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Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
OU Mini-Tournament #6 [Tyrant Tour] Won by Soul Fly
- Thread starter Nova
- Start date
Yup lol.
Won.
This could have been anyone's game but I got 2 vital hax. GG on your part, great effort for comeback. Didn't want it to end like this, but yeah, Pokemon. Happens.
congrats Soul Fly. Although I got knocked out in round two, I generally thought the Metagame was very stally, and surprisingly I didnt see anyone abusing Volc, which is what I was expecting. Hmmm, fun tour, and GGs everyone
Grats to Soul Fly.
I should have abused Volcarona more. Haha. GGs everyone, and congrats on winning, Soul Fly!
Time for the Ritualistic impressions post.
(Sorry it took me this long. I've been absolutely swamped with uni work.)
---
So right. I won't deny that this tourney has a special place for me. After all it is my first tournament win! :)
For someone who had stopped active laddering a few months ago and moved on more to theorymonning and trying out new stuff for C&C related work, this was kind of a tenuous but a fun filled comeback. It is really straining to build team and play serious matches with good opponents instead of brainless laddering, when you're out of practice. More so because my odd timezone doesn't allow me to take part in too many tournaments.
Impressions and Analysis:
This has got to be few of the most fun games I've ever played in this tier after BW2 happened. I'm more of a straight up guy when it comes to battling and have a general sourness for U-turn/Volt-switch or what I like to usually call them - 'Pussy-out moves'. With those free momentum gifts out of the way, the focus on your pacing skills really comes into play. You have to entirely rely on intuition and experience, or you pay a heavy price.
Coming to the Majorly Hyped one: No weather starters.
Not surprisingly this changed the whole profile of the meta. But not as much as people would like to assume. Sure, the likes of Venusaur, Toxicroak and Dugtrio saw a sky high usage figures of nil, but by and large standard metagame picks like Lati@s, Keldeo, Garchomp etc remained the same. This just goes to show that most top pokemon in this current metagame are weather agnostic. Many people chose to make up the lack of pursuit support for Keldeo with Band Scizor. I didn't come across Ferrothorn or Jirachi in any of my matches but I'm sure they would work just fine without rain/sand too. Maybe Heatran too, who usually is a Sun/Sand staple nowadays. But it was a refreshing change not having Scarf Keldeo/SpecsToed Hydro Pumping everything not named Celebi into oblivion.
Another bonus was in form of no-stealth rocks. This was a MAJOR one. Also the most underestimated. It completely turned the metagame on it's head. I've seen many people go down because they didn't comprehend the magnitude of the change. I myself almost fell prey to it. I have had 2 my sweeps cut short twice because I forgot to account for the lack of stealth rocks on the field (a condition I usually aim for in general before end game) and many victims survived with a few bare hitpoints and turned the tables. Annoying stuff like Keldeo and Latios just became plain broken once you realize they now didn't get worn down that much anymore, switching in and out constantly and hammering my team with Hydro Pumps and Draco Meteors. And don't even get me started on the horror of facing a Breloom with an intact sash near guaranteed.
Obviously Dragonite was an excellent Pokemon in this metagame. Without rocks or sand to impede its Multiscale, the Lum Berry set set had a near Godly sweep potential and not surprisingly happened to be the MVP of my team. I also abused the hell out of Volcarona, a Pokemon which usually ends up being a liability once your spinner is dead. Here it got it's opportunity to shine. It's legendary bulk on full power. And Quiver Dance is too good with all it's HP available. Between These two, I could 2HKO the entire meta after a single boost. I was disappointed that no one took this opportunity to abuse the powerful fire types the game has to offer. Between rain, sand, and stealth rocks, they become really nerfed, but in general are one of the better offensive types in the game. Sure there was no sun, but Victini and Darmanitan don't exactly need it to start causing major mayhem. They nuke 90% of the things out there anyways, and for set-up there's always Volcarona.
Another interesting effect was on stall. The absence of weather both aided and hindered it. And I guess the lack of Rocks and switch moves hurt stall more than it did to offense. Apart from my finals with @Co5ta, who ran balanced, everyone without exception (including me) ran Offensive archetypes. Though many did try make up for the lack of rocks with Spikes (Skarm, lol) and it sounds decent on paper, but in reality it was hard to do with all the offensive pressure. Not helped by the fact that most of the potent stallbreakers in the game don't give a fuck about it (Nite, Latios, Mence, Gyara).But who gives a fuck about stall anyways. It's boring
And yeah Breloom was heavily overrated. Everyone and their mother in law used it, and everyone and their mother in law prepared for it. But SashLoom was still annoying to face. So yeah.
--
So that's about it. This Minitour had one of the most radical rulesets, and definitely was very intruiging to build teams for. Basically imagine Gen 3, with Gen 5 moves and mechanics.
Shoutouts to:
@Nova for being the most accommodating host
@X5Dragon for making the best goddamn HO team this Generation. Nothing tops the Dnite/Loom/Scizor physical offense core. I used updated BW2 variations of this team for my matches.
@VN. (Honus) for being the most chill team rater ever. Helped me finalize my updated builds on very short notice. Fuck that name change tho.
@Treecko for being a hilarious R1 opponent.
Also my thanks and regards to everyone who congratulated me!
(Sorry it took me this long. I've been absolutely swamped with uni work.)
---
So right. I won't deny that this tourney has a special place for me. After all it is my first tournament win! :)
For someone who had stopped active laddering a few months ago and moved on more to theorymonning and trying out new stuff for C&C related work, this was kind of a tenuous but a fun filled comeback. It is really straining to build team and play serious matches with good opponents instead of brainless laddering, when you're out of practice. More so because my odd timezone doesn't allow me to take part in too many tournaments.
Impressions and Analysis:
This has got to be few of the most fun games I've ever played in this tier after BW2 happened. I'm more of a straight up guy when it comes to battling and have a general sourness for U-turn/Volt-switch or what I like to usually call them - 'Pussy-out moves'. With those free momentum gifts out of the way, the focus on your pacing skills really comes into play. You have to entirely rely on intuition and experience, or you pay a heavy price.
Coming to the Majorly Hyped one: No weather starters.
Not surprisingly this changed the whole profile of the meta. But not as much as people would like to assume. Sure, the likes of Venusaur, Toxicroak and Dugtrio saw a sky high usage figures of nil, but by and large standard metagame picks like Lati@s, Keldeo, Garchomp etc remained the same. This just goes to show that most top pokemon in this current metagame are weather agnostic. Many people chose to make up the lack of pursuit support for Keldeo with Band Scizor. I didn't come across Ferrothorn or Jirachi in any of my matches but I'm sure they would work just fine without rain/sand too. Maybe Heatran too, who usually is a Sun/Sand staple nowadays. But it was a refreshing change not having Scarf Keldeo/SpecsToed Hydro Pumping everything not named Celebi into oblivion.
Another bonus was in form of no-stealth rocks. This was a MAJOR one. Also the most underestimated. It completely turned the metagame on it's head. I've seen many people go down because they didn't comprehend the magnitude of the change. I myself almost fell prey to it. I have had 2 my sweeps cut short twice because I forgot to account for the lack of stealth rocks on the field (a condition I usually aim for in general before end game) and many victims survived with a few bare hitpoints and turned the tables. Annoying stuff like Keldeo and Latios just became plain broken once you realize they now didn't get worn down that much anymore, switching in and out constantly and hammering my team with Hydro Pumps and Draco Meteors. And don't even get me started on the horror of facing a Breloom with an intact sash near guaranteed.
Obviously Dragonite was an excellent Pokemon in this metagame. Without rocks or sand to impede its Multiscale, the Lum Berry set set had a near Godly sweep potential and not surprisingly happened to be the MVP of my team. I also abused the hell out of Volcarona, a Pokemon which usually ends up being a liability once your spinner is dead. Here it got it's opportunity to shine. It's legendary bulk on full power. And Quiver Dance is too good with all it's HP available. Between These two, I could 2HKO the entire meta after a single boost. I was disappointed that no one took this opportunity to abuse the powerful fire types the game has to offer. Between rain, sand, and stealth rocks, they become really nerfed, but in general are one of the better offensive types in the game. Sure there was no sun, but Victini and Darmanitan don't exactly need it to start causing major mayhem. They nuke 90% of the things out there anyways, and for set-up there's always Volcarona.
Another interesting effect was on stall. The absence of weather both aided and hindered it. And I guess the lack of Rocks and switch moves hurt stall more than it did to offense. Apart from my finals with @Co5ta, who ran balanced, everyone without exception (including me) ran Offensive archetypes. Though many did try make up for the lack of rocks with Spikes (Skarm, lol) and it sounds decent on paper, but in reality it was hard to do with all the offensive pressure. Not helped by the fact that most of the potent stallbreakers in the game don't give a fuck about it (Nite, Latios, Mence, Gyara).
And yeah Breloom was heavily overrated. Everyone and their mother in law used it, and everyone and their mother in law prepared for it. But SashLoom was still annoying to face. So yeah.
--
So that's about it. This Minitour had one of the most radical rulesets, and definitely was very intruiging to build teams for. Basically imagine Gen 3, with Gen 5 moves and mechanics.
Shoutouts to:
@Nova for being the most accommodating host
@X5Dragon for making the best goddamn HO team this Generation. Nothing tops the Dnite/Loom/Scizor physical offense core. I used updated BW2 variations of this team for my matches.
@VN. (Honus) for being the most chill team rater ever. Helped me finalize my updated builds on very short notice. Fuck that name change tho.
@Treecko for being a hilarious R1 opponent.
Also my thanks and regards to everyone who congratulated me!
Last edited:
Where are the replays?
Oh yeah.
Here's my Replay with XKnightX:
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/joimslab-ou-1470
I unfortunately don't have the replay v/s Co5ta since joimslab crashed while I was waiting for the timer to run out after he DC'd.
--
And my Semis v/s Terraquaza:
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/joimslab-ou-1310
Here's my Replay with XKnightX:
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/joimslab-ou-1470
I unfortunately don't have the replay v/s Co5ta since joimslab crashed while I was waiting for the timer to run out after he DC'd.
--
And my Semis v/s Terraquaza:
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/joimslab-ou-1310
Congrats Soul Fly. And thanks for replay.
