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Use this space for any commentary/format feedback/teams/posts/posting unviable opinions. Minimal changes made from last year's format and I didn't here much complaints so shouldn't be too many grievances, but even if you just have a cool format idea or suggestion feel free to share. Ubers people are always begging for new tours smh silly sheeps.
Latios is a crazy mon and I'm always sad that I'm not using it enough. I thought it looks good vs Ninjadog's scout so far, what Aber/Exi/Lasen kinda like and might suggest to bring vs me, and based on my own scout. Four attacks Latios is just amazing but there's only one problem - pivoting. Or prediction/skill issue if you wanna be an American. People going to their Steel type then Ho-Oh/Lugia back and forth to fish a Draco and then you have to switch out is too big brain. I'm a coward and a pussy. I don't wanna predict! That's where Whirlpool comes in with preventing all the switching. You trap the Steel type and kill it or at worst chip it significantly for your Yveltal/Xern/Mewtwo/Gar/whatever to muscle past it later.
Now for the handful of games I played.
Week 2 vs Obii
Last time I played Obii he brought some modern absolute control. Luckily I had Excadrill + Darkrai + Ho-Oh that time so I won. Wasn't sure if fat will be brought again vs me or not cos me being unable to use or face fat teams is prolly a known thing by now. So I decided I'll completely excuse myself from the prep except for just a few pointers, and Ayu gave me some team earlier in the week that I lost with a lot. On like final day or day before game she posted the Scizor team, and being a fan of Kyogre + Rockceus I just took it.
Ended up facing fat again and a decent matchup with Pursuit Scizor + Kyogre + Rockceus. My main focus was on two things: not lose to Ho-Oh and not let Gengar trap my Kyogre. For the former I had to try to keep rocks up and pivot carefully between Rockceus and Giratina. For the latter I was trying to trap Gengar with Scizor even if it was at the cost of Gengar trapping something else, though that was unlikely. I got the double Toxic dodge which removed the slight chances there were, but I felt with how the game was going, and me being the one attacking more, I was bound to get a break eventually. I was overly cautious in the endgame so I sacked Groudon and Giratina just to ensure a safe win and not get counterswept by Ditto
Week 5 vs Ninjadog
After some discussion on what looked good to bring, I decided on the team myself with Highlord's assistance and brought a Mewtwo. I run into a Mega Kangaskhan which is a terrible matchup. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have either Low Kick or Earthquake, but why risk that. So I lead Rayquaza to see Fake Out damage and prolly just get some ESpeed chip and go from there. Instead I face a Giratina lead, which confirms the Kanga for me - I was sure now it's Body Slam + Seismic Toss + Sucker/Crunch maybe. I could Draco the Giratina turn 1 but I wasn't sure if it'll stay in, and letting a Waterceus or Groundceus in wouldn't be helpful even if it's forced to Recover. So I just switch to Exca to cover Giratina staying in or switching, and focus on getting rocks up + Toxic something. I manage to trade Rayquaza and Groudon for Giratina and Groundceus so it's looking good for my Ekiller. I don't ESpeed the Xerneas with my Ray cos I don't wanna risk a random non-scarf Xern, and the chip isn't going to make the difference. I taunt the Groudon and then Mega Evolve to increase my chance of dying while taunted if it's got some attack and maximize the damage. Ekiller should win here, but I wanted to be careful vs the Kangaskhan cos Body Slam full paras could lose me the game. Unfortunately I got distracted IRL and didn't see my Lum already got used, went for a second SD, and ended up losing. Practically, even if I was right in thinking my Lum was still intact, just attacking at +2 won cos my feared scenario of Body Slam para would be prevented by this imaginary Lum Berry. But I threw the game so it is what it is.
Finals vs Ninjadog
Unlike week 5, I was feeling more nervous this week about Lasen + Exi cooking something for me. As I was on a somewhat mons break since Semis, and since I lost when I did my prep, I again let Ayu take the reins with Blim joining us in the kitchen. The ideas didn't change much from week 5 - we still liked the stuff vs Ninjadog that we liked earlier so just had to change the formula a bit. Eventually we ended up liking TSpikes, and from Ayu's or Blim's suggestion (idr) went with Greninja instead of Cloyster.
This time I run into Hack's double lead, whose most tour appearances are prolly from me. How shameless! I run frantically to my builder and try to guess which version would be the closest, while also nervous about what they could've changed. Ice Beam Ekiller? Jolly Ekiller? Iron Defense Fairyceus? Iron Defense Mence? Some RP Groudon + Steelceus cos I mostly use Rest Xern? I lead Mewtwo to just Taunt and break sash on something and go from there. Even in my tests I was having problems with Cloyster so I didn't wanna think too far ahead. Luckily I get good chip on Groudon instead, and what I always found to be Hack team's worst nightmare kicked in - I had an Ekiller and there was no good way of stopping me. Magic Coat allowed me to set up on a spin instead of setting up on rocks, and at that point I was already counting how much ESpeed PP I have left. I could've SD'd again on Cloyster, but I didn't want to take the second hit and risk his Ekiller being surprisingly faster (I knew I was faster than the original spread). Instead I kept my health to force chip on whatever would try to kill me. I had a few options after my Ekiller died:
- go Xerneas and just Moonblast, get chip on either Ekiller or Xerneas (my Xerneas is slower than his) and try to win with Groudon + Salamence. But I would likely end up losing to Rest Xerneas unless I get lucky with his Sleep Talk turns
- go Salamence and just attack. I'm slower than his Salamence so can't to risk a crit with a DD, and he can't afford to allow me to DD. Attack Ekiller and revenge with Xerneas, or attack Xerneas and revenge with Groudon, and I felt I have some chances of winning but not too confident
- go Greninja and risk Icy Wind, which in the end felt like the safest route and I can Taunt Ekiller and Xerneas. If he ESpeeded my Gren I can go Xerneas and Geomancy, live a +2 ESpeed and get a good hit off, revenge with Salamence and that + Groudon should win too.
Think I played ok in the games, though 2/3 times I got a scary looking matchup, and I threw one of the games so prep and play both need to improve. Not posting any teams cos none are mine sadly, and I left out some details of the prep for the last two games intentionally, but Ayu can reveal them if she wants.
Don't have any comments on the format, I'm not a manager so I don't have to worry about it as long as it's not absolutely terrible, and seems like people enjoy this format so that's good.
first, I want to thank my managers in Aberforth and byulharang for taking a gamble with me as I can either be Classic finals going through the gauntlet forme, or I can be 0-7 team tour forme. Aber, you were a fantastic player in SV even if you didn't know what the fuck to use half the time and then either re-used or went with "these 6 are A rank or higher, groovy". I appreciated all the help HG gave every slot and how he was there to lift our spirits even at the darkest of times. Your positivity was a huge driving force. Zesty43 my brother, we managed to go positive if you combine our records and that is all that matters. Seriously though, even when you went with your guts and no johnned you played fantastic and super aggressive and your record should have been way better had it not been for some highway robberies in week 1 and the [redacted] finals. You really made the atmosphere of the team just... electric. Didn't react to all of your ass tiktoks(literally) but shit dude you going to the gym bricked up? God's strongest soldier. You would also look at my shittiest teams and go "yo that's Himothy Chala-me" at some dogwater team with 0 Xerneas checks. My favorite yes-man to my shittiest ideas... Exiline fdp when will you stop getting fucking haxed in ADV? This is the 30th time in a row you lose to some shit out of your control. Chi-Yu very likely is tattooed on your body after your SV games and I am glad you have beef with half the community so that I can team with you for the low-low price of 16k. Invaluable support with you being one of the best pilots the tier's ever seen. ninjadog Levi PL winner of my heart, you were the paragon of success as we waffled about the worst teams in history then you piloted them to perfection. Very happy to have had a chance to team with you! RichardMillePlain good ass pilot and a ton of fun to hang out with, you did bin an easy game but so did I so hey! no judgement. Stop hanging out with human trash and you'll be the next big thing! crying we didn't break the curse this time, but I appreciate you putting in the effort to play the god-forsaken tier of GSC Ubers. See you next awful tour we both sign up for (PUBL PL or someshit). Ctown6 I apologise profusely for what happened to your channel; you'd come back from work or something and I'd be in there with Sabelette discussing anti-French sentiment in the Mediterranean and then pivot flawlessly into some anime talk of some kind. Regardless, in your own words "I'm top 5 in RBY and I occupy all 5 slots." Dominant, funny, handsome, prolly benches 500lbs. I'd hate to be on the opposite side of you. Sabelette the best helper of a tier I've ever seen, when you dropped in and had to wrestle Ctown's craziest ideas of "what if Amnesia, but on 6 mons" and "what if I load same three teams in the same order every time" only to drop a fucking google sheet with every safetwo damage calc to make sure you always come out on top... stuff of legends. Please become a full-fledged GPer so I can have someone upload RBY Ubers stuff! Phoopes too busy johnning in a No Johns tour. Kate the messages I read in that final week 2-3 hours before your game were... concerning. Thankfully you're funny so Aberforth didn't have a heart attack when he'd go to work and find you posting potato salad EVs Calyrex-S cause we all knew you'd win. Best of luck in SPL? Is it over? Who knows! Not me! Big thank you for driving me to a win by promising to be an utter nuisance to Aberforth every week. entrocefalo bellissimo son of a momma who tried super hard and was always SO nice to everyone! I want to see more of you cause you're a great guy and player, even if you get lost in the sauce sometimes with Psychic Scream Tail. Hope to see you flourish in SV! SeldannaNineveh one shout-out cause you're literally the same person (good job on "moving to the US" so you wouldn't have to use two different IPs btw!). Fantastic DPP stuff and I know you two always strive to perfect a team. I am very glad you were on the Giratinas and could built on each other and finish with this fantastic score. Next big thing in DPP is definitely you two! PS it's not too late to quit AG. corvere you worked on bettering your teams really hard every week and did the most for our GSC and SV prep. Opeth should take you on a tour with them to reward you but please PLEASE open your fucking curtains when you take a picture of your food, my eyes would try to figure out what colour your food was in the pitch fucking black lighting of your room. You've definitely improved and I wanna see more from you! Farce Of The Death your record doesn't show how much sweat and tears you poured in the team chat, very valuable support and you played your heart out. A bad score in 1 teamtour doesn't mean the end of the world, take it from me! So keep your head up! Frito bozo played 0 games... thank you for everything you did and how you laughed at the shittest jokes ever that I produced. You were still super valuable when you chimed in at 5am local time. Just don't get another 4 pointer... Magician Adryen's moral support. Meminger21 even if you didn't get the win you wanted I did appreciate you sticking to your guns with what you wanted and willing to step in as a sub when we needed it, I'm sure you'll find success in a following tour. Terracotta dawg you gotta come home, Romania doesn't deserve you... even if your activity declined at the end you were instrumental to our success and every time I team with you I get a big smile on my face reading about your antics, your CB Bulu Dulu teams or whatever other dark technology you have for, like, DPP. Don't quit before iry! Theia always positive! Always supportive! Always... in need of eye bleach after reading what me and zesty were saying... honestly glad you got to hang out with us! Autumnchi scran or scran on the team presence?
Didn't build as much as I wanted for this tour; I got in my head at times and also knew that reusing in BW was fine. I did manage to score some fast and furious type teams in ORAS for ninjadog, though, which led him to the 5 game win streak. Anyways, teams I built and/or used this year.
BW teams!
Didn't want to overthink it week 1 because Carl's builder is very extensive so I went with what I felt I'd have the most success with, a Deo-S HO with Groudon. Team is super duper straightforward, you deny most leads with Deo-S and then win little by little with any of your fantastic breakers. You know what this team doesn't deny? Cloyster-Ho-Oh sun. Played it like ass as well so bleh, off to a bad start.
This was definitely one of my best cookshows. Hard cteam to what edgar would build that Thor would use, aka "beats the mirror" Deoxys-S, nothing to give E-Killer space to set-up and two offensive answers to it in case of like, Memento Latios on Kyogre. I also incidentally covered the magic sun MU with SubNP Darkrai, something that I only realized could come when I loaded the team preview. Fantastic team that was soundly built and let me live through the Dark Void miss.
A classic double weather bullshit team, I wanted to catch Evuelf off guard cause I noticed his teams had to overextend to beat Sashtar; he always either had to go into a sub-optimal option like Ferrothorn which Fire Blast cooks (I don't run Fire Blast), show his Kyogre item or at the bare minimum its Speed only to lose weather war regardless, or sac 1-2 mons to paralysis + allow SR up. Gliscor covered the fat Ghostceus and NP henri stall MU and Roar Arceus-Ghost acted as kind of a middle ground for beating RP Groudon and also stopping wannabe setup sweepers. Most important thing for me was Scarf Palkia to cover the high Genesect usage. Ended up playing against Ainzcrad who doesn't know what the fuck a Gliscor does in this tier so I kinda coasted by the Steelceus rain MU.
This is another case of "I got in my own head during prep and just went sicko mode". Team is built by jackie or at least this version of the team is. Wanted to use Ghost Gem Blaziken that's literally all I can say about this team, it's just Forre + sun. Latios' last move was actually super contentious cause this team is obviously super ill-equipped to deal with Ekiller. You should probably do Dragon Pulse instead of Meteor. Also, don't try and setup greedily with your Blaziken!
"I haven't used Mewtwo in a hot minute... I wonder if Aurora expects it!" Thus, triweather bullshit HO was brought. Fully expected Kabutops rain during prep because jackie had a phase of loving that and I knew Ayu wouldn't allow Aurora to load something with Fireceus but I also wanted to cover the semi-sun MU with Earth Plate Groudon. Special Genesect was supposed to help because she's not one to use a lot of set-up Arceus and Bug Buzz sometimes just kills things? it's not supposed to. The sole tech here is Embargo Mewtwo which stops Judgement from working (s/o SiTuM). I will not lie, fast SpD Ogre + Ludicolo scared the shit out of me when I realized what was going on but uh... we take those.
I did not want to lose in finals. I did not want to stick to the gameplan. Thus I used the best team in Kanzaki's stall. This is not my team and the EVs aren't gonna be accurate to the best version of the team. I just wanted something that could auto-win and this met all my criteria, including an awful Ho-Oh matchup and next to 0 ways to get hazards up w/o abusing Xatu.
a couple of teams that I didn't even post in my teamcord, untested and if they were tested there's a reason they weren't brought. heatran terrak balance Probopass rain
ORAS teams!
LO Ho-Oh vs the Ditto teams is broken. Klefki is funny. Mega Khan is Gunner's fav mon and obii's Gunner's cousin. Honestly I do not know what to say about this team, it's just some balance that I built by thinking about 2017 ORAS.
I can't find our prep for this week besides "bring standard" because my and Zesty chimped out for about 400 messages over something irrelevant and inappropriate. Byron is a formidable foe and I wanted to play it safe is all I remember. The zesty chimping out did help out in 1 way: I took on his mantle and made a team named "if they wanna Defog something is dropping I am NOT losing momentum!".
The Sexiline never fails. Another week where bringing anything specific wasn't advised so I asked Exiline "this?" and he of course never responded cause he was too busy getting smashed in some party. Knew I wanted something that beats lead offense so Icy Wind Gengar was the call. I don't know what London uses cause idt he knows before he loads it but I love him and his grandma plates.
Can you tell I like Klefki yet? The big meta call of the century for me is that Rockceus is really really good at the moment; this of course led to me abusing it in Classic and my one reservation for this team was "will Blim realize I've been building all of ninjadog's teams?". Thanfkully, the hard meta call worked out with some very special piloting.
I am honestly tired of copy-pasting Khan and Klefki's sprites but here we are, loading double ground and Mega Khan. There was no reasoning this week I literally just pasted a team from my builder and changed the Mega. It worked out because Aber is a known shitKhan user (low kick and/or Elemental punches) so we scared Sparks!
win-streak: Joewari Da. Wanted the safest team known to man and Sparksblade knows I am no stranger to changing all of my sets just for the hell of it so I went for the no-mix-up mix-up. Unfortunately, taunt Mewtwo cucked the team and we also didn't play the cleanest game for once... but the team itself I do not believe has seen the light of day ever so here ya go.
That's it for my contributions. SM didn't load my teams once so no point linking them. Can't wait to cost my UPL team the win once more in a few months.
I actually built stuff this time. This means you get the not so great teams I used in their entirety.
https://pokepast.es/cafe8a80f3b92bd5
This is just a somewhat standard Scarf Dialga Bronzong rain that can field a Hariyama pretty well. I treat Hariyama like most attacking leads here though its Darkrai stuffing capabilities and speed/power under Trick Room are a bit of a bonus that I wanted to take advantage of. Unfortunately, the team doesn't work super well in Trick Room outside of Hariyama so it is mostly just and anti-Mewpass technique. Kyogre's spread has more defense than normal due to early Groudon concerns but given the way it is now, I think its spread can be changed back to the Seldanna's reliable one. Its gameplan is simple: make Scarf Dialga kill everything left or keep whatever you need if Scarf Dialga cannot get through the team due to a faster dragon or a Jirachi. I didn't have a whole lot of time the week I used it so I figured simple was better here.
https://pokepast.es/beda0faf9b297e3c
This is one of my favorite teams and not because it is good. It is really fun to use due to how carefully it needs to be played. Tentacruel offense kinda ruins it in the state though so be wary of that. Scarf Groudon was added over the Mewtwo that was there due to it patching up most of what Mewtwo did while providing a lil more in terms of sun, a stronger attack in Earthquake, and a typing that isn't weak to Shadow Sneak. Tspikes are the teams #1 enemy when they get up but Groudon and Rayquaza also share a spot on that list though these two problems aren't as much of an issue as Tspikes. Garchomp and Ho-Oh are terrifying when used correctly. I had even less time this week so reusing this was a necessary evil I think.
https://pokepast.es/695db88cc9ff2f38
This has some silliness to it between the Specs Kyogre lead and the Qwilfish. For typical play, it definitely wants a better gameplan against lead Darkrai. Past the lead, Qwilfish offers some neat utility here in picking up tspikes and setting spikes for the Darkrai and Kyogre. It is in need of a set change as this is one I just CPed from another team of mine. The core of the team is solid enough to get the team through most games just fine.
https://pokepast.es/bcae751d79d8d935
This team has issues everywhere but I still love it for what it is. Sub Ho-Oh is broken against most conventional offenses though as I learned in the game vs ara, a HypnoZong that leads off with Hypnosis into Ho-Oh switching in is rather devastating to the point of making games unwinnable without an unreasonable amount of luck. It also has Rayquaza issues among others. Earthquake Dialga was suggested by edgar just to make it so I could actually hurt Heatran somewhere in this team. I dislike Scarf Palkia as a Pokemon in general but the team desperately needed something like it. Given more time, I bet there is a mon that fits there but as of right now, Palkia is barely holding this together.
I built quite a few more teams than this but they never got any action due to my general discomfort or lack of games played with them. Chances are that they will be used in the future. Thanks to Mashing , Edgar , fourmi , and LucosDiCampos for testing this garbage with me and helping in the idea formulating process. Thanks mitana and Alpha Rabbit for buying me and the rest of the Tinkatons for being you.
First i wanna start this post with a congrats to the thieves for winning. Aswell as a quick s/o to my teammates for being very fun to hang around with, was a very fun experience even tho sadly enough we didnt make playoffs. A special thanks to Evuelf for 1 being a real ass goat and always being down to test or help out whenever they could, a teammate of ur dreams.
Now to the teams of this post, i build some of the teams for beraldinhoo through the tour, at times it was just ''do u have x mon teams'' and didnt really build anything new of some sort. That aside i did build a few that he used through this tour that i wanted to post.
Week 1 v Inspirited
Week 1 we started off the tour facing the scariest player for this respective pool, inspirited had an amazing run in last upl going 6-1 just barely losing to shrang in w7. Into this matchup i primarly looked at what his team usage during upl 22 and some of his usage from public teams from invitational. Most of his teams that i was looking at had all moreso looking like a balance angle with offense sprankled within those teams. He didnt seem to fear to use unorthodoxed mons like jumpluff which was proven with his team usage in w6 of upl 22. His teams that are more balanced tend to have 1 special bulky steel like jirachi or bronzong, noting that his jirachis arent always wish and are at times healing wish making it easier to overwhelm by things like dialga. Which is what i thought would be a good bring into his respective scout, he seemed to like stuff like ogre/ho oh/ttar aswell which makes a bulkier set more appropriate into his teams.
Week 2 v Shrang
Up to week 2, where it was a totally different story on what to bring. Into week 1 the overall prep wasnt that good, which meant we were more worried about the stall matchup going into this matchup. For shrang we checked his upl 22 and uwc usage to see what he likes to run, where we came on most of the time HO, either screens of rain. Into which qwilfish matched up quite well into. Allowing for spikes support and destiny bond a mon off if the oppertunity rises to it. Looking into shrangs usage we noticed a ton of deoxys-speed leads which generally allow for a hazard to be set up on u, if ur not able to deal with it via taunt/magic coat. Darkrai allows for speed control giving u options to dpulse a dspeed lead while being faster or allows u to trick scarf away into a stall/fat matchup making rai be much more annoying by clicking moves. Palkia is here as a way for beating stall down which we lost giga hard to last week, making it more worrysome then ever.
Week 3 v Terracotta
Heading into week 3, we faced off against terracotta aka the unprepable. I had a general idea into his scout, but this is one of the weeks where i didnt build anything fresh instead listened to beraldo's request of a direct breaker again in fear of stall. Which this was one of the 3 pastes i would have recommended into tera, with kabutops as a way of handling offense, and specs ogre as a breaker. Which appreciates spikes a ton which kabu also loves for later in the game to pick things off. Terra was an unexpected opponent at first after we expected seldanna to be brought out boosted, but we took into consideration her influence in the game, which was shown by a more fat styled build (rain stall).
Week 4+Week 5 where minorly edited pastes i got from other people, so i dont want to post them when their mostly from someone else.
Format is fine don't change anything. Boosts are fine, they reward good drafts and punish teams not well-rounded. 2 Retains are good + Manager 20k. The auction was really weird, 140k is probably okay still. Quite a few good players went undrafted ("you should have bought them then!" I alr got 20 players I couldnt get everyone) but all teams felt really competitive so 6>8 teams went well. Thanks for hosting Eledyr7u9i2 had fun managing
ban bp in adv now ? its been years no clue why it is still here
quickly did these out of curiosity
20/42 boosts won, boost succession rate below
Qwilfish: 2/5
Giratinas: 4/6
Thieves: 6/7
Monkeys: 5/6
Tinkatons: 2/5
Lunalas: 1/5
Incoming boost winrate
Qwilfish: 2/5
Giratinas: 2/6
Thieves: 4/7
Monkeys: 2/6
Tinkatons: 2/5
Lunalas: 2/5
This UWL was a generally exciting tour building-wise, and Seldanna and I got to experiment various stuff. I don't think anything revolutionized DPP this tournament, but I still felt about sharing about my thoughts on the state of the tier, as well as share some mons I think are being somewhat overlooked.
Groudon is as good as it always has been, but I think people are sticking to the usual SpeDef/HO Dons too much. I don't mean they are getting worse, but it turns out an Adamant nature and a few Speed EVs already make for a threatening mon, while keeping enough bulk to sponge and trade with a lot of Dracos. Same goes for the moveset! Substitute and Swords Dance are both, independently and together, good moves.
Not being SR can lead to somewhat recurring structures, as nothing comes close to being as excellent as Groudon when it comes to clicking rocks in Sun, but we have absolutely not explored them yet.
Groudon @ Leftovers
Ability: Drought
EVs: 240 HP / 16 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Punch
- Swords Dance
I used to HATE on Scarf Jirachi! What was the point of a Steel that lost to all the dragons, that carried an Ice Punch you would only use in DD Ray mus - which wouldn't even always proceed to kill, a 0 damage STAB half the tier mostly heals off with Lefties, and a-not-so-amazing momentum grabbing tool in U-Turn?
Turns out the Scarf Jirachi potential was right here! Healing Wish and Trick are crazy moves, with game winning rewards in certain match-ups. When prepping for potential Sun Stall during the tour, I figured a handful of decent gameplans involving Rachi. Trick does its usual disruption, particularly when Forry had to die in order to get Toxic Spikes up, and Healing Wish beating Toxic Spikes allows for a lot of possibilities.
Take all my excitement with a grain of salt of course, Scarf Jirachi still has it fair share of issues. It invites Giratina-O in for pretty much free, takes 50 from Dracos (when it doesn't get Thunder para-ed instead), and has games where it wont achieve anything.
First of all, I would like to say I advise against using this team in its current state. A few choices, like Band Lead Ray, were primarily motivated by scouting and expectations, and is likely to not be as effective in the average game.
The first idea was using Band Ray, and Seldanna came up with a first SkarmBliss Sun that proved not to be extra successful. I eventually appreciated how Blissey could partially handle Groudons role at sponging Dracos, clicking SR and spreading paras around, thus freeing some more Offensive Don. We originally had Specs Dialga, but the Garchomp mu was pretty dire so it was eventually changed to Shuca. Latios was then the likely best option available to cover a little better rain match-ups.
General opinion on the meta and random thoughts on other mons
This was somewhat established prior to UWL, but the ideal structures as of right now are definitely Bronzong Rain (Offense/HO) and Sun Stall. In fact, Highlord, Seldanna and I had fun ranking team structures, and we all ended up having the same top 3 as Zong Gira-O Rain > Sun Stall > Zong Rain HO.
First of all, I will dig out this great post about BronzongHighlord made back then, as i believe most of what is said there is still accurate to this day. And now Bronzong is top 3 usage and has not shown many issues!
Do not take this too seriously, it's still something we made pretty quickly
Also, this reflects MY opinions, we are generally similar, but I will not speak on their behalf
S: Rain Zong Gira-O Offense, Sun Stall
A: Rain Zong HO, Rain Balance
B: Sand + Rain Balance, Sun + Rain Offense/Balance, Weatherless/Wobb HO
C: Sun Balance, BP, Sand Balance, Rain Stall
D: Sun HO, Sand Stall
Latis are in a awkward spot right now. They are still amazing mons! But Bronzong being so common, and instantly getting momentum on them, keeping it with Boom and sometimes rendering them ineffective for a few turns with TR hurts bad. Keep using them when needed, but over-fixating on using Kyogre checks and slapping them everywhere does not work as much anymore.
Obviously broken mon, but oh my, stop using Scarf so much! It's not good against TSpikes Blissey and Deo-S teams, and while I recognize its role compression assets, its calcs are not that amazing. Also T-Wave and Calm Mind sets (or both) are absolutely up there in terms of power; Scarf has this huge opportunity cost.
How have we seen only one lead Darkrai all tour! I understand Lum Leads are popular, but Darkrai, notably Scarf is such an amazing mon all through the game! Leading Scarf Darkrai into Kyogre might not be ideal, but this is far from deciding. Scarf Sleep Talkers are absolutely not as good as we tried to make them sound. They lose consistency (worst thing you'd want on your Scarf lol) and don't even do well against Substitute sets.
Not anything new, but 4 Atks/Offensive SR/Mixed Purely Offensive sets are surprisingly powerful. It might only get a few turns to click moves, but nothing besides Steels and Blissey likes to take a Modest Draco Meteor, and all of which are sensitive to other moves you can click.
Not much to say, Sub 3atks Palkia is cool and can go out of control in some matchups. It has this crippling hazards (notably Toxic Spikes) weakness to limit it, but def a mon to use more commonly. I think SubProtect has no future however.
The flop mons. They are pretty usable, but I really think they all have seen better days. This is mostly because their structures are not really effective (Lugia, Heatran, Tentacruel), or because they perform poorly against current DPP (Garchomp with Bronzong); rather than the mons themselves being bad.
Short DPP friends s/o, but of course Seldanna and Highlord you two have to come first! Always exciting to see a new 3 person discord group chat pop up, because I know I am in for cool building. The US NE DPP hive mind. RichardMillePlain and Mashing the DPP sparring partners, you guys see me experimenting the worst things DPP heard of, but thanks for being cool friends and playing with me!!
@Giratinas too, particularly byulharang, sad we had to lose in finals but that's teamtours uh. Sorry for my activity as I just spent the tour focusing on DPP with Seldanna too.
Was going to do something akin to a teamdump then realised I didn't actually build anything aside from my semis and finals teams, so I might go through my prep process for those and talk a little bit about SS Ubers as a whole. This tour ended up being unexpectedly fun for me, especially near the tail end, and even though our team was always down like 1-5 when I went to sleep on Sundays, we always ended up bringing it back to a tie or a win. Not gonna do formal shoutouts but will shoutout Highlord for helping me prep, building for weeks 1 and 2, and always being there when I needed to test. also avarice and bacon for tests cuz no one else would ..
Extending that to S-MatrixFatFighter2 and Conflict who super carried, watching you guys play was always so fun and I knew you would win every time. See u in UPL !
So going into semis, I had scouted and noticed that situm had used some variation of stall for the past 3 weeks (the Giratina Ho-Oh one, the Tyranitar one vs Fc, and magic sun stall another time), so I wanted to be safe vs it. Groudon is extremely broken and here was no exception, matching up super well into Skarmory or Tyranitar or Xerneas or whatever he wanted to use vs me. The thought process behind this build is basically just to support SD Groudon with Twave Ho-Oh and Stealth Rock + U-turn Lando-T. DD Necrozma-DM is another mon I think is almost impossible not to use in this gen, especially with Knock Off being such a useful move even unboosted. Roost is an underrated tech on Ho-Oh that is nice if you have other Defoggers that gives you way more longevity with Brave Bird to e.g stay in on Etern way more easily and para Yveltal safely. Basically being able to heal without having to switch out like 3 times is really nice. Landorus-T is +Spdef to ease the Zekrom matchup.
I got the exact matchup I wanted and SD Heat Crash Groudon 6-0ed on preview. Not much I had to do except play safe, switching out vs the Shuca Toxapex and only coming in for free vs Tyranitar.
Kate had a varied very scout that I couldn't do very much with, so I figured I would go a bit more unexpected. Up to this point I had brought very similar structures with Caly/Ogre/Ho-Oh/Groudon/Ferro and nothing else, so a more offensive team would probably come as a surprise. I was initially testing with webs (Icemaster Galvantula), but it mostly didn't work out. Most of Kate's teams looked weaked in particular to banded Weavile aside from the one time she used balloon Xern, so I decided to build around that. With banded Beat Up Weavile, you basically just need a bunch of strong physical attackers, so I added Lando-T (as always) and Zekrom on top of YEN. Because stacking up on physical attackers generally makes your team extremely weak to Ferrothorn, I decided to go with a Heat Wave set for NDM, with Photon Geyser also being useful to lure and OHKO Eternatus. Eject Pack Draco Etern rounded out the squad quite nicely, with Draco + Banded Beat Up OHKOing Spdef NDM most of the time. Overall this squad gives Beat Up 107 BP.
The game went about as well as it could. Calcing U-turn on Lando told me it was max Attack + Speed so Beat Up would OHKO it. From there the Photon Geyser tech worked and I messed up pretty bad vs the NDM thinking it had no recovery, but after that I knew Zekrom would outspeed it at +1, and the game went smoothly after the NDM died.
SS Ubers as a whole
SS Ubers is pretty fun. There are definitely way too many threats, which makes it really hard to feel like you've built a solid team that doesn't fold to at least one of them on preview. I just want to talk about a few of the most broken mons in this tier that I believe everyone should be using on every team.
Thunder Wave Ho-Oh is the single biggest progress maker in the tier. It walls everything and kills everything. The only good set is Adamant to deal actual damage to Etern and Kyogre. You can run more speed if you want but nothing does things like Ho-Oh does. Roost, like I mentioned earlier, is fun to play around with as well.
Groudon @ Leftovers
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 72 Atk / 108 Def / 80 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Toxic
Groudon is probably the best mon to use and the worst mon to play against. Like Ho-Oh it practically always makes progress and is sometimes the only thing preventing Thunder Wave + Iron Head NDM from demolishing most teams. Toxic is great vs Yveltal and gives you a lot of freedom with NDM sets, but offensive is extremely rewarding with the right plays. You can also use Life Orb to get the OHKO on defensive Zygarde but I think Lefties is strictly better in most scenarios.
Not much to say about Lando-T but it is the best glue in the tier. Rocks, U-turn, Zekrom check, Groudon check, Marsh check, incredible. I was toying with adding some more Spdef with a Careful nature to take Zekrom Dracos a bit better. It's not as good as Ferrothorn at walling in general but it's a lot more useful on offensive teams.
Other cool mons that I won't talk about as much:
- Kyogre (rest talk is super broken, offensive sets are a little overrated, CM + Thunder with Rest is also pretty good)
- Necrozma-DM (people should be using offensive DD sets a lot more, DD Spdef Knock is cool, DD Adamant with Photon/EQ/Knock is underexplored)
- Zekrom (very very very good, a lot of teams have to chuck Haban on Etern just to not autolose but they still kinda do)
There are also a few mons that I never used thoughout the tour. These are part of my Fraud List:
- Xerneas (completely useless with Spdef NDM running around and no dynamax... don't even get me started on defensive Xern you will start every game down 3-6)
- Zygarde (only good set is DD Dragon Tail to beat Ferrothorn but even then it is fairly difficult to use properly and is mostly walled by CM Ogre, again not good without dynamax)
- Marshadow (actually a good mon with BU Low Kick but doesn't fit on a lot of structures)
- Galarian Skoomonke (same thing)
- Lunala (fake)
- Toxapex (even more fake)
Never use these Pokemon unless you like losing.
Shoutout to the rest of the Thieves, most of you were cool and I enjoyed watching all the games, hope we can team again sometime. see you in UPL
"I haven't used Mewtwo in a hot minute... I wonder if Aurora expects it!" Thus, triweather bullshit HO was born. Fully expected Kabutops rain during prep because jackie had a phase of loving that and I knew Ayu wouldn't allow Aurora to load something with Fireceus but I also wanted to cover the semi-sun MU with Earth Plate Groudon. Special Genesect was supposed to help because she's not one to use a lot of set-up Arceus and Bug Buzz sometimes just kills things? it's not supposed to. The sole tech here is Embargo Mewtwo which stops Judgement from working (s/o SiTuM). I will not lie, fast SpD Ogre + Ludicolo scared the shit out of me when I realized what was going on but uh... we take those.
[/QUOTE]
"I haven't used Mewtwo in a hot minute... I wonder if Aurora expects it!" Thus, triweather bullshit HO was born. Fully expected Kabutops rain during prep because jackie had a phase of loving that and I knew Ayu wouldn't allow Aurora to load something with Fireceus but I also wanted to cover the semi-sun MU with Earth Plate Groudon. Special Genesect was supposed to help because she's not one to use a lot of set-up Arceus and Bug Buzz sometimes just kills things? it's not supposed to. The sole tech here is Embargo Mewtwo which stops Judgement from working (s/o SiTuM). I will not lie, fast SpD Ogre + Ludicolo scared the shit out of me when I realized what was going on but uh... we take those.
Not quite the ending I was hoping for with this tour, but I still had a lot of fun with my team, and more fun than I was expecting to have in SV Ubers. I didnt use my own teams every week, so I'll leave out the teams that I didn't build personally.
I had no idea what to bring into Situm, as this was a new meta, so my old reliable strategy of bringing Kyogre Groudon Calyrex-S Yveltal Eternatus NDM wasn't possible. I decided that I wanted to use a balance-leaning team that had a bit more offensive bite than might be expected on team preview. When I finalised this build, I had just watched the game between Richard and Trade, where CB Great Tusk OHKOd a Corviknight, and I was shocked that that happened without committing to Tera the offensive mon, so I decided to run the same style of team, with Banded Great Tusk in the sun, and CM + Life Orb Flutter Mane being my dedicated breakers vs faster stuff and vs more balanced builds. The defensive trio of Corviknight, Gholdengo and Ting-lu was designed to try to give some backbone to my offensive potential, but it was never meant to be a true balance, with Corviknight's main role being to uturn and bring in dangerous breakers, Ting-Lu was there to hazard stack and Gholdengo was designed to prevent those hazards from being instantly removed.
The only choice left what exactly what Koraidon set to bring in the last spot, and it was a fairly easy decision. Scarf Koraidon i felt was necessary to prevent myself from losing to potential HO options, especially Glimmora HO, which Situm had demolished me with a few weeks prior in a test game and I knew he was a fan of.
Overall thoughts on this team is that it is very clearly a "week 1" team for this tour, looking at it now I see significant defensive holes against opposing Tera Miraidon, and indeed I probably lose this game if he's Agility instead of Taunt on his Miraidon.
Mashing is a player who I was actually keen on us getting as a teammate for this tour in out draft plan given how well she seemed to adapt to SV Ubers coming out, and I was still finding my footing with SV Ubers at this time. This week I decided that I absolutely did not want to risk the game on any speed tie with 405 pokemon, although to be fair I decided on that after I had already decided to use Double Dance Miraidon, which doesnt run max speed anyway. I also wanted to use Iron Bundle, as I hadnt done so last week. Defensive Great Tusk felt like an obvious addition given how difficult Koraidon can be to answer, and then I decided to add on Bulk Up Palafin, mostly for the sake of trying out an Uber that I wasnt keen on, but saw some potential in. This Palafin set is different to the standard BU Palafin set in that I wanted to maximise it's damage output in the even that Mashing ran a HO team against me. I felt the tradeoff in terms of bulk was worth the added firepower for this team. I added Ting Lu next so as to avoid completely losing to Miraidon, and I put Whirlwind on it now that I had wizened up to the danger setup Miraidon posed.
I was entirely locked and loaded with those 5, and they felt pretty good in tests aside from a single situation. I felt unbelievably weak to Iron Bundle. Of my 5 mons that I was sure about, Iron Bundle hits 4 of them for Super Effective damage unless I used my Tera, and the one exception was my own Iron Bundle. I tried Corviknight, I tried Annihilape, I tried Gholdengo, all 3 of them did not feel secure enough against it, or made me feel significantly too passive, especially against Boots Iron Bundle. And then I had an idea, probably late at night in a pique of frustration, to make good use of the Flutter Mane stat that was seen as relatively unimportant for it: Its Spdef. I figured that AV Flutter Mane would be able to tank the actually threatening hits from opposing Iron Bundle, before hitting back and threatening a OHKO, and unlike examples like Corviknight and Spdef Gholdengo, if the Iron Bundle Flip Turned, Flutter Mane would threaten massive damage on literally anything. Given the investment I had to give this Flutter Mane to make it actually do the job well against even Specs Bundle, I felt there was no point in going Timid on my Flutter Mane, and so I decided to put just enough speed in to outspeed Timid Chi-Yu (the HP also means that this Flutter Mane doesnt immediately drop to specs Chi-Yu unless either Sun is up or it's Tera'd), and I went with Modest for my Flutter Mane, which was important to be able to swing some damage calcs from rolls to 2hko, to outright 2hko some of Flutter Mane's most common switch ins. I dont rate Iron Treads still, so I opted for Psyshock instead of Mystical Fire.
This actually ended up being the team that I enjoyed the most this tour, and I used it again later on in the tour against Avarice as well. I was sceptical of AV Flutter Mane at the time, but now I genuinely believe that its a very good set in its own right, and fits well on bulky offensive teams that normally get destroyed by Iron Bundle.
This team was, by memory (although it's over a month ago as I type this that it was built) a joint build between me, Terra and Corvere. I think i made enough decisions to explain the team without feeling guilty though. Hatterene was something Corvere suggested that I found intriguing, between its ability to blank HO leads from making progress, its ability to beat most Great Tusk and Ting Lu's running around, and given how prevalent hazard stack is as an offensive style I wanted to use it. Terra then posted an empty Pokepaste with these 6, and I took them and ran with them, making the Chien Pao Choice Band, Iron Treads fast with a tiny bit of Spdef, and Dnite Roost. Terra's eventual version of these 6 was very different in execution, but I like the offensive synergy this team has. CB Chien Pao has close to unmatched offensive potential in the tier, and the competition for that claim is from the Choice Specs Miraidon that also sits on this team. 4 STAB Moves on Chien Pao might look weird, but I genuinely enjoy that as a set. Toxapex is there to pivot around Koraidon and haze things, while finally Dragonite is a setup sweeper that can turn the tables on HO teams pretty well, especially if the Tera can be saved for that slot.
This is a pretty good team, but I stand by the opinion that Iron Treads is a fraud. It is always one turn away from dying, and it isnt very good as a hazard setter or remover.
Also shout out to Lasen this week for talking me out of what I think is technically called "A bad Idea"
Like I said in the earlier part, I reused this team against Avarice. I had been really enjoying how it felt in tests and on the ladder since building it in Week 2, and I figured if I reordered the mons around Avarice probably wouldnt notice that it was the same 6 as against Mashing until it was too late to be surprised by things like AV Flutter Mane.
I was testing against Richard and I really really liked the team he used against me, and I didnt like any of the ones I had built, so I just decided to use it after he had already played and won with it. I knew that Stallion had been busy in the time between Richard playing and us being scheduled to play, so I reordered the team to make it slightly less likely that he would notice that it was the same 6, and just went with it. Towards the later parts of the tour I felt like it was worth the risk of mons sets being known if I felt the team was good enough by itself, and would always prefer to pick something known but good than something new but not.
I think Bulky Offense is the best playstyle at the moment. I think that this tier feels very much like what I heard BKC describe ORAS OU as once: "Cleverly making the most of your own big threats, while dancing around your opponents big threats, because neither of you are going to be able to perfectly counter your opponent's dangerous pokemon, but you can play around them." This leeway to play around big threats with a slight defensive backbone, and then responding with my own offense, drove a lot of the way I built and played throughout this tour, and I think its easy to see, especially in the AV Flutter Mane team and the Hatterene team.
In spite of this, I dont think HO is very good. I think it is relatively inconsistent, and can really struggle against very common threats like Iron Bundle with Terrain up, Choice Scarf Koraidon, and just strong Priority moves like Chien Pao's Sucker Punch and Dragonite's Extreme Speed. It comes down to the idea that, while using HO, you cant effectively dance around the big threats your opponent can, so if you ever take a single foot off the gas and lose the momentum, you probably end up losing the entire game.
Stall sucks. There are no two ways about this statement, in my honest opinion Stall is the worst I've ever seen it be. Finding a team that doesnt autolose to Chi-Yu, Chien Pao, CB Great Tusk, Specs Miraidon, the Tera Variants of Miraidon is hard enough, but then you throw in things like Annihilape and Taunt Bulk Up Palafin and it's just a nightmare for Stall to actually do anything consistently. I think Stall has become a literal matchup fish, and not a very good one at that.
Miraidon vs Koraidon... Miraidon is clearly the better of the two on its own, as it is a far more potent individual wincon and breaker than Koraidon is. However, I feel Koraidon's sun supports far more teammates and far better than Miraidon can. Miraidon doesnt have any teammate that can take advantage of Electric Terrain nearly as well as Koraidon supports Chi-Yu, Flutter Mane, or Great Tusk, while Sun even helps out some Pokemon defensively, even ignoring Protosynthesis boosts on Great Tusk and Scream Tail, by making Iron Bundle, genuinely one of the scariest Pokemon in the metagame, not be able to use the water half of its unwallable dual stab coverage nearly as effectively. Just as an example, Corviknight goes from being definitively 2hko'd by Specs Iron Bundle, to forcing the Iron Bundle to Tera Ice to avoid being roost stalled. As such, if I was asked to pick one that I thought was more generally useful of the two, I would likely say Koraidon, even though Miraidon is very close to being broken enough for me to want to suspect test it.
I had a great time this tour and while the finals didnt end up the way I wanted it to, I want to thank my entire team for making the whole tour fun the entire way through.
I am not playing uwl anyway but aber asked me to so I would paste some team right here.
Btw my team is all on my phone so it definitely took me more than 2mins to paste them here
https://pokepast.es/75ee72eb24269a58
Probably My very first team to play around in early sv ladder. Changed bundle to annihilape can break stall easier.
https://pokepast.es/81d4202a906d40e0
A team with similar brain process with the above hex team. Probably need some improvement but i hate espathra as a whole so i stopped very quickly.
https://pokepast.es/50642880e2bd5f12
Trick room team with only two mons benefited with trick room ... Oh well.
My first team hyping with dnite and acutally peaked. Lol
https://pokepast.es/5e2ff715cb05cb2f
Lucario espeed theme. Start trying tera ghost koraidom to spin block and dtail...just like BW gira o did.
This team is baiscally built around lucario solely, but lucario is mediocore to say the least. https://pokepast.es/89b50594fc6894f5
And this is the more competitive version. Dtail miraidom is crazy and corrosion glim fits bu koraidon quite well.
Thats all. I built one walking wake team and give up within two days as i think it is just chiyu 2.0 and i dont like chiyu as a whole.
edit: I also have a demon trapping team but posting that will ruin all the fun so I would rather keep it lol. stag really needs to be ban every generation.
edit2: thought on current meta
Basically I share most thought with what aber has written in his last paragraph. Stall sucks, but it is dangerous if you completely ignore its existence in your team building process. I have met couple of really good stall teams but I won't post them here as I don't know how stall works at all and I don't want to guess all sets of that.
The biggest difference of Miraidon and Koraidon is basically, Draco meteor. Miraidon can spam it all day with switiches not named flutter mane are all passive. Koraidon corresponding move is Flare Blitz instead, which chips koraidon heavily, let alone the meta is such a heavy hazard meta, hold back choice koraidon a lot. Having say that, dualdance koraidon actually are in the same threatening level as Miraidon. The only limiting factor of these two is basically the mu of what tera they choose, though koraidon do meet more unaware mon than miraidon. Draco is just broken smh
A concept I introduced in chinese Ub society of SV UB is that the team style mu in SV UB is a endless cycle. To say it in a simple way,
Weather is one exception in this cycle but weather theme often suffer against the same weather theme opponent. Simple examples:
Sun chiyu suffers from Sun chiyu.
Rain bundle suffers from Rain bundle.
Sandstorm Hound suffers from Sandstorm Hound (and rain/sun).
Need not to say All this weather theme lose to tera Normal Dragonite KEKW
IMO Team style mu is much more influencial than individuals mu (and tera MU too) in the current meta and because of the above cycle exists you never can settle to one style to give you consistent performance. I am not a big fan of this tbh but it seems to be always the case in such a limited choice meta so I am feeling ok with that. Overall pre-home SV is quite fun to play with.
After popular demand (1 person) I've decided to share the teams i used during uwl in sv, i'll try and give some info of why the teams are what they are but I've forgotten most of them..
Week 1: https://pokepast.es/d6ca22e70cf70042
I didn't really know what to bring first week especially cause i found the tier quite bad before the start of this tournament so i just decided to go with the most standard broken thing i could think of. I think this is the only chi-yu i used all tour but it's obviously fantastic and one of the most stupid mons of all time, especially when paired with u-turn korai. Nothing much to add on the offensive core really if i could change the team i would probably make flutter mane AV now and add mystical fire over tbolt but max speed works well too, Flutter-mane under sun is quite unprepared for tbh and i think its typing brings the team together quite well. Toxapex is great defensively and tspikes are quite valuable a lot of the times too, i don't believe in running attacking moves on pex most of the time tbh as you kind of want all the support you can get and sludge bomb seems like wishful thinking more often than not. Clodsire is admittedly pretty mid as is corvignight but they check what they need to ig.
In retrospect not a huge fan of this team as you kind of lose on MU to stuff like bulk up palafin (broken) and specs mirai but regardless chi-yu's broken aspects make it usable for sure.
Week 2: https://pokepast.es/d6efea0de550eb67
This team sucks balls. tbh i really didn't have any ideas at this point in time and was still kinda busy with exams so i just put together some standard BS and prayed it worked (it didn't). Looking back now this team is even worst than i remember it but anyways. The main idea was to use band koraidon which is definitely decent but hardly ever worth it over its other sets imo, especially as this one doesn't even carry u-turn. Ultimately i think the problem with this team is that the breakers dont break enough, defensively you are way too weak to common stuff like dd mirai and you heavily lack speed control.
Week 3: https://pokepast.es/d73d6a9b055c1d1e
Despite the fact that this team lost in game, and isn't one of the strongest teams, it's definitely one of my favorite from all tour. My goat teammate Zesty had been raving about the prowess' of hawlucha in the sv ubers meta-game, and it looked good vs Lunala who used bulky waters as his physical defensive checks, which hawlucha can profit on so i decided to try it out. Hawlucha is definitely a very cool pokemon offensively, it's speed after unburden is pretty amazing being able to out speed even quark driven bundle ( i'm pretty sure idk tbh), and it often has some really great match ups against offensive teams. Peliper is also a guy that's quite underrated in sv to me, being able to give rain, beat korai and great tusk, pivot around, and use knock off is honestly quite amazing in my opinion. Rain is also really cool and has some awesome abusers like tera-water mirai and broken bundle. In all honesty i do somewhat dislike tera-water mirai because it kind of relies too much on tera but the benefit from tera-ing it is often worth it i guess so it's alright. Bundle is a real killer on rain , unfortunately wasn't able to fit specs on it but nevertheless very few things can actually take this thing on and it matches up great vs offense. First appearance of iron treads so far i believe, i like treads a lot in general but i think in this team it takes on too many roles being the rocker/hazard removal and primary mirai check of the team, even so it holds the team together alright. Finally AV iron hands is a really fun guy to use, actually hits quite hard and matches up well vs the defensive water types that i was expecting. Hands helps out against opposing miraidon, kingambit and most importantly is a check to bundle which i spent about a full hour looking for, EV's allow it to tank one hydro pump from boots bundle in rain, tera grass is also cool to cover most of this guy's weaknesses and can come in clutch quite often. Ultimately i'm quite happy with how this team came out, unfortunately in the game it didn't perform as well as i had hoped because of some fluffy ghost type dog, and blissey but despite the result still a fun team to play.
Week 4: https://pokepast.es/5f4d342dde219115
Wanted to try out gothitelle as it gets some really great traps in the sv meta-game such as great tusk, bulky waters, clodsire and more. Goth partners great with koraidon and someone in my team also suggested to pair it with dd miraidon as it can often forge a path for him to sweep as well. Paired this with the double elephant core of tusk and treads which kind of became my go to from this point on, it really allows you to build some super offensive teams while not being too frail defensively either and provides rocks + spin. Finally i threw on a AV flutter mane to help wallbreak and check iron bundle.
I think goth is really good in the tier tbh, i don't think this team does the best at profiting off of it and such but it really makes so many match ups easier and often provides more than just the 1 trap.
Finals: https://pokepast.es/02052c018e73b359
Another one of my favorites here, palafin is super cool right now and wins so many games pretty much by itself. Specs mirai is super broken and so is chien pao, i think i prefer ice spinner over crash on chien pao because first of all missing sucks and second of all getting rid of terrain is often actually quite nice, you do miss out on some important KO's but i think overall it's worth it. Overall team is pretty hazard weak tho so i had to make ting-lu tera poison to have something against tspikes. very big fan of this tusk set tho, provides great defensive utility and can actually be quite threatening offensively as well. What i really like about this team is scream tail though, great defensive utility and stops most offensive threats like palafin and annihilape with perish song if you don't let them boost too much, having such great speed for its bulk is really quite amazing and it covers for most of the setup-sweepers in the tier.
also shoutout to all the giratinas for making this tour so fun, probably the best tournament experience i've had so far desspite the dissapointing ending but nevertheless was a blast,
funny HO clicks funny buttons to get funny wins.
standard froslass HO theres not much to talk about..
thunder froslass kills bundles trying to antilead you with taunt.. miraidon outspeeds chiyu without an agility boost.
dnite because extreme speed.
sucker punch chienpao destroys tera fire koraidon (as we saw in aber's game) and ohkos bundle at +2.
Gholdengo can be scarf>balloon and chienpao can be dark glasses>life orb(be sure to make it adamant if you do this as you ohko pex at +2)
First time doing this, so gonna try my best at the exercice
First of all thanks to Keys and Raph for making my little tests as well as scouting for me what opponents used to play
As usual, my builder is wonky and hard to use, be aware that I learn to play the matchups most of the time, which explains why I don't have the best builder of the BW roaster.
I expected Lasen to bring a team around the lines he did. I went with an old team that had sub BU dialga, which funnily enough loses to lati@s with roar. Point was to set up Tspikes and then deal huge damage with Ho oh. Fortunately for me, Lasen did not expect me to use Sun Ho oh, despite the usual joke about me using either Kabutops or Ho oh, and thus being cteamed by lead ghostceus SR or Fightceus with Stone Edge. I also used SD ghostceus because it paired pretty well against Lasen teams in general. I had the MU in my favor so all I had to do was to play without taking any risks.
Scouts revelaed that Monai usually had a hard time dealing with tspikes. Which in fact, he did not in that battle. And to make it worse, the latios was an absolute problem for the team. Had he went for Thunder until he paraed Steelceus, I think he should have won that battle. Fortunately for me, he made some suboptimal choices and i got the chance to set up with groudon, which was my only way of winning.
Keys gave me the team, didn't have the time to build, and I tested the team like 1hr before the battle. Yawn Kingdra didn't had it chance but in tests it was good against some CMceus. Not the type of team I usually use. I know that the sequence where I stayed with driller was questionnable for some, but sleep talk having 66% chance of giving a phazing move, and only one of those 2 moves can deal direct damage + a chance to miss, it was more optimal for me to stay in. Yes the crit sucked but I just played my overall best move. I know people wanted me to spin but I didn't need to do so in my point of view.
The only reason I joined that tour is because edgar said he wanted me to join. I originally didn't even plan to play and was expecting myself to get smashed every week. That's like the week I prepped the most because I knew it would be the highlight of this tournament. Aaaaaand, it ended in a mirror matchup lol. And to be fair, edgar should have won this battle because of air balloon driller. I expected him to use hazards + Gira o and that's why i went with ghost gem Driller, but in the end, it wasn't the optimal play vs him. Sub Defensive Ekiller was fun to use, but really, it's not that great, it's way too passive and miss important Koes, for example you don't ko darkrai. Nevertheless, it's good against passive teams that rely on dragon tail and it helps you take hits against other threats.
I'm an idiot and didn't listen to keys when he said that salamence would wreck Evuelf. BUT, TR was also a great idea vs Evu. A disguised one that being said. The draco miss turn 1 actually hurt me more than it would hurt him because i ended losing a turn of TR that could have mattered.
If his ghostceus was Full hp, Focus blast wouldn't ko Dialga, so I went with the roll and got the miss instead. The Destiny bond tec on Giratina was exactly for a mon like this. Overall a fun team, but only works if you are sure your opponent is bringing Deo S HO.
Thanks edgar for helping me making this team, the tspikes lead tentacruel did help, and I misplayed badly the end, and risked crits. We expected some sorts of cteam to my playstyle, which in the end was not the case. I even said that Deo a would be a problem and that my only play would be trying to flinch it t1. So in the end, the critless cm war decided the fate, but that game was play very solidely by Monai
Overall a fun tour, i am very happy ending 6-0 (8-0 with boosts) and I think that the level in the bw pool is getting a lot closer the more the time passes. I am happy to see new teams, new sets sometimes, and I feel like the community is also greater than before.
As said, I think this is where I'll have to stop competitive, not because i don't like it, but because i am actually really busy nowadays. Soonish there is also a Carl Murray Jr coming so I won't have time to play. I still read from times to times the Uber Discord because I enjoy it.
Anyway, if anyone knows to make those great sprites like Lasen please teach me I suck at forums!
Xerneas (completely useless with Spdef NDM running around and no dynamax... don't even get me started on defensive Xern you will start every game down 3-6)
Zygarde (only good set is DD Dragon Tail to beat Ferrothorn but even then it is fairly difficult to use properly and is mostly walled by CM Ogre, again not good without dynamax)
Marshadow (actually a good mon with BU Low Kick but doesn't fit on a lot of structures)
Galarian Skoomonke (same thing)
Lunala (fake)
Toxapex (even more fake)
