Resource Battle Spot Past Generations Discussion Thread

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Main post + SV teams can be found here

oras stuff:

Week 1 vs Akaru Kokuyo

This was my first time ever playing gen 6 BSS and also my first time building for this format. I decided to do nothing too crazy and go with a very basic team and focused more on practice and getting more experience playing the tier from test games. It worked really well tho and after some tweaks and stuff, I have to say that this is probably the best team I have built the entire tour and the one I personally like the most. Togekiss is probably a mon that can be replaced with something like a Cresselia but I personally brought it cause Akaru just brought a lot of fat mons before and it seemed like a good bring here.

Week 2 vs Akeras

Since I was still getting used to the format and everything, I didn't want to build anything too crazy yet so I stuck to some pretty basic stuff again. This team is built around the strategy of using one of the 2 broken megas to punch holes into the enemy team to then get healed up to full again through Lunar Blessing Cresselia while getting supported by some other mons. That strategy worked wonders and this is overall another team I'm very happy with.

Week 3 vs feen

ngl for this week I just wanted to use Gengar because that mon looks fun and I haven't used it yet. I guess that's one thing that comes with playing an entirely new format, I just see all these cool new pokemons that I wasn't able to use in ages and I wanted to try everything. This can be seen very well as I brought 18 unique mons in my first 3 weeks. That being said this team again stuck to a rather basic style. lead Garchomp is just an insane mon (imo the best non-mega mon) and the mons like Talonflame + Rotom-Wash bait in stuff that you can then trap and kill with Gengar. Pretty fun team

Week 4 vs Gravity Monkey

For this week I wanted to try something a bit more unconventional but it sadly didn't work. I'm honestly not going into too much depth as I am not really happy with this team since it has some pretty clear weaknesses. In my games I got absolutely destroyed by Cresselia + Gengar and yeah, although I think I could have won it if I clicked some better mons (Volcarona mainly) this is a team that needs to be improved some more. It does cover the very basics of the format so it's not that terrible but I think in order for me to ever bring this team to another tour, I'd first have to fix some of the issues this team has.

Week 5 vs bp

We were already out by that time when I played for the week 5 game so I knew I could try something more fun again. I really wanted to build a team around Manectric-Mega and specs Volcarona cause those 2 mons just seem pretty funny and also have some decent synergy. The team can overall work perfectly fine (mostly carried by the other mons tho but Volc + Manectric are still doing their job) but the team is insanely weak to greninja, which my opponent did end up bringing. I'm still happy with it tho as it's a fun team that definitely works although it could definitely still be improved, obviously.

 

[Cao Jie]

Hello there, i figured out it was the right time for a "little" Post-BSSPL GBU teamdump (and SM) with my imperfect english

week 1 vs Mishimono (W)


Since we didn't have much to scout for week1, i decided to go for a classic team, with dragon dance life orb dragonite which didn't be very useful in the games and no bug move volc so i can have hidden power ice to hit dragonite/garchomp/latios, was hesitant a while between hidden power ice or ground but prefered ice idea so i don't autolose to dragons, giga drain for water types and having some kind of recovery after setup, and fire blast for a strong fire move, rest of the team is fairly classic.

week 2 vs qrChar (L)


In week 2, i didn't have much time to prep, so i went for a team i already played a couple of times the past 2 years for BSS Classics, Flame orb reuniclus can help with trick for crippling physical attackers, or taking myself the burn to avoid being asleep. Offensive version of Suicune which can surprise, lum ferrothorn to avoid a potential burn/sleep

week 3 vs Ronin (W)


For this week, haters may say that i overprepped for breloom shenanigans, and they're right between lum volc, flame orb protect conk, mamoswine, substitute thundurus. Since i didn't know how Blue Ronin played, i went for a team anti-BS which worked pretty well, Mamoswine is faster than max speed breloom by 1 point, and i have chople so i can tank 1 non banded terrakion hit or any conkeldurr move once, rest are just classic sets again

week 4 vs MZ (L)


There, i decided to go out of my comfort zone, bringing a dragmag with terrakion to have a faster fighting type, that was probably the week i had the most fun to build in, and it would've worked if i didn't pick Dragonite like a noob in g3

week 5 vs Moose (W)


We figured out that for this week, volcarona had once again a good matchup into Moose scouts, so is abomasnow, rest is classic. Ran passho volc because moose likes water, as a last mon, i wanted a fairly defensive pokemon so tried out porygon 2

semis vs Charlotte (W)


There, the mon who stood up to us during the building process, it was Reuniclus, went TR LO for raw power , and possible trick room to revert speedtiers, TR can be profitable for Conkeldurr with fist plate also for raw power, and sleep talk to help a bit versus breloom. still electric gem thundurus because it's a great set overall, scarf Latios so i can beat non scarf latios , and scarf ones if i win the speedtie, looking back at it, i would've put trick over hidden power rock and psyshock over psychic.

finals vs luisin (L)


I went for a more offensive thundurus set with focus blast to hit potential tyranitar, Conk flame orb protect to avoid being spored by brelooms, bug gem volcarona because it doesn't have many ins, suicune which could help for the sand matchup, mamoswine for another breloom response, and Latios for it's raw power, i'm pretty unhappy on how i played this one

(SM) finals tiebreaks vs twincell (L)


First, i didn't plan to run that team, but with the tests i ran during the entire week, the original team wasn't convincing at all, struggling to some stuff i couldn't afford to be weak to. then during the game, i cried from inside as soon as i saw suicune/kartana because my previous team had a very good matchup to this core, I didn't play well the tiebreakers anyways, and i didn't build myself here, that team seemed good enough into twicell's scout.

Now, time for the shoutouts (it'll be short)

Thanks to Micciu yone being great managers, it was exhausting, but i had fun playing for raptors

Shoutouts to Gravity Monkey Seo. HATS for building insights and tests

Emboar02 avarice qsns RoFnA for being amazing teammates

Also shoutouts to RL Lyna for being shadow cheerleaders

And lastly rest in peace Blue (Ronin), you'll be missed.

 

[Gravity Monkey]

hello hello hi hi im gonna talk about oras a little

so by some grace of god i went 4-0 during bspl, not what i was expecting but im obviously very happy with that performance! I definitely had a lucky roll, I was bailed out by rng a few times but still, after deep diving for 4 weeks, some thought clouds have started forming in my brain and i will now let them rain on the forums (???????????????????) anyways this is probably kind of obvious stuff but i still wanted to yap

- Status is sooo broken whatthefuckkkk like ok. Obviously we're in oras right, so thats pre-nerf para, pre-nerf burn, pre-nert prankster twave so like evidently its better than its been later, but I think the meta environment is what pushes it over the edge. Oras is a lot more incremental than any other bss past gen; without gimmicks like gems, z-moves and dynamax OHKOs are very rare unless youve been caught severely out of position, plus the better mons of the tier are pretty bulky in general. Status lend themselves very well to that sort of gameplay. Paralysis especially gives options against a lot of otherwise unwinnable matchups just by virtue of how free it is (all oras players know that the answer to a lot of random bs sweepers is twave thundy then pray), and toxic/wow have use cases in a majority of matchups. I genuinely think if ur not running twave/glare + one of the other two in your team youre kinda trolling, to me theyre as vital to this tier as hazards are to smogon singles. The same applies inversely as well: if you dont have a plan against status then what are you doing.

- So we all know oras is very top heavy, just like vgc chalk-like stuff is everywhere, and I started to realize why during this pl. Its hard to explain, but it really feels like some mons just,, give you more options. In most pokemon formats ive played, each mons on a team have very specific roles theyre trying to accomplish, kind of like cogs in "the machine" that is your team. In that sense, oras bss feels distinctively different that to me. The way Id compare it to is kinda like a fighting game: people tend to gravitate to characters that have a toolkit that allows them to answer most things, and also a toolkit that feels comfortable. This is kinda how I feel about oras. Some mons just let you accomplish more? Like, they feel reliable, like they have ways to deal with most things that can be thrown your way. Maybe the more apt comparaison would be with a league of legend team: yes each member has a role, but they also each have their options that, when played well, can be used for a variety of other things, and theyre also individually harder to get taken advantage of. Youre relying a lot more on your skill as a player than the inherent strength of the mon, matchups are a lot more often 30-70 than 0-100. Status is definitely a part of it, like of course fishing for full paras gives u more outs, duh.

- On that last thought, to me the best mons in the tier are definitely thundy, chomp and cresselia, like a solid notch over everything else, megas included (more on that later). And the cool thing about them is that theyre really not rock-paper-scissor between each other, each have options against one another and it really depends on the set; thats a big part of my earlier feeling about the tier. Im not sure why cress is only A+ on the actual vr, if anything i think it might be even better than the other two by just the sheer amount of stuff it checks. Obviously this my personal two cent, i havent been playing this meta for very long compared to ppl who played this in current gen, im probably missing stuff. In A+, outside megas, i think id put talon, aegi, suicune, heatran, ferrothorn and gren.

- On the subject of megas. The big bad wolf of the tier is and has always been kang, im not making u learn anything here. It is strong, like yea it hits super strong and always seems to have the move that fucks u team up just right. But this also means every team is imo borderline overpreped for it? Its on the mind of every current builder, and I think it was on the mind of every builder that ever submitted a team to rotoportal. This to me feels like it makes teams open to a lot of alternative breaker/sweeper megas, especially teams that rely on that "twave and pray" approach. At the very least, at a personal level during this PL, ive had more success when bringing megas that are a little more obtuse in how to not die to them. In that sense, I feel like the meta is a little wider than some might assume. Special shoutout to the mega-blastoise I almost brought to finals lmfao. And also shoutout to mgengar this fucker deserves its spot in s tier.

- I did a lot of "adapting" this pl, taking more proven teams and tweaking them for the needs of the specific week and trying to cover past bad matchups. I only ended up building from scratch a single time for week, for semis, but it was by far the week i had the most fun, so im hoping to build some more in the future. Here it is as a little post pl gift or maybe more as a losing team concession hahaha

Very aggressive team, the idea is that mblaziken and serp can lure stuff that allow aegislash to have a field day cleaning after. In that sense its more of an usum-core team than an oras one. The team also has a more standard mode which is just sr + ddmence go brrr, which ended up being the one i brought vs akaru.

some closing thoughts and shoutouts:

First of all rest in peace Blue (Ronin) , I had no idea such a tragedy happened until lasen's post. Gone way too soon.

Secondly, STARAPTORS LETS GO RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. It was a beautiful tournament until the very very last set, and despite this unfortunate ending this was the pl ive had the most fun on smogon ever. Being able to talk with fellow frenchmen obv had something to do with it, but everyone in the team was a goat in and of themselves. Shoutouts to qsns Emboar02 RoFnA avarice Micciu HATS for being carries at different points in the tour, and even more special shoutouts to Cao Jie yone and Seo. who all dug deep with me. I know it was frustrating for some of you guys, but I hope in due time we all realize how special this team really was. Im still sorry for game two of finals btw I SWEAR I WAS DDING TO NOT GET KINGS SHIELDED. I WASNT TRYING TO SWEEP. IT WAS TACTICAL I SWEARRRR

most special shoutout to Supra-Airmure the platonic love of my life who sympathized with the enemy in the middle of my set vs akeras im still floored by that

lastly and most importantly the BIGGEST SHOUTOUT to BSS OLD GENS. Guys. Lets be frl. Why can we only play gbu oras and usum twice a year??? its classics, bspl or NOTHING. I am CRYING and BAWLING. and SHITTING MYSELF. These metas are the most fun things available on pokemon showdown dot com and I would cut myself a leg if it meant having a third tour a year. genuinely. Do,,, do you guys,,, really wanna play r*g J instead?? Really???? Can we make some more old gens happen????

alright this is it, see u guys sometime in 2026 probably, bye bye