ZUPL III Coverage

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Introduction

Another summer meant the start of another ZUPL. This is ZU's most prestigious team tournament, featuring ZU metagames from SS to DPP. However, unlike in previous years, there were far fewer veteran tour players who decided to sign up, opening the path for many new players to make their first appearance in ZUPL. There were also a few changes to the format: the tournament would now feature an additional SS slot and one fewer SM slot, and the manager prices were changed to not be fixed. With a good mix of mainstay managers and first timers, it was time to see who would take home the trophy of ZUPL III.

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Teams and Power Rankings

The Fiery Flamencos were back, once again managed by DurzaOffTopic. Just like last year, kay was co-managing the team and provided huge teambuilding support in current gen. Heysup was also returning to the team for the third time and had proved to be one of the very best players in DPP ZU. daniYSB had got excellent results in ZU tours since the beginning of the year. While less famous in the ZU tour scene, Mirbro was expected to complete the SS core well. Rav3 has been an historic SM ZU player and should benefit from DurzaOffTopic's help, while watashi has been an excellent tournament player who got teambuilding support from the last ORAS ZU Cup winner in TWiTT. While knowledgeable at BW PU, roxiee was a newcomer to BW ZU who had to fight players more familiar with the tier. Two players not featured on the original lineup wrapped up the team after two of the original players left the team. Those were avarice, who won ZUPL II last year, and Procrastinasian, who used to be an active member of the ZU community and should support his team well. Lastly, cleffa also made an awesome artwork for the team.

After a great performance managing for the first time during UMPL, Toto debuted as a manager in ZUPL for a new team, the Morpeek-A-Boos. czim and a fruitshop owner have been two of the most successful ZU mains, providing the team with great support in every ZU gen, especially SS and SM. While less famous, AstilCodex, BloodAce, thebtboy, and Jett have been active contributors to the tier. BloodAce even recently got a good performance in the ZU BW Cup and as a builder during UMPL. EviGaro and TheFranklin have been known to be great tournament players who had recently done well in UMPL and ZU No Johns, respectively. Finally, neomon is an established DPP ZU player who played the tier in the previous ZUPL.

The To Pimp a Butterfrees were led by Drud, who has reached finals in both Ladder Tour and ZU Classic, and SpacialRendevous, who is well versed in both SM and DPP ZU; both were first-time managers in ZUPL. In SS, Drud was joined by the winner of the Winter Seasonal, tlenit, and two experienced tour players in pdt and sensei axew. Greybaum has been a veteran at SM who would obtain great results, while zS found himself in a tough ORAS pool but had great teambuilding support from DnB and Drud. DnB himself has been an amazing BW player, having won the most recent BW Cup, and expectations were that he would manage to rack up many wins. In DPP, gglrg has been relatively new to the tournament scene, while SpacialRendevous played DPP in the previous iteration of ZUPL. Wrapping up the team were Beksel and Daruma, who made for solid substitutes and would be providing support across different slots. While the team had ZU mains, it was mostly made up of successful players from tiers outside of ZU, even if some of them had success in ZU tournaments.

After winning last year’s ZUPL, Apagogie was once again managing the Humilau Hakamo-os, aka the French gang with half of their players being able to speak French. This time around he had the experienced Tuthur as his co-manager, and the two would be working with three excellent tour players who would form a strong SS core in Feliburn, pokemonisfun, and Louna, with the former two having played for every edition of ZUPL so far. The managers would also be providing excellent SM support for their less experienced SM players in Pujo and crying. Alkione, Tack, and The Strap rounded out the ORAS, BW, and DPP slots as experienced and solid players who were on the Hakamo-os lineup last year. They had great success in ZUPL II with 3-1, 6-1, and 4-1 records in their respective tiers.

After reaching the finals of the previous ZUPL, S1nn0hC0nfirm3d was hoping to take the Lucky Stunkys one step further, and this time around he would be playing in the ORAS slot. yovan33321, the co-manager for the team, was expected to pull off solid results despite his very unorthodox teams, while TJ was coming off the back of his recent win in the No John's Tournament and was expected to also perform well. The other SS slots were filled by Luck O' the Irish, DugZa, and Freezai, who all have been competent players but rely on teambuilding support from S1nn0hC0nfirm3d. In SM, while an incredible player, Rawmelon had to shake off the rust after a lengthy break from playing. JonAmon25 was a promising new old gens player but will be playing BW against a very stacked pool. Cigtar is a proven player who has already played DPP in previous editions of the tour. Completing the team was Chokepic, who has been capable of playing multiple generations and was expected to provide important team support across several slots.

Pay Day Persians were back, though the manager and co-manager had been swapped. SBPC, the manager, has been a solid BW player, while his co-manager 5gen has been displaying excellent capabilities in SS, SM, and ORAS. OranBerryBlissey10, Landon, beauts, PrinceOfAllTacos, and Hitmonstars made some results earlier this year in SS ZU individual tournaments. LPY has been an SM ZU legend coming back from a hiatus. 275p already played DPP for the team last year and was expected to play once again in this slot. Last but not least, 5Dots has been a contributor to ZU for the past weeks and should support his team well with original ideas, and lockjaw had reached playoffs during ZULT.

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Metagame Trends

SS

SS ZU was coming off the back of a Silvally-Ground ban, which allowed several special attackers to rise up within the metagame; Rotom, Skuntank, and Rotom-F enjoyed one fewer Ground-type being able to switch into their attacks. The latter in particular quickly shot up into the spotlight, and its Nasty Plot set terrorized the metagame with its potent STAB coverage, which led to its eventual quickban during the third week of ZUPL. Stall proved to be a rather effective archetype early on in ZUPL, with many teams utilizing Shedinja's Wonder Guard to switch into Rotom-F, Jynx, and Sawk's Choice-locked Close Combat, in addition to walling RestTalk Wishiwashi and stopping its U-turn. However, over the following weeks, stall fell out of favor as teams became more prepared to deal with it. VoltTurn remained widely popular after Rotom-F's ban, and pairing Thievul or another potent special attacker with physical pivots like Thwackey, Perrserker, and Cinccino has become one of the best strategies. VoltTurn teams also heavily capitalized on the shallow pool of Ground-type Pokémon that wanted to switch into the likes of Rotom, Raichu, and Manectric.

Qwilfish has also made a resurgence after falling off slightly after the Centiskorch ban, with hazard stacking being effective on bulky offense and balance teams, and we've seen a rise in Throh usage, as it can capitalize on Spikes by phazing Pokémon and benefits from the rising Dark-types. Alcremie, a Pokémon that some players believe should have been suspected before Silvally-Ground, has had relatively low usage and only a middling level of success. On the other hand, Clefairy has been making waves with its Teleport set, as it can reliably provide safe switches for Choice item wallbreakers such as Sawk, Perrserker, and Thievul while also being one of best switch-ins to Thievul. Clefairy has also been great for balance teams, especially when paired with Cofagrigus, as the two can blanket check a majority of the metagame. In the latter half of the round robin, various "cheese" archetypes such as sun, hail, and Electric Terrain started to pop up, and all have capitalized on teams not being prepared to deal with their unique threats. Overall, this ZUPL has opened up various playstyles and pushed many different Pokémon and sets back into the limelight.

SM

The usage stats from SM ZU are quite similar to those of last year, with Silvally formes being everywhere, Electivire dominating the metagame, and Pokémon like Mareanie, Rotom-S, Bronzor, and Swanna remaining in the top of the usage. However, Golem fell out of favor as the best Ground-type, since Torterra is now the most popular Ground-type and Sandslash, a B-rank Pokémon, is used as much as it with similar success. Silvally-Dragon also lost its popularity due to the metagame being unfavorable to its Defog set. Indeed, it struggles with the most common hazard setters such as Bronzor, Mareanie, and Torterra. The Alolan Grimer trend is keeping up, as it receives more usage with each SM tournament, rising from a niche pick to overtaking Muk as the second most popular Poison-type. Alolan Grimer is a very strong pick in the current metagame thanks to its great utility, with Poison Touch letting it spread poison against popular Knock Off absorbers like Silvally formes, Gourgeist-XL, and Torterra and Knock Off heavily crippling Toxic switch-ins like Bronzor and Mareanie. Alolan Grimer also is capable of switching into and Pursuit trapping Exeggutor and absorbing Toxic Spikes in a metagame where Defoggers struggle against Mareanie.

Swanna still sports one of the best winrates, above 80%, despite checks like Mareanie, Rotom-S, and Silvally-Water being very popular and more niche bulky Water-types like Corsola and Wishiwashi getting more popular. Quite unexpectedly given the former point, Poliwrath has also risen as one of the most popular Water-types because of its great versatility making it easy to fit. Swanna's S-rank partner in crime, Combusken, hasn't achieved the same success, suffering from said bulky Water-types' popularity. However, in some games, it proved that after minimal chip damage it could easily clean through teams and was still a huge threat to take into account. Exeggutor sees discussion as a potential unhealthy aspect of the metagame but curiously didn't see much usage nor success, mostly because of the popularity of the Pursuit trappers Alolan Grimer and Silvally-Dark.

ORAS

ORAS had already seen development shortly before ZUPL through ZU Classic, mainly with Regigigas starting to run Power-Up Punch over Frustration or Drain Punch and picking Thunder Wave over Toxic more often due to how powerful paralysis is in the tier. Regigigas was definitely going to be prominent and centralize teambuilding due to its success in the latest tournaments. While in the first week we saw several Carbink to counter every non-Power-Up Regigigas set, during the latter rounds, players became more creative. They realized that fatter teams could resort to phazers before it got out of control, while more offensive teams were able to overpower it with Knock Off. Infiltrator Jumpluff with Encore over Sleep Powder getting high usage also was a pain for Substitute Regigigas.

Gigalith started giving more competition to Lairon, which had been the most common Normal check for a long time. This is mainly due to Gigalith's greater item versatility, allowing it to run options ranging from the standard Rocky Helmet for punishing Normal-types to nicher options for offensive teams like Eject Button and Custap Berry, but also because of its coveted Fire resistance. Lairon still saw more usage and a better winrate but has been seen using different sets. We saw faster and more offensive spreads or even variants with just Head Smash + Toxic as coverage, since they can be very hard to deal with. Additionally, hazard control experienced shifts, especially in the Dustox vs Vibrava dynamic. Dustox's ability to absorb Toxic Spikes and Toxic immunity and Vibrava's inability as a Ground-type to reliably handle Electabuzz turned Dustox into the most common hazard remover and Pokémon in the whole tour. Interestingly enough, and probably because players were experimenting with new trends, the tier's S-ranks in Simipour and Electabuzz didn't receive as much usage as they used to despite the former performing exceedingly well. It is also the case for Simisage, but this can be explained by people preferring bulkier Grass-types such as Jumpluff and Servine due to their ability to check the likes of Electabuzz, Water-types, and Krokorok.

BW

A few months ago, BW got impacted by a Marowak ban and tier shifts, bringing down powerful threats like Glalie, Mr. Mime, and Muk and removing old metagame staples like Purugly and Krokorok. As a result, the metagame is completely different from last ZUPL, though not completely new thanks to ZU Classic taking happening between the shifts and ZUPL.

The metagame is centralized around Spikes, which are easier to set up without Purugly. Frillish is an amazing spinblocker able to wall Drilbur, Sandshrew, and Staryu while dishing out great damage with Night Shade and Will-O-Wisp, consistently weakening the opposing team alongside Spikes support from Trubbish and Glalie. The constant residual damage helps many kinds of Pokémon, from offensive pivots like Emolga and Persian to powerful priority users like Pawniard and Pikachu to phazers like Munchlax and Vullaby.

Even the old staples changed, as Pokémon like Leafeon and Staryu used to appreciate Purugly exploiting Normal answers. The latter also suffered from Frillish's predominance and got almost completely replaced by Drilbur. The power creep also meant that Emolga isn't as powerful as it used to; while it's still an amazing Pokémon, it doesn't see the same 70% usage stats of last ZUPL. Krokorok and Marowak leaving also turned Electric-type checks like Solrock and Whiscash from nicher picks to the most used Stealth Rock setter during ZUPL III and a very threatening late game sweeper, respectively.

DPP

The DPP ZU metagame remained largely the same when compared to last ZUPL, although there were a few noticeable changes in the usage of certain Pokémon. While Kecleon led the usage stats in ZUPL II, in ZUPL III it ended up tied 7th due to the fact it could be easily capitalized on by other Normal-types and the rising Poison-types. These Poison-types included Beedrill and Arbok; they check the common Grass-types, Beedrill uses Toxic Spikes to great effect, and Arbok is a great threat with utility in Intimidate and Sucker Punch. This may also have been a reason why we saw less Gastly usage, as Poison-types ought to be grounded to absorb Toxic Spikes.

There was also a fairly big shift in Water-types, with Lapras, Kingler, and Walrein being the main ones that were able to make waves in the metagame. Each of them also checked the others to some extent; Lapras had Thunderbolt to OHKO Kingler but Kingler was faster and had Superpower, while Walrein was bulky enough to keep Dragon Dance Lapras sets in check but disliked the super effective coverage that the other two had. There was a distinct lack of Water switch-ins that also handled Ice, which is why many teams ended up having one of these three Pokémon or one of the less common Water-types like Wailord and Bibarel.

While there were a few other small changes in usage, the metagame remained largely the same, with mainstays such as Persian, Tangela, Magmar, Grovyle, and Solrock remaining common. Each of these had very defined roles that work well in DPP ZU's offensive climate. This meant that many DPP ZU veterans were able to return to the metagame and succeed with a few new innovations despite not having played the metagame outside of the previous ZUPL.

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Highlights

In the first week of ZUPL, spectators were already blessed with one of the games of the tournament featuring two room moderators and council members who are also great players and builders. czim brought a somewhat bulky offense team with a few quirks such as Lurantis, while Tuthur unexpectedly brought stall, an archetype he pretty much never uses. The game started off pretty slowly with a lot of chip damage and switching, until czim got a decisive double switch with Rotom, allowing him to freely set up Nasty Plot and knock out Galarian Stunfisk. The game continued with a lot of switching, and Tuthur slowly started to wear down czim's team using Shedinja to great effect against Wishiwashi and Lurantis, but czim managed to keep all his Pokémon intact. czim was once again able to force an initiative with a neat double and managed to set up as Nasty Plot threatening a 2HKO on Tuthur's Audino. Despite czim having Substitute on Rotom, Tuthur correctly predicted the coinflip and clicked Toxic on the correct turn, swinging the game massively in Tuthur's favor, as Rotom was the single biggest threat to his team. czim's Rotom was able to nab a KO on Gurdurr but from here Tuthur used a combination of Calm Mind Musharna and Audino to break down and stall out czim's team.

Greybaum and Rav3 are historically two of the best SM ZU players, playing it since it was the current gen. Rav3 brought balance with the uncommon Wishiwashi and a very original Silvally-Fighting Substitute + Work Up set, while Greybaum brought bulky offense with his signature Trevenant and an unexpected Komala set. Early-game, Greybaum and Rav3 traded their setup sweepers, Crustle and Silvally-Fighting. On the one hand, Crustle looked scary for Rav3 because his checks to Rock-types didn't take boosted X-Scissor well and his revenge killer couldn't afford to switch into Crustle's Stone Edge. On the other hand, Greybaum's Fighting answer in Trevenant could drop to coverage like Shadow Ball and Ice Beam, so both players eliminated a threat to their team. A well-played Ice Punch from Greybaum's Electivire allowed his team to grab momentum by getting Torterra very low. He then gets an opportunity to get Trevenant in and break as it reveals Power-Up Punch and deals massive damage, taking out a weakened Rotom-S and putting Alolan Grimer to a sliver of health. With no hazard control and two Pokémon in range from Stealth Rock damage, Rav3 was in a very bad position; even then, both players struggled to make progress against each other's defensive core. That was until Rav3 decides to take a Toxic poison on Torterra to remove Bronzor with its Z-Move in return; an unfortunate trade given that earlier Rav3 had an opportunity to use Pursuit on Bronzor but used Knock Off on an incoming Poliwrath instead. Rav3 sacks his Pokémon to Stealth Rock as he heals his defensive core; however, a poisoned Torterra, a Bronzor, and an asleep Wishwashi weren't enough to stop Greybaum's Komala, which almost cleaned up Rav3's team, leaving only Wishiwashi so low that Trevenant easily removed it and won the game for Greybaum.

Both ZU tier leaders getting paired in the original ZU tier, what a hype game! 5gen brought a bulky offense sand team aiming to soften up Klang's checks for its clean, while S1nn0hC0nfirm3d brought bulky offense of his own with some little tricks like Choice Scarf Gourgeist-L and Thief Electabuzz. The latter even struck in the first turns by stealing Hippopotas's Eviolite, compromising its ability to handle Lairon, Pignite, and Electabuzz later on. Then, 5gen succeeded at weakening Electabuzz to a sliver of health and wearing down Politoed with the combination of his Choice Specs Emolga and Simipour as he loses Hippopotas to Electabuzz. However, as 5gen tried to keep using his powerful offensive threats, S1nn0hC0nfirm3d reveals Choice Scarf on Gourgeist-L, removing Simipour. This trick worked due to Gourgeist-L already revealing a defensive spread by switching into some attacks. 5gen stayed a bit behind until he revealed another tech in Weakness Policy Gigalith, OHKOing Vibrava with Heavy Slam, S1nn0hConfirm3d's sole Pokémon immune to Electric, making Emolga look even scarier. Both players then traded Pokémon until only two Pokémon remain in every team: 5gen's Emolga facing a Curse boosted Pignite as the remaining teammates are Klang and Lairon. Sucker Punch brings Emolga to a low health as it clicks Volt Switch, probably predicting a switch into Lairon. Afterwards, S1nn0hC0nfirmed just cleans with his Pignite as Klang is unable to threaten it and Emolga drops to Sucker Punch.

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Playoffs

The power rankings correctly predicted two out of the three teams that would make it to playoffs. However, it was way off the mark with the Pay Day Persians, which were projected to come in last place but managed to make it to playoffs relatively easily. Despite the Fiery Flamencos losing to the Morpeek-A-Boos in the final week of the round robin, they still managed to secure first place and a spot in the finals, thanks to their excellent differential they amassed during the tournament. This meant that the semi-finals would be between the Pay Day Persians and the Morpeek-A-Boos.

After tying during the second week, Pay Day Persians and Morpeek-A-Boos faced against each other once again. The first game featured SBPC and BloodAce, with the former bringing a rather standard Frillish hazard balance, while the latter had a more exotic bulky offense. This resulted in a very close endgame where BloodAce needed to crit SBPC's last Pokémon and had eight chances to do so, which all failed, giving the win to SBPC. Then Jett battled against Hitmonstars, bringing a Thievul VoltTurn team against a Spikes stack bulky offense. This game showed the strength of Dark-types in the current metagame, since both Hitmonstar's Silvally-Dark and Jett's Thievul put in huge work. Eventually, Jett successfully remove Silvally-Dark, opening the way for Thievul's insanely powerful Dark Pulse. The next game was ORAS; 5gen brought an original hyper offense featuring Murkrow that seemed to heavily struggle with Toto's Jumpluff. However, 5gen had brought a lure for it in the form of Ice Punch Marshtomp, which paid off, letting him quickly take the upper hand and win versus Toto. The following two games weren't as interesting due to Morpeek-A-Boos getting pretty unlucky with a crucial Tail Slap miss and an early crit giving an huge advantage to their opponents. In the last game, LPY brought a niche breaker in Arbok, which did a great job removing two of a fruitshop owner's Pokémon mid-game, opening the way for a Choice Scarf Pinsir sweep. This battle wrapped up the week, with the final result being 5-1 for the Pay Day Persians, who would face Fiery Flamencos during final.

The tournament was yet not over for Pay Day Persians; they still had to face the same team they lost to during week 1. The Persians had stepped up a lot since it happened, with no team being able to defeat them after their initial loss, but they were still ranked last in the power rankings, and they were facing the best ranked team. TWiTT and 5gen opened the week with a very hyped ORAS game; the former brought bulky offense, while the latter used dual screen offense. Both players had powerful threats able to crush through the opposing team; however, after TWiTT managed to create a setup opportunity for Vanilluxe, it cleaned. Then, Heysup won over beauts in DPP, bringing an original Wailord set that happened to put a lot of work versus beauts, whose Shedinja didn't do as well as they would have wished. This game left Heysup on a perfect 6-0 over the tournament. avarice followed up with a win in SS versus OranBerryBlissey10, playing very well around the Poison spam team with his balance team. roxiee takes another win in BW a bit later, with his Spikes offense not giving any room to SBPC for setting up his own hazard with his Frillish hazard stack. Down 0-4, Pay Day Persians' player POAT still managed to take a win thanks to a lucky Electric Seed Thievul flinching its way through daniYSB's team. Eventually, watashi scored the final win to his team in a battle led by Landon until the end, where watashi came back with a fortunate flinch on Wishiwashi.

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Conclusion

After a tough 7 weeks, the Fiery Flamencos, the team that looked so dominant throughout most of the tournament, managed to come out on top, achieving a second victory. ZUPL has allowed for significant metagame development in SS ZU and there have already been further discussions on taking action on certain Pokémon and archetypes. Old gens have also had a chance to shine outside of ZU Classic and it has helped to push many of these metagames in the right direction given they aren't played too often outside of tournament settings. Additionally, it has provided a great deal of entertainment for both players and watchers of the tournament. Make sure to check out the ZUPL III replay thread and stay tuned for next year's ZUPL!

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