OU SPL XIV - RBY Discussion

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emma

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Make predictions here.


SPL XIV Introduction
Schedule
Spreadsheet

Power Rankings

Hiiiii RBYers! With SPL XIV underway, ten teams will be competing for the glorious red trophy. This thread will be used to discuss RBY related topics, whether it’s about the players, general metagame trends, matches, predictions and so on. Teams, replays, and usage stats can be found here.

Auction Results:

Pricelist
24k - Heroic Troller (Retained)
19k - Gefährlicher Random (Retained)
15.5k - Nails
13k - Mana
10k - chuva de perereca (Retained)
6k - Hayburner
5k - LNumbers
4k - Isza
3k - Mako

RBY Player Cores (likely starters in Bold, manager support in Italics):

Alpha Ruiners - chuva de perereca, dice

Circus Maximus Tigers - LNumbers, crucify, shiloh

Congregation of the Classiest - Nails, emma, Amaranth

Cryonicles - Hayburner, Vileman

Dragonspiral Tyrants - Isza, reyscarface

Ever Grande BIGS - Mako, M Dragon

Indie Scooters - Gefährlicher Random, BIHI, Excal

Stark Sharks - Heroic Troller

Team Raiders - Serpi, Aliss

Wi-Fi Wolfpack - Mana


6-3
Gefährlicher Random
Heroic Troller
Mako
Serpi
5-3
Nails
4-5
chuva de perereca
Mana
2-4
Isza
2-5
LNumbers
1-0
emma
1-1
Vileman
1-2
reyscarface
1-6
Hayburner
0-2
crucify

 

emma

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Tier 0

1. Heroic Troller (Stark Sharks)

It's Troller -- not only is he the single most dominant RBYer today, but he is also one of the most dominant players in any single tier over the past few years. 10-3, 8-3, 7-3, 6-1 in his four SPLs as a full time starter. Easy #1. He's in a tier by himself.

Tier 1

2. chuva de perereca (Alpha Ruiners)

chuva continued to dominate RBY after his very impressive 8-3 in SPL XIII and should thrive with so much publicly available information at his disposal.

3. Serpi (Team Raiders)

chuva or Serpi have been the best overall RBYers throughout 2022 as a whole. After back-to-back 5-4 SPLs and 4th place Invitationals, I think this is the year he finally hits the magic record of 6-3.

Tier 2

4. Hayburner (Cryonicles)

Hayburner has turned into a RBY SPL staple, but hasn't been able to find similar success in the tier since his 5-2 in SPL XII. Betting on a bounce back this year.

5. Gefährlicher Random (Indie Scooters)

Despite my questions of his value as a 19k RBY retain, Felix is absolutely cracked at this tier. Combined with BIHI who might sub in, this is the most dangerous slot in the pool.

6. Mana (Wi-Fi Wolfpack)

Mana is pretty good at Pokemon (& RBY when he plays) and is a big threat now that he's fully focusing on the tier.

Tier 3

7. LNumbers (Circus Maximus Tigers)

Another dangerous German. He was able to make RBY Cup finals and qualify for circuit right as he began playing so it's scary to think about what he can accomplish in an SPL setting. Still, the major lack of RBY experience and his two best friends as competitors pulls him down to Tier 3.

8. Mako (Ever Grande BIGS)

Going 7-2 in SPL XII was probably on the very high end of expected outcomes and she hasn't been able to get there since. Still, experience is very important in official team tournaments and she's gone 4-4 over her past two Invitationals and has hit 7-2 before so anythings possible.

9. Isza (Dragonspiral Tyrants)

I don't know much about Isza and he doesn't really have any notable RBY results, but he was able to make Smogon Classic Playoffs and it will be interesting to see how he performs fully focusing on RBY.

---

This year's pool isn't as stacked as last year's absolute bloodbath, but better than SPL XII and very interesting to say the least. Let's go Classiest.
 

phoopes

I did it again
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From what I know (which isn’t a terribly informed opinion) I have a hard time disagreeing with the rankings. If I had a vote I think I swap Felix and Hayburner because of vibes but I think it’s a good list, and a good pool! Let’s see some exciting games :)
 

emma

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Unfortunately, player stats didn't make the Power Rankings this year but I've collected them for RBY for your pleasure:

1. Heroic Troller - Stark Sharks
Team: 32-11 all-time SPL (all RBY) and 35-12 overall
Individual: 5x Pokemon Perfect Top Player Ranking | 3x PP Season Winner | 7x PP Master Tour Winner | 4x Pokemon Perfect Cup Winner

2. chuva de perereca - Alpha Ruiners
Team: 8-3 all-time SPL (all RBY) and 8-3 overall
Individual: Winter Seasonal 2022 Champion | Circuit 2022 Finalist | Cup 2022 Finalist | Circuit 2021 Semifinalist | Summer Seasonal 2021 Semifinalist | Winter Seasonal 2021 Semifinalist

3. Serpi - Team Raiders
Team: 10-8 all-time SPL (all RBY) and 10-8 overall
Individual: Winter Seasonal 2021 Champion | Global Championship 2022 Finalist | Invitational III Semifinalist | Invitational II Semifinalist | Cup 2021 Semifinalist | Summer Seasonal 2022 Semifinalist | Summer Seasonal 2021 Semifinalist | Circuit 2022 Quarterfinalist | PP Circuit 2021 Champion

4. Nails - Congregation of the Classiest
Team: 37-35 all-time SPL, 29-18 SPL RBY, and 69-54 overall
Individual: Cup 2020 Finalist | Cup 2019 Finalist | Invitational I Semifinalist | Global Championship 2018 Semifinalist

5. Hayburner - Cryonicles
Team: 9-6 all-time SPL, 8-6 SPL RBY, and 19-20 overall
Individual: N/A

6. Gefährlicher Random - Indie Scooters
Team: 8-6 all-time SPL, 0-0 SPL RBY, and 30-17 overall
Individual: Summer Seasonal 2022 Champion | Circuit 2022 Qualifier

7. Mana - Wi-Fi Wolfpack
Team: 6-5 all-time SPL, 0-0 SPL RBY, and 24-15 overall
Individual: Smogon Classic Playoffs 2021 Quarterfinalist | Smogon Classic Playoffs 2020 Semifinalist

8. Mako - Ever Grande BIGS
Team: 10-12 all-time SPL, 9-7 SPL RBY, and 14-18 overall
Individual: N/A

9. LNumbers - Circus Maximus Tigers
Team: 3-3 all-time SPL, 0-0 SPL RBY, and 17-13 overall
Individual: RBY Cup 2022 Finalist | RBY Circuit 2022 Qualifier

10. Isza - Dragonspiral Tyrants
Team: 1-2 all-time SPL, 0-0 SPL RBY, and 1-4 overall
Individual: Smogon Classic Playoffs 2022 Qualifier
 

emma

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Week 1 Bingo Update

Week 1 Squares Completed:

Tie - Gefährlicher Random vs. chuva de perereca, Game 1
No timer from either player - Gefährlicher Random vs. chuva de perereca, Game 3
Nails gets to 5 seconds - Nails vs. Heroic Troller, Game 3

Heroic Troller getting to 240 seconds did not get completed since he was getting his pizza delivery. Also, I meant 210 seconds so the square will only be considered done if he fairly hits 210 seconds.

Reminder - if you want your own bingo card, message me on Discord at emma#0404.
 

emma

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Week 2 Bingo Update

Week 2 Squares Completed:

Heroic Troller gets to 210 seconds - Mana vs Heroic Troller, Game 2
Recovery Failure - Mako vs Serpi, Game 1

16 Ice Moves & No Freeze did not get completed despite Heroic Troller running out of Chansey Ice Beams because only 13/16 were into Pokemon that could be frozen.

Reminder - if you want your own bingo card, message me on Discord at emma#0404.
 

emma

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Week 3 Bingo Update

Week 3 Squares Completed:

2 1/256s in one game - Serpi vs. Nails, Game 1
Jynx 1v1s Gengar - Isza vs. Heroic Troller, Game 2

Tauros War decides a game did not get completed since Mako just had to Body Slam while Gefährlicher Random had to hit Hyper Beam and they didn't start from full health.

Reminder - if you want your own bingo card, message me on Discord at emma#0404.
 

emma

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Week 4 Bingo Update

Week 4 Squares Completed:

Slowbro wins a game - Nails vs. Gefährlicher Random, Game 1
Amaranth malds -

Amaranth — 02/11/2023
this is depressing
tick amaranth malds on the bingo board please this is so bad

Reminder - if you want your own bingo card, message me on Discord at emma#0404.
 

emma

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Week 5 Bingo Update

Week 5 Squares Completed:

None!

Reminder - if you want your own bingo card, message me on Discord at emma#0404.
 

emma

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Week 6 Bingo Update

Week 6 Squares Completed:

D Rank Pokemon - Mako vs. reyscarface, Game 2
Porygon - emma vs. Hayburner, Game 3

Reminder - if you want your own bingo card, message me on Discord at emma#0404.
 
[Apologies if this is in the wrong place; feel free to move or delete as needed, or ask me to do either]

Over-analyzing win rates is usually a waste of time and energy. But, it’s fun, and it’s one of the only continuous variables we have, so I’m going to play with it anyway.

Cloyster caught my eye as doing quite well this SPL, as it has a 56.25% wins out of 24 games; this is up from last year and is actually the highest of any pokemon in RBY-SPLXIV that has more than one game played.

I like cloyster a lot, but I struggle to figure out when it’s good and when it struggles in competitive RBY. I waded into this further, and I looked at team compositions to see if it’s just being brought up by well-performing partners (mainly thinking Zam here).

Here’s a table of Cloyster’s partners this SPL so far (cutting the normals and most pairs with only one game):

45. | 42 | Cloyster / Alakazam | 10 | 6.76% | 60.00% |
46. | 43 | Jynx / Cloyster | 9 | 6.08% | 66.67% |
47. | 44 | Cloyster / Starmie | 8 | 5.41% | 75.00% |
49. | 46 | Cloyster / Exeggutor | 7 | 4.73% | 21.43% |
57. | 54 | Cloyster / Gengar | 4 | 2.70% | 62.50% |
58. | 54 | Zapdos / Cloyster | 4 | 2.70% | 50.00% |
64. | 54 | Jolteon / Cloyster | 4 | 2.70% | 25.00% |
80. | 72 | Cloyster / Rhydon | 1 | 0.68% | 100.00% |

Almost everything in SPLXIV here is quite high and up from last year, notably. The one major exception here is Cloy+Egg cores really dragging the win rate down of an otherwise outstanding performance. That 21.43% is out of seven games, with less than two wins! Seven games isn’t a lot of data, but 6/7 non-wins is alarming. Just to address it early, the very first instance of Cloy+Egg this SPL was Felix bringing it against Chuva in G1, that resulted in a tie. The tie counts as 0.5W, so the stats are a bit weird by being 1.5 wins out of 7 games.

So I’m wondering, what is it about this team core that is struggling?

When I first saw this pattern, I thought it must just be a condemnation of slower teams. We’re seeing teams get faster and faster, with Zam+Mie+Don being one of the best team comps these days.
However, Egg+Don is still doing fine, sitting at 58.33% wins out of 12 games (63.6% if you only count the 11 Mie+Egg+Don). Even Don+Cloy won its singular game. Maybe the speed is a problem, but it shouldn’t be a death sentence here.

Next I assumed Zapdos is maybe scoring wins against this extremely Zapdos weak core. However, not a single game with Egg+Cloy was against a Zapdos. Ok, then I was really confused and did a full dive.
Maybe the uptick in BoltBeam Chansey (as Gastlies mentioned in the VR thread) is punishing this core, but only one game was definitely against boltbeam Chansey (G3 Serpi vs Nails. What about tbolt Starmie (up 9.09% in usage from SPL XIII)? Nope, never saw an opponent Starmie click it. Not Hyper-Beam lax either, as that was also only clicked in one game vs Egg+Cloy (Serpi v Nails G1).

Looking at teammates gets tricky, as the sample size is quite small (the third teammate on these teams was Gengar three times, zam three times, and jolteon once). I’m going to mostly skip over this for space/time. Suffice to say, none of the teammates (outside of jolteon) are doing poorly. Gar+Cloy, Zam+Cloy, and Gar+Zam are all >60% wins. Gar+Egg is at 57.69% through 13 games, while Egg+Zam is a bit low at 46.15% through 39 games. Regardless, the data points are just too few here to make conclusions about the third member.

One other thing that could separate Egg+Cloy from Egg+Don is the Alakazam match up. Zam handles both Cloy and Rhydon in a straight 1v1, but Rhydon can threaten the 2HKO back, while Cloyster cannot. Further, Zam doesn’t switch into Rhydon as well as Cloyster, and, if Zam is para’d, Rhydon is extremely threating. In fact 6/7 of the Egg+Cloy games were against Zam, with the remaining 1/7 being the tie. Considering the ~9% uptick in Zam usage from last year, maybe this a contributing factor to Egg+Cloy struggles? Egg+Don cores also have the benefit of Starmie often being third, whereas we haven’t seen Mie+Egg+Cloy yet (pray there’s no Zapdos if you run that team). However, Cloyster is still doing well in other pairings, and the Gar+Egg+Cloy is doing slightly better than Zam+Egg+Cloy.

Besides, Egg should be able to hold the Zam matchup, as long as it has double edge, right?
Well, perhaps Eggs are dropping d-edge to make room for Stun-Spore+Mega-Drain to handle Starmie (SS up 16.28% from last year, but MD is stable at ~16%) allowing Zam to punish the team core?

In fact, not a single Egg+Cloy team revealed d-edge on Egg. Then, if your answer to opponent Zam becomes your own Zam+Chansey, and your Zam gets slept early in the game (as happened in 2/3 of the Zam+Cloy+Egg games), then you end up with a team core quite weak to one of the most threating pokemon in the meta at the moment. This is really on display in the wk 4 Felix vs Nails set. In G1, Nails’ Zam really pushes our protagonist around, until Nails is able get Slowbro in on Cloyster’s rest and take over the game. G3, Felix’s Egg gets the sleep down on Nails’ Zam, but it can only click Mega Drain, and Nails’ Zam wakes. The final turn ends up being Nails’ Zam putting away Felix’s remaining Egg, which feels like a poetic end to this particular essay.

I think this is the symptom of greater trend that others have already pointed out, which is why I wanted to post this manifesto: teams are focusing on methods to slow down opponent Starmie, causing them to sacrifice reliable answers to Alakazam.

I think we already knew this, but the Egg+Cloy anomaly seems to be a data point to support the hypothesis, and it also highlights the dangers of this method. Starmie is a major threat, and we haven’t found good ways to slow it down, especially when it pairs with Rhydon. But, over-focusing on it may be creating opportunities for Zam. This meta is so cool - thanks to the players for keeping me entertained this winter.

Here’s my table so far of Egg+Cloy cores, in case anyone is interested:

week
player
result
vs zapdos?
3rd partner
Opp Chansey set
opp starmie set?
vs HB lax?
Opp Zam?
opponent
wk 1
felix
T
no
Gar
ref+stoss
no star
no
no
chuva
wk 3
serpi
L
no
jolt
sing+IB
surf/?
yes
back
nails
wk 3
serpi
L
no
gar
boltbeam
no star
no
lead
nails
wk 3
Mana
L
no
zam
sing+toss
Psy/Blizz
no
lead
LNum
wk 4
felix
L
no
zam
sing+toss
?
no
lead
nails
wk 4
felix
L
no
zam
?
Psy/?
no
lead
nails
wk 5
serpi
W
no
gar
?
Psy/?
no
lead
troller

Other interest, Serpi and Felix have each brought the duo three out of the seven times, and four of the games have been against Nails. So I don’t know, Nails, seems people are targeting you with this, but it isn’t working anyway.

I’m definitely thinking too hard about win%, but it’s still intriguing to me. I’ll look through these games in more detail to see what else I can find, and I’ll probably revisit this after the full tour and winter ssnl stats come out. If any of you more experienced people have insight, please share.

In the meantime, I challenge people to try more Egg+Cloy cores. SPLers, please increase my number of data points; this is really important work I’m doing here. I might take a team into ladder and see if I get slapped by Zam. Then I’ll try d-edge on the eggy and see if that causes me to get slapped by Starmie instead.
Oh, and if anyone can win a serious tour game with Egg+Don+Cloy, that would really throw me through a loop.
 
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emma

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Week 7 Bingo Update

Week 7 Squares Completed:

Turn 1 Freeze - chuva de perereca vs. Heroic Troller, Game 2
No Tauros or Snorlax - Hayburner vs. Mana, Game 2
Lead Exeggutor - Hayburner vs. Mana, Game 4

Reminder - if you want your own bingo card, message me on Discord at emma#0404.
 
Quick shoutout to the RBY community from my end. Almost the whole community is super welcoming, passionate about their tier and with stuff like scheduling you never have the feeling that people want to bullshit you.
The tier itself is (with it always being bo3) highly competitive and with the lack of mons that can just 6:0 you like other tiers have em, id argue that it might be the most skill based one, although thats probably a controversial opinion.
I will stick with RBY for now cause its super fun, looking forward to interacting and playing against all of you :D

Also: INCREDIBLE UPSET!!! Total RBY NOOB and invitational play-ins OUTCAST finishes with BEST SPL RECORD!!!
 
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emma

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Week 8 Bingo Update
1679373347908.png

Week 8 Squares Completed:

Nails brings the Nails team - Isza vs. Nails, Game 3

WE HAVE BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See you in SPL XV.
 
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