd consider it a better alternative to Miracle Eye since it removes STAB and makes Stored Power neutral on all of them as opposed to something like Bisharp still resisting - Miracle Eye bypassess accuracy checks and nullifies evasion boosts, but Gliscor can outstall evasion users on its own and get them to a point where Smeargle comes in freely and just waits for accuracy boosts or the opponent to Struggle. Toxic or Will-o-Wisp could waste turns against a sleeping opponent and slowly take out Dark type backups while the Drapion/Houndoom that would wall such a Smeargle could at least be PP stalled and put to sleep so Gliscor can easily set up. There are probably other options that I haven't thought of - let me know!

unexplored Durant teammates/goodstuff PP stallers

Sub/Protect/Low Sweep/Stored Power Smeargle is also worth considering as a replacement for Glalie on Durant teams, although my inclination would be that since you'd still have to wait for positive speed and accuracy before sweeping, despite the much higher damage potential of Stored Power the set-up isn't going to be so much faster to offset it being more frail for the battles where you're getting bad speed/accuracy boosts and need the Substitute to tank some hits. The ability to have a guaranteed OHKO on all Cobalion sets when set up and not having to worry about the infamous Lax Incense/Psych Up combo puts Smeargle in rarified air among even the best Durant sweepers.

Actually, Acupressure Tentacruel can do that too! Sub/Protect/Acupressure/Scald seems great to me. Compared to Drapion (stuck in an awkward spot between its perch on the top of gens 4 and 6 with the Sacred Sword users introduced and Knock Off not yet being strong enough for a boosted Drapion to power through them and other heavy resists, especially with Dark being NVE against Steel) its main disadvantages are what, being walled by Water immunities and a lack of Battle Armor? Those really don't seem like too big of a deal to me if using Tentacruel alongside Gliscor, in fact, a more than fair tradeoff for not having to care about Cobalion or contact abilities.

Battle Armor is definitely essential when using a Rest Drapion, but in my time using Durant-Drapion in the Maison I felt it was not really doing anything aside from causing marginally fewer Substitutes to get broken while setting up. It was superfluous when my stats were boosted enough, and the team was built in a way that meant I was able to either avoid setting up against most of the leads that tend to KO themselves early or at least safely get Durant back in if a sparsely-boosted Drapion couldn't handle what came out 2nd. In the times I lost or was in trouble, Drapion was either beyond the point of being saved by any possible ability except like Wonder Guard or Moody (have to use Red Card, Red Card brings in Explosion user that explodes early into SD Garchomp) or had much more to worry about from secondary effects than crits (couldn't get up a Sub 1v1 against Floatzel because of 2 Waterfall flinches, incidentally Tentacruel matches up great against this. Hmm...).

With Gliscor switching in on so many of the same threats that Red Card users come in on (I don't think the item itself would work as well with Durant this gen due to that redundancy plus crits hitting harder), I think Tentacruel would similarly get consistently long set-up opportunities. A partially boosted (or even unboosted) Tentacruel still has the ability to Sub/Protect stall, wall plenty of things with its typing and inherent special bulk, grant Gliscor free switch-ins by drawing Ground and Electric moves, just set up Acupressure anyway against a gen 5 opponent that tries to status a Sub, or failing all that spam Scald and hope for a burn. Tentacruel, like Drapion, should be fine with an ability that doesn't give it a huge benefit. I'd have no idea which of its three abilities would even be 'best' - Liquid Ooze would be the one where I feel you'd be incurring its effect most frequently (for an idea of how low that bar is, I count 10 Giga Drain users post Ingo and the overwhelming majority of them are far more interested in using Leech Seed/Protect/Ingrain type moves than trying to do damage) but I'm not even sure whether that effect would be positive or negative!

As for Water Absorb/Storm Drain, it seems straightforward enough that between the combined PP of Tentacruel and Gliscor and Tentacruel resisting Water and Ice, you can stall them out without much worry. Oh yeah, you'd even have the option to remove those abilities a lot of the time. Compared to Glalie, Tentacruel seems like it'd need to worry more about Special Defense boosters with HP recovery, but in practice you'd be PP stalling their limited number of attacking moves and wearing down the ones without Rest with a burn that's still dealing that extra thicc passage damage chunk of 1/8th HP. It would be more a concern with making battles take longer than making battles unwinnable (e.g. against a lead CM-Rest Suicune you're probably best off wasting a bunch of PP with the other teammates first before going in and setting up with Tentacruel so Suicune's about to Struggle by the time you've got 21 boosts and are ready to attack).

Tentacruel could even have some advantages over Glalie where it absorbs Toxic Spikes (lead hazard Forretress uses Toxic Spikes turn 1 super rarely, is obviously not that common in the first place, and even if it happens it's not the end of the world to just set up Gliscor instead - still, definitely a plus) and has a better matchup against some of the Quick Claw/Protect Water types like Wailord, Slowbro, Dewgong, and Floatzel that can can give both Durant and Gliscor problems. I feel like Glalie would still be better because in those rare battles where you don't get to set up as much as you'd like and are missing that one boost in Speed or whatever that would guarantee a win, you're more likely to get it eventually through Sub/Protect stalling for more Moody boosts than by leaving yourself vulnerable to go for another Acupressure. That could just be because that's what I'm used to though; Tentacruel is 100% worth trying.

I used a Sub/Protect/DD/Crunch Tyranitar to get through the Subway boss, although that was again a function of seeming good enough + being ready to go on my cartridge with a generic max HP and Attack spread than it being super optimized. The endless Sand Stream was cool to break Sash, undo Snow Warning without requiring an additional moveslot for Durant (or it to not get KOed or frozen while using Entrainment), wear down some Flame Body/Static/evasion item 2nd mons to not risk getting statused or missing, or allow Gliscor to beat more Ground immunities without having to fully PP stall them, but I could also see it creating opportunities for like Sand Veil Garchomp to be a pain and with 6 boosts + Sand Stream messages it's not way faster than Glalie anyways. Other than that Tyranitar probably functions similarly to Dragonite where both stack some weaknesses with Gliscor while having about the same damage output (Dragon not having any 4x resists is an edge for it for sure, especially where Cobalion is concerned) and the natural bulk to maintain a Sub against weaker hits despite not boosting defenses.

Cloyster with Leftovers and Sub in place of Sash and the non Icicle Spear attacking move boosts up faster than a Dragon Dance (or Quiver Dance I suppose - haven't thought about it too much, but a mono-attacking Volcarona with Sub should be fine walling the Flash Fire/Soundproof stuff that comes out 2nd/3rd when there's a Gliscor or some other staller backing it up) and the mons that heavily resist Icicle Spear or evade it with Bright Powder/Lax Incense could be Sub/Protect stalled with both Cloyster and Gliscor. Obviously the Ice/Ground synergy is tried and true as well - having the flexibility to passively recover HP in both Sandstorm and Hail is great.

The Pressure users mentioned alongside Breloom also deserve some mention here. Similarly to Gliscor, they can function without a dedicated crippling lead, but using one allows you to conserve Sub/Protect PP while getting the first KO and makes you substantially more likely to either sweep through the remaining two or run something out of PP so that a teammate can safely boost instead. I haven't run calcs, but a lot of these Pokemon are sure to be surprisingly bulky when they're invested in defenses rather and not the speedy attackers most people are accustomed to using them as. It's commonly said that power creep increases with each generation, and since the 5th gen is the last generation with critical hits doing 2x rather than 1.5x damage, it's fair to assume that the Subway would be where the share of a Pokemon's defensive value that belongs to how many of the opponents' PP it can safely stall behind a Substitute would be at an all-time high relative to everything else (typing, recovery moves, actual defensive stats).

Sub/Protect/Double Team plus some kind of speed control attack is a proven template. Aerodactyl (Bulldoze), Weavile (Low Sweep), and Moltres (Flame Charge) seem like good candidates there. The legendary birds all get Agility too and the legendary beasts get Bulldoze, but while I seemingly eschewed damage dealing to run Bulldoze over Earthquake on Gliscor, my hunch would be there's still some minimum threshold of damage you should be dealing in order to outdamage the passive recovery of whatever potential threat without it setting up on you or you running out of PP (actually in a preview of the next sentence, Poison Heal Breloom would be a good example), and Gliscor at least reaches that by having STAB and 95 base Attack (plus better healing than Leftovers). I wouldn't be 100% sure about the efficacy of running zero damaging moves since a lot of things, even if you wall them, would waste more of the staller's PP than you'd think due to all the times they'd try to Leech Seed or whatever against Substitutes, resulting in fewer PP before Struggle to provide a free switch to a teammate you'd want to bring in to boost offenses; it could certainly work though. Maybe something like Zapdos has the stats and typing to get by with no speed control, just using Thunderbolt as an attack to deal enough damage to any Dragon Dance threats it couldn't PP stall (it actually would stall a lot of them since anything with Rest or Earthquake is down to at most 2 damaging moves).

Some of these sets could probably be ported into Doubles as well. PP stalling has more slowly made its way there in later generations, but I believe it can really simplify things in Doubles when you can downgrade opposing evasion/status users from threats that must be taken out quickly before they become unhittable to liabilities that allow you to go 2v1 on their teammates while you have a backup that can easily stall them out once the dust settles.

 

[GG Unit]

Sadly my streak came to an end at 1148 wins. Not because of any misplay or weakness to the team, my game just froze there following a +6 evasion Gliscor KOing a lead Pokemon from behind a Subsitute. It was fun running through this gen though and checking out the calcified opinions in the thread such as "Whimiscott/Durant/Dragonite makes all other teams obsolete." In reality, there's plenty of room to improve on both that streak and mine now. I'm sure someone could get well over 1000 without using Durant, or maybe even while not even using Pokemon with hidden abilities.

 

[Meuhforever]

Just got the Super Doubles trophy with this team. Make sure to sit down before you read:

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Fly
- U-turn
- Rock Slide

Cresselia @ Light Clay
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Icy Wind
- Lunar Dance

Scizor @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Brick Break
- Swords Dance

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 132 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

Fly? Dual screen Cresselia? Swords Dance + U-Turn?? Lunar Dance?!?!? It doesn't take a genius to notice that this team is an absolute fever dream. What's the catch?

!

This team was made by ChatGPT

Ok honestly this has been the most fun I've had in the subway for a while. I started my facilities journey as a doubles player, and among my many early streaks of 200-ish were many iterations of scarf Lando-T + Rotom-W + some steel type + a second ground immunity that wasn't weak to ice as a second lead. That's why when I saw ChatGPT's creation I was in utter disbelief: I definitely tried this 4-member combo, or at least theorymoned it. In retrospect, it's not surprising: my early teams were inspired by VGC 2012, minus the dragon spam and the Exeggutor, and VGC discussion from BW years is probably the data it used to create this. I was still baffled in the moment, before I looked at the sets of course.

I'd just like to go over the sets one by one, and show the funny (read slightly bad) things it chose. I can't claim to be the best doubles player around, but if you are new here, this is a great display of basic teambuilding in facilities.

Lando-T

Speed EVs are wayyy too high, there's obvious VGC mentality here. My own Lando-T has 134 speed for the base 130; you could look at 135 for Scarf Skarmory, but I've never bothered to change it. Skarmory tends to be okay for these teams anyway. Whatever you choose, put the rest in SpDef. The other weird thing is Fly. I've always done Earthquake, Rock Slide, U-Turn, Superpower, and never considered anything else seriously. Doing without Superpower wasn't great: ice and normal types could be annoying, especially coupled with Scizor's only 75BP Brick Break. However, Fly was actually fun to use! You laugh at Slaking and some annoying grass/fighting types are way less annoying. Under a more tailored team, the immunity turn could also be a bigger deal. The best thing, however, is realizing how useless Rock Slide had become. Anyone who had used Lando-T, espeically the scarf sets, knows Rock Slide is the worst part of Lando-T: it has low power, flinches when you don't need any, and misses when you need a hit. I am now seriously considering Fly over it. It comes with a blessed 5% accuracy boost, and after STAB+spread reduction it deals more than double the damage (which means that coverage differences are somewhat nonsensical), though on a single target. I'm not completely convinced, as Rock+Ground is such an intuitive coverage combo, and for me Rock Slide has been a staple on the Scarf set, but don't sleep on Fly.

Cresselia

I could easily write a whole post on the second leads of Scarf Lando-T teams, and Cresselia would need to be discussed thoroughly. I'll restrain myself for your reading pleasure, however. The ChatGPT set is honestly the worst of the team. If you still had any doubts that it's copying VGC teams, the mono-ice coverage really gives it away, and still makes me laugh a bit. This full support set is too passive for the team. Light Screen was useful, Icy Wind was too (though Ice Beam is much better imo), but the last moves are problematic. Reflect is a waste of a moveslot with Intimidate, that's obvious. Lunar Dance was... well... it's tough to describe. Its use was so fringe, but when it was useful, you feel like a genius and it actually works wonders. Its practical use is actually two-fold: status healing (freezes especially) and repositioning your two actives. Let's say you have a frozen Rotom-W and a Cresselia, which means you have no offensive pressure. You can switch Rotom-W out and use Lunar Dance on Cresselia to bring back a healthy Rotom in the other slot. From no offensive pressure, you now have two threats, while curing a freeze and potentially soaking up the switch damage on Cresselia if its slow enough and maybe even apply Intimidate. An extreme momentum swing. In reality, I don't think that Lunar Dance is worth it, since part of its appeal (getting rid of Cresselia) was caused by the mediocrity of the rest of the set. Had the other moves been more proactive, I probably wouldn't have wanted to sacrifice it as often. You still feel like a genius when you use it though. I won't propose a better set here, because there are way too many options to cover here, but getting rid of the Light Clay, Reflect, Lunar Dance, and tweaking the EVs is a good start.

Scizor

This set is ok, but a couple points must be mentionned. First, put Superpower over Brick Break. I actually challanged ChatGPT about its choice, and it argued for longevity, but Superpower is the super choice here, trust me. U-turn should be Bug Bite, especially since Scizor doesn't lead (as it shouldn't!), and especially with Swords Dance. I'm ok with Life Orb (so much for longevity now huhhhhh), but coupled with Swords Dance it seems like overkill. On top of the standard Bullet Punch, Bug Bite, and Superpower (with some rare exceptions of course), I believe doubles Scizor should either be Protect + Life Orb or Swords Dance + Lum Berry. I have a personal inclination for the latter, as I'm a big fan of Lum Berry steel types to switch into ice opponents, but Protect and extra immediate power is vicious, depending on the team. No matter your inclination, Life Orb and Swords Dance puts way too much firepower on something that can hardly defend itself. Also aim for some speed EVs, even if it's just 4.

Rotom-W

Rotom is another solid entry in the Scarf Lando-T teambuilding encyclopedia, and perhaps Lando-T most synergistic partner. If that post ever sees the light of day, Rotom-W will probably make for the longest chapter. It has always been an absolute headache to use for me. It has at the same time not enough moves and too few moveslots (!!!), and the choice of items/EVs is not self-evident either. Anyway, what ChatGPT chose is definetely an option, but not one of my favorites. First, I don't believe in Hydro Pump at all. However, I'm willing to let it slide, since the difference in power with Hidden Power Water is considerable. But if its me playing, I want the 100% accurate move. Pain Split is also kinda bad. I was curious about it at first, but it was underwhelming. Thunderbolt works, but Volt Switch is also an attractive option (I also removed U-Turn from Scizor, and my morals tell me I should have 2 switch moves). Will-O-Wisp was almost good. I would never advise a 75% accurate move that's not used for stalling, but it got me thinking about Toxic. A notable flaw of Rotom-W with HP Water is its inability to do anything to water-ground opponents with a water immunity (Seismitoad, Gastrodon, Quagsire), as well as against special walls like Blissey. I have lost in the past to PP stall wars with Rotom against either Quagsire or Chansey, and I always wished there was something I could do about them. Toxic seems to complement Rotom-W well, I'll consider it. But as I eluded to earlier, moveslots are tight for Rotom-W, I'm not sure you can fit it. Going back to the ChatGPT set, you should remove Leftovers for sure. My favorites are Sitrus Berry and Electric Gem, but feel free to try other things too. Finally, the EVs are of mention, since the AI actually chose some specific values over 252/252/4. I asked for its reasoning, and it responded with this very AI-like response which I will paraphrase: "these EVs have been calculated for Rotom-W to reach key bulk benchmarks, like Lando-T's Earthquake" -_- So close, yet so far... You should change the EVs, maybe some SpA and/or and higher Speed tier. Whatever you do, don't use Lando-T's Earthquake as a bulk benchmark please.

Anyway, lots of awkward stuff, but forcing yourself to use these "worse" choices is an illuminating experience. It definitely changed my perspective on some things, notably Fly and some new tech on Rotom-W. It also rekindled my love for good stuff, though Coeur07's teams have really tempted me before that. I really want now to take these four members on a longer streak, with revamped sets. It's doesn't really have 4-digit potential, but it will be fun.

When AI takes our jobs, we will at least still be able to play battle facilities with pride. Not so bad of a future I think.

 

[GG Unit]

Just got the Super Doubles trophy with this team. Make sure to sit down before you read:

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Fly
- U-turn
- Rock Slide

Cresselia @ Light Clay
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Icy Wind
- Lunar Dance

Scizor @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Brick Break
- Swords Dance

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 132 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

Fly? Dual screen Cresselia? Swords Dance + U-Turn?? Lunar Dance?!?!? It doesn't take a genius to notice that this team is an absolute fever dream. What's the catch?

!

This team was made by ChatGPT

Ok honestly this has been the most fun I've had in the subway for a while. I started my facilities journey as a doubles player, and among my many early streaks of 200-ish were many iterations of scarf Lando-T + Rotom-W + some steel type + a second ground immunity that wasn't weak to ice as a second lead. That's why when I saw ChatGPT's creation I was in utter disbelief: I definitely tried this 4-member combo, or at least theorymoned it. In retrospect, it's not surprising: my early teams were inspired by VGC 2012, minus the dragon spam and the Exeggutor, and VGC discussion from BW years is probably the data it used to create this. I was still baffled in the moment, before I looked at the sets of course.

I'd just like to go over the sets one by one, and show the funny (read slightly bad) things it chose. I can't claim to be the best doubles player around, but if you are new here, this is a great display of basic teambuilding in facilities.

Lando-T

Speed EVs are wayyy too high, there's obvious VGC mentality here. My own Lando-T has 134 speed for the base 130; you could look at 135 for Scarf Skarmory, but I've never bothered to change it. Skarmory tends to be okay for these teams anyway. Whatever you choose, put the rest in SpDef. The other weird thing is Fly. I've always done Earthquake, Rock Slide, U-Turn, Superpower, and never considered anything else seriously. Doing without Superpower wasn't great: ice and normal types could be annoying, especially coupled with Scizor's only 75BP Brick Break. However, Fly was actually fun to use! You laugh at Slaking and some annoying grass/fighting types are way less annoying. Under a more tailored team, the immunity turn could also be a bigger deal. The best thing, however, is realizing how useless Rock Slide had become. Anyone who had used Lando-T, espeically the scarf sets, knows Rock Slide is the worst part of Lando-T: it has low power, flinches when you don't need any, and misses when you need a hit. I am now seriously considering Fly over it. It comes with a blessed 5% accuracy boost, and after STAB+spread reduction it deals more than double the damage (which means that coverage differences are somewhat nonsensical), though on a single target. I'm not completely convinced, as Rock+Ground is such an intuitive coverage combo, and for me Rock Slide has been a staple on the Scarf set, but don't sleep on Fly.

Cresselia

I could easily write a whole post on the second leads of Scarf Lando-T teams, and Cresselia would need to be discussed thoroughly. I'll restrain myself for your reading pleasure, however. The ChatGPT set is honestly the worst of the team. If you still had any doubts that it's copying VGC teams, the mono-ice coverage really gives it away, and still makes me laugh a bit. This full support set is too passive for the team. Light Screen was useful, Icy Wind was too (though Ice Beam is much better imo), but the last moves are problematic. Reflect is a waste of a moveslot with Intimidate, that's obvious. Lunar Dance was... well... it's tough to describe. Its use was so fringe, but when it was useful, you feel like a genius and it actually works wonders. Its practical use is actually two-fold: status healing (freezes especially) and repositioning your two actives. Let's say you have a frozen Rotom-W and a Cresselia, which means you have no offensive pressure. You can switch Rotom-W out and use Lunar Dance on Cresselia to bring back a healthy Rotom in the other slot. From no offensive pressure, you now have two threats, while curing a freeze and potentially soaking up the switch damage on Cresselia if its slow enough and maybe even apply Intimidate. An extreme momentum swing. In reality, I don't think that Lunar Dance is worth it, since part of its appeal (getting rid of Cresselia) was caused by the mediocrity of the rest of the set. Had the other moves been more proactive, I probably wouldn't have wanted to sacrifice it as often. You still feel like a genius when you use it though. I won't propose a better set here, because there are way too many options to cover here, but getting rid of the Light Clay, Reflect, Lunar Dance, and tweaking the EVs is a good start.

Scizor

This set is ok, but a couple points must be mentionned. First, put Superpower over Brick Break. I actually challanged ChatGPT about its choice, and it argued for longevity, but Superpower is the super choice here, trust me. U-turn should be Bug Bite, especially since Scizor doesn't lead (as it shouldn't!), and especially with Swords Dance. I'm ok with Life Orb (so much for longevity now huhhhhh), but coupled with Swords Dance it seems like overkill. On top of the standard Bullet Punch, Bug Bite, and Superpower (with some rare exceptions of course), I believe doubles Scizor should either be Protect + Life Orb or Swords Dance + Lum Berry. I have a personal inclination for the latter, as I'm a big fan of Lum Berry steel types to switch into ice opponents, but Protect and extra immediate power is vicious, depending on the team. No matter your inclination, Life Orb and Swords Dance puts way too much firepower on something that can hardly defend itself. Also aim for some speed EVs, even if it's just 4.

Rotom-W

Rotom is another solid entry in the Scarf Lando-T teambuilding encyclopedia, and perhaps Lando-T most synergistic partner. If that post ever sees the light of day, Rotom-W will probably make for the longest chapter. It has always been an absolute headache to use for me. It has at the same time not enough moves and too few moveslots (!!!), and the choice of items/EVs is not self-evident either. Anyway, what ChatGPT chose is definetely an option, but not one of my favorites. First, I don't believe in Hydro Pump at all. However, I'm willing to let it slide, since the difference in power with Hidden Power Water is considerable. But if its me playing, I want the 100% accurate move. Pain Split is also kinda bad. I was curious about it at first, but it was underwhelming. Thunderbolt works, but Volt Switch is also an attractive option (I also removed U-Turn from Scizor, and my morals tell me I should have 2 switch moves). Will-O-Wisp was almost good. I would never advise a 75% accurate move that's not used for stalling, but it got me thinking about Toxic. A notable flaw of Rotom-W with HP Water is its inability to do anything to water-ground opponents with a water immunity (Seismitoad, Gastrodon, Quagsire), as well as against special walls like Blissey. I have lost in the past to PP stall wars with Rotom against either Quagsire or Chansey, and I always wished there was something I could do about them. Toxic seems to complement Rotom-W well, I'll consider it. But as I eluded to earlier, moveslots are tight for Rotom-W, I'm not sure you can fit it. Going back to the ChatGPT set, you should remove Leftovers for sure. My favorites are Sitrus Berry and Electric Gem, but feel free to try other things too. Finally, the EVs are of mention, since the AI actually chose some specific values over 252/252/4. I asked for its reasoning, and it responded with this very AI-like response which I will paraphrase: "these EVs have been calculated for Rotom-W to reach key bulk benchmarks, like Lando-T's Earthquake" -_- So close, yet so far... You should change the EVs, maybe some SpA and/or and higher Speed tier. Whatever you do, don't use Lando-T's Earthquake as a bulk benchmark please.

Anyway, lots of awkward stuff, but forcing yourself to use these "worse" choices is an illuminating experience. It definitely changed my perspective on some things, notably Fly and some new tech on Rotom-W. It also rekindled my love for good stuff, though Coeur07's teams have really tempted me before that. I really want now to take these four members on a longer streak, with revamped sets. It's doesn't really have 4-digit potential, but it will be fun.

When AI takes our jobs, we will at least still be able to play battle facilities with pride. Not so bad of a future I think.

I would say an AI-like ethos is always good when constructing teams for a long streak. To an AI, winning games quickly, decisively (1-0 is the same as 3-0 or 4-0), or with some verisimilitude to how Ash Ketchum might've won battles in the Pokemon anime (just imagine him repeatedly yelling "Glalie, use Substitute! Glalie, use Protect! Glalie, use Taunt!" for the length of 3 whole episodes) is 100% irrelevant, and keeping that in mind will help you avoid some of the traps people fall into when just porting teams from more familiar metas into one where you have to deal with evasion and OHKO moves.

ChatGPT at least seems to be stumbling upon something that wasn't really explored in doubles teams in this generation at the time, which is that you're not going to encounter a lot of hyper offensive teams since the AI can't have Drizzle/Drought (and you're if using a Trick Room team you aren't going to maximally bait attacks with a level 50 as opposed to a level 1 Endeavor Pokemon), so you can afford to slow down the tempo with Intimidate/Screens and then chip down the remainder of the opponent's team with bulky stuff that doesn't mind status. My guess you could do this to an even more extreme extent by keeping things like Gliscor/Chansey/Blissey in the back row while you ignore the various status/evasion users like Toxic/Double Team Cresselia that cause issues for lots of doubles teams when combined with other threats.

 

[Meuhforever]

You're right that subway teams can, in retrospect, get "slower". By how much, though?

While I do not play other facilities extensively, I'm always on the lookout for good ideas in other games. Some tree teams are great at taking their time, that's true, but two facts stand out: compared to tree, gen 5 has 50% more critical hits, and doesn't have priority/status protection tools from terrains, which, as far as I can tell, are often crucial for consistency. These two factors have usually been enough for me to only consider hyper offense, whether it takes the form of rain, Trick Room, Tailwind, etc. If a team didn't have a clear way to outspeed and outkill the opponent, I usually brushed it off.

My mild fear of letting the enemy attack (which fortunately only applies to doubles) is surely irrational, but I don't how irrational. How slow can subway doubles get?

 

[GG Unit]

You're right that subway teams can, in retrospect, get "slower". By how much, though?

While I do not play other facilities extensively, I'm always on the lookout for good ideas in other games. Some tree teams are great at taking their time, that's true, but two facts stand out: compared to tree, gen 5 has 50% more critical hits, and doesn't have priority/status protection tools from terrains, which, as far as I can tell, are often crucial for consistency. These two factors have usually been enough for me to only consider hyper offense, whether it takes the form of rain, Trick Room, Tailwind, etc. If a team didn't have a clear way to outspeed and outkill the opponent, I usually brushed it off.

My mild fear of letting the enemy attack (which fortunately only applies to doubles) is surely irrational, but I don't how irrational. How slow can subway doubles get?

My point exactly: Gliscor is functionally immune to status and and makes critical hits irrelevant against anything slower than it (or faster than it that doesn't do 75% to it on the 1st hit), so already it does a lot for consistency.

The tempo argument never means much to me (after all, I can say I'm the fastest player to 1001 despite not getting a 5th gen game until 3-4 years after BW1 came out and not having nearly as many hours on this save file as I do on other Pokemon games), especially for the purposes of battle facilities when there just is not a consistent 'hyper offensive' way to deal with evasion/OHKO moves. Also, I already mentioned Trick Room isn't going to be as good/consistent as in other gens when it doesn't have level 1 Pokemon available to fulfill a more consistent Follow Me/Fake Out type of role while also having a lot more offensive pressure off the bat in the form of low HP Endeavor.

It seems like a semantic issue as well where if you have something that 100% solos various evasion/OHKO users as a backup, is it less 'hyper offensive' to just gang up on everything else with the other 3 Pokemon while leaving the last Pokemon to have a 100% win in a more drawn-out fashion than to make beating them more dependent on just whaling away on it (which obviously becomes much less effective when it's paired with other offensive threats you can't ignore) and hoping you land the requisite number of consecutive hits on it when it has boosted evasion and can heal itself? Especially when you don't have Megas/Z Moves to widen the pool of things that can do big, accurate damage with no set-up.

 

[GG Unit]

Aw crap, I just wrapped up a "You like battles, too!" run with Durant/Cloyster/Gliscor but accidentally closed the tab where I was doing a writeup for the team. I'll keep it on the briefer side for now and maybe go back and edit later. Here's a video where I actually got some footage of the elusive Janitor, and there are a few more of this team on that channel.

Durant and Gliscor are the same as before. The Cloyster:

@ Leftovers
Adamant, 156 HP, 252 Atk, 92 Def, 10 Sp. Def (suboptimal spread - I bred this Cloyster while I was still rusty on RNG and was just breeding it the 'old-fashioned' way with a Ditto I had RNGed however many years ago until I got one with good enough stats. This has a low Speed IV and if you had one with perfect stats it would be wise to speed creep a little. I actually lost streaks of 750 and 816 where I mostly screwed up but still got both battles to a position where a 31 Speed IV Cloyster would have 100% won lol)
- Sub
- Protect
- Shell Smash
- Icicle Spear

Boosts super fast and does a lot of damage (+4 Cloyster Spear does the same as +6 Dragonite Dragon Claw to neutral targets). Cloyster can do well with this in any facility where Leftovers are available for it, but

1) perma Sandstream
2) no Infiltrator/sound moves for stuff like Chandelure/Volcarona to bypass Subs
3) being a turn 1 switch in to Weavile Fake Out
4) crits hitting hard enough to give you a ~19% chance of OHKOing like a Registeel or Aggron

makes Sub/Lefties stand out even more compared to 2nd attack/Sash here IMO. Compared to the team with Glalie, some bulky Ice/Waters such as QC Dewgong (if this is the lead and uses Fake Out turn 1, switch to Gliscor and sac it so Dewgong will need to QC and crit Durant to prevent Entrainment rather than just QC) and PerishTrap Lapras are more annoying. Other heavy Ice resists such as OHKO Walrein can still be PP stalled, so it's not that bad.

I'm sitting on 1008 straight and going forward I'm going to be subbing this into Cloyster's spot:

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Clear Body
Calm
172 HP, 28 Def, 252 SpA, 4 SpD, 52 Spe
- Sub
- Protect
- Acupressure
- Scald

The bulk lets its Sub take a non-Air Slash move from any Speed Boost Yanmega that manages to KO Durant and an Iron Head from Cobalion when both are equal in Attack/Defense boosts.