u/Boiruja

Hey there! This post is a follow-up to [this first post here, about how I got top 100 with this mess of a team](https://www.reddit.com/r/VGC/s/qqq1CHMIIE). Many people asked me about leads and matchups, so I wrote this to help whoever is trying to run this team!

I spent most of the season on champion tier, but fell down to some 1900 elo some 2 days ago testing ways to solve the rain matchup. This is how I climbed back!

I've actually caved in and benched scizor for metagross, at least for a while. There are too many rain teams running around, and scizor was a sitting duck against pelipper. Metagross deals respectable damage to it, and also boosting matchups against incineroar, charizard, grimmsnarl and staraptor. On the other hand, we have worse matchups into kingambit, aerodactyl, garchomp. I'll go into details latter.

This set came from a Cybertron video, but there's one point I dislike: this Metagross (171 speed) gets outsped by adamant sneasler (173 speed). But since I wanted Metagrossto get outsped by our Liepard (174 speed) to knock off sitrus berries before attacking, there's not much I can do. Since the most popular team featuring sneasler right now runs jolly (#1 protect the blastoise/delphox team), I've settled with this. Body press should 2hko Incineroar without sitrus berry (hence the faster knock off).

The team right now is very solid and has no crazy bad matchups in the meta, only normal bad matchups. Our newly found weaknesses are:

- Kingambit: The lack of bug coverage from scizor meant I found it better to switch low kick for dark pulse on Greninja. Scizor could also reliably swords dance against a Kingambit. Metagross can kill it with body press, but we get really hurt by sucker punch. Now Decidueye is the only reliable way to kill kingambit, but chandelure can also do it on a good day.

- M-Aerodactyl: commonly paired with Kingambit, they can Tailwind + kowtow cleave to kill M-Metagross. Since we are running no choice scarf, we can only speed draw with aerodactyl, which I'm not a fan of. Our best bet is to bully it with Liepard.

- Garchomp: is good into both of our megas, so you can bet it's going to be brought every match. Greninja dismantles it outside of tailwind, and Decidueye trades favorably into it. Liepard dislikes use because fake outing a garchomp breaks focus sash.

So we ended up getting a weaker matchup into the big 6, but not weak enough that we can't handle it.

Now, let's talk about team matchups and leads! I'll try to go in detail for matchups that I didn't talk about in the previous post or that changed a lot. Since our team is made to answer the meta, we usually run different leads for each different teams.

One very important thing is to identify our winning conditions and keep them safe. We also want to construct alternative win conditions on the fly: many people in high rank will fight to the death even when the match seems lost, and will play for the crit, for the miss, for the double protect, for an opponent's mistake. We want to do this as well. One pretty global plan B for us is setting up multiple swords dance on Scizor, or putting important pokemon to sleep with yawn, but I'll go into details for plans on each matchup.

- Rain:

• Win condition: Decidueye sweeps their team

• Lead suggestions: liepard + decidueye (please don't let decidueye die), Liepard + greninja or Aerodactyl + greninja.

• Alternative win conditions: Metagross can solo swampert outside of rain, Greninja 2hkoes Archaludon (maybe with Liepard knocking off their leftovers)

In this matchup, you want your Decidueye to kill most things, but it dies very easily to pelipper. Try spamming yawn to keep their pokemon swapping, or encoring pelipper on Tailwind. Maybe read when Pelipper switches in and hit it with both pokemon. Also, if you fake out pelipper and decidueye is ingame pay attention who attacks first, as leaf blade may be valuable for killing pelipper. Also, I've only seen one player keep swampert and attack me in the lead against decidueye, so it's usually safe to focus fire on the pelipper turn one. If you really really hate this matchup, you can try running sunny day on pelipper or grass knot on greninja.

- Protection comps:

• Win Condition: Metagross if they're protecting floette, decidueye if they're protecting blastoise or kingambit, Aerodactyl if they're protecting delphox or annihilape.

• Lead suggestion: decidueye + liepard, chandelure + liepard or Metagross + liepard

• Alternative win conditions: leaf blade should deal some 70% of Floette's hp on a crit, and greninja or aerodactyl will help decidueye outspeed floette, while helping to deal the rest of the 30%. Metagross and Aerodactyl are also good plan B to kill incineroar. Decidueye will deal some 70% to Delphox with a sucker punch. Chandelure is very hard for them to kill and will deal good chip damage even to floette and incineroar.

You can identify this one on team preview by the core of Floette (or another scary pokemon), Incineroar and Sinistcha. They might run Grimmsnarl and Maushold as well.

So, this matchup is mostly positional, and is about identifying your win condition, and trying to deal with the pokemon that the opponent has to mess it up. That's usually incineroar, sneasler or kingambit.The blastoise protection team is popular right now as the #1 player on the ladder was running it, so keep in mind that their sneaslser is jolly! Also, I thought Metagross would trivialize this matchup, but opponents are really ready for metagross + a fake out support, so no harm keeping it in the back.

- Big 6:

• Win Condition: more complex plan, you need to analyze what they brought and make sure your answers are safe.

• Lead suggestion: Liepard + Greninja is what a play 90% of the time.

• Alternative win conditions: if charizard is asleep you can mess it up with decidueye, as a crit and a defense reduction will put it in range to die to a sucker punch. If Floette is brought and you didn't bring Metagross, you can try to take it down with a crit from decidueye or with chandelure. If Basculegion is scarfed you can protean into normal type and become immune to last respects.

This matchup got harder since most of their pokemon is good against metagross, and if you don't bring it, they might bring Floette and just sweep you. I always try to take down whimsicott turn one with fake out + ice beam, and hope my greninja survives. Turn two I hopefully see what else they brought and find out which of my pokemon is more valuable. For example, Greninja is amazing against basculegion, garchomp and zard, but weak into kingambit and floette. Decidueye is strong against kingambit, garchomp and useful against basculegion, but weak against the rest. Metagross is your only hope against floette but helps against charizard, basculegion and on a last resort, kingambit. So read their game and plan for it.

- Big 6 alternative (many variations of this team with kingambit instead of incineroar on ladder)

• Win Condition: Take down their incineroar/kingambit and garchomp and sweep with Metagross.

• Suggested lead: Metagross + Liepard

• Alternative win conditions: decidueye does some 70% of Sylveon on a crit, and Greninja should be able to kill Aerodactyl, but will get really hurt in the process. Kingambit doesn't 1hko greninja unless you protean into ice and they have iron head (low kick isn't enough even after life orb damage),

Some variations of this team have been really popular lately and it's really hard for us. They often lead with Aerodactyl + something that will mess up Metagross, and we don't really have a lead that does well with that while keeping girafarig in mind. So I often just hope they didn't bring it, fake out the biggest threat and kill something with metagross. So I haven't solved this matchup by any means.

- Sand

• Win Condition: a way to kill Corviknight and a way to deal with Houndstone.

• Suggested lead: Decidueye + Liepard, Decidueye + Scizor

• Alternative win conditions: Decidueye should deal some 60% of corviknight's health with a crit on triple arrows, and Liepard might get a lucky encore on a move that does nothing.

So this matchup has always been pretty trivial, but the addition of hounstone made it really hard. Another thing that makes this hard is that the sandstorm breaks liepards sash. If you identify they have a losing board, try to swords dance before the dog shows up. Also, Chandelure is afraid of Excadrill, but not that afraid of tyranitar! They usually lead Tyranitar + Exadrill, and only one in my life i've seen them keep tyranitar and attack, so fake out + triple arrows excadrill is a rather safe plan.

- Trick room:

• Win Condition: Chandelure

• Suggested Lead: Chandelure + Decidueye, unless you expect them to lead Blastoise + Vivillion, then I'd lead Aerodactyl + Chandelure or Metagross.

• Alternative winning plans: this one is pretty much lost if you lose chandelure and they have torkoal, but might be one of those matches where you try double protects to stall trick room

Right now there are many popular trick room leads, and you'll want to run Chandelure + a pokemon that threatens their lead. That is usually decidueye, since we stopped running scizor, which was valuable to threaten farigiraf. If you think they'll run blastoise + vivilion, keep decidueye in the back, as they'll probably go for sleep powder turn one (they run scarf), and Decidueye will be free to challange Blastoise. I like going for aerodactyl on this one to threaten wide guard, which I don't even use, but the opponent has to respect the possibility

- Perish

• Win Condition: Kill gengar with Chandelure, Greninja or Metagross

• Suggested lead: Liepard + Metagross, Liepard + Chandelure, Liepard + Greninja

• Alternative win conditions: We kill the pokemon that aren't gengar and their perish becomes too risky. If you think Gengar is going to attack, Decidueye's sucker punch might be clutch.

We used to have a really high winrate against perish while running Zoroark, it's really gone down If you have better plans than mine I'd love to read it. What I can say is that Gengar usually doesn't 1hko our threats, and we 1hko it back. That being said, it's usually very telegraphed and they have plans against it, so it becomes pretty hard to play.

So that's what I have for now! Have fun climbing the ladder! I really want to keep champion until the end!

Guess I've found a teambuilder crazier than me lol You all should stop worrying about playing meta

Hey there, I'm Boiruja, just a random ladder warrior who plays his favorites! I'm so happy to say that me and Decidueye got Champion tier the second season in a row! Unfortunately Aurorus and Zoroark had to stay on the bench this season, but I've managed to find use to two of my partners from Legends ZA: this beautiful chandelure and my loyal greninja.

In the early season, there were too many M-Staraptor and M-Raichu Y going around for me to run Aurorus, so I had to find other pokemon with strong rock and ice moves. And guess who else has stab on rock and ice? Greninja, who has stab on everything. I'll talk more about him later, but the loss of Aurorus took away my main plan against trick room, and since Greninja and Zoroark had similar roles, Zoroark gave way to Maria Bonita, my trusty Chandelure.

A brief description of my partners and their roles, but I'm going to say already that this team is harder to pilot than the one from last season, as many of our previous winning matchups have new pokemon to mess up with us.

- H-Decidueye:

My ace, I bring it to almost every match, even when I shouldn't. Has 50% crit chance on its stabs. Hard counter to Kingambit, Archaludon, M-Blastoise, M-Swampert, Tyranitar, Milotic, Aegislash, Sableye, Rotom-W and others, but he mostly shines in matchups he trades favourably even when he shouldn't: Garchomp, Incineroar, M-Raichu, Gholdengo, M-Delphox(!!!), Scizor. Ignores rage powder and intimidate. Will deal 90% of Incineroar's HP without a crit. Also can help with sucker punch against the likes of M-Metagross, late game Basculegion, and many focus sash users. Overall a very good pokemon to trade into the opponent's bulky pokemon, and capable to 1hko many things with a crit. Strongly supported by Liepard's fake out and Aerodactyl/Greninja speed control, and the fact that he needs this support is his main weakness. Amazing Pokemon.

- Chandelure:

Who needs a mega when you already have one of the largest sp attack in the game? Who needs sun when the opponent will gladly set it up for you in half of the matches? Chandelure is amazing against trick room teams (torkoal hates her) and charizards, but also trades really well against M-Floette, M-Metagross, M-staraptor, and with colbur berry, can survive a sucker punch and 1hko Kingambit, M-mawile. With speed control it can even deal with basculegion! Another important role is switching into incineroar's flare blitz, as most of my team really wouldn't like to eat it. Runs taunt to mess up trick room, but maybe you can run your own trick room, since this team is kinda slow.

- Liepard:

My favorite prankster in the game. Grimmsnarl doesn't have encore. Sableye doesn't have yawn and doesn't do much damage. Whimsicott is vulnerable to other pranksters. Liepard has it all. This knock off will land you kills your opponent wouldn't imagine were possible. It's main problem is that it hogs the focus sash, which Sableye and Grimmsnarl wouldn't need. It's also a very fast fake out, in this meta outspeeds pretty much everything that isn't jolly sneasler, raichu and M-Loppuny. Very underrated pokemon.

- M-Scizor:

We have some new mega steel types to play with, but Scizor is still outstanding. M-Metagross doesn't have swords dance and has worse defensive typing. M-Mawile's priority move doesn't have stab, so it runs better in trick room. A Mega Scizor after swords dance is one of the scariest things in this game. Mandatory for matchups against M-Floette, but also brought to pretty much every match without a charizard. Also dislikes incineroar, my whole team does, which is part of why this has been hard to pilot.

- Greninja:

Might be the best antimeta pokemon in closed team sheets. Greninja has a move to kill pretty much every single meta threat. Dragons, M-Staraptor, whimsicott and Sinistcha die to Ice Beam. Charizard dies to rock tomb with no attack investment. Kingambit, Tyranitar die to low kick, and Incineroar doesn't appreciate getting hit by it (should be some 60% damage without intimidate). Basculegion, Gholdengo, M-Gengar die to dark pulse. Sneasler to extrasensory. Swampert do Grass Knot. Floette and Sylveon to gunk shot. This pokemon has such an amazing moveset it's hard to choose 4 moves. I've chosen these 4 to better help my team's bad matchups, but my opponent's are forced to respect every possibility with protects and switches, which get punished by Liepard. Also, rock tomb will help the likes of Decidueye and Chandelure 1hk0 a threat before getting hit. While Meowscarada powercrept Greninja as a straight up physical sweeper, I think greninja has a better moveset, makes better use of protean and is a better mixed sweeper. I do highly recommend Greninja!

- M-Aerodactyl:

Has the wrong ability in this code because I was running it with Zoroark and forgot to change it lol This one you know what it does, but I want to point out how well it convers Decidueye weaknesses of being slow and hating flying, fire and ice types. These two birds were made for each other!

Some matchups and plans:

- vs Big 6:

My greninja was made to kill every pokemon of this team other than basculegion, and liepard deals 90% of basculegion's HP with knock off. Rock tomb will also help decidueye and chandelure hit non-choice scarf basculegion, so greninja is the MVP in this mathup. Beware of Tailwind, the priority is taking down whimsicott before it goes up, and try not to kill your greninja with proteam (ice beam makes you vulnerable to charizard, rock tomb makes you vulnerable to garchomp). If Basculegion is scarf, you can protean into protect in the late game and become immune to last respects.

- vs Rain:

This matchup has become harder because swampert can deal some 80% of Decidueye's HP with ice punch or just straight up wave crash. We also hate pelipper. Greninja and Liepard should take care or pelipper, and you can hopefully yawn swampert or archaludon to sleep before Decidueye can clean it up. Greninja will also almost 2-shot archaludon with ice beam, which Liepard can help transform into a 2-shot with knock off. If you think they may run M-Metagross or Grimmsnarl, go for Scizor, which trades favourably. If you are having a hard time with this one, try to fit sunny day on Liepard's moveset.

- Protect the Floette:

Another really hard matchup, since your best answers to incineroar (Decidueye, Greninja) hate floette and your best answer to floette hates incineroar. Aerodactyl hates intimidate. This is a really complex positional matchup, where your liepard's yawn and encore will really shine. While I usually run Decidueye, Liepard and Scizor, the 4th slot is between Chandelure, which has a place for trading well into floette, eating flare blitz and dealing with Sinistcha, and Aerodactyl, who deals well with Incineroar and has speed control, so Decidueye can better handle Floette (leaf blade crit should deal 70-80%) and Incineroar. If Incineroar dies, you win.

- Trick Room:

The matchup is trivial if Farigiraf isn't holding Mental Herb, which is 96% of the time. Chandelure usually deals with their whole team. First turn you may think of Decidueye, to deal with kang-blastoise and Incineroar, Liepard, if the opponent doesn't have fake out, so you can knock off Farigiraf's item before taunting, or even Scizor, to threat a 1hko (it rarely is a 1hko) into farigiraf.

- Sand:

Decidueye messes up their whole team. Protect it with Liepard, and keep scizor and chandelure in the back. Scizor is generally strong against this team, and chandelure is good into corvinight.

- M-Staraptor:

Lead Greninja, fake out the support pokemon, and ice beam staraptor. If it doesn't protect, it dies. If it protects, encore. If the player is really good, instead of encore you can expect the switch and click yawn.

So that'a mostly it, until they find out new threats or learn what my greninja does. Have fun this season, good climbing and don't insist on playing on a losing streak!

Love you owl, nobody will ever convince me that you aren't amazing.

Hey there! I'm Boiruja, I'm actually a math teacher and I love using pokemon and D&D to talk about probability. I'm new to VGC, but been playing pokemon singles ever since I was 1 year old. Now in singles, Rock Slide is a pretty bad move, but in VGC, it feels like your rock slide never lands, and the opponents always flinches. Of course there's a bit of psychology involved in this, but the math is sound: Rock slide has almost 50% chance of flinching if it hits both pokemon, and almost 20% chance of missing. I know, these aren't the numbers that show up in the move, so I thought I'd talk a bit about it.

Let me say my Aerodactyl rocks slides the opponent Talonflame and Charizard (maximum damage so we get mad the most if we miss). There are 4 possible scenarios:

• Rock slide lands on Charizard (90% or 0.9 out of 1), and lands on Talonflame (90% or 0.9 out of 1).

• Rock slide lands on Charizard (90% or 0.9 out of 1) and misses on Talonflame (10% or 0.1 out of 1)

• Rock slide misses on Charizard (10% or 0.1 out of 1) and lands on Talonflame (90% or 0.9 out of 1)

• Rock slide misses Charizard (10% or 0.1 out of 1) and Talonflame (10% or 0.1 out of 1).

So in probability, when we want both of those situations to happen, we multiply both numbers. Now that's when thinking about 90% as 0.9 out of 1 gets more intuitive, as we can't just do 90% x 90%, that would not be a percentage. So for example, the chance of landing rock slide on both pokemon is 0.9 x 0.9 = 0.81, which is 81%. That is, when you rock slide, you have 81% of being happy and 19% of being mad, knowing you missed something. Now missing both is really sad, it's just a 0.1x0.1 = 0.01 or 1% chance, but I rock slide so often that eventually it will happen.

The numbers for flinching are even scarier. Let's say my opponent rock slide both my pokemon and both are hit (which we know is already only an 81% chance of happening, but we'll say both hit so that the math gets easier). What's the chance that at least one of them flinches? We have the following situation, now with Garchomp and Basculegion because the charizard and talonflame would die lol

• Garchomp doesn't flinch (70% or 0.7 out of 1), and Basculegion doesn't flinch (70% or 0.7 out of 1).

• Garchomp doesn't flinch (70% or 0.7 out of 1), and Basculegion flinches (30% or 0.3 out of 1).

• Garchomp flinches (30% or 0.3 out of 1), and Basculegion doesn't flinch (70% or 0.7 out of 1).

• Garchomp flinches (30% or 0.3 out of 1), and Basculegion flinches (30% or 0.3 out of 1).

Now, I'd get mad in every scenario that's not the first one. But the first one is a good 0.7x0.7 = 0.49, or 49% of happening. That means I'll be mad in a scary 51% of the time (once again when rock slide hits both). and there's 9%, or 0.3x0.3=0.09 of chance I'll be very mad. Almost the chance that one of rock slide missing that one basculegion (10%) in the late game.

So how about the whole calculation? There would be many more scenarios. Every time one pokemon would get hit, you have to separate it in two more: it flinches, and it doesn't. So when hitting both, that's now 4 scenarios, the ones we already discussed, and both situations where one pokemon get hit and the other doesn't become two scenarios, the last one where both miss keeps on being the same scenario.

I won't calculate the chances for every one of those, but if you need to win a match by hitting both opponents and both flinch, your chance will be 0.81 (hitting both) x 0.09 (flinching both) = 0.0729 or little more than 7%. That's not that bad, so don't resign the match before trying!

Mark my words, I've been cooking some bullshit for the last week and I think it's starting to take shape!

Hey there! I am Boiruja, you might recognize me from this post about making champion tier with my trusty Decidueye! I'm no professional player, just an unc that have been playing ladders since his teens.

My elo fell to MB3 while trying some wacky pokemon that I love, so I had to climb again to champion tier. This time I made it with another of my favorite, Aurorus! You'll quickly realize that this team doesn't have amazing sinergy for Aurorus: I don't play trick room, and have no other pokemon that take advantage from snow. This is because Aurorus is not a pilar of this team, is a pokemon I thought of to cover the bad meta matchups that my core already have. So I thought I would write a bit explaning why and how!

Why to play counter-meta is very simple. If you look at tournaments, you'll find out that the top of the top players don't follow the meta, they try to stay one step ahead of it. Usually is just one pokemon, maybe two. The most recent global challange was won by an Ariados designed to counter the meta, and this weekend some top players pulled of Kleavor in a big tournament to try and stop the Charizard. What I take from this is the following: there is no bad pokemon that do exactly what you need it to do. If it can cover your bad matchups, it's a good pokemon for you!

And why did I play Aurorus? This is a Charizard Y centric meta, and while I do play Aerodactyl for this reason, at some point the Charizard teams started playing the Whimsicott + Glimmora core to deal with Aerodactyl. You notice that, outside of Aurorus, my team has no pokemon that can deal with the Whimsicott + Glimmora lead and survive the Charizard that comes after it.

So how do we do it? I needed a pokemon that could kill Whimsicott, not die to glimmora, and then kill charizard. There are not many pokemon in the game that can do this. I think the best one might actually be Garchomp, but I was sure the good players would be ready for Garchomp and would find counterplay, so I needed a surprise.

The tip is: don't think about dealing with a pokemon, think about dealing with the core this pokemon usually comes with. Make up strategies for each situation, each decision they can make. For example, you don't need a pokemon that kills M-floette. You need a strategy that deal with Floette and their support, which usually means an incineroar to intimidate and kill stell types and a redirection. In my situation, the strategy is:

- Whimsicott + Glimmora vs Aurorus + Liepard: now, this team plays sash on Glimmora and a really slow whimsicott, which I know my liepard outspeeds. Turn 1 I fake out Whimsicott and blizzard. If whimsicott doesn't protect, it dies. If it does protect, I encore lock it next turn. If Glimmora doesn't protect, it takes 60% of their health and will die to a knock off from liepard. If it does protect, encore lock.

Now I know Aurorus doesn't die to power gem + heat wave after sitrus berry, while my opponent doesn't know. After the first turn, they are glad to bring their charizard to the front to stop the blizzard spam. Charizard will simply die to ancient power, bringing this match pretty much to the end.

I also put points in Aurorus' speed to outspeed Charizard with tailwind. This is particularly important because many charizard players run Aerodactyl with wide guard to stop the rock slide spam.

Now I knew Aurorus could solve my problem. What else can it do? Well, It does have a good matchup into trick room, dealing with torkoal, a pokemon that I had problem against. It does respectably into Incineroar, does well against Floette, Garchomp, Aerodactyl, Talonflame, and survives a liquidation from a basculegion, dealing good damage with freeze dry in return. So this means I can bring Aurorus to many other matchups and still take value away from it.

All in all, is Aurorus a good pokemon? No. But it fit like a glove in my team, in this meta. I invite you to think outside the box and find a pokemon that solves exaclty the problem matchups your team might have. Who knows, maybe you can find value from your favorite pokemon, even if it's not strong!

I was ready to resign in shame in case I was wrong, but who the hell would lead the fastest pokemon in the game and a trick room setter?

Tried a lot last season and got really close, but after all was 50 points short. Can't describe how happy making it to the top with my favorite pokemon made me.

Love you Decidueye, I always knew you could do it.

UPDATE: Me and my Decidueye have achieved MB1, currently ranked 989 in the world, at 2264 rating. I'm shaking, just can't believe it!!!

Hey there! I'm Boiruja, and a few days ago I wrote this post about how I got my boys to 2000 elo for the first time, ans it got a lot of love for how wacky my team is. I got stuck in the 2000 zone for a while and a new addition to the team got me into a huge winning streak, and suddenly Champion tier is looking doable!

I thought I'd update you guys on the new strats. If you are looking for how the Decidueye, Zoroark and Liepard are played, check out the original post.

- Starmie: so I cooked up this starmie because of the Charizard Y - Garchomp - Kingambit core that was giving me a real hard time. Glimmora had an easy time against Charizard, but got destroyed by Garchomp. Scizor, Decidueye had positive traded against Garchomp, kingambit, but lost terribly to charizard. I had to do something.

Now, timid starmie holding a hard stone deals just enough damage to 1hko Charizard and Garchomp with power gem and ice beam. And what about kingambit? Well, reflect gives starmie enough bulk to survive a kingambit sucker punch, while killing the threat on the back.

One cool thing about starmie: every single one of my opponents except 1 protected charizard the first turn, expecting Starmie to be a mega and 1 shot it. So if your reflect in the first turn, the opponent will drop their guard, leaving the way open for a huge power gem.

Matchup example: Charizard + Aerodactyl vs Starmie + Liepard. Charizard protects first turn, aerodactyl gets faked out, starmie sets up protect. Second turn, opponent wants to tailwind, outspeed starmie with charizard and 1hko with solarbeam. Liepard goes first and paralyze aerodactyl, making its tailwind go last. Starmie goes after and takes down charizard with power gem, leaving all but a paralyzed aerodactyl, with a broken sash, ready to be encore locked into tailwind.

Other matchup that became really relevant these days is Sableye + Archaludon vs Decidueye + Liepard. Players who run sableye and archaludon always seem to lead with them for some reason which makes this matchup pretty free. Archaludons like to protect turn 1 against the thread of decidueye, to give sableye time to setup rain + reflect. Double up on Sableye turn 1 with Triple Arrows and Knock off, which always kills. This leaves a sad archaludon with no rain, ready to get encore locked under protect. Now the opponent might then play Sinistea, in which case encore is not an option, but Decidueye has a 50% kill chance against archaludon even under reflect (crit always kills), and ignores rage powder.

Some bad matchups for the team that I'd love to hear ideas about: Trick room, they usually lead giraffe + fake out to stop scizor, so I have no way of stopping trick room. Torkoal messes up all but starmie and glimmora, and even starmie will die to eruption + hyper voice from the stupid giraffe. I also despise basculegion. Liepard will usually 1hko them with knock off and Zoroark will mess them up, but they usually show up at the late game where these pokemon might have already died. Scizor does nothing against it even though it survives its attacks, and decidueye will not survive attacks, dealing only 60% of their hp with sucker punch.

Hello there! I've played a lot of anti-meta in Smogon singles back in 2013, and after a long time away from competitive, been trying doubles now since champions came out! After a lot of grind, I've managed to climb to 2000 rank playing anti-meta with my favorite mons! (+Glimmora, wish you were a nidoking). I have a strategy for each common meta matchup and got to a huge winning streak, so I wanted to write about what each of my friends do.

- Decidueye: he had to be here, it's my favorite mon. Each match I enter it seems like 2/3 of the opposing team can 1hko him, but he's my only answer to the other 1/3. With scope lens he has 50% crit chance with his stabs, being able to 1hko the likes of archaludon and milotic even with many defense boosts. He also checks rotom, does pretty well against garchomp, and can deal huge damage to unsuspecting mega floettes. Sucker punch helps against aerodactyl, froslass, basculegion, althought I'd rather avoid these matchups. A good tripple arrows can kill a non-chopple berry incineroar. Not a good mon but I find myself playing him 70% of the matches.

- Zoroark: my beloved, his most important job is to check sneasler. Disguise him as a big threat, say Scizor, and what fake out go through him, as he answers with psychic. He is also very important for speed control, as my team is rather slow. Shadow ball kills basculegion, M-Gengar and almost kill froslass. I've been pondering about the 4th move, betwern U-turn, low kick, flamethrower, snarl and will o wisp, but I ended up playing trick because zoroark hates tanky pokemon. A trick will really mess up a milotic. I might end up going for flamethrower as this team has a huge Corvinight problem.

- Liepard: Other of mu favorite pokemons, I had to make him work. It wasn't really hard, as prankster + fake out + encore is a already a good pokemon by itself. I think Liepard outspeed all fake outs other than Sneasler and thenrare M-Loppuny. Dark typing blocks other pranksters. His knock off will mess up many pokemons, 1hkoing fast basculegions, dealing huge damage to the damn teacup and putting a 40-50% dent in many threats. Thunder wave is very important in my slow team. Think of Liepard as a more offensive Sableye. Not the best prankster, but a prankster is a prankster.

- Scizor: huge anti-meta pokemon right now. Put him in front of a fairy and swords dance, and watch him sweep their entire team with bullet punch. Maybe swords dance in front of an aerodactyl, and encore lock him on protect with Liepard. The other offensive move I've been switching betwern bug bite, close combat and dual wingbeat, but the stab is a safe choice. If you take one thing from my team, take Scizor.

Gyarados: so you might have noticed the team has an earthquake problem, and to be more precise, a garchomp problem. Intimidate helps decrease their damage, and icy fang often 1hko. Taunt messes up trick rook, and waterfall messes up everything else. Have been considering crunch for basculegion, but the other mons seem to cover this matchup well enough. This is the least tested pokemon in the list and would have given way to a bulky rotom-W, if I didn't hate that washing machine so much (messed me up a lot back in my day, I'm traumatized).

Glimmora: this ugly ass rock-flower-mosquito was made to kill charizard. It outspeeds all charizard forms by 1, while 1hkoing back. Will destroy Incineroar with power gen. It also checks scovillain, my most hates threat in the meta right bow. Checks the fairies together with Scizor, so I can choose the most suitable one each match or play both. Earth power is amazing against archaludon, and with the chip damage of spiky shield will kill a sneasler.

Some strategies against common leads:

- vs Venusaur + Charizard Y: lead with liepard + glimmora. Fake out venusaur, power gem Charizard (either a kill or a protect). The following turn, if venusaur protected the fake out, encore his protect. Otherwise, thunderwave + kill it with glimmora.

- vs Sneasler + Aerodactyl: lead Zoroark + liepard or scizor. Psychic will kill sneasler and they'll never see it coming. If sneasler faked out zoroark, fake out aerodactyl to break the sash. If sneasler faked out liepard, aerodactyl probably used tailwind, in which case you can just encore it. Now zoroark is kinda useless locked in psychic, so hopefully the next Pokemon isn't one that mess you up that bad. For example, a Garchomp will probably earthquake, in which case you can freely switch to gyarados. A kingambit might sucker punch zoroark, in which case you can freely go to Scizor or Decidueye.

- vs Rain: oponents usually lead with pelipper + basculegion or archaludon. I usually run Zoroark (disguised as Decidueye/Glimmora) + Liepard, and if Basculegion leads, I can go for thunder wave + Shadowball for the kill. If Archaludon lead I can focus fire on pelipper to take him down, and hope that archaludon protected to not get punched by Decidueye or earth power by glimmora. This matchup is less clear to me right now.

- vs sandstorm: lead decidueye + scizor and focus fire in excadrill, breaking sash and killing. Tyranitar will either protect or flee. After the first turn, Corvinight comes up and this turns into a pretty hard matchup. The plan is to either lock it into a setup move with Liepard or hope Zoroark can take a good chunk of it.

- vs Floette: Floette is the least common threat because they see I have Scizor and Glimmora and don't play it lol.

So yeah, team is pretty bad but it works more often than not! My worst matchups are garchomp, incineroar and corvinight, but I've been managing to pull through. Most plays I described don't work 100% of the time, of course, but the advantage of playing uncommon pokemon is that nobody knows what you are doing. So hopefully my opponents don't read this post lol.