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Tournament NDPL VI Set & Team Dump Thread
- Thread starter sealoo
- Start date
svnd team dump
here are the teams i built for svnd that were used in this pl (click on player vs player for game and on the pokemon for team pokepaste)
week 1: i lowkey locked in this week and built all the sv teams
mada vs nashrock W
-
-
-
-
-
this team was initially created by Scish (used in ladder tour r1 here), it initially had hatterene + ground z kyurem but i changed it for slowbro + boots kyurem and i also changed some other sets that i dont remember.
scish vs separation L
-
-
---
Lil bro was indecisive all week on what team he wanted to use but ended up liking this team i built in pre tera ban with big specs blizzard kyurem
1yr vs kyo L
--
-
--
i want to preface saying i was robbed. Anyways, shoutout sealoo for the help on this team its one of my favourites that i built this pl with it having the big no shadow ball gholdengo. Modest steel z ghold allows it to ohko ting lu after chip, thunderbolt is for moltres who stops steel z, and focus blast is for heatran, and iron treads mainly or any other bulky steels tryna switch in that can be a threat to ghold. Heatran is for psychic types that a bulky ghold would normally be a good check to like tapu lele ect with Protect on heatran's purpose being it helps to dwindle down anything that may be annoying to gholdengo, and twave slowbro is mainly for ogerpon cuz bro lives a pwhip.
week 2: after all the effort i put in week 1 i was lowkey gassed and worn out after week 2 but i still made some pretty cool teams this week
1yr vs ado W
-
-
--
-
i saw this dude was mr molameister and spammed fat ass teams every game so i load sub bulk up pert + manaphy which looked dubious into his scout and the rest is history. also manaphy evs are to outspeed raging bolt timid
mada vs leroipolux1 L
-
-
-
--
mada wanted to use cm koko so cm koko is what he got, zard y high key assaults this team and i wasnt expecting it all but the game was kinda cooked from koko dgleam roll on tusk to begin with.
week 3: this is when i was extremely worn out and exhausted of building but i still pumped out some tech even though it didnt win unfortunately
1yr vs skyiew L
--
-
-
-
matchup this game was kinda cooked but regardless it prob woulda been better if i didnt over predict losing 60 percent of serp staying on ghold when there was a pon on the other end but yeah this is when i realized i gotta take a chill pill from playing and supporting the other tiers at the same time. Phys Z koko is used to bait stuff like heatran, glowking who would otherwise be a problem for serp.
mada vs youanminxue L
----
-
this game was kinda unfortunate hax wise but not much u can do, this team was built in like 10-15 minutes cuz teammate changed his mind about the stuff i made earlier in the week but nonetheless i think i high key cooked with scarf hoopa having an amazing matchup into his team and overall scout
week 4: kinda recycled/made bad teams this week i was hella worn out but we still did well in sv nonetheless
memphisdepay vs kayzn W
-
----
this was an edit of the week 1 team i passed to mada but with z ground kyurem as opposed to boots and slowking with chilly reception for kyu defence boost>slowbro teleport
mada vs xurkiyee W
--
--
-
not my best build but mada wanted to use roost gliscor and i hadnt build around it before, though i do fw z psychic slowbro for big surprise damage and its ability to snipe out pex to let zamazenta thrive
week 5: this was by far my laziest week because by now i am beyond worn out
for madas game i stole a sealoo team and for memphis game i stole a xurkiyee team both lost
chansey and lulu vs mollymiltoast W
-
---
-
(not gonna link team if u want it u can ask sealoo)
i saw how menacing kingambit looked into molly's scout so i thought to put it on steroids with helmet chomp so i called up sealoo and he hooked us up with this nice team and it won
week 6: felt a little better building this week, the burnout started to wear off
1yr vs luthier W
-
-
-
-- (ask darkness for the team if u want it)
for this game i had built like 36 sand teams all of them were shit so and i never made anything i liked so i ended up just loading Darkness 789 screens and they got the job done
mada vs sealoo L
-
-
-
-
-
mada really wanted to use stall all tour even though i think its ass i gave in and assembled the stall avengers to make this team but it ended up loading into modest heatran sooo yeah
week 7:
barely any of these games actually happened but hidin passed me a team to give to memphisdepay but it lost
S/O...
Kate for giving me the opportunity to manage in the first place
Elfuseon for managing this tour with me after the year long postpone
Darkness 789 for helping me with everything even down to managing and subs bro was like a 4th manager and giving the cord W vibes
MemphisDepay for being a chill guy, giving cord good vibes, and stepping into ru when u never played it and delivering a clutch win
chansey and lulu for cooking the entire tour and being the best sv on the team
Sami for keeping the cord active and being a W ubers support
SpaceSpeakers for getting subbed in a tier u never played before and cooking up hard
Tarre25 for cooking up in mono slot and giving positive vibes throughout the tour
Voltix for doing great in doubles and being a chill dude all around, happy i retained u
Remnonc for bringing positive vibes, testing, and doing well in ubers
salmonelephant for all the good vibes u brought the cord and all the help u gave with uu/ru
ARTYMASION for passing a bunch of those ndwc teams and helping with tests/prep
big shoutouts to the support
Dead by Daylight deserved to get drafted thanks so much for all the help
White Atoq cooked with the ss support all tour and helped out his bro darkness big time
Hiro80223001 for cooking up ss all tour and being hella active
All About The Hax for helping me every single week despite all the shit u going thru, u the goat
Sunrose cooked up so hard every week for doubles with good callouts into prep that helped us win games
SapoDaG30 ty for all the ru help u gave this tour i really appreciate
TBE even though u joined near the end ty for the help with sv
extra shoutouts
sealoo for helping me build/passing a bunch of the teams used this pl
Boomenheimer for that one water stall those who know
Isza for testing with me, and helping with sv/ss teams
Runo for providing big mdp the ru set compendium when needed most
Xurkiyee ty for helping me with teams and tests
mb to anyone i may have forgotten about and mb to everyone i crashed out on this pl
here are the teams i built for svnd that were used in this pl (click on player vs player for game and on the pokemon for team pokepaste)
week 1: i lowkey locked in this week and built all the sv teams
mada vs nashrock W
-----this team was initially created by Scish (used in ladder tour r1 here), it initially had hatterene + ground z kyurem but i changed it for slowbro + boots kyurem and i also changed some other sets that i dont remember.
scish vs separation L
-----Lil bro was indecisive all week on what team he wanted to use but ended up liking this team i built in pre tera ban with big specs blizzard kyurem
1yr vs kyo L
-----i want to preface saying i was robbed. Anyways, shoutout sealoo for the help on this team its one of my favourites that i built this pl with it having the big no shadow ball gholdengo. Modest steel z ghold allows it to ohko ting lu after chip, thunderbolt is for moltres who stops steel z, and focus blast is for heatran, and iron treads mainly or any other bulky steels tryna switch in that can be a threat to ghold. Heatran is for psychic types that a bulky ghold would normally be a good check to like tapu lele ect with Protect on heatran's purpose being it helps to dwindle down anything that may be annoying to gholdengo, and twave slowbro is mainly for ogerpon cuz bro lives a pwhip.
week 2: after all the effort i put in week 1 i was lowkey gassed and worn out after week 2 but i still made some pretty cool teams this week
1yr vs ado W
-----i saw this dude was mr molameister and spammed fat ass teams every game so i load sub bulk up pert + manaphy which looked dubious into his scout and the rest is history. also manaphy evs are to outspeed raging bolt timid
mada vs leroipolux1 L
-----mada wanted to use cm koko so cm koko is what he got, zard y high key assaults this team and i wasnt expecting it all but the game was kinda cooked from koko dgleam roll on tusk to begin with.
week 3: this is when i was extremely worn out and exhausted of building but i still pumped out some tech even though it didnt win unfortunately
1yr vs skyiew L
-----matchup this game was kinda cooked but regardless it prob woulda been better if i didnt over predict losing 60 percent of serp staying on ghold when there was a pon on the other end but yeah this is when i realized i gotta take a chill pill from playing and supporting the other tiers at the same time. Phys Z koko is used to bait stuff like heatran, glowking who would otherwise be a problem for serp.
mada vs youanminxue L
-----this game was kinda unfortunate hax wise but not much u can do, this team was built in like 10-15 minutes cuz teammate changed his mind about the stuff i made earlier in the week but nonetheless i think i high key cooked with scarf hoopa having an amazing matchup into his team and overall scout
week 4: kinda recycled/made bad teams this week i was hella worn out but we still did well in sv nonetheless
memphisdepay vs kayzn W
-----this was an edit of the week 1 team i passed to mada but with z ground kyurem as opposed to boots and slowking with chilly reception for kyu defence boost>slowbro teleport
mada vs xurkiyee W
-----not my best build but mada wanted to use roost gliscor and i hadnt build around it before, though i do fw z psychic slowbro for big surprise damage and its ability to snipe out pex to let zamazenta thrive
week 5: this was by far my laziest week because by now i am beyond worn out
for madas game i stole a sealoo team and for memphis game i stole a xurkiyee team both lost
chansey and lulu vs mollymiltoast W
----- (not gonna link team if u want it u can ask sealoo)i saw how menacing kingambit looked into molly's scout so i thought to put it on steroids with helmet chomp so i called up sealoo and he hooked us up with this nice team and it won
week 6: felt a little better building this week, the burnout started to wear off
1yr vs luthier W
----- (ask darkness for the team if u want it)for this game i had built like 36 sand teams all of them were shit so and i never made anything i liked so i ended up just loading Darkness 789 screens and they got the job done
mada vs sealoo L
-----mada really wanted to use stall all tour even though i think its ass i gave in and assembled the stall avengers to make this team but it ended up loading into modest heatran sooo yeah
week 7:
barely any of these games actually happened but hidin passed me a team to give to memphisdepay but it lost
S/O...
Kate for giving me the opportunity to manage in the first place
Elfuseon for managing this tour with me after the year long postpone
Darkness 789 for helping me with everything even down to managing and subs bro was like a 4th manager and giving the cord W vibes
MemphisDepay for being a chill guy, giving cord good vibes, and stepping into ru when u never played it and delivering a clutch win
chansey and lulu for cooking the entire tour and being the best sv on the team
Sami for keeping the cord active and being a W ubers support
SpaceSpeakers for getting subbed in a tier u never played before and cooking up hard
Tarre25 for cooking up in mono slot and giving positive vibes throughout the tour
Voltix for doing great in doubles and being a chill dude all around, happy i retained u
Remnonc for bringing positive vibes, testing, and doing well in ubers
salmonelephant for all the good vibes u brought the cord and all the help u gave with uu/ru
ARTYMASION for passing a bunch of those ndwc teams and helping with tests/prep
big shoutouts to the support
Dead by Daylight deserved to get drafted thanks so much for all the help
White Atoq cooked with the ss support all tour and helped out his bro darkness big time
Hiro80223001 for cooking up ss all tour and being hella active
All About The Hax for helping me every single week despite all the shit u going thru, u the goat
Sunrose cooked up so hard every week for doubles with good callouts into prep that helped us win games
SapoDaG30 ty for all the ru help u gave this tour i really appreciate
TBE even though u joined near the end ty for the help with sv
extra shoutouts
sealoo for helping me build/passing a bunch of the teams used this pl
Boomenheimer for that one water stall those who know
Isza for testing with me, and helping with sv/ss teams
Runo for providing big mdp the ru set compendium when needed most
Xurkiyee ty for helping me with teams and tests
mb to anyone i may have forgotten about and mb to everyone i crashed out on this pl
Last edited:
https://pokepast.es/2fb9cadb3a998dc1
Thanks to Runo and omar for managing with me, glad to have known you two for a while and be good friends.
R1C3M4N Sorry that your record didn't go well with the effort you put despite having a rough IRL, things will get better brother.
YouanMingxue You're sweet and the potential you have is pretty strong as both a player and as a person, just make sure to do some more studying on Mega Latios in the future...
Skyiew Thanks for the season, but I'm not done with the punishment...
Irene Despite next to no experience, you did well enough in my eyes, proud of you for that.
I Feel Stabby Honestly I'm doing this by tiers but man you do not deserve to be so low in the shoutouts, immaculate presence and a good player. Your mental might get you caught up in some things, but at the end of the day you're a much better player than most of the people you face. Continue doing great things and lead a good life.
Abele Man I wish that you didn't have a rough streak; but even then, you still went out of your way to support and be very involved in both SS slots and I thank you for that.
JeoZ Next year tell your managers to start you because I don't know why I waited so long to do so. I first saw you as some DNU guy (that tier is some trash) but getting to know you a little bit better has opened my eyes. Keep on winning.
Magician You kept it real after you lost and honestly that's a good thing, admitting your shortcomings is always good, but you're probably almost double my age, so I don't think I need to say anything wise yeah? Thanks for playing
QWILY At the end of the day you came and played your games, appreciate it
RoFnA Monotype legend...
Schister You're a good player and your confidence is something that is fantastic about you; HOWEVER, being humble is just as important. I know you will knock the bricks off of most players in this tier but remember to not let that get to your head. Thank you for playing
EatFoods The princess of doubles, vibes are always gonna be good with you and I’m sure you already know I appreciate you.
Soul king0 I appreciated your eagerness, and I'm sorry that we didn't give you more opportunities to play. Just know that I myself am very proud to have a circuit finalist on my team lol
unfuuny Zrp200 Ubers support!! Despite our differences over one specific bird, I respect both of your views on the tier and wish you guys the best in it. Sorry for no floober unfunny
Redgoop115 Just chilled around and helped in SS OU, nice to have a guy like you around in general. My man :dabmeup:
Jojen When we got scared because we had to sub someone in, it was nice to know that you were (mostly) always there, I appreciate that. You're pretty component at most of the tiers in this section, so make sure people know that about you
SapoDaG30 Thank you for being around for Runo and Riceman and being a nice guy in general, you got some shoes to fill with Runo being off the grid soon and it's nice to know you'll be influential in lower tiers in the future, I know you'll do good.
Frixel :dbCry: Please don't leave us bro...a guy like you doesn't come around so often. I wish you the best
skimmythegod You got games in and checked in prep when you needed to, activity is whatever at this point so just know I'm happy to have you on the team.
Goodnight, thanks for the season. Mafia or bust
Thanks to Runo and omar for managing with me, glad to have known you two for a while and be good friends.
R1C3M4N Sorry that your record didn't go well with the effort you put despite having a rough IRL, things will get better brother.
YouanMingxue You're sweet and the potential you have is pretty strong as both a player and as a person, just make sure to do some more studying on Mega Latios in the future...
Skyiew Thanks for the season, but I'm not done with the punishment...
Irene Despite next to no experience, you did well enough in my eyes, proud of you for that.
I Feel Stabby Honestly I'm doing this by tiers but man you do not deserve to be so low in the shoutouts, immaculate presence and a good player. Your mental might get you caught up in some things, but at the end of the day you're a much better player than most of the people you face. Continue doing great things and lead a good life.
Abele Man I wish that you didn't have a rough streak; but even then, you still went out of your way to support and be very involved in both SS slots and I thank you for that.
JeoZ Next year tell your managers to start you because I don't know why I waited so long to do so. I first saw you as some DNU guy (that tier is some trash) but getting to know you a little bit better has opened my eyes. Keep on winning.
Magician You kept it real after you lost and honestly that's a good thing, admitting your shortcomings is always good, but you're probably almost double my age, so I don't think I need to say anything wise yeah? Thanks for playing
QWILY At the end of the day you came and played your games, appreciate it
RoFnA Monotype legend...
Schister You're a good player and your confidence is something that is fantastic about you; HOWEVER, being humble is just as important. I know you will knock the bricks off of most players in this tier but remember to not let that get to your head. Thank you for playing
EatFoods The princess of doubles, vibes are always gonna be good with you and I’m sure you already know I appreciate you.
Soul king0 I appreciated your eagerness, and I'm sorry that we didn't give you more opportunities to play. Just know that I myself am very proud to have a circuit finalist on my team lol
unfuuny Zrp200 Ubers support!! Despite our differences over one specific bird, I respect both of your views on the tier and wish you guys the best in it. Sorry for no floober unfunny
Redgoop115 Just chilled around and helped in SS OU, nice to have a guy like you around in general. My man :dabmeup:
Jojen When we got scared because we had to sub someone in, it was nice to know that you were (mostly) always there, I appreciate that. You're pretty component at most of the tiers in this section, so make sure people know that about you
SapoDaG30 Thank you for being around for Runo and Riceman and being a nice guy in general, you got some shoes to fill with Runo being off the grid soon and it's nice to know you'll be influential in lower tiers in the future, I know you'll do good.
Frixel :dbCry: Please don't leave us bro...a guy like you doesn't come around so often. I wish you the best
skimmythegod You got games in and checked in prep when you needed to, activity is whatever at this point so just know I'm happy to have you on the team.
Goodnight, thanks for the season. Mafia or bust
Three goats, I love you all. Let's fight side by side again next time we have the chance.
I love NatDex RU as always, pool was fairly challenging with very competent and creative builders on each team. Enjoyed this season and will continue to play NatDex RU.
Danbear thinks I cheesed him but I choose to belive that this is actually a serious team because a lot of its purpose was to pretend to have a bad matchup into his Dhelmise spam so it would be killed or worn down by status so Registeel could sweep unopposed. I did get some good odds vs Thundurus in that game though.
The tech of the day here was to overload on Lokix lures, in the hopes of wearing it down in range of Mega Sharpedo's Close Combat to win the game. Counter was great in the early game as was double Rocky Helmet, but I missed out on a roll that I needed and it tilted me the rest of the game.
Probably my most favorite team of the season. The original plan was to queue Rain Dance Swampert into Salmonelephant, but I couldn't figure out how to easily get past Tangrowth consistently so it phased into a Mega Sharpedo concept, which again I couldn't get past the Tangrowth matchup. Finally I landed on completely abandoning the physical attacking water and opting for Volcanion as the Water breaker of choice, with three monster hitters in the back. Z-Skeledirge + Hisuian Goodra did not give this team any favors but smart manuvering allowed me to strong arm his defensive core with Heracross and Volcanion.
This is the only game I didn't actually care to scout prior, but continuing my trend of using nichemons I figured that basing a team off the snowball power for Nihilego would be worthwhile. Team is built to try to cripple or wear down opposing Steel types and Cyclizars. As luck would have it Dlanyer loaded no Steels or any Rock resist so the team was easy picking for Nihilego once it got into position.
This was a panic load because I was insanely unconfident in the two original ideas I had for the slot (Trick Room and Salazzle BO). I made this like 10 minutes before the game started in the hopes that I could catch some of LBN's diverse tendencies in the builder. Turned out to be a good idea on preview since I had a lot of strong tools to grab a quick advantage but I fumbled too much for it to be impactful.
Now at this point, I wouldn't say that I was creatively dead but I was having a tough time figuring out how to account for or make Blissey + Galarian Slowbro teams. Thankfully mrfraud passed me a stall team that I edited into a semi-stall because Dhelmise is overrated to shit. The Plan was always going to be to stall LB because his scout was really offense heavy and I thought something like Calm Mind Galarian Slowbro could put him down. The game itself was more challenging than I anticipated since I didn't recognize what set his Registeel, Swampert, or Togekiss were despite it being a reload from a prior week.
I wanted to load something funny into Micaiah but still had solid odds to win so I went with Gen 8 National Dex RU as the theme. Unfortunately RUBL mon Staraptor on top of Gligar sitting on half the team proved too much for me.
These are some other teams I was considering bringing but didn't for one reason or another. I did use them a lot when testing for other peoples games. I still think they are chill just not stuff I would overrely on for a win because of specific matchup failings.
SapoDaG30 and Marss Barss thank you for being such eager testers and entertaining a lot of my building antics. Also to Danbear02 for the constant sparring and post test discussions.
-----------------------
I also did some stuff for Ubers despite still disliking the tier. Everything else was passed or built by one of the helpers.
I still got the #magic in this tier. Teleport Slowbro on its own is strong but Thunder Wave really adds a new layer of how annoying it could be. If there's one mon you really don't want being full para'd it's your Specs Eternatus or Mega Salamence switch in. Combine that with Defog Facade Mence to clear against Webs Yveltal and GHAZ Ho-oh and I essentially solved the Bumboclaat scout.
-----------------------
SS NatDex is a tier I enjoy building but I didn't really do a lot of it because JeoZ prep was just carrying and I didn't feel the need to provide heavy input.
I remember I feel stabby wanted something on the fatter side of things so I gave him this. Performed well in tests. It was built specifically for NDPL but I do not remember what the prep was outside of this Slowbro set being to cover a Toxapex and Weavile lure in one slot.
-----------------------
Here's some stuff I gave to people in SV NatDex OU, but tragically my chud teammates couldn't understand peak and didn't load them. I like building this tier to be honest but it seems like a lot of people are really set in their ways in terms of what they find good or bad.
Danbear thinks I cheesed him but I choose to belive that this is actually a serious team because a lot of its purpose was to pretend to have a bad matchup into his Dhelmise spam so it would be killed or worn down by status so Registeel could sweep unopposed. I did get some good odds vs Thundurus in that game though.
The tech of the day here was to overload on Lokix lures, in the hopes of wearing it down in range of Mega Sharpedo's Close Combat to win the game. Counter was great in the early game as was double Rocky Helmet, but I missed out on a roll that I needed and it tilted me the rest of the game.
Probably my most favorite team of the season. The original plan was to queue Rain Dance Swampert into Salmonelephant, but I couldn't figure out how to easily get past Tangrowth consistently so it phased into a Mega Sharpedo concept, which again I couldn't get past the Tangrowth matchup. Finally I landed on completely abandoning the physical attacking water and opting for Volcanion as the Water breaker of choice, with three monster hitters in the back. Z-Skeledirge + Hisuian Goodra did not give this team any favors but smart manuvering allowed me to strong arm his defensive core with Heracross and Volcanion.
This is the only game I didn't actually care to scout prior, but continuing my trend of using nichemons I figured that basing a team off the snowball power for Nihilego would be worthwhile. Team is built to try to cripple or wear down opposing Steel types and Cyclizars. As luck would have it Dlanyer loaded no Steels or any Rock resist so the team was easy picking for Nihilego once it got into position.
This was a panic load because I was insanely unconfident in the two original ideas I had for the slot (Trick Room and Salazzle BO). I made this like 10 minutes before the game started in the hopes that I could catch some of LBN's diverse tendencies in the builder. Turned out to be a good idea on preview since I had a lot of strong tools to grab a quick advantage but I fumbled too much for it to be impactful.
Now at this point, I wouldn't say that I was creatively dead but I was having a tough time figuring out how to account for or make Blissey + Galarian Slowbro teams. Thankfully mrfraud passed me a stall team that I edited into a semi-stall because Dhelmise is overrated to shit. The Plan was always going to be to stall LB because his scout was really offense heavy and I thought something like Calm Mind Galarian Slowbro could put him down. The game itself was more challenging than I anticipated since I didn't recognize what set his Registeel, Swampert, or Togekiss were despite it being a reload from a prior week.
I wanted to load something funny into Micaiah but still had solid odds to win so I went with Gen 8 National Dex RU as the theme. Unfortunately RUBL mon Staraptor on top of Gligar sitting on half the team proved too much for me.
These are some other teams I was considering bringing but didn't for one reason or another. I did use them a lot when testing for other peoples games. I still think they are chill just not stuff I would overrely on for a win because of specific matchup failings.
SapoDaG30 and Marss Barss thank you for being such eager testers and entertaining a lot of my building antics. Also to Danbear02 for the constant sparring and post test discussions.
-----------------------
I also did some stuff for Ubers despite still disliking the tier. Everything else was passed or built by one of the helpers.
I still got the #magic in this tier. Teleport Slowbro on its own is strong but Thunder Wave really adds a new layer of how annoying it could be. If there's one mon you really don't want being full para'd it's your Specs Eternatus or Mega Salamence switch in. Combine that with Defog Facade Mence to clear against Webs Yveltal and GHAZ Ho-oh and I essentially solved the Bumboclaat scout.
-----------------------
SS NatDex is a tier I enjoy building but I didn't really do a lot of it because JeoZ prep was just carrying and I didn't feel the need to provide heavy input.
I remember I feel stabby wanted something on the fatter side of things so I gave him this. Performed well in tests. It was built specifically for NDPL but I do not remember what the prep was outside of this Slowbro set being to cover a Toxapex and Weavile lure in one slot.
-----------------------
Here's some stuff I gave to people in SV NatDex OU, but tragically my chud teammates couldn't understand peak and didn't load them. I like building this tier to be honest but it seems like a lot of people are really set in their ways in terms of what they find good or bad.
NATIONAL DEX UBERS TEAMDUMP by the Victinis 
National Dex Ubers as a whole is in a bit of a pickle when it comes to building since balancing the Smeargle HO and GHAZ Balance matchups in one singular team can be difficult at times, especially depending on the core you want to build around. Regardless, I still had a lot of fun building, testing, and playing this tier, even if this is the worst its been in a while. Our opponents were pretty challenging too, which only encouraged me to help Remnonc more since I was basically a support for the majority of the tournament (no shade for it I don't mind). Big thanks to 1yr, Kate, and Elfuseon for drafting me to begin with, hope to see yall next year.
Week One: DripLegend (W)
Week Three:Skimmythegod EatFoods (W)
Dual-Flying Alomomola Balance 
by SilverStar
Now this team wasn't actually built by me, which is fair since I was on holiday for most of the week anyways, so I mostly let Remnonc load whatever he wanted. Looking back on it, there's only a few things I don't like about this team. The big one is Adamant Rayquaza; underspeeding Arceus, defensive Yveltal, and even Glimmora seems a bit sketchy in my opinion, especially when Life Orb Rayquaza is strong enough. Knock Off on Alomomola also seems a bit weird, I feel like Protect offers more value, especially when its only Zygarde that's actually threatened by Knock Off (who keeps Ho-Oh in on Alomomola anyways?). Outside of that though, the team is fine, especially when we get a god-tier matchup with Tera Normal Alomomola into Basculegion Trick Room. For Week Three, since we got a sub instead of Skimmy, we just recycled this team again, since it was consistent enough into whatever EatFoods could load anyways.
Week Two: Splendid Silver Star (L)
Dragon Dance Arceus-Ground + Ferrothorn Balance
by Sami
This team mostly revolves around Ferrothorn since its one of the only Pokemon to be able to withstand boosted Life Orb Mewtwo, which SSS loves to use. Unfortunately, he didn't load that, but even then, Ferrothorn is still really nice into Alomomola and Giratina-O, something else that SSS loves to load. Defensive Primal Kyogre benefits from the lack of Mixed Defense Alomomola, since all the Alomomola he uses are physically defensive with Rocky Helmet, meaning +1 Scald is able to 2HKO it with ease; Primal Kyogre is also just... a good Pokemon. Finally, Arceus-Ground is nice since we have Marshadow to handle Ultra Necrozma anyways; synergises nicely with Dragon Tail Primal Groudon to overwhelm Zygarde and Giratina-O too.
Despite all of this, we lost, which sucks because I don't think this team does badly into Tera Fairy IDBP Garganacl anyways; if anything, Tera Water IDBP Garganacl is even scarier. However, there are two bigger issues with this team. The first is the lack of Life Orb Yveltal counterplay. For a team with both Giratina-O and Ferrothorn, this is a big cause of concern for general use, especially when our only answer into it is Defensive Primal Kyogre; SSS doesn't use Life Orb Yveltal very often, so I wasn't worried about it, but still. The second issue, if you watched Round 9 of Summer Seasonal, is the PsySpam matchup is horrid. Our only Psychic-resist is Ferrothorn, which is really really bad into PsySpam despite what some people think (Ultra Necrozma setup fodder, gets nuked by Lunala and Deoxys-A, can easily get copied by Ditto for free Spikes). Your best bet is using Tera Steel on Giratina-O and praying Psychic Terrain ends after Tapu Lele dies so Marshadow can clean up.
Week Four: Swas (L)
Clefable Stall
by SilverStar
Another SSS team loaded. Stall is fishy, but it can work, and I had a feeling Main Event Mafia wouldn't consider Stall in their team unlike Week 2 with their CB Rayquaza. And for the most part, Stall was fine, we just shouldn't have sacked Tera Poison Ferrothorn since we needed it for Toxic Spikes. There isn't much to say here, I don't mind Clefable, I might vote for it to be C- if it appears on the slate, but its niche is almost entirely caried by Heal Bell in my opnion.
Week Five: bumboclaat (L)
Sample Primal Groudon HO with some tweaks 
by MirrorSaMa + Sami
This one is interesting to say the least. I know some people are going to clown on me for telling Remnonc to load a sample into a council member, but I unironically think this is the best you can get out of Primal Groudon on HO teams. Why were we using Primal Groudon? Well, Bumboclaat doesn't load Giratina-O, Landorus-T, or Arceus-Ground, and he hasn't used GiraMola structures in ages, so his only check to Double Dance Primal Groudon is Zygarde, considering how offensive Ho-Oh dies to +2 Heat Crash. There's also Outrage Ultra Necrozma, which snipes Calm Mind Arceus-Dark, A Pokemon that Bumboclaat loves using as well. Overall, this team does pretty well into most GHAZ structures barring ones with specific Pokemon like Tera Fairy IDBP Garganacl, and maybe Tera Ghost Pheromosa. Additionally, accoding to the scout (nerd emoji), the only teams Bumboclaat loses to without hax or MU fishes, are HO teams, which might be noteworthy for some...
Unfortauntely, we lost with this too. It wasn't because the team sucked, but it was just a playing issue. By no means am I calling Remnonc bad at the game, if anything you could probably argue he's better than me since I'm the support over here, and he's playing in bigger Ubers tournaments, but it is what it is I suppose.
Week Six: xinnobu (L)
Tera Blast Ground Zacian-C Bulky Offense by Sami
Main premise was that xinnobu doesn't have a lot of answers into Tera Blast Zacian-C, which was proved right away by the team they loaded. Before we get into that though, Marshadow is super useful into all the HO teams he uses, and defensive Primal Kyogre is nice into Trick Room and Mega Salamence. The rest of the team is pretty standard Bulky Offense. Should be noted that xinnobu doesn't use Sticky Webs much so I wasn't as concerned about that; even then, you could probably get away with a sudden Tera Ground on a predicted Smeargle Nuzzle to mitigate that issue. Arceus-Fairy is probably the weakest link here, but you need it for opposing Marshadow and Choice Scarf Yveltal. Going back to the game though, boosting in front of a +2 Primal Kyogre with Scald is a horrible play, even if Tera Blast Zacian-C would've cooked otherwise. Revenge-killing with Marshadow was a much safer play, especially since he has a whole Arceus-Dark to setup in front of.
Week Seven: emoxu9 (L)
Darkinium Z Chien Pao HO
by Sami
I would've loaded something more standard, but we had lost the chance to get into playoffs anyways, so I quickly scrambled on a shitmon I could bring. I brought Iron Treads, since it does well into both Deoxys-S and Smeargle, and the lack of Giratina-O means its not that easy to punish Iron Treads with Rock Tomb. Darkinium Z Chien Pao is cool because emoxu9 doesn't load Arceus-Fairy either, and it being able to nuke Pokemon such as Primal Groudon, Tera Water Zygarde, and even Zacian-C on the switch, would've been pretty cool. Using Chien Pao forces you to load Primal Groudon though, as well as Heat Wave Yveltal. The last two are just typical HO mons.
As for the game, I think I played fine. I kinda shit myself when I saw Agility Lunala, but it was more of a mild inconvenience all things considered. Call me coping but if that Zacian-C wasn't Play Rough and Behemoth Blade at the same time (??????) I would've won that; Yveltal lived Wild Charge and Heat Wave --> Ice Shard would've done the job.
ALL THE OTHER THINGS WE DIDN'T BRING BUT THEY'RE STILL COOL I THINK
Anyways thanks for reading.
GLORY TO THE VICTINIS
National Dex Ubers as a whole is in a bit of a pickle when it comes to building since balancing the Smeargle HO and GHAZ Balance matchups in one singular team can be difficult at times, especially depending on the core you want to build around. Regardless, I still had a lot of fun building, testing, and playing this tier, even if this is the worst its been in a while. Our opponents were pretty challenging too, which only encouraged me to help Remnonc more since I was basically a support for the majority of the tournament (no shade for it I don't mind). Big thanks to 1yr, Kate, and Elfuseon for drafting me to begin with, hope to see yall next year.
Week One: DripLegend (W)
Week Three:
Dual-Flying Alomomola Balance
by SilverStarNow this team wasn't actually built by me, which is fair since I was on holiday for most of the week anyways, so I mostly let Remnonc load whatever he wanted. Looking back on it, there's only a few things I don't like about this team. The big one is Adamant Rayquaza; underspeeding Arceus, defensive Yveltal, and even Glimmora seems a bit sketchy in my opinion, especially when Life Orb Rayquaza is strong enough. Knock Off on Alomomola also seems a bit weird, I feel like Protect offers more value, especially when its only Zygarde that's actually threatened by Knock Off (who keeps Ho-Oh in on Alomomola anyways?). Outside of that though, the team is fine, especially when we get a god-tier matchup with Tera Normal Alomomola into Basculegion Trick Room. For Week Three, since we got a sub instead of Skimmy, we just recycled this team again, since it was consistent enough into whatever EatFoods could load anyways.
Week Two: Splendid Silver Star (L)
Dragon Dance Arceus-Ground + Ferrothorn Balance
by SamiThis team mostly revolves around Ferrothorn since its one of the only Pokemon to be able to withstand boosted Life Orb Mewtwo, which SSS loves to use. Unfortunately, he didn't load that, but even then, Ferrothorn is still really nice into Alomomola and Giratina-O, something else that SSS loves to load. Defensive Primal Kyogre benefits from the lack of Mixed Defense Alomomola, since all the Alomomola he uses are physically defensive with Rocky Helmet, meaning +1 Scald is able to 2HKO it with ease; Primal Kyogre is also just... a good Pokemon. Finally, Arceus-Ground is nice since we have Marshadow to handle Ultra Necrozma anyways; synergises nicely with Dragon Tail Primal Groudon to overwhelm Zygarde and Giratina-O too.
Despite all of this, we lost, which sucks because I don't think this team does badly into Tera Fairy IDBP Garganacl anyways; if anything, Tera Water IDBP Garganacl is even scarier. However, there are two bigger issues with this team. The first is the lack of Life Orb Yveltal counterplay. For a team with both Giratina-O and Ferrothorn, this is a big cause of concern for general use, especially when our only answer into it is Defensive Primal Kyogre; SSS doesn't use Life Orb Yveltal very often, so I wasn't worried about it, but still. The second issue, if you watched Round 9 of Summer Seasonal, is the PsySpam matchup is horrid. Our only Psychic-resist is Ferrothorn, which is really really bad into PsySpam despite what some people think (Ultra Necrozma setup fodder, gets nuked by Lunala and Deoxys-A, can easily get copied by Ditto for free Spikes). Your best bet is using Tera Steel on Giratina-O and praying Psychic Terrain ends after Tapu Lele dies so Marshadow can clean up.
Week Four: Swas (L)
Clefable Stall
by SilverStarAnother SSS team loaded. Stall is fishy, but it can work, and I had a feeling Main Event Mafia wouldn't consider Stall in their team unlike Week 2 with their CB Rayquaza. And for the most part, Stall was fine, we just shouldn't have sacked Tera Poison Ferrothorn since we needed it for Toxic Spikes. There isn't much to say here, I don't mind Clefable, I might vote for it to be C- if it appears on the slate, but its niche is almost entirely caried by Heal Bell in my opnion.
Week Five: bumboclaat (L)
Sample Primal Groudon HO with some tweaks
by MirrorSaMa + SamiThis one is interesting to say the least. I know some people are going to clown on me for telling Remnonc to load a sample into a council member, but I unironically think this is the best you can get out of Primal Groudon on HO teams. Why were we using Primal Groudon? Well, Bumboclaat doesn't load Giratina-O, Landorus-T, or Arceus-Ground, and he hasn't used GiraMola structures in ages, so his only check to Double Dance Primal Groudon is Zygarde, considering how offensive Ho-Oh dies to +2 Heat Crash. There's also Outrage Ultra Necrozma, which snipes Calm Mind Arceus-Dark, A Pokemon that Bumboclaat loves using as well. Overall, this team does pretty well into most GHAZ structures barring ones with specific Pokemon like Tera Fairy IDBP Garganacl, and maybe Tera Ghost Pheromosa. Additionally, accoding to the scout (nerd emoji), the only teams Bumboclaat loses to without hax or MU fishes, are HO teams, which might be noteworthy for some...
Unfortauntely, we lost with this too. It wasn't because the team sucked, but it was just a playing issue. By no means am I calling Remnonc bad at the game, if anything you could probably argue he's better than me since I'm the support over here, and he's playing in bigger Ubers tournaments, but it is what it is I suppose.
Week Six: xinnobu (L)
Tera Blast Ground Zacian-C Bulky Offense
by SamiMain premise was that xinnobu doesn't have a lot of answers into Tera Blast Zacian-C, which was proved right away by the team they loaded. Before we get into that though, Marshadow is super useful into all the HO teams he uses, and defensive Primal Kyogre is nice into Trick Room and Mega Salamence. The rest of the team is pretty standard Bulky Offense. Should be noted that xinnobu doesn't use Sticky Webs much so I wasn't as concerned about that; even then, you could probably get away with a sudden Tera Ground on a predicted Smeargle Nuzzle to mitigate that issue. Arceus-Fairy is probably the weakest link here, but you need it for opposing Marshadow and Choice Scarf Yveltal. Going back to the game though, boosting in front of a +2 Primal Kyogre with Scald is a horrible play, even if Tera Blast Zacian-C would've cooked otherwise. Revenge-killing with Marshadow was a much safer play, especially since he has a whole Arceus-Dark to setup in front of.
Week Seven: emoxu9 (L)
Darkinium Z Chien Pao HO
by SamiI would've loaded something more standard, but we had lost the chance to get into playoffs anyways, so I quickly scrambled on a shitmon I could bring. I brought Iron Treads, since it does well into both Deoxys-S and Smeargle, and the lack of Giratina-O means its not that easy to punish Iron Treads with Rock Tomb. Darkinium Z Chien Pao is cool because emoxu9 doesn't load Arceus-Fairy either, and it being able to nuke Pokemon such as Primal Groudon, Tera Water Zygarde, and even Zacian-C on the switch, would've been pretty cool. Using Chien Pao forces you to load Primal Groudon though, as well as Heat Wave Yveltal. The last two are just typical HO mons.
As for the game, I think I played fine. I kinda shit myself when I saw Agility Lunala, but it was more of a mild inconvenience all things considered. Call me coping but if that Zacian-C wasn't Play Rough and Behemoth Blade at the same time (??????) I would've won that; Yveltal lived Wild Charge and Heat Wave --> Ice Shard would've done the job.
ALL THE OTHER THINGS WE DIDN'T BRING BUT THEY'RE STILL COOL I THINK
| Week 3 | Kyurem-B Screens HO  Grimmsnarl + 3 Dragons  Chien Pao + Landorus-T Sample  Physical Giratina-O BO   Dragonium Z Eternatus Offense  SD Rayquaza Webs HO   Just thought either Kyurem-B or Chien Pao could be good into Skimmy, but the Chien Pao teams were too inconsistent into something while the Kyurem-B teams are a bit too MU fishy for Week 3; this also applies to the Rayquaza team. |
| Week 4 | Cyclizar Offense Fezandipiti + Garganacl Balance  Cyclizar team was more of a meme suggestion since we thought Anchor9 was gonna play (iykyk). FezGarg was what I would've loaded. |
| Week 7 | Landorus-T + Deoxys-A Offense  Landorus-T + Pheromosa BO Galarian Darmanitan + Giratina-O  Galarian Darmanitan + Landorus-T BO Landorus-T seemed nice since emoxu9 never loads Giratina-O or Arceus-Fairy but he likes Zacian-C and Arceus-Ground a lot. But then we lost our chance for playoff so I started looking for something more flashy. I thought Galarian Darmanitan would be cool but then I panicked about Alomomola balance teams absolutely curbstomping me so I opted to load Chien Pao instead. edit: forgot to mention but I was gonna bring zekrom because again he has no arceus fairy so he kinda pops off but then I assumed he'd bring scarf yveltal and that smokes zekrom completely so it ditched it :broken_heart: |
Anyways thanks for reading.
GLORY TO THE VICTINIS
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NDPL SV NDOU
Week 1 L https://pokepast.es/858fde40d65d90a7
Week 2 W https://pokepast.es/253dc53afc12b90b
Week 3 W https://pokepast.es/4d8e23598dc6a170
Week 4 W https://pokepast.es/9dcd613f02a34fc7
Week 5 W https://pokepast.es/30ef6b6c6fafa871
Week 6 W https://pokepast.es/ecb860bcdca54ebf
Week 7 L https://pokepast.es/4e24d706754376b1 meme team do not use
Semi L https://pokepast.es/af34d16c435d523d
Week 1 L https://pokepast.es/858fde40d65d90a7
Week 2 W https://pokepast.es/253dc53afc12b90b
Week 3 W https://pokepast.es/4d8e23598dc6a170
Week 4 W https://pokepast.es/9dcd613f02a34fc7
Week 5 W https://pokepast.es/30ef6b6c6fafa871
Week 6 W https://pokepast.es/ecb860bcdca54ebf
Week 7 L https://pokepast.es/4e24d706754376b1 meme team do not use
Semi L https://pokepast.es/af34d16c435d523d
dumping off the slop since our season ended dbHEATWAVE its all love lol
only elaborating a bit on teams i either made or were edited and used, check out the fl dump that will be out some point later for other teams or scrap teams
w2 tempo vs sk0 (W)
bangbros pon used to be bangbros chomp but tempo went ogerpon over it which i think is p fine. no ground makes stuff like sun harder by a lot but honestly this team is kind of a frankenstein regardless that can get assblasted by a lot like msciz and rbolt. shit is p fun though i love running ts on ladder- but this is mostly due to the fact that mdia wellspring gambit is p bonkersbroken to just click w
w3 vk vs pug (L)
team is honestly p bad and i do not like it very much anymore but this was one of the first teams i really built before pl so i am excusing its piss poor matchup spreads. chople gambit was on this paste i think which is a cool tech since it can live zama cc from full and 1v1.
w4 tempo vs loo (L)
this on the contrary is a team i really like that lost because i sent tempo the version w ep > giga drain (my bad). i think mvenu is obviously one of the best wellspring answers out there and is just suuuuuper underused in general no pun intended. weavile similarly is something im really growing on and the fact its basically the one guy who can run suit optimally makes it super unique and fun to build with. team has weaknesses into stuff like cm lele and hamurott but honestly it's only really unfortunate into hamu stuff when ur running no drain venu. L slopper
w5 vk vs mdp (W)
this week i think i finally figured out how to actually kind of build teams in this tier because i realized that the metal elephant and sword otter are really fucking bonkers in terms of value they bring to the game. I was tinkering with builds and lamenting that there was no guy in the tier who could run rocks/spin who didnt get perma outsped by everything and incinerated. until i saw the radiant light of count treadsula. in all seriousness the role compression that treads offers is fucking bananas, you btfo koko rbolt so hard and you can actually run spin + rocks and not feel like that slot is dead weight half the game. the main philosophy is that terap can always guarantee ONE spin per game. for breakers like lele that need to come in multiple times to force catch-22's this is oftentimes just not tenable, and if you want to use spikes with lele (which is greedy but really really good) defog from something like torn or zap isnt really an option. as such, the roboelephant arrives. treads can very easily spin two times per game which is gamewinning for stuff like lele. its speed tier also means that it can suicide spin very reliably or get rocks up before dying midgame, which means you almost always have control of the hazard situation. samurott and lele are two of my most used mons because they mesh super well with my philosophy and style, and i think finally realizing how good the role compression some mons in this tier was really a eureka moment for me that did lead me into other pitfalls as a player later on (no water resist etc)
w6 vlarcheops vs separation (W)
obviously did not build this for vlarcheops but it was fs a trip seeing one of my teams used by someone completely unrelated LOL
this team has seen a ton of tour use from other ppl which is def a bit of a mindfuck for me, hopefully the wellspring version gets put into next slate of samples
w6 tempo vs tuthur (W) didn't make this one i just suggested kantoking which is a mon i think is really cool so im encouraging ppl to peep
w6 vk vs ojr (L)
this is prob my worst team of the tour by a p significant margin and its just super duper passive and thus rly rly bad. breaks way too slow for this tier and no water resist so my bad vk. this team is frankly just not good i would not use it
w7 me vs eldids (W)
fav team oat
actually adore this team. kind of the culmination of my philosophy on nd as a whole but in a format that isnt wholly dogshit. fat ceru is insanely fucking good. at +2 with 4spe you outspeed zama and fat ceru overall goes so stupid on so much random shit its genuinely unfair. you barf all over yard and best of all you get to run adamant ceru which ohkos physdef alo perfectly.
+2 252+ Atk Ceruledge Never-Ending Nightmare (185 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 535-631 (100.1 - 118.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
its... so peak....
you also live stuff like glisc and dnite eq which lets you goob the ever loving shit out of most gliscor builds! yay!
ada life orb zama is also a super sick tech that does some crazy shit like ohkoin mdia and wellspring with cc and onetapping lando at -1 after rocks with ice fang. it also makes zama into less of a useless piece of shit vs anything remotely fat (unfortunately it missed the roll to kill rbolt ingame but alas zapdos clutched w broken yellow magic
i love this team a lot
semis tb teams went 0-2 :(
Tempo vs xurk
team was p cool got a lot of edits from the bros like the modest ebelt on kyu but i think fat rh tusk is also p swagbert. in retrospect dnite with firepunch puts this in a pack but what can ya do on some level es lo que es
molly vs aso (this team is a cursed artifact. do not use.)
I changed the paste after sending to have defog > taunt on torn but this version got loaded and that will literally haunt me until i die
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overall was an extremely fun tour and am tremendously happy w my time on the bascus. also im undefeated in nd teamtours soooo....
wish the season didnt end the way it did but if theres one thing about fish it is that they swim up stream. sometimes. i do not know very much about fish
s/o Iride Velcroc Toxinalpaca for being v active managers and being very committed to the bit lol
Tempo di anguria Mollymiltoast Lameflame vk was v fun building w you guys and hopefully get to play w u guys in future tours
jawabarat bumboclaat gz jawa on top1 was fun testing w u guys i am a fucking scrub at ubers tho jfc
shoutout luuanfps Chris32156 i lowkey did not expect anything from you guys but u both went supersoldier mode for 0 seriously luan what ancient egyptian rituals did u start doing
Dorron Tenebricite you guys were also cracked but i already knew you two were good lol
shoutout Runo Ineros Sputnik for helping out in poffs
was super fun season esp for my first pl even though shit went left. all love to the mafia n weaviles though excited to see the maryland vs ROW finals. vamos.... bascus.....
Appreciate yall for trusting me with the tie breaker, sorry for not being clutch when it mattered most. Heres what I used
week 1 https://pokepast.es/a3220623e9b694ed
week 2 https://pokepast.es/4697f5b4eeb62267
week 3 https://pokepast.es/cc5b57efd0472752
week 4 https://pokepast.es/198101f0c5c9a23d
week 5 https://pokepast.es/8b39d7daf9eb5b7c
week 6 https://pokepast.es/349841a94a6e34ba
week 7 https://pokepast.es/9167d5901105e267
semis https://pokepast.es/642d9306ce2b5190
tb https://pokepast.es/95359bbbf58a17a8
Huge shout to slopcat for literally supporting every slot the whole tour and being the backbone of the team. Glad I got to team with some great players, sorry I couldnt bring it home :/
week 1 https://pokepast.es/a3220623e9b694ed
week 2 https://pokepast.es/4697f5b4eeb62267
week 3 https://pokepast.es/cc5b57efd0472752
week 4 https://pokepast.es/198101f0c5c9a23d
week 5 https://pokepast.es/8b39d7daf9eb5b7c
week 6 https://pokepast.es/349841a94a6e34ba
week 7 https://pokepast.es/9167d5901105e267
semis https://pokepast.es/642d9306ce2b5190
tb https://pokepast.es/95359bbbf58a17a8
Huge shout to slopcat for literally supporting every slot the whole tour and being the backbone of the team. Glad I got to team with some great players, sorry I couldnt bring it home :/
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Thanks for drafting me Mafia! Was a fun season, wish I couldve had a stronger showing towards the end. Shoutouts to Boomenheimer and LogIce for taking a chance on me, and gephicka iPetBigfoot and eragon for all the support and test games throughout the season. I'll post my teams and thoughs below for the weeks i played, and will let Gephicka do his own post for the weeks he played:
Natdex Doubles OU (Click mon images to see the pastes)
Week 1 vs Schister (L):
I generally talk to schister a lot about the tier, and am familiar with a lot of his building tendencies. I thought it would be best to go with a team that had good bulk breakers and anti-setup, while maintaining a good amount of bulk itself. Mega Kang was the obvious choice, but I couldn't find a build that really sat well with me. I asked my friend ratpacker if he had any teams to share and he sent this, which instantly felt really strong. I ended up actually having schister's exact paste since he reloaded an old team for this match, but still made some early errors and ended up losing. Despite the loss, I think this type of structure is still really strong into the nddou meta moving forward.
Week 2 vs Terekusai (W):
Terekusai was someone I took to load kind of generic goodstuffs teams, so I thought it would be worth just loading some standard weather offense with twave jirachi and iron defense body press ferrothorn to hax/fish any bad matchups. This is a team i built for doubles derby at the start of this year, and I basically made no changes prior to this match. We ended up playing a sand mirror, but I didn't have dragon dance on my Tyranitar so I had to rely on Ferrothorn to bulk through everything. Pretty clean game overall
Week 3 vs Tyo (W):
Another match vs a good friend of mine. I didn't really have a read of what Tyo liked to use in this tier, so I figured I'd just go with a similar mindset to the prior week and try to load some strong offense with an iron defense leech seed steel type to fish bad matchups. This was another team I had built for doubles derby, and I think I didn't make many changes to it. Tyo ended up loading deoxys-attack psyspam from SeaLife's team dump which shouldve been a very easily favored matchup for me. I had to make 1 read turn 1 on weezing switching in or not, as well as what deoxys was clicking. After that, the game was pretty straightforward, since I recognized and had SeaLife's paste and was able to just calc through everything.
Week 5 vs Glimmer (W):
My read going into this week was I wanted to focus on beating random sun + hearthflame teams, as well as kingambit amoonguss because I knew glimmer liked those types of structures. I was thinking initially of just loading my own sun team since I hadn't yet, but Glimmer has a lot of my teams and I wanted to deviate a little bit from what my friends know my standard is (I'm a zard-y spammer outside of tournaments apparently). NDD Ladder Tour started this week and my motivation was at an all time low, but I happened to see SeaLife loading this z-trick room hypnosis bronzong + ursaluna stuff and thought it looked completely broken and uninteractive, so I just ripped it from his ladder replays and decided to load it. As expected, I saw kingambit amoonguss and just went with the team's standard gameplan of clicking z-trick room to boost my accuracy, and then clicking hypnosis at 80% accuracy to prevent glimmer from playing the game. An unlucky burn almost brought the game back for her, but ultimately my spdef mence clutched it out
Week 6 vs Akaru (W):
I knew Akaru wasnt doing much specific building for this tour, so I decided this was the week to load sun offense and just try to power through. This structure is fondly referred to as "Broken Sun" and is from back in Derby when Gothitelle was legal, so I just replaced the gothitelle with a Landorus-Therian to add an extra z-move nuke to break through random bulk and cheese a kill on ogerpon-hearthflame. I also replaced perish song on the flutter mane with icy wind since there was no shadow tag to trap things in anymore. This covert cloak bolt set next to tapu koko is completely unbalanced when sun and electric terrain are both up for it. I routed this game pretty poorly and got an unfortunate burn on Iron Hands that made this game a lot closer than it probably shouldve been on paper. To this day, I'll never know why Akaru clicked fusion bolt on my flutter mane instead of guaranteed win icicle spear on the final turn - probably because I have only ever used specs flutter mane in tour and he auto-piloted - but thanks to that misplay I was able to get the win.
Week 7 vs SeaLife (L):
I spent all week dooming about what to bring into SeaLife, because at this point I was feeling severe burnout and wasn't really enjoying building for the tier anymore. I also stressed myself out because I needed to win this game to qualify for the NatDex Doubles Invitational. Ultimately we decided that I should just reload the team I felt most confident with, which at the moment was SeaLife's own bronzong ursaluna team. What should've been a pretty straightforward game ended up turning into a nightmare due to an early hypnosis miss into some bad line selection by me and some good play by SeaLife. Probably if I had gotten a few more turns right I could've won here, but regardless SeaLife outplayed and i ended up taking my second loss of the tour here + missing out on NDD Invitational.
Semifinals Tie-break vs Chris Numbers (L):
I decided to bench myself for Semis to try and recover from some of the tilt and burn-out from the prior weeks, so Gephicka played and won against Chris in the regular week. For tie break, I decided that I should slot and just lock in to theoretically give our team the best chance of winning. I had spent some of the regular semis week practicing with this old screens team me and Eragon had built for ND blind draft last year, and it was feeling strong and I was clicking pretty well so I decided to just lock this in and play chris as soon as possible. The screens eleki + misty seed iron hands should've been really strong into Chris's team on paper, but it was unfortunately walled by basculegion which made the game a lot more difficult than it should've been. I was so focused on killing basc that I did not correctly identify Gardevoir as the bigger threat on turn 7, so I ended up losing to a trick room sweep that cleared out the rest of my team. Thankfully, Xurkiyee and Aso pulled through and we still made it to finals.
Finals vs Terekusai (L):
Rematch vs Terekusai, I went into this week feeling pretty refreshed in spite of the losing streak in the last few matches. I knew very early on that I wanted to bring zard-y with offensive raging bolt, and based on Terekusai's scout I decided that this ratpacker team from NDWC finals looked like a very strong choice. The only change I made was making raging bolt fast and changing its dragonium z to a life orb. I felt great in testing all week, and was well tested into sand, basculegion stuff, and some sun mirror variants. Unfortunately, Terekusai's prep was one step ahead of mine and he had AV raging bolt and ogerpon-cornerstone, which completely swung the matchup in his favor. In particular, cornerstone might have legitimately had 0% usage before this match, it was not a mon I had ever seen used in this tier and I cant overstate how bad it was for my team. I got some good luck early game, and Tere called me out on a couple of passive turns late game to end up taking the win bringing my total record with ratpacker teams to 0-2 (sorry ratpacker, maybe its a skill issue)
Overall, reasonably happy with the record, but wish I could've made the x-1 regular season run to qualify for ndd invitational. Thanks to the team for the playoffs carry. Not sure I'll play more of this tier actively moving forward so I'll probably do a larger builder dump on the ndd subforum later this week when I have time to sort through everything for anyone who's interested.
Natdex Doubles OU (Click mon images to see the pastes)
Week 1 vs Schister (L):
I generally talk to schister a lot about the tier, and am familiar with a lot of his building tendencies. I thought it would be best to go with a team that had good bulk breakers and anti-setup, while maintaining a good amount of bulk itself. Mega Kang was the obvious choice, but I couldn't find a build that really sat well with me. I asked my friend ratpacker if he had any teams to share and he sent this, which instantly felt really strong. I ended up actually having schister's exact paste since he reloaded an old team for this match, but still made some early errors and ended up losing. Despite the loss, I think this type of structure is still really strong into the nddou meta moving forward.
Week 2 vs Terekusai (W):
Terekusai was someone I took to load kind of generic goodstuffs teams, so I thought it would be worth just loading some standard weather offense with twave jirachi and iron defense body press ferrothorn to hax/fish any bad matchups. This is a team i built for doubles derby at the start of this year, and I basically made no changes prior to this match. We ended up playing a sand mirror, but I didn't have dragon dance on my Tyranitar so I had to rely on Ferrothorn to bulk through everything. Pretty clean game overall
Week 3 vs Tyo (W):
Another match vs a good friend of mine. I didn't really have a read of what Tyo liked to use in this tier, so I figured I'd just go with a similar mindset to the prior week and try to load some strong offense with an iron defense leech seed steel type to fish bad matchups. This was another team I had built for doubles derby, and I think I didn't make many changes to it. Tyo ended up loading deoxys-attack psyspam from SeaLife's team dump which shouldve been a very easily favored matchup for me. I had to make 1 read turn 1 on weezing switching in or not, as well as what deoxys was clicking. After that, the game was pretty straightforward, since I recognized and had SeaLife's paste and was able to just calc through everything.
Week 5 vs Glimmer (W):
My read going into this week was I wanted to focus on beating random sun + hearthflame teams, as well as kingambit amoonguss because I knew glimmer liked those types of structures. I was thinking initially of just loading my own sun team since I hadn't yet, but Glimmer has a lot of my teams and I wanted to deviate a little bit from what my friends know my standard is (I'm a zard-y spammer outside of tournaments apparently). NDD Ladder Tour started this week and my motivation was at an all time low, but I happened to see SeaLife loading this z-trick room hypnosis bronzong + ursaluna stuff and thought it looked completely broken and uninteractive, so I just ripped it from his ladder replays and decided to load it. As expected, I saw kingambit amoonguss and just went with the team's standard gameplan of clicking z-trick room to boost my accuracy, and then clicking hypnosis at 80% accuracy to prevent glimmer from playing the game. An unlucky burn almost brought the game back for her, but ultimately my spdef mence clutched it out
Week 6 vs Akaru (W):
I knew Akaru wasnt doing much specific building for this tour, so I decided this was the week to load sun offense and just try to power through. This structure is fondly referred to as "Broken Sun" and is from back in Derby when Gothitelle was legal, so I just replaced the gothitelle with a Landorus-Therian to add an extra z-move nuke to break through random bulk and cheese a kill on ogerpon-hearthflame. I also replaced perish song on the flutter mane with icy wind since there was no shadow tag to trap things in anymore. This covert cloak bolt set next to tapu koko is completely unbalanced when sun and electric terrain are both up for it. I routed this game pretty poorly and got an unfortunate burn on Iron Hands that made this game a lot closer than it probably shouldve been on paper. To this day, I'll never know why Akaru clicked fusion bolt on my flutter mane instead of guaranteed win icicle spear on the final turn - probably because I have only ever used specs flutter mane in tour and he auto-piloted - but thanks to that misplay I was able to get the win.
Week 7 vs SeaLife (L):
I spent all week dooming about what to bring into SeaLife, because at this point I was feeling severe burnout and wasn't really enjoying building for the tier anymore. I also stressed myself out because I needed to win this game to qualify for the NatDex Doubles Invitational. Ultimately we decided that I should just reload the team I felt most confident with, which at the moment was SeaLife's own bronzong ursaluna team. What should've been a pretty straightforward game ended up turning into a nightmare due to an early hypnosis miss into some bad line selection by me and some good play by SeaLife. Probably if I had gotten a few more turns right I could've won here, but regardless SeaLife outplayed and i ended up taking my second loss of the tour here + missing out on NDD Invitational.
Semifinals Tie-break vs Chris Numbers (L):
I decided to bench myself for Semis to try and recover from some of the tilt and burn-out from the prior weeks, so Gephicka played and won against Chris in the regular week. For tie break, I decided that I should slot and just lock in to theoretically give our team the best chance of winning. I had spent some of the regular semis week practicing with this old screens team me and Eragon had built for ND blind draft last year, and it was feeling strong and I was clicking pretty well so I decided to just lock this in and play chris as soon as possible. The screens eleki + misty seed iron hands should've been really strong into Chris's team on paper, but it was unfortunately walled by basculegion which made the game a lot more difficult than it should've been. I was so focused on killing basc that I did not correctly identify Gardevoir as the bigger threat on turn 7, so I ended up losing to a trick room sweep that cleared out the rest of my team. Thankfully, Xurkiyee and Aso pulled through and we still made it to finals.
Finals vs Terekusai (L):
Rematch vs Terekusai, I went into this week feeling pretty refreshed in spite of the losing streak in the last few matches. I knew very early on that I wanted to bring zard-y with offensive raging bolt, and based on Terekusai's scout I decided that this ratpacker team from NDWC finals looked like a very strong choice. The only change I made was making raging bolt fast and changing its dragonium z to a life orb. I felt great in testing all week, and was well tested into sand, basculegion stuff, and some sun mirror variants. Unfortunately, Terekusai's prep was one step ahead of mine and he had AV raging bolt and ogerpon-cornerstone, which completely swung the matchup in his favor. In particular, cornerstone might have legitimately had 0% usage before this match, it was not a mon I had ever seen used in this tier and I cant overstate how bad it was for my team. I got some good luck early game, and Tere called me out on a couple of passive turns late game to end up taking the win bringing my total record with ratpacker teams to 0-2 (sorry ratpacker, maybe its a skill issue)
Overall, reasonably happy with the record, but wish I could've made the x-1 regular season run to qualify for ndd invitational. Thanks to the team for the playoffs carry. Not sure I'll play more of this tier actively moving forward so I'll probably do a larger builder dump on the ndd subforum later this week when I have time to sort through everything for anyone who's interested.
A more indepth explanation+thought process+sentimental yap about teams I used this season. Just grab the teams by clicking the mons if you dont give a fuck about the above.
W1 vs Skyview (W)
Derusting was honestly pretty painful, but I think we ended up landing on some good stuffs. Lativile is an incredibly potent offensive core and can get into position to fry everything with offzap and mola. Tusk and melm were easy fits to round out the team, slide melm being there to be back up vs volcarona. Diancie and opposing zap are annoying (one of which appeared in game) and it is a bit slow. Pretty easy to pick up and play tho.
W2 vs Sealoo (W)
Only win vs sealoo in the whole tour, but at what cost? Honestly was tired of building subroost kyurem whenever im asked to build vs him, so tried to spice it up a little. Modest belt kyurem is freakishly strong since its coverage is hitting all of the tier with super effective damage, so you end up with a side effect of bluffing specs if freeze dry hits into stuff like av mola. Extremely difficult to wall and is a match made in hell with spikes pon who prevents mola from getting too far and loves kyurem frying all of pons checks (ferro, sciz, zap, etc). Tinkaton and tusk are the hazard controls, tink acting as an early scale chomp check and tusk potentially cleaning up after pon and kyu bust through. Moltres checks yard and volc while acting as the primary ground immune, lele is great at cleaning up/revenge killing in general. Team is good for a first outing but the kyurem set is overall a net negative for the tier.
The timeline was probably not ready for a luna val renaissance tho
W3 vs Molly (L)
Originally tried building plot pecha + tran but, building that gave me an aneurism. Tapunium was invented to snipe mvenu/ferrothorn for sd shifu or koko itself to break through. SD tpunch shifu is quite absurd vs every water, deletes pex/mola/bro and chunks dozo, the speed is an issue compared to tblaze though. Logice fitted out the rest of the team. Cool ass imoth set to fry non-av mola and spread paralysis (discharge) and provide uturn pivoting. Lando provides rocks and toxic, though the pace of the team made it extremely difficult to fit removal. Ghold checks scarf lele, kyurem and everything while spreading more para. Originally the last slot was terapagos for removal, but the final version has dnite because the ogerpon mu is dire and espeed can bring alot of emergency clean up vs other superthreats like volcarona and ival. Unfortunately, av mola and mlop in game was really really tough, the kyurem too I suppose.
W4 vs Mada (L)
W5 vs Tuthur (W)
The building philosophy for the weak. Was trying to create sd z-dark as a bird and ghold lure in one, but the set up opportunities are pretty non existent as all the waters stay in. Standard fog actually ended up serving a purpose, acting as removal on an otherwise difficult squad to fit it on. Vile shifu lati do no wrong and ghold+lando are a consistent backbone. Good team.
W6 vs Eldids (W)
We didnt really have a scout, so Boomer suggested some anti-offense. He suggested semi room with bear and it was heat, so we ran it. Team is a little weird but the main idea is break down grounds to clean with cm koko or dnite. Bro is good at setting up reversal scenarios vs HO and sets up luna to pummel everything. Everybody loves ferro's leech seed support. Ace spreads burns and is the only hazard control.
Week 7 vs Avarice (W)
Made a rather bold claim when the lus were being set, so that may have impacted the building process a tad. First there was an attempt at building lopunny, then some kyurem, and after 10 drafts we landed on the team emblematic of involunatary celibates. Triple regen, greed nite, gambit, fastest mon torn, check check check and check. We don't talk about the game it was used in.
Semis vs Lameflame (L)
The only one of my goats who hasn't wooped me in tour (well now that has changed). The omar and hidin prep hit diff tho, behind the scenes them and boomer already cooked this anti offense squad. Originally they had av bolt but I thought that with tspikes sub cm bolt would absolutely cook since all the poisons hate that set in particular. Draco over pulse seems weird but it allows for more flexibility in match ups where you cant get a cm up and allows you to remove tusk/lando from the game. The gking is physdef to take on zama better and get up some tspikes on incoming tusk a little free'er. Lando pagos are pretty nice safety nets who handle the hazard game and zama+gambit clean well. The zama was z-fight because in testing ogerpon was pretty annoying, so it acts as a nuke to remove it in case they stay in to trade at +2. Didn't really talk about mu in the other ones, but this one was particularly not really feasible due to balloon treads being unpunishable and not afraid at all of sub bolt. Not to mention kyurem+dia was just killer to switch into.
Semis tiebreak vs Tempo (W)
The first thought was some good old diancie slop, I tried reinventing kyurem and failed, then we went with some nice and clean diancie offense which worked nicely. Specs koko is a slept on demon who enables iron treads to act as secondary speed control and hazard support. Diancie breaks good and provides rocks to boot. OWS and dnite are the amazing breakers as they always are, though this is my first use of z-nite in a long while. I was puzzled on how to make this better into mlop, zama and lu since the original boomer squad had i-moth in the last slot. The solution, as it turned out, was bulky blaziken. The hp lets you eat cc from the fighters and even random stuff like +1 volc hp ground and diancie earth power while protect and lefties let you chip heal out of priority ranges. The attack also lets you ohko zama at +2 if it loses dauntless or chipped dealing with OWS/Dnite/Treads and has a good roll to ohko standard mola at +4 (easily gotten with bulk investment). Speed is a dump, and conveniently ties ace at +1. In-game despite the t1-2 goofs goat dnite brought it back.
Finals vs Sealoo (L)
Burnout really cooked my ass here. Thank you boomer and omar for picking up my slack building wise. The ideas here were either: ceru, sub oger, or gallade. Gallade is my favorite mon of all time so there might have been some bias here. Legitimately tho it looked promising into the mu as it smokes the defensive cores with +2 cc/axel/eq. Lele compliments gallade by blocking prio and cleaning up if ghold is lured by +2 quake. Ferro Lu Zap were more experimental here, but they did cover gallades "problem mus" like latios, volc, scarf ghold and scarf shifu. Slide lu is cause molt/yard is an annoyance, ferro is bpress as anti-kyurem/gambit and zap is standardino fog. Ace in the back brings some choiceless speed and checks volcarona with teched sucker. Ingame i gotta say, even in poor mental I dissappointed myself. Lady luck was not really on my side but despite that I kinda played like a bitch. This is one of several reasons I am going to step away from the scene for, probably a month realistically.
Im happy to get to play again in this tour, though with the gargantuan price on my head 6-4 is a little dissappointing of a finish. Twas a good run and thank you to boomer, dan and logice for picking me up. Thank you puggod, vwnz, jscurf, asoat, immortal (sorry for never using your teams LOL), zach, nongy and vlarch (ndcl managers heads up) for helping in tests and building. Hope to play with or against yall again in the future.
W1 vs Skyview (W)
Derusting was honestly pretty painful, but I think we ended up landing on some good stuffs. Lativile is an incredibly potent offensive core and can get into position to fry everything with offzap and mola. Tusk and melm were easy fits to round out the team, slide melm being there to be back up vs volcarona. Diancie and opposing zap are annoying (one of which appeared in game) and it is a bit slow. Pretty easy to pick up and play tho.
Only win vs sealoo in the whole tour, but at what cost? Honestly was tired of building subroost kyurem whenever im asked to build vs him, so tried to spice it up a little. Modest belt kyurem is freakishly strong since its coverage is hitting all of the tier with super effective damage, so you end up with a side effect of bluffing specs if freeze dry hits into stuff like av mola. Extremely difficult to wall and is a match made in hell with spikes pon who prevents mola from getting too far and loves kyurem frying all of pons checks (ferro, sciz, zap, etc). Tinkaton and tusk are the hazard controls, tink acting as an early scale chomp check and tusk potentially cleaning up after pon and kyu bust through. Moltres checks yard and volc while acting as the primary ground immune, lele is great at cleaning up/revenge killing in general. Team is good for a first outing but the kyurem set is overall a net negative for the tier.
The timeline was probably not ready for a luna val renaissance tho
Originally tried building plot pecha + tran but, building that gave me an aneurism. Tapunium was invented to snipe mvenu/ferrothorn for sd shifu or koko itself to break through. SD tpunch shifu is quite absurd vs every water, deletes pex/mola/bro and chunks dozo, the speed is an issue compared to tblaze though. Logice fitted out the rest of the team. Cool ass imoth set to fry non-av mola and spread paralysis (discharge) and provide uturn pivoting. Lando provides rocks and toxic, though the pace of the team made it extremely difficult to fit removal. Ghold checks scarf lele, kyurem and everything while spreading more para. Originally the last slot was terapagos for removal, but the final version has dnite because the ogerpon mu is dire and espeed can bring alot of emergency clean up vs other superthreats like volcarona and ival. Unfortunately, av mola and mlop in game was really really tough, the kyurem too I suppose.
Was going for melm+pon here to punch though the lack of ghold, was not able to get something i like. Threw some slop together and called it a day.
The building philosophy for the weak. Was trying to create sd z-dark as a bird and ghold lure in one, but the set up opportunities are pretty non existent as all the waters stay in. Standard fog actually ended up serving a purpose, acting as removal on an otherwise difficult squad to fit it on. Vile shifu lati do no wrong and ghold+lando are a consistent backbone. Good team.
We didnt really have a scout, so Boomer suggested some anti-offense. He suggested semi room with bear and it was heat, so we ran it. Team is a little weird but the main idea is break down grounds to clean with cm koko or dnite. Bro is good at setting up reversal scenarios vs HO and sets up luna to pummel everything. Everybody loves ferro's leech seed support. Ace spreads burns and is the only hazard control.
Made a rather bold claim when the lus were being set, so that may have impacted the building process a tad. First there was an attempt at building lopunny, then some kyurem, and after 10 drafts we landed on the team emblematic of involunatary celibates. Triple regen, greed nite, gambit, fastest mon torn, check check check and check. We don't talk about the game it was used in.
The only one of my goats who hasn't wooped me in tour (well now that has changed). The omar and hidin prep hit diff tho, behind the scenes them and boomer already cooked this anti offense squad. Originally they had av bolt but I thought that with tspikes sub cm bolt would absolutely cook since all the poisons hate that set in particular. Draco over pulse seems weird but it allows for more flexibility in match ups where you cant get a cm up and allows you to remove tusk/lando from the game. The gking is physdef to take on zama better and get up some tspikes on incoming tusk a little free'er. Lando pagos are pretty nice safety nets who handle the hazard game and zama+gambit clean well. The zama was z-fight because in testing ogerpon was pretty annoying, so it acts as a nuke to remove it in case they stay in to trade at +2. Didn't really talk about mu in the other ones, but this one was particularly not really feasible due to balloon treads being unpunishable and not afraid at all of sub bolt. Not to mention kyurem+dia was just killer to switch into.
The first thought was some good old diancie slop, I tried reinventing kyurem and failed, then we went with some nice and clean diancie offense which worked nicely. Specs koko is a slept on demon who enables iron treads to act as secondary speed control and hazard support. Diancie breaks good and provides rocks to boot. OWS and dnite are the amazing breakers as they always are, though this is my first use of z-nite in a long while. I was puzzled on how to make this better into mlop, zama and lu since the original boomer squad had i-moth in the last slot. The solution, as it turned out, was bulky blaziken. The hp lets you eat cc from the fighters and even random stuff like +1 volc hp ground and diancie earth power while protect and lefties let you chip heal out of priority ranges. The attack also lets you ohko zama at +2 if it loses dauntless or chipped dealing with OWS/Dnite/Treads and has a good roll to ohko standard mola at +4 (easily gotten with bulk investment). Speed is a dump, and conveniently ties ace at +1. In-game despite the t1-2 goofs goat dnite brought it back.
Burnout really cooked my ass here. Thank you boomer and omar for picking up my slack building wise. The ideas here were either: ceru, sub oger, or gallade. Gallade is my favorite mon of all time so there might have been some bias here. Legitimately tho it looked promising into the mu as it smokes the defensive cores with +2 cc/axel/eq. Lele compliments gallade by blocking prio and cleaning up if ghold is lured by +2 quake. Ferro Lu Zap were more experimental here, but they did cover gallades "problem mus" like latios, volc, scarf ghold and scarf shifu. Slide lu is cause molt/yard is an annoyance, ferro is bpress as anti-kyurem/gambit and zap is standardino fog. Ace in the back brings some choiceless speed and checks volcarona with teched sucker. Ingame i gotta say, even in poor mental I dissappointed myself. Lady luck was not really on my side but despite that I kinda played like a bitch. This is one of several reasons I am going to step away from the scene for, probably a month realistically.
Im happy to get to play again in this tour, though with the gargantuan price on my head 6-4 is a little dissappointing of a finish. Twas a good run and thank you to boomer, dan and logice for picking me up. Thank you puggod, vwnz, jscurf, asoat, immortal (sorry for never using your teams LOL), zach, nongy and vlarch (ndcl managers heads up) for helping in tests and building. Hope to play with or against yall again in the future.
I prepped the Monotype slot for the Weaviles all season and figured I'd do a team dump. I didn't build much and mostly just decided what type to bring and found a team that I thought looked good, but here's the few teams I did build. Our overall record in Monotype was 5-4 but I think 2/4 of our losses could've been avoided with some cleaner play, while our other 2 were a result of me getting us bad matchups.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexmonotype-868951?p2
This was week 1 of the tour and going off opponent usage in Week 1 doesn't really do much so I just wanted to use something that's offensively paced with some techs to beat bad MU's. Helmet Washtom was to help alleviate the Rain matchup by chipping Swampert and Urshifu (spoiler alert, Washtom got packed T1), while Taunt Zeraora should 6-0 Normal. Zapdos handles Flying pretty much single handedly since playing around Gliscor/Lando can be a headache sometimes. Scarf Lele is another hard mon for Electric to deal with so I added Roseli hands though Payapa can work too. Ground shouldn't really be too difficult between Wisp Washtom and trapping Exca with Magnezone but I haven't really tested that MU much. Overall I think the team is fine? In hindsight, I wouldn't rate Electric that highly but I think the techs on here boost it up a good amount.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...-2441173374-cnqo8jjnfrtlfofaltgk9tfrdcw0kbtpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexmonotype-877878
For some reason Weezing is the only one without a :pmd/ sprite......ermmmmmm........
I don't entirely remember my reasoning for using Poison against Feen. I assumed he would bring something relatively standard since LogIce was prepping for him, andddd he brought stall. The matchup vs Water Stall would've been good had I put Tbolt on Nidoking, but I decided that Rocks were more important and this is like 1 of the 2 bad matchups I think we got all season. Tarre is someone who doesn't really deviate from his usage and Poison generally beats the stuff he uses. The team itself isn't anything special, the goal is to just spread status and click Knock so everything just eventually dies over time / gets chipped enough for Sneasel to clean an endgame.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexmonotype-874817?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexmonotype-882304?p2
I think Dark is one of the most consistent types from ORAS-SV so when there are weeks where I'm not really sure what to bring I just fall back to Dark as the only "bad" matchup would be like Fairy. vs Dorron I really don't think we should've lost since the team was mostly specifically prepped for Steel. HP Fire Gren + SpD MSab and SD Hamu should steamroll it but a little chungus happened in game. When Dunoks used the team I didn't have anything prepped for him and didn't really have time to do much so I told him to reuse it and ummm! It lost again. I thought the matchup was bad bc I kinda forgot to build for Dragon a little bit which is a super throw by me. I again think the team is fine just needs a little bit of refinement or to not load into Dragon XD. The team is just a standard 6 Dark but I changed movesets around to cover as many matchups as possible. Meow for Psy/Water/Ground/Fight, Gren for Fly/Steel/Ground/Water, and Hamu for Steel/Psy. Neutral matchups don't really need to be covered as Dark should win most of them between the OP defensive core it has and the offensive pieces that take advantage of being able to play mostly safe since Ting/Muk/Sab are so fat that it's hard to punish them depending on MU. Also, hazard stack helps.
NDM is honestly such a shit-show to prep for I think it's an unfun tier to build because there is just wayyy too much to cover and every week it felt like you might as well load Dragon or find a way to bring something that doesn't immediately lose to Dragon while also covering other types. The opportunity cost you fall victim to by covering other types just leaves you open to the set / mon variety that Dragon has anyway so it just felt really pointless. Probably needs some tiering to happen before I would call it a competitive tier worth being in ND tours and I'm not trying to throw shade I think there's just too much going on in that tier rn.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexmonotype-868951?p2
This was week 1 of the tour and going off opponent usage in Week 1 doesn't really do much so I just wanted to use something that's offensively paced with some techs to beat bad MU's. Helmet Washtom was to help alleviate the Rain matchup by chipping Swampert and Urshifu (spoiler alert, Washtom got packed T1), while Taunt Zeraora should 6-0 Normal. Zapdos handles Flying pretty much single handedly since playing around Gliscor/Lando can be a headache sometimes. Scarf Lele is another hard mon for Electric to deal with so I added Roseli hands though Payapa can work too. Ground shouldn't really be too difficult between Wisp Washtom and trapping Exca with Magnezone but I haven't really tested that MU much. Overall I think the team is fine? In hindsight, I wouldn't rate Electric that highly but I think the techs on here boost it up a good amount.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...-2441173374-cnqo8jjnfrtlfofaltgk9tfrdcw0kbtpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexmonotype-877878
For some reason Weezing is the only one without a :pmd/ sprite......ermmmmmm........
I don't entirely remember my reasoning for using Poison against Feen. I assumed he would bring something relatively standard since LogIce was prepping for him, andddd he brought stall. The matchup vs Water Stall would've been good had I put Tbolt on Nidoking, but I decided that Rocks were more important and this is like 1 of the 2 bad matchups I think we got all season. Tarre is someone who doesn't really deviate from his usage and Poison generally beats the stuff he uses. The team itself isn't anything special, the goal is to just spread status and click Knock so everything just eventually dies over time / gets chipped enough for Sneasel to clean an endgame.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexmonotype-874817?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexmonotype-882304?p2
I think Dark is one of the most consistent types from ORAS-SV so when there are weeks where I'm not really sure what to bring I just fall back to Dark as the only "bad" matchup would be like Fairy. vs Dorron I really don't think we should've lost since the team was mostly specifically prepped for Steel. HP Fire Gren + SpD MSab and SD Hamu should steamroll it but a little chungus happened in game. When Dunoks used the team I didn't have anything prepped for him and didn't really have time to do much so I told him to reuse it and ummm! It lost again. I thought the matchup was bad bc I kinda forgot to build for Dragon a little bit which is a super throw by me. I again think the team is fine just needs a little bit of refinement or to not load into Dragon XD. The team is just a standard 6 Dark but I changed movesets around to cover as many matchups as possible. Meow for Psy/Water/Ground/Fight, Gren for Fly/Steel/Ground/Water, and Hamu for Steel/Psy. Neutral matchups don't really need to be covered as Dark should win most of them between the OP defensive core it has and the offensive pieces that take advantage of being able to play mostly safe since Ting/Muk/Sab are so fat that it's hard to punish them depending on MU. Also, hazard stack helps.
NDM is honestly such a shit-show to prep for I think it's an unfun tier to build because there is just wayyy too much to cover and every week it felt like you might as well load Dragon or find a way to bring something that doesn't immediately lose to Dragon while also covering other types. The opportunity cost you fall victim to by covering other types just leaves you open to the set / mon variety that Dragon has anyway so it just felt really pointless. Probably needs some tiering to happen before I would call it a competitive tier worth being in ND tours and I'm not trying to throw shade I think there's just too much going on in that tier rn.
Hello, my name is Isza better known as Kaiser/Shali. I managed this years NDPL leading my team to semi finals, and despite sitting out I did build some teams for SV/SS. Between work and an active social life, I can't put up legendary effort as much anymore but I still try my best. For quality purposes, I'm only posting teams that have been brought this tour and these are all sample submissions. If you are an active community member, I encourage you to post the teams you've used this tournament. It not only creates resources for newer players but keeps you on edge as a competitor. Here are my previous team dumps from ND tournaments:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/post-ndpl-ii-set-team-dump.3693634/#post-9055301 NDPL 2 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-ou-team-bazaar.3658452/page-10#post-9235302 NDWC 2 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ndpl-iii-set-team-dump.3709950/#post-9395719 NDPL 3 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ndwc-iii-set-team-dump-thread.3722456/#post-9680985 NDWC 3 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ndwc-iv-set-team-dump-thread.3742566/#post-10124884 NDWC 4 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ndpl-v-set-team-dump-thread.3753502/#post-10312563 NDPL 4 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-bazaar.3710928/page-16#post-10661544 NDLT Team Dump
SV
(Replays aren't in cause I'm lazy, will be edited in later)
https://pokepast.es/df0b1c1ace39be76
https://pokepast.es/b71469f036aad749
https://pokepast.es/f408c61183ad4a86 - Built by Nashrock
My version - https://pokepast.es/753bb52af5eceb67
https://pokepast.es/ce354a640d17af83
https://pokepast.es/e4b9be5e05eb61c4
SS
https://pokepast.es/0e069b9a6138c55f
https://pokepast.es/9ea8ff1f362e520c
Was a fun tournament overall, I enjoyed my time with everyone and of course making teams as always. This tournament solidified the fact that I have to play in a nd team tour if I participate in one. I've played many different team tournaments and I've had some amazing wins, and some extremely depressing defeats. In both cases, theres no worse feeling than not being in control in game, and it's the part I hate about not playing. With that being said, im looking forward to circuit. I did ladder tour to ring chase, and now I'd like to solidify myself as the #1 sv before the gen ends.
Any questions on teams my discord is shalisza, thanks for having me.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/post-ndpl-ii-set-team-dump.3693634/#post-9055301 NDPL 2 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-ou-team-bazaar.3658452/page-10#post-9235302 NDWC 2 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ndpl-iii-set-team-dump.3709950/#post-9395719 NDPL 3 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ndwc-iii-set-team-dump-thread.3722456/#post-9680985 NDWC 3 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ndwc-iv-set-team-dump-thread.3742566/#post-10124884 NDWC 4 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ndpl-v-set-team-dump-thread.3753502/#post-10312563 NDPL 4 Team Dump
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-bazaar.3710928/page-16#post-10661544 NDLT Team Dump
SV
(Replays aren't in cause I'm lazy, will be edited in later)
https://pokepast.es/df0b1c1ace39be76
One of my favorite teams ATM. I think tech is super good at not only keeping wellspring in check, but is the best viable terapagos spin blocker in the tier. The teams P easy to use, spike stack with clef/skarm and deny hazards with ghold/pech. This features calm nature lefties cleavable so that kyurem and dance are easier to check. Skarm is brave bird+press>ID+press because you can't let tech take on oger alone every match up. Ting lu is 3 attacks with 1 being payback to hard force out mega patios, and rock slide for volc. rest is to keep it healthy.
https://pokepast.es/b71469f036aad749
Posted this team in discussion thread but not this version. Red card ting lu is very disruptive and gets up hazards on almost everything and after that you open up dnite/moth/zard x. Many prefer dragon dance but SD+scale shot is strong+ is a nice lategame cleaner. Gold/pagos control hazards, and iron moth is good for speed control+tspikes. This is nice for a bo1 if your opponent doesn't know sets or good for the ladder in general.
https://pokepast.es/f408c61183ad4a86 - Built by Nashrock
My version - https://pokepast.es/753bb52af5eceb67
Another one of my favorite teams from this tour. Because of Xurkiyee Ebelt Kyurem has made a huge impact on the tier that I wanted to try and abuse. Nash didn't fw the version I made so he edited it and got this. Double hazard control with u turn lop to get kyurem in on its pivots with pex as a water resist. Super fun and easy to use especially if you're expecting opposing bulky offense.
https://pokepast.es/ce354a640d17af83
This teams been used a lot between side tours with ND, and pl. I admit it doesn't win a lot of the time, although I think its solid and piloting issues could be behind a lot of Ls. Nothing crazy stands out here besides Orb+overheat moth, which is super dangerous to play with sun up. Morning sun keeps it healthy and there's no good last move to put on a set like this to begin with. Think having something that can outpace or tie with base 100/110s on sun is v important. Rest is standard glue, oh and toxic hard is for late since there's no hard answer for it.
https://pokepast.es/e4b9be5e05eb61c4
Used this in semis, I built this for OLK in another tour but hasn't been used since then. protect diancie is really great because it means you 100% control hazards now, even if it has to die. Air balloon treads means I can come in on lando/gliscor after tect to get my own rocks/spinner. Between treads and diancie you should always keep rocks off, which opens sub dq volt and z dnite up a lot. pech seems weird on this 6 although its so that shifu/opposing ogerpon/zard x isn't so annoying
SS
https://pokepast.es/0e069b9a6138c55f
Made this spike stack for NDWC 2025 tiebreak, unfortunately it didn't get used. It's an easy to use team with clefable and ferrothorn stacking hazards, making 4 atks heatran (almost has no pivots) and lopunny put up offensive pressure. Quick attack is so you don't get 6-0d by offensive volc, heatran coverage hits waters, grounds, even dragons. Scarf lando is ground +speed control and rotom is your other water resist outside of ferro. If you feel uneasy into scizor with this makes rotom wisp>toxic, otherwise toxic comes in handy for mons like mega latias and friends.
https://pokepast.es/9ea8ff1f362e520c
This is the craziest team I've ever given to anyone, especially for a high stakes game. But I believed in it and would build it again if I could go back. This features screens, using the fastest mon in the tier to do so. screens+removal+pivoting move seemed very heat and I liked it immediately. All the set up sweepers are super dangerous behind screens, I think manaphy and hatterene def steal the show though. While we looked bad in game our match up was super fucked, celesteela hard beats most of our team and it's not something I considered anyway. There's a lot more on what went into this but it would be better to dm me on discord if anything to explain. This is mainly for a best of 1 and cannot be re used.
Was a fun tournament overall, I enjoyed my time with everyone and of course making teams as always. This tournament solidified the fact that I have to play in a nd team tour if I participate in one. I've played many different team tournaments and I've had some amazing wins, and some extremely depressing defeats. In both cases, theres no worse feeling than not being in control in game, and it's the part I hate about not playing. With that being said, im looking forward to circuit. I did ladder tour to ring chase, and now I'd like to solidify myself as the #1 sv before the gen ends.
Any questions on teams my discord is shalisza, thanks for having me.
Intro
Resident TL :green_heart: sealoo reporting; NDPL is always a fun time, but in both 2023 & 2024 I never felt like my prep / play was completely up to par to seriously win it. This year, on the other hand, was a lot better in this regard. Between all 3 SVs & UU we combined to go a wonderful 25-11, and at least for myself (my other 2 managers too actually), finally take home a team tour for once in this god forsaken tier.
Will go through my prep and post shoutouts at the end, enjoy the read!
Prep (some pastes may be slightly different than what I loaded due to last minute changes)
Key:
= sealoo
= hellom
= Luthier
= dunoks
= Axzel
= MGdos16
= Lacks
= PigWarrior19
Week 1: vs Galarian Phoenix
(Won 8-2)
Win vs ojr Game & Loss vs YouanMingxue Game
Mega Tyranitar + Rilla + AV Slowking BO by Mafia / edited by sealoo
Kayzn hit me up earlier in the week to review a team of his and i made some edits accordingly to it, iirc the original version was a pivot gking and some super bulked out ttar. My initial worry was how passive the team is, and honestly, that is still my main annoyance with it but i think it was improved a lot with AV Gking and a more atk invested 4A ttar. Besides that, i think this is a super fun team to play all things considered, with rilla being really fun to use and ttar/gking/treads loving terrain. Nice game by hellom although he was playing a major grief glisc set, while kayzn misplayed his game but had a favorable mu imo. Cool 6 by the mafia boys
Win vs Tuthur Game
SD Gliscor + Scarf Enamorus Balance by sealoo
Back in WC, Tuthur unfortunately booted us from that tournament and i NEEDED revenge for the south. Tuthur was a balance main in wc for the most part and those teams were pretty bad vs sd glisc, so my premise here was mainly going to be sd glisc + something unsuspected that could bait kyurem. What i resulted in finding was scarf enamorus with alluring voice, which does a perfect 75% minroll and goes through sub to KO a kyurem after subbing up to hopefully clear the game up for gliscor vs those kyurem balances that expect it to solely beat glisc balance teams that I am known for using.
Loss vs entrocefalo Game & Win vs Mollymiltoast Game
Lead Helm Garchomp + Kingambit Offense by sealoo
this is a team i built way back when in WC and very similar to a team i used vs Lily, but i kinda forgot why we settled on it here? Its a generally strong team and has playable mu vs most structures with hitters + basic chomp/ghold stacking. However, it really dislikes seeing Zapdos since the chomp isnt toxic and ghold cannot meaningful hurt it to keep the hazards up. he also had a kingambit "check" in sub ground z kyurem that doesnt care about helm garchomp like the traditional fighters. This game boiled down to a turn with LO zama that we unfortunately got wrong but it was nicely played by dunoks to get it within striking distance
Win vs Seraphz Game
CB Bisharp + Hydrapple BO by sealoo
Going into the season, I hadn't really touched UU for a couple weeks after getting packed up in R1 of slam by sub bu dogi (foreshadowing to this broken hoe), and we were also vs Ryuji week 1. For playing ryuji, my main idea was CB Bisharp bc of his slowtwin affinity and punishing it off teleports/moth uturns to clear the way for the fast guys. Rest of the team was filled in pretty standard but this team gets hella smoked by z bish ngl, maybe a colbur press slowbro in hindsight would be better. Axzel played a clean game here
Week 2: vs Main Event Mafia 
(Lost 4-6)
Win vs Rasche Game
Bulkarona + Gliscor "Anti anti-balance" Balance by sealoo
I rated hellom's play significantly higher here, and imo the easiest way to exploit gaps like these is some honest Gliscor stack balance. I actually stole this idea mainly from a team used by avarice (presumably built by Ineros?) in W1 and agreed Volcarona is a really cool take to circumvent the traditional popular balance breakers (Kyurem & Steel Z Ghold). Hence the name, this team flips the mu on people expecting gliscor balance and using traditional ways around it largely into your favor. Threw Ferrothorn on there cause corv is rod and maybe some other edits idr the exact 6 besides the corv. Kind of a choppy game but hellom & his honorable friend mola pulled through
Loss vs Xurkiyee Game
SD Scale Garchomp + Slowking BO by sealoo
Going into this game, Xurk actually had a much smaller sample size of tenable replays than you'd expect of someone like him. With limited information, I was between this and a team youll see loaded by dunoks next week but just a slightly older version w a few tweaks, but ultimately wanted to use something that gives me more of a chance to outplay. To be truthful, both teams wouldve loaded into pretty shit mus. Im kinda coping here but i feel like the information gap here was rly difficult to overcome as opposed to my massive catalog of teams to reference in the past few, and they thoroughly outprepped here in a mu that was only able to be close bc my zap lucked through kyurem early (also that spike from him on the zap sack was a rly nice microplay that idk if ppl recognized, credit to him. not tryna sound too salty / only crediting mu cause he played it nicely) I rage queued an alt like +250 elo after this game and it was the base of the team i built for dunoks next week- silver lining??
Loss vs Kayzn Game
AOA Z-FSight Lele Basic BO by sealoo
this is one of those teams thats like, on paper fine, but it just irks me to actually suggest/use. I really am not a big proponent of this ting + zap/molt core wave as it feels way to susceptible to balance cores and giving glisc free reign to do whatever it wants. Ts core is like new age landocrown offense but for bo in terms of laziness but probably worse. idt the mu was awful? seemed like somewhere around 50/50 at preview but yeah kayzn won with one of the aforementioned glisc balances that i built for him back in LT (see my bazaar post a couple months back for it)
Win vs mrfraud Game
Mixed Zera + SD Aegislash Grassy Offense by sealoo
had a good amount of info here and noticed mrfraud relies on ttar for aegi a good bit, but went through the replays and calced the dmg and discovered it was adamant, so jolly sd aegi went insane here. UU rn is kinda fragile to mons jumping speed tiers (think jolly bish sniping ada okidogis, jolly aegi vs ttar) because of the immense congestion from 218 -> 243. This team deadass has no dark resist but swampert is like pseudo dark resist i suppose. Ngl if bish sded we wouldve lost wow i hate bisharp. Also, this mixed lo zera is crack; one of my favorite sets we came up with all seasons. On gterrain this mon is incredibly effective with rilla, would def recommend the uu ppl out there to try the core out. Another nice game and dub by 67SIXSEVEN67
Week 3: vs Always Midnight Absols 
(Won 6-4)
Loss vs Nashrock Game
NMI 4A Kyurem + AV Hatt Offense by sealoo
I went with Kyurem set cause it looked good vs the scout and nash uses a lot of the basic ting/bird combo which nmi kyu cooks. Supplemented with a tried and true core with cc ace to pivot and deny hazards with hatt in the back. In hindsight id go with a more physdef lando tho cause lop is annoying and that was definitely proven ingame, maybe could make zama smth better with a pdef lando but i will leave that to the readers
Win vs Kyo Game
Koko + Specs Valiant BO by sealoo
bit of an older team i had lying back in my builder and i picked it out 10min before the game cause it was a friday game and i was busy most the week; scouting kyo is pretty herculean so i just went with smth i could outplay with. this mu was fucked but treads went lebron mode
Win vs Separation Game
Fire Z Volcarona + Lead Chomp HO by sealoo
Fire Z volc looked like thanos so we ran some tests w/ it and made a few edits to an older version with mdia > oger and kingambit > ghold iirc
Win vs Micciu Game
AV Okidogi + Scarf Victini Offense by sealoo
another week of just building what looks cool tbh, and this time it was the dog with a vest. hhp and good bulk lets it be a solid apple/serp/moth/bish answer for offense while being really punishing to switch into even even without a z or boosting move
Week 4: vs Basculegion of Doom 
(Lost 3-7)
Win vs vk Game
Weaviles' Ceru Sun Edit originally by shuzoku, edited by sealoo
I thought this team looked really strong and the ceru set would farm someone who isnt very tapped in (this was back when the set was kindaaa underground in the general eyes) so booted it up with some edits to make Mega Diancie playable (this bolt tanks dstorm -> moon and kos with solar beam while also helping vs sd pr pon; protect yard was a hellom suggestion to establish your sun at lead vs unfavorable matchups like diancie so u can properly do the bolt line. Ngl the 4th yard move is irrelevant as shit tho it dont rly matter that much
Win vs Tempo di anguria Game
SD Urshifu + AV HSam BO by sealoo
tempo is a bit of a top 15 mons in the meta + the occasional kanto slowking merchant so i just made this bo that can break standard fairly well with tpunch urshifu, pretty standard otherwise. This team generally has a very "solid" matchup spread where you can win vs most things due to the nature of this shifu being so difficult to wall especially with hazard pressure and potential lele fsight turns; high skill ceiling and one of my favorites i made
Loss vs Mollymiltoast Game
Bulkarona + Gliscor "Anti anti-balance" Balance by sealoo
Reload from W2 hellom, good team and liked how it mu'd v scout & in the actual game, dunoks shoulda had this without luck iirc but i aint rewatching this bs
Loss vs Iride Game
CB Okidogi Balance by sealoo
i thought cb dogi looked p fun to use and mgdos being slotted maybe me want to pass some kinda ss/sm core stuff that he would be more familiar with like steela/tar/bro/zera, and the former two esp who we also hadnt used at all yet. This was a banger game featuring two broken dogs on both sides, we need to get a lot more value with our dog early to win this tbh but it is easier said than done
After this week i honestly was a bit worried to myself and thought this season might be on track to be a mediocre finish but between week 4 & 5, we had a major lineup shakeup (Luthier from SS to SV, dunoks from SV to Mono, MGdos to SS) which pretty much turned our seasons inconsistent trajectory into a super strong unit till finals
As dca pointed out ^ but I am super proud of how we were able to turn it around here after such a bad loss and carry it till finals
Week 5: vs Pearl River Slowpokes
(Tied 5-5)
Win vs shuzoku Game
Shuca Hands ETerrain by sealoo
Another one of my favorite teams i built this tour; the scout was very minimal for shuzoku in natdex but i noticed he uses some fake grounds in the few things i was able to get so i went with a specs koko which is generally a great mon to click with if your player has the skill advantage. Ended up using iron hands cause hes dope on terrain and trades with glisc structures that koko tends to struggle with nicely. Crown is a perfect compliment for lele hard checking, rest fills out pretty normally
Win vs Sputnik Game
More Lead Garchomp + Kingambit HO by sealoo
kinda boring ngl just more hazards + scarf lele skillcheck
Win vs avarice Game
Mega Diancie + SD Lando BO by sealoo
ngl they just got life read on the reload, i saw avarice offered to play rn very early before the likely preppers were awake to give input, so i figured they agreed a reload is fine the day before LOL. Diancie absolutely cooks that team and we sniped the yard early which made it p easy
Loss vs Dwagon Game
Mega Gardevoir + Okidogi Balance by Sagazinha
cool team by sagaz, we pivoted off a diff one i cba to find out like 5 min before and it worked out really nice with mgarde / poison z dogi vs stall but we lowkey sold this
Week 6: vs Vice City Victinis (Won 6-4)
Win vs chansey and lulu Game
Zamazenta + SD Ogerpon-W Sand Edit by sealoo
wanted sd oger + ttar to beat shed stall idk that much about chansey lulu ngl bro but hellom was scared of stall so just reworked w1 team a bit, he definitely lucked the shit out of this LOL and i got away with some lazy prep...be glad the lord spared u from chansey and delulu this time buddy
Win vs Mada Game
Meowscarada + Double Poison Balance by sealoo
team i built for wellhell back in fl that i wanted to use, got a pretty easy mu while opp was going on a fishing expedition
Loss vs 1yr Game
SD Urshifu + AV HSam BO by sealoo
Focused on trying to give the most tools to win and this w4 reloaded team has a generally good mu spread but its not that good vs like particularly screens ho permutation, i think vs more normal ho its ntb. luth played this p good in spite of mu, fiery crit was rly shit and cooked his position hard. Ngl if im 1yr here i woulda loaded the same shit tho fuck playing honest
Loss vs Elfuseon Game
LO Mienshao + CM Z Cha BO by Axzel / sealoo
we got outprepped and elfuseon is lucky as dix #itsneveryourfaultking av goodra lowkey offense goat tho id recommend investing
Week 7: vs Three GoGoats 
(Won 7-3)
Win vs gewwge Game
HelmSplit Hatt + Scarf Tusk + AV Kyurem by sealoo
gewwge has about 5 teams in his builder so i built this nasty all purpose cteam
Win vs Frixel Game
Bingo Balance by sealoo
needed to use gliscpexferro (omg my origins story) for bingo completion and weavile for mascot purposes. i had ihead ferro till right before the game but its prob better than tect
Win vs Soul king0 Game
CB Weavile + Pagos BO
this is the only weavile team that i think is actually good ngl, its like 8mo old atp but it still bark!
Win vs R1C3M4N Game
Z Refresh Pert + LO Mixed Zera Offense by Axzel / sealoo
i did not cosign no sucker bish btw og version was bug z buzz lefties pert sd knock sucker ihead bish but pursuit was clutch.
mu was easy as pie cause rice just be reloading
Semis: vs Always Midnight Absols (Won 7-3)
Win vs Nashrock Game
KICK BACK by sealoo
ancient (aka january 2025) broken ass 6 i edited to be a bit better vs what i was expecting (thought a corv looked p good vs our scout which is why melm is tpunch over traditional toxtect and i moved the tox onto lando > fog to hopefully get potential zap on a timer at some point). ace has hjk for tran primarily cause lati was edited to be beam so smth can actually kill glisc. the ace used to be sucker for pult but thats unnecessary now so i made it cc to have more real cplay to spikes even tho 5/6 the team is immune
Win vs Kyo Game
Protect MDia + Fire Z Volcarona HO
i had recently played olk in hpl who was getting isza help and loaded some fire z volc ho into bb molt so i just made ts hp rock cause kyo also be using molt and also loading a zardY vs me in 2/3 of the prior times we've played in tour; lowkey stole their idea on the tect dia too thanks for the help lads. volc pulled a mu from hell but things got dicey with treads despite my pristine pivots, no clue why he didnt just eq the diancie but volc did volc things #Was1yrRight? #NoHeWasnt #Polteageist
Loss vs Separation Game
Double Electric + SD Shifu by sealoo
i lowkey recycled the urshifu idea again here but with mttar who technically beats the only true answer (mega latios) and also the most obvious pecharunt coming ever into 100% pagos usage slot but ngl i never really liked the shit i ended up with and the game was kinda early so never fully locked in on smth i liked. outprepped & sepa admittedly did stunt on him, i did have a diff team with heatran and ep pagos too which wouldve farmed af so hypothetically we actually won this game
Finals: vs Main Event Mafia (Won 7-2)
Loss vs Aso Game
AV Tornadus + Bulky PsyZ Kiss Lele Hazard Stack Balance by sealoo
Approaching Aso was a bit weird, he's kinda like tempo in terms of just spamming the good mons and how their teams end up looking + didnt have a full season of info to go off due to the tier swapping. I wanted to catch them biting on either our 0 lele or 0 pex use throughout the season, as well as only 1 ghold. When we were testing this team, the major problematic matchup was actually zapdos which is why samurott has toxic on it, however, we also rolled into an np ghold + mega latios which we wouldve needed hsam healthy for so it put hellom in a really rough position where he wouldve needed to lead lele to force out aso's free zap lead and then toxic a zap switch later in the game to pressure it. However, in our tests, we established the best line was leading and toxicing zapdos, but in this particular one it probably required a different approach. On top of all that, rolling into a ghold in and of itself p much makes lele useless which is the big progress maker/wincon of the team
I quite liked this team at the end of the day; no cope i dont really think we got outprepped here honestly just more of an unlucky pull, nothing id change in hindsight about the prep here
Win vs Xurkiyee Game
CM Fight Z Lele Offense by sealoo
cba to re explain all of this so ss of my prep logic. loaded a team i built like 2mo ago and made lele cm cause i was expecting a heatran and went with scarf hsam. fun fact i played aso on ladder with this team's original version and that lucky sack of bricks had to hax to win and wasnt even aware he haxxed. is this really the people we are gonna let go 7-1 in pl? Yeah. i am using this team in pl. 2 months later. In finals. Vs YOUR boy. Get owned Aso :package:
larp and hatred for aso aside i just wanted to use a comfy offense and play good at the end of the day. ngl all the other ideas i suggested besides cm lele wouldve been ass LMFAO thank god i built the right one
Poetry.
Win vs Kayzn Game
CM Fini + Wisp Heatran BO
the teams where kayzn didnt have my assistance were all really bad vs cm fini so went with that + some other guys (mainly just avoided ferro). luth deadass Mon Tzu with the 3a ice z tusk in tests that set was going crazy.
ghost z ghold was p annoying to play but he played this game really well, glad i could gift a non cursed mu to cap it off
Win vs Danbear02 Game
AV Celesteela Sand by Axzel
We were in a really strong spot this week since we had only used cele and ttar 1x and no lati at all, while we had incredibly notable usages of maero and dogi. This allowed us to easily predict the pecharunt from them and build this really fun team. Celesteela was originally there for iride because we thought mafia were definitely fucked after kunal lost so we started prepping for bascus, and she was using a lot of swampert offense which steela can snipe off lead and generally be rly annoying clicking its moves, this set was surprisingly amazing tbh i would recommend it. The okidogi was originally BU + gunk + cc + throat chop with dark z because of how obvious the pech was but we ended up pivoting to z ground 4A to keep knock on it while still threatening pech and smacking aegi while not being walled by other dogs since the dark z set was doing fuck all (i had no pech in my builder to test with...NGL)
I think this mu was p good for us but some para hax made it annoying vs bliss, fortunately axzel played it rly well down the stretch :dbV:
Shoutouts
Conclusion
First time being able to write one of these without it coming off a loss, awesome! I hope this can at least help a few people with prep/building or playing; thank you to the Weaviles for a wonderful season and I hope we get to team up again down the line. This tour means a lot to me so I tried to put in as much effort as I could for my Weavile brothers; hopefully gonna enjoy a brief break from sweating out this tier before circuit starts, lord knows I need it...
Obligatory shoutout to all my friends in GCN/PRC -- what would mons be without jerks?
Resident TL :green_heart: sealoo reporting; NDPL is always a fun time, but in both 2023 & 2024 I never felt like my prep / play was completely up to par to seriously win it. This year, on the other hand, was a lot better in this regard. Between all 3 SVs & UU we combined to go a wonderful 25-11, and at least for myself (my other 2 managers too actually), finally take home a team tour for once in this god forsaken tier.
Will go through my prep and post shoutouts at the end, enjoy the read!
Prep (some pastes may be slightly different than what I loaded due to last minute changes)
Key:
= sealoo = hellom = Luthier = dunoks = Axzel = MGdos16 = Lacks = PigWarrior19Week 1: vs Galarian Phoenix
(Won 8-2) Win vs ojr Game & Loss vs YouanMingxue GameMega Tyranitar + Rilla + AV Slowking BO by Mafia / edited by sealoo
Kayzn hit me up earlier in the week to review a team of his and i made some edits accordingly to it, iirc the original version was a pivot gking and some super bulked out ttar. My initial worry was how passive the team is, and honestly, that is still my main annoyance with it but i think it was improved a lot with AV Gking and a more atk invested 4A ttar. Besides that, i think this is a super fun team to play all things considered, with rilla being really fun to use and ttar/gking/treads loving terrain. Nice game by hellom although he was playing a major grief glisc set, while kayzn misplayed his game but had a favorable mu imo. Cool 6 by the mafia boys
Win vs Tuthur GameSD Gliscor + Scarf Enamorus Balance by sealoo
Back in WC, Tuthur unfortunately booted us from that tournament and i NEEDED revenge for the south. Tuthur was a balance main in wc for the most part and those teams were pretty bad vs sd glisc, so my premise here was mainly going to be sd glisc + something unsuspected that could bait kyurem. What i resulted in finding was scarf enamorus with alluring voice, which does a perfect 75% minroll and goes through sub to KO a kyurem after subbing up to hopefully clear the game up for gliscor vs those kyurem balances that expect it to solely beat glisc balance teams that I am known for using.
Loss vs entrocefalo Game & Win vs Mollymiltoast GameLead Helm Garchomp + Kingambit Offense by sealoo
this is a team i built way back when in WC and very similar to a team i used vs Lily, but i kinda forgot why we settled on it here? Its a generally strong team and has playable mu vs most structures with hitters + basic chomp/ghold stacking. However, it really dislikes seeing Zapdos since the chomp isnt toxic and ghold cannot meaningful hurt it to keep the hazards up. he also had a kingambit "check" in sub ground z kyurem that doesnt care about helm garchomp like the traditional fighters. This game boiled down to a turn with LO zama that we unfortunately got wrong but it was nicely played by dunoks to get it within striking distance
Win vs Seraphz GameCB Bisharp + Hydrapple BO by sealoo
Going into the season, I hadn't really touched UU for a couple weeks after getting packed up in R1 of slam by sub bu dogi (foreshadowing to this broken hoe), and we were also vs Ryuji week 1. For playing ryuji, my main idea was CB Bisharp bc of his slowtwin affinity and punishing it off teleports/moth uturns to clear the way for the fast guys. Rest of the team was filled in pretty standard but this team gets hella smoked by z bish ngl, maybe a colbur press slowbro in hindsight would be better. Axzel played a clean game here
(Lost 4-6) Win vs Rasche GameBulkarona + Gliscor "Anti anti-balance" Balance by sealoo
I rated hellom's play significantly higher here, and imo the easiest way to exploit gaps like these is some honest Gliscor stack balance. I actually stole this idea mainly from a team used by avarice (presumably built by Ineros?) in W1 and agreed Volcarona is a really cool take to circumvent the traditional popular balance breakers (Kyurem & Steel Z Ghold). Hence the name, this team flips the mu on people expecting gliscor balance and using traditional ways around it largely into your favor. Threw Ferrothorn on there cause corv is rod and maybe some other edits idr the exact 6 besides the corv. Kind of a choppy game but hellom & his honorable friend mola pulled through
Loss vs Xurkiyee GameSD Scale Garchomp + Slowking BO by sealoo
Going into this game, Xurk actually had a much smaller sample size of tenable replays than you'd expect of someone like him. With limited information, I was between this and a team youll see loaded by dunoks next week but just a slightly older version w a few tweaks, but ultimately wanted to use something that gives me more of a chance to outplay. To be truthful, both teams wouldve loaded into pretty shit mus. Im kinda coping here but i feel like the information gap here was rly difficult to overcome as opposed to my massive catalog of teams to reference in the past few, and they thoroughly outprepped here in a mu that was only able to be close bc my zap lucked through kyurem early (also that spike from him on the zap sack was a rly nice microplay that idk if ppl recognized, credit to him. not tryna sound too salty / only crediting mu cause he played it nicely) I rage queued an alt like +250 elo after this game and it was the base of the team i built for dunoks next week- silver lining??
Loss vs Kayzn GameAOA Z-FSight Lele Basic BO by sealoo
this is one of those teams thats like, on paper fine, but it just irks me to actually suggest/use. I really am not a big proponent of this ting + zap/molt core wave as it feels way to susceptible to balance cores and giving glisc free reign to do whatever it wants. Ts core is like new age landocrown offense but for bo in terms of laziness but probably worse. idt the mu was awful? seemed like somewhere around 50/50 at preview but yeah kayzn won with one of the aforementioned glisc balances that i built for him back in LT (see my bazaar post a couple months back for it)
Win vs mrfraud GameMixed Zera + SD Aegislash Grassy Offense by sealoo
had a good amount of info here and noticed mrfraud relies on ttar for aegi a good bit, but went through the replays and calced the dmg and discovered it was adamant, so jolly sd aegi went insane here. UU rn is kinda fragile to mons jumping speed tiers (think jolly bish sniping ada okidogis, jolly aegi vs ttar) because of the immense congestion from 218 -> 243. This team deadass has no dark resist but swampert is like pseudo dark resist i suppose. Ngl if bish sded we wouldve lost wow i hate bisharp. Also, this mixed lo zera is crack; one of my favorite sets we came up with all seasons. On gterrain this mon is incredibly effective with rilla, would def recommend the uu ppl out there to try the core out. Another nice game and dub by 67SIXSEVEN67
(Won 6-4) Loss vs Nashrock GameNMI 4A Kyurem + AV Hatt Offense by sealoo
I went with Kyurem set cause it looked good vs the scout and nash uses a lot of the basic ting/bird combo which nmi kyu cooks. Supplemented with a tried and true core with cc ace to pivot and deny hazards with hatt in the back. In hindsight id go with a more physdef lando tho cause lop is annoying and that was definitely proven ingame, maybe could make zama smth better with a pdef lando but i will leave that to the readers
Win vs Kyo GameKoko + Specs Valiant BO by sealoo
bit of an older team i had lying back in my builder and i picked it out 10min before the game cause it was a friday game and i was busy most the week; scouting kyo is pretty herculean so i just went with smth i could outplay with. this mu was fucked but treads went lebron mode
Win vs Separation GameFire Z Volcarona + Lead Chomp HO by sealoo
Fire Z volc looked like thanos so we ran some tests w/ it and made a few edits to an older version with mdia > oger and kingambit > ghold iirc
Win vs Micciu GameAV Okidogi + Scarf Victini Offense by sealoo
another week of just building what looks cool tbh, and this time it was the dog with a vest. hhp and good bulk lets it be a solid apple/serp/moth/bish answer for offense while being really punishing to switch into even even without a z or boosting move
(Lost 3-7) Win vs vk GameWeaviles' Ceru Sun Edit originally by shuzoku, edited by sealoo
I thought this team looked really strong and the ceru set would farm someone who isnt very tapped in (this was back when the set was kindaaa underground in the general eyes) so booted it up with some edits to make Mega Diancie playable (this bolt tanks dstorm -> moon and kos with solar beam while also helping vs sd pr pon; protect yard was a hellom suggestion to establish your sun at lead vs unfavorable matchups like diancie so u can properly do the bolt line. Ngl the 4th yard move is irrelevant as shit tho it dont rly matter that much
Win vs Tempo di anguria GameSD Urshifu + AV HSam BO by sealoo
tempo is a bit of a top 15 mons in the meta + the occasional kanto slowking merchant so i just made this bo that can break standard fairly well with tpunch urshifu, pretty standard otherwise. This team generally has a very "solid" matchup spread where you can win vs most things due to the nature of this shifu being so difficult to wall especially with hazard pressure and potential lele fsight turns; high skill ceiling and one of my favorites i made
Loss vs Mollymiltoast GameBulkarona + Gliscor "Anti anti-balance" Balance by sealoo
Reload from W2 hellom, good team and liked how it mu'd v scout & in the actual game, dunoks shoulda had this without luck iirc but i aint rewatching this bs
Loss vs Iride GameCB Okidogi Balance by sealoo
i thought cb dogi looked p fun to use and mgdos being slotted maybe me want to pass some kinda ss/sm core stuff that he would be more familiar with like steela/tar/bro/zera, and the former two esp who we also hadnt used at all yet. This was a banger game featuring two broken dogs on both sides, we need to get a lot more value with our dog early to win this tbh but it is easier said than done
After this week i honestly was a bit worried to myself and thought this season might be on track to be a mediocre finish but between week 4 & 5, we had a major lineup shakeup (Luthier from SS to SV, dunoks from SV to Mono, MGdos to SS) which pretty much turned our seasons inconsistent trajectory into a super strong unit till finals
Week 5: vs Pearl River Slowpokes
(Tied 5-5) Win vs shuzoku GameShuca Hands ETerrain by sealoo
Another one of my favorite teams i built this tour; the scout was very minimal for shuzoku in natdex but i noticed he uses some fake grounds in the few things i was able to get so i went with a specs koko which is generally a great mon to click with if your player has the skill advantage. Ended up using iron hands cause hes dope on terrain and trades with glisc structures that koko tends to struggle with nicely. Crown is a perfect compliment for lele hard checking, rest fills out pretty normally
Win vs Sputnik GameMore Lead Garchomp + Kingambit HO by sealoo
kinda boring ngl just more hazards + scarf lele skillcheck
Win vs avarice GameMega Diancie + SD Lando BO by sealoo
ngl they just got life read on the reload, i saw avarice offered to play rn very early before the likely preppers were awake to give input, so i figured they agreed a reload is fine the day before LOL. Diancie absolutely cooks that team and we sniped the yard early which made it p easy
Loss vs Dwagon GameMega Gardevoir + Okidogi Balance by Sagazinha
cool team by sagaz, we pivoted off a diff one i cba to find out like 5 min before and it worked out really nice with mgarde / poison z dogi vs stall but we lowkey sold this
(Won 6-4) Win vs chansey and lulu GameZamazenta + SD Ogerpon-W Sand Edit by sealoo
wanted sd oger + ttar to beat shed stall idk that much about chansey lulu ngl bro but hellom was scared of stall so just reworked w1 team a bit, he definitely lucked the shit out of this LOL and i got away with some lazy prep...be glad the lord spared u from chansey and delulu this time buddy
Win vs Mada GameMeowscarada + Double Poison Balance by sealoo
team i built for wellhell back in fl that i wanted to use, got a pretty easy mu while opp was going on a fishing expedition
Loss vs 1yr GameSD Urshifu + AV HSam BO by sealoo
Focused on trying to give the most tools to win and this w4 reloaded team has a generally good mu spread but its not that good vs like particularly screens ho permutation, i think vs more normal ho its ntb. luth played this p good in spite of mu, fiery crit was rly shit and cooked his position hard. Ngl if im 1yr here i woulda loaded the same shit tho fuck playing honest
Loss vs Elfuseon GameLO Mienshao + CM Z Cha BO by Axzel / sealoo
we got outprepped and elfuseon is lucky as dix #itsneveryourfaultking av goodra lowkey offense goat tho id recommend investing
(Won 7-3)Win vs gewwge GameHelmSplit Hatt + Scarf Tusk + AV Kyurem by sealoo
gewwge has about 5 teams in his builder so i built this nasty all purpose cteam
Win vs Frixel GameBingo Balance by sealoo
needed to use gliscpexferro (omg my origins story) for bingo completion and weavile for mascot purposes. i had ihead ferro till right before the game but its prob better than tect
Win vs Soul king0 GameCB Weavile + Pagos BO
this is the only weavile team that i think is actually good ngl, its like 8mo old atp but it still bark!
Win vs R1C3M4N GameZ Refresh Pert + LO Mixed Zera Offense by Axzel / sealoo
i did not cosign no sucker bish btw og version was bug z buzz lefties pert sd knock sucker ihead bish but pursuit was clutch.
mu was easy as pie cause rice just be reloading
Semis: vs Always Midnight Absols
(Won 7-3)Win vs Nashrock GameKICK BACK by sealoo
ancient (aka january 2025) broken ass 6 i edited to be a bit better vs what i was expecting (thought a corv looked p good vs our scout which is why melm is tpunch over traditional toxtect and i moved the tox onto lando > fog to hopefully get potential zap on a timer at some point). ace has hjk for tran primarily cause lati was edited to be beam so smth can actually kill glisc. the ace used to be sucker for pult but thats unnecessary now so i made it cc to have more real cplay to spikes even tho 5/6 the team is immune
Win vs Kyo GameProtect MDia + Fire Z Volcarona HO
i had recently played olk in hpl who was getting isza help and loaded some fire z volc ho into bb molt so i just made ts hp rock cause kyo also be using molt and also loading a zardY vs me in 2/3 of the prior times we've played in tour; lowkey stole their idea on the tect dia too thanks for the help lads. volc pulled a mu from hell but things got dicey with treads despite my pristine pivots, no clue why he didnt just eq the diancie but volc did volc things #Was1yrRight? #NoHeWasnt #Polteageist
Loss vs Separation GameDouble Electric + SD Shifu by sealoo
i lowkey recycled the urshifu idea again here but with mttar who technically beats the only true answer (mega latios) and also the most obvious pecharunt coming ever into 100% pagos usage slot but ngl i never really liked the shit i ended up with and the game was kinda early so never fully locked in on smth i liked. outprepped & sepa admittedly did stunt on him, i did have a diff team with heatran and ep pagos too which wouldve farmed af so hypothetically we actually won this game
Finals: vs Main Event Mafia
(Won 7-2)A ton of respect for my boys on Mafia (Boomenheimer, LogIce, Aso particularly -- 3 great friends) for making it to finals, yalls tenacity to get to that semis tb vs 4 insanely strong slots from Basculegions was awesome. If you wouldve told me the aso who seth and I picked for FL back in 2023 because he was willing to play a set on the bus at 4am would be going 7-1 in NDPL, i would probably believe it because we have the greatest eyes for talent ever. As I told boomer, when you make 2 finals in a row isnt a coincidence; hope to see the Mafia around!
Loss vs Aso GameAV Tornadus + Bulky PsyZ Kiss Lele Hazard Stack Balance by sealoo
Approaching Aso was a bit weird, he's kinda like tempo in terms of just spamming the good mons and how their teams end up looking + didnt have a full season of info to go off due to the tier swapping. I wanted to catch them biting on either our 0 lele or 0 pex use throughout the season, as well as only 1 ghold. When we were testing this team, the major problematic matchup was actually zapdos which is why samurott has toxic on it, however, we also rolled into an np ghold + mega latios which we wouldve needed hsam healthy for so it put hellom in a really rough position where he wouldve needed to lead lele to force out aso's free zap lead and then toxic a zap switch later in the game to pressure it. However, in our tests, we established the best line was leading and toxicing zapdos, but in this particular one it probably required a different approach. On top of all that, rolling into a ghold in and of itself p much makes lele useless which is the big progress maker/wincon of the team
I quite liked this team at the end of the day; no cope i dont really think we got outprepped here honestly just more of an unlucky pull, nothing id change in hindsight about the prep here
Win vs Xurkiyee Game CM Fight Z Lele Offense by sealoo
cba to re explain all of this so ss of my prep logic. loaded a team i built like 2mo ago and made lele cm cause i was expecting a heatran and went with scarf hsam. fun fact i played aso on ladder with this team's original version and that lucky sack of bricks had to hax to win and wasnt even aware he haxxed. is this really the people we are gonna let go 7-1 in pl? Yeah. i am using this team in pl. 2 months later. In finals. Vs YOUR boy. Get owned Aso :package:
larp and hatred for aso aside i just wanted to use a comfy offense and play good at the end of the day. ngl all the other ideas i suggested besides cm lele wouldve been ass LMFAO thank god i built the right one
Poetry.
Win vs Kayzn GameCM Fini + Wisp Heatran BO
the teams where kayzn didnt have my assistance were all really bad vs cm fini so went with that + some other guys (mainly just avoided ferro). luth deadass Mon Tzu with the 3a ice z tusk in tests that set was going crazy.
ghost z ghold was p annoying to play but he played this game really well, glad i could gift a non cursed mu to cap it off
Win vs Danbear02 GameAV Celesteela Sand by Axzel
We were in a really strong spot this week since we had only used cele and ttar 1x and no lati at all, while we had incredibly notable usages of maero and dogi. This allowed us to easily predict the pecharunt from them and build this really fun team. Celesteela was originally there for iride because we thought mafia were definitely fucked after kunal lost so we started prepping for bascus, and she was using a lot of swampert offense which steela can snipe off lead and generally be rly annoying clicking its moves, this set was surprisingly amazing tbh i would recommend it. The okidogi was originally BU + gunk + cc + throat chop with dark z because of how obvious the pech was but we ended up pivoting to z ground 4A to keep knock on it while still threatening pech and smacking aegi while not being walled by other dogs since the dark z set was doing fuck all (i had no pech in my builder to test with...NGL)
I think this mu was p good for us but some para hax made it annoying vs bliss, fortunately axzel played it rly well down the stretch :dbV:
Shoutouts
kDCA of course i must start with my long time comanager and brother in arms...FORBES 1 / Ronald / King **** **** ***. Since we first teamed up back in WC 2023 and ran it back in that PL on the Weaviles, its been a great time but only without a ring to finally cap it off and get ur ass out of this tier finally. Back in PL 2024, the grind was insane and we were both mad active, but it definitely was a different dynamic this year. Id be lying if i didnt say that i was getting a bit annoyed midseason with how suboptimal our SS slots were doing, but once you hit playoffs and stunted on the Absols i knew my goat still had it... I really wasnt sure if you actually would run it back or not ngl like dont get me wrong i enjoyed playing into the "we all know hes eventualllyyyyyy gonna say yes and manage" bit in PRC and such but internally i actually wasnt sure and worried about what i would do if not. Theres no one else who i really trust with both managing and player evaluations especially, and definitely not enough to manage this tour with. Im glad we ended up running it back and claiming the win finally
This tour and our long history managing aside, we've shot so much random shit and just talked throughout all these tours / PRC and youre a great friend. Although i may be sad to see you ditching ND (maybe after one last run in wc of course..), its been super awesome to watch you become a respected & known CG player who can start in SCL and play DBR to a close game. Always a pleasure to run it of course, you deserve this win especially brother
This tour and our long history managing aside, we've shot so much random shit and just talked throughout all these tours / PRC and youre a great friend. Although i may be sad to see you ditching ND (maybe after one last run in wc of course..), its been super awesome to watch you become a respected & known CG player who can start in SCL and play DBR to a close game. Always a pleasure to run it of course, you deserve this win especially brother
hex our start back in WC 2023 was definitely rocky, and i honestly only knew you because of A Diddy saying how dumb and fat u were i think. Eventually when you get assblasted by isza and everyone was tryna RB you in the chat i just had to join in and ultimately concluded youre a dork.
Who wouldve thoughtt...2 years later we are NDPL CHAMPIONS TOGETHER!!!!!!! ^_^
I think we only really got acquainted again after your break in brief periods throughout 2024 but i enjoyed larping with you even tho i still wasnt sure if you were a dork or not. You also smacked micaiah in PL week 7 with some major cornball uzi names on some cotta timing but excluding the winning part. I dont respect that. However, we only truly got to know each other in WC 2025 when i joined yalls cord after my team got dogwalked by the french overlords, and between me you seth logice and A Diddy it was a super fun time; i think our personalities matched quite well. You had offered to manage PL but i genuinely just wasnt sure if we were that chill (i guess i might have too high of expectations for how much you need to know someone to manage a side tour ngl.) especially because id planned to manage with dca who i can trust to be fairly unfiltered with at this point. Eventually things worked out the way they did and you were willing to let us do a good majority of the draft shit (ngl i think you just agreed with our plan anyways tho it wasnt even just me and dca colluding LOL), and it was super fun again this PL. Youre a good teammate and have a sense of humor i like (flag_il is genuinely the meta react) while providing blessed mono prep despite some sold games.
I havent been around nd in most the SS shit ngl so i dont know how long youve been trying to win this bs for ngl but you deserve it. grats friend but change that discord user. Shit straight out of a "Grok generate me 3 cool awesome words for my Discord" :Rofl: :Flag_NDP: (Those who know) (best short lived gc ever...??)
Who wouldve thoughtt...2 years later we are NDPL CHAMPIONS TOGETHER!!!!!!! ^_^
I think we only really got acquainted again after your break in brief periods throughout 2024 but i enjoyed larping with you even tho i still wasnt sure if you were a dork or not. You also smacked micaiah in PL week 7 with some major cornball uzi names on some cotta timing but excluding the winning part. I dont respect that. However, we only truly got to know each other in WC 2025 when i joined yalls cord after my team got dogwalked by the french overlords, and between me you seth logice and A Diddy it was a super fun time; i think our personalities matched quite well. You had offered to manage PL but i genuinely just wasnt sure if we were that chill (i guess i might have too high of expectations for how much you need to know someone to manage a side tour ngl.) especially because id planned to manage with dca who i can trust to be fairly unfiltered with at this point. Eventually things worked out the way they did and you were willing to let us do a good majority of the draft shit (ngl i think you just agreed with our plan anyways tho it wasnt even just me and dca colluding LOL), and it was super fun again this PL. Youre a good teammate and have a sense of humor i like (flag_il is genuinely the meta react) while providing blessed mono prep despite some sold games.
I havent been around nd in most the SS shit ngl so i dont know how long youve been trying to win this bs for ngl but you deserve it. grats friend but change that discord user. Shit straight out of a "Grok generate me 3 cool awesome words for my Discord" :Rofl: :Flag_NDP: (Those who know) (best short lived gc ever...??)
hellom my brother hellom might just be the NDPL sheet farmer at the end of the day. We first teamed back in EPL 2023 and i didnt figure out who this guy with the weirdo special font user was until you played ur first game in like week 5 of that shit while you were 7-0 in that current ndpl at the same time, and you said youd play NDWC. Then u had the godly spl and i deadass felt like a 2012 bitcoin investor, but ngl our wc combo is just CURSED. And so is this shit region. U lowkey got perpetually bad mus when i prepped which honestly kinda worried me for this PL, eppecially when we knew the frenchman would be dropping his 401k on you as well, and every time i expressed this concern dca was just like "Thats the gang tho" so hey i guess man. Anyways it worked out insanely good, i did a lot of experimenting in your slot and u just nodded your head played a few tests and went out and farmed. You also have like no ego / tour player arrogance that some do which is always something ive appreciated when teaming w you.
maybe we can actually break the curse in WC (but...not ND. Im thinking CAP.) :clueless: dont get permalocked again and lose this dope ca
maybe we can actually break the curse in WC (but...not ND. Im thinking CAP.) :clueless: dont get permalocked again and lose this dope ca
Axzel i really had no clue what to expect from you going into this tour but i knew you were good, i just heard...troubling tales from a certain HidingFlames in your NDBD Champion Adventure but didnt rly know you besides that. Due to dunoks refusing to uu, you winded up in the tier which i was lowkey fine with caused i figured you had better mechanics than most the pool (aka thats what dca said) and could lowkey go insane w/ my teams hopefully. Alas, that is exactly what happened. I love building offense in uu and having someone who wants to play it is a perfect match for me, even though i did feel like we kinda butted heads in prep at various points post-week 3. Still, it never felt like there was any disrespect/ill will behind it, just 2 people who wanted to win which is exactly what you ended up doing. Towards the end in poffs / w7 when you started building i wasnt sure if i should be taking a backseat or still building stuff tbh, but your structures cooked up en route to super strong 6-1 which was cool af to see from my perspective as you had never played before this tour and pretty much worked out what you actually liked using weekly in real time
the dbMotes deadass carried the cord, youre a funny guy and talking owcs occasionally was fun. Had a ton of fun in the uu slot this season and im glad we could finish it out with a great week of collaborative building into a win; you were genuinely my favorite player to watch play and had the best pure mechanics on the team imo
:DBR: :DBV:
the dbMotes deadass carried the cord, youre a funny guy and talking owcs occasionally was fun. Had a ton of fun in the uu slot this season and im glad we could finish it out with a great week of collaborative building into a win; you were genuinely my favorite player to watch play and had the best pure mechanics on the team imo
:DBR: :DBV:
Terekusai i admittedly didnt dabble much in doubles besides fucking with you early on by renaming u to Terry coo sigh, but wow you cooked up especially down the stretch vs some tough opponents when we needed it. In doubles, our plan was generally to grab someone inexpensive and having the slot go roughly even hopefully as the pool didnt really have a top dog in it. I had heard of your name but i didnt know shit about the tier and you just ended up being what was leftover once the draft was concluding, so we took you to start with pig who had been stringing together some really strong performances as a potentially high upside sub slot if things didnt pan it.
Fortunately, that never was an issue. You absolutely cooked and even got the luthier glaze, enjoy the win man -- steals for this value are what win these tours and you made our investment a great one
Fortunately, that never was an issue. You absolutely cooked and even got the luthier glaze, enjoy the win man -- steals for this value are what win these tours and you made our investment a great one
ZDen we needed an SS2 slot who isnt a botburger but lowkey all the signups were botburgers, until i got retained in EPL. I joined the cord and it was like us 5 in the channel and id seen you playing sm in these high level side tours before, so figured why not give it a ask. You accepted and the rest was history even though we didnt interact much in the actual tour prep-wise. You put in a solid amount of effort and panned out well with a solid 5-4 record with a griefer prepping you, congrats on the effective 7-2
Maybe we wont finish 5th in EPL next time... :broken_heart:
Maybe we wont finish 5th in EPL next time... :broken_heart:
dunoks incredibly tedious start for you, but fuck talking about that tbh. 4-1 down the stretch in mono was exactly the revitalization we needed to get back on our feet to make a run and im so glad the shit worked out. You are somehow consistently undervalued in nd tours despite being top 5 on the all-time sheet in wins after this run, and honestly the call to put you in mono is just cause i recall seeing you in like ss mono a couple times and trusting mechanics to carry this the pool with hex's prep.
Back after losing to molly, i remember you dmed me to bench and im glad i said no. Grats on your 2nd nd ring of the year bro
Back after losing to molly, i remember you dmed me to bench and im glad i said no. Grats on your 2nd nd ring of the year bro
Micaiah honestly, going into this tour there was no one else in the whole tour besides maybe separation who i had as much respect/admiration for as you. Even though you didnt have the best run this tour admittedly, i never felt uneasy when you had to play and you have been completely dominating before this one in all your outings so i dont regret anything about the retain tbh
Im glad we were able to win this after the heartbreaking tour last year, youll always be one of my favorites to watch play / prep, generational scouting from dca here
Im glad we were able to win this after the heartbreaking tour last year, youll always be one of my favorites to watch play / prep, generational scouting from dca here
xinnobu also the sprite artist extraordinaire wow! that stat from SSS is crazy tho, youre on a really strong trajectory and i hope to be seeing you in some big tours in the near future. 3-1 and undefeated in playoffs in crunch time when we really needed to secure our wins was so fire especially for 3k
Chinese ndubers players deadass just got it like that man yall are too good, enjoy the dub bro
Chinese ndubers players deadass just got it like that man yall are too good, enjoy the dub bro
Luthier i wish i got to write this one a bit earlier because im starting to get a bit burnt out from writing but i really appreciate you bro. From first meeting back in like ND US v RoW a bit under 2y ago, to invitational and dlc2 money tour, to last pl, and finally this one, ive really enjoyed getting to know you. I honestly didnt consider asking to retain you cause i thought u were dipped out but i saw the SCL signup and figured we'd give it a shot. It panned out well and those weeks before the shit started was super fun chopping it up and flaming bitchass dca for not sending his damn cards. Tour itself was kinda trollamos ngl u played some bad games but also had some bad prep, but i think everything really tied together in finals when this 35yo guy is talking about aurafarming vs an opp whos deadass 2-6 LOOOOOOOOOOOL ok bro. But you cooked extremely hard that game and it was a great watch.
I honestly dont think people would expect how much of a chat presence you are even for this tour even with irl / SCL presumably taking up time, but it was a pleasure to run it back and actually win it after how hard you carried last year. Enjoy that break or whatever tf youre gonna do bro idt imma be in your dms next year around this time but i wish you the best man, im glad you are able to have won the biggest tour youve ever participated in finally. NDPL Champion Luthier. This has a great ring to it.
I honestly dont think people would expect how much of a chat presence you are even for this tour even with irl / SCL presumably taking up time, but it was a pleasure to run it back and actually win it after how hard you carried last year. Enjoy that break or whatever tf youre gonna do bro idt imma be in your dms next year around this time but i wish you the best man, im glad you are able to have won the biggest tour youve ever participated in finally. NDPL Champion Luthier. This has a great ring to it.
PigWarrior19 this guy went into singles and doubles and absolutely stunted both times omg ur him big bro. We were tryna find a dou backup who would be able to very competently start if needed and i think if you ever get a full campaign in this tier (hopefully in WC despite my distaste for NE), youll take it and not give it back.
Its the Year of the Pig.
Its the Year of the Pig.
MGdos16 i had always seen ur name around and kinda just thought "yo this guys pretty heat" so we picked you up to hopefully be a good all purpose sub option. eventually, things shake up and you get to start in SS down the stretch to an ok result (2-2), with the one loss being a bit fake vs the best uu in the tour (outside axzel of course!) and even then playing a super close game. Similar to pig, id like to see you running it on NE despite my distaste as well. Hope to see you around bro, idk if you have a ca or just rock the default to aurafarm but congrats regardless
Taka my guy taka bro i dont even know how long we've known each other at this point, youve p much been around for me as long as ive known dca and some other good friends and we've kicked it a few times in nd over the years. our ubers plan went to shit so you decided to play it for us which i rly appreciate. Obviously that shit worked out terribly HOWEVER you also suggested ndubers thanos Xinnobu so you lowkey redeemed yourself here. Youre a good guy and chat presence to have around, always someone id want around and lowkey our duo was more in ur seasonal run than ubers anyways KEK.
You deserve the dub my man. Congrats
You deserve the dub my man. Congrats
Lacks i helped you out in some nd tours alllllll throughout the early year and saw u went 5-1 or smth in SMPL mono which is just ndm 0.90 version so i actually had a lot of confidence youd cook hard af here for the value. Shit did not work out very well at all icl but we did win the tour and get u a lovely banner on that profile. there is probably another universe where you get to play ou instead which wouldve been better in hindsight for you, but at least in this timeline we guaranteed won! enjoy the ca/banner brother, this was just a one off rough tour and im sure ill see your name around
PixelBob my boy PIXELBOBBERT. No regrets about buying you after our BLT run, i got exactly what i expected with the quantum scouts and chat presence and im super glad you finally get to rock a ca my man. I hope to see you getting more opportunities in the future, you have a lot of passion and are just a genuinely helpful presence to have around which any team should appreciate
Conclusion
First time being able to write one of these without it coming off a loss, awesome! I hope this can at least help a few people with prep/building or playing; thank you to the Weaviles for a wonderful season and I hope we get to team up again down the line. This tour means a lot to me so I tried to put in as much effort as I could for my Weavile brothers; hopefully gonna enjoy a brief break from sweating out this tier before circuit starts, lord knows I need it...
Obligatory shoutout to all my friends in GCN/PRC -- what would mons be without jerks?
Attachments
Really weird season on a personal level, in all honesty didn't expect anything at all before the auction but I enjoyed the season despite a pretty bad start.
Week 1 vs R1C3M4N (L)
Idea was pretty simple in that Venusuar and Alakazam would have a great matchup once Celesteela is removed. This was actually almost the same 6 as a Sealoo team but I am fairly sure I didn't intend to copy it save for Alakazam > Zeraora. I ended up running into no Steela and a Chople Tyranitar in what wouldve been a great Zam matchup and Pech kinda just 6-0ed.
Week 2 vs Axzel (L)
Annoying week to prep for considering I had a single tours worth of scouts in UU open against a great builder so I just opted to be good into offense for the most part. This game was a lot closer than I remember with it coming down to margins like me not attempting to trade rocks for rocks against pert earlier and Jolly Aegislash into Adamant Bish, good prep on their part.
Week 4 vs salmonelephant (W)
Ran vs Iride then Dan and I ended up swapping tiers after going a combined 0-5 in the first 3 weeks. I had a pretty big prep advantage with me helping Salmon for Slam and I didn't really have a RU scout. CM Prim VoltTurn looked really strong into the scout and the matchup pretty much played itself.
Week 5 vs FlamPoke (L)
We anticipated ho because of the nature of how scheduling went so we opted to just go with dance pert with an otherwise pretty standard 6, I definitely made a few mistakes ie attempting to set up rain dance vs aero and not going cyclizar on oricorio turn 1 but I managed to do what I needed to do in baiting the z and keeping flamigo around but I missed dtail and for some reason he clicked shell smash again? im not sure if he thought that it was whatever anyway or was just clicking to click but it was the only thing that lets me win if I for some reason clicked knock which didn't kill at -1 with z, maybe it was some weird lati I don't know, but this game still gets under my skin.
Week 6 vs LBN (W)
LBN complains about Micaiah's builds but I did not have to look at a random Arctovish hail and Herdier sand. Mega Slowbro looked broken into like everything and would have easily won over the course of the game had it not been sniped by special Steelium Cobalion but Wish Bliss + Gligar ran a 2v4 due to Gallade not having Taxel or criting Aqua Cutter a single time, it was a game probably should not have won and it was a cool team on their end honestly. also I think I accidently loaded and passed Runo a bold Gligar, lol.
Week 7 vs LB (L)
ID Aggron looked like von in the scout but of course I ran into sub Skeledirge + guts hera. I would probably change the structure of the team quite a lot before even thinking about using it again but it was honestly a matchup from hell in an already shitty week with my power going out before the game. not to be salty.
Semi vs jawabarat (W)
Back to my roots with CM Primarina, we deliberated between z Fairy and z Prim but glad we made the right decision. Colbur Glowbro was a massive boon and basically meant I just needed to be patient and keep it out of range of Obstagoon to win the game in the end, I probably was fortunate with essentially every roll and 30% chance going my way but I honestly don't think it bailed me out too much with my advantaged matchup.
Finals vs Micaiah (W)
All I did was ask for a craw team and Runo cooked, this went like 10-0 or something in tests and I felt extremely confident going into the game. It was another matchup where I just had to be patient to win with Glowbro since nothing even wanted to come in on Scald, this thing is so braindead.
Overall I am happy with the season, managed to go even after a bad start and I do not think there is really anything to regret considering the amount of effort everyone put into the season. Thank you for the chance to play Danbear02 Boomenheimer LogIce, I appreciate the effort you guys put in especially logice and boomer being active in my channel despite not even playing RU and Dan being a lot higher on my stock than anyone should be. SapoDaG30 your support was insane, all while helping like 2 other teams in lower tiers. salmonelephant sorry that you had like no support all season but I am selfishly glad that you could at least be in the cord for the duration of playoffs. 3MoreMinutes despite claiming to be washed and not knowing anything at all about RU you got a ton of calls right over the course of the season, thank you for putting up with my doomer mentality for whenever I lost or started losing motivation. Runo thanks for the cook made my life really easy. thanks to my other teammates as well, teamcord was vibe was great.
Week 1 vs R1C3M4N (L)
Idea was pretty simple in that Venusuar and Alakazam would have a great matchup once Celesteela is removed. This was actually almost the same 6 as a Sealoo team but I am fairly sure I didn't intend to copy it save for Alakazam > Zeraora. I ended up running into no Steela and a Chople Tyranitar in what wouldve been a great Zam matchup and Pech kinda just 6-0ed.
Week 2 vs Axzel (L)
Annoying week to prep for considering I had a single tours worth of scouts in UU open against a great builder so I just opted to be good into offense for the most part. This game was a lot closer than I remember with it coming down to margins like me not attempting to trade rocks for rocks against pert earlier and Jolly Aegislash into Adamant Bish, good prep on their part.
Week 4 vs salmonelephant (W)
Ran vs Iride then Dan and I ended up swapping tiers after going a combined 0-5 in the first 3 weeks. I had a pretty big prep advantage with me helping Salmon for Slam and I didn't really have a RU scout. CM Prim VoltTurn looked really strong into the scout and the matchup pretty much played itself.
Week 5 vs FlamPoke (L)
We anticipated ho because of the nature of how scheduling went so we opted to just go with dance pert with an otherwise pretty standard 6, I definitely made a few mistakes ie attempting to set up rain dance vs aero and not going cyclizar on oricorio turn 1 but I managed to do what I needed to do in baiting the z and keeping flamigo around but I missed dtail and for some reason he clicked shell smash again? im not sure if he thought that it was whatever anyway or was just clicking to click but it was the only thing that lets me win if I for some reason clicked knock which didn't kill at -1 with z, maybe it was some weird lati I don't know, but this game still gets under my skin.
Week 6 vs LBN (W)
LBN complains about Micaiah's builds but I did not have to look at a random Arctovish hail and Herdier sand. Mega Slowbro looked broken into like everything and would have easily won over the course of the game had it not been sniped by special Steelium Cobalion but Wish Bliss + Gligar ran a 2v4 due to Gallade not having Taxel or criting Aqua Cutter a single time, it was a game probably should not have won and it was a cool team on their end honestly. also I think I accidently loaded and passed Runo a bold Gligar, lol.
Week 7 vs LB (L)
ID Aggron looked like von in the scout but of course I ran into sub Skeledirge + guts hera. I would probably change the structure of the team quite a lot before even thinking about using it again but it was honestly a matchup from hell in an already shitty week with my power going out before the game. not to be salty.
Semi vs jawabarat (W)
Back to my roots with CM Primarina, we deliberated between z Fairy and z Prim but glad we made the right decision. Colbur Glowbro was a massive boon and basically meant I just needed to be patient and keep it out of range of Obstagoon to win the game in the end, I probably was fortunate with essentially every roll and 30% chance going my way but I honestly don't think it bailed me out too much with my advantaged matchup.
Finals vs Micaiah (W)
All I did was ask for a craw team and Runo cooked, this went like 10-0 or something in tests and I felt extremely confident going into the game. It was another matchup where I just had to be patient to win with Glowbro since nothing even wanted to come in on Scald, this thing is so braindead.
Overall I am happy with the season, managed to go even after a bad start and I do not think there is really anything to regret considering the amount of effort everyone put into the season. Thank you for the chance to play Danbear02 Boomenheimer LogIce, I appreciate the effort you guys put in especially logice and boomer being active in my channel despite not even playing RU and Dan being a lot higher on my stock than anyone should be. SapoDaG30 your support was insane, all while helping like 2 other teams in lower tiers. salmonelephant sorry that you had like no support all season but I am selfishly glad that you could at least be in the cord for the duration of playoffs. 3MoreMinutes despite claiming to be washed and not knowing anything at all about RU you got a ton of calls right over the course of the season, thank you for putting up with my doomer mentality for whenever I lost or started losing motivation. Runo thanks for the cook made my life really easy. thanks to my other teammates as well, teamcord was vibe was great.
Really gutted to have fallen short when it mattered most in the playoffs, not feeling a video this time so just gonna do a dump and writeup here instead. I still love this tier and really enjoyed the season as a whole. In NDBD I got fed by Runo, this time I did pretty much all the prep myself so I'm happy to have improved my building this year. I find NDRU a really interesting tier to build with some constraints that there are only a few ways around but still lots of room for exploration, and its' really revived my interest in mons which was at a low when I quit SVUU.
W2 vs Runo - W
https://pokepast.es/1c074cdf9f4314a6
Idea here was Runo could bring absolutely anything, so I have regen + fsight + cb dogi for stall then lokix and tink to annoy HO. Runo made a very good call on Mega Sharpedo to punish my enjoyment of the First Impression twins for speed control, but I knew from NDBD that he doesn't run water/ice move on his sharks so Gligar can at least sit on it. I got massively caught out by Counter Slowking (another great call into a lokix enjoyer like me) killing my bike which made the Thundurus matchup suddenly nearly impossible. I stay in with Lokix and get the minroll I felt I had to play for because my thought was if I go Gligar he then just gets a plot and I just lose, but it turns out he wasn't even nasty plot? I definitely got got prep wise and needed to be bailed to win, mad lucky way to start the season for sure.
W3 vs Danbear02 - W
https://pokepast.es/e1acc1c2a6ba58a5
Brambleghast is to punish that Dan would always use Cyclizar for removal and loved his Prim + Mega Aggron type cores. Bramble means I can set a spike to annoy them and spinblock while denying opposing hazards, allowing me to greed lots of hazard weak HO goons. Also wanted to get a bit more Moth abuse in before Blissey dropped back down. You know it's a good HO when it causes a crashout in ndcord...
W4 vs Micaiah - W
https://pokepast.es/b728a4c7d216f341
I was feeling Flamigo and ended up with this weird birdspam. Offensive Talon is kind of ok into non-Manectric teams + being a fast guy who discourages First Impression is nice. This isn't the most defensively sound team and I realised on preview shit I get 6-0'd by Swampert, had to play very risky around him. Also Cyclizar not being Knock Off hurt when I missed a Dragon Tail against Chandelure, but also Double Edge showed its value into Primarina and Fezandipiti.
W5 vs Salmonelephant - W
https://pokepast.es/a249ec7467488bbe
Needed revenge against Salmon after losing in the open, went with this Dirge status spam featuring Stun Spore Slither. I had salmon down as someone who'd load any of the extremes and so just wanted to be playable into everything. Early game he went for a lot of aggressive plays that put me behind, and one turn there especially after getting got a few times I just got frustrated and clicked too fast leading to getting got again so I can definitely work on my mental there. I was later able to get back into it by adapting and punishing the continued aggression. Then I tried the most diabolical choke of all time by not noticing that TOXIC chain does toxic not regular poison.
Some sweaty palms later I just about pp stall the fez, I would never have lived that one down.
W6 vs FlamPoke - W
https://pokepast.es/0ced82180a50c999
In NDBD I stalled FlamPoke and won convincingly, so thought this time I need to switch it up as he will likely prep into that extensively (hi reuniclus!). Testing out my hypothesis that RestTalk Swampert counts as a water resist. After seeing that my team vs Micaiah got cooked by Swampert I just got a bit enamoured with it because it just statmogs so much of the tier. Since it can trade down with almost everyone not named Amoonguss I thought surely with more staying power it's gotta be crazy. Not its greatest game, but it did let me sit on Palossand and not care about Scorching Sands. I also added Doublade who I love but hadn't used this tour and would've won but didn't need to come out. I think this just came down to I had a better team, which is understandable as at this point Phoenixs were already out and I imagine morale was quite low. Also funny that I ev'd Crobat to outrun Cyclizar and specifically thought "I could get the drop on Noivern with a few more evs but no way that comes" but it did.
W7 vs LBN - W
https://pokepast.es/b24ff92d0e10591e
Already qualified but I didn't want to meme too hard as I had the ego x-0 to maintain, clearly should have stunted harder from the crack that LBN brought. AoA Absol was the main idea here but I'm not gonna yap too extensively on beating as memey of a team as they brought.
Semifinal vs mrfraud - L
https://pokepast.es/a0c08295f2f9a443
I second guessed myself a bit too much with prep here. I don't think my team was too fishy or an overcook etc but as in main season I had punished this kind of balance really hard, I didn't expect them to load it again. I still like this team, it didn't do anything in this game but Obstruct on Goon is really cool as it stops First Impressions and if rocks are already up you can even throw it out against Aggron/Steelix then do huge damage with CC if they hit into you.
Nothing went my way this game - I just didn't know that Z moves broke through encore, so that badly set me back early on and it was super uphill from there. Having Psychic Noised also meant I just assumed the Primarina was Leftovers so I didn't see the lack of leftovers to consider Z. I also got unlucky with CB Bulu maxrolling into my Slither Wing - still wouldn't have been in my favour but I could have at least gone for paralysis odds into the Glowbro. Beyond that I think I largely did all I could but opponent did what they needed to do and didn't let me back in.
Really gutting game and the most upset I've been after a loss since 2023 uu circuit playoffs. Still, I feel this is one of those situations where you will never improve if you just bitch about hax, and that the best players know all the mechanics inside out and are able to claw back games where things like this happen. We move, see you in NDCL.
Iride Velcroc Toxinalpaca Yall went above and beyond, tbh when I saw the auction and wasn't on sealoo or Runo's team I was kinda like fuck who are any of these people but it ended up being one of my favourite ever tours. Would love to team again in the future
W2 vs Runo - W
https://pokepast.es/1c074cdf9f4314a6
Idea here was Runo could bring absolutely anything, so I have regen + fsight + cb dogi for stall then lokix and tink to annoy HO. Runo made a very good call on Mega Sharpedo to punish my enjoyment of the First Impression twins for speed control, but I knew from NDBD that he doesn't run water/ice move on his sharks so Gligar can at least sit on it. I got massively caught out by Counter Slowking (another great call into a lokix enjoyer like me) killing my bike which made the Thundurus matchup suddenly nearly impossible. I stay in with Lokix and get the minroll I felt I had to play for because my thought was if I go Gligar he then just gets a plot and I just lose, but it turns out he wasn't even nasty plot? I definitely got got prep wise and needed to be bailed to win, mad lucky way to start the season for sure.
W3 vs Danbear02 - W
https://pokepast.es/e1acc1c2a6ba58a5
Brambleghast is to punish that Dan would always use Cyclizar for removal and loved his Prim + Mega Aggron type cores. Bramble means I can set a spike to annoy them and spinblock while denying opposing hazards, allowing me to greed lots of hazard weak HO goons. Also wanted to get a bit more Moth abuse in before Blissey dropped back down. You know it's a good HO when it causes a crashout in ndcord...
W4 vs Micaiah - W
https://pokepast.es/b728a4c7d216f341
I was feeling Flamigo and ended up with this weird birdspam. Offensive Talon is kind of ok into non-Manectric teams + being a fast guy who discourages First Impression is nice. This isn't the most defensively sound team and I realised on preview shit I get 6-0'd by Swampert, had to play very risky around him. Also Cyclizar not being Knock Off hurt when I missed a Dragon Tail against Chandelure, but also Double Edge showed its value into Primarina and Fezandipiti.
W5 vs Salmonelephant - W
https://pokepast.es/a249ec7467488bbe
Needed revenge against Salmon after losing in the open, went with this Dirge status spam featuring Stun Spore Slither. I had salmon down as someone who'd load any of the extremes and so just wanted to be playable into everything. Early game he went for a lot of aggressive plays that put me behind, and one turn there especially after getting got a few times I just got frustrated and clicked too fast leading to getting got again so I can definitely work on my mental there. I was later able to get back into it by adapting and punishing the continued aggression. Then I tried the most diabolical choke of all time by not noticing that TOXIC chain does toxic not regular poison.
Some sweaty palms later I just about pp stall the fez, I would never have lived that one down.
W6 vs FlamPoke - W
https://pokepast.es/0ced82180a50c999
In NDBD I stalled FlamPoke and won convincingly, so thought this time I need to switch it up as he will likely prep into that extensively (hi reuniclus!). Testing out my hypothesis that RestTalk Swampert counts as a water resist. After seeing that my team vs Micaiah got cooked by Swampert I just got a bit enamoured with it because it just statmogs so much of the tier. Since it can trade down with almost everyone not named Amoonguss I thought surely with more staying power it's gotta be crazy. Not its greatest game, but it did let me sit on Palossand and not care about Scorching Sands. I also added Doublade who I love but hadn't used this tour and would've won but didn't need to come out. I think this just came down to I had a better team, which is understandable as at this point Phoenixs were already out and I imagine morale was quite low. Also funny that I ev'd Crobat to outrun Cyclizar and specifically thought "I could get the drop on Noivern with a few more evs but no way that comes" but it did.
W7 vs LBN - W
https://pokepast.es/b24ff92d0e10591e
Already qualified but I didn't want to meme too hard as I had the ego x-0 to maintain, clearly should have stunted harder from the crack that LBN brought. AoA Absol was the main idea here but I'm not gonna yap too extensively on beating as memey of a team as they brought.
Semifinal vs mrfraud - L
https://pokepast.es/a0c08295f2f9a443
I second guessed myself a bit too much with prep here. I don't think my team was too fishy or an overcook etc but as in main season I had punished this kind of balance really hard, I didn't expect them to load it again. I still like this team, it didn't do anything in this game but Obstruct on Goon is really cool as it stops First Impressions and if rocks are already up you can even throw it out against Aggron/Steelix then do huge damage with CC if they hit into you.
Nothing went my way this game - I just didn't know that Z moves broke through encore, so that badly set me back early on and it was super uphill from there. Having Psychic Noised also meant I just assumed the Primarina was Leftovers so I didn't see the lack of leftovers to consider Z. I also got unlucky with CB Bulu maxrolling into my Slither Wing - still wouldn't have been in my favour but I could have at least gone for paralysis odds into the Glowbro. Beyond that I think I largely did all I could but opponent did what they needed to do and didn't let me back in.
Really gutting game and the most upset I've been after a loss since 2023 uu circuit playoffs. Still, I feel this is one of those situations where you will never improve if you just bitch about hax, and that the best players know all the mechanics inside out and are able to claw back games where things like this happen. We move, see you in NDCL.
Iride Velcroc Toxinalpaca Yall went above and beyond, tbh when I saw the auction and wasn't on sealoo or Runo's team I was kinda like fuck who are any of these people but it ended up being one of my favourite ever tours. Would love to team again in the future
Seems we've gotten quite a few NDRU dumps, might as well join in me thinks. Lot of them aren't usable anymore, thanks to bans / NDUU ladder being a fucking joke so. General rule of thumb; viability in NDRU basically boils down to vibes. Just about any degree of filth can work, some better than others. So you'll see some instances of anchors + shitmon of the hour. Like Stoutland sand.
vs Salmon Elephant (W)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-868701
https://pokepast.es/562801b4be676c05
First weeks order of business was as follows: Push the Registeel Agenda, and spam broken thundurus till I inevitably can't anymore. I played broken okidogi like ass, but Thundurus put in raptors kawhi leonard numbers. Cooked shocks, cooked bike, cooked dogi, cooked enamorus too shit. Registeel was also a star, I thought Aggron was highly overrated, and registeel being an Aggron Jr. with no mega investment was massive. Helped a ton vs Enam since that shit was specs. Aggron would've melted! Use registeel more, he's nice.
vs God's Hand Flampoke (W)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-870200
https://pokepast.es/8b118b7be142b6cc
Now I entered the realm of Okidogi cope, trying to check it with something that isn't named Gligar, and this path lead me to Mr. Sand Castle. Mon kinda blows and it instantly got toxic touched on its first entry. Really, this game was shit my poor absol got thrown into a Gunk. But Latias managed to do the lords work, even when the Lord favored Flam on my poor fucking Empoleon. I liked the Oomfiepon Hazard stack angle, not a huge amount to say.
vs Micaiah (W)
https://pokepast.es/0d016e8b8fbe1935
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-871977?p2
Need I Say More? Really, Arctozolt hail is nothing new, but I thought double stacking it with big vish was a fun idea and Hail teams can fit the slot. Tinkered with the item alot but chose Darkinium Crunch for Slowking, which paid out in spades. Especially since their Slowking was Electrium-Zap cannon and blew my Starmie's brains out. Arctovish went absolutely insane, and despite 2 high rolls on Atales in a row, still managed to win. I think starmie > slowking is amazing hazard control in the mega aggron blissey tier, and opens crobat up for Super Fang Taunt sets, which are by far the best.
vs LB (L)
https://pokepast.es/8ee5acd6eb5fc488
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-874145
Unfortunately, this is where I got lost in the sauce. DD Mega Steelix? Stoutland Sand? I was off my meds. I saw hail do the type of numbers it did and said it was Time For Sand To Do Work. Sadly, work it did not. Slither wing beat the breaks off of me, threw me in behind and applebees and had its way, tragic stuff. Ironically, If Bolt beak got a worse roll on Eleki game woulda been mine. Sadly, it died to sand and Slither is faster than +1 lix. Not much to say, I overcooked here. This was also the first weeks of Okidogi/Thundurus being gone, and you could tell.
vs Runo (W)
https://pokepast.es/b42e97b5a5c024ca
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-876633
This time, I had Runo. Last time I played Runo in ND, he fucking TRIPLE STALLED me in bo3. While I adored those games, The Bastard Needed To Pay. Stallbreaker Mega Pidgeot beat the breaks off of him last time, I'd get it again. However, Pidgeot didn't need to do a thing; Sinistcha did what it did best, and be an annoying piece of shit. After he gave me a toxic on Togekiss, I knew Sinistcha was bound to win. Not much to really say, Sinistcha just did what Sinistcha does. Put Krookodile on the lineup mostly for scout diversification purposes, I never really use him despite how solid he is. Unfortunately, next week my joy and wonderment will take a hit. As the scourge of all things fun, Blissey drops back to NDRU.
vs MrFraud (L)
https://pokepast.es/efaa72c81ec6a427
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-879194
vs Jawabrat (L)
https://pokepast.es/03b7b0a13281ac3e
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-880066
Team was already qualified this week, so memes were completely on the table. No thought process here. Fastest Mon Staraptor? Cobalion check thoughts and prayers? You bet. Custap Dbond Weezy-G is a funny ass set, and custap boom lax is even funnier. Running CB Tyrantrum CB Meta into Cobalion is possibly the single worst case scenario, but oh well idc lmao.
vs Micaiah (W)
https://pokepast.es/e5d9f1949b460488
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-883158
This week, running it vs Micaiah I had 2 forefront memories. 1: If this man can load blissey, he will. 2: He's one of the freaks of nature who likes scarf slither wing. I knew I wanted a mon that'd HUMILIATE blissey, and subcm Chandelure was what I chose. That, and I remembered I'd never used Blissey + Mega Aggron before, so I figured I'd brush that off for myself. Groundium Donphan topped off the build nicely, didn't have a Z pick and Donphans item is usually free. In the game, I saw most of what I wanted, Tentacruel aside. Priority 1 was getting rid of that thing, and getting Chandy in front of Blissey for free hits. I got what I wanted pmuch all game, and just comfortably won. Scouting scarf slither w Donny was flames btw I deserve a Pulitzer prive for that.
Overall this tour was a blast. If I was playing NDOU, I'd probably have had way less fun than I did this go around. 5-3 is a solid record especially when that includes week 7 trolling. Shoutouts to Isza for letting me slot here instead of fuckass OU. I like NDOU but man, there's something particularly fun about loading nonsense in NDRU. Hopefully, we get the ring properly next time.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-868701
https://pokepast.es/562801b4be676c05
First weeks order of business was as follows: Push the Registeel Agenda, and spam broken thundurus till I inevitably can't anymore. I played broken okidogi like ass, but Thundurus put in raptors kawhi leonard numbers. Cooked shocks, cooked bike, cooked dogi, cooked enamorus too shit. Registeel was also a star, I thought Aggron was highly overrated, and registeel being an Aggron Jr. with no mega investment was massive. Helped a ton vs Enam since that shit was specs. Aggron would've melted! Use registeel more, he's nice.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-870200
https://pokepast.es/8b118b7be142b6cc
Now I entered the realm of Okidogi cope, trying to check it with something that isn't named Gligar, and this path lead me to Mr. Sand Castle. Mon kinda blows and it instantly got toxic touched on its first entry. Really, this game was shit my poor absol got thrown into a Gunk. But Latias managed to do the lords work, even when the Lord favored Flam on my poor fucking Empoleon. I liked the Oomfiepon Hazard stack angle, not a huge amount to say.
https://pokepast.es/0d016e8b8fbe1935
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-871977?p2
Need I Say More? Really, Arctozolt hail is nothing new, but I thought double stacking it with big vish was a fun idea and Hail teams can fit the slot. Tinkered with the item alot but chose Darkinium Crunch for Slowking, which paid out in spades. Especially since their Slowking was Electrium-Zap cannon and blew my Starmie's brains out. Arctovish went absolutely insane, and despite 2 high rolls on Atales in a row, still managed to win. I think starmie > slowking is amazing hazard control in the mega aggron blissey tier, and opens crobat up for Super Fang Taunt sets, which are by far the best.
https://pokepast.es/8ee5acd6eb5fc488
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-874145
Unfortunately, this is where I got lost in the sauce. DD Mega Steelix? Stoutland Sand? I was off my meds. I saw hail do the type of numbers it did and said it was Time For Sand To Do Work. Sadly, work it did not. Slither wing beat the breaks off of me, threw me in behind and applebees and had its way, tragic stuff. Ironically, If Bolt beak got a worse roll on Eleki game woulda been mine. Sadly, it died to sand and Slither is faster than +1 lix. Not much to say, I overcooked here. This was also the first weeks of Okidogi/Thundurus being gone, and you could tell.
https://pokepast.es/b42e97b5a5c024ca
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-876633
This time, I had Runo. Last time I played Runo in ND, he fucking TRIPLE STALLED me in bo3. While I adored those games, The Bastard Needed To Pay. Stallbreaker Mega Pidgeot beat the breaks off of him last time, I'd get it again. However, Pidgeot didn't need to do a thing; Sinistcha did what it did best, and be an annoying piece of shit. After he gave me a toxic on Togekiss, I knew Sinistcha was bound to win. Not much to really say, Sinistcha just did what Sinistcha does. Put Krookodile on the lineup mostly for scout diversification purposes, I never really use him despite how solid he is. Unfortunately, next week my joy and wonderment will take a hit. As the scourge of all things fun, Blissey drops back to NDRU.
https://pokepast.es/efaa72c81ec6a427
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-879194
LMFAOOO. Real af. But yeah, as he said, Mega Slowbro would cook my shit in the long game. So I purposefully chucked Cobalion into scalds to bait a confident burn, and blast it with Steelium. That, comnbined with aggressive play w Diggersby/Gallade should win the game... in theory. Unfortunately, Aqua cutter sucks ass and when I saw 33% on a Gligar my heart sank. Originally a cocky meme pick for Mega Camerupt; A mon this guy actually considered bringing btw. Runo did too apparently??? Either way, I think I played it just about as optimally as I could, but Aqua cutter not critting a single time nor getting a critical Gligar roll made killing Gligar/Blissey in the endgame untenable. Qwilfish is a fun mon btw, slither check that sets up spikes and pivots is mad nice.Week 6 vs LBN (W)
LBN complains about Micaiah's builds but I did not have to look at a random Arctovish hail and Herdier sand.
https://pokepast.es/03b7b0a13281ac3e
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-880066
Team was already qualified this week, so memes were completely on the table. No thought process here. Fastest Mon Staraptor? Cobalion check thoughts and prayers? You bet. Custap Dbond Weezy-G is a funny ass set, and custap boom lax is even funnier. Running CB Tyrantrum CB Meta into Cobalion is possibly the single worst case scenario, but oh well idc lmao.
https://pokepast.es/e5d9f1949b460488
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldexru-883158
This week, running it vs Micaiah I had 2 forefront memories. 1: If this man can load blissey, he will. 2: He's one of the freaks of nature who likes scarf slither wing. I knew I wanted a mon that'd HUMILIATE blissey, and subcm Chandelure was what I chose. That, and I remembered I'd never used Blissey + Mega Aggron before, so I figured I'd brush that off for myself. Groundium Donphan topped off the build nicely, didn't have a Z pick and Donphans item is usually free. In the game, I saw most of what I wanted, Tentacruel aside. Priority 1 was getting rid of that thing, and getting Chandy in front of Blissey for free hits. I got what I wanted pmuch all game, and just comfortably won. Scouting scarf slither w Donny was flames btw I deserve a Pulitzer prive for that.
Overall this tour was a blast. If I was playing NDOU, I'd probably have had way less fun than I did this go around. 5-3 is a solid record especially when that includes week 7 trolling. Shoutouts to Isza for letting me slot here instead of fuckass OU. I like NDOU but man, there's something particularly fun about loading nonsense in NDRU. Hopefully, we get the ring properly next time.