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Nah, if he was Adamant it still would only have a rather small chance of KOing (12.5%), but then my Hydrei would revenge him. If he was Jolly (which IMO any Mega Sharpedo in UU should be), then he wasn't KOing.
Nah jollys shitt with sub
Also my team was fine what killed me was a miscalculation thinking celebi only takes around 60% from knockoff
Was still a Cool game though
So a couple of the other games were pretty haxy this week (RIP Emzee) but I thought the Meru/Bugzy game was really good. Game starts with a bit of careful scouting from each party, with bugzy's dragalge pressuring Meru's team with both its tspikes and its powerful stab moves. Meru comes through with a couple of crucial scald burns from his (later revealed) CM Slowking that help stop an early game Curse Aggron sweep. Bugzy takes out Meru's M-Aero turn 25 with a crit scald that ends up backfiring when Meru takes it out with a pursuit from his krrok. Bugzy manages to get a clutch rest off on his aggron on turn 35 after conserving momentum well with his gligar, and it looks for a second like Meru's going to have difficulty breaking through bugzy's defensive backbone, but on turn 40 he finally manages to take out bugzy's whimsicott. Meru makes a series of good predictions around bugzy's dragalge but loses his krook right afterwards to a crit sludge wave. Meru takes out his dragalge, but Bugzy uses it as an opportunity to badly weaken Meru's florges to the point where he's threatening a scarf hydrei sweep the next time he can get it in, but it's after it kills forry that meru reveals healing wish on his scarf rachi, bringing back his florges then taking the game with CM Slowking.
Week 4:
Meru v Lowgock - Meru's been on fire, winning every game so far, but Lowgock's shown to be a great battler as well, only losing this round to Sam. Should be a close game whatever the result.
JeyTheGrey v JabbaTheGriffin - We haven't seen a full 3 rounds out of either of these guys but what we have seen has been pretty good so far, with Jabba practically dismantling rh156 last round and Jey bringing some solid teams with some good plays to back them up. Still, I think the edge goes to Jabba in this one.
badabing v radianthero156 - rh156 has had a fairly rough time of it so far, going 1-2, while badabing has won both of his games. I think it'll be an uphill struggle for rh156 to get back some form.
IB93 v Bugzinator - While bugzy has gone 1-2, both of his losses have been really close, and he's shown that he can adapt well to smogon UU. IB on the other hand, has gone 2-1 with a couple of impressive wins - this is sure to be a close game.
Limitless v Sam - Limitless is in the unfortunate position of not having won a game yet, while Sam seems to be getting into his stride, having gone 2-1 and coming into this round off of a win against Lowgock. Limitless will really need to turn it around to beat Sam here.
Alright hopefully this thread can get going again. Couple games went down today (paragraphs have spoilers):
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-uu-34310radianthero vs badabing. radiant brought some sand balance with the dog and Mega Aero as well as Dragalge and Sub Toxic Rachi. badabing's team was more offensively inclined with Entei, Specs Whimsicott, Scarf Krook, and paralysis support from Cresselia. An early Focus Blast from a tricked Reuniclus on an Empoleon switchin set the tone of the rest of the game and put badabing at a pretty heavy disadvantage, as that was his main check to SubToxic Rachi and Dragalge. radiant's clever scouting allowed him to see Cresselia's Twave before it could paralyze anything significant. From there, Taunt Mega Aero and Dragalge's Toxic Spikes were able to wear down badabing to the point that it was pretty clear he couldn't do much to save the game.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-uu-34314Sam vs. Limitless. Limitless had a very threatening-looking team with what looked to be a Nasty Pass Togetic (although it was never revealed and he said it had Wish so...idk!). His team had a variety of special attackers in Suicune, Serperior, and Porygon-Z. Sam's team had a solid defensive backbone paired with a couple of offensive surprises in SD Mega Beedrill and offensive Empoleon. From the beginning it looked like Suicune was about to sweep, but Sam was able to set up his Mega Beedrill after it was revealed that Suicune didn't have Sleep Talk, forcing Suicune out. A couple turns later, Sam's Empoleon got a freeze on Limitless's Togetic - I'm not sure how much it actually mattered, since Limitless was trying to trying to Wish pass to an Aggron that would've been KO'd by the Empoleon upon switching in. So while the freeze did close up some small options (Aggron dodging the Hydro) I think that Sam could have easily played around whatever the Togetic did on the turn it froze: he could have prevented a Wish to Aggron by clicking Hydro or just killed the Togetic with Ice Beam if it did anything else. From there, Sam was able to wear down the rest of Limitless's team as he basically had an answer for everything that Limitless could possibly do.
So I'm not anywhere near as good at commentating as aim, but but yeah hopefully this thread will get started up again after these two games. I'm excited to watch the rest of the week's games as well so good luck to all the players.
RH156 vs Badabing
I'm actually surprised that teams are still weak to Sub Jirachi variants as those are more common in SPL from what I've seen. Even a Sub CM set in RH's game wouldve completely dismantled Badabing. It likely could have done it faster to be honest seeing as Krook would've been damaged beyond repair just to break its sub. As Dodmen said, Empoleon eating a Focus Blast changed the dynamic of the game but I'm not sure how much it actually mattered so long as Jirachi could've gotten a burn relatively early, which it did in this case.
Sam vs Limitless
The game of Sam vs Limitless was very exciting to watch. It was really cool to see the necessary plays that Sam had to make with Beedrill to even have a chance to come back in the game. For example, around turn 20 he has to switch in ON the turn that Suicune Rests in order to force it out with repeated SDs. However, even this damn good play only rewards him with 30% on Mega Aggron but allowed Empoleon to come through later on in the match. The burn on Serperior was unfortunate but that was the risk he took switching it into an obvious Scald when it was a pretty solid win condition for him.
A well played match on both sides. IronBullet played patiently as he waited for an opportunity to set up with his Toxicroak and mini sweep bugzy's team. Really enjoyed this match and I love seeing Croak + Whimsi as it forces switches and gets free u-turns into mons like Croak/Aero who could take advantage of the mons that are out. GG guys :]
Yeah I felt turn 1 was really key in pursuiting his Darm who as we all know can cause a whole lot of damage once it gets in, especially since my only Fire resists were Aero and Starmie who are destroyed by Darm's coverage moves. But yeah it was a really good matchup for Ice Punch Croak, his only way of getting past it was Rachi and once I managed to pursuit it with Krook it was pretty much game over. CB Krook showed how powerful and effective it is once again, pursuiting two key Pokemon and crippling his Gligar with Knock Off. Was a fun game, gg bugzy!
Thoughts on other matches:
radiant vs badabing - that Focus Blast on Empoleon turn 3 was an excellent prediction by radiant and effectively won half the game for him, seeing as Emp would've otherwise been so important for countering SubToxic Jirachi and Mega Aero and perhaps tanking a couple of hits from Stoutland. Once Rachi got the burn on Empoleon it was pretty much gg. Cress might've been the safer option there to switch into Reuniclus as it tanked both Psychic and Focus Blast easily. I also liked the idea of Cress packing Grass Knot which is useful for nailing bulky Waters and Grounds that are common switch-ins, like Swampert and Hippowdon.
Sam vs Limitless - Sam played perfectly with Mega Bee to get back in the game, and he really had to as Suicune was looking extremely dangerous. Ken did get a bit unlucky with the freeze on Togetic and the burn on Serp but this was a risk he probably shouldn't have taken anyway seeing as Serp was his main win-con. In terms of sets I loved the offensive Empoleon which turned out to be the MVP and the physical Kyurem which blew holes in Sam's team, two uncommon sets proving their worth here.
We have some interesting fights for Week 5 of SPL. Blarajan and DestinyUnknown moving to UU this week. Looking forward to Sam vs IronBullet93. Other matches look cool as well!
We have some interesting fights for Week 5 of SPL. Blarajan and Destiny Device moving to UU this week. Looking forward to Sam vs IronBullet93. Other matches look cool as well!
Pretty sure you meant Destiny Unknown, not Destiny Device, but just a minor nitpick.
I'm not too big a UU guy this gen, but figured I'd leave my two cents.
Seeing how Blarajan adapts to another ORAS lower tier will be quite interesting. He was (in my opinion) a top 5 NU player by midseason with little experience in NU going into SPL, so I could see him being a threat despite the lack of experience in UU, but Bugzy has the potential to win and something to prove after a questionable first half, so we'll see who comes out on top there.
Looking forward to DUNK v Jey because neither is too accustom to the Smogon meta, but at least Jey has a few tour games under his belt here while DUNK lacks any, but has experience on this level back in BW. Should be interesting to see which one of them can pull it out.
Finally, two of the better UU players in Sam and ib93 face off in a really cool game. I'm on the Bigs, so I won't go too far in depth here because I'm quite bias, but looking forward to seeing how this goes and the prep/team of each player as they're both capable and high level.
i am also looking forward to the dunk vs jey game. like others have said, both players are more accustomed to other uu metas, bw uu for dunk and po uu for jey, though it seems both know the oras meta as well. jey has played the meta in spl thus far and dunk hasn't, but dunk is obviously a great player (something like 8-2 in bw uu in spl4, and second place in ost 8). i predicted dunk for his impressive results in previous tours. should be fun n_n
Bugzy vs blarajan was an interesting game to watch. Poor bugzy got haxed all through out and then saw his chance when blarajan misplayed and got it back. nice win man. aero too good
Really loved how Lowgock brought Barbaracle vs radiant, someone who used it in prior weeks. I love the coolness of Memento Chandelure and bringing back his infamous Healing Wish Shaymin (i hate that thing from Grand Slam). Well played on both sides. I think Radiant played his Abomasnow really well. Noticing Leftovers on Whimsicott early on, leading him to believe it was a support set and bringing in Abomasnow so nothing could get paralyzed. Getting off damage on Whimsicott was definitely huge. He made it so he could never get encored into a move that Barbaracle could set up on. The para's on Shaymin definitely help as SR was pretty key in winning this battle. Well played by both sides. I think that even if Lowgock went to Pert at the end and tried Rain Dancing, unless he got some serious flinches vs Cresselia, it didn't matter. ggs
Edit: also feel free to post here when you play your games so the guys on the thread can know haha
yeah, my game with lowgock was pretty interesting. i was actually INCREDIBLY scared when i saw barbaracle. if it was the set i use the most (smash/earthquake/x-scissor/razor shell @ lum berry), it could flat out 6-0 my team. i should note that i actually got pretty lucky turn 1, seeing as i didn't knock the forretress into custap range, as well as his shaymin getting fully paralyzed vs empoleon (though the chance of succesfully hitting 2 seed flares while paralyzed is approximately 40.64%), but overall i think that game was nice.
looking forward to sam vs ib93 now. they both have the best records in UU (tied with meru) and not for no reason. the former has been playing this metagame for about a whole year and always in a high level, and ib93 is one of those guys who are perennially good. i think the winner will be decided on whose innovation works better!
Really enjoyed my game with Sam, unfortunately I got a decisive burn which made it pretty much impossible for him to win from. He also got a crit on the same turn which worked in my favour so that was pretty harsh on him, especially since he played really well early game and made some great plays. I'm sure you'll bounce back straight away though buddy, you've definitely proved yourself as a top player in this tour.
LO Moltres and Specs Heliolisk were two cool mons that featured in our match. Moltres was a real pain for me to deal with throughout; it seems to be a huge threat in this meta being able to come in on Fighters like Hera and wreak havoc with its powerful STABs. Heliolisk also proved its worth as a viable threat in the tier and one of the best offensive Electric-types, cleaning up late-game and being a threat whenever it was on the field. 109 base speed is awesome, and it comes equipped with great STAB moves, special attack and coverage, not to mention a fantastic ability.
Thoughts on couple other matches:
radiant vs Lowgock - Unfortunate turn 1 for Lowgock with Forry being left just outside custap range, and a couple of full paras on Shaymin meant that Empoleon was able to Defog away the hazards and set up its own too. From then on it was all radiant I felt, he took control with some clever switching to Mega Abomasnow whenever Whimsi attempted to paralyze something. To Lowgock's credit he brought some interesting sets in Memento Chandelure and Healing Wish Shaymin with the aim of setting up Barbacle for a sweep, but sadly it didn't work out in the end. ggs to both!
Jey vs dunk - I thought Jey played this match really well, with Mega Bee and Maggy's constant VoltTurning never allowing dunk to gather much momentum. The only really risky move he made was the switch to Mega Bee on Tentacruel's Scald, a burn there could have been game-changing. In the end even though Dunk's Heracross was a constant threat, the game was over once Maggy had trapped Mega Aggron as Mega Bee was now pretty much free to sweep. Both sides brought cool teams. I was impressed by Jey's team in particular with Specs Maggy to trap Steels in order to give Bee free reign.
Looking forward to Meru vs Sam this week, Meru has a great record but Sam has been playing extremely well. Going to be a terrific game for sure!
ORAS UU: Meru vs Sam - seeing as every time i predict meru to lose he wins... teeheehee nice 4-2 noob. nah just kidding, i really cant pick a winner between these 2. they've been playing this tier since it came out one year ago and they played each other loads of times, and iirc meru wins slightly more. both were impressive creativity-wise last week as well, with sam bringing moltres and meru bringing offensive cm cresselia (and both put in good amounts of work). anyways, this is imo the UU battle of the week, looking forward to it. AND HURRY WITH THE BATTLE NO JOHNS PLS
ORAS UU: DestinyUnknown vs Hikari - dunk had apparently not even touched the tier and yet he managed to build a pretty solid team, and imo he didn't play badly, i think his loss was more because of jey's merit, bringing an underrated style/threats (voltturn hadn't been used in spl yet iirc). on the other corner, we have hikari, who is making a relatively unexpected appearance over lowgock. because both are players of proven ability (dunk for his heroics in BW UU and strong OST showing and hikari for his generally consistent spl participations), i think this could go either way. i'm favouring hikari though because classiest have a shitload of solid UUers who can support him.
ORAS UU: Laurel vs IronBullet93 - ah, this is my audacious bet. ib93, boasting the best record in indie scooters and best record of all UUers tied with meru, has already shown he's a tough trainer. laurel, despite all the criticism (and bullying) he has suffered in the past, is imo actually a pretty solid player, and he was impressive last week, though in ORAS OU. while a lot of ppl think ib's having a free win, i think it'll be really close.
ORAS UU: JabbaTheGriffin vs Bugzinator: i find this matchup very interesting as well. bugzy has been playing well; in fact, got haxed like hell and still won last week. i'm gonna go with jabba here though, because i think he has more experience as a player in general, but this will certainly be close as well.
Jey was using an interesting semistall of sorts, with a strong Vaporeon/Gligar/MAggron/Cresselia defensive backbone to support two sweepers that can clean weakened teams: SD Lucario and DD Salamence. rh156 was using a balance team with Toxic Spikes from Dragalge to support RestRoar Cune, MAero, and (the post-game revealed) BD Chesnaught.
rh156's Suicune was doing mad work, and despite not having Ice Beam, was able to stop a Salamence from sweeping, since it had Roar. rh156 was looking to capitalize on Jey's Suicune weakness, as with Toxic Spikes up, only Vaporeon wanted to deal with it, and although Vaporeon had Heal Bell, Suicune could just Roar it to take Toxic Spikes again. The lack of Sleep Talk came back to bite him though, as Lucario got a free SD and broke Suicune, letting Salamence take it out. As a price, Salamence had to immune-suicide itself into Florges, but then Cresselia set up, and after revealing Moonlight, it becomes apparently that the space duck sweeps, and the game ends there.
Really liked this match, as it continues some of the Cresselia hype from last week, which has shown to be quite the defensive behemoth now that offense and balance can't just slap Jirachi onto their teams to check it.
I gotta say i loved Sam's use of volt-turn in that battle. lefties Rotom-M + Mienshao make a nice core as rotom is not worn down as easily by attacks and can pain split/wisp. Pairing up with Alakazam like he did is always nice since sash zam beats a lot of common threats and checks them as well. Iron Tail Aerodactyl is interesting considering it can get rid of florges 100% after rocks. Well played man.
yeah, sam played that game really well; hazards + the nice volt turn core of rotom + shao and sash zam to RK a lot of the stuff that that core can't beat did really well vs meru. iron tail mega aero definitely did really well because it was able to get rid of florges which he struggled with. on meru's side, specs shaymin really shined, doing almost half to forretress and 2hkoing because of a drop and doing over half to chandelure. also is the most viable healing wish user left, although meru didn't get a chance to use it if he had it. great game to both.
In this game Meru brought balance with some fairly uncommon Pokemon, Specs Shaymin and Haxorus. Sam used a extremely offensive team with Rotom-Mow, which is great in the current metagame and this game showed why, and an unorthodox Mega Aerodactyl set.
Early on the match Rotom-C was key for Sam, allowing him to keep momentum going for his way. I was surprised Meru didn't switch out from Chandelure in turn 2, I personally wouldn't have risked losing Shaymin to Scarf Chand, and Rotom-C was still in alive and healthy. In turn 5 Sam missed an important Iron Tail on Hydreigon, it wouldn't have killed but would had been enough to force Meru to give another free turn to Aero or lose Hydra. After that, Sam keep wearing down the opposite's team with Volt Turn until Forry vs Shaymin happened. The Seed Flare miss was bad, but the drop was much worse because that was Custap Forretress. With Stealth Rocks + a layer of Spikes Sam had the clear advantage, and Meru let his Mega Aggron take a Focus Blast which sealed the game.
Dunk used seemingly standard balance team, with a couple of uncommon sets to try to catch me off guard. I decided to use hard stall because it actually is one of my favorite playstyles, I fully expected dunk to try to counterstyle offense / balance, and no one has used anything like my team in this SPL so far.
After seeing Dunk's team preview, I was only worried about the possible NP Lucario and CM Shadow Ball Reuniclus. The former could be checked by Chesnaught if no Flash Cannon, Blissey if no Aura Sphere, Alomomola if he didn't expect the Mirror Coat, and Mega Aerodactyl could revenge kill it at +2. The latter was a bigger problem, but I could shut it down with Aerodactyl, punish it decently hard with Doublade, and Alomomola survives +6 Psyshock most of the time. No other sets could break through my team, and when he revealed it was physical Lucario and OTR Reuniclus I knew it was game over. There was nothing Dunk could do to overcome the terrible team matchup.
The only real "plays" of the match was me not revealing Mirror Coat against Nidoqueen, using Toxic Spikes on the predicted switch to force the Nidoqueen to take residual damage, and the double switch to Mega Aero to catch Lucario (Dunk's only options were that or use Sludge Wave / Ice Beam [6.3% chance of OHKOing], either way I was evolving that turn, and killing something or punishing the Suicune).
People like to hate on hard stall, but I cannot dislike a playstyle that automatically allows me to know before the match has even begun that 4/6 of my opponent's team is useless.
I'm not planning to use this team ever again in the SPL, and I might not even play UU again this season, so here's the importable:
Doublade (M) @ Eviolite
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Toxic
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Sneak
Once again, IronBullet decide to use Sand, I was surprised that wasn't offensive Moltres, and the Sub Tyrantrum caught me completely off guard. I guess the idea of the team was wearing down Stoutland's check / counters with residual damage (specially Toxic), combined with two users. Laurel's team was interesting in a good way, with Cobalion, Froslass and Roserade, and the best part was that he used the best Hydreigon set.
Laurel got a lucky Fire Blast burn on the Hippowdon, and then revealed Taunt, which put Ironbullet in terrible spot. IB managed to gain the upper hand for a moment, but Laurel made a good prediction with Froslass, which gave him control of the match. Not sure why was that Froslass running Thunderbolt (Mega Blastoise won't risk getting Dbond'd against Froslass), or why he used it against the Moltres that revealed leftovers, but it did 0 and Laurel ended up with only one layer of Spikes. After that Laurel, in my opinion, misplayed by letting his Hydreigon get poisoned. After that not much happened, other than Cobalion revealing Shuca against Tyratantrum, and ib's Tenta dodge an unnatural amount of Scald burns. In the end Laurel lost to an extremely unfortunate last turn crit.
Both teams looked like standard offense. However, bugzinator used a uncommon Pokemon that has been getting lots of attention in UU lately: Heliolisk
Jabba had no decent Heliolisk switch in, and the combination of Leech Seed Whimsicott + Forretress gave him way too much trouble. His only chance was hoping Suicune didn't have Ice Beam, but it did. Can't really say much about this match, Bugzinator had the team advantage and played really well, he didn't let Jabba do anything to put himself in a better position.
I feel like radianthero could had won if he didn't sac his Suicune, or if he double switched after using Rest. Suicune was his only CM Cresselia check and the game was over as soon as it died.
