(Click on sprites for the pastes)
Week 1 vs zS (Win)






Returning to the tier after the NUCL loss streak was quite challenging, especially while facing a high caliber player like zS. This team was far from optimized and you can tell it based on some on the Amoonguss and Flygon sets, that are quite suboptimal, but I feel like the main ideas (SD Migo and NP Rotom-Heat) were great calls. Looking at momo's FCL players' scout, we noticed the teams were often pretty slow and the fighting resists had been Grass/Poison types and slower Ghost-types so far, despite being quite defensive teams, offering opportunities for Flamigo. Rotom-Heat was picked because momo was known for loving NP Ninetales, Dragon Move Less Fat Flygon, and Magician Klefki, three Pokemon with bad matchup into NP Rotom-Heat. There are some sequences that I could have played better in the middle game, but I eventually won the mindgame at the end and with it the victory. This set me on the right foot and was a win I clearly needed to get some confidence back.
Week 2 vs Nashrock (Win)






Week 2 was a crazy week because I was visiting family for half of the week and was still in every open for Slam. This left me with little time to prepare and a team that once again had some pretty blatant weaknesses. Compared to last week, I wanted to flip some of the weaknesses I had, such as my hazard game since I had no spinner and no spikes against zS, and I decided to repeat mons from last week. The team ended up being quite okay despite lacking a good plan against Bellibolt teams. Fogbound Lake was extensively testing that Pokémon that week and I kept losing to it, so I was quite scared when Nashrock revealed one at preview. I honestly thought that was doomed, but it turned out alright. Nashrock didn't tera anything into a Fighting resist, letting me spam free Close Combat with Tauros, while also letting me weaken Bellibolt with Tsareena. I was happy with how I played and happier with that team than last week's.
Week 3 vs DugZa (Loss)






So I eventually jumped on the Bellibolt hype train and wanted to try it out. I also knew DugZa was the kind of player to use boring balances, which Scrafty is usually great onto and it gave me a great Ghost resist, something I hadn't bothered to cover in week 1 and 2. I also figured out a status spam strat could work fine against DugZa, especially if he couldn't use his tera for Poison / Steel because of a Tera Fairy to cover Scrafty. At the end of the day, the team struggled of the lack of Steel-types and I definitely should have made one of the defensive pieces a Tera-Steel user. DugZa brought a Normal spam balance and I had to trade Basculegion for Porygon-Z, leaving me with no hope of beating Bulk Up Breloom. I knew that Pokémon was a hard matchup from test games against OBB, but I got quite surprised by it being Tera-Elec which wasn't standard at the time. Honnestly that team was pretty trash with an underwhelming Flygon match-up too, and even if the game got quite close at the end, I think it's better to avoid looking in that direction again.
Week 4 vs Danny (Loss)






Feeling unhappy with my loss with balance, I switched back to offense and recreated something similar to
the NUCL team I used against Mada. I wanted to use broken Porygon-Z since it was still allowed and I should stop myself from bringing honnest teams only. So Danny brought a team that was quite prepared for Porygon-Z with Bronzong, Diancie, and Incineroar, but managed to almost lose to it just because of how broken this Pokemon was. Anyway, Ho3n was meant to bring the same team as Danny, except for the Flygon set. I wrongly assumed Danny was band, skipping the turn it attacked my Flamigo and not noticing it hit 4 times and not 3. This error costed me the game as Tera Ghost Specs Shadow Ball was easily cleaning up in the endgame (as the Flygon was Adamant); this was a very embarrassing way to give Danny his first ever win against me (I'm still positive against him, whether he likes it or not).
Week 5 vs crying (Win)






This was crying's first game in the season and I knew they usually go with their own teams, so I had nothing to scout. They are known for bringing some quite creative techs and mainly using hyper offense or stall. Scarf Florges and Swords Dance Incineroar are good Pokemon against both in my experience; while Kilo usually farms offense and Vaporeon with removal is great at playing the long game against more defensive teams. At the end of the day, I messed up my endgame by not roaring the struggling toxicroak for no reason, but eh odds still were in my favor (afaik) and I won. Looking back, the team feels a bit slow to use and it's hard to keep momentum with it.
Week 6 vs Kiyo (Loss)






There was a double sub on week 6, and I ended up preparing a team for MC. Kiyo's scout was full of Bronzong and not so many Ghost-resists, so our idea was to build around Chandelure. I built two teams, a Ghost spam and a special spam, and that's with this one that MC ended up rolling. We got rained and the matchup was less than ideal, not much else to say.
Week 7 vs BIG TONY 2014 (Win)






So we brought an earlier version of the team to the game, because Ming linked the wrong version :rolling_eyes:. Anyway, Tony doesn't like bringing Water-resists so we brought Inteleon + Toxicroak, the old reliable GXE core. The rest of the team is a quite standard defensive core aimed at laying hazards up. Tony brought the one Pokemon that beats Toxicroak + Inteleon, but instantly traded it against Diancie. So Inteleon just destroyed him, even if the Goodra version would have cooked harder.
Semi-Finals vs BIG TONY 2014 (Win)






I got to beat Tony myself this time and take revenge for NUCL finals. The idea was to bring Goodra again as it had a great matchup against what Tony brought in week 7 and we believed Tony wouldn't be bad enough to not bring something for Inteleon again. Well, Tony brought 0 water resist and Goodra had a bad matchup. Nonetheless, Copperajah proved to have an insane matchup, while Meloetta found itself in a great position once Bronzong was eliminated. I'm happy with how I played that one, though the team wasn't perfect.
Finals vs DugZa (Win)






Once again, I preperrade for balance when facing DugZa. Didn't make the same mistake of forgetting the Steel-type, and added Duraludon, a Pokémon OBB had been high on and matched well into some of Shengineer's most used Pokemon's like Kilowattrel, PH Breloom, and Diancie. The call this time was PH Breloom, which farmed a lot of balance and also matched up well against that stupid Pokemon called Bellibolt. Added Sylveon to be able to last against other balances, Incineroar to break faster than Breloom, Tentacruel for removal, and Kilo for speed control. The team is quite weak to Toxicroak on paper, but fortunately the tera types on Sylveon, Duraludon, Kilowattrel, and Incineroar all help against it, while DugZa seemingly expected Gligar and brought Ice Punch Toxicroak which had a poor match-up there.
Finals tiebreak vs Loocas13 (Win)






Ho3n ended up editing the team, to make it more offensive, but here was the original idea I had. Slowbro seemed good based on the high use of Tauros-Water and Breloom, and could play long games against the usually passive teams of loocas. Scrafty was added for similar reason and defensive synergy, helping out with Dark- and Ghost-types that could annnoy Slowbro. Vaporeon brought a necessary Water resist and Wish support for Duraludon, which well was just as good in Ducks scout as last round. Kilowattrel and Scyther were added for Speed control, key immunities, and removal. Eventually, loocas brought a Rain team, which is not ideal when facing Vaporeon + Duraludon, so I feel like Ho3n probably would have won without the edits, even if his version had a much better matchup.