1v1 Premier League VI Recap

By DEG, Itchy, Lumii, and Mubs. Released: 2022/09/17.
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1v1 Premier League VI Recap art

Art by Kolohe.

Introduction

1v1 Premier League VI ran from February 7th until April 23rd, showcasing gameplay from SS all the way back to DPP. 8 teams, with 88 total players, faced off for seven weeks, all for the title of PL Champions. This article details what happened, including coverage of the draft, highlight matches, breakout stars, and memorable moments.

1v1 Premier League VI started with the decision on its managers by the host, Arai, and 1v1's tournament directors. Here's who made the cut:

Hellfire Heatrans Logo

Managed by: Close and DenisTheMenace

This Premier League brought a number of newer managers like Trashuny and Murman to the table, alongside many older faces, like DEG and crucify.

Franchises were a new addition to this year's 1v1 Premier League, with the potential for retains starting in the next PL. Of the 8 teams in this tournament, 7 were teams in former tournaments, with the Hyperspace Horrors being completely new. All 8 teams were decided via a community vote.

That's not all the community had to decide about 1v1 PL VI, however. In the leadup to the tournament, many past and present DPP players expressed their frustrations about the tier after a never-ending string of bans. In response, the 1v1 tournament directors opened a discussion about whether the DPP should be in 1v1 tournaments, and if not, what it would be replaced with. Some people, mostly DPP players themselves, argued that DPP should stay and that the playerbase was large enough for all potential PL teams to field someone. Others were not convinced, further arguing that the centralized nature of DPP fuels burnout. Most people arguing against the inclusion of DPP 1v1 wished to see a multi-generational (multigen) slot, with one game from SS to DPP. Multigen had had a very successful seeded tournament, with supporters also believing that it would be easier to prepare for and be more interesting for players and spectators alike. Critics argued that the multigen slot would be more cheese prone, or that people would just reuse old teams instead of building new ones. As a compromise attempt, removal of the second SM slot was proposed, although this was even less popular than removing DPP. After a heated debate, the 1v1 tournament directors decided to remove DPP from 1v1 Premier League VI and add multigen in its place. So, 1v1PL proceeded with the following format:

A Brief Synopsis of the Auction

Each team had to fill a roster of at least 10 players with 100k credits. Going into the auction, each team had a different number of credits because each manager had a custom price agreed upon by the managers in private with supervision by the hosts, Arai and Felucia. Managers could choose whether or not to buy themselves after seeing these prices, and Kentari and DEG elected not to. Because of these factors, each team had a drastically different starting point:

Each team had different plans based on this difference in price; the Megarays could reasonably buy multiple high-value players in the draft, whereas a team like the Thwackeys or Heatrans would need to be more cautious.

Draft day came, and first up to nominate a player were Close and DenisTheMenace; they chose consistent best-of-seven player Nalei. She goes for about 20k year after year, and this year was no exception. The Panchams bought her for 22.5k, but as it turned out, this was not their most expensive buy; they also bought XSTATIC COLD, a consistent SM and ORAS player, for 23k later in the round. The Megarays also bought big early, stealing a third of the first nine nominations. zioziotrip, smely socks, and LBDC went to them for over half the total budget. Most other teams were less gung ho, filling in their missing players as the draft continued. Below is an overview of every team after the draft:

Post-Draft:

Weeks 1-4

The first four weeks were highlighted by some unexpected upsets for what were considered three of the top five teams. During the first week, the Hyperspace Horrors and tournament favorites Hellfire Heatrans tied. The Heatrans's SS was generally regarded as one of the best SS cores, but they went 0-3 against the Horror's below average lineup and proceeded to not win a single SS series for 4 weeks. The RPS Rhyperiors also defeated the Playful Panchams, in a matchup in which both XSTATIC COLD and Nalei lost their respective games. By the second week of the season, the Megarays were the only remaining undefeated team; it was clear they were hitting their stride early. The third week was when the picture really started to develop of which teams would be fighting for the playoff slots. The Megarays and Barraskewdas cemented their place as the top two teams in the tournament, with the Barraskewdas at the top, followed by the Megarays, Rhyperiors, and Dragapults; interestingly, this week featured a head-to-head matchup between the top two teams. The Barraskewdas won 6-2, but all but two series went to their final game. The fourth week featured two very lopsided matchups; after losing to the Barraskewdas, the Megarays had a 7-1 victory over the Panchams, and the Rhyperiors had a 7-1 victory over the Heatrans. The Heatrans's SS curse had now become infamous after an especially atrocious series. SS 1v1 banned Necrozma starting week 4, and this freed up building for this slot. Prior to the Necrozma ban, it was almost required to run Maranga Berry Togekiss or a Dark-type on every single SS team, which severely limited teambuilding. Necrozma could run techs for just about everything, including Meteor Beam and Rock Blast for Bug-types like Volcarona, Dragon Dance for Maranga Berry Zapdos, and much more. This week also featured the first play after ORAS 1v1 banned some sleep-inducing moves and BW 1v1 banned Jirachi. While the ORAS sleep moves ban did not change much about the metagame, in BW, the Jirachi ban thoroughly decentralized the metagame and led to the increased use of previously unranked Pokémon such as Tornadus. Snorlax looked to be the defining Pokémon in this new metagame, since it is banned in every other 1v1 generation. But, to much surprise, it saw very limited use. Instead, Volcarona rose to prominence, where it has remained today. At the end of week four, there was a much clearer picture of the teams that were looking to make the playoffs. The Barraskewdas seemed to be in a strong position to advance, with the Megarays, Rhyperiors, and Dragapults right behind them. The Panchams were still in the race, but the 1-7 loss to the Megarays made their task much more difficult. However, their remaining schedule included the Horrors and the Heatrans, who were both doing terribly.

Weeks 5-7

The Heatrans, who had already started the season with a tie followed by three losses, were the team seen with the hardest remaining schedule, with games against the Barraskewdas, Panchams, and Megarays. Week 5 featured likely the largest upset of the tour, with the Heatrans's SS finally winning their first game to upset the Barraskewdas in a 5-3 victory. The Panchams bounced back from their 1-7 loss to the Megarays to beat the Horrors 7-1, which, coupled with the Rhyperiors and Dragapults tying each other, greatly improved their playoff chances. With the Barraskewdas losing, the Megarays became the new top seed heading into Week 6. Week 6 featured a strong 6-2 showing by the Panchams against the Horrors. With the Dragapults losing against the Barraskewdas, the Panchams overtook the Dragapults to get the final playoff spot by point differential. With the Megarays and Barraskewdas both winning and clinching playoff spots and the Horrors, Heatrans, and Thwackeys being eliminated, a true three-way playoff battle in the final week was getting ready to unfold.

The final week featured the Panchams and Dragapults facing each other. If the Panchams won, the Dragapults would be eliminated, and the Rhyperiors would be the second team in. If the Dragapults won, the Panchams would be eliminated, and the Rhyperiors would be the second team in. If this matchup ended in a tie and the Rhyperiors were to either tie or defeat the Barraskewdas, the Rhyperiors and the Panchams would be in. However, if the Rhyperiors were to lose 2-6 or worse, the Panchams and Dragapults would both be in, and if the Rhyperiors were to lose 3-5 to the Barraskewdas, the Panchams would be in, while the Rhyperiors and Panchams would have to tiebreak for the final spot in the tournament. The final scenario, which included a tiebreak between the Dragapults and Rhyperiors, was the one that unfolded. The Panchams tied the Dragapults 4-4 and clinched their spot in the playoffs. The wins by the Megarays and the Barraskewdas clinched the 1st and 2nd seeds for the respective teams. The 3-5 loss against the Barraskewdas by the RPS Rhyperiors allowed the Panchams to clinch the 3rd seed and a semifinals matchup versus the Barraskewdas. The tiebreak matchup between the Rhyperiors and Dragapults saw the Rhyperiors picking SM and the Dragapults going for SS. The SS best of 7 matchup was the same as in the week 5 matchup between the two teams, with dogknees facing Blanched, who he defeated in their regular season series after going up 3-0 in the first three games. The slotting for the SM tiebreak changed slightly, as TheShadowClaw, who was tied for having the best record in SM during PL at the time, was not slotted in the tiebreak. Instead, the Rhyperiors slotted their manager, Elo Bandit, in their SM slot, while the Dragapults slotted Lancer. The SS Best of 5 tiebreak featured Murman, who had lost to Here Comes Team Charm in the Week 5 matchup, going against pqs, who had recently defeated Tol to get the Dragapults into the tiebreaker. The first match played in the tiebreak was Blanched vs. dogknees. This series started very similar to the Week 5 matchup between these two players, with dogknees quickly going up 3-0. However, Blanched was able to pull back this time, winning the final four games of the Best of 7, including a game 7 in which a Volcarona defeated a Tapu Fini, giving the first tiebreaker win to the Rhyperiors. The next series was between Elo Bandit vs. lancer. Elo Bandit quickly jumped to a 2-0 lead, but lancer just as quickly brought it back to 2-2. In game 5, Elo Bandit secured victory for the Rhyperiors by landing a Hypnosis from Mega Gengar against lancer's Gastrodon. The ensuing two sleep turns allowed Gengar to use Substitute and Hex, putting the semifinals matchups res as Metro Boomin' Megarays vs. RPS Rhyperiors and Big Baller Barraskewdas vs. Playful Panchams.

Semifinals

Both semifinals matchups were rematches from Week 2. Back then, the Megarays defeated the Rhyperiors 6-2, while the Barraskewdas and the Panchams tied. However, the matchup between the Megarays and the Rhyperiors proved to be a much more even one during the playoffs. Both teams made roster changes going into the semifinals compared to their Week 2 matchup. The Megarays lineup stayed relatively the same, with the sole change of SuperMemeBroz in for Scholar in SS. The Rhyperiors, however, had revamped their lineup much more, having moved Gym Socks from SS to multigen, Urfgurgle from ORAS to SS, and Elo Bandit from multigen to SM, as well as removing Kolohe from their lineup and adding Sky of Doom into their ORAS spot. However, due to scheduling conflicts between Sky of Doom and Inkreativ, the Rhyperiors subbed bird poop into their ORAS slot on Saturday. In the semifinal matchup between the Barraskewdas and Panchams, both sides again made changes from their lineups from Week 2. The Barraskewdas moved eblurb from ORAS to SS Bo7, benched crow crumbs, moved Leru from SS to multigen, moved crucify from multigen to ORAS, and added Nick to the SS slot. The Panchams benched Toto, added Scraftionite to the SS Slot, moved Tol from SM to Multigen, benched Jabiru, and added thesecondbest to the SM slot. The first game in the Megarays vs. Rhyperiors series was zioziotrip vs. Blanched. Zioziotrip quickly went to take a 3-1 lead, but Blanched brought it back to a game 7. The game 7 featured a Volcanion click from zio and an Urshifu-R pick from Blanched. After res zio missed a Will-O-Wisp on a turn that Urshifu-R used Iron Defense, Blanched opted to use Taunt. However, zio's Steam Eruption on that turn burned Urshifu-R, and the game was ended res by two Sludge Waves. The next game was between Boat and TheShadowClaw, which would decide who would have the best record in SM for the tournament. Similarly to Elo Bandit's victory against lancer, this series also went to a game 5 that resulted in a win for the Rhyperiors through landing Hypnosis from Gengar. In the next game, which was smely socks vs. Murman, Murman won in three. However, the Megarays would quickly tie the series once again, with neomon defeating Gym Socks in multigen in four games. The next game would be LBDC vs. Elo Bandit in SM, which LBDC won in four games, giving the lead back to the Megarays. Later that day, Itchy and Lumii played in BW, which Lumii won in five games, bringing the score to 3-3. The two remaining games were SuperMemeBroz vs. Urfgurgle in SS and Inkreativ vs. bird poop in ORAS. Following the BW game, Urfgurgle defeated SuperMemeBroz in four games to bring the series to a 4-3 lead for the Rhyperiors, with one series remaining. The Inkreativ vs. bird poop series was voted as the best series of 1v1 Premier League VI due to the sheer magnitude of the stakes, the personality of the players, and how the series played out. After bird poop jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead, they lost a winning matchup in game 3 by using Hawlucha's Roost into a +2 Special Attack Leaf Storm from Serperior. After this, Inkreativ was able to win the next two games, evening out the series at 4-4. This series would be decided by tiebreaks in the following week. The other semifinal series, between the Barraskewdas and the Megarays, started with an immediate game in multigen as soon as the matchups were posted, in which Tol defeated Leru to put the Panchams up 1-0. The next games would not be until Saturday, when eblurb defeated Nalei in 5 games in the SS Bo7 slot. After that game, Rellia defeated Scraftionite in a game 5 that featured an Assault Vest Garchomp that defeated Scraftionite's Electric Seed Tapu Koko. After a quick win by Satanic Beast against XSTATIC COLD, the score became 3-1 in favor of the Barraskewdas. After Zeno420's win against Maki in four games, however, the series looked a lot closer, and with thesecondbest defeating Bopher in three games, the Panchams were able to even the score. With crucify defeating Trashuny in four games, the Barraskewdas once again took the lead at 4-3. However, the series would be decided by the results of an investigation that found that thesecondbest was sharing accounts between the Eastern and Western United States, which resulted in all their wins, including the one in the semifinals, being nullified. With Nick winning in a game that could not have changed the result of the week, the Barraskewdas were able to defeat the Panchams 5-2 and advance to the finals. In the tiebreak matchup between the Megarays and Rhyperiors, the Megarays sent zioziotrip in SS Bo7, while the Rhyperiors sent Blanched. The Megarays also chose ORAS, while the Rhyperiors selected SS best of 5. For the ORAS slot, the Megarays decided to send Inkreativ, while the Rhyperiors decided to send Elo Bandit. In the SS bo5 slot, the Megarays decided to send neomon, while the Rhyperiors decided to send Murman. The first game played was between Elo Bandit and Inkreativ, which went to game 5 and was decided by a Focus Blast miss from Elo Bandit's Mega Gengar, giving the Megarays the 1-0 lead. The next game was a dominant 3-0 victory by neomon against Murman, which sent the Megarays to the finals. After these two games, zioziotrip and Blanched decided to play out their game, which ended in Blanched winning in seven games. This was zioziotrip's first and only loss in a dominant 1v1 Premier League campaign.

Finals

The finals matchup was set to be the Metro Boomin' Megarays against the Big Baller Barraskewdas. The Megarays decided on using the same lineup as they did during the semifinals, while the Barraskewdas switched Leru and Crucify in their ORAS and multigen slots. The first match of finals was zioziotrip vs. eblurb in SS Bo7, which zioziotrip won in 6 games, improving their record to 9-1. Every single remaining game, however, was scheduled to be played on Sunday, April 23rd. The next series was LBDC vs. Bopher in SM, which went to a game 5 in which Bopher's Mega Charizard X lost to a Type: Null due to confusion damage from Outrage. After Leru defeated Inkreativ in three games in ORAS, the score was 2-1 in the Megarays' favor. In the next game, which was in SS, SuperMemeBroz then defeated Rellia in four games to give a 3-1 lead to the Megarays. The next game was in BW, in which Maki defeated Itchy in five games to bring the score to 3-2. In a five-game SM series, Boat defeated Satanic Beast to bring the score up to 4-2 in favor of the Megarays, with the only two remaining series being smely socks vs. Nick in SS and neomon vs. crucify in multigen. smely socks vs. Nick ended in four games, with the final game putting Nick's Crustle against smely socks's Volcanion. After a timely Endure by Volcanion on the turn that Crustle used Rock Wrecker, the Megarays went up 5-2 and were the champions of 1v1 Premier League VI.

Final Thoughts

This 1v1 Premier League brought with it notable performances from those on many teams.

The Metro-Booming Megarays was a team that had various great individual performances. One must first start off with zioziotrip, who had a 9-1 record in SS Bo7, with their only loss being in an already decided week. Boat, former 1v1 Tournament Director who's had their share of ok team tournaments had a 7-2 performance in SM Bo5. Players who've come back to 1v1 after a bit of a hiatus such as neomon and Inkreativ went 7-2 and 6-4 each.

The Big Baller Barraskewdas were a full-fledged unit, with only two players of their team of 10 having a losing record. This was led by eblurb, who had improved to a 6-3 record this year, played every slot but SM, and on various accounts was invaluable team support. Previous SS main and co-manager Bopher established themselves as a force in the SM scene, having a 5-3 record alongside bringing about some innovative builds to the years-old metagame. Main manager crucify was integral to the teams success, providing valuable building support to every slot while spotting a solid 4-2 record.

The RPS Rhyperiors, led by the duo of 7-3 Blanched and 7-1 TheShadowClaw, made it much further than most of the preseason predictions had made them out to. While the two great performers played a large role in that, their core of building contributors in Murman, Elo Bandit, lumii, Gym Socks, and Urfgurgle were an integral part of their playoff berth.

Talking in a more general sense, team tournament newcomers such as AOPSUser, Nick, and Zeno420 had 5-2, 4-2, and 5-3 records, respectively. Players such as pqs, LBDC, Mubs, and smely socks came back from underwhelming 1v1PL V performances to good records.

A tradition of 1v1's Premier League is its awards ceremony. Manager of the year was won by DEG, the heart and soul of the champion Metro Boomin Megarays, who on all accounts was the integral factor in the team fostering the best regular season showing in the tournaments history, despite not playing a game. Rookie of the year was a close win by Nick.see over AOPSUser, who established themselves to be one of SS 1v1's up and coming talents. Big Baller Barraskewdas managers Bopher and crucify came first and second in Builder of The Year, being major contributors to every one of their teambuilding slots. Multigen demon neomon won teammate of the year, having the second most messages in his teamchat behind DEG. Boat picked up Most Improved Player and Biggest Underpay, being the steal of the draft at 5k and a 7-2 record. zioziotrip was voted Most Valuable Player for his PL record 9-1 performance.

1v1 Premier League VI was certainly one for the history books. With retains being introduced next year, a chapter will soon begin.

HTML by Ryota Mitarai | Script by HoeenHero | Team Logos by AmirAlexander and Blazenix.
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