Rate my BDSP VGC Team — Build around Torterra

Question

Hello, can you people rate my BDSP VGC Team? It’s built around Torterra

Torterra (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Shell Armor
Level: 50
EVs: 224 HP / 252 Atk / 32 SpD
Brave Nature
- Earthquake
- Wood Hammer
- Curse
- Synthesis

Cresselia @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 220 HP / 132 Def / 4 SpA / 152 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Ice Beam
- Trick Room
- Protect

Heatran (M) @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Flash Cannon
- Earth Power
- Protect

Raikou @ Light Clay
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 4 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Scald
- Reflect
- Light Screen

Togekiss (F) @ Scope Lens
Ability: Super Luck
Level: 50
EVs: 228 HP / 52 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Follow Me
- Air Slash
- Protect

Tyranitar (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 124 Atk / 68 Def / 108 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Brick Break
- Protect

Comments

To be clear, are you playing "Battle Festival Doubles" on Showdown? There is no VGC competition for BD/SP.

Answer 1

got to 1300 elo, pretty sure this team is usable

IMO I think your team can already be piloted very well is some very minor adjustments were made to the sets(brick break on ttar), so this is more of my take on a Torterra build.

Torterra works best on TR, which you already incorporated, so I decided to build a team around TR to maximize Torterra's performance.

Staraptor @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Close Combat
- U-turn
- Final Gambit

One of my favorite pokemon to help TR go up thus far in BDSP VGC. Turn 1 Final Gambit can kill off a threat to Cresselia, and get a slower pokemon in safely in the same turn. U-Turn gives pivoting capabilities to Staraptor(mainly against rain teams) and Brave Bird + CC maximize it's offensive coverage.

Smeargle @ Focus Sash
Ability: Own Tempo
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Fake Out
- Follow Me
- Transform
- Trick Room

In the case that Staraptor is too risky, Smeargle will pretty much guarantee TR goes up by running Fake Out, Follow Me, and it's own TR. Transform gives it it's own offensive presence by copying pokemon that might boost against Cress turn 1, or copy one of it's own teammates.

Cresselia (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick Room
- Calm Mind
- Ice Beam
- Psychic

Standard Cress as a TR setter. IMO Calm Mind is much better than protect as without calm mind it just sits there on the field and can waste momentum. Consider running Moonlight for even more bulk.

Torkoal @ Charcoal
Ability: Drought
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Eruption
- Heat Wave
- Solar Beam
- Protect

Torterra can remove water, ground, and rock types. The type that most comes to mind when it comes to taking advantage of those types gone is fire. Torkoal was chosen because it is an absolute monster under TR(Eruption go brrrrr). Very standard set.

Torterra @ Yache Berry
Ability: Overgrow
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Seed Bomb
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide

Yache Berry is the best item for Torterra because the ability to tank Ice type moves is pretty huge. SD > Curse(+1 Defense is pretty useless IMO). I chose Seed Bomb over Wood Hammer because the recoil has screwed me over before, and Rock Slide hits Flying types. Consider running Protect or Synthesis over Rock Slide.

Dragonite @ Choice Band
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Dragon Claw
- Extreme Speed
- Fire Punch
- Rock Slide

Team was pretty weak to dragons(had no way to hit them other than Cresselia's ice beam, and when Cresselia goes down you pretty much auto-lose), so I ended up running the pretty niche Dragonite as it is the slowest Dragon type, allowing it kill other dragons in TR. Pretty "standard" CB set. Somehow glossed over Mamoswine as a better way to kill dragon types, but I haven't tested it yet. It's most likely better than Dragonite, so here have the set:

Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Oblivious
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake
- Protect

*I was too lazy to put in your EVs, so feel free to do so
**The pokepaste has 7 pokemon, just use Mamo/Dragonite in the last slot

Generally the game plan is to lead Staraptor/Smeargle + Cress, with 2 of Torkoal, Torterra, and Mamoswine/Dragonite in the back. Mamoswine/Dragonite are mostly chosen for teams with more than one dragon type.

Pokepaste: yes

Hope I helped!

Answer 2

I like the idea of your team from a coverage standpoint a lot! A couple of suggestions/questions if I may:

• Any reason you prefer Brave over Adamant Tort, or were you just tired of the re-roll? I don't see on your build why you'd want -spd when you have no spatk moves.

• Staying on the Tort here. Any reason you're going for 32 spd? If your nature is already -spd you either need to go max EV spd to compensate, or just admit defeat and get outsped. I don't think taking away from your HP ev will help too much. All of these concerns can be solved by going back to breeding him: adamant, 252atk, 252hp ,4spd

• Quick aside: Tort is really love/hate with no in between for a lot of trainers. I'm very much on the love side of things. Happy to see you crafted a team around him! Great moveset too!

• Cresselia will work fine as is. I'd prefer Moonlight over protect in all honesty, but that's just my preference.

• Heatran will work fine as is.

• I wouldn't spread out Raikou's evs. Reflect/Light screen will compensate your def/spdef needs. Similar deal with the Tort: I see no need to take away from HP.

• It's a shame they got rid of roost for Toge in SWSH. Either way I like your moveset for her. EV spread is fair as well considering a lot of her base stats are on the weaker side.

• You don't really have a sweeper with this team yet. Albeit Tyranitar is susceptible to a lot of coverages, you may want to consider making him the sweeper. Either go Thrash as a solid fallback move over protect, or throw in a swords dance if you want a boost instead. In this scenario I'd prefer: Jolly, 252atk, 252spd, 4hp. Would throw a quick claw on him as well just to be safe. Even as Jolly he isn't the speediest.

Overall:

• Great coverage! I didn't plug your movesets into a team builder, but at quick glance it looks like pretty much every type is accounted for.

• Just some minor tweak suggestions, and getting back to the basics with EV spreads I think will go a long way for this team. You have some really strong mons with really great movepools! Protect is an important move, but I think you're limiting yourself by making it so critical to how your team flows.

Please let me know if you want me to expand on anything, or wish to critique my critique. Always willing to talk out builds! Best of luck, and hope to see you on the circuit!

Comments

Just letting you know: this answer doesn't really give the impression of an experienced player.
* It is remiss not to at least mention why building around Torterra is a bad idea (even if you disagree with the majority of players who would say that). If you want a physical Grass-type attacker that uses boosts then you are much better off using Breloom, which has SD, better speed and attack, a secondary STAB that isn't Earthquake, and Spore.
* SpD means special defence not speed.
* OP is almost certainly on Showdown, they don't have to breed anything.
* This is for BDSP not SWSH.
* OP should have explained what their EV spreads are for, and maybe they're just haphazard as the answer seems to suggest. But don't make a habit of telling people to use 252/252/4 when there is an odd EV spread.
* Thrash is an awful move, it picks a target at random and adds very little coverage.
* Coverage is not about covering all the types. It is about covering common threats in the metagame (i.e. individual Pokemon), which this answer has no insight about.
* Why exactly is Protect limiting this doubles team?

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I pretty much agree with most of the points, im not that experienced in VGC but i really like the format, played a ton of SWSH in his first rules but got tired once the DLC came out. I know how bad Torterra is but i like the idea of using an underdog pick supported by the rest of the team, might not be the best strattegy, that´s why i wanted to get feedback. EV´s still a bit confusing to me in how can i make my own spread without a guide and yeah, thats not Speed Ev´s, sorry if you got confused.

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@Fizz
You sound like someone who just ctrl+c, ctrl+v's successful team builds, as well as someone who doesn't read closely.
- you can do just fine with Torterra as long as you have the team to support it. Breloom isn't the only grass mon that can have success in comp. OP has a really good team here as far as mons, and as far as movesets. I just had a few minor critiques.
- I did make a mistake on the speed vs. special defense. I own that. I wrote my feedback pretty late at night.
- OP clearly stated they've intended to compete in the future on the BDSP tournament circuit. Where you got showdown from that? I really couldn't tell you. Regardless, why would you have a -spd nature on a mon that features all atk and no spatk. If anything that reinforces my point more if OP was truly going for showdown builds.
- I confirmed that I was aware that OP was referring to BDSP. I referenced SWSH on a single move for the Toge and indicated I was disappointed in the SWSH compatibility change, but never pointed to OP referring to SWSH builds.
- I also don't make the habit of telling team builders to 252/252/4 until the cows come home, but if their mon's base stats are sound there's no need to get cute with 4/4/32/17/etc.
- Thrash is just fine if you need a powerful base hitter and are in a pinch. You are quite literally the first person in my 20 years of playing the series to tell me Thrash is complete trash. I will give you the room to say it's inconsistent with the respect of not choosing who you hit, but it's 120 base power, and normal type so you get the full 120 with exception to immune ghost typing, and a few other types where it's just not as effective. Perfect fall back for a sweeper. I also gave the room for swords dance in case OP would rather stall and boost up their sweeper.
- You're just completely wrong about the universal definition of move 'coverage'. Ironically, you defined how I was referencing coverage with respect to countering the opponents types.
- Protect in and of itself doesn't limit any team, but when the majority of your mons feature it as the stall move you're gonna get wrecked.

I hate to be harsh fellow trainer, but there's no need to attack my understanding of the game, or my advice when the advice is sound, along with the fact that you offer no advice of your own to OP. Maybe take the time to play the game more as opposed to singling out the only person on here genuinely trying to help OP out? Idk...

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(Cristal Maybach means to say that he'll edit his comment with what he has to say after collecting his thoughts, and is excited about that so just wanted to let you know that.)
Commenting this because your comment was really confusing Destiny. :V

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@Aaaaaaaaa, @Cristal Maybach,
Why so toxic? Much wow. (Will say A said what they said in a respectful manner, however)
Attempt to pick on me all you want, but know you're giving your community an incredibly poor image. The objective should be to help OP. So far none of you have done so, including one of your own mods, all while trolling me and poorly attempting to put me on full blast. Is helping not the purpose of this forum? There's a polite way to disagree with my answer and achieve that goal, and then there's what you're doing here. I'm choosing to take the high road here. If any of you are playing in BDSP tournaments down the road I really, really hope I get to face you.

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- Torterra is Brave Natured because this is a Trick Room team, and as Fizz said it's more important to address that Torterra is outclassed by other Grass-types eg. Breloom.
- How much "love"/"hate" a Pokemon gets doesn't affect its performance competitively any way. As such, there's no reason to use Y Pokemon whose job is done better by Z Pokemon for personal favouritism. Competitive isn't for fun, it's for winning purposes.
- If you're using a niche Pokemon, there needs to be something it does better than the usually preferred choice. Don't see Torterra getting any real edge over Breloom.
- Protect isn't just a move to *stall out*. It's like a basic element in doubles; it provide some momentum gain by letting the 2nd Pokemon do its job while the 1st can safely scout.
- Thrash isn't a good option. It locks you to one move which just gives free turns to opponent. 120 BP isn't better as Crunch does the same damage with STAB. Thrash is also resisted by Steel-types which Rock Slide also does halve damage so it's just worse for coverage than other moves like Ice Punch for Ground-types, Superpower/Brick Break for Steel-types.
- Non Max X Max Y EV spreads aren't "cute". They help to achieve certain benchmarks or a roll, eg. turning a OHKO to 2HKO defensively, or outspeeding a certain Pokemon that is common in the metagame.
- Tyranitar doesn't get Swords Dance.

I also would like to apologize for the rude comments, but you should get some common Doubles knowledge before giving an answer because they can just ruin teams instead of making them better.

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@whatifjodidnt Mate I never intended to call your advice bad. I have absolute zero knowledge about VGC and have no opinion on your answer -- I just wanted to clarify what Destiny meant because his comment was really confusing (like for real, even for me) and not in the best tone.

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@Kiawe, I appreciate you being more on the respectful side.
- I made some mistakes in my original comment. I tried my best to draw off memory and confused Tyranitar getting swords dance as opposed to needing to get dragon dance via egg move. I generally don't run a competitive Tar, but you're right in that I should've done more DD before making the suggestion.
- Protect is a scouting stall strat. All I meant by saying 'stall' is that the trainer is attempting to delay the opponent and buy themselves more time. I think I just poorly referenced what I meant by 'stall', as the more universally understood definition more alludes to causing some form of passive and/or strategic active damage. I take ownership in that as well, but feel like we're both talking about the same thing here. Just simply had a disconnect in understanding.
- I also never said I'm completely against protect. That would certainly be a very ignorant statement. I just don't see the need to have the majority of the team know that particular move when there's plenty of stat boosts and other stall mechanics to choose from. You don't need 4 scouts.
- I need to wholeheartedly disagree with your perception of sacrificing the desire to win with your favorite mons over winning at all costs by ctrl+c, ctrl-v for commonly agreed upon meta mons. Yes, by nature you want to win at all costs in comp, but the OP trainer clearly just loves Tort. If they love Tort, let them run Tort. They can still find ways to win with this team against other teams. Especially since, as you allude to, they have a trick room mechanic in mind. The lousiness of Tort's speed will only help that. It's speed stat is really poor to begin with, so I don't see the need to use a brave nature, unless someone has a very slow mon on their team just to counter a trick room player building around one of the slowest grass types in the game. I don't see a lot of teams where that's the case. I should have been more clear on my nature stance at the beginning, however.
- I am aware that spreading out EV stats can separate an OHKO and a 2HKO for certain mons and certain metas. If you refer to my full original comment, I only chose to address my suggestion of using a basic max EV spread on the mons where it made sense bc their base stats are already great. I probably did a bad job at saying that was just a preference vs. a necessity. With that said, however, if I truly felt like everything needed to be max spread, wouldn't have I just said 'all of your mons need to be max spread'?
- We're just going to have to respectfully disagree on Thrash. Sure, Ice punch, thunder punch, several other powerful elemental type moves would provide better coverage, but OP has already covered those bases with other movesets in their party. I did mention the fact that it's not a perfect move by any means. 120 base against a neutral opp is 120 base. Yes, it's locking in that move and leads to self-confusion. Like every move in the game there's going to be some advantages and some disadvantages. The goal isn't to focus your sweeper around Thrash, as that would be foolish, rather give another option in situations when Tar's crunch STAB isn't very effective.

@Aaaaaaaaa; A lot of what I said was more directed at Maybach. My apologies for not being more clear about that. As I said in the parentheticals, you were certainly much more respectful and provided good clarity. I appreciate that.

You guys win at the end of the day... I have no desire to be on this platform anymore as a result of the toxicity I find myself navigating through. I've had several back and fourths now with several different trainers, and not one of you has yet tried to provide further assistance to OP. You've chosen, rather, to nit pick my attempts to provide advice. I own that I made some mistakes in the advice provided, but to ridicule my attempt, all while not providing any additional help to the person who asked the question in the first place, speaks volumes about most of the personalities that make up this thread. I do own that I drunkenly had some bad advice moments, and meant to say one thing but it came off another way. If you observe how I provided advice to OP in the first place, I was respectful, even though I was critical. You make this community feel elitist if you elect to bash, bash, bash, as opposed to respectfully help. In all my years of playing this game I've had tons of great experiences with trainers who shared the common interest of loving this series. I've built IRL friendships upon those mutual interests. I never thought any sub-community for this game could be as toxic as this one.

Good luck to you, @Kyaga_Golden (OP)! Hopefully one day someone else will give you a different take on your team that everyone will pat on the back 'bc it's more of the same thing everyone's seen 1000x'. Maybe that will give you some more confidence on your team's build. Take care everyone.

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I'm sorry if my comment genuinely offended you. I think the advice in the answer is bad and I saw no reason to embellish what I really think. I did not personally attack you.

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@Fizz. I appreciate your apology, but as I reflect more you actually had the most respectful rebuttal to my comment. It was wrong of me to get snarky with you afterwards, and I'm sorry for that. It's not a good excuse, but I wasn't in the proper state of mind when I commented on OP's build, or in my reply to your initial comment. What set me off was the insertion of the term 'inexperienced'. I don't take it as you were trying to attack me after reflecting on it, but for someone who really loves the game(s), and has put a ton of time into the game(s), it hurt a lot more than if I just saw all of your carefully considered points. That's more of a me thing at the end of the day, but just want to open up on my perspective of that.
  
I still don't really feel all that welcomed here, but I appreciate your follow-up, as well as what @Amethyst and @Aaaaaaaaa have posted on my wall. You certainly have a good team here, and other trainers who are respectful. It was wrong of me as a brand new member to attack that notion. I just feel like this hasn't been a very fun experience. My original intent was to try to be as helpful as I could be. Unfortunately, especially on online forums, I tend to see a lot of ugliness from people who disagree. I'm all for people challenging me, but do get sensitive when it's in a perceived effort to attack my understanding, as opposed to just helping me out, as well as helping the original person who sought out that help. This isn't the first time something like this has occurred, and I'm sure it won't be my last experience with that. I'll take my leave by wishing you, and everyone else here who is kind, the best.