Battle Maison Super Doubles team advice

[MissingNo. 1]

I've been trying to reach battle #50 in Super Doubles for about a week now but every time, I lose somewhere between battle #30-40. Here is my team:

Greninja (5Vs, all excluding Atk)
Timid, Protean
252 SpA/4 SpD/252 Spe
Focus Sash
Mat Block, Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, Dark Pulse

Mega Kangaskhan (5Vs, all excluding SpA)
Jolly, Parental Bond
252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spe
Kangaskhanite
Power-Up Punch, Earthquake, Crunch, Return

Gengar (6Vs)
Timid, Levitate
252 SpA/4 SpD/252 Spe
Life Orb
Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, Dazzling Gleam, Destiny Bond

Talonflame (5Vs, all excluding SpA)
Adamant, Gale Wings
252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spe
Sharp Beak
Brave Bird, Flare Blitz, Tailwind, Roost

Dragonite (5Vs, all excluding SpA)
Jolly, Multiscale
252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spe
Lum Berry
Dragon Dance, Outrage, Earthquake, Extreme Speed

I switch around Talonflame and Dragonite because both are physical sweepers with fair share of risks.

So I always start out with Greninja and Kangaskhan. Greninja, which outspeeds ~97% of the time, starts out with Mat Block and Mega Kangaskhan starts out with Power-Up Punch, which almost never OHKO's but raises its Attack by two stages. This only doesn't work when either one of the opponents outspeeds Greninja and OHKO's it (which almost never happens but certainly devastates my team when it does) or when a status move is used on Mega Kangaskhan (all of which, whether it be Sleep, Paralysis, Confusion or Burn, ruins my set-up).

When it does work, depending on the situation, I use Power-Up Punch with Mega Kangaskhan again to raise its Attack by another two stages (I only do this when I am confident that it will KO one of the opponents) or start using either Crunch or Return (almost always Return, I only use Crunch when a Ghost-type is involved). Either way, at this point, Mega Kangaskhan OHKO's nearly everything it touches (the only exception being bulky Rock or Steel-types, in which case Earthquake does the job, with the obvious cost of Greninja going down as well). At this point, Greninja has done its job so it just attacks willy-nilly, getting STAB every time thanks to Protean. Although this isn't usually the case in the first 10-15 battles, Greninja gets defeated within one or two turns after Mat Block is used.

When one of my first two battlers is out (usually Greninja), I switch out Gengar. I originally intended to use Gengar as a Special Sweeper but due to its inability to take hits, and how that can easily be taken advantage of with Destiny Bond, it usually goes down before it can do any of its heavy-hitting. On the other hand, I am more than free to use Earthquake with Mega Kangaskhan if the situation calls for it (which, again, is usually because a Rock/Steel wall that won't succumb to Return is on the field). But since Destiny Bond, for some reason, is not a priority move, and because there are Pokemon that can outspeed Gengar, it isn't too rare that a Dark-type user (like Weavile) defeats Gengar before it can pull off Destiny Bond.

I usually use either Talonflame or Dragonite as my second physical attacker and also my last resort (except in the case where the opposing side is left with one Pokemon with barely any HP left, in which case I send out Talonflame/Dragonite before Gengar since both have priority moves). The main (and obvious) drawback for Talonflame is that it can easily be OHKO'ed. Also, neither Brave Bird nor Flare Blitz are guaranteed to OHKO (especially if a Rock-type is involved). Dragonite can set up Dragon Dance without any worries of OHKO thanks to its ability (unless a hard-hitting Ice-type is involved) and Outrage usually takes care of everything upon one touch (besides Fairy-types, obviously, but Gengar has coverage over those, granted it is still alive).

So yeah, I would like some advice on how to make my team better so I can reach battle #50. I know that one major flaw of my team is that only one of them (two, if I use Dragonite instead of Talonflame) is capable of taking hits. I should probably switch out some moves (like Scald instead of Hydro Pump for Greninja since it is actually reliable, and Swords Dance instead of Tailwind for Talonflame, which is only helpful if there is little risk of OHKO, which, unfortunately, does not occur very often).

 

[UltimaChandelure]

Hmm ... all Pokémon are very capable on their own, but they don't really seem to have a lot of synergie together.
I cannot say I know a whole lot about competitive battling, but I have 4 of the 5 statues in the BM (Multi battles remain...), and I can tell you: the Maison is downright easy / not that hard to get to 50, because you can exploit some flaws.
For doubles I used a Trick Room team I found online. I Copied it and it really worked like a charm. Went from 1 to 50 in one sweep. It consists of a level 1 Aron and an Dusclops, with a mega Kangaskhan and Conkeldurr in the back. It's easy to find with a search engine, so if it's really for completion's sake, look it up! (or, just PM me for the details XD)

 

[AnybodyAgrees]

I decided to have a look around this forum, and found something I can actually give advice in. For Greninja, Hydro Pump is a big no-no. Usually any move with less than perfect accuracy is horrible for the Maison, as your aim is to reduce variance as much as possible. Replace it with Surf if you want a spread move, Scald if you want a water move that thaws you, and Grass Knot if you want a very strong coverage option (Weight moves hit most of the Maison for at least 80 BP). Aside from that, Greninja is fine. Mat Block is absolutely broken, and Sash ensures you survive to use it against threats like Jolteon and Scarf Manectric. Dark Pulse can be kept, although it is kind of redundant with Kangaskhan as the other lead.

Kangaskhan is something I've not seen used very often in Doubles as a lead, especially not with Mat Block support. This is usually because Greninja and Kangaskhan share a weakness to Fighting, which means that for Scarf Terrakion you can't tell whether it will target Greninja or Kangaskhan. I'd change it to an Adamant nature and give it Sucker Punch over Crunch and Double-Edge over Return. You may want to replace Power-up Punch or Earthquake with Fake Out or Low Kick as Earthquake doesn't get the Parental Bond boost in Doubles.

You may want to use Gardevoir instead of Kangaskhan. Having no shared weaknesses means that you can very likely tell what the AI will target and react accordingly. Additonally, Gardevoir has extremely strong spread moves hitting right off the bat. I'd recommend HP Ground/Hyper Voice/Psyshock/Protect for Gardevoir.

Gengar is fine, but I would replace Dazzling Gleam with Protect.

You should use that Talonflame set. Aside from Outrage being a horrible move in Doubles as you can't target it, boosting just usually isn't that good in Doubles, as you can't really find the time to set up. Also replace Roost with Protect, as Talonflame won't be surviving very long and you can use its bad bulk to make the AI attack it more often.

With Hydro Pump and a lack of synergy between the leads and backups, it's no big wonder the team keeps losing in the 30s-40s.


edit: After making the above suggestions I hopped on the maison IRC channel. Here's a log of what we discussed:

Spoiler: wall of text

<Annasayshi> someone on bulbagarden wants help with a super doubles team
<plumberjack> what kind of team?
<Annasayshi> the team they're currently using is gren/kanga/gengar/talon
<Annasayshi> gren currently has mat/hydro/ice/dark
<Annasayshi> kanga has pup/eq/crunch/return
<plumberjack> puke
<Annasayshi> gengar has shadow/sludge/gleam/dbond
<Annasayshi> talon has bird/blitz/tailwind/roost
<plumberjack> those sets are suboptimal
<Annasayshi> i tried to make rudimentary suggestions, but there's too many flaws to make much out of that team
<plumberjack> for gren, good old mat / ice / dark / gk should work
<plumberjack> (doubt extrasensory is needed with khan outrunning and smashing most fighting-types anyways)
<plumberjack> (though i'd have to run calcs)
<Annasayshi> thats what i suggested, with the option of rplacing dark with extra since kang runs dark as well
<plumberjack> (otherwise drop dark pulse for extrasensory)
<plumberjack> y
<plumberjack> khan fake out / double-edge / sucker / low kick
<plumberjack> i guess pup over low kick could work, but the immediate hit on steel-types and such is far better afaict
<plumberjack> (nature: jolly)
<Annasayshi> i suggested replacing pup or eq with fo or kick
<Annasayshi> and kang is already jolly
<plumberjack> k, that's good
<plumberjack> fo is mandatory
<plumberjack> as is sucker and a stab move
<plumberjack> and return is really piss weak with jolly
<plumberjack> and eq is just kinda bad on khan, if you want that coverage low kick is better
<Annasayshi> its kinda weird since he runs gren, so im not sure how two incapacitating leads would work well
<plumberjack> can cover stuff for each other
<plumberjack> doesn't have to be a bad idea
<Annasayshi> he actually originally had a singles dnite
<Annasayshi> with espeed and outrage
<Annasayshi> over talon
<Annasayshi> he came to his senses quickly enough
<plumberjack> y
<plumberjack> talon should ditch roost, probs for good old protect
<Annasayshi> Battle Maison Super Doubles team advice (link just goes to this thread)
<plumberjack> and gengar should be something else
<Annasayshi> theres the thread
<Annasayshi> excuse my lack of maison doubles knowledge
<plumberjack> gengar kind of really wants sash
<plumberjack> to properly use destiny bond
<plumberjack> and with greninja, that's not really an option
<plumberjack> and talonflame already provides a fighting switch-in
<plumberjack> (re. that terrakion, fake out + grass knot kills it)
<plumberjack> greninja + gardevoir also works as a lead duo
<plumberjack> but that mandates a steel-type and a ground-type as backups
<plumberjack> which basically locks you into scizor + gastrodon
<Annasayshi> is there any way his team is salvageable without making major changes
<plumberjack> not without removing at least one mon
<plumberjack> if you're keeping that lead pairing, that's gonna have to be gengar
<Annasayshi> its not my team, i'm just helping him out
<plumberjack> *if he's keeping, w/e
<plumberjack> that gengar is just quite a bit of redundancy / bad synergy afaict
<plumberjack> struggling to see what should replace it though