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Resource AG Snake II - Team Dumps and Discussion
- Thread starter Seldanna
- Start date
Amberr
Banned deucer.
leading to the metagame shifts from this tournament and leading to the furture of the tierjk we dont have those
gz to the hydreigons for winning and gz to everyone involved for having a very entertaining tour, ty to the hosts for staying sane through skooma scheduling
i do look forwards to seeing lo dd zygarde 70 times on ladder now though, and hopefully we'll see some of the more niche sets used here get some widespread usage, (maybe lunala will get ladder usage
)
(ill write smth actually constructive about possible meta shifts once i remember how to write stuff)
gz to the hydreigons for winning and gz to everyone involved for having a very entertaining tour, ty to the hosts for staying sane through skooma scheduling
i do look forwards to seeing lo dd zygarde 70 times on ladder now though, and hopefully we'll see some of the more niche sets used here get some widespread usage, (maybe lunala will get ladder usage
)(ill write smth actually constructive about possible meta shifts once i remember how to write stuff)
Last edited:
its that time of the month, my mood is on a roller coaster. im dropping all my teams since my team is out. the value of all them combined equals to at least 500 usd, treat them well. also do not ping me if u use my teams and lose with them. never forget that the problem is always with you, not with my teams (i am serious)
https://pokepast.es/cfdaf4a01c074dee SS
https://pokepast.es/552a8a6091b7482e USM
https://pokepast.es/2d8c72c188f2790a SS
https://pokepast.es/5fa98cf4c5b4f2cf ORAS
https://pokepast.es/c4357c272e62b6a5 SS
https://pokepast.es/1519855cfd040b40 USUM
https://pokepast.es/5d9018559b061782 ORAS
https://pokepast.es/fb1cb24479fe5f1b SS
https://pokepast.es/4ab4a5a40acf2b8b USUM
https://pokepast.es/5d7234a6372781e6 "SS same team as vs kate but changed specs xern to have two geo xerns, specs xern works off surprise factor but he already seen that game, so instead he will hard his mon out of "specs" xern and give me a free geo" is what I said before the game however he instead made a big balls play midgame and knocked my powering up xern while i still had caly. however, endgame he played as if my last was specs xern, which was epic - my switcheroo payed off and I got to geo on hooh and close it out watch the game to see what I mean.
https://pokepast.es/854b23601524c944 USUM
the missing teams or weeks i either didnt prep or i used somebody elses teams
https://pokepast.es/cfdaf4a01c074dee SS
https://pokepast.es/552a8a6091b7482e USM
https://pokepast.es/2d8c72c188f2790a SS
https://pokepast.es/5fa98cf4c5b4f2cf ORAS
https://pokepast.es/c4357c272e62b6a5 SS
https://pokepast.es/1519855cfd040b40 USUM
https://pokepast.es/5d9018559b061782 ORAS
https://pokepast.es/fb1cb24479fe5f1b SS
https://pokepast.es/4ab4a5a40acf2b8b USUM
https://pokepast.es/5d7234a6372781e6 "SS same team as vs kate but changed specs xern to have two geo xerns, specs xern works off surprise factor but he already seen that game, so instead he will hard his mon out of "specs" xern and give me a free geo" is what I said before the game however he instead made a big balls play midgame and knocked my powering up xern while i still had caly. however, endgame he played as if my last was specs xern, which was epic - my switcheroo payed off and I got to geo on hooh and close it out watch the game to see what I mean.
https://pokepast.es/854b23601524c944 USUM
the missing teams or weeks i either didnt prep or i used somebody elses teams
hello Everyone welcome to my team dump for snake 2. in this post i'll be going over all the teams i used, my thought process behind the teams and the games, and some shoutouts. click names for replays and pokepaste for teams. i wasn't sure how much effort i was going to be able to put in this tour but i was still pretty excited, especially after i saw what team i was on. this tour ended up being really fun and we won so that's cool.
Even before the games started, I kind of knew what my building plan was going to be every week: spam offense, bring different Kyogre sets every week cuz it's broken, win. In particular offensive Dynamaxers are super busted in this tier, so going bulky in this meta is not the best idea.
Week 1 vs crying (W)
https://pokepast.es/a69aaca03483f2ca
For the first week I wasn't really sure what crying would bring. I thought Will might pass her a team and so we spent the first few days scouting Will's teams and seeing what he might pass. Going over crying's scout from AGLT, I knew she used Ice teams that tended to have a lot of ho-oh/zyg/ogre/ditto/Ferrothorn stuff, so I wanted some offensive mons that would be strong against that solid balance archetype.
I ended up settling on offensive lum cm 3A ogre, which would take advantage of ho-oh and zyg for free setup and beat etern, paired with lo body press zekrom to kill Ferrothorn. The rest of the team filled in pretty nicely and basically - zac forces in ndm for ogre to set up easily and provides more offensive presence, then there's big 3. I used a few different yve/ndm/etern sets throughout my teams that I'll point out. For this one, I used max SpD Foul + Sucker yve because I had no other revenge killer, SR ndm, and 3A etern. I originally had Earthquake on ndm but decided to go with Toxic last minute because the team is really weak to groudon and zygarde. As a result, I also changed etern to Haban Berry as my Zekrom check. The zac is EVed to take a Behemoth Blade from ditto and do enough damage back so that it dies to Rocky Helmet, which was great considering I had Zekrom and ogre that appreciated ditto being gone.
The actual game went pretty much all in my favour. I played aggressively and got the opportunities I needed and didn't even have to send out some of my mons, which is about all you can ask for
Week 2 vs Rotten (W)
https://pokepast.es/b8647db9d2834001
Originally this slot was lunala, who had even less games than crying, so I decided to go with solid offense again. I decided to go with either offensive yve or offensive etern to try and keep my yve/ndm/etern cores unpredictable. Why not both, I said, so chucked Expert Belt etern on for some defensive utility as well and lo physical yve for power. zac again helps out here because it forces in ndm for yve to come in for free. Defog lunala is kinda trash but it fits well here to support offensive yve + checks zygarde, groudon, and Zekrom pretty well. Zekrom being covered means I can run Twave + Iron Head ndm, which is super busted against teams with no Ground-types. Lastly, a revenge killer for calyrex-S is necessary because offensive yve isn't really a check, so marshadow fits well here.
This team is meant to be played pretty offensively considering the 4 offensive mons, but as you could see in the game itself, it is quite weak to the move Thunder Wave because there's no cleric. Band yve + Twave should've done quite a number to me, but lunala getting burned and not paralysed meant it could outlast both etern and ho-oh long term. Missing Wisp on the Band yve sucked but I managed to bring it back in a close game.
Week 3 vs Fc (L)
https://pokepast.es/85918323092a5bab
Fortunately or unfortunately I had to face Fc for the 60th time in the past year. Fortunately because he's free, unfortunately because it's getting boring. I knew what Fc liked going into this and could prep accordingly, so I wasn't worried that much.
I wanted to build around lo ogre because Fc liked to use weird etern sets a lot, often forgoing Toxic, and he never used Mystical Fire. I noticed a lot of Dcannon/DTail/Flamethrower etern sets in his replays. Even though lo ogre beats etern anyway, not taking Mystical Fire or Toxic meant I could get a lot more kills with it if it worked. Defensive yve, etern, and ndm filled in pretty easily after that. I decided to use scarf caly this week because I had neglected any revenge killers in the past two weeks and wanted to be a bit safer vs something like lo caly or Geomancy Xerneas. Lastly, I needed a good zygarde, groudon, and Zekrom check because I was using offensive ogre - I really didn't wanna go with lunala because it sucks, so I landed on Lando-T, which also sets SR, meaning I could afford to go with DD on ndm. The regular SR/Toxic/U-turn/EQ set can't beat sub zygarde because EQ doesn't break sub in Complete, so I decided to go with SD + EQ to more reliably check them. I found that defensive SD Lando-T actually put in quite a lot of work in test games, so I chucked Stone Edge on it to make it even more threatening offensively.
I outplayed this game but Fc is lucky and bad and I died. Gg
Week 4 vs jerryl309 (W)
https://pokepast.es/3f692e77bebf6be2
I really wanted to play jerry because we do a lot of test games together and I'm responsible for like 99% of his success (other 1% being bacon). Otherwise, I wasn't really sure what to prep for here. I was kind of scared of HO because i often left home without ditto (or revenge killers in general), but I also thought he might not bring it because of how often he used it in testing.
For most of the week I was tossing up a team around sub + cm + roar ogre alongside Twave support, which is really demonic. Last minute, though, Swas used that exact set in his game after I trashed Will with it and he gave it to him. Needless to say I was pretty boned and the team wasn't really working out for me anyway, so I just decided to go with lo zyg. yes.
I wasn't bothered to make my own lo zyg team again so I took the team fc used in week 2. I asked bacon if he ever used attack invested U-turn or Snarl on his yveltals and he said no. I was pretty sure jerry would bring a bacon team, so I put subseed caly > ditto and called it a day.
Pulled up a perfect MU with subseed caly against Knock + Foul yve. My lo zyg also would've 6-0ed, but it didn't even need to come out. Nice!
Week 5 vs pdt (W)
https://pokepast.es/c76c1a440d961d58
Hydreigons had already secured finals by the time I played, so I didn't really care what I brought. I knew pdt would be bringing a fardin team and that fardin really liked CP etern and lunala and not much ditto, so I brought webs. Bacon gave me a team and I put lum berry + knock on ndm for lunala and upped the speed for zac at +1. I also put Sludge Bomb > substitute on etern and went in.
Game went well at the start but I did nearly throw against the CP etern, but it ended up working out with a bit of luck. I got a pretty good matchup against double ogres and since I knew the team, I just pulled up fardin's builder and found the team there, so I knew all the sets (i.e. I knew lo ogre was Modest, so mine outsped).
Finals vs Fc (W)
https://pokepast.es/99030f6fa95d75f1
Had to play Fc again so I knew what to do here. After self-scouting for a bit, I realised I had gone with offensive cores every week and never used ditto. This was the case in AGPL, too - and because of that, I had used ditto in finals because I was scared of HO, which didn't come, and I lost. As such, I decided that I would go with offense again because I could pilot it the best and it would give me the most opportunities to outplay vs most MUs.
After scouting Fc, I noticed a lot of ho-oh and zygarde, as well as ditto and scarf caly. As such, I wanted to be defensively solid while having good offensive presence against ho-oh. I went with cm Stalk ogre, which easily took advantage of both mons but also wasn't passive against etern + revenge killers like zac and marsh. I paired it with Band marsh for breaking power and big 3 for defensive utility. Originally, I had offensive sub ho-oh as the last mon, but after looking at Fc's scout again, I wanted a Ground-type that I could switch into Twave from ho-oh. Because of that, I put on groudon, and I still wanted some offense to go with it, so I made it SD Lum 3A, which also beats lunala. After putting on groudon, I didn't need haban on etern anymore, so I chucked on an interesting tech in Yache Berry to help against offensive ogre (i.e. Specs, Lum 3A, lo).
Up 3-2, I had to clutch this game to win us the title. The game went really well - I got the opportunities with marsh and ogre that I needed, and even though he had Reflect lunala for groudon, it ended up putting in solid work regardless. After being up 6-3, I just had to position myself well so that zygarde couldn't set up for free and win the game. Game ended up being a nailbiter with lo zyg nearly bringing it back from 1-5 down, but mon's broken so what can you even do about that.
Other teams i made that other people used:
https://pokepast.es/5340e1fdb2b00ba2 - jerry vs pdt (W)
Gave this team to jerry as a bit of a meme but he said he liked it. It gets 6-0ed by cp etern except jerry got pretty lucky in the game. You could probably do cm roar ogre instead to patch that weakness.
https://pokepast.es/18bb215dfe1a958b - jerry vs ballfire (W)
Jerry asked for an RP don team so i whipped this up in a few minutes. It's pretty basic with don zac big 3 + marsh for breaking power. Don did a lot of work in the game, people are forgetting how good it is.
Overall, I was really happy with my building and playing in this tour and ended up going 5-1. My team was all great and I had some really good support between my teammates, so SS ended up being a really fun meta to play every week. Shoutouts:
baconeatinassassin my good friend ty for all the help every week and for drafting me. Go to the gym / get some bitches . i'll come down to melbourne one day and help you
Seldanna ty for all the tests and for being super nice in general, let's team again !! ur oras prep was pretty immaculate, was cool to see
jerryl309 thanks for the millions of test games that i made u sit thru. Ur a good player, dont forget it, have more confidence in urself and u Win
Farce Of The Death great work mate, u had a really solid debut and will be really good in ndag in future tours im sure
80 yrs ur also really good and u clearly have a lot of confidence in ur teams and ur play. Keep joining ag tours and you'll fosho improve even more
GRNBLN ur usum was sick tbh, hope we get to team again
Royal1604 ik u didnt get a lot of time to play but ur performances were strong, +++
Catalystic we didnt talk much but ur usum prep was goated, i learned a lot myself from ur teams
Frito ty for tests as well, was v v appreciated
Even before the games started, I kind of knew what my building plan was going to be every week: spam offense, bring different Kyogre sets every week cuz it's broken, win. In particular offensive Dynamaxers are super busted in this tier, so going bulky in this meta is not the best idea.
Week 1 vs crying (W)
https://pokepast.es/a69aaca03483f2ca
For the first week I wasn't really sure what crying would bring. I thought Will might pass her a team and so we spent the first few days scouting Will's teams and seeing what he might pass. Going over crying's scout from AGLT, I knew she used Ice teams that tended to have a lot of ho-oh/zyg/ogre/ditto/Ferrothorn stuff, so I wanted some offensive mons that would be strong against that solid balance archetype.
I ended up settling on offensive lum cm 3A ogre, which would take advantage of ho-oh and zyg for free setup and beat etern, paired with lo body press zekrom to kill Ferrothorn. The rest of the team filled in pretty nicely and basically - zac forces in ndm for ogre to set up easily and provides more offensive presence, then there's big 3. I used a few different yve/ndm/etern sets throughout my teams that I'll point out. For this one, I used max SpD Foul + Sucker yve because I had no other revenge killer, SR ndm, and 3A etern. I originally had Earthquake on ndm but decided to go with Toxic last minute because the team is really weak to groudon and zygarde. As a result, I also changed etern to Haban Berry as my Zekrom check. The zac is EVed to take a Behemoth Blade from ditto and do enough damage back so that it dies to Rocky Helmet, which was great considering I had Zekrom and ogre that appreciated ditto being gone.
The actual game went pretty much all in my favour. I played aggressively and got the opportunities I needed and didn't even have to send out some of my mons, which is about all you can ask for
Week 2 vs Rotten (W)
https://pokepast.es/b8647db9d2834001
Originally this slot was lunala, who had even less games than crying, so I decided to go with solid offense again. I decided to go with either offensive yve or offensive etern to try and keep my yve/ndm/etern cores unpredictable. Why not both, I said, so chucked Expert Belt etern on for some defensive utility as well and lo physical yve for power. zac again helps out here because it forces in ndm for yve to come in for free. Defog lunala is kinda trash but it fits well here to support offensive yve + checks zygarde, groudon, and Zekrom pretty well. Zekrom being covered means I can run Twave + Iron Head ndm, which is super busted against teams with no Ground-types. Lastly, a revenge killer for calyrex-S is necessary because offensive yve isn't really a check, so marshadow fits well here.
This team is meant to be played pretty offensively considering the 4 offensive mons, but as you could see in the game itself, it is quite weak to the move Thunder Wave because there's no cleric. Band yve + Twave should've done quite a number to me, but lunala getting burned and not paralysed meant it could outlast both etern and ho-oh long term. Missing Wisp on the Band yve sucked but I managed to bring it back in a close game.
Week 3 vs Fc (L)
https://pokepast.es/85918323092a5bab
Fortunately or unfortunately I had to face Fc for the 60th time in the past year. Fortunately because he's free, unfortunately because it's getting boring. I knew what Fc liked going into this and could prep accordingly, so I wasn't worried that much.
I wanted to build around lo ogre because Fc liked to use weird etern sets a lot, often forgoing Toxic, and he never used Mystical Fire. I noticed a lot of Dcannon/DTail/Flamethrower etern sets in his replays. Even though lo ogre beats etern anyway, not taking Mystical Fire or Toxic meant I could get a lot more kills with it if it worked. Defensive yve, etern, and ndm filled in pretty easily after that. I decided to use scarf caly this week because I had neglected any revenge killers in the past two weeks and wanted to be a bit safer vs something like lo caly or Geomancy Xerneas. Lastly, I needed a good zygarde, groudon, and Zekrom check because I was using offensive ogre - I really didn't wanna go with lunala because it sucks, so I landed on Lando-T, which also sets SR, meaning I could afford to go with DD on ndm. The regular SR/Toxic/U-turn/EQ set can't beat sub zygarde because EQ doesn't break sub in Complete, so I decided to go with SD + EQ to more reliably check them. I found that defensive SD Lando-T actually put in quite a lot of work in test games, so I chucked Stone Edge on it to make it even more threatening offensively.
I outplayed this game but Fc is lucky and bad and I died. Gg
Week 4 vs jerryl309 (W)
https://pokepast.es/3f692e77bebf6be2
I really wanted to play jerry because we do a lot of test games together and I'm responsible for like 99% of his success (other 1% being bacon). Otherwise, I wasn't really sure what to prep for here. I was kind of scared of HO because i often left home without ditto (or revenge killers in general), but I also thought he might not bring it because of how often he used it in testing.
For most of the week I was tossing up a team around sub + cm + roar ogre alongside Twave support, which is really demonic. Last minute, though, Swas used that exact set in his game after I trashed Will with it and he gave it to him. Needless to say I was pretty boned and the team wasn't really working out for me anyway, so I just decided to go with lo zyg. yes.
I wasn't bothered to make my own lo zyg team again so I took the team fc used in week 2. I asked bacon if he ever used attack invested U-turn or Snarl on his yveltals and he said no. I was pretty sure jerry would bring a bacon team, so I put subseed caly > ditto and called it a day.
Pulled up a perfect MU with subseed caly against Knock + Foul yve. My lo zyg also would've 6-0ed, but it didn't even need to come out. Nice!
Week 5 vs pdt (W)
https://pokepast.es/c76c1a440d961d58
Hydreigons had already secured finals by the time I played, so I didn't really care what I brought. I knew pdt would be bringing a fardin team and that fardin really liked CP etern and lunala and not much ditto, so I brought webs. Bacon gave me a team and I put lum berry + knock on ndm for lunala and upped the speed for zac at +1. I also put Sludge Bomb > substitute on etern and went in.
Game went well at the start but I did nearly throw against the CP etern, but it ended up working out with a bit of luck. I got a pretty good matchup against double ogres and since I knew the team, I just pulled up fardin's builder and found the team there, so I knew all the sets (i.e. I knew lo ogre was Modest, so mine outsped).
Finals vs Fc (W)
https://pokepast.es/99030f6fa95d75f1
Had to play Fc again so I knew what to do here. After self-scouting for a bit, I realised I had gone with offensive cores every week and never used ditto. This was the case in AGPL, too - and because of that, I had used ditto in finals because I was scared of HO, which didn't come, and I lost. As such, I decided that I would go with offense again because I could pilot it the best and it would give me the most opportunities to outplay vs most MUs.
After scouting Fc, I noticed a lot of ho-oh and zygarde, as well as ditto and scarf caly. As such, I wanted to be defensively solid while having good offensive presence against ho-oh. I went with cm Stalk ogre, which easily took advantage of both mons but also wasn't passive against etern + revenge killers like zac and marsh. I paired it with Band marsh for breaking power and big 3 for defensive utility. Originally, I had offensive sub ho-oh as the last mon, but after looking at Fc's scout again, I wanted a Ground-type that I could switch into Twave from ho-oh. Because of that, I put on groudon, and I still wanted some offense to go with it, so I made it SD Lum 3A, which also beats lunala. After putting on groudon, I didn't need haban on etern anymore, so I chucked on an interesting tech in Yache Berry to help against offensive ogre (i.e. Specs, Lum 3A, lo).
Up 3-2, I had to clutch this game to win us the title. The game went really well - I got the opportunities with marsh and ogre that I needed, and even though he had Reflect lunala for groudon, it ended up putting in solid work regardless. After being up 6-3, I just had to position myself well so that zygarde couldn't set up for free and win the game. Game ended up being a nailbiter with lo zyg nearly bringing it back from 1-5 down, but mon's broken so what can you even do about that.
Other teams i made that other people used:
https://pokepast.es/5340e1fdb2b00ba2 - jerry vs pdt (W)
Gave this team to jerry as a bit of a meme but he said he liked it. It gets 6-0ed by cp etern except jerry got pretty lucky in the game. You could probably do cm roar ogre instead to patch that weakness.
https://pokepast.es/18bb215dfe1a958b - jerry vs ballfire (W)
Jerry asked for an RP don team so i whipped this up in a few minutes. It's pretty basic with don zac big 3 + marsh for breaking power. Don did a lot of work in the game, people are forgetting how good it is.
Overall, I was really happy with my building and playing in this tour and ended up going 5-1. My team was all great and I had some really good support between my teammates, so SS ended up being a really fun meta to play every week. Shoutouts:
baconeatinassassin my good friend ty for all the help every week and for drafting me. Go to the gym / get some bitches . i'll come down to melbourne one day and help you
Seldanna ty for all the tests and for being super nice in general, let's team again !! ur oras prep was pretty immaculate, was cool to see
jerryl309 thanks for the millions of test games that i made u sit thru. Ur a good player, dont forget it, have more confidence in urself and u Win
Farce Of The Death great work mate, u had a really solid debut and will be really good in ndag in future tours im sure
80 yrs ur also really good and u clearly have a lot of confidence in ur teams and ur play. Keep joining ag tours and you'll fosho improve even more
GRNBLN ur usum was sick tbh, hope we get to team again
Royal1604 ik u didnt get a lot of time to play but ur performances were strong, +++
Catalystic we didnt talk much but ur usum prep was goated, i learned a lot myself from ur teams
Frito ty for tests as well, was v v appreciated
Hi everyone! This is a bit late, but I'll be doing a rare team dump and analysis of my games for AG Snake, as well as some thoughts on the tour in general. We ended up winning and I did well overall too - there's not much more you can ask of a team tour experience ~
You can click on the sprites to access the importable - I changed some of the original spreads for this post in case you notice anything odd. I tried to add some details behind my thought process with teambuilding, as many readers might not have much experience with ORAS AG. Generally, going in I wanted to focus on balance / BO structures using what I consider to be the "brokens," namely offensive (band / LO) Rayquaza and Geo Xern. This didn't pan out exactly as I wanted, but thankfully my prep ended up being on point for the most part. Feel free to PM me if you have questions about anything.
Week 1 vs MZ (L)
Unfortunately, I didn't end up bringing the team I had in mind due to some last-minute cold feet (that team is detailed later in the post if you're curious). I'd scouted MZ extensively for our games in ORAS cup last year, to the point where I had all of his teams in a text file, but there was a sizeable chance Skarph would pass him a team. My initial team was made with balance in mind, but I got too scared of the possibility of HO shortly before the game, and brought this instead. It is a nice team that I've used a lot in the past (I am not even sure if it's mine originally, but I've had it for a long time): it features mixed Rayquaza as the main breaker, along with a pretty unconventional Ho-Oh set (Substitute + Lum Berry). This Ho-Oh can handle a lot of miscellaneous threats, most notably Darkrai, but also improves the slightly shaky Xerneas matchup a bit as well. The rest of the team is pretty self-explanatory; Clefable balance is often pretty eyebrow-raising, but this team has a nice structure without any glaring weaknesses or excessive passivity.
The game itself did not go well at all - I think I played pretty passively overall and didn't route it correctly. As it turned out, MZ brought a new balance team that Skarph passed him, so I really shouldn't have changed my prep last minute! MZ made a great call and caught my rockceus with banded EQ, at which point things were basically over for me (I also didn't expect EQ as coverage on band MRay in all honesty). Skarph also prepped nicely with SR + SD rock move pdon to threaten Giratina, so this was a well-deserved loss.
Week 2 vs Chloe (W)
This week I was against Chloe, who is of course one of the best players in the tier, and also has a reasonably good idea of my tendencies in the builder. As I was a bit rattled with how easily Skarph had outprepped me week 1, rather than building myself I turned to Fardin ( . . . ) who suggested using a CM Thunder groundceus / steelceus team. He gave me this HO, which satisfied my needs perfectly; prior to this I had next to zero HO usage as I dislike the style and find it inconsistent, and I didn't expect Chloe to bring a stall team. It is unique for using CM 3-attack Groundceus as the main breaker - this is very hard to check defensively without Blissey or Darkrai, and the latter is no threat against an HO team with 2 Lum Berry users. I modified it slightly to improve its matchup against Chloe builds; Fire Punch on Groudon to break through Skarmory, Stone Edge > Shadow Claw on ekiller as she's always had high Ho-Oh / Yveltal usage, and finally Substitute on Xerneas. I added this after sifting through her teams and noticing that she very often used Thunder Wave + Rock Slide Groudon as her main Xerneas counterplay.
The HO team did end up being a great choice, as she brought a Gothitelle team with no CM groundceus counterplay at all. In spite of this, I got outplayed pretty badly (getting none of the turns with groundceus correct), but thankfully the matchup was extremely lopsided in my favor and carried me to a win.
Week 3 vs Mr. 378 (W)
For this week, I was fairly certain Icemaster was passing my opponent a team, as he was the Regirocks' main old gen builder and knows me well from playing lots of friendlies. Also, in the first 2 weeks of the tour Daniel had brought some well-known Fardin balance teams, so overall I was fairly confident they wouldn't HO or stall me and would instead bring balance breakers - Darkrai in particular, as Ice has a strong affinity for that mon. This meant that (groans) some kind of offense would once again be ideal to bring. From the start, I wanted to do some kind of BO structure - I generally like to steer clear of hard HO, as I feel it relies on some few key turns with very little room for recovery in case things go wrong. After coming up with (and deleting) some sketches earlier in the week, I decided to put my morals aside and use a double ekiller team, something that I usually consider a bit degenerate. I knew exactly what I wanted - 2 ekillers + Xerneas + bulky Choice Band Mega Rayquaza all have a great matchup against typical offensive stuff, with Substitute on Xerneas again to 1v1 Darkrai. To complete the team, I wanted Primal Groudon, as it's a great glue, can prevent loss of momentum with Dragon Tail, and I also vaguely suspected the Fardin team with Ho-Oh + offensive Kyogre + Scarf Rayquaza was incoming. The team in general would still not be able to pivot on much with only spdef Groudon + something else as the defensive core, so I wanted to add another offensive mon. I considered Darkrai for a bit, as I have next to zero Darkrai usage, but in the end Arceus-Ghost's good matchup against certain stall teams was more appealing.
I ended up getting exactly the matchup I wanted with a Mega Gengar + Darkrai team, but the actual game itself was a little embarrassing. I overread and switched +2 ekiller out of a Darkrai, since I expected him to keep it and go Gengar instead (which walled it in base forme). He was most likely worried about the possibility of the rare Shadow Claw + Magic Coat set, but I lost all momentum with this misplay. Then I flailed around with SD Ghostceus, squandering it as well, before finally setting up with Xerneas and not getting the roll on groundceus to kill with +2 Moonblast after Rocks. This led to a very messy endgame, but thankfully band Rayquaza was able to win.
Week 4 vs mc56556 (W)
By this point, I was kind of sick of using offense, so a regular balance was definitely the way to go. I also wanted to use something unorthodox, as it's fun and could potentially surprise my opponent. Skarph suggested I try Scarf Terrakion, which has a number of appealing qualities: it can revenge ekiller as it resists espeed, Double Kick allows it to revenge Darkrai even if it has a Substitute up, and it outspeeds +1 Mega Rayquaza, unlike most scarfers that are resilient to espeed. To this I added an offensive Mega Rayquaza (Choice Band) for its pure wallbreaking potential; of course, this needs some good support to keep it safe from Darkrai and Klefki, both of which mc used frequently. The easiest option to rectify this issue is Lum ekiller; a bulky set fit the best here - I opted for Frustration to handle support arcs, as I anticipated a balance team. I still needed a more consistent Dark Void switchin, and I wanted to use Geomancy Xerneas again. The perfect solution (which also kept up the refrain of 'bring a different Geomancy Xerneas every week and win') was to use a resttalk set; this seemed especially nice since mc used toxic / twave Klefki often in his scout. Primal Groudon and Arceus-Water formed a limited, but reasonably decent defensive backbone to complete the team. Overall, though, I think this team has a big flaw in being weak to breaker MRay sets (mainly band), though there is some counterplay to that.
The actual game turned out nicely! I was a bit worried at preview seeing 2 Xerneas checks and multiple priority users, but the resttalk set was a good choice and used his Toxic Klefki as setup fodder. I personally don't think the misses mattered much, since my Rayquaza got a really low Extreme Speed roll on his and usually won that interaction, and Rayquaza + Terrakion won after pdon took a +2 Moonblast even if I didn't get the ~60% roll to 2HKO.
We put Unicorns in over me for week 5 as we'd essentially guaranteed finals and wanted to give our subs playing time. I ended up passing her my Clefable balance from week 1, which ended up having a pretty neutral matchup. Instead of going over that, I'll talk about this team a bit, which is a team I quite enjoy playing with and wanted to use vs MZ during week 1. It's one of my few takes on Mega Gengar balance, which is something that I always have trouble building, despite it being very strong. The Gengar set here is a bit atypical and not so great vs HO, but much better than a usual Protect set in other matchups. To cover for the HO matchup, I used a standard Giratina along with my favorite Klefki set of all - dual status. This set always makes progress, being able to easily lure and Toxic big threats like groundceus and pdon, while retaining Klefki's typical great matchup against HO. Substitute allows it to switch into Darkrai and always force it out if it's healthy - this goes a long way to neutralizing Darkrai when paired with speed control options. This is partially why I have LO Mewtwo on this; on top of being able to revenge kill Darkrai and steelceus, it is also a good cleaner in its own right after opposing support arcs / pdon are weakened. I do think the team is flawed in that it can require you to connect Focus Blast in several situations, but it generally has the tools to outplay most matchups.
Finals vs velvet (W)
I didn't really know what I wanted to do going into this, as velvet who uses a lot of different stuff, and fardin had joined Regirocks' mostly to pass ice ORAS teams as well. For whatever reason I was scared about the possibility of running into Mega Sableye balance (probably because of Fardin) so I wanted to build around Stealth Rock fairyceus. Honestly, the less said about this team the better, as it ended up being yet another simple HO. I strongly considered finally using Darkrai, but decided in the end that the team was quite weak to stall, leading to the choice of SD ghostceus over it (Darkrai can only threaten stall with Sludge Bomb sets, which don't fit on HO).
The game unfortunately ended up being an HO mirror, but my team had a strong matchup with 2 ekillers against a Darkrai sitting there as setup fodder. While I didn't get the early sequence correct, I had put Frustration + a jolly nature on my LO ekiller, which enabled me to remove her ekiller almost for free, and thereby win with DD rayquaza.
I wish we'd had a better game as velvet is a good friend of mine, but it's always nice to clinch a must-win game in finals.
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Some other teams:
Here is a stall Skarph and I built for his set against Frito. Going into this we knew Frito was likely going to bring some kind of HO, and we ended up doing something unorthodox with Diancie and Tentacruel. The Arceus forme here can be changed depending on which matchup you want to help the most - Skarph chose darkceus to beat SD ghostceus, which is common on HO and otherwise breaks this kind of stall.
That's me trying my hand at MSab balance; I built this for my game against velvet, but decided against it as I really dislike piloting Darkrai balance.
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I'll be impressed if anyone read all of this, but thank you again ~ see you all in AGPL!
You can click on the sprites to access the importable - I changed some of the original spreads for this post in case you notice anything odd. I tried to add some details behind my thought process with teambuilding, as many readers might not have much experience with ORAS AG. Generally, going in I wanted to focus on balance / BO structures using what I consider to be the "brokens," namely offensive (band / LO) Rayquaza and Geo Xern. This didn't pan out exactly as I wanted, but thankfully my prep ended up being on point for the most part. Feel free to PM me if you have questions about anything.
Week 1 vs MZ (L)
Unfortunately, I didn't end up bringing the team I had in mind due to some last-minute cold feet (that team is detailed later in the post if you're curious). I'd scouted MZ extensively for our games in ORAS cup last year, to the point where I had all of his teams in a text file, but there was a sizeable chance Skarph would pass him a team. My initial team was made with balance in mind, but I got too scared of the possibility of HO shortly before the game, and brought this instead. It is a nice team that I've used a lot in the past (I am not even sure if it's mine originally, but I've had it for a long time): it features mixed Rayquaza as the main breaker, along with a pretty unconventional Ho-Oh set (Substitute + Lum Berry). This Ho-Oh can handle a lot of miscellaneous threats, most notably Darkrai, but also improves the slightly shaky Xerneas matchup a bit as well. The rest of the team is pretty self-explanatory; Clefable balance is often pretty eyebrow-raising, but this team has a nice structure without any glaring weaknesses or excessive passivity.
The game itself did not go well at all - I think I played pretty passively overall and didn't route it correctly. As it turned out, MZ brought a new balance team that Skarph passed him, so I really shouldn't have changed my prep last minute! MZ made a great call and caught my rockceus with banded EQ, at which point things were basically over for me (I also didn't expect EQ as coverage on band MRay in all honesty). Skarph also prepped nicely with SR + SD rock move pdon to threaten Giratina, so this was a well-deserved loss.
Week 2 vs Chloe (W)
This week I was against Chloe, who is of course one of the best players in the tier, and also has a reasonably good idea of my tendencies in the builder. As I was a bit rattled with how easily Skarph had outprepped me week 1, rather than building myself I turned to Fardin ( . . . ) who suggested using a CM Thunder groundceus / steelceus team. He gave me this HO, which satisfied my needs perfectly; prior to this I had next to zero HO usage as I dislike the style and find it inconsistent, and I didn't expect Chloe to bring a stall team. It is unique for using CM 3-attack Groundceus as the main breaker - this is very hard to check defensively without Blissey or Darkrai, and the latter is no threat against an HO team with 2 Lum Berry users. I modified it slightly to improve its matchup against Chloe builds; Fire Punch on Groudon to break through Skarmory, Stone Edge > Shadow Claw on ekiller as she's always had high Ho-Oh / Yveltal usage, and finally Substitute on Xerneas. I added this after sifting through her teams and noticing that she very often used Thunder Wave + Rock Slide Groudon as her main Xerneas counterplay.
The HO team did end up being a great choice, as she brought a Gothitelle team with no CM groundceus counterplay at all. In spite of this, I got outplayed pretty badly (getting none of the turns with groundceus correct), but thankfully the matchup was extremely lopsided in my favor and carried me to a win.
Week 3 vs Mr. 378 (W)
For this week, I was fairly certain Icemaster was passing my opponent a team, as he was the Regirocks' main old gen builder and knows me well from playing lots of friendlies. Also, in the first 2 weeks of the tour Daniel had brought some well-known Fardin balance teams, so overall I was fairly confident they wouldn't HO or stall me and would instead bring balance breakers - Darkrai in particular, as Ice has a strong affinity for that mon. This meant that (groans) some kind of offense would once again be ideal to bring. From the start, I wanted to do some kind of BO structure - I generally like to steer clear of hard HO, as I feel it relies on some few key turns with very little room for recovery in case things go wrong. After coming up with (and deleting) some sketches earlier in the week, I decided to put my morals aside and use a double ekiller team, something that I usually consider a bit degenerate. I knew exactly what I wanted - 2 ekillers + Xerneas + bulky Choice Band Mega Rayquaza all have a great matchup against typical offensive stuff, with Substitute on Xerneas again to 1v1 Darkrai. To complete the team, I wanted Primal Groudon, as it's a great glue, can prevent loss of momentum with Dragon Tail, and I also vaguely suspected the Fardin team with Ho-Oh + offensive Kyogre + Scarf Rayquaza was incoming. The team in general would still not be able to pivot on much with only spdef Groudon + something else as the defensive core, so I wanted to add another offensive mon. I considered Darkrai for a bit, as I have next to zero Darkrai usage, but in the end Arceus-Ghost's good matchup against certain stall teams was more appealing.
I ended up getting exactly the matchup I wanted with a Mega Gengar + Darkrai team, but the actual game itself was a little embarrassing. I overread and switched +2 ekiller out of a Darkrai, since I expected him to keep it and go Gengar instead (which walled it in base forme). He was most likely worried about the possibility of the rare Shadow Claw + Magic Coat set, but I lost all momentum with this misplay. Then I flailed around with SD Ghostceus, squandering it as well, before finally setting up with Xerneas and not getting the roll on groundceus to kill with +2 Moonblast after Rocks. This led to a very messy endgame, but thankfully band Rayquaza was able to win.
Week 4 vs mc56556 (W)
By this point, I was kind of sick of using offense, so a regular balance was definitely the way to go. I also wanted to use something unorthodox, as it's fun and could potentially surprise my opponent. Skarph suggested I try Scarf Terrakion, which has a number of appealing qualities: it can revenge ekiller as it resists espeed, Double Kick allows it to revenge Darkrai even if it has a Substitute up, and it outspeeds +1 Mega Rayquaza, unlike most scarfers that are resilient to espeed. To this I added an offensive Mega Rayquaza (Choice Band) for its pure wallbreaking potential; of course, this needs some good support to keep it safe from Darkrai and Klefki, both of which mc used frequently. The easiest option to rectify this issue is Lum ekiller; a bulky set fit the best here - I opted for Frustration to handle support arcs, as I anticipated a balance team. I still needed a more consistent Dark Void switchin, and I wanted to use Geomancy Xerneas again. The perfect solution (which also kept up the refrain of 'bring a different Geomancy Xerneas every week and win') was to use a resttalk set; this seemed especially nice since mc used toxic / twave Klefki often in his scout. Primal Groudon and Arceus-Water formed a limited, but reasonably decent defensive backbone to complete the team. Overall, though, I think this team has a big flaw in being weak to breaker MRay sets (mainly band), though there is some counterplay to that.
The actual game turned out nicely! I was a bit worried at preview seeing 2 Xerneas checks and multiple priority users, but the resttalk set was a good choice and used his Toxic Klefki as setup fodder. I personally don't think the misses mattered much, since my Rayquaza got a really low Extreme Speed roll on his and usually won that interaction, and Rayquaza + Terrakion won after pdon took a +2 Moonblast even if I didn't get the ~60% roll to 2HKO.
We put Unicorns in over me for week 5 as we'd essentially guaranteed finals and wanted to give our subs playing time. I ended up passing her my Clefable balance from week 1, which ended up having a pretty neutral matchup. Instead of going over that, I'll talk about this team a bit, which is a team I quite enjoy playing with and wanted to use vs MZ during week 1. It's one of my few takes on Mega Gengar balance, which is something that I always have trouble building, despite it being very strong. The Gengar set here is a bit atypical and not so great vs HO, but much better than a usual Protect set in other matchups. To cover for the HO matchup, I used a standard Giratina along with my favorite Klefki set of all - dual status. This set always makes progress, being able to easily lure and Toxic big threats like groundceus and pdon, while retaining Klefki's typical great matchup against HO. Substitute allows it to switch into Darkrai and always force it out if it's healthy - this goes a long way to neutralizing Darkrai when paired with speed control options. This is partially why I have LO Mewtwo on this; on top of being able to revenge kill Darkrai and steelceus, it is also a good cleaner in its own right after opposing support arcs / pdon are weakened. I do think the team is flawed in that it can require you to connect Focus Blast in several situations, but it generally has the tools to outplay most matchups.
Finals vs velvet (W)
I didn't really know what I wanted to do going into this, as velvet who uses a lot of different stuff, and fardin had joined Regirocks' mostly to pass ice ORAS teams as well. For whatever reason I was scared about the possibility of running into Mega Sableye balance (probably because of Fardin) so I wanted to build around Stealth Rock fairyceus. Honestly, the less said about this team the better, as it ended up being yet another simple HO. I strongly considered finally using Darkrai, but decided in the end that the team was quite weak to stall, leading to the choice of SD ghostceus over it (Darkrai can only threaten stall with Sludge Bomb sets, which don't fit on HO).
The game unfortunately ended up being an HO mirror, but my team had a strong matchup with 2 ekillers against a Darkrai sitting there as setup fodder. While I didn't get the early sequence correct, I had put Frustration + a jolly nature on my LO ekiller, which enabled me to remove her ekiller almost for free, and thereby win with DD rayquaza.
I wish we'd had a better game as velvet is a good friend of mine, but it's always nice to clinch a must-win game in finals.
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Some other teams:
Here is a stall Skarph and I built for his set against Frito. Going into this we knew Frito was likely going to bring some kind of HO, and we ended up doing something unorthodox with Diancie and Tentacruel. The Arceus forme here can be changed depending on which matchup you want to help the most - Skarph chose darkceus to beat SD ghostceus, which is common on HO and otherwise breaks this kind of stall.
That's me trying my hand at MSab balance; I built this for my game against velvet, but decided against it as I really dislike piloting Darkrai balance.
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baconeatinassassin Thank you for drafting me!! I'm really happy that your first stint as a manager in AG ended with a win, good luck with classes and I hope you find the time to manage again sometime!!
Skarph can't thank you enough for carrying me with builds and tests this tour! Maybe someday we'll get to team up for something (doubtful :CCC )
Skooma You're on a break right now but for all the clownery, you're a really nice person at the end of the day. Please stay around to pass me stuff @_@
lotiasite One of the most dominant players out there in AG right now, really happy we got to team up! Always fun to play you for tests tooo
Pigeons Thanks for all the tests and for reviewing my ideas every week! Stick around a little in AG please ~
GRNBLN You clutched in finals, can't ask for much more ~
Farce Of The Death you really made a name for yourself! We need more ndag players, so definitely stick around
80 yrs great performance! hope you have time for AGPL in a few months ~
Royal1604 You played really well and were always around to help with our SS builds, hope to see you in agpl!
velvet really happy you signed up for this, maybe one day we'll finally get to team up for something Q_Q thanks for the tests!
Icemaster thanks for all the tests, good luck with exams! (although they'll be over when you read this)
Catalystic come back to NYC this summer + sign up to play next time
Lauriane ^^
Skarph can't thank you enough for carrying me with builds and tests this tour! Maybe someday we'll get to team up for something (doubtful :CCC )
Skooma You're on a break right now but for all the clownery, you're a really nice person at the end of the day. Please stay around to pass me stuff @_@
lotiasite One of the most dominant players out there in AG right now, really happy we got to team up! Always fun to play you for tests tooo
Pigeons Thanks for all the tests and for reviewing my ideas every week! Stick around a little in AG please ~
GRNBLN You clutched in finals, can't ask for much more ~
Farce Of The Death you really made a name for yourself! We need more ndag players, so definitely stick around
80 yrs great performance! hope you have time for AGPL in a few months ~
Royal1604 You played really well and were always around to help with our SS builds, hope to see you in agpl!
velvet really happy you signed up for this, maybe one day we'll finally get to team up for something Q_Q thanks for the tests!
Icemaster thanks for all the tests, good luck with exams! (although they'll be over when you read this)
Catalystic come back to NYC this summer + sign up to play next time
Lauriane ^^
This is our second AG snake, and this year I've heard a lot more dissatisfaction with the format, especially as several lower tiers move away from Snake Drafts in general. The format has some upsides in forcing a different sense of valuation and making it more difficult to draft a clique-ish team, but it's clear that managers value the more deterministic nature of an auction, which is understandable. I'm very open to changing the tour for next year, but it's essential that the tour keeps its own identity and doesn't devolve into a min-AGPL. Please let myself or cromagnet know if you have any ideas on solving this issue!
I'll be impressed if anyone read all of this, but thank you again ~ see you all in AGPL!