Be the very best! Match 4

[Cmdr_King]

Current standings

MalcomMasher 1-0
Yoshiken 0-1
Laggy 1-0
Nephrite 0-1
Andrew 0-0

Chilling Ice Leader: Yoshiken!

->Abomasnow - Snow Warning (Occa Berry) (+SpA/HP)
 - Blizzard
 - Grass Knot
 - Protect
 - Focus Blast

->Weavile - Pressure (Focus Sash) (+Atk/Spe)
 - Fake Out
 - Protect
 - Ice Shard
 - Low Kick

Froslass - Snow Cloak (Choice Scarf) (+Spe/SpA)
 - Blizzard
 - Ice Beam
 - Shadow Ball
 - Trick

Glaceon - Snow Cloak (Sitrus Berry) (+HP/Def)
 - Blizzard
 - Wish
 - Protect
 - Yawn

Articuno - Pressure (Charti Berry) (+HP/Spe)
 - Sheer Cold
 - Mind Reader
 - Blizzard
 - Protect

Mamoswine - Snow Cloak (Life Orb) (+Atk/Spe)
 - Earthquake
 - Ice Shard
 - Protect
 - Rock Slide

Big Stick Farfetch'd Leader: Laggy!

->Ambipom - Technician - Silk Scarf (+Atk/Spe)
~ Fake Out
~ Double Hit
~ Low Kick
~ U-turn

-> Tauros - Intimidate - Choice Band (+Atk/Spe)
~ Double-Edge
~ Earthquake
~ Stone Edge
~ Payback

Staraptor - Intimidate - Life Orb (+Atk/Spe)
~ Brave Bird
~ Close Combat
~ Return
~ Quick Attack

Porygon-Z - Download - Choice Specs (+SpA/Spe)
~ Hyper Beam
~ Dark Pulse
~ Blizzard
~ Discharge

Snorlax - Thick Fat - Lum Berry - (+Atk/SpD)
~ Body Slam
~ Crunch
~ Earthquake
~ Selfdestruct

Farfetch'd - Inner Focus - Stick - (+Atk/Spe)
~ Air Cutter
~ Slash
~ Night Slash
~ Swords Dance

[MalcolmMasher]

Team Yoshiken. Hail starts up and stays up, enabling Protect/Blizzard spam. Granted, Blizzard runs into the MT damage penalty, but a 75% Blizzard is almost as strong as a normal Ice Beam. Snorlax tanks Blizzards gloriously, but it is the only thing on the team that can, and even Snorlax can't soak up Blizzards and (effectively, via Protect) double hail damage forever. Weavile's Low Kick also threatens Snorlax (~60% even after an Intimidate), and Sheer Cold exists for a last resort. Throw in Snow Veil to tilt accuracy in Yoshiken's favor, too, and I think the ice have it.

[SnowFire]

I think the ice have it.

9/10, very well done.  Makes me want to vote for Yoshiken as well just on general punniness.

[Laggy]

Still glossing over, but uh kneejerk response to Malcolm: Hail/Protect and Sheer Cold in 2v2 so don't matter. The format is way too fast paced in terms of damage output; Protect is practically a free turn for your opponent unless mindgames (I assume we know each other's skillsets, so the impact is diminished significantly). Chip damage and 30% ID are not good options (Mind Reader even less so with switching existing and/or telegraphing the move! You don't have time to telegraph and hit a target in 2v2. You will be dead before then. Especially vs the likes of Tauros/Staraptor/Pory-Z.)

[Ranmilia]

Ah, missed match 3, whoops.  So... lemme run some damage numbers here...

CB Tauros Stone Edge: OHKOs everything, only takes ~50% from Weavile/Froslass moves.
Life Orb Staraptor:  OHKOs everything except Articuno, dies to Froslass, takes ~70% from Weavile.
Porygon-Z: MT 2HKOs everything with Discharge, is 3HKOd at best.
Ambipom: high chance to OHKO Abomasnow and guaranteed OHKOs Weavile with Low Kick, forcing the turn 1 Fake Out or Froslass switch.  So turn 1 both Ambipom and Tauros target Weavile, and something there is going to die.

Yeah, I feel like Team Laggy takes this.  Froslass and Articuno are the only things that don't just die, Froslass is hampered by Scarf, and the ice team doesn't do a whole lot back, unless they get a LOT of lucky misses.  And then Snorlax is in the back as the final boss.  Protect/Hail is... just not enough relevant damage, I have no respect there either, hi laggy.  Even with hail damage and blizzard, it's not matching the damage output of choice items and life orb.

[Cmdr_King]

Any other takers?  could use some votes.

[AndrewRogue]

Ah, missed match 3, whoops.  So... lemme run some damage numbers here...

CB Tauros Stone Edge: OHKOs everything, only takes ~50% from Weavile/Froslass moves.
Life Orb Staraptor:  OHKOs everything except Articuno, dies to Froslass, takes ~70% from Weavile.
Porygon-Z: MT 2HKOs everything with Discharge, is 3HKOd at best.
Ambipom: high chance to OHKO Abomasnow and guaranteed OHKOs Weavile with Low Kick, forcing the turn 1 Fake Out or Froslass switch.  So turn 1 both Ambipom and Tauros target Weavile, and something there is going to die.

Yeah, I feel like Team Laggy takes this.  Froslass and Articuno are the only things that don't just die, Froslass is hampered by Scarf, and the ice team doesn't do a whole lot back, unless they get a LOT of lucky misses.  And then Snorlax is in the back as the final boss.  Protect/Hail is... just not enough relevant damage, I have no respect there either, hi laggy.  Even with hail damage and blizzard, it's not matching the damage output of choice items and life orb.

Sure, I buy it.

[MalcolmMasher]

Still glossing over, but uh kneejerk response to Malcolm: Hail/Protect and Sheer Cold in 2v2 so don't matter. The format is way too fast paced in terms of damage output; Protect is practically a free turn for your opponent unless mindgames (I assume we know each other's skillsets, so the impact is diminished significantly). Chip damage and 30% ID are not good options (Mind Reader even less so with switching existing and/or telegraphing the move! You don't have time to telegraph and hit a target in 2v2. You will be dead before then. Especially vs the likes of Tauros/Staraptor/Pory-Z.)

In defense of my vote: First, Protect is a big deal in 2v2, because it allows your good prediction to cripple your opponent's ability to focus fire. (I'm not assuming he outplays you; I am willing to factor in that him outplaying you would make a bigger difference than you outplaying him would.) While you can punish a predicted Protect by using non-attacking moves, your team has all of one of those, and it's on frail, ice-weak Farfetch'd. (Or by switching, if you need to change your team; of course, predict wrong and you just gave Yoshiken a free turn. Your team can't punish poor prediction so effectively.) In the meantime, Hail makes up for the fact that he struggles to 2HKO targets like Porygon-Z. Although it's not true that he can't; Glaceon's MT Blizzard works, for one, even without factoring hail damage.

Second, the significance of Sheer Cold is that it means Articuno is a noteworthy threat to Snorlax, despite its trashy damage.

I agree that 2v2 is generally about fast offense. And I expect your offense to be wasting about two turns, on average, due to a combination of three targets with Snow Veil, Stone Edge's iffy accuracy, and repeated MT Blizzards sometimes landing a Freeze. You've only got Body Slam and Discharge on your end (with Discharge hitting your own teammate, too; with Protect, it threatens to hit only your own teammate) and so the Missed Turn Factor is heavily against you.

[Laggy]

The only scenario in which Protect does something is one person on the opposing team uses Protect (since obviously if they both use Protect they're both wasting turns and the best you get is 1/16 Hail chip damage; this also has the effect of making Protect unusable next turn due to its failure on subsequent uses), AND the opposing team both focuses attacks on the one target using Protect.

Tauros and Staraptor are both OHKOing with their moves and neither care about Hail, since on the defensive side of things they're getting 2HKOed or OHKOed anyway (if Blizzard's hitting Staraptor; he can't come out against Weavile or Flos, but he has a clean win against anyone else on the team). Discharge also only comes out to combo with Snorlax, who could care less about getting hit by it - it is, in fact, the Pory-Z + Snorlax combination which comes out later that threatens to be so deadly that the ice team doesn't really have a response to outside of Weavile, who has the unfortunate predicament of being out first. I maintain that Sheer Cold really doesn't matter - only in a 1v1 situation with Snorlax staring down 'cuno does it start to become an issue, but the presence of ANY non-Farfetch'd Poke makes it irrelevant.

Hilariously Blizzard on Pory-Z is also an option, seeing as half of the opposing team takes full damage from it (Aboma, Arti, Mamo) and consequently 2HKOing everything on his team (including ice halvers) except Glaceon, WHILE avoiding self-team hitting damage, AND ignoring potential Downloads kicking in. In fact, it is probably flat out the better ability to use here.

[MalcolmMasher]

Protect also wastes your PP, although most of your team won't stick around long enough to care (could be an issue for Porygon-Z spamming Blizzards into Articuno+X, say.) I continue to feel that Yoshiken being able to profit from predicting your focus fire in a way that you can't really profit from predicting his is significant.

No non-Weavile response to the Snorlax + Porygon-Z team? It is for such things that Sheer Cold exists; in emergency, break glass and take 30% shot at cheesy KO. I can understand disrespecting a 30% shot, but I do find it to be a notable cut above "roll over and die". Flip side, if Yoshiken manages to eliminate Snorlax and eliminate or cripple PZ without losing Froslass, your team _does_ roll over and die, given that Tauros must eat an Abom Blizzard on turn 1 if it wants to (have an 80% chance to) break Weavile's Sash.

My damage-calculator runs show PZ's Modest Max-SpA Specs MT Blizzard as a 3HKO on +HP Articuno and Default Weavile/Froslass, unless you're assuming a +SpA Download as well. (For the record, Articuno and Weavile would both give +Atk, Froslass is 50/50.)

Edit: While I'm at it... although Staraptor outspeeds Glaceon and Articuno, they _can_ tank a hit (even with Life Orb) and OHKO back with MT Blizzard. I would hardly call that a clean win for Staraptor.

[Cmdr_King]

Yoshiken- 1, Laggy -2

Team Laggy takes it.