Time to cover these games in chronological order let's go!
So watching this game back for the analysis, it's interesting to see both sides bringing a Hattrem. The hazard game is washing us rn and Hattrem is a decent response thanks to Magic Bounce as its ability. Horii has the memo of a ghost type spinblocker but Mirbro elects to not bring one and both teams aren't spikes stacking. You'll also be very surprised by how much Servine did vs a team that arguably has the most Servine answers slapped onto a team. I think I can say that the playerbase was thinking Servine fell off a cliff but it's on the comeup again, seeing how it won every game it made an appearance in. Taunt seems to be the way around grass answers like Tinkatuff specifically and Servine still possesses good utility in Knock Off, allowing it to continue to be a progress-maker. Now the game itself was pretty standard to me imo but as the game goes on, you start to notice Mirbro doesn't really have the matchup they're looking for. I feel like their team is lacking progress makers even with the probable Band Thwackey (I wasn't running calcs so correct me if I'm wrong) and only one Knock mon in Tinkatuff. I also think Linda (Fletchinder for the zoomers) without Boots is clearly a shitter because if you come in a situation where Quax can't spin, like it did vs Dusclops one point during this game, you're just losing half your HP for no reason and that's what happened to our bird right here and boom, now Mirbro is never getting rid of rocks and eventually Servine cleaned and Taunt just beat two mons that should just hard counter it.
I told y'all not to sleep on the former TL but no one ever heeds my words... Anyway, vooper loads tspikes into no grounded poison but has Linda for Defog, boots Raboot, and floating eel so it's not the end of the world. I do like Nakoruru's team because Seadra is the GOAT but Linda is so mid imo. Though braindead banded Piloswine from Nakoruru's side applies quite a bit of pressure into a team with no ground immunity. The game is honestly quite a back and forth of momentum, whether that's from Quaxwell's Flip Turn, Seadra's Flip Turn, Linda's U-turn etc and it culminates into a close end-game where vooper is frankly at the mercy of banded Piloswine but a ill timed crit from Quaxwell's Flip Turn bailed him out of losing a mon and in the end, Servine clutches another game with spamming Leaf Storm. Bro is really on a generation run right now.
One of the most hyped games of the week vs two strong players. Team wise, PD's team catches my attention. Two of the goats in Eelektrik and Fraxure is always nice to see. The latter I feel always gets passed up in the builder but SD is still quite a dangerous set in the lategame when everything is chipped. Switcheroo Frogadier with
Life Orb of all items was interesting to see and for a hazard stacking team that's lacking a ghost-type, sleid was never really able to get off the hazards with Quax. Turns out the Fraxure was actually DD and took out a few mons before dying to Monferno's Vacuum Wave. Now the game went pretty south for sleid, who was in a winning position when Fire Blast missed on Ivysaur and then Ivysaur proceeded to 1v1 both of sleid's last mons Quaxwell and Dunsparce. What a tough position to be in that I know too well, you basically won the game but the hax said "no". I think we had good showings from Fraxure and both Monfernos, which was cool
I'll have to admit the Best Cook Awards for Week 1 have to go to the Mane Removers, 2-0 in their slot using formerly washed mon Servine and two first-stage pokemon. Idk if I call this an upset but seeing Dragonillis lose week 1 was not in the cards. I think Terracotta got the ideal matchup with them using hazard stack and of course, Quaxwell is not removing anything vs a Dusclops and
Corrosion Glimmet being the standout set. I've always wanted to use it on a more defensive structure because you can just outlast your opponents with the right mons and the fact you see the two poison
immune mons die to Toxic damage, that's just amazing. In the end, Bulk Up Scraggy decided to shmix vs Coil Dunsparce and we all know how that one ends. Brilliant prep all around, let us see if Terracotta can continue this performance as the tournament goes on.
neomon still proving he has the sauce in this format and we finally get our first Linda win, maybe I'm overblowing this mon's midness. In any case, Raboot unfortunately is still proving to be the worst of the fire starters that are usable as it receives its second loss (this will continue later). I just think it can't really do much into a lot of mons on the comeup right now like Linda, Drakloak (needs sucker), and Seadra, as shown perfectly in this game. Seadra stocks are through the roof, its longevity with Rest and its ability to bring in yet another banded Piloswine applies a lot of pressure to Zcarlett's team, who honestly kinda gets folded by this set but that's what happens when your ground immunity is a Tinkatuff. It's hard for me to defend Piloswine in this economy when you need to spam ground immunity + fat mon (Dunsparce/Dusclops) to check it efficiently but it's fine guys trust Piloswine is balanced! Honestly, I don't think either player played all that crazy, it simply came down to team diff in my opinion.
I did testing with Shing and I faced his squad and Stunky was pissing me off so I was hoping it was gonna put in some work but unfortunately Stunky lost. I think Ivar57 obviously had the more consistent team but Shing losing his Linda to a Thunder Punch para probably didn't help things to be honest. My issue is at least in my perspective, Shing probably needed to use Pignite more to force some progress because the team is very passive outside of Pignite and somewhat Stunky but it's not so easy when Hattrem + Quaxwell can keep Pignite contained. Overall, I don't have much to really add about this game, it was well played bring from Ivar57. Let's see if they can manage to replicate this success this week.
If you thought I would go in depth about my own prep, you're absolutely wrong because I'm going to be as vague as possible! I'll say a few things though, like many of the other Duosion users in week 1, we clearly saw some of its innate traits and considered it to be worth using. What I liked about my own team is that I could forgo removal because I have two Magic Guard mons and two boots mons so I'm not really concerned with hazards much, which comes into play a little bit even though I'm not facing spike stack. Also, only Clef user this week and Clef has been struggling for a while let's be honest but seeing how I was using it to good success in SM NFE in NFEPL, even though SV and SM are night and day metas, I still saw the potential. My game was the longest turn-wise, and it was a fun and challenge game for me, the sort of game where every turn mattered.
5Dots did quite a bit of testing compared to what I did I'll be honest. Not to say I was that confident with my team but I'm a busy guy, I schedule 6/7 games for Sunday so you know my testing time is quite limited. Anyway, first Pikachu appearance of the tour and I think the mon really can do stuff on paper but in practice, it just never really delivers. Its inability to deal with Grass types like Ivysaur really lets it down. But I wouldn't consider that a weird choice in the builder. Rest Talk Tinkatuff is the more interesting choice and not in a good way. Resttalk Dusclops works because at least it has Night Shade so it's not passive into a tier where the average hp stat is like mid 60s. Tinkatuff's main attacking move is a non-STAB option coming off of 55atk uninvested. It's more passive than a mon that has been known to be passive since 2002. Like a mon you could arguably debilitate like Girafarig, you're just asleep so you cannot do anything to anyone. Like PD said in his predicts, very weird option to bring. I liked Band Raboot because you can actually deal with Quaxwell via HJK and seeing how 5Dots' team lacked a solid fire resist, surely it could cook but the dreaded tspike into a team with no grounded poison... Disaster struck. It was only a matter of time before poison + Blitz recoil just sent Raboot to the graveyard and even in its best mu yet this week, it failed to bring home a win.
Horii vs Mirbro 
Nakoruru_XD vs vooper 
Dragonillis vs Terracotta 
Kingler vs TTK 
