Tournament OMPL X - FINALS [Won by The Temper Tyrantrums!]

[UT]

Art by Kiwi
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Playoffs | Finals
Information Thread | Roster | Schedule | Standings | Usage Stats and Replays​

Useful Information

There are 8 teams this year. Each team will have have 8 players and at least 4 subs. The players are bought using the 120k credits that managers receive during the auction. Managers and co-managers will be allowed to purchase themselves as players for their team at a fixed price of 20k. The managers must inform the hosts (Isaiah, UT) of all self purchases before the beginning of the auction. Teams can win their matchup every week by winning 5 of the 8 matches that their players have to play.​

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The tier lineup this year is as follows:​

1. SS Almost Any Ability
2. SS Balanced Hackmons
3. SS Godly Gift
4. SS Mix and Mega
5. SS NFE
6. SS STABmons
7. SS 2v2 Doubles (Best of 5)
8. SS Anything Goes

All games will be played on the Pokemon Showdown main server or SmogTours in the most current version of the format corresponding to those listed above. The result between players may be decided in a best-of-one or best-of-three at the discretion of both players involved. If there is no agreement, the result will decided in a Bo1 by default.​

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Winning a round rewards a team with 2 points, drawing 1 point, and losing zero points. In addition, the manner in which the round has been won will also be recorded i.e. the difference between a team's wins and losses in a specific week's round (referred to as "Win Differential").​

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Playoffs:​

Each team will play one another for seven weeks. Based on the final standings, the top 4 teams will enter a Playoffs Round to determine the teams appearing in the finals.​

Tiebreaker

In the event of two teams being tied for a spot in the finals based on points and win differential, or a tie in the final round itself, we will have a tiebreaker round(s).​

Tiebreaker Rules: One metagame will be picked by each manager, and each manager will also pick one metagame to strike. Additionally, each manager will submit a backup meta to strike in case their choice is the same as the opposing team's pick. The third format will be determined at random by the hosts from the remaining unpicked, unstruck metagames. In the event that the picks and strikes from each manager are the same, the hosts will determine both the second and third format at random based on the remaining options. All three metagames must be unique, so no format can be picked twice.​

Substitutes

Substitutes are to be used in the case of extenuating circumstances, whether on the first day of the week, or the last. At the same time, players should be relatively well-aware of who all are available to play in the opponent's camp. If last minute substitutes are being frequently used or abused and the hosts find explanations unsatisfactory, the hosts still reserve the right to veto them. In order to further prevent this being the case teams are only granted a maximum of two substitutes per week. Any substitutions after the second will be vetoed.​

Trades

The hosts have decided to not include trades this year due to reasons outlined in this thread - all roster decisions will be final, so draft carefully!​

Scheduling

Scheduling should be done on Smogon Profile walls, plain and simple:​

• If there is no communication on Smogon Profile walls and a game goes undone, it will be left to the RNG to decide the winner
• If there is communication on only one user's behalf, the win will go to them. Feel free to call activity in this thread beforehand
• If there is a very healthy back and forth regarding potential times and one user is a no-show, a manager may take the opportunity to sub out the no-show competitor; if this is not done, the user that showed up responsibly will be awarded the win.

TL;DR: Post on your opponent's Smogon wall, schedule your matches, and be reliable. If you can't play for any reason, let your manager know so they can sub you out ASAP.​

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Use these posts as a place to initiate discussion about bo1 or bo3 as well (or bo5 vs bo7 for 2v2)!​

Sportsmanship

Exhibitions of unsportsmanlike conduct with regards to the Other Metagame Premier League will be met with an infraction at the discretion of the OMPL host/OM mods. This is unlikely to include interactions within a team's private chat unless there is reason found to make an exception. This rule is meant to protect other users from being publicly flamed/bashed/provoked by another competitor for the duration of and following the tournament.​

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All players must complete their matches by the given deadline. Any incomplete matches by that time will be subject to an activity decision (MAKE SURE YOU POST ON YOUR OPPONENT'S WALL); otherwise, it will be a deadgame. All matches should ideally be done on your most notable alt (the one you registered for OMPL with) to avoid confusion and all match replays must be saved and posted in this thread. The replays will be archived in a separate thread, and will be used to calculate usage stats.​

Substitutions & Lineups

Managers, if you wish to make any substitutions, you must post here tagging both the player you're subbing out, the player you're subbing in, the manager and assistant manager of the opposing team, the substitute's opponent, and all of the hosts (Isaiah, UT). This is to assure that everyone is in-the-loop and that the OP is updated accordingly to reflect the new match-up.​

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Managers, when you send in lineups, please send it in with the tier and Smogon username of each player fully written out for ease of transcription, following these guidelines exactly.​

Matchups

The Malding Mavericks (Morgan and IBM)- [4][4] - The Temper Tyrantrums (OM and drampa's grandpa)
SS 2v2 Doubles (Best of 5): Chris32156 vs papiloco
SS Almost Any Ability: luisin vs Potatochan
SS Anything Goes: crying vs WSun1
SS Balanced Hackmons: quojova vs Nihilslave
SS Godly Gift: beauts vs Ren
SS Mix and Mega: TectonicDestroyer vs Quantum Tesseract
SS NFE: ojr vs Stareal
SS STABmons: Byleth vs Finchinator


Deadline:
10:00 PM (GMT -4) on June 19th, 2022
​

For The Bot

SS 2v2 Doubles (Best of 5): Chris32156 vs papiloco
SS Almost Any Ability: luisin vs Potatochan
SS Anything Goes: crying vs WSun1
SS Balanced Hackmons: quojova vs Nihilslave
SS Godly Gift: beauts vs ren
SS Mix and Mega: TectonicDestroyer vs Quantum Tesseract
SS NFE: ojr vs Stareal
SS STABmons: Byleth vs Finchinator

 

[TectonicDestroyer]

TEAM HORSE NUMBER ONE ONLY GOING HIGHER

 

[DuGuo]

SS 2v2 Doubles (Best of 5): Chris32156 vs papiloco
SS Almost Any Ability: luisin vs Potatochan
SS Anything Goes: crying vs WSun1
SS Balanced Hackmons: quojova vs Nihilslave
SS Godly Gift: beauts vs ren
SS Mix and Mega: TectonicDestroyer vs Quantum Tesseract
SS NFE: ojr vs Stareal
SS STABmons: byleth vs Finchinator

TYRANTRUMS LET US GO!!!

 

[ojr]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL LETS GO TEAM HORSE

 

[Amberr]

HORBIUS SWEEP

 

[Finchinator]

Potatochan

 

[Jordy]

spinda wheels

 

[Jordy]

I've accepted it....

TEAM HORSE NUMBER ONE ONLY GOING HIGHER

 

[Morgan]

TEAM HORSE NUMBER ONE ONLY GOING HIGHER


LET‘S GO TEAM WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[spell]

Good luck Will and Finchinator (mostly finch)

edit: may as well predict this matchup since it is finals and spectating this tour from the sidelines (thank you phd for this) was admittedly a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

I’m on mobile right now so like pretend that ** = a bold because idk how to do it on phone LMAO

SS 2v2 Doubles (Best of 5): **Chris32156**vs papiloco - Chris numbers has been pretty impressive in 2v2 from what I’ve seen so I’ll just hold him here
SS Almost Any Ability: luisin vs **Potatochan** - this one is very tough as obviously luisin got mavericks the win they needed to even clutch the tiebreak, in a dominant manner of course too which means that predicting for papi seems a bit weird. But I trust in Potato to put more effort into this week than previous ones to prove that he is no joke as a player. His AAA play that I’ve seen was great and his prep equally so, this is more of a 49-51 type matchup than anything. Mareanies stay number one though aha
SS Anything Goes: crying vs **Wsun1** - Will and Pokémon have a pretty tough relationship, he hasn’t had a clean season in AG for a bit and if a few things broke his way he easily would have not been 4-4 but around the x-1 or x-2 level. When his head is in the game he is easily top 4 or even 3 in the tier and his tactical execution of an unstoppable looking Skarph is testament to that. Crying on the other hand is not a stranger to playing AG as we know, and can put out good results in it but her tiebreak game vs bacon was riddled with a bunch of misplays that really could have been avoided if she was more attentive. Probably the best matchup out of the ones here and easily the one I’m most excited to watching since I have a lot of respect for both of these players. Make it a good one.
SS Balanced Hackmons: **quojova**vs Nihilslave - gut says Nihilslave, but the facts point towards quojova.
SS Godly Gift: beauts vs **ren** - volknerd is the best!! bop. Anyways I think he’s just a more solid player than beauts is and though he is less familiar with GG than other formats, he’ll definitely be helped out by someone anyway so this is pretty void.
SS Mix and Mega: TectonicDestroyer vs **Quantum Tesseract** - tect surprised me when he won in semis but that game was pretty botched, interested to see how he navigates this matchup though. Obviously won’t be a curbstomp but this is another feeling thing than anything else
SS NFE: ojr vs **Stareal** - beat jon vs lost to Jon
SS STABmons: Byleth vs **Finchinator** - yes, she is 7-1 but after watching 3 of her semi finals games i really don’t know what to think. She makes plenty of mistakes and plays too safely not taking much risk, both of which I think Finch has great experience at breaking and exploiting. He had 8 weeks of experience playing this and yeah he also makes his own fair share of mistakes, like anyone does but fuck it I want the upset go get it finch


edit edit: crying gets a custom or will gets a custom someone wins in the end

 

[drampa's grandpa]

RAWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

[Fardin]

So you guys played ridiculously early and before I had a day off the last two weeks and it wasn't worth posting predicts because of that :( I have predicts for this last week, though! I'll be predicting in favor of the person most likely to win a chess match + I'll do some real predicts in a hide tag too since both were well received.

The Five-Star Jolteons (Ransei and Racool) - [2][4] - The Spinda Wheels (xavgb and Jordy)
SS Almost Any Ability: motherlove vs Fc - motherlove's probably engineered his brain to work like Beth Harmon's. As a result, he's got incredibly high odds of winning (if you haven't seen Queen's Gambit, you should.)
SS Balanced Hackmons: Smove_$wag vs xavgb - I have it on good authority (like one Smogon user?) that stresh is an actual God at chess and as a result I cannot predict against him here.
SS Camomons: Euphonos vs Mossy Sandwich - Based on the gameplay I've seen, I'm led to believe that both these users would constantly try and sack their pieces and neither would actually take them. Mossy would probably be the first to figure out a way to win
SS Mix and Mega: Quantum Tesseract vs Fardin - I feel like QT either plays a dumb amount of chess or hasn't touched a board in his life, and there's no in between. I'm leaning more towards the former, though, and in that case I have to go with him here off experience and also because Fardin made me sad by not qualifying for OLT.
SS NFE: Sinnoh Confirmed vs tlenit - I'm having a hard time believing that the person who couldn't select the proper characters for his username would be able to use the pieces properly. Tlenit is also probably good at chess. I feel like he's actually Ludwig.
SS STABmons: The Immortal vs Plas - They'd just play checkers instead and Plas would probably win there.

 

[Reece]

We back for the finals, best of luck to both teams; better luck to the TEAM HORSE

SS Almost Any Ability: luisin vs Potatochan - Fr this is going to be a tough one but I think the clutch the previous week has had confidence held high for Luisin. Prep is equally as good but Potato has arguable more pilot ability so it all comes down to confidence which puts Luisin in a good spot for me
SS Anything Goes: crying vs WSun1 - A confident comeback i think for Will as they are probably one of the best in the pool for AG, just need to keep a level head since crying could possibly put in work and use the situation for their own benefit. If we have a confident Will then its bolded without question.
SS Balanced Hackmons: quojova vs Nihilslave - Both had solid runs but giving it to quojova
SS Godly Gift: beauts vs ren - Familiarity with the tear makes me think that I'd give it to beauts here since both players are solid
SS Mix and Mega: TectonicDestroyer vs Quantum Tesseract
SS NFE: ojr vs Stareal
SS STABmons: Byleth vs Finchinator I think this is going to be the key match that wins it all for the Mavricks, Byleth going 7-1 is crazy, though Finch has had a good time in STAB and i think could go either way for this time - both good battlers just one has more exparience.

SS 2v2 Doubles (Best of 5): Chris32156 vs papiloco
Now then Chris32156, I predicted it perfectly so now I am predicting the inevitable.

 

[Garrett]

leaking prep

2v2

AAA

AG

BH

GG

MnM

you do not want tect's prep are you out of your MIND

NFE

STAB

 

[Ren]

woooo go team

 

[clean]

ojr vs Stareal

 

[Adam3560]

GO MAVERICKSS

 

[longhiep341]

SS Godly Gift: beauts vs ren

This proves to be an interesting matchup. Who will come out on top in this intense matchup? What will be the key to victory? The answer is actually pretty simple. Embrace your inner power and just use my team, I will help you both unlock your godly potential. Should you refuse to use them, well, don't blame me when you inevitably fail to meet the god's expectations. Then if both players accept the deal, will they keep tying until the end of time? Obviously not, the chosen one who has the utmost faith in my guidance shall be rewarded.


This squad will truly bring night-mare to those opposing the art of malding. If you ask Equestrian about how this functions, simply, it's just a race to see who gets to the finish line first. It has been proven that this team packs a lot of power, as high as 6 HP! Releasing all the energy will throw your opponent off too quickly, that by the time the dust settles, using the whole force is like beating a dead horse. Sadd-le, a lot more grooming is necessary to make sure each member can a-mule-s the audience. However, if beauts can tame this perfectly, he will make Ren look like a pony mortal challenging a god.


On the other side, Ren can temperarily awake the ancient power within. The young loses out to boomers in terms of experience is a tale as old as time. At first glance, Draco Meteor seems like it would obliterate all the members. Well yeah, that's exactly what happened, so don't expect it to be different this time. Ignoring this, such prehistoric strength can just flatten the Jurassic Park and make beauts go extinct all alike. Like a cold-blooded assassin, beauts's instinct to survive will be eroded should Ren master the art of turning foes into fossils. Predators, preys, he hunts them all, and vows to leave no trex of his enemies intact.

 

[Redflix]

Top ranked teams eliminated , ggs to luchas!
Here are the playoffs eulogies


Spinda Wheels

Stresh was back managing the spindas , the two time back to back ompl champions and with him hoping to go for the 3peat was a long time supporter of the spindas , In The Hills. Unlike last two years though , stresh wasnt seen at his peak anymore - only narrowly escaping a negative record in wcoom and generally being critical of the development of some oms. Despite this , Spindas were still the preseason favourites.
They started their draft off with a very fortunate steal of rozes , only getting him for 15k. Now , a lot of people doubted rozes motivation and 15k is not cheap but this was one of the best aaa team tour players we are talking about and with xavgb support , this aaa slot was the closest rival to the linoones. The Spindas then went ahead and bought the best ag player in the pool (alongside bacon) in the form of Skarph. They then further proceeded to buy FlamingVictini and London13 for 10 and 10.5k respectively. FV is one of the best smogon players and had an history of playing aaa , but with rozes on the team , they were probably the spindas STAB slot. London13 was a big name in the 2v2 community but wasnt exactly known for their SS prowess. Soon after , the xavgbs drafted TPP and ez. Both tour players had little to no history with oms and this revealed that spindas were going with the skill centered draft with stresh support to back it up. Tea Guzzler , a relatively new face to bh , went for 3.5k as a possible starter / sub option. The Spindas then finished their draft by getting greybaum as stab / gg support for 5.5 k and berry alcremie and krytocon for 3.5k each for possible flex slot and 2v2 support respectively.
To no one's surprise , the draft ended up looking broken and the xavgbs were ranked either #1 or #2 in most power rankings. One thing to note was though that similar drafts revolving around tour players had failed before in ompl so even though stresh support is as close to perfection as it gets, there was still little doubts regarding the motivation and overall team environment.

"Those little doubts" indeed did brew some trouble as spindas almost lost their first week , only being saved by a leaf storm miss but things ended up changing for the better for them. Shiloh , after losing cuz they loaded a dlc 1 aaa team last week , returned to their winning ways and played solidly throughout and ended up with a 5-2 record in regular season. Their game vs jrdn lived up to the hype and imo was one of the best aaa games in the tour. Skarph too didnt disappoint , amassing a 6-1 record in ag with some well played games. Stresh returned to his winning ways with an 6-1 record in the regular season as well. This was extremely impressive , considering his strength of schedule consisted of quojova / lydia / loser cityscapes and ren with only the latter being able to take a game off in a very close game. Guzzler also contributed to the overall Bh record and played impressively and won their debut vs anaconja (who btw had 3-0d them back in bh open). TJ too performed well and ended up having a strong season while the GG slot also went positive with FV ending up with a 3-2 record altho some elements of hax were involved in both their losses. TPP went negative but since they were mostly the team's sub/flex slot , i am not too shocked considering they had to adapt to multiple tiers throughout the tour . Greybaum went even , altho the spindas overall stab slot went negative. The two abnormalities in the season was their 2v2 and MnM slot. London started off their campaign on a high note ,winning the first three weeks but then crashed right back and ended up losing all their remaining games in the tour. Ez's games also showed that they couldnt grasp the meta fully and ended up with only 1 win.
Despite the failures of the two slots , Spindas had a beast of a regular season and ended up #1. A 3peat for the xavgb's was looking very likely and they were favoured vs the trums in playoffs , who barely made it to the poffs. The two cursed slots again failed for the spindas and while the rest of the games were won by the team expected, two upset outcomes in the semis ended xavgb's strong run. Wsun outprepped skarph and brought home the W in ag for trums and in a very climatic battle where stresh was needed to win to tie the week for the team , nihilslave brought a well scouted HO and powered trums to the finals.

Idt u could have gotten a better draft than this and while the loss in semis was shocking , On any other day the ag and bh mu could easily be in spindas favour so the tyrantums prepped well to beat them. Maybe an argument could be made that stresh shouldve slotted himself in mnm to give them better odds but u could only make this argument after seeing this specific result as u usually consider stresh a heavy favourite in any meta u slot him in. Overall , a very strong run from the defending champions.


Hammered Hawluchas

Luchas was managed by returning manager lydia , who last year had good success in trums with OM and the recent OMGS winner, Dr. Phd. BJ. Both managers decided to buy themselves which was a point of dicussion considering while Bj was decent to good level in most of the oms , a 20k pricetag was still too much. Nevertheless, Bj + lydia core meant support for 6/8 oms and thus this pair was generally seen as a threat.
The luchas were the only team starting with 80k and apparently were in a rush to get rid of it as well. They went ahead and brought Vrji and Bacon pretty quickly in the draft for a combined price of 28.5 k. Both were deserved prices though as these two were considered top quality in their respective pools. However this also meant luchas had spent 1/3 of their auction credits on just 2 players. This kinda forced them to sit out on most players in the middle draft. Their next buy came in the form of yuki , the vgc leader who had never touched 2v2 before. They then further decided to draft PA and Mirbro for 5k and 4k respectively. PA was a smart buy from them as it meant luchas had a decent pilot for the stab slot , a tier where both managers could build at a high-level. Mirbro was a newer face in the nfe community who had a nice run in the open and this too was considered a decent pick. They then picked TTTech for BH. Since BH wasnt a strong forte of either of the managers and TTTech wasnt exactly known as a great builder for the meta besides building fat with type null , things werent exactly looking good for this slot. Iapt was drafted for a relatively cheap price and as a potential mnm starter for the team while they also got Jett + Jonfilch for 11.5k. Jonfilch was a tour player with a high ceiling and with jett and mirbro as support , their nfe slot seemed all good to go. They rounded off their draft with buying Staxi , Clementine , Beka and Itschew as their bench slots.
This was a classic example of a top heavy draft and i personally felt that relying on such drafts often ends up with the team crashing as soon as one of ur main buys starts having an off season. The inconsistent slots also had a tough crowd to go against and due to this , i ranked luchas second last in my personal PR.

The Luchas defied my expectations and ended up getting #2 in the regular season.( It should be noted that they had the same points as spindas and only lost cuz of H2H). Their strong season can be attributed to the success of their top players - Bj , Bacon and Jonfilch. Bj proved he was much more worth than 20k and ended up with a perfect regular season record in Godly Gift. Altho u could argue he got plenty of luck in his side , he generally brought some well built teams and played good enough to navigate to victory. Bacon proved once again why he is the best gen8 ag player , going undefeated too with strong wins over skarph , Trade and Wsun. Jonfilch also dominated the nfe pool and amassed a 6-1 record with their only loss coming to stareal , a top nfe player himself. Lydia and Vrji though , didnt have as good of a season. Vrji went 1-2 into being subbed and Lydia only managed to break even in the regular season which is definitely a sub-par record for 20k. (altho it should be noted Lydia's strength of schedule was quite tough). Due to Vrji's less than ideal start, Luchas 2v2 slot ended up 2-5 with yuki going winless . BH , AAA and STAB all overall went negative as well , going 8-13 combined. TTTech started off poorly in BH and was subbed out after the 1st week. Luchas then subbed in ItsChew w4, who ended up going 0-2 with his second loss coming in a mu he was fairly favoured in. This prompted TTTech to be slotted back , who won his remaining two games to get a 3-1 record. Beka went 1-4 in AAA and STAB too started off poorly , with PA going 0-2. Fortunately Clementine saved the season , and amassed a 3-2 record , altho there were def some weird plays made by them. Iapt in his first team tour was largely unimpressive and after a 0-2 start , it was looking lydia had to slot herself in mnm. Fortunes turned for ItsChew in this tier though, as they went 2-0 here with wins over Ivar and Qt.
Despite their 4 slots going negative , Luchas still ended up with 11 points and were seen as the closest team that could beat Spindas. Their semis series vs the mavericks was nothing short of a rollercoaster. The team's decision to not start lydia in mnm was def weird and it ended up being costly as luchas lost both MnM and AAA. BJ and Jonfilch delivered once again and PA too got a win and the series ended in a tie after bacon managed to tie by extending his record to 8-0 after mavericks won both bh and stab (which was somewhat haxy). The tb tiers were BH , AG and STAB. The BH game was definitely something as TTTech had a unlosable mu and managed to botch it. After bacon saved the luchas for the 2nd time in the week , the stab game (which tied earlier btw) ended in a very climatic fashion which resulted in BJ's first loss of the season and luchas elimination.

Overall, luchas draft strategy did pay off as their top players powered the team to a super strong run. I think some key managerial decisions in playoffs ( Lydia not slotting herself in mnm and then choosing to not play the tb) shouldve been different and couldve likely resulted in a win. Props to the 3 players for absolute insane season though!

Go Horses and lets have a good final trums!

 

[a loser]

a loser's OMPL BH Review: The Playoffs
quojova vs TTTech
vs
quojova brought a Ghost-type! This seems like an odd time to do it though, as TTTech has been known to (tt)tech his teams around Lunala in particular with things like Wicked Blow and Dragon Tail PH Gigas. Speaking of this, TTTech looks like he's back on a typical core of his but using the rising Melmetal instead of Registeel. Things look somewhat even at preview, if not a little on quojova's side with Lunala and potentially Yveltal to do damage where TTTech will probably rely on the slow grind.

Things get started with some paralysis spreading from both sides, coming from quojova's FC Helmet Lunala and TTTech's RegenVest Zygarde-C both using Nuzzle. quojova is on top of this exchange for the moment, though, paralyzing TTTech's Prankster Melmetal and suppressing big Zyg's ability to leave it chipped. Melmetal pulls up with Light Screen, which is a neat way to patch up the sketchy SpD that helps out the rest of the team (unlike city's Amnesia Seismitoad a few OMPL's ago). Lunala continues to spam Nuzzle though, as TTTech is really just forced to go to Zyg-C for now as he doesn't have a slow pivot anymore that can bring Regigigas in safely. This results in Magearna taking a Nuzzle and finally Gigas gets in on a U-turn to activate its orb. A double switch by TTTech gets Tapu Fini in to activate its orb as well. It tries setting Spikes but is denied, trapped, and chipped by the opposing Magic Bounce Zyg-C. After pivoting out, TTTech brings in Eternatus who proceeds to hit Heatran with a big Dragon's Energy for a little less than half and is forced out as Heatran recovers (leading me to believe it is Prankster). A few turns later Fini gets back in and TTTech makes a very risky play to stay in on Zyg-C to Scald it and happens to come up with a clutch burn. However, Zyg-C continues to chip it using Volt Switch but this leads to Xerneas getting burned by the following Scald. quojova doubles here to get his own PH Gigas in and it removes Zyg-C's AV with Knock Off before flip turning out of there.
This leads to a series of turns where quojova's PH Gigas gets a layer of Spikes up and can spam Facade and pivot around due to TTTech having no Ghost-types or Fur Coat users. During this sequence, Yveltal makes an appearance and uses Nasty Plot before getting forced out by Regigigas. quojova's Gigas gets back in later though and continues spamming Facade basically for free and also gets more Spikes up until he brings Yveltal in off a pivot to face Melmetal as the Light Screen expires. Melm full paras and takes big chip from Lava Plume, forcing it out so Zyg-C is brought in and takes a burn from a follow up plume. Here Yveltal risks being paralyzed or cored and sets up in front of Zyg-C as TTTech makes the bolder play of pivoting out. This works out poorly for him though, as Yveltal is able to sweep the rest of his team from here and get the win.

Lava Plume Triage Yveltal was a dreadful matchup for TTTech, despite the cool Light Screen (tt)tech, and it would have had to come down to lucky full paras for him to get past that mon. Heatran was also pretty bad for TTTech too, with only Fini checking it really.

xavgb vs Nihilslave
vs
It appears stresh has pulled off the ole "recycle but swap the team order" trick, potentially. This isn't a terrible idea as many a good player, yours truly included, have pulled this off in OMPL. Doing it in the playoffs against a solid opponent is a little questionable, though. Nihilslave has a scary looking offensive team so we'll see how stresh's Flip Turn spam balance fairs against it.

Nihilslave leads with a Ho-Oh named "THE PULT," which is a nice nickname for a mon that is teammates with Dragapult. It P-Shots out of there to bring in Etern, THE PULT, who shoots and misses a Magma Storm at an incoming Tapu Fini. Nihilslave doubles out of this, as does stresh, which leads to Zama-C facing Melmetal. Zama-C uses Swords Dance as Fini is brought back off a pivot and Fini promptly removes the boosts with Haze, taking some chip from Sunsteel in the process. Zama-C isn't phased though, and sets up again which leads to Fini's Encore being denied by Queenly Majesty. It is now taking around 70% from +2 Sunsteel and is forced to stay in and spam recovery, chipping Zama-C with its helmet, before stresh sends in Melmetal to stall another Sunsteel. This leads to Zama-C revealing Fighting Multi-Attack, which does minimal damage to a FC Zyg-C switch-in. However, Zama-C nails it for big damage with Glance while tanking Thousand Waves. Here, stresh tries to make what little plays he can and brings in Melmetal for an anticipated Glance but it drops to Multi-Attack instead. Etern comes in next, which is likely Modest Specs Maw if a true recycle, and it is shredded by Glance too from the Jolly Zama-C. Fini comes back in to "finish off" Zama-C with its helmet, which leads to Yveltal and Xerneas facing off. Xern QD's while Nihilslave brings Ho-Oh back in and inverts the boosts with Prankster Topsy-Turvy. It follows this up by paralyzing it with Glare and stalls some turns before hitting it with Topsy again and using Parting Shot to bring in Kartana while Xern gets a full para. Kart stays in to Belly Drum on -2 SpA Xern and hangs on at 4% health and is able to take out Zyg-C on the switch and force a forfeit from stresh.

As I said, recycling can work in tours like this. I got a win last year against pdt with pretty much the same team I lost to stresh with the week before and cityscapes won a best of three against me using the same team the last two games. However, I don't think it was the right call to reuse a team like this, in the playoffs, against an opponent that is known to build specifically against their opponent's trends. Nice work from Nihilslave here to continue their great season.

quojova vs TTTech
vs
quojova brings yet another Ghost-type, shredding the regular season trend of barely using them at all. TTTech has a Gigas, surprise surprise, so we'll see if that has any impact on the Spectrier matchup cause otherwise it seems decent for the horse. However, the fish is here and the fish hasn't lost yet.

Both sides lead Zyg-C but quojova sends out Zama-C to face TTTech's while it stays in to Belly Drum. It used a Sitrus Berry, meaning it is almost certainly Unburden, but now TTTech is actually in a tough spot since he practically has to choose Ground-type STAB here to hit Zama-C even though Glacial Lance covers every other mon. Knowing this, quojova takes the risk and sends in Ho-Oh to dodge Precipice Blades and comes out on top of the matchup thanks to Ho-Oh being Prankster Haze. Removing the boosts allowed Ho-Oh to easily take Glacial Lance and in the following turn quojova predicts Final Gambit, which is usually what Zyg-C clicks in this moment to nuke the Prankster, so he sends Spectrier out. However, TTTech actually drums again, which forces quojova to make another decision. He decides to send out Xerneas, who is 2HKO by Glance, but allows Ho-Oh to come back in safely and remove the boosts while TTTech finally clicks Final Gambit to leave Ho-Oh at 35%. He follows this up by sending in his own Ho-Oh. Without knowing the set, quojova uses this opportunity to recover while the Ho-Oh uses Belly Drum and activates a Sitrus Berry as well. Normally, this means Unburden as mentioned before, but quojova is wary of Aerilate Extreme Speed so he switches to what looks like Fur Coat Zyg-C that takes 34% from Extreme Speed but drops the following turn to Glacial Lance. quojova sends out Zama-C next, and with a Prankster and Fur Coat user already revealed, the mon is most likely Ice Scales or Magic Bounce. TTTech goes for V-create here but does very little as it comes right after its boosts were inverted by Topsy-Turvy.
This turn was very, very bad for TTTech as there was next to no chance Zama-C was running Fur Coat too and it is not uncommon at all for Zama-C to run moves like Spectral Thief and Topsy-Turvy on sets like Bounce and Scales. And aside from all this and more importantly, even +Def Zama-C has a 87.5% chance to be OHKOed by +6 +Atk Extreme Speed. So Ho-Oh is forced out now and Barraskewda comes in but doesn't bring any rain with it this time. Instead, it has a Focus Sash knocked off while it Nuzzles Zama-C and KO's itself with Memento to bring Ho-Oh back in. Ho-Oh immediately goes for Belly Drum again, hoping to gain back momentum, but Zama-C fights through paralysis and comes through with a clutch, now slower, Topsy-Turvy to mess it up again. Both sides double out of this and it winds up with quojova's Poison Heal Regigigas facing TTTech's Zama-C. quojova doesn't like this (for multiple reasons) and goes straight to Prankster Ho-Oh while the Zama-C drums, activating its Sitrus Berry too. This one is most likely Unburden too, but this doesn't really matter as quojova didn't bring an Imposter. Unburden or not, Zama-C is pulled out of there before it can attack and replaced with Ho-Oh, who gets Glared while ramming into the opposing Ho-Oh with V-create. It continues firing off attacks until Gigas finally comes back in and finishes it off. This leads to TTTech sending out Regigigas, who promptly reveals Belly Drum + Sitrus Berry as well, but is just as promptly phazed out by Dragon Tail to bring Zama-C back into the field.
Completely void of momentum now, TTTech is forced to deal direct damage and goes for Close Combat and hits the air as Spectrier is sent back out. Spectrier interestingly uses Spikes while it takes decent damage from Sunsteel Strike, but it shrugs this off the following turn with a Strength Sap. The spike is huge here because after Zama-C is taken out with some Astral Barrages, Gigas comes back out and is chipped to 49% meaning it can't drum again. Over the next several turns that lead to quojova's win, we see Gigas is Scrappy with E-Speed, Glance, and Close Combat, meaning it definitely could have swept and won due to Zama-C being paralyzed.

So TTTech brought the "matchup fish" but instead of Banded Barraskewda it was Belly Drum spam. He had the win if he'd calced E-Speed Ho-Oh against Zama-C or if he'd brought Gigas back in instead of wasting turns against Spectrier. quojova's Prankster Ho-Oh came in clutch here considering the opposing team had Belly Drum variants of Zama-C, Zyg-C, and Kartana, even though it matched up poorly with the drummers Ho-Oh and Gigas.

Metagame Observations
Amidst a suspect test of Nuzzle and discussions of Belly Drum, the playoffs featured wins due most in part to safer, more reliable setup methods like Nasty Plot Triage and Swords Dance. The Belly Drum spam team notably lost after its momentum was given away. This happened to be due to a poor decision on TTTech's side, but it definitely drained the momentum and helped seal his defeat. So far in this tour, teams using Belly Drum are 1-3 with Nihilslave picking up the only win.
The games were much shorter at 41 turns on average this week. This is largely due to the offensive nature of TTTech's tiebreaker team and Nihilslave's playoff team, but even quojova's win with Triage Yveltal was pretty short in BH standards.

Upcoming Matches
quojova vs Nihilslave - this is a rematch of an ugly Week 3 battle in which Nihilslave was victorious due to a favorable matchup and, oh yeah, a whole crap-ton of full paras on quojova's Dialga and some critical hits. The only thing I can almost guarantee here is that quojova won't use a Ghost-type but I'll also predict he brings the usual bulky balanced offense type of build while Nihilslave will probably show up with a teched-out semi-HO team that may or may not win on preview. Should be fun!

 

[Ren]

Won, ggs.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8godlygift-632566
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8godlygift-632568
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8godlygift-632570

 

[longhiep341]

Hard to believe I get to review as many games as I did in Semis, but hey, the teams and games were pretty exciting. At last, we get to the final big GG games until GG Seasonal.

GG Finals Review: The Malding

Ren vs beauts G1

Ren vs beauts G2

Ren vs beauts G3

Ren jumped into the final with questions of whether he still had it in him. Knowing that he came back playing a meta he most likely doesn't have much experience in, classic teams were to be expected. On the other hand, beauts is on council and probably experimented more. It would come down to whether being a better player or tier knowledge triumphed. (Did anyone expect the full horse or dinosaur team to be brought here?)

Game 1
Ren started with a pretty classic BO team with Ho-Oh god, except Froslass in the Atk slot, which seemed to be Poltergeist/Axel/Shard and filler. The same can be said about beauts's team. Nothing extraordinary, however this seemed like a Rain team without Swift Swim, Seismitoad seems a bit weird, I guess he predicted a Ditto bring from Ren? A Buzzwole in the Speed slot is also interesting, it might be choice but can still be physdef. The key thing to note before game start is beauts's team is lacking in recovery option, limited by Leech Seed on Ferro and Roost on Koko + possibly Buzzwole, whereas Ren had 2 Regen mons. To make matters worse, it seems like beauts's team got hard countered defensively, with Kyogre and Koko walled by Tang, Buzzwole walled by Ho-Oh unless it has Stone Edge. So the key for him to win looked like utilizing Buzzwole and predicting correctly if it could break Ho-Oh, otherwise he had to get Rock up and create multiple plays to overwhelm Ren. Ren was more comfortable, Froslass could break pretty nicely, however Triple Axel into Helmet Ferro would spell disaster. Otherwise, if he didn't let Tang take too much unnecessary damage, he should be fine in the long game once he scouted the Buzzwole.

T5: The first turns were just scouting, and here beauts revealed Toxic Kyogre. However, whether this is choice or not is still unclear.
T8: beauts let Ferro take a Sacred Fire after it had been Knocked, possibly predicted a Defog, however with Ferro this low it can be dangerous, with the upside that it's immune to Poltergeist now.
T11: The Kyogre was revealed to be SubCM, which is pretty neat since it can beat normal AV Tang with Giga Drain... except Ren brought Power Whip instead, so Kyogre wincon seemed even direr now.
T18: After hazard exchange, Kyogre took a Sacred Fire and got burned. It couldn't beat Tang anymore now, so pivoting with Koko to slowly chip down Tang seemed like the only option left while Spikes were still up.
T29: Buzzwole switched out of Ho-Oh, indicating no Stone Edge.
T32: Ren deleted all Koko progress with a Ho-Oh switchin. The end is nigh.
T38-41: Exca dropped after not really doing anything due to offensive pressure, while beauts had to sack Ferro after Persian-A fainted.
T42-43: Ren once again flexed on beauts with the Tang-Ho-Oh mindgame.
T46: No more wincon and Koko too low to try anything, game over.
Overall, this was quite a team outmatch and Ren also outplayed beauts on all the few key turns left that could turn the tide, so not much could be done here.

Game 2
Once again, Ren loaded a fairly tamed BO with Yveltal in the SpA slot, so at least that's something rare. Bulu was probably Scarf, Heattom might be Sub NP, Clef could be a lot of things like Sticky Barb trick, but seemed likely to be Magic Guard. beauts brought Pheromosa HO, possibly with Cloyster lead as Scolipede is in Atk slot. Pangoro would 6-0 if it got a Swords Dance off, however Scarf CC Bulu could still threaten it, but then Scolipede if it had Aqua Tail would come in to 6-0 right after unless Yveltal had Sucker, and Lele could also put in insane work, overall it seemed like beauts just won from preview, unless he choked really hard.

T1: Expected Cloyster lead, and Gastrodon was thrown away as it got destroyed by everything.
T6-9: After Bulu revealed LO, beauts risked no Edge/Slide Bulu and then Scolipede died for nothing. One potential wincon gone, however Bulu was also taken out and Pangoro was still there, so beauts wasn't out yet.
T13-14: Polteageist revealed a unique Self-Destruct, which still didn't do much to Yveltal. The only hope for beauts was no Oblivion Wing on Yveltal.
T15: And it didn't. Game 3 is on the line.
Yveltal matched up pretty well against beauts's HO here with the right set, however it sadly didn't have that set. Nonetheless, Ren played as well as he could (albeit contributed by beauts's weird plays, I don't know all the teams to correctly judge). Ren never really allowed opportunities for Scolipede and Pangoro to set up (In theory, Scolipede could only setup on Clef and non-Rock move Bulu while Pangoro couldn't even setup on anything except the one Yveltal that happened to miss Oblivion Wing).

Game 3
beauts unleashed another HO, wow, with ALL different mons from game 2 even!... And met by Pigeons's double Unaware Stall. Yeah, not much to say here, this Team Preview might be the worst in the whole OMPL X. Can 2 Mewtwo's coverage moves change anything? Well, the only case it could is if it was Shadow Ball/Focus Blast, then it could break stuffs and still got played, but if it had no Shadow Ball/Focus Blast, it would need Fire Blast for Shed. But then it also needed Ice Beam for Quag, and with Ice Beam Ditto counterswept. Garchomp, Goltres and Kart gets walled by Quag, Clef and Skarm, respectively. So if Togekiss could flinch enough, it might pull through, but then Ditto could still flinch some back.

Highlight of the game is beauts's descent into madness as Togekiss couldn't flinch Clef, and Mewtwo was Taunt so it might only have 2 attacks so it had no chance to do anything. Ren gained a victory, but lost a friend.

Overall the GG meta throughout OMPL was pretty diverse, we got all the team archetypes and also the different mons, no mon came out as broken and here's to hope the GG Seasonal will be just as good.

 

[ojr]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8nfe-632881 won vs stareal gg!

to still go 4-4 after that week 1 and an unwinnable game vs ho is something ill definitely take lmao. just to consider I only signed to play this tour to help The Strap.
lets go team horse lets win this tour

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Won vs TectonicDestroyer in a great game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1599054823

 

[Railgun]

won gg
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1599215608

VAMOS CABALLOS, ESTO ES DE NOSOTROS! HORBIUS TIME