Premier League Spotlights: DPL

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Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Premier League Coverage! Premier Leagues have long been one of the most popular tournament formats on Smogon, because they combine the rush of bidding with the collaborative atmosphere of team play. The Smogon Premier League is the largest and most prestigious such tournament, but many communities on Smogon have Premier Leagues of their own. In this series, we will bring you complete coverage of each Premier League on Smogon as they end. Today, we are covering the Doubles Premier League.

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Introduction to DPL

The Doubles Premier League, or DPL, followed in the footsteps of many other tier-specific Premier League tournaments, originating last year under finally's management. This year, the tournament returned with a new host in Hashtag.

As for the format, DPL followed a path much like those of similar tournaments: each manager had 80,000 credits to spend in a live auction, and the players bought would face off against another team's players in a variety of Doubles-based formats. The managers were also allowed to buy themselves for 10,000 credits, and each manager opted to do so. Each week, 4 ORAS DOU, 1 ORAS DUU, and 1 BW DOU match were to be played by each team. Throughout 5 weeks, each team would play every other team, with the top 2 teams after those 5 weeks advancing to the finals.

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The Auction

Once the managers were chosen and the tiers selected, it was time for the draft. Eventually, the teams were finalized to these rosters:

In terms of pricing, there were a few players who were bought for more than 18,000 credits: MajorBowman was the most expensive, selling at 20k to the Oreburgh Ancients and kamikaze17 went to the Six Island Shitposters for 18.5k. thetalkingtree was bought for 19k by the Mossdeep City Space Jams, but this was only due to a typo by manager qsns, who had meant to bid 10k.

After the auction was finished, each of the managers sent in a preseason power ranking of every team aside from their own, where the first player was worth 5 points and the fifth 1. After compiling these rankings, Elise released the following list:

1. Six Island Shitposters - 25 pts
2. Oreburgh Ancients - 19 pts
3. Mossdeep City Space Jams - 16 pts
4. Tohjo Tramplers - 14 pts
5. Hungry Hungry Hippowdons - 10 pts
6. Slateport City Spindas - 6 pts

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The Early Weeks

The first week of DPL provided next to no information about which teams would be at the top, with each of the matchups resulting in a 3-3 tie. Fortunately, in the two weeks that followed, three teams emerged as contenders for the title.

First, the Six Island Shitposters lived up to the forum's expectations, tying with the Oreburgh Ancients in Week 1 and dominating in the two following weeks by only losing one game in total against the Mossdeep City Space Jams and Slateport City Spindas.

The Oreburgh Ancients were similarly impressive following their tie in the first week, winning 10 out of their 12 games to pick up two solid wins against the Tohjo Tramplers and Mossdeep City Space Jams. Notably, KyleCole's core selections of Dawg, SamVGC, and MajorBowman paid off, as they all won their matches in each of the first three weeks.

The third team vying for a finals spot was a bit of a surprise—the Hungry Hungry Hippowdons. Despite preseason predictions, the Hippowdons were able to pull together wins in weeks two and three against the Spindas and Tramplers respectively. Most impressive on the Hippowdons were Yoda2798 and Yellow Paint, who both won all three of their games in the early weeks. Aside from those two, most of the Hippowdons had middling records but performed well when it counted.

The bottom three teams all had pretty rough starts to their season, sitting at 0-2-1 after three weeks and completely out of playoff contention.

The Tohjo Tramplers came up just short in their Week 2 and 3 matches against the Ancients and Hippowdons, losing 4-2 each week. Preseason expectations for the Slateport City Spindas unfortunately proved correct, as they only won one game in each of their next two weeks. Conversely, the Mossdeep City Space Jams failed to live up to expectations and went completely winless in the two weeks following their Week 1 tie.

The DUU matchups seemed to be the most polarizing early on, with clius, Yoda2798, and Shaneghoul all undefeated through the three weeks. Neither clius nor Shaneghoul had particularly high price tags either, both going for under 6k credits. However, this meant that their opponents, n10sit and thetalkingtree, who was also the most expensive DUU player of the league, lost each of their first three games, failing to live up to the expectations that came along with their auction value.

Highlight Match

The first featured game of the tournament is a match between kamikaze17 and finally, two well-known and respected players of the doubles community. This match was interesting due to the two players' backgrounds, with finally being one of the best players from a few years ago and kamikaze someone who only had relatively recently started playing. kamikaze took control from the onset of the match, using Thundurus's Taunt and Amoonguss's Spore to shut down any positional play finally went for. In the end, kamikaze's Expert Belt Landorus-T was able to clean up the match with some help from Mega Diancie.

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The Later Weeks

Heading into the last two weeks of the regular season, the pressure was on for the top three teams, as only two of them would be able to make finals. With the Oreburgh Ancients defeating the Hungry Hungry Hippowdons in Week 4 and the other matchups resulting in ties, everything came down to a final match between the Six Island Shitposters and the Hungry Hungry Hippowdons to decide which team would make finals. However, with their tie the week before, the Shitposters had the advantage going into the week, as either a win or a tie would result in their advance.

The Shitposters started out strong with a win from their manager, Stratos, followed by a couple more close wins in very tight games to clinch the last spot in the finals. Although the Hippowdons were able to take the following three games, it was too little too late, and their Cinderella season came to a close.

Highlight Match

The second game played in the all-important Shitposters vs Hippowdons series, clius vs Yoda2798 was definitely a key match. Not only would it help decide which team would advance to the finals, but clius and Yoda2798 both went into this match with 4-0 records in DUU. The game went back and forth, with players trading Pokémon fairly evenly until clius's unconventional Rock Slide Hariyama all but sealed the game.

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The Finals

The two teams remaining after five weeks of Round Robin play were the Oreburgh Ancients and the Six Island Shitposters, coincidentally also the two teams atop the preseason power rankings. When these two teams met in Week 1, the series ended in a tie, so although the Oreburgh Ancients ended up with more points in the regular season, neither team seemed to have much of an advantage at the start. The full lineups for each team looked like this:

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The first match, between checkmater and SamVGC, was a very close match that ended up sparking discussion on the forums due to the crucial role played by Swagger in Sam's eventual win. Stratos quickly retaliated in a nailbiter against MajorBowman, evening the series at 1-1. Finally, on the last day of competition, the Ancients and Shitposters continued trading games until the Ancients had a 3-2 lead going into the final match between clius and Shaneghoul. clius kept his cool, winning solidly to continue his undefeated streak and force a tiebreaker.

Similarly to other premier league tiebreakers, the formats were one ORAS DOU, and one of each manager's choice. The Shitposters decided to go with what had worked for them in the past and selected ORAS DUU, while the Ancients decided to rest their fate on the strength of their ORAS DOU lineup by selecting a second ORAS DOU as their choice, leading to the following lineups:

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It was a tiebreaker of many rematches, the first of which being a fight between Stratos and MajorBowman that had been so fiercely fought the first time they met. Both players brought very offensive teams in the hopes that they could overwhelm the opponent, with plenty of fast Pokémon on both sides such as Swift Swim Kingdra, Talonflame, Thundurus, and Deoxys-A. In the end, MajorBowman's nicknames didn't faze Stratos and he pulled out the win, giving the Shitposters a 1-0 lead. Next up was manager KyleCole's second game of the tournament, a rematch with his week 1 opponent clius. clius was able to put KyleCole on the back foot when he set Trick Room with his Diancie, providing his paralyzed Mega Blastoise with five turns to fire off a high-powered Water Spout. Although Kyle was able to stall out Trick Room, the damage had already been done and clius was able to claim the win, a 7-0 record, and the Championship for the Six Island Shitposters.

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Closing Remarks

The second annual DPL had plenty of close matches, innovative sets, and surprising records on both sides of the spectrum. The Six Island Shitposters's path to victory was by no means an easy or clear one, but in the end, they proved why they had received the number one place on the preseason Power Rankings and took home a well-deserved victory. The Doubles Premier League allowed for the rise of some newer players, allowed for a reflection on the meta towards the end of the XY Doubles era, and will likely continue to be a staple tournament for the best players in the community.

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Conclusion

Catch us later for a recap of RUPL!

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