Underused Premier League Coverage

Ah, the Underused Premier League. The pinnacle of competitive XY UU battling, and a tournament which revived the older tiers such as DPP UU and BW UU for one last hurrah. Last year after the end of Smogon Premier League, many of the lower tiers in BW began conducting their own Premier Leagues. However, activity often faltered in these tournaments, and interest soon waned with most of the tournaments not even coming close to completion. With the advent of XY UU, however, UUPL 2 was a success, retaining activity throughout the duration of the tournament. Here's a look back to the beginning of UUPL 2 and the developments up until now.

Post-draft

At the end of the UUPL draft, these were the 6 teams:

Dendemille Town Dukes (managed by Royalty): Hikari / Kitten_Milk / Hot_N_Cold / BKC / Swamp_Link / PDC / New_Breed / majaspic22 / Bouffalant / FirstWorldProblems / Emerald / eaglehawk / Lost_Soul

Sootopolis City Super Nerds (managed by Mazz): radianthero156 / JabbaTheGriffin / Limitless / SilentVerse / Hilarious / Calloflochie / Tomahawk9 / Finchinator / Fat_Lenny / Chesnaught

Eterna City Escape Artists (managed by blarajan): pttp / Eo_Ut_Mortus / Dice / mop / Zebraiken / ßasedVictory / HSA / dcae / meeps / kuja20 / CoolStoryBrobat

Black City Burglars (managed by Nas): reachzero / SOMALIA / dragonuser / Oglemi / jamashawalker / Smurf. / Annoyer / Soulgazer / Windsong / PROBLEMS / Treecko

Vermilion City Veteran Stars (managed by Ernesto): Bad_Ass / Sweep / Jirachee / Metal_Sonic / namehtmas / cbt / King_UU / col49 / Cherub_Agent / Dat_Blast / TPO3 / llvallejoll / EonX-

Saffron City Rockets (managed by FLCL): Heysup / fatty / Raseri / -Tsunami- / kokoloko / Kushalos / Laga / ShootingStarmie / atomicllamas / BLINGAS / Silvershadow234 / Jayde

Unlike other Premier Leagues, each team's manager could partake in the battling aspect of the tournament as well. Each week contained a head-to-head battle between the managers of each team in whichever UU tier they deemed fit. These teams would battle each other in grueling series for five arduous weeks, with the two worst teams being eliminated from playoff contention.

Week 1

Week 1 began and everyone was anxious to showcase their metagame knowledge and competitive skill. Nas and the Black City Burglars attained first blood with his win over blarajan, doing something no one in the regular Smogon Premier League managed to do. As with every tournament, there were many activity posts and a lot of luck, but eventually, the winners were decided relatively drama-free, as the Saffron City Rockets defeated the Vermillion City Veteran Stars 6-3, the Eterna City Escape Artists defeated the Black City Burglars 5-3, and the Sootopolis City Super Nerds defeated the Dendemille Town Dukes 6-3.

Week 2

Week 2 began, and the teams that lost last week knew that they needed to achieve victory this week in order to truly remain in contention. The Eterna City Escape Artists continued their dominance, defeating the Veteran Stars 5-2 to take the lead at 2-0. Meanwhile, the Town Dukes, frustrated from their loss the week before, blew out the Black City Burglars 5-0. In one of the games in this series, known Ubers player, Problems, of the Burglars faced off against his fellow IDM clan mate New Breed, producing the following moment which ended up being a microcosm of the Black City Burglars' season:

In the other series of the week, the Super Nerds managed to take a 4-1 lead over the Saffron City Rockets, all but assuring their victory. However, they somehow managed to completely choke away the lead, as wins by Kushalos, myself, Jayde, and atomicllamas gave the Rockets an improbable rally to knock out the Super Nerds and keep pace with the Escape Artists in first place.

Week 3

Week 3 was the halfway point through the season, and the teams wanting to make a playoff push knew that they had to play well. The week started with a player named Chesnaught assuming it would be wise to VM MoP to schedule a match, despite MoP not being able to log into his account at all for the past 2 years. The match was never completed. Following this, Super Nerds manager Mazz made a trade that effectively made the Saffron City Rockets unstoppable, as Mazz traded Limitless and JabbatheGriffin for fatty, Laga, Raseri, and ShootingStarmie due to some internal strife between Limitless and Mazz. Needless to say, this deal made the 3-0 Rockets an even greater favorite to take the title, as they narrowly defeated the Town Dukes 5-3 to quell the latter's momentum. Meanwhile, the Escape Artists continued blasting away their competition, annihilating the new-look Super Nerds 5-1 and once again remaining at the top of the pack at 3-0 along with the Rockets. While this was going on, the manager of the Black City Burglars, Nas, quit UUPL, and his team proceeded to lose to the Veteran Stars 6-0 with an unprecedented 4 activity losses. Not only had they lost, but now the Burglars needed to get another manager.

With 3 weeks gone by, the standings looked like this:

Week 4

The first news of the week was that the playoffs were changed to only the top 2 teams instead of the top 4, a change which frustrated some but ultimately made sense since only 6 teams existed to begin with. The Saffron City Rockets and the Eterna City Escape Artists could each clinch a playoff spot with a win this week, rendering Week 5 meaningless. However, the Dendemille Town Dukes could make a push for the playoffs by defeating the Escape Artists, which is precisely what they did, as Hikari defeated Meeps in BW UU to clutch a season-saving win for the Town Dukes in a 5-4 victory. While the Escape Artists faltered, the Rockets continued their sheer domination over the competition, defeating the hapless Burglers 5-2 and becoming the first team to clinch a spot in the finals, despite recent "quitter" Nas actually completing his battle. Meanwhile, the "revamped" Super Nerds continued their downward slide, losing to the Veteran Stars in a close 5-4 series which was ultimately decided by an activity win for col49 over ShootingStarmie, angering some.

Week 5

In the final week of the season, only three teams remained in playoff contention, along with the Rockets who had already clinched a spot in the finals with a 4-0 record. However, the Rockets could still play a huge role in the final week, as a victory over the Escape Artists would mean a tiebreak between the Escape Artists' manager blarajan and Ernesto, the manager of the Veteran Stars, or Royalty, the manager of the Town Dukes, depending on who won the head-to-head series. After cruising through the first 3 weeks of the season with an undefeated record, the Escape Artists could improbably miss the playoffs with a loss. And unfortunately for them, the Rockets did not let up their destruction of the competition, dismantling blarajan's team 5-1 to guarantee a tiebreak. The Town Dukes took full advantage, crushing the Veteran Stars 6-0 in a rout, setting up a tiebreak match between Royalty and blarajan to determine who would face off against the undefeated Saffron City Rockets in the finals. After Baton Passing 2 Quiver Dance boosts to his Mega Blastoise, Royalty control of the game, defeating blarajan and completing the collapse of the Eterna City Escape Artists, who fell from 3-0 to 3-2 and were eliminated from the playoffs. Royalty's victory sets up a clash between the Dendemille Town Dukes, who improbably rallied to clutch a playoff spot, and the Saffron City Rockets, who cruised through the entire season and finished with a 5-0 record. Who will win between these two titans? Only time will tell.