BKC recounts all the drama and excitement of the SPL 6 season in his article including blarajan's first loss since SPL 4, the BIGs and Ruiners tied for first, as well as the leaders of each individual tier. This is definitely one to check out if you love the Smogon Premier League!
It is the best time of the year in the competitive scene, as the Smogon Premier League has just started. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned veteran, be sure to check out the Power Rankings in order to fully immerse yourself into this year's edition of everyone's favorite tournament.
Laurel brings you an interview with the winner of the Smogon Grand Slam: Lowgock. They talk about Lowgock's experience with the Grand Slam and how he prepared for it. ~Redew
In this article, unfixable will be going over the Other Metagames Premier League, the teams, and some highlight matches! There's also an interview with the OMPL winner's team's captain: Birkal! ~Redew
In this article, user reyscarface looks into the ways the tournament OU scene has changed over the past few months. He reviews which Pokemon are rising and falling in tournament usage and offers insights as to why. It's definitely a cool read, so check it out! ~Jellicent
The Smogon Grand Slam Playoffs are just around the corner, and I'm sure many of you are wondering who will take home the crown in this tournament's 3rd season. Have no fear, as these Power Rankings offer a comprehensive list of who the best players in these playoff truly are, and which of them are more likely to take home the trophy. ~Redew
Thought you knew everything there was to know about Smogon Tour? Guess again! reyscarface tells us anything and everything about Smogon Tour. Who knows, you might find out something you never knew before! ~Redew
The Competitor's Tomahawk interviewed Melee Mewtwo, the Ubers Open host. He asked about his thoughts interviewing the Open and his thoughts on hosting it for the first time. ~Redew
GGamer had an opportunity to interview Mizuhime, the runner-up in the recent Doubles Open. They had a chance to discuss Mizuhime's thought process entering the whole thing, how she prepared, and other fun stuff. ~Redew
aim had yet another chance to interview someone! This time it was LC open's winner chimpact. They talk about what kind of playstyle chimpact used and the help he got for this Open. ~Redew
The Competitor's aim had a chance to interview UU Open winner New Breed. The discuss New Breed's thoughts on the tournament and how he prepped for it. Who knows, you might be able to get a few tips from what he has to say! Go read! ~Redew
Smogon Tour has been underway, and The Competitor's s_aman is bringing you coverage! Read up and find out who won in the first week. Look out for more Smogon Tour coverage in the future! ~Redew
Sorry for the delay! In this issue of "Recently in Tournaments", we give you the scoop on the third Grand Slam, the World Cup of Pokemon finals, Smogon Frontier 8, Smogon Tour 18, the new Offical Ladder Tour, and a few other tournaments, as well. ~Redew
No, this isn't a duplicate post! This interview has been in the works for a while, but hasn't been able to be posted due to technical reasons. Anyway! Laurel has interviewed Doubles tier leader Pwnemon, Doubles Slam host. In it, he gets a history of Doubles, as well as the history of Doubles inclusion in Grand Slam. ~Redew
The Competitor's EonX recently had an opportunity to interview Pwnemon, the Doubles Open host. They discuss the Doubles metagame as a whole and Pwnemon gives some insight on some names to watch as the Doubles Open unfolds. ~Redew
The Competitor's EonX is back with another interview. This time he interviews former RU leader Oglemi about the RU Open, the current suspect test, and the impact it could have on the tier as the RU Open draws near. ~Redew
EonX has interviewed top LC player and mod macle! They focused on LC Open, but also discuss a little bit about LC as a whole. They also discuss favorites, possible dark horses, and who macle thinks will win the whole thing. Read up to find out macle's top picks! ~Redew
The Competitor's s_aman had a chance to interview this year's Smogon Frontier host, reyscarface. rey outlines how he got into Pokémon and Smogon in general, which led to hosting the Frontier this year. He also talks about this year and last year's differences in formats. ~Redew
Hey, all! User Zebraiken has written a guide for you to use in (IV) tnemanruoT esreveR ehT! In it, he outlines the rules and gives some tips on what you can do to win. If you're interested in playing (and winning!), give it a read! ~Redew
The Competitor's EonX has interviewed tier leader kokoloko and UU player imitless for thier thoughts on the UU Open as well as UU as a whole. Come read about their top picks for the UU open and other predictions! ~Redew
The Competitor's aim got a chance to sit down with blarajan a little while back to discuss the Team Asia manager's thoughts on WCoP. You can read up on everything from blarajan's strategies for organizing his team to his reflections on the current state of WCoP below. ~Jellicent
aim has interviewed renowned tourney player and team builder CTC. In it, he asks CTC how he builds his teams, how he helps build for his friends, and more. If you're a new player looking for tips on team building, read this interview for some of the best tips you can find! ~Redew
ShakeItUp -Tsunami- brings us the latest coverage in the Underused Premier League. In it, six teams face off to determine who the strongers players in UU are. Over the course of many weeks, players have won, lost, not logged on, and johned their way to victory. Read the article to find out more on who stands were! ~Redew
We're back with the second installment of Recently in Tournaments. This issue, we cover OST 10's finals matches, Week 8 of Smogon Tour 17, The Doubles Circuit's 1st Spring Seasonal, and some of the other happenings in the Tournaments forum. So, what are you waiting for? Go check out the article! ~Jellicent
In the second half of his two-part interview series, Typhlito sits down with OST semi-finalists yan[sogeking] and Atticus. To hear their thoughts on the OST10's biggest upsets, toughest opponents, and their fellow semi-finalists, click below. ~Jellicent
In the first half of his two-part interview of the OST10 semi-finalists, Typhlito sits down with CTC and Valentine. To find out both of their thoughts on the burgeoning XY OU metagame, as well as the biggest highlights and upsets of OST10, click the button below. Don't forget to keep an eye for part two, where Typhlito will be getting the latest from yan[sogeking] and Atticus. Happy reading, friends ^.^ ~Jellicent
There's been a ton of activity in the tournament scene lately, and this article is just what you need to catch up on all of the action. In this installment, we'll be taking a look at SPL's finals, OST's quarterfinals, Smogon Tour Week 4, and some of the unofficial tournaments that recently wrapped up. There's plenty to read up on, so dive in! ~Jellicent
Smogon Tour has kicked off once again, and Lady Salamence has covered all you need to know about last weekend's battles. In it, she sums up the battles and battlers, and challenges they faced while going through it. Check out next week's coverage to stay up to date with Smogon Tour!
Sadly, though, this is her last article here with us. LS has retired and will be moving on to better things with her life, and everyone on the competitor staff wishes her well. ~Redew
While the PS! forum sits around debating who to interview, I've gone ahead and interviewed one of them. Hugendugen, the Ubers tier leader, PS! administrator, and asisstant manager of the Team Raiders, has allowed himself to be interviewed before all this PS! interview riff raff, and we discuss stuff such as Atticus leaving, MarceloDK, and how horrible a player Furai is. Enjoy! ~Lady Salamence
This time around, we've got a doozy of an interview for you guys. FireMage has interviewed not one, but all three members of the managers leading The Cryonicles. yondie, the manager and smartest user on the forums, GPA wise; M Dragon, assistant manager, Tournament Director, and OU Council member; and Snunch, assistant manager, OST winner and XY UU Council member. The interview covers plenty of things—retainees, players (predominately BasedVictory), Snunch/M Dragon's choice to become assistant managers, and other interesting stuff! I hope you enjoy! ~Lady Salamence
After a lengthy hiatus, RoA Mini-Tournaments are back in action. For the 11th Mini-Tour, players will be competing in the ADV 200 metagame, where only Pokemon available in Ruby and Sapphire are legal. For those unfamiliar with the metagame, you can learn more about it here. Be sure to sign up quickly, and best of luck to all! ~Jellicent
Ignore the date this says it's published on, this was totally released last night (and because of that, last week) as opposed to it coming out this week. Anyways, we interview Tournament Director, OU Council member, and manager of the Alpha Ruiners, McMeghan! Coming off of a recent 1-2 punch win in both the Battle Factory and BW UU Tournaments, edging him over Earthworm for the title of most successful Tournaments player. Naturally, the interview covered that, as well as various other stuff such as the !reset, and switching over from being a manager last season to a player this one. Enjoy! ~Lady Salamence
After a week or so off from recovering from the massive interview that was BKC's, another interview has been pushed through the woodwork! This time, I interview the illustrious macle of The Smog Frogs (what other team would he be on). This interview, we discuss favorite frogs, reyscarface's excellent record, Smog Frog smacktalkers aerialace TM40 and yan[sogeking], as well as plenty of other stuff, enjoy! ~Lady Salamence
Next up in our line of hopefully many more interviews, I've interviewed BKC, the leader of The Indie Scooters, on topics such as SPL Tiers, the team's rebirth (if you can call it that!), some well-known tournament names, and other topics! This is an excellent interview, and I hope you all enjoy! ~Lady Salamence
As stated below, Smogon Premiere League is well underway, and I secured an interview with two Team Managers. The first one, Philip7086, co-manager of The Stark Sharks, is linked below, and should be read before this one. Which is, of course, the interview with the Ever Grande BIGS top manager, Funkasaurus. Enjoy! ~Lady Salamence
Currently underway, the Smogon Premiere League is a tournament that brings much drama, be it friendships ending/beginning, people being accused and perhaps proven of cheating, players quitting teams, and a whole other slew of fun stuff for delete-happy Oglemi to deal with. I secured an interview with two SPL Team Managers, whom I interviewed consecutevely. The first one, Philip7086, is the co-manager of The Stark Sharks, and provided an excellent interview. ~Lady Salamence
With Smogon Premier League about to start, there has been a lot of talk about what team is best. Featuring many players from all of Smogon, the Power Rankings offer a comprehensive list of who is the best of the best in the eyes of the players themselves and what teams we can expect to see in the playoffs. ~reyscarface
Looking for a tournament where you can make the OU metagame the way you want it to be? Then this tournament hosted by papai noel is the perfect tournament for you! Upon signing up, players must include 2 Pokemon, moves, or items they wish to ban, and these bans will stay in effect until all players banning the Pokemon, move, or item in question are eliminated. Be sure to sign up, as a tournament of this nature is sure to be interesting! ~cbt
Just over a week ago, the Smogon Grand Slam concluded with kokoloko and Bad Ass being the remaining two finalists. Fortunately, as some people would probably say, Bad Ass triumphed over kokoloko to earn the turquoise trophy. Congratulations Bad Ass! Read the interview with Bad Ass by clicking the button below. FireMage has also done an interview with two other finalists, Heist and Fuzznip; click on their names to read their interviews. Happy holidays from The Comeptitor! ~sandshrewz
The Smogon Tour recently concluded with BKC winning the coveted purple trophy after defeating Boudouche. PDC has kindly uploaded the videos of the battles on YouTube. Follow the links for the ADV, BW, and DPP matches or click the button below to jump to PDC's post with all of the videos embedded. You can also read BKC's interview as recently announced. Congratulations BKC on winning the Smogon Tour too! ~sandshrewz
The Smogon Premier League draft was just two days ago, and kd24 is back with another article discussing the draft and how the decisions made will affect the season. ~cbt
Due to his recent success in Smogon Tour 16, I interviewed BKC to gain some insight on how he reached the finals for the 2nd time in 3 seasons. If you would like some insight from someone of his caliber in regards to said tournament, definitely give this a read! ~cbt
The player auction for the fifth Smogon Premier League will be held tommorow at 1:30 PM EST in the synIRC channel #spl. Don't miss it, it should be a very interesting event! ~cbt
Each generation, there are a couple tiers that are playable. Since the beginning of Pokemon in RBY, UU has been one of them. Right below OU, plenty of powerful Pokemon reside in it, due to being outclassed, hard-countered by a more popular Pokemon, or just not up to the expectations expected of an OU Pokemon (but to be fair, Gastrodon is OU). This tournament will involve the latest (as of the signups) UU tier, the Black and White UnderUsed tier. For those wishing to settle their craving for the metagame, or just are interested in XY's UU tier and want a feeling of what the previous generation's tier was, this is for you. ~Lady Salamence
Hosted by Lunar., this tournament had participants play best-of-3 games between UU, OU, and Ubers, with the losers of Game 1 picking the Game 2 tier, and the unpicked tier being played in Game 3. The finals were between King, Laurel, and Vinc2612. In the 1st series between King and Vinc, Vinc won OU, lost UU, and won Ubers. King was then eliminated by Laurel, losing Ubers and OU, leaving it up to Laurel and Vinc to decide the winner. Laurel won the series 2-0 by beating Vinc in Ubers and OU. Congrats to Laurel on his win, and also to King and Vinc2612 for reaching the finals. ~cbt
It's that time of year again, folks! The best of the best players from nearly every tier all are coming together to participate in the Smogon Premiere League Five! One of Smogon's most cherished and anticipated tournaments, The Smogon Premiere League works similar to fantasy football, except the players you draft actually fight and communicate with members of their team! Many thanks go to the Tournament Director team, hoster Oglemi, and the managers for deciding on the list of metagames to be played. This tournament is going to be a very excellent tournament, sign up and try out while you can! ~Lady Salamence
Looking for a break from standard tournaments? Then join the 6th incarnation of this tournament hosted by RODAN and Stellar. The ruleset is the same as always, with each participant getting 6 random fully evolved Pokemon that are not Uber at the beginning of each round, with new Pokemon being distributed at the beginning of each new round. Movesets, EVs and other factors are up to you though, and this is also the 1st incarnation of the tournament to be played with XY mechanics. Come sign up, as the randomization will make the tournament highly interesting! ~cbt
After a bunch of tournaments focused on OU, UU, and Ubers, this is a tournament where the host, cbt, will allow the great minds of the under-recognized tiers to shine, in a best-of-3 tournament spanning, as the tournament's name suggests, the BW LC, RU, and NU tiers. All three of these tiers are exciting and well-balanced, due to the constant refinement that the tiers went through for the entirety of BW. Signups have been going for a bit now, hurry before it's too late! ~Lady Salamence
Bored of standard BW OU? How about a tournament that has a twist! In this tournament, hosted by FireMage, players are sent 6 Pokemon randomly to form their starting team. After winning, you can choose to swap up to 2 Pokemon with your opponent's. Like the Battle Factory in-game, switching is not compulsory. This is a best of three tournament, however, and you're allowed to change movesets between games. No, sorry to say, Philip7086 isn't the Factory Head. Regardless, it'll still be a fun non-standard tournament so do sign up. ~sandshrewz
It's time to grab your starter Pokemon and travel throughout the Kalos region: Smogon style! This tournament, which is hosted by Vinc2612, will have each round placed in a specific part of the XY gameplay, such as in Lumiose City. The Pokemon selection, level, and items allowed are all based off of the location of the round! If you want to play through the story once again and defeat other trainers as you go to reach the top, don't waste another minute to join this exciting tournament! ~Governess
Ever wonder how the standard metagame would function without the presence of recovery and entry hazards? Then look no further then this tournament hosted by Governess and Celever. Any form of recovery, be it instant recovery moves, HP-draining moves, items such as Leftovers, or the use of Pokemon with abilities such as Water Absorb, is banned, as well as the aforementioned entry hazards. What will dominate or leave obscurity in this metagame? Come sign up to find out! ~cbt
All the legendary and pseudo-legendary Pokemon that didn't already reside in Ubers were treated as such in this otherwise standard tournament, which was hosted by GCSChris. In the finals, BKC was pitted against Myzozoa. In this sand stall vs hyper offense matchup, it was a well-played game until an endgame Focus Blast crit from Myzozoa's Alakazam hit BKC's Blissey, allowing Myzozoa to narrowly win. The battle log can be viewed here. Congrats to Myzozoa for winning, BKC for nearly doing so, and thanks to GCSChris for hosting! ~cbt
Ever since the introduction of Gen V, an option called Team Preview—which allowed both players to see each other's line of Pokemon—has been utilized to create strategies or lure out specific threats. In this tournament, that wonderful feature is now banned from play, leaving a surprise element in each match. Hosted by Houndoomsday, it is a BW2 OU tour, and each match has a best-of-three format. If this sounds interesting to any OU player out there, don't hesitate to join this tour ASAP! ~Governess
Would you find playing the original Pokemon metagame interesting? If so, definitely sign up for this tournament hosted by Oglemi, where the Special Attack and Special Defense stats are combined into one simply known as Special, critical hits run rampant due to base Speed being a factor in critical hit ratios, and Normal- and Psychic-types rule the battlefield. As the aforementioned information may suggest, the tournament is standard RBY OU in a best-of-3 format. Come sign up if you wish to have some Tauros wars or wish to troll opponents with the infamous RBY Wrap! ~cbt
In this tournament, Pokemon from the DPP UU metagame that hadn't been or were previously a part of BW RU were dropped into the RU metagame at a rate of 4-6 Pokemon per round by host Oglemi. The finals were between llvallejoll and Nails. Despite some hax by llvallejoll and various teambuilder mistakes by Nails, Nails managed to pull off the win, with his Spike-stacking offense prevailing against llvallejoll's Spikes-vulnerable bulky offensive team. The replay can be viewed here. Congrats to Nails for his win, llvallejoll for his finals run, and thanks to Oglemi for hosting! ~cbt
The Smogon Omaha Tournament, hosted by yours truly, is the competitive Pokémon rendition of the popular card game. In this tournament, each participant sends a couple of Pokémon to the host, and then, each round, takes 3 community Pokémon, which are explained in the thread, as well as three of their own, to make a team to battle their opponent with! Join now! ~Lady Salamence
Hosted by FireMage, this tournament defies the rules and allows ghosting, a term used to define other players watching a match and giving the battlers instructions and hints to win. The players got together in groups of three in attempts to make it to the final round and claim victories; they even got to give cool names to their groups. Team DerDomme (Lowgock, DerDomme, and DaFlo) and Team Ghost Busters (Alexander., Uomo Solo, and Son of Zeus) faced off in the final round. Ending in a measly 11 turns, Team Ghost Busters swept with Volcarona to gain victory. Congrats to both teams for making it to the finals! ~Governess
Also part of the Smogon Grand Slam, this tournament had players battle in standard NU each round in a best-of-3 format, being hosted by Zebraiken. The final bout for top NUer was between aerialace TM40, Bloo, and Soulgazer. In both of his matchups, Soulgazer won the 1st game, but both of his opponents came back and won the remaining 2 games, leaving it up to aerialace and Bloo to decide the victor. Bloo defeated aerialace 2-1 in this pivotal matchup, giving him yet another tournament win. Congrats to Bloo for his victory, aerialace and Soulgazer for making the finals, and thanks to Zebraiken for being a good host! ~cbt
Hosted by Audiosurfer, the Doubles Doubles tournament consisted of tag-teams that were randomly generated at the start of the tour. As the name suggests, the matches were played in the Doubles metagame format. In the final round, Team 25 (cbt and CBKyogre) and Team 7 (BlankZero and Alf) battled against each other. CBKyogre defeated BlankZero in their match, but cbt lost to Alf, which left CBKyogre and Alf's match as the tiebreaker. While it was a close and intense game, Alf defeated CBKyogre, giving Team 7 the win. Congratulations to both teams for making it to such an exciting finals! ~Governess
In a wacky tournament named after and originally hosted by RODAN, it was anything but ordinary. All Pokemon used in this tour must be over 220 pounds; however, one Pokemon that does not fit this criteria is allowed for each round. In the final round, cbt and Laurel, faced off against each other, with cbt defeating Laurel in a close match. Congratulations to cbt on the victory, Laurel for making it to the finals, and RODAN and Oglemi for hosting! ~Governess
Also part of the Smogon Grand Slam, this tournament had players battle in standard Ubers each round in a best-of-3 format, being hosted by Furai after the original host, former Ubers leader bojangles, quit Smogon. The final bout for top Uberer was between Bad Ass and Ciele, both reaching it without playing a single semifinal game, caused by scheduling issues and a ghosting controversy that led to several users receiving 2 month tournament bans, respectively. In Game 1, both players used offensive teams, but badass came out on top by cleaning up with Deoxys-A in the endgame, helped in part by a lategame misplay by Ciele. In Game 2, both players brought offense once again, but smart plays allowed badass to win yet again, clinching him the victory. Congrats to Bad Ass for winning, Ciele for nearly doing so, and thanks to bojangles and Furai for hosting! ~cbt
Are you wondering where this tournament got its name? Simply put, a user named DerDomme decided to donate one million Pokedollars to the winner, and the tour's host, Sapientia, named the tournament after him to express his gratitude. Moving to the point, this will be a standard ADV OU tournament with no real twists to it; there are only a limited amount of space for signups, so don't waste any time joining this unique tournament! ~Governess
Hosted by Birkal until he became too busy to host, which caused Tournament Director Vinc2612 to take over the hosting duties from Round 3 onward, this tournament showcased an extremely interesting concept that originated from the All-Star Week of SPL 4. The ruleset was 1v1, in which you picked 3 Pokemon at signups, but your opponent got to pick the Pokemon they wanted during the duration of the tournament. The finals were between Frizy and Raseri. In the matchup between Raseri's Celebi and Frizy's Landorus, Frizy's use of Substitute was taken advantage of by Raseri, as he was able to trick Landorus a Choice Scarf, then proceeded to continually use Hidden Power Ice to break Frizy's forced Substitutes, leading to his victory. The replay can be viewed here. Congratulations to Raseri for winning, and also to Frizy for his near victory! ~cbt
Current UU tiering leader kokoloko hosted this standard UU tournament which is also part of the Grand Slam. It was played out in best-of-3 format, and points were given for winning in each round, which will later decide who goes to the playoffs later on. The finals were between DestinyUnknown and Fuzznip. In Game 1, both players brought teams that were intent on spreading paralysis, but Fuzznip prevailed, being helped by Dunk making a variety of poor plays on his part, which led to his demise at the hands of a CurseLax. In Game 2, both players brought low quality teams, and it was full of poor plays by both, and disconnections by Dunk, the 2nd of which allowed Fuzznip to win by way of battle timeout. Congrats to Fuzznip for his win, and also to DestinyUnknown for reaching the finals! ~CBTerrakion
Hosted by the RU tier leader, Oglemi, the second incarnation of the prestigious RU Open has finally came to a close. Many players have gathered to see who would claim the title of an RU champ, and in the end it boiled down to Bloo, the Head Tournament Director, Dice, a well-know tournament participant, and Wepwnemon, an esteemed RU player. The finals starts off with Dice defeating Wepwnemon 2-0, giving Dice the advantage so far. The next match was between Bloo and Dice; if Dice won, he would become the RU Open II winner. The first battle was tight, and both players made very smart predictions in terms of who to switch in and out into. However, a SubSalac Scolipede on Dice's team was the icing on the cake, sweeping the remaining half of Bloo's team. In the second match, it was also a very close match; Bloo was left with a paralyzed +1 Speed Kabutops as his remaining Pokemon against Dice's team of three. While it was very promising, an unwanted paralysis fell upon Kabutops, which ultimately gave Dice the win. Congratulations to Dice as the champion of the RU Open II, Bloo and Wepwnemon for making it to the finals, and Oglemi for hosting the tournament! ~Governess
We have reached the midway point in the Smogon Tour 16, and the rankings are slowly beginning to lock into place. Which members will be ranked as the top 16? Week 4 had amazing matches and interesting stories from our winners; ADV OU was this week's main tier. The competition is getting fierce; who will crack first? ~Governess
Ever wonder what OU would be like if all the legendary and pseudo-legendary Pokemon that reside in it and the lower tiers were banned? Well, look no further then this tournament hosted by GCSChris, in which all these "overpowered" Pokemon are banned. Will their banning cause a massive imbalance in the metagame, or will it make the metagame even better? Sign up to find out! ~CBTerrakion
The Best of 3 Tournament II, hosted by Lunar., has begun its signup phase! The gist of this tournament is fairly simple: it is played in a best-of-three format with BW2 OU, BW2 UU, and BW2 Ubers as the metagame choices. Both players choose which tier they wish to play, with the loser then choosing the following tier to play. If the score wounds up as 1-1, the unchosen tier is played; each tier can only be played once. Don't miss out on this opportunity; sign up now! ~Governess
Week 3 of the Smogon Tour had some thrilling BW2 OU matches and interesting winners; if you couldn't watch them, make sure to read on! Week 4 is just around the corner, and with every week, we are getting closer and closer to finding our finalists! ~Governess
Hosted by Furai and FireMage, this tournament was made to bring out the UBER spirit inside of our Smogonites, focus heavily on teambuilding skills, and to test the participant's knowledge of the said metagame. To join, you must be in a group of five, and each member will be given a division, or a restriction, for their match. When they battle another team, the members with the same division will battle, and the team with the most wins will advance! For all the Ubers players out there, don't miss out on a tournament like this! ~Governess
This near-standard tournament was hosted by Steven Snype and Da Letter El until they became too busy to host, causing Tournament Director Vinc2612 to take over the hosting duties from Round 3 onward. The theme was the banning of all Dream World abilities, which made Pokemon such as Politoed and Garchomp unusable in this metagame. The finals were between BKC and Malekith. BKC won in a very close game, using his well known sand stall team against Malekith's offensive hail team. Despite an early freeze by Malekith, BKC surged back to a 1-0 victory due to a variety of poor plays on Malekith's part. The battle log can be viewed here. Congrats to BKC for winning, and also to Malekith for making the finals! ~CBTerrakion
Hosted by Jorgen, this tournament seeks to showcase a GSC metagame without a dominant threat in Snorlax, and for balancing purposes, Zapdos and Raikou with Hidden Power are banned. Will the metagame be more balanced, or will the removal of these Pokemon cause imbalance and a new Pokemon's domination? Sign up to find out! ~CBTerrakion
While you might think that having all of your Pokemon defeated results in a loss, in this tournament, it's exactly the opposite! Hosted by M Dragon, the participants must lost their match in order to advance. A three-way final between DarkLoïc, Eo Ut Mortus, and SoulWind broke out; Eo was defeated by both of his opponents, making him the winner (loser) of the tournament! Congratulations to all three of these players for reaching the final round! ~Governess
Week 2 of the Smogon Tour has just finished up, and we have the intel on the three winners! It is still quite early in the tour, so no clear winner can be picked just yet. The matches that were played in week 2 were in DPP OU format. Great matches went down this week, so don't miss out on reading about it! ~Governess
The Neverused Story tournament, which was hosted by FireMage, took the participants through each NU tier that has existed, starting from the ADV NU to the current BW2 NU. Annoyer and PasY_G played a best-of-3 match in the finals; while both players displayed a great amount of skill, Annoyer reigned victorious in a 2-0 sweep, playing ADV NU in the first match and DPP NU in the second. Congratulations to Annoyer for the win, PasY_G for making it to the finals, and FireMage for hosting a tournament that NU players could enjoy! ~Governess
DPP UU and BW RU are known for being somewhat similar metagames, with Pokemon such as Moltres and Kabutops being very common in both tiers. However, some DPP UU Pokemon, such as Donphan and Milotic, have never seen the light of RU due to frequent usage in BW UU or OU. This tournament, hosted by Oglemi, seeks to fix that problem, with various DPP UU Pokemon that aren't currently RU being released into the metagame each round. Will these higher-tier Pokemon break the metagame, or will they make it more balanced? Come sign up to see for yourself! ~CBTerrakion
The official Smogon Tour 16 has begun, and we are looking forward to the intense battles and drama that will take place this season! We were a little late in delivering the up-to-date news on the tour for week 1, but bear with us! Just like last season, a weekly coverage of how the matches turn out will posted to fill you in on the winners. This week's matches are played in the ADV OU metagame. Don't forget to join in on the tournament yourself! ~Governess
In this exciting OU tournament that is hosted by FireMage, Pokemon can only use moves—be it support or attack moves—that grant them a STAB boost; for example, Latios can use Dragon Dance and Psyshock in its moveset because the moves either match its typing or gives Latios a STAB boost, respectively. However, Latios cannot use Hidden Power Fire or Roost, as they do not match Latios's typing. This is the type of tournament you wouldn't want to miss out on, so sign up now! ~Governess
The 2nd incarnation of the LC Open, hosted by blarajan, is Smogon's annual official LC tournament, and is part of the Grand Slam. It is played in a best-of-3 format, and the further you go into the Open, the more points you get, which count towards getting into the Smogon Tour-style playoffs and potentially a turquoise trophy! Come sign up to see how you fare in LC against top players! ~CBTerrakion
Smogon Doubles has been the "hot new meta" as of late, as it will be the next metagame to gain official status when Generation VI arrives in due time. It has forayed into the tournaments forum once before, but this tournament, hosted by Audiosurfer, will be double the fun of the original! This is because everyone is randomly assigned to a tag team with another participant, which may make for some interesting pairings and strategy. In the case of a 1-1 situation between 2 teams, the winners of each of the 2 battles will battle it out in a tiebreaker. Come sign up, as the doubled fun will draw you in! ~CBTerrakion
Hosted by H-C until he became too busy with LoL to host, this tournament featured a standard OU metagame, but with the option to use various Uber Pokemon that were once OU, such as Thundurus-I and Genesect. These now-banned Pokemon were usually unbanned at the rate of 1-2 Pokemon per round. The finals were between MarceloDK and PasY_G. MarceloDK won in their finals bout, making excellent use of an annoying Liepard set that abused Prankster Assist, the latter of which allowed him to phaze around PasY_G's team to win as they died to entry hazards. The battle log can be viewed here. Congrats to Marcelo for his win, and also to Pasy for reaching the finals! ~CBTerrakion
Hosted by Eo Ut Mortus, this tournament had participants play standard DPP UU in a best-of-1 format until the quarterfinals, at which it became best-of-3 from there on out. The finals were between kael and llvallejoll. The actual match never happened despite their similar timezones, and after a month of trying to get them to complete their match, Eo gave llvallejoll the activity win due to him being more proactive in getting it done. Congrats to llvallejoll for winning and being proactive, and to kael for reaching the finals and getting an activity loss in said finals! ~CBTerrakion
What a summer it was for Smogon! Especially for the players who participated in The Summer of #Tournaments, which had countless tournaments rolled into one! For nine weeks, players of all expertise took part in tournaments hosted by a variety of members, and we have the results of them all! Read on to see how all this turned out! To see the tournament information, visit the Original 9-Week Thread and the Playoffs thread. ~Governess
With such major success as a host this past summer, FireMage was interviewed to learn his secrets on how he stayed sane despite the workload he was under. This is an excellent read for anyone who is wanting to host tournaments in the future, as well as to see FireMage's personality first-hand! ~Governess
The 8th edition of the Smogon Frontier recently concluded, and despite the fact that no normal challenger managed to conquer the 13 brains within 30 days, the brains themselves were allowed to challenge their fellow brains for a short period of time after the 30 day period. Most declined, but Tower Tycoon reyscarface decided to take on his fellow brains. 12 days later, a new holder of the coveted green trophy was crowned. Rey defeated Pike Queen SoulWind in the decisive match. Congrats Rey on your conquest of Frontier, and welcome to the illustrious club of green trophy winners, and thanks to all the brains, challengers, and host Eo Ut Mortus for making it a great tournament! ~CBTerrakion
The 2nd incarnation of the NU Open, hosted by Zebraiken, is Smogon's annual official NU tournament, and is part of the Grand Slam. It is played in a best-of-3 format, and the further you go into the Open, the more points you get, which count towards getting into the Smogon Tour-style playoffs and potentially a turquoise trophy! Come sign up to see how you fare in NU against top players! ~CBTerrakion
While a third party telling the players in battle what move to make (which is also known as ghosting) is often frowned upon, this tournament encourages it! In this OU tournament that is hosted by FireMage, players form teams of three, and each round, one of the members of the crew will battle while the remaining members can freely give advice to their teammate! Grab your friends and sign up quickly, as this is a tournament where rules can be broken and backstabbing is in the air! ~Governess
Hosted by Lady Salamence and GemOftheDay, the Salary Cap Tournament showcases an interesting concept in the way of 64 handpicked participants having to draft Pokemon for use on their teams. Each participant has $80,000 to spend and may pick a maximum of 10 Pokemon for use, with minimum bids and Pokemon availability decreasing with the higher tiers. For example, the minimum bid for Politoed is 10k, but there are 5 Politoed available between all the players, making lower tier Pokemon useful for the reasons shown earlier. Come sign up, as this is sure to be eye-catching with the bidding factor involved! ~CBTerrakion
In the Sequels are Never Good tournament, players had to play in a best-of-three format in RSE 200, DP OU, and BW1 OU, with banlists being adjusted for each tier. (i.e. Garchomp is legal in DP OU, but not in BW1) The finals were a 3 man affair between BaBa flirt, Colchonero, and M Dragon. Baba flirt beat Colchonero in RSE 200, but lost DP, and Colchonero requested a replay of BW due to him winning by way of hax. Over 2 weeks later, Baba flirt also beat M Dragon in RSE 200, but also lost DP. M Dragon beat Colchonero 2-0 in RSE 200 and DP. However, because Baba flirt couldn't do the BW match with M Dragon, M Dragon was given the win. Congrats to M Dragon for winning, and also to Colchonero and BaBa flirt for making the finals! ~CBTerrakion
In Rodan Cup, which was named for and created by its host, participants play standard OU, but are required to use heavy Pokemon with a weight of 220 pounds or greater (like Rodan), and one lighter Pokemon will be allowed and encouraged for use each round. Grass Knot and Low Kick are banned, and Aerodactyl is required for use in the finals. Come sign up if you want to play this fat metagame! ~CBTerrakion
Players did not have to use the standard six Pokemon on their team in this tournament, and the number of Pokemon a player uses mirrors how many they had to defeat to win! In the finals, a best-of-three match between Ezio and Dice took place. Dice defeated Ezio with a score of 2-0, making him the winner! The replays can be seen here and here. Congratulations to both our finalists and to Vaz for hosting such an exciting tournament! ~Governess
Head Tournament Director, Bloo, has recently announced the starting date for Smogon Tour 16: Friday, September 6th. This tournament will revolve around three metagames: ADV OU, DPP OU, and BW2 OU. It will take place on Pokemon Online, on the Groudon's Grotto server. The Smogon Tour 16 will last for 9 weeks, and with each win, you earn points that might get you a spot in the finals! Don't miss out on this opportunity, and spread the news to your friends! ~Governess
The 2nd incarnation of the Ubers Open, hosted by ibojangles, is Smogon's annual official Ubers tournament, and is part of the Grand Slam. It is played in a best-of-3 format, and the further you go into the Open, the more points you get, which counts towards getting into the playoffs, Smogon Tour style, where you could win a trophy! Come sign up to see how you fare in Ubers against top players! ~Lady Salamence
In Tier Shift, all lower tier Pokemon get stat boosts in each base stat ranging from 5 to 15 points, making Pokemon such as Golurk and Stoutland formidable threats. A tournament showcasing it hosted by the tier's creator, PureQuestion, recently concluded. The finals were between Ciele and Dice. Ciele brought rain, while Dice brought sun. However, Ciele won by bringing out a Choice Scarf Zweilous, which KOed 3 of Dice's Pokemon with Outrage. The replay can be viewed here. Congrats to Ciele for his victory, and also to Dice for making the finals! ~CBTerrakion
Recently, Team US East won the World Cup of Pokemon. Who better to interview other than the team captain Stone_Cold? Say hello to guest sirndpt as well! Read this interview to find out the story behind East's success. Congratulations to Team US East as well! ~sandshrewz
The 2nd incarnation of the RU Open, hosted by Oglemi, is Smogon's annual official RU tournament, and is part of the Grand Slam. It is played in a best-of-3 format, and the further you go into the Open, the more points you get, which counts towards getting into the playoffs. Come sign up to see how you fare in RU against top players! ~CBTerrakion
In the Easter Egg Tournament, hosted by lapras6666, participants had to pick eggs which had various restrictions on teambuilding. Hyperbeem won the tournament after defeating Vinc2612 and gr8astard in the finals. Hosted by Dice, the RBY Tradebacks Tournament featured standard RBY OU with the addition of "tradebacks", which are Pokemon with RBY moves only learned in GSC, which they normally don't learn, such as ThunderPunch Gengar. SoulWind defeated DestinyUnknown and Cristal to win the 3 man finals of the tournament.
Hosted by undisputed, Smogon Superstars IV was the fourth installment of a tournament testing the skills of Smogon's best players in ADV, DPP, and BW OU. In the finals, panamaxis defeated LizardMan to win this invitational tournament. Congratulations to the aformentioned winners and finalists for their accomplishments!
Two official tournaments have commenced in recent days, the Smogon Grand Slam and the Smogon Frontier, hosted by Vinc2612 and Eo Ut Mortus, respectively. Grand Slam consists of 5 Opens which feature Smogon's other official tiers outside of OU, and the top 8 in points (similar to Smogon Tour points) go on to a playoff round after the opens have concluded. The Smogon Frontier requires that players face 13 Frontier Brains, and in order to win, one must beat 12 of them with a maximum of 2 rematches. Be sure to sign up for either if you wish to vie for the turquoise or green trophy respectively. Note that today is the last day for sign-ups for the Smogon Frontier! Sign-ups for the UU Open have already closed, but you can sign up for the remaining Opens starting with RU which opens at about 5th August. Meanwhile in the World Cup of Pokemon VIII, Asia and USA East are left in the finals! Will Asia make a comeback and win this tournament like they did in the first series or will USA East bag the trophy in their second consecutive finals? Stay tuned! ~CBTerrakion and sandshrewz
Way back when, before Blaziken was even considered for banning, we had something called the Dream World. From there, you could get Pokémon with abilities never seen before—stuff like Charizard with Solar Power, Ditto with a useful ability, and others. This is a tournament where all Dream World abilities are banned, released or not. Sign up now, before it's too late! ~Lady Salamence
In The Metagame Tweak Tournament, the host, FireMage, made flavorful changes each round to various Pokemon, making them better than before in an OU environment. For example, Volt Absorb and Hurricane Zapdos were allowed, along with many other changes. The finals were a 3-man affair between Dice (formerly Princess Bri), dragonuser, and Pedrock. Dice defeated Pedrock, then promptly defeated dragonuser, making a dragonuser-Pedrock battle unnecessary. Congratulations to Dice for winning, dragonuser and Pedrock for making the finals, and props to FireMage for hosting!~CBTerrakion
As the final round of BW OU has been completed, Smogon Tour 15 is officially over—well, at least the preliminaries are. There's still a few rounds of finals to come, the first of which is already underway. With the best of all three generations competing, things will be sure to be interesting. Pay close attention to find out who the champion of Smogon Tour 15 will be!~GatoDelFuego
In Terrorist Cup, one must use Explosion on all of their team’s Pokemon, and because Explosion sucks in BW, it is usually played with a DPP ruleset. The 2nd installment of a tournament showcasing this metagame recently finished, with the finals being a 3-man battle between Kiry4n, SoulWind, and dragonuser. dragonuser defeated Kiry4n, while SoulWind defeated dragonuser, leaving SoulWind vs Kiry4n as the clincher, a game which SoulWind won. Congratulations to SoulWind for winning, dragonuser and Kiry4n for making the finals, and props to Lady Salamence for hosting! ~CBTerrakion
Have you ever wondered how standard OU would work if you used less than 6 Pokemon? The Pokemon Freedom Tournament, hosted by Vaz, seeks to showcase such a metagame. One can use between 3-6 Pokemon on their team, but you only have to KO the amount of Pokemon you have on your team, which is used to give players who brought fewer Pokemon no disadvantage against those with a full team. A best-of-3 format is in place for each round, and one must make 3 teams with varying amounts of Pokemon each round. Be sure to sign up, as this tournament is sure to be interesting. ~CBTerrakion
Little Cup is a tier where one can only use Level 5 Pokemon that are in their first stage of evolution, and the 7th installment of a tournament showcasing it recently finished. The finals were a best-of-3 affair between Lavos Spawn, little gk, and mikel. GK beat Lavos, while Lavos beat mikel, and GK vs mikel never happened due to mikel being busy outside of Smogon, with mikel giving GK the win. Congrats to GK for winning, Lavos and mikel for making the finals, and iss for hosting. ~CBTerrakion
Tier Shift is one of the many new Other Metagames on the rise, having enjoyed status as Other Metagame of the Month on Pokemon Showdown!, a spot in the Other Metagames Premier League, and the subject of various Smog articles. Now it is making its first foray into the Tournaments forum, with the tournament being hosted by Tier Shift’s creator, PureQuestion. Tier Shift is similar to standard BW2 OU, but it has a twist to it: each of the base stats of all UU, RU, and NU Pokemon are raised by 5, 10, and 15 points, respectively. This turns Pokemon such as Golurk and Stoutland into formidable threats that must be prepared for, as well as many other lower-tier Pokemon. If you want to play OU but want to see how lower-tier threats fare in a more beneficial environment for them, or enjoy nonstandard metagames in a tournament format, sign up, as this tournament will surely be interesting! ~CBTerrakion
Despite my personal disagreements with the tournament's name, it's still going to be good. With Malekith as the host and it being a best of 3 tournament with ADV OU, DPP OU and BW OU being the three games, its sure to attract both up-and-coming BW OU kings and older ADV and DPP masters, giving nearly anyone who plays Pokémon a way to do well in this tournament. One of the more surpising things is that the metagames are all following in the respect of its title: ADV will be using the RS200 metagame, DPP will ignore Platinum's changes to the metagame, and BW will be BW1, not BW2. This is going to be a very fun tournament to play in, so go sign up now!
If you were around long enough, or read up on the dusty parts of Smogon, you'll know that it used to be there was only three tiers: OU, UU and Ubers. Naturally, those became the 'mainstay' of competitive tiers, which is the base of the tournament—contestants playing in one of those three tiers, while trying to minimize repetition of teirs. The finals were a best of three with Masterclass, SOMALIA, and WhiteQueen all vying for top spot. Some name-calling and deleted posts later, WhiteQueen left Smogon in a fit of rage, and the Tournament Directors granted SOMALIA the win due to, despite all the confusion, beating Masterclass since WhiteQueen was no longer participating in the tournament. Congratulations to SOMALIA, and to all three finalists for making it that far. Keep it classy, Smogon. ~Lady Salamence
Sign-ups for the eighth World Cup of Pokémon are now open! WCOP is an official tournament (which means the winning team gets trophies) where players form teams based on their region, with one captain and twelve players (eight active, four substitutes). You can't just try out for any team though; there are restrictions that you should read about here. This is a fairly prestigious tournament, so it might just be your chance to make a name for yourself if you perform well. IRC will be an integral part of this tournament, so make sure you know how to use it. Smogon's tutorials can be found here. ~Tobes
Before you ask, it means "Carrots are cooked". Yes, it's a silly name that does not break Smogon's English-only rule at all. Anyway, H-C, the tournament host, will release a single Pokémon each round that was in the Ubers tier since before BW2 for the competitors to use. Aside from the silly name, it's bound to be an interesting tournament—go sign up! ~Lady Salamence
Ever run into those guys using their favorite Pokémon on the ladder, giving you pretty much free ladder points? Now imagine every single battle you do has a 'favorite Pokémon' on both teams? That was the idea of Fan Favorites—force all the participants each round to use a certain Pokémon. The tournament recently ended, however, and Masterclass came out the victor. A congratulations also goes to WhiteQueen for reaching the finals, but since he has recently quit Smogon for other reasons, best of luck in what you will do in the future, and see you when World Cup of Pokémon starts! ~Lady Salamence
Does anyone here remember the No Johns tour? The host sure does, as he now has a new reason to host it. Dubby, the host of Home Field Advantage—a tournament where groups of people fought amongst themselves, after which the best of them moved onto a standard elimination tournament for the semifinals, should be congratulated, for not flipping out at the finalists, Jayde and Pedrock, for johning the final fight for an entire month. Finally, the two actually fought, and in the words of Jayde, "got completely wrecked lol, congrats". Congratulations indeed, and expect the No Johns tournament to come to a forum near you! Unless Iconic decides not to. ~Lady Salamence
With week 8 of Smogon Tour 15 ending, the final DPP OU match has passed. DPP was always my favorite generation, so it was very interesting to talk to official tournament players and see their strategies for the first time instead of just playing the matches. Keep watching the coverage as things move on to the final round!~GatoDelFuego
The final round of ADV OU before the playoffs has passed! Covering them has certainly been interesting, especially for someone that has never played the competitive ADV metagame. From what I can tell, every match revolves around Gengar, and if Spikes were a Pokemon itself, it would be on every team. Nonetheless, stay tuned for the final two rounds of coverage before the playoffs! ~GatoDelFuego
Congratulations to undisputed, the winner of DPP Fest, a tournament with a format that goes back to the days of Shoddy Battle—a best-of-3 tournament with matches in DPP OU, DPP UU, and DPP Ubers without Arceus. Congratulations should also go to Eo Ut Mortus for reaching the finals of a tournament which I have no doubts was extremely difficult due to the nature of DPP, but the main congratulations go to undisputed for taking the entire thing, netting him his third tournament win aside Smogon Tours and team-based tournaments. ~Lady Salamence
As we all know, RBY was the best generation. Best sprites (Golbat), best design (Magneton), best mechanics (Focus Energy), et cetra. What could make RBY even better? Making it a bit more competitive. By introducing a loophole in the trading system, moves that were learned in GSC by Gen 1 Pokémon could be send back to the original games, to be used. Princess Bri made a tournament out of it, where people would make competitive RBY teams using the glitch and battle with them. As RBY was the best—just ask any people that were around for it, it's bound to be a good tournament! Hurry and sign up! ~Lady Salamence
Congratulations to Zephir, the winner of the Monotype Tournament IV! The tournament has a simple concept—only use a single type throughout your whole team. Sadly, that's much harder to pull off in actuality, so congratulations to Zephir for taking it, props to lily for making it to the finals and to Espeon65 for hosting. ~Lady Salamence
With the second round of BW OU completed, Smogon Tour 15 moves into its final rounds of tournaments. Just one more weekend for each metagame remains, and the standings are starting to fall into place. Stay tuned for the final tournament of each metagame! ~GatoDelFuego
Three very competitive DPP matches passed this weekend, with some all-star players participating. The results of this past weekend's tournaments finally gave me a chance to talk with Ojama, the current Smogon Tour leader by 14 points(!). However, the rest of the standings remain a very close race, so as we move into the halfway point of Smogon Tour 15, expect things to get exciting! ~GatoDelFuego
Shortly after SPL concluded, The Competitor's Lady_Salamence scored an interview with the manager of the Wi-Fi Wolfpack's DittoCrow. Check out their interview here. ~Jellicent
At Smogon, we have many tournaments, all approved by the Tournament Directors, for the entertainment of the community. Obviously there are flaws in the system, as a tournament where the host can do whatever he damn pleases was allowed through, and is currently in signups. All jokes aside, The Metagame Tweak Tournament, run by FireMage, is a tournament where the host can change and add anything he wants to any Pokémon he wants. This will be an interesting tournament for sure, so sign up before it's too late! ~Lady Salamence
Congratulations to dragonuser for winning the 2012 Tournament Tour! Run by Firemage, this tournament's rules changed each round to follow the rules of a popular tournament ran in the year the tournament was named for. Specifically, in the last round, the Pro-Choice/Adherence was the theme, where the team's items must be only the Choice Items—Choice Scarf / Band / Specs. Congratulations to dragonuser, and good job to Lavos Spawn to making it to finals. ~Lady Salamence
Smogon Tour 15 is already in round two of the metegame cycle, almost halfway through the tournament! Last weekend, three ADV OU tournaments were hosted. Remember, in order to win the Smogon Tour, one must master all three most recent generations of Pokemon. There are still another couple rounds of each generation's tournament, which makes Smogon Tour 15 still anyone's game at this point. Today I'll be reporting the winners of ADV OU week 2, but the question is, who will win the entire season? ~GatoDelFuego
The Easter Egg Tournament, run by lapras666, is a tournament where a user picks, by selecting one of six brightly colored eggs, an arbitrary rule he or she must follow when making their team. According to the host, some common limitations are linked to tier, color, region, etc. Signups are still open, so don't miss out! ~Lady Salamence
Sign-ups for the Pound-for-Pound Tournament IV are now open. Hosted by Rewer, in every round of this tournament players will randomly be assigned a metagame to play from OU, Ubers, or UU. The finals of the tournament will be best-of-three of the metagames. ~Tobes
The fifteenth Smogon Tour has officially begun! The Smogon Tour has been hailed as one of the largest and most competitive Pokemon tournaments ever. Every weekend, a different generation of Pokemon hosts three tournaments for all of Smogon to try their hands at. Join me each week, where I'll be covering the finalists of each day's tournaments! ~GatoDelFuego
Congratulations to the Wifi Wolfpack for winning the fourth Smogon Premier League! The Wolfpack defeated the Circus Maximus Tigers 7-3 in the finals. Each of their members will be receiving an official trophy. Congrats Wolfpack! ~Tobes
6A9 Ace Matador, more well known as AM, has bested Problems in a best of 3 finals for the Fuk Ferro tournament. In this tournament, the competitors would play a standard BW2 Ubers match, albeit with Ferrothorn banned, to see who comes out on top. Disregarding the standard claims of 'hax' and similar sentiments, AM won the first game with no casualties and lost to Problems in the second round in a close 1-0 match. He won in the final match against Problems in a 4-0 victory, securing him the victory and his fourth entry into the Tournament Winners club, fifth if you include a team victory in SNEAK. Congratulations to Ace Matador for winning and the same to Problems for performing so well and reaching the finals. ~Lady Salamence
Steven Snype and Da Letter El have started the Fan Favorites Tournament, in which one Pokémon picked by the hosts each round is required to be on everyone's team to see which player can best predict metagame shifts with 100% usage of the chosen Pokémon. Sign-ups have started, so hurry and join before it's too late! ~Lady Salamence
Sign-ups for The Little Cup Tourney VII have opened! Little Cup, for those who don't know, is a metagame where only Pokemon that can evolve but haven't may be used, and only at Level 5. It's a fun tier; I highly suggest signing up and trying it out! ~Lady Salamence
In which I discuss the outcome of the OST 9 Finals ~Tobes
Sign-ups are now open for the third official Smogon VGC Tournament! Using Nintendo's official doubles format, players will play in best-of-three bouts. The winner of the tournament will earn a prestigious trophy, so don't miss out! ~Tobes
Come one, come all to the DPP FEST. Hosted by the Sexy Snype and Da Ballin El, we will explore DPP through the same format as the Finals for Smogon Tour during Seasons 6-10. Challengers will fight each other in a best of 3 series of DPP OU, DPP Ubers, and DPP UU. Sign-ups are open, so join while you can! ~Steven Snype
Sir's back with coverage of weeks three and four of the Smogon Premier League! Stay tuned, because we'll be bringing you coverage of weeks five and six soon. ~Tobes
The SPL already in its fifth week! This week, Windsong is back again with his predictions between The Cyronicles and The Circus Maximus Tigers. Have a look at what Windsong thinks about this match-up in this article! ~sandshrewz
The Secret Santa 7 Tournament, hosted by makiri, is one whereby participants each have to submit a team and then use another one which was submitted by someone else. Lavos Spawn emerged as the winner of this tournament with Team Fiction. In The Offstat Tournament, Level 51 declared Django the winner after Husky's long inactivity and the fact that Django defeated V4Victini.
McMeghan also emerged as the sole survivor of the Battle Royale Act V tournament, which was hosted by Stone_Cold for the second consecutive time. McMeghan notably defeated Eo Ut Mortus who has defeated a total of 8 players before he lost. A few users were hence upset that McMeghan won instead of Eo Ut Mortus. Nonetheless, congratulations to all tournament winners!
Hosted by Django and FireMage, the 2012 Tournament Tour is one that relives some of the tournaments of 2012. It's definitely interesting to be participating in a tournament that's as good as joining several at once. ~sandshrewz
Sign-ups for the fourth Monotype tournament are now open. Hosted by Espeon65, in every round of this tournament players will be PM'd three random types, and must choose the type they will use for that round from the three. As the name suggests, players must use Pokemon who have that type. (Dual-types are fine as long as one of theirs types is the required one.) ~Tobes
This tournament, hosted by Birkal, consists of BW2 OU (before Garchomp and Kyurem-B were unbanned and Genesect banned) with the CAP4 Pokemon (Tobes edit: you mean abomination), Aurumoth. The finals came down to a showdown between ballabrown24 and Demist. The logs of the finals can be found here. Demist was close to pulling a sweep with Aurumoth with Illusion imitating Latios which led to ballabrown24 trying to check it with Magnezone. Unfortunately for Demist, Focus Blast missed twice in a row and Aurumoth eventually fell to Magnezone. Some luck aside, congratulations to ballabrown24 for winning the tournament! ~sandshrewz
Sign-ups are open for the Type Restriction Tournament II. Hosted by Fatecrashers, this tourney forces all teams to use Pokemon of specific types. Dual type Pokemon can be used for either type, meaning Dragonite would count as a Dragon- or Flying-type. All teams must be PMed to Fatecrashers for verification. Restrictions on typing will add a whole new dimension to team building that should make for some very unique teams and battles. Be sure to check it out! ~Jellicent
In this tournament, 42 players try to defeat each other while attempting to stay alive and be the survivor and winner. It's a free for all tournament where participants can challenge others to a match via #battleroyale on SynIRC. The loser of the match is "killed" and hence removed from the tournament. Currently there are only 9 participants still alive in this tournament. You can refer to this spreadsheet for a record of the remaining players. The Mighty Mortimer has kept a high record of slaining a total of 8 other players up to date. McMeghan, the previous winner of this tournament is also still alive and healthy. Hop on #battleroyale and if you're lucky, you might be able to watch some of the action of this tournament. ~sandshrewz
Congratulations to Huntofthelion for winning the Stat Specialization II tournament. In this tournament, a stat would be selected each round. Players could only use Pokemon whose highest stat was the selected stat, as well as a single Pokemon with equal stats across the board (i.e. Celebi, Jirachi, etc.). Hunt defeated Frizy in the finals. Congratulations. ~Tobes
Firstly, congratulations to Joeyboy for finally winning the Pass the Trash Tournament II. In this tournament players began with a team they pre-selected, and then at the beginning of each round permanently exchanged a Pokemon with their opponent. He defeated LuckOverSkill and Heist in the finals.
Congratulations to CrashinBoomBang as well, for winning the NU: Back to the Future Tournament. This tournament was a best-of-three series, in which one game each of ADV NU, DPP NU, and BW2 NU were played. CBB defeated McMeghan in the finals. ~Tobes
Sir has another summary of the week that was in SPL, so read up! ~Tobes
Anyone familiar with BW Ubers knows that Ferrothorn was one of the biggest changes to it in the cross from Generation IV. Anyone on the competitive scene is probably also aware that many people utterly hate Ferrothorn. Well, all you durian despisers, is this the tournament for you! Hosted by Iconic, this tournament will be simple best-of-three Standard Ubers single elimination; just no Ferrothorns allowed. ~Tobes
Smogon Premier League is one of Smogon's greatest tournaments, but due to the number of matches in each round it can be difficult to know how exactly a series went. Sir has written a nice article explaining how the matches went overall between teams, as well as some more of SPL's infamous drama, so read up! ~Tobes
Congratulations to Team 13 for winning the BW2 Team Tournament! Comprised of DestinyUnknown, BKC, yee, McMeghan, and Funkasaurus, Team 13's players defeated Team 9 (comprised of dragonuser, Joel, Princess Bri, mostwanted, and Eo Ut Mortus) in a 3-2 set of bouts. Congratulations! ~Tobes
As Smogon Premier League heads into its second week of official tournament play, the competition is heating up. Veteran battler Windsong is on the tournament scene and is ready to share his predictions on how one of the best match-ups is going to shake out. See who he picked as the favored team in the tough war waged between defending champions Alpha Ruiners and the 25-man gaggle that is the Team Raiders. Can the Raiders take advantage of the Ruiners' lapse in concentration against the Tigers to pull the upset? Or will the Ruiners get back into the groove and maintain the throne? Come see what Windsong thinks of it all in this week's Highlight Team Matchup! ~Birkal
Congratulations to MikeDecIsHere and McMeghan for winning the BW2 Tag Team Tournament! In this tournament players signed up individually and were randomly paired off. Each of the two players on the team would face one player from the opposing team. In the event that a player on each team won a game, the winners of the two games would face each other to decide the match. McMeghan's game against SoulWind can be found here. idiotfrommars was quick to avenge his teammate though, defeating Mike in a mere month. With the deadline rapidly approaching, McMeghan was able to beat IFM, as seen here. Congrats McMeghan and Mike. ~Tobes
With the Smogon Premier League Four kicking off, there has already been a significant amount of drama. Thankfully, someone has been there to catch all of what's happened so far. Catch Windsong as he goes down the list. ~Redew
Sign-ups for the Home Field Advantage II Tournament are up. Hosted by Dubby, in this tournament players will be split off into groups, and each person in a group will play the other members of that group once. Each week players will be assigned as the Home or Away player. The Home player gets to choose between BW2 OU, BW2 Ubers, and BW2 UU; the selected metagame will be the one the players do their game in. The top two players of each group will advance to the playoffs, where they will play a best-of-three bout in each round comprised of the three metagames. ~Tobes
SPL Commissioner Fabbles has sadly stepped down from his position due to private reasons. Succeeding him will be his recently-appointed co-host, symphonyx64. Thanks for your work Fabbles, and good luck symph. ~Tobes
Did you miss the cut for SPL but still think you've got what it takes? Then fear not, because you're about to get the chance to show your stuff. The first-ever Farm League's sign-ups are up. If you're not currently on an SPL team, you may sign up for one SPL-tier. During each week of SPL, you will be paired against an opponent from your chosen tier, based on your wins and losses. Do well in the Farm League and you could find yourself being bought in the mid-season SPL auction! ~Tobes
Congratulations to Jayde for winning the Liar's Rule Tournament! In this tournament players were required to alternate announcing their intended move, with three lies allowed per player in the game. Jayde defeated CrashinBoomBang, as seen here. Congrats Jayde. ~Tobes
Sign-ups are currently open for the DPP OU Tournament II. Host BKC takes us back to the fourth generation with this straightforward tournament. Whether you're hoping to show off your DPP might or simply looking to try out a new past metagame, this is certainly a tourney to check out! ~Jellicent
Congratulations to Pocket for winning the NO-Weather Ubers Tournament! While there is still debate amongst astrologers as to which planetary alignment allowed this to happen, Pocket rode a Ghost-Arceus to victory against Mr.lol in the weatherless-Ubers tournament. Congratulations Pocket! Here's to your next tournament victory in 2020, ohohoho ~Tobes
The Smogon Premier League draft happened on Thursday, and quite a few interesting things went down. Smogon veteran and co-manager of the Evergrande Bigs, kd24, is here to give an overview of the draft and how some of the decisions could impact the season. ~Tobes
Sign-ups are open for the 7th Secret Santa Tournament. Hosted by makiri, this tourney forces players to submit one of their best teams to the host via PM. These teams will then be randomly given to each competitor. Only 64 people will be allowed entry into this tournament, so be sure to sign-up quickly. Also, teams will be scanned for quality, so don't bother trying to sneak in with gimmicks! ~Jellicent
The ADVanced Users Only Tournament has just come to a close. Hosted by McMeghan, this tournament featured ADV OU, Ubers, and UU. The finals came down to a round robin of M Dragon, MarceloDK, and CrashinBoomBang. After a three-way tie, the trio was forced to battle once again. In the end, M Dragon came out on top. Congrats M Dragon on your third gen dominance! ~Jellicent
The player auction for the Smogon Premier League is taking place today, December 20th. It will be held at 7 PM, GMT -5, in #spl on SynIRC. It's one of the most important events in the tournament, so don't miss it, especially if you hope to play. ~Tobes
Tournaments veteran and former manager of the Cryonicles Huntofthelion has some valuable insight on up-and-coming rookies to keep an eye on for this SPL, so take a look! ~Tobes
Season 4 of the Smogon Premier League is nearly here! The format of the season has been announced today, by the new Commissioner, Fabbles. It will consist of the following:
Sorry LC afficianados, maybe next season. If you're being retained there's additional information in the thread that you should check out. ~Tobes
Sign-ups are open for the RU Mini-Tourney 8. Hosted by Yonko7, this Mini-Tournament experiments with the only Pokemon currently remaining in BL2: Venomoth. In the midst of the recent changes to the RU tier, as well as the current suspect testing of Cresselia and Nidoqueen, it should certainly be interesting to see how this past threat fares in the current metagame! ~Jellicent
With the SPL coming up soon, I give my thoughts on who I think will be retained by the teams. Have a look at who will skip the auction phase and will likely be the backbone of the future teams. ~Nachos
Sign-ups for the UU Edition of the Smogon All Generation Tournament are open. Hosted by AuraRayquaza, in this tournament players will play best-of-5 matches, with one game in each generation's UU tier. Access to NetBattle Supremacy will be needed to play RBY UU, so be prepared. ~Tobes
The Official Smogon Tournament is back for its ninth installment. This tournament is one of Smogon's most prestigious, earning you the yellow trophy if you emerge as the winner of this tournament. It's played in BW2 OU in a best-of-three format. This tournament is also to be played on the Pokemon Showdown! simulator. The best part of this tournament, however, is that the winner not only walks away with the yellow trophy, he/she will also win a Nintendo 3DS! The runner up will receive either Pokémon White 2 or Black 2. The top four will also get an exclusive Smogon T-shirt. If those prizes aren't enough incentive to tempt you to join the tournament, I don't know what will. Sign-ups closes on Sunday, 25 November 2012, at 11.59 PM EST. Sign up now, and all the best to all participants! ~sandshrewz
Hosted by Orichalcos Owl, the tournament experiments with a weatherless and entry hazard-less OU metagame where players play Clear Skies followed by Clear Entry and both if they play the third match. It came down to a finals between Grand Slam finalist McMeghan and Lavos Spawn. McMeghan came back to defeat Lavos Spawn after a recent shocking loss to runner up Nelson-X in the Grand Slam quarter-finals. McMeghan credited his second match win thanks to an untimely critcal hit, however. Nevertheless, congratulations McMeghan! You can find the logs in his 1k post. ~sandshrewz
The highly anticipated Smogon Grand Slam tournament encompasses all 5 non-OU Smogon tiers: Ubers, UU, RU, NU, and LC. It was hosted by several tier representatives who worked with the Tournament Directors who planned the entire tournament. Ciele, who just made it into the top 8 finalists in the sixth position with just 19 points— compared to McMeghan's spectacular 48 points, defeated FLCL, the NU Open winner in the first round of the finals, followed by blarajan, the RU Open winner. Ciele was then paired up with underdog Nelson-X in the finals. In an excellent display of tenacity after losing two straight matches to Nelson-X in Ubers and LC, Ciele turned the tables by winning the remaining three matches. Expect some more details of the Smogon Grand Slam! Be sure to congratulate Ciele, and great job! ~sandshrewz
The Create-a-Pokémon Project has came up with their latest CAP product: Aurumoth. To summarize, Aurumoth is the Gold Standard Pokémon with a Bug / Psychic typing based on a concept of 'high risk, high reward'. It posseses great setup moves such as Quiver Dance and Dragon Dance while also remarkable offensive stats. It also has Weak Amor, Illusion, and No Guard as its ability. This tournament, hosted by Birkal, is played in BW2 OU with Aurumoth, but with Kyurem-B and Garchomp banned. Take a step into the CAP Project by signing up for this tournament. Aurumoth won't disappoint! ~sandshrewz
NU was finally recognized as an official Smogon tier only in BW, which had an unprecedented number of tiers—Ubers, OU, UU, RU, NU, and LC. This tournament, hosted by Django, is a best-of-three including ADV, DPP, and BW2 NU. Note than Entei and Espeon are banned from DPP NU. Playing these tiers without aid from Smogon analysis for ADV and DPP will prove to be a challenge for people with no prior knowledge of them, unless they can get hold of people who have played them before. However, that's what makes this tournament even more interesting. Don't hesitate to sign up and get a rare chance to play ADV NU and DPP NU! ~sandshrewz
The Tournament of Goodfellas, hosted by Umby, featured teams of three duking it out in RBY OU, GSC OU, and ADV OU. The finals came down to Team Won gg (consisting of Earthworm for RBY, Ojama for GSC, and McMeghan for ADV) vs Team Strongs (with locopoke for RBY, Lonelyness for GSC, and JabbaTheGriffin for ADV). Lonelyness took an early win against Ojama, though Earthworm defeated locopoke shortly afterwards to tie things back up. McMeghan managed to beat out JabbaTheGriffin in the final match, winning the tourney for his team. Congratulations Team Won gg! ~Jellicent
The prestigious Smogon Tour Season 14 is now entering its finals, where the top 16 will be duking it out for a shot at the trophy. Special thanks go out to host Kevin Garrett, a previous Smogon Tour winner and current finalist, for putting this tournament together, as well as Eo Ut Mortus for undertaking the painstaking task of keeping track of the points for the hundreds of participants. Now's your chance to place predictions on who you think will come out on top. ~Jellicent
This Friday, Nintendo unveiled the strangest official tournament we've received yet, the Eevee Cup. The tournament is weird; its the first ever official Nintendo rotation tournament, Japan exclusive, and only allows Eevee and its evolutions to be used. We might not ever receive such a wacky and interesting tournament internationally, so the Wi-Fi staff have decided to host a mock version of the tournament dubbed the Eve of Eevee tournament. Sign up and engage in battles so cute, Little Cup can't help but feel a little jealous. ~TheMantyke
Congratulations to BKC for winning the second #pokemon Tournament. In this tournament, players are assigned pre-compiled teams (the list can be seen here. BKC defeated Nachos to win the tournament, and subsequently earn ops in #pokemon. The games that BKC won can be seen here; in Game 1 BKC used a sand stall team relying on Stoutland to mop up weakened teams, while Nachos was using a rain offense team designed to take advantage of Deoxys-D's entry hazards and build up damage with offensive pressure and timely U-turns. Both sides traded luck throughout the game, but eventually BKC's Heatran pulled through and finished off Nachos's Scizor and Spore'd Politoed. In Game 3 BKC used a similar team to the one he used in Game 1, while Nachos used full Baton Pass. Expert Belt Genesect made quick work of Nachos, though: Nachos attempted to Baton Pass from Vaporeon to Mr. Mime, which ate a Thunderbolt. Nachos attempted to use Substitute, but apparently Mr. Mime had not received enough Speed boosts from Ninjask, and was outpaced and left with too little HP to successfully create the Substitute, resulting in its death next turn. Genesect mopped things up from there, as Nachos's last-ditch Ninjask Flash didn't pay off. Congratulations BKC. ~Tobes
Clear Skies, Clear Entry; no weather, no entry hazards. Sounds like a battle worth playing, right? Users Lavos Spawn and McMeghan thought so and have made their way through the rounds to end up battling each other. Will the WCoP underdog Lavos Spawn pull through, or will the on-fire McMeghan prevail? ~Redew
After kokoloko has been defeated by powerhouse McMeghan and standing at the 10th spot without a chance of getting into the top 8, Tournament Director Iconic announced that Heist, Malekith, and Nelson-X, who are all tied up at the 7th place, will play a best-of-five that includes all the Grand Slam Open tiers to determine which two will make it into the Finals. The updated standings of all players in the Grand Slam can be found in this page. On another note, McMeghan will face blarajan in the finals of the LC Open, which blarajan claims is his own tier and will not let McMeghan win. Both players have already won at least an Open and McMeghan has firmly secured his pole position in the standings. It'll definitely be an eye-opener to see two top players face off in the finals, especially after their interview together. The best-of-five and the finals of the LC Open will mark the end of the first part of the Smogon Grand Slam and move on to the showdown between the 8 finalists. Stay tuned for more exciting news ahead! ~sandshrewz
ADV is widely regarded by many competitive players as the best generation for its large number of viable Pokemon to spice up teambuilding and high demand of precise technical play. However, very few users are accustomed to ADV UU and ADV Ubers. The ADVanced Users Only Tournament, hosted by McMeghan changes that as many players will have to study up on these forgotten metagames. Will the veteran old generation players win with experience alone or will newer players be able to win through sheer force of will? Be sure to sign up for what is sure to be an interesting tournament. ~Sir
blarajan and McMeghan both emerged as the first two winners of the Grand Slam Tournament Opens. blarajan, to the surprise of many, bagged the RU Open, while McMeghan won the UU Open and subsequently the Ubers Open. What has led them so far and guarateed spots in the Finals? Read this interview to find out how they've managed to rack up so many points in the Grand Slam and their thoughts on this tournament. ~Jellicent
From Start To Finish, hosted by Giga Punch, is a tournament with the best-of-three format including GSC OU, ADV OU, and DPP OU except that all matches will be played with Team Preview. This meant that many tactics that relied on the surprise factor of keeping your Pokemon unrevealed no longer worked. The finals came down to MarceloDK and Ojama. Both of the finalists displayed good sportmanship when they had to restart their GSC OU match countless times due to an accidental illegal move by Ojama followed by MarceloDK disconnecting after they remade their moves. It took several more restarts before they could finally recreate their match such that both players agreed on. Still, Ojama's Growth and Acid Amor Vaporeon paved the way for a sweep, till MarceloDK's Miltank landed a critical hit on the 40% HP Vaporeon. Ojama took the win by destroying MarceloDK's second last Pokemon with a Thunder from Zapdos and the former's Snorlax Selfdestructed on the remaining Miltank.
However, MarceloDK rebounded back on ADV OU with an odd Toxic Dragon Dance Tyranitar but missed Toxic on Ojama's Swampert. It was compensated by a critical hit Rock Slide and flinch after Swampert activated Tyranitar's Liechi Berry with an Earthquake. MarceloDK bagged the win when Ojama sent in his Calm Mind Jirachi against the former's Calm Mind + Roar Suicune. DPP OU ended in a similar fashion after several Sleep Powder misses from Ojama's Roserade. MarceloDK's Heatran managed to sweep Ojama's weakened team with just Lava Plume; Ojama's Calm Mind Jirachi failed to wall Heatran after Stealth Rock and three layers of Spikes combined with a burn from Lava Plume that sealed the match. Although there were plenty of misses and critical hits on both sides, neither player claimed that they were overly determinative of the outcome. Congratulations MarceloDK! ~sandshrewz
The Forgotten Year Tournament, hosted by Steven Snype, is in DPP OU with one modification that is welcomed by many of the veteran DPP players; Salamence and Latias were the last two Pokemon to be banned in DPP but they are unbanned and allowed in this tournament. This will be an excellent opportunity for nostalgic players to play in DPP OU with the ability to use those two Pokemon. For anyone new to this Salamence and Latias-inclusive metagame, this is a great chance for you to pick it up and relive an older part of DPP. Don't forget to sign up for this highly anticipated tournament. It's only been a day since the sign-ups opened and more than 100 users have signed up! Click on the link below to sign up now before all places are filled. ~sandshrewz
Are your Master Balls weighing you down? Too many monsters in your pockets? Well, trainer, this just might be the tournament for you! In The 3-Mon Tournament, you'll be dropping three of your balls like a pre-pubescent Lance Armstrong and playing a three-on-three match like you're in Japan. Because that's how they play Pokemon in Japan. Really. Matches are, fittingly, best out of three, and bonus points are awarded should any battler be in a ménage à trois during any of his or her matches. This tournament is hosted by McMeghan's most illustrious groupie, LC aficionado Chieliee. ~Eo Ut Mortus
Sign-ups are currently open for The Offstat Tournament. Hosted by Level 51, this unique tournament forces players to only use attacks from a Pokemon's weaker offensive stat. In order to be allowed, Pokemon must have a difference of at least 50 between their Attack and Special Attack. To prevent this from turning into a potential stallfest, entry hazards are also illegal. If you ever wanted an excuse to try out Choice Specs Gyarados, your prayers have been answered! ~Jellicent
The fourth RoA Mini-Tournament has come to a close. Players vied for the opportunity to prove their DPP Ubers might, though there was a bit of a twist: Arceus was banned from the tournament. The finals boiled down to 3 users: HSA, Go10, and MarceloDK. After defeating MarceloDK, HSA just had to take on Go10. Unfortunately, neither HSA nor MarceloDK seemed to be able to schedule a battle with him, so after 2 weeks of johning, HSA was ruled the winner. Congratulations, HSA!
As always, when a mini-tournament in Ruins Of Alph ends, another is quick to follow. Sign-ups are currently open for the fifth mini-tourney. The featured metagame is GSC OU, but with the addition of Celebi. Will Celebi surpass Snorlax for king of this tournament? You'll have to sign up and play to find out! Sign-ups are closing soon, so be sure to post "in" ASAP! ~Jellicent
Ubers has been a metagame heavily influenced by weather ever since the introduction of abilities. It's no surprise, really, given that Kyogre has been the undisputed king of Ubers for three generations straight. This tournament, though, throws that right out of the window. Hosted by Harsha, in this tournament, all auto weather-inducing abilities are banned, even on Pokemon like Politoed and Ninetales. Ubers has been a weather-inundated metagame for a very long time, so this format should be a refreshing break from the norm for Ubers veterans. ~Tobes
Congratulations to papai noel for beating out CrashinBoomBang to win the Unscrupulous Tiering Director Tournament. In this tournament, the banlist for standard OU was constructed from two ban submissions sent in by every user; when a player lost, his or her bans were removed from the banlist (a ban could be submitted by multiple users for duplicity). CrashinBoomBang banned the ubiquitous Stealth Rock and Spikes, a wise and direct incision to remove the cancers of OU, while papai noel took a more esoteric, nay, ethereal approach and banned Dragonite and Tentacruel. As papai noel won, his tiering decisions have clearly proven superior, as was the point of this tournament. Tentacruel, you're on watch.
Onto the battle itself (the log can be seen here): CrashinBoomBang gained an early advantage by effectively eliminating papai noel's Tyranitar with his Choice Band Dugtrio. Choice Band could be seen as an odd choice of item for Dugtrio in a metagame where Toxic Spikes is the only entry hazard, meaning Focus Sash's effectiveness is nearly guaranteed, but CrashinBoomBang's item decision is understandable when taking into account his own Abomasnow's hail. On top of winning the weather war early, CrashinBoomBang's advantage was further pushed when his Alakazam OHKOed papai noel's Rotom-W with a critical hit Psychic. Hax would quickly balance itself though, as Alakazam missed its second Focus Blast against papai noel's specially defensive Heatran, allowing Heatran to finish off Alakazam with Lava Plume. From there, papai noel was able to make a major push with Calm Mind Latias, tanking a Cloyster's Icicle Spear, which gave papai noel's Sheer Force Landorus free reign to finish off CrashinBoomBang's Choice Scarf Magnezone and take the game. Congratulations papai noel. ~Tobes
Many people who frequent the Tournaments forum are definitely familiar with the relatively new user Lavos Spawn. He suprised the competitive scene during the WCoP by showing that he was a capable battler despite being new to Smogon. Whether you love him or hate him, read this interview to find out more about this Lavos Spawn character and his thoughts on Tournament scene. Kacaw. ~ballabrown24
Sign-ups for the Black 2/White 2 Tourney are up. Hosted by RBG, this tournament simulates in the in-game experience of BW2. Players will choose one Unova starter line, and stick with that starter line throughout the tournament. Each round will be set in a specific location, with limited Pokemon and TM availability, level caps, and other such restrictions, reflecting that area. Ubers may not be used even if they would be available in an area of the game. ~Tobes
Congratulations to M Dragon for winning this prestigious tourney. This tournament is an invite-only tournament comprised of the top Smogon Tour players. In this installment participants played a game each of ADV OU, DPP OU, and BW OU. M Dragon defeated Nachos in two games. The battles should be up on Smogon's Youtube channel soon, so keep an eye on it. ~Tobes
Now hosted by Fabbles, in this tournament players take turns announcing the move they are about to make. There is a catch though: A player may lie up to twice in a battle. ~Tobes
The first Battle of the Week has been declared, and it's one hell of a match-up. The fans voted for a classic clash of the titans in DPP OU. The Competitor's own Earthworm pulled in over half of the votes; you might remember him from his recent dominance in DPP OU for Victory RoAd. His long time rival Gouki, pulled in a strong second placement. From past Battle of the Week opponents to opposing Smogon Tour finalists, this Ash vs Gary rivalry has never really seen closure; perhaps now we can finally put this dispute to rest. This brawl will be happening soon, so keep your eyes peeled here to find out the details. ~Jellicent
Weeks two and three of the Smogon Tour have passed. M Dragon, yan[sogeking], and Lunar. each won a DPP Tour, while Ojama, Choice Specs, and Meridian won BW2 Tours. Next week will be another set of ADV Tours, so be sure to practice. ~Tobes
The popular Battle of the Week is back for a fourth season. For those unfamiliar with it, Battle of the Week allows users to vote for players they would like to see duke it out. You already know the matches we wanna see, and now's your chance to voice yours! Everyone will be able to watch these battles; if you happen to miss them, no worries, as they'll be uploaded later to the Smogon Youtube Channel. Thanks to Tournament Director Bloo for bringing this fan favorite back! ~Jellicent
The latest Mini-Tournament for the RU Forum is now open for sign-ups. Hosted by mostwanted, this tournament will feature standard RU with a single exception: Durant will be unbanned. Once considered an overpowered presence in the tier, there's been some debate as to whether it would still be overpowered in the current offensive metagame. Perhaps this tournament can shed some light on this dispute, and even lead to a potential unbanning... Perhaps... ~Jellicent
Battle Of the Week was once something that many people familiar to the Tournaments forum anticipated; it was where they got to choose two players to battle each other. While it has been quite a while since BOTW ended, there are still some matches that people eagerly await to see regardless of the players' skills. It could be a display to affirm who is the better player or even a grudge match where they would settle their (old) scores. This article covers some of these battles that would be interesting to many users or just outright hilarious. Once BOTW starts back up, you might want to consider some of the matches in this article. ~Nachos
Sign-ups for the Tournament of Goodfellas are open. Hosted by Umby, in this tournament players sign up in teams of three, with each player playing a specific metagame: one playing RBY OU, one playing GSC OU, and one playing ADV OU. Teams will face off in single elimination matches against each other. The team that wins two out of the three games will advance.
If you're interested in playing but can't find enough people to team up with, don't fret. You can sign up as a free agent to be picked up by teams with an open slot. ~Tobes
The RS 200 Tournament hosted by JellyOs uses one of the most interesting metagames familiar to many ADV veterans. The RS 200 metagame uses only Pokemon and items only obtainable in Ruby and Sapphire cartridges bar Uber Pokemon. The finals came down to Colchonero and Iconic in a best-of-three. However, Iconic claims to have badly lucked the underdog in the first game. Still, Colchonero was still very cool about despite being very close to defeating Iconic in the third and final game. The replays for the finals can be found in this post. We hope you'll bag the win next time! Congratulations to Iconic! ~sandshrewz
There are always new tournaments going up almost every week and there's always news in The Competitor. However, have you ever wondered what respected players thought of some of the tournaments? This article provides you with in-depth detail of three tournaments that we've chosen and includes what the pros thinks of these tournaments—tips included! If you're participating in any of the three tournaments covered in this article, it'll definitely be of some help. Happy reading and I wish tournament participants good luck! ~Eraddd
With tier changes every three months, the lower tiers—UU, RU, and NU—constantly see new Pokemon from the upper tiers being released to their own while some others might move up. The OU Cavalry, hosted by Sayonara is a BW UU Tournament that will release one, or even multiple Pokemon from OU and allow them to be used in UU. Participants will have to adapt their UU teams and ensure that they are able to cope with the new threats that have fallen into the UU tier. Sign up now and get ready to trump the UU tier with OU Pokemon! ~sandshrewz
Sign-ups for the BW2 OU Team Tournament are now open. Hosted by locopoke, in this tournament players will be divided into teams of five, and each team will face off with another team in a way similar to World Cup: Each team member will play against one opponent on the opposing team, with the team with the better record out of the five games advancing. The winning team, however, must drop one player and take a player from the losing team. Will a player's reputation be the only means of advancement, or will rising stars make a name for themselves? Sign up and find out. ~Tobes
The Mirror Match Tournament, hosted by Steven Snype, is truly a test of skills and how well they can interpret a given team or make one that is incredibly hard to understand for your own advantage. In a tournament where participants can set some of their rules such as which generation to play in and whether to activate Team Preview. In this interesting tournament where strategy is the most important, Eo Ut Mortus and davidness emerged as the finalists. The best of five finals included teams provided by Earthworm and EspyJoel, the finalists of the previous tournament. Eo Ut Mortus managed to defeat davidness for a 3-1 in an excellent display of skill, while davidness proved to be a hard opponent. The logs provided by Eo Ut Mortus can be found in this post. Congratulations Eo Ut Mortus! ~sandshrewz
Sign-ups for the Little Cup Open are up. Like every Open so far, each round will be best-of-three, single-elimination matches. Similar to the Smogon Tour, winning an individual Open won't earn you a trophy, but it greatly increases your chances of making the Top 8 of the Grand Slam for a best of 5 showdown among Smogon's best. If you're out of contention for the trophy, fear not as this Open is a great chance to pick up something new and understand just how interesting a metagame is, especially considering there's a new rock that you've probably forgotten about in your bag or sold away since you got it in Castelia City and never used it again. ~Steven Snype
The Smogon Tour, one of Smogon's most prestigious tournaments, kicks off today at 8 PM at GMT -4. The Tour last for nine weeks, with a cycle of a week of ADV OU, a week of DPP OU, and a week of BW2 OU. There are three tours every weekend. Players are awarded points for each win during a tour, and at the end of the week the player gets the highest number of points they won in a single tour. Note that players may only enter a maximum of two tours in a week, or they will suffer a 3-point penalty. At the end of the nine weeks, the 16 players with the most points move onto the finals to battle for a prestigious trophy. Sign-ups for the first ADV tour open tonight at 8 PM, in this forum. Don't miss out! The tour will be played on PO V2, on the Groudon's Grotto server. ~Tobes
The Inaugural BW2 OU Tournament, hosted by Tournament Director Iconic, is the very first BW2 OU tournament in Smogon. With the release of BW2 came many changes such as the introduction of the Therian formes, Keldeo, Genesect, and saw some other Dream World abilities and new items being released. Being the first BW2 OU tournament, players must have adapted quite quickly to the new BW2 metagame. The tournament came down to a standstill between Ginku, Lohgock, and xtrashine. In this 3-man finals, they each defeated and lost to a finalist, meaning that they had to play against their opponents again. Finally, Ginku managed to truimph over his opponents and took the win. The replays from Ginku can be found in this post. Congratulations Ginku! ~sandshrewz
Ruins of Alph remains the place to be for past gen competitive battling. From RBY OU to DPP Ubers, there's always a new tournament to find there. Check out this article for the latest coverage on the oldest metagames! ~Jellicent
I'm sure you've been noticing we've had more art in our tournaments. Well, now you can contribute or critique for yourself! Smeargle's Studio has opened up the Artwork for Tournaments Thread, a free for all art fest. If you have a good idea, draw it up and post WIPs! While your art is not guaranteed to be used, you will gain experience from our many artists' critiques. Check it out today! ~V0x
Sign-ups for Pass The Trash II Tournament are up! Each round is a standard BW2 OU match, with one small exception: players will swap one Pokemon with their opponents every round and must use that team for not only that round, but for the remainder for the tournament! Think you're the best at adapting with what you have? Sign up then, but sign up fast! This tournament is strictly first-come, first-serve and slots are filling up fast! ~Steven Snype
Floppy is the winner of the No Johns Tournament! In this tournament, players must play a single game of ADV OU. The catch is, each deadline is only three days long. Floppy defeated ShakeItUp and LizardMan in a round-robin finals. The games can be seen here. In his game against LizardMan, Floppy used Choice Band Slaking to great effect, and was able to finish off LizardMan's last-mon Aerodactyl. In his game against ShakeItUp, Floppy managed to switch Guts Heracross into Blissey's Toxic, allowing it to repeatedly bludgeon ShakeItUp's team until Floppy's Tyranitar could clean up. Congrats Floppy! ~Tobes
Initially hosted by Steamroll and then passed over to reyscarface, it eventually fell into the care of Tournament Director Bloo. The best of three tournament featured the Randbats battle format unique to the Pokemon Showdown! simulator, the official simulator of Smogon. Randbats is similar to Challenge Cup in the sense that the Pokemon you get is random, but the Pokemon are given more useful moves, items, and natures, giving Randbats some competitive value. Randbats is a quick way to past time if you wish to play something competitive but do not want to make a team; it's also pretty popular in Pokemon Showndown! and it isn't hard to find a match. The tournament came down to a Showdown! between DarkLoïc, jrrrrrrr, and MikeDecIsHere. Luck, or rather RNG, favored MikeDecIsHere and allowed him to trounce jrrrrrrr 2-0. However, MikeDecIsHere got frozen twice in his match against DarkLoïc which eventually led him to ragequit that match. Nonetheless, he still managed to defeat DarkLoïc for a 2-1. Congratulations to MikeDecIsHere! If you're itching to play Randbats, head down to Pokemon Showdown! now but beware of the infamous Air Balloon Rotom-S. ~sandshrewz
Sign-ups are open for the From Start To Finsh tournament hosted by Giga Punch. It is a best of three tournament involving GSC OU, ADV OU, and DPP OU, but with a twist included. BW brought a change that has significantly impacted the world of competitive Pokemon, and that is Wi-Fi Clause, otherwise known as Team Preview. In this tournament, matches will be played with Wi-Fi Clause turned on, meaning that from start to finsh, players will know what the opponent's team has. This tournament is exactly the opposite of the Who Needs Team Preview Tournament. Team Preview in the past generations would definitely cause a huge stir and possibly have a similar impact to them as it did to BW. Don't miss this chance to play past gens with Team Preview on. Sign up now! ~sandshrewz
Hosted by IceCarAdler, the Dual Weather Alert! Tournament required each participant to have two weather-inducers on their team, which made for some unique teams. With a 3 way final between BKC, Nelson-X, and FelixMinamimoto, BKC was able to win the first match against Nelson-X but lost to FelixMinamimoto. FelixMinamimoto then defeated Nelson-X with a crucial flinch on Nelson-X's Starmie with his Gyarados, sealing the match and tournament win. Congratulations to FelixMinamimoto on winning the Dual Weather Alert! Tournament. ~Eraddd
Tournament Director Kevin Garrett has recently announced something in this thread that shook the entire Overused forum. The final set of practice tours will feature a suspect test. That is to say, Rough Skin Garchomp is allowed in the practice tournaments while Sand Veil is banned. This means that every Pokemon with the Sand Veil ability must use another ability as all of them have an alternative ability. Kevin Garrett also said that the results of this suspect test will be scrutinized by the OU Council; could this mean that there's a possibility of Garchomp being released back into OU? Perhaps. Either way, please remember to pack your Garchomps for the pratice tours and maybe even employ the old DragMag strategy! There's also a suspect ladder on Pokemon Showdown! for you to test out and play in a metagame with Garchomp released back into OU. In case you're wondering, the last two practice tours for the Smogon Tour will be held today 4 PM, EDT and tomorrow 2 PM EDT on Pokemon Showdown! Get ready for a metagame with Garchomp and good luck! ~sandshrewz
Sign-ups for the NeverUsed Open are up. Like every Open so far, each round will be best-of-three, single-elimination matches. Like the Smogon Tour (which is set to begin in under a month), winning an individual Open won't earn you a trophy, but it greatly increases your chances of making the Top 8 of the Grand Slam for a best of 5 showdown among Smogon's premier side-tier players. If for no other reason and you're raring to battle, you can see how you stand compared to the other hundreds of contenders aiming to prove just whose Zangoose is better. ~Steven Snype
The Single Pokemon Tournament was one where the participants have to play with a team of Pokemon of the same species. It displayed how some Pokemon can take on several roles by itself and often had to make use of weird and unique sets in order to bad the victory home. In the final round of the tournament which was played in DW OU, only Alice, CrashinBoomBang, and McMeghan were left standing. Alice picked a team of Thundurus, CrashinBoomBang used a group of Infernape, while McMeghan went with a herd of Keldeo. After many Thunderbolts, Fire Blasts, and Secret Swords, Alice came out on top victorious. Congrats to Alice on your first tournament victory! We hope you'll continue your winning streak! ~sandshrewz
Congrats to Philip7086 for defeating the Smogon Frontier! This season of the Smogon Frontier has sure been interesting with the up-and-rising of new challengers and the quitting of several Brains. Check out this article for a more detailed coverage for this season of the Smogon Frontier! ~Nachos
Host Orichalcos Owl has just kicked off a new tournament: Clear Skies, Clear Entry. The tournament is BW2 OU, best of three: for the first match, weather is banned; for the second match, entry hazards are illegal; and, for the final match, both weather and entry hazards cannot be used. Sign-ups are currently open, so now's your chance to join in the action! ~Jellicent
The Rarelyused forum has been bustling with competitive activity lately. For the latest news in mini-tourney action, as well as a head's up on the exciting new changes that could very well net you a Tiering Contributor badge, be sure to check out this article! ~Jellicent
Victory RoAd, which lasted slightly over a month, saw many hopeful challengers coming in to attempt to defeat all four of our veteran players of the four past generations of Pokemon. Hipmonlee, gene, Loki, and Earthworm represented RBY, GSC, ADV, and DPP OU respectively; all of them proved to be quite hard to defeat and fought strongly to prevent anyone from crossing the Victory RoAd. While they proved to be astoundingly difficult to break through, 3 challengers came with 3 wins and were looking to secure their final win to conquer the Victory RoAd. As announced nearly 3 weeks ago, M Dragon was the first winner of the Victory RoAd, after a nearly flawless run and losing only once to Hipmonlee. The other two rising challengers were Umby and Floppy. The former only had to defeat gene while the latter was dramatically trying to down Earthworm. Alas, gene came on top of Umby thanks to a crucial flinch from Rock Slide. Earthworm had an impressive 10 wins against Floppy and sadly for the latter, he lost his closely fought final battle against Earthworm. Their long-awaited final battle concluded the Victory RoAd. Hipmonlee won 8 battles while losing 5; gene had an impressive record of winning 12 and losing only 2—to M Dragon and Floppy; Loki proved to be a difficult opponent though he was down by 10 matches and only won 7; DPP OU proved to be the most popular as Earthworm bagged 44 wins (a quarter from Floppy) and lost 11. Great job to all of the veteran players! The Victory RoAd served as an avenue to play the past generations of Pokemon while giving an opportunity to play against top past generations players. It showcased the mastery of the different generations of some of the challengers and encouraged others to pick up the older generations as well. Once again, congratulations to M Dragon for being the first and only winner of the Victory RoAd! We hope to see you next time! ~sandshrewz
Sign-ups for the No Johns Tournament ADV OU Edition are up! With strict, extremely fast deadlines, players rush to smack each other in a best of one, ADV OU game. Like previous No Johns installments, this tournament will indeed whiz by. Only sign up if you are certain you will be active on the forums, intent on spending every second of your life on Smogon as active communication is key! Fight to the death in one of Smogon's fastest tournaments! ~Steven Snype
The Yin-Yang Tournament, hosted by ENZ0, challenged users to battle in a different official BW metagame every round (specifically, Ubers, OU, UU, RU, NU, and LC). For the final match-up between Zebraiken and Omicron, ENZ0 changed the rules a bit: the finalists would duke it out in 5 of the 6 metagames (UU was omitted). The finals themselves were especially heated, as neither Omicron nor Zebraiken had won a tournament in the past. The Competitor's very own Omicron proved his might in OU, RU, and Ubers, winning his first ever tournament. The replays can be found here. Congratulations, Omicron; here's to many more!
On a sadder note, Tournament Director Bloo promised to quit Smogon if and when Omicron won this tournament. I never got to talk to you too much, man, but it was cool knowing you. I hope you still stick around IRC, and if you ever decide to come back, we'll be waiting for you. ~Jellicent
Tournament Director Kevin Garrett has just announced the starting date for Smogon Tour 14: Friday, September 7th. This tournament will include the brand new BW2 OU metagame, as well as ADV OU and DPP OU. Due to Pokemon Showdown!'s current lack of support for past generations, the tournament will take place on Pokemon Online 2, on the Groudon's Grotto server. As Pokemon Showdown! continues to update, the tournament will likely be moved to there. More information about the tournament, and the practice tours for it, can be found here. ~Jellicent
Originally created by user Aldaron, the new #Pokemon Tournament II will be co-hosted by mostwanted and Bloo. They will select 20 quality BW2 OU teams proposed in #Pokemon, and every round, competitors will be randomly assigned 2 of them to choose from. This will be public knowledge, so decisions should be based on both what is available to you and to your opponent. It is highly recommended that you discuss these teams' strategies in #Pokemon on SynIRC. This is already shaping up to be a popular tournament, so be sure to sign up quickly! ~Jellicent
The Tag Team Tournament is back, but with a new twist! This time, teams are made randomly; every participant is paired up by chance. No longer will you see the many overpowered teams and hot favorites that plagued the previous tournaments. How well will players who do not know each other play together? Will any pair become a formidable duo overnight and prove to be strong force in the tournament? Will new friendships be born or broken? Keep an eye out for this tournament to witness spectacular teamwork, or the opposite. ~sandshrewz
With the conclusion of the 2012 Olympics, it seems the US squeezed out another victory to bring glory to (one part of) their nation yet again. With Bloo defeating idiotfrommars, this last victory vaulted the US West into their first World Cup of Pokemon championship, ending the reign of the three-time champ Oceania. Coming up as runner-ups in last year's World Cup of Pokemon, the US West stormed back into the finals, led by their stalwart yet prickly captain, Scofield and defeated US East, led by Stone_Cold, by a comfortable margin of 5 to 2. Congratulations to the US West for their victory this year and also a shout out to all those who participated this year. ~Eraddd
Congratulations to soviet, AKA ban nattorei, for winning the BW Ubers Tournament. soviet defeated Hugendugen, as seen here. soviet created offensive pressure throughout the match with Deoxys-A, Ghost-Arceus, Choice Specs Ogre, and Rayquaza. At the end of the game it seemed that soviet had the upper hand, with his Ghost-Arceus, Mewtwo, and Kyogre pitted against Hugendugen's Darkrai and Scizor. Any last hopes Hugendugen had were dashed when a timely Aura Sphere critical hit from soviet's Mewtwo OHKOed Hugendugen's Scizor, though at that point Hugendugen would've needed a Dark Pulse flinch or critical hit to break through Kyogre. Congratulations to soviet. ~Tobes
Sign-ups for the Ubers Open are up. Like every Open so far, each round will be best-of-three, single-elimination matches. Winning the Open won't earn you a trophy, but it greatly increases your chances of making the Top 8 of the Grand Slam. If nothing else, it provides opportunities to go up against some of the best Ubers players and see where you stand. ~Tobes
With RoA Mini-Tournaments and Victory RoAd, Ruins of Alph is often a hub of competitive activity. An impressive array of veteran players turn up to prove their might at the former generations. Check out this article for all the latest news on the oldest metagames! ~Jellicent
Sign-ups for the UU Can Party Too Tournaments are now open. Hosted by SethZiBritannia, in this tournament a list of twelve or so Pokemon will be randomly generated every round. 3 will be selected from UU, 5 from RU, and the rest from anywhere between BL and NU. Players will construct a standard OU team, but must use two of the Pokemon on each round's list. The tournament will test a player's ability to handle new threat and make the most of bad situations. ~Tobes
The Power Creep Tournament displayed the generational power creep by having users square off using DPP OU and BW UU teams. After four grueling months, the tournament finally boiled down to two finalists: Snunch and yee. User yee pulled out two wins, the first using DPP OU and the second using BW UU, while his opponent used the opposites, showing just how similar in power these two tiers truly were. Replays can be found here. Congratulations yee! ~Jellicent
Or does he? Inside sources for the Competitor certainly make us question this extremely quick victory. Phil made some highly improbable predictions, while Iconic appeared to be way off his game for such a high profile matchup. The suspicious replay can be found here. Is our beloved admin truly capable of clearing the Frontier, or is he merely a fraud seeking to increase his postbit by yet another trophy? How deep do the ties of our Tournament Directors run? If cheating is accepted at the highest level, what does that speak for our everyday battlers? Stay tuned to The Competitor as this controversy unfolds! ~Jellicent
In just under two weeks since Season 6 of the Smogon Frontier started, many eager challengers have been knocked out by the elite Frontier Brains. While many challengers have been defeated, one challenger stands above all. He is none other than Philip7086. This challenger is literally one step away from conquering the Frontier! Dome Ace Iconic is the final Brain he has to face. Having exhausted both of his rematches, Philip7086 has no room for error in this final meeting against Iconic. Rumor has it that Philip7086 hasn't showered throughout his run in the Frontier. Maybe that's his secret to conquer the Frontier, who knows? Will Philip7086 defeat Iconic and become the fourth winner of the Smogon Frontier, or will the latter Triple Crit Scald Burn our dear challenger? Stay tuned and keep your eyes open for this exciting showdown! Meanwhile, you might want to challenge as many Frontier Brains as possible before Philip7086 has a chance of conquering the Smogon Frontier. ~sandshrewz
After a disheartening Round 2 of the Au Naturel Wi-Fi Tournament, in which only user Biosci completed a match, host TheMantyke offered up a 3 day extension. When no one else battled, he was forced to coin flip on to the semi-finals. The time limit for those semi-finals matches rang in earlier tonight, but sadly, no battles were held. Realizing his tournament was flooded beneath a sea of johns, TheMantyke jumped ship and canceled the event. ~Jellicent
After a dramatic month-long build up, The Folgorio's (originally Eo's) Proposition Tournament has finally come to a close. If you missed it, there's sadly no replay to view. Don't worry, however; it was about as anti-climatic as one could hope. User Bluewind managed to pull off an impressive victory after Tiffanyy failed to properly follow the rules laid out in the OP. Instead, Tiffanyy carried multiple illegal pairings (Thunder + Drizzle, Hurricane + Drizzle, Water moves over 50 Base Power + Drizzle) which he was unable to use in the battle, resulting in a massive loss. Logs of the semi-finals can be found here. Congratulations, Bluewind, on your victory and reading comprehension! ~Jellicent
While doubles metagames have usually revolved around VGC, this tournament will feature a new take on doubles. By making this an Ubers tournament, host breh opens up the opportunity to use Pokemon like Arceus, Zekrom, and Deoxys that have never before been allowed in VGC events. Also of note is the fact that this tournament will feature teams of full 6 vs 6, unlike VGC's usual 4 vs 4. With a whole new world of doubles opening up, this is a great chance to test your ability to pick up a brand new metagame! ~Jellicent
Off-color posters beware: there's a new infraction in town! While good-natured smack talk has always been a part of tourney culture, there's a difference between dissing and degrading. It's a fine line to walk, so tread lightly. Spoil sports will be looking at a 1 point infraction if they can't keep their cool. Remember, it's like your mama always said: if you don't have anything nice to say, just take it to IRC ;) ~Jellicent
So we must ask: was The Folgorio's Proposition Tournament really such a good thing? After nearly 4 weeks of johning, host Folgorio must be eating the words, "No deadline, but please get it done promptly." The final match-up between Tiffanyy and Bluewind has been long in the waiting, but at last there is light at the end of this tunnel. Tournament Director Kevin Garrett has ruled that the battle must be held within the next 48 hours, and the two finalists plan on finally ending this tournament sometime tomorrow. Will they actually duke it out this time? Who will come out on top? Can an activity win really be given to anyone who's put off a battle for a month? Keep an eye on the finals thread to find out! ~Jellicent
The Trading Places Tournament is one where players play a best-of-three match. The catch is, they swap their game-one teams with each other for game two, then switch back if a third game. Limitless went up against .Robert in the finals of this tournament, with Limitless wielding his patent heavy offense team and .Robert using an offensive team with a bit of defensive backbone in Skarmory. Limitless won the first game here, riding a Choice Scarf Salamence to victory after crippling .Robert's Skarmory with Terrakion. In game two, seen here, Limitless kept early offensive pressure off by sacrificing Starmie to keep Azelf's Stealth Rock off the field. Through conservative play he was then able to stall out Lucario and Terrakion with Skarmory, dispatching both with a Brave Bird after they had taken repeated hazard damage and suffered from Close Combat defense drops. This allowed Limitless to pick off a severely weakened last-Pokemon Salamence with Lucario's ExtremeSpeed. Congratulations Limitless! ~Tobes
Sign-ups for the UUbers Tournament are now open. Hosted by RBG, this this tournament takes an unconventional approach with the Ubers metagame. Ubers is one of the few metagames that has nothing to do with usage statistics, but statistics are still collected for it. In this tournament, those statistics are applied, and every Pokemon over the 3.4% usage benchmark in Ubers is banned. The metagame could change over time as well, as new usage statistics come in each month. ~Tobes
After an impressive run through Earthworm (DPP), Loki (ADV), and gene (GSC), M Dragon was initially stopped by Hipmonlee (RBY). Simultaneously, Floppy had cleared through 3 of the vets but was repeatedly shut down by Earthworm. In a close race to see who would be the first to make it past all 4 greats, M Dragon managed to defeat Hipmonlee earlier today. Congratulations to M Dragon for being the first to conquer Victory RoAd! ~Jellicent
There's a new RU tournament starting up today, Shaking up RU. Loosely based on how lower tiers function, the banlist will change each round: either an RU Pokemon will be banned from the tier, or a UU or BL2 threat will be dropped down. Competitors will have to be quick on their feet with their ability to adapt and create new teams. With sign-ups for The RU Open still open, this is a great opportunity to get some more RU testing in! Between these two tourneys and the frequent Mini-Tournaments being held in RarelyUsed, there's never been a better time to try out the tier! ~Jellicent
The RU Open began today. Like the UU Open, it will consist of single-elimination best-of-three matches, with results counting towards overall placement. Winning the tournament won't earn you a trophy, but it'll give you a very solid chance of making the Top 8, provided you perform well in the other four Opens. If you think you're an RU star this is your chance to prove it, and if you're new to the metagame this is a good way to learn it firsthand. Good luck (or rather, hopefully no luck) to all participants. ~Tobes
Congratulations to Hugendugen for winning the No Arceus Ubers Tournament. This tournament was reminiscent of DPP Ubers in that Arceus was not allowed. Hugedugen took on locopoke and won in a best of three match. A Spacial Rend miss from Hugendugen's Palkia helped locopoke take game one, but Hugedugen won game two in spectacular style, setting up every layer of entry hazards possible and using Ninjask to Baton Pass the boosts his Ho-Oh needed to sweep. In game three Hugendugen managed to stall out locopoke's offenses with Reflect Lugia and Wish Blissey, thanks in no small part to locopoke's Groudon missing a key Stone Edge against Lugia and a near-death Blissey managing to pull off a double-Protect against Palkia, giving it enough Leftovers recovery to survive a Spacial Rend and use Wish. The replays of the matches, as well as every one of Hugendugen's games in the tournament, can be found here. ~Tobes
In 2005, after the initial success of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, Nintendo released their typical updated version of the games - Pokemon Emerald. While this game had a few aesthetic and gameplay updates, one major difference that set it apart from its predecessor was the addition of a certain section of the game, called the Battle Frontier. While everyone and their grandmothers were able to defeat the Pokemon League with their over-levelled starter, the Battle Frontier was another sort of beast; boasting seven “Frontier Brains,” each facility of the Frontier pitted the player with a different challenge, eventually leading to a battle with the Brain him/herself. Each Facility required a great deal of skill, a coherent team (not your over-levelled Blaziken) in most of the facilities, and a great deal of luck on the side of the player. From this concept, the Smogon Frontier was born. The Smogon Frontier pits each challenger against the best of what Smogon has to offer; these chosen Frontier Brains from all around the world represent some of Smogon’s strongest, craftiest, and luckiest players. The challenge is this: are you able to defeat all eleven Frontier Brains, Smogon’s premier players? ~Eraddd
He's come quite a long way from being the random with the Latios avatar to Smogon's newest trophy-holder. We recently managed to pull Smogon Tour 13 champion ToF away from his six-figure job to have a few words with him. Read about his Smogon Tour bid, his insights on battling, and perhaps even some of his dirty little secrets in this article. ~Eo Ut Mortus
As a new round of WCOP VII commences, the pace is definitely heating up. Across the course of the next week, four teams—Brazil, Latin America, USA East, and USA West—will be competing for a spot in the finals of this prestigious tournament.
Underdogs going into the quarterfinals, Brazil and USA West proved their mettle with comfortable victories over #1 and #2 seeds France and Spain. This round, Brazil will face off against USA East, which knocked out three-time defending champions Oceania in a close series of matches that went down to the wire, while USA West will be playing LA, which beat Asia in the other tiebreaker.
As in the previous round, teams will compete in eight best-of-one BW1 OU matches, with potential ties to be decided by a sudden-death tiebreak match. Check out individual pairings here, and the forum thread here. Congratulations and all the best to the four teams still in contention for the coveted blue trophy, and well done to the rest for having made it this far! ~sirndpt
The Competitor is proud to present the opening of The Competitor’s Tournament Panel! Co-hosted by Eraddd and Eo Ut Mortus, The Competitor’s Tournament Panel brings you up-to-date news and opinions from some of Smogon’s best known tournament players. In this first installment of the panel, watch Iconic, Kevin Garrett, Hipmonlee and Stone Cold in this panel argue about tiebreakers, talk about which team ghosts the most in the World Cup of Pokemon and much more. With humour, cunning and a bit of venom, each panelist will answer various questions and defend them from other panelists. Come get a glimpse into the insights of the minds of these prestigious tournament players in this edition of The Panel! ~Eraddd
The World Cup of Pokemon VII has been off to a close start, with 5 tie breakers in Round 1 alone. Now in Round 2, two match-ups have tied things up once again. Asia and LA have found themselves at an impasse, resulting in a tiebreaker between Eo Ut Mortus and Folgorio. Both players are renowned for their skill in DPP UU, making the competition that much more heated. Who is most able to adapt to the current meta? Keep a close eye out to find the answer! The result of this battle could easily go either way, and WCoP team standings rest with these two players. In a similar vein, USA East and Oceania have found themselves at a stalemate. The results of their match-ups boils down to Lamppost vs. panamaxis, meaning team standings depend on the strength of these two users. With two tiebreakers at once, this is shaping up to be one of the closest WCoPs of all time! Stay tuned for more updates. ~Jellicent
Who says old can't be in-style? The Ruins of Alph forum has underwent some major activity changes, with fun and exciting challenges such as the Victory RoAd, varying mini-tournaments of fabled tiers such as DPP UU, GSC OU, and even ADV Ubers. Check out what's been going on in RoA in this article. ~Jellicent
The Smogon Grand Slam has begun! This brand-new official tournament is a blend of the Smogon Official Tournament and the Smogon Tour, and consists of a UU Open, an RU Open, an Uber Open, an NU Open, and an LC Open. Since it's an official tournament, a trophy is up for grabs! Each Open will be a single-elimination, best-of-three format. Players will be awarded points for each match they win, and at the end of the season, the top 8 players will advance to the finals. For more information on how this tournament works (and what you need to do to win it), read here.
Sign-ups for the UU Open opened today. Although winning the Open won't earn you a trophy, it'll give you a huge leg up on making it to the Top 8 in the long-term. Sign-ups are below. ~Tobes
Round 2 of the official World Cup of Pokemon kicked off on Thursday, with the tiebreaker matches of Round 1 completed. France is paired with Brazil, Latin America is going up against Asia, Spain is facing off with USA West, and USA East is pitted against three-time champion Oceania. Each team will pit eight of their players against each other, with the team winning the majority of its eight bouts advancing to Round 3. A full list of the pairings can be found here. We'll have more coverage on this soon, with commentary on the match-ups and an interview. Stay tuned. ~Tobes
Sign-ups for the Unscrupulous Tiering Director Tournament are now open. Hosted by Eo Ut Mortus, each participant may ban two things from the metagame upon sign-up. Their bans will remain in effect for as long as they are in the tournament, with the banlist being updated at the beginning of each round. Redundancy is allowed, meaning that if enough people ban something, it could stay banned for multiple rounds. This means that the rules of the metagame will change drastically with each round, and will likely produce utterly unique metagames never seen before. Sign-ups are below. ~Tobes
Congratulations to 6A9 Ace Matador, who defeated Earthworm in the finals of the Smogon All Generations Tournament. As the name suggests, competitors in this tournament played best-of-5 matches, with one game in each generation's OU. The first four battles, as shown here were completed quickly. AM took first blood in DPP, where, in a narrow game, AM's Flygon used Fire Punch to drop Earthworm's Skarmory to low enough HP for it to die to Brave Bird recoil. Flygon surivived the attack with 1% HP. Earthworm fought back and won the GSC match, where a timely Fire Blast from Earthworm's Curselax dispatched AM's Skarmory. Body Slam paralysis would then allow him to overcome AM's Miltank and Belly Drum Snorlax, giving Earthworm a clean sweep. Earthworm took the ADV match as well, thanks some luck. AM in turn took RBY, making good use of Reflect / Rest Snorlax and finally getting some luck of his own.
The final match of the set, the BW game (seen here), took place two weeks later. AM's Deoxys-D managed to shut down the Dragon-type portion of Earthworm's offense, allowing AM's Gengar and Jirachi to dismantle Earthworm's remaining Scizor, Lucario, and Terrakion, with a timely Focus Blast crit from Gengar against Earthworm's Scizor cementing AM's victory. ~Tobes
Congratulations to Team PANELAND for winning the Ghosting Tournament! In this tournament, a team was encouraged to give their players advice during a match, something that is normally taboo. Team PANELAND, consisting of Hantsuki, pi face, and Rurushu, went up against Team SCHLÜSSELBEINBRUCH, whose members were Django Reinhart, CrashinBoomBang, and Ginku. In a battle that lasted over three hours, as seen here (don't worry the replay isn't nearly as long), Rurushu and his teammates managed to defeat Django Reinhart and his team. Congratulations to Rurushu, Hantsuki, and pi face!
For those interested in the ghosting process, a full (translated) log of Team PANELAND's decision-making process can be found here. ~Tobes
Congratulations to McMeghan, for winning the second iteration of the Best of 3 Tournament! In this tournament, battlers played in a format similar to previous Smogon Tour Top 16's, with competitors playing one game each of BW OU, BW Ubers, and BW UU. As the name of the tournament implies, the player who won a game in two out of three metagames would advance. McMeghan defeated Eo Ut Mortus first in UU, as seen here, by Baton Passing multiple Quiver Dances to a Mew. McMeghan then took the Ubers match, as seen here, when a rather unique Giratina-O set shredded Eo's team, allowing a Choice Scarf Terrakion to mop up. With McMeghan already having won two games, there was no need for the OU match.
Congratulations McMeghan! ~Tobes
The clash of the best players--it's kind of a BIGger deal than maybe even the shiny official Smogon tournament trophies. The users in the top 32 of Smogon Tour records were offered places in this tournament, and those who opted out were replaced with equally skilled players. Each match consists of a battle of three: BW OU, DPP OU, and ADV OU.
There are a two things that stick out with this tournament. First, BW OU will not be with the changes of BW2. Second of all, spectators must be allowed, and, in fact, are encouraged. So, stalk your favorites, place your bets, and check the thread for updates! ~V0x
Ruins of Alph, Smogon's go-to forum for competitive past generation discussion, is now hosting mini-tournaments. Each of these fast paced tourneys will feature a different past gen tier, so be sure to check in often to see which of your favorite forgotten metagames will be in the spotlight. The first mini-tournament will focus on standard DPP UU, and sign-ups are currently open. Be sure to post "in" now while spots are available! ~Jellicent
With the World Cup of Pokemon going into the Round 2's tiebreakers, we look back at the moments that define the yearly drama fest that is Round 1 of this tournament. ~Nachos
The signup thread for the Showdown! Randbats Tournament! is now open! Hurry up and sign up for this fun, unique tournament. In this tournament, players will fight each other on the new, browser-based simulator Pokemon Showdown! The Randbat system that Showdown! uses is similar to the Challenge Cup system that Pokemon Online uses, except Randbats are more competitively oriented and feature some of Smogon’s very own CAP Pokemon. This tournament also marks the first tournament to be held on Pokemon Showdown!, the simulator that Smogon will officially endorse as the Fifth Generation Simulator! ~Steven Snype
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if team advantage was completely removed, and the primary factor deciding games was player skill? The Mirror Match II Tournament allows you to design the team that you will be able to master better than your opponent, and tests your ability to adapt to the creations of others. Each round, players compete in a best-of-three set, once with each player using the first player's team, once with both using the second player's team, and once with both using a team posted by the host each round. In its previous renditions, players pulled out all the stops, developing increasingly creative teams in the hope that their opponents would be at the disadvantage. One of the finalists even used a team consisting of six Espeon! Sign up for this tournament to try your hand at mirror matches! ~Steven Snype
In the wake of a new metagame, there's no better way to raise the excitement than with a tournament. Hosted by Iconic, signups opened earlier today and will remain so for another 48 hours. With new threats, tutor moves, and maybe even tiering changes within the lifetime of the tournament, will the vapid VoltTurn strategy continue to dominate, or will a lone trainer craft the devastating set that breaks one of these new Pokemon? Whatever the case may be, sign up now and abuse Salac Berry, Keldeo, Thundurus-T, Landorus-T, Tornadus-T, and the whole slew of new Dream World abilities! ~V0x
With the 2012 Summer Olympics in London coming up, what better way to celebrate its arrival than with The World Cup of Pokemon VII? Bringing together the world's best pokemon players representing their nation, The World Cup of Pokemon pits nation against nation, patriot against patriot, in a battle for national pride. Winning the past three World Cups, Team Oceania seeks another victory, with newly installed captain Hipmonlee leading them. This instalment also sees two new teams competing for the top; Team Italy, led by Alucard, and Team Africa and Middle East, led by Grind_Pantera.
Will Team Oceania triumph yet again, or will a new team take the crown this year? Be sure to contact the captain of your country to try out and lead your nation to victory!
Returning Teams
(Team - Captain - IRC Channel)
Asia - ToF - #gotrice
Benelux - Delko - #benelux
Brazil - Hantsuki - #teambrazil
Canada - Iconic - #canada
France - Go10
Germany - Conflict
Latin America - hanke - #la
Mexico - Robert - #mexico
Oceania - Hipmonlee - #ocn
Spain - Malekith - #spain
UK - twash - #uk
US Central - LonelyNess - #central
US East - Stone_Cold - #eastus
US Metro - JabbaTheGriffin - #metro
US West - Philip7086 - #usbest
New Teams
Italy - Alucard (Haunter) - Social group
Africa + Middle East - Grind_Pantera - #afrabs
For more information, follow this link. ~Eraddd.
Sign-ups for the No Johns Tournament have opened! Hosted by Bloo, this tournament harkens back to the days of 4th gen DPP OU, where Rotom formes are Ghost-types and Salamence is banned. Fun fact: the etymology of the word "John" comes from Smash, denoting a "cheap excuse" for any unfavourable event; in pokemon, "johning" means to avoid a match for whatever reason. Thus, in a tournament called "No John" the deadlines will be extremely short, up to only three days, so make sure you finish your matches! The format for this tournament is standard; general tournament rules and standard DPP OU rules apply, except for one catch: each match is a best of one, rather than a best of three. With these things in mind, hurry up and sign up and prove yourself in one of Smogon's most successful and popular metagames, and remember, no johning! ~Eraddd
Round 2 of the Adherence Tournament has just begun! Set in BW OU, this tournament has one simple rule: each pokemon must be equipped with a Choice item. This means that prediction and team building are even more crucial in this format; can you prevail in these restricting conditions? This year's tournament features the return of Heist, last year's winner, and the likes of Iconic, McMeghan, and other heavyweights. Round 1 featured some upsets such as reyscarface, and idiotfrommars suffering from defeats at the hands of Living Things and IceCarAdler respectively. Will Heist claim his crown yet again? Or will someone else claim the top for themselves this year? ~Eraddd
With the Battle Royale Act IV coming to a close, we see the player McMeghan rise triumphantly amongst the corpses of his fellow battlers. This tournament had a rather unique format, using the movie "Battle Royale" as an inspiration. In a span of two weeks, 42 battlers duelled in a free-for-all tournament, where players challenged each other to the death (or best of one), until only one victor was left standing. If a winner hadn't been decided within the two weeks, then everyone would have been eliminated instead. Fortunately, the final match was fought with McMeghan on one side, and 6A9 Ace Matador on the other, with McMeghan as the winner. Congratulations to him for a great performance, and we hope to see you in the next installment of Battle Royale! ~Eraddd