Nine Wonderful Teams From Two Wonderful Guys - SPL X Team Dump

MajorBowman

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Just a small glimpse into an average conversation between myself and Tman

Hey everyone, welcome back to another edition of the hit TV show Bowman Dumps His Teams From A Recent Team Tournament, this time guest starring my close personal friend Tman. After a pretty terrible showing and some lackluster teams in Snake Draft 2, I was pretty motivated to bounce back during SPL X. When tennisace asked me who I would want as a DOU back up if he had the chance to draft one, my first thought was obviously talkingtree given our success in SPL 9, but since he was coming off a trophy run in SSD 2 I knew I might need another option. Tman and I have built so many VGC teams together and he had been showing more interest in DOU, so I told tennisace to pick him up and luckily he had the funds. Turns out it was a great idea, because I'm really proud of the teams Tommy and I (and tennisace) were able to come up with this year. I also knew I'd be really busy this spring, so in case I had to dip for a week I knew they could either keep me afloat and get a team ready for me or Tommy could sub in without trouble.

I decided to stray from my song title nicknames this year because I was scared I'd run out of albums, but I missed it so it will make a return soon™. Pokepastes are linked via the sprites, and the title of the hide tag is the nickname theme. Enjoy!

Week 1 vs emforbes

Coming into SPL X, I was really confident Calm Mind Cresselia could make a comeback. CM Cress was one of my favorite Pokemon to use in XY DOU, but I hadn't seen anyone try to make it work yet this generation. Charizard is an obvious partner because it boosts Moonlight and can take out the Steel types that threaten Cresselia, and from there the team built itself out like a standard Charizard team would. Landorus-Therian sets rocks and provides valuable intimidate, and Amoonguss acts as another check to Electric-types while providing Rage Powder and Spore support. Tapu Koko works well with Charizard since it can smack most of the Water-types that resist Charizard's attacks and defog away opposing rocks. It also provides Electric Terrain to pop Cresselia's Electric Seed, giving it a way to boost both of its defenses. Heatran was the rogue pick here, but I really wanted another check to Genesect and Incineroar given emforbes' tendency to use them since the team was pretty weak to both outside of Charizard and Landorus, respectively. Shuca HP Ice allowed Heatran to pseudo-check other Pokemon like Landorus and Zygarde that could otherwise be a little bit problematic, while sun-boosted Heat Wave does a pretty solid amount of neutral damage. Don't be fooled though - Heatran is still terrible, even if this marked the 2nd team tour game I had used it in a row.
Week 2 vs SMB

We didn't have a great read on SMB and I didn't have any other wild ideas this week, so we just decided to build something overall solid. Since Metagross is pretty much the pinnacle of consistency, that was our starting point. Scarf Landorus gives Metagross teams a bit of immediate speed that they tend to lack on occasion, and also acts as a pretty solid offensive check to Pokemon like Tapu Koko. Z Tailwind Kartana seemed like a really cool idea and performed really well in testing since it pretty much turned Kartana into a win condition while also serving as somewhat of a support Pokemon. Leaf Blade will always score a critical hit after Z Tailwind, while Sacred Sword will crit 50% of the time, so even healthy Incineroar has to be careful when Kartana is on the field. Since we wanted this Kartana to be a bit bulkier and was carrying Tailwind, we sacrificed a bit of speed and allowed our Tapu Fini to outspeed it. This was super helpful because it meant we could combo any of Kartana's attacks with Nature's Madness. I fully believe Nature's Madness is one of the best moves in the game right now, especially when paired with something that could really abuse it like Z Tailwind Kart. Heal Pulse was another easy add on Tapu Fini so it could keep the fat mons without recovery options healthy. This Tapu Koko was a set I came up with Week 1 but scrapped at the time because we agreed that team needed more offense from that slot. However, it fit pretty perfectly here. Tapu Koko has a really cool support moveset and the AV set somewhat takes advantage of it, but having access to status moves like Taunt or Defog while still being bulky is incredible. I'm really happy with this set and I was thrilled I got to show it off in this game. Taunt was able to block a Tailwind from SMB's Salamence, while the bulk allowed Koko to survive a +1 Leaf Blade from his Kartana and negate the speed boost from its Adrenaline Orb. Buzzwole was the last Pokemon we added, and it functioned as a really strong check to a lot of common threats like Zygarde, Landorus, Incineroar, and Chansey. A lot of the techs on this team got shown off in this game so I was really happy.
Week 3 vs Biosci

This team was a spin-off of a team that Tommy had used a lot in VGC 2018. DD Salamence + Kartana + Milotic is pretty threatening since the main check to both Salamence and Kartana is Intimidate, which Milotic can seriously abuse. That's pretty much how this game against Biosci went down too, Milotic punished his Double Intimidate pretty well and almost won the game on its own. I used Maranga Berry since I didn't have the option to use a Special Defense boosting Seed, but it works the same in practice. If you can switch Milotic in on a weak special attack, you're at +1 Special Defense and in a pretty good position to start Icy Winding and fishing for burns. Since I didn't get to show off Z Tailwind against, SMB, I just reused the same set this week since Tailwind support is never really a bad thing. It arguably could have been something like Swords Dance + Bloom Doom, but I don't think Z Tailwind was a bad call at all. Tapu Bulu worked well with Kartana, since guaranteed critical hit Leaf Blades in Grassy Terrain are pretty scary, and Tapu Bulu benefits from Kartana's Tailwind. Incineroar provided Intimidate/Fake Out/pivot support, while Nidoqueen checked problematic Electric-types like Tapu Koko and Zapdos. Its Poison / Ground / Ice coverage casts a pretty wide net, chunking if not OHKOing common Pokemon like Incineroar, Landorus-T, and the Island Guardians.
Week 4 vs miltankmilk

miltankmilk had been telling me about Buginium Z Volcarona, so I decided to give it a shot myself. Manectric seemed to pair well with Volcarona since it could threaten water types and soften physical blows with Intimidate. I didn't feel the need to use a fire move since Volcarona filled that niche well and Volcarona boosts its own Special Defense, so Snarl felt unnecessary too. This allowed me to go a little bit more offensive with Manectric, which "solved" my biggest issue with Manectric - its innate passivity and inability to do damage. Kartana served as another check to Water-types and provided Tailwind support once again, and Tapu Fini felt like a good addition thanks to its ability to also abuse double Intimidate and set up Calm Minds. Landorus-Therian was added for the second Intimidate and Stealth Rock support, which could punish any defensive positioning and prime either Volcarona or Tapu Fini for knockouts. Gothitelle felt like another great add thanks to its ability to force favorable matchups and keep its partners healthy with Heal Pulse. This is probably the weakest team we built this tournament because its Charizard matchup is pretty poor, but we built it with milk's tendencies in mind and wagered that he wouldn't bring Charizard and I stand by it. Volcarona is a super threatening pokemon once it gets going and this team has some cool support options for it, just didn't work out this time around.
Week 5 vs fespy

I won't say much about this team because it wasn't mine and I don't really want to reveal spreads and stuff for something I didn't build. I was having a really rough week IRL around this time, so I was leaning on Tommy and tennisace to come up with something for me to use. In the limited time I had, we came up with some really dumb Azumarill + Psych Up Mega Metagross team but it was entirely too all-in on getting that combo set up so I didn't want to use it. Tommy offered his version of 2019 Bunnies and I played a couple games with it to way more success than the original draft, so I locked it in and showed up to play fespy with the chance to clinch the week for the Tigers. I kid you not when I say winning that game was such a giant weight off my back, it felt so nice to come back and win after 2 straight losses, especially when it was a really important game. Big shoutout to Tommy for this one, saved me a lot of trouble and a lot of anxiety.
Week 6 vs Ezrael

I swear I didn't specifically use Salamence + Bulu against Ezrael because he kept calling them bad. Kinda. I started this team with Sub + Toxic Aegislash, which seemed to be really strong against a lot of the bulk squads that Ezrael liked to bring. He was one of the most prolific Chansey users during SSD 2 and had continued using it in SPL X, so I figured something that hard beat Chansey and friends was a good call. Since Ezrael liked bringing Tapu Fini, an alternate terrain was necessary to cancel out Misty Terrain and enable Toxic. Bulu made a lot of sense since it doubled up on Aegislash's recovery while also offensively checking Tapu Fini. Tyranitar was able to provide more residual damage with Sand while setting rocks, and the rest fell into place from there. Salamence pairs really well with Tyranitar + Bulu + Aegislash since it can provide Tailwind support and check the somewhat problematic Kartana. Volcanion was another soft Kartana check that was also able to mess with Calm Mind Tapu Fini and other setup Pokemon via Roar. Scarf Landorus-Therian gave me some immediate speed, which this team pretty desperately needed, while also acting as another soft check to Charizard and Manectric. Purely coincidentally, this ended up being very similar to a team I built last SPL, which had Zapdos over Landorus and a few different sets. All in all this was one of my favorite teams since it pretty accurately encapulates the types of teams I like to build and use, so I was very happy to score a win with it.
Week 7 vs EmbCPT

Edu is the kind of player that will bring something good every week and try (and often succeed) to outplay you, so I tried to take advantage of some of his tendencies with semiroom. As funny as it would have been to bring my SPL 9 team that was running on 3 consective wins against Edu (thanks to SMB and Croven), I thought Lurantis stacked up well against his double Intimidate + Fini cores. Everything on this team is pretty standard so there isn't a whole lot to say, but I really love the way this team played. After my game against Edu, it became one of my favorite teams to use in tests with friends or on the ladder because I grew really fond of how Lurantis + P2 can take over games once Trick Room goes up. They have a surprising amount of offensive pressure, especially if P2 gets a Special Attack boost from Download, so once you start boosting up with Superpower the damage can often be too great to overcome.
Week 8 vs qsns

After getting put down by qsns and his Deoxys in Snake 1, wanted to use something that would stack up well against hyper offense. Both Rain and Trick Room do this well, so I figured I'd just use both. This was a pretty cool take on Rain that allowed Swampert to function both with and without Rain thanks to Trick Room. Thunder Tapu Koko hits super hard, especially with Gigavolt Havoc, and offensive Pelipper is pretty nice for handling Incineroar, Landorus, and Amoonguss. Genesect served as a check to Kartana, which this team had a pretty hard time with, while Incineroar makes pretty much any team better and completed the defensive backbone of the team. I loved this team's flexibility, given the dichotomy of both its offensive and defensive Pokemon and fast and slow modes. Four pivots on a team that really needs to make the most if its turns is super strong, and the more forgiving nature of this team makes it one of my favorite Rain teams that I've used.
Week 9 vs Human

This team was inspired by a Mawile tailroom team talkingtree used against me in a Seasonal set a while back. Mawile hasn't had much usage in SM (probably for good reason), but I liked the way it stacked up against some of the squads Human had been bringing. Mawile pretty desperately needs to be moving first to succeed, so having two pretty drastic modes of speed control plus Gothitelle to try to force more favorable matchups seemed like the way to go. Iron Head didn't seem very necessary on Mawile, so I used Ice Punch instead to check Landorus and Zygarde without worrying about Play Rough's accuracy against the latter. Volcanion is a Pokemon that really appreciates Shadow Tag support since it has some very strong matchups but also some very bad matchups. Setting up a sub against 2 Pokemon that struggle to break it can crack games wide open, while Gothitelle's Helping Hand allowed Volcanion to pick up some KOs that it barely misses. Zapdos provided the Tailwind portion of tailroom while acting as a check to opposing Trick Room or setup mons like Kommo-o with Whirlwind. It also gave me a more reliable check to Perish Song if Human decided to bring that, which I found important since he had been hyping it up. Tapu Bulu and Landorus are par for the course from me, I'm a big fan of both of those sets. Double Grass move is super nice on Z Bulu when you can afford not to run Superpower since Horn Leech covers for the lack of a berry. All in all one of my weaker teams from this tournament, but still one I'm happy with nonetheless.

I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty frustrated to come out of this tournament with a 4-5 record. I felt like I built and played a lot better than 4-5 might suggest and got a bit unlucky at times, whether it be with matchups or during battles. I felt like one of 3 or 4 DOU players/duos that really tried to branch out and put a lot of effort into their teams this time around and was pretty salty that I felt like I kept getting burned, but those are just the breaks sometimes. All in all I'm happy with SPL X. Obviously I would have preferred a better individual record and a better finish for the Tigers, but I noticed a pretty strong improvement between SSD 2 and SPL X, so hopefully I'm on the upswing again. Major shoutout to Tman for always being down to build and test, I'm super glad our years of bickering over VGC teams translated well to DOU and I'm pumped that you're seeing individual success now too. Thanks as well to miltankmilk and talkingtree for joining the Gengar Memorial Foundation and working on teams with Tommy and me all season. Shoutouts to all the Tigers who made SPL X a really fun time, I had a blast with you guys this time around. Last and also least, thanks to tennisace for dragging me through another year of SPL, I'm starting to wonder if you'll ever get sick of my bullshit.

See y'all next year for another Wrawn Session :blobthumbsup:
 

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