SCL is over for me, so I'll post a bit about my teams. Some of these are gonna be irrelevant cause the early meta this SCL is like NU/PU at the moment, but I still had a fun time building and playing. Early on, I tried to not repeat a single Pokémon in my teams to show how outside the box one can go and still do well.
Unfortunately, replays are dead, so I won't be able to link the games as well.
Week 1 - vs TheFranklin
I wanted to start the tournament with a bang, as I was facing Franklin, which is usually one of the hardest opponents to face. I was trying out CM Braviary, when I saw how incredibly ridiculous Sheer Force sets were hitting. I ended up going for Modest Agility 3 attacks, as it was the best set I tried, and it was already OHKOing the needed mons in the meta. I ended up pairing it with physically defensive Umbreon and specially defensive Mudsdale to try and handle the popular hitters in the tier. Phys Def Umbreon felt especially good in a Krookodile meta, so I went for it. Added classic Brambleghast as my spinner + Spikes setter because it was very consistent early on as an option. Next I ended up going for a bulky Nasty Plot Choice Scarf Rotom, as it was a solid call in case I faced off against slower AND faster teams. Barraskewda was my last slot as another form of speed control, and I love using offensive water types. There was some RNG involved in the middle of the game, but I think the ending of the game was p hype with some 50/50s, and Braviary went from being called bad in the RU discord to a decent option for this meta.
Week 2 - vs Beraldo
I wanted to originally try set up Bronzong on a team, with Muscle Band Rocks Krook to bluff Choice Scarf. After some testing, I realized Scale Shot Moxie Krookodile was actually a really fun sweeper, and somewhat unexpected at the moment. I ended up changing Bronzong to rocks, and paired it with Decidueye-Hisui and Dragalge as the backbone. I went for a really fat Dragalge, as non specs sets felt like a waste of a slot, and I didn't think an offensive Dragalge would help much with the structure I was going for. I added Bellibolt to help with almost every possible breaker the tier had. I went with Soak Toxic, as this set was honestly super clutch vs set up mons like Bisharp or Slowbro-Galar. I had to invest some in special defense cause we had broken Moltres-Galar this week. Finally, Scarf Basculegion was basically a Barraskewda with less coverage, but higher damage output and better defensive value. I ended up facing a Hyper Offense with Moltres, and the Bellibolt set came in clutch. It came down to a Krook interaction that I lost. Regardless I still think this was one of my better structured teams overall.
Week 3 - vs eifo
This was a very interesting week, as I knew from the get go that I wanted to build with Armarouge + Competitive Kilowattrel to abuse the current meta trends. The issue was coming up with a backbone that supported it well. After a lot of struggles, I ended up going for a very basic Vaporeon + Forretress + Krookodile core because I was overthinking it way too much. The whole point was to just break with Kilo and Armarouge, so anything that could take hits would have been good enough. Ajna then suggested I tried a Memento Scarf Garde, as it allowed Armarouge to set up easier. The Armarouge set was a fun one EVd to tank a Knock Off from Krook, with enough speed to be faster than +1 Oricorio after a weak armor. I originally had Energy Ball to hit fat waters, but Protect ended up being clutch to scout for Choiced Krook and prevent Slither Wing from revenge killing you, which came in play in this game.
Week 4 - vs bb skarm
This was also a very funny week to build in. I knew playing skarm would mean trying to keep up with his aggro play. So far, all of his teams had been relatively the same, so I ended up going for a structure that forced a lot of careful positioning hoping to limit his aggro style, while letting me set the pace of my own. That's where Toxic Belli + Toxic Encore Lazzle + SD MMQ came to be. MMQ is a breaker that, if not planned carefully for, can just set up and clean games. Lazzle and Belli force a lot of chip on teams thanks to Toxic Spam. Encore was to catch some greedy set up or recover moves, and do more chip for MMQ to clean. Then I went for regular Encore Diancie to force a lot of trades, and Super Fang Taunt Noivern to limit recovery and chip down mons for MMQ. Forre was a last slot for Spikes and Removal, but it also helped out vs Bisharp. The team ended up working as intended in a 50+ turn game that lasted like 3 minutes.
Week 5 - vs Ajna
Week 5 I had to play my best friend, who knew absolutely everything about my tendencies so far. My only solution was to come up with a set that he couldn't expect, but also broke his common cores. He was really big on Tera Poison fat waters to not lose to Bellibolt or Umbreon, so I went for a Toxic mon that could hit those, and that's how the broken Toxic Psychic Flamethrower Slowbro-Galar came to be. I'm happy I came up with this set, cause it picked up later on, and we still see it in the current meta, albeit it uses Psyshock mainly for CM Fez. The rest of the team was just the same core as my RMT: Rocks Diancie, Leech Tect Wo-Chien, Normal Forry and Scarf Legion. The flavor pivot was Thundurus, as it annoyed common BO relatively well. Unfortunately, I faced a more offensive team than what I was expecting. It was a real close game up until Slowbro got para'd and couldn't break Typhlosion's sub, which ended up revealing sub Tera Fairy later on, abusing my Wo-Chien pick.
Week 6 - vs Dr. Phd. BJ
Before the week was posted, I was trying to think of what to use vs potentially GoldCat or ninjadog. When I saw I was facing the doctor, I immediatly connected some dots and made the hard HO callout. New player debuting + a winless RU slot + HO doing better the previous week. It felt like a very obvious call on my end. I ended up asking Ajna for his week 1 team, and Changing Mudsdale to physically defensive, and making Brambleghast Power Whip over Poltergeist, as Polter had been worse and worse lately. I ended up getting the matchup right, and between Vaporeon, Noivern and Ditto, I managed to play around all the breakers used vs me this week.
Week 7 - vs Floss
First week of the new meta, and I just knew I wanted to bring Lycanroc. Floss hadn't really brought crazy mons yet, just crazy sets on common mons, so I just prepped for standard. I knew Tinkaton was gonna be everywhere, and that Magnezone would pick up cause of it, so I ended up going for my own Magnezone paired with Wo-Chien to handle both options. Hippo was my rocker of choice as it pairs well with Lycanroc and Magnezone thanks to the sand chip. I had originally planned to use Defog Talon but I immediately found out how terrible it is. However, Swords Dance Talonflame started doing well in some tests, so I went for it to form a physically damaging pressure core with Lycanroc. Finally, I went for Boots Cyclizar with Power Whip to hit Quagsire, which otherwise was very annoying for my team. I ended up missing the early Power Whip, but I was able to play around Floss' team thanks to Tera Poison Wo-Chien.
At this point, I took a 2-week vacation, so I had to travel a lot and ended up subbing out.
Week 8 - vs JustFranco
This is a team that Evi had passed me to get into the new meta, but it did really well in tests when I tried it, so I passed it to stresh who was gonna sub in for me. I had also sent him a rain team as I had used 0 cheese yet, and thought it'd be a funny lure. I'm not posting the paste cause Evi is still in RU playoffs and I don't wanna leak any sets.
Week 9 - vs robjr
I won't lie. Out of all the teams I managed to build this week, this is the one I wanted to maybe save for playoffs because it felt really epic. But out of all the teams I passed, Inder liked this one the most, so he went for it. He faced a HO from robjr that came down to sack 50/50s. Really close game. The idea was that Modest Armarouge has the tools to break almost all the BO cores, and, similarly to my week 3 team, competitive Kilo just does amazing paired with it. I went for a fat core of Roar 2 attacks Hippo, as it's pretty decent against Iron Jugulis, and regular rocks Tinkaton. I thought of putting Bulldoze on it, in order to make Kilo more dangerous vs Magnezone teams, but I didn't have time to finish the details. Last 2 mons were Calm Mind U-turn Fez as a slow wincon, but also good pivot for Armarouge, and Mirror Coat Milotic to force chip on a lot of mons.
Semifinals - vs robjr
I ended up changing teams 2 days before the game cause I was having a lot of doubts. I knew originally I wanted to use Slither, in case he tried to bring HO again, but also because Slither is great vs everything and I hadn't used it yet. I went for Krook + Bro + Magnezone cause I saw a lot of people use it, and I thought it was a safe core to bring. Draco Spin Cyclizar last to do more damage in general, and Booster Taunt Jugulis to clean endgame. I ended up facing an very similar team, but with mons that were annoying for my team such as Fez and specially defensive Hippo. The game ended up being v close but I had to get really lucky in the final Hippo interaction to come on top, which I didn't. Still sucks about losing in playoffs but hats off to rob as well for playing well. Definitely a fun game overall.
Overall, I really loved building in this tournament. I know not a lot of people share that sentiment with me, but there's nothing better than getting creative and seeing it pay off in the games. Big shoutout to
EviGaro and
Ajna for being my main 2 supports whenever possible. Also big shoutout to a big part of the pool for being down to test with each other whenever and help everyone get better.
vs 
, and I don't know who this guy is, so I'll go with the safe bet of the RU RO
vs 
vs 
vs 
vs 
, will post them with my own predicts alongside
, just with 1, so giving edge to ajna here
