In an attempt to seek forgiveness for my lack of activity and wins i'll commentate on all the games that happened this week.
Manipulative vs Sacri'
Fairly straight forward game here, Manipulative brought stall and my team basically couldnt break rege core + quagsire + gliscor. Ice Punch appeared to be better in amoonguss match ups but it wasnt the case here as Alomomola was able to come in first to make sure I couldnt lure guss. He didn't need to take much risks to win the game really, props to him for getting the match up he was seeking.
HT vs dodmen
Interesting game, both players brought solid looking BOs. HT's Primarina looked quite threatening on preview but Swampert turned out to be Mirroar Coat which heavily limited its impact on the game. However, HT's Hippodown turned out to be quite crucial as it pretty much walled Infernape which was supposed to wallbreak vs that kind of bo team. Banded Azu had some potential but the rocky helmet damage from guss prevented it from taking advantage of hydre to get hits off. Scizor wasnt able to put much worked as it failed to wake up after it got spored early on. An overall good game, HT was able to take advantage of the edge the match up gave him to take it in a short yet fairly close game.
Christo vs Bushtush
Christo brought a team archetype that was quite popular early on in usum, a BO team featuring a solid volt turn core in Manectric + Scizor + Hydreigon to get in Serperior and Azumarill. I believe I used the team first and Christo had also used it prior to this game, though it doesn't matter that much as the sets on this team are very flexible. Bushtush brought another bo team featuring Guss + Empoleon as a defensive backbone with Heracross and Pidgeots as wallbreakers. The game seemed rather interesting at first, Pidgeot appeared to be very threatening after Manec took an hurricane and got confused which meant Krook was able to take it out. From there Christo clicked belly drum with azu and crit a Z move Lati which allowed him to win the game immediately. It appears Azumarill had a shot at living Z Psychic but the crit completely prevented bushtush from winning the game and while there was no guarantees christo would have lost if azumarill died, it still would have been a much much tougher game for him. Props to him for keeping his winning streak going though!
Cynde vs a heros destiny
Yet another stall that seemed to have a good match up. Things turned out to be very different in this game though, it appears Cyndes team didnt have rocks which pretty much allowed the combination of specs kyurem + pursuit krook to put in a lot of work. Cynde also missclicked relatively early on vs kyurem which cost him his alomomola. From there ahd could simply keep on getting rocks up thanks to the combination of wish alomomola and aggron. Cynde wasnt able to pressure the opposing team at all and that was pretty much game at that point. Props to ahd for being 2-1 despite the predictions not favoring him, I also hope that Cynde will be able to come back from a rough start.
Pak vs Lycans
As Pearl stated, this game was extremely interesting. Both players brought BO yet again, Paks team was focused on allowing Moltres to put work while Lycans team made use of true and tried cores such as Muk + Cobalion to put work. At first the game seemed quite heavily in Paks favor, his banded azumarill was extremely threatening as Lycans's only fairy resist was Empoleon which still took a good chunk of damages from play rough. However, both azumarill and empoleon turned out to have protect which allowed Lycans to keep on scouting for the move Pak was going for which meant gliscor could come in on play rough every time. Protect Empoleon in particular allowed Lycans to sponge the z move on moltres which restricted it heavily from putting work. From there neither players were making much progress, they were both focused on getting rocks up for Lycans and removing them for Pak. A few notable turns helped to decide the outcome: Chandelure was trapped by Muk as it tried to lure Paks gliscor with hp ice, Pak was eventually able to kill glisc with liquidation as it was expecting another play rough. The game still came down to the wire as both Gliscor and Azumarill were losing eq/play rough pp respectively. Paks last play rough critted the opposing azumarill thus allowing him to win the game. I believe Pak couldnt have won if he didnt get the crit/the roll but as he pointed out a bit of rng earlier on allowed Lycans to put himself in such a position in the first place. An overall very intense game, well played to both players and congrats to Pak on being 3-0 as well.