Duo of the Week: Dusknoir – Bronzong

1st Set

A Trick Room Duo combined with an Implosion strategy. Dusknoir and Bronzong with their low speed and strong defensive capabilities are two pokemons that can take advantage of Trick Room. Start the battle with Imprison and all your foes can’t use the same moves that Dusknoir have until Dusknoir is switched out or faints. Now they can’t Protect themselves and the move Earthquake is sealed. After Imprison, it’s time for Bronzong to switch the dimensions. For five turns slower pokemons will move first. A low speed IV, a speed lowering nature and no EP in Speed are all preferable. Also, the Macho Brace and the Power Items cut Bronzong’s speed and make its Gyro Ball more powerful. In the next five turns Bronzong will be attacking first and will be sweeping the arena with a strong STAB Gyro Ball. If your health gets down to danger don’t afraid to explode yourself and destroy everything except those pokemons who resist Explosion. Because of Imprison your opponents can’t use Protect to guard themselves from that massive damage. It’s a good idea to have more pokemon with explosion in your team, like Metagross, Golem, Regirock or Electrode. Your Dusknoir will attract many opponents’ attacks, because Imprison will be canceled if it faints. So, Protect saves Dusknoir and gives the freedom to Bronzong to sweep. Fire and Electric pokemons resist Gyro Ball, but an Earthquake from Dusknoir takes care of them. Also, Bronzong with Levitate is immune to ground attacks and only fire type moves can deal serious damage to him. In addition too, you will meet many ghosts trying to wall your explosions, so Bronzong have to carry Faint Attack with him. If Dusknoir lost some of its health in the turn which it used Earthquake, Pain Split fills in as both a recovery move and an offensive move. Note that to get both Pain Split and Imprison, you must breed a Gardevoir with Misdreavus and then a male Misdreavus which knows the above moves with your Duskull. If you think that it doesn’t worth the breeding chain you can replace it for Shadow Punch. It’s a good STAB attack that hurts ghosts and psychic types. Especially use it to hit foe’s Dusknoirs, which they can’t use their Shadow Punches, again because of your Imprison. Or Thunderpunch for the bulky water pokemons which resist Gyro Ball.

2nd Set

In this different set Dusknoir has a more attacking role and Bronzong have to support it. Keep the physical sweepers away with Will-o-wisp and set up Reflect. If your opponents rely on Special Attack use first Light Screen to halve their hits. Bronzong’s Light Clay prolongs the effect of Reflect and Light Screen up to eight turns. When you will have finished set up Light Screen and Reflect you can confuse your foes or attack them with Gyro Ball. Another option is to pseudopass the above moves’ effects to a sweeper with low defenses. With Earthquake and Brick Break Dusknoir covers eight different types of pokemons. These two moves will be the main attacks and you can use Shadow Sneak to counter the opponent’s ghosts or psychic pokemons. This set doesn’t provide a recovery move for Bronzong, and because it is a slow defensive pokemon after some turns will faint. If you are not afraid Taunt you can replace Gyro Ball for Safeguard and Confuse Ray for Swagger. First create the protective field and then double Dusknoir’s attack power.

3rd Set

4gen’s better Hypnosis’ accuracy can make this risky set work with a little help from Lady Luck. Put something into sleep with Bronzong and trap it with the other partner using Mean Look or Block. If Bronzong holds Wide Lens use its 77% acc. boosted Hypnosis or power up the STAB move Dream Eater with Mind Plate/Twistedspoon. With Dream Eater deal a serious amount of damage to a sleeping foe and absorb half the damage caused to heal your HP. It can be used as both an offensive and a recovery move. Continue doing this to all of your opponent’s pokemons, Hypnosis-Mean Look/Block and again to the next pokemon while you heal yourself with Dream Eater when it’s necessary. For Dark type that has immunity in Dream Eater, smash them with Brick Break. Payback is there for the many psychic pokemons with Early Bird or Synchronize that they will come in to counter Hypnosis. And because Bronzong attacks last in the turn it has many chances to be hit by the opponents, payback’s double power will deal them serious amount of damage.

Counters

This Duo is very slow, they always strike last unless they carry and manage to set up Trick Room. A quick Taunt cause many problems in all three sets. A fast Taunt-Gyarados is good option to come out and start using Dragon Dances, its water type resists Gyro Ball and has immunity to Earthquake. Unless Dusknoir has Thunderpunch, so it cans 2HKO it, cause of its 4x weakness. With Earthquake be a must on Dusknoir’s moveset, fire and electric types can’t resist Gyro Ball. So, only steel and water pokemons can wall Bronzong. Quagsire, Golduck, Poliwrath and Politoed with their type and Damp trait are immune to Explosion and resist Gyro Ball. Also, Quagsire, Swampert, Whiscash, Gastrodon can make Dusknoir regret to waste a moveslot for Thunderpunch. Other bulky water pokemons are good option like Blastoise with Counter, Kingdra, the physical sponge Cloyster, Ludicolo, Relicanth, Empoleon. Some steel pokemons like Steelix, Skarmory, Metagross, Bronzong can be used to counter this duo. Your opponent may be switch in some ghosts to avoid be hurt by Explosion. Gengar and Mismagius with Levitate are immune to Explosion and Earthquake, although the second one has low HP and Def., Dusknoir, Drifblim are some ghost types options. Dusknoir likes to use Will-o-wisp to keep away the physical sweepers and that makes Guts users great counters. Heracross is the most popular one, but there are also Ursaring, Raticate, Swellow, who are all immune to Shadow Sneak, Hariyama, Machamp and Milotic with its Marvel Scale. Flash Fire Pokemons can get their STAB moves boosted by Will-o-wisp, but with Earthquake it’s not wise to switch in. For the third set good counters because of Early Bird are Girafarig, Dodrio, Xatu, Kangaskhan and Shiftry, Houndoom with their immunity to Dream Eater. Primeape with Vital Spirit can’t fall into sleep and Gardevoir, Alakazam, Xatu, Espeon, Umbreon with Synchronize can cause you a delay to your strategy. To sum up, the best pokemons to counter this duo are an opponent duo by the same partners. To face another Dusknoir would be terrible because of its great defences. Only if it has also Shadow Punch and you manage to seal it with Imprison and hit it with your Shadow Punch or Bronzong’s Faint Attack. Dusknoir´s Earthquake kills the Steel pokemon that could also wall the duo, but the problem is if you face another Bronzong with Levitate. Then, the only way to beat it is to use ghost/dark attacks or to cause it the burn status condition by Will-o-wisp. Also, Skarmory can wall you, although isn’t very common in double battles.

Opinion and Notes

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl introduced many new attacks and Trick Room is a revolutionary new move among them. In pokemon battles speed is the most important stat, but because of this new move slow pokemons strike first and change the flow of the battle. Bronzong is born for this move which make him a powerful physical sweeper that can destroy many pokemons with Gyro Ball. Dusclops was key member in many teams, but its new evolution is even better, greater defenses and more physical power. The two of them if they combine their power and manage to switch the dimensions, they are unstoppable. They can face efficiently many different pokemons and can be stopped only by another Dusknoir and Bronzong. If you would like to build a Trick Room team, the heart of this team must be both of them. You should accompany this duo with other strong and slow pokemons that can take advantage of Trick Room like Rampardos, Rhyperior or with some exploders like Metagross, Golem, Electrode and you will have a good team for Double Battles. Such a good and strong Trick Room Team can face and beat most of the teams in the game and Dusknoir-Bronzong’s Duo are base members for the battle’s opening.