The Highlander Tournament III [Won by FlamingVictini!]

Perry

slayer
is a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus

The Highlander Tournament III
Approved by Quite Quiet


Introduction: A few years ago Birkal and Macle decided to have a one on one battle between their respective SPL mascots which were scrafty and toxicroak respectively. A huge amount of work was needed to decide the optimal spreads/movesets for their respective mascots and the battle can be found here.

Concept: The tournament is set up that you pick and post three Pokemon when you sign up for the tournament. You can only pick one of each individual Pokemon, but a different player can have the same Pokemon as you (e.g. you can't have two Alakazam, but someone else can pick Alakazam if you pick it too; also, you can only pick one forme for Pokemon like Rotom or Alolan ones). Chosen Pokemon have to be Overused and under; no Ubers are allowed. Each round, every player picks one of their opponent's three Pokemon to battle that round. They PM that choice to me, and once both players have relayed the opposing Pokemon to face in PM, I will declare it in the thread. At that point, both players can start preparing for their match. Picking like this occurs through every round. For simplicity's sake and due to the nature of 1v1 battling causing severe emphasis on megas/crystals and how there is no opportunity cost for having a mega or a Z-Crystal, the active use of all mega stones and Z-crystals are banned.

Also, it'd be awesome if each player kept their designed sets for when they are eliminated. They shouldn't reveal anything about the nature of the battle, but moreso why they prepared that Pokemon in the manner they did for that specific threat. It's cool for onlookers to see the mental process behind this stuff. If you can reveal it in these threads without giving away any of the opponent's strategy, I'm sure our viewers would love to see the sets utilized.


Tournament Rules:
  • All normal tournament rules apply, and you should make yourself acquainted of them. As such, there's a link to the aforementioned thread up in this post;
  • Standard SM Overused;
  • The banlists for this tournament are the same as the Pokemon Showdown's Overused ladder, this means that you cannot use Pokémon, moves or abilities that are not allowed in said ladder at the start of the tournament, this means that no further bans will be taken into account - so if you pick a Pokémon and it ends up getting banned it will not be replaced by another one;
  • Matches should happen either on Pokemon Showdown or Smogtours;
  • Post three Pokemon in this thread when you sign up for the tournament. They will remain as your only Pokemon throughout the entirety of the tournament;
  • You must send a Private Message to user Mr. Perry at the beginning of each round with which of your opponent's Pokemon you'd like to battle;
  • Do not battle until both you and your opponent have their selection revealed in this thread because it will not count!

Battle Rules:
Format: SM Overused - Singles Mode - Best of One (BO1).
Mandatory Clauses: Species Clause, Sleep Clause, Evasion Clause, OHKO Clause, Self-KO Clause (Destiny Bond, Explosion, Final Gambit, Perish Song, Selfdestruct, and other such moves are banned), Battle Timeout and Endless Battle Clause.
Activity: I expect all matches to be done within a week or less, thus activity wins will only be granted when the lack of activity is blatant or similar cases. All matches that do not fit this criteria shall be decided by coin fliping.

  • Before VMing your opponent please read the 1st post! (aka under this one);
  • All Pokémon are stored here - please pay attention to the 1st post and I will explain it a little bit more!

Finals

blunder [Greninja] vs. [Mew] FlamingVictini
blunder [Greninja] vs. [Celesteela] Bedschibaer
FlamingVictini [Porygon2] vs. [Celesteela] Bedschibaer


WINNER: FlamingVictini!
 
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Perry

slayer
is a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Gratz to all of you, you all deserved it!

This time around, you are going to send me an ordered list of the Pokémon from your opponent you want to face. This means you must send me something like that:

1. Pokemon X
2. Pokemon Y
3. Pokemon Z

As this is a round-robin tournament, if you all tie 1-1 there will be another "round", and thus your opponent will use the second Pokémon in your list and so on. All other rules apply.

Deadline to send me the Pokemon: 22/03
This 1st round deadline: 28/03

  • To know which Pokémon from your opponent you may choose, click here.
  • After both players have PMed me, I will announce in the thread the matchup and then you're free to battle.
  • Just a reminder: all ACTIVE use of Mega Stones are Z-Crystals are BANNED from this tour - if you actively use one the match is forfeit and it's up to your opponent to accept a rematch or not. [this means that you are able to hold them, just not use their effects]

gl!

ALSO PLEASE PM ME THE LIST FOR BOTH OF YOUR OPPONENTS AT THE SAME TIME, THANKS!
 
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gorgie

formerly Floppy, now Rock hard
"don't do this to me beds"

"I have to."

ok just give Beds the W, this man has no limits.

plz post replays btw. this is my new favorite tournament of ALL TIME!

also nice final
 

Perry

slayer
is a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
updated, if Beds win next game against FV we will have another round, if FV wins he's the winner.
 

Perry

slayer
is a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
busy with school things so sorry for the delay, gratz FlamingVictini for the win, gratz to the other finalists for going this far and thanks to everyone who joined. It was a wild ride hosting a tour for the first time :]
 
Congrats and well-deserved too!

Highlander Tour was always one of the most in tourneys to play in and since I probably won't be playing in it again, I wanted to share thoughts I had while playing the tournament. The three Pokemon I choose were Lucario, Mew, and Gengar. Mew because it had all around great stats and movepool, Gengar because it had a also good movepool, speed and generally matched up well against psychic/fairy types, Lucario because of it has access to some many priority moves both on the physical/special side (it's also one of my favorite Pokemon).

With this is mind these are some of the general strategies I thought of.

Priority Moves - priority moves are very useful, especially your Pokemon has a lower base speed than your opponent's. A lot Pokemon that you wouldn't expect to priority moves actually do - Gengar and Mew both learn Sucker Punch, Mew learns Fake Out, Victini (another popular pick) learns Quick Attack. Lucario learns Extremespeed, Vacuum Wave, Bullet Punch (and Quick Attack), which makes it easier to hit the opposing Pokemon at least neutrally.

Boosting Moves - especially when your facing a bulkier/around equally bulky Pokemon, boosting moves are also very useful. Mew besides the usual, Calm Mind, Nasty Plot...Mew also gets Psych Up which can help if your opponent decides to go for a boosting strategy. Lucario also learns Metal Sound and Screech which can helps against boosting Pokemon - if the opponent had three psychic types and choose my Lucario, this would probably be the strategy I would try.

Trick/Choice Items - Trick is probably the best way to running a passive strategy - most anything that's not a strong damaging attack turn 1. Especially, against Mew, people tend to try to go for something like status/boosting strategy so Trick can be a good way to beat that.

Protect - This I feel is probably one of the most important moves for Highlander. With Protect, you can get info about your opponents set and adjust your plan accordingly, especially if your Pokemon has lower base speed. For example, Protect is great for scouting out if your opponent is running Trick/Taunt. The main downside is that your opponent could anticipate this and use Substitute/boosting move turn 1.

Fling - Fling I feel is a pretty unused/underrated strategy - it allows to break sashes and inflict status (Fling Light Ball inflicts paralysis, Fling Toxic Orb inflicts poison) in 1 turn without losing to Taunt. Fling+Iron Orb also is one of the strongest Dark-type moves there is (130 bp), which for me, would give me another strategy against the common psychic types. Downside is opportunity cost of not being able to run another item.

Rest - Rest is also very cool because you can heal both HP and status conditions. Especially when paired with a boosting move like Calm Mind, bulky Rest sets can be hard to beat unless you have Taunt/Encore. When using a boosting set with Mew, I would generally prefer to use Rest over Roost b/c then I can eliminate the need to worry about status.

Weakness Policy - I think this item is pretty underrated. Most Pokemon can be EVed to allow them to take 1 super-effective hit w/o a type-resist berry, which means you can use Weakness Policy to boost your attacking stats, negating the effect of any type-resist berries they might be using. For example, when I had Jirachi vs Gengar, I was considering running a -Spe nature to run a Weakness Policy + Sucker Punch set.

Custap Berry - unfortunately, it's unreleased but can be very effective, especially when combined with Endure. For example, last year with a Gengar vs Jirachi pairing, I made a Gengar set with Hypnosis, Hex, Endure and Custap Berry, which would allow me two chances to hit a Hyponosis.

Other Status moves that I think could be made into a cool strategy: Swagger, Disable, Encore, Heal Bell/Refresh, Imprison, Torment, Taunt, Leech Seed, Substitute, Magic Coat, Pain Split, Perish Song, Recycle, Reflect/Light Screen, Snatch, Trick Room.

Shoutouts to Improbable for helping me come up some of with this stuff!

Although, the tourney's already ended, I'd be interesting in hearing what kind of strategies other people came up with too. :)
 

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