Premier League Spotlights: MPL

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Premier League Coverage! Premier Leagues have long been one of the most popular tournament formats on Smogon, because they combine the rush of bidding with the collaborative atmosphere of team play. The Smogon Premier League is the largest and most prestigious such tournament, but many communities on Smogon have Premier Leagues of their own. In this series, we will bring you complete coverage of each Premier League on Smogon as they end. Today, we are covering the Monotype Premier League.

Introduction to MPL

Monotype Premier League is one of the biggest tournaments for Monotype, one of the most popular OMs. This was the second installment of the tournament, hosted by scpinion and Acast, the Room Owners of the Monotype room on PS! The managers were specific room staff, especially moderators, with voices and drivers as assistant managers. The auction for the tournament was held on the 2nd of February. The tiers were 2 ORAS OU Monotype, 1 BW Monotype, 1 STABmons Monotype, 1 AAA Monotype, 1 UU Monotype, 1 Monothreat, and 1 Doubles Monotype. Without further ado, here are the teams!

Affordable Ampharos

Manager: Acast

Ambitious Altarias

Manager: Anttya

Devious Diancies

Manager: Dream Eater Gengar

Kinky Kinglers

Manager: Bondie

Lewd Lucarios

Manager: Freeroamer

Mauville Memers

Manager: Omega-Xis

Salacious Swamperts

Manager: scpinion

Skilled Scizors

Manager: Dirpz

Auction

As the auction rolled on, every manager had their own plans for the draft. Let's look into them:

Acast

GodChef and I spent a couple weeks preparing for the draft. At one point I even made a spreadsheet listing the players I wanted and gave them a score from 1 to 10 representing how big of a priority they would be during the auction. We agreed that there wouldn't be any shortage of ORAS Monotype players, so we wanted to focus on getting the best Mono STABmons / AAA / UU players and dominating our opponents in the OM department. That's the main reason I spent over 32k on Fírnen, because he's one of the best OM players in the community, and I didn't want anyone else to have that advantage in OMs. The draft didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, but I was still extremely happy with the team we walked away with. It was very well rounded with highly skilled players in every format except STABmons, but iEntei and Chleg did a good job of filling that gap despite it not being their preferred format.

All Falls Down (assman of Salacious Swamperts)

scpinion was pretty busy prior to the draft, but I caught him online to chat about potential draftees a couple times. Our goal was to get solid well-known ORAS players and then get good players who did well in room tours and we knew wouldn't cost much rather than going for well-known players from the OM community. The draft pretty much went down as I expected, but with a twist: scp and I agreed that the three "known" players we really wanted to get were rnbs and pk-kaiser for ORAS and Crestfall for BW, but I didn't end up getting the former two because they went early and went for a lot (as expected). However, I did end up snagging the OM players we talked about and looking back at MPL those underrated players we picked up all did really well. I really loved our team in the end regardless of draft preconceptions; it was filled with really cool people, creative teambuilders, and some players with a whole lot of skill.

Dirpz

I was pretty busy before the draft. Lax did a lot of scouting out who we should draft. The Plan was to get lesser known people who were good and would cost less. The draft went fine; we did not get everyone we wanted because they went very fast and for a lot of cash. However, we did get a lot of people we did consider. Although I had 14000 at the end of the draft, I was very content with my team. In contrast, this draft was a lot more competitive, unlike the first draft, where everyone spent so much money in the first three rounds. Overall, I really did like my team; it had a lot of cool people.

Sabella (Assman of Lewd Lucarios)

Ok, so since Freeroamer kinda quit right before the start, I did most of the planning. I knew there would be an abundance of ORAS players, so my main focus was on trying to grab good OMers throughout the draft. My main picks were North, Confide, Wanka, and Cell to carry us, but unfortunately it didn't work out the way I planned. Cnorth and Confide won maybe two games combined. Confide's job was to help build OM teams for our squad. Crashy was also a crucial pick late, as he was decent at OMs as well. This season didn't go as I planned because the two players I spent the most money on didn't perform as well as I would have liked. My team was very fun to prep with, although we had a shitty season.

Omega-Xis

I prioritized versatility in this draft; I wanted other teams to look at my lineup and before the lineups came out, be unsure of who I would put and where. I think that was pretty clear considering I had two amazing UU players (Animus and Bush) who could've easily played something else (Bush played ORAS and won, and he almost had a STABmons win but lost due to hax) and Jak, who won in ORAS, BW, and STABmons. Had three players win in BW with Jyph, Jak, and Zarif. I could go on and on, but it's pretty clear that I wound up with a versatile team like I wanted and we made it to the semis. My team was great to be around. Our Smogon convo had upwards of 1,000 messages, which is way more than I had last year and more than I heard of other teams having. Overall, I wouldn't do anything differently. The draft was great, we were a solid team, and we had fun winning.

Bondie

I went into the draft with a list of players that my assman and I thought would be good to have on the team, not only through their skill but also people I thought would be good teamplayers, along with an estimate of how much money I'd be willing to spend on them. I feel like the draft went great—I got a lot of the players I had planned to get, and a few I had never expected would have played as well as they did.

Articuno I (Assman of Devious Diancies)

Dream Eater Gengar and I put in quite a bit of work before the auction. He knew which players would be worthwhile, while I was good at auctions and would be awake at the time. We spent a few hours discussing players, and I put together a Python program that would tell me how much each player would be worth, what metas they played, and so forth. Although the draft ended at 4 am and I made a few mistakes because I was struggling to stay awake, I feel the outcome was still pretty good—something that the results of the Premier League reflect.

Anttya

My goal for the auction was to get eight reliable people and totally forget about subs. Me and my manager Sae could teambuild and play for almost every tier, so we were willing to play in whatever we lacked. We also noticed tiers like Monothreat, BW, and UU had a shortage of good players, so we focused on people like Ticken, Balto, and Fírnen. We managed to get Ticken and Balto, but we lost Fírnen to the Ampharos. rozes was the winner of the AAA portion of OMGS and his teams proved that he was able to build, so we got him for 15.5K. Barian, Blackbloodz, and Confide made the ORAS core. I was hoping that Barian and Balto would help Bloodz and Confide build and test (which they did). As for Doubles, we initially settled on Skiddo, but the managers forced us to get another player, who happened to be n10sit, both very good players. Sae and I decided to play UU and STABmons, respectively.

The Early Weeks

The first four weeks of MPL were definitely some of the most hyped-up weeks, the other weeks being semi-finals and finals.

The three powerhouse teams that started off with a huge bang in the early weeks of MPL were the Affordable Ampharos, the Kinky Kinglers, and the Mauville Memers. All of these teams ended up with outstanding records, going 3-1 during the first four weeks due to having the most diverse and competent players.

The Ampharos had a solid start, destroying the Lucarios 5-3. Next week, however, they started falling apart, getting obliterated by the Altarias 2-6. In the 3rd week, they started bringing it back again. The Ampharos beat the Diancies 5-3, and proceeded to beat the Kinglers 5-3 as well in the 4th week. The most consistent player in their team, having four consecutive wins, was 1 True Lycan, who played AAA Monotype. He was able to prevent ties between the Ampharos and other teams three times. Overall, the Ampharos were an extremely solid team, snagging many wins due to teamwork and cooperation.

The Kinglers also had a pretty nice start to MPL. They started off with a bang, destroying the Swamperts 6-2. This showed their competence and power early on, creating a tough opponent. During the second week, the Kinglers got their next consecutive win against the Memers, beating them 5-3. They kept up their offensive prowess during the third week as well, beating the Altarias in a clean 5-3 and becoming the only team to go 3-0 during the first three weeks. However, their undefeated reign came to an end during the fourth week, where they lost to the Ampharos 5-3. The stars of the Kinglers were Dak Prescott and Yaksok, going with a 4-0 undefeated record and 3-1 record, respectively. They both focused on OMs only, the former playing both UU and then later STABmons for the rest of the tour and the latter playing only AAA. They served as the backbone of the team, supporting them through OMs. Overall, the Kinglers were a powerhouse team that managed to obtain numerous wins.

The last powerhouse team, the Memers, were nothing to be scoffed at either. Starting the season off by beating the Altarias 5-3, they were definitely a force to be reckoned with. During the second week, they suffered a defeat vs the Kinglers, losing 3-5. However, this would not stop them. During the third week, they crushed the Scizors 6-2, although due to lots of hax and RNG. In the fourth week, they were able to grab another win versus the Lucarios by defeating them 5-3. The most important player during this stage was definitely SocialSocialSocial, being the only one on the Memers who went 3-1. Social played Doubles and proved himself to be an innovation king after he surprised his opponents and claimed wins for his team. Overall, the Memers were definitely a power team and slightly lucky as well.

Oddly enough, there were numerous players who were expected to have an outstanding performance, only to fall short.

One of them was rozes, who was bought for a high amount of 15.5K but ended up going 0-4 during the first four weeks. rozes was mainly drafted due to his SPL and OMGS performance, but he did not seem to be doing well in Monotype. rozes was not as experienced in Monotype as other players and also dealt with outrageous hax against various players, making it even harder for him.

Another player was Confide, who was bought for 12K. Confide was bought due to his exceptional skill in building for OMs but fell short, going 0-3 in the first three weeks. Confide had very unfortunate matchups.

One final player was North, who was drafted for an enormous amount of 23K due to his outstanding MPL performance last year, going 4-1 in BW Monotype. This year, however, he performed poorly. With him going 0-3 in the first four weeks of MPL, players were definitely disappointed.

Highlight Match:

all falls down won in an intense match in ORAS during week 4 vs rnbs, which won him the week for the Swamperts

all falls down brought an interesting Ground team without sand, and rnbs brought pretty standard Flying. The match was leaning more in all falls down's side due to the pressure Stealth Rock provides versus Flying teams. However, rnbs got lucky with some misses, allowing him to Defog and still have a shot at the game. The game ended with all falls down's physically offensive presence proving to be too much for rnbs and winning him the game.

The Later Weeks

The later weeks were filled with intense battles, fighting for the top 4 spots. Every single team clung onto the hope of clinching finals, as they all had a chance. However, half the teams only had an extremely small chance, making these weeks the most important weeks to come. The Devious Diancies, the Lewd Lucarios, the Salacious Swamperts, and the Skilled Scizors all fought as well as they could in order to slip into the playoffs. The Diancies and the Lukes both had a record of one win and three losses, while the Swamperts and Scizors both had a record of one win, one tie, and two losses. However, only one team out of these four made it in.

Week 5: This week was filled with three unfortunate ties, making it even harder for the bottom teams to reach playoffs. The Diancies were the only team able to unveil a victory, beating the Memers 5-3 in some very close, hax-filled games. This brought up the chance for the Diancies to make it to playoffs tremendously, as they were now 2-3.

Highlight Match:

Tylacto won vs Ashaury in a game of Electric Monothreat, deciding the week. They both had annoying hax on their side, but ultimately, the decider of the game was an Ice Punch freeze on Ashaury's Eelektross, causing Tylacto to sweep the rest of his team, winning it for the Diancies, who would have otherwise tied with the Memers.

Week 6: This week was definitely the decider of who had a chance at playoffs and who had no chance. The Diancies won once again versus the Altarias, forcing the latter into an extremely tough spot and allowing the Diancies to have a bigger chance at playoffs. The Ampharos beat the Scizors, preventing the Scizors from entering the playoffs and boosting their own chance as well. The Memers destroyed the Swamperts 6-2, making the Swamperts unable to play in the playoffs. And finally, the Lucarios tied with the Kinglers, putting the Kinglers in a rough spot for playoffs and eliminating the Lucarios.

Win - Loss - Tie
Ambitious Altarias: 2 - 3 - 1
Affordable Ampharos: 4 - 1 - 1
Devious Diancies: 3 - 3 - 0
Kinky Kinglers: 3 - 1 - 2
Lewd Lucarios: 1 - 2 - 3 ELIMINATED
Mauville Memers: 4 - 2 - 0
Salacious Swamperts: 1 - 2 - 3 ELIMINATED
Skilled Scizors: 1 - 2 - 3 ELIMINATED

Week 7: The final race for the playoffs. The Altarias were barely hanging on there and needed to win and have the Diancies lose their match in order to enter playoffs. The Diancies needed a win if the Altarias managed to win, and the Kinglers needed a win to guarantee their spot. Funnily enough, 4/5 of the top five teams with a chance to get into playoffs battled each other. The Ampharos and the Memers dueled, although both had a guaranteed shot at playoffs, and the Diancies and the Kinglers fought. The Diancies and Kinglers had a really close week with the Kinglers beating them 5-3, clinching their semifinals spot and hurting the Diancies. Unfortunately, the Altarias lost their chance at playoffs after suffering a crushing defeat vs the Swamperts, who could not enter finals no matter what. This loss guaranteed the end of the line for the Altarias.

Week 8 (Semi-Finals): Four teams, and two reaching the finals. The Diancies were able to prevent the tie and win their series versus the Ampharos, knocking them out and entering the finals! Both teams fought hard, and it eventually came down to the final game, an ORAS match of rnbs vs ArkenCiel where both players played amazingly, with rnbs having the upper hand due to the Fairy versus Water matchup. In the end, Fairy spam eventually won versus Water, carrying the Diancies into the finals. Meanwhile, on the other side, there was a tie. Jyph managed to clutch the tie in a BW match vs the Kingler's Raseri. The matchup was Jyph's Psychic versus Raseri's Water, and Raseri had the upper hand initially. Eventually, he gave in to the combination of Bolt Strike Victini and Latios, which decimated his team, resulting in Jyph's win and a forced tiebreaker between the Memers and the Kinglers. After some discussion, the managers of the teams decided on three tiers: ORAS, STABmons, and Mono UU. The first match played was Mono UU, with Arifeen bringing Ground and Bushtush bringing Bug. Arifeen had a solid push at the start but ended up losing to Substitute + Sleep Powder Venomoth, resulting in the Memers leading 1-0. The next match was Paleo versus Ridley in a Fighting versus Ground matchup where Paleo beat Ridley quickly due to the combination of Breloom and Keldeo. The final match in the tiebreaker was pretty disappointing, as Dak Prescott obtained the win due to BlackJak bringing a banned move.

The Finals

The teams that reached finals were the Kinky Kinglers and the Devious Diancies. Kinky Kinglers were a favorite to win the tournament, and it wasn't too surprising that they made it to the finals. Devious Diancies, however, were one of the least favored teams to win the tournament, so it was pretty shocking that they reached this far. Of course, the Diancies faced a couple of situations where getting hax was the only way they'd have won and they did. Anyways, here's the lineup for the final:

The first game was Monothreat between LemonJello88 of the Kinglers and dolphindude14 of the Diancies, where LemonJello88 looked really strong in the beginning but dolphindude14's shocking Ludicolo set made him secure the win. Paleo and Yaksok won their games, giving the Kinglers a lead, despite their first loss. Silverwhiteblue and rnbs brought it back for the Diancies, both of them having type matchups against their opponent. Raseri won, making the score 3-3. Things looked very intense, as both teams needed to win two games to win the tournament. In the STABmons game of Dak Prescott and betathunder, betathunder won the game by being very lucky. Things looked grim for the Kinglers, but Knigkt brought it back for them by winning the UU game against Tylacto.

In the tiebreakers, the three tiers to be played were OU Monotype, STABmons Monotype, and UU Monotype. Here's the lineup:

The first match was Yaksok vs Betathunder, and the matchup didn't look fine at all, as Yaksok was using Dark and betathunder was using Fairy. In normal Monotype, this wouldn't be such a huge deal, but in STABmons it is, as every Pokémon has access to Moonblast, which Yaksok's team was very weak to. Betathunder broke the opposing team with Choice Scarf Moonblast Togekiss and finished with Azumarill. Things were looking very tense amidst the Kingler's team. They couldn't make any mistakes this time. The next match was Knigkt vs Shiba, where Knigkt brought a Ground team while Shiba brought a Fire team. Shiba was angry, as his Ninetales was not Drought, and Knigkt didn't want to redo. The matchup seemed to favor Knigkt at first, but after turn 7 everyone realized what was about to happen. Volcarona started to set up with Quiver Dance and had Giga Drain, a bane of Ground teams. Knigkt had it under control by using Dragon Tail with Zygarde on Volcarona, but it got burned due to Flame Body, which was a HUGE thing. This gave Shiba an amazing opportunity to set up with Volcarona again, which made him win the game. With this win, the Diancies won the Monotype Premier League, shocking everyone.

Closing Remarks

MPL was definitely an amazing performance, with lots of twists and close games. The Kinky Kinglers had an amazing season, and the bonds between the players became stronger. The manager of the Kinky Kinglers, Bondie, was a very good manager who was always available for any sort of help he could provide. Here's what he has to say regarding the season:

Bondie

Managing MPL was a great experience for me, regardless of the result. I enjoyed talking with all the members of the team and liked being able to help people with their teams if they needed it.

The Devious Diancies won the tournament not just because of getting good matchups and RNG, but because they earned it. The players of the team were very passionate, and Dream Eater Gengar, the manager, believed fully in them. Let us see what he has to say about the tournament:

Dream Eater Gengar

Managing such a great team in MPL was an awesome experience for me. Not only were they passionate and talented, but they were cool people, as we had an amazing Skype chat, which sometimes resulted in more than 1,000 messages per day. Sorry for all the luck on our side, this was a fun MPL.

Overall, the Monotype Premier League has lived up to its name as the biggest Monotype tournament and helped a lot of users integrate into the Smogon forums who were not familiar before.

Conclusion

Catch us later for a recap of NUPL!

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