Big ty to
Adaam Wanka and
Accel for drafting me and putting so much faith in me again in such an amazing tier <3 I'm super happy to round off this UUPL with a 5-2 performance and feel very happy with the team choices I brought this tour for the most part (barring Week 4 when I was really sick), loved some of the concepts I did this time and some of the alterations to older teams that I made.
Week 1 vs Torchic (W)
https://pokepast.es/ef07bbbc86e0fd00
First week of the tour was an interesting one due to not knowing a huge amount about Torchic's GSC choices while him having a fair amount of info on me from teaming in snake. Was baring in mind some more older structures coming into this week, and thought an SD Light Screen Scyther build could be pretty fun to potentially punish Slowbro use or the potential of a Piloswine bring while being pretty unexpected, especially on top of a PiloBull structure that heavily suggests an SD Passing Scyther. Love Lead Piloswine and think its probably its best position due to the amazing mus versus most standard leads and its ability to instantly set the tone of a match with forcing out Psychics/Queen/Electrics and revealing key information about their team (eg. slowbro/gyarados) while not really losing too much into a lead Qwil matchup (just reverse spike at the cost of potentially some momentum or valuable information with them revealing that they'd value chipping your own qwil with theirs). Slowbro's pretty cool choice on this team to act as a secondary check to a lot of physical shit like Bull/Scy, lets Hypno boom away freely onto stuff like Hypno (especially twave that can be irritating for scy), and can force some valuable chip onto stuff like Gyara for your own scyther to abuse later too. Ended up facing an SD LS Scyther + Slowbro mirror in the game, some early rng really sealed the game for me more easily than it should have, but I was still fairly advantaged in the game, and Scyther really would have put in work.
Week 2 vs HSA (L)
https://pokepast.es/71fdd4e9f252abb4
HSA is definitely always the scariest mu for any GSC player, after dodging him in snake i was especially interested to play this game out. I wanted to take a more left-field approach to this matchup and was kinda inspired by my game vs Lax in last UUSD, choosing to attempt a Meditate passing Mr. Mime route. This was pretty cool pick in theory since it could punish traditional Mime switch ins like Hypno and Chansey fairly hard, and doesn't face the same early game passing blocks that Scyther does into matchups like Roar Gyarados, or Haze Crobat. Thought this in combo with Dodrio could become a really nasty threat and give me some pretty decent mu if i ran into stall too. Pilo and Bull also worked as pretty potent abusers here too, taking a more unusual approach with the Bull set too over the standard Hp ground as 2nd move in favour of Thunder for removing Omastar for Dodrio's later benefit. Ended up facing the stall matchup and making an unecessary risk with letting Qwilfish die with hoping that HSA would either not be Thunder or not click it due to suspecting that I wouldn't keep Spikes up long enough anyway into Pursuit Buzz + Stoise with no Ghost. Dodrio was still set for some fair destruction in this game but unfortunately didn't really get the crits needed to get through Shuckle at all. Nonetheless was a pretty cool team though and I thought this was a pretty good pick and woulda worked especially nicely into a more standard team, but did rely a bit on getting crits eventually with Dodrio into the Shuckle stall MU.
Week 3 vs Garay Oak (W)
https://pokepast.es/a93eb6eadb9c8b5e
Garay's team choices up to this point had given the impression to me that he was using old teams and other peoples teams up to this point, and I thought bringing WigglyBull might be a really good option this time especially versus a solid player who isn't necessarily so entrenched within UU itself as opposed to GSC overall. WigglyBull's a pretty simple concept with Curse 3 attacks Granbull removing or trading with all your standard Curse Normal checks like Omastar, Haunter etc, with your opponent presuming this is a tolerable trade to make if it cripples Granbull in the process, to reveal that you actually have a secondary CurseTalk Normal in back to win the endgames (one with nicer special bulk that lets it actually set up through stuff like Lanturn too). Built this team in GSCPL finals to use vs LpZ but didn't get to play the game due to irl circumstances (stupid phone alarm not going off), the lead Light Screen + Safeguard Mime is a cool tech that keeps up some more offensive presence over a light screen hypno and can pretty comfortably punish traditional defensive switch-ins like Hypno to get that LS up for Bull to break with, while Safeguard lets it be more comfortable with hard Screening against unrevealed Hypno who might have Twave, and also can protect Bull in the process. Ended up facing Shuckle stall again this week but the overwhelming pressure of a well played Piloswine + keeping up Spikes well and eventually removing Chansey with Haunter was enough to break this week, Mime ended up being pretty nasty in the endgame too as safeguard gave it the much needed safety to try and 1v1 a Toxic Shuckle without Rest.
Week 4 vs Inder (L)
https://pokepast.es/1a88e8e14609f975
Caught COVID this week and was feeling absolutely dogshit irl so wasn't really up to building at all this week. Thought stall might have been a decent pick vs Inder based on the teams he'd brought previously in the tour, but in hindsight this was a fairly big missplay as I just wasn't feeling well enough to play a more drawn out game with a playstyle like this, and had some challenges dealing with a Substitute Magneton in particular. The team itself was just a play on the Shuckle Stall structure with using a Quagsire instead of Hypno to provide more offensive presence and a dangerous breaker especially into the opposing fat mus, it definitely had the potential to win in this game if I made some more aggressive plays with it later but was an unfortunate game that I wish I subbed out of in hindsight.
Week 5 vs Gorgie (W)
https://pokepast.es/451ca79803cc9120
Was feeling better this week and up for the chance for redemption. Gorgie was absolutely a tough opponent to face, he'd mostly brought some older style teams and also some BP so I thought my Dodrio team from UUSD could be a really cool pick here since LS + Dodrio is such a deadly combination at breaking into bulkier teams while Lead Curse LK Bull has such a fantastic opening into the offensive matchups. Gorgie ended up bringing a BP team and the Lead Bull ended up claiming quite a few lives immediately. Missplayed near the end vs his Politoed with not just sacking something to sleep and then revenging it, but was still favoured to win RNG wise due to him having to hit multiple LK's consecutively and Hypno having a 50% recurrent chance to pull Psychic evnetually due to the Politoed not being able to get out of range with Leftovers. Was a fun game that I wish was slightly cleaner in the end, with Dodrio getting very unfortunate Sleep Talk pulls, Granbull missing an initial huge lovely kiss and then critting later, and me choking away a 100% endgame, but was definitely happy with the team choice.
Week 6 vs Holly (W)
https://pokepast.es/c9a7c97c5da5e65f
Playing Holly is always an interesting one since she's a creative builder who knows me better than almost anyone in this tier. I'd kinda settled on using a Growth Politoed team vs her a few weeks before this match, since it's a set she's made very clear that she isn't fond of and that I noticed she sometimes builds fairly weak to, although she definitely has plenty of teams she's fond of like LanturnPilo that it'd really struggle into (but suspected she wouldn't bring). Wanted to take the more standard LS Hypno + Nidoqueen/Bull sorta structure here to provide myself with the ability to really play into all matchups pretty comfortably, definitely arguably the strongest structure in this tier in general and always leaves you room to outplay matchups to an extent (see my game vs thor in uusd with nidoqueen turning into a literal mime and gyara check under screens LOL). What i liked about this team structure was it really had Politoed sitting more as just a solid glue to help check Piloswine and Nidoqueen and left it in a position where it wouldn't subtract any value at all even if it had an awful matchup as a win con, but the choice to use Piloswine really played off in the match and landed an amazing matchup that Holly unfortunately couldn't outplay.
Week 7 vs Mystras Leoxses (Subbed out for Celebiii)
https://pokepast.es/e1109e5ccd3e5744
This team was actually prepared for Thor to use against Cel in UUFPL but I loved what I'd done with it so much that I planned to bring it vs Mystras too at first, although we ended up being confirmed in Poffs before I got to play so agreed to sub out so that Cel could get his well deserved chance to play, and Cel decided to bring a different team as he found this awkward to use himself, but I loved this team so wanted to include it anyway. Team was essentially an upgraded version of my old SubNM Kadabra team from Classic vs Pak and later UUSD vs Raptor, I thought it'd be a solid choice vs Cel with his choice of Mime/Hypno reliant structures for Psychics. I'd already explained the previous version of the team in detail in the UUSD dump thread but the major changes here were to explore a Heal Bell Granbull instead of Gyarados, which would really solve some of the teams less savoury RestTalk Mime MUs by letting you get much more aggrsesive with Kadabra into it without fear of Paralysis, and running Reflect > Hypnosis on Mime to compensate for no longer needing to try and force RestTalk Mime asleep, letting it potentially aid its teammates in facing off against stuff like Piloswine and Granbull. Fun team that I'd definitely recommend trying out, Heal Bell Bull opens up a load of options on this team in general with letting Nidoqueen get more aggressive against stuff like Jumpluff too while being able to simply clear off Paralysis later.
Semifinals vs HSA (W)
https://pokepast.es/39da644efe7f80f8
This rematch was definitely hype af for me, I was excited to see what I could potentially pull off here especially in the high value situation of poffs. I was honestly struggling to get the motivation to build for a while and was struggling to come up with ideas that I liked, I did know however that I really wanted to try using a double Ground structure vs HSA due to how deadly a Piloswine + Nidoqueen combination could be especially into fatter mus where the extra PP from both of them really compensates for some of the limited time issues in terms of breaking. Ended up going for a Gligar route over Nidoqueen as I found it simply made a bunch of mus more savoury to build with, and thought it was just a really cool sleeper pick in general and could really be a threat of a breaker too with the ThiefScreech + Spikes combo. Ended up building an adaptation of the "standard" LanturnPilo team here, I really loved what Gligar offered the team over Pluff in a sense as it patches up a lot of the breaking issues I find the team can have into bulkier matchups, between offering a secondary Thief to target stuff like Stoise and Gyarados, extra breaking with Screech + Spikes (also forces switches nicely like Leech+Spikes+Encore Pluff does but with an actual offensive output against some stuff like Qwil/Stoise that you let in), and a way to really support Piloswine (and the reverse for Pilo to Gligar) in terms of overwhelming waters. Ended up playing around with the Haunter set a little in this situation as I was running it as my main Bull answer now, a situation I'm not usually fond of but found necessary and adequate in the teambuilder this time, especially since Piloswine + Lanturn can put enough pressure on it if necessary to trade Haunter with something. Thief Dbond Haunter let me keep the second Thiefer on the team while still having the ability to properly trade with a Curse HP Ground Bull, but it had some cooler applications in practice games than I was expecting and found it a really solid set and not a compromise at all, with it being much harder to necessarily stop it making the trades it wants with Dbond compared to Boom due to the inability to switch in stuff like Qwilfish or a low HP mob to absorb the move. Decided to take the HP Elec Stoise approach in the game despite it making the team a bit weaker to Piloswine, I thought the offensive potential it offered the team was absolutely huge with its ability to better clear off Spikes vs Curse Qwilfish and potentially cripple an unsuspecting Gyarados with a massive 50-60% hit, and that the rewards this offered were more than worth having to play more carefully into Pilo. Also made the choice to run lead Piloswine over lead Lanturn on this team compared to the original holly version, feel like its the optimal lead choice into a lot of mus for this team but especially into HSA who had a lot of lead Psychic/Electric usage as well as lead Piloswine too who I wouldn't really wanna give the free turn to, and it being fairly nice as a lead into a potential BP bring too. Was a fun game in the end and loved the team choice, definitely enjoyed what I did with the popular LanturnPilo concept here and would recommend trying it out, Screech Gligar is a really nasty pick to use for sure.