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