VGC HailRoom - First (Kinda) VGC Team

[Lady Vader]

Image by me, original Mega Abomasnow and Jellicent artwork by Ken Sugimori​

While I have been playing Pokémon since May 2009 and competitively since November 2010, I’m not very good at doubles, having only dabbled it in a year ago. Recently, I’ve been playing some double matches using my rough and quickly built VGC ’14 team, I realized that it is terrible and I don’t really know what I am doing. So I was looking up team ideas when I saw one that intrigued me: HailRoom. Since weather is what made me a competitive player in the first place (Sand was good to me in the weather wars), I thought it was worth a try. That and I do like Mega Abomasnow, so I thought it would be worth a try.

Team Preview

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Abomasnow @ Abomasite
Ability: Snow Warning
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Blizzard
- Giga Drain
- Ice Shard
- Protect

Partially the reason I built this team. With Base 30 Speed after Mega Evolving, not much is going to outspeed it once Trick Room is up. Also, with a large 132 Sp. Atk stat and a STAB 110 BP spread move with perfect accuracy in Blizzard, not much is going to survive. Add to that decent bulk, it can usually survive the turn Trick Room is set up while knocking things out with Blizzard. Giga Drain is another great STAB that also heals it up from pre-Trick Room damage and Ice Shard is to pick off faster/weakened foes.

Jellicent @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Cursed Body
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 156 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Scald

Ah, Jellicent, again I put you in a damaging weather team to help me get into a new way to play and again, you do an amazing job. Jellicent is an amazing user of Trick Room since it is immune to non-Scrappy Fake Outs, has great bulk, and a terrific typing. In conjunction with this, it has the great ability of Cursed Body. Not many would use a Water-type move against my team, so Water Absorb isn’t that great and having that 30% chance of disabling moves is great. Will-O-Wisp and Scald help support my team with damage and Burns while Recover and Sitrus Berry heals it up.

Rhyperior @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Solid Rock
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Drill Run
- Protect

This thing hits like a truck with excellent coverage thanks to STAB Ground and Rock and a massive Atk stat. And thanks to its terrible speed stat, it is amazingly fast in Trick Room. Earthquake and Rock Slide will just hit anything not packing Wide Guard and Drill Run is for the times I don't want to hit my own Pokémon since only one of them can handle it.

Chandelure @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Heat Wave
- Shadow Ball
- Protect

The final regular member is a hybrid between Jellicent and Reuniclus. Chandelure is an alternate lead to Jellicent is having a Water-type is a bad idea. In addition to being good at setting up Trick Room, it is also a powerful special attacker, able to launch Heat Waves and Shadow Balls at all who oppose me.

Conkeldurr @ Assault Vest
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 248 Atk / 12 Def / 228 SpD
Brave Nature
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Knock Off
- Ice Punch

I bring in Conkeldurr when I see Dark-types like Bisharp in my opponent's line up. It's pretty much a standard Conkeldurr with the twin STAB Punches, Knock Off, and Ice Punch. There really isn't much to say about this one.

Hydreigon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power

Hydreigon is in there as a back up in case Trick Room won't be as effective and I just need a nuke by spamming what ever is needed thanks to a great combination of Draco Meteor, Dark Pulse, Earth Power, and Flamethrower.​

I tend to lead with Abomasnow and Jellicent with Rhyperior and Chandelure in reserve. I noticed after using it that I mostly have Special Attackers, which I think might be why I am doing better than expected since Intimidate doesn’t do anything against me, giving me an advantage, though it would be wise of me to add some Physical Attackers. I have yet to use Hydreigon and it seems like every time I bring in Conkeldurr, I lose.

The main thing I want this team to be is easy for me to use since I am really starting this with very, very little Doubles or VGC experience and I want to minimize me screwing up at Team Preview. Another thing is that I don’t want a single Legendary on this team since I don’t like training Legendaries on my actual games. It is just easier for me to use non-Legends. I will not budge on this.

There it is, my second real attempt to get into VGC. This was built rather quickly with only a vague idea of the outcome and no real knowledge of the metagame. I am personally happy with the results so far since I have been winning way more often than I lose, though that is just people at the low end of the ladder on Showdown.

 

[Steven Stone]

Nice hailroom team man! Now here are some things that called my attention:
Abomasnow: this guy doesn't really have other way to be played like.
Jellicent: What does the EV spread accomplish? I think that if this isn't Zach Droegkamp EV spread, then switch it into that.
Reuniclus: man, as TR setter, Reuniclus lacks a lot of bulk. Replacing it with Cresselia with the moves Helping Hand, Trick Room, Ice Beam and Psychic as it will give you an almost guaranteed TR up. The item can be either Sitrus Berry, Mental Herb and Safety Goggles. Up to personal preference tho. I do adknowledge you don't want legendary Pokémon on your team but at least consider Cresselia before throwing it directly onto the trash.
Chandelure: ehhh. This matchup rn loses to Bisharp. Chandelure is cool and all, but unluckily you are forced to replace it with Heatran as it gives you a better matchup against both Aegislash and Bisharp and accomplish a better role on your team if you ask me. The EV spread and item will be something you'll have to decide for your own. Again, i know this is a bummer, but it's the right thing to do. There isn't much else i can do about the Bisharp weakness.
Azumarill: When having Jellicent, Azumarill becomes less useful, and the Bisharp/Aegislash weakness you have won't allow you to use it well. Anyways, i'd reccomend replacing Azumarill with any viable slow fighting type. Pokémon like Conkeldurr, Hariyama and Scrafty are perfect choices. Keep in mind that each one accomplish different things, so choose right.
Goodra: goodra on your team is kinda stupid, given that Goodra can't beat Bisharp/Aegislash either. Now, i'd reccomend replacing it with something that works outside of TR. Hydreigon, Aegislash, it doesn't really matter. You choose and see if it fits in your team.

By the way, Trick Room teams usually have around 3 mons that use heavy TR natures (Quiet, Brave, etc) and the rest usually use normal natures, so they can work outside of TR.
Hope i helped! Have fun!

 

[Lady Vader]

I'm not using Cresselia or Heatran since I find getting good legendaries to be a major pain to the point that I don't use legendaries at all.

Hydreigon sounds like a good idea and I will have to try out all three of those Fighting-types.

 

[Yellow Paint]

The first thing I saw looking at your team was a huge talonflame/mence weakness, along with a bish/lando weakness, but that's like all tr.

You're also fairly specially biased, so I think a rhyperior would fit in nicely to replace reuniclus. Since you have few mons to eq next to, I'd say give it rock slide, earthquake, drill run, protect. If you revert the change, you should definitely be using overcoat>magic guard on reuni: it keeps you from taking hail damage while also gaining a spore immunity, something really important on a tr setter.

For Hydrei, fire blast is better than flamethrower for killing amoonguss. Also, dragon pulse is pretty redundant when you already have draco. Fun fact: two dracos deal more damage than two dragon pulses. You should probably replace that with earth power to hit tran, or protect on a non specs set.

Since you don't have a super bulky tr setter(cress), fake out is kind of a must, so hariyama should be used over conk. The guts flame orb set with fake out, close combat, knock off, protect, is pretty neat for giving fake out+spore immunity, while also able to protect itself from talonflame.

On legends, you don't actually have to soft reset for IVs, you just need to get a reasonable nature. A 0hp cresselia is still miles bulkier than any nonlegend counterpart you can think of, so long as it isn't something stupid like -def.