Hello everyone, and welcome to RBY Grand Slam III! RBY Grand Slam is a six-Open into Playoffs tournament to decide the strongest RBY Lower Tier player of the year! Previous editions and winners can be found below.
RBY Grand Slam I: Won by Ice Yazu
RBY Grand Slam II: Won by MrSoup
RBY Grand Slam III: Won by gastlies
RBY Grand Slam II: Won by MrSoup
RBY Grand Slam III: Won by gastlies
This year's format consists of five separate tournaments: The RBY Ubers Open IV, The RBY UU Open IV, The RBY NU Open IV, The RBY PU Open III, and The RBY ZU Open I. Players will be awarded points for their performance in each Open; the results can be found here.
Thank you to our hosts and artist & congratulations to our winners! Additional thanks to Amaranth and phoopes for helping pioneer RBY Grand Slam.
- The RBY NU Open IV - Hosted by hammer798 and Teh - Won by Amaranth
- The RBY PU Open III - Hosted by Theycallmephil and gastlies - Won by Sabelette
- The RBY Ubers Open IV - Hosted by Acetylaldehyde and Wanted in 49 States - Won by Amaranth
- The RBY UU Open IV - Hosted by Maris Bonibell and Sabelette - Won by Wanted in 49 States
- The RBY ZU Open I - Hosted by Zpice and Wanted in 49 States - Won by Zpice
1. Sabelette - 4th playoff appearance (25 points; PU Open winner; 0/7/7/11/0 pts)
Guest writers: gastlies and GirlsSeeGhosts
In a Grand Slam lineup full of new faces, there's no sight quite as ordinary as Sabelette going into the final bracket. Sabelette is the only player who has made playoffs all four years. Not only that, she has always been in the top half of the seeds. Sabelette is THE face of RBY's Lower Tiers, consistently adding to what is already the most expansive RBY Lower Tiers trophy case ever. However, one accolade has remained elusive to her so far: the title of RBY Grand Slam Champion. She has always been cursed with getting knocked out of the first round of playoffs. Still riding the high of a PU Open win and a fantastic 7-2 record in UPL, she is ready to make
2. Zpice - 1st playoff appearance (23 points; ZU Open winner; 3/1/3/7/9 pts)
Zpice took Grand Slam by storm as one of two playoff contenders to put up points in every Open, impressively winning ZU Open at the very end to sneak into second place. With no prior accolades in RBY's lower tiers, Zpice has nonetheless shown up big here to score the second seed off of especially strong performances in PU and ZU. While not known for his RBY prior to this tournament, the Imaginary Used founder has shown he can bring it here and put up wins - will he make the plays to claim this Grand Slam, or is his run as fictional as the tier he created? He'll have to show he can play at least three of these tiers to a win each week to take the crown, but it seems he's got two locked down, so perhaps a victory is not too far out of reach.
3. Wanted in 49 States - 1st playoff appearance (22 points; UU Open winner; -/9/3/5/5 pts)
Wanted in 49 States has been an RBY lower tier player since his first days on this site, first showing up in PU and innovating with Scyther long before it became a tier staple. After some early struggles in both individual and team tournaments, Wanted has surged into a perennial contender. He showed up in three Top 8s during Grand Slam and won UU Open over Sabelette on top of consistent deep runs in individuals, and somehow maintained this while on the run from the law in 98% of U.S. states (the last one, Iowa, apparently fears him too much to put out a warrant). While he still struggles with some of the finer points of these metagames, he's shown he can beat anyone when the chips are down - we'll have to see if he can string the wins together here to take it to a trophy.
4. Amaranth - 1st playoff appearance (20 points; NU Open and Ubers Open winner; 9/-/11/0/- pts)
Guest writer: gastlies
Once in a while, an SPL-level RBY OU player decides to try out RBY's Lower Tiers and ends up sweeping all the mainers. The most recent occurence of this event taking place is Amaranth's Grand Slam run. Amaranth's first dip into RBY NU was in ALTPL, ending up with a respectable 3-1 record in the tier. He then proved he was the best RBY NU player since Serpi by winning the RBY NU open, already making him most of the way to playoffs. After an unfortunate PU run, he decided to give it a go in Ubers—and won that too! Amaranth is here, in the top half of playoffs, only scoring in 2 opens, both of which he won. His RBY skill and intuition for lines in the tier might be enough to beat the mainers, or the mainers may prevail, teaching Amaranth to put down the lasagne and stick to more serious tiers.
5. THE_CHUNGLER - 1st playoff appearance (19 points; NU Open finalist; 0/0/9/7/3 pts)
Perhaps the funniest name in the tournament and another new face in RBY, THE_CHUNGLER has chungled their way into a solid fifth seed with strong runs in NU and PU, losing to Amaranth and Sabelette, respectively, near the end of each tournament and notably taking out Wanted in 49 States, Maris Bonibell, and Sabelette on the way to NU Open finals and hammer798 on the path to PU Open semifinals. While their playstyle has been pointed out to be reliant on high-risk plays, it clearly worked out here, with 19 points mostly concentrated in two deep runs, though THE_CHUNGLER is our first participant to not have won an Open. Here, though, it's only three sets to win to take the tournament, so perhaps they can chungle their way to the end on the back of some aggressive clicks and surprise the field.
6. hammer798 - 1st playoff appearance (19 points; ZU Open semifinalist; 1/3/5/5/5 pts)
Mister consistency, hammer798 got into RBY via NU and quickly got pulled into all the other tiers, and it has paid off - he put up points in every single Open to make it to sixth seed here, notably putting up wins against THE_CHUNGLER, Sabelette, and Zpice as well as past Grand Slam winner MrSoup. He also has past RBY team tournament wins in ALTPL III and RBYOMPL and just recently took his first individual, winning RBY NU Cup IV through an incredibly tough bracket that started at Sabelette and ended at Maris Bonibell, so he's perhaps a little bit more used to the many stresses and surprises of RBY than some of the other competitors here. However, he's had the lowest peak of any competitor within Grand Slam, with his best runs only consisting of three consecutive wins - two Top 8s and one semifinals. It'll be up to him to prove once again that he's not just consistent, but capable of climbing to the very top.
7. Toxin Boost - 2nd playoff appearance (16 points; PU Open finalist; -/-/7/9/- pts)
Toxin Boost has long been the hidden boss of RBY lower tiers. and is the only other repeat appearance in Grand Slam playoffs, but he finally got his big team tournament breaks with a barn-burning 7-0 NUCL III and excellent 4-1 RBYPL V, both in RBY NU. No longer in the shadows, Toxin Boost put up a solid semifinals appearance in NU Open, losing to eventual victor Amaranth, and made it to finals of PU Open, losing to Sabelette. These were, by the way, his only two tournament entries during Slam, and they were the first two Opens - he got his points and dipped, only losing to two top contenders along the way, and notably, he knocked Sabelette out in Grand Slam III playoffs. His relative lack of experience in Ubers, UU, and ZU may be his downfall here, though clearly he can show up when necessary and pull out wins anyway. Is it finally time for him to take a proper individual win after many deep runs and incredible team tournament records?
8. ButtGallon - 1st playoff appearance (16 points; ZU Open finalist; -/5/3/1/7 pts)
ButtGallon is another newer RBY player à la Wanted, finally making a breakout run after initially struggling in perhaps the most difficult and contested era of RBY lower tiers to date. Putting up strong performances in UU, where he made it to semis before losing to Sabelette, and ZU, where he lost finals to Zpice, he's looking at a third match against Sabelette after the aforementioned UU Open and an early exit from RBY PU Cup. He's going to have to put on a really strong performance to win from the last seed, but he's shown the ability to break out and surprise his opponents. Let's see if he can continue Sabelette's streak of first-round Grand Slam outs and perhaps take himself to the top or if he'll be the first casualty this time.
Round 1
1. Sabelette vs 8. ButtGallon
2. Zpice vs 7. Toxin Boost
3. Wanted in 49 States vs 6. hammer798
4. Amaranth vs 5. THE_CHUNGLER
All sets are best of five, defined as first to three wins. The higher seed will pick the first tier to be played (out of Ubers, UU, NU, PU, ZU) and the loser of each match will then pick which tier the next match will be played in. In the event of a tie, the match will be replayed in the same tier.
REPLAYS ARE REQUIRED FOR ALL MATCHES
Legality is the same as during Opens - partial trapping is not banned in UU-PU, Slowbro and Victreebel are not legal in UU and below, Rapidash is legal in PU.
Round 1 Deadline: Sunday August 10th at 9:00 PM GMT-7
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