Project OU Puzzle Club - Week 5

[HydreigonTheChild]

team 1

- i think zama is AoA, despite the team being more so offensive based i feel lando-t is special, kyurem is also special, and cind might be a bulkier variant. So zama being AoA with boots allows it to break through walls with good power when pivoted in by cind, and lando
- Lando is prob bulky variant, the team kinda gets rolled over if its anything but that and with it being a special variant, it gives a team an out vs zamazenta who doesnt like taking earth power + helmet chip. Also rocks allow garg to be free up to use its slots for better uses. Also prob tera water, the team sucks into rain
- Cind is bulky, with no removal and 5 grounded pokemon i expect this to be court change, also wisp allows to stop non sub zama-h and other physical attackers like tusk which annoys them a lot
- tink is prob the standard paste variant, pickpocket allows to steal smth like boots or lefties for itself and make them more vulnurable to hazards and chip dmg for ex. meow clicking u-turn
- kyurem is prob specs, if it was boots i doubt the team would want bulky cind and instead want smth else as all boots is prob not gonna want removal, so specs kyurem appreciates no hazards
- i think its curse garg, curse garg allows the team to accumulate chip on many mons and esp steels which can help kyurem in the future. Salt cure for even one turn can allow kyurem to be much more dangerous into smth like heatran, gholdengo, primarina, dirge, etc.

team 2

- its prob off gouging fire, the team isnt very def to allow bulky to sit around and do stuff so its prob one set that can put as much holes or take advantage of them the easiest
- hex pult with wisp is pretty nice support for gouging fire as it allows it to setup on many physical attackers
- its prob bulky tusk, this team lacks a rocker and despite how much i dislike fat tusk, its prob defensive as well to help vs gambit in the late game
- sp. def slowking would synergize well with the phys def tusk so this would be a nice pairing, i expect ice beam on this set to deal with gliscor which is very annoying otherwise
- standard gambit set, maybe bulkier lefties to help with specs pult and dark moves in general
- prob boots meow, i think pult + gambit + itself is enough for scarf to not be needed and knock off is great support for late game gouging fire esp since gouging fire can take advantage of steels who try to switch into meow

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I bet team 1 has the advantage, i think off zama does very well into such a team and with lando-t being threatening enough to the opposing team, it also deals very well with gouging fire, gambit, and slowking-g while kyurem applies a crap ton of pressure onto slowking-g and the specs kyurem switch ins on this team arent that good long term esp since helmet lando-t accumulates chip on gambit which makes it easier to spam

 

[TheDuckChris]

Week 4 Solution - Replay

Team 1

@ Leftovers - Crunch / Iron Defence / Body Press
@ Rocky Helmet - U-turn / Earth Power
- Pyro Ball
@ Leftovers - (Mold Breaker) Knock Off / Encore / Gigaton Hammer
@ Leftovers - Substitute / Protect / Freeze Dry / Earth Power
@ Leftovers Tera Fairy - Recover / Salt Cure / Earthquake

Team 2

@ Leftovers - Flare Blitz
@ Choice Specs? - U-turn / Shadow Ball / Hydro Pump
@ Leftovers - Ice Spinner / Earthquake
@ Boots? - Sludge Bomb / Future Sight / Chilly Reception
@ Black Glasses? Tera Dark - Sucker Punch / Iron Head
@ Boots? - Knock Off

The match begins with Tinkaton vs Dragapult, knocking off some leftovers from the bulky Great Tusk on the way in. Kyurem comes in on Ice Spinner, revealing it is a bulky set with leftovers. After getting some chip on the expected Slowking switch in, we do the Tinkaton Great Tusk dance again until Landorus comes in but gets hit with a nicely timed Ice Spinner for 57. Both teams continue to pivot around with Tinkaton and Slowking doing most of the work until turn 15 when Dragapult is out against Landorus.

Team 1 switches into Garganacl to shut down the expected hex pult but gets hit with what looks like a choice specs Hydro Pump for 66. Garg is forced to tera fairy and recover, leading team 2 to retreat into the Slowking and try to get some more momentum going with Knock Off Meow. Despite luring Garg with the Hydro Pump, it is becoming apparent that it can simply sit and vibe against most of team 2's pokemon, especially since no hazards have gone up. Gouging Fire comes in to try to break some walls, but Garg escapes at 14% and Landorus outspeeds gouging fire to get the first kill with 9% left before going down to Dragapult.

From here we are back to tinkaton pivot action leading to some advantageous Kyurem pressure against the weakened team 2, pressuring slowking with earth power and outspeeding the bulky tusk. On turn 28 team 2 saves Slowking only to take a huge Earth Power on Kingambit, leaving it unable to safely stay in on a Kyurem that can sub up to avoid sucker punch. Predicting the sub, Dragapult comes in but takes a 100% freeze dry to the face.

Team 2 is down pretty bad at this point. They try to pressure with Meow but Zamazenta comes in, manages to 1v1 Slowking down to a double death, and the endgame comes down to Kingambit and Meow vs Cinderace Tinkaton and Kyurem. Tera dark sucker punch OHKOs cinderace but Tinkaton is still at over 85% and outspeeds, so it cleans up vs the two remaining dark types.

Analysis: Team 1 had a great matchup in this game with the Tikaton-Garganacl-Kyurem core having good switch ins to all of team 2's threats even considering the unexpected set on Dragapult. Team 2 had outs by pressuring with Great Tusk but it ends up not doing enough, partly thanks to getting Knocked Off turn 1. Team 2 also had a crucial weakness in that it never got up Stealth Rock vs a team with 4 leftovers users. Neither rocks nor spin was ever revealed on Tusk so we do have to wonder what the set was.

Best answer: HydreigonTheChild's post
Some misses here but a lot of hits. Bulky cinderace does look to be the set, as court change was definitely needed to support the 4 leftovers users. Specs kyurem was actually leftovers sub, but the emphasis on it needing hazard control due to not having Boots was the correct idea. Bulky tusk on team 2 was also correct which may fit the team but definitely had an unfortunate matchup here with the sub leftovers Kyurem.

 

[TheDuckChris]

Week 5

Prompt: Who wins from this position and how? Explain by stating the best path to victory for each player based on potential sets and team details.

Revealed Information

Team 1
@ (not boots or booster or leftovers) - Stealth Rock / Rapid Spin / Headlong Rush - Fainted
- 100%
@ Booster Energy (Speed, previously used) - Knock Off / Moonblast - 94%
@ Leftovers - Sucker Punch / Kowtow Cleave / Iron Head - 42%
@ Rocky Helmet - Volt Switch / Hydro Pump / Will-O-Wisp / Pain Split - Fainted
@ Nothing (Assault vest knocked off) - Sludge Bomb - 100%

Team 2
@ Leftovers - Moonblast / Knock Off / Moonlight - 53% PSN (took 53 from sludge bomb Slowking)
@ Boots - Future Sight / Chilly Reception / Sludge Bomb - 60% BRN
@ Rocky Helmet - Roost / Spikes - 100%
@ Boots - Earth Power / Freeze Dry - Fainted
- 100%
@ Boots - Stealth Rock / Ruination / Whirlwind / Earthquake - Fainted

Tera has not been used on either side
Regenerator percents are the true % not the hovered %
Feel free to ask for any other inforomation that might have already been revealed

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

analysis on rest of the mons

Team 1
@ (not boots or booster or leftovers) - Stealth Rock / Rapid Spin / Headlong Rush - Fainted
- 100% (prob some form of fire punch set due to skarm screwing with gambit, tusk, and mixed valiant prob nto having tbolt to threaten it, it may even be encore)
@ Booster Energy (Speed, previously used) - Knock Off / Moonblast - 94% (prob cc and encore last as encore for zama-h is pretty darn important)
@ Leftovers - Sucker Punch / Kowtow Cleave / Iron Head - 42% (i would gamble on tera ghost gambit for the sake of being able to 1v1 skarm being much easier as a result, but the result i would say is prob tera fire to not die to pult wisp as easily)
@ Rocky Helmet - Volt Switch / Hydro Pump / Will-O-Wisp / Pain Split - Fainted
@ Assault Vest - Sludge Bomb - 100% (yeah... its prob standard av slowking with psychic noise / future sight as zama-h into this MU can be pretty darn annoying with no chilly, boots, toxic, or even recovery)

Team 2
@ Leftovers - Moonblast / Knock Off / Moonlight - 53% PSN (took 53 from sludge bomb Slowking) (slowking-g is sp. attack invested which means this clef is like max sp. def calm)
@ Boots - Future Sight / Chilly Reception / Sludge Bomb - 60% BRN
@ Rocky Helmet - Roost / Spikes - 100% (prob body press + ID last)
@ Boots - Earth Power / Freeze Dry - Fainted
- 100% (i believe its standard... with maybe roar or sub on this team. Slowking-g deals with special valiant, enamorus, and potentially tera fairy from some mons while clef handles cc, knock variants from valiant and skarm handles the phys 3 attacks valiant)
@ Boots - Stealth Rock / Ruination / Whirlwind / Earthquake - Fainted

this is tough... as av slowking-g kinda owns the other team but zama-h once it gets going against smth like kingambit or the dragonite (which idk if its encore, its prob espeed, fire punch, eq)

Despite this i think smth like tera steel zama-h with attack investment prob does insanely well into the opp.. with ID on smth like gambit (prob tera fire for WoW pult) or dragonite (prob not encore or CB) it will be hard to 1v1 it with valiant as valiant loses to tera steel and cant even OHKO it which means u will prob have to encore it into press and try to use slowking to prob psychic/future sight it which is def gonna lose to tera or max attack crunch

I think the plan is to get spikes up and try to get zama-h in vs gambit to win the game from there... often times the valiant and slowking-g cant do shit to it.. and once the zama-h uses tera its unlikely that slowking-g and valiant can do much to it.

 

[Fangirl Twitter]

Pretty sure this is guaranteed for team 2 after spike -> clef sac -> future sight + terafire zama cleaning the whole squad.

Sets

Team 2 looks to be just the boots spam sample team with spdef clef over weavile, which would mean tera fire zama and dragon bb whirlwind skarm. Its possible the player changed the zama set to tera steel ironpress, but I think it still has heavy slam +crunch which is more than enough to clean house. Leftovers vs boots also doesn't change this battle much, but having defense investment instead of max attack
Team 1's tusk is probably both tera ghost, and ival might be too since rotom is 100% tera steel. Gambit is probably tera fire. With the amount of fighting resists on their team it shouldn't be ghost, and tera flying seems odd with 2 ground immune teammates and the fact that kyurem probably earth powered vs it earlier in the battle as it switched into rotom. Its possible dnite is tera flying tera blast, but I don't think we'll see it revealed.

Player 1 is probably gonna slowly sac mons to zama, try to preserve dnite as a win con, fail to get the tera water surf turn right vs fire zama, and get swept by sludge bomb and future sight from glowking. Skarmory is probably going to end up dying to avking to get team2's glowking regened up, or to force ival to take spikes with whirlwind.

 

[TheDuckChris]

Week 5 Solution - Replay
This game was an interesting one due to the presence of the somewhat uncommon AV Slowking-g, which is not a threat to underestimate. As was mentioned by both answers, Zamazenta looks to have a good matchup here with tera still available to stop a Valiant revenge kill, as well as some potential for spikes to help with a weakened Kingambit and the aforementioned slowking.

Player 2 seems to agree that zamazenta is the play here, and goes Zama right off the bat. This is aggressive and especially considering the potential help a layer or two of spikes might do, Skarmory was more expected. We get a classic double tera as Zamazenta reveals Tera Steel + Heavy Slam which just misses out on the Tera Dark Valiant who moonblasts for 20% chip damage. Slowking comes in to revenge and Player 2 senses something is up, so switches out to their own Slowking as Player 1 reveals Flamethrower. Unfortunately Player 1 then folllows that up with Psyshock, taking out Player 2's Slowking.

Player 2 has nothing to do at this point. They come back in with Zamazenta, and trade 50% damage with Crunch and Flamethrower. They even predict the Kingmabit switch in and Close Combat for the KO, but it doesn't matter. Slowking is able to keep switching out to regain health, and Flamethrower + Sludge Bomb is able to clean up Zamazenta, Skarmory, and Clefable. Dragonite even Encores clefables set up attempt when Slowking gets low.

Analysis: Ultimately the game was thrown when Team 2 pulled the Zamazenta trigger a little early before setting up spikes. However I'm not sure this would have led to a win for team 2 even if they did go Skarm first. Even with 3 layers of spikes up (which Valiant would surely try to prevent) Crunch does not OHKO Slowking, meaning Zamazenta is always taking that 50% chip from Flamethrower, and with a couple smart switches would probably end up going down the same way. Perhaps team 2 could have tried to set up with Clefable but Dragonite's Encore can prevent that from getting out of hand. In the game chat Player 2 says they messed up, but I think the advantage was for Player 1's side throughout, thanks to having the right 4 moves on Slowking at the right time.

Best answer: HydreigonTheChild's post
The two main elements of the game are correctly identified here. For Player 2, Tera Steel Zamazenta with Crunch and Attack investment is indeed the team composition, and does quite well into Team 1. However, AV Slowking really does "kinda own the other team" even more than identified here. The main miss is saying that slowking can't do shit to Zama because clearly in this case, it did.

 

[TheDuckChris]

Week 6

Prompt: Which team has the advantage in this battle?
Explain by discussing what sets you think the pokemon are running and what might be the biggest threat to the opposing team.
Bonus fact: One of these players complained that the game was "unlosable" for them if they didn't get haxed.​

 

[Go West]

2 probably beats1 with hazard stack and weavile. 2 has ways to threaten 1 but 1 can revenge them easily. 1 can basically get good progress every time they have momentum. Player 1 probably lost the game to some crits from dnite and then said its unlosable if they didnt get haxed.

 

[burstslinky]

player 1 (the deo offense team) probably won by haxing player 2, or who knows, maybe the goat primarina just lead 6-0d with sub tera steel cm dkiss surf and outplaying every turn
player 2 (the weavile team) has a really menacing mon in weavile, who kinda cooks half of p1's team, and slowdog-chillionaire (glowking) can check prim if it hasnt tera'd
p2's moltres also can beat the dnite depending on the set, and they also can wear down every mon on p1's team very easily with hazards

player 1 however does have an absolute demon of a threat in primarina who can definitely break p2's team if not played around well

edit: forgot to put cm on the idea prim set cuz im a dumbass

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Week 6
View attachment 646420
Prompt: Which team has the advantage in this battle?
Explain by discussing what sets you think the pokemon are running and what might be the biggest threat to the opposing team.
Bonus fact: One of these players complained that the game was "unlosable" for them if they didn't get haxed.​

For the bottom team, the unlosable MU is prob having phys def moltres, weavile, and future port with potentially an SD gliscor of their own. This MU looks very winnable for 2 as the weavile just kinda goes uncontested esp since prim, deo-s, and gholdengo prob can fire off attacks but get stopped by gliscor + slowking-g as idt depending on the dengo set. While this doesnt work long term it works enough that u can get to weavile and start clicking buttons

If this was anything other than a bulky variant of prim then this team would struggle immensly into weavile where weavile just spams axel + knock and forces a crap ton of progress and bulky prim really doesnt have much to hit this team with esp with raging bolt, slowking-g, knock weavile, etc. At +2 weavile just clicks button and forces a tera from smth to stop it from going to town which can allow raging bolt to do the same

I think its phys def moltres, sp. def boots slowking-g, SD weavile, Maybe spikes gliscor probably but I believe SD + Facade to PP stall corv works out better, rocks tusk, and standard CM raging bolt
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For the top I believe its Spikes gliscor, rocks ting lu, boots deo-s, boots NP gholdengo, AV prim, and fast ddnite and i think weavile just gets to many chances against this team to really do well esp since dnite is forced out, gholdengo prob is to, gliscor and ting lu want nothing to do with it and prim is easier overloaded...

 

[Demon Queen]

Week 6

Prompt: Which team has the advantage in this battle?
Explain by discussing what sets you think the pokemon are running and what might be the biggest threat to the opposing team.
Bonus fact: One of these players complained that the game was "unlosable" for them if they didn't get haxed.​

Had to give this one a lot of thought, but I'm going to guess this autowin suggestion came from team 1. Much of team 2 struggles to make progress into its bulky grounds, and Deoxys gets pretty free knocks on everything. No removal leads me to think this is a boots prim, but in the right position it looks like substitute CM could quickly run away with the game. The two pressure points of Glowking and Bolt are both held off by Gliscor and Ting. Furthermore, I'm guessing Team 1 is running SD Gliscor, with their Ting picking up hazard duty. It certainly wouldn't be difficult for Gliscor to tera and take out Weavile, and now team 2 has lost their main progress maker. Plus, with Ghold additionally pressuring Moltres, Dragonite can easily clean up the game. Given this, I'm uncertain what the hax was. Perhaps an SD Gliscor speed tie, or just an unlucky crit.