Premier League Spotlights: UUPL

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 UnderUsed Premier League.

Introduction to UUPL

The UnderUsed Premier League, or, as many call it, UUPL, followed roughly the same format as almost every other subforum-specific Premier League. Hikari and Sam, UnderUsed's tier leaders, took it upon themselves to host the fourth UUPL.

This year, the format was decided by the hosts and the managers. After a lengthy discussion, the managers and hosts ultimately came up with 3 ORAS UU, 2 BW UU, 1 DPP UU, 1 ADV UU, and 1 Manager slot for each team to be played every week. In all, there were eight teams, so UUPL would have seven primary weeks, where each team was set to to play against each other, as well as two playoff weeks (or the Semifinals and Finals).

The Auction

On April 17th, all the managers met up in the UnderUsed room on PS! to participate in the auction, which resulted in the following teams:

The award for most expensive player went to aim, who was bought for 21k credits.

Also a big thanks to Nineage for helping out with/hosting the auction bot and making sure everything went smoothly!

The Early Weeks

The first few weeks of UUPL were definitely some of the most intense ones over the course of the league.

The teams that were seen as favorites in the tour due to their experienced players, namely the Black City Burglars, Slateport City Socialites, and the Pewter Porygon 2s, definitely started the season as they were widely expected to. The Burglars started off strong, not losing for the first four weeks of the season while playing some very talented teams in the Porygon2s and the Socialites, ending up with a very solid 3-0-1 record. Next, the Slateport City Socialites took an early lead with two commanding wins over the Battle Girls and the Lindas, winning 5-3 and 6-2, respectively. However, the next two weeks weren't the same, as they tied against the Monsters and lost against the Burglars. Lastly, the Pewter P2s did relatively well in the first four weeks also, as they won one week and tied the other three, gaining much-needed points to get into playoffs. After four weeks in the league, those three teams sat at the top of the standings, which looked like this at that point:

In tournaments, there are definitely going to be some players that stand out. In UUPL IV, four players stood out above the rest, posting a perfect 4-0 record in the first 4 weeks: kokoloko (in BW) and CrashinBoomBang (in ADV) of the Burglars, Hogg (in Manager slot) of the Socialites, and Hairy Toenail (in ORAS) of the Lindas had the best individual records.

The Later Weeks

The later weeks in UUPL had the same, if not more, intensity, as a majority of the teams had to have the urgency to fight for the four playoff spots.

Weeks 5 and 6: The top two spots, occupied by the Black City Burglars and the Pewter Porygon 2s, stayed the same throughout leading up to the final week of the season. Both teams secured their playoff spots easily by posting an undefeated record during this stretch. The Slateport City Socialites, however (third place throughout the first four weeks), were a different story. They continued their slump throughout Weeks 5 and 6 with losses to the Burglars and the Delinquents, which knocked them into fifth place, but not out of playoff contention for the last week. The Youngsters as well as the Delinquents (who were in last after the first four weeks) took advantage of this slump, catapulting themselves into third and fourth place, respectively.

Records after Week 6:

With the top 3 teams clinching playoffs, the fourth team to make it was unclear going into Week 7. With a three-way tie for the fourth place between the Delinquents, Socialites, and the Lindas, the last week was definitely going to be an interesting one.

Week 7: The final push for 4th. Every team that hadn't clinched yet had some sort of scenario that could put them in fourth place for the last playoff spot. The only team that had their scenario playing out were the Lindas. For them to get in they had to win against the Battle Girls of course, which they proceeded to do. On top of that, they had to have both the Delinquents and the Socialites lose or tie against the Youngsters and the Porygon 2s, respectively. Both of these teams proceeded to tie their matchups, meaning that the Lindas secured the last playoff spot.

Semifinals: Four teams were left: the Burglars, Porygon 2s, Youngsters, and the Lindas. While The Burglars were the favorite to win, the Lindas came at them like a truck, winning the first five matches of their series and putting them in the finals. The other series, the Porygon 2s versus the Youngsters, was more interesting. After the first seven games of the series the Youngsters were up 4 - 3, with the final game being an ORAS one. Meru vs. North was the last game of the main series. The game was close leading up to the endgame, which was interesting to say the least. After moving pretty well for most of the game, the timer ran out for Meru, leading to the Porygon 2s taking the timer win and forcing a tie. With a tiebreaker, the static tier was the manager game, with the two manager choices being BW and ADV. These were the matchups for the tiebreaker:

The first match was Omfuga vs. dodmen, which led to another timer win six turns in for the Porygon2s. The second game, KratosMana vs. Ice Tea, had one of Ice Tea's Pokémon get frozen late-game, which really hurt his chances of winning the endgame. With the win by KratosMana, the Porygon 2s advanced to the finals.

Highlight Match

The highlight match of the UUPL season was Hairy Toenailvs. xMarth in week 7, a game between two highly regarded players within the UU community that also had playoff complications. The matchup was interesting at first, with Hairy Toenail bringing a few underrated Pokemon like Dugtrio and Slowking and xMarth bringing Darmanitan. The early parts of the game were fairly normal, but at turn 15, when Slowking revealed Calm Mind, the players as well as the wide array of spectators knew the game was pretty much over because of xMarth's lack of bulky Water-type checks. After a couple of U-turns with Darmanitan, xMarth realized he could not break Slowking and forfeited, meaning that Hairy Toenail completed his undefeated regular season and helped his team get a little closer to the playoffs.

The Finals

The teams that reached were the Littleroot Lindas and the Pewter Porygon 2s, or the underdogs versus one of the favorites. It wasn't surprising that the Porygon 2s were in the finals given their highly experienced roster. The Lindas, however, surprised many people by making it this far in the first place given the scenarios they had to fulfill to actually make playoffs then winning semifinals versus the Burglars. But these two teams would definitely provide an interesting finals series. These were the matchups:

The first game was an ADV one quietly played between Tricking and KratosMana, with KratosMana winning with ease and giving the Porygon 2s an early lead for the series. aim followed that win up with another one against sniperr, giving the Porygon 2s a 2 - 0 lead. The Lindas would come back though, with wins by Amaroq, Shiba, and Hairy Toenail, putting them up 3 - 2 with three games left to play. The next game played was between GULLY and Evan., with Evan. winning it to tie the series. Things looked intense, with either team being able to win the series by claiming the next two games. The Lindas took the next game, an ORAS one between Pak and North, but lost the last one, with Vapo dropping his ORAS game against soulgazer.

With the series tied, the hosts followed the same format as the semifinals: one manager slot and one tier choice for each team. For tier choices, the Lindas chose ORAS and the Porygon 2s chose BW.

The first match, GULLY vs. aim, was immediately played after matchups went up, with aim taking it with ease due to GULLY's lack of ways to break aim's Cofagrigus / Swampert / Snorlax core. The second match was between the undefeated Hairy Toenail and soulgazer. The Lindas thought it would be an automatic win, but it was just the opposite. Hairy Toenail let his wincons, Virizion and Cresselia, get weakened early, allowing soulgazer to clean up fairly easily with the combination of Hydreigon and Infernape. With the soulgazer win, the Porygon 2s lived up to their favorite status to actually win UUPL.

Closing Remarks

This edition of UUPL was definitely one of the most intense ones, with many close games and comebacks. It also gave a chance for some lesser-known players to integrate with the forums as well as put their name out in tour scene for the Smogon's most prestigious tournament, SPL.

Conclusion

Stay tuned for a recap of PUPL!