Gen 7 USUM Doubles OU: Double Eject Button Rain team!

[Ryan5374]

Introduction!
This team is a rain offense team meant for Gen 7 DOU. It's meant to take advantage of rain to keep up momentum and wear down the opponent's team as fast as possible.

I frogor (Politoed) @ Eject Button
Ability: Drizzle
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Scald
- Helping Hand
- Icy Wind
- Protect

Basic support Politoed. The eject button is used for pivoting purposes, for example, I can pivot into an attack, get the rain up, and get a free switch into another mon.
Helping hand helps to cancel out intimidates on swampert, or generally guarantee a KO on an opponent, and because helping hand has such high priority, it is often the move of choice for Politoed to be useful before ejecting out. In a pinch, I can proc my own eject button with Swampert's earthquake, doing around 40% damage to it, though this is usually undesirable.

Finn (Swampert-Mega) (M) @ Swampertite
Ability: Damp
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Protect
- Ice Punch
- Waterfall

Generic swift swim sweeper. Not much to say here, earthquake for spread stab, protect for scouting moves and turns, ice punch for coverage, waterfall for stab and a chance to flinch. Damp is chosen as the pre mega ability for the niche use of preventing explosion, as well as torrent being mostly useless.

Pony (Kingdra) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Muddy Water
- Draco Meteor
- Protect
- Ice Beam

Another swift swim sweeper, muddy water is stab spread (the accuracy can be infuriating but it's used over surf for not hitting the ally.) Draco meteor is powerful stab that 2hkos or ohkos most of the dragons of the tier. Ice beam is used for coverage against grass, or against 4x weak dragons so as to not drop special attack.

Hit and Run (Scrafty) @ Eject Button
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 176 SpD / 60 Spe
Careful Nature
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Taunt

Scrafty is used here because 1.I kind of hate incineroar and 2. It can actually use its stabs under rain. I also chose it over Hitmontop for its superior bulk. Eject button synergizes well with Politoed. I have had multiple situations where both eject buttons were consumed in one turn to regain the weather advantage. For example, one turn against a sand team went like this:
Kingdra and Politoed are out in sand. I protect Kingdra and switch scrafty in to intimidate excadrill as it clicks rock slide. Scrafty gets switched out, and I now have a free switch into Politoed, as Tyranitar's rock slide goes off, and I am able to either switch to another mon that benefits from rain, or get a second intimidate off + fake out pressure with scrafty.

Bolt Beak (Tapu Koko) @ Electrium Z
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Dazzling Gleam
- Volt Switch
- Protect

Tapu Koko is used as an offensive Pivot, volt switching in and out of the battle to maintain momentum. It also summons electric terrain, which is useful for its prevention of sleep and for another aspect of the team we'll go over later. The electrium Z is used for wallbreaking bulky waters or mons neutral to electric.

Sky Daddy (Tornadus) @ Electric Seed
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Acrobatics
- Superpower
- Tailwind
- Protect

VGC 2013 flashbacks anyone? This Tornadus takes advantage of the Electric Seed item, which boosts its defense and is consumed, allowing for acrobatics to reach its full 110 BP. Superpower is coverage and synergizes well with defiant as well as electric seed. Tailwind is always useful in doubles, temporarily doubling the speed of the team. Protect is protect. Tornadus is mainly used here because it beats grasses, even ferrothorn, and creates a lose lose situation for the opponent, as they have to either choose between keeping swampert at full attack, or attempting to intimidate it down and essentially boosting Tornadus.

Summary:
This team is built to hit hard and fast in Rain while keeping as much momentum up as possible. The eject buttons are an integral part of this, as they allow for quick pivoting that is crucial against both other weathers and for cycling intimidates against physical attackers. Furthermore, the use of Defiant discourages intimidate, lest the opponent give Tornadus a free boost. I'm relatively new to the RMT process, so let me know if there's anything I could improve for next time. Thank you for giving this post a read!


Importable: https://pokepast.es/314fa7688eeb08f8

 

[Idyll]

Hey! I think this is a neat looking team here, I like the double Eject idea as it's really great for being in control on the board. While I think that the team is generally solid all around, I do think that there's a few changes that the team could be optimized better.

The one, major change I would recommend on this team is using LO Kyurem-B over Tornadus, because I think it better helps against the matchups that I feel the team struggles with. The CM Tapu Fini matchup, for example, looks quite difficult as Tapu Koko is the teams only reliable answer against it, which could be problematic as Tapu Koko isn't something you can reliably preserve for a while; you also probably just insta-lose if it has an Amoong partner, as Amoonguss has a lot of freedom against your team in general and your only answer in Tornadus isn't something that's really capable of properly punishing the kind of bulky teams they fit on. I think LO Kyurem-B will be a better fit in general as it has favorable matchups into Tapu Fini and Amoonguss while also being better at matching up into the metagame in general because of its absurd SE coverage, making it better at keeping momentum on your side. You won't really miss Tailwind much because the team is already inherently fast, and you won't really miss Defiant because rain as an archetype dumpsters the two viable Intimidate Pokemon in the metagame anyway (and you have Eject Buttons so shake off Intim drops).

As this would give you literally no levitating mon to EQ next to, I recommend using Eject Button Pelipper over Politoed. This isn't really a big change in any sense, and in the context of this team I'd go far as to say it's better because, even when you had Torn, I really think you want stuff that generally can eat a Leaf Blade from Kartana. A bulky physdef set is essentially just a different flavor of Politoed, if only marginally better at going into Metagross and slightly worse into special attackers. It also has the Tailwind you'd miss out on from Torn, I suppose and it also gives you another Amoong hitter on top.

Hide

Kyurem-Black @ Life Orb
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Ice Beam
- Fusion Bolt
- Earth Power
- Protect

Pelipper @ Eject Button
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 108 Def / 148 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Hurricane
- Tailwind
- Wide Guard / U-turn / Protect

The second, more minor change I would recommend that is essentially independent from the above is making your Tapu Koko Thunder over Thunderbolt. Considering the team has double Eject Buttons, you should have little problem maintaining rain even in the toughest matchups. Even more, it's actually important for one important calc: 252 SpA Tapu Koko Gigavolt Havoc (185 BP) vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Kartana in Electric Terrain: 267-314 (103 - 121.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO. With Thunderbolt, this is a calc that you can lose in a few cases, and that honestly can be quite tragic. Considering how reliable Thunder should be on this team, and how Thunder gives you a ton of better attacks in general, I really don't see why you shouldn't go for this.

Last change that's also essentially independent from the above is making your Mega Swampert Superpower over Ice Punch. Not only is it another move that beats Kartana, I also think that your matchup into AV Kyurem-B is really tough in general. While Ice Punch is nice for Amoonguss, I think you probably have enough tools for it, especially if you go Kyu-B + Peli.

 

[Ryan5374]

Thank you very much for the advice! I have tried pelipper before, but its 4x weakness makes it susceptible to certain coverage. I'll definitely experiment with it though.

In my experience, pelipper is not as reliable at getting tailwinds up, because it's specially frail and gets more easily exploited due to its 4x weakness, and it could get ejected before getting the tailwind off. I like the kyurem, but I'm not 100% sure how to fit it because tailwind is extremely important for opposing weather matchups, such as when I'm not able to get a weather speed boost.

Edit: I've also used z freeze shock kyurem in the past, is that considered a good idea?

 

[Idyll]

Thank you very much for the advice! I have tried pelipper before, but its 4x weakness makes it susceptible to certain coverage. I'll definitely experiment with it though.

In my experience, pelipper is not as reliable at getting tailwinds up, because it's specially frail and gets more easily exploited due to its 4x weakness, and it could get ejected before getting the tailwind off. I like the kyurem, but I'm not 100% sure how to fit it because tailwind is extremely important for opposing weather matchups, such as when I'm not able to get a weather speed boost.

Edit: I've also used z freeze shock kyurem in the past, is that considered a good idea?

Hi! I can see how the 4x Elec weakness can scare you off; however, personally I really don't see it as a problem as Pelipper really shouldn't be on the field a lot of the time and should really aim to switch out as soon as it can. If it somehow takes an Electric move, it's likely more because of carelessness than anything, considering you really should see certain Electric moves coming; and considering you have double eject buttons as well as the best counter in the DOU metagame to Electric types, getting hit by one should be easily avoidable.

A lot of the time, you really don't need Tailwind to win your matchups, even. Setting Tailwind takes time as a resource, time you'd rather have spent applying pressure and attacking. Just because it has Tailwind in its set doesnt mean it you have to use it; its really more of a secondary option when the specific opportunities arise. Rain is really about efficiently controlling the board off the get go with strong attackers and field conditions boosting your attackers with little set-up; a lot of the time, Tailwind is already overkill, anyway.

For the opposing weather matchup, I honestly don't see you needing Tailwind for those, either; a lot of the time, it's really just who controls weather better and considering you have double ejects, it really should be you as you are able to more efficiently control weather. Considering the nature of opposing weather as an HO matchup, a lot of the time your time is better spent forcing favorable trades and giving them less good switchins, instead of Tailwinding; if you have Weather, you always have the Speed advantage, and if you don't then you at most tie while not having any fighting power.

Z-KB is good, but on this team. You really do prefer having Z on Koko.

 

[Ryan5374]

I'll give it a try then! Maybe it's just my past experience with pelipper talking, but I just looked at my old teams and all of those pelippers were offensive! What kyurem-b set do you recommend? The reason it became uber in gen 8 was it finally got reliable stab but I'm not exactly sure what to use here.
Edit: Nevermind I'm blind it's right here