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Tournaments SPL XV DPP Discussion
- Thread starter John Madden
- Start date
I'm not buying into this idea that banning Jirachi wouldn't completely unleash Latias and friends.
Even the least invasive option of removing ihead would have huge implications for Tyranitar. What do you think removing the entire mon would do for the tier?
For me, banning Jirachi is thus completely out of the question even as a last resort.
Which is why we really need to push for more control over this tier and find a way to get rid of that stupid uncompetitive steel move (I am ofcourse talking about ddesire).
This requires directing our attention to the steaming pile of rapidash excrement that is smogon politics and I'm hoping to see all of us supporting this when the time comes.
One way or another we will make this great old gen even greater.
Even the least invasive option of removing ihead would have huge implications for Tyranitar. What do you think removing the entire mon would do for the tier?
For me, banning Jirachi is thus completely out of the question even as a last resort.
Which is why we really need to push for more control over this tier and find a way to get rid of that stupid uncompetitive steel move (I am ofcourse talking about ddesire).
This requires directing our attention to the steaming pile of rapidash excrement that is smogon politics and I'm hoping to see all of us supporting this when the time comes.
One way or another we will make this great old gen even greater.
Alright, lets just do nothing then like usual. Cant believe I wasted my time reading all that shit from someone who doesn't actually want have a discussion.
I love the irony here —someone suggests that the tier is fine (contributing to the discussion), and you immediately rage, shoot them down, and then say that they’re the one who doesn’t want a discussion simply for disagreeing.
Id like a survey to go out to all players who had a single dpp game the last two SPLs, played more than 2 OU games in DPP PL, playing in JCI, etc. something along those lines.
“If given the option to ban Iron Head from DPP OU, would you?”
It seems like the overwhelming majority opinion is yes, we shouldn’t have to work around smogon tiering policy if it’s something that is unanimously desired.
“If given the option to ban Iron Head from DPP OU, would you?”
It seems like the overwhelming majority opinion is yes, we shouldn’t have to work around smogon tiering policy if it’s something that is unanimously desired.
Since the DPP Council bend over backwards to ban Snow Cloak, I really would expect something to be done regarding Jirachi here.
Remember Froslass / Snow Cloak wasn't a problem and nobody wanted to ban it. Look at this thread is an overwhelming amount of people against the ban, and the council just did it anyway for some reason. https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dpp-snow-cloak.3721756/#post-9898026
The only evidence of Snow Cloak being uncompetitive was submitted by Excal stomping some randoms on the ladder. The post by DeepBlueC did not explain anything and the whole DPP community was against it. Just read through the whole thread again, the whole Snow Cloak ban fiasco was a disaster
After SPL 2024, there are so many DPP players say how uncompetitive Jirachi is. If there are this many people against Jirachi, wanting to ban it or Iron Head, and the council does not do something, then one must wonder what are the councils doing?
DPP tiering decisions are starting to look like BW tiering decisions
Remember Froslass / Snow Cloak wasn't a problem and nobody wanted to ban it. Look at this thread is an overwhelming amount of people against the ban, and the council just did it anyway for some reason. https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dpp-snow-cloak.3721756/#post-9898026
The only evidence of Snow Cloak being uncompetitive was submitted by Excal stomping some randoms on the ladder. The post by DeepBlueC did not explain anything and the whole DPP community was against it. Just read through the whole thread again, the whole Snow Cloak ban fiasco was a disaster
After SPL 2024, there are so many DPP players say how uncompetitive Jirachi is. If there are this many people against Jirachi, wanting to ban it or Iron Head, and the council does not do something, then one must wonder what are the councils doing?
DPP tiering decisions are starting to look like BW tiering decisions
I think if they don't have an issue banning evasive stuff like bright powder, and garchomp's sand veil, I can see an argument for banning iron head + serene grace.
Feel free to disagree with me but I think that there should be a Weather + Evasion ability clause to allow Froslass and to a lesser extent Dugtrio. Both Pokemons are decent leads that have great speed tiers and set hazards.
Before people say that Dugtrio would be bad because of Tyranitar is so common. No one is forcing you to use Tyranitar. It’s the equivalent of complaining about Magnet Pull in ADV OU. Also Dugtrio isn’t that good without Arena Trap.
Dugtrio sets like this are perfectly fine for the metagame and allow for new creativity when using hyper offense leads.
Dugtrio (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Reversal
I'm not going to rehash my arguments on Froslass but you can read about it here
On the topic of Jirachi, banning Jirachi as a whole is bad because Jirachi is the best role compressor in the tier, and it would be impossible to replace. None of the “replacements” for Jirachi have U-Turn or Healing Wish.
Before people say that Dugtrio would be bad because of Tyranitar is so common. No one is forcing you to use Tyranitar. It’s the equivalent of complaining about Magnet Pull in ADV OU. Also Dugtrio isn’t that good without Arena Trap.
Dugtrio sets like this are perfectly fine for the metagame and allow for new creativity when using hyper offense leads.
Dugtrio (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Reversal
I'm not going to rehash my arguments on Froslass but you can read about it here
On the topic of Jirachi, banning Jirachi as a whole is bad because Jirachi is the best role compressor in the tier, and it would be impossible to replace. None of the “replacements” for Jirachi have U-Turn or Healing Wish.
I think Jirachi without Iron Head is a healthy part of DPP - we can see that in Superachi and I think defensive / utility sets could also work without it.
Since nothing else (Scarf Scizor I guess) uses Iron Head, the collateral damage would also be minimal.
An Iron Head ban would also make Knock Off a bit less impactful.
Going after flinch moves in general sounds like too much though - Waterfall is really important for a lot of mons, and 20% is something entirely different than 60%.
Since nothing else (Scarf Scizor I guess) uses Iron Head, the collateral damage would also be minimal.
An Iron Head ban would also make Knock Off a bit less impactful.
Going after flinch moves in general sounds like too much though - Waterfall is really important for a lot of mons, and 20% is something entirely different than 60%.
I'm sorry but I can't seem to understand why Iron Head can't be banned, while Baton Pass can. If we want to look at examples from other gens, Swagger and Assist are banned in multiple gens (RS, BW, XY) and Last Respects and Shed Tail are banned from the current SV.
Sure, Baton Pass is obviously broken and Iron Head is much more controversial, but the possibility of a ban should either exist for any move or for none.
That being said, I'm not a tiering expert so please let me know if there is a sensible explanation for this.
Since tiering policy is brought up, let's examine it: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tiering-policy-framework.3628026/
This is the tiering council which I assume if these are reasonable people, the DPP council can talk to them about this case (Jirachi Iron Head):
So what is the purpose of tiering policy?
Then we come to what exactly what to do with Jirachi:
Second of all, are these tiering policy words from god that we can never question? Or should we treat these tiering framework as guidelines and use our own critical thinking on a case by case dependent? Quote from SoulWind, one of the best player to touch the game, "people that would sell their mother before breaking tiering policy." Aren't these Tiering Council real people and not robots? If the DPP council can explain to the Tiering Council that the DPP community thinks Iron Head is broken, not Jirachi, what is wrong with banning Iron Head?
It sounds like the DPP council refuse to consider Iron Head alone / Iron Head on Jirachi because of the tiering council / higher ups / tiering policy framework said so. That means we are either stuck with uncompetitive Jirachi paraflinching people, or have to ban Jirachi straight out even though Jirachi without Iron Head is a healthy part of the meta game. And the DPP council are giving the community two choice: banning Jirachi outright or do nothing.
Most people would say that the meta is NOT better if we don't ban Jirachi, or if we ban Jirachi outright. The community knows that to create a better DPP metagame, Iron Head is the only thing that needs to be ban. But we are not given this option. I must remind us all once again, the purpose of tiering policy is to create the best and healthy meta game where skilled players win. The purpose of tiering policy is NOT "follow this tiering policy words by words"
The strict adhering to arbitrary tiering policy is absolutely ridiculous
Finally, if the tiering policy prevents us from having a good / healthy / competitive metagame, what is the point of tiering policy then? Why do we even have it? It might be time to update these archaic tiering policy.
This is the tiering council which I assume if these are reasonable people, the DPP council can talk to them about this case (Jirachi Iron Head):
So what is the purpose of tiering policy?
- To create a metagame that is conducive to the more "skilled" player winning over the less "skilled" player a majority of the time."
- Uncompetitive definition - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant
- Unhealthy definition - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken yet are deemed undesirable for the metagame such that they inhibit "skillful play" to a large extent
Then we come to what exactly what to do with Jirachi:
- Ban Iron Head on Jirachi
- Ban Iron Head
- Ban 20% and higher flinch moves
- Ban Jirachi
Second of all, are these tiering policy words from god that we can never question? Or should we treat these tiering framework as guidelines and use our own critical thinking on a case by case dependent? Quote from SoulWind, one of the best player to touch the game, "people that would sell their mother before breaking tiering policy." Aren't these Tiering Council real people and not robots? If the DPP council can explain to the Tiering Council that the DPP community thinks Iron Head is broken, not Jirachi, what is wrong with banning Iron Head?
It sounds like the DPP council refuse to consider Iron Head alone / Iron Head on Jirachi because of the tiering council / higher ups / tiering policy framework said so. That means we are either stuck with uncompetitive Jirachi paraflinching people, or have to ban Jirachi straight out even though Jirachi without Iron Head is a healthy part of the meta game. And the DPP council are giving the community two choice: banning Jirachi outright or do nothing.
Most people would say that the meta is NOT better if we don't ban Jirachi, or if we ban Jirachi outright. The community knows that to create a better DPP metagame, Iron Head is the only thing that needs to be ban. But we are not given this option. I must remind us all once again, the purpose of tiering policy is to create the best and healthy meta game where skilled players win. The purpose of tiering policy is NOT "follow this tiering policy words by words"
The strict adhering to arbitrary tiering policy is absolutely ridiculous
Finally, if the tiering policy prevents us from having a good / healthy / competitive metagame, what is the point of tiering policy then? Why do we even have it? It might be time to update these archaic tiering policy.
Tiering admins angle is that BP, Last Respects, Swagger and Shed Tail are moves that have multiple abusers while Iron Head has only one: Jirachi. This goes against their policy that has been colloquially referred to as "Build-A-Bear"ing to preserve a Pokemon. Agree or disagree with it, the council has their hands tied when it comes to complex banning Iron Head + Serene Grace, for which we'd def open up a greater conversation with the community if we had the ability to.
The regurgitated argument that because we banned Snow Cloak, we should take action on Jirachi is misguided. Snow Cloak was some bullshit that changed basically nothing about the metagame. We wanted to improve the complex ban to prevent Froslass from being used alongside Snow Warning, but tiering policy administrators vetoed it.
"Remember Froslass / Snow Cloak wasn't a problem and nobody wanted to ban it. Look at this thread is an overwhelming amount of people against the ban, and the council just did it anyway for some reason." - The majority of complaints when it was revisited came after Froslass was banned, not before. Kristyl's post ending the thread gives a better picture of the situation.
Jirachi is a much more complicated topic that top DPP players have divisive opinions on. While many would be in favor of an IH complex ban if we had the choice, most would not be in favor of an outright Jirachi ban, which leads the council to take no action on Jirachi. We've conducted two surveys in a row consisting of the tier's best players that have demonstrated this, and we have no doubt that the result would be the same if/when we do another survey. The only way we consider taking action on Jirachi is if such a survey demonstrates an overwhelming amount of support for a Jirachi ban.
There's a lot of casual talk from players stating we must do something about Jirachi, Clefable, etc. However, there's a silent majority that really enjoys the tier and doesn't want to make a monumental change like banning any of these Pokemon. The surveys state everything we need to know, and just because some players who aren't as much in the weeds complain/discuss potential bans, does not mean there is an overwhelming demand for them that the council is ignoring.
The council serves the community. I would be against an IH complex ban personally but would be more than open to follow the community's wishes and pursue it if we had the option. At this point, discussing an Iron Head + Serene Grace complex ban in the DPP forums is unproductive. We've said on record so many times we can't do anything about it, and unless policy is changed that will remain the same. If you're not thrilled with that outcome, work to change the policy around it. I'm making this post to have this information readily available and clear the misconceptions around the tier's state & the council's role in this.
Please do not bring up an Iron Head ban or anything related to that in this thread from here on out. For the reasons I outlined in this post, your post may be deleted and repeated offenders may be warned.
tl;dr
- Iron Head ban is completely off the table and discussion surrounding it in the DPP forum is unproductive -- such discussions belong in Policy Review
- Snow Cloak ban has exponentially less collateral than a Jirachi/Clefable/etc ban -- comparing these two scenarios is strawmanning and not in good faith
- The DPP council serves the community and guides their actions via curated community/SPL-oriented surveys to gauge tier satisfaction
- Blame tiering policy administration for Iron Head complex ban not being an option and for not being able to improve Snow Cloak complex ban at Froslass's expense. The DPP council took the best actions they could under the circumstances they were given and they are doing a good job
If Iron head is truly off the table the only options to nerf Jirachi Iron Head spam is to vote on banning Jirachi or vote on unbanning something that threatens it like Dugtrio.
There is a 3rd option. Build better.
I also want Jirachi's ihead bullshit gone but that doesn't mean I wanna significantly change the tier to suit my needs.
Somehow I finally found the energy to write something here ! I wanted to do it earlier but pokemon break + a lot of people asked to me to help them for DPP Cup so I decided to delay my post. And since every player I was helping are out ... it is time.
Because I had a lot to say I did " spoilers " to separate everything so you can read whatever you want. I wanted to do a big big post but I found it out to be really cringe ( and maybe the format of this post already is LOL ) so I decided to talk only about preps and teams and to keep it simple ( I won't review games too ).
The journey of a SPL debutant begins.
Inspired by the Total War Warhammer III prologue.
If you have questions dm me on Smogon / Discord ( le_don_pokemon ). I'm out, peace.
Because I had a lot to say I did " spoilers " to separate everything so you can read whatever you want. I wanted to do a big big post but I found it out to be really cringe ( and maybe the format of this post already is LOL ) so I decided to talk only about preps and teams and to keep it simple ( I won't review games too ).
The journey of a SPL debutant begins.
Inspired by the Total War Warhammer III prologue.
.
RoAPL final victory is already far behind. TWW 2, Lethal company and AOE II are all exceptionnal games. But what about SPL ? It was coming soon and I knew thx to my 2023 results ( JDI, RoAPL, PPL ... ) that I was prob in the 10 starters unless something unexpected happens. I was still building / exploring stuff but I was not playing a lot and I also realised that my ideas, even my main new teams, weren't very good. I started doubting but I knew that I won't have 6502193874 opportunities to play SPL. And my situation was stable ( job and money ) which wasn't the case last year. So yeah I signed up, looking for a unique and memorable experience, to see and to feel what SPL really means.
Fun fact, because of the Mind Gaming """ drama """ I dmed every managers and told them that I will play for them no matter what if they decide to pick me.
Back in 2023 Sept-Nov, I met WcJay, a french fellow DPPer. I already heard about him in the past ( 2020-2021 ); he was known as a great builder. He was helping us for a french tour and we started talking to each other and it went really well. I became a big fan of his metagame approach. Since I know that my mental was a bit weak, some help would be helpful for SPL so I asked Jay if he wanted to help me for the incomming SPL and he said yes ! Wonderful. ( Excal was right but it wasn't SoS as everyone was thinking ^^' )
I was at work when auctions started but I was able to see my SPL pick on Ojama's Twitch stream. Circus Maximus Tigers. The name of the " cursed " franchise right ? How ironic for my first SPL. But the team looked really strong to me. It was time to restore Tigers greatness. And for our first week ? Sabella's and NJNP's team which contains Finchinator, the one who tried to delete the Tigers.
But before this let's get into something more personal, go take popcorn ( lol ) :
I won't give the names of some persons involved to protect them.
A player of my team recieved a weird dm where it was written that I was going to cancer the team and to screw over my mates and caps. Where did the bad guy got these " informations " ? From Ojama's Twitch livestream ! I managed somehow to get the content of the dm ( and the name of the bad guy ) in my morning thx to very smart move of our player so I was aware about everything. Some hours after z0mOG dmed me asking about how did I feel in the team and told me about the cancer accusations. The bad guy knew I was on Ojama's stream that day so z0mOG asked G7 to watch the stream replay and after watching the replay G7 said that he lost 2 hours of his life ... The accusations were futiles. I also talked about me and the guy who tried to ban me from my first SPL : we litt hate each other ( he even checked, surely to find something banworthy, my twitter account ). My caps understood everything and thx to that I was still part of the team.
I thank everyone who helped me to defend myself and my caps for not being stupid and for their investigations ( esp G7 who watched during TWO FUCKING HOURS Ojama's stream replay to realise that there was nothing except a dude joking with Ojama himself and his chat ).
For those who are still wondering why was I joking with him : Ojama and z0mOG don't like each others because of last SPL so when Ojama saw that I was part of the Tigers he started doing jokes about it. Not very clever from me I agree but ofc I was never going to cancer ( I don't even remember writing that in the chat and if I did so ... learn what irony is please ... ? ) esp after sending a message to every managers and ofc I don't care of what he seriously thinks about my cap. We are here to play games not to do dramaqueens.
What a way to begin SPL ...
RoAPL final victory is already far behind. TWW 2, Lethal company and AOE II are all exceptionnal games. But what about SPL ? It was coming soon and I knew thx to my 2023 results ( JDI, RoAPL, PPL ... ) that I was prob in the 10 starters unless something unexpected happens. I was still building / exploring stuff but I was not playing a lot and I also realised that my ideas, even my main new teams, weren't very good. I started doubting but I knew that I won't have 6502193874 opportunities to play SPL. And my situation was stable ( job and money ) which wasn't the case last year. So yeah I signed up, looking for a unique and memorable experience, to see and to feel what SPL really means.
Fun fact, because of the Mind Gaming """ drama """ I dmed every managers and told them that I will play for them no matter what if they decide to pick me.
Back in 2023 Sept-Nov, I met WcJay, a french fellow DPPer. I already heard about him in the past ( 2020-2021 ); he was known as a great builder. He was helping us for a french tour and we started talking to each other and it went really well. I became a big fan of his metagame approach. Since I know that my mental was a bit weak, some help would be helpful for SPL so I asked Jay if he wanted to help me for the incomming SPL and he said yes ! Wonderful. ( Excal was right but it wasn't SoS as everyone was thinking ^^' )
I was at work when auctions started but I was able to see my SPL pick on Ojama's Twitch stream. Circus Maximus Tigers. The name of the " cursed " franchise right ? How ironic for my first SPL. But the team looked really strong to me. It was time to restore Tigers greatness. And for our first week ? Sabella's and NJNP's team which contains Finchinator, the one who tried to delete the Tigers.
But before this let's get into something more personal, go take popcorn ( lol ) :
I won't give the names of some persons involved to protect them.
A player of my team recieved a weird dm where it was written that I was going to cancer the team and to screw over my mates and caps. Where did the bad guy got these " informations " ? From Ojama's Twitch livestream ! I managed somehow to get the content of the dm ( and the name of the bad guy ) in my morning thx to very smart move of our player so I was aware about everything. Some hours after z0mOG dmed me asking about how did I feel in the team and told me about the cancer accusations. The bad guy knew I was on Ojama's stream that day so z0mOG asked G7 to watch the stream replay and after watching the replay G7 said that he lost 2 hours of his life ... The accusations were futiles. I also talked about me and the guy who tried to ban me from my first SPL : we litt hate each other ( he even checked, surely to find something banworthy, my twitter account ). My caps understood everything and thx to that I was still part of the team.
I thank everyone who helped me to defend myself and my caps for not being stupid and for their investigations ( esp G7 who watched during TWO FUCKING HOURS Ojama's stream replay to realise that there was nothing except a dude joking with Ojama himself and his chat ).
For those who are still wondering why was I joking with him : Ojama and z0mOG don't like each others because of last SPL so when Ojama saw that I was part of the Tigers he started doing jokes about it. Not very clever from me I agree but ofc I was never going to cancer ( I don't even remember writing that in the chat and if I did so ... learn what irony is please ... ? ) esp after sending a message to every managers and ofc I don't care of what he seriously thinks about my cap. We are here to play games not to do dramaqueens.
What a way to begin SPL ...
.
For this part and the two next ones I will explain quickly my prep reasoning and the team. I wouldn't say that my teams are all solid overall. Some are but some are def fishes so be cautious if you want to use them. If I don't talk about the spreads it can mean that I don't remember what it does or it can mean that it's not extremely optimal so you can change them.
Also know that you should ALWAYS have this music as background when you play games, it's the only one that can help me to calm down before and when playing. I remember the first time I heard this OST : I was almost at the end of a campaign with the Dwarves, so I looked back to all the provinces I've conquered to see what I have achieved since the beginning; while I was doing this, the music started and it felt so peaceful and relaxing. Ty TWW 1 for that.
Week 1 vs. Mind Gaming :
First week, the trickiest MU imo. I still don't know if he trained DPP before and who was helping him ( Conflict ig ? ) but one thing is for sure ... I want to stall. Before week 1 begins, Roro told me to not overcook and to play around my forces; I followed what he said and tried to figure what kind of stall looked good atm.
Scarf Tar stall was on the list but we prefered to go for Hippo stall, seemed more consistent. A particular 6 interested me, Rachi Hippo Glisc Clef Lati Ton. It looked good into a lot of scary MUs but Swampert / Zapdos / Loom looked really hard to play against. We had 2 versions of this 6 thx to August and DBC ( they both used it once ) so I could just steal the sets and do edits. I gambled tbh cause this is litt my comfort zone with Hippo Ton and CM lati wincond but I thought they won't expect it week 1 so early in tour. I expected them to use a very solid metagame team like stall or CB Tar paraspam. I ended with this :
RT Rachi is good into offense, to help Hippo and Glisc vs Loom and so to have less pressure on Lati; it's also a set that, iirc, I started to use this SPL so 0 RT Rachi in my scout. To patch the waters / Zapdos weakness I thought again about Toxic Hippo and it fits perfectly here because you tox : Pert allowing you to stall it with Clef, Def Starmie allowing you to keep rocks up which is very impotant in a spikeghostless stall and also stuff like Gyara Zap Glisc Lati; synergy is perfect with Ton so you don't give free Spikes to Skarm. Glisc is Taunt to be sure I oblitarate stall cause I didn't want to lose vs it; knock helps vs Waters and Clef. CM Clef is FlameT ( with the speed for it ) cause bulky SD Zor can be very annoying in lategame and IBeam is needed to be better into CM wars; acts a Swampert wall once it's toxiced. Since Clef is hard walled by Heatran and Skarm gets trapped by Ton I went for HP Ground on Lati; it also hits SE TTar which can help a bit ( Surf may be good too ? But it doesn't hit SE Jirachi so idk. ). This team wants a trapper and is weak to DDers overall so Ton is obviously the last and without FlashC cause I value Explosion for Breloom / Clef; Hippo, Glisc and Rachi should be enough anyway.
Very soild team to my eyes with a lot of important synergies.
Important calcs :
+1 56 SpA Latias Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Heatran: 328-388 (101.5 - 120.1%) ( you need at least 44 )
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 12 SpD Latias: 270-318 (74.1 - 87.3%) ( clutch esp with RT rachi and Tox Hippo )
0 SpA Starmie Surf vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Hippowdon: 186-222 (44.3 - 52.9%) ( the key vs Mie teams )
Week 2 vs. Skyrio :
Ngl prep was messy, facing Skyrio was scarier than expected. I knew who was prepping for him which made the prep insanely hard. I looked at players first week usages and I saw that Petaya Empo has been used a lot and I decided that it was my turn. And don't ask me why but I was super scared of Zapdos, it really occupied my mind when I was building. Surely because it's a pain for any offense to face and since I wanted to offense ... uh. Anyway :
So the basic idea as you saw above was Petaya Empo as wincond, Timid nature cause Suitless team. I completed it with LoomTran core to be sure I pressure Clef and give setup opportunities with WoW x Lava ( supposed to be clutch vs Flygon xd ) and Spore. The core isn't very good vs HO and you want an antispin to pair with Heatran so you don't insta lose vs Starmie so Specs Wash came to my mind to add some rough power vs HO and waters and with Trick I can easily manage Zapdos / Clef etc. Then ... yeah idk why he's here but he's here ( prob cause I wanted AGAIN smthing that can beat Zapdos ); anyway, this is my fav set of SD Glisc : SEdge covers Zap / Gyara / Dnite while FFang allows you to hit Skarm / Bronzong / Loom / Cele. You just need Suit support ( Chople Taunt Tar ) to be sure you get most out of his power. I added Scarf Lati to add a Nape switch in and her utility is really big for the team.
Ngl team is okish but can't win a tour game, too much problems, team is too slow and not enough good synergies. Good ideas but very bad execution.
More datas from Jay :nerd: :
230 speed heatran > outspeeds 252 Scizor
210 speed breloom > outspeeds 0 Rotom-A
312 hp empo > dividable by 4
312hp/245 spd allows to tank gengar better ( 252 Focus Blast has 12,5% chance to OHKO after SR )
231 speed empoleon outspeed scizor at 0 and scarf lucario at +2
Week 3 vs. Malekith :
Facing Malekith is never simple cause he's extremely versatile. He has a better ingame than me so outplaying him feels really hard. At least I had a lot of datas and we noticed that his Heatran's usages were low so we could abuse of that. The first plan was to stick to tried and true and use Specs EPowerless Heatran. It was good but it wasn't convincing some of my mates. So we made many edits and I decided to lock this one :
You might recognize this 6 since Pideous used it fo JDI. This was the first time I used Sash TTar lead; I found Counter being really good compared to Superpower or TWave; it's my only rocker because Malekith had low spinner usages so I greeded. Heatran became Shuca with HP Elec because Gyara was way too much a problem. TWave Gyara is needed in a Suitless team so I'm not forced to switch out after DDing esp if rocks are up on my side ( which happens a lot with TTar lead ); Return is an option over Ice Fang. Jirachi acts as the perfect Zone / Ton bait for Gyara and TWave adds more Speed control ( helps a loooot vs Suicune ). Breloom as DD Tar revenge killer and having another Swampert switch in means less pressure on Gyarados. And we finish with my signature mon on every offense, Scarf Latias !
I think the 6 is good but the way I used it isn't which is my fault. Atm I prefer this version even if it's flippy as f https://pokepast.es/6c0e5ec9ae61f3f9 .
Week 4 vs. Mishimono :
I was suprised by Mish usages during the first three weeks, that was clearly not his comfort zone. After a rough debut I supposed he was also going back to it to play around his forces and have more confidence when playing so I expected some bulky offense with Lati / Gyara / Gar / Meta / Zone / Loom / Tar ( Spikeless offense ). I also knew that he had the help of someone that knows me very well so I didn't want to ignore that. I explored many things but I ended with something passive which wasn't convincing. The X-Factor, Osgoode, offered me his help. So I sent him my ideas and yeah as expected he adviced me to use smthing that at least had a wincond. I trusted and listened. I kept some of my ideas and took some of his ideas to do a sort of mix :
MiloCele is great into offense / paraspam; Cele is very good in the actual meta cause it beats every spinner of the tier so perma rocks up while Milo completes it fire / steel resist. The Milo set almost cost me the game but the idea was to bait Explosion users since I don't have Tect on my Jirachi so Metagross can be very hard to deal with. The core is weak to hazards so you want to use a spinner or a trapper or both. I chose the Magneton route because it patches MiloCele passiveness vs DDers ( I meant the way I used them ); I used HP Ice but Ground is better here ( Tran / Zone x Ton ) and it would have won the game easily. Cele hard walls Loom but isn't a sleep absorber so using RT rachi made me less weak to like Loom + CB Tar; WishTect is fine here. Clef is Clef, spread paras and helps vs Rose teams. Then Rui suggested me to use a SubSD set rather then a stallbreaker set ( ToxTaunt ) and I trusted his vision cause it adds speedcontrol and a excellent wincond that abuse very well of paras.
( did tests without the CR + DBreath combination )
Week 5 vs. Twash :
While scouting Twash I realised that he was kinda using the same structures and sets on his mons. I knew that I should abuse of that. It was the first time that the mono DD HO angle looked REALLY good to my eyes ( while I'm supposed to HATE this archetype and I still think it is very bad ). He also looked weak to stall but since I faced him two years ago and won a BO3 using 2 times stall, I knew they would prep for that. So I focused on Aero HO and kept a simple approach but very teched for offense ( only way to make it work anyway, you can't beat stall without doing too much sacrificies on other MUs ); I was litt ignoring stall cause the very few times he stalled, he lost. Oh and the fact that he had 0 Roost back Skarm, a lot of Azelf leads and that his Mies are always Recoverless made me lock the team :
Aero is Aero, EQ is important to pressure steels and DE allows you to die quickly and also to prevent spin if well played. Gyara is Jolly AND Wacan to be sure I beat every of his Scarfers. Same as Gyara, Dnite is also Jolly for the same reasons. It also allows me to be better into Modest Cune and +Speed Tran that regularly booms into Gyara / Dnite. Gengar acts as Mach Punch in and as BO / Offense destroyer thx to its great Speed; he has a lot of Scarf TTar so I know that Gar won't last long meaning I could lure it with it to get a free setup opportunity; Taunt to give free setup. Classic DD Tar with Chople to have extra safety vs Nape. I ended with the classic RP Metagross with Boom in case he goes to a bulky water ( Suicune / Pert >>> ).
Fun fact : I played while being at work during my break, with 3 employees around in the same room and my boss watching me playing LOOOL.
3V - 2L
For this part and the two next ones I will explain quickly my prep reasoning and the team. I wouldn't say that my teams are all solid overall. Some are but some are def fishes so be cautious if you want to use them. If I don't talk about the spreads it can mean that I don't remember what it does or it can mean that it's not extremely optimal so you can change them.
Also know that you should ALWAYS have this music as background when you play games, it's the only one that can help me to calm down before and when playing. I remember the first time I heard this OST : I was almost at the end of a campaign with the Dwarves, so I looked back to all the provinces I've conquered to see what I have achieved since the beginning; while I was doing this, the music started and it felt so peaceful and relaxing. Ty TWW 1 for that.
Week 1 vs. Mind Gaming :
First week, the trickiest MU imo. I still don't know if he trained DPP before and who was helping him ( Conflict ig ? ) but one thing is for sure ... I want to stall. Before week 1 begins, Roro told me to not overcook and to play around my forces; I followed what he said and tried to figure what kind of stall looked good atm.
Scarf Tar stall was on the list but we prefered to go for Hippo stall, seemed more consistent. A particular 6 interested me, Rachi Hippo Glisc Clef Lati Ton. It looked good into a lot of scary MUs but Swampert / Zapdos / Loom looked really hard to play against. We had 2 versions of this 6 thx to August and DBC ( they both used it once ) so I could just steal the sets and do edits. I gambled tbh cause this is litt my comfort zone with Hippo Ton and CM lati wincond but I thought they won't expect it week 1 so early in tour. I expected them to use a very solid metagame team like stall or CB Tar paraspam. I ended with this :
RT Rachi is good into offense, to help Hippo and Glisc vs Loom and so to have less pressure on Lati; it's also a set that, iirc, I started to use this SPL so 0 RT Rachi in my scout. To patch the waters / Zapdos weakness I thought again about Toxic Hippo and it fits perfectly here because you tox : Pert allowing you to stall it with Clef, Def Starmie allowing you to keep rocks up which is very impotant in a spikeghostless stall and also stuff like Gyara Zap Glisc Lati; synergy is perfect with Ton so you don't give free Spikes to Skarm. Glisc is Taunt to be sure I oblitarate stall cause I didn't want to lose vs it; knock helps vs Waters and Clef. CM Clef is FlameT ( with the speed for it ) cause bulky SD Zor can be very annoying in lategame and IBeam is needed to be better into CM wars; acts a Swampert wall once it's toxiced. Since Clef is hard walled by Heatran and Skarm gets trapped by Ton I went for HP Ground on Lati; it also hits SE TTar which can help a bit ( Surf may be good too ? But it doesn't hit SE Jirachi so idk. ). This team wants a trapper and is weak to DDers overall so Ton is obviously the last and without FlashC cause I value Explosion for Breloom / Clef; Hippo, Glisc and Rachi should be enough anyway.
Very soild team to my eyes with a lot of important synergies.
Important calcs :
+1 56 SpA Latias Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Heatran: 328-388 (101.5 - 120.1%) ( you need at least 44 )
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 12 SpD Latias: 270-318 (74.1 - 87.3%) ( clutch esp with RT rachi and Tox Hippo )
0 SpA Starmie Surf vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Hippowdon: 186-222 (44.3 - 52.9%) ( the key vs Mie teams )
Week 2 vs. Skyrio :
Ngl prep was messy, facing Skyrio was scarier than expected. I knew who was prepping for him which made the prep insanely hard. I looked at players first week usages and I saw that Petaya Empo has been used a lot and I decided that it was my turn. And don't ask me why but I was super scared of Zapdos, it really occupied my mind when I was building. Surely because it's a pain for any offense to face and since I wanted to offense ... uh. Anyway :
So the basic idea as you saw above was Petaya Empo as wincond, Timid nature cause Suitless team. I completed it with LoomTran core to be sure I pressure Clef and give setup opportunities with WoW x Lava ( supposed to be clutch vs Flygon xd ) and Spore. The core isn't very good vs HO and you want an antispin to pair with Heatran so you don't insta lose vs Starmie so Specs Wash came to my mind to add some rough power vs HO and waters and with Trick I can easily manage Zapdos / Clef etc. Then ... yeah idk why he's here but he's here ( prob cause I wanted AGAIN smthing that can beat Zapdos ); anyway, this is my fav set of SD Glisc : SEdge covers Zap / Gyara / Dnite while FFang allows you to hit Skarm / Bronzong / Loom / Cele. You just need Suit support ( Chople Taunt Tar ) to be sure you get most out of his power. I added Scarf Lati to add a Nape switch in and her utility is really big for the team.
Ngl team is okish but can't win a tour game, too much problems, team is too slow and not enough good synergies. Good ideas but very bad execution.
More datas from Jay :nerd: :
230 speed heatran > outspeeds 252 Scizor
210 speed breloom > outspeeds 0 Rotom-A
312 hp empo > dividable by 4
312hp/245 spd allows to tank gengar better ( 252 Focus Blast has 12,5% chance to OHKO after SR )
231 speed empoleon outspeed scizor at 0 and scarf lucario at +2
Week 3 vs. Malekith :
Facing Malekith is never simple cause he's extremely versatile. He has a better ingame than me so outplaying him feels really hard. At least I had a lot of datas and we noticed that his Heatran's usages were low so we could abuse of that. The first plan was to stick to tried and true and use Specs EPowerless Heatran. It was good but it wasn't convincing some of my mates. So we made many edits and I decided to lock this one :
You might recognize this 6 since Pideous used it fo JDI. This was the first time I used Sash TTar lead; I found Counter being really good compared to Superpower or TWave; it's my only rocker because Malekith had low spinner usages so I greeded. Heatran became Shuca with HP Elec because Gyara was way too much a problem. TWave Gyara is needed in a Suitless team so I'm not forced to switch out after DDing esp if rocks are up on my side ( which happens a lot with TTar lead ); Return is an option over Ice Fang. Jirachi acts as the perfect Zone / Ton bait for Gyara and TWave adds more Speed control ( helps a loooot vs Suicune ). Breloom as DD Tar revenge killer and having another Swampert switch in means less pressure on Gyarados. And we finish with my signature mon on every offense, Scarf Latias !
I think the 6 is good but the way I used it isn't which is my fault. Atm I prefer this version even if it's flippy as f https://pokepast.es/6c0e5ec9ae61f3f9 .
Week 4 vs. Mishimono :
I was suprised by Mish usages during the first three weeks, that was clearly not his comfort zone. After a rough debut I supposed he was also going back to it to play around his forces and have more confidence when playing so I expected some bulky offense with Lati / Gyara / Gar / Meta / Zone / Loom / Tar ( Spikeless offense ). I also knew that he had the help of someone that knows me very well so I didn't want to ignore that. I explored many things but I ended with something passive which wasn't convincing. The X-Factor, Osgoode, offered me his help. So I sent him my ideas and yeah as expected he adviced me to use smthing that at least had a wincond. I trusted and listened. I kept some of my ideas and took some of his ideas to do a sort of mix :
MiloCele is great into offense / paraspam; Cele is very good in the actual meta cause it beats every spinner of the tier so perma rocks up while Milo completes it fire / steel resist. The Milo set almost cost me the game but the idea was to bait Explosion users since I don't have Tect on my Jirachi so Metagross can be very hard to deal with. The core is weak to hazards so you want to use a spinner or a trapper or both. I chose the Magneton route because it patches MiloCele passiveness vs DDers ( I meant the way I used them ); I used HP Ice but Ground is better here ( Tran / Zone x Ton ) and it would have won the game easily. Cele hard walls Loom but isn't a sleep absorber so using RT rachi made me less weak to like Loom + CB Tar; WishTect is fine here. Clef is Clef, spread paras and helps vs Rose teams. Then Rui suggested me to use a SubSD set rather then a stallbreaker set ( ToxTaunt ) and I trusted his vision cause it adds speedcontrol and a excellent wincond that abuse very well of paras.
( did tests without the CR + DBreath combination )
Week 5 vs. Twash :
While scouting Twash I realised that he was kinda using the same structures and sets on his mons. I knew that I should abuse of that. It was the first time that the mono DD HO angle looked REALLY good to my eyes ( while I'm supposed to HATE this archetype and I still think it is very bad ). He also looked weak to stall but since I faced him two years ago and won a BO3 using 2 times stall, I knew they would prep for that. So I focused on Aero HO and kept a simple approach but very teched for offense ( only way to make it work anyway, you can't beat stall without doing too much sacrificies on other MUs ); I was litt ignoring stall cause the very few times he stalled, he lost. Oh and the fact that he had 0 Roost back Skarm, a lot of Azelf leads and that his Mies are always Recoverless made me lock the team :
Aero is Aero, EQ is important to pressure steels and DE allows you to die quickly and also to prevent spin if well played. Gyara is Jolly AND Wacan to be sure I beat every of his Scarfers. Same as Gyara, Dnite is also Jolly for the same reasons. It also allows me to be better into Modest Cune and +Speed Tran that regularly booms into Gyara / Dnite. Gengar acts as Mach Punch in and as BO / Offense destroyer thx to its great Speed; he has a lot of Scarf TTar so I know that Gar won't last long meaning I could lure it with it to get a free setup opportunity; Taunt to give free setup. Classic DD Tar with Chople to have extra safety vs Nape. I ended with the classic RP Metagross with Boom in case he goes to a bulky water ( Suicune / Pert >>> ).
Fun fact : I played while being at work during my break, with 3 employees around in the same room and my boss watching me playing LOOOL.
3V - 2L
.
Week 6 vs. Void :
Since week 2, I knew exactly who was at the prep with Void. I directly knew how the prep would go and I sticked to what was more consistant to my eyes. So yeah after some Togekiss / SD Scizor builds I went for the Jolly SD Loom route :
I wanted a surprise effect with CB Tar lead because players expect it to be Scarf or Sash and it would still trap Lati and potentially Starmie / Celebi. Zapdos x Starmie is a core that I almost never use because I don't like to use it ( player pref ... ) but since SD Loom route means para support they were the perfect core to start with; so now we have a super solid ZapMieTarLoom core. I completed it with the classic Wish Jirachi to force paras on Steel / Fire types which is big and with a SR SpD Clef that hard wins vs Starmie and wins vs other spinners. Then the masterpiece that I stole from twash : the Loom set that destroys slow teams that rely on Starmie for speed control. Being faster than Ada Gyara / Ada DNite / Modest Tran / Def Zap / Def Cele / Def Rachi / Jolly Fire Blast TTar and almost every Brelooms makes an ENORMOUS diff. It allows me to use it very aggressively vs offense and vs slow paced teams I can Spore annoying counters like Celebi / Zap which counter me without Spore ( unless I reach + 4 or 6 which is hard without Spore ). So yeah if don't spread para I can just Spore abuse and click SD again; being bulky helps a lot vs fast Rachi. And since we have TTar to remove Ghost types we can go for Facade + Superpower. I ignored Gengar in the builder because no way they will use it, it's not consistant enough to their eyes and since they seemed to only trust the brokens ...
Team is good but I think I trolled a bit with CB Tar lead ... didn't work as I wanted.
Week 7 vs. Dridri :
Seeing Dridri performing well wasn't good. Some of his teams were really weird so finding a good prep angle was difficult so I prefered focus on my own scout. 0 Spikes / 0 TSpikes ... bruh. Looking at what he played I thought Roserade was really good. I made some balance teams with Rose x Curse Gastro but it wasn't good in tests because Sandless feat Gastro made me hyperweak to Loom while stacking hazards with rose isn't easy so hard to pressure Loom. So with Jay we made changes and it feeled much better in tests; I also thought that it was time to abuse of the banworthy move Confuse Ray :
This team is oriented on TSpikes as you can see. ZongNidoLatiClef is a very good combo : Zong absorbs the pressure of Ghost and Steel types and is able to 1v1 Starmie thx to Payback ( you can replace Explo by Extrasensory [and not psychic cause pps too low] to hit Loom ); Nido helps vs waters, is our sleep absorber, hits Skarm x Loom with FlameT and Roar prevents Nido to be a setup folder for Gyara; Lati will force Tyra in can 1v1 it with Reflect which is big for Rotom; Cosmic Clef is mostly here to destroy offense esp with TSpikes ( Knock needed to help Rotom in his 1v1 vs Clef ). We kept the Scarf Rachi because it will help vs stall thx to Trick, adds some pressure with IHead + TSpikes combo and adds speedcontrol. Finally the demon set is here : as I said in my first post Confuse Ray is broken because it costs nothing and gives you 50% chance to bs opp which is insane. Thx to that you can now bs TTar, Pert, Clef that doesn't have Encore, Breloom etc etc. You force switches, forcing them to take TSpikes and then the rest of the team should be able to win.
I regret my team choice, Double Spikes Rose team was better into his team. The team isn't good enough and still have majors issues but I swear I will find the perfect way to abuse of CR and force a ban. <=== Bro thought he was Osgoode XD
Week 8 vs. Laurel :
Same reasoning as above but this time no way I lose myself in the prep. I felt at the beginning of the tour he wasn't using his stuff ( DBC's builds ? ) and lost a lot but after he started using what seemed to his own stuff he claimed a lot of wins. Sub Split Gengar looked good into most of his teams so I tried to build around double Ghost type teams but when Jay and M Dragon aren't convinced you know what it means ... we stick to tried and true. WE STICK TO TRIED AND TRUE. While looking at some 6 with Jay, this one caught my attention ( absolutly not because there's a Magneton ... ^^ ) :
Gondra used it vs me for RoAPL, Excal ( who I believe is the original builder ) used for JDI and I like it a lot. The french Specs Modest Lati lead to force damages on Steel types and adds more safety into waters like Suicune that can be annoying when your speed control hits on the special side. SkarmPert, simple, efficient; HO weak but with Ton as Scarfer we are safe; Brave Bird is good for opposite Gengar and Loom and since we have Ton we don't need Taunt; Roar on Pert to abuse of Spikes and to not give free DD to Gyara and since he has very low Breloom usages I cheated on that. Sub Split Gar will break through his Hippo Blissey stalls, will OHKO glasscannons threats and force damages on Steel types. Magneton adds a safety vs offense, traps CB Zor / Scarf Gross and helps Lati / Gar to spam their resisted by Steel STABs. DD Tar has every condition needed to win games; Aqua Tail was prefered since it hits Hippo / Glisc / TTar / Nape / Tran and Rhyperior; Chople might be better overall, up to you.
Cool team.
Important datas ( spread I used since like 2022 ) :
252+ SpA 30 IVs Heatran Hidden Power Grass vs. 240 HP / 72 SpD Swampert: 340-400 (84.7 - 99.7%)
252+ SpA Life Orb Kingdra Hydro Pump vs. 240 HP / 72 SpD Swampert in Rain: 338-400 (84.2 - 99.7%)
Week 9 vs. BIHI :
We were 100% qualified and they were 100% out iirc. We wanted to get the first place for better seeding for POs. And my objective is to get a W to be better into POs and to finish reg season with a positive record. Nothing particular here, I already explained the " prep " and the team in the TB comp thread so let me post again :
I didn't consider stall and paraspam in the buider so if the team is insta losing to it it's prob cause of this, changing some sets can prob fix that ig ? I just wanted to use Raikou for last regular season week of SPL cause Raikou is our mascot ( #logik ) ! I tried some aboma kou things but without dug it's just shit and BO route with SpD skarm and friends is just boring ngl, déjà vu moment. So I went back to my fav teamstyle aka Spikes HO with Skarm lead. Then time to put some stuff together and let's try to get good synergies !
I like Suit Meta here ( gives free spikes to skarm but oh well kekw; mashless ? ) cause Lati is a pain to face for Mixed / Special Offense and Skarm lead means that you need a Lati answer ( that's why it's so hard to build aroud off spiker back skarm, can't switch on specs lati and start stacking hazards after, SpD is imo for BO route ); Lum is cool for Gar and fast Loom but Occa max Speed can be considered for Heatran. Scarf Rotom classic antispin and revenge killer. Then we have Raikou; LO is weird on it but trust me because it hits really hard once it's at +1 : if you manage to get rocks + 1 spike you will OHKO stuff like Machamp / Bold Zapdos / bulkless Jirachi etc. Breloom / Glisc aren't supposed to come on you cause they fear HP Ice so HP Grass was perfect and even then +1 LO SBall is a 2HKO on Bulky Glisc and Loom; Grass is cool for Pert which is a common answer; LO allows you to 2HKO Clef / SpD Hippo btw; Rash Nature with Aurasphere is ofc good for Clef / Tar but then gl vs Nape / Gar / Lati... maybe manageable by trading pokes ? Suicune cause Gyara / Tran are annoying: Lum can be considered but since I already have LO on Kou I don't want to get 6-0 by sand kekw. And without Modest nature you don't really make a diff vs Clef / Lati with or without Lum anyway. And then yeah you want another steel type and a wincond that can take easily advantage of the holes that Cune and Kou created. Can be Lucario but Off Rachi is a pain to deal with so SD Occa Scizor was more appealing ( with Luc it looks like to BIHI's Spikes HO team, kek ); STABed BPunch is always good ( esp for DD Tar and Dnite ) and Bug Bite makes a huge diff vs Rachi; Suit isn't needed here because Meta has it.
5V - 4L
Week 6 vs. Void :
Since week 2, I knew exactly who was at the prep with Void. I directly knew how the prep would go and I sticked to what was more consistant to my eyes. So yeah after some Togekiss / SD Scizor builds I went for the Jolly SD Loom route :
I wanted a surprise effect with CB Tar lead because players expect it to be Scarf or Sash and it would still trap Lati and potentially Starmie / Celebi. Zapdos x Starmie is a core that I almost never use because I don't like to use it ( player pref ... ) but since SD Loom route means para support they were the perfect core to start with; so now we have a super solid ZapMieTarLoom core. I completed it with the classic Wish Jirachi to force paras on Steel / Fire types which is big and with a SR SpD Clef that hard wins vs Starmie and wins vs other spinners. Then the masterpiece that I stole from twash : the Loom set that destroys slow teams that rely on Starmie for speed control. Being faster than Ada Gyara / Ada DNite / Modest Tran / Def Zap / Def Cele / Def Rachi / Jolly Fire Blast TTar and almost every Brelooms makes an ENORMOUS diff. It allows me to use it very aggressively vs offense and vs slow paced teams I can Spore annoying counters like Celebi / Zap which counter me without Spore ( unless I reach + 4 or 6 which is hard without Spore ). So yeah if don't spread para I can just Spore abuse and click SD again; being bulky helps a lot vs fast Rachi. And since we have TTar to remove Ghost types we can go for Facade + Superpower. I ignored Gengar in the builder because no way they will use it, it's not consistant enough to their eyes and since they seemed to only trust the brokens ...
Team is good but I think I trolled a bit with CB Tar lead ... didn't work as I wanted.
Week 7 vs. Dridri :
Seeing Dridri performing well wasn't good. Some of his teams were really weird so finding a good prep angle was difficult so I prefered focus on my own scout. 0 Spikes / 0 TSpikes ... bruh. Looking at what he played I thought Roserade was really good. I made some balance teams with Rose x Curse Gastro but it wasn't good in tests because Sandless feat Gastro made me hyperweak to Loom while stacking hazards with rose isn't easy so hard to pressure Loom. So with Jay we made changes and it feeled much better in tests; I also thought that it was time to abuse of the banworthy move Confuse Ray :
This team is oriented on TSpikes as you can see. ZongNidoLatiClef is a very good combo : Zong absorbs the pressure of Ghost and Steel types and is able to 1v1 Starmie thx to Payback ( you can replace Explo by Extrasensory [and not psychic cause pps too low] to hit Loom ); Nido helps vs waters, is our sleep absorber, hits Skarm x Loom with FlameT and Roar prevents Nido to be a setup folder for Gyara; Lati will force Tyra in can 1v1 it with Reflect which is big for Rotom; Cosmic Clef is mostly here to destroy offense esp with TSpikes ( Knock needed to help Rotom in his 1v1 vs Clef ). We kept the Scarf Rachi because it will help vs stall thx to Trick, adds some pressure with IHead + TSpikes combo and adds speedcontrol. Finally the demon set is here : as I said in my first post Confuse Ray is broken because it costs nothing and gives you 50% chance to bs opp which is insane. Thx to that you can now bs TTar, Pert, Clef that doesn't have Encore, Breloom etc etc. You force switches, forcing them to take TSpikes and then the rest of the team should be able to win.
I regret my team choice, Double Spikes Rose team was better into his team. The team isn't good enough and still have majors issues but I swear I will find the perfect way to abuse of CR and force a ban. <=== Bro thought he was Osgoode XD
Week 8 vs. Laurel :
Same reasoning as above but this time no way I lose myself in the prep. I felt at the beginning of the tour he wasn't using his stuff ( DBC's builds ? ) and lost a lot but after he started using what seemed to his own stuff he claimed a lot of wins. Sub Split Gengar looked good into most of his teams so I tried to build around double Ghost type teams but when Jay and M Dragon aren't convinced you know what it means ... we stick to tried and true. WE STICK TO TRIED AND TRUE. While looking at some 6 with Jay, this one caught my attention ( absolutly not because there's a Magneton ... ^^ ) :
Gondra used it vs me for RoAPL, Excal ( who I believe is the original builder ) used for JDI and I like it a lot. The french Specs Modest Lati lead to force damages on Steel types and adds more safety into waters like Suicune that can be annoying when your speed control hits on the special side. SkarmPert, simple, efficient; HO weak but with Ton as Scarfer we are safe; Brave Bird is good for opposite Gengar and Loom and since we have Ton we don't need Taunt; Roar on Pert to abuse of Spikes and to not give free DD to Gyara and since he has very low Breloom usages I cheated on that. Sub Split Gar will break through his Hippo Blissey stalls, will OHKO glasscannons threats and force damages on Steel types. Magneton adds a safety vs offense, traps CB Zor / Scarf Gross and helps Lati / Gar to spam their resisted by Steel STABs. DD Tar has every condition needed to win games; Aqua Tail was prefered since it hits Hippo / Glisc / TTar / Nape / Tran and Rhyperior; Chople might be better overall, up to you.
Cool team.
Important datas ( spread I used since like 2022 ) :
252+ SpA 30 IVs Heatran Hidden Power Grass vs. 240 HP / 72 SpD Swampert: 340-400 (84.7 - 99.7%)
252+ SpA Life Orb Kingdra Hydro Pump vs. 240 HP / 72 SpD Swampert in Rain: 338-400 (84.2 - 99.7%)
Week 9 vs. BIHI :
We were 100% qualified and they were 100% out iirc. We wanted to get the first place for better seeding for POs. And my objective is to get a W to be better into POs and to finish reg season with a positive record. Nothing particular here, I already explained the " prep " and the team in the TB comp thread so let me post again :
I didn't consider stall and paraspam in the buider so if the team is insta losing to it it's prob cause of this, changing some sets can prob fix that ig ? I just wanted to use Raikou for last regular season week of SPL cause Raikou is our mascot ( #logik ) ! I tried some aboma kou things but without dug it's just shit and BO route with SpD skarm and friends is just boring ngl, déjà vu moment. So I went back to my fav teamstyle aka Spikes HO with Skarm lead. Then time to put some stuff together and let's try to get good synergies !
I like Suit Meta here ( gives free spikes to skarm but oh well kekw; mashless ? ) cause Lati is a pain to face for Mixed / Special Offense and Skarm lead means that you need a Lati answer ( that's why it's so hard to build aroud off spiker back skarm, can't switch on specs lati and start stacking hazards after, SpD is imo for BO route ); Lum is cool for Gar and fast Loom but Occa max Speed can be considered for Heatran. Scarf Rotom classic antispin and revenge killer. Then we have Raikou; LO is weird on it but trust me because it hits really hard once it's at +1 : if you manage to get rocks + 1 spike you will OHKO stuff like Machamp / Bold Zapdos / bulkless Jirachi etc. Breloom / Glisc aren't supposed to come on you cause they fear HP Ice so HP Grass was perfect and even then +1 LO SBall is a 2HKO on Bulky Glisc and Loom; Grass is cool for Pert which is a common answer; LO allows you to 2HKO Clef / SpD Hippo btw; Rash Nature with Aurasphere is ofc good for Clef / Tar but then gl vs Nape / Gar / Lati... maybe manageable by trading pokes ? Suicune cause Gyara / Tran are annoying: Lum can be considered but since I already have LO on Kou I don't want to get 6-0 by sand kekw. And without Modest nature you don't really make a diff vs Clef / Lati with or without Lum anyway. And then yeah you want another steel type and a wincond that can take easily advantage of the holes that Cune and Kou created. Can be Lucario but Off Rachi is a pain to deal with so SD Occa Scizor was more appealing ( with Luc it looks like to BIHI's Spikes HO team, kek ); STABed BPunch is always good ( esp for DD Tar and Dnite ) and Bug Bite makes a huge diff vs Rachi; Suit isn't needed here because Meta has it.
5V - 4L
.
Semi-Final vs. Sergio Aguero :
I'm going to be quick here. The plan was to use Infernape cause I looked good into their scout and again this is not a mon I use a lot. They would surely expect some sort of bulky team so using fight spam was a good prep angle. Jay told me to use CB Nape but the few teams I built were just bad in tests. I also asked SoS, the Nape enjoyer, if he had some ideas for me. He showed me a few teams but I was still not convinced. I thought at that point that I was going to use some balance team that I had as backup but I decided to trust the original call and I finally found a Infernape team that looked good to me :
Not mine again yeah, Pideous is the builder, he used it for JDI vs Roro. This team is like the one from week 1. It doesn't really have bad MUs if you know how to use it. ZapLoomTar is a strong synergy ( I don't think I need to explain why lol ). Infernape adds immense pressure once Lati / Gar have been removed, Tran is a good rocker esp with Passho cause good into Mie and Lati gives a second chance if we don't click correctly with Nape. I did minor edits like Zap now outspeeds Timid Cune and Lati has less bulk but still enough to live +1 IFang from Gyara after rocks. Again I refused to load a team bad into stall when I'm not 100% sure of what I was going to face.
Great team.
Tiebreak vs. Elodin :
I assumed directly that I was going to face the " brokens " : someone was going to give him a strong team, easy to pilot and to understand that will abuse very well of the broken mons of the metagame. My objective was clearly to counter that. I explored Scarf TTar + Rotom Stall, NP Togekiss, Fat SD Glisc paraspam ... Every ideas were good but they all had weaknesses that I couldn't ignore vs the Scooters. So I went back in time and took back something that gave me satisfaction, the prep vs Void. We fight fire with fire :
Yes I already used this 6 but I made some cool edits that allowed me to be better into the " brokens ". Jirachi is now Scarf to insta win vs Azelf and Aero and to also help vs potential rockers like Zong / Meta / Pert etc etc helping Starmie to get the spin off; gives also free entry for Breloom. Zapdos U-Turn to scout the team, to be better into Clef and again to give a free Toxic Orb activation. Starmie is Starmie. Clef is now bold because I was super scared of a fucking (Fire Punch) Jirachi bsing my Zap; it also walls Pert meaning less pressure on our wincond that you can't expose stupidly since we don't have Wish anymore on Rachi. CB Tar is now faster than slow Loom and is in the back to keep the " surprise factor ". Then SD Loom remains the same with the same objective : destroy slow teams that rely on Mie for speed control.
It's absolutly not my comfort zone but I love the 6, I find it to be very very solid and it's easy to edit it to be better into some MUs while still being good into other MUs. Even M Dragon tested it and approved it. Surely my best build of this SPL.
Finals vs. Dridri :
Stalling Dridri wasn't a good plan since he loaded some good antistall stuff into me during reg season. I also thought he wasn't going to stall me ( don't ask me why lol ). While I was looking at the scout I noticed two things : almost 0 spinners with a lot of grounded pokemons ( déjà vu ... ) and all his teams are slow in general. Two important conditions to my eyes for the Spikes MixGon angle. So I searched for MixGon teams, looking for the St Graal. I tried two diff teams, they were good. In tests MixGon was so bad and useless but I didn't want to do the same mistake ( week 7 ) so I trusted my call :
twash used this 6 during reg season vs Tyrants and when I saw it I was like " yeah this typically what I would load vs Dridri ". So yeah again I stole the 6 and made my own version ! I've been interested in the double scarf core since week 8 because it fixes a lot of offense issue and since my teams are usually more prepared for stall than offense I thought it was the perfect timing to bring it. Breloom + Rotom completes perfectly each others, same synergy as Mach Loom + Scarf Rotom but with more speed control ( great vs Nape / Lati / Gar esp when using MixGon ). Then the classic MixGon set paired with an offensive back Skarm to stack easily on his Swampert / Milo etc etc; Lum good for Loom esp when we have IBall Meta. When using offensive Skarm you need a proactive bulky Steel; IBall Gross was my choice. And then DD Tar came pretty much naturally cause it has really good synergie with the rest of the team : Spore x Trick ( setup opportunities ) + Taunt x Spikes x MixGon x Iball ( immense pressure on DD Tar checks ); since he had almost 0 Fighting type prio Lum was my choice.
6V - 6L
Semi-Final vs. Sergio Aguero :
I'm going to be quick here. The plan was to use Infernape cause I looked good into their scout and again this is not a mon I use a lot. They would surely expect some sort of bulky team so using fight spam was a good prep angle. Jay told me to use CB Nape but the few teams I built were just bad in tests. I also asked SoS, the Nape enjoyer, if he had some ideas for me. He showed me a few teams but I was still not convinced. I thought at that point that I was going to use some balance team that I had as backup but I decided to trust the original call and I finally found a Infernape team that looked good to me :
Not mine again yeah, Pideous is the builder, he used it for JDI vs Roro. This team is like the one from week 1. It doesn't really have bad MUs if you know how to use it. ZapLoomTar is a strong synergy ( I don't think I need to explain why lol ). Infernape adds immense pressure once Lati / Gar have been removed, Tran is a good rocker esp with Passho cause good into Mie and Lati gives a second chance if we don't click correctly with Nape. I did minor edits like Zap now outspeeds Timid Cune and Lati has less bulk but still enough to live +1 IFang from Gyara after rocks. Again I refused to load a team bad into stall when I'm not 100% sure of what I was going to face.
Great team.
Tiebreak vs. Elodin :
I assumed directly that I was going to face the " brokens " : someone was going to give him a strong team, easy to pilot and to understand that will abuse very well of the broken mons of the metagame. My objective was clearly to counter that. I explored Scarf TTar + Rotom Stall, NP Togekiss, Fat SD Glisc paraspam ... Every ideas were good but they all had weaknesses that I couldn't ignore vs the Scooters. So I went back in time and took back something that gave me satisfaction, the prep vs Void. We fight fire with fire :
Yes I already used this 6 but I made some cool edits that allowed me to be better into the " brokens ". Jirachi is now Scarf to insta win vs Azelf and Aero and to also help vs potential rockers like Zong / Meta / Pert etc etc helping Starmie to get the spin off; gives also free entry for Breloom. Zapdos U-Turn to scout the team, to be better into Clef and again to give a free Toxic Orb activation. Starmie is Starmie. Clef is now bold because I was super scared of a fucking (Fire Punch) Jirachi bsing my Zap; it also walls Pert meaning less pressure on our wincond that you can't expose stupidly since we don't have Wish anymore on Rachi. CB Tar is now faster than slow Loom and is in the back to keep the " surprise factor ". Then SD Loom remains the same with the same objective : destroy slow teams that rely on Mie for speed control.
It's absolutly not my comfort zone but I love the 6, I find it to be very very solid and it's easy to edit it to be better into some MUs while still being good into other MUs. Even M Dragon tested it and approved it. Surely my best build of this SPL.
Finals vs. Dridri :
Stalling Dridri wasn't a good plan since he loaded some good antistall stuff into me during reg season. I also thought he wasn't going to stall me ( don't ask me why lol ). While I was looking at the scout I noticed two things : almost 0 spinners with a lot of grounded pokemons ( déjà vu ... ) and all his teams are slow in general. Two important conditions to my eyes for the Spikes MixGon angle. So I searched for MixGon teams, looking for the St Graal. I tried two diff teams, they were good. In tests MixGon was so bad and useless but I didn't want to do the same mistake ( week 7 ) so I trusted my call :
twash used this 6 during reg season vs Tyrants and when I saw it I was like " yeah this typically what I would load vs Dridri ". So yeah again I stole the 6 and made my own version ! I've been interested in the double scarf core since week 8 because it fixes a lot of offense issue and since my teams are usually more prepared for stall than offense I thought it was the perfect timing to bring it. Breloom + Rotom completes perfectly each others, same synergy as Mach Loom + Scarf Rotom but with more speed control ( great vs Nape / Lati / Gar esp when using MixGon ). Then the classic MixGon set paired with an offensive back Skarm to stack easily on his Swampert / Milo etc etc; Lum good for Loom esp when we have IBall Meta. When using offensive Skarm you need a proactive bulky Steel; IBall Gross was my choice. And then DD Tar came pretty much naturally cause it has really good synergie with the rest of the team : Spore x Trick ( setup opportunities ) + Taunt x Spikes x MixGon x Iball ( immense pressure on DD Tar checks ); since he had almost 0 Fighting type prio Lum was my choice.
6V - 6L
.
We were so close. I lost my game and they got the first blood. That sucked a lot.
While I was in a call, after watching our last game and defeat in finals, my friends told me " in less than 1 year you made top 6 at JDI, you won RoAPL with a 8-1 record then you played SPL as a starter, you did 6-6, you played a TB game for your first SPL and your team manage to reach the finals, that was insane, realize it ! " ... but the fact I threw a lot of games and the lack of final victory, of final positive RESULT hurt hard, really hard. Too much frustration against myself ... The imposter syndrome ... Yeah. Mood was terrible so I played to different video games during the next 2 months to change my mind and to most importantly not play to pokemon showdown.
I have fun on video games by tryharding. I hate to be bad and lucky, I hate to win while I'm playing like an idiot, I hate when the result isn't perfect to my eyes. Losing while being so close to the trophy hurt more than expected but at least it allowed me to realise the number of hours I put into the game; I realised how bad my approach was, how toxic it was. I was disgusted. I played so much hours, so much that I wasn't having fun anymore while the most important is to have fun. How can I win, how can I be mentally strong, how can I not do stupid mistakes / chokes, how can I be in a good mood if I have this kind of mentality ? This is simply impossible.
I needed a break so I could purge myself and think again about my approach.
I didn't touch to PS for almost 3 months. Very recently I played some friendlies and started to think about the actual meta but I'm still far from going back into it at 100%. It helped me a lot to chill and to prepare a new cycle. Even if it was hard to not give up, the experience was memorable and unique in the good way and gives me now satisfaction. We fail but we scale.
s/o to z0mOG and Genesis7 for always supporting me even in my terrible moments. Your dms were very important to me. Greatness restored.
s/o to the Tigers, you were all great mates esp M Dragon for his help in the DPP chan and Trosko for being inspiring during all the tour.
s/o to every DPP helpers esp Jay who was on the serv since day 1.
s/o to the Conf, Primal Slayers, DPP serv, Pampu Gang and CTF serv where everything started for me.
s/o to everyone who cheered me or gave me advices during my journey ( Roro <3 ).
I also wanted to thank BIHI for his sharp and accurate words after my loss in TB. This helped me a lot to move foward. Thank you.
We were so close. I lost my game and they got the first blood. That sucked a lot.
While I was in a call, after watching our last game and defeat in finals, my friends told me " in less than 1 year you made top 6 at JDI, you won RoAPL with a 8-1 record then you played SPL as a starter, you did 6-6, you played a TB game for your first SPL and your team manage to reach the finals, that was insane, realize it ! " ... but the fact I threw a lot of games and the lack of final victory, of final positive RESULT hurt hard, really hard. Too much frustration against myself ... The imposter syndrome ... Yeah. Mood was terrible so I played to different video games during the next 2 months to change my mind and to most importantly not play to pokemon showdown.
I have fun on video games by tryharding. I hate to be bad and lucky, I hate to win while I'm playing like an idiot, I hate when the result isn't perfect to my eyes. Losing while being so close to the trophy hurt more than expected but at least it allowed me to realise the number of hours I put into the game; I realised how bad my approach was, how toxic it was. I was disgusted. I played so much hours, so much that I wasn't having fun anymore while the most important is to have fun. How can I win, how can I be mentally strong, how can I not do stupid mistakes / chokes, how can I be in a good mood if I have this kind of mentality ? This is simply impossible.
I needed a break so I could purge myself and think again about my approach.
I didn't touch to PS for almost 3 months. Very recently I played some friendlies and started to think about the actual meta but I'm still far from going back into it at 100%. It helped me a lot to chill and to prepare a new cycle. Even if it was hard to not give up, the experience was memorable and unique in the good way and gives me now satisfaction. We fail but we scale.
s/o to z0mOG and Genesis7 for always supporting me even in my terrible moments. Your dms were very important to me. Greatness restored.
s/o to the Tigers, you were all great mates esp M Dragon for his help in the DPP chan and Trosko for being inspiring during all the tour.
s/o to every DPP helpers esp Jay who was on the serv since day 1.
s/o to the Conf, Primal Slayers, DPP serv, Pampu Gang and CTF serv where everything started for me.
s/o to everyone who cheered me or gave me advices during my journey ( Roro <3 ).
I also wanted to thank BIHI for his sharp and accurate words after my loss in TB. This helped me a lot to move foward. Thank you.
Dw about me I have my 2024 package for myself and for Classic tryhards ...
SPL Package
SPL Teambuilding ideas for every week
RoAPL 2023
La Matinée final paste ( teambuilding vids serie )
SPL Package
SPL Teambuilding ideas for every week
RoAPL 2023
La Matinée final paste ( teambuilding vids serie )
If you have questions dm me on Smogon / Discord ( le_don_pokemon ). I'm out, peace.
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