Re:
and Sand balance,
We saw an astounding 6/8 Gliscor in week 2 and another 2/10 in week 1, combining for a total just shy of 50% usage. While this number will go down as the sample size increases, Gliscor is still a great pick right now. I feel that it suits the metagame's more balanced pace now, much like Leftovers pivot Landorus-Therian fit the metagame's more bulky-offensive pace during the early stages of last SPL. I feel that these Sand balance teams that are heavy on Protect, suffocating Ferrothorn, and Magic Guard Psychics with speed also are a reason for the decline in conventional offensive Rain builds. The metagame has reacted well to them with these archetypes and I feel these trends even predate SPL with players like SoulWind, ABR, and even myself on occasion relying upon them in their Classic run earlier in the year at points. Within this archetype, we have seen some nice range, too. Shawyu with the Seismitoad, obii rocking the offensive Heatran, my Roar Latios, SoulWind with some fresh cores featuring Celebi and Slowking, etc. -- I wonder if the future of the metagame will continue to be more balance oriented as opposed to bulky-offense centric in the coming months. To me, this seems more likely now than ever before.
Re:
outside of DragMag,
I'd be lying if I said I was a big fan of all applications of this historically -- some people over-rely on Magnezone as a glue, for instance. However, in a metagame that is as reliant on Ferrothorn as ever, it seems like a very promising development if used properly. I personally feel Magnezone is best used with a spinner or at least a few Spike immune Pokemon on board. The teams in SoulWind-Caetano both were good examples of this from a "try out these 6 Pokemon" POV I feel. I am curious to see if we will continue to see this as Magnezone's usage in the metagame has been pretty limited. To me, it almost feels as if this trend was inevitable. We saw a pick-up in generation 7 Magnezone exploits and an even bigger surge in generation 6 Magnezone exploits, so it trickling down was not the biggest shock. I always found it fascinating how one trend in one generation inspired another. This has happened before with BW, too. For those people who are zoomers or were not in touch with BW 5-7 years ago, Choice Scarf Landorus-T was not big during BW itself, but picked up in usage as it did in the XY metagame as well. It has been one of the most common sets since then, of course.
Re:
and other offensive Rain Pokemon,
We have seen very few of these Pokemon, if any at all. They had their moments in the spotlight last year when the metagame was perhaps a bit more proactive, but now it seems they are sliding under the radar. I worry that the abundance of anti-Rain/Magic Guard heavy Sands may hold them back more with time, too. I do think Thundurus-Therian has potential to destroy a lot of teams regardless of what they have, so I predict we will see at least some of it in coming weeks. However, Starmie and even Keldeo may see less usage than normal, which is saying something seeing as Starmie Rain has already been on the decline for a couple of years due to Tentacruel being absurdly good and hard to pass up on.
I'm not going to go over every game this week, especially seeing as dice-elodin never happened, but I do want to touch on some things.
click for replay
SoulWind's team was really cool, in my opinion. It was eerily similar to Insult's build from last week, perhaps even taking a page out of his and McMeghan's book, but it absolutely worked. To refer to what I said then,
Insult's team looks unique. It feels like a modernized variant of the team McMeghan used (see:
here and
here) lots of in the past with Celebi over Amoongnuss (also, his Magnezone was Magneton at time). I do not want to provide too much input on this quite yet as I play Insult this coming week, but I will say that the dedicated defensive core this team makes use of two Pokemon -- Celebi and Gastrodon -- that we do not see a lot and it is very effective, so massive props to the Bigs BW core for this one. Also, always cool to see different applications of Magnezone in the metagame.
I feel that the application of Celebi is enabled by Magnezone; Celebi being stonewalled by Ferrothorn is problematic, but Magnezone solves this, especially with Excadrill to remove Spikes. This also enables Tyranitar and Gastrodon, which both struggle to check things with Ferrothorn (Spikes) being present. One final thing I enjoyed here was the choice to use SD + Ice Fang Gliscor. With Celebi and Gastrodon for Rotom-Wash, being walled by it was not a big deal at all. With Magnezone to trap Skarmory and Leech Seed/Worry Seed Ferrothorn, struggling against them was not a big deal at all. This was the perfect team to fit this set on to and I think there are a lot of similar ways to integrate Gliscor on to teams properly, too. This is just one of the best examples that highlights a tournament wide trend.
Caetano's team was also unconventional, employing a double electric core that you do not see very often. I have less commentary on it specifically, but I do believe that any team with Gliscor+Magnezone and enough support right now can be dangerous. I feel that Caetano may have invested himself a bit too much in to the trapping concept by going all-in on Eject Button Ferrothorn, likely trying to catch a Latios on Draco Meteor with Pursuit Tyranitar getting in safely. Aside from this, his team seemed pretty wise though. I will not offer much more of a comment now as we play this week, but it is always a pleasure seeing what the doctor comes up with.
The game itself highlights SoulWind's mastery in the metagame pretty well. He simply does not make many mistakes. SoulWind absolutely fell behind early in the game after he lost Gastrodon against Magnezone+Rotom-Wash for virtually nothing due to a drop -> critical hit in the Tyranitar sequence. However, he rebounded nicely, much like he did against Shawyu, by ramping up the tempo of his play a little bit and making the opponent outplay him to earn the win. It has been a struggle for people to do that and while Caetano perhaps got close, he ultimately was held back by his own ambitious Ferrothorn item choice and SoulWind's strong end-game execution. I am honestly really curious to see how this would have played out if the Ferrothorn was not Eject Button; I think it would have been more open, but regardless a very deserved victory for SoulWind. I'm sure Caetano will have some great showings himself down the stretch, too, especially after he
loses to plays me this week
click for replay
This was an absolutely crazy game. Frania was using a 6 we have seen before -- similar to the build I used in Classic vs Tamahome and a number of other Jellicent balances. It is a very solid structure and his approach going into the game seemed great. I do not have much else to say about it as it is a very solid team without many gimmicks or surprises, but the ability to beat just about every opposing structure you are likely to see is present. Jimmy Turtwig also brought a great team that played as a pretty standard build with Terrakion in the "filler" slot that you may usually see a Latios in. The main drawback of using Terrakion there is that you struggle against Keldeo a bit more than normal builds as you have no true counter. However, he did not encounter Keldeo, so this was entirely irrelevant here and Terrakion actually posed a massive threat to Frania. Overall, both teams were solid and there was nothing really out of the ordinary to express about them.
As for the game, I personally believe Jimmy's execution was strong throughout. While he got no mileage out of his seemingly blind Terrakion, he was able to restructure his gameplan as the match transpired, which is an impressive skill that I feel only a veteran like Jimmy could do without breaking much of a sweat. He got so much out of his Alakazam and Landorus-Therian throughout, which was absolutely needed seeing as he needed quite literally every single last HP from both of them in order to emerge victorious here due to some obstacles he encountered. I think his ability to take some large risks with Landorus-T, especially after he got the first Earthquake wrong, and then Alakazam in the closing stages of the game really highlights some great BW play. Unlike more modern generations that have a ton of hazard removal, Regenerator, and Magic Guard users not weak to Pursuit, BW is a tier where a lot of progress is permanent and games are defined by proactivity as an extension of this. Jimmy went far out of his way to weave in-and-out of trouble throughout the game, creating openings through sequences he thought up on the fly. The Earthquake into Gliscor to hit Excadrill and the Alakazam on the Gliscor's Protect to save just enough HP are great examples of this.
I do not think Frania even made any mistakes down the final stretch of this game either. In fact, I think that he may have had a few sloppy turns, but his overall understanding of his win condition was strong and he made some great plays as well. I just feel like Jimmy really stole the show with his own positioning. I feel like this game was much more in his wheelhouse than his struggle to break through week 1 against Insult. As for Frania, his 0-2 is completely unfair, especially after his unfortunate match against me week 1. I am confident he will rebound strong.
Alpha Ruiners - Frania, Separation, Raichy 
Circus Maximus Tigers - Dice, Meridian, Watashi 
Congregation of the Classiest - Steve Angello, Fakes, Jacob 
Cryonicles - Finchinator, Malekith, Posho 
Dragonspiral Tyrants - Elodin, John W 
Ever Grande BIGS - Insult, McMeghan, Zokuru 
Indie Scooters - Caetano93, snøfall 
Stark Sharks - SoulWind, Luispeikou 
Team Raiders - Jimmy Turtwig, BIHI, Eeveeto 
Wi-Fi Wolfpack - shawyu 1313, Mael 
BW OU
.
Nalorium out 
Shadow Ball -> Signal Beam
Finch's Colbur + Roar Latios
