Tournament SPL XV OU Discussion Thread

[ninth]

We're past the halfway point of the SPL regular season! The sheet is filling out nicely, and we're getting a good idea of who's who. Of note, there's just two starters left who are undefeated. hellom has absolutely exploded onto the scene, lossless against top threats like lax and Trosko, and getting Comfey ranked in the process. Meanwhile, the basedlord himself, CTC, has returned to regular starting, going undefeated in four games while providing teambuilding support for the squad. At 6000 and 5500 respectively it's hard to not rate these two as the biggest steals of the auction, and I doubt it's a coincidence that the Scooters and the Tyrants live atop the table.
Now, as usual, here's some of my favorite games I caught this week.

[WOL] zioziotrip vs Separation [CRY] - both of these players are putting on proper SV1 performances this year, and we've got some sand from Separation against zioziotrip's sun for an interesting matchup. Over the course of the match, Separation is able to rack up passive damage against zioziotrip with sand and hazard chip, carefully blocking the enemy sweepers until Dragapult and Skarmory can clean house. Tyranitar in sand took barely over half from a Specs Walking Wake's Hydro Steam - seriously, that mon does not play about special defense. Red Card Alomomola was cool but it ended up giving Walking Wake a free Eject Pack after dropping a Draco on it.

[WOL] Piyush25 vs Dj Breloominati♬ [CRY] - I gotta showcase some Ash-Gren Gaming. (In the most compelling argument for the alt rule to date, heat is Dj Breloominati and neat is Piyush.) Anyways, Spitfire's Zamazenta walls most of Piyush's team, so that's a lurking threat to worry about. Greninja comes in on a paralyzed Ghost Great Tusk to secure the boost, but it looks like Piyush will be able to revenge kill with Rillaboom...until Greninja turns into a Grass type and easily survives, then kills with Ice Beam. I missed when Psychic Landorus-T became a staple but it's cool stuff that stops a dangerous Hawlucha. From here, the cleanup is straightforward between Greninja and Zamazenta, and the Breloominati claims its first win in SV.

[RUI] Raptor vs crying [BIG] - as you can see, Raptor is up 6 to 1. This Dragapult is Hex, by the way. What follows is something...sinister.

[SHA] kumiko vs JJ09LIE [TIG] - great matchup, the storied and ever-crafty kumiko against up-and-coming prodigy JJ09LIE. kumiko's got an interesting team including Moltres, a raw Excadrill, and a Keldeo. JJ09LIE starts the game very well, making a number of great switches and racking up chip on kumiko's squad. Things quickly shift on turn 23, as kumiko's 2% Moltres reads the switch from Kingambit to Wellspring and U-Turns into Sub/DD Dragapult. JJ switches around a lot as kumiko DDs twice, and eventually settles on Gliscor, who easily tanks a Tera Fire Tera Blast but misses the kill with EQ and goes down in return. Out comes Kingambit, and what proceeds is a menacing sequence that I can only describe as kumiko repeatedly lil bro'ing JJ, getting every single Sucker Punch play right and turning a winnable game into a vicious 6-0.

w6 preds

SV OU: JJ09LIE vs shiloh
SV OU: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs zioziotrip
SV OU: Trosko vs Fogbound Lake - knowing how well Fogbound Lake can play in peak form makes the fact that his first win was last week with some fortune even harder to understand. Is it the lack of mind gaming buff? Maybe. In any case, Trosko is coming off of two losses so if there's any time for Fog to strike it's now.
SV OU: Storm Zone vs Taka - oh, cool, Taka's in. There's been quite a few substitutes coming in and taking wins off of starters, and I'm gonna wager he can do it here too.

SV OU: CTC vs lax - heater matchup alert! Former members of the shogunate clash in what should be a battle for the ages. CTC has played really well thus far, he's in his zone, think he's the favorite here.
SV OU: Rubyblood vs kumiko
SV OU: myjava vs tko - myjava's probably one of the best 3k grabs of the auction.
SV OU: Luispeikou vs Carkoala - gonna be honest I was not keeping an eye on Carkoala but apparently he's 2-0 and brought Iron Crown last week? Neat.

SV OU: Gilbert arenas vs Kushalos - did not expect to see both of these players at 3 losses. After transforming into Low Tier Gilbert last week marcop's passive lightning field will be activated - that might give him the edge.
SV OU: crying vs hellom - oh my god I was hoping for this matchup. hellom, the unstoppable force taking down SV1 after SV1, against crying, the immovable object outcooking her last three opponents in dramatic fashion. Against anyone else I would bold hellom but crying legitimately has some kind of mind control ability. If hellom wears a tinfoil hat he should be fine.
SV OU: Savouras vs Akalli - OST R1 rematch! I rock with both of these players - think Akalli has been slightly more precise over the last few matches, though.
SV OU: MAVERICK SHOOTERS vs Xrn

SV OU: mncmt vs oldspicemike - unstoppable force vs unstoppable force. Both of these are players I would easily put down for 6+ wins in regular season. Don't imagine there will be anything meta-breaking in this game, just good gameplay.
SV OU: Beraldo vs xavgb - the stresh button has been pressed once again as the Ruiners find themselves just outside of the top 4. Thinking he'll have a bit more motivation seeing that the playerbase has shown itself willing to ban stuff, lol.
SV OU: Thiago Nunes vs Raptor - TNunes, relax, your replays are too hidden, they'll ban you. I cannot in good faith bold Raptor after losing to Dondozo from up 6-1, but he'll be back next week.
SV OU: pdt vs Fc

SV OU: Finchinator vs ACR1 - ACR1 is on a great streak, they've certainly showed that their first SV win wasn't a fluke. Finchinator is on vacation or something this week so I don't know how heavy his prep is gonna be. That said, Finch going negative would be unheard of stuff and we've seen his peak SV performance. Switch the bold to Finch if he posts some good looking wings on vacation.
SV OU: Separation vs Punny
SV OU: Srn vs procorphish
SV OU: Dj Breloominati♬ vs Sylveon used calm mind - okay I think Sylveon took blunder's advice too literally lol. Their team choice so far has been either the German team or deranged hyper-offense. Spitfire has found footing in SV, I'm a big believer in his playing ability and with more time in the meta the results are only gonna improve.

 

[Duck Chris]

Week 5 Usage

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Kingambit          |   17 |  42.50% |  52.94% |
| 2    | Dragapult          |   15 |  37.50% |  46.67% |
| 2    | Great Tusk         |   15 |  37.50% |  33.33% |
| 4    | Landorus-Therian   |   10 |  25.00% |  70.00% |
| 4    | Slowking-Galar     |   10 |  25.00% |  40.00% |
| 6    | Ogerpon-Wellspring |    9 |  22.50% |  66.67% |
| 6    | Gouging Fire       |    9 |  22.50% |  44.44% |
| 8    | Roaring Moon       |    8 |  20.00% |  50.00% |
| 8    | Raging Bolt        |    8 |  20.00% |  37.50% |
| 10   | Primarina          |    7 |  17.50% |  85.71% |
| 10   | Iron Valiant       |    7 |  17.50% |  71.43% |
| 10   | Gholdengo          |    7 |  17.50% |  42.86% |
| 13   | Volcarona          |    6 |  15.00% |  83.33% |
| 14   | Kyurem             |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 14   | Garganacl          |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 14   | Glimmora           |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 14   | Zamazenta-*        |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 18   | Ting-Lu            |    4 |  10.00% |  75.00% |
| 18   | Corviknight        |    4 |  10.00% |  75.00% |
| 18   | Cinderace          |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 18   | Enamorus           |    4 |  10.00% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Darkrai            |    3 |   7.50% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Deoxys-Speed       |    3 |   7.50% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Dragonite          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 22   | Excadrill          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 22   | Alomomola          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 22   | Iron Moth          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 22   | Iron Treads        |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 22   | Hatterene          |    3 |   7.50% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Rillaboom          |    3 |   7.50% |   0.00% |
| 31   | Dondozo            |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 31   | Tyranitar          |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 31   | Skarmory           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 31   | Gliscor            |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 31   | Skeledirge         |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 31   | Iron Crown         |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 31   | Samurott-Hisui     |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 31   | Clodsire           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 31   | Walking Wake       |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 31   | Torkoal            |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 31   | Ursaluna           |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Ogerpon            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Scizor             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Greninja-*         |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Zapdos             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Suicune            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Serperior          |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Cresselia          |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Moltres            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Keldeo             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 42   | Toxapex            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Moltres-Galar      |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Volcanion          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Weavile            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Hawlucha           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Heatran            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Ogerpon-Cornerstone |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Ninetales-Alola    |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Pelipper           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Archaludon         |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Barraskewda        |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Kingdra            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Scream Tail        |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Ribombee           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Manaphy            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Hoopa-Unbound      |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Tornadus-Therian   |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Slowking           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |

Employee of the Week:
Don't call it a comeback for these three, who all landed in the top 10 in usage this week with significantly positive win rates. For Landorus, 7 wins in 10 appearances showed off its role compression. Ogerpon wielded its strong stabs and useful speed tier to post 6 wins in 9 appearances, and Primarina edged into the top ten with an impressive 6 wins in 7 games. To me, the thing these mons have in common is the ability to be blanket checks to a huge part of the meta. In a metagame that has seen 94 different pokemon in 5 weeks of play, versatility is key.

Q1 Financials:
Our top two in usage for the season have been holding steady, but win rate data shows some things aren't as pretty as they seem. Kingambit is doing fine. An elevated win rate of close to 60% indicates a positive presence, and more specific pairing data shows it as a great offensive teammate.
+ 73.91% win rate
+ 64.29% win rate
+ 76.92% win rate
Great Tusk however is not so clean. Despite posting the number one usage rate, Tusk has a 43% win rate, 41% without mirror matches. While high usage like this usually converges to a 50% win rate, pairing data shows other red flags.
+ 29.41% win rate
+ 33.33% win rate
+ 42.86% win rate
Great Tusk simply isn't taking care of its teammates as well as Kingambit or other top threats. I think it's worth noting that Tusk slipped out of S rank on the OU Viability Rankings, showing a slight decline in its ubiquity. Indeed many Tusks this season have run a very rigid offensive set, yet rarely is the opponent unprepared for it. Obviously both of these pokemon are still on top of the game but with the rise of Landorus, I smell change in the air.

Urgent 9AM Meeting with Boss and HR:
The scourges of DLC1 have fallen. Gliscor this week saw only two uses (with one win), and Rillaboom only three (with zero wins). Despite posting solid usage through the first five weeks, Gliscor has failed to live up to its top ten popularity, posting only a 37% win rate. Rillaboom has landed at 17th in usage, with only a 34% win rate. With strong ice and fire attacks running around maybe it's not hard to see that these pokemon have very notable weaknesses at the minute. Perhaps both might appreciate the ascension of Archaludon, but it's gonna take more than that for these two to recover.

Most fun games: [WOL] Piyush25 vs Dj Breloominati♬ [CRY] tera grass greninja vs grassy glide ogerpon-c!!
[SHA] tko vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d [TIG] tko brings an SS OU team against 4 new gen pokemon, a darkrai and a Dragonite. And it gets really close
Coolest set: with Roar by pdt

 

[kd458]

Threat of the Week: Week 5

We are officially past the midpoint of SPL; welcome to week 5 of Threat of the Week! As always, we'll be taking a data-driven approach to analysis, looking at the K:D ratio and most importantly the differentials of each individual Pokemon while also linking their best games for your viewing pleasure. I'll also provide a little midway recap of SPL so far at the end, with a look at the top three threats of the tier. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy week 5 of TotW!

To start off, we'll look at the Pokemon with 12.5% or more usage that did the best this week, with a great differential over 5 or more appearances:

#1: Kingambit

Differential: +10, K:D: 2, Uses: 17

For our second ever double digit differential, Kingambit takes its first crown in SPL with a 42.5% usage rate as the most used Pokemon of the week. 20 kills and 10 deaths came with 3 game ends for the King; in ACR1 vs pdt, a Lum Gambit tanked Dragapult's Will-O-Wisp before later coming in to finish off an opposing Kingambit in a game where both Tera Dark'd and claimed 2 kills, while in TNunes vs Sylveon used calm mind, Sylveon's Kingambit Tera Dragon'd to trade with a Dragonite before Nunes's forced an Enamorus to Healing Wish and picked up two more kills to reach an endgame where a CB Tusk couldn't lock into a single move to win. Kingambit's best game came for lax vs Trosko though, where Trosko's Tera Dark Kingambit picked up two kills before lax's Jolly Tera Fairy Kingambit revealed Low Kick and clutched a classic last-mon Gambit sweep after earlier taking on a Wisp Pult with its Lum Berry. A lot of great games befitting the king of OU.

#2: Ogerpon-W

Differential: +9, K:D: 4, Uses: 9

Though Ogerpon-W didn't have a great week 4, it not only matched but exceeded its week 2 performance with a +9 differential over a 67% winrate week. In Xrn vs Ash KetchumGamer, an Ogerpon-W vs Ogerpon-W matchup had Xrn's Waterpon come out on top, staying healthy over the course of the game with Horn Leech, catching a Roaring Moon trying to switch into it for free with Play Rough and later coming back in to take down a last mon Skeledirge. S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs tko was Wellspring's best game though, using Tera Water to force kills whenever it came in and cleaning up later on for the win. Ogerpon-W only went down 3 times this week, and Archaludon's ban from next week onwards freeing it up to use Play Rough more comfortably could potentially open it up for a great remainder of the season.

#5: Dragapult

Differential: +4, K:D: 1.4, Uses: 15

Finally, Dragapult makes a return to its week 1 form, breaking back into the top 5 with great games all round. For Raptor vs crying, a Sub Mixed Pult shredded through a stall team next to an Ursaluna and would've picked up another kill if not for potentially the nastiest endgame reversal of SPL so far, while Dragapult was robbed of 4 more kills (and 1 more death as it was a Pult vs Pult mirror) as kumiko's rare Sub DD Tera Blast Fire Dragapult found an opportunity to set up two Dragon Dances and won a Sucker Punch mindgame vs a Tera Flying Kingambit to take it down and get a forfeit up 6 to 4 in a game that would've ended 6-0. Dragapult's definitely at the top of the meta in DLC2 regardless of the new powerful Dragons in the tier, and the potential for it to run different sets is clearly more than worth exploring.

We'll next have a look at week 5's niche heat, the Pokemon that came a few times but did great in the games they were brought to:

#3: Dondozo

Differential: +8, K:D: 8, Uses: 2

The Don Is In... Dozo only came twice but picked up a 100% winrate, winning both games it came to with a Leftovers Curse 2 attack set for CTC not even needing to Rest to take down a bulky DD - Breaking Swipe Gouging Fire and finishing off a Zamazenta in the endgame. Where did the other 6 kills come from? Please watch from turn 61 onwards of crying vs Raptor. As you can see Raptor is up 6 to 1, stays in with Pult like he's already won. And he wants to force the Rest so he can kill through recovers, but it hits the Tera Normal...

#4: Excadrill

Differential: +5, K:D: 6, Uses: 3

After 2 losses during week 1, Excadrill went unseen through weeks 2 to 4 but came back with a bang to pick up 6 kills and only 1 death in week 5. TTar Drill came twice, winning in a weather war in Separation vs zioziotrip by forcing out a Raging Bolt. However, 5 of its kills came from its one loss this week, tko vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d, in a game where it Tera Grounded and had no switch ins, only going down to a Dragonite that it killed back with a little help from sand chip before ho3n's Waterpon finished off the game. Nice week for Drill, in a post-Arch ban world maybe sand's good matchup into sun will be even more valuable.

#8: Greninja

Differential: +2, K:D: 3, Uses: 1

In only one appearance, Greninja managed to hit a really solid +2 differential in Dj Breloominati vs Piyush25, coming in to take out a Tera Ghost Great Tusk and activate its Battle Bond before using a rare Tera Grass to tank a Grassy Glide and take down a Rillaboom. It was then forced out by a Hawlucha, but was preserved to later reveal Sludge Wave and finish off a Hatterene - does this mean that it was Tera Grass without GK? Regardless, really good game for Gren that single-handedly took it to the top 3 of lower usage Pokemon this week.

Finally, we'll be looking at the Pokemon worst-off this week; prepare to see some familiar faces, though this week a new face took the crown for the bottom of the field!

#65: Alomomola

Differential: -3, K:D: 0, Uses: 3

How much is there to say about Alo not getting any kills tbh, it's an Alomomola - Alo only came 3 times and died each one, really doing nothing at all to help win in Separation vs zioziotrip aside from bouncing out a Wake with Red Card then immediately dying to sand. Its other appearances though came in a mirror match on opposite playstyles funnily enough; for crying vs Raptor, crying's Alomomola served as a defensive pivot with some fun techs in Mirror Coat and Play Rough on what strangely looked like a non-AV set by the Pult damage, while Raptor's Alo provided Wish pass support for a Tera Normal Ursaluna to break. Really good Pokemon and I'm glad to see it filling more roles in the tier as a pivot, just not really something that gets the most kills.

#67: Landorus-T

Differential: -4, K:D: 0.5, Uses: 10

Landorus-T at the bottom of the differential rankings, what's new? As I say every week, this really doesn't indicate Lando-T is bad at all, and its continued usage suggests otherwise. Just don't expect to see too many offensive Landorus; big shoutout goes to myjava's defensive Lando-T though that picked up 3 kills and no deaths to save the mon from a -7 differential this week by cleaning up a Gouging Fire, a Gholdengo and a Tera Poison Great Tusk that tried (and failed) to go for the spin kill to have a chance against the rest of the team.

#68: Slowking-G

Differential: -4, K:D: 0.2, Uses: 10

In a far cry from its top 5 showing in week 3, Slowking-G got a grand total of 1 kill this week, only even getting that kill in Storm Zone vs Carkoala by clicking Tera Water on a 19% Samurott-H to finish it off and subsequently going down to an Iron Crown's Volt Switch in a lost game. An overall winrate of 40% is not bad, and Slowking-G didn't have the worst week ever for a defensive piece as it managed to live to see the end of half of its games - not a great week for it though and it earned its spot at the bottom of this week's list.

Overall Rankings

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1      Kingambit    17     20      10   2.0            10
2      Ogerpon-W     9     12       3   4.0             9
3        Dondozo     2      8       0   8.0             8
4      Excadrill     3      6       1   6.0             5
5      Dragapult    15     14      10   1.4             4
6      Garganacl     5      5       2   2.5             3
7      Volcarona     6      6       3   2.0             3
8       Greninja     1      3       1   3.0             2
9        Ting-Lu     4      4       2   2.0             2
10        Kyurem     5      6       4   1.5             2
11      Skarmory     2      2       1   2.0             1
11    Iron Crown     2      2       1   2.0             1
11       Weavile     1      2       1   2.0             1
11        Scizor     1      2       1   2.0             1
11     Ogerpon-C     1      2       1   2.0             1
11    Archaludon     1      2       1   2.0             1
17       Darkrai     3      4       3   1.3             1
18    Great Tusk    15     13      12   1.1             1
19     Gholdengo     7      6       6   1.0             0
19     Zamazenta     5      4       4   1.0             0
19     Iron Moth     3      2       2   1.0             0
19     Rillaboom     3      3       3   1.0             0
19       Gliscor     2      1       1   1.0             0
19  Walking Wake     2      2       2   1.0             0
19     Tyranitar     2      1       1   1.0             0
19    Skeledirge     2      2       2   1.0             0
19      Ursaluna     2      2       2   1.0             0
19    Samurott-H     2      2       2   1.0             0
19      Hawlucha     1      1       1   1.0             0
19   Barraskewda     1      1       1   1.0             0
19       Hoopa-U     1      1       1   1.0             0
32     Serperior     1      0       0   0.0             0
32       Moltres     1      0       0   0.0             0
32        Keldeo     1      0       0   0.0             0
35   Raging Bolt     8      5       6  0.83            -1
36  Iron Valiant     7      3       4  0.75            -1
37      Deoxys-S     3      2       3  0.67            -1
37     Dragonite     3      2       3  0.67            -1
39       Torkoal     2      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Volcanion     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Ogerpon     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Heatran     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39        Zapdos     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39   Ninetales-A     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Suicune     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39      Pelipper     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Kingdra     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39   Scream Tail     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39      Ribombee     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Manaphy     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39    Tornadus-T     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Cresselia     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39      Slowking     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Toxapex     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Moltres-G     1      0       1   0.0            -1
56     Primarina     7      5       7  0.71            -2
57      Glimmora     5      2       4   0.5            -2
57      Enamorus     4      2       4   0.5            -2
59   Corviknight     4      1       3  0.33            -2
59     Hatterene     3      1       3  0.33            -2
61      Clodsire     2      0       2   0.0            -2
62  Gouging Fire     9      5       8  0.62            -3
63  Roaring Moon     8      3       6   0.5            -3
64     Cinderace     4      1       4  0.25            -3
65     Alomomola     3      0       3   0.0            -3
65   Iron Treads     3      0       3   0.0            -3
67    Landorus-T    10      4       8   0.5            -4
68    Slowking-G    10      1       5   0.2            -4

Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Shoutouts for week 5 go out to Xrn's Curse Garg, who took 3 kills without going down and without even setting up past +1, along with the two 4-0 Pokemon of the week; in MAVERICK SHOOTERS vs Buhrito, Mav's Volcarona Tera Dragon'd at the right time to sweep through the rest of the team, while a Choice Specs Kyurem from Gilbert arenas blew up a Volc early on with Draco before later sweeping through a weakened team with Freeze Dry. Now to round off this week, we'll take a really quick mid-season look at what's been the biggest threats in SPL so far.

Mid-Season Rankings

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1         Kyurem    31     37      20    1.9            17
2      Kingambit    69     55      38    1.4            17
3      Ogerpon-W    34     38      22    1.7            16
4    Raging Bolt    39     43      29    1.5            14
5      Zamazenta    37     34      23    1.5            11
6         Comfey     4     10       1      1             9
7        Dondozo    11     13       4    3.2             9
8     Archaludon    16     20      11    1.8             9
9        Blissey     4      6       0    6.0             6
10     Garganacl    21     19      13    1.5             6
11     Dragapult    48     40      34    1.2             6
12     Iron Moth    10     11       6    1.8             5
13      Garchomp     2      4       0    4.0             4
14   Barraskewda    11     10       6    1.7             4
15    Great Tusk    73     58      54    1.1             4
16       Hoopa-U     3      4       1    4.0             3
17     Ogerpon-C     2      5       2    2.5             3
18     Excadrill     5      6       3    2.0             3
19    Iron Crown     7      8       5    1.6             3
20       Moltres     2      2       0    2.0             2
21    Tornadus-T     5      5       3    1.7             2
22      Enamorus    18     12      10    1.2             2
23  Iron Valiant    28     20      18    1.1             2
24      Blaziken     1      2       1    2.0             1
24     Ninetales     1      2       1    2.0             1
26   Meowscarada     5      3       2    1.5             1
27      Ursaluna     6      5       4    1.2             1
27     Volcanion     4      5       4    1.2             1
29       Weavile    23     15      14    1.1             1
30  Gouging Fire    26     23      22    1.0             1
30      Venusaur     1      1       0    1.0             1
32     Dragonite    28     20      20    1.0             0
32       Ting-Lu    20     14      14    1.0             0
32      Clodsire    14      9       9    1.0             0
32  Walking Wake    12     10      10    1.0             0
32     Tyranitar     4      3       3    1.0             0
32        Latias     4      2       2    1.0             0
32       Manaphy     4      3       3    1.0             0
32  Iron Boulder     3      2       2    1.0             0
32      Greninja     3      3       3    1.0             0
32   Basculegion     1      1       1    1.0             0
42   Lilligant-H     1      0       0    0.0             0
42      Meloetta     1      0       0    0.0             0
42     Mandibuzz     1      0       0    0.0             0
42        Pawmot     1      0       0    0.0             0
42     Sinistcha     1      0       0    0.0             0
47     Gholdengo    42     31      32   0.97            -1
48     Volcarona    31     20      21   0.95            -1
49     Rillaboom    26     18      19   0.95            -1
50      Skarmory    19     11      12   0.92            -1
51       Darkrai     8      7       8   0.88            -1
52    Skeledirge     4      3       4   0.75            -1
53     Hydrapple     3      0       1    0.0            -1
53        Keldeo     2      0       1    0.0            -1
53     Magnezone     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53       Haxorus     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53      Necrozma     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53    Talonflame     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53     Quaquaval     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53     Ceruledge     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53    Enamorus-T     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53       Ogerpon     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53        Zapdos     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53       Suicune     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53       Kingdra     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53   Scream Tail     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53      Slowking     1      0       1    0.0            -1
53     Moltres-G     1      0       1    0.0            -1
69     Primarina    27     22      24   0.92            -2
70      Pelipper    13      6       8   0.75            -2
71        Scizor     4      2       4    0.5            -2
72     Serperior     5      1       3   0.33            -2
73     Cresselia     3      0       2    0.0            -2
73       Rotom-W     2      0       2    0.0            -2
75     Hatterene    13      9      12   0.75            -3
76      Deoxys-S    10      6       9   0.67            -3
77       Toxapex     5      0       3    0.0            -3
77      Ribombee     3      0       3    0.0            -3
77   Ninetales-A     3      0       3    0.0            -3
80    Slowking-G    46     22      26   0.85            -4
81     Alomomola    19      6      10    0.6            -4
82       Torkoal     9      2       6   0.33            -4
83   Corviknight    10      3       8   0.38            -5
84       Heatran    15      6      12    0.5            -6
85      Hawlucha    11      5      11   0.45            -6
86       Gliscor    35     18      25   0.72            -7
87      Clefable    13      2       9   0.22            -7
88  Roaring Moon    42     28      37   0.76            -9
89    Samurott-H    17      8      17   0.47            -9
90     Cinderace    22      6      17   0.35           -11
91      Glimmora    22      6      20    0.3           -14
92   Iron Treads    21      4      19   0.21           -15
93    Landorus-T    36     10      28   0.36           -18

Kyurem manages to clutch out the #1 spot in SPL so far, with a strong K:D of 1.9 and a +17 differential over 31 uses, while Kingambit's fantastic week 5 carried it to #2 with another +17 differential but a lower K:D from 69 uses - this is the second most used Pokemon of the season after Great Tusk, who sits at a respectable +4 differential from 73 uses. The #3 spot is taken by Ogerpon-W with an only slightly lower +16 differential even after a lacklustre start to the season, while #4 and #5 are claimed by Raging Bolt (+14) and Zamazenta (+11) respectively. I think the biggest season shoutout has to go to Comfey though, who managed to pick up a +9 differential and the season's best K:D by far of 10 in only 4 games; the next highest K:D comes from Blissey at 6, who hasn't gone down in its 4 games this season so far, while Garchomp and Hoopa-U picked up a really solid 4 K:D apiece in 4 / 0 and 4 / 1 performances respectively. I hope you've been enjoying the first half of the season, and I hope you've been enjoying Threat of the Week, it's been a great SPL so far and I'm looking forward to seeing how the meta develops over the next few weeks. See you next week for more!

 

[Duck Chris]

Week 6 Usage

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Kingambit          |   19 |  47.50% |  47.37% |
| 2    | Great Tusk         |   14 |  35.00% |  50.00% |
| 3    | Ogerpon-Wellspring |   11 |  27.50% |  54.55% |
| 3    | Landorus-Therian   |   11 |  27.50% |  54.55% |
| 3    | Gholdengo          |   11 |  27.50% |  54.55% |
| 6    | Roaring Moon       |   10 |  25.00% |  40.00% |
| 7    | Iron Valiant       |    9 |  22.50% |  66.67% |
| 7    | Slowking-Galar     |    9 |  22.50% |  55.56% |
| 7    | Zamazenta-*        |    9 |  22.50% |  44.44% |
| 10   | Dragonite          |    8 |  20.00% |  75.00% |
| 10   | Dragapult          |    8 |  20.00% |  62.50% |
| 12   | Volcarona          |    7 |  17.50% |  57.14% |
| 12   | Primarina          |    7 |  17.50% |  57.14% |
| 14   | Raging Bolt        |    6 |  15.00% |  33.33% |
| 15   | Garganacl          |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 15   | Hatterene          |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 15   | Gliscor            |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 15   | Rillaboom          |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 19   | Ting-Lu            |    4 |  10.00% |  75.00% |
| 19   | Kyurem             |    4 |  10.00% |  75.00% |
| 19   | Heatran            |    4 |  10.00% |  75.00% |
| 19   | Cinderace          |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Corviknight        |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 24   | Hoopa-Unbound      |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 24   | Iron Moth          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 24   | Samurott-Hisui     |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 24   | Alomomola          |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 24   | Hawlucha           |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 24   | Weavile            |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 30   | Glimmora           |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 30   | Darkrai            |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 30   | Skeledirge         |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Clodsire           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Ribombee           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Clefable           |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 30   | Serperior          |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 30   | Iron Treads        |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Zapdos             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Ursaluna           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Ditto              |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Scizor             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Rotom-Wash         |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Manaphy            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Deoxys-Speed       |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Ogerpon            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Tornadus-Therian   |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Tyranitar          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Excadrill          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Reuniclus          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Skarmory           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Blaziken           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Torkoal            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Walking Wake       |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Frosmoth           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Toxapex            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Pelipper           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Barraskewda        |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Moltres            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Sandy Shocks       |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Volcanion          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Dondozo            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Blissey            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Enamorus           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Maushold-Four      |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |

Employee of the week:
Win rates were pretty balanced this week, with a slight standout to these two staples. Dragonite scored 6 wins in 8 appearances, with a total of 11 different moves used while doing so. Encore, Roost, and Dragon Tail helped dispatch scary sweepers like Zamazanta, alongside Dragonites usual offensive options. Valiant has been solid all season but has been sitting outside of the top 10 in usage, likely due to the high usage of Priority and defensive stops like Glowking. This week Valiant jumped into the top 10, posting 6 wins in 9 uses. Sets seem to be leaning mostly physical, with Tera Dark making a surprise appearance this week (cool idea to punish future sight spam).

Drying up:
Weather teams predictably took a backseat with Archaludon's departure this week. Raging bolt remains a strong pokemon but without it's partner in crime it slipped to 14th in usage, claiming only 2 wins in 6 appearances. Rain and Sun fell off completely, showing up once each and losing in both cases. Sun is still good in theory, maybe even better without rain to worry about. However it seems like teams are just learning a bit more about how to counter HO in the current metagame, or perhaps having a full 6 offensive mons is better than sacrificing that one slot for weather support.

Headed out:
Tiering shifts happen this week, and these pokemon are all under OU usage range if we were just considering SPL. While I don't expect the ladder to perfectly mirror high level play, it's clear that something about these pokemon is not quite adding up. I would expect at least half of these to drop this week, with the rest following later this year. Other pokemon to watch include Deoxys-Speed and Walking Wake.

Most fun game: [CLA] Beraldo vs xavgb [RUI] cool moltres team and close game well played by both
Coolest sets: with Endeavor by Fc and with Megahorn by pdt (in the same game)

 

[ninth]

Week 6 is done, and with it the Tyrants have all but locked in playoffs, while the Classiest and the Sharks are a gust of wind away from elimination. Of note, the Tyrants have solidified themselves as the best SV foundation in the tour, with super subs myjava and Luispeikou being the latest to pick up wins for the team. As the playoffs race tightens I think this is when some meta-shifting stuff is gonna start to really emerge from all ends - I think it was around this time last year that mind gaming and Nat's Skeledirge balance started showing up to great success, as well as...uh...Wo-Chien fake stall. If someone thinks they've solved the meta, now is the time to bring it out.

[TIG] JJ09LIE vs shiloh [WOL] - there are a couple of kinda cursed moments in this match, including shiloh's Volcarona having a 100% burn chance, but shiloh brought a +Attack Iron Valiant and it swept, which was very cool.

[TYR] CTC vs lax [SHA] - two top-tier SV players and former shoguns clash, and the result is excellent plays, several 2% survivals, and a Tera Grass Primarina. Aggressive switches galore as CTC tries to get Garganacl into a winning position and lax tries to stop it at all cost. You can tell they respect each other by the plays. Nothing felt nonsensical, just a great game.

[BIG] crying vs hellom [SCO] - strap in, this one is a rollercoaster. hellom, wary of crying's usual curious builds, brought Hoopa, Ursaluna, Alomomola, and Ditto, in a declaration that he will absolutely not be stalled out like the last two guys. The Ditto turned out to be crucial, as in a vindication of US South's kitchen, crying brought a goddamn Sub/Leftovers Frosmoth, with Galarian Slowking for snow support. And a mixed utility Dragonite, why not, that's standard for her at this point. I don't think a typed-out play-by-play can do justice to how insane this was to watch live, as crying tries again and again to set Frosmoth up safely while hellom tries to rip a hole in her defensive core with an Ursaluna with infinite health. The endgame was terrifying.

[CLA] pdt vs Fc [RUI] - on turn 5, pdt hard switches Iron Treads into Ogerpon-Wellspring, then proceeds to click Megahorn...and miss the KO. Fc won't be outdone, though, and he maneuvers a tricky endgame in style with a Dragon Tail Dragonite and an Endeavor (???) Great Tusk.

[CRY] Dj Breloominati♬ vs Sylveon used calm mind [RAI] - both of these players broke the mold, as Sylveon used calm mind didn't bring the German team and instead brought a completely comprehensible HO, while Spitfire brought Maushold. Just know that the Maushold has Low Kick and walks away with a positive KD, the Primarina has Aqua Jet, and Sylveon tries their best to make the endgame a lot scarier than it should be.

w7 preds

SV OU: shiloh vs Sylveon used calm mind - two players that are 3-3 through very different paths. I'm gonna say Raiza and Tricking prevent Sylveon from trolling too hard with the season on the line, they bring something tried and true against the consistent benchmark of shiloh, and it goes alright.
SV OU: Fogbound Lake vs Punny
SV OU: Piyush25 vs procorphish
SV OU: zioziotrip vs ACR1 - ACR1's on a rampage, he just cooked Finchinator for three in a row and zioziotrip is coming off of two straight losses.

SV OU: Raptor vs Separation
SV OU: xavgb vs Srn - don't think stresh is a particularly big fan of the current state of the meta and it's probably not unfair to say it might affect motivation somewhat. Srn just picked up three wins in a row, I'm a believer at this point.
SV OU: oldspicemike vs Dj Breloominati♬
SV OU: Fc vs Finchinator - I don't know, man, Finch isn't supposed to go negative. He's supposed to go positive and then either lose in semis or be on a 6th-8th franchise.

SV OU: hellom vs mncmt - dude is 6-0 and there's not much else to say, he's heat. mncmt has slid a bit recently but his schedule has been very tough. Should be fun.
SV OU: Akalli vs Beraldo
SV OU: Kushalos vs Thiago Nunes
SV OU: Xrn vs pdt - Xrn's brings the last 3 weeks have been quite good and have contributed to a great recovery, but I think this is the week pdt pulls something out of the hat and prevents himself from going 0-3 in the last 3.

SV OU: Carkoala vs MAVERICK SHOOTERS
SV OU: Mimikyu Stardust vs crying - not gonna sugarcoat it this is a nasty matchup to run into after three weeks out. Defaulting to HO is probably not going to work here.
SV OU: lax vs Savouras
SV OU: kumiko vs Gilbert arenas - great matchup. kumiko is playing excellently right now and marcop has got his swag back just in time to help a potential BIGs resurgence.

SV OU: Storm Zone vs CTC - two Shoguns in a row for CTC, they'll have to rename to the Ronin this year.
SV OU: Trosko vs Rubyblood - Rubyblood's play has not been anywhere near as bad as the record suggests. Whatever he did to piss God off, I'm predicting a break is caught here.
SV OU: JJ09LIE vs myjava - this is a fun one. myjava, the super sub, has picked up win after win now. JJ is a player that I think has a high ceiling but their last two games have felt a little jittery at crucial moments.
SV OU: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Mada

 

[kd458]

Threat of the Week: Week 6

It's official, we are on. Welcome to week 6 of Threat of the Week! Sorry for being so late, I was unwell over the week and haven't had the time to check out all the games but have finally managed to put it together for your viewing enjoyment. Hope you enjoy this week's analysis as we take a look at the best Pokemon of the week and their best games!

As usual, we'll start off by looking at the Pokemon that had 12.5% usage or more, doing well over multiple games this week:

#1: Dragonite

Differential: +8, K:D: 3.7, Uses: 8

After a completely neutral performance in the first 5 weeks where its best and worst showings were +2 and -2 respectively, Dragonite finally joins the tier's other Dragon-types by taking its place in the spotlight; Dragonite only went down in 3 games while picking up 11 kills for an impressive K:D, made more impressive by the variety in Dragonite sets used over the week. For Beraldo vs xavgb, a Choice Band Dragonite cleaned up a close endgame vs rain, while another CB Nite picked up two kills in Xrn vs Mav to pave the way for a late game Zamazenta. For crying vs hellom a BoltBeam EQ Espeed Dnite put in work by spreading damage across the board before being somehow outsped by an Ursaluna and taken down, but maybe the coolest set that actually worked really well was Fc's Roost 3 attack Utility Dragonite, forcing out a Booster Attack Roaring Moon with Dragon Tail then cleaning up with Espeed for a 3 and 0 performance. Maybe the highest set variety out of any #1 mon so far, this was Dragonite's week as the top Dragon in OU.

#2: Iron Valiant

Differential: +5, K:D: 1.8, Uses: 9

In an identical performance to week 4, Iron Valiant secured itself another podium position, only just falling short of Dragonite as another mon with a great amount of variety in its sets. Most of its kills came from two games in particular though; in Gilbert arenas vs Kushalos, a standard physical Val burned its Booster Speed to force out a Wake and pick up a kill on a Hatterene before later coming in to clean up two more kills without even needing its Booster. Its best game however is the reason that I mentioned set variety, as shiloh vs JJ09LIE saw a Booster Attack Iron Valiant click SD and beat down an Alomomola before revealing Shadow Sneak as its last move to handle a Dragapult and make up for its lack of speed. Good week for Valiant, week 6 really felt like a return to form of OU's old guard with Dragonite and Valiant atop a meta with Kingambit at 47.5% usage.

#4: Dragapult

Differential: +4, K:D: 1.7, Uses: 8

Talking of OU's old guard, Dragapult dropped off in usage but actually rose in placement to prove that week 5 wasn't just a fluke - Pult looked more than deserving of its S- tier ranking in S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs zioziotrip, as two Dragapults went 3 and 1 apiece and felt impossible to safely answer for either side, multiple speed ties being threatened before a final tie decided the game. Pult had some other good games too, forming a deadly combination with a Slowking-G in myjava vs tko to break through a Garganacl, handle an Ogerpon-W, and dismantle a GTerrain bulky offense build. In a tier ran by Dragon-types, it makes sense that Dragapult's at the top next to Iron Valiant. Great Pokemon that fits on every build, can run everything in its moveset and loads really well into OU right now.

Some lower usage Pokemon scored well this week too; what came less than 5 times but still had a great weekly differential?

#3: Glimmora

Differential: +4, K:D: 5, Uses: 2

In a very unexpected turn of events, the 3rd lowest differential mon of weeks 1 to 5 bounced back with the 3rd highest differential of week 6, coming from a surprisingly low usage with only 2 appearances. Though half of its 100% winrate came from a pretty standard Red Card set going 0 and 1 as usual in Storm Zone vs Taka, Glimmora's newfound access to Meteor Beam was shown off to the fullest in Raptor vs TNunes. It came in against a Roaring Moon that Taunted it, taking it out with Dazzling Gleam before OHKOing both a Hatterene and a Rillaboom with Sludge Bomb. It then revealed Tera Fairy and OHKOed a Hawlucha with Meteor Beam, finally taking out a Heatran with Earth Power to complete a 5 mon sweep. Crazy game for Glimmora and crazy bounce-back for a mon that had never previously gone better than -2, maybe we'll be seeing more Meteor Beam Glimm in future though its hazard setting role is still undeniably great.

#5: Frosmoth

Differential: +3, K:D: 4, Uses: 1

Although it didn't manage to clutch up a win, Frosmoth picked up every single kill for crying vs hellom in a game saved by hellom packing a Ditto for late-game Frosmoth. Not only was it a Frosmoth which is unconventional enough in itself, crying's Frosmoth came with snow support from a Slowking-G and was packing Substitute and Leftovers, with dual STAB and no coverage moves. It actually almost clutched up in a terrifying endgame where a paralysed Cinderace struggled to stop it from setting up, netting Frosmoth its 4th kill of the game. A +3 differential outdid both Iron Moth (-1) and Volcarona (-2); is Frosmoth OU's best moth? Maybe not, but maybe it can work better than most would think.

#5: Barraskewda

Differential: +3, K:D: 4, Uses: 1

Rain's fall-off is really something for the history books; even before Archaludon's ban it was starting to fall off, but going into week 6 a single rain team came and it unfortunately didn't avenge its fallen champion. Barraskewda tried its hardest though in xavgb vs Beraldo, forcing a Hatterene to Tera, living a Kingambit's Fallen 2 Sucker Punch and picking up kill after kill in a really close game that came down to the wire. It's a tough scene for post-Arch rain and Barra's future in OU is definitely uncertain, but it did its best to prove itself worthy of the tier in SPL this week.

We'll end off by looking at which Pokemon had the worst differentials of the week! This was a pretty crazy week with some of the tier's premier threats at the bottom of the list - who got nothing done?

#62: Hawlucha

Differential: -3, K:D: 0, Uses: 3

Yeah, maybe this isn't Sneasler 2... Hawlucha had a pretty terrible first 5 weeks of the tour, going -6 overall and never having a positive differential, but week 6 was its worst outing yet with a 33% winrate - the only thing that it did in the game that it won was be sac'd to an OHKO from Primarina's Moonblast while it was again sacrificed due to Terrain running out in tko vs myjava and got OHKOed by Glimmora's Meteor Beam in TNunes vs Raptor. It's still the best Unburden user in the tier, but that's not saying much after the loss of Sneasler; over half of all Grassy Terrain teams during SPL so far have dropped Hawlucha entirely, and maybe this is for good reason.

#63: Raging Bolt

Differential: -4, K:D: 0.33, Uses: 6

What happened to week 1's runner up? Raging Bolt's had a really tough fall from grace in SPL, going from a +8 differential in week 1 to +2, +3, +2, -1 and all the way down to -4 in the last week. Another 33% winrate is far from impressive, with its only two kills coming from Sylveon used calm mind vs Dj Breloominati as a Tera Fairy Tera Blast set picked off a low health Lando-T then 1v1d a Gholdengo before going down. I wouldn't argue that Bolt isn't deserving of its place on the recent survey, but in an offense and bulky offense meta full of breakers that don't mind trading into it Raging Bolt doesn't get all the value it used to.

#64: Great Tusk

Differential: -6, K:D: 0.5, Uses: 14

From week 6 alone, Great Tusk dropped its net positive differential during weeks 1 to 5 down to a total of -2; a 50% winrate does show that this wasn't a bad week for Tusk in terms of getting the job done, but we didn't get a single Great Tusk sweep like the ones we got in week 4. The only game where it picked up more than one kill was for Luispeikou vs Carkoala, as it finished off a Roaring Moon and later a Primarina to secure the win. Lots of Tusks and not many kills, but a solid winrate does show that it's still a good mon, Tusk's just spent more time being an honest defensive mon than picking up 5-0s - my favourite Tusk set this week was a Rocky Helmet Endeavour set that traded off a scary-looking Air Balloon Kingambit in Fc vs pdt.

Overall Rankings

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1      Dragonite     8     11       3   3.7             8
2   Iron Valiant     9     11       6   1.8             5
3       Glimmora     2      5       1   5.0             4
4      Dragapult     8     10       6   1.7             4
5       Frosmoth     1      4       1   4.0             3
5    Barraskewda     1      4       1   4.0             3
7       Deoxys-S     1      3       0   3.0             3
8      Primarina     7      8       5   1.6             3
9      Zamazenta     9      9       6   1.5             3
10     Kingambit    19     17      14   1.2             3
11     Garganacl     5      3       1   3.0             2
11    Samurott-H     3      3       1   3.0             2
11       Darkrai     2      3       1   3.0             2
14     Rillaboom     5      4       2   2.0             2
14       Rotom-W     1      2       0   2.0             2
16     Alomomola     3      2       1   2.0             1
16  Walking Wake     1      2       1   2.0             1
16      Ursaluna     1      2       1   2.0             1
16      Maushold     1      2       1   2.0             1
20         Ditto     1      1       0   1.0             1
20        Scizor     1      1       0   1.0             1
20       Ogerpon     1      1       0   1.0             1
23     Ogerpon-W    11      8       8   1.0             0
23  Roaring Moon    10      9       9   1.0             0
23       Weavile     3      3       3   1.0             0
23    Skeledirge     2      1       1   1.0             0
23    Tornadus-T     1      1       1   1.0             0
23      Skarmory     1      1       1   1.0             0
23       Moltres     1      1       1   1.0             0
23     Volcanion     1      1       1   1.0             0
31        Zapdos     1      0       0   0.0             0
31       Manaphy     1      0       0   0.0             0
33    Landorus-T    11      9      10   0.9            -1
34       Gliscor     5      3       4  0.75            -1
35       Ting-Lu     4      2       3  0.67            -1
36     Iron Moth     3      1       2   0.5            -1
36      Clefable     2      1       2   0.5            -1
36     Serperior     2      1       2   0.5            -1
39      Ribombee     2      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Tyranitar     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Excadrill     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Reuniclus     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39      Blaziken     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Torkoal     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Toxapex     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39      Pelipper     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39  Sandy Shocks     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Dondozo     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Blissey     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39      Enamorus     1      0       1   0.0            -1
51     Gholdengo    11      5       7  0.71            -2
52     Volcarona     7      4       6  0.67            -2
53     Cinderace     4      2       4   0.5            -2
54   Corviknight     4      1       3  0.33            -2
54        Kyurem     4      1       3  0.33            -2
56       Hoopa-U     3      0       2   0.0            -2
56      Clodsire     2      0       2   0.0            -2
56   Iron Treads     2      0       2   0.0            -2
59    Slowking-G     9      5       8  0.62            -3
60     Hatterene     5      2       5   0.4            -3
61       Heatran     4      1       4  0.25            -3
62      Hawlucha     3      0       3   0.0            -3
63   Raging Bolt     6      2       6  0.33            -4
64    Great Tusk    14      6      12   0.5            -6

Thank you for reading! Apologies once again for the late posting, I hope you enjoyed this week's games as we reach the final third of the regular season. This week's shoutouts go to Storm Zone's Roaring Moon, as a Tera Ghost set (though the Tera never actually came into play) took advantage of a weakened Landorus-T to rip through an otherwise healthy team for a 5 kill performance, Xrn's Zamazenta, who leveraged Tera Fire to press through an Iron Valiant before revealing Roar to force out a Tera Ghost Kingambit and clean up 4-0, and ACR1's Deoxys-S, with a Boots 4 attack set landing a freeze onto a Corviknight that made absorbing its Knock Off impossible, its mixed coverage threatening an entire stall team and landing it 3 kills. Have a great rest of your week and enjoy the weekend, I'll hopefully be back earlier for our next week's report!

 

[ninth]

Alright, I got pretty busy this weekend and missed a bunch of the games so I might have missed some super-tense heaters. Regardless here's some games I enjoyed from week 7.

[RUI] oldspicemike vs Dj Breloominati♬ [CRY] - we've got a really horrifying team from oldspicemike here, with three mons carrying paralysis against Spitfire's relatively honest offensive core. Spoiler alert, the Dragapult is not one of them. Dj Breloominati doesn't get full paralyzed at any point, but the speed reduction and existential fear of the full para allows Dragapult and Gholdengo to fire off Hex after Hex. Despite it coming down to Dragonite vs Dragonite, the game felt firmly in mike's control the whole time - he now sits at a lofty 6-1 and has even further solidified as a top-tier SV threat across both DLC1 and 2.

[SCO] hellom vs mncmt [CLA] - bro why is there a Lapras on my screen? It turns out that mncmt brought this veil HO RMT by Duckular which somehow turns Lapras into a Loaded Dice DD sweeper. Both mncmt and hellom seem to have the same game plan: get the stuff on the field, webs in hellom's case, set up to +6, and win. Meteor Beam Glimmora was cool but ultimately tickled a Great Tusk behind Veil, but the game ends as soon as hellom unveils the bane of HO, Mirror Herb Tera Fire Zamazenta, which is able to Body Press Volcarona without fear and flatten mncmt's entire team.

[SHA] Mimikyu Stardust vs crying [BIG] - you see that second name, you already know what's happening. crying's got a mostly raw Ninetales, and in what feels like a throwback to pre-HOME times, there's a Ceruledge on my screen. Mimikyu Stardust seems to have played it safe, with the tried-and-true core of Great Tusk/Enamorus/Glowking...hang on, there's a Decidueye on my screen. Meanwhile, crying's featured ???mon in Ceruledge does what it's been doing for a year and change, having Weak Armor and effortlessly dispatching two physdef monsters in Great Tusk and Zamazenta. It will surprise none of you that despite the Grassy Terrain support, the Decidueye does nothing and comes out only at the end, where it at least gets up a Swords Dance before dying to Foul Play (????????????) from Ninetales.

TINKATON ALERT: with the Sharks like 99% eliminated they decided now was the time to bring out two Tinkatons. The first one comes in [SHA] lax vs Savouras [BIG] where it gets paralyzed but still manages to beat Savouras' Serperior with Gigaton Hammer into Ice Hammer. The Tinkaton soon gets sacked to a Kingambit, but it steals the Black Glasses in the process, which doesn't end up being relevant but was nonetheless funny. Clearly this wasn't enough for the Sharks, who proceeded to bring another in [SHA] kumiko vs Gilbert arenas [BIG], in which it got up rocks, stole Dragapult's Boots, and died to Rotom. Both Tinkatons won!

I'm also gonna plant my flag here and say the playoff teams are gonna be Tyrants, Ruiners, Scooters, Tigers, and the Dragonspiral Tyrants will win SPL XV. Boring prediction but I do think that whole core is gonna be terrifying in playoffs/TB scenarios. The Sauce Premier League is upon us.

w8 preds

SV OU: MAVERICK SHOOTERS vs Trosko
SV OU: crying vs Storm Zone - you can't bring normal stuff against crying. Storm Zone needs to bring something new and weird named "Mantra" to this game, because if it's standard HO she's just gonna bring a Ditto.
SV OU: Savouras vs JJ09LIE - I think I've identified a key weakness in JJ09LIE's otherwise very solid game, in that their last three Sucker Punch mind games have all gone wrong. Sav has favored very offensive teams that can and will spiral out of control if JJ can't get those right.
SV OU: Gilbert arenas vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d

SV OU: myjava vs Piyush25
SV OU: CTC vs Fogbound Lake - after losing his undefeated streak to Garay oak and a super high-value Ogerpon-Wellspring, CTC finds himself against Fogbound Lake, who is hoping to continue clawing back from a highly underwhelming start. I need to see more of that 2023 Fog form before I have more confidence.
SV OU: Mada vs Taka
SV OU: Luispeikou vs zioziotrip

SV OU: mncmt vs lax - this would have been one hell of a matchup last year but mncmt this year hasn't looked as hot. The bring last week was really weird (not in a good way) and lax has been more locked in as of recent.
SV OU: Beraldo vs Mimikyu Stardust
SV OU: Thiago Nunes vs Carkoala
SV OU: pdt vs kumiko - I feel like I say this about every game with kumiko but this is also a heater matchup. These two are crafty builders on functionally eliminated teams. It's time to plunge into the archives of the US South kitchen.

SV OU: Finchinator vs Kushalos - it's honestly hard to believe that both of these players have five losses on the season. If the kitchen isn't in service, advantage Finch.
SV OU: Separation vs Xrn
SV OU: Srn vs Akalli - energized by the Gouging Fire suspect Akalli will summon incredible power and outplay every turn. Not Srn's fault he had to run into an Akalli who will be more motivated than ever to get that mon out of here.
SV OU: Floss vs hellom

SV OU: Sylveon used calm mind vs oldspicemike - I swear oldspicemike has a 90% winrate every time I watch him play. The Raiders are all but eliminated at this point and this is probably the time where Sylveon starts loading up some HO nonsense.
SV OU: TPP vs Raptor
SV OU: ACR1 vs Fc
SV OU: Punny vs xavgb - the average records of these two don't tell the whole story, these are two of the most clever SV players on the site. If there's any time for stresh to unveil his latest solution to the meta, it's now, when the Ruiners have to secure the W for playoffs.

 

[Duckular]

Alright, I got pretty busy this weekend and missed a bunch of the games so I might have missed some super-tense heaters. Regardless here's some games I enjoyed from week 7.

[RUI] oldspicemike vs Dj Breloominati♬ [CRY] - we've got a really horrifying team from oldspicemike here, with three mons carrying paralysis against Spitfire's relatively honest offensive core. Spoiler alert, the Dragapult is not one of them. Dj Breloominati doesn't get full paralyzed at any point, but the speed reduction and existential fear of the full para allows Dragapult and Gholdengo to fire off Hex after Hex. Despite it coming down to Dragonite vs Dragonite, the game felt firmly in mike's control the whole time - he now sits at a lofty 6-1 and has even further solidified as a top-tier SV threat across both DLC1 and 2.

[SCO] hellom vs mncmt [CLA] - bro why is there a Lapras on my screen? It turns out that mncmt brought this veil HO RMT by Duckular which somehow turns Lapras into a Loaded Dice DD sweeper. Both mncmt and hellom seem to have the same game plan: get the stuff on the field, webs in hellom's case, set up to +6, and win. Meteor Beam Glimmora was cool but ultimately tickled a Great Tusk behind Veil, but the game ends as soon as hellom unveils the bane of HO, Mirror Herb Tera Fire Zamazenta, which is able to Body Press Volcarona without fear and flatten mncmt's entire team.

[SHA] Mimikyu Stardust vs crying [BIG] - you see that second name, you already know what's happening. crying's got a mostly raw Ninetales, and in what feels like a throwback to pre-HOME times, there's a Ceruledge on my screen. Mimikyu Stardust seems to have played it safe, with the tried-and-true core of Great Tusk/Enamorus/Glowking...hang on, there's a Decidueye on my screen. Meanwhile, crying's featured ???mon in Ceruledge does what it's been doing for a year and change, having Weak Armor and effortlessly dispatching two physdef monsters in Great Tusk and Zamazenta. It will surprise none of you that despite the Grassy Terrain support, the Decidueye does nothing and comes out only at the end, where it at least gets up a Swords Dance before dying to Foul Play (????????????) from Ninetales.

TINKATON ALERT: with the Sharks like 99% eliminated they decided now was the time to bring out two Tinkatons. The first one comes in [SHA] lax vs Savouras [BIG] where it gets paralyzed but still manages to beat Savouras' Serperior with Gigaton Hammer into Ice Hammer. The Tinkaton soon gets sacked to a Kingambit, but it steals the Black Glasses in the process, which doesn't end up being relevant but was nonetheless funny. Clearly this wasn't enough for the Sharks, who proceeded to bring another in [SHA] kumiko vs Gilbert arenas [BIG], in which it got up rocks, stole Dragapult's Boots, and died to Rotom. Both Tinkatons won!

I'm also gonna plant my flag here and say the playoff teams are gonna be Tyrants, Ruiners, Scooters, Tigers, and the Dragonspiral Tyrants will win SPL XV. Boring prediction but I do think that whole core is gonna be terrifying in playoffs/TB scenarios. The Sauce Premier League is upon us.

w8 preds

SV OU: MAVERICK SHOOTERS vs Trosko
SV OU: crying vs Storm Zone - you can't bring normal stuff against crying. Storm Zone needs to bring something new and weird named "Mantra" to this game, because if it's standard HO she's just gonna bring a Ditto.
SV OU: Savouras vs JJ09LIE - I think I've identified a key weakness in JJ09LIE's otherwise very solid game, in that their last three Sucker Punch mind games have all gone wrong. Sav has favored very offensive teams that can and will spiral out of control if JJ can't get those right.
SV OU: Gilbert arenas vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d

SV OU: myjava vs Piyush25
SV OU: CTC vs Fogbound Lake - after losing his undefeated streak to Garay oak and a super high-value Ogerpon-Wellspring, CTC finds himself against Fogbound Lake, who is hoping to continue clawing back from a highly underwhelming start. I need to see more of that 2023 Fog form before I have more confidence.
SV OU: Mada vs Taka
SV OU: Luispeikou vs zioziotrip

SV OU: mncmt vs lax - this would have been one hell of a matchup last year but mncmt this year hasn't looked as hot. The bring last week was really weird (not in a good way) and lax has been more locked in as of recent.
SV OU: Beraldo vs Mimikyu Stardust
SV OU: Thiago Nunes vs Carkoala
SV OU: pdt vs kumiko - I feel like I say this about every game with kumiko but this is also a heater matchup. These two are crafty builders on functionally eliminated teams. It's time to plunge into the archives of the US South kitchen.

SV OU: Finchinator vs Kushalos - it's honestly hard to believe that both of these players have five losses on the season. If the kitchen isn't in service, advantage Finch.
SV OU: Separation vs Xrn
SV OU: Srn vs Akalli - energized by the Gouging Fire suspect Akalli will summon incredible power and outplay every turn. Not Srn's fault he had to run into an Akalli who will be more motivated than ever to get that mon out of here.
SV OU: Floss vs hellom

SV OU: Sylveon used calm mind vs oldspicemike - I swear oldspicemike has a 90% winrate every time I watch him play. The Raiders are all but eliminated at this point and this is probably the time where Sylveon starts loading up some HO nonsense.
SV OU: TPP vs Raptor
SV OU: ACR1 vs Fc
SV OU: Punny vs xavgb - the average records of these two don't tell the whole story, these are two of the most clever SV players on the site. If there's any time for stresh to unveil his latest solution to the meta, it's now, when the Ruiners have to secure the W for playoffs.

I’m impressed someone had the titanium balls to bring Lapras to a premier league, anyways loved watching all the replays and it was fun to see my team make a debut here.

 

[Duck Chris]

Week 7 Usage

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Dragonite          |   15 |  37.50% |  53.33% |
| 1    | Great Tusk         |   15 |  37.50% |  53.33% |
| 3    | Gholdengo          |   14 |  35.00% |  71.43% |
| 4    | Dragapult          |   12 |  30.00% |  33.33% |
| 5    | Landorus-Therian   |   10 |  25.00% |  50.00% |
| 6    | Ogerpon-Wellspring |    9 |  22.50% |  66.67% |
| 7    | Kingambit          |    8 |  20.00% |  25.00% |
| 8    | Iron Valiant       |    7 |  17.50% |  71.43% |
| 8    | Slowking-Galar     |    7 |  17.50% |  28.57% |
| 10   | Deoxys-Speed       |    6 |  15.00% |  66.67% |
| 10   | Gouging Fire       |    6 |  15.00% |  66.67% |
| 10   | Roaring Moon       |    6 |  15.00% |  50.00% |
| 10   | Samurott-Hisui     |    6 |  15.00% |  50.00% |
| 10   | Zamazenta-*        |    6 |  15.00% |  33.33% |
| 15   | Garganacl          |    5 |  12.50% |  80.00% |
| 15   | Volcarona          |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 15   | Clefable           |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 15   | Ting-Lu            |    5 |  12.50% |  20.00% |
| 19   | Darkrai            |    4 |  10.00% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Rillaboom          |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Skarmory           |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Hatterene          |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Glimmora           |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Skeledirge         |    4 |  10.00% |  25.00% |
| 19   | Raging Bolt        |    4 |  10.00% |  25.00% |
| 19   | Gliscor            |    4 |  10.00% |  25.00% |
| 19   | Heatran            |    4 |  10.00% |   0.00% |
| 28   | Serperior          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 28   | Tinkaton           |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 28   | Iron Boulder       |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 28   | Weavile            |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 28   | Iron Treads        |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 28   | Meowscarada        |    3 |   7.50% |   0.00% |
| 34   | Iron Crown         |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 34   | Ribombee           |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 34   | Garchomp           |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 34   | Zapdos             |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 34   | Alomomola          |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 34   | Ninetales-Alola    |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 34   | Kyurem             |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 34   | Ogerpon            |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 34   | Enamorus           |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Hawlucha           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Clodsire           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Dondozo            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Manaphy            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Ceruledge          |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Ninetales          |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Hoopa-Unbound      |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Pelipper           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Greninja-*         |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Barraskewda        |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Volcanion          |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 43   | Corviknight        |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Scizor             |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Lapras             |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Cinderace          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Metagross          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Walking Wake       |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Torkoal            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Typhlosion-Hisui   |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Decidueye          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 43   | Rotom-Wash         |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |

I was gone this weekend so I didn't watch games, looks like Dragonite took number one spot and Kingambit only won twice in 8 uses? Not sure what's happening! Darkrai 4/4 wins!!! lets go
Looks like people might be willing to use some more non standard stuff since some teams look to be out of playoffs by now. Sounds good to me

 

[kd458]

Threat of the Week: Week 7

Welcome back to Threat of the Week! As always, this project aims to take a look at the best and the worst of the week according to data - what had the best K:D ratios? What had the best differential? Am I really going to keep posting this later and later every week? Who knows! Hope you enjoy another week of analysis and the games that each Pokemon shone brightest in!

First, we'll take a look at the best Pokemon with 12.5% or more usage!

#2: Gouging Fire

Differential: +6, K:D: 3, Uses: 6

Gouging Fire came back from a complete lack of appearances in week 6 to show why it's the suspect of a test; while a lower usage mon managed to clinch the top spot with a higher K:D, Gouging Fire tied for the highest differential of the week with a 67% winrate across the board. In Fc vs Finchinator, Finch's Gouging easily took a +1 Moonblast from Iron Valiant to revenge kill it before getting off a Breaking Swipe to weaken a Great Tusk before it went down. However, this wasn't enough to stop Fc's own Substitute Scale Shot Gouging Fire from using Tera Fairy to get off a DD and clean up, with the Speed boost letting it outrun a Scarf Enamorus. Gouging's best game came in Mada vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d though, as a Booster Attack DD set dodged two Toxics from a Gliscor then used Tera Ghost to block a revenge killing attempt from Dragonite and 2HKO it with Breaking Swipe, using Morning Sun to get out of range of Samurott-H's Sucker Punch. Really nasty setup sweeper that can run a wide range of options to beat would-be checks, pretty dominant week to match its current suspect.

#4: Zamazenta

Differential: +5, K:D: 2.2, Uses: 6

Every dog has its day, and though Zamazenta didn't reach the heights of its week 3 showing, it managed to earn another day at the top of the rankings with a +5 differential. It actually had a pretty mediocre week though, only winning 2 of its 6 games and getting a single kill in one of its wins as a Boots set had a Ting-Lu sac'd to it in Raptor vs Separation. How did it get such a high K:D then when it went a total of 2 and 4 in its 4 losses? For hellom vs mncmt, the bane of offense picked up 6 kills against an Aurora Veil team (featuring Lapras?), using Tera Fire to dodge any Flame Body burns from Volcarona and running a Mirror Herb to become perhaps the scariest Zamazenta ever seen with a near-omniboost to its stats. Zama may have been carried by a single game, but this is only our second 6 kill game of the tour next to crying's Dondozo from week 5.

#5: Dragonite

Differential: +4, K:D: 1.5, Uses: 16

After last week's fantastic showing, Dragonite usage skyrocketed for week 7 of SPL - 16 uses was more than even Great Tusk, and an overall +4 performance indicates that this is for good reason. Who'd have thought that maybe the strongest anti-offense tool around did great into an offense-laden meta? Dragonite actually never picked up more than a +2 differential in a single game, which speaks more to its consistency than anything - it actually went 3 and 1 in Xrn vs pdt though, as pdt's DD Dragonite claimed two kills even after being tricked a Choice Scarf while Xrn's BandNite traded off a threatening DD Roaring Moon from full. Dragonite game-ended 3 times in SPL this week, picking up a kill apiece with standard sets for oldspicemike and Mav; in Garay oak vs CTC, it was instead an Outrage Dragonite that cleaned up with a double kill against CTC's own DD Encore Dnite and a Kyurem that couldn't kill it through Multiscale. Dragonite's never looked more meta than this, we'll have to see if it keeps this up going into the last 2 weeks of the tour.

Even our #1 Pokemon this week had less than 5 uses - which threats came to few games but did great in the ones they came to?

#1: Darkrai

Differential: +6, K:D: 4, Uses: 4

8 kills, 2 deaths and a 100% win rate? Darkrai really beat the fraud accusations this week, winning every game it came to with at least 1 kill per game. In MAVERICK SHOOTERS vs Carkoala, what appeared to be a somewhat bulky Leftovers Darkrai Focus Blasted a Kingambit, flinched down a Walking Wake til it was forced out then took out the sun setter to secure the game. Darkrai's best game was for lax vs Savouras though as a Choice Scarf variant picked up 4 kills - after a Kingambit went down, Scarf Dark Pulse took out a Deoxys-S, forced Tera Fairy on a Gholdengo then Tera Poison'd itself to kill the Ghold, poison a Gouging Fire (which it later went down to) and finish off the game with a Dark Pulse flinch to take out a Landorus-T. Maybe this threat won't be heading to UU after all...

#3: Barraskewda

Differential: +5, K:D: 5, Uses: 1

For the second week running, Barraskewda manages to make the top of the leaderboard despite a single appearance; this time it got 5 kills though and managed to bring its team a win in kumiko vs Gilbert arenas, breaking through a Rotom-W and two other frailer Water-resists after a Raging Bolt Tera Electric'd to snipe a Meowscarada. A carefully played endgame helped to facilitate a Liquidation sweep after Barra earlier Flip Turned a Pult and a Lando-T to death while chip on a Rotom-W was provided with a bold stay-in on a Hydro Pump (that missed), letting Skewda wrap up the game for a powerful rain victory.

#7: Hawlucha

Differential: +3, K:D: 3, Uses: 1

Perhaps I treated you too harshly... An otherwise disappointing season was made up for this week by Lucha's performance in TPP vs shiloh, as a Tera Flying Hawlucha set up and stayed healthy through a Corviknight Brave Bird and Rocky Helmet damage with the less-common Drain Punch for Fighting-type STAB. It actually joined Zamazenta and Dondozo in the ranks of +6 differential winners in spirit, as it was only denied 3 more kills by an early forfeit - is Hawlucha this much of a threat? I don't know if I can say for sure, but it proved itself as worthy of the "best Unburden sweeper" title this week.

Finally, we'll have a look at the Pokemon that had the worst differential in week 7. Who hit the bottom of the rankings this week?

#61: Ting-Lu

Differential: -4, K:D: 0.2, Uses: 5

Ting-Lu had a pretty rough week 7, dropping a single kill while going down in all 5 of the games it was brought to this week. Ordinarily this wouldn't be particularly noteworthy due to Lu's status as a bulky hazard setter that doesn't typically claim kills itself, but a 20% winrate isn't something to be too impressed by. In its single win for crying vs Mimikyu Stardust, all it did was lead, set up Stealth Rock and be OHKOed by Rillaboom's Wood Hammer, while its only kill came in ACR1 vs zioziotrip where it took down a Gholdengo before later being KOed from 87% by a Low Kick Kingambit. Is this just a small sample size, is Lu still good? We'll have to keep an eye on it and see how it looks in the upcoming weeks.

#62: Slowking-Galar

Differential: -5, K:D: 0.17, Uses: 7

Another slow week for the king of FuturePort... In a similar way to Ting-Lu, Slowking-G had a pretty poor week, with a single kill and a measly winrate of 29%. Even its singular kill wasn't exactly impressive and only awarded on a technicality - in S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Mada, a Slowking-G was sac'd to a Darkrai without even revealing a move, but in the process of doing so Darkrai fainted from Life Orb recoil and so Glowking managed to pick up its one kill of the week. If not for the poor winrate, I'd say this low differential is pretty standard for a defensive pivot like this, but is Fsight pressure really not that good any more? Perhaps not in this fast-paced, offense-oriented meta that we play right now.

#63: Landorus-T

Differential: -6, K:D: 0.33, Uses: 10

To maybe no-one's surprise, the defensive, hazard-setting Intimidate pivot that is Landorus-T had yet another week at the bottom of the rankings, though a really solid usage rate of 25% and an even more solid winrate of 50% proves that, perhaps unlike the previous two entries, Lando-T's still got it. Physical, special, fast, slow, Taunt, Grass Knot, Psychic, Landorus-T can run a wide range of options and does a great job of it. Just don't hold out too much hope for any of these things coming on more than a defensive set though, the tier needs its Gouging check and Homelandor is here to save the day.

Overall Rankings

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1        Darkrai     4      8       2   4.0             6
2   Gouging Fire     6      9       3   3.0             6
3    Barraskewda     1      5       0   5.0             5
4      Zamazenta     6      9       4   2.2             5
5      Dragonite    16     12       8   1.5             4
6      Volcarona     5      4       1   4.0             3
7       Hawlucha     1      3       0   3.0             3
7        Dondozo     1      3       0   3.0             3
9   Iron Boulder     3      5       2   2.5             3
10       Gliscor     4      3       1   3.0             2
10      Garchomp     2      3       1   3.0             2
12      Clodsire     1      2       0   2.0             2
13     Ogerpon-W     9      8       6   1.3             2
14    Iron Crown     2      2       1   2.0             1
14  Typhlosion-H     1      2       1   2.0             1
14     Ceruledge     1      2       1   2.0             1
14       Hoopa-U     1      2       1   2.0             1
18      Clefable     5      4       3   1.3             1
19    Skeledirge     4      5       4   1.2             1
20    Great Tusk    15     13      12   1.1             1
21     Ninetales     1      1       0   1.0             1
22     Gholdengo    14      9       9   1.0             0
22     Dragapult    11      9       9   1.0             0
22  Iron Valiant     7      4       4   1.0             0
22     Garganacl     5      1       1   1.0             0
22     Rillaboom     4      3       3   1.0             0
22   Raging Bolt     4      4       4   1.0             0
22  Walking Wake     1      1       1   1.0             0
22     Decidueye     1      1       1   1.0             0
22       Rotom-W     1      1       1   1.0             0
22     Volcanion     1      1       1   1.0             0
32     Alomomola     2      0       0   0.0             0
32       Manaphy     1      0       0   0.0             0
32      Pelipper     1      0       0   0.0             0
35      Deoxys-S     6      4       5   0.8            -1
36       Heatran     4      3       4  0.75            -1
37     Hatterene     4      2       3  0.67            -1
38      Glimmora     4      1       2   0.5            -1
38      Enamorus     2      1       2   0.5            -1
40      Ribombee     2      0       1   0.0            -1
40        Kyurem     2      0       1   0.0            -1
40   Corviknight     1      0       1   0.0            -1
40        Scizor     1      0       1   0.0            -1
40        Lapras     1      0       1   0.0            -1
40     Cinderace     1      0       1   0.0            -1
40     Metagross     1      0       1   0.0            -1
40       Torkoal     1      0       1   0.0            -1
40      Greninja     1      0       1   0.0            -1
49     Kingambit     8      5       7  0.71            -2
50  Roaring Moon     6      3       5   0.6            -2
51      Skarmory     4      1       3  0.33            -2
51       Weavile     3      1       3  0.33            -2
51   Meowscarada     3      1       3  0.33            -2
51     Serperior     3      1       3  0.33            -2
51      Tinkaton     3      1       3  0.33            -2
56   Iron Treads     3      0       2   0.0            -2
56        Zapdos     2      0       2   0.0            -2
56       Ogerpon     2      0       2   0.0            -2
56   Ninetales-A     2      0       2   0.0            -2
60    Samurott-H     6      2       5   0.4            -3
61       Ting-Lu     5      1       5   0.2            -4
62    Slowking-G     7      1       6  0.17            -5
63    Landorus-T    10      3       9  0.33            -6

Thank you for staying tuned for another week of Threat of the Week! Hope you enjoyed the games this week, looking forward to some cool teams and cool techs as we near the playoffs, both from matchups where teams are desperate for wins to clinch a playoffs placement and matchups where players can relax a little and bring whatever they want to see on the big stage. My shoutouts this week go to Thiago Nunes's Iron Crown, who would have gone +3 if not for a forfeit with a Booster Speed Tera Fighting set that cleaned up a lategame, both Iron Boulders in JJ09LIE vs myjava in a crazy mirror matchup where myjava's Boulder claimed two kills before JJ09LIE's won the speed tie and picked up three more to save the game, and crying's Ceruledge and Hoopa-U, the former taking down both a Tusk and a Zama while the latter took out a Slowking-G before tanking an Enamorus' Moonblast and KOing it from 51% with Choice Specs Dark Pulse. Have a nice weekend, enjoy the upcoming SPL games, and see you next time for more TotW!

 

[ninth]

Week 8 has sealed the fate of several teams - we can welcome the Tyrants and Tigers to the playoffs while saying farewell to the Classiest, Raiders, and BIGs. I think. I'm no good with math.

marcop vs ho3n - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752005 - this was a pretty dominant whooping but there were two funny things I saw from this. First of all, S1nn0h's Ogerpon-Wellspring had to have been Bold, because it not only lost four speed ties but also did less damage than marcop's. Second of all, while in the middle of brutalizing the entire enemy team with Ursaluna, we got to see a legendary mind control moment:

[BIG] Savouras vs JJ09LIE [TIG] - really fun looking Gravity/sandstorm team from Savouras here, featuring a mixed Tyranitar. Things start off well enough, scoring two kills on JJ09LIE's Lu/Ghold core before more than a single Spike can go up, but then Garganacl turns into a Water-type and promptly becomes unstoppable in conjunction with U-Turn Gliscor. As Sav clicks more and more moves you start realizing that nothing on his team can break the regeneration of these two, as his Knocker Off has long since died and the Tera Ground Excadrill is now vulnerable to Toxic.

[TYR] myjava vs Piyush25 [WOL] - we've got another damn Garganacl, they really showed out this week. myjava really expertly plays this one in so many ways: he somehow beats an Encore Iron Valiant that came in on Garganacl's Recover, Tricks a Bulk Up Great Tusk a Scarf and promptly switches Landorus-T into every single Headlong Rush, nails a Taunt on the Volcarona coming in and stops the sweep, and controls the endgame to prevent the Kingambit/Volcarona goobing. Super precise play from someone who didn't even start the season, dude is absolutely solid. Also, Tera Dark Kowtow Cleave did 65% to Dragonite through Multiscale, and that was a little terrifying.

[RAI] ACR1 vs Fc [RUI] - we got Manaphy webs earlier in the day with Kushalos vs Finchinator, but this one worked much better. Lot of herbs here: the first one we see is Power Herb Glimmora, which doesn't kill a Tera Ground Volcarona but does manage to screw over an Iron Valiant later on. Mirror Herb Zamazenta rears its head once again, which is consistently funny because Zamazenta having this many stat boosts is viscerally terrifying:

[CRY] Floss vs hellom [SCO] - hellom has really diversified from the triple-setup offense he was bringing in the early weeks, and it's nice to see him keep it up with different builds. This time he has what looks like an ORAS team that was edited to have a Skeledirge on it. The Dirge in question has a really, really good matchup here, essentially handling all of Floss' team without needing to Tera - especially after Serperior gets off two Glares on Deoxys and Rillaboom. That second Glare also allows for a horrifying turn 5 where hellom goes hard Gliscor into a Rillaboom, and it somehow works out for him. Not even Throat Chop Hawlucha from Floss can save him from Skeledirge rolling the endgame.

[TYR] CTC vs Fogbound Lake [WOL] - on average you might expect this game to have at most one Air Balloon, maybe on a Ground-weak mon. This game has two, one on Fogbound Lake's lead Samurott-Hisui and one on CTC's Hatterene, and neither of them are ground weak. Unfortunately for Fog, the Samurott is probably not the lead into Grimmsnarl, which promptly gets up a Light Screen. CTC's Gouging Fire fails to kill Gholdengo with Flare Blitz, which he should post as DNB evidence because that surviving is insane. The Air Balloon on Hatterene ends up being very useful indeed, as it walls Great Tusk and forces in Fog's own Hatterene in a nuzzling competition. Anyways, the basedlord's Hatterene Healing Wishes into Iron Moth, who gets a Fiery Dance boost, sets up a sub on the switch, turns into a Fairy, and proceeds to Get Bucks Like Milwaukee. I would also like to point out that this game is 17 turns long and Fogbound Lake's timer is at 5 seconds for half of it.

[BIG] crying vs Storm Zone [TIG] - this was a bit of a car crash, not gonna lie, but I have to highlight it because of the Leavanny. Turn 1 exposes a much more horrifying reality: 1) Storm Zone's Raging Bolt is Specs Volt Switch, and 2) crying's only Electric resist is (checks notes) Leavanny. Even Storm Zone's car passing under a tunnel and disconnecting mid-battle for a worryingly long time wasn't enough to stop the beatdown. Without a doubt, one of the games of all time.

This week is crucial to figure out the fates of the final two playoff slots, with the Ruiners, Scooters, Wolfpack, Sharks, and Cryonicles all ostensibly in contention. Most crucially, the Ruiners and the Wolfpack face off in a battle that may or may not send either team packing. I remain stalwart in my prediction that playoffs will by TYR/TIG/RUI/SCO. Tyrants 7-5 Ruiners in the finals.

UPDATE:

w9 preds

SV OU: lax vs Srn
SV OU: kumiko vs Finchinator - this is surely the pivotal matchup in a week that will doom one team and give a glimmer of hope to another. I do not think Finch has played particularly badly, certainly not, but kumiko has looked absolutely on point all season
SV OU: Mimikyu Stardust vs Separation
SV OU: tko vs Floss

SV OU: Akalli vs Amaranth - straight up did not realize Amaranth plays SV but he's in top 16 of OST so clearly "mons is mons" still holds true. Raiders are out and their lineup is also weird (McMeghan BW and Jisoo ADV, Punny's not even starting, sure, why not) so I suspect we're gonna get a few off-the-wall brings across the board.
SV OU: Xrn vs TPP
SV OU: Kushalos vs ACR1 - this dude is heat. Came in midway through the season and has dispatched 64.5k of top SV threats, all while his team slipped farther down the leaderboard. Consistently good brings. The only 3k buy with more wins is GeniusX, and that guy's starting. I think ACR1's an ORAS main but it would be cool to see him continue here.
SV OU: hellom vs entrocefalo

SV OU: Fogbound Lake vs Raptor
SV OU: zioziotrip vs oldspicemike - two guys that you look away from for a second and they have 6+ wins, quietly putting up excellent records. Bolding mike because literally every time I click on one of his games in stours he wins.
SV OU: Piyush25 vs xavgb
SV OU: freezai vs Fc - Mr. Freeze has returned in the 11th hour. Fc has been pretty alright all season, perfectly average. freezai's had a trickier run of things this tour and it'll take a real concerted effort to win here. In general the Ruiners' SV kitchen is much better than the Wolfpack's.

SV OU: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs pdt - the Classiest kind of collapsed but I'm glad pdt has come out looking pretty good.
SV OU: JJ09LIE vs Thiago Nunes
SV OU: Storm Zone vs mncmt - mncmt hasn't played up to his 2023 standards this year, and is probably going to either bring something very standard or another RMT. Storm Zone was very fresh last week, Specs Bolt is a cool tech that did very well and showed his craftiness.
SV OU: Baloor vs Beraldo

SV OU: myjava vs MAVERICK SHOOTERS - 4-1 off the bench and the only person that could take out oldspicemike, this guy is the truth. Second Team India teammate in a row - I guarantee next WCOP he's gonna outdo his 2023 efforts.
SV OU: Ash KetchumGamer vs Gilbert arenas
SV OU: Mada vs Savouras
SV OU: CTC vs crying - I wish this matchup had come, like, four weeks ago, and both teams weren't already locked in or out. The duel of lord heat vs. incomprehensible heat now has much lower stakes. With how things are now, it seems likely that crying will just bring a Rampardos and CTC wins cleanly in 25 turns by bringing an overall solid squad. Fun fact, these two teamed on the SCL II Shoguns.
UPDATE:

 

[Duck Chris]

Week 8 Usage

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Kingambit          |   16 |  40.00% |  56.25% |
| 2    | Zamazenta-*        |   12 |  30.00% |  75.00% |
| 2    | Gholdengo          |   12 |  30.00% |  41.67% |
| 4    | Landorus-Therian   |   10 |  25.00% |  40.00% |
| 4    | Iron Valiant       |   10 |  25.00% |  30.00% |
| 6    | Dragapult          |    9 |  22.50% |  55.56% |
| 6    | Ting-Lu            |    9 |  22.50% |  44.44% |
| 8    | Great Tusk         |    8 |  20.00% |  37.50% |
| 8    | Roaring Moon       |    8 |  20.00% |  25.00% |
| 10   | Slowking-Galar     |    7 |  17.50% |  85.71% |
| 10   | Darkrai            |    7 |  17.50% |  57.14% |
| 10   | Ogerpon-Wellspring |    7 |  17.50% |  42.86% |
| 13   | Gliscor            |    6 |  15.00% |  83.33% |
| 13   | Volcarona          |    6 |  15.00% |  33.33% |
| 13   | Glimmora           |    6 |  15.00% |  33.33% |
| 16   | Clefable           |    5 |  12.50% |  80.00% |
| 16   | Deoxys-Speed       |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 16   | Dragonite          |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 16   | Primarina          |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 16   | Garganacl          |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 16   | Samurott-Hisui     |    5 |  12.50% |  20.00% |
| 22   | Alomomola          |    4 |  10.00% |  75.00% |
| 22   | Gouging Fire       |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 24   | Ogerpon            |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 24   | Hatterene          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 24   | Kyurem             |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 24   | Tyranitar          |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 24   | Excadrill          |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 24   | Iron Moth          |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 24   | Heatran            |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 24   | Cinderace          |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 32   | Amoonguss          |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 32   | Enamorus           |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 32   | Volcanion          |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 32   | Weavile            |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 32   | Skarmory           |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 32   | Iron Boulder       |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Grimmsnarl         |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Ursaluna           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Manaphy            |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Ribombee           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Zapdos             |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 32   | Corviknight        |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 32   | Dondozo            |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 32   | Rillaboom          |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Rotom-Wash         |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 46   | Raging Bolt        |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 46   | Hoopa-Unbound      |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 46   | Scizor             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 46   | Serperior          |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 46   | Skeledirge         |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 46   | Latios             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 46   | Moltres            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 46   | Toxapex            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Meowscarada        |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Ninetales          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Leavanny           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Walking Wake       |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Ceruledge          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Iron Treads        |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Hawlucha           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 46   | Iron Crown         |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |

Week 8 is in the books as we head into the final push for playoffs.

Employee of the Week:
Zamazenta remains one of the strongest all around pokemon in the tier, this week rocketing up to second in usage with 9 wins in 12 appearances. Having a 75% win rate as the second most used pokemon is frankly absurd and shows just how useful he can be even when heavily prepared for. Slowking-G tags in as the most winning pokemon in the top 10, posting 6 wins out of 7 appearances this week. This is interesting to me as the stats have been pretty down on him in past weeks, with balance cores revolving around Glowking having a consistently negative win rate. However I feel like the eye test shows that the tide has begun to swing especially since the archaludon ban. Balance structures containing sturdy pivots and strong wallbreakers are seeing more and more use, and Slowking's natural resistance to body press and moonblast helps a lot.

Hyper Off:
As Balance rises, HO starts to fall. Negative win rate and declining usage showed up for all four of these HO mainstays this week. One thing these all have in common is a weakness to things like Alomomola and Ting-Lu teams that can tank hits and either hit back, heal, phaze, or pivot into a counter. Hyper offense still showed up this week though there was a notable increase in other options like Deoxys-Speed (5 uses) and Darkrai (7 uses). To my eyes it looks like HO builds are just trying to be a bit more creative to stay ahead of the game. This makes a lot of sense when tera is an option to turn any random 6th mon into a threat no one was prepared for. Hope to see more of this in the hype playoff rounds.

Suspicious Suspect:
One of these pokemon is being suspect tested
Week 8 Usage | Overall usage | Win% Overall |
30.00% | 18.87% | 56.67% |
7.5% | 12.26% | 53.85% |
10% | 11.01% | 51.43% |
With all the theory crafting going on about its "unstoppable" defensive DD sets, wallbreaking sun sets, and offensive options like tera fairy/poison/ground/fire, Gouging fire is currently posting about the same stats success wise as Primarina. Hold what opinions you like but the usage clearly does not show it to be an overwhelming presence in game. Is the meta just too far adjusted to counter it? Or is it just not broken?

Funnest game: [RAI] Punny vs xavgb [RUI] Stresh uses moltres AGAIN but also brings a very useful Latios for some wallbreaking pressure + spikes immunity.
Coolest set: everything non-standard this week lost lol. Ice Fang Zamazenta and Low kick Dragonite were kinda interesting. Also saw two instances of Sub Iron Moth like it's January 2023 again.

 

[kd458]

Threat of the Week: Week 8

As we wrap up the regular season of SPL, I extend a warm welcome back to Threat of the Week! We will, as always, be highlighting the best and the worst of the tier based on K:D and more importantly differential, linking replays and checking out what sets really pulled through this week! Thank you all for staying tuned, starting at a new job next week so no promises on it being as early as this lmao, plus I'll prob end up doing a full season recap so look out for that. Without further ado, let's get into week 8 of SPL!

To start, we'll be taking a look at what Pokemon did best with 12.5% usage or higher!

#1: Zamazenta

Differential: +13, K:D: 3.2, Uses: 12

In our highest differential of the tour so far, Zamazenta cements itself as having by far the best overall differential of any mon from week 1 to 8 with an insane +13 performance over only 12 uses. Out of its 9 wins, Za cleaned up to win in 4 games: xavgb vs Punny had an ID Zama with an unrevealed item win a close endgame with 2 kills into a weakened Ghold and a Tera Grass Ogerpon, while in lax vs mncmt a Chesto Rest Zama was positioned well to pick up 3 kills as the last mon standing on either side. A Mirror Herb Zama came on webs for ACR1 vs Fc to force out a Volcarona, though a sweep was delayed until it later Tera Fire'd to avoid Flame Body and clean up. Za really lived up to its reputation of offense killer best in oldspicemike vs Sylveon used calm mind though as Roar Zama got +6 and successfully dodged a couple Flame Body burns to rip through 4 remaining offense mons to win on the spot. Easily the best mon of SPL in terms of differential, the tier's top dog claims another week...

#2: Slowking-G

Differential: +8, K:D: 5, Uses: 7

From 2nd last to 2nd best, I'm pretty sure that this is the biggest rise between two weeks of SPL so far. Galarian Slowking picked up 10 kills with an 86% win rate this week, only going down twice and not having a single negative differential game. Slowking-G actually did close out two games for a win, as an AV Glowking Tera Water'd and Surfed down a Garg to finish off the game for TPP vs Raptor while in Finchinator vs Kushalos a standard Slowking-G set took down a Tera Fairy Manaphy before later beating a last mon Zama. Gking actually never picked up more than two kills in a single game, which makes its massive K:D all the more impressive. With Zamazenta's strength at an all-time high, maybe this is the perfect meta for Slowking-Galar to leverage its skills as a special wall that also happens to check the dog; all that can be said is that week 8 may really be the return of the king.

#6: Gliscor

Differential: +3, K:D: 2, Uses: 6

Unlike its fellow Ground / Flying type's recent performances, Gliscor had a great week, with a +3 differential backing up 5 strong wins and a single loss where it still managed to go 1 for 1. Scor would have gone even though if not for a single game; in Mada vs Taka, an Alo + breaker (Hoopa-U and Ursaluna, respectively) core showdown was dominated by an SD Facade Gliscor, which took advantage of Alo's inability to touch it to find opportunities to set up multiple Swords Dances, tank hits and Protect its way back to full after taking even Ice Fangs and Draco Meteors from a Zama and a Pult. Though it ended the game with a forfeit, I wouldn't be surprised to have seen it SD Protect its way to full and finish off the rest of Taka's team by itself after all three of the faster mons already went down to it, including an Air Balloon Ghold that should have walled it forever if not for Tera'ing and having its balloon popped by Hoopa; SD Glisc is a serious threat and some of these bulky offense structures lacking something like a metal bird to wall it just melt to SD -> Tect -> SD again.

Now, we'll take a look at the week's best niche heat; which Pokemon came to less than 5 games but still managed to make their mark?

#3: Iron Moth

Differential: +4, K:D: 3, Uses: 3

Not for the first time, Iron Moth outshines its present counterpart with an impressive K:D, despite only winning one of its three games. It still went +0 and +1 in its two losses, but for CTC vs Fogbound Lake, a single SpAtk raise let a Substitute Tera Fairy Moth rip apart offense, in a game where it would have gone +5 if not for a forfeit before a Tusk and a Ghold could go down. Iron Moth might be a more niche pick than Volcarona, not fitting as easily onto as many structures, but on offense and particularly on screens it came in force this week. Like Zamazenta, this meta seems pretty perfect for another offense mon that farms opposing offense, and once a team's bulkier mons and priority users are weakened, one Fiery Dance boost can spell instant doom.

#4: Weavile

Differential: +3, K:D: 4, Uses: 2

Though Weavile only came twice, it won both games and picked up two kills in both. For hellom vs Floss, Weavile did its classic task of picking off threats by forcing a paralysed Deoxys-S to be sac'd then taking out a low health Volc. In its other win, zioziotrip vs Luispeikou had a Weavile be a massive threat all game with no real switch-ins, its ability to force kills again evident while its great matchup into Landorus-T was emphasised as it closed out the game as the last mon standing. The relative lack of bulkier teams in SPL may be enough reason for it to not appear more than it currently does, but there isn't much in the tier right now that has fewer safe switch-ins than Weavile.

#5: Skeledirge

Differential: +3, K:D: 3, Uses: 1

Though Dirge only came once this week, it made its mark in hellom vs Floss as a powerful defensive piece that came in multiple times before winning a crazy endgame; a Will-O-Wisp miss on a Tera Flying Hawlucha looked to have been the end of an unlucky game for hellom, but a frozen Alo crucially managed to thaw out and successfully pass a wish back to Dirge, who then landed its Wisp and managed to pull off a Torch Song sweep into the three Pokemon left. Dirge does have a great matchup into a good portion of the tier, but some of the Dragon- and Dark-types do hold it back a little. Maybe this is a sign that Skeledirge's best matchups are worth investing in it for?

We'll finally take a look at the worst differentials of the week; as we've done before, certain defensive / lead hazard (Glimmora, Lando-T and Ting-Lu) will be omitted as mons that don't often pick up kills with constant low differentials.

#57: Iron Valiant

Differential: -3, K:D: 0.7, Uses: 10

Though Val wasn't at the very bottom of the leaderboard, a 30% winrate combined with it going down in all 10 of its games indicates that Iron Valiant had a particularly poor performance during week 8. Its only real good performance was in xavgb vs Punny, as a mixed Val finished off a Lu before using Tera Dark to OHKO a Deoxys-S. This wasn't Val's week across the board, maybe evidence of a surge in Gking winrate and the prevalence of Volcarona in the tier. This is a tough drop from Iron Val's earlier solid weekly showings, it could be that the tier's not well suited to it right now but I'm sure it'll make a comeback.

#58: Samurott-H

Differential: -3, K:D: 0.4, Uses: 5

Another Pokemon that went down in every game it came to this week was Samurott-H; though that's also the case for some of this week's other omitted hazard setters, Samu-H had a particularly poor winrate of only 20%. It actually didn't lead in many of its games, and its singular win came from a burned Hisuian Samurott taking out a Dragapult later on in Mimikyu Stardust vs Beraldo, a game where its single spike didn't even come into play. This is still a great spike setter, and it's not too surprising that a hazard lead left this week with a negative differential, but only a single win in 5 uses really isn't something to be too proud of.

#62: Roaring Moon

Differential: -7, K:D: 0.12, Uses: 8

How is he so ass? Roaring Moon has only had a single positive week in SPL (+1 in week 4), but there was no single sweep to bring it back to neutral as it hit a new low at the bottom of the differential rankings with a 25% winrate. Is the scourge of OU really this terrible, and not in the way that it wants to be? Maybe picking up only a single kill is evidence enough of this, as in ACR1 vs Fc it did pick off a Lando-T and weaken a Gouging Fire before being allowed to go down to give a Zamazenta the chance to set up an Iron Defense, but in this fast-paced offensive meta Moon really isn't feeling too hard to handle.

Overall Rankings

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1      Zamazenta    12     19       6   3.2            13
2     Slowking-G     7     10       2   5.0             8
3      Iron Moth     3      6       2   3.0             4
4        Weavile     2      4       1   4.0             3
5     Skeledirge     1      3       0   3.0             3
6        Gliscor     6      6       3   2.0             3
7      Volcarona     6      8       5   1.6             3
8        Darkrai     7      9       6   1.5             3
9       Enamorus     2      3       1   3.0             2
10      Ursaluna     2      2       0   2.0             2
10       Dondozo     2      4       2   2.0             2
12     Garganacl     5      6       4   1.5             2
13     Excadrill     3      2       1   2.0             1
13       Toxapex     1      2       1   2.0             1
15       Manaphy     2      3       2   1.5             1
16     Dragonite     5      4       3   1.3             1
17     Dragapult     9      9       8   1.1             1
18     Alomomola     4      1       0   1.0             1
18   Raging Bolt     1      1       0   1.0             1
18        Latios     1      1       0   1.0             1
21    Great Tusk     8      6       6   1.0             0
21      Clefable     5      5       5   1.0             0
21       Ogerpon     3      3       3   1.0             0
21       Heatran     3      2       2   1.0             0
21        Kyurem     3      2       2   1.0             0
21        Zapdos     2      2       2   1.0             0
21  Iron Boulder     2      2       2   1.0             0
21    Grimmsnarl     2      1       1   1.0             0
21     Volcanion     2      1       1   1.0             0
21     Rillaboom     2      2       2   1.0             0
21        Scizor     1      1       1   1.0             0
21      Hawlucha     1      1       1   1.0             0
21    Iron Crown     1      1       1   1.0             0
34       Rotom-W     1      0       0   0.0             0
34       Hoopa-U     1      0       0   0.0             0
36     Kingambit    16     12      13  0.92            -1
37     Ogerpon-W     7      5       6  0.83            -1
38     Tyranitar     3      2       3  0.67            -1
39     Amoonguss     2      0       1   0.0            -1
39   Corviknight     2      0       1   0.0            -1
39      Skarmory     2      0       1   0.0            -1
39   Meowscarada     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Ninetales     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39      Leavanny     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39  Walking Wake     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Ceruledge     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39   Iron Treads     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39     Serperior     1      0       1   0.0            -1
39       Moltres     1      0       1   0.0            -1
50     Gholdengo    12      7       9  0.78            -2
51     Primarina     5      3       5   0.6            -2
52      Deoxys-S     5      2       4   0.5            -2
52  Gouging Fire     4      2       4   0.5            -2
54     Hatterene     3      1       3  0.33            -2
55     Cinderace     3      0       2   0.0            -2
55      Ribombee     2      0       2   0.0            -2
57  Iron Valiant    10      7      10   0.7            -3
58    Samurott-H     5      2       5   0.4            -3
59      Glimmora     6      2       6  0.33            -4
60    Landorus-T    10      5      10   0.5            -5
61       Ting-Lu     9      2       8  0.25            -6
62  Roaring Moon     8      1       8  0.12            -7

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the penultimate regular season edition of Threat of the Week! Two Pokemon this week were particularly deserving of a shoutout; though it didn't meet its #1 peak of last week, Akalli's Darkrai showed up with an interesting Heavy-Duty Boots Knock Off set, took a +1 Sludge Wave from Iron Moth to finish it off and later cleaned through the remaining 4 Pokemon at 3% health for a +5 differential that had it really feeling like the Uber that it once was. Another +5 came from Trosko's Dragapult, which claimed kill after kill into a sand team that really had no safe answer into it particularly as it revealed that it was Choice Specs Hydro Pump. As we enter the final round of the main season, I'm looking forward to seeing both the teams brought in fun games with no consequence for the season and those brought where a playoffs position hangs in the balance. Have a nice week and see you next time!

 

[ninth]

That's the regular season over. Despite a blasting at the hands of the eliminated Raiders, the Indie Scooters have secured playoffs in a showdown against the seemingly un-cursed Circus Maximus Tigers. On the other side of the bracket, the Dragonspiral Tyrants, reeling from the banning of SV overlord CTC, will face off against the Alpha Ruiners in a match that will surely be extremely cordial and not feature any activity drama. These teams all have excellent SV records - the Tigers have a super-consistent leading three with Trosko/JJ09LIE/Storm Zone, the Tyrants still retain the cooking services of CTC and a seemingly endless supply of super-subs (myjava 5-1!!!!), the Ruiners have the newly ascendant oldspicemike plus consensus top threats xavgb and Raptor, and the Scooters' hellom boasts the only undefeated full-time SV record, his 5-2 partner in crime Akalli, and a resurgent Xrn.


[SCO] Akalli vs Amaranth [RAI] - before a couple of weeks ago I mainly knew Amaranth as an RBY player. Apparently he's in top 16 of OST this year and has been bringing some pretty neat stuff, and this game is no exception, with Alolan Ninetales providing screens for, among others, Power Herb Meteor Beam Tera Flying Glimmora and CM/ID Stored Power Iron Crown. Unfortunately, Akalli has a wonderful stopper to these HO shenanigans: Toxic Spikes Slowking-Galar and Hex Dragapult. Oh, and Zamazenta's there too for more anti-HO. After Glimmora is eliminated by a crit Draco Meteor, most of Amaranth's team is crippled by the poison, letting Dragapult spam Hex with impunity before any of them can get set up. A wild-looking offense running into a tried-and-true anti-offense.

[WOL] zioziotrip vs oldspicemike [RUI] - this is a really good matchup between two of SV's finest, who have quietly solidified as top threats. zioziotrip has a modern Skeledirge balance, while oldspicemike has a diverse array of offensive threats that also somehow constitute a solid defensive core via the first five mons. But in truth, mike really only needs one mon and then five fillers, and that one mon is Tera Fairy Gholdengo, who puts up Wilt Chamberlain numbers and basically kills every mon on zioziotrip's team. Notably, the Gholdengo was Covert Cloak (which wasn't even useful here) and got knocked turn 3, so it did all of this work while itemless.

[WOL] Piyush25 vs xavgb [RUI] - This game has a kind of cursed ending but I wanted to shoutout this cool Primarina set from Piyush, it's Tera Poison and Calm Mind/Draining Kiss/Psychic Noise/Encore. Against xavgb's semi-stall, it's an immaculate stop to the Meowscarada, the Clodsire, and even Encores out the Skeledirge before it comes back in later and finishes the job. That Skeledirge happens to be Tera Water, which means that nothing on Piyush's team can hit it supereffectively - but as we know, Thunder Wave is a potent win condition, and Piyush's Gholdengo manages to full paralyze xavgb so hard that he either couldn't click or his internet ran out on him. Is it just me, or has there been a really high number of timeouts this SPL?

[WOL] freezai vs Fc [RUI] - Trick Room alert! Trick Room alert! I figured it was likely when Fc loaded up a team with an average base speed of 24, but the lead Slowking confirms it. It looks like it has a good matchup into freezai's DLC2 Setup HO™ featuring Iron Crown, and once it's set up he uses it to eliminate Deoxys-Speed. Once that's over, Fc's Zamazenta comes in and applies plenty of pressure, killing freezai's Rillaboom...but then freezai sends out Hawlucha, hits one SD, and crits the Zamazenta to death. The game promptly ends.



I want to shout out some of my favorite teams of the season so far. SPL is a tour that lends itself to plenty of weird and wacky teams guided by cosmic scouting, surprise innovations to save seasons, and goofy stuff when the week/season is already lost. These are my personal highlights:

hellom's Grassy Comfey vs JustFranco (W1) - this dude basically got Comfey ranked single-handedly. When you have +3 priority Synthesis and STAB Draining Kiss, Calm Mind is basically Quiver Dance, and combined with Grassy Seed Comfey can turn into a nuclear threat. This is my best attempt at recreating it based on hellom's games from the first few weeks. I'm pretty sure the Rillaboom is AV with extremely low Attack investment but not certain.

CTC's Primarina Dark spam vs Finchinator (W2) - this core of Moon/Lando/Gambit/Primarina/Volcarona became one of the most popular structures over the course of SPL (with Darkrai replacing Samurott on some builds later on), and as far as I can tell the basedlord was the first one to bring it in this tournament. Three powerful Dark-types provide plenty of breaking power, and Custap remains one of the most hype items ever, giving Priamrina a great last-stand attack. The team is also quite well-assembled visually, the color scheme with the blues and the reds is pleasing to look at. Again, here's my best guess.

kumiko's Alomomola + Sub Ursaluna anti-stall vs Xrn (W3) - the raw power of Ursaluna makes it a wonderful stallbreaker, being capable of brute-forcing through even Dondozo. The trouble is that it has a ticking timer that starts as soon as it passes between turns, giving you a limited window to kill everything in front of you. Enter Alomomola, whose monstrous base 165 HP and slow Flip Turn allows it to pass Wishes to nearly anything with impunity. Making it even more brutal, kumiko's Ursaluna is Substitute, which it is able to use with Tera Normal to eat a Weavile's Triple Axel with ease. By turn 12, Ursaluna has taken 37.5% (I think) in burn damage and put up two Substitutes, it has killed three of Xrn's mons, and it has 77% HP.

Garay oak's Necrozma/Tyranitar HO vs Xrn (W4) - I think this is a Lily team because I saw her use it in a side tour the day before, she's supporting the Tigers iirc, and it also has three non-OU mons. The Tyranitar is DD Knock Off/Low Kick, the Necrozma is Power Herb/Meteor Beam, and the Latias is holding a Weakness Policy. Super cool HO, and I've copied it for the ladder already. Seriously, Necrozma is tanky as hell. Unfortunately, it ran into...

Xrn's Revival Blessing + Lunar Dance Stall vs Garay oak (W4) - ...this monstrosity of a team, first assembled by ima and debuted in the finals of a side tour that won blarghlfarghl 3000 dollars. Conceptually, it's very clever - the way most people win against stall is by eliminating one of the physical or special walls, either by running them out of HP or PP, and from there the dominos start to fall. The solution? Two Dondozos. Xrn manages to run Kingambit out of all of its Kowtow Cleaves to kill the Dondozo, then immediately brings it back, and even passes it a Lunar Dance to give it all of its PP back. And Pawmot isn't even dead weight besides the revivals - it's a functional status absorber via Rest/Natural Cure, and a fast Encore is always appreciated. I'd hate to be the guy who has to play test games against this.

crying's Ninetales + Ceruledge + Hoopa Sun vs Mimikyu Stardust (W7) - I had a lot of trouble picking my favorite crying team this season. She's one of the most off-the-wall builders I've ever seen, using weird mons like mixed Focus Punch Dragonite and Frosmoth and making it work more often than not. My favorite, though, has to be her week 7 team, which features Ninetales as the sun setter for itself (it's Eject Pack/Overheat for a fun way of pivoting) and Ceruledge, a classic pre-HOME wincon. With all the crazy Tera setup sweepers in the tier, people forget about this mon, who looked unstoppable against noted physically bulky mons Great Tusk and Zamazenta. There's also a Specs (?) Hoopa, who is frequently hard to slot into teams but ends up dealing massive damage and living super-effective hits from Enamorus. Oh, and the Ninetales is also Foul Play. Ignore the Decidueye on the opponent's team.

oldspicemike's Triple Paralysis + Double Hex vs Dj Breloominati (W7) - now, you may be thinking, ninth, this looks like a really obnoxious team to play against, how is this one of your favorite teams? The answer is that I'm a bad dude and I believe paralysis is a wincon. The combination of Glare Serperior, Thunder Wave Gholdengo/Darkrai, and Will-O-Wisp Dragapult means that every mon not named Garganacl or Gholdengo is vulnerable to being crippled by status. Once the whole team is weakened and slow, this enables Gholdengo (who now outspeeds every paralyzed mon) and Dragapult to click Hex with absolute impunity. Another team that I would love to play with, but hate to play against.

lax's Tinkaton + Mixed Garchomp offense vs Savouras (W7) - when lax declared he was locked in, I did not anticipate a Tinkaton to be part of said locking in. Gigaton Hammer + Ice Hammer is a wicked one-two punch even coming from a mon with 75 Attack, and Air Balloon + Pickpocket allows it to yoink an item if it can live a switch-in, which it often can. Of course, do you know what you frequently use a lock with? A chain. Chain Chomp makes its triumphant return, and even with mixed investment it has all the power it needs to get the kills and chip it wants. Tera Poison Specs Darkrai adds quite a bit of oomph to the squad, and Iron Boulder provides valuable speed control. A very sleek HO with some fresh and entirely reasonable twists.

And here's my predictions for SV:

SV semis preds

SV OU: JJ09LIE vs Xrn - JJ09LIE is an absolute professional, their teams have been on point and their gameplay is sharp and aggressive. Xrn's comeback from an 0-3 start has been impressive but I just see an absolute dawg in JJ. That said, some of his high-pressure Sucker Punch moments have been a little worrisome, so I could conceivably see nerves come into play against Xrn who has performed in must-win games before.
SV OU: Trosko vs Kushalos - Trosko has spent his SPL essentially gatekeeping the field, with his only losses at the hands of top-ranked lax and undefeated hellom. I truly did not expect Kushalos to be so firmly on the wrong side of the gate; he's been going through it this season.
SV OU: Storm Zone vs hellom - what else is there to say about the monster? Nine wins in his debut season is remarkable. This is his most high-stakes test to date, staring down a ladder legend in semifinals - they've probably fought dozens of times already. I think if he keeps up his form from regular season the game is his, but you never know how nerves affect someone until they go up on the stage.
SV OU: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Akalli - I'm not entirely convinced by S1nn0h's gameplay this SPL but we've seen the absolutely meteoric heights he can reach in tour settings and under pressure. The experience difference will be key here - Akalli has been clicking better this tour but this is a new environment for him.

SV OU: Luispeikou vs xavgb - xavgb may not be enjoying the meta, and his record isn't reflective of his PR placement, but he's still one of the best SV players on the site and has shown an ability to completely solve a meta before. If there's any time for him to debut some new balance, now is the time.
SV OU: Poek vs Fc - Poek is fundamentally good at mons, he ran crying extremely close last week, but SV is extremely intensive on knowledge. If you don't know all of the Teras that might come out you risk being caught off guard. I think the experience difference will be cashed in for Fc here.
SV OU: Mada vs Raptor - it feels like this entire SPL rey and blunder have been pulling SV subs out of a hat that are just allergic to losing.
SV OU: myjava vs oldspicemike - unstoppable force vs. unstoppable force. java is absolutely fearless and mike has looked completely incapable of losing besides his W4 game against...myjava. The rematch will be tougher but I really do believe in java.

 

[Duck Chris]

I want to shout out some of my favorite teams of the season so far. SPL is a tour that lends itself to plenty of weird and wacky teams guided by cosmic scouting, surprise innovations to save seasons, and goofy stuff when the week/season is already lost. These are my personal highlights:

hellom's Grassy Comfey vs JustFranco (W1)

CTC's Primarina Dark spam vs Finchinator (W2)

kumiko's Alomomola + Sub Ursaluna anti-stall vs Xrn (W3)

Xrn's Revival Blessing + Lunar Dance Stall vs Garay oak (W4)

These four teams are actually so cool and a great example of how many different threats you can build around in this tier. Support conditions like grassy terrain, weather, and screens enable a ton of rarely used pokemon to do things never seen before. It can make for a super exciting game when something like comfey comes out of nowhere with the perfect 5 to support it.

The dark spam team is a great example of saying why can't I just spam the most punishing type in the game and try to make a whole team off that. Something that's been working as far back as BW drag mag, i mean DPP drag mag, I mean adv flying spam, I mean GSC electric spam, i mean RBY normal spam.

The Alo + Wallbreaker team quickly became an archetype and now you can see it with or even with nasty plot. This structure is everywhere right now, showing up in OST playoffs from multiple people. Great example of something strong but slow.

And finally the lunar dance stall cooks up something so infuriating to play against it's primary win condition might legitimately be forfeits. Pressure pp stall is really a demonic win condition and it's hilarious to see that it's still relevant even in generation 9.

 

[Duck Chris]

Week 9 Usage

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Slowking-Galar     |   12 |  31.58% |  66.67% |
| 2    | Zamazenta-*        |   11 |  28.95% |  54.55% |
| 3    | Landorus-Therian   |   10 |  26.32% |  50.00% |
| 3    | Kingambit          |   10 |  26.32% |  50.00% |
| 3    | Great Tusk         |   10 |  26.32% |  20.00% |
| 6    | Gholdengo          |    8 |  21.05% |  50.00% |
| 7    | Dragapult          |    7 |  18.42% |  85.71% |
| 7    | Gliscor            |    7 |  18.42% |  71.43% |
| 7    | Iron Moth          |    7 |  18.42% |  42.86% |
| 10   | Samurott-Hisui     |    6 |  15.79% |  83.33% |
| 10   | Weavile            |    6 |  15.79% |  50.00% |
| 10   | Hatterene          |    6 |  15.79% |  50.00% |
| 10   | Roaring Moon       |    6 |  15.79% |  33.33% |
| 10   | Ogerpon-Wellspring |    6 |  15.79% |  16.67% |
| 15   | Kyurem             |    5 |  13.16% |  60.00% |
| 15   | Iron Valiant       |    5 |  13.16% |  40.00% |
| 15   | Gouging Fire       |    5 |  13.16% |  40.00% |
| 15   | Raging Bolt        |    5 |  13.16% |  20.00% |
| 19   | Primarina          |    4 |  10.53% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Rillaboom          |    4 |  10.53% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Iron Treads        |    4 |  10.53% |  75.00% |
| 19   | Deoxys-Speed       |    4 |  10.53% |  75.00% |
| 19   | Iron Crown         |    4 |  10.53% |  50.00% |
| 19   | Volcanion          |    4 |  10.53% |  25.00% |
| 19   | Alomomola          |    4 |  10.53% |  25.00% |
| 19   | Clefable           |    4 |  10.53% |  25.00% |
| 19   | Darkrai            |    4 |  10.53% |  25.00% |
| 28   | Volcarona          |    3 |   7.89% | 100.00% |
| 28   | Ting-Lu            |    3 |   7.89% |  66.67% |
| 28   | Enamorus           |    3 |   7.89% |  33.33% |
| 28   | Skeledirge         |    3 |   7.89% |   0.00% |
| 32   | Cinderace          |    2 |   5.26% | 100.00% |
| 32   | Hawlucha           |    2 |   5.26% | 100.00% |
| 32   | Zapdos             |    2 |   5.26% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Corviknight        |    2 |   5.26% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Heatran            |    2 |   5.26% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Ninetales-Alola    |    2 |   5.26% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Dragonite          |    2 |   5.26% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Serperior          |    2 |   5.26% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Skarmory           |    2 |   5.26% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Ursaluna           |    2 |   5.26% |   0.00% |
| 32   | Glimmora           |    2 |   5.26% |   0.00% |
| 32   | Ribombee           |    2 |   5.26% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Blissey            |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Wo-Chien           |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Latias             |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Ogerpon-Cornerstone |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Garganacl          |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Mamoswine          |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Tyranitar          |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Excadrill          |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Hydrapple          |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Rotom-Wash         |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Ceruledge          |    1 |   2.63% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Amoonguss          |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Manaphy            |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Meowscarada        |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Mandibuzz          |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Clodsire           |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Necrozma           |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Mew                |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Pelipper           |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Barraskewda        |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Moltres            |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Lilligant-Hisui    |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Torkoal            |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Walking Wake       |    1 |   2.63% |   0.00% |

Overall Usage

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Kingambit          |  122 |  34.08% |  52.46% |
| 2    | Great Tusk         |  120 |  33.52% |  43.33% |
| 3    | Gholdengo          |   87 |  24.30% |  54.02% |
| 4    | Dragapult          |   84 |  23.46% |  52.38% |
| 5    | Slowking-Galar     |   81 |  22.63% |  53.09% |
| 6    | Landorus-Therian   |   77 |  21.51% |  53.25% |
| 7    | Zamazenta-*        |   75 |  20.95% |  56.00% |
| 8    | Roaring Moon       |   72 |  20.11% |  40.28% |
| 9    | Ogerpon-Wellspring |   67 |  18.72% |  49.25% |
| 10   | Iron Valiant       |   59 |  16.48% |  50.85% |
| 11   | Dragonite          |   58 |  16.20% |  56.90% |
| 12   | Gliscor            |   57 |  15.92% |  45.61% |
| 13   | Raging Bolt        |   55 |  15.36% |  45.45% |
| 14   | Volcarona          |   52 |  14.53% |  57.69% |
| 15   | Kyurem             |   45 |  12.57% |  55.56% |
| 16   | Primarina          |   43 |  12.01% |  55.81% |
| 17   | Ting-Lu            |   41 |  11.45% |  58.54% |
| 17   | Gouging Fire       |   41 |  11.45% |  48.78% |
| 17   | Rillaboom          |   41 |  11.45% |  41.46% |
| 20   | Garganacl          |   37 |  10.34% |  56.76% |
| 20   | Samurott-Hisui     |   37 |  10.34% |  51.35% |
| 20   | Weavile            |   37 |  10.34% |  48.65% |
| 23   | Glimmora           |   36 |  10.06% |  47.22% |
| 24   | Alomomola          |   32 |   8.94% |  53.12% |
| 24   | Cinderace          |   32 |   8.94% |  50.00% |
| 26   | Iron Treads        |   31 |   8.66% |  51.61% |
| 26   | Hatterene          |   31 |   8.66% |  38.71% |
| 28   | Clefable           |   29 |   8.10% |  48.28% |
| 29   | Skarmory           |   28 |   7.82% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Heatran            |   28 |   7.82% |  35.71% |
| 31   | Deoxys-Speed       |   26 |   7.26% |  73.08% |
| 31   | Enamorus           |   26 |   7.26% |  46.15% |
| 33   | Darkrai            |   25 |   6.98% |  64.00% |
| 34   | Iron Moth          |   23 |   6.42% |  52.17% |
| 35   | Corviknight        |   19 |   5.31% |  42.11% |
| 36   | Clodsire           |   18 |   5.03% |  55.56% |
| 36   | Hawlucha           |   18 |   5.03% |  38.89% |
| 38   | Pelipper           |   16 |   4.47% |  56.25% |
| 38   | Archaludon         |   16 |   4.47% |  56.25% |
| 38   | Walking Wake       |   16 |   4.47% |  25.00% |
| 41   | Dondozo            |   15 |   4.19% |  53.33% |
| 42   | Barraskewda        |   14 |   3.91% |  64.29% |
| 42   | Iron Crown         |   14 |   3.91% |  42.86% |
| 42   | Skeledirge         |   14 |   3.91% |  42.86% |
| 45   | Serperior          |   13 |   3.63% |  53.85% |
| 46   | Volcanion          |   12 |   3.35% |  50.00% |
| 46   | Torkoal            |   12 |   3.35% |  16.67% |
| 48   | Ribombee           |   11 |   3.07% |  45.45% |
| 48   | Ursaluna           |   11 |   3.07% |  36.36% |
| 50   | Excadrill          |   10 |   2.79% |  40.00% |
| 50   | Meowscarada        |   10 |   2.79% |  20.00% |
| 52   | Manaphy            |    9 |   2.51% |  55.56% |
| 52   | Tyranitar          |    9 |   2.51% |  33.33% |
| 54   | Hoopa-Unbound      |    8 |   2.23% |  75.00% |
| 54   | Iron Boulder       |    8 |   2.23% |  50.00% |
| 54   | Zapdos             |    8 |   2.23% |  50.00% |
| 57   | Ogerpon            |    7 |   1.96% |  57.14% |
| 57   | Scizor             |    7 |   1.96% |  42.86% |
| 57   | Ninetales-Alola    |    7 |   1.96% |  28.57% |
| 57   | Toxapex            |    7 |   1.96% |  14.29% |
| 61   | Rotom-Wash         |    6 |   1.68% |  50.00% |
| 61   | Tornadus-Therian   |    6 |   1.68% |  50.00% |
| 61   | Blissey            |    6 |   1.68% |  50.00% |
| 64   | Latias             |    5 |   1.40% |  80.00% |
| 64   | Moltres            |    5 |   1.40% |  60.00% |
| 66   | Garchomp           |    4 |   1.12% | 100.00% |
| 66   | Comfey             |    4 |   1.12% |  75.00% |
| 66   | Hydrapple          |    4 |   1.12% |  75.00% |
| 66   | Greninja-*         |    4 |   1.12% |  50.00% |
| 66   | Ceruledge          |    4 |   1.12% |  50.00% |
| 71   | Cresselia          |    3 |   0.84% | 100.00% |
| 71   | Ninetales          |    3 |   0.84% |  66.67% |
| 71   | Tinkaton           |    3 |   0.84% |  66.67% |
| 71   | Amoonguss          |    3 |   0.84% |  66.67% |
| 71   | Ogerpon-Cornerstone |    3 |   0.84% |  33.33% |
| 76   | Lilligant-Hisui    |    2 |   0.56% |  50.00% |
| 76   | Mandibuzz          |    2 |   0.56% |  50.00% |
| 76   | Keldeo             |    2 |   0.56% |  50.00% |
| 76   | Grimmsnarl         |    2 |   0.56% |  50.00% |
| 76   | Blaziken           |    2 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 76   | Necrozma           |    2 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Meloetta           |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Venusaur           |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Pawmot             |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Talonflame         |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Sinistcha-Masterpiece |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Suicune            |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Ditto              |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Latios             |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Wo-Chien           |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Mamoswine          |    1 |   0.28% | 100.00% |
| 82   | Basculegion        |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Magnezone          |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Haxorus            |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Quaquaval          |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Enamorus-Therian   |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Kingdra            |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Scream Tail        |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Slowking           |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Moltres-Galar      |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Reuniclus          |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Frosmoth           |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Sandy Shocks       |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Maushold-Four      |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Lapras             |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Metagross          |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Typhlosion-Hisui   |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Decidueye          |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Leavanny           |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |
| 82   | Mew                |    1 |   0.28% |   0.00% |

Week 9 draws the regular season to a close with some slightly unusual looking stats, partially explained by a quarter of this weeks games not mattering.

Some higlights: continues to win, following the trend of bulky offense and balance being back. follows right behind with a consistent 11 uses and 6 wins. posts a hilarious 20% win rate in 10 uses and topps it with 1 win in 6. SPL stats are determined to underplay the effectiveness of ladder's most hated enemies.

Employee of the season:
The two most winning pokemon in the top 10 of usage, as everyone predicted! I have not highlighted Gholdengo as it's presence is kind of a given in many structures but I think it's worth mentioning a 54% win rate at third place usage. Bulky Gholdengo has been an absolute weapon all season, being one of the strongest defensive answers on otherwise offensive teams. Working like a mini aegislash, Ghold has been swapping in and out of all sorts of moves and firing off strong answers in return. He is also part of the most popular pairing of three, , which was used 16 times and won 12 of them. Zamazenta has been a consistent part of this section, fulfilling much the same role of defensive stop on offensive teams. However Zamazenta leans more on the offensive side, turning a defensive answer into a scary sweeper. Consistently getting more kills than deaths, it has the highest win rate in the top 10 usage at 56%.

Bonus: visualizing every squad brought by Hellom (9-0)
Week 1: won vs JustFranco's opposing Gterrain
Week 2: won vs Fogbound Lake's Gterrain
Week 3: won vs Lax's Rain + Gterrain
Week 4: won vs Trosko's Meowscarada Balance
Week 5: won vs DonSalvatore's Gouging Fire sun
Week 6: won vs Crying's Frosmoth bulky offence
Week 7: won vs mncmt's Lapras HO (not actually his)
Week 8: won vs Floss's Gterrain
Week 9: won vs entrocefalo's Sticky Web HO

notes: 1 Kingambit, 0 Great Tusk, 2 Gholdengo, 1 Dragapult

 

[Finchinator]

I had a lot of fun this season. Late night labbing with Srn, disagreeing with njnp on practically everything until we magically built a team within 5 minutes while I was on my phone at a park, malding at Sabella because I cannot accept losing a test game in my peanut brain (LMAO sorry for this one), and plenty more with my other teammates, who were all great to have around. I really enjoyed seeing Separation's thoughts on the metagame or watching Dj Breloominati♬, who I view as a very underrated player and teammate, try to take up the tier. Maybe our core and results did not quite hit a point where we wanted -- and that falls on my shoulders more than anyone else's, but I appreciated all of the people and I enjoyed the process. I hope you all have great success in the future.

I appreciated the opportunity to play another season of SV after going 8-3 in SCL and winning the circuit championship. A 4-5 record is disappointing though and there's no getting around that, but I view myself as more of an "SV main" than I do a BW player or any other tier at this point. There is definitely a certain appeal to staying in the current generation and riding the highs-and-lows of the most variable and active metagame. Building new strategies every week rather than recycling, having an active ladder to hop on, and being right in the thick of all of the community buzz about what's hot or what's not all intrigued me. I hope to maintain my presence in this arena moving forward, which I think is especially important for an authority figure like a tier leader.

I am going to breakdown this into a few parts:

• Creative sets/strategies
• Teams used
• Gameplay thoughts/analysis

The last two will be tied to each other, too. This will be its own post and sometime next week I will post all of my teams and thoughts on my games.

RE: Creative sets/strategies,

Everyone claims I just spam standard, good teams to get to where I am. That is sometimes the case, but I never autopilot teambuilding and I do try my hardest to find creative solutions to metagame problems. This SPL I think I did a good job at that and here are some of the examples!

These are all of the non-standard things I used throughout this season alongside proper context for the opponent, metagame state, and team.

W1 vs JJ09LIE:


Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 244 HP / 244 SpD / 20 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Toxic
- Protect

The metagame had yet to experience the weather and HO boom that it did as W1 and W2 transpired, so we saw a ton of balance W1. I wanted a Gliscor set that was able to set up on opposing Gliscor, rendering the non-Uturn/SD variants a liability, while still being able to disturb incoming Great Tusk, Whirlwind Ting Lu, Iron Defense Zamazenta, etc.

Knock + Toxic on SD was the ideal middleground here. Losing EQ sucked for Kingambit, Iron Moth, and Raging Bolt, but I had SDef Ting Lu with Earthquake, Rocky Helmet Body Press Skarmory, and Haze Toxapex to circumvent pretty much every issue losing EQ could lead to. Obviously this set is a lot less effective in the current metagame than it would be back then and the tier has shifted many times since W1, but it played well on the type of balance I used at this stage at least.

Finally, Tera Dark was cool to disrupt Tera Ghost Kingambit, which became trendy to abuse Skarmory, which my team had and often used to bait this Tera Ghost. You also were able to sponge Hex or Shadow Ball much easier while dealing greater damage. Even allowed for a makeshift Future Sight immunity in the right situation. Did not mind becoming Fairy weak since I had Toxapex, Volcarona, and even Skarmory on this team as well as the next set, which was great into Fairy types.


Ting-Lu @ Leftovers
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 24 Def / 228 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ruination
- Heavy Slam

CM Hatterene was picking up a ton of steam for the surge in Skarmory and Spikes Gliscor at the time; it was able to do a ton of work against balnce teams with CM / Draining Kiss / Psyshock / Mystical Fire. With this set, you are able to lure it and take it out before it even thinks to Tera Water, which goes a very long way towards making this playable. It also covers SubCM Primarina, Tera Ice Weavile, and some other things like Rillaboom, Enamorus, or Kyurem in a pinch if my Volcarona is low, allowing me to make some aggressive plays earlier in games.

W2 vs CTC:


Roaring Moon @ Lum Berry
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Tera Blast

On a Sun team, you typically see Choice Band speed boosting Roaring Moon, which can serve simltaneously as a breaker, revenge killer, and pivot while providing a Ghost resistance; in my opinion, that alone is a great add to Sun teams and many good players strictly play around it, thinking nothing else of Roaring Moon on Sun teams.

I wanted to get some surprise value and bring it on Sun, a style that one would not pin me down as a user of going into the tour. Unfortunately, CTC had the clamps down hard this game and it did not get to shine, but I got insane value out of this slot on ladder for a couple of weeks. Sun (and, as an extension, this set) lost viability with the season going on, but this was a cool spin on it and I was excited to roll it out.

Tera Blast Fairy is awesome coverage with KnockQuake. It is able to clock Ting Lu, Great Tusk, Kyurem, Iron Valiant, Samurott-H, Zamazenta, Meowscarada, Hawlucha, Keldeo, etc., which essentially is the normal Acrobatics targets + Ting Lu and Kyurem while suddenly losing the weakness to Ice Shard and neutrality to Sucker Punch, making revenge killing even harder than normal. Sun teams in particular hate priority revenge killers after some chip, so circumventing that and swinging a Dragapult sequence or an opposing Walking Wake when I lacked a Fairy type was an instant game win usually.

Lum is really good when you naturally get the attack boost in Sun as it covers Toxic Gliscor, Wisp Skeledirge, Wisp Dragapult, Flame Body Volcarona, Scald Alomomola, TWave Clefable, Glimmora Mortal Spin, Glare Serp, and Wisp Tran. I considered still going Booster Energy or even something more niche like Muscle Band, but I kind of wanted to try to bluff choice as much as possible and some bulkier teams with status led me to want patchwork.


Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Def / 76 SpD / 128 Spe
Impish Nature
- Taunt
- Earthquake
- Weather Ball
- U-turn

This was a little before the age of Landorus-T creeping Glimmora, but naturally the spread can evolve. The main premise here is Weather Ball Landorus-T on Sun teams; this was back when Skarmory was higher in usage and being able to put a dent into it was huge for Iron Treads and Roaring Moon for me. This also allowed me to connect with Air Balloon Gholdengo, Iron Defense Zamazenta, and Corviknight for some nice damage under the Sun.

W3 vs Gilbert arenas:


Kingambit @ Air Balloon
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance
- Low Kick
- Kowtow Cleave

In my opinion, Kingambit can run so many different Tera types well. I just went through my teambuilder and found all of the following:

• Dark
• Fairy
• Ghost
• Flying
• Fire
• Grass
• Water
• Fighting

I think this game was the first official sighting of Tera Water; to me, this Tera feels regular on Kingambit because I laddered so much a few weeks with it, but to most it is unexpected I suppose. In my game, it actually saved me from a Volcarona sweep, too, which was awesome. Regardless, it presents a great middleground option in a similar sense to Fairy. While you do lose the Fighting resistance, you suddenly resist STAB Ivy from Ogerpon-Wellspring, STAB Fiery Dance from Volcarona, and maintain the Ice resistance against Kyurem and Weavile. You still are able to neutralize Ground type moves, too, which is always big. There are so many mid-to-late scenarios where going from Dark/Steel to Water can net you a surprise free turn or KO, which can swing a game.

The rest of the set is entirely customizable and standard like most other Kingambit -- this week I used a HO without sufficient Ground immunity, so I made it Balloon. And the team wanted to do well into the Kingambit mirror and flip the Heatran dynamic, so I opted for Low Kick. These have nothing to do with the Tera Water I am trying to show off though.


Volcarona @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 72 HP / 4 Def / 212 SpA / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Fiery Dance
- Tera Blast
- Substitute

I think Volcarona with Tera Dragon was used a little in the HOME metagame prior to its quickban, but it did not surface as much initially here as virtually everyone using it offensively wanted Tera Ground from day 1 and defensively it was using Steel, Water, Grass, Fairy, etc. -- Tera Dragon probably existed here-and-there, but I had a pretty new spin on it I guess. I hesitated to include this set as it is close to standard now and I hate taking credit just for the sake of doing so, but back during W3 the Volcarona set mix was different and things like SPL do help these things evolve after all, so why not point it out when I think this (and my W4 team, which I RMT'd) helped Tera Dragon gain traction.

A lot of offensive Volcarona used Tera Ground to help muscle past Slowking-Galar (or force a Tera) while still hitting Heatran, Gouging Fire, and Garganacl. Substiute on this spread with Tera Dragon permits virtually all of the same match-up coverage (aside from Iron Boulder, which was falling off at this time) as you always tank Sludge Bomb behind a Substitute at +1 SDef and can use Slowking-Galar as set-up fodder since AV did not exist for a few more weeks at this point. Dragon still hit Gouging Fire, defensively you set-up on Heatran if you QD on the switch-in and win the 1v1, and Garganacl has to be SDef Curse to win the 1v1 at least. With this much SAtk, you can still 1v1 PDef Dondozo, too, while you're able to surprise KO Kyurem, Roaring Moon, Dragapult, and Walking Wake after a QD, which Tera Ground cannot. It does not help with Primarina, opens you up to Scarf Enamorus, and leaves you weak to Ice Shard though, so there is a trade-off for sure.

W4 vs mncmt: I RMT'd my team here. There were no substantial innovations, but I do think the double Ground structure with Tera Water (specifically on Ting Lu) was a creative take at solving threat oversaturation and archetype coverage in the metagame at the time, so I was happy with this one.

W5 vs Fogbound Lake:


Rillaboom @ Occa Berry
Ability: Grassy Surge
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 64 HP / 252 Atk / 192 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Grassy Glide
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- High Horsepower

This was among my most exciting brings of the season probably. I had an offense that did not love facing Raging Bolt and initially had a Rillaboom that was passive into it. After some deep contemplation, I came up with this set. Any SD Rillaboom with High Horsepower stunted on Archaludon Rain at the time honestly, but throw in Occa Berry and suddenly it is able to beat up on offensive Volcarona, Ceruledge, Iron Moth (usually need to Tera Steel), Heatran, and Torkoal. Tera Steel can be switched up, but it covers Kyurem, Hatterene, Valiant, Roaring Moon, and some others in a pinch when needed on offense, so I figured it was best.

High Horsepower allowed for it to clock the aforementioned Raging Bolt while hitting all of the Fire types, non-Balloon Gholdengo (while covering Colbur, which began popping up around this time), Kingambit, and anything that goes Tera Steel against you. Speed outruns Modest Raging Bolt, too.


Iron Moth @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 24 HP / 100 Def / 132 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fiery Dance
- Sludge Wave
- Tera Blast
- Dazzling Gleam

I feel like Tera Ground was approaching "set it and forget it" status on Iron Moth, but I really disagree with this. Tera Water and Tera Fairy, the latter of which CTC showed off during a later week, are the best options, in my opinion. Tera Water allows you to still resist Ice Shard while hitting Gliscor/Great Tusk and neutralizing Earthquake, which can be a huge swing with the right teammates. You also can flip certain 1v1s like Hydro Steam Walking Wake, Glimmora or Heatran regardless of if they are Air Balloon, Skeledirge, Blaziken, Keldeo, Volcanion, Greninja, and Dondozo with Tera Water's impact defensively and offensively.

Gleam can easily be Substitute like the "standard" set to bait Sucker Punches and ease prediction, but my specific team had and wanted Dazzling Gleam -- nothing more to that.


Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 232 HP / 44 Def / 232 Spe
Timid Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earth Power
- Rock Tomb
- U-turn

Rock Tomb Landorus-T is a conditional bring, but a really cool one. I wanted to cover Hawlucha, so naturally my mind went to Psychic, which is a perfectly fine filler option on Landorus-T. However, I also was set-up fodder for Volcarona, especially with Terrain up, so I opted to go with Rock Tomb as it covered Volcarona, helped with Roaring Moon, and slowed down Hawlucha to be outran by my Iron Moth unless it was running max speed+ fsr, which it never does on Unburden variants. Just a cool midground option and it finds funny times to be clicked against some boosters, too.


Hatterene @ Assault Vest
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 164 SpA / 68 SpD / 24 Spe
Modest Nature
- Psyshock
- Draining Kiss
- Mystical Fire
- Nuzzle / Future Sight

njnp and Srn get the full credit here. Srn used it a week prior to me and they both theorized the idea in response to some early metagame trends. It was, in my opinion, a superb example of role compression on offense, which enables a whole array of different Pokemon and combinations that otherwise would not be possible. However, that is their story to tell at their own time -- I will not take credit for ideas that are not that of my own.

W6 I was on vacation and used an edit of a known team, W7 / W8 I did not use anything overly creative that someone has not previously tried before me.

Week 9 vs Kumiko:


Slowking-Galar (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Future Sight
- Sludge Bomb
- Flamethrower
- Chilly Reception

Tera Bug is actually really cool as it compresses a lot of little situations into one. Tera Water is needed far more often than not on Slowking-Galar of course, but Tera Water Ting Lu, Dragapult, Rillaboom, and Primarina found their way onto my team, so it was not needed. Bug was cool to cover Ground type moves while not being weak to Ice, which matters with Kyurem, Tusk, and probably some others. You also neutralize Hex and still resist Body Press while you are no longer weak to Crunch, so basically the idea was as many practical applications as possible to allow me to play aggressively with other things rather than just a single, hyperfocused scenario.

I will make another post with my teams sometime next week as I said above, so stay tuned for that.

 

[zioziotrip]

ZACKARY'S SPL XV TEAM DUMP

above is a vid with rationale both for the teams themselves and the games they were used in if that interests you. vid ended up being much longer than I intended, I'll get around to including timestamps when I cba so that you're able to view specific team rationale. in the spoiler below is every team I used throughout the tour, note some may do better with minor edits. DO NOT REMOVE MY NICKS!!!

team dump ordered w1-w7

I've made a general metagame post here but to briefly reiterate I do think this tier is a lot of fun once you put sufficient time into it and hopefully these teams help with that. cheers

 

[Savouras]

Hello, like always when my tournament run ends i like to share the teams i built and used. So Im gonna be sharing the 9 teams i used and give u some information on how and why i used them so u can use them too if u want to.
Keep in mind its a 9 weeks tournament run until qualifier rounds so some of the builds esp the earlier ones might need alittle bit of an update to use them in current meta as a couple of things have changed since they were built.

We gonna start with the latest team:

Week 9 Team vs Mada | Lilligant + Mystic Water Walking Wake Sun
https://pokepast.es/d802520155b7ecd3

This build is one my most trusted builds, i like it alot i think it flows v well, it feels v safe vs common sun threats like kingambit, dragonite etc so i enjoy it alot.
Lilligant is meant to provide security vs fast threats like Valiant, Roaring moon and Volcarona. With Tera Fire it can hit alot of threats like Gholdengo and Slowking-G which would otherwise eat all its hits and change the weather. Mystic water on Walking Wake allows you to lure and nuke common checks. Dragon types like Kyurem, Dragonite and Roaring moon that often try to eat one hydro steam end up gettin nuked as Mystic Water and Specs have v similar rolls. It also works great vs common protect users like Gliscor, Garganacl and Ting Lu.
Choice Band Gouging fire after week 2 where i got destroyed by it has been my favourite sun abuser since then and LO Tusk provides security vs common offensive threats like Gambit, Treads and Raging Bolt.
My favourite way to use sun, feel free to try it. It unfortunately didnt win for me cuz triple axel wasnt accurate but i would still easily bring this team again in a tournament.

Replay if u wanna see how i used it: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-754022

Week 8 Team vs JJ09LIE | CB Excadrill Sand + Gravity
https://pokepast.es/c34c1b0474fbba5e

I think this is a really nice and creative way to use excadrill sand. CB Tera ground insane dmg is sexy and nukes in 2 things like Ting Lu, Lando after gravity and Great Tusk. Im using Specs Dragapult with wisp for security vs kingambit and its the most consistent fast special hitting mon u can use in these cores. Tyranitar is using max speed investment to outrun Jolly Gambit and low kick it, ice beam for bulky grounds and its 2 stabs with tera dragon for Ogerpon Security, water resistance etc. We use Max defense Corviknight with eject button for the momentum and the ability to absorb hits vs Roaring Moon, Gambit and Tusk + defog over using ID Body Press. We already have a way to revenge kill Gambit so the defensive investment felt alot better. Custap Primarina often gives us alot of momentum using this and lures various threats with Torrent Boosted hits. Psychic Noise can be used to prevent defensive teams from healing giving u free dmg vs things like Blissey, combine that Sand and u have great and consistent passive dmg. Finally Lando provides rocks, momentum and the gravity to nuke threats with Excadrill. Its our soft check to Zamazenta and Gougin Fire so it fits well the core.

Replay if u wanna see the absolute worst mu u can find using this plus how not to trade with your Tyranitar:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752549

Week 7 Team vs Lax | LO Deoxys Offense
https://pokepast.es/5d65467d6898aa4f

I built this with Exotic64 , its a really nice build made around Deoxys-Spe with both atk and special attack investment nuking with its perfect coverage everything and still outspeedin all. Tera Dark for boosted knock offs vs slowking-g and gholdengo aswell as resisting sucker punch. Serperior with Tera Steel is meant to setup on Slowking-G as it doesnt break its substitute, u resist with tera steel dragon type atks and can glare / dpulse them. Defensive Leftovers Gholdengo was the superstar on my game that if i had made the call to switch vs tera poison it would have won for me, still super goated set for gholdengo. Defensive Lando to prevent hazards vs Glimmora and opposing lando (u can find more info on how to play that MU vs opposing lando lead on my video below). Next we have breaking swipe Gougin fire but with aton of speed and tera fairy + leftovers which is why its so important to prevent hazards on this build with your Deoxys and Taunt Lando. Great build, i felt it should have won but things went south not making the right play against Lax's Darkrai and getting Gougin poisoned on first hit.

Thats the replay vs Lax, super cool game and nice builds from both sides:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-750540

Week 6 Team vs Dasmer | Scarf Kyurem Volt-turn
https://pokepast.es/a7a77a647fe9f8e5

One of my favourite builds this tour. Scarf Kyurem is a blast to use and lure offensive fast threats. Scizor + Rotom core creates a very solid volt turn synergy with Temper Flare Tusk removing Hazards even vs Gholdengo and Ting lu setting them up. We using Double Status on Rotom to defend vs all kinds of threats like Kingambit, Gougin Fire and Kyurem. With tera Steel u get toxic + eq immunity aswell as freeze dry and dragon resistance and punish em hard with lots of status. Finally we use bulky tera ghost gambit for ID Body Press users, opposing Low Kick Kingambits and good neutrality to alot of typings like Ground and Fire.

Replay vs Dasmer if u wanna see how i used it to win:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-749394

Week 5 Team vs Oldspicemike | Eject Button Clodsire + Rain Kingdra
https://pokepast.es/8e3a3e05fbc50fcd

I thought this is a really cool way to use Rain over standard Rillaboom Treads Cores. Clodsire with Eject Button provides alot of security vs common rain threats like Raging Bolt and Walking Wake plus insane momentum gain to get your hard hitting threats like Barraskewda and Raging Bolt to cause dmg. Clodsire synergises great with Pelipper providing each other with lots of resistances and help activating its item with safety. We Use Eject Button Archaludon in this build over standard AV for extra momentum and useful Rocks + Tspikes from Clod. Unfortunately its not allowed anymore so if u wanna try to use this experiment replacing it with other steels like Corvi or Treads. Fast Raging Bolt with Weather Ball in Rain for bulky grounds and defensive utiliy vs Ogerpons, Kingambit and opposing Dragons. Kingdra is the superstar of the team gettin important substitutes vs common defensive threats, bluffing choice specs with mystic water weather balls, subbing vs priority like Thunder Clap and Sucker Punch while using Hurricane to remove Ogerpons and Bulky Grass types. Unfortunately again my opponent missed Draco Meteor with their Dragapult so i wasnt able to get the momentum going with my Clod to get my hard hitters in and win but the idea for Rain i still think is great and can work even in current meta with some adjustments.

Replay vs Oldspicemike:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748300?p2

Week 4 Team vs DAHLI | Ribombee Screens + Webs Offense
https://pokepast.es/4a06992561eca160

My favourite team this tour, i felt this double screens + webs is really creative and stronger than regular sash set as not many things can ohko ribombee in 1 hit as a lead anyway because it outspeeds them which leads to gettin up more than just webs but screens too. Then we take advantage of the most broken and threatning sets u can use, substitute Gougin fire setups easily behind screens against bulky grounds like Gliscor and Epower Lando. Tera Poison BU Tusk for toxic immunity and hazard removal plus security vs opposing threats like Gambit and Dnite. Raging Bolt which my friend Laurel suggested over the Serperiors i was experimenting with. Behind screens is nearly unbeatable and ended up sweeping the whole thing for me. Alot of defense and speed to outrun Gliscors, Gholdengos and defensive Tusks. We really wanted to use Manaphy as its a great lower tier pick and matches well vs all kinds of teams. Ended up going with 3 atks boltbeam coverage which with tera electric it provides thunderclap resistances too, nukes dragons and bulky grounds for my other members on the team. Finally we used Gholdengo with Focus Blast over Make it Rain which with screens it destroys dark types coming in to defend against it.

Replay from my SPL game vs common sun:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-746622

Week 3 Team vs DjBreloominati | HDB Kyurem Balance
https://pokepast.es/7cec53bf2ee17d35

I wanted to use a good variaty of styles and teams this SPL so i thought this week a nice balance like this would match great vs my opponent. We use 5 boots mons + Clef Magic Guard to absorb status and knock offs from our opponents. We have fast mandibuzz to defend vs ghosts and physical strong attackers while trading toxics vs them. Gholdengo can take advantage of those toxics with its Hex NP bulky set or its own Twave. It ended doing aton of work vs my opponent eating all kinds of hits and giving me the win. We support the balance core with our own Knock Off + wish support spdef clefable. This allows us to not only have aton of Healing PP for all our members on the team but defend against various special threats like psyshock valiant and darkrai. Dondozo for the physical sweepers like Gougin fire and tusk, clodsire for the special ones and the core is complete.

Replay vs my opponent if u wanna see how i used it:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-744814

Week 2 Team vs mncmt | CB Rillaboom + Specs Primarina Offense
https://pokepast.es/5e074e47465b7c1c

This is arguably my least favourite build in my run. I dont think its bad but i didnt end up using it correctly and ended up getting destroyed in 6 hits by a CB Gouging Fire. Team was built around Specs Primarina outspeeding Gambit and resisting Suckerpunch so i thought its capable of causing alot of dmg while also preventing healing with psychic noise liquid voice combo. I thought its bulky enough but it got ohkoed in 1 by a fire type atk so maybe if u use this do more bulk or smth. DDarts Dragapult set is meant to 2ko Slowking-G so our moonblasts and grass type atks are alot more free. We use mixed defenses Gliscor with high horse power cuz we in grassy terrain. Its meant to act as an all in one mon hit absorbtion but ye careful it doesnt absorb hits that well. I wouldnt use this again but maybe u can remake it into something better

Replay where i get goobed, should have used tera on gliscor before i switched it in on an atk, then i could have won cuz honestly i didnt even start bad:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-742923

Week 1 Team vs Freezai | Supercell Slap Tusk + Tachyon Cutter Crown
https://pokepast.es/86be46ae4f5236b6

This tech worked really well for us vs the Rain my opponent brought being able to nuke pelipper in 1 as a lead. It uses utility Rillaboom + Hawlucha and Primarina taking advantage of the grassy terrain to cause big dmg. Its basically a flying spam with Rmoon + Hawlucha weakening each others checks so the next sweeps. This was the first speed boosting crown used in the tournament and i brought it cuz i thought it matches super well vs offense that they might bring vs us. It ohkos through sash Ribombee and Glimmora leads aswell as Ninetales-A which was common at the time. Encore Tera Steel Hawlucha for resisting all kinds of hits and lockin them into that move giving us unlimited setup. Really cool build, i saw mind gaming first using something like this and i immediately thought it will be a great bring in my matchup vs the scout i had. Feel free to try it, it was rly fun to use at the time 9 weeks ago.

Replay vs Freezai's Rain:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-740895

These are the teams i used in SPL, i wish we did alittle bit better as i felt we could have qualified for semis or even me individually getting a better record than the one i ended up with but it is what it is and the tour was still fun and enjoyable. If tryin to use any of them and want info i have recorded a whole video of me explaining the builds in more detail

so feel free to watch that and drop a subscribe there too, thank you <3

 

[ACR1]

I always liked these type of posts after a teamtour where ppl post what they used or cool sets, so im gona do the same :p
Since i didnt play the first weeks im gona share a team i made during those times that wasnt used in SPL but me and my friends used it on a money tour with good results + it did well on ladder at that time https://pokepast.es/344a76b49b881f97 ik it looks super weird but worked really well and was almost an autowin vs offense MUs, sadly no one used it in SPL but im proud of it

I subbed in on W4 and had to play vs marcop and i was hyped for my debut on this SPL

W4 vs gilbert arenas i couldnt decide on what to use and Punny sugested to load what we used vs mimi on w1 and im glad i listened to him cuz it got a really good MU

https://pokepast.es/b512e2ad9582858b

a really cool team made by entrocefalo with a volturn core + specs Kyurem, Gunk on Cinde was for CM Clef but it ended up clutching a KO vs Enam, on the actual game i used Sub on Zama but it should have been Roar tbh it would have made my life easier vs RM but im glad sucker cinde saved me

W5 vs pdt i expected some offense on the side of pdt because it is his comfort zone, i been asking my teammates to use darkrai so when i had the chance i used it myself

https://pokepast.es/b512e2ad9582858b

I think me and my friends stole this team like 2 weeks before i used it from ladder/insult replays and i think is a really cool offense and my teammates actually ended using different versions of the same 6 with good results. In the game vs pdt i just had a solid MU with Primarina and the dark spam

W6 vs Finchinator

I asked Finch to play cuz he was a player i wanted to face (and half of his teammates had unviable timezones) and we actually got paired the week before in OST where i ended up losing so it was some kind of rematch for me, i expected some BO/Balance team by finch and had a ton of options but then i faced someone on ladder using the team Punny made on w5 and smoked me with it, so i decided to load that one

(not gona share it cuz Punny made it 100% on his own)

In game i faced stall and wasnt really happy about it but i had to focus and play it so i went for getting up all the hazards early and try to get Deoxys as many times as possible since it had Knock Off + good coverage to pressure Finchs team, so on turn 57 i get a freeze on the Corvi and KO it, the game after that is prety much over because my Ogerpon owns with Corvi dead. The team i used is one of my favs of the tournament and thats why Punny is him

W7 vs zioziotrip

Zio is a player i respect a lot and i was happy to face him, i played a ton of ladder this week with mostly 2 teams https://pokepast.es/eb9bf8e7732e76d8 this one made by Punny but i played a ton of testgames/ladder to find the best evs/sets and make it "perfect" and it was my fav team of the season because of the DNite set and the synergy of the team, it feels like so smooth and would have done quite well into zio scout and what he used in the actual game

I went for this one after asking Punny to make me a good team with meow+zapdos and my god he made a goated team i loved it and im so sad i played awful vs zio and didnt showcase the team like it deserved but yea, the week i tryharded the most i ended up playing like a noob and lost in good MU, props to zio tho cuz he did what he had to do and punished my bad plays
btw good video zioziotrip really entertaining

W8 vs Fc

vs Fc i didnt know what to load tbh i tested a few teams nothing felt good so i decided to steal something that did good in the tournament and went for this

https://pokepast.es/22a604a402a68536

I KNOW RAPTOR MADE THEM, hellom just asked me to keep this name :cwl:
so yeah i basically stole Raptor webs and edited the Manaphy/Gholdengo set to make it better into Fc's scout, Sub Mana is for garg and the evs were for Kyurem roll and Clod has like 35% of breaking sub so u can 1v1 it sometimes
In the game i faced tera ground Volca that was a bit annoying but Mirror Herb zama carried me and ended up cleaning with Zama after some kills of Glimm+RM

W9 vs Kushalos

My team was out so i didnt did much prep this week even tho i wanted to win and loaded a cool team made by Punny (again)

not gona share it cuz i just stole it from his channel

In the game +SpA Moth had a decent MU and claimed a good kill vs g-slowking, and Ogerpon cornerstone had an insane MU cuz Kush had 0 switch ins for it, in t12 i should have always clicked EP and t13 rocks because after that Valiant 100% wins but i trolled a bit and risked a crit

And thats it, im happy with my season and with every team i used s/o to all my friends who helped me

If i made any grammar mistake, fuck u i have no respect for this language

 

[kd458]

Threat of the Week: Week 9

The regular season of SPL is now over! Been great to watch, chat to some of the competitors and have a look at what's been statistically best so far; I'll include a little extra at the end just to summarise how the season's gone for each OU core and how things are looking for the playoffs along with what Pokemon have proven themselves over all 9 weeks to be the biggest threats of the tour. Let's take a look at the best differentials and K:Ds of the week, as well as what games they've found their kills in!

We'll start off by looking at the Pokemon that did best with 12.5% or more usage! We did miss a game this week, but I'll still round up to Pokemon that came 5 or more times:

#1: Slowking-G

Differential: +9, K:D: 2.5, Uses: 12

What was I saying about a return to form? Galarian Slowking topped out the week 9 differential rankings, bringing its overall season differential positive in a performance that was as slimy as ever #iykyk. It only went down without picking up a kill in a single game that it won, while 5 Glowkings this week picked up two or more kills; an AV Gking showdown in lax vs Srn (I think lax's was AV, item unrevealed even with damage but it was 3 attack) had Future Sights flying left and right from both sides for a 3 - 2 Slowking-G game, TPP's AV Glowking (again guessing but it took Spikes) landed a Gliscor kill with Surf as well as taking down a Serp, in zioziotrip vs oldspicemike a regular Gking finished off a Lando-T before getting off a crucial toxic on a Gouging Fire, and a cool double RegenVest team from Storm Zone vs devin saw Glowking OHKO a Moth with Psyshock then later take on a low health Iron Crown. Lot of games to list where this mon did good as it did good across the board, and its MVP performance was in S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs pdt where an Ice Beam freeze helped it take down a Lando-T, then a timely Tera Flying and a lot of PhysDef investment dealt with a Great Tusk and a Roaring Moon for a 3 kill game. Both AV Glowking and Boots with assorted coverage / status picked up a ton of kills this week, and Slowking-Galar took a deserved spot at the top of the differential leaderboard.

#2: Zamazenta

Differential: +7, K:D: 2.8, Uses: 11

Though not making it quite as high as its peak last week, it's pretty clear to see which mon's ending SPL with the highest differential. In hellom vs entrocefalo, entro's Tera Fire Roar Zama was frauded very heavily by a Gliscor before hellom's own showed us how it was done by Roaring out a Manaphy to clean up the last two and win the game. Za's best game and its other game-end was in Mada vs Savouras though, as an ID Za picked up 3 kills over 3 different switch-ins - a choice-locked Raging Fury Gouging let it get +5 to take it out, then the sun team's Torkoal was sac'd to force it out with Wake before it later came in to finish Wake off after sun expired. There isn't too much to say about Zamazenta that hasn't already been said, with mostly Iron Defense Zama cleaning up games but Boots Za also picking up kills for Akalli and S1nn0hC0nfirm3d.

#3: Raging Bolt

Differential: +6, K:D: 3, Uses: 5

After so many weeks, Raging Bolt is finally back at the top; you wouldn't believe it with only a 20% winrate, but Bolt carried more than one game it was brought to - in two of its games, Bolt picked up a triple kill, with a Choice Specs Bolt in kumiko vs Finchinator having zero safe switch-ins and forcing multiple kills with Tera Dragon Draco Meteor until it was left as the last mon standing and had to lock into Thunderclap. For TPP vs Xrn though, Raging Bolt demonstrated its full power by going band for band in a CM war with a Fairy-type with reliable recovery and winning, an eventual Thunderbolt paralysis sealing the deal to win the interaction even after taking a burn while beating down a Skeledirge. Bolt is still the threat it once was and bulkier teams without a really sturdy answer still find it hard to handle this threat, one last great week for Mr Rager firmly drives it high up the regular season's differential rankings.

We'll next look at the Pokemon with 4 appearances or fewer that did particularly well this week:

#4: Hawlucha

Differential: +5, K:D: 6, Uses: 2

2 wins, 6 kills and 2 more that it only didn't get due to an early forfeit? Sneasler's legacy is carried on by OU's last stand of GTerrain being an Unburden strategy and not "stack 4 fat setup mons that like weaker EQs and free lefties", with freezai vs Fc featuring a really nasty crit that killed a +3 Zamazenta through Tera Fire, leading to Lucha using Tera Flying to clean up the rest of the game and Drain Punch to stay safely out of range of Kingambit's Sucker Punch. Perhaps a more honest victory for Hawlucha came in crying vs Poek; here, a Tera Ground Tera Blast Lucha came out early and went to work, taking down a Gholdengo, denying a Ribombee's webs as a Moonblast didn't even do half post-Tera, and forcing a Tusk to Tera to revenge kill it and give crying a great position to play out. Really nice week for Hawlucha, almost enough for it to end the regular season positive after a pretty horrible start to the tour.

#5: Primarina

Differential: +4, K:D: 5, Uses: 4

Another Pokemon that only went down once with a 100% winrate this week is Primarina - 4 wins is even more impressive though, from a Boots Encore pivot in Finchinator vs kumiko to CM Liquid Voice with Psychic Noise and Encore from Piyush25 vs xavgb. Another Boots Encore Primarina won the game for S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs pdt by locking a Kingambit into Swords Dance, but Prima's most clutch game was in crying vs Poek; Custap Prima made its return here, as it was taken down to 19% taking on a Dragon Dance Kyurem then later came in to beat the second DD threat of Roaring Moon when all seemed lost. The options on this thing are fantastic and the utility of this mon is hard to emphasise enough, great week for a great mon that gives it a positive differential across SPL's regular season.

#7: Ogerpon-C

Differential: +3, K:D: 3, Uses: 1

Cornerstone had a single appearance this week, showing up for ACR1 vs Kushalos to pick up 3 kills and close out the game on a cool build with Grassy Terrain support. There was no Oger-C answer this game with the only Rock-type resist being a Great Tusk that got Horn Leeched twice early on. Though a Weavile did threaten it out, it later proved its worth after the Weav went down by tanking an Enamorus' Scarf Moonblast and killing both it and a near-full HP Volcanion that couldn't handle the Cudgel. Not many teams are prepared for this mon, this may not be the most used Ogerpon form but it's for sure a great pick to counter team the meta right now.

Finally, we'll finish off by looking at the worst differentials of the week!

#65: Clefable

Differential: -4, K:D: 0, Uses: 4

With only a single win to its name and no kills from any battle, Clefable didn't impress anyone this week; even a Calm Mind Clef that hit +6 +6 failed to 1v1 a Bolt in Xrn vs TPP. It put in solid work though for Mimikyu Stardust vs Separation, managing to recover up on an Ogerpon-W until it went down to burn damage before taking a tricked Choice Scarf and revealing Flamethrower to force out a Gholdengo. Still, this wasn't Clefable's best week, and it rounds out a pretty negative season, although it isn't like anyone's expecting Clef to pick up multiple kills per game anyway.

#66: Great Tusk

Differential: -6, K:D: 0.4, Uses: 10

Only a 20% winrate posted by Tusk this week? I don't think Tusk's all that washed or anything, but all 4 of its kills came from 2 Tusks, both of which lost their games. BU Tusk almost did it though in MAVERICK SHOOTERS vs myjava, only being stopped by a Shadow Sneak Ceruledge after tanking a Hatterene's Psychic Noise from full, and Poek vs crying had a Tusk put in a ton of work early on by taking out a Rillaboom before it was forced to Tera to revenge kill a Hawlucha. It could be that Tusk just doesn't cut it right now, but I'm leaning more towards this being a case of the meta not allowing it to get massive value off and pull off any sweeps like we've seen before; this final week takes Tusk's overall differential from a respectable -1 all the way down to -7.

#67: Landorus-T

Differential: -6, K:D: 0.25, Uses: 10

No surprises here as Lando-T finishes its season with yet another week at the bottom of the table, doing its usual job of "switch in, get Rocks up, get Helmet chip, maybe Taunt if it's playing vs fat, die" and only getting 2 kills this week. As usual though, it had a pretty solid run with a 50/50 win rate being a good chunk more impressive than Tusk's - it was even the last mon standing in Mimikyu Stardust vs Separation, playing a pivotal role in securing a scary endgame and being pretty indicative of Lando's current place in the meta as a special attacker with Earth Power. Still a great mon, still doing everything it needs to on the teams that pack it, but this is yet another week with it nonexistant as an offensive threat.

Overall Rankings

Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1     Slowking-G    12   15.0     6.0   2.5           9.0
2      Zamazenta    11   11.0     4.0   2.8           7.0
3    Raging Bolt     5    9.0     3.0   3.0           6.0
4       Hawlucha     2    6.0     1.0   6.0           5.0
5      Primarina     4    5.0     1.0   5.0           4.0
6      Dragapult     7    7.0     3.0   2.3           4.0
7      Ogerpon-C     1    3.0     0.0   3.0           3.0
8      Gholdengo     8    7.0     4.0   1.8           3.0
8     Samurott-H     6    7.0     4.0   1.8           3.0
10  Walking Wake     1    3.0     1.0   3.0           2.0
11     Tyranitar     1    2.0     0.0   2.0           2.0
12  Iron Valiant     5    5.0     3.0   1.7           2.0
12        Kyurem     4    5.0     3.0   1.7           2.0
14  Roaring Moon     6    7.0     5.0   1.4           2.0
15     Kingambit    10   10.0     8.0   1.2           2.0
16      Wo-Chien     1    2.0     1.0   2.0           1.0
17      Enamorus     3    4.0     3.0   1.3           1.0
18     Hydrapple     1    1.0     0.0   1.0           1.0
18     Ceruledge     1    1.0     0.0   1.0           1.0
20       Darkrai     4    3.0     3.0   1.0           0.0
20     Volcarona     3    1.0     1.0   1.0           0.0
20     Cinderace     2    1.0     1.0   1.0           0.0
20        Zapdos     2    2.0     2.0   1.0           0.0
20   Corviknight     2    1.0     1.0   1.0           0.0
20      Ursaluna     2    1.0     1.0   1.0           0.0
20      Skarmory     2    1.0     1.0   1.0           0.0
20   Barraskewda     1    1.0     1.0   1.0           0.0
20       Moltres     1    1.0     1.0   1.0           0.0
20   Lilligant-H     1    1.0     1.0   1.0           0.0
30        Latias     1    0.0     0.0   0.0           0.0
30     Garganacl     1    0.0     0.0   0.0           0.0
30   Meowscarada     1    0.0     0.0   0.0           0.0
30     Mandibuzz     1    0.0     0.0   0.0           0.0
30       Blissey     1    0.0     0.0   0.0           0.0
30     Mamoswine     1    0.0     0.0   0.0           0.0
30     Excadrill     1    0.0     0.0   0.0           0.0
37     Ogerpon-W     6    5.0     6.0  0.83          -1.0
38       Gliscor     8    4.0     5.0   0.8          -1.0
39  Gouging Fire     5    3.0     4.0  0.75          -1.0
40    Iron Crown     4    2.0     3.0  0.67          -1.0
40      Deoxys-S     4    2.0     3.0  0.67          -1.0
42     Volcanion     4    1.0     2.0   0.5          -1.0
42    Skeledirge     3    1.0     2.0   0.5          -1.0
42      Glimmora     2    1.0     2.0   0.5          -1.0
42     Dragonite     2    1.0     2.0   0.5          -1.0
46     Amoonguss     1    0.0     1.0   0.0          -1.0
46       Manaphy     1    0.0     1.0   0.0          -1.0
46      Clodsire     1    0.0     1.0   0.0          -1.0
46      Necrozma     1    0.0     1.0   0.0          -1.0
46       Rotom-W     1    0.0     1.0   0.0          -1.0
46           Mew     1    0.0     1.0   0.0          -1.0
46      Pelipper     1    0.0     1.0   0.0          -1.0
46       Torkoal     1    0.0     1.0   0.0          -1.0
54   Iron Treads     4    2.0     4.0   0.5          -2.0
55       Weavile     6    1.0     3.0  0.33          -2.0
56       Heatran     2    0.0     2.0   0.0          -2.0
56   Ninetales-A     2    0.0     2.0   0.0          -2.0
56     Serperior     2    0.0     2.0   0.0          -2.0
56      Ribombee     2    0.0     2.0   0.0          -2.0
60     Iron Moth     7    3.0     6.0   0.5          -3.0
60     Hatterene     6    3.0     6.0   0.5          -3.0
62     Rillaboom     4    1.0     4.0  0.25          -3.0
63     Alomomola     4    0.0     3.0   0.0          -3.0
63       Ting-Lu     3    0.0     3.0   0.0          -3.0
65      Clefable     4    0.0     4.0   0.0          -4.0
66    Great Tusk    10    4.0    10.0   0.4          -6.0
67    Landorus-T    10    2.0     8.0  0.25          -6.0

That wraps up SPL's regular season! I hope you enjoyed this week's TotW and I look forward to seeing how things shape up for the bracket! This week's shoutouts go to some of the more used mons that had a couple outstanding performances which weren't reflected by their overall statline; Finchinator's Lefties Low Kick Kingambit took advantage of a sleep-less Amoonguss to claim 4 kills, while Gilbert arenas' Tera Fire Balloon Gambit also picked up a 4 piece and lived to tell the tale against rain. A Boots Pult from Akalli took yet another 4 kills, with a fortunate crit on a Glimmora leaving it near uncontested to get free click after free click and leverage Infiltrator to rip through a Veil team. This week's biggest threat though was oldspicemike's Gholdengo, running what appeared to be a HP-invested offensive Ghold that simply wouldn't go down and picked up a total of 5 kills into balance. To round off the week, I've decided to do a little more - first, I'll go over a recap of the total differentials of the tour's main season.

Regular Season Rankings

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1       Zamazenta    75   82.0    43.0    1.9          39.0
2       Kingambit   122   99.0    80.0    1.2          19.0
3     Raging Bolt    55   59.0    42.0    1.4          17.0
4          Kyurem    44   45.0    29.0    1.6          16.0
5       Ogerpon-W    67   64.0    48.0    1.3          16.0
6       Dragapult    83   75.0    60.0    1.2          15.0
7         Dondozo    15   20.0     7.0    2.9          13.0
8     Barraskewda    14   20.0     8.0    2.5          12.0
9       Dragonite    59   48.0    36.0    1.3          12.0
10      Garganacl    37   29.0    19.0    1.5          10.0
11        Darkrai    25   30.0    20.0    1.5          10.0
12         Comfey     4   10.0     1.0  1e+01           9.0
13     Archaludon    16   20.0    11.0    1.8           9.0
14       Garchomp     4    7.0     1.0    7.0           6.0
15      Ogerpon-C     3    8.0     2.0    4.0           6.0
16   Iron Valiant    59   47.0    41.0    1.1           6.0
17        Blissey     6    6.0     1.0    6.0           5.0
18      Iron Moth    23   21.0    16.0    1.3           5.0
19     Slowking-G    81   53.0    48.0    1.1           5.0
20       Ursaluna    11   10.0     6.0    1.7           4.0
21   Gouging Fire    41   37.0    33.0    1.1           4.0
22       Frosmoth     1    4.0     1.0    4.0           3.0
23      Excadrill    10    8.0     5.0    1.6           3.0
24   Iron Boulder     8    9.0     6.0    1.5           3.0
25     Iron Crown    14   13.0    10.0    1.3           3.0
26       Enamorus    26   20.0    17.0    1.2           3.0
27      Volcarona    52   37.0    34.0    1.1           3.0
28      Primarina    43   38.0    35.0    1.1           3.0
29        Hoopa-U     8    6.0     4.0    1.5           2.0
29     Tornadus-T     6    6.0     4.0    1.5           2.0
31     Skeledirge    14   13.0    11.0    1.2           2.0
32   Walking Wake    16   16.0    14.0    1.1           2.0
33       Maushold     1    2.0     1.0    2.0           1.0
33   Typhlosion-H     1    2.0     1.0    2.0           1.0
33       Wo-Chien     1    2.0     1.0    2.0           1.0
36      Ninetales     3    3.0     2.0    1.5           1.0
37        Moltres     5    4.0     3.0    1.3           1.0
38       Venusaur     1    1.0     0.0    1.0           1.0
38          Ditto     1    1.0     0.0    1.0           1.0
38         Latios     1    1.0     0.0    1.0           1.0
41        Weavile    37   24.0    24.0    1.0           0.0
41      Volcanion    12    9.0     9.0    1.0           0.0
41      Tyranitar     9    7.0     7.0    1.0           0.0
41        Manaphy     9    6.0     6.0    1.0           0.0
41         Latias     5    2.0     2.0    1.0           0.0
41      Hydrapple     4    1.0     1.0    1.0           0.0
41      Ceruledge     4    3.0     3.0    1.0           0.0
41       Blaziken     2    2.0     2.0    1.0           0.0
41    Lilligant-H     2    1.0     1.0    1.0           0.0
41     Grimmsnarl     2    1.0     1.0    1.0           0.0
41    Basculegion     1    1.0     1.0    1.0           0.0
41      Decidueye     1    1.0     1.0    1.0           0.0
53      Mandibuzz     2    0.0     0.0    0.0           0.0
53       Meloetta     1    0.0     0.0    0.0           0.0
53         Pawmot     1    0.0     0.0    0.0           0.0
53      Sinistcha     1    0.0     0.0    0.0           0.0
53      Mamoswine     1    0.0     0.0    0.0           0.0
58       Hawlucha    18   15.0    16.0   0.94          -1.0
59       Clodsire    18   11.0    12.0   0.92          -1.0
60        Rotom-W     6    3.0     4.0   0.75          -1.0
61       Greninja     4    3.0     4.0   0.75          -1.0
62         Keldeo     2    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62      Magnezone     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62        Haxorus     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62     Talonflame     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62      Quaquaval     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62     Enamorus-T     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62        Suicune     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62        Kingdra     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62    Scream Tail     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62       Slowking     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62      Moltres-G     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62      Reuniclus     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62   Sandy Shocks     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62         Lapras     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62      Metagross     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62       Leavanny     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
62            Mew     1    0.0     1.0    0.0          -1.0
79      Gholdengo    87   59.0    61.0   0.97          -2.0
80      Rillaboom    41   28.0    30.0   0.93          -2.0
81    Meowscarada    10    4.0     6.0   0.67          -2.0
81         Scizor     7    4.0     6.0   0.67          -2.0
81        Ogerpon     7    4.0     6.0   0.67          -2.0
84       Tinkaton     3    1.0     3.0   0.33          -2.0
85      Cresselia     3    0.0     2.0    0.0          -2.0
85      Amoonguss     3    0.0     2.0    0.0          -2.0
85       Necrozma     2    0.0     2.0    0.0          -2.0
88         Zapdos     8    4.0     7.0   0.57          -3.0
89        Toxapex     7    2.0     5.0    0.4          -3.0
90        Gliscor    58   34.0    38.0   0.89          -4.0
91       Deoxys-S    26   17.0    21.0   0.81          -4.0
92       Skarmory    28   14.0    18.0   0.78          -4.0
93       Pelipper    16    6.0    10.0    0.6          -4.0
94      Alomomola    32    9.0    14.0   0.64          -5.0
95     Great Tusk   120   87.0    94.0   0.93          -7.0
96        Torkoal    12    2.0     9.0   0.22          -7.0
97    Ninetales-A     7    0.0     7.0    0.0          -7.0
98      Serperior    13    3.0    11.0   0.27          -8.0
99    Corviknight    19    5.0    14.0   0.36          -9.0
100      Ribombee    11    0.0     9.0    0.0          -9.0
101    Samurott-H    37   22.0    32.0   0.69         -10.0
102      Clefable    29   12.0    23.0   0.52         -11.0
103     Hatterene    31   17.0    29.0   0.59         -12.0
104       Heatran    28   12.0    24.0    0.5         -12.0
105       Ting-Lu    41   19.0    33.0   0.58         -14.0
106  Roaring Moon    72   48.0    64.0   0.75         -16.0
107      Glimmora    36   15.0    31.0   0.48         -16.0
108     Cinderace    32    9.0    25.0   0.36         -16.0
109   Iron Treads    31    6.0    28.0   0.21         -22.0
110    Landorus-T    77   29.0    65.0   0.45         -36.0

Zamazenta is the undisputed champion of this SPL season; a +39 differential more than doubles that of the next highest Pokemon, made all the more impressive by its meteoric rise over the past 4 weeks with a differential of +28 in those alone. Kingambit takes home the silver with a strong +19 performance over its 122 uses, while Raging Bolt's great week 9 places it just above Kyurem for third with +17. 4th place goes to the aforementioned Kyurem with a +16 season, followed by Ogerpon-Wellspring who also managed to secure +16 differential.

Taking a look at the best K:Ds of the season has some unlikely heroes at the top; Comfey is still our #1 despite not being seen since week 3, with 10 kills and only a single death across 4 uses giving it a massive K:D of 10. #2 goes to Garchomp, who went 7 and 1 in as many uses as Comfey, while Blissey managed #3 by also going down once in 6 games and 6 kills. The best K:Ds of any Pokemon with 10 or more uses was Dondozo with 2.9 K:D and a differential of +13, while Barraskewda went +12 with a K:D of 2.5; notably, Zamazenta was actually the #3 K:D out of any mon above this usage threshold with 1.9.

Finally, I'll define another metric to measure these Pokemon by - how much differential, on average, did they pick up per game? Frosmoth actually wins this one, with +3 achieved in the only game that it came to, followed by Comfey with a differential per game of +2.3 and Ogerpon-C with 2. Out of Pokemon with 10 uses or more, Dozo and Skewda were again the highest with +0.9 apiece; this time, Archaludon takes 3rd with +0.6 differential per game.

Thanks so much for tuning in for this season of SPL! We'll be moving on to the bracket next, so stay tuned for more analysis of high-level gameplay - I look forward to seeing how the semi-finals and the finals play out!

 

[kd458]

SV OU Core Power Rankings

Oh? You thought that was it? Nah, there's one more thing I think would be fun to look at this season - which OU cores did best? This will be ranked with a pretty standard system as is used for SPL in general. Wins grant 3 points, while a loss grants 0 and a tied week gives both teams a single point.

#1: Circus Maximus Tigers, 17 points

Record: 23 - 13
MVP: Trosko, 6 - 2
The Tigers had a great SV core this season; not only did Trosko go 6 and 2 in SV alone, JJ09LIE and Storm Zone put up 6 - 3 and 5 - 3 respectively. This is made even more impressive by the core's shaky middle of the season with 2 losses to the Scooters and the Sharks; the Tigers' SV OU core won all 4 of their last SPL weeks, and I'm sure they'll be looking to carry this momentum into the playoffs.

#2: Dragonspiral Tyrants, 16 points

Record: 21 - 15
MVP: CTC, 6 - 1

Shoutout myjava and Mada for going 5 - 1 and 3 - 0 at 3k apiece tho, powerful shit

#3= Alpha Ruiners, 14 points

Record: 21 - 15
MVP: oldspicemike, 8 - 1

Mike went on a kill spree this season, with the Ruiners' SV core only loss being to the BIGs in week 5. Now, with their single loss eliminated from the tour, will they keep up their positive record into the rest of the field in playoffs? A tie into their semi-finals opponents, the Tyrants, means that there isn't too much to base this off, but strong performances so far will for sure be hoped to carry through til the end of the tour.

#3= Indie Scooters, 14 points

Record: 20 - 16
MVP: hellom, 9-0

With the only undefeated record in SV OU, hellom has put the Scooters on his back for an insane debut season where the Scooters' SV core only lost to the Ruiners in week 1. Could a finals rematch on the cards be a chance at revenge? 5 wins apiece for Akalli and Xrn is a good sign for the semi finals, particularly with a previous 3 - 1 vs the Tigers in the regular season.

#3= Stark Sharks, 14 points

Record: 20 - 16
MVP: lax & kumiko, 6-3

The Sharks round out our 3-way-tie for 3rd; unfortunately, their SV team couldn't carry them all the way to bracket, but a strong start from kumiko into a strong finish from lax proved that there were no issues in SV OU. Their only loss in week 6 came from the near-unstoppable Tyrants - it's a shame we won't be getting to see any more of them in the playoffs.

#6= Ever Grande BIGs, 9 points

Record: 17 - 19
MVP: crying & Gilbert arenas, 5-4

I think the best word to describe the BIGs' SV season would be average; this is nothing to do with the games themselves, as both crying and Gilbert arenas came back from a rough start to end the season positive with some fun games and creative team choices, but 6 ties and close to even records for the whole team signify an SV record without too many downs but also without enough ups to get them to the playoffs. Not bad though, particularly as the only team to take down the Ruiners in SV so far.

#6= Team Raiders, 9 points

Record: 17 - 19
MVP: ACR1, 5 - 1

The Raiders were another team with a solid SV OU season but not enough for playoffs, though a 5 - 1 record from 3k pick ACR1 helped to keep the dream alive. They didn't have a bad season, tying with the BIGs for the most ties at 6, but again there wasn't quite enough there to bring them to the finals with a near-even record.

#8= Wi-Fi Wolfpack, 7 points

Record: 15 - 21
MVP: zioziotrip, 6 - 3

At the end of the season is another 3-way-tie for last place; the Wi-Fi Wolfpack's SV core starts us off with a 15 - 21 season carried by zioziotrip's efforts with a strong 6 and 3 record. Unfortunately, no-one else on the Wolfpack SV OU team managed a positive record, though Piyush25 did pretty well to go even as a 3k pick that only got subbed in late. They came really close to playoffs this time, but their SV season wasn't too hot.

#8= Congregation of the Classiest, 7 points

Record: 14 - 22
MVP: pdt, 5 - 4

As with the Wolfpack, the Classiest's SV core didn't really have any standout weeks, only winning against the BIGs in week 2. Again, this was a case of pdt being their only positive record in SV, who got off to an impressive 4 - 0 start but wasn't able to carry the Classiest to a win. 3 of their losses were to playoffs teams though, and records across the board were more close to even than negative; tough season but they've been a fun team to watch, both in SV and elsewhere.

#8= Cryonicles, 7 points

Record: 12 - 24
MVP: Finchinator & Separation, 4-5

Though the Wolfpack and the Classiest had middling seasons with 1 win, 4 losses and 4 draws each, the Cryonicles had perhaps the most up and down season of the tour; 2 losses into a draw into 2 wins looked to be shaping up for a strong comeback, but the Cryos lost all 4 of their remaining weeks with none of the team ending in the positive. It's been a rough season for their SV core, I hope to see them bounce back in future.

Thanks for reading!

Pretty cool that the top 4 SV cores are the ones that made it to the finals, tough to see the Sharks go out after a great performance but they've been a fun core to watch and fielded a strong team for the entire tour. Looking forward to watching the playoffs, it's been really cool to see some newer players rise to the top of the field and the tier be dominated by some of the less expensive picks. See you after the semi-finals!

 

[ninth]

Welcome to playoffs! We're down to eight SV games on the week, so I'll try and cover all of them in chronological order. The Tigers and their ultra-consistent core take on a Scooters squad headed by the newly ascendant hellom, while the Ruiners' big three of xavgb/Raptor/oldspicemike face the Tyrants' cost-effective, basedlord-backed kitchen. I would also like to point out that all but the first two games took place on Sunday.

[TIG] Trosko vs Kushalos [SCO] - this matchup is neat to examine just from team preview. Trosko's team has no Hex resists (although Heatran is immune to Wisp) and Heatran presents an imminent threat to much of Kushalos' team. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, these teams are pretty fat and it takes about 30 turns for the positioning to start climaxing into action, but things converge around Kush's Iron Defense/Body Press Corviknight vs Trosko's CM Clefable. Corv scales faster and forces Alomomola to be sacrificed, but Trosko retaliates by bringing out Heatran, forcing Dragapult in and dropping it to 20% health. The pivotal moment is when Trosko catches Clodsire on a Recover and brings in Gliscor for free, gets up a free SD on the Toxic, gets another SD on the switch to Great Tusk, turns into a normal type and clicks Facade, and, well, you can guess what happens next. Two free turns were all it took for Gliscor to clean house.

[TIG] JJ09LIE vs Xrn [SCO] - right off the bat you can tell this game isn't gonna last very long — there's five (potentially six) Booster mons in the game. Xrn's Nasty Plot Gholdengo proves to be an immediate problem for JJ09LIE's lead Deoxys, forcing them to sacrifice Sub Zapdos to chip it down a bit. A couple of turns later, it just ends up being Deoxys vs Gholdengo anyways, but Custap secures a second kill for the string cheese man, who even chips JJ's Roaring Moon before it goes down. From there JJ's team has been crippled, and Xrn's Scale Shot Dragonite only adds salt to the wound. Ice Punch Iron Valiant is cool, but the combined might of three past Paradoxes proves to be too overwhelming, and JJ forfeits the match.

[TIG] S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Akalli [SCO] - Akalli wants this game to end in 10 turns, but looking at the mons S1nn0h (I'm calling him Sinnoh, not typing this out over and over) brought, that's not gonna happen. Akalli's lead Deoxys barely survives a Knock Off from Ogerpon-Teal, but ends up missing Psycho Boost anyways after getting rocks up. Sinnoh's Skarmory barely phazes out a boosting Roaring Moon, but it brings in a mega threat: +Attack Quark Drive Supercell Slam Iron Treads. This mon obliterates Skarmory and even does 45% twice to Dragapult despite being burned before going down. Despite all that work, the MVP here might just be Sinnoh's Garganacl, who chips Iron Moth and forces it to waste Booster, outduels Roaring Moon, and even gets 26% chip onto Raging Bolt before going down. Akalli's last hope is Tera Fairy Dragonite, who Encores Great Tusk and sets up once, twice...thrice, and unfortunately takes two Sludge Bombs before it can do much more. My guess is that Dragonite's last move, possibly Tera Blast or even something like Dual Wingbeat, didn't kill Tusk without +4, and that he needed Sinnoh to switch around.

[TYR] myjava vs oldspicemike [RUI] - I knew it was an omen when blunder posted a stall live in complete seriousness. Two breakout SV stars square off, as myjava's four pink mons stare down oldspicemike's rapid-fire offense featuring Skeledirge. From the jump this is a tricky one for mike, as his immediate breaking power is limited to CB Dragonite, who cannot touch Clefable, and Ogerpon-Wellspring, who tickles Amoonguss. You may be thinking "what about his Darkrai?" but it's Leftovers Will-O-Wisp. Skeledirge gets caught by a Toxic on turn 4 and from there things don't get much better from mike — even a crit Outrage to kill Alomomola only serves to get Clefable in faster and Moonblast it down. myjava controls the game smoothly from a commanding position, and oldspicemike can do nothing but take his second loss of the season to the same person that bested him last time.

[TIG] Storm Zone vs hellom [SCO] - my god, stall is spreading. This time hellom's got a Moltres on the team, providing plenty of burns and contact punishment. Meanwhile, Storm Zone has a colorful squad consisting of high-impact beasts hoping to just brute-force through everything in its way. Much of the opening act is handshakes of chip: Roaring Moon loses its Booster, Dondozo reveals Avalanche and does a whopping 42% to Landorus-T, Sub Volcarona can't touch Clodsire and vice versa, things of that nature. When Blissey comes in against Primarina, it looks like a straightforward walling, but Primarina soon reveals Psychic Noise and forces Blissey down to 16% before dying. Storm Zone's Raging Bolt comes out, reveals +SpA Booster, and gets up a Calm Mind - Amoonguss survives and gets off a Toxic, and the game becomes survival horror for hellom as he has to figure out how to minimize casualties until Bolt dies. He only manages to lose two mons out of this, and this now puts Dondozo in a great position, going back and forth between it, Clodsire, and Tera Flying Alomomola, passing Wishes back and forth and letting the rocks + Toxic chip rack up over time.

[TYR] Mada vs Raptor [RUI] - give it up for the second fat team from the Tyrants! I wouldn't call Mada's team stall, because what the hell kind of stall team has a Garganacl and a Skeledirge, but it's definitely a very defensive team. On Raptor's side, he has a curious-looking offense centered around Tyranitar and Balloon Excadrill, as well as three powerful pivots, and Zamazenta is there too. Mada's Gliscor is by far the MVP here, as it reveals Sub/Protect/Knock/Toxic and proceeds to put up 2016 LeBron numbers. Seriously, this game gives credence to the idea that if you can't OHKO Gliscor you can't kill it at all — even in the face of Raptor's ID/Press/Crunch/Rest Zamazenta and +2 Excadrills, neither of which it can meaningfully touch, Gliscor still takes absolutely nothing and is back to full in a few turns. Granted, Dragapult's Infiltrator Hex does a ton of damage, but Mada also has a Tera Fairy Garganacl in the back that he can switch to, which nothing on Raptor's team besides Gunk Shot Cinderace (fun move, feels like a classic Greninja larp) and Excadrill can hit super-effectively. Excadrill doesn't even kill, and Salt Cure finishes off the Drill for good measure. Really the defining moments of this game are when Dragapult and Cinderace lose their Boots to Gliscor: the combined Rocks and sandstorm chip puts a premium on Raptor's pivoting playstyle, resulting in the untimely demise of Raptor's last way to hit Garganacl. From there it's a numbers game, as Zamazenta runs itself out of Rests and the match ends with a forfeit on turn 134.

[TYR] Poek vs Fc [RUI] - oh thank god it's not a fourth fat team in a row. Poek has a pretty even-handed offense with the capability to take hits, while Fc's team maintains the Kingambit/Tusk/Valiant big 3 but has three more aggressive picks in Dragapult, Primarina, and Volcarona. The first casualty is Fc's Dragapult, after Poek switches Slowking-G into it with zero fear. Psyshock Glowking turns out to be a neat tech that hits Calm Mind Primarina quite hard, bringing it low for the mixed Iron Valiant cleanup: Fc ends up having to Tera his own Valiant to stop things from spiraling out of control. That Valiant soon dies to Tera Fairy Dragonite, though, and with just Gambit and Tusk against Poek's own Gambit/Tusk and Tera Blast Dragonite, there's not much he can do as Poek secures the win.

[TYR] Luispeikou vs xavgb [RUI] - the final game of the Ruiners/Tyrants SV series, 4-6 at the time (updated to 5-6 mid-battle when the TD decision dropped) has plenty of fun brings. Luispeikou has Moltres, Darkrai, and Tinkaton, while xavgb has a "put everything on the floor and click Hex 1000 times" team featuring Latias. The opening moves go about as well as they can go for Luis, as he manages to dispatch stresh's Meteor Beam Glimmora and Ting-Lu while only allowing a singular Toxic Spike to go up. His critically low-health Dragapult puts in a ton of work over the next few turns: it paralyzes Zamazenta, chips Gholdengo, pivots into Darkrai for a free kill on stresh's own Dragapult. and chips Zamazenta into Raging Bolt range before it goes down. Then xavgb sends out Gholdengo, and this is where things get interesting: Great Neck can't outdamage Recover, and once it turns into a Suicune, neither can Ting-Lu. Three mons go down in rapid succession, with Luis throwing out Moltres and Tinkaton for chip before finally bringing out Boots Darkrai to finish the job. stresh's last is Agility Draining Kiss Latias, who sets up and does a horrifying 47%, notably bringing it out of range of a Dark Pulse kill. Now it all comes down to if Draining Kiss is a roll to kill: I'll let you find out yourself if it did. This ending was a goddamn heart attack.

EVENTS OF SEMIFINALS SPOILERS

Well, after a rather long SM stall game, Malekith getting hacked, and the Ruiners attempting the shortest boycott of all time, we have a double tiebreaker. After a 2-2 SV, neither the Tigers nor the Scooters have chosen SV, leaving just the default first tier. Trosko will look to dent hellom's perfect record, while Le Don and elodin clash in DPP and M Dragon fights Gefährlicher Random in RBY.

Meanwhile, after a 4-0 SV beatdown from the Tyrants, neither they nor the Ruiners have picked SV. The SV main event is rising star myjava vs PR-topping xavgb: the Ruiners picked DPP for another Fakes vs. SoulWind rematch, and the Tyrants' Heroic Troller faces Khaetis Malekith Charmflash in the first gen. Double RBY and double DPP is kind of wild but I respect it.

SV OU: 53% myjava vs xavgb 47% - what a story for myjava, man. Comes off the bench, immediately hands oldspicemike his only loss, proceeds to go on a rampage, gets promoted to SV1 with the slaying of CTC, and now entrusted with SPL semifinals tiebreaking. To stop him, the Ruiners have put in xavgb again, who has had something of a more muted SV campaign, but everybody knows what he's capable of when it comes to changing the meta. There are two reasons I think this is going java's way: the first is that stresh's form hasn't been as outstanding as we've seen in 2023, and he's going to have to reclaim that form under high pressure to beat java on a hotstreak. The second is that every team that Tyrants SV brought in semis has had at minimum a reasonable and at best an excellent matchup. The Tyrants' kitchen clearly has their finger on both the pulse of the meta and their opponents. Besides hellom, myjava seems like the other protagonist of this season.
DPP OU: 49% SoulWind vs Fakes 51% - the Ruiners' tiebreak pick is essentially "what do we want to force SoulWind to play?" and they've chosen to make him play DPP, against his now-nemesis Fakes. Both players have credentials in the generation but the fact that Fakes is now 2-0 against SoulWind (and forced him to call him ass last time out) forces me to give him the slight edge here. Then again, if SoulWind felt some way about last week's game, he's gonna do everything in his power to not let himself lose to Fakes three times in a row: this is extremely close on paper.
RBY OU: 60% Heroic Troller vs Charmflash 40% - wait, what? I'm told Charmflash plays some RBY and he's not bad at it, and he's been on fire the whole tour, but it's a bit of a left-field pick to throw him into RBY over the mainer and the more experienced Classic finalist against Heroic Troller of all people. My best guess is that Khaetis has been fully downloaded by Troller and they figure a wildcard is their best bet. It's RBY so I'm not going above 60/40, but this just seems weird from the Ruiners.

SV OU: 45% Trosko vs hellom 55% - there isn't much to say about hel10m that hasn't already been said. The monster has shown an ability to wield an increasing number of archetypes in later weeks, and his play has looked on point for almost all of it. Sometimes he has these rare turns where I'm like "hold on what the hell is he doing here" but even if it turns out to be an unplay he recovers from it anyways. This kind of robustness in his play tells me a lot. The Tigers chose the super-consistent Trosko as his opponent, coming off of a win against Kushalos. He has been very good all tournament, cleanly dispatching opponents, but he's going to need to be outstanding against hellom.
DPP OU: Le Don vs elodin
RBY OU: M Dragon vs Gefährlicher Random

 

[Srn]

I'm out of SPL and SV OU week of smogtours is done, so as promised it's time to do some semifinals SV OU coverage.

Disclaimer: All analysis is subjective and can be wrong as I am not privy to the full teams, players thoughts, or even gameplan/prep leading up to the match. Any player I mention is welcome to set the record straight if I'm out of line with something. It's also easy for me to pick apart plays in hindsight, I know that you can't always fully think out every play. All criticism of teams are from a general meta-wide perspective, and I'm aware that some corners are cut in a bo1 tournament setting to get the strongest MU possible. I got no beef and want no beef with any players here, just giving my full thoughts.

[TIG] JJ09LIE vs Xrn [SCO]

rngaming

At a glance: JJ's team
JJ's team is fairly offensive but I find the zapdos a little out of place. I think zapdos and volcanion have excellent offensive and defensive synergy together, with T-wave zapdos putting pressure on mons like dragapult/kyurem/glowking and switching into ground types for volcanion, which is why I brought it to SPL week 9. However, I think zapdos is a little out of place here as you need to account for the fact that most zapdos sets will be giving free momentum to pokemon like ting-lu, clodsire, and sdef gliscor.

It's deceptively difficult to repeatedly switch into ting-lu between Ruination+EQ, but a few mons can do it reasonably well and threaten Ting-Lu back like Rillaboom, Horn Leech Waterpon, Alomomola, Gliscor, and some more fringe cases like Regen Hydrapple and Slowbro. In some cases, you can just accept some frail mons don't need their health too much and throw them in vs ting lu like Weavile, Iron Valiant, Enamorus, and Meowscarada to make progress. With Zapdos, ideally you have one of the former group or two of the latter. So depending on the zapdos set, I think it's a little awkwardly built around. U-turn Zapdos alleviates this issue a little, but honestly, I think T-wave/volt/hurricane is the dumbest set that can nearly solo goob offense and you gotta be abusing that shit.

I think volcanion+zapdos+cm ival+deo-s all work together well to put pressure on common spdef cores like glowking+ting lu and to a lesser extent stuff like sdef gliscor, clodsire, sdef ghold, and AV primarina. But in hindsight, the angle of offense was moreso knock rmoon to weaken physical walls for SD Ival. I feel like the offensive synergy is kind of off with volcanion/zapdos/deo-s making a dent in glowking+ting lu but lacks a real cleaner to threaten a win, with Rmoon+SD Ival honestly not being enough on the physical side imo. Not to mention the rmoon is booster speed and not booster attack, I personally have never been a fan of booster speed. All in all, I think the offense is unique (as offense teams need to be rn), but I disagree with some choices of mons and some offensive synergy.

At a glance: Xrn's team
Xrn's team is a standard offense that is a little slow for my taste with only rmoon being above base 100 speed, but makes up for that somewhat with 2 priority users and bulky mons like dnite, bolt, tusk, and ghold. Ghold+Bolt work really well together offensively, weakening shared checks like tinglu, clodsire, glowking, gliscor, etc. I mention glowking not bc it's a ghold check but moreso bc it is often used to scout ghold's set.

One problem I have with xrn's team is the lack of a great dragapult answer paired with glimmora. Pult is gonna counterlead glimmora pretty often to get a clean fast 2hko with hex+draco without activating toxic debris, and to counter this, every glimmora team should have 1 mon to comfortably put pult in a bad position 1v1 (without expending tera). This is...kinda missing. Dnite, tusk, rmoon don't want to get wisp'd and bolt/ghold are weak to stabs. You can argue that ghold can tank a hex and kill back with shadow ball, but you could just as easily take a specs pult shadow ball to the face (rare but not that bad imo).

4 fairy weaks is standard lol at least u got 2 fairy resists to back it up. I feel like this is kinda tusk weak, depending on the dnite set and ghold/bolt item. Opposing tusk can find a fair few openings and your best response is your own tusk, which is an unfavorable grind. There's no clean outspeed+ohko vs opposing tusk, but I expect that to be mitigated by balloon on ghold or bolt (or both) or maybe a shuca or custap+bulk, could be a tech like hurricane Dnite as well. I'm not sure this could break past a basic stall core like dondozo/alo/blissey/clod but I'd have to know the sets to confirm. A slightly more solid but less unique offense here.

The lead matchup:
Glimmora is the obvious lead from Xrn, so JJ leads deo-s. Xrn presumably reads this and leads Gholdengo in response. We see later in the match that the Iron Treads is a booster attack set, but a booster speed ep/steel beam would've covered both Glimmora and Gholdengo to an extent. So from turn 1 I disagreed with JJ's lead and thought it was a misplay but in hindsight JJ was just outplayed on lead, not a misplay.

Earlygame:
I agree with JJ that zapdos to scout twave ghold was best, you're off to a bad start and you'll seal the game by letting deo-s or rmoon get paralyzed. However, I think some roosts and subs here are weird. Tbolt was eventually clicked so idt all the dicking around mattered much, you got to learn that ghold was NP but you also let it get one. Regardless, I think this zapdos set was doomed to do nothing into opposing bolt, so it's fine to throw it out, even if tusk is more annoying now.

Some basic sequences later, Turn 9 is notable bc the psycho boost crit actually ends up putting gholdengo into custap range and allows ghold to take out deoxys speed, whereas Deo-S may have been able to Psycho Boost-->Knock Off Gholdengo had the crit not occurred. That's a pretty big break for Xrn, depending on the Deo-s set it would've put in a lot of work. JJ's gonna do their best to get tempo back by dd'ing with rmoon but multiscale dnite will always rk back, except this time it does it with scale shot and not espeed.

Midgame:
The choice between treads or ival to rk dnite is pretty meaningless. If booster attack treads comes out first to ice spinner, it'll take an eq and then do some more chip to tusk, then Ival has to come out and gets red card'd by glimmora anyway. Ival came out first, and ice punch connects with red card to drag in volcanion. It's forced to take an epower and kill back, when JJ decides to pull the tera trigger to live HLR and kill back with steam eruption...except it missed :/ 95% acc btw.

Had the steam eruption connected and killed tusk, I imagine Xrn would've sent in Rmoon to acro, forcing in treads and revealing booster attack. From there, a potential eq/bb or maybe just knock deals chip as I think JJ would rapid spin-->Ice spinner and likely eq/ice spinner into dnite to force its tera and then die to eq in response. Depending on whether or not the dnite has espeed (guessing it doesnt in hindsight as it wasn't used on turn 18), even encore ival may lose lastmon vs raging bolt due to tspike up and 8 thunderclaps probably drawing out enough time for poison to kill, but seeing the Ice Punch reveal makes me doubt you also have room for SD+Encore. Which means JJ would have to win with a poisoned SD no encore ival vs probably booster thunderclap. Clap kills after poison so if JJ tries to attack immediately, they lose, but I doubt SD has a way to ohko raging bolt from full anyway with both tera's exhausted, so I think Xrn was winning in the end by just clicking tbolt in ival vs bolt last mon no tera scenario. Depending on the sets, the game was still up in the air, but the steam eruption miss really sealed things.

Endgame:
I think you always ice punch on turn 17 rather than cc but hardly matters at this point. JJ's only hope is that rmoon doesn't have eq/bb and is knock dd acro taunt so you maybe could rapid spin-->ice spinner and crit past the other 2 or smth, but eq is revealed and its joever.

TL;DR JJ got really unlucky and lost, but it's hard to determine if Xrn got bailed out, as they still had tera unused and a couple of fresh mons

[TIG] Trosko vs Kushalos [SCO]

real gaming

At a glance: Trosko's team
We're looking at a bootspam balance but why tf is there a heatran here? Listen maybe balloon heatran is only weak to rocks and it could maybe fit but that shit has an awful matchup vs alo fat and it aint even that good as a volcarona/iron moth check. Imagine you swap heatran in as Volcarona qd's, taunt as it qd's again, magma storm as tera blast pops balloon, then you die to tb ground/water and your ogerpon isn't fast enough to rk with tera grass. Or imagine iron moth tera blasts dry to break balloon, tb grounds to break, and ogerpon tera grass is a speed tie to rk. Just not a fan of a standard heatran here.

Ok sorry on to the rest of the team. I would expect rocks clefable and spikes on gliscor with knock ogerpon to make progress, but you could also see spikes on ogrepon with an SD knock gliscor tasked with making progress. I think gliscor is a better spiker than ogerpon so I prefer that. Hoping the zama is boots, expecting ogerpon+alo to be boots, shoot me if the heatran has boots.

Overall my biggest critique is the lack of a ghost resist, and no heatran is does not count as one on its own. A twave hex pult/ghold would shred, even wisp pult with U-turn+hazards would own heatran, it just seems like a mess from the outside looking in. In hindsight, we learn that the gliscor is tera normal sd facade, which does address the ghost resist and provide a potent progress maker.

My second biggest critique would be the lack of priority and overall weakness to something like Roaring Moon. One of the big downsides of heatran is that you're kinda letting roaring moon set up for free without wisp (and even with it you're goobed by taunt rmoon), but packing wisp usually means dropping taunt which means you don't even stop volcarona from setting up qd+morning sun all over you. So once rmoon dds on heatran, what do you do from there? Tera zama and try to outplay the tera flying acro? Red card with alo? (that's only gonna work once and is super valuable for other shit vs HO) Sticky barb clefable would've been 1/2 of rmoon counterplay but its lefties, so yeah its tough. Take another threat like raging bolt: If it's CM, you can semi-respond with encore ogerpon, but it has pretty free openings into alo to spam dragon moves vs gliscor/ogerpon, and gliscor doesn't have eq to hit it back. Heatran is a check but it's a pretty shit one ngl.

My THIRD biggest critique (god I'm still going) is the lack of a ghost type. It's always weird to have a bootspam balance team tryna make progress with hazards but you don't have a spinblocker? I mean hell just having a nice stop to ID+Body press mons like Zama, skarm, corv would be nice. In hindsight, this team appears to lack spikes to begin with and elects to make progress just with rocks, sd gliscor, cm clefable, and encore ogerpon, which is a fine gameplan but I personally think spikes are broken and should be used here. It's a balance team with some holes I'm not comfortable with. It won tho so who am I to talk shit

At a glance: Kushalos's team
Looking like a pretty standard garg+tusk balance with some good speed control in pult+weavile, as well as a slightly unusual clodsire sighting. Guessing this is tera water garg to cover for threats like walking wake, or it may be the rare Water Absorb clodsire?? Could see rocks on garg/tusk+spikes on clodsire to get up layers for weavile to make progress, or it could be rocks on clodsire to let garg curse and tusk bulk up or taunt.

I think this team would struggle with stuff like alomomola and ting-lu. Lu gets chipped by garg and clodsire but it's a reasonably free entry and nothing really enjoys ruination+eq nor are they cleanly forcing it out besides weavile. Alo on the other hand gets super free entry vs tusk, clodsire, weavile, corv, to an extent even garg and can pass wishes+flip turn with ease and the only real punish is dragapult vs a dragapult check that's receiving a wish. Pretty tough sell, especially in hindsight as we see the clodsire is rocks, weavile/clod/garg can't even remove boots and force alo's health down with max layers.

More problems imo appear in hindsight. Knock tusk seems pretty redundant with weavile, they're both targeting the same knock absorbers for the most part (clefable, skarm, alo) and I would have much rather seen bulk up, taunt, or additional coverage. No max layers makes the lack of immediate power questionable. The clodsire isn't amnesia, so something like NP tera fairy gholdengo seems super dangerous, especially when it can get a headstart vs corv to grind down garg. NP tera fairy dazzle might be 6-0 bc it ultimately doesn't seem like the team has any move to hit fairy types super effectively, nor is there any immediate power to overlook that.

In my head, you either go bootspam+layers and you lack immediate power but you can make progress steadily and win hazard wars, or you can use removal like tusk/treads/ace to enable stronger items like leftovers, specs, band, ebelt, booster energy etc to have immediate power and make progress quickly. Kush's team has very little immediate power but also isn't hazard immune, taking the worst of both archetypes with neither of the strengths. Ultimately not a huge fan of this balance either.

The lead matchup:
Gliscor+protect is generally a safe and obvious lead from any gliscor team, and kushalos seeks to capitalize by going weavile and threatening an SD. Trosko's aware and doesn't go for the obvious play, likely understanding that they have safe toxic orb activation points anyway vs clodsire and garg. It's not a big deal to lose this lead matchup for Kushalos though, as there are options to scout clefable somewhat safely between corv and clodsire.
Trosko wins the lead matchup but Kushalos can recover easily.

Earlygame:
Clodsire gets up rocks vs Clefable and Kushalos nicely brings Tusk into Gliscor to cover a potential knock off, eq, and heatran double predicting the obvious corv into gliscor, seeing Toxic from Gliscor as unlikely into Clodsire. This great positioning is immediately extinguished as Alo comes in, eats a knock off, and chips pult as that's all Kushalos's team can really do about alo.

We see the...leftovers on heatran. So it's just gettin rawdogged by spikes n rocks on a team with no removal with only alo to keep it alive? Ig u just let it go vs the fat matchups anyway where its useless due to opposing alo? idk man. It is at least doing its job as a wisphex pult answer.

Gets up rocks as garg comes in, curses up to force/scout encore from clefable but cm comes out instead. Some more positioning later, pult is able to get in vs alo but tragically misses a wisp vs it, which would've been great to eventually force progress with hex. It was a great read to call it staying in even with heatran in the back.

Heatran gets in, forces tera from garg with a crit, corv contains the ogerpon, and then Pult is brought in on a nice encore scout from Kushalos vs ogerpon. Great positioning has again given Kushalos an opportunity to make progress, but clefable gets in to tank a u-turn and not much was made unfortunately. Fast forward to turn 25, Kush has managed to get rocks off but alo forces pult in yet again, flip turning into heatran to put them right back up.

The recurring trend here is that you're seeing broken ass alo just killing all of Kushalos's good positioning. You'd need to get Clefable AND Alomomola burned to start making any progress with Hex, and that's assuming you put up enough pressure to prevent alo from wishing up heatran. Unfortunate enough that alo dodged an early wisp

Midgame:
Corv gets in vs Gliscor and manages to get a little out of control with ID press, sorta punching through clefable and even managing to take out alomomola. This is huge, game winning progress for Kushalos, and it's a reason why having no ghost types on your spikestack balances something I hate to see. Heatran forces it out, and Kushalos goes to..pult?

You don't need pult's health to switch into flip turns anymore with alo gone, but I still wonder why pult was chosen to eat this magma storm over garg. Garg aint really accomplishing much even if it's healthy with a cm clef and encore ogerpon in the back, so why pult over garg here? Even if Trosko did some crazy flex and doubled out heatran vs corv predicting garg/pult, they'd go clefable to cover both...so yea why pult? It is ultimately garg that comes in the turn afterward, so I think this was a misplay.

Cm clef comes in on garg again, clodsire needs to respond, which lets in gliscor and.. Kushalos decides to go tusk on gliscor bc corv is likely too weak to contain SD+Knock and roost and ID up to beat gliscor from that position. Unfortunately for kush, the tera normal facade is revealed on ice spinner and tusk goes down, which marks the beginning of the end...

Endgame:
Ain't much to say here folks, this shit just kills everybody.
Looking back, it's hard to say that it was wrong of Kushalos to get that body press kill with corv and let it get that low, but he had to try positioning it back in vs gliscor 1v1 or something to get a roost back up. Eventually Kush might've been able to break through heatran with pult, but it was a tough gameplan to execute. Both players had a shot here but I think MU was ultimately in Trosko's favor.

TL;DR Kushalos fights an uphill battle in a clash of balance teams and gets 6-0d by Tera Normal Facade Gliscor.

[TIG] Storm Zone vs hellom [SCO]

stall gaming

At a glance: Hellom's team
It's stall.

At a glance: Storm zone's ok I'm just kidding we can go a little further. In favor of the apple, it seems that Amoongus has been selected as the grass type of choice to cover Waterpon. Amoong is super passive dogshit without spore, but that passivity can be tolerated by the other 5 fatty teammates. I would expect toxic, synth, gknot, and perhaps clear smog, foul play, etc in the last. Rather than a typical corv, it's interesting to see moltres here. I wonder if it has roar or some other tech to avoid being too passive?

First critique: I'm not a stall savant but I feel like the team is kind of lacking in knock absorbers. No Gliscor, no clefable, no corv, only alo and I guess amoongus can be counted on to take knocks here, and I'm not a huge fan of that. This may be tolerable if you managed to squeeze in defog corv, defog talon, rapid spin cyclizar etc as we have seen stall with removal be successful in the past, but without any such options, I feel like the selection of knock absorbers here is a little dire.

My second issue is how passive this team is, even for a stall team. Due to the selection of mons here, the only way to get up max layers is by having rocks on blissey and spikes on clodsire, both of which is feasible but involves dropping some important-ish moves like shadow ball on blissey and one of clodsire's stabs. But let's say you've managed to put max layers on there...you have zero knock off. None!? I feel like the best defensive teams can still make some progress by putting up max layers and clicking knock off with the right mons, but this seems to have nothing. Ultimately this is too passive even for stall, bordering on MU fish for me.

At a glance: Storm Zone's team
This is another fairly slow but fairly bulky offense similar to Xrn's, where rmoon is the only mon faster than base 100 speed but you make up for it with 2 priority users. Unlike Xrn's team which had espeed dnite, both of these prio are relatively unreliable, as thunderclap+sucker punch can both be worked around with sub and encore. I think the defensive backbone is solid here, with gambit/prima/lando-t/volcarona covering plenty of ground and soft checking a ton. While Kingambit, Rmoon, and Lando-t are straightforward, Primarina, Volcarona, and Raging Bolt have a lot of set variability which will need to be leveraged in order to consistently break down fat teams. Knock Rmoon+Rocks is nice, but today's meta is well prepared for it, and you can't rely on Rmoon alone to make progress vs fat teams which can carry barb clef, dozo, skarm/corv, toxic gliscor, etc.

Even in hindsight, it's a little hard to say that Storm Zone's team was well prepared for the fat matchup. Psychic Noise Primarina can definitely grind down blissey, but you need tera ghost to reliably get past CM+SToss. Even if you weaken blissey for volcarona and raging bolt, they can't get past Amnesia Clodsire without tera, which kinda foils the gameplan. I think what may have been needed was something like Taunt+Draco bolt to force chip on Clodsire and Blissey, and reliable swapins to those mons once they've taken a Draco+taunt. Balloon Kingambit can cover Clod and Helmet Lando-t can punish Stoss from Blissey for example. This is a solid offense team that needs a little more spice to break down fat.

The lead matchup:
In sz's position I would probably lead Rmoon. It's not like rocks are gonna be helpful vs a corv/skarm/gliscor or anything, so I'd be in no hurry to get them up with Lando-T. Get a Knock Off going, remove some boots, and rocks can go up later when they matter. Hellom's lead doesn't reaally matter, but amoong puts up the most "pressure" by threatening a toxic on half the team and being scared out by the other half (gambit/rmoon/volcarona), so I think amoong was a fine lead even if it got kinda punished.

Earlygame:
I'm sure SZ was hoping to get some helmet chip on dozo there, but unfortunately for sz it reveals the no contact avalanche. Now you can expect avalanche+body press as the attacking moves, so a U-turn into volcarona is relatively safe. Amoong scouts gknot but gives rona a free turn. Clodsire takes 29% from this flamethrower, which is way more than I was expecting. That was a high roll on an almost max sdef clod or just a very physdef clod. Rocks go up as LandoT comes in, but sz elects to U-turn instead of getting up rocks. You were risking a Toxic on ur LandoT anyway by bringing it into Clodsire, so why not get up rocks and get some important chip on dozo? Thinking about it more, giving Amoong a free turn means either Volcarona/Rmoon needs to eat a toxic to force it out or Kingambit potentially gets its balloon popped, which would be important to swap into Clodsire, so I think sz's play is good here.

Hellom is trying to scout the rona set with alo before going back into clod and eventually learns it's sub+bug buzz, likely being the tera bug swarm set. SZ isn't willing to pull the trigger and tera though, just throwing out flamethrowers and fishing for a crit/burn before deciding to commit. Gambit comes in to force out Clodsire, and then doubles into Primarina to smartly avoid risking any flame body bs and get a leg up on the incoming blissey. But can prima actually muscle past bliss? We see that it lacks draining kiss to give any sustain vs stoss, presumably no tera ghost, and that protect forces repeated psychic noises to keep blissey low.

Prima did a great job weakening blissey, and raging bolt is still healthy to handle the moltres, so I think this exchange was great for sz.

Midgame:
To capitalize on blissey, rmoon comes in and threatens knock again to force in dozo. I like Rmoon over Kingambit or Lando-t in that the physical attackers technically risk flame body, but hellom doesn't want moltres' boots knocked off, so Rmoon is the only physical attacker that kinda doesn't risk flame body. I was thinking you'd swap rona in on the dozo rest to keep fishing for crit/burn flamethrower on clodsire, but sz elects to go lando-t and u-turn on alo instead. In comes bolt, time to see what it can do.

I think hellom was very smart to go amoongus first and toxic here. It's unlikely that bolt is cm+taunt bc that set is ass, and amoong itself is not too useful since primarina is dead and not helpful vs sub volcarona/kingambit/potentially taunt rmoon, so this is the last place that amoong can do anything. Sacking this and getting safe entry to clodsire would be my play, but hellom decides to sack blissey instead?? Imo this is a misplay, as blissey still has a great chance to eat 1 unboosted hit from volcarona and softboiled back up, whereas amoong has done its job and should've been let go.

Once the Clodsire is safely in, sz pulls the trigger and reveals the tech: Tera blast water CM raging bolt. Definitely cool stuff, but it's unfortunate that it fails to kill clodsire, meaning that you used tera on a toxic'd mon with maybe 3-4 turns left to do damage if you swap out, 2 if you stay in. In the face of this pressure, Amoong gets sacked as it should have in the first place, and bolt goes down. Obviously it's hard to say if this was a poor usage of tera bc I don't know sz's tera types, but it definitely felt like it. Because you've seen clodsire reveal rocks/toxic/eq, a tera bug+sub volcarona has a lot of potential to pressure clodsire, and that may have been a better avenue to make progress...until you remember the moltres is still kicking and would shut you down super fast. Really unfort that prima wasn't tera ghost.

Endgame:
Rmoon comes in as alo passes a wish to clod, and then sz reads the dondozo on the obvious gambit to bring volcarona hard into clod. Great positioning, but hard to capitalize on as clod just soaks up the flame. Moltres gets weakened in the process of neutering kingambit and goes down.
Hellom decides to let alo get weakened to top off clod before going into dozo. Debatable if keeping alo healthy for potential gknot lando-t was less important than topping off clod for..flamethrower crit? But hellom can easily tera fly alo anyway, so yeah that was fine. Flamethrower unfortunately never burned clodsire, which could've helped volcarona potentially break through it even at this stage with just sub tanking burnt eq.

In the end, rona/rmoon can't break through alo/dozo/clod and hellom claims the win.

I think sz's team was reasonably well equipped for fat with psychic noise prima to force blissey down and then sub swarm volcarona to potentially tera bug and beat down clod+the rest, but you ran into a moltres which foils that plan. Just a little more spice was needed imo.

TL;DR Hellom loads the correct stall into sz and wins off a very strong MU.

[TIG] S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Akalli [SCO]

great gaming

At a glance: Akalli's team
We got a pretty sweet offense from Akalli that is actually quite fast unlike Xrn's and Storm Zone's, with Rmoon+Deo-S and potential booster speed on moth, treads, or both, but I hope not both. Not 1 but 2 priority, 1 being a reliable espeed, is also brought along, forming really powerful anti-offense speed control. When you see a team dedicate this much resources to speed control, I start to worry about how it's managing the other end of things.

Rocks from treads+Knock Rmoon will always make progress, but dnite isn't strong enough to capitalize on a dozo that's been knocked without some cool techs or like 6 correct doubles with rocks up lol. On the physical end this seems a little lacking. On the special end, bolt definitely puts pressure on ting lu, clod, glowking and deo-s+moth can capitalize on that and end games, I'm just hoping to see some strong sets from at least 1 of them. LO Knock with spikes deo-s would be fire, or maybe a booster SpA tera ghost to fuck up blissey? In hindsight, the treads was a booster attack set and rocks went on deo-s, and I'm honestly...not sure how effective booster attack treads is at actually making progress vs a fat team.

Defensively, the dark resist is rmoon so I'm a little worried about kingambit, but you can sprinkle in techs like sub moth, encore dnite, colbur deo-s etc to limit it. Opposing tusk can find openings vs treads, dnite, and bolt which is a little annoying, but deo-s can swap in once and that's gonna have to be enough. Despite how fast this team is, Iron Boulder is still faster, could find an SD opportunity vs deo-s, and shit looks dire after that, but that's just a hole I'd accept. This is a fast offense team that probably has a strong MU vs other offense but may struggle into fat.

At a glance: Sinnoh's team
On the other hand, a pretty solid looking garg balance was chosen by sinnoh here with ogerpon+pult speed control, tusk allowing lefties garg and potentially av glowking, and what I hope to be a spikes skarm. Letting in ghost types scot free is acceptable with big garg in the back, but you still have to be mindful of hazard+pult u-turn adding up. On a team like this which doesn't need boots on everybody, I would like to see a specs pult to provide some immediate firepower and really take advantage of the fact that you have removal. Garg puts up some decent pressure on ting-lu and glowking, and specs pult would love those two being weakened by salt cures. It ends up just being standard wisphex tho, oh well.

On a team like this, you've got to be really careful with how you build your tusk. Stall can run tera ghost knock off pjab gliscor to potentially keep up all layers, so a set like rocks/ice spinner/HLR is a mistake. Something like bu tera poison is what I'd like to see to eventually force out a tera ghost gliscor and force a spin. We never actually see sinnoh set up any layers though, so it's up for debate whether skarm/tusk/garg has rocks and skarm/ogerpon has spikes. I would personally prefer spikes skarm and rocks garg.

Another thing to be careful of is something like sub cm ival. In general, many sub users can be foiled by infiltrator pult (which is why sub zama has largely fallen out of favor) but there are a few like sub cm primarina, sub cm ival, sub cm enamorus, and sub qd volcarona which can set up on garg with the right tera and pose difficulty for dragapult to rkill. One way to alleviate this is putting eq on garg to hit tera steel/ground subs, and I'm glad its here. Chilly reception into encore pon also foils slower sub cms like prima and enamorus, potentially even volcarona if you tera+encore after only 1 qd.

One gripe I have is the lack of priority vs threats like rmoon. I could see a taunt+tera fly rmoon muscle past skarm and basically kill garg before going down, and you don't have many options around this besides keeping skarm+garg very healthy. I wouldn't like going kingambit over garg though, as I think garg is a pretty important fire resist and wisp soak. Some corners gotta be cut unfortunately. Overall I really like Sinnoh's balance team, covers a lot of bases and isn't passive.

Scope lens ogerpon if real

The lead matchup:
Treads or Deo-s are the telegraphed leads from Akalli's offense, so I agree with Sinnoh's choice of ogerpon which is likely the best candidate into both. You can resist ep, tank ice spinner, tank steel beam and hit back with cudgel (kill if steel beam), and you should be able to tank any one hit from deo-s and knock off back has a chance to kill, gauranteed after LO recoil if it is that. Even if it is telegraphed, Deo-s can put some decent pressure on everybody so I like that too. Ogerpon vs Deo-s makes sense from both players and isn't too strongly favored towards either imo.

I want to take some extra time to take a look at the potential turn 1 interactions too here. I'm assuming ev spreads but take a look at these calcs:

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon: 270-320 (89.7 - 106.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Ogerpon Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Deoxys-Speed: 218-258 (90.4 - 107%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

It's a big risk to bank on 37.5%, but you could just psycho boost and ohko ogerpon. If you nail the range, you're immediately in a very strong position, even if ogerpon wasn't exactly a key target to remove, it's awesome to reduce sack fodder and get rid of encore. However, if you miss the range, LO recoil+Knock Off will surely kill you and you don't get rocks up. If you decide to get up rocks first, you could get ohko'd 43.8% of the time, but if you live you can get up rocks AND some psycho boost chip. Even if you do live, with LO removed, your psycho boost won't kill, but I think the best sequence factoring in these odds is to Rocks first as akalli, knock as sinnoh, and then psycho boost as akalli and stay in to kill if needed as sinnoh.

You could avoid this song and dance by just leading rmoon, but that would entail using up your booster quite early, which is a big risk as well.

Earlygame:
Turns 1 and 2 go exactly as I suggested above, and while Akalli's Deo-s does fortunately live Knock Off, it unfortunately misses Psycho Boost. Chip woulda been nice but there were good odds for you to get nothing but rocks if you went for it, so can't complain too much. Rmoon comes in to threaten out ogerpon and make some earlygame progress by removing skarm's helmet and weakening it greatly, forcing the whirlwind reveal, which also shows us booster attack Supercell Slam Treads. Heat.

As an aside though..this damage aint very impressive tbh
252+ Atk Quark Drive Iron Treads Supercell Slam vs. 8 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 234-276 (49.4 - 58.3%) -- 98.4% chance to 2HKO
Keep in mind alo tect on supercell = you take 50% recoil. I need to try this set out personally to form a better opinion but it seems bad

Regardless, the skarm is down which is nice for dnite/rmoon in the back. Pult comes in to threaten wisp, and Akalli allows it, electing to sack tusk to weaken dragapult. This would put it in range of Iron Moth fiery dance and Bolt thunderclap, so it does open some options for later. Akalli tries some pivoting to bait out the dragon move and see if it's darts or draco perhaps? Doesn't work though, and so down treads goes.

Midgame:
Moth comes in to force out pult and fiery dance, it gets the boost vs garg but isn't able to do much with it as we don't see a sub+tera ground or any super effective coverage. It feels bad to waste your booster speed, but a better play may have been to double into rmoon as moth forces pult into slowking/garg and get another knock off on the board, because you end up doing that anyway but you've lost some health on moth and rmoon for the same result. It's not an easy call to make, nor do I think Akalli misplayed, but I think there was a better option.

Tragically, the garg is able to muscle past rmoon and even tank a hit from booster bolt to get one more salt cure off. In the end, this bastard took like 200% of health from akalli's mons before going down. UUBL btw. Ogerpon comes in on bolt and this is where that psycho boost chip woulda been nice. Dragon Pulse knocks it low rather than a kill, and on Turn 20 Sinnoh catches a thunderclap with an encore. From my point of view, I would've gladly thrown out my ogerpon and clicked ivy cudgel bolt bc even if I get clapped, my tusk is there to rk and be in a great position vs moth and dnite. Knowing that Sinnoh has that option, from Akalli's position I would've never gone for clap and tried to just go for dragon pulse bc even a flex tclap doesn't get me very far anyway. I disagree with both player's decisions here, but it works out for Sinnoh as tusk gets in freely while akalli must go to moth.

Endgame:
I like the fiery dance on Turn 22 rather than the safe gleam, but ultimately AV glowking is just not something moth can get past on its own. Dnite comes in and I again like the EQ on turn 24 rather than a greed DD, which might not have even been faster than pult. When I saw tera fairy DD+encore, I got pretty excited as I was thinking that Tera Blast Fairy+EQ dnite may have created a heat upset. Akalli luckily dodges a sludge bomb poison on turn 28, but I guess it wasn't TB fairy and he had to try going for another dd to have any shot, and Sinnoh wasn't about to choke.

Alas, this would've been super cool to see
+2 252+ Atk Tera Fairy Dragonite Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 464-548 (106.9 - 126.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
But the kitchen can only get so hot before it burns down. Maybe somebody else could make this work?

Dragonite @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Tera Blast
- Earthquake
- Encore

I have to wonder what the benefit of Tera Fairy is over Tera Normal if you're not gonna tb fairy, and was it just standard Ice Spinner+EQ last? But yeah Sinnoh seals the deal here.

TL;DR Sinnoh's Garg puts in work and his balance outlasts Akalli's offense.

[TYR] Luispeikou vs xavgb [RUI]

unfort gaming

At a glance: Luispeikou's team
Wtf is moltres doing here? No other knock absorbers besides tinkaton ig, no removal, what was being cooked here? If you need a fairy+ground+fire resist in your last slot of offense and you end up with moltres, it may have been time to scrap the team, but I'll stop hating and take a look at the rest. Presuming rocks on tinkaton+spikes on ting-lu gets up layers and options like knock tinkaton or maybe even knock darkrai can abuse them. I love the offensive synergy of darkrai+dragapult+raging bolt even if they leave a lot to be desired defensive synergy wise, and stacking these 3 fairy weaks (4 with ting-lu) on top of a ground bait like tinkaton may be the reason why a bandaid moltres was needed. But regardless, layers+rai/pult/bolt puts a ton of pressure on conventional sdef cores like glowking+tinglu or av prima and I'm a big fan here.

Defensively I have some gripes. Mons like Ting-Lu and presumably Tinkaton are gonna let in big threats like waterpon in for free, and there aren't many great ways to contain it. While Darkrai and Dragapult are faster, neither can swap in safely, nor can bolt, and moltres is at best used as a pivot to maybe punish a play rough or power whip. I'm gonna guess/hope that tinkaton is rocks and thus will struggle to fit twave, so something like rocks encore gigaton+ice hammer would be letting waterpon in scot free unfortunately. It's tough bc waterpon hates hazards but the hazard setters are giving it free turns, so it's gonna be trouble.

I also think the primarina weakness is pretty scary. While you put on some great pressure with hazards darkrai and pult, it's also getting free opportunities vs moltres and pult depending on sets and it's hard to switch into as tinkaton's health is really valuable and the rest of the team is weak to one stab or the other. Unfortunately, many common offense structures suffer from the issue of 4/6+ mons being weak to one of prima's stabs, and it's such a great mon as a result. I can't really fault this team for being weak to it, prima is just rly good.

Seeing as the bolt was not booster, I'm guessing darkrai/pult/bolt are all boots? If so, that is pretty nice for the team. Even if it means the team lacks some immediate firepower, I think it has the necessary speed control and layers to beat opposing offense. We see darkrai+pult avoid tspike but not bolt though, so I'm not actually sure what the bolt item ended up being. Shuca perhaps? After seeing the full pult set, I do think it's a little awkward that your spinblocker pult doesn't really have a way to immediately threaten tusk as it's twave darts uturn hex, but you do have other options to outspeed+kill tusk like with darkrai, and flame body moltres is a "spinblocker" too. This offensive hazard stack has some issues but it looks potent.

At a glance: Xavgb's team
A pretty standard looking glimmora offense with ting-lu to get up more layers, double ghosts in pult/ghold to ensure they stay up, and...no knock off? None? With all these hazards and spinblockers? Latias instead? Kinda weird team choice here ngl. Good speed control and defensive bases are fairly well covered, but for a team so hazard centric with ting lu/pult/ghold/glimm to have no knock off and no priority just feels weird.

In hindsight, we can see the zama was rest+chesto ID, the latias was agility, ghold was standard NP+recover with tera water. Didn't end up seeing what the pult was but I'm expecting boots status pivot, and funny enough the glimmora was meteor beam rather than the expected lead. I don't think these mons are breaking past standard unaware cores, I don't see meteor beam glimm beating down fat, and this just kinda feels inconsistent as a team. Not sure what else to say, this is a weird and seemingly inconsistent offensive hazard stack.

The lead matchup:
Offense v Offense leads is the most important of any matchup, so let's dig in. Xavgb's obvious lead is glimmora, while I may say Lui's is Ting-Lu or perhaps tinkaton. I think a Darkrai lead is justifiable from Lui as well, you could just dark pulse to cleanly 2hko, not proc toxic debris, and fish for a flinch chance too, as you wouldn't really expect a meteor beam glimm here. Lui seems comfortable maybe proc'ing it though, or just letting Ting-Lu get poisoned to get up hazards as they lead with it straight. Xavgb also goes with the obvious lead here and just goes glimmora.

It may have been justifiable for xavgb to lead zamazenta to try and cover ting-lu+darkrai leads, but with glimmora being the obvious lead and Dragapult being a common counterlead, a Dragapult vs zamazenta lead would be terrible for xavgb as you both lose momentum and waste dauntless shield, so I think it was too risky to bother with.

Earlygame:
Glimm forced out as ting lu clicks eq+ruination and grinds down the opposing ting lu while Lui's Lu luckily avoids 2 ruinations, which sucks for xavgb. Pult takes it instead but it doesn't really need the health and can kill Lu from that amt of health, so xavgb tries to salvage the situation by going hard ghold on u-turn.

Earlygame exchanges have been heavily in lui's favor as his ting lu is kept healthy for latias/pult/ghold/glimmora from stresh but stresh's ting lu is now too weak to take on lui's pult/bolt/darkrai.

On the ghold, in comes that healthy ting lu and stresh does his best to outplay by going latias on eq and back to lu on ruination to try to do some damage. Lui smartly goes pult to absorb the ruination and u-turns on ghold again, even if stresh correctly predicts U-turn it's hard to really contain the ting lu coming in afterwards. Stresh Lu comes in on spike from Luis Lu but again, Luis keeps it healthy and smartly lets pult take a ruination again, continuing to stay ahead. Finally Lui's pult just clicks darts and Ting Lu goes down. As Lui, I would've kept on U-turning and parked my moose out front to be at an advantage vs 4/5 mons or waste dauntless shield, win win.

Midgame:
Stresh decides to bring in glimmora on the pult after its shown to not be draco, and meteor beam connects into tinkaton, which soaks that and forces glimmora out into ghold with gigaton hammer. Ghold shows recover as ting-lu comes in, and glimmora comes out on the expected ruination to mortal spin the spike and reveal helmet+poison lu before dying. While eq may have seemed like the best play and xavgb was weird to go from ground weak to ground weak, Lui's best play on turn 16 was to Ruination as it covered a tera from ghold, latias, zama, and you don't lose much even if ghold doesn't tera+stays in or glimmora comes out.

Zama is forced to try and make progress vs ting-lu, and Lui decides to stay in and ruination as Zama IDs. That was a pretty aggressive ruination, if ting-lu was whirlwind I would have liked to keep it healthy for latias and maybe for pult, with moltres being pretty free too vs zama. But it works out for Lui as pult comes in on body press and gets the twave full para, preventing stresh from even claiming a pult kill.

Ghold comes in on hex to try and limit pult, but darkrai comes in on the recover and stresh's pult has to go down to bring zama in and force it out. Unfortunately, we don't get to see if stresh called the pult and crunch'd bc it got fully para'd again. Then we see it live the hex and see a fascinating rest+chesto, really cool tech that brings zama back and ghold could come back into pult now. Stresh stays in though, calling the no t-wave and crunching, but a U-turn+moltres flame body proc later puts stresh right back again. Bro can't catch a break ;_;

Lategame:
I guess the moltres doesn't have flame, as it's forced out to raging bolt to try and chip down the burnt zama stacking up IDs. The bolt seems to lack CM and it's not boots, as ghold gets to NP and spam recover as poison from tspike kills bolt. Stresh decides to pop tera and further NP+Recover up vs the Ting-lu, finally killing it on turn 37.

Gholdengo heroically claims 5 kills but ran out of recovers vs Tinkaton so it couldn't heal up there, even if Mold Breaker Encore went through Good as Gold it would've been the right play if he had any. Unfortunately, the earlygame advantage that Lui racked up allows him to finish the last mons with darkrai, as latias cannot pull through with agility+draining kiss. Personally I would've tera'd on turn 44 so darkrai doesn't lose to crit but hey, but maybe it was tera dark? Not a fan but I've seen it before.

TL;DR Luispeikou gets lucky early on and stays ahead the whole game, leading to xavgb's loss.

[TYR] Poek vs Fc [RUI]

clean gaming

At a glance: Poek's team
Looks like a pretty solid bulky offense with washtom acting as a solid ground resist and gambit+dnite+ival forming a good speed control core. When building around a Kingambit (and dnite), it's unavoidable that opposing Tusk will find openings, and people often forget to have a good response to tusk in this scenario. Rotom-Wash covers this situation beautifully, swapping into Tusk confidently 96% of the time and ensuring that not too much momentum is lost even if you Iron head into tusk or w/e. Slowking-Galar covers the fairy resist but also checks kyurem and grasses like Serp which take advantage of rotom, and glowking enjoys the ground resist from rotom and ghost/dark resist from kingambit in return. Great defensive synergy going on here. Tusk provides removal, which allows gambit to go leftovers or lum rather than balloon or boots, and could also enable cb dnite. I would definitely expect+be a fan of cb dnite here, it provides some great immediate power and good speed control with banded espeed, enjoys future sight, and is great to have around when you can keep rocks off. There's plenty of possibilities for the ival set, but I think the special pressure of the team thus far is really lacking with only rotom-w and glowking, so I think offensive synergy for a cm set wouldn't really be present. I'd expect/like to see SD or a mixed encore set here.

On to some of my gripes: This team really wants stealth rock, knock off, and a tusk that's not burdened with both. Gambit+Dnite would really love if Corv/Skarm don't keep a helmet on, but then you also really want rocks somewhere too. Ival can target Corv/Skarm with knock off somewhat, but if the birds don't pack brave bird, it's unlikely they switch into ival with body press as the only damaging move, making them more likely to keep their helmets for gambit+dnite and thus making them very sad.

I'm unsure if this is getting past stall too. If they do carry a bbird corv and cover the fs with alo or protect blissey, how exactly are we breaking past shit? This team doesn't have spikes, hard to fit rocks, and thus it's hard to even take advantage of removing boots. Forget about corv, even clodsire wouldn't mind having its boots removed too much if it only has to worry about rocks, and would happily swap into moonblast/knock/cc/encore ival. Washtom with pain split and glowking with regen can definitely tank passive damage and keep the team afloat for a while, but I can't see progress being made effectively vs fatter teams. Overall I like the defensive core of this bulky offense team but I think it needs more firepower and has some trouble fitting in utility.

At a glance: Fc's team
Standard and cool offense here with plenty of variability with pult, volcarona, prima, and ival and solid bulky pieces with volcarona, prima, kingambit and tusk. I would expect something like sash pult, perhaps av primarina as a primary pult answer so gambit doesn't need to take wisp, knock off on tusk and likely some sort of cm or dbond ival to pressure/eliminate special walls like glowking or unaware dirge for volcarona. I am a fan of the perceived offensive synergy here and I think the backbone is not bad either, but has a few issues I'll get into.

One big issue is that the team has no ground resist. You can slap a balloon on Kingambit but the fact remains that tusk will come in, pop your balloon, and still threaten the team with eq. Ofc, this extends to mons like gliscor, ting-lu, and lando-t who don't have much trouble popping gambit's balloon and can be fairly troublesome to handle as they have free eqs. Ting-Lu in particular can grind down huge chunks of the team and you need to sacrifice maybe ival, maybe prima, lots of tusk, etc to take it out. Stupid moose.

Another issue, funny enough, is that you end up having rocks on tusk or nobody, which sucks. Two teams which have trouble fitting rocks, and would definitely like them. Such is SV teambuilding. Kingambit also greatly wants Knock support to remove helmet from Skarm/Corv/Lando-T, and you really can't fit both knock and rocks on tusk. I can't say much more about the team without knowing the precise sets on prima, rona, pult, and ival, so let's move on. I like this bulky offense team, it has a solid backbone and a lot of offensive potential, but is likely missing some important utility.

The lead matchup:
For two fairly offensive teams, the leads are actually not too obvious from either. If it is a sash pult, Fc could elect to lead with that and make some pretty decent earlygame progress that way in most scenarios. From Poek, if it's Twave washtom, you can definitely have positive matchups vs a lot of the team, if not all. T-wave glowking wouldn't be an awful lead either, with washtom to tank Fc's tusk and poek's tusk to tank fc's gambit, which are your bad matchups. I expect to see some status fly either way on lead, and as predicted, we do see Pult vs washtom leads.

Depending on the pult set and how willing you are to let pult get paralyzed to damage washtom depending on your own sets, this could be positive or neutral for FC. Getting opposing pult paralyzed is nice for any team, but it's hard to judge if washtom really is twave. I would personally appreciate wisp to make the team a little less weak to a terastallized gambit, but ya can't fit it all.

Earlygame:
Fc elects to risk t-wave washtom to get off a wisp and threaten hex the next turn, as Poek decides to stay in and wisp the pult as well. I don't know the extent of poek's pult counterplay, but the wisp on pult feels pretty low value. I feel like volt into lum gambit or twave glowking would have kept them from taking a wisp, broken sash, and put you in a positive matchup. Won't call it a misplay immediately but just feels like one.

Either way, now Poek must risk washtom taking a strong hex, getting glowking/kingambit burnt, or wasting ival's booster to force this pult out. Poek elects to keep washtom in and..pain split? Again, really puzzling play, idk what the gameplan was to weaken pult a little but sacrifice washtom's health too and keep yourself in a bad position. Glowking comes in and gets burnt, and now pult is looking to keep making progress with boosted hexs. It does, and glowking takes a big chunk before taking out pult. In hindsight, I think keeping a low health pult around would've been nice for Fc to keep a weakened rotom's pain split recovery down, and perhaps Kingambit could've tanked the psyshock, but it was also really important to keep the balloon intact for Tusk+Dnite, so it's not an easy call to make.

Kingambit comes in and fires off an iron head expecting to catch tusk but instead connects with helmet washtom, great play putting Poek back in the driver seat by threatening wisp and chipping gambit passively. Pain split comes out vs volcarona and washtom tanks a bug buzz before volt switching out, giving Poek good info on what kind of volcarona set is on the field. Against a sub swarm offensive volcarona, I think an espeed dnite would be the best response, rather than trying to go glowking and getting blown away by sub-->swarm buzz. Poek agrees, but elects to dd as prima comes in rather than attacking, and then feels in a poor position to continue so goes glowking instead. I think throwing out an attack was better here, it's usually silly to set up if you're gonna get forced out the very next turn.

As glowking comes in to recieve prima's moonblast, we see prima sub as glowking flamethrowers. It looks a little dicey from the health that glowking is at rn to be overpredicting, nor do I think Kingambit was a high priority target to avoid giving free turns as you have a healthy tusk+ival in the back. Not a fan of the flame here, and Fc's punished it by subbing and then clicking CM. I think the next sub is greed though, if Poek wants to sack something to get regen on slowking, it's going to be into something that can break prima sub. Better to just attack. Washtom is sacked as glowking comes back in to try and tackle the boosted prima.

Midgame:
Poek decides to throw the glowking at prima and luckily for them, prima does not get the 2hko roll and ends up taking 2 psyshocks. Rather than being forced to rk prima with tusk or dnite and potentially let in Fc's ival, Poek can instead rk with his own ival and deny Fc's ival the opportunity to get in, forcing volcarona first instead, which gets cleanly dispatched by the newly revealed knock off.

This forces Fc's hand as we the spectators can sit back and enjoy a super stressful speed tie between ivals. Fc decides that the tera trigger has to be pulled here and decides to Tera Steel+Moonblast, which is great insurance in case the speed tie was lost (it was). Depending on fc's tera types, steel was probably the best one in that moment, so I fully agree with plays on both sides for turn 18.

Endgame:
Poek decides to rk with dnite eq, but also reveals tera fairy to better tank a moonblast. I don't think tera needed to be pulled there, and you could've kept up the ruse a little longer while still easily tanking moonblast thanks to multiscale, but maybe Poek's gameplan was to preserve dnite's health so I'll keep watching.

We see Kingambits trade iron heads and Poek lets his go to tusk HLR to bring in dnite in to TB fairy to break gambit's balloon+kill with eq. In the end, this forces FC to HLR with tusk to rk, and poek's own helmet tusk cleans up shop from there. Don't agree with some of poek's plays, but he had the vision and won in the end with some good sequencing and a nice team.

TL;DR Poek narrowly wins a bulky offense mirror in a clean game vs Fc

I fucking hit the 65k character limit again so the last 2 matches in the next post aha,,,

 

[Srn]

[TYR] Mada vs Raptor [RUI]

gargaming

At a glance: Mada's team
It's stall, but with a garg I really hope isn't lefties on a team with no removal (it was). Or maybe its defog corv? (idk) This is a weird stall to me as I think 3 unawares is overkill but missing out on both alo and blissey is really hard. We see later that garg is tera fairy so idk, just feels like NP gholdengo with balloon would be so hard to handle, you pmuch need to use tera or take massive chip with one of your unaware walls to break balloon and try to go from there.

We see rocks on garg but never see spikes come out. I would prefer it be on gliscor, but maybe it was on clodsire? If this team does have max layers and knock off gliscor, I can lay off and call it a not too passive stall team...but if that clodsire last move wasn't spikes, then I will be throwing out that allegation. I'm no stall savant but from my limited experience, I'm not a huge fan of the lack of alo/blissey and of garg on stall.

At a glance: Raptor's team
We see a pretty slick sand team with mons like washtom to swap into ground types that harass exca, pult to spinblock layers that may go up, and cinderace to provide more reliable hazard control (We later see it's just 4 attacks though, no court change) as exca spin can be hard to position at times with limited sand turns. I would like to see band ttar, specs pult, or maybe even band zama to provide some immediate power here, but the band guys are unfortunately way less effective without future sight support.

I like what pult and zama do for the team defensively, but I also feel like these speed control mons that are a little on the weak side aren't super needed on a team with sand+sand rush exca. I think the team needs a little more firepower, something to make holes for exca to clean up. Band ttar is hard to fit because you need rocks somewhere, and specs pult is nice but isn't really strong enough to harass fat teams on its own. In hindsight we can see that the ttar is rocks, the pult is wisphex, and the zama is id press. With a team that isn't hazard proof, lacks a real sink for passive damage besides pain split washtom, lacks immediate power, and lacks spikes to synergize with Knock ttar, I think the issues compound and give the team a weak matchup vs fat teams. While I can see this sand team owning offense, I think it needed some more work to shore up the mu vs fat.

The lead matchup:
Gliscor is obvious to activate toxic orb, but Mada doesn't need to lead with it either, as it does have safe activation points vs Exca and Zamazenta. You can leave garg to handle cinderace and pult, so need to risk wisp vs those, and gliscor wasn't handling rotom-w anyway. But that does leave us with ttar! Gliscor is the best knock absorber available to tank Knock from ttar, with Corv being a close second (likes helmet to chip zama/exca), so it also may be very nice to just do the obvious lead too.

Raptor could punish the obvious gliscor lead with ttar, perhaps seeking to get up some cheeky rocks on a protect and follow up with ice beam. Threatening status with either of ace or pult doesn't put you in a great position after the protect, and washtom seems ok but the 8 hydros have to be used very carefully so leading vs gliscor isn't bad but may not be the best either. I think Gliscor is just kinda tough to lead into for this sand team, so the ttar plan may be the best.

Earlygame:
Mada decides to lead gliscor as raptor chooses ttar, and raptor does indeed go for a cheeky rocks on protect but instead faces down a Sub on turn 2. Fearing Sub/Toxic/Eq/Protect, raptor quickly chooses to go to balloon exca and attempt to force gliscor out with SD+Iron Head but instead takes Knock Off.

On turn 5, raptor nails a nice double to Washtom to catch the corv or dozo that's forced in to limit SD exca, but I actually think Mada could've very easily caught this double by simply protecting. No matter how many SDs exca gets, it's not like dozo cares, so there wasn't much pressure for gliscor to get scared out immediately. Depending on the evs, you might even live a washtom hydro, but at the very least you could've protected to try and waste hydro pp after tect fail on switch. Not a huge misplay or anything, just felt like the stall was being played less patiently than it could've here.

Clod gets burnt and lets exca in, revealing...leftovers??? So we basically just relying on defog corv and praying you don't run into layers+ghold ig. Not a fan at all, but if it's an effective fish based on raptor's history, then it makes some sense to try and pull it off here. Raptor pulls another double into washtom on the exca which forces in corv/dozo, except it kinda doesnt. Without an SD, Mada definitely had the room to try getting gliscor in, try to draw out hydro pp with protects, etc. I think it's a missed opportunity if clod is gonna risk eating 2 hydros anyway, which you don't even have to worry about because clodsire reveals water absorb.

Midgame:
Raptor nailed clodsire last time by bringing in exca on the switch, so this time they bring zama in on eq instead, cool pivots. ID and letting zama get toxic'd feels weird, but in hindsight we know the zama is rest+Chesto, so I think this is a relatively low risk way to force out the clodsire and perhaps get tyranitar into breaking position. Zama does just that as dozo is in, and washtom is nicely positioned on the rest. Dragapult comes in to try and capitalize on dozo+likely clod swap on washtom, but now we see the gliscor in, which is nice.

The next few turns see gliscor shitting around with zama, but I think mada takes unnecessary damage from boosted body press here. No reason to be getting crit or take defense drops when you could've had a sub up. It's fine and well to waste body press pp, just do it risk free instead. Mada does nicely bring dozo in on zama rest, letting it burn off some sleep turns safely. Or it could, but Mada continues to position quite aggressively and goes garg on washtom to start salt curing. Pop the tera fairy after protecting on hydro and get some big ol chip. In comes ttar, catch some chip. In comes ace on protect, pyros on another protect, and Mada wisely scouts the gunk shot with dirge, allowing it a free wisp which washtom receives.

Finally, ttar comes in on clodsire and threatens a lil bit of that good ol progress, and we see the corv's helmet removed. Raptor pulls a sick gunk shot vs corv after its done roosting and gets a poison on dirge for their efforts, bringing in pult on slack off to now threaten a kill with hex and keeping up some pressure. Something of a uturn vortex is forming here, with ace U-turning on dirge (which takes poison chip) and bringing in pult who u-turns on garg (who takes rocks). How does Mada respond to the vortex? By eventually sending in gliscor, who forces in exca (and who inevitably makes no progress into corv+dozo). Gliscor comes back in on a pult U-turn, draws out another hydro, and subs on pult back in, which is a real strong position for mada.

This position is used to knock pult, which I kinda don't agree with. I think toxic was better here, and putting pult on a timer was better than removing the boots seeing as you haven't even gotten up rocks yet anyways. But both are good and gliscor has made its mark, fleeing to let garg in again. Ttar comes in to try and threaten at least removing lefties, but Mada doesn't even give raptor that and goes hard corv to soak, bringing in ace on roost. Some good positioning later, we see ace vs corv, threatening to start the vortex again on turn 62 but Mada doesn't fall for it and just keeps corv in. Mada lets it get wisp'd to get garg in and we see exca throw out a last ditch iron head as it fails to flinch and gets cured.

Endgame:
Ace tries to make progress with tera fire pyro ball, but gliscor eats that shit up and removes ace's boots, so it's fated to die to rocks in the end now. It does force a kill on dirge, but dozo gets in and burns a sleep turn. Washtom pain splits up and attempts to pp stall the clodsire a little with burn chip aiming to drain some recovers, but this doesn't really work as stupid lefties cancels out burn chip lmao. Eventually ttar gets in, forces in corv, which allows pult to get in one last time and hex to claim corv, but garg gets free recovery, and it's never gonna go down now.

Gliscor gets a sub up vs zama and chills as zama struggles to make progress with its limited body press pp and crunches that can't break subs. Eventually gliscor runs out of protects as ttar comes in to force it out with ice beam, and zama is almost out of rests now. Raptor realizes the game's over and forfeits, leaving Mada with the W.

This particular gliscor set, combined with garg+dozo, was always going to make progress vs fat very tricky. Even with rocks up, raptor had to get nearly every turn correct in a long sequence of U-turns to have any shot at breaking, which was just too slim in practice.

TL;DR Mada pulls out an unusual fat and wins with a great MU vs Raptor

[TYR] myjava vs oldspicemike [RUI]

shaming

At a glance: myjava's team
More stall for me to cover turn by turn woooo. Unlike the other stall teams I've seen this week though, I like myjava's a lot. With rocks on clefable and spikes on gliscor, you've got imo the optimal combo of hazard stackers for stall to have. We don't actually see spikes on gliscor be used but I really hope it was spikes lol. Only minor issue with this set up is that clefable appears to be the knock off mon, which limits it to moonlight. I think wish+protect is way better for clefable on stall to make it harder to pp stall recovery, and making gliscor knock/toxic or pjab/spikes/protect is better than eq/toxic/spikes/protect gliscor imo.

I think amoongus over hydrapple is a great shout as many who have tried the apple in the past have complained that it can be deadweight a lot of the time (although I do understand its unique role in practice as a weav/meow knock absorber). Amoong is going to strengthen the matchup vs waterpon a ton, and the later revealed toxic+synth set really boosts its longevity where a standard regen set may have gotten worn down by hazards+U-turn+knock waterpon which mike happened to bring. Amoong is passive dogshit but stall can compensate for its passivity and really appreciates the improved MU vs teams that rely too much on waterpon to wallbreak, which is exactly the MU that I bet myjava was prepping for and exactly the MU that he got.

Hoping the blissey is shadow ball, I think cm stoss shadow ball soft is the best blissey set these days to not get owned by random tera ghosts on volcanion, primarina, iron moth, etc. Curse Body press dozo+scald alo will ensure bulky dd gf gets up to no funny business, so I expect/hope the sets are that as well. Again I'm no stall savant but I am a little nervous about the lack of clodsire here, I think amnesia tera steel clod is a near necessary centerpiece to stop a lot stored power bs, so I wonder what myjava has teched to make up for its absence. Overall I think this is a solid amoong stall, seems more consistent and less fishy than the others I've seen this week.

At a glance: oldspicemike's team
Pretty standard offense but rather than a volcarona or iron moth for the offensive fire type, mike has elected to go skeledirge instead. I...dont like this choice, but I don't fully understand it either. Not sure what mike was going for here, as all we see is torch song/slack off, but there are ways to make dirge not so passive by flexing its coverage like ep, alluring voice, or a stronger shadow ball. It may have been a cool anti-offense tech had myjava brought offense, but against toxic gliscor, dirge really won't be making much progress.

Waterpon and treads are straightforward, and dnite/ival/darkrai have some set variability to mess with here. The key to breaking this stall team most likely lies in the darkrai set, it's gotta be something more threatening than just 4 attacks or 3 attacks wisp to get past blissey and threaten the rest of the team. If blissey goes down, there's a slim chance that ival may be able to sub+tera past amoongus and threaten the rest of the team with moonblasts, as myjava has chosen to forego clodsire here. In general, I do like the pressure that darkrai/ival can put on sdef cores, darkrai can definitely weaken stuff like tinglu and glowking for partners. Waterpon also does nice to soften up physical walls for dnite later, so there is some decent offensive synergy on both spectrums here, but I wonder if we've spread ourselves too thin with only 2 mons on each side and a skeledirge.

In hindsight, we see that the dnite was cb and the darkrai was indeed the less strong 3 attacks wisp set that I was afraid wouldn't be strong enough here. Hard to say if the ival set was cm encore or mixed encore, but amoong was doing quite well against either, with blissey or clefable able to take over depending on tera and set. I like U-turn+Knock waterpon, but if it's going to be the primary stallbreaker on a team, I think it needs to be supported with spikes. I will say that this battle has helped me form my opinion that I think CB Dnite stocks are dropping with alo being able to scout its choice lock and pivot into a dragon resist/immune if needed, narrowing CB Dnites strong MUs to harassing offense with strong espeeds.
This is a slightly questionable but solid offense team that just ran into the wrong MU.

The lead matchup:
Gliscor lead as always is the obvious play, but I also think it's the best play this time as gliscor doesn't have many safe activation points otherwise. Treads could be knock, dirge/darkrai can wisp, waterpon/ival can knock, leaving ice move dnite as the safest option, which isn't great. Even if it puts myjava at an early disadvantage, it's probably best to just bite the bullet and get toxic orb activated safely.

Mike should recognize this and try to create as large of an early advantage as possible. NP darkrai on protect would be dope, but we later see that it isn't NP. Still, the threat of it isn't too shabby. Waterpon is risky as you don't want to see ivy cudgel do 70% and eat a toxic in return, that's a losing play. Tera waterpon turn 1 to ohko gliscor is risky too, especially when they have an amoongus in the back and you may get more mileage out of a different tera. If dnite is cb ice spinner, leading that and then pivoting into waterpon on alo isn't too bad, allowing you to knock amoong early and get the ball rolling. There's no great swap in to the combo of eq/toxic so leading treads to get early rocks is not the best idea imo, you'll probably take too much damage forcing gliscor out. I think either darkrai or dnite attack on protect-->waterpon are mike's best options, I slightly favor the latter.

Earlygame:
Mike elects to lead darkrai as myjava goes gliscor, fairly in line with lead analysis. Rather than getting the safe toxic orb activation though, myjava thinks that NP darkrai is more threatening and decides to hold off on toxic orb. It will be tricky to activate it later, but I agree that NP could've quickly gotten out of control because myjava lacks clodsire, which forces him to respect special set up threats much more. Fortunately for myjava, the NP never appears, and that's the biggest threat imo out of the way.

I actually don't like hard waterpon here on turn 2. Dirge is imo pretty useless and the least it could do is pivot into stoss and at least bring waterpon in on a cm or shadow ball as nothing else really wants to pivot into dirge besides maybe alo. Waterpon is hard pressed to make progress vs amoong, but it is possible and it needs all the health it can get to do it, so I think mike had better options than hard waterpon here.

It's in now though, and shows off Knock+U-turn, which would scare many amoong (but not synthesis amoong). Turn 3 dirge comes in to soak a toxic, which I also am not sure I like. Treads is valuable to keep healthy to rapid spin, sure, and dirge is expendable, sure, but I think a poison move was relatively obvious there. Toxic is the least passive thing amoong can do now, treads taking a pissweak giga drain isn't too awful. However, I think the threat of foul play was also very real and treads takes a little more from that depending on its set, so I understand dirge here.

On the next turns, we see exactly what has changed my opinion of cb dnite. It just doesn't seem to be making much progress vs fat teams anymore with the popular flip turn alo making itself known. Outrage does 57, nothing into clefable, and alo has only taken net 24% damage while dnite has to risk taking rocks to even make any more progress vs a regen alo (assuming it gets zero other openings to proc regen again). Very very unlikely that cb dnite is gonna get past alo and make progress here ultimately, which is rough.

Turn 9 is what really sank my heart though, and I'm sure mike's as well. Booster treads (and tusk) are now vulnerable to sticky barb clefable, which means that they are basically never going to keep hazards off in the long game. This is a death sentence for mike, as it will now be extremely difficult to make progress faster than hazards chips down his offense. It sucks that booster treads and tusk have to be so careful now about removing hazards, but that's how the meta has evolved boys. Treads is ultmately on its last legs as waterpon comes in on clefable rocks.

Some amoong on waterpon and darkrai on blissey action later, dnite gets in and gets a very lucky crit vs alomomola, suddenly clearing the way for CB outrage/eq to potentially make some progress. This is unlikely given that rocks has put dnite on a timer though, and I think myjava's position is still very secure with rocks forever up now. This hope is promptly extinguished as clefable moonblasts and outrage lock and ensures dnite dies to the next rocks switch-in.

Midgame:
On turn 23 we see darkrai click wisp as blissey comes in, but I actually think ice beam freezes was probably the best way to go here. Freeze the blissey, then sludge bomb the clefable, freeze the blissey again as it comes back in, etc was probably mike's only hope at this point and going for wisp+flinches has imo less odds for real progress.

Ogerpon comes in on softboiled and tera's to try and crit past amoongus, but I bet mike's heart sank again when myjava revealed the synthesis on amoongus. Stupid mushroom was finally getting low and just maybe tera water cudgels with enough crits could've paved the path forward, but with synth+regen on amogus, it was never going down to this waterpon set without spikes.

Mike manages to again position waterpon in vs blissey on turn 31, but it just isn't enough. Dirge and Ival struggle to do anything as darkrai gets in vs clefable to sludge bomb and gets knocked in return. Great play from myjava instead of the monkeybrain moonblast click, removing leftovers will make rocks chip permanent and reduces the value of dark pulse flinches. Turn 45 myjava decides that dirge isn't gonna wisp a blissey and brings in gliscor to proc toxic orb, but it's hardly necessary atp. Amoong back in on waterpon, Gliscor on dirge, and we see eq reveal. Judging by the fact we don't see hex on turn 49 and instead a 2nd torch song, I am gonna assume that the dirge doesn't have hex and probably isn't the standard wisp/hex/torch set. I was expecting something less passive on an offense team like this, but it hardly matters as dirge goes down. Only waterpon and darkrai with limited shelf life remain.

Endgame:
I am really not sure what myjava was thinking with tera dragon on turn 51 with gliscor there, but eh who cares. Ice beam freezes remain the only shot that mike has now. Get multiple vs blissey and kill the rest. I guess mike doesn't agree though and fishes for flinches instead, getting nothing as darkrai gets tossed. Blissey dies to cudgel to ensure no SDs go up and amoong finishes up the game.

I disagree with some minor plays that mike made but overall he did his best to fight a nearly impossible MU. I was really looking forward to this game and it's a bit of a shame that it was damn near decided on preview, but I don't fault myjava for the team choice. It's SPL semis and u play to win, myjava certainly did and I look forward to the tiebreak vs xavgb.

TL;DR Mike runs into a nearly tailor made stall cteam and loses to myjava.

God bless any of you who sat through yet another Srn mucho texto moment. I had a lot of fun digging deep into last week's matches, and I hope my poor readers walk away with some more knowledge of SV OU. Expect similar coverage on semis tiebreak and finals games. Fingers crossed for a finals tiebreak, I'll pull out all the stops for finals tb sv ou gaming.

I liked the teams from sinnoh, sz, and luispeikou this week. In the next weeks, show me some spicy wallbreakers. Show me Modest specs wake in sun. Show me knock darkrai with max layers. I do not want to see stall mu fish and goob again. I have faith in my fellow sv warriors.