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Tournament SPL - RU Discussion
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Gonna just get this in here while the game is fresh.
That was kind of a shitshow on both sides. I messed up a calc from Venu v Aboma, screwed up w/ Diancie, and then choked w/ using Brave Bird over Bulk Up at the end. Not really sure how I ended up winning it, but suffice to say it was genuinely garbage. Not rly the kind of game I like to see/play in SPL, and I hope Kevin and I have a better match next week.
Sorry to all viewers n_n
That was kind of a shitshow on both sides. I messed up a calc from Venu v Aboma, screwed up w/ Diancie, and then choked w/ using Brave Bird over Bulk Up at the end. Not really sure how I ended up winning it, but suffice to say it was genuinely garbage. Not rly the kind of game I like to see/play in SPL, and I hope Kevin and I have a better match next week.
Sorry to all viewers n_n
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A fast malamar made the entire difference in the end game but it was a really slow one. You didnt get punished for not bulking up with your braviary since the malamar was slower... for whatever reason.
The one legitimate choke (if you allow me, Id rather not use this term but is the one used to describe this situation) was not bulking up there, could have easily sealed the game regardless of a fast malamar or not. But in the end it worked out for you cause reasons already stated. What type of mega aboma survive a modest LO sludge bomb like that?! at worst it is a 50% chance to OHKO with 168 hp investment o_o unless you though it was timid?
Could have been played better but gonna make the respective review when all games are played.
The one legitimate choke (if you allow me, Id rather not use this term but is the one used to describe this situation) was not bulking up there, could have easily sealed the game regardless of a fast malamar or not. But in the end it worked out for you cause reasons already stated. What type of mega aboma survive a modest LO sludge bomb like that?! at worst it is a 50% chance to OHKO with 168 hp investment o_o unless you though it was timid?
Could have been played better but gonna make the respective review when all games are played.
Nah I forgot to put Special Attack EVs on Venu when I ran the calc (rip). And I really don't mind any critiques of the play on my end (although I don't think there's much to gain from it); in other games I've justified some seemingly iffy plays that I believed were correct, but here I genuinely made the worst plays possible over the last few turns of the endgame.
Wind song won BC solid team unless he really choked , afro had a crisp team covering most of the tier but bird cleaned up late game, was expecting a status powder for any chance :3
And we are BEEACK again with some more spl ru action. Now reviewing week 5, which was a pretty good week overall imo.
[ORAS RU]
New Breed with a rather odd looking team, looking functional but the lack of reliable fighting resist means virizion would be doing tons of work in this matchup but lets try to predict what he had: Diancie being the rock setter / mixed wallbreaker abomasnow / ddance scrafty (proved to be a really damn odd bulky scrafty, like why?) / Was thinking scarf durant but seeing the emboar it was definitely banded / A Rotom which could have been the standard sub hex discharge set / scarf emboar.
To the match: Meru decides to lead with mega steelix and it makes sense it having a pretty good matchup overall against New Breed team. Kev seeing this decides to lead with rotom seeing is one of the few things that could directly threaten mega steelix without too much damage. Based on the damage that rotom did to mega steelix (and that it was running shadow ball) it was definitely a more offensive rotom variant, seeing some calculations it has either spell tag or specs as the item. Going with spell tag since the damage was on the range of damage to standard mega steelix (if the mega steelix was spdef, the damage it did is definitely specs damage but that combination in RU is highly unlikely). Nice double at turn 2. Turn 3 shows how pelipper is viable, taking that iron head like a champ. Unfortunate scald crit at turn 4 on the rotom, Meru had solid checks to it but was the most important tool to get past pelipper, which would take the toll later on the match.
Great play at turn 7 sending the steelix on the banded thunder fang, Meru noticing it was banded it took a calculated risk seeing that Kev would try to catch pelipper seeing it is an annoyance for him. Good one. So free EQ since the rotom being weakened wouldnt come in at this point of the match, scrafty comes in and wow, what is this scrafty set?! that did nothing. Seeing that damage, definitely a bulky one (why? bulk up?). Seeing that it was a free pelipper switch-in. That hurricane damage easily reveals it is spdef. Nice roost on turn 11 seeing the switch. Now, it was on Kev interest to get rocks as soon as possible seeing that 1) It would help pressure pelipper 2) sneasel so Meru could easily scald here. And he gets the burn first try! That helped a lot getting rid of the diancie. Then there come a good amount of turns diancie pressuring the pelipper, and it manages to get rid to 57% which definitely helps.
Next couple have a rather straightforward flow, Meru sacking the steelix to the mega aboma, bringing in meloetta and having a free focus blast since it wont matter if the rotom comes in since hazard damage + hail would do the trick (why the crit on turn 4 mattered). Well played from both sides so far. Amazing play on turn 20 from Meru, pursuiting the durant which switched out which is huge, erradicating the ant from the game (I was debating about that play since knock off kind of makes sense since durant was in knock off range but seeing the hard switch into emboar, it was on Meru best interest to keep emboar choice locked, otherwise Pelipper would just die to wild charge so weighing both scenarios, it was a good play and because Kev kind of needed durant. Sneasel already did its job so Meru sacks it and Diancie is offensive trick room. Game seemed sealed here but Kev played really well against, establishing emboar as the main win condition no matter the sack he had to make.
The end game here was critical. Non barring crits, Meru just had to force the flare blitz and pelipper gave him the win. It does (flare blitz does 29% max) so pelipper takes it and kills emboar (scald kills after the meloetta recoil, no doubt). Great match, easily the best on in my eyes. Very well played from both sides, although Kev team was strictly worse. Amazing game, long review cause it was the best game obviously.
Analysis: Here we have some hazard stacking offense vs hazard stacking offense match! Both teams with the same concept and execution but really different selection of mons which is rather cool. Both teams seem to be focused to aid a scarf tyrantrum cleaning with hazards and wallbreakers to wear down its checks. Luigi most likely had: standard spike setter qwilfish / scarf tyrantrum / Nasty plot houndoom (proved to be pursuit which actually made for sense seeing the psychic weakness) / Specs tangrowth for the inmediate power / standard rock setter mega steelix / Pivot eelektross, most likely AV
Ginku with: Specs meloetta for the immediate power / scarf tyrantrum / seeing the team overall, it has the tools to be calm mind virizion / standard spike setter qwilfish / stealth rock seismitoad / escavalier (thinking AV but could be banded)
To the match: Seeing both teams, you can be a huge weakness to virizion (if it was SD it was manageable but if CM... gg) so he had to find out a way to pressure it, it definitely would be on its major interest. On Ginku side, houndoom looking really threatening,
Turn 1, so early in the game, and we have a 50/50. Now, depending on what variant this houndoom (if it was max attack pursuit trapper) it was on Luigi major interest to just crunch since at worst it gets damage on whatever comes in. He loses the 50/50 since Ginku stays in with the meloetta and it pays out, houndoom is dead which was a threat to Ginku. Seeing the damage it definitely wasnt max attack pursuit, most likely a special variant with pursuit as a last move. The risk payed out. Nice series of double in the next couple of turns, good presence of mind. Unfortunate focus blast miss with the tangrowth on the escavalier, if it was banded it definitely mattered cause it could have went for the kill right there and if AV, at worst it is good damage to wear it down. 1 more nice double with the eelektross on the meloetta to finish 1 threat off. Dynamic first turns here. Lovely.
Now, turn 7 is where things get ugly for Luigi. Ginku reveals the calm mind on virizion so luigi had to sack something and force it out. Eelektross it is and Luigi send out tyrantrum which is the thing that could force virizion out, it works and it makes a good double with the tangrowth on the qwilfish but sadly for Luigi, Ginku only needed spikes to break mega steelix sturdy and just wins to with calm mind virizion. Virizion leaves the tyrantrum outrage with ease, and from there Ginku wins. Luigi team was way too pressured by virizion, he had to pray it was SD. This shows how threatening this mon can really be.
Analysis: Good to see Dice starting in RU, I know for a fact he had played this tier for a decent amount of time (posting a sample team and all of that) so yeah. Dice with: standard rock setter mega steelix / fletchinder which could be SD, but u-turn have been seeing good amount of usage lately / blastoise to provide hazard control for fletchinder / LO venusaur / pursuit sneasel with a coverage to hit mega aboma perhaps / diancie (no idea what set could it be, doubit it is something like rock polish cause with sneasel and fletch, he has enough tools for offense imo). General goal of the team seems to be paving a way for a fletchinder late game clean, team to basically support the sweep. Pretty straightforward.
Galbia having a team with dual fighting type + pursuit trapper which is a pretty efficient concept to build around in RU since the XY days, different type of combinations are pretty effective on this. Galbia having: pursuit trapper spiritomb / specs meloetta, could actually be offensive calm mind (proved to be a colbur berry variant) / swords dance virizion / spin blastoise / standard rocks mega steelix / scarf medicham for the offense matchup.
To the match: The first turns are absolutely unfortunate, basically dictating a rough course for galbia throughout the rest of the match. Sneasel being a really good lead for Dice here, having a good matchup against most of galbia and at worst, wearing down blastoise is amazing for fletchinder late game. Meloetta was a good lead for galbia, being a threat to most of dice team as well. Anyways, meloetta is colbur and it could get rid of sneasel with focus blast but... misses. Really unfortunate, this would easily allow for Dice to go for pursuit next turn no matter what. Another terribly unfortunate high jump kick miss on turn 3, not looking good for galbia. From here galbia was kind of forced to play rather aggresively after switching the steelix on the fletchinder to try to come back. A great double against the blastoise with the virizion allows him to go for SD and finish the venusaur with zen headbutt at +2, which was pretty threatening for him.
Sneasel comes in and it was free to press either knock off or icicle crash since wearing down blastoise and mega steelix was good for Dice to clean with fletchinder later on, and galbia being forced to keep the blastoise healthy. A trade with spiritomb and sneasel to wear down the sneasel up to 3% was fair, remember that galbia had to pray really aggressively. Scald wars from turn 15 and turn 21, and both had refresh. They were prepared. From here it was really difficult to galbia to come back, not having stone edge on viri means he couldnt avoid fletchinder switching into it and constantly receiving acrobatics and Dice having no reason to not just go for it means galbia just didnt had enough options. Really respectable attempt to come back, he played really well with the limitations, but the early game hax just sealed the game for him sadly. May galbia have better luck next weeks.
And we never was set was the diancie on Dice side :O
Analysis: Talk about some pretty weird looking teams in here. Dont get me wrong, I dont mean weird in a bad way, but weird in the sense that you dont see mons like braviary, mega audino and malamar on RU games in general. Pretty cool change of pace, I like the nurse nowadays. Windsong brings a rather odd team but a balance consisting of a defensive backbone of jellicent + escavalier + diancie that cover a pretty good amount of threats and braviary with mega abomasnow being the win conditions of the team. Flygon in there to provide hazard removal, momentum and general pivoting to bring braviary and mega aboma safely. Wallbreaker mega abomasnow / spdef pivot flygon with defog / sub bulk up braviary / rock setter diancie, spdef / escavalier (most likely AV to cover some annoying psychic types) / standard defensive jellicent with colbur. Interesting, only qualm is that the team is really slow.
Afro Smash with a really cool looking squad. I like what to see. Audino, most likely mega audino and hoping for healing wish + 3 attacks (proved to be some wish tect t-wave variant, really damn disappointed on that one where an offensive one would have been so damn dope :( ) / LO aerodactyl, roost + 3 attacks or All out attacker / emboar which could have been scarf (was expert belt, dope) / standard rock setter seismitoad / malamar (rest talk and stuff) / LO venusaur. Interesting stuff.
To the match: Pretty good lead from windsong seeing the overall good mega aboma had against Afro Smash team, Afro Smash leads seismitoad which is a rough start. Seeing Afro Smash team having only one really solid ice resist on emboar, being forced to get that weakened so early in the match wasnt on Afro Smash best interest so he is kind of forced to go audino, which showcased to be a spdef variant. Weird, since the general composition of the team kind of wanted an offensive variant. An offensive variant could have went for fire blast and get rid of mega abomasnow really easily but oh well, wishful thinking.
Comes escavalier on the mega audino and Afro Smash goes to seismitoad knowing the possibility of the drill run. It pays so getting stealth rock up and aiming for burn escavalier was the main goal, sacking toad in the process but that was fine to bring emboar safely. Emboar carnage from turn 7 to 10 getting rid of flygon and diancie with flare blitz then superpower then heavy slam on flygon and diancie respectively showing it was expert belt. That was amazing and the crowd went wild! Windsong then goes braviary and aero, they play around a bit and braviary managed to get out with full health. From there the game develop in a natural way, jellicent to aero, venusaur to jellicent, escavalier to venusaur, proper switch-ins and stuff.
I think sacking for the roll against the jellicent with expert wild charge on emboar was a mistake (it literally was a mid roll) but going for it when emboar keep mega aboma at bay was too risky, and it didnt payed out. Should have went with venusaur there. What is this audino set?! Venusaur to hp fire the esca and weaken it, enter aerodactyl, aerodactyl kills the esca on the next couple of turns.
Now the end game was rather pale on both sides. Staying with mega aboma on the venusaur was a huge mistake but things like that happen. Braviary was still in a good position to win. From turn 28 to 34 we have braviary trying to wear the venusaur down, and Afro Smash going at it to pressure and try to get a poison in the process. It does get it but in the end the real big mistake was not going for bulk up the moment the venusaur was at 3%. That would have sealed the deal no matter what. And apparently the venusaur was chlorophyll (LOL) so it should gone for sludge bomb.
In the end the malamar was slow, I was like "WTF MAN" and windsong won the game. A fast malamar (in RU you run speed on it 120% of the time, which lead me to believe someone that plays mainly NU did this) could have sealed the game for Afro Smash but too many "could have" in this. Pretty enjoyable game despite the mistakes, some really cool moments :)
Analysis: Finally a manectric! The team looking again with a goal for a fletchinder sweep, manectric and meloetta being really proficien balance breakers and poliwrath alongside steelix forming a solid defensive backbone, classic fletchgon cause they are hella good together. In depth with the team: LO manectric / standard fletchinder, swords dance in this one imo / defensive poliwrath / standard stealth rock mega steelix / looking like defensive flygon in this but not sure (proved to be LO special set) / specs meloetta tbh. IMO.
Scythe with a classic mola balance having mola, diancie and flygon as the defensive backbone, sigilyph and venusaur being the wallbreakers (at first glance) and durant solving the lack of speed on this team. Scarf durant / LO sigilyph / standard rocks diancie, spdef / spdef flygon with u-turn, usual stuff / LO venusaur / alomomomomomomomola/
To the match: Really ballsy plays from Scythe from turn 1 to 4 but imo atomicllamas overpredicted too roughly, again just seeing the replay and not me playing the game makes saying this a lot easier than it should, but manectric putting such an inmense amount of work against scythe means pressing thunderbolt was rather risk free. Great plays from Scythe, that has tons of merit cause you have to do that. Manectric losing its LO was pretty huge since it becomes a bit easier to play around now. Still could do tons of work agaisnt Scythe tho, not useless not yet! Diancie could switch and set up rocks now, and it does next turn.
The sigilyph then proved to be calm mind psycho shift sigilyph. I disagree with that set on teams like these without a pursuit trapper since meloetta comes in and while you burn are you quite in a rough position all the time, thats just how I see it. Not sure if crit mattered unless the meloetta wasnt specs, then it did matter. Match looking fresh so far, hax, but there is always that. Here goes mola on the melo and then mega steelix, wait... I think it is the other way around oo llamas dodge the burn and toxic the mola, good. Man, that diancie went back to life. Back to square one with the mega steelix to diancie and then mola back to mola from turn 16 to 18, but mega steelix gets burned this time.
Flygon then reveals to be the special variant at turn (man, Im terrible at predicting sets D: ). In the end the venusaur proved to be a physical variant, power whip (SD, never saw that one coming). Catching the fletchinder on the switch with sleep powder was really huge, and a play that paved the way for Scythe to win. From here diancie ridiculous tankiness shows, beating special flygon 1v1 and scarf durant seals the game. Atomicllamas had the matchup advantage imo but Scythe played really damn well, impressive showcase despise having big problems against him in manectric and melo. Diancie is crazy.
And thats it for week 5, enjoyable week tbh, games are getting better overall and thats a good sign
Cya next week to discuss week 6, cheers!
[ORAS RU]
- [CONG] New Breed vs. Meru [SHRK]
- [RAID] Esteemed User Ginku vs. Luigi. [RUIN]
- [BIGS] galbia vs. dice [FLCN]
- [SCTR] Windsong vs. Afro Smash [WOLF]
- [TGRS] atomicllamas vs. Scythe. [CRYO]
New Breed with a rather odd looking team, looking functional but the lack of reliable fighting resist means virizion would be doing tons of work in this matchup but lets try to predict what he had: Diancie being the rock setter / mixed wallbreaker abomasnow / ddance scrafty (proved to be a really damn odd bulky scrafty, like why?) / Was thinking scarf durant but seeing the emboar it was definitely banded / A Rotom which could have been the standard sub hex discharge set / scarf emboar.
To the match: Meru decides to lead with mega steelix and it makes sense it having a pretty good matchup overall against New Breed team. Kev seeing this decides to lead with rotom seeing is one of the few things that could directly threaten mega steelix without too much damage. Based on the damage that rotom did to mega steelix (and that it was running shadow ball) it was definitely a more offensive rotom variant, seeing some calculations it has either spell tag or specs as the item. Going with spell tag since the damage was on the range of damage to standard mega steelix (if the mega steelix was spdef, the damage it did is definitely specs damage but that combination in RU is highly unlikely). Nice double at turn 2. Turn 3 shows how pelipper is viable, taking that iron head like a champ. Unfortunate scald crit at turn 4 on the rotom, Meru had solid checks to it but was the most important tool to get past pelipper, which would take the toll later on the match.
Great play at turn 7 sending the steelix on the banded thunder fang, Meru noticing it was banded it took a calculated risk seeing that Kev would try to catch pelipper seeing it is an annoyance for him. Good one. So free EQ since the rotom being weakened wouldnt come in at this point of the match, scrafty comes in and wow, what is this scrafty set?! that did nothing. Seeing that damage, definitely a bulky one (why? bulk up?). Seeing that it was a free pelipper switch-in. That hurricane damage easily reveals it is spdef. Nice roost on turn 11 seeing the switch. Now, it was on Kev interest to get rocks as soon as possible seeing that 1) It would help pressure pelipper 2) sneasel so Meru could easily scald here. And he gets the burn first try! That helped a lot getting rid of the diancie. Then there come a good amount of turns diancie pressuring the pelipper, and it manages to get rid to 57% which definitely helps.
Next couple have a rather straightforward flow, Meru sacking the steelix to the mega aboma, bringing in meloetta and having a free focus blast since it wont matter if the rotom comes in since hazard damage + hail would do the trick (why the crit on turn 4 mattered). Well played from both sides so far. Amazing play on turn 20 from Meru, pursuiting the durant which switched out which is huge, erradicating the ant from the game (I was debating about that play since knock off kind of makes sense since durant was in knock off range but seeing the hard switch into emboar, it was on Meru best interest to keep emboar choice locked, otherwise Pelipper would just die to wild charge so weighing both scenarios, it was a good play and because Kev kind of needed durant. Sneasel already did its job so Meru sacks it and Diancie is offensive trick room. Game seemed sealed here but Kev played really well against, establishing emboar as the main win condition no matter the sack he had to make.
The end game here was critical. Non barring crits, Meru just had to force the flare blitz and pelipper gave him the win. It does (flare blitz does 29% max) so pelipper takes it and kills emboar (scald kills after the meloetta recoil, no doubt). Great match, easily the best on in my eyes. Very well played from both sides, although Kev team was strictly worse. Amazing game, long review cause it was the best game obviously.
Analysis: Here we have some hazard stacking offense vs hazard stacking offense match! Both teams with the same concept and execution but really different selection of mons which is rather cool. Both teams seem to be focused to aid a scarf tyrantrum cleaning with hazards and wallbreakers to wear down its checks. Luigi most likely had: standard spike setter qwilfish / scarf tyrantrum / Nasty plot houndoom (proved to be pursuit which actually made for sense seeing the psychic weakness) / Specs tangrowth for the inmediate power / standard rock setter mega steelix / Pivot eelektross, most likely AV
Ginku with: Specs meloetta for the immediate power / scarf tyrantrum / seeing the team overall, it has the tools to be calm mind virizion / standard spike setter qwilfish / stealth rock seismitoad / escavalier (thinking AV but could be banded)
To the match: Seeing both teams, you can be a huge weakness to virizion (if it was SD it was manageable but if CM... gg) so he had to find out a way to pressure it, it definitely would be on its major interest. On Ginku side, houndoom looking really threatening,
Turn 1, so early in the game, and we have a 50/50. Now, depending on what variant this houndoom (if it was max attack pursuit trapper) it was on Luigi major interest to just crunch since at worst it gets damage on whatever comes in. He loses the 50/50 since Ginku stays in with the meloetta and it pays out, houndoom is dead which was a threat to Ginku. Seeing the damage it definitely wasnt max attack pursuit, most likely a special variant with pursuit as a last move. The risk payed out. Nice series of double in the next couple of turns, good presence of mind. Unfortunate focus blast miss with the tangrowth on the escavalier, if it was banded it definitely mattered cause it could have went for the kill right there and if AV, at worst it is good damage to wear it down. 1 more nice double with the eelektross on the meloetta to finish 1 threat off. Dynamic first turns here. Lovely.
Now, turn 7 is where things get ugly for Luigi. Ginku reveals the calm mind on virizion so luigi had to sack something and force it out. Eelektross it is and Luigi send out tyrantrum which is the thing that could force virizion out, it works and it makes a good double with the tangrowth on the qwilfish but sadly for Luigi, Ginku only needed spikes to break mega steelix sturdy and just wins to with calm mind virizion. Virizion leaves the tyrantrum outrage with ease, and from there Ginku wins. Luigi team was way too pressured by virizion, he had to pray it was SD. This shows how threatening this mon can really be.
Analysis: Good to see Dice starting in RU, I know for a fact he had played this tier for a decent amount of time (posting a sample team and all of that) so yeah. Dice with: standard rock setter mega steelix / fletchinder which could be SD, but u-turn have been seeing good amount of usage lately / blastoise to provide hazard control for fletchinder / LO venusaur / pursuit sneasel with a coverage to hit mega aboma perhaps / diancie (no idea what set could it be, doubit it is something like rock polish cause with sneasel and fletch, he has enough tools for offense imo). General goal of the team seems to be paving a way for a fletchinder late game clean, team to basically support the sweep. Pretty straightforward.
Galbia having a team with dual fighting type + pursuit trapper which is a pretty efficient concept to build around in RU since the XY days, different type of combinations are pretty effective on this. Galbia having: pursuit trapper spiritomb / specs meloetta, could actually be offensive calm mind (proved to be a colbur berry variant) / swords dance virizion / spin blastoise / standard rocks mega steelix / scarf medicham for the offense matchup.
To the match: The first turns are absolutely unfortunate, basically dictating a rough course for galbia throughout the rest of the match. Sneasel being a really good lead for Dice here, having a good matchup against most of galbia and at worst, wearing down blastoise is amazing for fletchinder late game. Meloetta was a good lead for galbia, being a threat to most of dice team as well. Anyways, meloetta is colbur and it could get rid of sneasel with focus blast but... misses. Really unfortunate, this would easily allow for Dice to go for pursuit next turn no matter what. Another terribly unfortunate high jump kick miss on turn 3, not looking good for galbia. From here galbia was kind of forced to play rather aggresively after switching the steelix on the fletchinder to try to come back. A great double against the blastoise with the virizion allows him to go for SD and finish the venusaur with zen headbutt at +2, which was pretty threatening for him.
Sneasel comes in and it was free to press either knock off or icicle crash since wearing down blastoise and mega steelix was good for Dice to clean with fletchinder later on, and galbia being forced to keep the blastoise healthy. A trade with spiritomb and sneasel to wear down the sneasel up to 3% was fair, remember that galbia had to pray really aggressively. Scald wars from turn 15 and turn 21, and both had refresh. They were prepared. From here it was really difficult to galbia to come back, not having stone edge on viri means he couldnt avoid fletchinder switching into it and constantly receiving acrobatics and Dice having no reason to not just go for it means galbia just didnt had enough options. Really respectable attempt to come back, he played really well with the limitations, but the early game hax just sealed the game for him sadly. May galbia have better luck next weeks.
And we never was set was the diancie on Dice side :O
Analysis: Talk about some pretty weird looking teams in here. Dont get me wrong, I dont mean weird in a bad way, but weird in the sense that you dont see mons like braviary, mega audino and malamar on RU games in general. Pretty cool change of pace, I like the nurse nowadays. Windsong brings a rather odd team but a balance consisting of a defensive backbone of jellicent + escavalier + diancie that cover a pretty good amount of threats and braviary with mega abomasnow being the win conditions of the team. Flygon in there to provide hazard removal, momentum and general pivoting to bring braviary and mega aboma safely. Wallbreaker mega abomasnow / spdef pivot flygon with defog / sub bulk up braviary / rock setter diancie, spdef / escavalier (most likely AV to cover some annoying psychic types) / standard defensive jellicent with colbur. Interesting, only qualm is that the team is really slow.
Afro Smash with a really cool looking squad. I like what to see. Audino, most likely mega audino and hoping for healing wish + 3 attacks (proved to be some wish tect t-wave variant, really damn disappointed on that one where an offensive one would have been so damn dope :( ) / LO aerodactyl, roost + 3 attacks or All out attacker / emboar which could have been scarf (was expert belt, dope) / standard rock setter seismitoad / malamar (rest talk and stuff) / LO venusaur. Interesting stuff.
To the match: Pretty good lead from windsong seeing the overall good mega aboma had against Afro Smash team, Afro Smash leads seismitoad which is a rough start. Seeing Afro Smash team having only one really solid ice resist on emboar, being forced to get that weakened so early in the match wasnt on Afro Smash best interest so he is kind of forced to go audino, which showcased to be a spdef variant. Weird, since the general composition of the team kind of wanted an offensive variant. An offensive variant could have went for fire blast and get rid of mega abomasnow really easily but oh well, wishful thinking.
Comes escavalier on the mega audino and Afro Smash goes to seismitoad knowing the possibility of the drill run. It pays so getting stealth rock up and aiming for burn escavalier was the main goal, sacking toad in the process but that was fine to bring emboar safely. Emboar carnage from turn 7 to 10 getting rid of flygon and diancie with flare blitz then superpower then heavy slam on flygon and diancie respectively showing it was expert belt. That was amazing and the crowd went wild! Windsong then goes braviary and aero, they play around a bit and braviary managed to get out with full health. From there the game develop in a natural way, jellicent to aero, venusaur to jellicent, escavalier to venusaur, proper switch-ins and stuff.
I think sacking for the roll against the jellicent with expert wild charge on emboar was a mistake (it literally was a mid roll) but going for it when emboar keep mega aboma at bay was too risky, and it didnt payed out. Should have went with venusaur there. What is this audino set?! Venusaur to hp fire the esca and weaken it, enter aerodactyl, aerodactyl kills the esca on the next couple of turns.
Now the end game was rather pale on both sides. Staying with mega aboma on the venusaur was a huge mistake but things like that happen. Braviary was still in a good position to win. From turn 28 to 34 we have braviary trying to wear the venusaur down, and Afro Smash going at it to pressure and try to get a poison in the process. It does get it but in the end the real big mistake was not going for bulk up the moment the venusaur was at 3%. That would have sealed the deal no matter what. And apparently the venusaur was chlorophyll (LOL) so it should gone for sludge bomb.
In the end the malamar was slow, I was like "WTF MAN" and windsong won the game. A fast malamar (in RU you run speed on it 120% of the time, which lead me to believe someone that plays mainly NU did this) could have sealed the game for Afro Smash but too many "could have" in this. Pretty enjoyable game despite the mistakes, some really cool moments :)
Analysis: Finally a manectric! The team looking again with a goal for a fletchinder sweep, manectric and meloetta being really proficien balance breakers and poliwrath alongside steelix forming a solid defensive backbone, classic fletchgon cause they are hella good together. In depth with the team: LO manectric / standard fletchinder, swords dance in this one imo / defensive poliwrath / standard stealth rock mega steelix / looking like defensive flygon in this but not sure (proved to be LO special set) / specs meloetta tbh. IMO.
Scythe with a classic mola balance having mola, diancie and flygon as the defensive backbone, sigilyph and venusaur being the wallbreakers (at first glance) and durant solving the lack of speed on this team. Scarf durant / LO sigilyph / standard rocks diancie, spdef / spdef flygon with u-turn, usual stuff / LO venusaur / alomomomomomomomola/
To the match: Really ballsy plays from Scythe from turn 1 to 4 but imo atomicllamas overpredicted too roughly, again just seeing the replay and not me playing the game makes saying this a lot easier than it should, but manectric putting such an inmense amount of work against scythe means pressing thunderbolt was rather risk free. Great plays from Scythe, that has tons of merit cause you have to do that. Manectric losing its LO was pretty huge since it becomes a bit easier to play around now. Still could do tons of work agaisnt Scythe tho, not useless not yet! Diancie could switch and set up rocks now, and it does next turn.
The sigilyph then proved to be calm mind psycho shift sigilyph. I disagree with that set on teams like these without a pursuit trapper since meloetta comes in and while you burn are you quite in a rough position all the time, thats just how I see it. Not sure if crit mattered unless the meloetta wasnt specs, then it did matter. Match looking fresh so far, hax, but there is always that. Here goes mola on the melo and then mega steelix, wait... I think it is the other way around oo llamas dodge the burn and toxic the mola, good. Man, that diancie went back to life. Back to square one with the mega steelix to diancie and then mola back to mola from turn 16 to 18, but mega steelix gets burned this time.
Flygon then reveals to be the special variant at turn (man, Im terrible at predicting sets D: ). In the end the venusaur proved to be a physical variant, power whip (SD, never saw that one coming). Catching the fletchinder on the switch with sleep powder was really huge, and a play that paved the way for Scythe to win. From here diancie ridiculous tankiness shows, beating special flygon 1v1 and scarf durant seals the game. Atomicllamas had the matchup advantage imo but Scythe played really damn well, impressive showcase despise having big problems against him in manectric and melo. Diancie is crazy.
And thats it for week 5, enjoyable week tbh, games are getting better overall and thats a good sign
Cya next week to discuss week 6, cheers!
PREDICT FOR WEEK 6 IMO
nice tier leader you dudes got
(funk made that, not me)
ok i'll also post some of my insight on the tier from afar (i'm no ru player, but i do lurk and play a tad on the down-low)
1) Late game Shark is a fucking monster against offense - the standard special set is very easy to set up to clean. Llamas vs SV is a sorta good showing of that, but Llamas was especially weak to Shark, so not the most fair showing.
2) I feel like the tier lacks much offensive counterplay to LO venusaur and over the past 2-3 weeks, a lot of dudes have been taking advantage of this.
3) I think absol is overrated as a mon b/c it's too frail+slow to be great in the current meta and idk if it's gotten much use, but I see it sitting at A+ and not really doing much in general, so not a fan of this mon
4) Looks kinda hard to run fat teams consistently atm given the volume of hard hitters, especially breakers, on the offensive side in conjunction w/ the general pace of the metagame right now.
5) virizion also seems like a late game boss, but not quite on par w/ shark
(funk made that, not me)
ok i'll also post some of my insight on the tier from afar (i'm no ru player, but i do lurk and play a tad on the down-low)
1) Late game Shark is a fucking monster against offense - the standard special set is very easy to set up to clean. Llamas vs SV is a sorta good showing of that, but Llamas was especially weak to Shark, so not the most fair showing.
2) I feel like the tier lacks much offensive counterplay to LO venusaur and over the past 2-3 weeks, a lot of dudes have been taking advantage of this.
3) I think absol is overrated as a mon b/c it's too frail+slow to be great in the current meta and idk if it's gotten much use, but I see it sitting at A+ and not really doing much in general, so not a fan of this mon
4) Looks kinda hard to run fat teams consistently atm given the volume of hard hitters, especially breakers, on the offensive side in conjunction w/ the general pace of the metagame right now.
5) virizion also seems like a late game boss, but not quite on par w/ shark
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<atomicllamas> I think I 100% won there
<atomicllamas> had I stayed in (and he hydro'd)
<atomicllamas> but uhh
<atomicllamas> if you dark pulsed and I switched
<atomicllamas> I don't think
<atomicllamas> I 100% won
<atomicllamas> so it wasn't quite a 5050
<SilentVerse> yea
<SilentVerse> i think it was a suboptimal play
<SilentVerse> on my part tbh
<SilentVerse> it just
<SilentVerse> worked.
hate finch
<atomicllamas> had I stayed in (and he hydro'd)
<atomicllamas> but uhh
<atomicllamas> if you dark pulsed and I switched
<atomicllamas> I don't think
<atomicllamas> I 100% won
<atomicllamas> so it wasn't quite a 5050
<SilentVerse> yea
<SilentVerse> i think it was a suboptimal play
<SilentVerse> on my part tbh
<SilentVerse> it just
<SilentVerse> worked.
hate finch
tehy
Banned deucer.
yea, shark is ridiculous versus offense, it's basically always been.
LO venu's main draw in addition to this is that it is a wallbreaker that switches into so many common walls, has the typing and bulk to check a few offensive threats too which only helps it. basically if the opponent has a bulky water, bulky grass, or bulky fairy, you will be able to switch into them directly, and from there, there's very few switch-ins. meanwhile yeah offense probably it ends up at the least trading and probably doing better depending. (hope virizion doesn't have zenbutt though!)
absol's main problem is that it needs more slots, SD + Knock + Sucker means it has to choose between superpower and iron tail, and without SD, it's kinda tough to sweep anything. still good though
rn stall is boned, fat teams are hard but at least they can do OK against shark IG.
viri is probably the best setup sweeper in the tier
Sharpedo makes me go UGH, gosh, cant wait for this mon to get out of here.
Anyways, back for some more SPL analysis action. Week 6 so we are almost close to the end season then the nerve wrecking playoffs will follow!
[ORAS RU]
Scythe bringing it back to XY with a shiftry! A pretty cool balance build with some rather uncommon presences on shiftry and musharna. It follows the formula of flygon + diancie + water + steel to handle ton of threats and stuff. Team composed of: Flygon (could be many sets, generally composition of the team leads me to believe it is spdef but since that set is kind of hated on the tourney group it is perhaps special life orb, or any other set :V / Standard rocks diancie / Yo, life orb shiftry! Definitely mixed with leaf storm, really doubt it has defog / defensive pivot musharna, perhaps with thunder wave and definitely with baton pass / defensive poliwrath / durant (scarfed durant tbh).
To the match: The amount of times you may see durant as a solid lead to pretty much any team is crazy, and this is just another one of those cases for Luigi, durant having a great matchup against Scythe's team. Scythe leads flygon cause it also has a solid matchup against Luigi team assuming it is special life orb (it kinds of kills everything actually). Scythe. forced to go poliwrath cause it is the only mon that could switch into most of its moves and too early to risk the superpower switch on musharna. Enter poliwrath and this mon has rocky helmet (huh). Guess it is to punish durant for touching it, with that superpower damage durant reveals it is banded. Ok so, Scythe is forced to rest and free tangrowth switch-in. Enter musharna and it with knock off it reveals that is AV, and Luigi's Ant gets paralyzed by the musharna! Basically nullifying the threat.
Next couple of turns were pretty standard, just more set reveals based on damage, like scythe being scarf durant based on the damage on the seismitoad (and the seismitoad being defensive) and the flygon being an offensive variant based of sludge bomb damage. Scythe getting his ant burnt on turn 7 was rather weird but he has heal bell support anyways.
Turn 9 Scythe reveals it is a physical flygon variant. Seeing the damage tangrowth made me really wonder what set Luigi's tangrowth was. Some analysis here: Durant was definitely scarf based on seismitoad damage, double scarf is just odd, a possibility but wont buy it just yet. Other possibility is that the flygon is banded and Luigi is running an XY relic on defensive tangrowth, and the last possible option is that this flygon is adamant scarf and the tangrowth is assault vest. Decisions, decisions.
Anyways, double switch from both players. Enter shiftry for Scythe and durant for Luigi. Luigi's double was most likely a sack or fodder in case flygon stays in to outrage but scythe decides to make a pretty aggressive double and keep the flygon himself for fodder. Shiftry gets the kill on durant and Luigi is forced to go drapion. He gets the poison on the diancie hard switch with poison jab! But he can risk getting his drapion weakened since it would be shiftry switch-in later on. It reveals heal bell and Scythe's durant is back. Rather risky play from Scythe's part on turn 15 but it was ok thinking of it in a way since diancie lived, hard to think it had hp fire.
Jolteon takes some pretty huge damage on the musharna but worked well to bring the sharpedo safely. Here shows why rocky helmet is just an odd choice, since poliwrath has been forced to rest constantly. The game developed pretty well, game still up to anyone and oh oh, drapion gets a swords dance on the musharna at turn 25 revealing lum. Luigi in prime position to kill something. Musharna was still useful for Scythe so he went to sack diancie. Here comes flygon which thanks to heal bell is back, flygon dies but taking the tangrowth down to 6%, so here comes shiftry to get a kill most likely, Luigi makes the good play just sacking tangrowth here.
Cool game filled with good decision all around. Some funny mindgames from turn 35 on the shiftry hard switch. Luigi dodged 2 sucker punches right. That was huge since on the next sub it manages to at worst double down with shitry. Nice one. Huge swords dance from drapion on the rest from poliwrath there, and with favorable sleep talk rolls the poliwrath is dead. Drapion reveals earthquake which let it avoid rocky helmet recoil. Forced to sack musharna and on the next turn a classic durant miss that basically seal the match for Luigi. Crazy how a single miss could ruin the outcome of the match since poliwrath won. Oh well, durant dies, poliwrath gets weakened and sharpedo finish the job.
Really well played match from both sides tbh. If any of you could tell me which flygon or tangrowth set those were, that would be amazing :D
Team Preview: Windsong with a pretty interesting team here composed of: Emboar (seeing the tyrantrum and how people only use scarf even tho LO is a sexy set, this emboar is expert belt) / a magneton! possibly magnet rise + magnet pull to trap steelix so tyrantrum can just press head smash, clever and this can work alongside every tyrantrum set / a classic sharpedo here, special sharpedo tbh / tyrantrum, definitely scarf / defensive uxie being the rock setter, being the fighting type response with t-wave and stuff / swords dance virizion, no pursuit trapper makes calm mind not so ideal here.
New Breed with a cool hazard stacking consisting of the pair of garbodor + seismitoad to help mega aerodactyl clean late game. Garbodor is a pretty cool nowadays since grass resists are really valuable nowadays and qwilfish doesnt have that luxury of resisting grass, it can also run dual hazards unlike qwilifish, seismitoad is just a classic and functional rock setter. Team consist oF: Swords dance virizion / Medicham (scarf made a lot of sense here with the hazards, but it was banded) / mah boy Garbodor, classic dual hazards with spikes and t-spikes and gunk shot, last moveslot is a toss up (revealed to be toxic which is actually fine) / aerodactyl with perhaps ice fang cause nailing flygon would be amazing with it / defensive stealth rock seismitoad / durant, perhaps scarfed (revealing to be not a choice item, perhaps lum?)
To the match: Skeeske... no. New Breed definitely had some matchup advantage here so Windsong was kind of forced to carefully choose his lead. In tne end it decides to lead with virizion which it can work. New Breed can easily lead with garbodor here regardless of windsong lead cause nothing could stop it from setting hazards but the lead matchup was beyond ideal for New Breed, it was perfect. Oh dear, garbodor set the toxic spikes... thats bad news for Windsong, the thing fairly really grounded and 4 out of 6 being weak to t-spikes, and no hazard removal, means inmense pressure for Windsong.
Garbodor then goes with toxic on the uxie, not bad since garbodor general fillers like drain punch and seed bomb have less valuable utility (in RU) compared to toxic punishing switch-ins from ground types. Walled by steel types but even with drain punch is still walled :V Uxie then reveals it is psychic over psyshock, may seem like a minimal change but psychic means it gets 2hkod and cant setup more hazards since psyshock just 3hkos. New Breed then hard switches into durant. Amazing bluff next turn since perhaps windsong was thinking it was choice locked so pivoting into magneton was a good play but BAM, it was either lum berry or something else but definitely not a choice item. Magneton is down, wasnt doing much besides trapping durant anyways.
Unfortunate head smash at turn 7. Still manages to take down the durant but with the dino down in the process, rip. Hard switching into medicham on uxie was a really odd play there, think seismitoad was rather safe even tho it would invite virizion, even tho he still had the garbodor on deck and at worst ice fang from aero would revenge kill. And there goes the medicham on turn 11, really unfortunate para on turn 10 from medicham cause the added damage from, presumably a banded medicham, meant aero wouldnt need to go for stone edge to guarantee the kill on it (or the uxie would be dead).
And THE STONE EDGE MISSES ON THE NEXT TURN. Aero cleaned from there besides the shark but New Breed had 2 solid responses to it. Really unfortunate there. Sharpedo then revenge kills. The game in the end would be decided by a virizion speed tie due to aero missing the edge. he went virizion over seismitoad cause the frog invites virizion 100% and he cant afford that at this stage of the game. Kills the sharpedo after the ice beam but the damage wouldnt matter, still depends of a virizion speed tie. Enter emboar and Kev is forced to go to seismitoad. Emboar weaken the seismitoad cause it just needs a safe switch-in on virizion. End of turn 17 reveals the virizion isnt lum (o_o) Still wondering what typing it is.
End-game was simple. Get the garbodor to weaken the viri through rocky helmet and aftermath then win the speed tie. And windsong wins the speed tie with his virizion! And that seals the match (if protect seismitoad I would have gone crazy beyond repair). Should have went to seismitoad to add some extra tension to the end game but oh well. Well played from both, Windsong got a bit luckier but thats the game.
Team Preview: Shame 49 got subbed out, probably busy or something but... RUSCARFACE?! :O reyscarface team is a pretty cool looking team with has double water / double steel and double psychic packed on 5 slots, the dual steel dual psychic is something you can see on many teams, the second psychic type being meloetta cause it helps another psychic type get past opposing psychic types or lure dark types with a colbur berry and stuff. Steelix and durant are just staples, and sharpedo is a monster. The issue is that it lacks a ground resist since venusaur isnt one. Team on paper: LO venusaur / standard rock setter steelix / physically defensive slowking, being the "ground resist" / durant, perhaps banded on here / standard life orb sharpedo, most likely special / meloetta, perhaps specs, could be could be colbur calm mind even. Houndoom and sigilyph puts in tons of work.
Ginku team... I have seen that team before, dont I? *makes memory* oh yeah, thats the same team he used against atomicllamas on week 3! But I know now thanks to Ginku himself that this fletchinder was in fact tailwind! With that the goal of the team is identified, wallbreakers aided by tailwind for offensive teams, destroy defensive teams and aid fletchinder clean later on. Houndoom + Exploud together are horrifying wallbreakers to go against and they share similar responses like rhyperior and diancie so they can easily overwhelmed them. Standard fletch gon. Steelix and a LO sigilyph here. In deep: LO houndoom / Specs exploud / flygon, special LO / fletch with tailwind, perhaps even will-o-wisp / mega steelix, standard / LO sigilyph. Sharpedo looking horribly threatening for this team, same with melo.
To the match: Rey leads with meloetta cause it can actually kill everything on Ginku´s team and unfortunately Ginku leads sigilyph which made sense if rey lead anything else but not meloetta. Sigilyph went for the energy ball which I suppose was the most accurate hard hitter move on Ginku´s sigilyph but sadly has to sack it cause it needs steelix healthy to scout whatever moveset is that durant running. Sigilyph is GONE and rey remove one annoying threat for his team. HERE WILLE GOES. Enter mega steelix on the hyper voice, rather safe knowing it is specs. Then rey hard switches into venusaur. Rather risky but guess rey knew getting rocks was important for Ginku.
Venusaur was free to press leaf storm here tbh, staying in with steelix was rather odd but though and I feel hard switching into fletchinder was more functional cause you are able to force it out (IIRC this fletchinder was max attack and speed, even then, worth the risk imo) but oh well, a life for a life situation on turn 3. Both end up doubling on next turn! crazy. Rey doubling to slowking and Ginku to flygon. Slowking forces out flygon and Ginku is forced to go to exploud cause it can take any hit. Unfortunate burn next turn but it is scald. You gotta hate when the game round up the recoil rolls, was unfortunate cause exploud would be at 1% and free to boomburst something else. Worse case scenario something gets worn down.
Really rough start for Ginku, looking rather hard to come back. Enter houndoom and rey sacks venusaur to bring something safely to revenge kill it (sharpedo or durant) And it was durant. Durant hits the superpower and kind of sealed the deal for Rey cause slowking handled everything left on Ginku side. Think keeping houndoom was important there but Ginku has very few options. Enter fletchinder to wisp, slowking can easily come in. Then here comes flygon to draco something, Rey sacks the durant and bring a safe switch-in to meloetta which seals the deal (rip the lag on the fire blast with flygon). Sharpedo press dark pulse and gg. Feel Ginku had better options in certain turns but rey had a pretty solid advantage from the start (or matchup if you wanna call it that). Stick with your guns instead of last minute changes, boys.
Team Preview: Meru team is pretty odd but interesting in the sense that it showcases some notable metagame trends for balance. For starters, no mola lix here but mola zong. Mega Abomasnow presence punishes the use of mega steelix as your steel type so in this particular team zong provides much more defensively and also love the wish support alomomola provides. Second, golbat, a mon we like to call "shit" or "terrible" or "low ladder" yadda yadda does make a return thanks to being an extremely solid response to LO venusaur, tangrowth and fighting types in general. Grass resists are absolutely valuable on team nowadays, sole reasons mons like garbodor, weezing and golbat have become more appealing options over qwilfish outside of offensive builds. Meru team in deep could be: Standard mola, with diancie it could be phys def mola / Bronzong, most likely mixed defenses for all variants of mega aboma / seeing bronzong, this diancie is certainly not the rocker, but Meru have been rocking the OTR diancie lately so this could be it / swords dance drapion / golbat! Most likely physically defensive, it already deal with venusaur and tangrowth really well with not much spdef investment virtue of its typing. This could carry defog even / swords dance virizion, could be calm mind.
FlamingVictini team... apparently someone else got motivated to run pelipper (YES!) and... OMG, IS THAT AN AURORUS?! NICE! The inclusion of aurorus lead me to believe FlamingVictini came prepared for Meru, him running balance and stall mainly, specs aurorus is a terrifying wallbreaker and this like it could be specs. FlamingVictini team is also a balance build but more offensively inclined. In deep the team composition could consist of: Possibly scarf medicham, could be LO tbh / PELIPPER! Mainly physically defensive and the defogger of choice / tangrowth, mainly AV due to sharpedo presence / SPECS AURORUS 100% / standard mega steelix / houndoom (definitely pursuit trapper to get rid of zong)
To the match: So Meru leads with mola, solid lead in general for scouting, pivoting, tons of things. FlamingVictini leads with tangrowth to perhaps pressure mola but he makes a really aggressive double early game and Meru could just scout with protect to see what variant of tangrowth this could be. So yeah, forced to go to pelipper since tangrowth wouldnt like to get burned by scald yet. BIRDIES. Meru scouts again with mola since toxic pelipper could be a possibility. Then Meru goes to zong on turn 4 to get his rocks, seeing how little that scald did that is definitely max spdef so it could pressure pelipper through toxic (and by dodging burns). Second attempt at scald burning, no good on turn 5. FlamingVictini switch into mega steelix seeing the toxic coming. Good double from FlamingVictini with tangrowth on the mola switch-in.
Skee skee, NOW the knock off play works on the golbat hard switch. Alright, golbat reveals it also has toxic on turn 10, putting pelipper on a timer. Turn 11 a scald on zong again, no burn, water was cold that day, boys. THELE IT IS, the scald burn on mola. On turn 14, the knock off on the drapion reveal it was shuca berry. Tangrowth putting work knocking off items fair and square. Earthquake from drapion seeing the mega steelix switch-in, nice chip damage. No idea why no rocks from FlamingVictini on turn 16 against the mola switch-in since drapion wont stay in and rocks chip damage was good in general but ok.
Here comes diancie, and that moonblast did so much on tangrowth and it revealing the life orb. The rest of the turns for a while developed in a similar manner. Lix to drapion, mola to lix, tangrowth to mola. FlamingVictini then went to focus blast on turn 24, predicting the drapion perhaps? Enter virizion and here the tangrowth reveals sludge bomb... and much more. Seeing the damage that sludge bomb did, it definitely had offensive investment. Offensive AV, huh? Anyways, FlamingVictini then proceed to sack the pelipper (RIP) and here comes medicham. Definitely scarf if he send it out like that. Amazing play from Meru, risky, but it payed out switching the golbat into high jump kick. Preserving the zong for the aurorus was important.
And here comes aurorus, bronzong being the only switch-in Meru is forced to go to it. Nice double to the aurorus seeing the golbat switch-in from FlamingVictini, applying proper pressure so that the bronzong gets constantly worn down. Turn 35 having a 50/50 with pursuit doom, now, I feel the zong being that weakened I feel FV could have gone for crunch since bronzong at that health wasnt doing much to begin with. Still, it wasnt a misplay by any means since the pursuit was a roll in the end anyways but felt crunch was rather safe. Meru sacks the zong against the medi and this was looking pretty tough for FV to come back, aurorus was definitely his main win condition in here given the chance.
Another great double to aurorus on the mola switch-in against mega steelix but a clutch scald burn means mola is alive and unfortunately aurorus is down, getting rid of the mola puts FV in a more favorable position. The knock off on the AV tangrowth was the only Meru needed to clean with OTR diancie and thats basically how the end game went. GG, pretty enjoyable game and well played from both sides.
Team Preview: Ah, 2 good friends :) llamas team looking pretty fresh with an array of pretty cool mons. Pretty cool bulky offense, pretty colorful actually :o with a great variation of mons and typings. Rhyperior / Druddigon and Jellicent being the defensive backbone while durant / manectric and venusaur provides the offense. Atomicllamas team could consist of: LO venusaur / stallbreaker jellicent with colbur berry, kind of needed nowadays / druddigon, really wonder what set could it be with rhyperior around... perhaps AV cause of shark? (this is the rocker, so no AV) / seeing manectric and venusaur already toss balance together, feel this is scarf durant / standard rocks rhyperior (rocks where on drudd so this could be banded) / LO manectric imo. Ironically rotom-cut puts work but only one variant.
Silentverse coming back! Thats quite the watch cause I have not seen him play a match since Ive been lurking for bw2 ru stuff! His team is pretty cool, hoopa making an appearance in here. Definitely a team paved for a sharpedo clean. Hoopa and durant being the main wallbreakers, sharpedo doing sharpedo things, flygon and diancie providing the defensive backbone and a rotom-cut. In deep: Life orb Hoopa, perhaps one with sub (could even be OTR) / Choice band durant, dawg / life orb sharpedo, definitely special / flygon, mmm... no idea, perhaps a physical variant or just life orb special (nobody likes spdef :( ) / standard rock setter diancie / rotom-cut, could be scarf even though I dont like it much, it is a set (YAY, IT IS EXPERT BELT)
To the match: Pretty easy manectric lead to llamas imo, donks everything but silentverse most likely seeing that lead with one of the things it could threaten manectric out, rotom-cut, and thats definitely scarf. Atomicllamas forced to go drudd here and OH DEAR, THE BLUFF. It is expert belt!! Seeing the glare on druddigon, it is definitely the rocker (that means rhyperior is something else... banded hype?!). Druddigon manage to get rocks and here comes diancie to do the same thing.
Really nice hp fire from llamas on the durant switch-in. Means durant is OUT. Here comes hoopa to kill something, man, this thing is threatening. Alright, the sack is druddigon since it is burned and already set the rocks. Doubt that at the current way the match is being played it wont have a chance to set them up again. And here comes durant to kill something back, jeez, this is a slugfest!!
Match was hella fast paced, kill after kill, feeling like the wild west. 9 turns and 4 mons dead already. Llamas is forced to go to jellicent and burn the sharpedo, colbur would allow him that. It does and welp... what to do. On turn 11 Silentverse goes for the hydro pump, and it works! (scroll up to see the detailed info behind that play, apparently it was a suboptimal play and it payed out and imo it was) and just like that sharpedo cleans.
Seriously, this mon is fucking dumb, bloody hell.
Hope you guys enjoyed! Remember to predict for week 7, let me help with that.
ORAS RU: Windsong vs Esteemed User Ginku - I trust Ginku on this one
ORAS RU: Scythe. vs Meru - Mah brother, have to go with him.
ORAS RU: SilentVerse vs New Breed - If the bw2 ru bo3 end up happening (!!), he got this
ORAS RU: FlamingVictini vs atomicllamas - Tier leader, must be good :D saw many good things from FlamingVictini past week so could go either way.
ORAS RU: dice vs Luigi. - Dice is cool
Cheers, cya next week!
Anyways, back for some more SPL analysis action. Week 6 so we are almost close to the end season then the nerve wrecking playoffs will follow!
[ORAS RU]
- [RUIN] Luigi. vs. Scythe. [CRYO]
- [CONG] New Breed vs. Windsong [SCTR]
- [FLCN] reyscarface vs. Esteemed User Ginku [RAID]
- [WOLF] FlamingVictini vs. Meru [SHRK]
- [BIGS] SilentVerse vs. atomicllamas [TGRS]
Scythe bringing it back to XY with a shiftry! A pretty cool balance build with some rather uncommon presences on shiftry and musharna. It follows the formula of flygon + diancie + water + steel to handle ton of threats and stuff. Team composed of: Flygon (could be many sets, generally composition of the team leads me to believe it is spdef but since that set is kind of hated on the tourney group it is perhaps special life orb, or any other set :V / Standard rocks diancie / Yo, life orb shiftry! Definitely mixed with leaf storm, really doubt it has defog / defensive pivot musharna, perhaps with thunder wave and definitely with baton pass / defensive poliwrath / durant (scarfed durant tbh).
To the match: The amount of times you may see durant as a solid lead to pretty much any team is crazy, and this is just another one of those cases for Luigi, durant having a great matchup against Scythe's team. Scythe leads flygon cause it also has a solid matchup against Luigi team assuming it is special life orb (it kinds of kills everything actually). Scythe. forced to go poliwrath cause it is the only mon that could switch into most of its moves and too early to risk the superpower switch on musharna. Enter poliwrath and this mon has rocky helmet (huh). Guess it is to punish durant for touching it, with that superpower damage durant reveals it is banded. Ok so, Scythe is forced to rest and free tangrowth switch-in. Enter musharna and it with knock off it reveals that is AV, and Luigi's Ant gets paralyzed by the musharna! Basically nullifying the threat.
Next couple of turns were pretty standard, just more set reveals based on damage, like scythe being scarf durant based on the damage on the seismitoad (and the seismitoad being defensive) and the flygon being an offensive variant based of sludge bomb damage. Scythe getting his ant burnt on turn 7 was rather weird but he has heal bell support anyways.
Turn 9 Scythe reveals it is a physical flygon variant. Seeing the damage tangrowth made me really wonder what set Luigi's tangrowth was. Some analysis here: Durant was definitely scarf based on seismitoad damage, double scarf is just odd, a possibility but wont buy it just yet. Other possibility is that the flygon is banded and Luigi is running an XY relic on defensive tangrowth, and the last possible option is that this flygon is adamant scarf and the tangrowth is assault vest. Decisions, decisions.
Anyways, double switch from both players. Enter shiftry for Scythe and durant for Luigi. Luigi's double was most likely a sack or fodder in case flygon stays in to outrage but scythe decides to make a pretty aggressive double and keep the flygon himself for fodder. Shiftry gets the kill on durant and Luigi is forced to go drapion. He gets the poison on the diancie hard switch with poison jab! But he can risk getting his drapion weakened since it would be shiftry switch-in later on. It reveals heal bell and Scythe's durant is back. Rather risky play from Scythe's part on turn 15 but it was ok thinking of it in a way since diancie lived, hard to think it had hp fire.
Jolteon takes some pretty huge damage on the musharna but worked well to bring the sharpedo safely. Here shows why rocky helmet is just an odd choice, since poliwrath has been forced to rest constantly. The game developed pretty well, game still up to anyone and oh oh, drapion gets a swords dance on the musharna at turn 25 revealing lum. Luigi in prime position to kill something. Musharna was still useful for Scythe so he went to sack diancie. Here comes flygon which thanks to heal bell is back, flygon dies but taking the tangrowth down to 6%, so here comes shiftry to get a kill most likely, Luigi makes the good play just sacking tangrowth here.
Cool game filled with good decision all around. Some funny mindgames from turn 35 on the shiftry hard switch. Luigi dodged 2 sucker punches right. That was huge since on the next sub it manages to at worst double down with shitry. Nice one. Huge swords dance from drapion on the rest from poliwrath there, and with favorable sleep talk rolls the poliwrath is dead. Drapion reveals earthquake which let it avoid rocky helmet recoil. Forced to sack musharna and on the next turn a classic durant miss that basically seal the match for Luigi. Crazy how a single miss could ruin the outcome of the match since poliwrath won. Oh well, durant dies, poliwrath gets weakened and sharpedo finish the job.
Really well played match from both sides tbh. If any of you could tell me which flygon or tangrowth set those were, that would be amazing :D
Team Preview: Windsong with a pretty interesting team here composed of: Emboar (seeing the tyrantrum and how people only use scarf even tho LO is a sexy set, this emboar is expert belt) / a magneton! possibly magnet rise + magnet pull to trap steelix so tyrantrum can just press head smash, clever and this can work alongside every tyrantrum set / a classic sharpedo here, special sharpedo tbh / tyrantrum, definitely scarf / defensive uxie being the rock setter, being the fighting type response with t-wave and stuff / swords dance virizion, no pursuit trapper makes calm mind not so ideal here.
New Breed with a cool hazard stacking consisting of the pair of garbodor + seismitoad to help mega aerodactyl clean late game. Garbodor is a pretty cool nowadays since grass resists are really valuable nowadays and qwilfish doesnt have that luxury of resisting grass, it can also run dual hazards unlike qwilifish, seismitoad is just a classic and functional rock setter. Team consist oF: Swords dance virizion / Medicham (scarf made a lot of sense here with the hazards, but it was banded) / mah boy Garbodor, classic dual hazards with spikes and t-spikes and gunk shot, last moveslot is a toss up (revealed to be toxic which is actually fine) / aerodactyl with perhaps ice fang cause nailing flygon would be amazing with it / defensive stealth rock seismitoad / durant, perhaps scarfed (revealing to be not a choice item, perhaps lum?)
To the match: Skeeske... no. New Breed definitely had some matchup advantage here so Windsong was kind of forced to carefully choose his lead. In tne end it decides to lead with virizion which it can work. New Breed can easily lead with garbodor here regardless of windsong lead cause nothing could stop it from setting hazards but the lead matchup was beyond ideal for New Breed, it was perfect. Oh dear, garbodor set the toxic spikes... thats bad news for Windsong, the thing fairly really grounded and 4 out of 6 being weak to t-spikes, and no hazard removal, means inmense pressure for Windsong.
Garbodor then goes with toxic on the uxie, not bad since garbodor general fillers like drain punch and seed bomb have less valuable utility (in RU) compared to toxic punishing switch-ins from ground types. Walled by steel types but even with drain punch is still walled :V Uxie then reveals it is psychic over psyshock, may seem like a minimal change but psychic means it gets 2hkod and cant setup more hazards since psyshock just 3hkos. New Breed then hard switches into durant. Amazing bluff next turn since perhaps windsong was thinking it was choice locked so pivoting into magneton was a good play but BAM, it was either lum berry or something else but definitely not a choice item. Magneton is down, wasnt doing much besides trapping durant anyways.
Unfortunate head smash at turn 7. Still manages to take down the durant but with the dino down in the process, rip. Hard switching into medicham on uxie was a really odd play there, think seismitoad was rather safe even tho it would invite virizion, even tho he still had the garbodor on deck and at worst ice fang from aero would revenge kill. And there goes the medicham on turn 11, really unfortunate para on turn 10 from medicham cause the added damage from, presumably a banded medicham, meant aero wouldnt need to go for stone edge to guarantee the kill on it (or the uxie would be dead).
And THE STONE EDGE MISSES ON THE NEXT TURN. Aero cleaned from there besides the shark but New Breed had 2 solid responses to it. Really unfortunate there. Sharpedo then revenge kills. The game in the end would be decided by a virizion speed tie due to aero missing the edge. he went virizion over seismitoad cause the frog invites virizion 100% and he cant afford that at this stage of the game. Kills the sharpedo after the ice beam but the damage wouldnt matter, still depends of a virizion speed tie. Enter emboar and Kev is forced to go to seismitoad. Emboar weaken the seismitoad cause it just needs a safe switch-in on virizion. End of turn 17 reveals the virizion isnt lum (o_o) Still wondering what typing it is.
End-game was simple. Get the garbodor to weaken the viri through rocky helmet and aftermath then win the speed tie. And windsong wins the speed tie with his virizion! And that seals the match (if protect seismitoad I would have gone crazy beyond repair). Should have went to seismitoad to add some extra tension to the end game but oh well. Well played from both, Windsong got a bit luckier but thats the game.
Team Preview: Shame 49 got subbed out, probably busy or something but... RUSCARFACE?! :O reyscarface team is a pretty cool looking team with has double water / double steel and double psychic packed on 5 slots, the dual steel dual psychic is something you can see on many teams, the second psychic type being meloetta cause it helps another psychic type get past opposing psychic types or lure dark types with a colbur berry and stuff. Steelix and durant are just staples, and sharpedo is a monster. The issue is that it lacks a ground resist since venusaur isnt one. Team on paper: LO venusaur / standard rock setter steelix / physically defensive slowking, being the "ground resist" / durant, perhaps banded on here / standard life orb sharpedo, most likely special / meloetta, perhaps specs, could be could be colbur calm mind even. Houndoom and sigilyph puts in tons of work.
Ginku team... I have seen that team before, dont I? *makes memory* oh yeah, thats the same team he used against atomicllamas on week 3! But I know now thanks to Ginku himself that this fletchinder was in fact tailwind! With that the goal of the team is identified, wallbreakers aided by tailwind for offensive teams, destroy defensive teams and aid fletchinder clean later on. Houndoom + Exploud together are horrifying wallbreakers to go against and they share similar responses like rhyperior and diancie so they can easily overwhelmed them. Standard fletch gon. Steelix and a LO sigilyph here. In deep: LO houndoom / Specs exploud / flygon, special LO / fletch with tailwind, perhaps even will-o-wisp / mega steelix, standard / LO sigilyph. Sharpedo looking horribly threatening for this team, same with melo.
To the match: Rey leads with meloetta cause it can actually kill everything on Ginku´s team and unfortunately Ginku leads sigilyph which made sense if rey lead anything else but not meloetta. Sigilyph went for the energy ball which I suppose was the most accurate hard hitter move on Ginku´s sigilyph but sadly has to sack it cause it needs steelix healthy to scout whatever moveset is that durant running. Sigilyph is GONE and rey remove one annoying threat for his team. HERE WILLE GOES. Enter mega steelix on the hyper voice, rather safe knowing it is specs. Then rey hard switches into venusaur. Rather risky but guess rey knew getting rocks was important for Ginku.
Venusaur was free to press leaf storm here tbh, staying in with steelix was rather odd but though and I feel hard switching into fletchinder was more functional cause you are able to force it out (IIRC this fletchinder was max attack and speed, even then, worth the risk imo) but oh well, a life for a life situation on turn 3. Both end up doubling on next turn! crazy. Rey doubling to slowking and Ginku to flygon. Slowking forces out flygon and Ginku is forced to go to exploud cause it can take any hit. Unfortunate burn next turn but it is scald. You gotta hate when the game round up the recoil rolls, was unfortunate cause exploud would be at 1% and free to boomburst something else. Worse case scenario something gets worn down.
Really rough start for Ginku, looking rather hard to come back. Enter houndoom and rey sacks venusaur to bring something safely to revenge kill it (sharpedo or durant) And it was durant. Durant hits the superpower and kind of sealed the deal for Rey cause slowking handled everything left on Ginku side. Think keeping houndoom was important there but Ginku has very few options. Enter fletchinder to wisp, slowking can easily come in. Then here comes flygon to draco something, Rey sacks the durant and bring a safe switch-in to meloetta which seals the deal (rip the lag on the fire blast with flygon). Sharpedo press dark pulse and gg. Feel Ginku had better options in certain turns but rey had a pretty solid advantage from the start (or matchup if you wanna call it that). Stick with your guns instead of last minute changes, boys.
Team Preview: Meru team is pretty odd but interesting in the sense that it showcases some notable metagame trends for balance. For starters, no mola lix here but mola zong. Mega Abomasnow presence punishes the use of mega steelix as your steel type so in this particular team zong provides much more defensively and also love the wish support alomomola provides. Second, golbat, a mon we like to call "shit" or "terrible" or "low ladder" yadda yadda does make a return thanks to being an extremely solid response to LO venusaur, tangrowth and fighting types in general. Grass resists are absolutely valuable on team nowadays, sole reasons mons like garbodor, weezing and golbat have become more appealing options over qwilfish outside of offensive builds. Meru team in deep could be: Standard mola, with diancie it could be phys def mola / Bronzong, most likely mixed defenses for all variants of mega aboma / seeing bronzong, this diancie is certainly not the rocker, but Meru have been rocking the OTR diancie lately so this could be it / swords dance drapion / golbat! Most likely physically defensive, it already deal with venusaur and tangrowth really well with not much spdef investment virtue of its typing. This could carry defog even / swords dance virizion, could be calm mind.
FlamingVictini team... apparently someone else got motivated to run pelipper (YES!) and... OMG, IS THAT AN AURORUS?! NICE! The inclusion of aurorus lead me to believe FlamingVictini came prepared for Meru, him running balance and stall mainly, specs aurorus is a terrifying wallbreaker and this like it could be specs. FlamingVictini team is also a balance build but more offensively inclined. In deep the team composition could consist of: Possibly scarf medicham, could be LO tbh / PELIPPER! Mainly physically defensive and the defogger of choice / tangrowth, mainly AV due to sharpedo presence / SPECS AURORUS 100% / standard mega steelix / houndoom (definitely pursuit trapper to get rid of zong)
To the match: So Meru leads with mola, solid lead in general for scouting, pivoting, tons of things. FlamingVictini leads with tangrowth to perhaps pressure mola but he makes a really aggressive double early game and Meru could just scout with protect to see what variant of tangrowth this could be. So yeah, forced to go to pelipper since tangrowth wouldnt like to get burned by scald yet. BIRDIES. Meru scouts again with mola since toxic pelipper could be a possibility. Then Meru goes to zong on turn 4 to get his rocks, seeing how little that scald did that is definitely max spdef so it could pressure pelipper through toxic (and by dodging burns). Second attempt at scald burning, no good on turn 5. FlamingVictini switch into mega steelix seeing the toxic coming. Good double from FlamingVictini with tangrowth on the mola switch-in.
Skee skee, NOW the knock off play works on the golbat hard switch. Alright, golbat reveals it also has toxic on turn 10, putting pelipper on a timer. Turn 11 a scald on zong again, no burn, water was cold that day, boys. THELE IT IS, the scald burn on mola. On turn 14, the knock off on the drapion reveal it was shuca berry. Tangrowth putting work knocking off items fair and square. Earthquake from drapion seeing the mega steelix switch-in, nice chip damage. No idea why no rocks from FlamingVictini on turn 16 against the mola switch-in since drapion wont stay in and rocks chip damage was good in general but ok.
Here comes diancie, and that moonblast did so much on tangrowth and it revealing the life orb. The rest of the turns for a while developed in a similar manner. Lix to drapion, mola to lix, tangrowth to mola. FlamingVictini then went to focus blast on turn 24, predicting the drapion perhaps? Enter virizion and here the tangrowth reveals sludge bomb... and much more. Seeing the damage that sludge bomb did, it definitely had offensive investment. Offensive AV, huh? Anyways, FlamingVictini then proceed to sack the pelipper (RIP) and here comes medicham. Definitely scarf if he send it out like that. Amazing play from Meru, risky, but it payed out switching the golbat into high jump kick. Preserving the zong for the aurorus was important.
And here comes aurorus, bronzong being the only switch-in Meru is forced to go to it. Nice double to the aurorus seeing the golbat switch-in from FlamingVictini, applying proper pressure so that the bronzong gets constantly worn down. Turn 35 having a 50/50 with pursuit doom, now, I feel the zong being that weakened I feel FV could have gone for crunch since bronzong at that health wasnt doing much to begin with. Still, it wasnt a misplay by any means since the pursuit was a roll in the end anyways but felt crunch was rather safe. Meru sacks the zong against the medi and this was looking pretty tough for FV to come back, aurorus was definitely his main win condition in here given the chance.
Another great double to aurorus on the mola switch-in against mega steelix but a clutch scald burn means mola is alive and unfortunately aurorus is down, getting rid of the mola puts FV in a more favorable position. The knock off on the AV tangrowth was the only Meru needed to clean with OTR diancie and thats basically how the end game went. GG, pretty enjoyable game and well played from both sides.
Team Preview: Ah, 2 good friends :) llamas team looking pretty fresh with an array of pretty cool mons. Pretty cool bulky offense, pretty colorful actually :o with a great variation of mons and typings. Rhyperior / Druddigon and Jellicent being the defensive backbone while durant / manectric and venusaur provides the offense. Atomicllamas team could consist of: LO venusaur / stallbreaker jellicent with colbur berry, kind of needed nowadays / druddigon, really wonder what set could it be with rhyperior around... perhaps AV cause of shark? (this is the rocker, so no AV) / seeing manectric and venusaur already toss balance together, feel this is scarf durant / standard rocks rhyperior (rocks where on drudd so this could be banded) / LO manectric imo. Ironically rotom-cut puts work but only one variant.
Silentverse coming back! Thats quite the watch cause I have not seen him play a match since Ive been lurking for bw2 ru stuff! His team is pretty cool, hoopa making an appearance in here. Definitely a team paved for a sharpedo clean. Hoopa and durant being the main wallbreakers, sharpedo doing sharpedo things, flygon and diancie providing the defensive backbone and a rotom-cut. In deep: Life orb Hoopa, perhaps one with sub (could even be OTR) / Choice band durant, dawg / life orb sharpedo, definitely special / flygon, mmm... no idea, perhaps a physical variant or just life orb special (nobody likes spdef :( ) / standard rock setter diancie / rotom-cut, could be scarf even though I dont like it much, it is a set (YAY, IT IS EXPERT BELT)
To the match: Pretty easy manectric lead to llamas imo, donks everything but silentverse most likely seeing that lead with one of the things it could threaten manectric out, rotom-cut, and thats definitely scarf. Atomicllamas forced to go drudd here and OH DEAR, THE BLUFF. It is expert belt!! Seeing the glare on druddigon, it is definitely the rocker (that means rhyperior is something else... banded hype?!). Druddigon manage to get rocks and here comes diancie to do the same thing.
Really nice hp fire from llamas on the durant switch-in. Means durant is OUT. Here comes hoopa to kill something, man, this thing is threatening. Alright, the sack is druddigon since it is burned and already set the rocks. Doubt that at the current way the match is being played it wont have a chance to set them up again. And here comes durant to kill something back, jeez, this is a slugfest!!
Match was hella fast paced, kill after kill, feeling like the wild west. 9 turns and 4 mons dead already. Llamas is forced to go to jellicent and burn the sharpedo, colbur would allow him that. It does and welp... what to do. On turn 11 Silentverse goes for the hydro pump, and it works! (scroll up to see the detailed info behind that play, apparently it was a suboptimal play and it payed out and imo it was) and just like that sharpedo cleans.
Seriously, this mon is fucking dumb, bloody hell.
Hope you guys enjoyed! Remember to predict for week 7, let me help with that.
ORAS RU: Windsong vs Esteemed User Ginku - I trust Ginku on this one
ORAS RU: Scythe. vs Meru - Mah brother, have to go with him.
ORAS RU: SilentVerse vs New Breed - If the bw2 ru bo3 end up happening (!!), he got this
ORAS RU: FlamingVictini vs atomicllamas - Tier leader, must be good :D saw many good things from FlamingVictini past week so could go either way.
ORAS RU: dice vs Luigi. - Dice is cool
Cheers, cya next week!
My favorite part was how new breed was using "garbodor + seismitoad to help mega aerodactyl clean late game", splendid insight from MrAldo himself. ;)
Regardless, I plan to upload a recording of my game vs Meru tomorrow (i think i could have played the early game slightly better and thus won in the end despite the unfavorable rng) as well as some other woofpack ru games, so stay tuned for that. :D
Regardless, I plan to upload a recording of my game vs Meru tomorrow (i think i could have played the early game slightly better and thus won in the end despite the unfavorable rng) as well as some other woofpack ru games, so stay tuned for that. :D
And... here we go again with a new week of SPL, RU edition. Week 7 will be discussed, just week 8 and 9 for the nerve wrecking playoffs... and week 7 being the last chance to use sharpedo and mega abomasnow!!! (Thank God, both of these mons are stupid)
[ORAS RU]
In deep; Windsong with: Banded Sawk / Standard spike setter qwilfish / standard rock setter rhyperior / wallbreaker mixed mega abomasnow / hoopa which is a cool choice but no idea what it could be, perhaps a taunt or a sub variant (proved to be scarf with trick) / Scarf durant. Ginku with: LO sigilyph / banded durant / standard rock setter diancie / scarf medicham / swords dance drapion, maybe shuca / alomomomomomola, you know its deal.
To the match: Windsong decides to lead with durant seeing the pretty nice matchup it has against Ginku's team. Ginku decides to lead with diancie which is generally a safe lead and to get up rocks pretty soon since it would help to pressure Windsong since his team doesnt have hazard removal, and it could break sawk sturdy which is indeed a threat since it can force a trade. Not much else to say early game besides a great double by Ginku seeing the qwilfish switch with his sigilyph.
Sets start to get revealed by turn 5. Seeing that shadow ball damage tells me the hoopa is definitely not a wallbreaker cause that is definitely not specs damage, no recoil means no life orb... spooky plate? Nah it does more damage. No leftovers so it is perhaps a funky scarf set. Not quite a fan of it tbh but maybe it will held a surprise later on. Switched into the sigilyph with no issues, that psychic did 0. So did the shadow ball to diancie :V Anyways, prime position for Ginku to see up rocks which will definitely pressure Windsong, particularly abomasnow and sawk. Guess the next step for Windsong would be getting his rocks up since he doesnt have hazard removal as well.
Pressuring alomomola with rocks up could be an issue with abomasnow since hazards damage will take the toll pretty easily so yeah, he goes to qwilfish to get a chance to set spikes, something will add some more pressure to Ginku. Hazards are definitely the key in this match. Qwilfish dodge the scald burn, nice. Nice thunder wave on the sigilyph switch-in which was expected since nothing on Ginku would like to be paralyzed and most likely Ginku has heal bell on diancie but that doesnt do much against Qwilfish, and gets weakened. Unfortunate scald burn at turn 12 on the mega abomasnow which means that it is in a timer and dont have the luxury to switch out anymore so may as well go in! Protect to scout what this abomasnow would do is a good play, it blizzards. Windsong blizzards again and basically kills the durant! (holy shit, that isnt a switch-in) and getting rid of a threat for Windsong despite having a qwilfish (Durant is always a threat)
On turn 19 Windsong reveals the trick scarf hoopa! Not a fan of scarf hoopa, but this will definitely do :) Qwilfish sets a spike layer a couple of turns later and thanks to that tricked scarf it manages to get rid of the diancie more easily with a combination of thunderbolt + psychic. Hoopa putting work. ★Esteemed User: I have pursuit; shit, he wasnt bluffing!! Hoopa is dead but Windsong had clear win cons with sawk and durant. Sawk could break through at least 3 mons on Ginku team and Durant could clean. But mola on Ginku's team was looking tougher and tougher to get past. That knock off diminish the power of the close combat but helps sawk get rid of the sigilyph, even though it is paralyzed, still useful. So Ginku is forced to go medicham. Nice rhyperior switch on the zen headbutt. EQing the mola was fine, any damage. Windsong best shot to get rid of mola was through qwilfish, tough but... oh it reveals pain split on turn 31! That can definitely help. Unfortunate paralysis on Ginku at turn 33, which could have been a dead rhyperior.
The key to win this was getting rid of mola, mola could win the match for Ginku but Windsong revealing the pain split means it had a chance of 1v1 it (if it had taunt, that would have a dead mola but it had thunder wave so. The speed control is more appealing). Water is cold today but Windsong gets the scald burn at first try which is impressive considering Ginku threw a bunch of scalds already. The burn on mola really helps to pressure it. Finally Ginku gets the burn on qwilfish. Unfortunate paralysis for Ginku... again. That paralysis was huge. And finally the mola died, hazards + burn + earthquake from rhyperior means it couldnt wish against it forcing him to go for the burn, he doesnt get it. And from here durant wins, and it does. Ginku got kicked by some unfortunate paras but thats the game. Good game from both sides.
Team Preview: Meru with a classic defensively oriented balance, something him has been known to use this smogon premier league a lot, with alomomola / mega steelix / weezing being the defensive core and with spiritomb, meloetta and tyrantrum being the offensive battery. Scythe with another balance team that heavily resembles the team Afro Smash used against Esteemed User Ginku on week 4, with the exception that Afro Smash used a fletchinder instead of the braviary. Mega Abomasnow will have some fun against Meru, just for this game tho. Meloetta have some fun against Scythe,
In deep perspective; On Meru's side: Pursuit trapper spiritomb (proved to be calm mind) / toxic spikes defensive weezing, most likely mixed defense in case of venusaurs / scarf tyrantrum to improve the overall speed of the team / classic mola (not so classic cause it had healing wish! dope) / standard rock setter mega steelix / meloetta, definitely a calm mind variant of some sort since no apparent win condition. On Scythe's side: sub bulk braviary 100% / defensive colbur berry jellicent / mixed wallbreaker mega abomasnow / standard rock setter diancie / fast bulky flygon / scarf durant to improve the speed of the team.
To the match: So Meru leads with meloetta, threatening most of Scythe's team and a fairly solid lead in general, Scythe goes jellicent seeing if Meru would lead with mega steelix or the alomomola. Oh shoot, revealing sets this early! This is a sub calm mind meloetta. Oh man, this could become a steamroller so early in the match, Spdef diancie was the most obvious switch-in since durant isnt a meloetta switch-in by any means. Fairly confident Scythe can handle this melo with diancie, it goes for stealth rock, which pressures Meru since no hazard removal. Meloetta getting pretty scary but it manageable if it manages to break the sub. Ballsy play by Scythe at turn 4 by letting the diancie stay in but in this situation, risking or letting the durant take damage would have been pretty bad (and it would have been dead since it revealed to be psyshock and focus blast o _ o). At the end of turn 6 Scythe has a dead diancie but rocks up, and the meloetta at 57%
Scythe is forced to go durant here, so revenge kill the melo cause nothing else on his team could get rid of it inmediately. Nice play on the baton pass predicting the switch on weezing. And Meru's team is surprisingly susceptible to jellicent. Having no mon that could kill it or stop the taunt + will-o-wisp combo. Decided to fish for a poison until he manages to not switch his meloetta on the will-o-wisp. Ok, worked out on turn 11. Another chance to get behind a sub. At this rate, Scythe could go flygon to break the sub since uninvested flygon wouldnt do too much so yeah. Scythe have been doing a great job keeping the momentum. And, oh my, abomasnow is in. Meru is forced to sack something.
It is weezing, then bring tyrantrum cause this mofo can tank 3 ice shards. ★Meru: what ded. Guess nothing o _ o. See, that flygon earthquake did nothing on turn 17. That head smash miss was huge cause that was definitely a dead flygon. Steelix aims to weaken the mega abomasnow even if it has to die in the process. Alomomola reveals the healing wish on turn 21! Round two for tyrantrum. Abomasnow dies and enter durant, which is definitely scarfed. Meru sacks meloetta, enter spiritomb which reveals to be calm mind. Goes for a trade with jellicent and the jellicent dies. Holy shit, durant tanked that head smash like a boss.
At this point durant basically won since it forces the spiritomb to rest if it wants to have a chance with the braviary. Durant doesnt miss an iron head in 3 turns (wow) and Scythe wins. Very nicely played from both, mega abomasnow heavily pressured Meru team but good thing he will not have to worry about it after this week, so yeah!
Team preview: RIP Silentverse, exams ate him alive. Anyways, New Breed taking that last dance with sharpedo before it is banned. His team is a team filled with powerhouses with steelix + flygon providing some sort of defensive backbone, a cushion against bunch of stuff. Sharpedo, gallade, emboar and venusaur? Power right there, my man. HANTSUKI's team is a bit more complex in its execution but it looks more balance oriented with slowking + registeel being definitely the defensive duo with venusaur, sigilyph, flygon and emboar being the offensive mons. Both can be described as bulky offense, pretty straightforward builds but there is a freaking registeel cause aboma and sharpedo!
In deep with the sets; NEW BREED with: Life orb special sharpedo cause, yeah (proved to be mixed, physically oriented) / Swords dance gallade tbh, or no gallade / scarf emboar / life orb venusaur / standard rock setter mega steelix / flygon, no idea what could it be, perhaps special life orb or banded, dont think it is spdef (it is a physical variant, perhaps scarf). HANTSUKI with: LO venusaur / sigilyph, perhaps LO (proved to be sash which actually made sense) / physically defensive slowking / spdef registeel / LO special flygon maybe / scarf emboar.
To the match: Okay, flygon vs flygon lead, moment of truth. HANTSUKI has a dragon resist so he goes to registeel and Kevin is done and went for Outrage straight away. Technically speaking Outrage wasnt a bad play since registeel cant generally touch Flygon besides seismic toss but then he reveals and Im like "Yo" and the flygon is ded cause 3 turns outrage. Free steelix for New Breed and to set up rocks or do whatever. He does set up rocks and guess he stayed in predicting a more spdef variant but he had no particular ground resists so... and he reveals it is a special LO variant, and a really unfortunate fire blast crit gets rid of steelix. Pretty sure that doesnt kill.
A really quick disadvantage for New Breed, And he gets the freeze on the registeel! Some hax back, and that actually gives the sharpedo a chance to win since registeel is the designated sharpedo check here, thats crazy. Next couple of turns consist of basically sharpedo slowly killing the registeel. Here comes the venusaur, which can take an ice beam from mixed sharpedo pretty well comes in. Hard switch into emboar and gosh, that sludge bomb did so much. Amazing play at turn 12 predicting the wild charge since slowking would be the primary switch-in. That basically kills all that precious momentum Kev had going. Oh, and it wasnt scarf emboar, so expert belt huh? SO, the crazy thing is that sharpedo could actually sweep from here, which lead me to believe what this sigilyph set is. According to some people it was actually sash and that actually made sense since sash sigilyph can revenge kill a lot of annoying mons for this team.
That dazzling gleam did absolutely nothing which means, my God a bulky variant. Been a while since Ive seen one of those, good ole XY. And that EQ crit basically means the game for HANTSUKI, his venusaur comes to kill KEV venusaur and thats it, well played but early hax and losing the flygon that early meant New Breed wouldnt be able to recover easily, and he didnt, unfortunate. REALLY WANTED TO SEE THAT BW2 RU BO3 :(
Team preview: Another one that is jumping on the last boat to use sharpedo. And with a rather cool team at that. Both teams actually look pretty cool and like something Ive love to use on both sides. FlamingVictini bringing the closest thing I have seen to HO in this entire tournament (except for the rhyperior, thats already qualify as no HO). FlamingVictini has some form of hyper offense with spikes provided by garbodor, rocks for rhyperior, 3 offensive behemoths in the form rotom-cut, hitmonlee and sharpedo, and finally a fletchinder being the offensive cleaner and adding the icing to the cake. Hyper Offense with a rhyperior, Ill take it. Atomicllamas with another cool looking team, another form of the millions a double fighter + pursuit trapper combo can take in the RU metagame and 3 potential rockers... disclosing, stealth rock mega camerupt is a waste of his potential so is not rhyperior, rocks diancie on a team like this doesnt make much sense so not diancie, mesprit my favorite rocker for offensive builds, nice.
In deep with the teams; FlamingVictini: Defensive spikes setter garbodor / rotom-cut, perhaps specs even tho it is bad, would be nice if it is expert belt tho! / life orb hitmonlee, with spin cause fletchinder/ swords dance fletchinder / special life orb sharpedo / standard rock setter rhyperior.
Atomicllamas with: swords dance virizion with zen headbutt / life orb sneasel with pursuit, not sure if with iron tail / seeing mesprit means this diancie is offensive trick room / stealth rock mesprit / wallbreaker camerupt, definitely hp ice, not sure if toxic or sub / bulk up gurdurr.
To the match: Moment of truth, ladies and gents. This mesprit doesnt have grass knot. So both players decide to lead with their rock setter, gotta get those rocks as fast as possible. A grass knot from mesprit would have made me scream. Lllamas team has shaky ground resists but damn, this switch ended up paying out in the best way possible getting his virizion against a rotom, which is bait. And it is a leftovers rotom-cut. So bulky offense with bunch of frail mons? Anyways, virizion doesnt kill garbodor at +2 on that range (needs to be around 70%) so forced to go to virizion and that means free hazards for FV and llamas forced to go to mesprit. But FlamingVictini goes for the gunk shot, that works too! hazards would have been nice for that extra pressure but that went well. Everything in a matter of 4 turns
Jesus Christ, thats some spdef rotom-cut there. Eww. Mesprit is as good as dead so may as well keep damaging the rotom. Keeping the rotom for fodder was fine for FlamingVictini so pivots out into the hitmonlee to like kill something... except the virizion since it has zen headbutt. Llamas has no issues going for that since it is rather safe. Enter the garbodor, and virizion taking that meaty recoil but the garbodor was on kill range. Decision time: at this point the virizion was already on kill range for the sharpedo to come and finish it so taking the massive recoil of aftermath + rocky helmet wouldnt mind since the win condition is the gurdurr at this point, and killing the garbodor will allow it to basically win (fletchinder doesnt beat +1 gurdurr, personal experience)
so FV sacks the rotom and brings in the sharpedo as expected, viri is on kill range as said. Nice hard switch on the gurdurr seeing that FV had to protect. Garbodor is down and llamas succesfully prevent the spikes, nice! But... a massive mistake at turn 11 basically turned all the tides on FV favor. Llamas unfortunately his sharpedo response D: The most optimal sack was camerupt in here. While it killed everything, it was way too pressured by everything on FV team. Nothing stops the shark from basically win at this point. Time to play aggresively and after the camerupt double enter the diancie which is offensive trick room, this could win. Atomicllamas diamond storms at the first roost and finally gets it at the second roost but the damage was already done. The combination of sharpedo and hitmonlee won FV the game. Oh Shuca berry rhyperior!
After turn 18, llamas fate was already sealed. Llamas forced to sack the diancie and from there sharpedo won. Not saying the gurdurr could have changed the entire outcome of the game but oh well, this game teach us very VERY harsh lessons. Last game with sharpedo and bye bye for the rest of the gen!
Team Preview: Last match of the week but I think it was one of the first ones played for RU. Anyways, Dice brings a pretty cool bulky offensive squad with the powerful double psychic combo. Meloetta goes extremely well with pretty sure every other psychic type available since its typing give it a peculiar set of resistances and HUGE spdef stat that let it handle opposing psychic types really easily. Sigilyph + meloetta is the choice and that works really well. The rest of the bulky offense bring the classic water + steel + ground combo. Many choices you can toy around with that formula, rhyperior + durant + poliwrath is the choice and thats pretty effective. Abomasnow here making a last presence with its mega evolution. Cool looking squad tbh, visually pleasing.
Luigi team is a little more interesting with a classic mega steelix + slowking combo and the rest of the team consisting of mons to patch said weaknesses with venusaur so grass types arent that big of a nuisance. It is pretty interesting cause never seen double steel and double grass before. Just saying the fire weakness is massive. Guess there is gurdurr that takes everything physical.
In deep; Dice team with: wallbreaker mega abomasnow / standard rock setter rhyperior here / LO sigilyph (proved to be sash, oh) / scarf durant / colbur berry meloetta, perhaps calm mind since no clear win con on this team / defensive poliwrath cause meloetta as your only dark resist isnt good. Luigi team with: Banded durant / bulk up gurdurr / LO venusaur / defensive slowking with calm mind perhaps / rotom-cut... scarf perhaps? / standard rock setter mega steelix.
To the match: Amazing turn 1, we revealing sets just like that. The sigilyph is sash and the durant is dead, assuming it hits and... it does!! So yeah, the rotom-cut is definitely scarf and that sadly means abomasnow gets to come in and mega evolve. and seeing the lack of mega abomasnow switch-ins. Oh man, oh man. Damn, luigi went to slowking on the blizzard, crazy plays but pretty forced since steelix and durant arent blizzard switch-ins. Dice goes for the blizzard again but Luigi takes the risky route but why would you stay in with slowking against the mega abo... OH MY GOD, IT HAS FIRE BLAST. BOOM. OH MY GOD. OK.
Durant enters to kil something but does great by baton passing and going into rhyperior... on the gurdurr, mmm. I wonder why? Gurdurr set up on rhyperior all day. Guess we gotta play with that route cause meloetta isnt a switch-in so yeah, lets set up some rocks. And it actually ended up playing out. Turn 5 and 6 were rather confusing to me. Luigi reveals the sleep powder on venusaur which actually puts the durant out of action and this could be problematic and... why is poliwrath the venusaur switch-in?! not like Im one to question but perhaps he was predicting a double to steelix on the meloetta? maybe... mmm, damn poliwrath is beefy. Those series of plays didnt paid out, dead durant and a weakened poliwrath but ok, here enters the meloetta to kill something. The psychic resist is steelix on Luigi's team.
And yeah, the meloetta is calm mind so oh oh. Luigi stays in to damage it or to fish for a poison since no switch-ins, forced to sack. So, it is psyshock meloetta... that may why it didnt went for it against gurdurr in the first place. Luigi neutralizes the target somewhat by tricking it a scarf. Ok, this is being closer than expected. 3v3 with lots of changes in the tides. With meloetta tricked, it is forced to switch out and goes to poliwrath since it is water resist, even though it is weak to slowking itself. It thunder waves and poliwrath takes that psyshock like a goddamn champ, holy. He rests with poliwrath and back to meloetta so it has shadow ball, it HAS to. Meloetta gets paralyzed but thanks to the scarf it still outspeeds slowking so not so useless just yet, Dice shadow balls again and there is a spdef drop, it wouldnt kill and meloetta is the way of killing the slowking at this point.
End-game is pretty rough for both sides. Poliwrath switch on the knock off from gurdurr and lets go from there. The spdef drop is really helping with that gurdurr. Crit on the meloetta switch, OMG but Luigi stays in and sacks the slowking. The goal was winning with gurdurr or steelix at this point. And here we have a really fast gurdurr! oh oh, this could change things. If it was a slow gurdurr, rhyperior could have 2hkod. It reveals the roar which gives it some breathing room. My God, poliwrath doing work, VSing that steelix like a man (even though it is female). Gets a favorable scald and gets it on the steelix.
Pretty nerve wrecking steelix. Gurdurr have a chance to win. Scald drain punch scald drain punch. Turn 33 was huge and a really game deciding play, Luigi most likely predicting the rest decided to bulk up and could easily rely on sleep talk rolls to win. A bad sleep talk roll and the game was his, but Dice goes for the scald instead! Goes for scald again and it seals the deal for Dice. The play before the last turn wasnt quite a misplay, Luigi stayed by his play, made a decision and it didnt paid out sadly. GG, pretty well played with just a rather odd mid-game to me.
2 MORE WEEKS TO GO, BUT THE BEST IS THAT I GET TO SEE NEXT 2 WEEKS ON A SHARPEDO LESS METAGAME!! FUCK YES
ORAS RU: Windsong vs SilentVerse, free BW2 RU :( Silentverse is cool so going with that
ORAS RU: FlamingVictini vs Aeroblacktyl, no idea who Aeroblacktyl is
ORAS RU: Luigi. vs atomicllamas, come on llamas you cant recover from last time; believe
ORAS RU: Esteemed User Ginku vs Scythe., friend and he is on fire lately
[ORAS RU]
- [SCTR] Windsong vs. [RAID] Esteemed User Ginku
- [CRYO] Scythe. vs. [SHRK] Meru
- [BIGS] HANTSUKI vs. [CONG] New Breed
- [WOLF] FlamingVictini vs. [TGRS] atomicllamas
- [FLCN] dice vs. [RUIN] Luigi
In deep; Windsong with: Banded Sawk / Standard spike setter qwilfish / standard rock setter rhyperior / wallbreaker mixed mega abomasnow / hoopa which is a cool choice but no idea what it could be, perhaps a taunt or a sub variant (proved to be scarf with trick) / Scarf durant. Ginku with: LO sigilyph / banded durant / standard rock setter diancie / scarf medicham / swords dance drapion, maybe shuca / alomomomomomola, you know its deal.
To the match: Windsong decides to lead with durant seeing the pretty nice matchup it has against Ginku's team. Ginku decides to lead with diancie which is generally a safe lead and to get up rocks pretty soon since it would help to pressure Windsong since his team doesnt have hazard removal, and it could break sawk sturdy which is indeed a threat since it can force a trade. Not much else to say early game besides a great double by Ginku seeing the qwilfish switch with his sigilyph.
Sets start to get revealed by turn 5. Seeing that shadow ball damage tells me the hoopa is definitely not a wallbreaker cause that is definitely not specs damage, no recoil means no life orb... spooky plate? Nah it does more damage. No leftovers so it is perhaps a funky scarf set. Not quite a fan of it tbh but maybe it will held a surprise later on. Switched into the sigilyph with no issues, that psychic did 0. So did the shadow ball to diancie :V Anyways, prime position for Ginku to see up rocks which will definitely pressure Windsong, particularly abomasnow and sawk. Guess the next step for Windsong would be getting his rocks up since he doesnt have hazard removal as well.
Pressuring alomomola with rocks up could be an issue with abomasnow since hazards damage will take the toll pretty easily so yeah, he goes to qwilfish to get a chance to set spikes, something will add some more pressure to Ginku. Hazards are definitely the key in this match. Qwilfish dodge the scald burn, nice. Nice thunder wave on the sigilyph switch-in which was expected since nothing on Ginku would like to be paralyzed and most likely Ginku has heal bell on diancie but that doesnt do much against Qwilfish, and gets weakened. Unfortunate scald burn at turn 12 on the mega abomasnow which means that it is in a timer and dont have the luxury to switch out anymore so may as well go in! Protect to scout what this abomasnow would do is a good play, it blizzards. Windsong blizzards again and basically kills the durant! (holy shit, that isnt a switch-in) and getting rid of a threat for Windsong despite having a qwilfish (Durant is always a threat)
On turn 19 Windsong reveals the trick scarf hoopa! Not a fan of scarf hoopa, but this will definitely do :) Qwilfish sets a spike layer a couple of turns later and thanks to that tricked scarf it manages to get rid of the diancie more easily with a combination of thunderbolt + psychic. Hoopa putting work. ★Esteemed User: I have pursuit; shit, he wasnt bluffing!! Hoopa is dead but Windsong had clear win cons with sawk and durant. Sawk could break through at least 3 mons on Ginku team and Durant could clean. But mola on Ginku's team was looking tougher and tougher to get past. That knock off diminish the power of the close combat but helps sawk get rid of the sigilyph, even though it is paralyzed, still useful. So Ginku is forced to go medicham. Nice rhyperior switch on the zen headbutt. EQing the mola was fine, any damage. Windsong best shot to get rid of mola was through qwilfish, tough but... oh it reveals pain split on turn 31! That can definitely help. Unfortunate paralysis on Ginku at turn 33, which could have been a dead rhyperior.
The key to win this was getting rid of mola, mola could win the match for Ginku but Windsong revealing the pain split means it had a chance of 1v1 it (if it had taunt, that would have a dead mola but it had thunder wave so. The speed control is more appealing). Water is cold today but Windsong gets the scald burn at first try which is impressive considering Ginku threw a bunch of scalds already. The burn on mola really helps to pressure it. Finally Ginku gets the burn on qwilfish. Unfortunate paralysis for Ginku... again. That paralysis was huge. And finally the mola died, hazards + burn + earthquake from rhyperior means it couldnt wish against it forcing him to go for the burn, he doesnt get it. And from here durant wins, and it does. Ginku got kicked by some unfortunate paras but thats the game. Good game from both sides.
Team Preview: Meru with a classic defensively oriented balance, something him has been known to use this smogon premier league a lot, with alomomola / mega steelix / weezing being the defensive core and with spiritomb, meloetta and tyrantrum being the offensive battery. Scythe with another balance team that heavily resembles the team Afro Smash used against Esteemed User Ginku on week 4, with the exception that Afro Smash used a fletchinder instead of the braviary. Mega Abomasnow will have some fun against Meru, just for this game tho. Meloetta have some fun against Scythe,
In deep perspective; On Meru's side: Pursuit trapper spiritomb (proved to be calm mind) / toxic spikes defensive weezing, most likely mixed defense in case of venusaurs / scarf tyrantrum to improve the overall speed of the team / classic mola (not so classic cause it had healing wish! dope) / standard rock setter mega steelix / meloetta, definitely a calm mind variant of some sort since no apparent win condition. On Scythe's side: sub bulk braviary 100% / defensive colbur berry jellicent / mixed wallbreaker mega abomasnow / standard rock setter diancie / fast bulky flygon / scarf durant to improve the speed of the team.
To the match: So Meru leads with meloetta, threatening most of Scythe's team and a fairly solid lead in general, Scythe goes jellicent seeing if Meru would lead with mega steelix or the alomomola. Oh shoot, revealing sets this early! This is a sub calm mind meloetta. Oh man, this could become a steamroller so early in the match, Spdef diancie was the most obvious switch-in since durant isnt a meloetta switch-in by any means. Fairly confident Scythe can handle this melo with diancie, it goes for stealth rock, which pressures Meru since no hazard removal. Meloetta getting pretty scary but it manageable if it manages to break the sub. Ballsy play by Scythe at turn 4 by letting the diancie stay in but in this situation, risking or letting the durant take damage would have been pretty bad (and it would have been dead since it revealed to be psyshock and focus blast o _ o). At the end of turn 6 Scythe has a dead diancie but rocks up, and the meloetta at 57%
Scythe is forced to go durant here, so revenge kill the melo cause nothing else on his team could get rid of it inmediately. Nice play on the baton pass predicting the switch on weezing. And Meru's team is surprisingly susceptible to jellicent. Having no mon that could kill it or stop the taunt + will-o-wisp combo. Decided to fish for a poison until he manages to not switch his meloetta on the will-o-wisp. Ok, worked out on turn 11. Another chance to get behind a sub. At this rate, Scythe could go flygon to break the sub since uninvested flygon wouldnt do too much so yeah. Scythe have been doing a great job keeping the momentum. And, oh my, abomasnow is in. Meru is forced to sack something.
It is weezing, then bring tyrantrum cause this mofo can tank 3 ice shards. ★Meru: what ded. Guess nothing o _ o. See, that flygon earthquake did nothing on turn 17. That head smash miss was huge cause that was definitely a dead flygon. Steelix aims to weaken the mega abomasnow even if it has to die in the process. Alomomola reveals the healing wish on turn 21! Round two for tyrantrum. Abomasnow dies and enter durant, which is definitely scarfed. Meru sacks meloetta, enter spiritomb which reveals to be calm mind. Goes for a trade with jellicent and the jellicent dies. Holy shit, durant tanked that head smash like a boss.
At this point durant basically won since it forces the spiritomb to rest if it wants to have a chance with the braviary. Durant doesnt miss an iron head in 3 turns (wow) and Scythe wins. Very nicely played from both, mega abomasnow heavily pressured Meru team but good thing he will not have to worry about it after this week, so yeah!
Team preview: RIP Silentverse, exams ate him alive. Anyways, New Breed taking that last dance with sharpedo before it is banned. His team is a team filled with powerhouses with steelix + flygon providing some sort of defensive backbone, a cushion against bunch of stuff. Sharpedo, gallade, emboar and venusaur? Power right there, my man. HANTSUKI's team is a bit more complex in its execution but it looks more balance oriented with slowking + registeel being definitely the defensive duo with venusaur, sigilyph, flygon and emboar being the offensive mons. Both can be described as bulky offense, pretty straightforward builds but there is a freaking registeel cause aboma and sharpedo!
In deep with the sets; NEW BREED with: Life orb special sharpedo cause, yeah (proved to be mixed, physically oriented) / Swords dance gallade tbh, or no gallade / scarf emboar / life orb venusaur / standard rock setter mega steelix / flygon, no idea what could it be, perhaps special life orb or banded, dont think it is spdef (it is a physical variant, perhaps scarf). HANTSUKI with: LO venusaur / sigilyph, perhaps LO (proved to be sash which actually made sense) / physically defensive slowking / spdef registeel / LO special flygon maybe / scarf emboar.
To the match: Okay, flygon vs flygon lead, moment of truth. HANTSUKI has a dragon resist so he goes to registeel and Kevin is done and went for Outrage straight away. Technically speaking Outrage wasnt a bad play since registeel cant generally touch Flygon besides seismic toss but then he reveals and Im like "Yo" and the flygon is ded cause 3 turns outrage. Free steelix for New Breed and to set up rocks or do whatever. He does set up rocks and guess he stayed in predicting a more spdef variant but he had no particular ground resists so... and he reveals it is a special LO variant, and a really unfortunate fire blast crit gets rid of steelix. Pretty sure that doesnt kill.
A really quick disadvantage for New Breed, And he gets the freeze on the registeel! Some hax back, and that actually gives the sharpedo a chance to win since registeel is the designated sharpedo check here, thats crazy. Next couple of turns consist of basically sharpedo slowly killing the registeel. Here comes the venusaur, which can take an ice beam from mixed sharpedo pretty well comes in. Hard switch into emboar and gosh, that sludge bomb did so much. Amazing play at turn 12 predicting the wild charge since slowking would be the primary switch-in. That basically kills all that precious momentum Kev had going. Oh, and it wasnt scarf emboar, so expert belt huh? SO, the crazy thing is that sharpedo could actually sweep from here, which lead me to believe what this sigilyph set is. According to some people it was actually sash and that actually made sense since sash sigilyph can revenge kill a lot of annoying mons for this team.
That dazzling gleam did absolutely nothing which means, my God a bulky variant. Been a while since Ive seen one of those, good ole XY. And that EQ crit basically means the game for HANTSUKI, his venusaur comes to kill KEV venusaur and thats it, well played but early hax and losing the flygon that early meant New Breed wouldnt be able to recover easily, and he didnt, unfortunate. REALLY WANTED TO SEE THAT BW2 RU BO3 :(
Team preview: Another one that is jumping on the last boat to use sharpedo. And with a rather cool team at that. Both teams actually look pretty cool and like something Ive love to use on both sides. FlamingVictini bringing the closest thing I have seen to HO in this entire tournament (except for the rhyperior, thats already qualify as no HO). FlamingVictini has some form of hyper offense with spikes provided by garbodor, rocks for rhyperior, 3 offensive behemoths in the form rotom-cut, hitmonlee and sharpedo, and finally a fletchinder being the offensive cleaner and adding the icing to the cake. Hyper Offense with a rhyperior, Ill take it. Atomicllamas with another cool looking team, another form of the millions a double fighter + pursuit trapper combo can take in the RU metagame and 3 potential rockers... disclosing, stealth rock mega camerupt is a waste of his potential so is not rhyperior, rocks diancie on a team like this doesnt make much sense so not diancie, mesprit my favorite rocker for offensive builds, nice.
In deep with the teams; FlamingVictini: Defensive spikes setter garbodor / rotom-cut, perhaps specs even tho it is bad, would be nice if it is expert belt tho! / life orb hitmonlee, with spin cause fletchinder/ swords dance fletchinder / special life orb sharpedo / standard rock setter rhyperior.
Atomicllamas with: swords dance virizion with zen headbutt / life orb sneasel with pursuit, not sure if with iron tail / seeing mesprit means this diancie is offensive trick room / stealth rock mesprit / wallbreaker camerupt, definitely hp ice, not sure if toxic or sub / bulk up gurdurr.
To the match: Moment of truth, ladies and gents. This mesprit doesnt have grass knot. So both players decide to lead with their rock setter, gotta get those rocks as fast as possible. A grass knot from mesprit would have made me scream. Lllamas team has shaky ground resists but damn, this switch ended up paying out in the best way possible getting his virizion against a rotom, which is bait. And it is a leftovers rotom-cut. So bulky offense with bunch of frail mons? Anyways, virizion doesnt kill garbodor at +2 on that range (needs to be around 70%) so forced to go to virizion and that means free hazards for FV and llamas forced to go to mesprit. But FlamingVictini goes for the gunk shot, that works too! hazards would have been nice for that extra pressure but that went well. Everything in a matter of 4 turns
Jesus Christ, thats some spdef rotom-cut there. Eww. Mesprit is as good as dead so may as well keep damaging the rotom. Keeping the rotom for fodder was fine for FlamingVictini so pivots out into the hitmonlee to like kill something... except the virizion since it has zen headbutt. Llamas has no issues going for that since it is rather safe. Enter the garbodor, and virizion taking that meaty recoil but the garbodor was on kill range. Decision time: at this point the virizion was already on kill range for the sharpedo to come and finish it so taking the massive recoil of aftermath + rocky helmet wouldnt mind since the win condition is the gurdurr at this point, and killing the garbodor will allow it to basically win (fletchinder doesnt beat +1 gurdurr, personal experience)
so FV sacks the rotom and brings in the sharpedo as expected, viri is on kill range as said. Nice hard switch on the gurdurr seeing that FV had to protect. Garbodor is down and llamas succesfully prevent the spikes, nice! But... a massive mistake at turn 11 basically turned all the tides on FV favor. Llamas unfortunately his sharpedo response D: The most optimal sack was camerupt in here. While it killed everything, it was way too pressured by everything on FV team. Nothing stops the shark from basically win at this point. Time to play aggresively and after the camerupt double enter the diancie which is offensive trick room, this could win. Atomicllamas diamond storms at the first roost and finally gets it at the second roost but the damage was already done. The combination of sharpedo and hitmonlee won FV the game. Oh Shuca berry rhyperior!
After turn 18, llamas fate was already sealed. Llamas forced to sack the diancie and from there sharpedo won. Not saying the gurdurr could have changed the entire outcome of the game but oh well, this game teach us very VERY harsh lessons. Last game with sharpedo and bye bye for the rest of the gen!
Team Preview: Last match of the week but I think it was one of the first ones played for RU. Anyways, Dice brings a pretty cool bulky offensive squad with the powerful double psychic combo. Meloetta goes extremely well with pretty sure every other psychic type available since its typing give it a peculiar set of resistances and HUGE spdef stat that let it handle opposing psychic types really easily. Sigilyph + meloetta is the choice and that works really well. The rest of the bulky offense bring the classic water + steel + ground combo. Many choices you can toy around with that formula, rhyperior + durant + poliwrath is the choice and thats pretty effective. Abomasnow here making a last presence with its mega evolution. Cool looking squad tbh, visually pleasing.
Luigi team is a little more interesting with a classic mega steelix + slowking combo and the rest of the team consisting of mons to patch said weaknesses with venusaur so grass types arent that big of a nuisance. It is pretty interesting cause never seen double steel and double grass before. Just saying the fire weakness is massive. Guess there is gurdurr that takes everything physical.
In deep; Dice team with: wallbreaker mega abomasnow / standard rock setter rhyperior here / LO sigilyph (proved to be sash, oh) / scarf durant / colbur berry meloetta, perhaps calm mind since no clear win con on this team / defensive poliwrath cause meloetta as your only dark resist isnt good. Luigi team with: Banded durant / bulk up gurdurr / LO venusaur / defensive slowking with calm mind perhaps / rotom-cut... scarf perhaps? / standard rock setter mega steelix.
To the match: Amazing turn 1, we revealing sets just like that. The sigilyph is sash and the durant is dead, assuming it hits and... it does!! So yeah, the rotom-cut is definitely scarf and that sadly means abomasnow gets to come in and mega evolve. and seeing the lack of mega abomasnow switch-ins. Oh man, oh man. Damn, luigi went to slowking on the blizzard, crazy plays but pretty forced since steelix and durant arent blizzard switch-ins. Dice goes for the blizzard again but Luigi takes the risky route but why would you stay in with slowking against the mega abo... OH MY GOD, IT HAS FIRE BLAST. BOOM. OH MY GOD. OK.
Durant enters to kil something but does great by baton passing and going into rhyperior... on the gurdurr, mmm. I wonder why? Gurdurr set up on rhyperior all day. Guess we gotta play with that route cause meloetta isnt a switch-in so yeah, lets set up some rocks. And it actually ended up playing out. Turn 5 and 6 were rather confusing to me. Luigi reveals the sleep powder on venusaur which actually puts the durant out of action and this could be problematic and... why is poliwrath the venusaur switch-in?! not like Im one to question but perhaps he was predicting a double to steelix on the meloetta? maybe... mmm, damn poliwrath is beefy. Those series of plays didnt paid out, dead durant and a weakened poliwrath but ok, here enters the meloetta to kill something. The psychic resist is steelix on Luigi's team.
And yeah, the meloetta is calm mind so oh oh. Luigi stays in to damage it or to fish for a poison since no switch-ins, forced to sack. So, it is psyshock meloetta... that may why it didnt went for it against gurdurr in the first place. Luigi neutralizes the target somewhat by tricking it a scarf. Ok, this is being closer than expected. 3v3 with lots of changes in the tides. With meloetta tricked, it is forced to switch out and goes to poliwrath since it is water resist, even though it is weak to slowking itself. It thunder waves and poliwrath takes that psyshock like a goddamn champ, holy. He rests with poliwrath and back to meloetta so it has shadow ball, it HAS to. Meloetta gets paralyzed but thanks to the scarf it still outspeeds slowking so not so useless just yet, Dice shadow balls again and there is a spdef drop, it wouldnt kill and meloetta is the way of killing the slowking at this point.
End-game is pretty rough for both sides. Poliwrath switch on the knock off from gurdurr and lets go from there. The spdef drop is really helping with that gurdurr. Crit on the meloetta switch, OMG but Luigi stays in and sacks the slowking. The goal was winning with gurdurr or steelix at this point. And here we have a really fast gurdurr! oh oh, this could change things. If it was a slow gurdurr, rhyperior could have 2hkod. It reveals the roar which gives it some breathing room. My God, poliwrath doing work, VSing that steelix like a man (even though it is female). Gets a favorable scald and gets it on the steelix.
Pretty nerve wrecking steelix. Gurdurr have a chance to win. Scald drain punch scald drain punch. Turn 33 was huge and a really game deciding play, Luigi most likely predicting the rest decided to bulk up and could easily rely on sleep talk rolls to win. A bad sleep talk roll and the game was his, but Dice goes for the scald instead! Goes for scald again and it seals the deal for Dice. The play before the last turn wasnt quite a misplay, Luigi stayed by his play, made a decision and it didnt paid out sadly. GG, pretty well played with just a rather odd mid-game to me.
2 MORE WEEKS TO GO, BUT THE BEST IS THAT I GET TO SEE NEXT 2 WEEKS ON A SHARPEDO LESS METAGAME!! FUCK YES
WEEK 8 PREDICTIONS!!
ORAS RU: Dice vs Meru, could go either way tbh, depends on who prepares the best but gotta go with the one I like the most I suppose
ORAS RU: Windsong vs SilentVerse, free BW2 RU :( Silentverse is cool so going with that
ORAS RU: FlamingVictini vs Aeroblacktyl, no idea who Aeroblacktyl is
ORAS RU: Luigi. vs atomicllamas, come on llamas you cant recover from last time; believe
ORAS RU: Esteemed User Ginku vs Scythe., friend and he is on fire lately
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AND IM HERE TO CLAIM THIS THREAD AND SAY, REVIVE
Woohoo, sharpedo and mega abomasnow are gone and that means potential to see new cool and interesting builds with a new fresh metagame, going into the right direction!! Unfortunately a couple of the replays were lost due to some problems with the replays system (update to support emojis or something like that) so yeah, you will have to download a couple of those.
[ORAS RU]
Meru also have another pretty neat bulky offense that is a bit more straightforward in terms on what could be what. Meloetta and venusaur are the wallbreakers, sneasel and fletchinder provide the speed against offense, rhyperior and blastoise the defensive cushion, much more straightforward but just as cool.
Dice with: Maybe Offensive SR seismitoad seeing the nature of the build / tyrantrum, maybe scarf (it is banded WOW) / Durant, banded / expert belt emboar (been seeing plenty of usage lately, so solid guess I suppose) / uxie is the rock setter / hoopa, maybe a sub variant (so this was the scarf huh). In general the team is kind of hard to read. Too many potential choice users :V Meru with: Specs meloetta, could be colbur calm mind cause that set is cool / phys def blastoise, spinner / life orb sneasel, with pursuit / standard rock setter rhyperior, could have ice punch cause lol flygon / swords dance fletchinder / LO venusaur, many variants of this set (proved to have sleep powder so thats cool).
To the match: I have no idea how this match ended the way it ended. No spoilers but you will see on the replay. Solid lead matchup by Dice with uxie, very few things could stop it from setting rocks and risk getting paralyzed. Meru leads with venusaur since it threaten like half of Dice´s team. Thats my boy, the timid venusaur! It revealed sleep powder and neutralize the uxie for a couple of turns at least. Not sure why Dice let his uxie took so much damage just like that with hoopa and durant being relatively safe switch-ins once he revealed sleep powder (sleep powder + leaf storm is pretty impossible to fit and giving up recovery on venusaur isnt an option imo so yeah) so it most likely Meru had Giga Drain alongside sleep powder. Ok, uxie woke up on turn 6 and goes for the rocks, fletchinder goes for the swords dance. Dice hard switches the tyrantrum and thankfully Meru doesnt go for the will-o-wisp.
HOLY SHIT, thats banded. Jesus Christ. Now this is were things get interesting. No steel type means Meru is forced to sack something if he wants to preserve the rhyperior... but at that HP rhyperior isnt of so much use for Meru so he just sacks it. The good thing is that either meloetta or sneasel can come in to kill or knock off something respectively. Really solid start from Dice btw, preventing rocks and shit. Enter the meloetta at turn 9 and... switch-ins? Alright, he sacks the tyrantrum. Here we goes. Meru is on the situation to sack something against the durant so he is forced to sack the meloetta. Damn, sack after sack. Sneasel to at least weaken the durant cause right now it is looking rough, and to force it out on blastoise and get the spin at least. And durant reveals it had lum berry, oh, so it was hone claws! Nice, one scarf mon left to check. Only hoopa and emboar left.
Yep, there is the hoopa to come to spinblock. Looking extremely rough for Meru at this point, seems that Dice got this game in the back. There is the scarf hoopa, it tricks the scarf to blastoise but gets toxic´d in the process. Meru still having a decent shot even with being down. Amazing, like, ridiculous double at turn 18 predicting the seismitoad and him going for venusaur. What a momentum swing, kills the durant and emboar is forced out. Meru sacks the blastoise and attempts to swords dance on the blitz but bam, reveals the expert belt! Looking like game for Dice but... Dice made a huge mistake by letting the emboar get put to sleep, this terrible decision pretty much sealed the comeback for Meru. He could have choose any other sleep fodder and he having 2 MORE SACKS but in the end he threw the game. Thats crazy, venusaur comes back and Meru wins the match.
WE TAKE THOSE!
Team Preview: Windsong with a pretty bulky balanced team with 2 to 3 potential win conditions and a really strong defensive backbone of mola, lix and flygon. Balance staples all over the place, this is much more responsive to fighting types thanks to the addition of gallade which switches at least once and doesnt rely on fletchinder alone to give any kind of reactive presence. Gallade also helps getting past opposing bulkier builds, and is pretty efficient at that. SilentVerse with a pretty sexy looking team, with mega abomasnow gone mah boy mega glalie has its chance to shine ONCE MORE. Mega glalie + specs meloetta are ridiculous wallbreakers together (and seeing Windsong team... this is looking rough). Mawile and jellicent provide a really solid bulky backbone and flygon + tyrantrum, double dragon offensive core, looking threatening as always.
Windsong with: Swords dance fletchinder / Swords dance gallade / standard rock setter mega steelix / swords dance virizion / pivot variant of flygon, really feel it is a bulky fast variant (special LO flygon, wrong again) / standard alomomola, looking hard to break as always. SlientVerse with: mixed wallbreaker mega glalie, no spikes cause with flygon isnt recommended / defensive jellicent with colbur berry / mawile being the rocker and it has baton pass to pivot around, not sure what else it could have tho (it revealed super fang which is dope) / specs meloetta / special LO flygon / scarf tyrantrum.
To the match: Ok so SilentVerse has like 3 potential switch-ins in this. Meloetta looking really appealing cause Windsong forgot his dark type on the teambuilder so... Windsong leads virizion, solid lead overall but there is a meloetta and it doesnt OHKO melo so, time to sack or pivot into something. No dark type on Windsong´s side means SilentVerse had no reason to press psychic, specs psychic puts a dent on everything, so Windsong forced to go steelix. Holy shit, that steelix took 46%. SilentVerse has like one of the best steelix switch-in the tier in jellicent. Windsong get his rocks and SilentVerse gets a free wisp on this. Forced to go flygon cause is the only thing that would like to switch into the wisp I suppose, virizion rather not consume the lum berry just yet, etc, etc. Nice hard switch-in with the virizion on the Jellicent. SilentVerse was most likely expecting a special variant there.
Enter mawile! And that leaf blade does nothing. Mawile gets a chance to get its rocks on the mega steelix switch-in and mawile can pivot out thanks to baton pass. Welp, meloetta gets a kill! Dead steelix at turn 8 and enter gallade and... why did it SD?! Calced the damage for modest specs?! D: Gallade is out at turn 11 and I like "WHAT!?" Meloetta putting work (it kills everything tbf). Mola isnt a switch-in, OMG. Guess getting this meleotta toxic´d as soon as possible is the only course of action. SV has no issues with pressing psychic, 0 issues. Had to sack something again. There goes the fletchinder. What a slugfest. After sacking half the team (he had no other choice really) the meloetta dies to a close combat. And some room to breath, holy shit!
Enter mawile, forces virizion out and pivot into flygon. Windsong goes mola. Funnily enough, despise the disadvantage Windsong has mola has a chance to win if he can get a toxic on the jellicent. Unfortunate draco miss on turn 18 but that would have done 0 damage, it is a mola ffs. Forced into mawile to not catch a toxic and... this mawile can do anything against the mola?! OH, there it is! Windsong gets the toxic on jellicent, now there is a chance. Turn 20 btw. Windsong has a solid chance with a healthy virizion and mola now. Damn, it is special flygon. Wrong again. Nice mawile switch on the draco and with his own flygon on the earth power. SilentVerse wins the speed tie and yeah. OMG, huge fire blast burn (and unfortunate) from SilentVerse on the virizion. That means it cant afford to switch the viri into jelli now o_o
Dead flygon, enter GLALIE. Enter mola, getting past mola for SilentVerse looked pretty damn difficult right now. Would have to force a 1v1 with its own jellicent to have a shot. That toxic was huge. FAT FREAKING FISH, that freeze-dry did nothing. Mega Glalie is forced out and enter jellicent, since virizion ate his lum berry on the fire blast burn well, it could just recover and wisp cause that mola is protecti... nvm, we gotta play aggressive. SilentVerse does play aggressively here, trade the leaf blade damage to burn the virizion, jellicent becomes the key to win this. That close combat did 5. Mawile reveals the super fang! Thats huge, it can pressure the mola, thats for sure! Windsong basically had to keep wishing and bring the virizion back to full. The mawile and mola dance continues for 8 more turns and jellicent finally gets a chance to recover at turn 45. Virizion is healthy!
Damn, staying in to recover on the virizion, great play (although it is burned so it doesnt kill but yeah, SV had to take that risk to keep the jellicent as healthy as possible for the 1v1 against mola). Windsong plan was perfectly clear, attempt to survive and keep the viri always healthy. The end game was a struggle to getting past mola but this mon doesnt die. Turns and turns of a war to take it down. That crit on turn 62 didnt mattered: 0 SpA Jellicent Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Virizion: 30-36 (9.2 - 11.1%) -- possible 9HKO. It was still a roll so yeah. From here the game is pretty much sealed tbh. Jellicent just needs the taunt on mola and mega glalie 2hkos. Turn 69 jellicent taunts the mola, SV sacks the mawile next turn and mega glalie finishes the job. GG, very well played from most places but this shows the importance of a dark type.
Team Preview: I... I really dont know what to say about this match, lol. Guess they just brought heat and played it out! Aeroblacktyl with a mono green squad! Thats the whole, slap bunch of viable green mons together and call it a day. The funny part is that, color schemes aside, this build could work besides just dropping to fletchider a bit o_o There is power through the roof in this. Now, if Aeroblacktyl brought a weird squad, FlamingVictini brought one that makes me go "wtf". For starters, there is a riolu and Idk what is that supposed to mean. There is spikes and apparently screens (and absolutely nothing to getting past druddigon) so yeah. How do I explain this?!
Green Aeroblacktyl with: LO venusaur / scrafty, oh boy, just hope isnt a lackluster set (could be banded) / phys def rocky helmet druddigon imo / bronzong... offensive trick room if you have drudd? / swords dance gallade / meloetta, maybe specs. FlamingVictini with: spikes lead accelgor (it is LO, YES) / Riolu... not sure what this does / rocks setter uxie (it also has screens!) / swords dance samurott (people dont believe on the LO special one, could have been dope in here) / dragon dance scrafty cause screens / LO or specs jolteon.
To the match: This match will be really odd but lets get done with this. MOP could like lead with druddigon 100%, it beats FV entire team. FlamingVictini leads with uxie to set up the screens and his rocks. Rocks trade on turn 1 from both, fair. Druddigon could literally press dragon tail or glare as he wanted to. Druddigon does his thing with glaring and dragon tailing for 7 turns. LO accelgor at turn 5, nice! That did a good amount. Dead Druddigon at turn 8 but damn, it did work. Here comes gallade and it has an easy match to press swords dance and win, it then the reveals the shadow sneak and "oh boy", this game pretty much ends. YAWN JOLTEON! But it most likely lum so yeah... Enter samurott, samurott dies. And yeah, just like that the game ends. Thanks for giving me an easy time getting thie analysis of this match done!
Team Preview: Mario´s Brother (Luigi) with a pretty cool spikestacking bulky offense with seems to have bulk up braviary as the main win condition (could even be banded but bulk up is the more appealing set) with virizion + durant working extremely good together as always and... I really hope that isnt defog flygon! The cool thing about braviary is that it basically punish flygon for recklessly pressing defog thanks to defiant, meaning hazards are relatively protected. Atomicllamas with some fresh squad, looking great. Diancie + Qwilfish is a great hazard stacking duo, mega glalie + scrafty being the wallbreakers (banded scrafty is good, man) and virizion being the win condition and the most splashable water resist on the entire tier. And a delphox!
Luigi with: Scarfed Durant / Swords Dance Virizion / Flygon (either the durant is scarfed and this banded or the way around, no way this is defog) Going with banded / sub bulk up braviary tbh / stealth rock camerupt ( :/ ) / spikes setter qwilfish. Atomicllamas with: Mixed wallbreaker mega glalie, spikes setter qwilfish / swords dance virizion / rock setter diancie / scarf delphox / banded scrafty.
To the match: Thats mah boy scrafty. Luigi leads with flygon, solid lead in general can pivot around and stuff. Llamas lead scrafty which puts a dent on everything. U-turn at -1 did 23%?! definitely banded flygon. Scrafty just gonna HJK something... or knock off, that works too, damn great damage and qwilfish losing its item so early is huge. No lum berry on the virizion switch-in (it sadly gets paralyzed) so it is a special variant. HE FOCUS BLASTED (wouldnt have done too much, seriously, spdef braviary bulk is out of this world). Qwilfish gonna lay down some spikes and you can generally can lay down spikes on diancie with qwilfish but llamas reveals the earth power! Dead qwilfish. Enter flygon, my ground resist is paralyzed and... OMG, IT IS SHUCA BERRY! DED FLYGON
Alright, now this is fun! Enter camerupt and this diancie is ded. Scrafty back in again to HJK something, something is about to hit the ground, and the victim is the virizion. RIP, GONE. Enter durant, nice double from Luigi with his camerupt on the incoming qwilfish (scald qwilfish just 2hkos camel and getting rid of this would be nice for durant and braviary). Sacking the virizion was fine since paralyzed is just wouldnt do much, or anything tbh. Enter scrafty to get his next kill, gonna hjk something. Really unfortunate hjk miss on turn 12 D: ★atomicllamas: NICE
Anyways, forced to go to qwilfish and the qwilfish reveals to be physical. That definitely kills camerupt 100% Hey, there is the fast as heck qwilfish! Braviary paralyzed and threat neutralized. Damn, that brave bird did so much tho, so llamas is forced into the glalie since qwilfish is extra insurance against the camel. Glalie is gonna mega and kill something. THERE IS NO WAY LUIGI PREDICTED HP FIRE! Thats crazy, anyways, double down with mega glalie on the mega camerupt on turn 18. And scarf delphox seals the deal, that was perhaps adamant scarf durant which is a legit option except it loses in this particular scenario (jolly doesnt kill anyways). GG, well played from both, fun looking teams.
Team Preview: There is a cofagrigus in here! Ginku with a really interesting looking team with RU staples in virizion and durant on the offensive side, and flygon with diancie on the defensive side. There is also a regular abomasnow! This mon is an extremely scary wallbreaker, you have no idea. Still thinking what this cofag could be tbh, intriguing to say the least. Scythe with a much more standard but really cool looking bulky offense team with steelix + slowking being the defensive backbone, sneasel and scarf tyrantrum nailing offense and venusaur + flygon provide strong wallbreaking power.
Ginku with: Cofagrigus, perhaps a toxic spikes variant / swords dance virizion / flygon, definitely a defog variant cause it is needed cause of aboma, special LO perhaps (physical LO, uncommon but possible) / scarfed durant to give needed speed to this team / wallbreaker regular abomasnow / rock setter diancie. Scythe with: LO special flygon / LO sneasel, there is no need for ice shard so this has pursuit + low kick / scarf tyrantrum / LO venusaur as always (seems to be specs, idk why but w/e) / dont think it is defensive slowking, could be an offensive variant of slack off + 3 attacks, perhaps fire blast / standard rock setter mega steelix.
To the match: Final match of the batch (HAH!) but not the lesser one by any means. Ginku leads with the cofagrigus and Scythe leads with the flygon. Flygon goes for the draco meteor straight away, cofagrigus goes for the wisp. Unfortunate earth power crit on the next turn means we will never know if this cofagrigus had toxic spikes :( Enter diancie, -2 earth power does nothing and thats some free rocks. Diancie forces the flygon to defog and a dead flygon it is. Enter the steelix and, Ginku makes a really risky play by laying down rocks again but the steelix reveals the ice fang... thats new. Durant on the heavy slam and durant pivots out to the aboma on the earthquake. Nice series of plays, aboma gonna blizzard something and... that steelix is max spdef, holy shit, that did nothing.
Dead regular aboma and here comes flygon. Flygon reveals to be a LO physical (or mixed) one and it takes the earthquake pretty comfortably. Series of cool reveals of sets here, and that slowking should be called durant cause unfortunate fire blast miss on the sub from durant, which reveals to be sub baton pass (thats really nice!). Slowking stays in again to fire blast, thats risky. Slowking STAYS IN once more to fire blast and... it misses. Guess this is one case of "tempting your luck" right here, perfect example. Scythe sacks the steelix and here comes the sneasel. Damn, what a double with the venusaur on the incoming diancie. Ginku is forced to sack something, there goes the flygon and this venusaur isnt LO... perhaps specs? maybe.
Ginku seeing that, decides to go for SD and Scythe needed to sack something again (directly into sneasel would have been one hell of a play but the risk was humongous), so sacking slowking was safer. Here comes sneasel once more. Now, if only Scythe made that crazy double to venusaur on the diancie once more, he would have been set, or maybe this sneasel has iron tail?! It switches out so I guess it doesnt. Free diamond storm, venusaur enters presses leaf storm and durant is in a position where it can just win (sub baton pass is commonly seen with either leftovers, insect plate or salac berry). Durant reveals the salac on the sub against venu, and it wins the match. Well played from both sides and guess the sneasel was low kick in the end! Got that one right!
LAST WEEK OF REGULAR SEASON LADIES AND GENTS, THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LAST PLACE TO THE PLAYOFFS, LETS GO!
Woohoo, sharpedo and mega abomasnow are gone and that means potential to see new cool and interesting builds with a new fresh metagame, going into the right direction!! Unfortunately a couple of the replays were lost due to some problems with the replays system (update to support emojis or something like that) so yeah, you will have to download a couple of those.
[ORAS RU]
- [FLCN] Dice vs. Meru [SHRK] - Needs to be downloaded
- [SCTR] Windsong vs. SilentVerse [BIGS]
- [WOLF] FlamingVictini vs. Aeroblacktyl [CONG]
- [RUIN] Luigi. vs. atomicllamas [TGRS]
- [RAID] Esteemed User Ginku vs. Scythe. [CRYO] - Needs to be downloaded
Meru also have another pretty neat bulky offense that is a bit more straightforward in terms on what could be what. Meloetta and venusaur are the wallbreakers, sneasel and fletchinder provide the speed against offense, rhyperior and blastoise the defensive cushion, much more straightforward but just as cool.
Dice with: Maybe Offensive SR seismitoad seeing the nature of the build / tyrantrum, maybe scarf (it is banded WOW) / Durant, banded / expert belt emboar (been seeing plenty of usage lately, so solid guess I suppose) / uxie is the rock setter / hoopa, maybe a sub variant (so this was the scarf huh). In general the team is kind of hard to read. Too many potential choice users :V Meru with: Specs meloetta, could be colbur calm mind cause that set is cool / phys def blastoise, spinner / life orb sneasel, with pursuit / standard rock setter rhyperior, could have ice punch cause lol flygon / swords dance fletchinder / LO venusaur, many variants of this set (proved to have sleep powder so thats cool).
To the match: I have no idea how this match ended the way it ended. No spoilers but you will see on the replay. Solid lead matchup by Dice with uxie, very few things could stop it from setting rocks and risk getting paralyzed. Meru leads with venusaur since it threaten like half of Dice´s team. Thats my boy, the timid venusaur! It revealed sleep powder and neutralize the uxie for a couple of turns at least. Not sure why Dice let his uxie took so much damage just like that with hoopa and durant being relatively safe switch-ins once he revealed sleep powder (sleep powder + leaf storm is pretty impossible to fit and giving up recovery on venusaur isnt an option imo so yeah) so it most likely Meru had Giga Drain alongside sleep powder. Ok, uxie woke up on turn 6 and goes for the rocks, fletchinder goes for the swords dance. Dice hard switches the tyrantrum and thankfully Meru doesnt go for the will-o-wisp.
HOLY SHIT, thats banded. Jesus Christ. Now this is were things get interesting. No steel type means Meru is forced to sack something if he wants to preserve the rhyperior... but at that HP rhyperior isnt of so much use for Meru so he just sacks it. The good thing is that either meloetta or sneasel can come in to kill or knock off something respectively. Really solid start from Dice btw, preventing rocks and shit. Enter the meloetta at turn 9 and... switch-ins? Alright, he sacks the tyrantrum. Here we goes. Meru is on the situation to sack something against the durant so he is forced to sack the meloetta. Damn, sack after sack. Sneasel to at least weaken the durant cause right now it is looking rough, and to force it out on blastoise and get the spin at least. And durant reveals it had lum berry, oh, so it was hone claws! Nice, one scarf mon left to check. Only hoopa and emboar left.
Yep, there is the hoopa to come to spinblock. Looking extremely rough for Meru at this point, seems that Dice got this game in the back. There is the scarf hoopa, it tricks the scarf to blastoise but gets toxic´d in the process. Meru still having a decent shot even with being down. Amazing, like, ridiculous double at turn 18 predicting the seismitoad and him going for venusaur. What a momentum swing, kills the durant and emboar is forced out. Meru sacks the blastoise and attempts to swords dance on the blitz but bam, reveals the expert belt! Looking like game for Dice but... Dice made a huge mistake by letting the emboar get put to sleep, this terrible decision pretty much sealed the comeback for Meru. He could have choose any other sleep fodder and he having 2 MORE SACKS but in the end he threw the game. Thats crazy, venusaur comes back and Meru wins the match.
WE TAKE THOSE!
Team Preview: Windsong with a pretty bulky balanced team with 2 to 3 potential win conditions and a really strong defensive backbone of mola, lix and flygon. Balance staples all over the place, this is much more responsive to fighting types thanks to the addition of gallade which switches at least once and doesnt rely on fletchinder alone to give any kind of reactive presence. Gallade also helps getting past opposing bulkier builds, and is pretty efficient at that. SilentVerse with a pretty sexy looking team, with mega abomasnow gone mah boy mega glalie has its chance to shine ONCE MORE. Mega glalie + specs meloetta are ridiculous wallbreakers together (and seeing Windsong team... this is looking rough). Mawile and jellicent provide a really solid bulky backbone and flygon + tyrantrum, double dragon offensive core, looking threatening as always.
Windsong with: Swords dance fletchinder / Swords dance gallade / standard rock setter mega steelix / swords dance virizion / pivot variant of flygon, really feel it is a bulky fast variant (special LO flygon, wrong again) / standard alomomola, looking hard to break as always. SlientVerse with: mixed wallbreaker mega glalie, no spikes cause with flygon isnt recommended / defensive jellicent with colbur berry / mawile being the rocker and it has baton pass to pivot around, not sure what else it could have tho (it revealed super fang which is dope) / specs meloetta / special LO flygon / scarf tyrantrum.
To the match: Ok so SilentVerse has like 3 potential switch-ins in this. Meloetta looking really appealing cause Windsong forgot his dark type on the teambuilder so... Windsong leads virizion, solid lead overall but there is a meloetta and it doesnt OHKO melo so, time to sack or pivot into something. No dark type on Windsong´s side means SilentVerse had no reason to press psychic, specs psychic puts a dent on everything, so Windsong forced to go steelix. Holy shit, that steelix took 46%. SilentVerse has like one of the best steelix switch-in the tier in jellicent. Windsong get his rocks and SilentVerse gets a free wisp on this. Forced to go flygon cause is the only thing that would like to switch into the wisp I suppose, virizion rather not consume the lum berry just yet, etc, etc. Nice hard switch-in with the virizion on the Jellicent. SilentVerse was most likely expecting a special variant there.
Enter mawile! And that leaf blade does nothing. Mawile gets a chance to get its rocks on the mega steelix switch-in and mawile can pivot out thanks to baton pass. Welp, meloetta gets a kill! Dead steelix at turn 8 and enter gallade and... why did it SD?! Calced the damage for modest specs?! D: Gallade is out at turn 11 and I like "WHAT!?" Meloetta putting work (it kills everything tbf). Mola isnt a switch-in, OMG. Guess getting this meleotta toxic´d as soon as possible is the only course of action. SV has no issues with pressing psychic, 0 issues. Had to sack something again. There goes the fletchinder. What a slugfest. After sacking half the team (he had no other choice really) the meloetta dies to a close combat. And some room to breath, holy shit!
Enter mawile, forces virizion out and pivot into flygon. Windsong goes mola. Funnily enough, despise the disadvantage Windsong has mola has a chance to win if he can get a toxic on the jellicent. Unfortunate draco miss on turn 18 but that would have done 0 damage, it is a mola ffs. Forced into mawile to not catch a toxic and... this mawile can do anything against the mola?! OH, there it is! Windsong gets the toxic on jellicent, now there is a chance. Turn 20 btw. Windsong has a solid chance with a healthy virizion and mola now. Damn, it is special flygon. Wrong again. Nice mawile switch on the draco and with his own flygon on the earth power. SilentVerse wins the speed tie and yeah. OMG, huge fire blast burn (and unfortunate) from SilentVerse on the virizion. That means it cant afford to switch the viri into jelli now o_o
Dead flygon, enter GLALIE. Enter mola, getting past mola for SilentVerse looked pretty damn difficult right now. Would have to force a 1v1 with its own jellicent to have a shot. That toxic was huge. FAT FREAKING FISH, that freeze-dry did nothing. Mega Glalie is forced out and enter jellicent, since virizion ate his lum berry on the fire blast burn well, it could just recover and wisp cause that mola is protecti... nvm, we gotta play aggressive. SilentVerse does play aggressively here, trade the leaf blade damage to burn the virizion, jellicent becomes the key to win this. That close combat did 5. Mawile reveals the super fang! Thats huge, it can pressure the mola, thats for sure! Windsong basically had to keep wishing and bring the virizion back to full. The mawile and mola dance continues for 8 more turns and jellicent finally gets a chance to recover at turn 45. Virizion is healthy!
Damn, staying in to recover on the virizion, great play (although it is burned so it doesnt kill but yeah, SV had to take that risk to keep the jellicent as healthy as possible for the 1v1 against mola). Windsong plan was perfectly clear, attempt to survive and keep the viri always healthy. The end game was a struggle to getting past mola but this mon doesnt die. Turns and turns of a war to take it down. That crit on turn 62 didnt mattered: 0 SpA Jellicent Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Virizion: 30-36 (9.2 - 11.1%) -- possible 9HKO. It was still a roll so yeah. From here the game is pretty much sealed tbh. Jellicent just needs the taunt on mola and mega glalie 2hkos. Turn 69 jellicent taunts the mola, SV sacks the mawile next turn and mega glalie finishes the job. GG, very well played from most places but this shows the importance of a dark type.
Team Preview: I... I really dont know what to say about this match, lol. Guess they just brought heat and played it out! Aeroblacktyl with a mono green squad! Thats the whole, slap bunch of viable green mons together and call it a day. The funny part is that, color schemes aside, this build could work besides just dropping to fletchider a bit o_o There is power through the roof in this. Now, if Aeroblacktyl brought a weird squad, FlamingVictini brought one that makes me go "wtf". For starters, there is a riolu and Idk what is that supposed to mean. There is spikes and apparently screens (and absolutely nothing to getting past druddigon) so yeah. How do I explain this?!
Green Aeroblacktyl with: LO venusaur / scrafty, oh boy, just hope isnt a lackluster set (could be banded) / phys def rocky helmet druddigon imo / bronzong... offensive trick room if you have drudd? / swords dance gallade / meloetta, maybe specs. FlamingVictini with: spikes lead accelgor (it is LO, YES) / Riolu... not sure what this does / rocks setter uxie (it also has screens!) / swords dance samurott (people dont believe on the LO special one, could have been dope in here) / dragon dance scrafty cause screens / LO or specs jolteon.
To the match: This match will be really odd but lets get done with this. MOP could like lead with druddigon 100%, it beats FV entire team. FlamingVictini leads with uxie to set up the screens and his rocks. Rocks trade on turn 1 from both, fair. Druddigon could literally press dragon tail or glare as he wanted to. Druddigon does his thing with glaring and dragon tailing for 7 turns. LO accelgor at turn 5, nice! That did a good amount. Dead Druddigon at turn 8 but damn, it did work. Here comes gallade and it has an easy match to press swords dance and win, it then the reveals the shadow sneak and "oh boy", this game pretty much ends. YAWN JOLTEON! But it most likely lum so yeah... Enter samurott, samurott dies. And yeah, just like that the game ends. Thanks for giving me an easy time getting thie analysis of this match done!
Team Preview: Mario´s Brother (Luigi) with a pretty cool spikestacking bulky offense with seems to have bulk up braviary as the main win condition (could even be banded but bulk up is the more appealing set) with virizion + durant working extremely good together as always and... I really hope that isnt defog flygon! The cool thing about braviary is that it basically punish flygon for recklessly pressing defog thanks to defiant, meaning hazards are relatively protected. Atomicllamas with some fresh squad, looking great. Diancie + Qwilfish is a great hazard stacking duo, mega glalie + scrafty being the wallbreakers (banded scrafty is good, man) and virizion being the win condition and the most splashable water resist on the entire tier. And a delphox!
Luigi with: Scarfed Durant / Swords Dance Virizion / Flygon (either the durant is scarfed and this banded or the way around, no way this is defog) Going with banded / sub bulk up braviary tbh / stealth rock camerupt ( :/ ) / spikes setter qwilfish. Atomicllamas with: Mixed wallbreaker mega glalie, spikes setter qwilfish / swords dance virizion / rock setter diancie / scarf delphox / banded scrafty.
To the match: Thats mah boy scrafty. Luigi leads with flygon, solid lead in general can pivot around and stuff. Llamas lead scrafty which puts a dent on everything. U-turn at -1 did 23%?! definitely banded flygon. Scrafty just gonna HJK something... or knock off, that works too, damn great damage and qwilfish losing its item so early is huge. No lum berry on the virizion switch-in (it sadly gets paralyzed) so it is a special variant. HE FOCUS BLASTED (wouldnt have done too much, seriously, spdef braviary bulk is out of this world). Qwilfish gonna lay down some spikes and you can generally can lay down spikes on diancie with qwilfish but llamas reveals the earth power! Dead qwilfish. Enter flygon, my ground resist is paralyzed and... OMG, IT IS SHUCA BERRY! DED FLYGON
Alright, now this is fun! Enter camerupt and this diancie is ded. Scrafty back in again to HJK something, something is about to hit the ground, and the victim is the virizion. RIP, GONE. Enter durant, nice double from Luigi with his camerupt on the incoming qwilfish (scald qwilfish just 2hkos camel and getting rid of this would be nice for durant and braviary). Sacking the virizion was fine since paralyzed is just wouldnt do much, or anything tbh. Enter scrafty to get his next kill, gonna hjk something. Really unfortunate hjk miss on turn 12 D: ★atomicllamas: NICE
Anyways, forced to go to qwilfish and the qwilfish reveals to be physical. That definitely kills camerupt 100% Hey, there is the fast as heck qwilfish! Braviary paralyzed and threat neutralized. Damn, that brave bird did so much tho, so llamas is forced into the glalie since qwilfish is extra insurance against the camel. Glalie is gonna mega and kill something. THERE IS NO WAY LUIGI PREDICTED HP FIRE! Thats crazy, anyways, double down with mega glalie on the mega camerupt on turn 18. And scarf delphox seals the deal, that was perhaps adamant scarf durant which is a legit option except it loses in this particular scenario (jolly doesnt kill anyways). GG, well played from both, fun looking teams.
Team Preview: There is a cofagrigus in here! Ginku with a really interesting looking team with RU staples in virizion and durant on the offensive side, and flygon with diancie on the defensive side. There is also a regular abomasnow! This mon is an extremely scary wallbreaker, you have no idea. Still thinking what this cofag could be tbh, intriguing to say the least. Scythe with a much more standard but really cool looking bulky offense team with steelix + slowking being the defensive backbone, sneasel and scarf tyrantrum nailing offense and venusaur + flygon provide strong wallbreaking power.
Ginku with: Cofagrigus, perhaps a toxic spikes variant / swords dance virizion / flygon, definitely a defog variant cause it is needed cause of aboma, special LO perhaps (physical LO, uncommon but possible) / scarfed durant to give needed speed to this team / wallbreaker regular abomasnow / rock setter diancie. Scythe with: LO special flygon / LO sneasel, there is no need for ice shard so this has pursuit + low kick / scarf tyrantrum / LO venusaur as always (seems to be specs, idk why but w/e) / dont think it is defensive slowking, could be an offensive variant of slack off + 3 attacks, perhaps fire blast / standard rock setter mega steelix.
To the match: Final match of the batch (HAH!) but not the lesser one by any means. Ginku leads with the cofagrigus and Scythe leads with the flygon. Flygon goes for the draco meteor straight away, cofagrigus goes for the wisp. Unfortunate earth power crit on the next turn means we will never know if this cofagrigus had toxic spikes :( Enter diancie, -2 earth power does nothing and thats some free rocks. Diancie forces the flygon to defog and a dead flygon it is. Enter the steelix and, Ginku makes a really risky play by laying down rocks again but the steelix reveals the ice fang... thats new. Durant on the heavy slam and durant pivots out to the aboma on the earthquake. Nice series of plays, aboma gonna blizzard something and... that steelix is max spdef, holy shit, that did nothing.
Dead regular aboma and here comes flygon. Flygon reveals to be a LO physical (or mixed) one and it takes the earthquake pretty comfortably. Series of cool reveals of sets here, and that slowking should be called durant cause unfortunate fire blast miss on the sub from durant, which reveals to be sub baton pass (thats really nice!). Slowking stays in again to fire blast, thats risky. Slowking STAYS IN once more to fire blast and... it misses. Guess this is one case of "tempting your luck" right here, perfect example. Scythe sacks the steelix and here comes the sneasel. Damn, what a double with the venusaur on the incoming diancie. Ginku is forced to sack something, there goes the flygon and this venusaur isnt LO... perhaps specs? maybe.
Ginku seeing that, decides to go for SD and Scythe needed to sack something again (directly into sneasel would have been one hell of a play but the risk was humongous), so sacking slowking was safer. Here comes sneasel once more. Now, if only Scythe made that crazy double to venusaur on the diancie once more, he would have been set, or maybe this sneasel has iron tail?! It switches out so I guess it doesnt. Free diamond storm, venusaur enters presses leaf storm and durant is in a position where it can just win (sub baton pass is commonly seen with either leftovers, insect plate or salac berry). Durant reveals the salac on the sub against venu, and it wins the match. Well played from both sides and guess the sneasel was low kick in the end! Got that one right!
LAST WEEK OF REGULAR SEASON LADIES AND GENTS, THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LAST PLACE TO THE PLAYOFFS, LETS GO!
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