since spl is over for me i've decided to write up a quick post about my thoughts on the season overall, the gsc metagame right now and some of the teams/ideas i used/scrapped.
starting off i'd like to thank everyone on scooters for the amazing support i had and the trust you guys put on me. i was really grateful to have had the opportunity to play a new tier in spl as i had been quite tired of playing bw for a while now, so i very much appreciate having been given the chance to try gsc this year. would also obviously like to thank the 3 people who helped me the most with prep every week: ziloxx, leandro and kenix. already told you guys how much i appreciate y'all so i won't do it again here, just know i'm really thankful beyond words. i'd also like to thank m dragon, zokuru and aminita for the test games during the season, you all helped me improve a lot in this tier.
the teams i used this season were all built by kenix except for the week 4 team vs groudon, which was built by leandro. out of all the teams i used this season i think my favourite was the one i brought in
week 3 vs zokuru, which he ended up using himself in
semis vs rubyblood.
this team is just super cool. i know it sparked some debate when i first brought it (and also when zokuru brought it in semis) because the structure seems quite weak to curselax. usually in these offensive teams you see either steelix or golem occupying a "mandatory normal resist" slot to answer monolax, but this team has a few tools that make the matchup vs any lax set completely playable. i know conflict firmly beleves this team is a fish, but i think it just opts into a more offensive route while taking some risks in the builder.
the idea here was to use thief zam as tool to lure in snorlax and steal its leftovers to enable a jolteon late-game sweep. i believe it was ombrarch who said you didn't need zam to do this here because you could fit thief on gengar, but i disagree. until gengar's set is revealed it is forcing snorlax out, not the other way around, because if your opponent has monolax he should absolutely never stay in against gengar until he is sure you're not mean look. this team works because zam is able to come in on forre/cloyster as they click spikes (that way you don't reveal no lefties) and then it forces your opponent into snorlax as they are scared of fire punch or psychic. this doesn't work as well with gengar because, like i said before, if you go hard gengar on cloyster/forretress your opponent should never go hard lax until gengar has revealed its set. and then later in the game, once spikes are already up, your opponent is gonna be aware that gengar is thief because it will come in on spikes and reveal no lefties, so i just don't believe it would work out the same. you should be able to thief snorlax's leftovers with zam in most games unless your opponent has a tyranitar in the back and opts to go hard into it, which is also not really bad for you since you can simply toxic the tyranitar and stall it out with recover (assuming it's not running crunch). if you're able to thief snorlax's lefties (which happens most games) you are in a great position to claim a late-game sweep with jolteon, as snorlax is unable to properly check a +1 jolteon with no passive recovery once you start its rest cycle. this is why i don't agree with the idea that this team is a fish, since despite looking weak to curselax on paper, it actually has tools to deal with it and provide you some advantanges in the matchup. this idea of going hard zam vs cloy/forre was something i tested a bunch that week, and so it's quite evident i made a huge missplay on turn 8 vs zokuru as he clicked spikes with cloyster and i didn't go hard zam despite having done this the entire week lol this ended up not being too bad for me as i was able to thief snorlax's leftovers regardless that game, but it was obviously a huge missplay from me. we tested a different version of this team with jynx in the lead slot and no zam, but it just didn't work out at all. i'd like to elaborate on these 2 points (my missplay on turn 8 and zam>jynx) further.
about the first, i actually believe being able to keep a cool head throughout my games was one of the key reasons why i was able to put up a good record this season (apart from the god tier support i had obv). this missplay vs zokuru is just one example out of multiple missplays i made early-game this season. off the top of my head i can think of me going zapdos vs choolio's tyranitar week 1 (and repeatedly surfing his starmie), not clicking spin with golem vs rubyblood's snorlax week 2, not resting my snorlax vs groudon's zapdos week 4... and the list goes on. the thing is you can't let one early missplay or strike of bad luck tilt you out a match in any tier, but this is especially true in gsc. since gsc games take more turns than other tiers, it's very important to be able to keep a cool head despite early setbacks that derail your initial gameplan. obviously making an early mistake or taking an early crit is gonna make your game harder, but you can definitely come back with a sequence of good plays, a missplay for your opponent or even with some luck on your side, and you're gonna have many chances to find these opportunities in a gsc game. coincidentally, the one game i lost this season was the one vs ombrarch where i tilted completely off of 1 mistake (letting ttar get toxic'd), so it's quite clear to me that being able to hold your mental down is a huge factor in this tier.
onto the second point, i think jynx is a very bad pokémon in the metagame right now. ever since talk lax became the default set it's evident that jynx's job became harder to perform, but it just really has nothing going for it compared to the other psychics that can fill its slot. alakazam, in my opinion, is much better. its ability to be a late-game threat while also providing support with thief/toxic/encore makes it so distinctly better than jynx it's not even close. the fact that forretress has become such a popular option as a spiker also makes jynx so much worse overall. you simply give forretress too many free turns vs offense or vs stall and that is obviously terrible. lovely kiss is obviously an amazing move and having stab ice beam is great especially if you can freeze something, but 1) you can fit sleep moves on other pokemon that are simply much better than jynx and 2) ice beam is only freezing 10% of the time, so it's not gonna be super valuable in the vast majority of games.
this notion that jynx is a terrible pokémon is also similarly applicable to nidoking, which is why most of the teams i used this season were extremely nidoking weak on paper. obviously this is something kenix pointed out to me and i trusted his opinion, but after i started testing i also came to similar conclusions. nidoking has almost no opportunities to safely switch in. it is quite frail and weak to ground, ice and water, so even switching into electric-types is a pain if you get caught by hidden power. you can't safely switch into cloyster, starmie, snorlax, tyranitar, steelix, gengar or exeggutor with it, so how exactly are you getting value out of this mon? lovely kiss is obviously good like i said, but it's not enough to warrant using this mon. if you are able to go into your sleep absorber on lovely kiss then nidoking's value is already in the mud. if it's running thief and is able to thief a good target then you are just walled by cloyster/starmie. basically nidoking either has to sacrifice a coverage option to provide support with thief (which is bad because you are then completely walled by water-types), or forced to get a sequence of turns correctly in order to be able to actually break through stuff.
this idea that jynx and nidoking are inconsistent is part of the reason why we abused raikou offense so much this season. obviously everyone knows that raikou's role is great at enabling offensive snorlax sets, but i still think people underestimate just how much better offensive snorlax is relative to any other set. the set we ran the most this season, by far, was lovely kiss, double-edge, earthquake, boom. this set is simply miles better than any other one. very frequently you are able to catch cloyster/forretress with sleep since snorlax's lkiss is much more unexpected than lovely kiss or sleep powder from jynx/nidoking/exeggutor. it also means your snorlax can function as a solid answer to opposing curselax (being able to put it to sleep after it boosts to +1) but also vs many other boosting threats with boom. the beauty of this concept is that this snorlax set also enables exeggutor/gengar to run different 4th moves as they don't need sleep-inducing moves anymore. sure, having a sleep-inducing move is not mandatory in every gsc team, but sleep is such a broken status in this generation that not running it feels super detrimental sometimes.
if you take a look at my games this season, you will see how important running lkiss snorlax was to our success. week 1 vs choolio i was able to sleep his skarmory and break through it with curse. week 2 vs rubyblood i slept his misdreavus and that meant he couldn't aggressively block spin from golem if he wanted to. week 6 vs pj i was able to sleep his starmie, which meant he couldn't remove spikes from his side of the field, and weeks 8 and 9 vs vileman and jester i was able to sleep their spikers, which meant i didn't have to play against spikes in those weeks. all of these sleeps have ridiculous value and are a key reason why i was in advantageous positions in many of my games. and then you also have to factor in that running lkiss snorlax enabled me to run leech exeggutor on a lot of these teams, which is such a ridiculously good pokémon when spikes are up. the thing that people don't grasp about leech eggy is that its value is not in the hp you recover
per se, but in your ability for force switches. no other eggy set is gonna reliably force out zapdos, raikou or curselax the way leech eggy does, and that is insanely valuable in any match as it its super hard to reliably switch into exeggutor's stabs. overall, the multiple combinations of raikou offense were the teams that had the most success for us this season, and that stems down to the fact that raikou's defensive value enables you to run the best sets on some of the strongest mons in the tier.
so yeah, if i had to sum my thoughts on the gsc metagame after this season, it'd probably be:
- jynx and nidoking are at an all time low right now. these mons grew in usage back in the day because people tended to run offensive snorlax sets with no raikou in the back for a while, so they were actually able to punch holes into many teams that were common back then. the rise in usage of jynx/nidoking made talk lax the most popular set and now their stocks have dropped tremendously because of it.
- forretress is also seeing a lot of love recently, as it is able to check curse eq lax super effectively while also providing good support with tox/spikes/boom. this is also very bad for jynx imo.
- raikou offense is a great team style to abuse these current metagame trends, since you can afford to run the best sets on snorlax, exeggutor, gengar and some other mons thanks to the defensive value raikou provides.
- lovely kiss boom snorlax is its best set by far, being able to catch your opponent off-guard with sleep targets while also providing utility by functioning as a panic button vs any curse/growth sweeper if necessary.
- leech seed eggy is amazing, as it is able to force switches and continuously apply pressure when spikes are up.
overall i had a lot of fun playing gsc this season and i hope i can keep competing in the tier at a high level moving forward. it was a pleasure being able to dive deeper into this metagame and learn more about the tier after so many years playing it. the community is very engaged and that's obviously a great thing. there are a lot of newer players who i believe have great potential to become great in the tier, so it's nice to see that such an old metagame is still surrounded by a lot of interest and curiosity. best of luck to the players still in spl, you guys are all great.
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