Battle Frontier Finals (Eisenherz vs Xen)

[locoghoul]

This is it! The two trainers that have overcome all challenges until now.

You can bet your pokedollars away for

Eisenherz vs Xen

You can follow the brackets here

There is no deadline for this, just good ol' fashioned rules. Whoever wins 2 out of 3 takes the crown, honor and gets to register his Pokemon into the Hall of Fame.

BATTLE RULES

1. All battles will be held with standard cartridge rules: 6v6 level 50 (autolevel)
2. All match ups will be best of 3, you can switch teams between games (make sure you are still using the same region)
3. In the case of a DC please try to work it out between you and your opponent. If it happens really early you can ask for a remake, if it happens late you can agree to a result, if unclear you can choose to completely just remake, etc. Point is to communicate.
4. Save your replays and post them in the thread.
5. Be respectful, polite and have fun! Please no drama, complains about hax, plays, etc

TOURNAMENT RULES

1. No Ubers
2. All Pokemon on a team must be from the same region (followed by Dex number)
3. You MUST use a starter
4. No Legends, Mythicals, Tapus, Ultra Beasts
5. Standard Smogon clauses apply (Species, Sleep, Baton Pass, Evasion, OHKO, Shadow Tag, etc)
6. Blaze Blaziken will be allowed (note that Blazikenite is still banned)
7. The tournament will be played on USUM cartridges ONLY
8. Eligibility for a region will be based on Dex number, not regional dex (Kanto 1-151, Johto 152-251, Hoenn 252-386, Sinnoh 387-493, Unova 494-649, Kalos 650-721, Alola 722-809). Alolan forms of Kanto mons will be considered from Alola for this tournament.​

 

[Max. Optimizer]

I wanted to welcome the opportunity to wish both of our two finalists good luck!
My thanks are graciously extended to locoghoul for hosting the tournament in the first place.
The format was indeed fun to play and I got to know a couple of players a bit better.

I'm genuinely looking forward to playing more potential cartridge tournaments with all of you in the future!

 

[Eisenherz]

Alola reigns supreme!

I won 2-1 against Xen in a fierce Alola vs. Unova battle.
GGs to Xen, I was stoked to have you as my opponent for the finals! We've known each other for quite some time, with both of us being on the FBGA team, and yet we had never battled before, so this was definitely a pleasure! I was very disappointed not to see a Qwilfish in the finals because I had prepared so heavily for that lol

G1: RJNW-WWWW-WWX6-YVKJ
G2: PLCG-WWW-WWX6-YVKV [This game had a disconnection, we were able to recreate it pretty much exactly. The turns when I go for Stealth Rock repeatedly are turns where I originally used Roar and Ferrothorn was dragged in, so we ensured the same would happen. Everything else goes the same way.]
G3: PHBW-WWWW-WWX6-YVLE [This game also had a disconnection, we recreated it pretty precisely too, the only difference being when Krookodile Taunts Muk because I originally didn't get fully paralyzed on the previous turn. Everything else goes the same way.]

Huge shoutouts and thanks to pilica12, Ticken, paperquagsire and Level 51 for helping me practice and coping with my being constantly paranoid about this or that matchup, lol.
Thanks as well to locoghoul for organizing this tournament, it was a ton of fun!

Team dump

For anybody interested, here are the teams I used through the tournament (click the sprites for the pokepaste). I faced Unova in 3 / 4 matchups; I can see why it would be highly rated with some of the big threats it has. I think Alola may have been severely underrated, I definitely had a ton of fun using it, though Kanto was a nice change of pace for the semis. I'm especially happy with the "thematic" team I built for the finals featuring all 5 of the 50% Berries as tribute to my favourite item!

Round 1 vs. Sondero
Alola Triple Starters:
This team was built specifically with Unova Sand in mind, especially Volcarona and Serperior which seemed like the 2 biggest Unova threats. The combination of Primarina and Golisopod deals really well with those teams, and also offers a pretty good matchup against rain. Overall, the team was still made to handle as many scenarios as possible since I had no idea what would be thrown my way.

Round 2 vs. BrightFieldWyvern
Alola Trick Room:
This was just a fun team I made to try out Trick Room. It's very matchup-based, but can also just win very quickly if the opponent has no Trick Room answer. It's not super solid, but it's a lot of fun.
Alola Triple Starters was brought for game 2.

Semifinals vs. EricJiang234
Kanto / Eisen Version:
I didn't want to bring Alola to the semis, because I felt like it became too predictable and could be counterteamed, so I switched to what I thought was the region with the most untapped potential thus far, Kanto. I was very happy with this team despite losing game 1 with it (to a mix of misplays and bad luck, imo). Dragonite and Snorlax are extremely potent sweepers, the latter also doubling up as a tank.
Kanto / Ticken Version:
A very solid balanced team that Ticken built for me around Mega Charizard X, gracefully taking my playstyle into account. The team definitely came through, so big thanks to him for helping me out!

Finals vs. Xen
Alola Five Flavours (of 50% Berries):
I spent a really long time building this team around Kommo-o and all five flavours of my favourite item: 50% Berries! It's a balanced team with two threatening sweepers (Kommo-o and Muk) and great pivoting options, as well as longevity thanks to the berries. Primarina and Tsareena are EVd to outspeed Mega Scizor, while Kommo-o outspeeds Timid Gardevoir, to make sure it couldn't revenge KO it if I Dragon Dance. A lot more calcs went into the EVs (for example, Persian lives a +2 Liquidation in Rain from Qwilfish) for potential matchups that worried me. It has very few bad matchups, which is something I was really aiming for.
Alola Five Flavours (version 2):
This is what I brought to the deciding game. Basically the same, but with Incineroar over Persian. Not knowing the matchup, Persian was a safer bet because it provided speed, stopping things like Garchomp that could otherwise be bothersome. But seeing Xen's rosters in games 1 and 2, Incineroar felt like it had a good matchup, so I brought this version instead. Unfortunately, I also traded Primarina's Berry for Choice Specs last minute, since I felt like a Specs set had a particularly great matchup against Unova, so in this case, the team didn't stay 100% true to its name...!

Unused
Alola Veil:
I started working on this team as early as Round 1, but in testing, it was inconsistent depending on the matchup. It was either really good (usually against all opposing weather) or bad. I had it bred and ready to use in the Finals, this was my response if Xen did bring Johto Rain with Qwilfish (or any other weather-based strategy), but I didn't want to commit to it Game 1 because of how matchup-based it was.

 

[Xen]

GGs again man! Was a pleasure being able to face you in the finals. We really should battle more often as well, and I'll bring Qwilfish next time too.

I also want to thank locoghoul for hosting, and the other players for participating too. Was a pleasure being able to participate, and I look forward to playing with you guys again in the future too!

Also since I still have the pastes, I'll go ahead and dump my teams too with a little brief summary of each

~Round 1 (Kanto)~
G1: https://pokepast.es/37157d59e23a6630
G2: https://pokepast.es/d09693f35c30e6b3

RBY veteran here, so I knew from the moment I joined that I wanted to kickstart the tourney with my old stomping grounds. Mirroring what Eisen said in his post, Kanto was a fun and largely unexplored region with a variety of playstyles.

In contrast to my..uh, infamous association with rain and fish mons, I decided to rock Sun for the first round since MegaZard-Y is such a strong and splashable Mega in general, and I also wanted to use my favorite OG starter of the bunch as well (Venusaur). Plus it also helped to ease the burden of Rain MUs I expected would show up in force throughout the tourney. This team also had some fun gems like Eviolite Rhydon as an insanely bulky setter and hitter, and Fightnium-Z Gengar to ease MUs against dangerous Dark Types like Hydreigon that would've otherwise caused a lot of grief.

The second team is more of a general offensive team more than anything, with the goal being getting a sweep in with Dragonite after the opposing team gets sufficiently dented with the other hard hitters (and Steels removed by Magneton). It also helped as extra insurance against certain Rain MUs if my Sun build fell apart.

~Round 2-3 (Sinnoh)~
G1: https://pokepast.es/871550f05baa3e66
G2-3: https://pokepast.es/15728635462b0819

I initially built these teams with Round 2 in mind, but after some scheduling difficulties and getting the activity win, I figured I might as well let them see some use, so I brought them into Round 3. Sinnoh was another fun region that didn't see a lot of use, but the general structure of the region was quite favorable to the playstyle I'm most comfortable with (bulky offense).

First team was built around Sand offense, with a Mega that not many people use or even think favorably of. Mega Garchomp makes a surprisingly potent wrecking ball in Sand though, and also offers flexibility in terms of speed or power too, since leaving it pre-Mega could also be a perfectly viable play against faster teams. Infernape makes a good partner here too since it can bash Steels that Mega Chomp didn't particularly like, and makes a good cleaner after Chompy tears holes in the opposing team (or vice versa in some cases)

Second team is more of a general bulky offense build with a similar game plan to the Sand team; i.e. use either Lop or Chomp to tear holes, and use the other to clean up the mess

~~Final (Unova)~~
G1: https://pokepast.es/20c5d5d70ac148e2
G2: https://pokepast.es/26b44eb1c90b91ca
G3: (Basically a mix of the two)

I debated for a while which region to bring here, but I decided to bring Unova since it contains my favorite pool of Pokemon, and overall is a very powerful and versatile region. I'll admit that I did have a little bit of writer's block here, which I think is partially what led to my downfall as there were some notable weaknesses in hindsight that Eisen managed to successfully exploit.

First team I built specifically with Volc and Hydra, since they're both among my favorite Pokemon, and the two compliment each other very well in general. The rest of the team came along naturally as more of a defensive backbone and to, again, wear down/take out threats for Volcarona to ultimately sweep (which it technically did in G1, albeit aided by luck)

The second team goes a bit more on the offensive with some cool and unexpected mons like Banded Ferro and TrickScarf Chandy, with the endgame being getting Haxorus to either sweep, or clean up after the other mons made holes in the team. Unfortunately didn't pan out in practice since the team was pretty weak to Kommo-o in general unfort.

GGs again, everyone. Looking forward to playing with you all again in the future I will get you next time, Eisen. :eyes:

E: Oh yeah, screw my net too. Was not very cooperative tonight. Sorry about that, Eisen.

 

[locoghoul]

Congratulations to Eisenherz !!

Thank you to all who participated, I saw some great teams and nice matches. Hope we stay active for the next generation. Enjoy your summer!