Metagame SS Doubles OU

Been meaning to post here for a minute. I have always liked SS DOU and thought it was probably the most overhated gen. It doesn't really have glaring mechanical flaws - terrains are nerfed from SM, crits are 1/24 @ 1.5x, tapu fini exists, etc. Dynamic speed is the one that gets brought up a lot but I think the tailwind clickers in SS are strong but not overtuned like SV Tornadus.

Out of the 4 official DOU tiers in the oldgen circuit I only joined SS and XY cup, my favorite of the two. I spent most of Swiss recycling the double Meteor Beam Tailwind I made with Animus for SCL 2 (you can see some highlights of that in the post above) and a Cosmic Power Metagross + NP Grassy Seed Spectrier team I made at some point.

For top 16 vs ratpacker I built this team and used it in every set I played afterwards (click sprites for paste)
:tornadus: :urshifu: :tapu lele: :necrozma: :amoonguss: :naganadel:

Title says it all, I wanted to see if backporting Tornadus + Urshifu into SS DOU from SV VGC felt good. I chose CB Urshifu to accomplish this because it allowed me to invest in bulk considerably. I really like Life Orb Tornadus but I felt like adding Politoed to the team would end up making it too similar to existing rain teams which a lot of people already build/practice against. So I made the Tornadus run Rain Dance. Unfortunately in gameplay I didn't always have the time to click Rain Dance before going for Hurricane, but hey it's still more accurate than hitting both targets with Bleakwind Storm...

To use a Choice Band Urshifu in SS, you're absolutely going to need some form of priority block. Between Tsareena and Psychic Terrain, I chose the latter as I figured an Urshifu centric team would be good at clearing common Psychic resists. I opted for a WP Necrozma with Heat Wave retroactively after deciding I wanted to run Scarf Naganadel, which was a decision made to get the jump on Dragapult, Scarf Tapu Fini, and the occasionally-still-relevant Scarf Genesect. I preferred it to the Meteor Beam set because I really wanted Fire coverage on this Necrozma and didn't want my only move to hit Incinineroar be a move that I could whiff once and be screwed for the rest of the game. Eject Button Amoonguss rounds out the team to bring it some stability and pressure semiroom as Lele + Amoonguss is typically pretty annoying for these guys.

I generally like these tailwind HO structures in SS a lot. If you're fed up with triple Fake Out teams and looking for something else to try I'd say try out this, the Nihi Steela team, or Dracovish Torn Rain. I hope people will keep building in this tier and pushing it further, I think the potential for this tier to be a well respected oldgen is absolutely there.

Put vish in tier 2 he deserves it.
 
Hihi so I also got a decent run for both SS Cup and SSPL and a bit of free time, so I'll also write about this amazing lovely tier (I hate u SS haters...). Same as the other post, lets get to my completely unbiased rankings:

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I'm going to go straight into my hot takes, and same as the SS writeups, I have no idea about statistics and usage, this will all be on me own experience and what I saw from some tournaments:

:rillaboom: & :tapu-fini: Won't write much about these because they add so much value to the board its insane. They even compliment each other, as Rillaboom can provide extra sustain for Fini and Fini can block status moves like WoW for Rilla. Very dumb mons that can run a plethora of items and do amazing anyway. You can't go wrong adding these two to your team.

:mew: : WOW I'm surprised so many people hate on this thing and rank it T2 or even lower. I think this is an amazing Pokémon, provides so much to every single existing archetype (except like hard weathers) and has the only drawback of being Taunt food (and even then the coverage moves you can run help a lot). You can put Hazards on this thing, status, speed control (in tailwind AND trick room!), fake out, coverage like Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Earth Power, it can be your win condition with Cosmic Power & WP, can even be an annoying utility with Snarl, Encore, hell this thing is amazing. When SS was current gen I was even thinking this deserved a suspect test. Not anymore because Fini & Rilla are kinda better now but yeah, this thing is just goated.

:urshifu-rapid-strike: : Ok, this mon is actually very good. When you use the good sets. Can you people PLEASE stop using Assault Vest? Sure you tank so many hits and you are able to pivot out of many situations, but man Shifu doesn't want to be a pivot, it wants to nuke shit. AV is only good when your opponent gifts 3 turns for you to Coach it. I gave it a chance in one of my games and never again, thing SUCKS. I agree with zee's above post though, Shifu might want some sort of bulk, but damn not 252 hp 252+ spd AV.

:zeraora: : Another Pokémon I'm surprised it has been rated so low. Only real set is 252 HP one, offensive is whack, but this thing provides again so much utility while having a very solid STAB to hit the popular water type Pokémon on the tier. It can also Knock Off items, spam Coaching, Taunt stuff, and let's not forget Fake Out. U can even run "weird" moves for this tier like Snarl, Blaze Kick, and even funny moves like Fling to self-proc Weakness Policy + Berry. Even in games where it faces Zygarde + Double Grass it has some sort of utility. I can see it being Tier 3, but imo has enough to barely be a T2.

:dracovish: : 80 + 80 = 1600. The pressure this thing creates is MASSIVE. Probably the Pokémon that punishes the most when you play it aggresively and barely leaves a chance for opponent to come back once it picked 2-3 good turns. You can run it anywhere, and however you like it. It can be Band on Tailwind Rain teams, it can be scarf on speed control-less teams, it can be Band on Sand Tailwind teams, it can even be a funny item like Safety Googles, Mystic Water, etc etc with Sub Protect. Same case as Zeraora, I can see this on Tier 3 as well since it's very easy to run a Prio Spam team or redirection Pokémon like Amoonguss or Indeedee and it will lose a lot of momentum, but yeah you can't deny the pressure it creates.

:pheromosa: : I only noticed it on finals, but there are a lot of teams that suffer to this thing. And do you know what the best set is? CHOICE BAND. You can nuke 252 HP Zeraora with Close Combat, has a good chance to KO 252 HP Mew with U-Turn, its so funny! But yeah I guess boring LO and Sash are also usable sets. Anyway this thing is like Dracovish but harder to enable and easier to kill. Still, I think it's a very good pick, and I hope to see it more on future tournaments!

:whimsicott: This thing was pretty bad when SS was a current gen, but somehow is now very good? It's an amazing fit for HO teams, packs disrupting moves such as Taunt and Encore, and is able to help your teammate with Fake Tears (if its special attacker only). Ngl I forgot this existed and loaded some teams with no speed control and almost costed me the game lmao but yeah it is actually very good and you should consider it on your builder!
Note: :tornadus: not having funny Bleakwind move makes it not that great for this generation, but has seen some usage this SSPL with so much weather being around. I don't think its better than Whims but still very usable if you want it for a specific purpose.

:torkoal: :tyranitar: Weather :politoed: :ninetales-alola: : I think most weathers are fine. Imo, its rain > sun > sand >>>>> hail, but yeah basically all of them are usable. Rain abusing Pokémon deal massive damage even to their ressists, and virtually OHKO anything that is neutral. Kingdra is in a rough spot though, it has a super weak Muddy Water and it's always bad when you rather click the Draco button or Hurricane button instead of funny spread damage one. Sun is great imo and should be on the rise. When I started SSPL I saw so many Double Water teams having success at DPL, so I went and brought Venusaur team back. I didn't face what I was expecting to face when I loaded it, but it still did a good ammount of work. Sand can be disrupting to a lot of teams because you can enable the two broken fossils, and sand cheap is great to pick up KOs you previously weren't picking up (An example being Mew for Dracovish if you aren't band). Hail... well, its a funny weather, you'll have fun if you load it :D!

:diancie: Trick Room :porygon2: : Ngl I think Gen 8 Trick Room is probably the strongest Trick Room we have on Fairy Gens. A lot of Pokémon that like to be on Trick Room deal massive damage to a lot of "standard" structures. Thing is you have to perfectly use your turns on Trick Room or you will stay behind even if you have the speed control, and the most important thing that is often overlooked, is how is your position when Trick Room ends. A lot of games are actually decided on this turn!

:metagross: :zygarde: (The DD one) Set-Up :spectrier: :mew: (The Cosmic Power one) : I think set-up is in a very rough spot right now, specially bulky one. With so many powerful spread moves in Choice Specs Muddy Water, Choice Band Thousand Arrows, and opponent running Coaching, you are very often left behind even if you succesfully click 1-2 times your setup move. Its very easy to pivot with current meta and get yourself a good position to counter the setup, and support Pokémon aren't really doing a great job at supporting their partner. If anything I think you're better building a Coaching spam team than a set-up one lmao.
Note: Ferrothorn is currently the best bulky setup the tier has and will absolutely annihilate you if you let it setup or sacrifice the Pokémon that had the Fire-type move. Do NOT underestimate it.

And honestly I got tired from typing LOL so I won't do more, maybe if I remember anything else I wanted to say I'll edit but yeah.

In conclusion, I think SS is currently in the same state SM was 2 years ago, where people think it's solved and it has stagnated. I don't think that at all. And proof is me doing very well in SSPL without abusing the brokens. (Well not in all my games at least hehe). I don't think we'll see much innovation for this years Old Gens Invitational, but I hope and pray that we do on 2025. SS is genuinely a super fun tier where you can actually use a good chunk of Pokémon and do well, it's just a matter of trying!

Finally, I'll leave my SSPL dump and a small desc of how the team came to be for anyone willing to give another try to this tier. Not the most exciting builder but hey at least I'm not loading double water / 3 brokens all weeks >:C .
(Click on opp name for replay and sprites for the team)

W1 (W) & W2 (W) vs eragon & bagel :venusaur::torkoal::diancie::necrozma::indeedee::naganadel:

I expected some sort of "just using brokens" from both players. By first week I thought that the brokens were those type of double water teams, and since they did very well in DPL I was expecting some sort of team like that. I remembered a VenuKoal team I used for 2022 OSDT and thought it was great into a lot of these teams, so I updated it slightly and used that heh. I got 80% of what I expected from eragon, but not from bagel. Fortunately for me I managed to win both games!

W3 (W) vs umbry :zapdos: :dracovish: :ferrothorn: :porygon2: :tsareena: :politoed:

Ngl I had no idea what to bring vs umbry. I think I went something like "ok umbry didn't really play SS, so I will bring broken rain because that team is always good blind pick heh" and bingo I got Nails Stack team, a very good matchup for me. I got a bit lucky dodging Fini Muddy with P2 but even then I think I had a very solid position at that point, that just rushed and sealed the game.

W4 (W) vs luisin :urshifu-rapid-strike: :tapu-fini: :mew: :dragapult: :genesect: :incineroar:

I had never loaded double water teams so I said "u know what lets do that today". I couldn't find any reference team to help me build it, so it ended up being this abomination LOL. Probably the worse team from the builder, I wouldn't use it. Also it has AV Shifu :nauseated: . Funny game where I won thanks to luisin running the 252 hp 252+spdef Urshifu set because I was piloting this pretty badly XD.

W5 (W) vs sempra :dracozolt: :dracovish: :tyranitar: :tapu-lele: :necrozma: :amoonguss:

Iirc sempra didn't play SS and only had a small SSPL scout so I decided to bring one of my favorite teams from all time cuz it seemed to do well into it, the Double Fossil Sand. I actually wanted to bring all 4 weathers and this was a very good chance to bring Sand. This team creates a lot of pressure with very little, altough you can insta lose if you get your reads wrong heh. Still, team is very fun to play. I had a heart attack in game when Heatran Eruption dealth 95% to Dracozolt LOL but outside of that I thing it was pretty linear plays.

W6 (L) vs Chris0394820393459023 :tornadus: :dracovish: :ferrothorn: :porygon2: :tsareena: :politoed:

Ok so I was actually scared of Chris because they have a very unique style that I don't like playing against consisting mainly on either Diancie & Torkoal Trick Room teams or extremely unhinged HOs with the likes of Life Orb Protean Cinderace Sun. I ended up loading what bagel did (idk what week but I saw bagel doing this change on one of his games) with Torn > Zapdos to help keep the weather with Rain Dance. Little did I know I would face a double redirect + Coaching & DD Kyurem, basically the best you can come up with to deal with these type of rains. I got owned hard and even if I hard haxed, it didn't matter because of how well Chris prepped. Very good and creative team! I wasn't glad I lost ofc but I was very happy something like this was used!

W7 (W) vs Enzonana :stakataka: :necrozma: :tapu-lele: :togedemaru: :amoonguss: :porygon2:

Now, this week was great. For a second there, imagine you don't know DOU. Your team is 4-4, and REQUIRES a win in order to get to playoffs. 9th game was ruled as Dead Game, and the last game is this Akaru Kokuyo dude who you see has a good record but don't really know. You see the game linked on general channel, and you open the link and see this. What would you do?
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LOL now for real, I remember Nana being TR weak when he played the tier, and I really really didn't want to use those boring ahh Trick Room teams (or Hard TR ones). So I remembered Togedemaru existed, but I didn't want to use the Tapu Fini variant. Then luisin brought a Lele variant vs bagel and it enlightened me. I asked him for the team and loaded it. Game went great, P2 got an amazing lead and just kept getting all the turns correct and dealing massive damage + Amoonguss got insane value with Spores. At the end poor Togedemaru didn't get to do anything but it was still going to put up work if it ever was on a clean turn. To the playoffs we go!

Semis (W) vs luisin :genesect: :kyurem-black: :mew: :volcanion: :rillaboom: :zeraora:

Since this was semis I decided no more playing around and load 2/3 brokens. By this point luisin had a fairly bulky-offense style so I decided to go with Prio Hazard Stack. I got a solid matchup and team did precisely what it wanted to do, sealing the game fairly early after using the goat Roar Volcanion set. This was a DPL team from MADARAAAAAAAAAAAAAA so shoutouts to him for this one!

Finals (W) vs umbry :mew: :zygarde: :pheromosa: :rillaboom: :volcanion: :tapu-fini:

Okay so for finals I was sure I wanted some sort of Pheromosa team, I just wasn't sure what type of team. I have never really used Pheromosa so I was in some trouble, but then I saw Band CC ohkoed Zeraora and went and loaded that. I decided to load 4 status moves Mew because I didn't see a single Taunt Pokémon from her and thought it was very good value overall even if it can be passive af. Also double WoW was a recommendation I got from AIRedzone (who I'll s/o at the end!) and it ended up working pretty nicely as I burned 4 Pokémon, 2 of which were physical threats.

This game was near perfect-played by umbry who didn't give me a single chance to abuse what I had + I forgot Thousand Waves was a thing and got my Mew + Mosa locked in a horrible position (specially Mew since it was WoW-locked thanks to a previous Choice Scarf Trick). I had to get every single turn correct at the end, which I did except the turn where I didn't protect Volcanion (expecting a focus into Zyg). At that point I thought it was lost, but then she choked and clicked Knock Off instead of Parting Shot, which allowed me to live Ice Beam thanks to Sub and KOd the rest of her Pokémon. I'm not sure what happened here, but I can only assume she went through the same scenario I did some years ago where I completely forgot Coaching boosted Defense as well. At the end, a W is a W, so we take it! And rest of the team was also very very good and we ended up winning the entire thing!

Huge shotout to AIRedzone for helping with input for the teams. I was unable to test much because of our timezone but the tips were very helpful heh.
I also want to shoutout Slowpoke Fan becase they were a great manager and was always cheering for the entire team. Got to see you're an amazing person, and genuinely happy to see you win this after knowing how much work you put "behind the curtains" for this Generation!
 
I won't be playing SS Cup but I wanted to post some cool sets for people looking for ideas. I don't claim all these sets to be mine but if you're newer to the tier they probably wouldn't catch your eye right away.

:accelgor:
Accelgor @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Final Gambit
- Acid Spray
- Encore
- Protect

You can also use moves like Struggle Bug, Spikes, or Toxic Spikes. This pairs really well with a Life Orb or Choice Specs Tapu Lele. Since most people have learned Tailwind is the way to go in this tier, you can fight back with something that holds up pretty well against Tailwind offenses. Accelgor has a solid 80 HP, which is more than the Tapus have, and you even pick up guys like 4 HP Zygarde. Acid Spray calcs do go hard with the aforementioned Lele sets.

:tapu fini:
Tapu Fini @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Moonblast
- Icy Wind
- Trick

Have a few Scarf users, first off, Fini. Scarf Fini is a pretty well known set at the upper level, though CM is probably the first set you'd think of at first glance. CM is fine, but Scarf Fini takes advantage of the fact that Water/Fairy is actually a great offensive type and the defensive typing + naturally bulk leads to it trading 2:1 often. Most people use Ice Beam or Muddy Water in the highlighted slot but I think more people should be using Icy Wind. It's a really great tech, goes hard at winning Tailwind mirrors and pairs well with powerhouses like CB Zygarde, Meteor Beam Nihilego, etc.

:cresselia:
Cresselia (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Trick
- Lunar Dance

This is basically just a lower powered version of the Fini set, though the idea is that you get a similar offensive/defensive profile without adding a Pokemon that's threatened by Naganadel if you're already running something like Rillaboom + Zygarde and don't wanna be too vulnerable to the mon. Also nobody really uses this so you're much more likely to cheese a setup mon with Trick.

:naganadel:

Naganadel @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Sludge Bomb
- Fire Blast
- U-turn

Big fan of Scarf Naganadel if you couldn't tell by my last post in this thread. It kills things it shouldn't, because anything faster than a regular Naganadel is getting OHKOed by this one. You can run Timid to outspeed Kingdra in rain, but Kingdra rain usage has kinda fallen off and getting Speed Beast Boosts is pretty annoying.

:urshifu:
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Choice Band
Ability: Unseen Fist
EVs: 44 HP / 16 Atk / 252 SpD / 196 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Surging Strikes
- Close Combat
- U-turn
- Poison Jab

Really specially bulky CB Ursh. If I remember correctly I EV'd this to live Life Orb Pult's attacks. I think this is a bit better than the AV set because you actually kill things, specifically you're OHKOing Incineroar and most Porygon2.

:zygarde:
Zygarde @ Leftovers
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 208 HP / 176 Atk / 124 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Coil
- Scale Shot
- Protect

A bit funny but I think it's a powerful set. Really cool if you pair it with something like Rilla + Blastoise. The speed EVs let you outrun Modest Dragapult after a Scale Shot. Theoretically you could drop Scale Shot and just run full on Coil with Misty Seed Fini or do double terrain stuff but I think this set hates Encore pressure so you probably want redirection.

:zapdos:
Zapdos @ Misty Seed
Ability: Static
EVs: 196 HP / 96 SpA / 216 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Heat Wave / Hurricane / Toxic
- Tailwind
- Roost

Zapdos with a SpDef boost has a crazy good matchup into the tier's common teams, especially as I've been noticing Zygarde usage falling in the recent tours. Even though it isn't hitting neutral targets for much damage, you also aren't being threatened by much either. Non Prankster Tailwind is definitely less desirable now, but running this with priority users like CB Gene definitely makes it feel a bit less bad.
 
With SS Cup over I've been meaning to finally post a team I've had a lot of success with:

:ss/dracovish: :ss/whimsicott: :ss/landorus: :ss/celesteela: :ss/naganadel: :ss/incineroar:
Dracovish + Whimsicott Offense

This is basically the current sample team but with a Dracovish over Tapu Fini and a few other tweaks, which has performed extremely well for me. In my opinion this is probably the best Dracovish team out there, with Rain you can get some funny calcs but I think those teams end up overly reliant on Dracovish, while on Sand teams the lack of Strong Jaw hurts and largely forces you into Choice Band (which is exploitable). Whimsicott goodstuffs builds are the most flexible, while the combination of Dracovish + Whimsicott in particular is incredibly oppressive to deal with.

The combination of the two is the centrepiece of this team, with Encore pressure from Whimsicott perfectly matching Dracovish's offensive pressure in Tailwind, and Substitute taking advantage of the many switches/Protects the duo force. Dracovish not being choiced lets the duo safely Protect on possible Fake Outs (or scout for moves in general), and any attempt to use something like Tailwind can be immediately punished with Encore. Particularly against Mew-centric builds this team can just run absolute rampage, dominating the speed control game while threatening KOs left, right, and centre.

This team does notably struggle against Trick Room (as does the original), particularly against Porygon2, but there are just enough tools to make it playable, particularly if you can position Dracovish correctly to prevent opportunities for Trick Room to go up. Another notable issue is the lack of any spread attacks, which while the single-target damage is generally enough to make up for can make redirection a tad annoying to face (especially as Fishious Rend will not get the boost).

Mystic Water boosts the attack Dracovish is clicking 90+% of the time, and importantly guarantees the OHKO on Mew (252+ Atk Mystic Water Strong Jaw Dracovish Fishious Rend (170 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mew: 424-499 (104.9 - 123.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO). Dragon Rush is the best secondary attack despite the poor accuracy, allowing an OHKO on Naganadel and Dragapult, being a roll to KO opposing Dracovish, and a strong neutral option if needed against Rillaboom, Urshifu-R, Volcanion, or anything else, the only thing to be wary of is Misty Terrain.

Without Tapu Fini, Fake tears on Whimsicott becomes less worth it, while Moonblast is important to have for Urshifu-R which otherwise matches well into most of the team besides Naganadel. The max max EV spread benefits Moonblast, but is also massive for the Whimsicott mirror due to all the people running slower spreads, as you can either Encore them into Tailwind, or into something else to prevent Tailwind.

Focus Blast Landorus is the best third option overall, I've tried Substitute but I think that's mostly greedy despite having some uses, the option to hit something like a Porygon2, Celesteela, or Kyurem-B can make a massive difference at times, having a 70% chance option is better than not having it at all.

On Celesteela I like max speed to outspeed low investment Rillaboom or Tapu Fini (both of which Dracovish would rather not eat a hit from), and outspeed faster Pokemon like Naganadel, Spectrier, Dragapult, and Pheromosa in Tailwind. This team is quite frail so Wide Guard for strong spread attacks like Muddy Water, Thousand Arrows, Expanding Force, Diamond Storm, and Eruption is quite nice to have, with the team still having plenty of Protects among the other Pokemon.

Modest Naganadel is generally the best for damage output, though I have used Timid in some matchups, either to have the advantage against opposing Nagandel (this can be important in Whimsicott mirrors as Naganadel is the fastest Pokemon on the team), or to get Beast Boost on Speed to outspeed something like a Kingdra in Rain or Dracovish in Tailwind/Sand at +1 (making you less reliant on Whimsicott for Tailwind and allowing you to play it more aggressively). The difference between Modest and Timid is notable though, and you do lose the snowball potential provided from Beast Boost on Special Attack.

Incineroar has enough Attack to hit the standard benchmark of a guaranteed OHKO with Knock Off against Dragapult, and with Modest Naganadel being so common now I like to outspeed that in Tailwind since it doesn't cost too much more than Landorus, with the remaining EVs dumped in special bulk (you aren't guaranteed to live Volcanion Steam Eruption like the dex spread but I haven't found that important enough to shift EVs around for). Heavy-Duty Boots is the best default item, but I think Incineroar can sometimes get away with greeding Sitrus Berry against opponents who don't use hazards, or can use Safety Goggles if you're seeing a lot of Amoonguss in the scout.
 
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IM BAAAAAACK!!!!!!

I missed SS cup unfortunately, but I did something else instead!
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One thing I've always regretted is never getting #1 on ladder back when I played this game more frequently. I've gotten close, but I never ended up being able to top the ladder. I finally changed that (at 1am on a Monday lol). This achievement really doesnt mean as much as it used to, most of the good players are either playing current gen or other oldgens, but the games I played getting here were really just to vibe check a team I built. Speaking of which:

:tapu fini: :zygarde: :rillaboom: :zeraora: :urshifu rapid strike: :incineroar:

I've always struggled to build a Coaching team I enjoyed. It felt like every time I tried the teams came out feeling like they were missing a Pokémon. I could never fit enough role compression into the team to have good matchups into all the teams I wanted. I feel like I've finally solved it with this team. Zygarde + Zeraora is enough to cover the Volcanion weakness created by the double bulky water core, and triple Fake Out along with other priority like Glide and Espeed make the team pretty indifferent to speed control, hence my decision to not run any (A lot of my earlier versions had a Tailwind Mew but I don't think Tailwind Mew is very good anymore to be honest). The thing I really like about this team is how annoyingly consistent it is. Coaching + Intimidate + Wisp is enough to put most physical attackers in purgatory where they're unable to threaten any real damage, and with every Pokemon either packing a SpDef boost or heavy SpDef investment the team doesn't feel lacking in Special bulk either. This team does a really good job of covering basically all of Fini's difficult matchups and triple Fake Out paired with the overall high bulk and indifference to speed control makes the team feel pretty comfortable to play. The team does struggle into Rain but any team without Whims or Tyranitar does so I'm willing to just take the L there.

Skitter Smack Zygarde gives you an option to get unexpected chip onto opposing Rillaboom, as well as a mini Snarl that can be situationally useful. Double water as well as Zygarde's main attacking move not putting much of a dent into Rillaboom can make the matchup a bit frustrating, and Skitter Smack helps with that.

Double Knock is necessary for the Ghosts because you inherently have less room for stalling into them due to their immunity to Fake Out. I would prefer Wood Hammer on Rilla but Knock is a good move so its not the worst problem to have

I noticed in testing that Ferrothorn and Lurantis were both MASSIVE problems for the team. I considered Will-O-Wisp Incineroar at many points but was never able to find a way to fit it because I didn't want to drop Knock Off. Arcticblast then suggested running it over Flare Blitz, which completely solves the problem. For some reason I had this hyperfixation on keeping Flare Blitz for the Rillaboom matchup but forgot that you can just... burn the Rillaboom... which is arguably better than just doing ~80% with Blitz anyway. Wisp fixes a ton of matchups while not leaving Incineroar feeling too passive due to Knock Off being such a clickable move.


Tapu Fini: Because you have so many ways to cripple Physical damage output into Fini, you can invest fully into SpA and deal more damage. Was originally EV'd to avoid the 2hko from Landorus Sludge Bomb at+1 but then I realized Fini has Leftovers and it avoids the 2hko anyway. I dont like running 252/252 for aesthetic reasons but I literally couldn't figure out a reason to run anything else
Zygarde: Outspeeds my Ursh-R by 1 point
Rillaboom: Lives Heatran Eruption, 1 point faster than max Speed Modest Celesteela, Atk dump
Zeraora: Outspeeds Spectrier, lives two Naganadel Sludge Bombs after Sitrus
Urshifu-R: Avoids the 2hko from Landorus Earth Power after Grassy Terrain, OHKOs Porygon2 with Close Combat at +1 (some Porygon2 will run more defense so I dumped as much Atk as possible for more consistency)
Incineroar: Lives -1 Stakataka Stone Edge, Life Orb Tornadus Weather Ball in Rain, outspeeds 8 Speed Tyranitar
In general special bulk will always be more valuable on this team because all physical attackers are in purgatory between Coaching and Intim and Wisp and triple Fake Out.

I will probably edit this later with a spoiler explaining the nicknames but I wanna see if one of yall will get it on your own
 
:dracovish: A Documentary on Dracovish: From Rags to Fishious :dracovish:
From ladder gimmick to top tier threat; what happened to Dracovish, and should it be banned?

Dracovish is a new fossil Pokémon in Generation 8. It is a Water- and Dragon-type with aggressively mediocre stats. Just looking at its stats, it looks pretty awful, essentially a downgrade to Kingdra of all things. This surface level analysis doesn't tell the whole story, however. Dracovish was given a signature Water-type attack called Fishious Rend. Fishious Rend is an 85 base power physical attack that doubles in power when Dracovish moves first. a 170 base power move with STAB would already hit like a truck on its own, but that's not all. Fishious Rend is categorized as a biting attack, which means the move gets another 1.5x boost from Dracovish's Strong Jaw ability. Being a Water-type attack also gives it access to Rain's 1.5x boost to all Water-type attacks. This is without even considering its item slot, which is commonly filled by Mystic Water or Choice Band, granting another 1.2x or 1.5x boost respectively. Dracovish's low stats on the surface are more than made up for by its signature move essentially being a ball of multipliers, with the only caveat being needing to move first.

In order to truly conceptualize the sheer power of this move, we also need to understand how multipliers in Pokémon work. Multipliers from different sources are counted as multiplicative, not additive. the boost from Strong Jaw and Rain combined is not 2x like you might originally think, it's actually 2.25x. This may seem like a small difference when just considering these two multipliers on their own, but the difference between multiplicative and additive boosts becomes larger the more sources of damage augmentation are added. When factoring in this distinction, this gives Fishious Rend a final base power of 573.75 without considering Dracovish's item slot. This absurd base power essentially removes Dracovish's need for coverage, as even against resists the move still boasts 286.875 base power. To put this into perspective, in order for any coverage move to be worth using for a Strong Jaw Dracovish, it would need a base power of 144 or higher AND super-effective to be worth using over a max power Fishious Rend.

:urshifu: Dracovish in Early SS :urshifu:

Now considering how I just spent 350 words telling you how broken Dracovish's signature move is, you may be surprised to hear it wasn't actually considered very good for a long time. People generally considered Dracovish pretty niche. Dracovish's need to go first makes it best paired with fast Tailwind setters. Early on, it was commonly paired with Whimsicott to have the fastest possible Tailwind in the tier. There were a few problems with this strategy at the time.

Firstly, Whimsicott teams weren't as optimized back then as they are now. People typically ran Whimsicott with Tailwind, Protect, Moonblast and Taunt. Developments like Fake Tears, Encore and Cotton Spore that gave Whimsicott more utility and pressure weren't really a thing yet. Whimsicott teams with Dracovish lacked dimension due to Whimsicott's passivity and lack of much utility outside of Tailwind. Using Whimsicott with these unoptimized movesets essentially felt like playing down a Pokémon once you got Tailwind up. Dracovish also isn't really that fast by this tier's standards if the enemy team is able to match or stagger Tailwinds against it, and because many Dracovish Whimsicott teams at the time relied on Dracovish as the main source of damage, this was a huge issue. Even running Choice Scarf on Dracovish over the more common Choice Band at the time didn't fully solve the issue, as it was still outsped by other common scarfers at the time like Genesect and Landorus-T.

Even against teams that couldn't directly outspeed Dracovish, it wasn't out of the woods yet. SS is a tier with a lot of priority. Teams in this tier typically have high Fake Out and Grassy Glide usage. Priority moves cause the user to always move before Dracovish, essentially halving its damage output while taking sizeable chunks of damage from Grassy Glide. This was also before Amoonguss usage fell off, and Rage Powder would not only half Dracovish's damage output into Amoonguss, but Amoonguss also resists Fishious Rend, effectively quartering its damage. Granted Dracovish's damage is still non-negligible even with a quarter of its base power, but Amoonguss and other redirection users like Blastoise still did more than enough to make the matchup manageable.

There were also just better Water-types in the tier. For a long time, people considered Urshifu-Rapid-Strike to be the premier offensive Water-type in the tier and saw it as better than Dracovish. Sure, it didn't have Dracovish's damage output, but its ability to ignore Intimidate with Surging Strikes, strong secondary STAB with Close Combat and better coverage moves for the meta made it the more flexible and overall better option.

The last obstacle to Dracovish's success was the perception of it in the DOU community as a gimmick and where that comes from. DOU is not a very popular format even within the competitive Pokémon community, so when new players to competitive Pokémon are looking for doubles content, they usually come across content made for VGC formats. Most people using Dracovish at the time weren't top players trying out a new playstyle, but newer players who copied VGC teams with Dracovish and used them in DOU for whatever reason. Because these teams were usually made for content, they weren't very good, and neither were the players piloting them. This led to the perception of Dracovish being mainly as a gimmick rather than something to seriously consider trying out. Dracovish was already hard to make work even for good players due to how prediction reliant Dracovish teams often are, but seeing so many newer players with less game sense piloting these teams made it seem much worse than it had the potential to be.

:whimsicott: :tornadus: Dracovish in Modern SS :tornadus: :whimsicott:

The perception of Dracovish as a ladder gimmick wouldn't change until very recently. Dracovish is now considered one of the most potent offensive threats in the tier and a potential target for a suspect test in the future. Almost all of the problems with Dracovish in earlier metas are either nonexistent or able to be worked around with more optimal teambuilding.

:tyranitar: :mew: :dracovish: :dragapult: :incineroar: :rillaboom:
Tyranitar hazard stack teams were popularized by Nails during SCL II, and were found to synergize pretty well with Dracovish. Sand Rush Dracovish does less damage than a Strong Jaw set, but allows it to get around its weakness of having low Speed when Tailwind is matched by the enemy team by having two sources of Speed boosting rather than just one. The hazard stacking mode of the team combined with Sand chip also did more than enough to break down the enemy team for Dracovish to clean late game. Dracovish found a solid niche on these teams, but Sand Rush sets aren't really considered unhealthy. Sand Rush basically forces Dracovish to run Choice Band to make up for the damage lost from Strong Jaw, which can be exploited with strong positional play. Sand teams also did very little to help Dracovish with its weakness to priority. Dracovish did so much damage despite these downsides that it was still worth running, but is still the most balanced and honest way to run Dracovish.

Whimsicott had a similar redemption arc in the tier due to players realizing how powerful dynamic speed is. In Generation 8, changes to turn order through field conditions like Tailwind were made to take effect immediately. In previous generations, bulky Tailwind setters like Suicune were viable due to the lack of dynamic speed, because regardless of how fast a Tailwind setter is, the speed change will still not take effect until the next turn. In dynamic speed metas, having a faster Tailwind than your opponent becomes more valuable than bulk. Players originally defaulted to Naganadel as the premier fast Tailwind setter in the tier due to its high damage output, but Whimsicott Offense teams would soon develop.

:whimsicott: :tapu fini: :landorus: :naganadel: :celesteela: :incineroar:

The idea behind these teams is the same as it's always been. Whimsicott has the fastest possible Tailwind in the tier, and with dynamic speed this allows you to overwhelm slower Tailwind setters with immediate speed and damage. Whimsicott's pitiful base stats and passivity were still issues for these kinds of structures, so Whimsicott adopted bulkier, utility focused sets. Encore exerted massive pressure against slow Balance teams that would otherwise slow down the progress of these offensive structures with moves like Fake Out and Protect. Encore allows Whimsicott to exploit these passive plays and force switches, pressure that it was never able to access with older movesets. Fake Tears when paired with strong special attackers like Choice Specs Tapu Fini and Landorus also gave Whimsicott teams insane single target damage pressure to make the most out of the limited Tailwind turns you have. Now that Whimsicott's sets are much more focused on utility rather than attacking, running more bulk is also an option. Whimsicott's stats aren't good by any stretch, but by fully investing in Whimsicott's bulk you can afford to like at least one big hit before going down, which frees up Whimsicott's item slot to run Sitrus Berry or Eject Button.

:whimsicott: :dracovish:

Hold on a second. Remember the Whimsicott + Dracovish core we talked about earlier? Now that Whimsicott teams were more optimized and independently good teams without Dracovish, what happens if we add Dracovish's insane damage output and inherent synergy with the archetype back in?

:whimsicott: :dracovish: :landorus: :naganadel: :celesteela: :incineroar:

And thus Dracovish Offense was born. Dracovish teams now had more dimension due to being paired with a Fake Tears offense mode that can break through most things that Dracovish struggles with while Dracovish still gets to benefit from Whimsicott's immediate Tailwind and Encore pressure. Running Dracovish over Tapu Fini here also gets rid of any positional awkwardness with Misty Terrain potentially lowering the damage output of Naganadel's Draco Meteor. Dracovish's synergy with Whimsicott is still amazing, with Dracovish loving the dynamic speed changes and Fishious Rend's insane damage output forcing passive plays like switches, Fake Outs and Protects that can be exploited by Whimsicott's Encore pressure. On top of the synergy here being top-notch, Dracovish still deals a LOT of damage. On these teams Dracovish can run Strong Jaw due to no longer needing Sand Rush, which boosts its damage output a ton. It's damage is so absurd to the point of being able to consistently 2hko bulky resists. Its damage output combined with defensive plays into Whimsicott being inherently risky make Dracovish incredibly difficult to answer defensively, with the easiest way to combat this synergy being to check it offensively with an opposing Prankster Tailwind to exploit Dracovish's low base Speed.

:politoed: :kingdra: :zapdos: :porygon2: :tsareena: :ferrothorn:

This is Stax Rain. This specific archetype of Rain combines the immediate speed and power of Choice Specs Zapdos and Kingdra with a Trick Room mode with Thunder Porygon2 and Iron Defense Ferrothorn to combat faster Whimsicott teams. All of this tied together with Tsareena blocking priority and access to Feint allowing both modes of the team to safely and consistently get their attacks off gives you a potent offense team with the ability to slow down the pace of games when needed with a solid defensive Trick Room mode.

:politoed: :dracovish: :tsareena:
Fitting Dracovish on Rain was an interesting prospect. Typically, if you wanted to use Dracovish with any weather it was Sand, but Rain would boost its damage output to the point of even being able to OHKO resists, while Tsareena blocks any attempts at using priority or Protect to slow it down.

:politoed: :dracovish: :tornadus: :porygon2: :tsareena: :ferrothorn:

Conveniently, Rain also has a pretty solid Priority Tailwind option with Tornadus. Tornadus not only gave Dracovish the Prankster Tailwind it loves being paired with but was capable of doing good damage itself with Life Orb Hurricane and being able to Taunt most other Whimsicott to deny Tailwind, as most no longer ran max Speed. Dracovish's damage output was ABSURD on these teams, and the combination of Tornadus and Tsareena made playing around Dracovish defensively with priority, Protects or bulky resists near impossible. These teams to rely on Dracovish for a large portion of their damage, but Dracovish does so much damage already that it's incredibly difficult to stop a well-played Dracovish from taking more than one KO. Politoed also has the option of running Helping Hand to remove any pokemon that were able to tank a Fishious Rend, but doing so is often overkill as Dracovish does so much damage anything that isnt an immunity or 4x resist is either dying or taking upwards of 80%. Rain teams boost Dracovish's damage output to truly unhealthy degrees and Tsareena denies the main existing counterplay to Dracovish with Queenly Majesty and Feint. Even the one viable immunity to Dracovish in Volcanion can't really threaten much damage back, allowing Dracovish to just target its partner slot and take KOs while the Volcanion watches its friends die.

:kartana: Is Dracovish Too Good? :kartana:

Short answer? Yes. To give a bit more of a long-winded answer to this question, most problems caused by Dracovish stem from one simple fact: It just does too much damage.

:xy/landorus:

Let's talk about Landorus. In my opinion, Landorus is the damage ceiling of the tier. This may sound stupid to say on the surface, as multiple Pokemon in the tier do more damage than Landorus, but most of those Pokemon have some sort of major drawback or caveat to dealing that amount of damage, whereas Landorus requires basically no support and does its damage basically regardless of what team you put it on. For example, Modest Naganadel hits harder than Landorus can in a single hit with Draco Meteor, but it can only do this damage once per switch-in and is significantly weaker the second use. Pheromosa can do more damage than Landorus, but it's incredibly frail and typically needs to be paired with some form of priority blocking. Choice Band Genesect does more damage than Landorus, but only with a Download boost which it won't always get. I can keep going but I think you get my point. If something is doing significantly more damage than Landorus on a neutral target (given reasonable assumptions) without a super meaningful drawback, it generally indicates to me that there's something wrong with the power balance in the tier. This is a BURNED Dracovish Fishious Rend compared to Landorus Earth Power:

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 230-270 (56.9 - 66.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Mystic Water Strong Jaw burned Dracovish Fishious Rend (170 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mew: 212-249 (52.4 - 61.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I think this is, for lack of a better term, a little bit silly. Taking a peek behind the curtain for a second, I've gone to great lengths to try to make sure all of my calcs for Dracovish are fair assumptions for its average damage output as to not paint a disingenuous picture of Dracovish's damage output. Being too generous with my assumptions for damage calculations is something I've done in the past and will try my best not to do in the future. That being said, I think this is MORE than a charitable assumption for Dracovish's damage. I'm not assuming a Rain team for Dracovish, I'm giving it a Mystic Water for these calculations which is a weaker boosting item than Choice Band, and this specific calculation is a BURNED Dracovish. If anything, Dracovish will be doing significantly more damage than this in an average game, and it's STILL doing barely less damage than Landorus Earth Power.

The reason I'm using a burned Dracovish specifically is because a lot of different things can half its damage output. Hitting into a resist, moving second, and burns all cut its damage output in half, and it's still doing competitive damage with some of the best damage dealers in the tier on neutral targets. In order to get Dracovish's damage output to a reasonable level here you would need to stack MULTIPLE of these multipliers together, like using Amoonguss' Rage Powder to both make Dracovish move second and hit a resist or use Will-O-Wisp Volcanion to burn Dracovish and then try to tank its hits with bulky resists. In my opinion, this is an unreasonable amount of defensive counterplay to deal with one Pokémon considering Dracovish still has teammates that you'll also need to be able to beat, and can stack additional multipliers onto itself in the form of Rain, stronger boosting items and Helping Hand (none of which are really unfair assumptions in my opinion but I won't use these in any calculations unless its relevant).

If you've heard me talk about Dracovish before you've probably heard me joke that if you're not bringing Tyranitar or Whimsicott you autolose to Dracovish Rain. While this is a bit of an oversimplification there is some truth to it. There's two main ways to counter Dracovish. You can either concede in your teambuilding that it would take too many resources to survive its attacks defensively, and use opposing Whimsicott offense to exploit its low base speed and beat it offensively. The other is to take away as many of its multipliers as possible, with things like removing Rain boosts with your own weather, Intimidate, Will-O-Wisp and bulky resists like Tapu Fini and Rillaboom. Both of these methods have been proven to work as counterplay, but I would like to be able to use teams that are not Nails Hazard Stack or Whimsicott Offense personally.

There are also more niche counters to Dracovish like Scarf Naganadel and Amoonguss, so saying that you HAVE to bring Tyranitar or Whimsicott isn't entirely true, but expecting players to fit these niche counters onto every team they build feels a little unreasonable to me. Scarf Naganadel is not something you can just slap on a team and have it perform well, and Amoonguss introduces teambuilding instabilities (Fitting a Ground resist becomes difficult, Psyspam matchup can become hard due not being able to run Rillaboom without typestacking, etc.) that can be exploited not only by other popular teams, but by Dracovish's already existing teammates.

Without being too granular in my analysis, the short of it is I think Dracovish is too demanding to counter defensively and forces too many teambuilding restrictions to be healthy. It creates a sort of less pronounced version of the problems Kartana created. Kartana was broken because its unique set of traits forced enemy teams to either conform to offensive Tailwind wars or run pretty terrible Pokémon like Buzzwole and Togekiss to have a good matchup into it. Dracovish is (in my opinion) broken because its damage output is so absurd it becomes nearly impossible to defensively answer a well-played Dracovish, forcing enemy teams to either conform to offensive Tailwind wars or run pretty terrible Pokémon in current SS like Amoonguss and AV Kyurem-B to have a good matchup into it. I don't think Dracovish is as extreme as Kartana yet, but I still think its unhealthy even in its current state and would rather not have something like it in the tier.

I would support a Dracovish suspect and would vote ban.
 
Dracovish is definitely a lot better than once thought, but saying it should be banned is an overreaction. Dracovish is only arguably better than Urshifu-R, and is checked by many of the same Pokemon as it. Moving first, Dracovish does generally outdamage other Pokemon, but it's also more of a one-trick pony and more conditional than what other Pokemon have to other. At the end of the day Dracovish is still just a Pokemon with pretty middling stats (especially Speed) bar a unique ace up its sleeve.

Any well constructed team should have a way to handle Dracovish at 2x Speed (from either Tailwind or Sand Rush) - more generally, teams should be able to deal with any common attackers in Tailwind. The simplest way, a la SV, is to have your own (Prankster) Tailwind and then you only need Pokemon faster than Dracovish which is quite easy to achieve, particularly as Whimsicott itself is one of Dracovish's best counters and a strong Pokemon in its own right. Dracovish has comparable bulk to other attackers, and so while it can barely survive some strong neutral hits from full like Landorus' Earth Power or Rillaboom's Wood Hammer, some minor chip from the likes of Fake Out or Stealth Rock can easily move it into knockout range for most Pokemon. Other than matching Tailwind then there's also the option of removing it, if you can KO Whimsicott as it sets Tailwind the first time (or at least put it down to hazards range), then often teams reliant on it will struggle after Tailwind ends, particularly so in the case of Dracovish.

Priority is the other obvious way to avoid Dracovish moving first, with Rillaboom's Grassy Glide and +1 Choice Band Genesect's Extreme Speed both 2HKOing, though Rillaboom is just one of the best checks in general, and is the most common Pokemon in the meta. Choice Scarf Naganadel is a real set, it obviously isn't as great as Life Orb, but with speed demons like Dragapult and Pheromosa going around it's a solid option for outspeeding both them and slower Pokemon (including Dracovish) in Tailwind. However, redirection is also real; Amoonguss is definitely not "terrible" and that's coming from the biggest Amoonguss hater in the world. SS is where Amoonguss has actually carved a solid niche as a PsySpam mainstay to Spore in terrain, switch into the other terrain setters, and redirect attacks such as those from Urshifu-R or Dracovish. Many PsySpam teams will carry Trick Room, and therefore either Amoonguss and/or Indeedee-F will be there to redirect, which in itself is great against Dracovish, while Trick Room flips the table against the Tailwind type of teams it's found on. Blastoise, whilst more niche, I wouldn't exactly call terrible either, it's a solid option for enabling setup, which is strong - on that note Shift Gear Genesect does well into Dracovish assuming it EVs to outspeed, which it should and only requires a little more investment than the Dex spread.

It's true that Dracovish is much easier to answer offensively than defensively, but that isn't a problem or anything unique. What defensively checks Naganadel besides Heatran? AV Kyurem-B (wanting Misty Terrain too) isn't what it used to be, and the alternatives are basically just the aforementioned offensive methods or Trick Room setters. Yes, Dracovish will at worst 2HKO most stuff, but that's what offensive Pokemon typically do or they wouldn't be worth using: Landorus 2HKOs basically anything other than itself or Celesteela, Naganadel 2HKOs anything not named Heatran, Urshifu-R 2HKOs practically everything besides the handful of Pokemon which resist both STABs. However, while Dracovish can achieve higher damage with support to go first, the others are all naturally faster while offering their own benefits: Landorus has no downsides/conditionality to its attacks; Naganadel can snowball with Beast Boost, set Tailwind itself, and naturally outspeeds 90+% of the tier; Urshifu-R can break through Protect, ignore Intimidate, and has access to priority. Dracovish has real trade-offs compared to other attackers, and counterplay being mostly offensive isn't something which singles it out from other Pokemon in the tier.

On the point of Kartana, I think that actually deserves a suspect test more than Dracovish. In a world where we've realised Prankster Tailwind is far better than was perceived at the time, the argument of Kartana being the cause for "Tailwind wars" is lessened, and it was only voted ban by a fairly narrow margin in the first place. The meta has shifted massively since the time Kartana was banned, it deserves another shake.
 
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Dracovish is definitely a lot better than once thought, but saying it should be banned is an overreaction. Dracovish is only arguably better than Urshifu-R, and is checked by many of the same Pokemon as it. Moving first, Dracovish does generally outdamage other Pokemon, but it's also more of a one-trick pony and more conditional than what other Pokemon have to other. At the end of the day Dracovish is still just a Pokemon with pretty middling stats (especially Speed) bar a unique ace up its sleeve.

Any well constructed team should have a way to handle Dracovish at 2x Speed (from either Tailwind or Sand Rush) - more generally, teams should be able to deal with any common attackers in Tailwind. The simplest way, a la SV, is to have your own (Prankster) Tailwind and then you only need Pokemon faster than Dracovish which is quite easy to achieve, particularly as Whimsicott itself is one of Dracovish's best counters and a strong Pokemon in its own right. Dracovish has comparable bulk to other attackers, and so while it can barely survive some strong neutral hits from full like Landorus' Earth Power or Rillaboom's Wood Hammer, some minor chip from the likes of Fake Out or Stealth Rock can easily move it into knockout range for most Pokemon. Other than matching Tailwind then there's also the option of removing it, if you can KO Whimsicott as it sets Tailwind the first time (or at least put it down to hazards range), then often teams reliant on it will struggle after Tailwind ends, particularly so in the case of Dracovish.

Priority is the other obvious way to avoid Dracovish moving first, with Rillaboom's Grassy Glide and +1 Choice Band Genesect's Extreme Speed both 2HKOing, though Rillaboom is just one of the best checks in general, and is the most common Pokemon in the meta. Choice Scarf Naganadel is a real set, it obviously isn't as great as Life Orb, but with speed demons like Dragapult and Pheromosa going around it's a solid option for outspeeding both them and slower Pokemon (including Dracovish) in Tailwind. However, redirection is also real; Amoonguss is definitely not "terrible" and that's coming from the biggest Amoonguss hater in the world. SS is where Amoonguss has actually carved a solid niche as a PsySpam mainstay to Spore in terrain, switch into the other terrain setters, and redirect attacks such as those from Urshifu-R or Dracovish. Many PsySpam teams will carry Trick Room, and therefore either Amoonguss and/or Indeedee-F will be there to redirect, which in itself is great against Dracovish, while Trick Room flips the table against the Tailwind type of teams it's found on. Blastoise, whilst more niche, I wouldn't exactly call terrible either, it's a solid option for enabling setup, which is strong - on that note Shift Gear Genesect does well into Dracovish assuming it EVs to outspeed, which it should and only requires a little more investment than the Dex spread.

It's true that Dracovish is much easier to answer offensively than defensively, but that isn't a problem or anything unique. What defensively checks Naganadel besides Heatran? AV Kyurem-B (wanting Misty Terrain too) isn't what it used to be, and the alternatives are basically just the aforementioned offensive methods or Trick Room setters. Yes, Dracovish will at worst 2HKO most stuff, but that's what offensive Pokemon typically do or they wouldn't be worth using: Landorus 2HKOs basically anything other than itself or Celesteela, Naganadel 2HKOs anything not named Heatran, Urshifu-R 2HKOs practically everything besides the handful of Pokemon which resist both STABs. However, while Dracovish can achieve higher damage with support to go first, the others are all naturally faster while offering their own benefits: Landorus has no downsides/conditionality to its attacks; Naganadel can snowball with Beast Boost, set Tailwind itself, and naturally outspeeds 90+% of the tier; Urshifu-R can break through Protect, ignore Intimidate, and has access to priority. Dracovish has real trade-offs compared to other attackers, and counterplay being mostly offensive isn't something which singles it out from other Pokemon in the tier.

On the point of Kartana, I think that actually deserves a suspect test more than Dracovish. In a world where we've realised Prankster Tailwind is far better than was perceived at the time, the argument of Kartana being the cause for "Tailwind wars" is lessened, and it was only voted ban by a fairly narrow margin in the first place. The meta has shifted massively since the time Kartana was banned, it deserves another shake.
Pretending Naganadel is even half as difficult to check defensively as Dracovish is insane. It does not 2HKO many of the common switch ins to special attacks without a timid nature, and(even with modest) as mentioned by Noelle in the above post; You have to click Draco to actually threaten those KO's a lot of the time which is a huge and very reasonable draw back. While Urshifu has a very strong stab combination that few Pokemon can actually resist, there ARE Pokemon that actually resist and can switch in to it multiple times in a match.

Naga can have its hits absorbed by p2, heatran, incin, av ursh, av volc etc etc the list does not end there.
Ursh is reliably checked by Tapu fini and Amoongus very reliably, while solidly having its stabs resisted by Naganadel, Whims, and Pult Giving you options for soft checks along with the consistent switch ins(admittedly this is not much but I believe ursh is a mon that could also need looking at as well)

Vish is consistently checked by volcanion and Ferrothorn defensively. the list ends there. if none of its conditions are met and It is not boosting its power in anyway, it will sometimes need rocks chip to get clean 2hko's on switch in. Past that point, You're on a spectrum from 2hkoing to OHKOing the entire tier(barring the 2 exceptions noted). for the cost of moving before the opponents Pokemon.

It'd be a blatant lie to say that there isn't more than enough offensive counterplay to handle vish in the tier. but that is all that there is and it absolutely is unique in it's difficulty to check defensively. I think it is an incredible blight on the tiers enjoyability and the tier would lose very little by getting rid of it while gaining a lot of ease in the builder in exchange for its absence.
 
I don't think Dracovish should ever be considered for a suspect test, I don't even think it's a good pokemon!

I haven't played ss for a while, but from the replays that I saw it appears that not much has changed. And about Dravovish I think it remains the same, it's a very strong pokemon, but it requires too much to actually do something, so most of the time you will just prefer using fini or shifu as the water-type, since both do more stuff, fill more roles and aren't as linear as vish. With Dracovish, you need the speed control and the boost of rain otherwise it's extremely easy to check it, without the speed control you'll probably be faster, not doubling the Fishious Rend power, and the damage will be very low meaning you can trade damage with mons like fini, shifu, zeraora, genesect, naga and whims, just to name a few. Without the rain it's simply bad, on sand structures it can't have Strong Jaw, which makes a huge difference, and on whims offenses it doesn't fill as good as fini, for example, a faster and bulkier mon that can still hit really strong with Specs.

Another thing is that it has a lot of counterplay, the best being regarding positioning. Below are some replays that show this, but basically, against Dracovish you can't have a bad position if the team is weak to it, you need to account for that in the teambuilding! You can also throw a bunch of checks to it in the team, like Whims, fini, shifu, rilla, tsareena, volc, naga, or use other means to check it like, priorities in gene and rilla, speed control in whims, naga, diancie, p2, or even Intimidate already does a huge difference.

starmaster vs robjr
This first game shows perfectly well how good positioning is essencial when playing against Dracovish. In the preview you can see that it's a standard offense with Whims as the speed control, strong special attackers like lando, naga and celeestela, Dracovish as the physical attacker and incin kind of binding everything together. This team used to have Fini too, but vish here is interesting in case something goes wrong and some calm mind user ends up getting out of hand. On the other side Star brought a bulkier team, with double water, Spectrier, naga, incin and p2. If TR goes up it's very difficult for robjr to win, but he can stop it offensively, it's also a bit hard to position p2 here since after tr it will need to recover. Well, star plays it really well, whenever vish is in the field fini gets in, he also has fake out on mew which helps a lot. On Turn 7 star manages to get p2 in safely after a u-turn from shifu, from here it's really hard to lose, you will have tr up and p2 is at full health. This game just shows what good positioning does to a vish team, just play around it and eventually you'll get your speed control or your setup mon on the field and then it'll be very difficult for the opponent.

Meminger21 vs luisin
In this game Dracovish wins, but not because it's too good or anything, just because the opponent played really badly into a matchup where vish had an advantage. On t2 I already had a bad position because of the lead and thoughout the whole game I made a lot of bad plays, fake out on the wrong mons and attacked the wrong slot, on top of that fini got a crit from vish that only did 77%, very little for a broken mon. The crit wouldn't have mattered anyways, but this match shows that playing against vish is really hard if you can't position well. In this game the player that played better won!

Yoda2798 vs singlethunder
Another game where the player that positioned better won. Very even mu, Yoda brought whims offense with vish (same 6 from robjr) and singlethunder brought kingdra rain. The offense could tear apart the rain really well, only kingdra could outspeed the mons but there was a whims on the other side, so winning this speed war was really hard, singlethunder could also trade damage with tsar, against naga for example, but this would leave incin too comfortable to fake out. The plan was getting p2 into the field safely and it happened on t2 already! After that ferro uses ID and with some maneuvers chips dows yoda's whole team. Vish could destroy everything, but it needed too much positioning, it needed to have tw up against zapdos, kingdra couldn't be on the field, against tsar, ferro and p2 it also needed the rain, all that without tr being up and ferro without any boosts. On paper vish could win this game after some chip on ferro and tsar, but in reality it did 47% to kingdra and nothing else.

Meminger21 vs Yoda2798
Again, the better player won! It's literally about rewarding the player that played better. 2 whims offenses, Yoda brought one with more special attackers and I brought one with kyube and gene. On t2 I lost fini because I didn't know the calcs, fini would be incredicle here, trading damage was really important for me, mainly against celesteela. I also had a suboptimal set for gene, it was slower than gene and it didn't have espeed, either of those would've helped me a lot! After that I prioritized trading damage on celesteela and incin, so gene could have a chance of winning, as you can see I ignored vish a lot of times, because it wasn't doing enough damage on anything! Whims could absorb those hits easily, incin could intimidate it and gene also lived so I just attacked everything but vish. Vish ended up winning not because it's broken, but because the opponent played better.

zee vs MADARAAAA
Last one, vish on rain vs a whims team. Madara's team is bit bulkier, it's not a complete offense like the others but it's really offensive, rilla acts as a glue instead of incin and the whole team has a good synergy with nihilego, mons like pheromosa, lando and volc all help nihi with steels and grounds. The game has 4 turns! Not because one player played better, but because the mu was completely one-sided, pheromosa hh simply grabs a kill everytime it uses CC, and with sash it can grab 2 kills. On t1 it was already over because p2 was gone, maybe something could happen and zee could've won even without p2, but the speed war was almost impossible to win, and Madara is extremely good, so I think it was pretty over. The team is too reliant on vish and vish couldn't do much here with sash phero, whims and volc.

Overall, Dracovish is indeed a really strong pokemon, but it's simply not as versatile as other water-types like Urshifu-R and Tapu Fini, since it needs way too much positioning to actually do something, and this can be easily outplayed by good players. Not only that but there are a lot of ways to deal with it, whims can run sunny day if you're really scared, priority on gene and rilla helps a lot, pult, fini and shifu can trade damage, you can run sash on naga, phero and lando, even on shifu if you you're afraid of torn, and tr is really strong vs it, mainly with p2. Simply, there is counterplay, the best player wins and that's why we shouldn't even consider this mon for a suspect.
 
I don't think Dracovish should ever be considered for a suspect test, I don't even think it's a good pokemon!

I haven't played ss for a while, but from the replays that I saw it appears that not much has changed. And about Dravovish I think it remains the same, it's a very strong pokemon, but it requires too much to actually do something, so most of the time you will just prefer using fini or shifu as the water-type, since both do more stuff, fill more roles and aren't as linear as vish. With Dracovish, you need the speed control and the boost of rain otherwise it's extremely easy to check it, without the speed control you'll probably be faster, not doubling the Fishious Rend power, and the damage will be very low meaning you can trade damage with mons like fini, shifu, zeraora, genesect, naga and whims, just to name a few. Without the rain it's simply bad, on sand structures it can't have Strong Jaw, which makes a huge difference, and on whims offenses it doesn't fill as good as fini, for example, a faster and bulkier mon that can still hit really strong with Specs.

Another thing is that it has a lot of counterplay, the best being regarding positioning. Below are some replays that show this, but basically, against Dracovish you can't have a bad position if the team is weak to it, you need to account for that in the teambuilding! You can also throw a bunch of checks to it in the team, like Whims, fini, shifu, rilla, tsareena, volc, naga, or use other means to check it like, priorities in gene and rilla, speed control in whims, naga, diancie, p2, or even Intimidate already does a huge difference.

starmaster vs robjr
This first game shows perfectly well how good positioning is essencial when playing against Dracovish. In the preview you can see that it's a standard offense with Whims as the speed control, strong special attackers like lando, naga and celeestela, Dracovish as the physical attacker and incin kind of binding everything together. This team used to have Fini too, but vish here is interesting in case something goes wrong and some calm mind user ends up getting out of hand. On the other side Star brought a bulkier team, with double water, Spectrier, naga, incin and p2. If TR goes up it's very difficult for robjr to win, but he can stop it offensively, it's also a bit hard to position p2 here since after tr it will need to recover. Well, star plays it really well, whenever vish is in the field fini gets in, he also has fake out on mew which helps a lot. On Turn 7 star manages to get p2 in safely after a u-turn from shifu, from here it's really hard to lose, you will have tr up and p2 is at full health. This game just shows what good positioning does to a vish team, just play around it and eventually you'll get your speed control or your setup mon on the field and then it'll be very difficult for the opponent.

Meminger21 vs luisin
In this game Dracovish wins, but not because it's too good or anything, just because the opponent played really badly into a matchup where vish had an advantage. On t2 I already had a bad position because of the lead and thoughout the whole game I made a lot of bad plays, fake out on the wrong mons and attacked the wrong slot, on top of that fini got a crit from vish that only did 77%, very little for a broken mon. The crit wouldn't have mattered anyways, but this match shows that playing against vish is really hard if you can't position well. In this game the player that played better won!

Yoda2798 vs singlethunder
Another game where the player that positioned better won. Very even mu, Yoda brought whims offense with vish (same 6 from robjr) and singlethunder brought kingdra rain. The offense could tear apart the rain really well, only kingdra could outspeed the mons but there was a whims on the other side, so winning this speed war was really hard, singlethunder could also trade damage with tsar, against naga for example, but this would leave incin too comfortable to fake out. The plan was getting p2 into the field safely and it happened on t2 already! After that ferro uses ID and with some maneuvers chips dows yoda's whole team. Vish could destroy everything, but it needed too much positioning, it needed to have tw up against zapdos, kingdra couldn't be on the field, against tsar, ferro and p2 it also needed the rain, all that without tr being up and ferro without any boosts. On paper vish could win this game after some chip on ferro and tsar, but in reality it did 47% to kingdra and nothing else.

Meminger21 vs Yoda2798
Again, the better player won! It's literally about rewarding the player that played better. 2 whims offenses, Yoda brought one with more special attackers and I brought one with kyube and gene. On t2 I lost fini because I didn't know the calcs, fini would be incredicle here, trading damage was really important for me, mainly against celesteela. I also had a suboptimal set for gene, it was slower than gene and it didn't have espeed, either of those would've helped me a lot! After that I prioritized trading damage on celesteela and incin, so gene could have a chance of winning, as you can see I ignored vish a lot of times, because it wasn't doing enough damage on anything! Whims could absorb those hits easily, incin could intimidate it and gene also lived so I just attacked everything but vish. Vish ended up winning not because it's broken, but because the opponent played better.

zee vs MADARAAAA
Last one, vish on rain vs a whims team. Madara's team is bit bulkier, it's not a complete offense like the others but it's really offensive, rilla acts as a glue instead of incin and the whole team has a good synergy with nihilego, mons like pheromosa, lando and volc all help nihi with steels and grounds. The game has 4 turns! Not because one player played better, but because the mu was completely one-sided, pheromosa hh simply grabs a kill everytime it uses CC, and with sash it can grab 2 kills. On t1 it was already over because p2 was gone, maybe something could happen and zee could've won even without p2, but the speed war was almost impossible to win, and Madara is extremely good, so I think it was pretty over. The team is too reliant on vish and vish couldn't do much here with sash phero, whims and volc.

Overall, Dracovish is indeed a really strong pokemon, but it's simply not as versatile as other water-types like Urshifu-R and Tapu Fini, since it needs way too much positioning to actually do something, and this can be easily outplayed by good players. Not only that but there are a lot of ways to deal with it, whims can run sunny day if you're really scared, priority on gene and rilla helps a lot, pult, fini and shifu can trade damage, you can run sash on naga, phero and lando, even on shifu if you you're afraid of torn, and tr is really strong vs it, mainly with p2. Simply, there is counterplay, the best player wins and that's why we shouldn't even consider this mon for a suspect.
"Replays where Basculegion doesn't look so strong"
I dont want to clog this thread with anti vish propaganda and have other posts I want to work on, so I'll do my best to keep this short. Going in reverse order here:


zee vs MADARAAAA
Last one, vish on rain vs a whims team. Madara's team is bit bulkier, it's not a complete offense like the others but it's really offensive, rilla acts as a glue instead of incin and the whole team has a good synergy with nihilego, mons like pheromosa, lando and volc all help nihi with steels and grounds. The game has 4 turns! Not because one player played better, but because the mu was completely one-sided, pheromosa hh simply grabs a kill everytime it uses CC, and with sash it can grab 2 kills. On t1 it was already over because p2 was gone, maybe something could happen and zee could've won even without p2, but the speed war was almost impossible to win, and Madara is extremely good, so I think it was pretty over. The team is too reliant on vish and vish couldn't do much here with sash phero, whims and volc.
This was not, in fact, a one sided matchup. Pheromosa HH + CC does kill the entire team but the vish player still had lines in this situation. From this lead we can deduce that the Pheromosa will likely CC the Porygon2. P2 is the most important Pokemon on the enemy team and the Phero player can't allow TR to go up. We can also assume that Whimsicott likely won't Tailwind due to the Trick Room threat, and Moonblast won't do much damage here regardless. Based on this information the vish player had multiple better lines. They could sack Politoed, as Dracovish doesn't need Rain boosts to OHKO anything on this team except Rillaboom, which would let Tornadus get a 100% accurate Hurricane off into Pheromosa. Tsareena can then come in and use Feint to finish off Pheromosa while Torn clicks a free Hurricane into Whimsicott. Alternatively, you could sack Ferrothorn to break Pheromosa's Focus Sash and then Hurricane but this is a worse play and less consistent. Instead the vish player sacked the most important Pokemon on their team on the first turn for no reason and loses the game off of a bad play... so vish is balanced. Got it. Vish wasn't even sent out in this replay I'm really not sure what this proves at all.
Meminger21 vs luisin
In this game Dracovish wins, but not because it's too good or anything, just because the opponent played really badly into a matchup where vish had an advantage. On t2 I already had a bad position because of the lead and thoughout the whole game I made a lot of bad plays, fake out on the wrong mons and attacked the wrong slot, on top of that fini got a crit from vish that only did 77%, very little for a broken mon. The crit wouldn't have mattered anyways, but this match shows that playing against vish is really hard if you can't position well. In this game the player that played better won!
This just feels disingenuous to me. I was going to just ignore the replays where vish won but this specific inclusion is headscratch worthy. Firstly, its a Sand team. Everyone complaining about Dracovish is not talking about Sand. They're talking about Whims teams and Rain. Saying a crit Fishious Rend (which is effectively just a normal Dracovish Fishious Rend if you're using the set people are actually complaining about) ONLY did 77% to a max HP and likely Defense invested Tapu Fini also feels very disingenuous. Tapu Fini is one of the bulkiest things you can possibly switch in, a normal Strong Jaw Fishious Rend doing almost 80% is not okay and I don't know why we're acting like it is. This is the weakest possible vish archetype you could have picked to showcase and it STILL won, I also don't understand what this proves

The other replays I either don't have any issues with or the vish player won (If the vish player won that means its doing its job I don't have much to say on those games). I'm gonna rapid fire my next few points to keep this short

"Use Sunny Day Whimsicott if you're really scared"
We are seriously unironically recommending Sunny Day on non Sun Whimsicott teams just to beat vish? It's giving "Just run Haze Murkrow and Chien-Pao if you want to beat Dondozo"

"Other offensive Pokemon can also 2hko everything"
This is just not true. The specific examples given were Naganadel, Landorus and Urshifu, so i'll talk about those three. Naganadel has... lots of defensive switch-ins? Tyranitar, AV Ursh, AV Volc, Incineroar can be EV'd to tank hits, Fini gives Misty Terrain which makes pivoting around it easier, etc. I've literally built teams where every single Pokemon is EVd to take two of Naganadel's attacks, you can't do that with Dracovish. Landorus in theory 2hkos everything, but saying that makes it just as bad as Dracovish is incredibly disingenuous. Landorus has moveslot limitations, it can't actually 2hko everything in practice. Landorus also has to at least switch moves. It needs sludge bomb for rilla, psychic for amoong and av ursh, focus blast for p2 and av kyub, etc. This means in order for Landorus to actually 2hko everything in practice, there's at least an element of prediction in play. Lastly, we also suspected Landorus. If Landorus "2hkoing" the entire tier makes it suspect worthy, why would that not apply to Dracovish which deals well over double the damage? Urshifu has many switch ins as well. Tapu Fini, Dragapult, Sitrus Mew, Whimsicott, Amoonguss, Naganadel, some Necrozma spreads, etc. The extent to which Dracovish is difficult to answer defensively is 100% unique to it.

"Priority is another way to ensure Dracovish doesn't get the boost"
:tsareena:

I also think the arguments that vish rain relies too much on vish are just not very good. Vish rain has an entire Trick Room mode built around Ferro in rain which is incredibly hard to remove or slow down without lando or a strong wisp user. Torn and Politoed on these teams are also typically EVd to deal more damage to make up for losing the specs Zapdos on stax rain. Vish rain teams are no more reliant on vish than stax rain is reliant on kingdra. The most decentralized rain team in terms of power budget is probably bandit rain, with both urshifu and kingdra being threatening attackers, but that's also by far the least popular variant by now because rain loses a ton of flexibility without the Trick Room mode

On the topic of a Kartana retest, I've already made a post about it but I've never been against it being retested even though I'd still vote ban

This should go without saying but obviously no hate to Meminger or anyone else I paraphrased (I would have replied directly but I wanted to keep this post short, and some things I responded to were said in multiple posts). Realistically I know nothing I could possibly say will change people's minds about vish, and if it were suspected I doubt it ends up actually being banned. I just... really don't like a lot of these arguments. To be clear I'm not saying vish is unbeatable, literally anything you could possibly put into DOU would have some form of counterplay, I just think that the counterplay to vish teams (ESPECIALLY rain but sort of applies to whims teams to a lesser extent) tilt the balance of team variety in the tier too far into the direction of offense. There's more than enough offensive counterplay but little to no defensive counterplay, which makes balance teams much worse when they can't rely on priority to slow it down because of Tsareena. There's a lot of talk about how "the better player just wins" when in order to defensively answer Dracovish you have to jump through so many hoops while all the vish player has to do is click one move and not make any egregiously stupid plays.

I probably won't make any more posts because I don't want this thread to become the dracovish propaganda thread. I do plan to talk about dracovish again but its not a ban post and will be well after dpl anyway
 
Strong Jaw Dracovish is worse than Sand Rush Dracovish because it demands too much support from its teammates for a mon that can still whiff its kills into protects or sashes (sand really helps here!). I don't think Strong Jaw is unviable or anything, I've been voting Dracovish to tier 2 since 2022, on par with threats like Lando-I and Ursh and the Strong Jaw set is a small part of that but it's not the main selling point of the mon imo. Strong Jaw requires speed control in almost all situations, it usually requires priority blocking, and a competent opponent probably has good means of punishing the opponent that has to bend over backwards to enable their single target nuke. At the end of the day, it's really hard for a single target move to be broken in doubles because you're at the mercy of your opponent protecting one guy and attacking with their other guy. Encore is moderately effective at punishing those plays, but a lot of the time it truly is that simple, and the Vish player is not allowed to get those turns wrong or they get owned. Worse still are the boards where the opponent can threaten scary stuff with both mons and your passive support partner can't resolve the fact that both guys are threatening a kill on your carry and your carry can only kill one. 1 for 1s aren't bad in a vacuum but if you're spending a bunch of team resources to enable a 1 for 1 your opponent got a bunch of extra time to execute whatever their gameplan is.

I won't argue that Vish isn't good. I'm a sucker for big nukes (I use more bands and specs than pretty much anyone else in DOU) and "outspeed and ohko the opp" has been a strong strategy in pokemon since the beginning of the franchise; Dracovish's kit is set up to enable it to do exactly that. There's a reason it's turbo banned in singles. However, its traits are far less unfair in doubles. Rain Vish is a mu fish archetype, and it might be better than most fishes but if it draws the wrong opponent it will miss a kill, die, and lose because its team has to put many eggs into its basket for it to be effective.
 
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