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Finals Smogon Premier League XVII - Finals [Won by Team Raiders]
- Thread starter goldmason
- Start date
Congratulations to the raiders especially to BeeOrSomething and tier who had some entertaining games this season.
Special shout out to zS who not only played some great games but showed everyone the tier still has innovation with cool teams and sets we haven't seen yet in CG OU. You especially have earned this ring and congrats again.
Special shout out to zS who not only played some great games but showed everyone the tier still has innovation with cool teams and sets we haven't seen yet in CG OU. You especially have earned this ring and congrats again.
Oh wow, never did I think I'd be here. After getting snubbed last year, I was frankly pretty down in the dumps, and I languished around for a bit. I know it might seem a little crazy, but I staked a lot emotionally on getting in for my first time ever, and I was disappointed. I spent the entire year just waiting, waiting for 2026 to roll around and finally get my shot on the big stage. I poured everything I had into RBY, and while I still came short a few times, I really think it paid off overall. I'm extraordinarily happy with how this season went for me. I've always been extremely confident in my abilities, and it feels amazing to see that reflected in my performance, especially as a rookie, where almost nobody else was expecting anything.
I'd like to thank everyone who supported me and was friends with me along the way.
To my very best friends on Smogon, the people I've been talking to every single day for a long time:
DAWNBUSTER Without you, I wouldn't be who I am right now. Without you, I never would've gotten so into GSC, never would've gotten so invested into this game, never would've had that spark lit to try to become the very best. You've made me laugh so many times and you helped me discover my forever favorite tier, GSC NU. Words can't express how much I appreciate the time I've spent talking and playing with you. I'd like to see you in SPL for GSC OU one day.
第二十五夜 To the man who has been with me in RBY OU since almost the very start, finding me after I debuted in pre-Smogon ADPL in RBY OU with zero prior experience, who offered to help me out: without you, I'm not the player I am now. You've been the best helper and friend I could've ever asked for. You constantly pushed me to be better, to see the mistakes in the games and builds of others and myself, gave me a fresh perspective that nobody else in the entire community could've offered, worked with me even when you should've been sleeping. I truly feel that my success is a mutual victory for the two of us. There have been many others I've come into contact with that have helped advance my game for sure, and I'm grateful to them, but I'll always come back to you. Thank you for supporting me this season JVG.
MrSoup My fellow GSC NU enjoyer. You helped keep my passion alive for this tier. I've spent so much time talking with you about it, feeding my interest and always trying to craft some grand new meta-defining technology. I could talk and build out stuff with you all day long, even if it's complete bullshit. I always enjoy having you both as my greatest rival and ally, and I look forward to trying to defeat you every time. Maybe one day I'll surpass you there as well aha.
To my friends in the Ruins of Alph Community:
susciety Links TPH BluBirD Zerkas Waves Tranquility TDR TGA SEA RichardMillePlain Rage Monai you guys are all goobers.
To all the Pampu Primeapes that have teamed with me across 3 RBYPLs:
Free ping gastlies The Strap Acetylaldehyde TyCarter Ctown6 Deezcastforms Maris Bonibell Shitrock enjoyer Egor Tree69420
To the RBY superstars I've talked to more than anyone else:
Amaranth You took a chance on me in RoAPL and worked with me the whole way through. I dragged you along back with me in the RBYPL immediately following. I've been talking to you ever since, including a couple times this season. You've helped me advance my game a ton, really nailing in on refining my prep and my lines even further. You've been instrumental to my growth as a player, and I appreciate all the times you vouched for me, trying to get others to see what you saw in me. I'm eternally grateful. I'd like to finally play you in a serious setting one day and really put our skills to the test against one another in an all-out mind game.
Serpi The boogeyman. I've played you a LOT in RBY, and you were always the one to beat. I failed a lot, and I succeeded a few crucial times. I didn't think I'd end up on your side ever, until I got the opportunity in RBYPL this past year. You really helped enlighten me on a lot of things. I love getting a fresh new perspective and genuinely see it come to fruition. Your sense for the game is unmatched. I've loved working alongside you. Thanks for coming along to support me and the Raiders in playoffs after your team got eliminated, it was immensely useful. All that's left now is to get my revenge for Week 3 next time I see you, heh. I'm coming for your throne.
Sceptross Even though you've always been on the opposite side of the battlefield from me, I've still ended up talking to you a lot. I know life's busy for you, and I appreciate the time you've made to discuss the game with me. Frankly, I didn't think I'd learn too much from you when we first came into contact considering how different so many of your perspectives are, but I really have. I really enjoyed facing you at both the very beginning and very end of this tournament - you were not at all an easy opponent. You're a great player and a great guy, and I hope to see you again next year in SPL.
To my other great friends, Amity Dababy2 pp's splash town Ainzcrad evakiyama! NoName6293 LHF JensenDale and too many more to list:
Thank you guys. I wish you all the best.
To my managers, Laurel twash and MAVERICK SHOOTERS, who believed in me enough to pay fucking 10.5k for a rookie, who believed in me enough to let me continue playing after starting off 2-3 with Vileman on the bench, who believed in me enough to genuinely consider giving the go-ahead on an RBY tiebreaker pick in fucking SPL Finals: thank you. I will truly cherish this opportunity that you guys gave me forever. You guys embody the spirit of Team Raiders.
And of course, to Team Raiders:
Star zS Skyrio Ash KetchumGamer Endill JJ09LIE tier Ruffles Eternal Spirit Underlying Fc Charmflash, and yes, even you, Vileman and MANNAT, every single one of you are fucking amazing. Every single win mattered. Every drop of blood, sweat, and tears mattered. We fucking did it. WE'RE SMOGON PREMIER LEAGUE CHAMPIONS!!!!!!
I don't intend to stop at all. It's only up from here. We're just getting started. I intend to prove this was not a fluke.
GO TEAM RAIDERS!
I'd like to thank everyone who supported me and was friends with me along the way.
To my very best friends on Smogon, the people I've been talking to every single day for a long time:
DAWNBUSTER Without you, I wouldn't be who I am right now. Without you, I never would've gotten so into GSC, never would've gotten so invested into this game, never would've had that spark lit to try to become the very best. You've made me laugh so many times and you helped me discover my forever favorite tier, GSC NU. Words can't express how much I appreciate the time I've spent talking and playing with you. I'd like to see you in SPL for GSC OU one day.
第二十五夜 To the man who has been with me in RBY OU since almost the very start, finding me after I debuted in pre-Smogon ADPL in RBY OU with zero prior experience, who offered to help me out: without you, I'm not the player I am now. You've been the best helper and friend I could've ever asked for. You constantly pushed me to be better, to see the mistakes in the games and builds of others and myself, gave me a fresh perspective that nobody else in the entire community could've offered, worked with me even when you should've been sleeping. I truly feel that my success is a mutual victory for the two of us. There have been many others I've come into contact with that have helped advance my game for sure, and I'm grateful to them, but I'll always come back to you. Thank you for supporting me this season JVG.
MrSoup My fellow GSC NU enjoyer. You helped keep my passion alive for this tier. I've spent so much time talking with you about it, feeding my interest and always trying to craft some grand new meta-defining technology. I could talk and build out stuff with you all day long, even if it's complete bullshit. I always enjoy having you both as my greatest rival and ally, and I look forward to trying to defeat you every time. Maybe one day I'll surpass you there as well aha.
To my friends in the Ruins of Alph Community:
susciety Links TPH BluBirD Zerkas Waves Tranquility TDR TGA SEA RichardMillePlain Rage Monai you guys are all goobers.
To all the Pampu Primeapes that have teamed with me across 3 RBYPLs:
Free ping gastlies The Strap Acetylaldehyde TyCarter Ctown6 Deezcastforms Maris Bonibell Shitrock enjoyer Egor Tree69420
To the RBY superstars I've talked to more than anyone else:
Amaranth You took a chance on me in RoAPL and worked with me the whole way through. I dragged you along back with me in the RBYPL immediately following. I've been talking to you ever since, including a couple times this season. You've helped me advance my game a ton, really nailing in on refining my prep and my lines even further. You've been instrumental to my growth as a player, and I appreciate all the times you vouched for me, trying to get others to see what you saw in me. I'm eternally grateful. I'd like to finally play you in a serious setting one day and really put our skills to the test against one another in an all-out mind game.
Serpi The boogeyman. I've played you a LOT in RBY, and you were always the one to beat. I failed a lot, and I succeeded a few crucial times. I didn't think I'd end up on your side ever, until I got the opportunity in RBYPL this past year. You really helped enlighten me on a lot of things. I love getting a fresh new perspective and genuinely see it come to fruition. Your sense for the game is unmatched. I've loved working alongside you. Thanks for coming along to support me and the Raiders in playoffs after your team got eliminated, it was immensely useful. All that's left now is to get my revenge for Week 3 next time I see you, heh. I'm coming for your throne.
Sceptross Even though you've always been on the opposite side of the battlefield from me, I've still ended up talking to you a lot. I know life's busy for you, and I appreciate the time you've made to discuss the game with me. Frankly, I didn't think I'd learn too much from you when we first came into contact considering how different so many of your perspectives are, but I really have. I really enjoyed facing you at both the very beginning and very end of this tournament - you were not at all an easy opponent. You're a great player and a great guy, and I hope to see you again next year in SPL.
To my other great friends, Amity Dababy2 pp's splash town Ainzcrad evakiyama! NoName6293 LHF JensenDale and too many more to list:
Thank you guys. I wish you all the best.
To my managers, Laurel twash and MAVERICK SHOOTERS, who believed in me enough to pay fucking 10.5k for a rookie, who believed in me enough to let me continue playing after starting off 2-3 with Vileman on the bench, who believed in me enough to genuinely consider giving the go-ahead on an RBY tiebreaker pick in fucking SPL Finals: thank you. I will truly cherish this opportunity that you guys gave me forever. You guys embody the spirit of Team Raiders.
And of course, to Team Raiders:
Star zS Skyrio Ash KetchumGamer Endill JJ09LIE tier Ruffles Eternal Spirit Underlying Fc Charmflash, and yes, even you, Vileman and MANNAT, every single one of you are fucking amazing. Every single win mattered. Every drop of blood, sweat, and tears mattered. We fucking did it. WE'RE SMOGON PREMIER LEAGUE CHAMPIONS!!!!!!
I don't intend to stop at all. It's only up from here. We're just getting started. I intend to prove this was not a fluke.
GO TEAM RAIDERS!
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What an insane rollercoster SPL. On paper we were never the favorites, and we struggled all season. Even the weeks we won, never more than 7-5, and our kda was negative despite being 3rd seed. I have genuinely no clue how we managed to not only get this far but even win the whole thing. Massive BIG respects and s/o to Skyrio, BeeOrSomething zS, and tier for incredible consistent performances and carrying us all season. S/o to Eternal Spirit O MAGO and great friend for the insane clutch wins at the end, prepping with you SM was really fun. An honor to team up with some genuinely great players like Star Skyrio JJ09LIE (we did it bro, after losing last year in finals) Fc Underlying. A huuuuge s/o to my forever comrades and companinions BeeOrSomething zS Endill Vileman. S/o to all my teammates man, Ash KetchumGamer and MANNAT and everyone else if i forgot. S/o to MAVERICK SHOOTERS twash and Laurel too. I think they made genuinely good decisions throughout the season, esp considering its their first time managing. And thank you for believing in me despite the shaky start.
For my ORAS slot, s/o to MANNAT Paprikaflow NoName6293 Zaza for helping me prep, esp Noname, always fun building/testing with you. I'm happy you finally got yourself on sheet tours lil bro, you did good.
Genuinely special s/o to Typical_bastard. I'm ngl this guy was our secret weapon and he's just a helper. This guy provided tests for at least 5+ slots including SM (gama pinged games thrice a day minimum). Games were requested and pinged early in the week or 1 hour before the game, typical was there. He helped SV, SM, SS, and many more. This guy is geuninely top tier try hard support.
S/o to my general friends on this site that I haven't mentioned elsewhere alrdy, c0mp kingofking Proftreez Dababy2 thajester and many many more
For general ORAS, this season I decided to go about it differently. No more gatekeeping techs and prep. Decided to just help whenver asked, and I was PM'd quite a bit haha. But I'm more than happy to help, always keeps me sharp, and I get help and get my own feedback back, or at least get to bounce ideas around. So was fun xray BluBirD Metallica126 NoName6293 Spitfire Persephone
For my season overall, ending 6-5 is the exact record I got from last year. But it was different, it felt different. In his predicts, blunder mentioned that I objectively threw some games, which is 100% right. There were 3 games that were objectively thrown, 2 (vs. Poek and King) in game and 1 in prep (w1 vs. comp bringing serp slower than manaphy with a slowking wtf bro). And then my other 2 losses vs. santu were also winnable if i played better. But there's something empowering about knowing that all my losses were my own fault. I didnt really get outprepped or outplayed, and i got neutral or even good luck overall. I just shot myself in the foot 5 times. I have no one to blame but myself, and there are objective things I can work on to improve. That feels good in an odd way. The other empowering thing for me is that this SPL felt different mainly because of my mental. My rookie year last year I was nervous all the time and kept doubting myself. This year, even though I had less time to prep and test, I was more confident (sometimes too confident lol) I trusted my gut more, and even though I played 1 terrible game and choked another good game, I probably played my two best career sheet games (vs. london and metallica), getting haxed throughout the game but keeping composure and utilizing every resource i had, down to a 4% burnt mega aerodactyl. I probably had the toughest schedule of everyone in ORAS, having to play comp santu xray in my first 3 weeks and santu twice, and for the first time, I started a tour 0-2 and then 1-3. But I never wavered or doubted myself. In Semis, we won the week, and I could have easily deadgamed my game vs. Santu, someone who I'm currently 0-6 against (fuck you man). But despite me being 0-5 at that point into him, and despite the week being over and I can just coast and save my record, I wasnt going to back down from a fight. I was proud of that. Overall, even though my time, raw gameplay, and overall committment to this SPL (more down below) was inconsistent, the momentum of my mental fortitute this SPL felt great actually.
As for my personal life, I was incredibly stressed because as a 4th year medical student i was in match season. The period of time where I do interviews and then hope to get picked, for my entire hard work in the past 8+ years to be judged. I even considered taking a break from SPL this year for it (Thank God I didn't!). Sorry to my SPL teammates that I couldn't be fully engaged in this SPL, and the stress is absolutely the reason why both my piloting and prep was inconsistent. But, all that is naught. I could have went 0-11 and lost SPL and I would still be happy, because I made it in. Starting July, I will finally start training in Psychiatry, something I've wanted to do forever now.
I feel truly blessed, and all I can say is one word and one word only: ALHAMDULILLAH
I will make a couple post-SPL posts in the ORAS subforums including personal game analysis and dropping some pastes. Once im back from vacation
BTW @ TDs yo can we make SPL start 1 week earlier?! I played my SPL finals game both this year and last while im on vacation. It's spring break time late march/early april. Please consider starting next SPL a week earlier
For my ORAS slot, s/o to MANNAT Paprikaflow NoName6293 Zaza for helping me prep, esp Noname, always fun building/testing with you. I'm happy you finally got yourself on sheet tours lil bro, you did good.
Genuinely special s/o to Typical_bastard. I'm ngl this guy was our secret weapon and he's just a helper. This guy provided tests for at least 5+ slots including SM (gama pinged games thrice a day minimum). Games were requested and pinged early in the week or 1 hour before the game, typical was there. He helped SV, SM, SS, and many more. This guy is geuninely top tier try hard support.
S/o to my general friends on this site that I haven't mentioned elsewhere alrdy, c0mp kingofking Proftreez Dababy2 thajester and many many more
For general ORAS, this season I decided to go about it differently. No more gatekeeping techs and prep. Decided to just help whenver asked, and I was PM'd quite a bit haha. But I'm more than happy to help, always keeps me sharp, and I get help and get my own feedback back, or at least get to bounce ideas around. So was fun xray BluBirD Metallica126 NoName6293 Spitfire Persephone
For my season overall, ending 6-5 is the exact record I got from last year. But it was different, it felt different. In his predicts, blunder mentioned that I objectively threw some games, which is 100% right. There were 3 games that were objectively thrown, 2 (vs. Poek and King) in game and 1 in prep (w1 vs. comp bringing serp slower than manaphy with a slowking wtf bro). And then my other 2 losses vs. santu were also winnable if i played better. But there's something empowering about knowing that all my losses were my own fault. I didnt really get outprepped or outplayed, and i got neutral or even good luck overall. I just shot myself in the foot 5 times. I have no one to blame but myself, and there are objective things I can work on to improve. That feels good in an odd way. The other empowering thing for me is that this SPL felt different mainly because of my mental. My rookie year last year I was nervous all the time and kept doubting myself. This year, even though I had less time to prep and test, I was more confident (sometimes too confident lol) I trusted my gut more, and even though I played 1 terrible game and choked another good game, I probably played my two best career sheet games (vs. london and metallica), getting haxed throughout the game but keeping composure and utilizing every resource i had, down to a 4% burnt mega aerodactyl. I probably had the toughest schedule of everyone in ORAS, having to play comp santu xray in my first 3 weeks and santu twice, and for the first time, I started a tour 0-2 and then 1-3. But I never wavered or doubted myself. In Semis, we won the week, and I could have easily deadgamed my game vs. Santu, someone who I'm currently 0-6 against (fuck you man). But despite me being 0-5 at that point into him, and despite the week being over and I can just coast and save my record, I wasnt going to back down from a fight. I was proud of that. Overall, even though my time, raw gameplay, and overall committment to this SPL (more down below) was inconsistent, the momentum of my mental fortitute this SPL felt great actually.
As for my personal life, I was incredibly stressed because as a 4th year medical student i was in match season. The period of time where I do interviews and then hope to get picked, for my entire hard work in the past 8+ years to be judged. I even considered taking a break from SPL this year for it (Thank God I didn't!). Sorry to my SPL teammates that I couldn't be fully engaged in this SPL, and the stress is absolutely the reason why both my piloting and prep was inconsistent. But, all that is naught. I could have went 0-11 and lost SPL and I would still be happy, because I made it in. Starting July, I will finally start training in Psychiatry, something I've wanted to do forever now.
I feel truly blessed, and all I can say is one word and one word only: ALHAMDULILLAH
I will make a couple post-SPL posts in the ORAS subforums including personal game analysis and dropping some pastes. Once im back from vacation
BTW @ TDs yo can we make SPL start 1 week earlier?! I played my SPL finals game both this year and last while im on vacation. It's spring break time late march/early april. Please consider starting next SPL a week earlier
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BeeOrSomething They let WHO win a trophy? (Gz chief you deserve it)
Congratulations Raiders, you have demonstrated that the predictions before week 1 indicate nothing about the season, you totally deserved this victory. I'm particularly happy for skyrio and zs who have been very solid this season, bravo les gars.
Strong run cryos, you almost managed to bring the first victory to a very old franchise, I respect that. I hope you will come back strong next year.
Strong run cryos, you almost managed to bring the first victory to a very old franchise, I respect that. I hope you will come back strong next year.
There are very few people on this website who deserve it more than you - working hard to keep a sector of lower tiers alive that very few people even give a passing thought, managing multiple teamtours on end and doing your best to be a positive presence in the RBY/GSC communities, and so on.
You and the rest of the Raiders should be very proud, and to everyone else who worked so hard to put on a show fighting for the trophy, thank you for putting on high level games for our enjoyment and for the thrill of competition. Smogon's got its issues, but SPL is one of the best things the site has to offer and I hope the prestige and talent that comes in this tour continues to shine bright for a long time to come.
There really is nothing like competitive Pokemon on the planet, for better or for worse.
OK this doesn't match the tone of what I just wrote before but since double posting is something I'd rather avoid - that's actually such a cool statistic. Wonder who the breakout 3K could be next year.
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Hey I felt like writing something here because this experience really meant a lot to me and I'm hitting insomnia again..
First of all congratulations to the Raiders, especially Fc, Gama (well deserved trophy for all those years), zS and of course my brother Skyrio for putting arguably one of the best (if not the best?) dpp run of all time.
What a way to go out man. My last official tournament was 3 years ago in a finals and it did not end quite well either.
As I was in a call in december with my friend Akali talking about irl stuff, he convinced me to join this year and I was a bit tempted so I felt like stars were aligned for me to give this tournament a final shot and break a curse : I was 0-8 all time in SPL, which was in my opinion such an undeserved record considering I’ve achieved things a billion times harder than winning a game in this tournament.
Prior to this finals, I was 4-6 and yet was still very very happy about how I played and prepared my games. Most of my losses were either due to misfortune or absolutely terrible matchup, and I promised myself as long as I felt good ingame, It’s all good. That was really the spirit entering this tournament no matter how things would go.
However this finals hurts. It hurts because it’s a thing I would never expect from me. It hurts because this time, the playing was the problem, despite doing well for 95% of the game. Not only choking a game, but doing it in finals because you tunnel vision’d something but it doesn’t work as you get misfortune in the way yet again (not an excuse but still frustrating considering some of the past games again).
It hurts because I wanna say « there is still room to grow and learn from this » but I’m sad there is hardly a room for all of this anymore, and that’s what pity me the most. I’ve put my soul into this tournament because as we get older it’s harder and harder to dedicate time for this now than it was years ago (biggest difference from 2022 is probably working full time now, not a student anymore).
I wanna say a huge huge thank you to my team but above all PDC gorgie and Sam for getting me in the first place and trusting me until the very end this year, I'll be honest I was quite unfamiliar with 90% of the managers (as you don't really see me often in SPL/SCL anymore) + as I said above my last showing in officials was years ago so I was a bit worried about how things would go. All in all I'm glad to have stepped in and took the challenge given the context : hiatus + past records, because I truly believe it takes some courage to do so and I like to think it can hold you back in some ways.
As Ruffles very well said, Al Hamdoulillah no matter what is happening, good or bad, real life or gaming.
First of all congratulations to the Raiders, especially Fc, Gama (well deserved trophy for all those years), zS and of course my brother Skyrio for putting arguably one of the best (if not the best?) dpp run of all time.
What a way to go out man. My last official tournament was 3 years ago in a finals and it did not end quite well either.
As I was in a call in december with my friend Akali talking about irl stuff, he convinced me to join this year and I was a bit tempted so I felt like stars were aligned for me to give this tournament a final shot and break a curse : I was 0-8 all time in SPL, which was in my opinion such an undeserved record considering I’ve achieved things a billion times harder than winning a game in this tournament.
Prior to this finals, I was 4-6 and yet was still very very happy about how I played and prepared my games. Most of my losses were either due to misfortune or absolutely terrible matchup, and I promised myself as long as I felt good ingame, It’s all good. That was really the spirit entering this tournament no matter how things would go.
However this finals hurts. It hurts because it’s a thing I would never expect from me. It hurts because this time, the playing was the problem, despite doing well for 95% of the game. Not only choking a game, but doing it in finals because you tunnel vision’d something but it doesn’t work as you get misfortune in the way yet again (not an excuse but still frustrating considering some of the past games again).
It hurts because I wanna say « there is still room to grow and learn from this » but I’m sad there is hardly a room for all of this anymore, and that’s what pity me the most. I’ve put my soul into this tournament because as we get older it’s harder and harder to dedicate time for this now than it was years ago (biggest difference from 2022 is probably working full time now, not a student anymore).
I wanna say a huge huge thank you to my team but above all PDC gorgie and Sam for getting me in the first place and trusting me until the very end this year, I'll be honest I was quite unfamiliar with 90% of the managers (as you don't really see me often in SPL/SCL anymore) + as I said above my last showing in officials was years ago so I was a bit worried about how things would go. All in all I'm glad to have stepped in and took the challenge given the context : hiatus + past records, because I truly believe it takes some courage to do so and I like to think it can hold you back in some ways.
As Ruffles very well said, Al Hamdoulillah no matter what is happening, good or bad, real life or gaming.
Congratzs.
congrats zS tier. seeing your development over the years has been a treat & im happy that you got your "competitive auction tour" season down, momo
seeing someone ive technically known since like, mid natdex days also have their own total reinvention tour by tour (i still remember your uu open semis run a couple of years ago) into becoming one of the top dogs of cg sv has been real sweet. kdca, you're a great competitor and i'm sure you'll continue to perform as well as you did here and in ost. whatever the yappers say don't mean shit king. also good try too nick
sv has been a generation full of rlly cool rises of new players with some older players finding new light in it as well so if this is the last sv spl then ill say the spectator experience was heat & i imagine world cup will be more of the same
seeing someone ive technically known since like, mid natdex days also have their own total reinvention tour by tour (i still remember your uu open semis run a couple of years ago) into becoming one of the top dogs of cg sv has been real sweet. kdca, you're a great competitor and i'm sure you'll continue to perform as well as you did here and in ost. whatever the yappers say don't mean shit king. also good try too nick
sv has been a generation full of rlly cool rises of new players with some older players finding new light in it as well so if this is the last sv spl then ill say the spectator experience was heat & i imagine world cup will be more of the same
Awesome to see Underlying winning SPL and winning the finals game on top of that! For RCOP 2024 I remember HSOWA telling me about a new UK GSC player that we could play and obviously its panned out perfectly.
#natdex
Congrats to the Cryos on their run, appreciate it probs sucks rn but I really hope you will all get to look back and have fond memories of the tournament at least. You obviously had a talented team and provided some really entertaining games, I'm sure many of you will go one better in the future.
Really, I just wanna say thanks to everyone who helped or supported the raiders this year, you were all great people and a real vibe to team with. I'm not gonna shout out everyone because we basically had an open border by the end, I'm surprised the cryos themselves didn't get an invite. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who put effort into the scouts and tests, cheered on the team, and kept vileman occupied and entertained. It was looking difficult with only one win in the first five weeks, and despite being under pressure the rest of the tournament you really peaked at the right time to drag it over the line.
For me, it's nice to finally have some trophy pixels next to my name after nearly two decades, even if all I had to do was avoid signing up to play. I'm not quite sure what compelled me to manage in SPL again, maybe the counselling paid off and I finally recovered from managing a young rey and KG 15 years ago, but I'm glad I did. Winning makes it easier to say, but whatever is said about the state of tournaments or the playerbase, this competition will always have something nostalgic and special for me.
Really, I just wanna say thanks to everyone who helped or supported the raiders this year, you were all great people and a real vibe to team with. I'm not gonna shout out everyone because we basically had an open border by the end, I'm surprised the cryos themselves didn't get an invite. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who put effort into the scouts and tests, cheered on the team, and kept vileman occupied and entertained. It was looking difficult with only one win in the first five weeks, and despite being under pressure the rest of the tournament you really peaked at the right time to drag it over the line.
For me, it's nice to finally have some trophy pixels next to my name after nearly two decades, even if all I had to do was avoid signing up to play. I'm not quite sure what compelled me to manage in SPL again, maybe the counselling paid off and I finally recovered from managing a young rey and KG 15 years ago, but I'm glad I did. Winning makes it easier to say, but whatever is said about the state of tournaments or the playerbase, this competition will always have something nostalgic and special for me.
BeeOrSomething - it felt like most of our auction was waiting and saving credits to make sure we got you, which is kinda nuts considering you were a rookie. An amazing debut season, you deserve a lot of credit for the trophy with your 6 win streak which helped carry the second half. I love the thoughtful confidence you have in your team choices (triple cloy comes to mind) and look forwards to seeing what else you achieve in the future. Big Serp has some competition again.
Underlying - similar to Bee, we really wanted you pre-auction and glad it worked out. We didn't make the season easy for you by chopping and changing in the first half as it all settled, but we kept saying everyone had a part to play and you proved it with a great end to the season. I really hope you enjoyed your debut, I'm always especially pleased to see some fresh UK talent deliver and have no doubt you are well placed to go smash it even more in the future.
Vileman - the true manager of the team, I'm so glad you finally got your trophy also. We hadn't interacted before this tournament but you're such a sound dude, thank you for your positivity and energy, you really did keep everyone engaged. I'm sorry you didn't get to play more but you have more of a hand in this than you probs realise with the amount of testing and support you provided, and I hope someone gives you a fuller chance next year. I would tell you to go celebrate but p sure you were in a bar for most of the season anyway
Endill - the first of our day 1 team members, you were a great presence and I really enjoyed our football natters. Your games were pretty frustrating to watch as you didn't get many (or any?) breaks go your way, but saving our season with Regi was a personal highlight en route to the red. I hope to team w you again in future, but for now I can promise that I will be rooting for Chile at the world cup (of pokemon only, sadly :/). I hope the great south american nation continues to be wary of hp grass crits.
Skyrio - you were not our initial number one choice but you always will be now. Before you even played a game your support was "banned" from our server by another team (bless), but you just quietly cracked on and got the job done. I knew your play was solid from kicking my ass in tournaments, but the consistency in pressured situations this tournament was amazing. You had a tough job pleasing both laurel and I, we were defs harder on you than we were on ourselves when we played lol, but you never complained. I really felt like you also really grew in confidence in making team choices towards the end of the tour, and I'm glad you're getting the recognition your #1 spot deserves. ALLEZ SKYRIO
Star - well, we took out a mortgage so we could have you for tiebreaks, and although we didn't even need it in the end I felt safe knowing you were there. You've already acknowledged nothing went your way or quite worked out, but I'm glad you can look back and at least enjoy the last day and result. Thanks for being a solid presence and always giving sound advice. 39k retain next year for the double?
Ruffles - Rufflio, we got a bit of a bargain with you in the auction and you delivered both great games and one liners. I swear you turned up every week with like 15 teams to choose from, if it was a gen I actually played I would've paid extra credits just to steal the teams for myself. There was a run in the middle where you felt like an absolute lock on win, and obvs delivered a huge final win. Sound performance from a sound dude.
JJ09LIE - on a site full of background noise, you were an absolute breath of fresh air. I really dig people who play for a love of the pressure and game, and I rate the fact that of the limited time you had available you made sure to use it to turn up and get prepared. You're a really clean player, I look forwards to keeping up with your future results and I'm glad that you got the trophy on the third final in a row.
Charmflash - we didn't chat much but I genuinely love your approach and the freedom you bring to the game. We sometimes forget that this is not all solved and you can still be creative. I really hope you stick around in the future and we don't lose another player of that ilk. Altho we ended up mixing it up this time, I appreciate the fact that you were always chill and a good support.
MANNAT - again, we didn't really speak much but whenever I did dip into the fairy gens you were there, thanks for being a huge support. I guess you're glad you didn't send laurel to voicemail during the auction.
Fc - "sheet warrior", another case of being a nice guy who puts in the effort to prep. I always get the impression you have a true love of the game, so I hope to see you both suceed in SPL again but also become a future VGC champ. Thanks for getting some key wins and congrats on a second trophy.
Eternal Spirit - the magician, as a retain you were first on the team, so it was nice that you were the one to get us over the line. You really brought a fun energy to the team. The start of the tour was rough, and as managers we probs didn't really help you in those early weeks, but once we found your home in SM you really started to shine. You're such an entertaining player to watch, thank you for putting up with our nagging and delivering us all the trophy.
Ash KetchumGamer - I felt pretty chill in most games except yours, which ngl were stressful af. I never know what's really going on in SV but every endgame felt crazy tight. Despite the grey hairs it caused me, you made huge plays and provided some of the biggest highs over the 3 months, I hope you take the time to look back and enjoy how you got those for us. What else is there to say except 3 for 3?
zS - de facto leader of the pack, you really shone for us and I felt like you carried so much in the first half of the season when we were still otherwise figuring things out. You really have a natural knack for the game, but it comes coupled with a really calming presence for this kind of team tournament. I hope you go on to break the consecutive +ve sheet performances. Thank god everyone else had a stroke in the auction and completely forgot to bid on you, because I don't think we would have achieved this otherwise. You also had another huge contribution in telling us to get this next guy....
tier - We kinda got you last minute, more intended as a sub/support, but when you got your chance you went absolutely ham and locked down that starting spot. You were so active in putting in legwork to get SV wins, no doubt you'll go onto bigger and better things and I look forwards to cheering you on from the sidelines.
Finally, the managers. Laurel, you've been a bundle of nerves for like 4 months now and I'm glad you can get some respite. Although we always got on, I was slightly worried about if we would step on each other's dpp toes, but luckily our elite skyrio really made both our jobs easy on that front. I'm glad you finally got your chance to lead a team, you always check in with everyone and make sure the guys are in a good place, and are all round a good laugh. I genuinely think you're underrated as a player across many tiers, and the team really benefited from how you put in so much legwork for pre-auction prep and tests. Enjoy the win, hmu for a Guinness when you're next in london and we can bitch about vileman with no paper trail.
MAVERICK SHOOTERS, thank you for teaching me just about everything about how to use discord, being there to tell me at the start of each game if we had a good SV matchup, and of course for doing the Weekly Announcement Shoutouts. Again you deserve credit for scouting pre-auction, and in play for all the effort into trying to make sure our matchups were as good as possible. I felt bad complaining about 11pm games when yours were at like 4am, but your commitment to the cause was always still there. You're a good egg, I'm glad you finally know who bad bunny is and can hopefully give him a listen as you polish the trophy.
In addition, thanks to Raiza and Tricking for their endless raiders support, H.M.N.I.P for being the player we always longed for, Le Don and Student of Sinnoh for their DPP builds and support, Siatam, paprika, 第二十五夜 for RBY support, Mister McLovin for just being Mister McLovin (COYS COYS), typical bastard, Sadlysius for giving Endill someone to chat to about adv, SouCarlos, Kustavan, ima, java, jester, walter, Serpi, as well as everyone else who helped get this team over the line. Heroes.
Underlying - similar to Bee, we really wanted you pre-auction and glad it worked out. We didn't make the season easy for you by chopping and changing in the first half as it all settled, but we kept saying everyone had a part to play and you proved it with a great end to the season. I really hope you enjoyed your debut, I'm always especially pleased to see some fresh UK talent deliver and have no doubt you are well placed to go smash it even more in the future.
Vileman - the true manager of the team, I'm so glad you finally got your trophy also. We hadn't interacted before this tournament but you're such a sound dude, thank you for your positivity and energy, you really did keep everyone engaged. I'm sorry you didn't get to play more but you have more of a hand in this than you probs realise with the amount of testing and support you provided, and I hope someone gives you a fuller chance next year. I would tell you to go celebrate but p sure you were in a bar for most of the season anyway
Endill - the first of our day 1 team members, you were a great presence and I really enjoyed our football natters. Your games were pretty frustrating to watch as you didn't get many (or any?) breaks go your way, but saving our season with Regi was a personal highlight en route to the red. I hope to team w you again in future, but for now I can promise that I will be rooting for Chile at the world cup (of pokemon only, sadly :/). I hope the great south american nation continues to be wary of hp grass crits.
Skyrio - you were not our initial number one choice but you always will be now. Before you even played a game your support was "banned" from our server by another team (bless), but you just quietly cracked on and got the job done. I knew your play was solid from kicking my ass in tournaments, but the consistency in pressured situations this tournament was amazing. You had a tough job pleasing both laurel and I, we were defs harder on you than we were on ourselves when we played lol, but you never complained. I really felt like you also really grew in confidence in making team choices towards the end of the tour, and I'm glad you're getting the recognition your #1 spot deserves. ALLEZ SKYRIO
Star - well, we took out a mortgage so we could have you for tiebreaks, and although we didn't even need it in the end I felt safe knowing you were there. You've already acknowledged nothing went your way or quite worked out, but I'm glad you can look back and at least enjoy the last day and result. Thanks for being a solid presence and always giving sound advice. 39k retain next year for the double?
Ruffles - Rufflio, we got a bit of a bargain with you in the auction and you delivered both great games and one liners. I swear you turned up every week with like 15 teams to choose from, if it was a gen I actually played I would've paid extra credits just to steal the teams for myself. There was a run in the middle where you felt like an absolute lock on win, and obvs delivered a huge final win. Sound performance from a sound dude.
JJ09LIE - on a site full of background noise, you were an absolute breath of fresh air. I really dig people who play for a love of the pressure and game, and I rate the fact that of the limited time you had available you made sure to use it to turn up and get prepared. You're a really clean player, I look forwards to keeping up with your future results and I'm glad that you got the trophy on the third final in a row.
Charmflash - we didn't chat much but I genuinely love your approach and the freedom you bring to the game. We sometimes forget that this is not all solved and you can still be creative. I really hope you stick around in the future and we don't lose another player of that ilk. Altho we ended up mixing it up this time, I appreciate the fact that you were always chill and a good support.
MANNAT - again, we didn't really speak much but whenever I did dip into the fairy gens you were there, thanks for being a huge support. I guess you're glad you didn't send laurel to voicemail during the auction.
Fc - "sheet warrior", another case of being a nice guy who puts in the effort to prep. I always get the impression you have a true love of the game, so I hope to see you both suceed in SPL again but also become a future VGC champ. Thanks for getting some key wins and congrats on a second trophy.
Eternal Spirit - the magician, as a retain you were first on the team, so it was nice that you were the one to get us over the line. You really brought a fun energy to the team. The start of the tour was rough, and as managers we probs didn't really help you in those early weeks, but once we found your home in SM you really started to shine. You're such an entertaining player to watch, thank you for putting up with our nagging and delivering us all the trophy.
Ash KetchumGamer - I felt pretty chill in most games except yours, which ngl were stressful af. I never know what's really going on in SV but every endgame felt crazy tight. Despite the grey hairs it caused me, you made huge plays and provided some of the biggest highs over the 3 months, I hope you take the time to look back and enjoy how you got those for us. What else is there to say except 3 for 3?
zS - de facto leader of the pack, you really shone for us and I felt like you carried so much in the first half of the season when we were still otherwise figuring things out. You really have a natural knack for the game, but it comes coupled with a really calming presence for this kind of team tournament. I hope you go on to break the consecutive +ve sheet performances. Thank god everyone else had a stroke in the auction and completely forgot to bid on you, because I don't think we would have achieved this otherwise. You also had another huge contribution in telling us to get this next guy....
tier - We kinda got you last minute, more intended as a sub/support, but when you got your chance you went absolutely ham and locked down that starting spot. You were so active in putting in legwork to get SV wins, no doubt you'll go onto bigger and better things and I look forwards to cheering you on from the sidelines.
Finally, the managers. Laurel, you've been a bundle of nerves for like 4 months now and I'm glad you can get some respite. Although we always got on, I was slightly worried about if we would step on each other's dpp toes, but luckily our elite skyrio really made both our jobs easy on that front. I'm glad you finally got your chance to lead a team, you always check in with everyone and make sure the guys are in a good place, and are all round a good laugh. I genuinely think you're underrated as a player across many tiers, and the team really benefited from how you put in so much legwork for pre-auction prep and tests. Enjoy the win, hmu for a Guinness when you're next in london and we can bitch about vileman with no paper trail.
MAVERICK SHOOTERS, thank you for teaching me just about everything about how to use discord, being there to tell me at the start of each game if we had a good SV matchup, and of course for doing the Weekly Announcement Shoutouts. Again you deserve credit for scouting pre-auction, and in play for all the effort into trying to make sure our matchups were as good as possible. I felt bad complaining about 11pm games when yours were at like 4am, but your commitment to the cause was always still there. You're a good egg, I'm glad you finally know who bad bunny is and can hopefully give him a listen as you polish the trophy.
In addition, thanks to Raiza and Tricking for their endless raiders support, H.M.N.I.P for being the player we always longed for, Le Don and Student of Sinnoh for their DPP builds and support, Siatam, paprika, 第二十五夜 for RBY support, Mister McLovin for just being Mister McLovin (COYS COYS), typical bastard, Sadlysius for giving Endill someone to chat to about adv, SouCarlos, Kustavan, ima, java, jester, walter, Serpi, as well as everyone else who helped get this team over the line. Heroes.
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Loss posting is whack but I wanted to say a few words to commemorate what was overall a very positive season.
First of all, I wanted to shout out my managers PDC, gorgie, and Sam (Gilbert arenas can also get a mention for shadow managing) for putting together the squad and for fostering an enjoyable team environment. To be completely honest I had a lot of doubts when I got drafted & cryos were not high on my list of teams I wanted to end up on. Typically I am very skeptical of manager cores who have little to no knowledge of CG OU. Thankfully, however, my doubts were proven wrong. They definitely didn't know that much about SV but were very receptive to my player suggestions when I joined the server and always stayed involved in tiers they were knowledgeable on. If any of you stick around I would love to team again.
Also brief shoutout to kDCA & Attribute who provided many sanity checks and team assistance throughout the tour. Much love to you both. I won't list out all my teammates, but I enjoyed teaming with all of you. Not something you can say too often in team tours like this.
ggs to the raiders & congrats to my friends who got the big red.
First of all, I wanted to shout out my managers PDC, gorgie, and Sam (Gilbert arenas can also get a mention for shadow managing) for putting together the squad and for fostering an enjoyable team environment. To be completely honest I had a lot of doubts when I got drafted & cryos were not high on my list of teams I wanted to end up on. Typically I am very skeptical of manager cores who have little to no knowledge of CG OU. Thankfully, however, my doubts were proven wrong. They definitely didn't know that much about SV but were very receptive to my player suggestions when I joined the server and always stayed involved in tiers they were knowledgeable on. If any of you stick around I would love to team again.
Also brief shoutout to kDCA & Attribute who provided many sanity checks and team assistance throughout the tour. Much love to you both. I won't list out all my teammates, but I enjoyed teaming with all of you. Not something you can say too often in team tours like this.
ggs to the raiders & congrats to my friends who got the big red.
This is truly the most surreal feeling… I feel as though I’ve given part of my soul to this team. With that being said, all the glory is to our amazing players and helpers. The managers are merely the architects who establish the culture and put the team together.
My history with competitive Pokemon
Preparation for SPL 17
SPL 17 Draft and Post-Draft
Season Summary
It really all feels like a blur, but when that Rock Slide hit Charizard-Y, it felt like those 17 years on and off Smogon flashed before my eyes. This was the culmination of all those memories, all those games on Shoddy, PO, and Showdown. I grew up on Smogon, and I learned so much about myself playing this game. I got to meet so many amazing people over the years, online and in-person. Don’t get me wrong, there were bad things and bad memories, but at the end of it all, we were all kids just trying to fit in. Right now, I’m filled with nothing but gratitude, thank you to our amazing team and our helpers for making this a possibility.
Team Shoutouts
I will cherish this forever.
My history with competitive Pokemon
Nearly 20 years ago, I played my first game of competitive Pokemon. I was downstairs watching Digimon Tamers on YouTube, and I stumbled upon Marriland and MTG Xerxes battles. I started watching them. Not long after, I joined a YouTube chatroom, where I met Xtra$hine, and eventually in around August of 2007, I joined my first XAT chat (the MySpace version of Discord).
Eventually, I found XATs with better players like Team Uber and Regileague. When I started playing against these communities, I realized just how far away my level was from them. Dave reyscarface The Grand Babido bro fist WastedSkyPirate BKC Dangerous Blue_Tornado, Iconic, Yondie, SOMALIA, Jsaok3, symphonyx64, Lizardman, Zak91, the list goes on, these were some of the many players who inspired me back then.
I was motivated to get better and to improve so I downloaded my first app, Shoddy Battle. I remember as a kid I was terrified of getting a virus but after losing to Danny (Mr. Flamethrowa) like 6 times to be the Regileague Champion, I needed to play more games than what was available over WiFi. From Shoddy, I eventually found Smogon.
Between 2010 and 2023, I weaved in and out of Pokemon. Often taking breaks to play other video games, but I somehow always found my way back to Smogon. There was this weird gravitational pull, no matter how much I wanted to walk away or whenever I simply got bored, I always came back. Those teenager years of mine, 2012-2015, was some absolute peak. I wouldn’t trade that time on Pokemon Online for anything. Everyone constantly trying to outdo one another to top ladder. Stealing teams and claiming techs. That feeling will never be replicated, so shout outs to PROBLEMS blunder Ohmachi (Praise the sun!) chimpact aim King Toxzn Edgar JJ (Sinclair), Omfuga, Shofu, CTC, Gilgamesh, Pridy, and many more for the memories. You really just had to be there.
2013 was my first official team tour. I feel grateful that my first one ever I was teammates with Vinc2612 and McMeghan , among others. That was when my pursuit for a trophy started. After World Cup, I started taking Smogon Tour a bit more seriously. I remember I wasn’t able to qualify, but my friend PDC did in ST17. Round 2, he had to face peak, Bloo. Back then, there wasn’t much prep, it was just picking a team with spreads we thought were good.
Years went on, for almost the entirety of SM and SS, I was doing other things. I put up a horrendous performance in SPL 10. After getting haxed out of a win, and rolling some tough match ups, my confidence was at an all time low. That really should’ve been it for me. Only two things kept me around during the dark ages of Sword and Shield (2019 - 2023). First was, Mannat’s circle of friends, Jytcampbell Hayburner Tace snaga suapah Excal talah FMG, and anyone I missed. Larping with you guys and the anime secret santas were highlights for me. Second was, Survivor and Circus Maximus. I couldn't begin to tag everyone, but here are some Clouds ajhockeystar joey atomicllamas Celever Kaif ninjadog Jensen a fairy Pidge sunny Da Letter El zorbees SidTheShuckle Carl The Turtle Zman10010 Mekkah Ehmcee HydrogenHydreigon Vizh platinumCheesecake TorinLegend bluedoom OM Nuxl Tommy apricity Drookez trace rssp1 jalmont Psypsypsypsypsythe shubaka17 vooper Daltz ForgottenOnes The Goomy My Big Diggersby (Tanner) Ayia TML Brit realiti Przzy Keith Foolish ptoad Starshooter Nat Bowman Sificon BuiBui Fish Purple Lava TAI Janzen Blakers Ryo Dyo
If you've read this far, I highly recommend you check out Circus Maximus, there are some really fun games and amazing people there.
In 2023, Mannat asked me if I could play DPP in SPL. I remember not wanting to commit unless I was confident, and nearly 10 years later, that passion and sensation, that drive to win, it finally came back to me. This was when I fully dove back into the deep-end with the magnet that is Smogon. In 2024 and 2025, I finally got to accomplish a dream of mine, which was play a full season of SPL. It took me 10 years since my very first SPL on the Wolfpack! Never give up. Thank you Vulpix03 DeepBlueC
Except, there was still one more childhood dream of mine, to manage in SPL. I tried again and again, never to be selected for Snake, SCL or SPL. Finally, with what was probably the last available team, this year I got my chance. I am eternally grateful to the TD’s who gave me, mav, and Twash that opportunity, and everyone else who influenced this decision.
Eventually, I found XATs with better players like Team Uber and Regileague. When I started playing against these communities, I realized just how far away my level was from them. Dave reyscarface The Grand Babido bro fist WastedSkyPirate BKC Dangerous Blue_Tornado, Iconic, Yondie, SOMALIA, Jsaok3, symphonyx64, Lizardman, Zak91, the list goes on, these were some of the many players who inspired me back then.
I was motivated to get better and to improve so I downloaded my first app, Shoddy Battle. I remember as a kid I was terrified of getting a virus but after losing to Danny (Mr. Flamethrowa) like 6 times to be the Regileague Champion, I needed to play more games than what was available over WiFi. From Shoddy, I eventually found Smogon.
Between 2010 and 2023, I weaved in and out of Pokemon. Often taking breaks to play other video games, but I somehow always found my way back to Smogon. There was this weird gravitational pull, no matter how much I wanted to walk away or whenever I simply got bored, I always came back. Those teenager years of mine, 2012-2015, was some absolute peak. I wouldn’t trade that time on Pokemon Online for anything. Everyone constantly trying to outdo one another to top ladder. Stealing teams and claiming techs. That feeling will never be replicated, so shout outs to PROBLEMS blunder Ohmachi (Praise the sun!) chimpact aim King Toxzn Edgar JJ (Sinclair), Omfuga, Shofu, CTC, Gilgamesh, Pridy, and many more for the memories. You really just had to be there.
2013 was my first official team tour. I feel grateful that my first one ever I was teammates with Vinc2612 and McMeghan , among others. That was when my pursuit for a trophy started. After World Cup, I started taking Smogon Tour a bit more seriously. I remember I wasn’t able to qualify, but my friend PDC did in ST17. Round 2, he had to face peak, Bloo. Back then, there wasn’t much prep, it was just picking a team with spreads we thought were good.
Years went on, for almost the entirety of SM and SS, I was doing other things. I put up a horrendous performance in SPL 10. After getting haxed out of a win, and rolling some tough match ups, my confidence was at an all time low. That really should’ve been it for me. Only two things kept me around during the dark ages of Sword and Shield (2019 - 2023). First was, Mannat’s circle of friends, Jytcampbell Hayburner Tace snaga suapah Excal talah FMG, and anyone I missed. Larping with you guys and the anime secret santas were highlights for me. Second was, Survivor and Circus Maximus. I couldn't begin to tag everyone, but here are some Clouds ajhockeystar joey atomicllamas Celever Kaif ninjadog Jensen a fairy Pidge sunny Da Letter El zorbees SidTheShuckle Carl The Turtle Zman10010 Mekkah Ehmcee HydrogenHydreigon Vizh platinumCheesecake TorinLegend bluedoom OM Nuxl Tommy apricity Drookez trace rssp1 jalmont Psypsypsypsypsythe shubaka17 vooper Daltz ForgottenOnes The Goomy My Big Diggersby (Tanner) Ayia TML Brit realiti Przzy Keith Foolish ptoad Starshooter Nat Bowman Sificon BuiBui Fish Purple Lava TAI Janzen Blakers Ryo Dyo
If you've read this far, I highly recommend you check out Circus Maximus, there are some really fun games and amazing people there.
In 2023, Mannat asked me if I could play DPP in SPL. I remember not wanting to commit unless I was confident, and nearly 10 years later, that passion and sensation, that drive to win, it finally came back to me. This was when I fully dove back into the deep-end with the magnet that is Smogon. In 2024 and 2025, I finally got to accomplish a dream of mine, which was play a full season of SPL. It took me 10 years since my very first SPL on the Wolfpack! Never give up. Thank you Vulpix03 DeepBlueC
Except, there was still one more childhood dream of mine, to manage in SPL. I tried again and again, never to be selected for Snake, SCL or SPL. Finally, with what was probably the last available team, this year I got my chance. I am eternally grateful to the TD’s who gave me, mav, and Twash that opportunity, and everyone else who influenced this decision.
Preparation for SPL 17
Soon after I was selected as a manager, I spoke with Mannat, who frankly, was one of the best managers I’ve ever had on Smogon. He made playoffs back to back, so clearly he knew something about planning for a draft. Raiza also chipped in to provide some very helpful guidance. Tricking probably told me to not suck, I guess it worked.
I probably spent the entirety of the 3 weeks between draft date and managers being selected, thinking about and planning this draft. Reviewing all previous drafts to see how a successful team was formulated. I won’t reveal much here, but there’s a reason the same teams and managers find success again and again.
Endill was our first retain and then Gama (who MANY people were surprised by). That’s the GOAT right there. We knew we wanted to get Starmaster, Fakes, or Soulwind to add multi-tier experience — and with our plan for GSC/DPP, they all would be slotted into BW once Star locked out of SM.
At this time, we only had 1 more person in our server, Siatam. Thank you for believing in us on day 1!
I probably spent the entirety of the 3 weeks between draft date and managers being selected, thinking about and planning this draft. Reviewing all previous drafts to see how a successful team was formulated. I won’t reveal much here, but there’s a reason the same teams and managers find success again and again.
Endill was our first retain and then Gama (who MANY people were surprised by). That’s the GOAT right there. We knew we wanted to get Starmaster, Fakes, or Soulwind to add multi-tier experience — and with our plan for GSC/DPP, they all would be slotted into BW once Star locked out of SM.
At this time, we only had 1 more person in our server, Siatam. Thank you for believing in us on day 1!
SPL 17 Draft and Post-Draft
Draft certainly started out as a surprise, I don’t think I ever pinned Garay as the first nom, but Classiest caught everyone sleeping and sniped him for 18K. To me, Bbeeaa, Vert or Lax would be the first picks and that would set the prices moving forward.
Serpi was the first person nommed that we had plans around; however, we didn’t expect to have the money needed for him. We went up to 23 and bowed out since Star and MDragon hadn’t been nommed yet.
We then went to 32.5 on MDragon and had to bow out there as well, which meant we had a lot more money to spend in other places. This allowed us to pivot into getting zS (with the very next pick) and Ruffles later on, who were two players we didn’t expect to have the money for. By the way, we selected Ruffles in the middle of Mannat’s on stream kettle bell squats, truly a cinematic experience to set the stage for what was to come.
We weren’t planning to go past 32 or 33 for Star, but we just sent it anyways. There also wasn’t really a backup plan after we missed on MDragon, and sometimes life is about taking risks.
It was somewhere around the halfway point of the auction that Maverick joined the Discord call — which now consisted of me, zS, Endill, Gama, Ruffles, Star, Twash and Vileman. I just remember, while we were trying to discuss noms he was looking at all the people in the call… “we got zS, how much was zS???” “WHAT, WE GOT ZS FOR 19.5K WHAT A STEAL!!!!” and he continued to do this for every single player on the team. He also suggested every one of his World Cup teammates, this was truly an all-time experience.
We ended up with 9/12 of the starters we expected. For our SV backup, we took Tier, thanks to zS’s suggestion. Little did we know at the time, he would end up going 6-2 as a starter. What an amazing debut.
After the draft ended, I knew our team was strong but was bummed we didn’t end up with more subs. At this point, everyone seemed pretty excited but we were still missing a few people who made the Raiders, the Raiders. Pietro, Tricking, and eventually, Raiza joined our server. The band was back together.
Serpi was the first person nommed that we had plans around; however, we didn’t expect to have the money needed for him. We went up to 23 and bowed out since Star and MDragon hadn’t been nommed yet.
We then went to 32.5 on MDragon and had to bow out there as well, which meant we had a lot more money to spend in other places. This allowed us to pivot into getting zS (with the very next pick) and Ruffles later on, who were two players we didn’t expect to have the money for. By the way, we selected Ruffles in the middle of Mannat’s on stream kettle bell squats, truly a cinematic experience to set the stage for what was to come.
We weren’t planning to go past 32 or 33 for Star, but we just sent it anyways. There also wasn’t really a backup plan after we missed on MDragon, and sometimes life is about taking risks.
It was somewhere around the halfway point of the auction that Maverick joined the Discord call — which now consisted of me, zS, Endill, Gama, Ruffles, Star, Twash and Vileman. I just remember, while we were trying to discuss noms he was looking at all the people in the call… “we got zS, how much was zS???” “WHAT, WE GOT ZS FOR 19.5K WHAT A STEAL!!!!” and he continued to do this for every single player on the team. He also suggested every one of his World Cup teammates, this was truly an all-time experience.
We ended up with 9/12 of the starters we expected. For our SV backup, we took Tier, thanks to zS’s suggestion. Little did we know at the time, he would end up going 6-2 as a starter. What an amazing debut.
After the draft ended, I knew our team was strong but was bummed we didn’t end up with more subs. At this point, everyone seemed pretty excited but we were still missing a few people who made the Raiders, the Raiders. Pietro, Tricking, and eventually, Raiza joined our server. The band was back together.
Season Summary
The season definitely started off shaky. We frankly got lucky in some games to even tie the Cryos the first time around, and the Sharks really stomped us. We managed to beat the Bigs, who to me, looked like a team contending to win it all thanks to stellar performances in SV. After tying the Tyrants, and getting smashed by the Tigers, our season was all but over. Our BD was in the toilet, and at this point, we already felt we needed 11 points. Mind you, I was on vacation this week in Puerto Rico, which is when we learned Maverick Shooters had never heard of Bad Bunny. Well, I’ll take the slap in the face, because sometimes you need the wake up call.
… and well, we woke up. We never stopped believing. We continued to work and prep our hardest, and with the thanks of Vileman’s enormous victory over Kingler to secure the tie against the Ruiners we managed 7 points in the last 4 weeks and qualified for the playoffs. It was that same week, we put Gama in SM for the first time, which saved our season. There was simply too much talent and confidence to keep on the bench. This also opened up Tier for a well-deserved and permanent starting spot.
Playoffs are playoffs. Now that we made it, why couldn’t we win? I just thought to myself every day, we will not be out prepped. Whatever it took, we will not be out prepped. If we lose to hax or if we lose to throws, it is what it is, but we will do our best to get a good matchup in all 12 slots.
Simply put, for the amount of work needed to achieve that, we needed more people. I felt like Oprah Winfrey giving out Discord Invites at first. I’ll save my helper shout outs to the end, but this couldn’t have been possible without you guys.
… and well, we woke up. We never stopped believing. We continued to work and prep our hardest, and with the thanks of Vileman’s enormous victory over Kingler to secure the tie against the Ruiners we managed 7 points in the last 4 weeks and qualified for the playoffs. It was that same week, we put Gama in SM for the first time, which saved our season. There was simply too much talent and confidence to keep on the bench. This also opened up Tier for a well-deserved and permanent starting spot.
Playoffs are playoffs. Now that we made it, why couldn’t we win? I just thought to myself every day, we will not be out prepped. Whatever it took, we will not be out prepped. If we lose to hax or if we lose to throws, it is what it is, but we will do our best to get a good matchup in all 12 slots.
Simply put, for the amount of work needed to achieve that, we needed more people. I felt like Oprah Winfrey giving out Discord Invites at first. I’ll save my helper shout outs to the end, but this couldn’t have been possible without you guys.
It really all feels like a blur, but when that Rock Slide hit Charizard-Y, it felt like those 17 years on and off Smogon flashed before my eyes. This was the culmination of all those memories, all those games on Shoddy, PO, and Showdown. I grew up on Smogon, and I learned so much about myself playing this game. I got to meet so many amazing people over the years, online and in-person. Don’t get me wrong, there were bad things and bad memories, but at the end of it all, we were all kids just trying to fit in. Right now, I’m filled with nothing but gratitude, thank you to our amazing team and our helpers for making this a possibility.
Team Shoutouts
twash When you volunteered to manage with me, it felt like a no brainer. You are absolutely one of the best DPP players, a rationalist and a very level head. You were essential to balancing out the Yin and Yang between me and Maverick. Your last day edits to SpDef Wish Rachi and Lefties Empoleon over Fling/Light Ball were crucial to our finals win. I am so happy I got to do this with you. From managing the first SPL ever to winning this one so many years later is an amazing full-circle moment.
MAVERICK SHOOTERS We butted heads a lot, but I appreciate you were one of the only people willing to sign up to manage with me. You had the necessary experience in a tier I felt completely uncomfortable building in. You stayed positive and high energy throughout the entire season and some of your builds net us key wins throughout the tour. To be honest, our arguments lead to some iconic successes and some even more iconic failures… woops.
zS Our SV workhorse. You consistently played some of the cleanest games week in and week out and the confidence in your prep and your play is what champions are made of. While I’m sure there are some games and turns you’d like back, being the 2 to Attribute’s 8-2 is extremely impressive in it’s own right. As Shake said, you are a certified sheet farmer, and not only did you put up amazing results yourself you also got us Tier who put in overtime as well.
tier Jeeze man, you pulled off some of the most improbable wins I’ve seen and some of the most dominant. I can’t remember the week where we bluffed scarf on some mon that absolutely didn’t have it, and got the exact sequence to win. I watched this in the middle of the supermarket and the people around were probably wondering what was taking me so long to pick out the milk. Your progression from OUPL to SPL has been one of the fastest rises I’ve ever seen in a player. Heck even from week 1 to the rest of the tournament. Your confidence grew and grew, and your help across multiple SV slots was so crucial to our success.
JJ09LIE I felt like we kept rolling you into some bad matchups, but you never had an ounce of negativity. Thank you for trusting us (Mav) with your teams, for making the time to test, and everything else. When it mattered the most, you pulled off one of the biggest wins for us. The fact you put up a pretty strong season through it all, only proves you are one of the best and most consistent SV players on Smogon.
Ash KetchumGamer Always part of the plan for operation “Green Link” with Gama. Ever since you smacked me with some rain team in an SM tour, I knew you were the GOAT. You probably did suffer dealing with “too many cooks in the kitchen” leading you to play with some teams you weren’t the most comfortable with, but you trusted us anyways. You have the heart of a champion, you constantly worked hard every week to improve and your victories clutched us some necessary points to make playoffs. Frankly, you got a bit unlucky a few weeks, but always gave your very best effort.
Fc Another obvious pick for us. I was surprised when you told me nobody had reached out to you for SS. You had beaten me pretty handily this past Smogon Tour, coupled with all your success we expected you to be closer to 10K let alone 4. While that back stretch of the season was tough, you continued to stay undefeated in playoffs. That win in finals to me must have been what it was like to watch Leicester City win the Premier League. We truly thought you had no chance. I was deep in my feelings after spending so much time watching replays and suggesting Pokemon (only to use this average balance team) somehow you managed to pull this one out from the Shadow Realm. I still can’t believe it. Wow. I feel you always won for us when it mattered the most.
Eternal Spirit O MAGO, O MAGO, THE MOST CLUTCH PLAYER EVER. That clutch stat needs to be updated immediately because I believe this statement is confirmed true! I’m so grateful you forgot to count recovers against the Tigers. Otherwise, we may have not ever put you into Sun and Moon. When I asked if you played any SM in a while, we agreed Pokemon was like riding a bicycle. You never forget. O MAGO O MAGO, you did not forget! You pulled off must win game after must win game, truly what they write movies about.
Ruffles One of our only players we weren’t originally thinking about picking up. We were simply bidding with the money we had and you fell into our lap at a price MAVERICK SHOOTERS still doesn’t believe. You are a certified winner. Of course, we are only human and make mistakes, but the amount of time and care you put into your prep every single week was admirable. Frankly, I am just happy you even considered my opinions and occasionally even pinged for them. I felt extremely confident with you in ORAS and Mannat to help here too given both of your successes playing and supporting in the tier. Even though you weren’t able to play a meaningful game in the semis, the fact you still wanted to play shows the kind of person you are. Never willing to back down. When it mattered the most in the finals, you got us a very needed win.
Star You were always the plan for us. We initially wanted you to play in SM, but when that wasn’t an option we planned around BW instead. Even though luck didn’t go your way in more games than I can count, you continued to provide some guidance in SV, ADV, and SM. You stuck with us through it all. At the end of the day, your wins earned us crucial points which got us into playoffs. I’m also glad I don’t need to go through my weekly humiliation ritual of getting smacked around in BW for some time.
Skyrio Our faithful hero, Skyrio. I was quite confident with Twash and myself, we would do well in DPP, I never could have imagined 9-2. Thank you for the many times you switched teams or sets last minute, we somehow got the soul read correct on this every time. For essentially 11 games, you played almost every move flawlessly. You consistently recognized won games, sacrificed the correct Pokemon and got the job done. You always took our advice in the prep but were also not afraid to voice your opinion. I’ll let the people know now that Abomasnow and Heracross are viable! You just continued to win, again and again. No matter how nervous I was for your games, you were cool, calm, and collected. You played extremely well and deserve this trophy and your record more than anyone. The PR in 10th place was a certified meme. Especially with the double DPP manager support, but whatever. Better luck next year power rankers.
Endill You’ve become one of my favorite people to talk with. Doing my research, with lots of inexperience in the ADV pool, you were the clear retain. You managed to pull off a good season last year into an amazing World Cup (with a win over EMPO?!?!) and dug yourself out of the depths of the sheet. Even though your record wasn’t what you wanted, your wins earned us key points which got us into the playoffs. I still remember that Machamp going crazy against Classiest, cinema. You worked extremely hard and your record isn’t reflective of that, but I’m sure you will farm the sheet again in World Cup. I should have known you’d be unlucky after I haxxed you like crazy in a random Smogon Tour, my bad dude. Well, the luck will turn around eventually.
Underlying I wanted you pretty much no matter what. After ROAPL, I knew you were the goat. Between GSCPL and Circuit, you had too many wins over top competition. Worth every penny of your rookie price tag. I’ve got no idea what kinda magic was possessing you early on in the season to forget how to click the winning buttons but thank goodness Hogwarts came and dispelled the dark magic. Once we got you back into the lineup you pulled off big win after big win after big win. Thanks for sticking with it, learning from your mistakes, and believing in yourself. Couldn’t have done this without you.
BeeOrSomething BROOOO. THE ABSOLUTE LEGEND THAT IS BEEORSOMETHING. YOU JUST KEPT WINNING. It was better than I could have ever imagined. RBY was such a controversial spot for us in planning the team. Once I saw you managed to beat the GOAT Serpi in RBY World Cup, I knew you weren’t just farming in ROAPL but a real strong player. One of the things that stuck out to me was just how hard you prepped. You truly ascended man and you were oozing with so much confidence, I was prepared to go to war to put you into the tiebreak. I am so proud of you.
MANNAT The day 1. I’m so glad we got to link up again after you gave me the opportunity a few years ago. You were crucial to our success in SS and ORAS and your internal contributions were always very pointed and specific. I hope that next year you are given the opportunity to manage again, because it would be an honor to face off next time on opposite sides.
Vileman Our very own Vilemanager. You were so close to playing 14 different tiers but you only ended in GSC. I know how much you want to start a full season of SPL and I hope next year you finally get your chance. Thank you for not slowing down and helping GSC from the bench. You are a selfless teammate, and we were so fortunate to have you.
Charmflash I love your creativity and I personally wish I could have helped you more. From a building perspective, SM is one of those tiers where I personally need to play games to see how a team works and functions. At the end of the day, your wins ended up giving us crucial points which we needed to make the playoffs. I hope this isn’t the end of your Pokemon journey, but if it is, at least you ended up a champion.
Mister McLovin : It’s true. Once you joined the server, we never lost again. Thank you for all the SV scouts, we just needed the Team Chile green link buff.
Typical_bastard : You deserve just as much of a shout out as anyone. You weren’t even on the team yet you played 50 test games a week. I simply couldn’t keep up with all the requests towards the end of the season and you stepped up majorly. Especially when Gama started pinging for tests every 3 hours. I am eternally grateful for all of your hard work. Any team for any tournament would be lucky to have you. You have my unconditional support.
To the rest of the extended Raiders family, Siatam ima SouCarlos MemphisDepay Tricking Raiza H.M.N.I.P LuckOverSkill Serpi RealJester Metallica126 Sadlysius Le Don Student of Sinnoh Paprikaflow GeniusX Kustavan 第二十五夜 myjava Sagaz Skypenguin Xrn
… and everyone else who chipped in to provide advice including NoName6293, Rubyblood , Triangles , and many more, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
MAVERICK SHOOTERS We butted heads a lot, but I appreciate you were one of the only people willing to sign up to manage with me. You had the necessary experience in a tier I felt completely uncomfortable building in. You stayed positive and high energy throughout the entire season and some of your builds net us key wins throughout the tour. To be honest, our arguments lead to some iconic successes and some even more iconic failures… woops.
zS Our SV workhorse. You consistently played some of the cleanest games week in and week out and the confidence in your prep and your play is what champions are made of. While I’m sure there are some games and turns you’d like back, being the 2 to Attribute’s 8-2 is extremely impressive in it’s own right. As Shake said, you are a certified sheet farmer, and not only did you put up amazing results yourself you also got us Tier who put in overtime as well.
tier Jeeze man, you pulled off some of the most improbable wins I’ve seen and some of the most dominant. I can’t remember the week where we bluffed scarf on some mon that absolutely didn’t have it, and got the exact sequence to win. I watched this in the middle of the supermarket and the people around were probably wondering what was taking me so long to pick out the milk. Your progression from OUPL to SPL has been one of the fastest rises I’ve ever seen in a player. Heck even from week 1 to the rest of the tournament. Your confidence grew and grew, and your help across multiple SV slots was so crucial to our success.
JJ09LIE I felt like we kept rolling you into some bad matchups, but you never had an ounce of negativity. Thank you for trusting us (Mav) with your teams, for making the time to test, and everything else. When it mattered the most, you pulled off one of the biggest wins for us. The fact you put up a pretty strong season through it all, only proves you are one of the best and most consistent SV players on Smogon.
Ash KetchumGamer Always part of the plan for operation “Green Link” with Gama. Ever since you smacked me with some rain team in an SM tour, I knew you were the GOAT. You probably did suffer dealing with “too many cooks in the kitchen” leading you to play with some teams you weren’t the most comfortable with, but you trusted us anyways. You have the heart of a champion, you constantly worked hard every week to improve and your victories clutched us some necessary points to make playoffs. Frankly, you got a bit unlucky a few weeks, but always gave your very best effort.
Fc Another obvious pick for us. I was surprised when you told me nobody had reached out to you for SS. You had beaten me pretty handily this past Smogon Tour, coupled with all your success we expected you to be closer to 10K let alone 4. While that back stretch of the season was tough, you continued to stay undefeated in playoffs. That win in finals to me must have been what it was like to watch Leicester City win the Premier League. We truly thought you had no chance. I was deep in my feelings after spending so much time watching replays and suggesting Pokemon (only to use this average balance team) somehow you managed to pull this one out from the Shadow Realm. I still can’t believe it. Wow. I feel you always won for us when it mattered the most.
Eternal Spirit O MAGO, O MAGO, THE MOST CLUTCH PLAYER EVER. That clutch stat needs to be updated immediately because I believe this statement is confirmed true! I’m so grateful you forgot to count recovers against the Tigers. Otherwise, we may have not ever put you into Sun and Moon. When I asked if you played any SM in a while, we agreed Pokemon was like riding a bicycle. You never forget. O MAGO O MAGO, you did not forget! You pulled off must win game after must win game, truly what they write movies about.
Ruffles One of our only players we weren’t originally thinking about picking up. We were simply bidding with the money we had and you fell into our lap at a price MAVERICK SHOOTERS still doesn’t believe. You are a certified winner. Of course, we are only human and make mistakes, but the amount of time and care you put into your prep every single week was admirable. Frankly, I am just happy you even considered my opinions and occasionally even pinged for them. I felt extremely confident with you in ORAS and Mannat to help here too given both of your successes playing and supporting in the tier. Even though you weren’t able to play a meaningful game in the semis, the fact you still wanted to play shows the kind of person you are. Never willing to back down. When it mattered the most in the finals, you got us a very needed win.
Star You were always the plan for us. We initially wanted you to play in SM, but when that wasn’t an option we planned around BW instead. Even though luck didn’t go your way in more games than I can count, you continued to provide some guidance in SV, ADV, and SM. You stuck with us through it all. At the end of the day, your wins earned us crucial points which got us into playoffs. I’m also glad I don’t need to go through my weekly humiliation ritual of getting smacked around in BW for some time.
Skyrio Our faithful hero, Skyrio. I was quite confident with Twash and myself, we would do well in DPP, I never could have imagined 9-2. Thank you for the many times you switched teams or sets last minute, we somehow got the soul read correct on this every time. For essentially 11 games, you played almost every move flawlessly. You consistently recognized won games, sacrificed the correct Pokemon and got the job done. You always took our advice in the prep but were also not afraid to voice your opinion. I’ll let the people know now that Abomasnow and Heracross are viable! You just continued to win, again and again. No matter how nervous I was for your games, you were cool, calm, and collected. You played extremely well and deserve this trophy and your record more than anyone. The PR in 10th place was a certified meme. Especially with the double DPP manager support, but whatever. Better luck next year power rankers.
Endill You’ve become one of my favorite people to talk with. Doing my research, with lots of inexperience in the ADV pool, you were the clear retain. You managed to pull off a good season last year into an amazing World Cup (with a win over EMPO?!?!) and dug yourself out of the depths of the sheet. Even though your record wasn’t what you wanted, your wins earned us key points which got us into the playoffs. I still remember that Machamp going crazy against Classiest, cinema. You worked extremely hard and your record isn’t reflective of that, but I’m sure you will farm the sheet again in World Cup. I should have known you’d be unlucky after I haxxed you like crazy in a random Smogon Tour, my bad dude. Well, the luck will turn around eventually.
Underlying I wanted you pretty much no matter what. After ROAPL, I knew you were the goat. Between GSCPL and Circuit, you had too many wins over top competition. Worth every penny of your rookie price tag. I’ve got no idea what kinda magic was possessing you early on in the season to forget how to click the winning buttons but thank goodness Hogwarts came and dispelled the dark magic. Once we got you back into the lineup you pulled off big win after big win after big win. Thanks for sticking with it, learning from your mistakes, and believing in yourself. Couldn’t have done this without you.
BeeOrSomething BROOOO. THE ABSOLUTE LEGEND THAT IS BEEORSOMETHING. YOU JUST KEPT WINNING. It was better than I could have ever imagined. RBY was such a controversial spot for us in planning the team. Once I saw you managed to beat the GOAT Serpi in RBY World Cup, I knew you weren’t just farming in ROAPL but a real strong player. One of the things that stuck out to me was just how hard you prepped. You truly ascended man and you were oozing with so much confidence, I was prepared to go to war to put you into the tiebreak. I am so proud of you.
MANNAT The day 1. I’m so glad we got to link up again after you gave me the opportunity a few years ago. You were crucial to our success in SS and ORAS and your internal contributions were always very pointed and specific. I hope that next year you are given the opportunity to manage again, because it would be an honor to face off next time on opposite sides.
Vileman Our very own Vilemanager. You were so close to playing 14 different tiers but you only ended in GSC. I know how much you want to start a full season of SPL and I hope next year you finally get your chance. Thank you for not slowing down and helping GSC from the bench. You are a selfless teammate, and we were so fortunate to have you.
Charmflash I love your creativity and I personally wish I could have helped you more. From a building perspective, SM is one of those tiers where I personally need to play games to see how a team works and functions. At the end of the day, your wins ended up giving us crucial points which we needed to make the playoffs. I hope this isn’t the end of your Pokemon journey, but if it is, at least you ended up a champion.
Mister McLovin : It’s true. Once you joined the server, we never lost again. Thank you for all the SV scouts, we just needed the Team Chile green link buff.
Typical_bastard : You deserve just as much of a shout out as anyone. You weren’t even on the team yet you played 50 test games a week. I simply couldn’t keep up with all the requests towards the end of the season and you stepped up majorly. Especially when Gama started pinging for tests every 3 hours. I am eternally grateful for all of your hard work. Any team for any tournament would be lucky to have you. You have my unconditional support.
To the rest of the extended Raiders family, Siatam ima SouCarlos MemphisDepay Tricking Raiza H.M.N.I.P LuckOverSkill Serpi RealJester Metallica126 Sadlysius Le Don Student of Sinnoh Paprikaflow GeniusX Kustavan 第二十五夜 myjava Sagaz Skypenguin Xrn
… and everyone else who chipped in to provide advice including NoName6293, Rubyblood , Triangles , and many more, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
I will cherish this forever.
I will go over the start and shoutouts along with funny moments in this post, but to say that we proved everyone who heavily doubted our manager trio and capabilities wrong feels great, it was a very rocky road where there was a lot to learn initially, but I think as the weeks progressed we all got much better at it and had found the way of going about things in a good manner which probably reflected in our record as a team as well, from starting out with only 1 win in first 5 weeks, to not dropping a single week after that, this simply showed that when you want something and put all your time and efforts into it (an unhealthy amount), nothing can stop you.
I also tried to watch basically every single game this tour of my team which for my timezone compared to rest of the team wasn't a great idea, and I am talking regularly staying up till 2-3am every weekend, for people who know me will consider this as fine still, but when Endill asked me to stay up till 6am for his game I did that too. Needed to give everyone the go team lucky charm.
I won't go in detail about the rest, but from a not so great start, to turning on the engine at a do or die position and not letting the foot of the gas even a single time after, it's not easy to have multiple weeks of the regular season followed by playoffs be a do or die for managers that people are doubting who have to constantly keep the team motivation and morale high while helping with prep wherever we could, scout, and checking up on where the players are at, and for players who have to deal with the pressure and having to actually be the ones playing and winning, and after you make past it you are immediately hit with another week of the same scenario, but what this does do is show our teams grit, determination and resilience building up non stop momentum and by the time you reach playoff and then eventually finals after being put through this wringer, you come out as a damn near unstoppable team who can crush past anyone which is exactly what happened. The amount of time and effort everyone on the team and our blessed helpers put in is amazing, I want to thank everyone from the heart on turning the trophy and proving the doubters in our capabilities wrong a reality.
Well this perfectly takes us to the final portion of this message, the shoutouts. I will keep it a bit fun here, I did shoutouts every single week for 11 weeks in this tour focusing on the positives and trying to keep our motivation high, I am pretty sure most did not read them every week because they were pretty long messages, but I am happy I did it if it impacted even a single person on the team in any week. I do not have that much more left to say, but you all deserve one final one (or subjected to one final one LMAO)
We qualified for playoffs with negative BD after fighting multiple weeks of do or die games and did not get more than 7 wins in a single series this entire tour, yet we won, and it felt very dominantly too, just the raiders way I guess. When the odds are stacked against you, just go even harder at it and it will pay off eventually
The fact that this is how it even started:
I initially didn't plan to signup for SPL, let alone as a manager, I was initially asked by another friend to manage and had told them no, then couple days later laurel messaged me if I wanted to manage and told him no similarly (We had been on the same team of SPL 2024 BIGS, SPL 2025 Raiders where I had joined to help out in SV, and the recent OUPL which I was managing and had drafted him in it, we were very chill and friendly with each other in those but we weren't close friend or people that talked to each other regularly at that point), but I don't know why the fact that this was the second or third time I was being approached to manage in a couple of days left a lingering thought in me, what if I do the thing which I really shouldn't do and instead of focusing on irl, l take on the challenge and do the final boss.
I had unbelievable confidence in me that I had a really good grasp of all SPL tiers thanks to my time in one of my favourite unofficial tours ADPL, having been in the tours community for a good amount of time now, and my track record as a manager always doing really well, I knew if I said yes, atleast making playoff would be a thing that WILL happen, even before auction or draft planning, and so after a week later I decided to fuck it and said yes. We then looked for a third since gorgie was going to sign up with cryos and laurel immediately suggested twash who was a veteran being a previous SPL manager (from the first ever SPL in fact) and our trio was formed.
The fact that this year there was a slightly weaker slot left open which usually is not the case, allowed us to get a spot and even that was probably debatable on who gets it, is a very fortunate circumstance. I appreciate the TDs and whoever else that pushed for us to be managers this year, trusting people who had relatively lesser experience with managing SPL was probably not a easy yes, but at the end giving new promising managers a shot who have the hunger to win and go the extra extra mile to make it happen will always be a nice thing that brings the passion in this community that we all love, I trust in the future similar opportunities for people who deserve it will be given as well just like how it was given for us.
I initially didn't plan to signup for SPL, let alone as a manager, I was initially asked by another friend to manage and had told them no, then couple days later laurel messaged me if I wanted to manage and told him no similarly (We had been on the same team of SPL 2024 BIGS, SPL 2025 Raiders where I had joined to help out in SV, and the recent OUPL which I was managing and had drafted him in it, we were very chill and friendly with each other in those but we weren't close friend or people that talked to each other regularly at that point), but I don't know why the fact that this was the second or third time I was being approached to manage in a couple of days left a lingering thought in me, what if I do the thing which I really shouldn't do and instead of focusing on irl, l take on the challenge and do the final boss.
I had unbelievable confidence in me that I had a really good grasp of all SPL tiers thanks to my time in one of my favourite unofficial tours ADPL, having been in the tours community for a good amount of time now, and my track record as a manager always doing really well, I knew if I said yes, atleast making playoff would be a thing that WILL happen, even before auction or draft planning, and so after a week later I decided to fuck it and said yes. We then looked for a third since gorgie was going to sign up with cryos and laurel immediately suggested twash who was a veteran being a previous SPL manager (from the first ever SPL in fact) and our trio was formed.
The fact that this year there was a slightly weaker slot left open which usually is not the case, allowed us to get a spot and even that was probably debatable on who gets it, is a very fortunate circumstance. I appreciate the TDs and whoever else that pushed for us to be managers this year, trusting people who had relatively lesser experience with managing SPL was probably not a easy yes, but at the end giving new promising managers a shot who have the hunger to win and go the extra extra mile to make it happen will always be a nice thing that brings the passion in this community that we all love, I trust in the future similar opportunities for people who deserve it will be given as well just like how it was given for us.
Laurel already covered the draft in his post so won't repeat it much, auction was scheduled at a really bad time for me and I was coming back from a really long trip on that day so I knew I would probably be missing the start of the auction, which was a sucky feeling since that's one of the best parts of managing SPL and something everyone looks forward to, but we had spent so many countless hours every single day planning the draft and every single scenario I knew it would not be a problem.
When I woke up and joined the auction voice call couple picks in to see we got one of the big three we wanted no matter the price for tiebreak in Mdragon, star, or soulwind (though 36k did shock me a bit LMAO, then I saw Mdrag's price and was like its alright just how this auction is gonna go ig), then I saw 19.5K ZS, 11K RUFFLES, 3K FC, and knew we cooked. I was there for rest of the auction, due to the weird way it went we had money leftover to bet big on our rby gsc debut rookies which we had on our plans from the start and people we really wanted, so we did the really bold move of spending 10k each on people with no prior official experience and in tiers like rby gsc which famously has the trend of debut rookies doing poorly, and rest of it went exactly like how we predicted.
By the end of the auction we had almost the entire team exactly like we planned and the people who weren't on our plan being on the spot auction decision in Skyrio and tier went on to put stellar records, so overall the draft went amazingly well. If people on the team who were in our auction voice call remember I was slightly upset at the end about not getting any of the Indian players I wanted , hopefully you all can let that slide I just wanted the same country synergy, overall though there was no doubt in my mind we did the auction really well.
When I woke up and joined the auction voice call couple picks in to see we got one of the big three we wanted no matter the price for tiebreak in Mdragon, star, or soulwind (though 36k did shock me a bit LMAO, then I saw Mdrag's price and was like its alright just how this auction is gonna go ig), then I saw 19.5K ZS, 11K RUFFLES, 3K FC, and knew we cooked. I was there for rest of the auction, due to the weird way it went we had money leftover to bet big on our rby gsc debut rookies which we had on our plans from the start and people we really wanted, so we did the really bold move of spending 10k each on people with no prior official experience and in tiers like rby gsc which famously has the trend of debut rookies doing poorly, and rest of it went exactly like how we predicted.
By the end of the auction we had almost the entire team exactly like we planned and the people who weren't on our plan being on the spot auction decision in Skyrio and tier went on to put stellar records, so overall the draft went amazingly well. If people on the team who were in our auction voice call remember I was slightly upset at the end about not getting any of the Indian players I wanted , hopefully you all can let that slide I just wanted the same country synergy, overall though there was no doubt in my mind we did the auction really well.
I also tried to watch basically every single game this tour of my team which for my timezone compared to rest of the team wasn't a great idea, and I am talking regularly staying up till 2-3am every weekend, for people who know me will consider this as fine still, but when Endill asked me to stay up till 6am for his game I did that too. Needed to give everyone the go team lucky charm.
I won't go in detail about the rest, but from a not so great start, to turning on the engine at a do or die position and not letting the foot of the gas even a single time after, it's not easy to have multiple weeks of the regular season followed by playoffs be a do or die for managers that people are doubting who have to constantly keep the team motivation and morale high while helping with prep wherever we could, scout, and checking up on where the players are at, and for players who have to deal with the pressure and having to actually be the ones playing and winning, and after you make past it you are immediately hit with another week of the same scenario, but what this does do is show our teams grit, determination and resilience building up non stop momentum and by the time you reach playoff and then eventually finals after being put through this wringer, you come out as a damn near unstoppable team who can crush past anyone which is exactly what happened. The amount of time and effort everyone on the team and our blessed helpers put in is amazing, I want to thank everyone from the heart on turning the trophy and proving the doubters in our capabilities wrong a reality.
Well this perfectly takes us to the final portion of this message, the shoutouts. I will keep it a bit fun here, I did shoutouts every single week for 11 weeks in this tour focusing on the positives and trying to keep our motivation high, I am pretty sure most did not read them every week because they were pretty long messages, but I am happy I did it if it impacted even a single person on the team in any week. I do not have that much more left to say, but you all deserve one final one (or subjected to one final one LMAO)
I will add some fun ones of me to start off:
Laurel If you did not message me to signup with you for SPL, I definitely would not have done it. While it may not have been the best decision irl to have done this and spend so much time on it, I do not have any regrets over it and would 100% do it again. We butted our heads so many times on what we thought should be done for every single little thing throughout the season, but I think ultimately it always resulted in something positive. You covered so many gens you do not main or play actively just to give our players test games when no one was online to give them, and I am sure they all appreciated it, reduced the load for me to focus only on fairy gens too. At the end of the season I did a line count check to feel good about myself thinking I had the most lines, and then to my horror I saw you beat me by like 1k lines LMAO. Fun aside the amount of time and you feeling nervous in critical points clearly showed you wanted it bad after such a long time on here, and glad you got it.
things he was willing to do to give people test games:
twash To have a veteran of the game on our side who could help in covering old gens was a sigh of relief, you were truly the balancer to me and laurel, you were always there to give calm and collected thoughts on everything, I remember in one of the weeks we were going to put bee on bench for a week just to see how it goes, and you clearly opposed it wanting to keep bee there pointing out that debut nerves will settle and he will prove why we were willing to bet so much on him, and you were soo correct. Thanks for always being available and keeping us sane.
Skyrio Bro there is genuinely nothing left for me to say about you, I repeated the same glaze throughout the season and not a single point throughout this entire tour you gave me the chance to feel anything else about it, I had to skip you out on shoutouts in couple weeks because there was genuinely nothing noteworthy left for me to add in the glaze. You were the OBJECTIVELY BEST PLAYER of this whole tournament, every single game played with such confidence, not making any mistakes, playing everything perfectly, not feeling any pressure, the fact that you were a last minute auction decision after the players we had planned went away and it turned out this well for us is incredible. At least no one is ever going to put you 10th in prs ever again after the complete domination you displayed in the madhouse.
BeeOrSomething During draft planning I was insanely paranoid of rby and wanted a very stable/experienced rby player so that we do not have to look at that slot or worry about it for the entire tour, I don't remember who (I think laurel), but someone had pointed you out as a potential rby option for us, and my initial impression was just remembering you from ADPL, but when we did more research and saw you were the SERPI SLAYER, being the only one to win b2b tournament games vs him last year, and having a string of pretty good tournament records at that time, we were sold. This gamble paid out in full and much more, from shaky start where you probably had to deal with debut nerves and had us doubt if we really made the right call, to then getting into the rhythm after the nerves wore off and then displaying amazing games and wins after wins after wins, we realized we did make the right call. Even though I did not have anything to add related to rby, I made it a personal point to continuously boost your confidence and remove self doubt whenever I could, because at around couple weeks into the tour I realized, your gameplay becomes exponentially better when you are in your flow and feeling confident, I don't know if it helped much or not, but thanks for carrying our season and making rby feel like we have confident wins every time, the win post memes weekly were funny too. I beat you in line count ( yes I am counting manager chat), imma take that as a W, keep crine son.
zS I knew when I woke up and joined the auction call to see we got you for just 19.5k we had a crazy steal, and we were so right about that. You not only got wins on wins, but also carried our SV department throughout the season while having your own slot to worry about. Your teams each week were a breath of fresh air with unique stuff every time, you also handled your prep pretty much yourself throughout the season, and are positive in officials 7 times in a row now, this really makes me wonder how in the hell did we get you for less than 20k. You being the only 2 losses to attribute was really funny, having a SV1 who had winning tiebreak experience and putting up 7 wins while being self sufficient was really assuring.
You know it's gonna be a fun one when this is how your player starts the season:
tier During auction zS pushed really hard for you and since he was our SV1, we listened to get you over the other people we had in mind, and thank god we did because you turned up and started winning 6 in a row to turn our season around, your game against nagol where you bluffed scarf on your specs rai for the entire game in a very bad matchup to turn the game around and in the end win it was definitely your best game of the season and showed your ceiling. You were really active in prep for all SV channels too which was really helpful and much appreciated.
Ruffles THE GUFFLER. Another person who I knew we got for a really good price, as you said "Why go to the store when you can go to the manufacturer" and we did. To have won ADPL to get us ca of our favourite pokemon and now getting the SPL trophy together feels great. I knew you had a really tough match schedule facing vs the top end at the start of the tour leading to you getting a bad starting record, but I had confidence that you would bring it back, and you did. Even though you were paranoid of santu the entire tour, you did not shy away from facing him even after we had won semis and could of secured a guaranteed non negative record, this just showed a complete change in how you go about things and its a really positive one. Even though you had your own slot to prepare which you did from shortlisting a ton of teams weekly, you also helped out very actively in other master tiers and they were really positive contribution with your prep calls turning out really well too. Glad everything is going well in your life and you got the things you were aiming for while this SPL season was going, to many more in the future.
Fc I knew from the start of auction planning you were a top candidate for us to get, and when we got to know no other manager has really reached out to you, we were really hopeful of getting a steal in the auction, and we did. How are y'all letting +20 sheet farmer, one of the top records of recent SSPL, and someone coming off a 11-1 SCL with tiebreak win go for 4K??? If we went to tiebreak I was ready to push really hard for you, because PLAYOFF MODE FC does not lose when it matters. Even though your record was only neutral, I had a lot of confidence in you throughout the tour and you paid it back in full with double playoff wins, both of them with crazy ballsy plays like double staying in on lando with melm in semis, and the finals game I don't think I need to even talk about, one image sums it up.
Well actually there is another log which does it too:
Eternal Spirit THE MAGICIAN. O MAGO. GAMA. I was a really big fan of your SV season last year with insanely creative and teched out teams topping it with a 7 win record so your playing capability was not even a question, though before going ahead with retain I was scared that you might miss the games or will be inactive which I brought it up to you as soon as we added you, and you assured that you will be really active since you were part of the draft planning too, and you were, maybe even way too active LMAO, The @sm pings every couple hours every day was demon time, even during the tiebreak break week you did not stop, and this just shows your unreal commitment to the team and the trust everyone had in you after seeing that grind. I am actually glad the garg pech sv game happened because otherwise we would not of unlocked your true calling of SM MAGICIAN. HOLY SHIT BRO CLUTCHING THE FINAL DECIDER GAMES IN DO OR DIE SCENARIO OF W8. W9. SEMIS. AND FINALS. THE CLUTCH STAT OF YOURS GOING INTO THE SEASON DID NOT LIE. All your teams were so crazy and unreal breath of fresh air and creativity, no one is willing to run the stuff you effortlessly build and run, even making ballsy plays that no one would do which just makes you so unique. I am so glad that our retain was the one to clutch the decider and get the trophy. One last thing though, you have made us wait the whole tour, release the GAMA MANIFESTO.
Sorry typical..
One of my finest work this season:
Underlying Another one of our 10k debut gambles and it paid off well too with b2b2b wins in w9 and playoffs, after getting your nerves off from starting off the tour you did an amazing comeback bringing your record back to neutral with getting really big and much needed wins when they mattered most. I truly believe you could of had a really stellar record, your start and midgames are so amazing, you position really well and get yourself in advantageous positions, converting the winning position endgame was a struggle at the start of tour where we missed out on won games which you worked hard in the matches to get to that position, but I think you conquered it really well and turned it up when it mattered. your 2% snorlax 1v1ing a machamp at full was a highlight of the season, that was so fucking funny lmaoo. I really believe you will be a top gsc threat in no time if you continue your grind.
JJ09LIE Even though you had military and really limited time every week, you still played almost every week and was willing to use whatever people gave. During auction I was really happy to get you because your ceiling is so high and you had a lot of experience by now, and you showed it in finals when it mattered the most getting us a crucial win in a well played game, thanks for putting whatever extra time you had into this SPL.
Ash KetchumGamer The B2B2B SPL Winner, we got you to form a same country core with gama and you were really fun to work with. We were going really well at start then it getting bit shaky and then back to a really good process, it was a rocky road but I think by the time ending weeks of regular season came we had a really good thing going, you were very open to feedback and very mature with everything, you put in effort every week being open to whatever people gave, you adapting to whatever was best for the team and us prepping multiple weeks in dms was fun too. Our sv core pressuring you to stall in the finals when you really did not want to as you lacked experience with it and was a last hour change, but you being willing to run it showed that you will do whatever is best for the team and will try your best.
What else is there to say outside of, unlike other managers we saw the truth and grabbed the opportunity, STAY BLESSED:
Endill We had really rocky start into the season immediately off the wrong foot, but I think as the season went on we both got appreciative of each other much more turning into friends which is all SPL is about. Having the empo defeater on our side as retain was really nice, you were active with prep and test games every week throughout the tour, you may be unhappy with your record but that does not do justice to your season, you had a pretty unlucky run, having to deal with your crucial mon getting early crit putting you in really tough spot in half the games, but you still did not let it affect your motivation and went in each week with a fresh start, your regi game vs triangles was really funny on its own right, but also a complete season saver as without that I don't think we would be here right now. TROPHY CHECK.
Charmflash Thanks for playing games in the first half of season, your w1 game and game vs vert was really memorable, both had really crazy endings and both wins helped us secure points which was needed with our rough start
Star This was easily the most haxxed run for a player I have seen in SPL so far, and it being our 36k player sucked, but best believe you were still going into tiebreak with no doubt in our mind if it came down it and we had confidence in you winning every week throughout the tour. You still built teams, played tests and was active in your prep along with helping out adv and sv whenever asked even with as many infuriating series of games that you had to deal with, very few people could still continue with the season in a positive way after what you went through weekly. I don't think you are locking yourself to BW again after this LMAO. Your best and worst SPL seasons have netted you the trophy now, hopefully you lookback at the season and keep happy memories from it, time for 39k star next year?
MANNAT Getting you in auction through laurel calling you was definitely a first in SPL, and it really worked out well, you won the bet, and got the trophy. Your prep help in ORAS and SS was insanely helpful and it cannot be understated that you were crucial in us netting wins there with really good calls on what we should bring and expect, you also showed up willing to play when asked upon which showed you will do whatever the team needs. Giving raiders the evil aura team boost was the final thing we needed to confirm that trophy, you also gave us the venusaur gif which while had me mad at the moment, but looking back was one of the best parts of this SPL LMAO. ਪੂਰੇ ਸੀਜ਼ਨ ਦੌਰਾਨ ਸਰਗਰਮ ਰਹਿਣ ਲਈ ਧੰਨਵਾਦ, ਉਮੀਦ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਇਸਦਾ ਆਨੰਦ ਮਾਣੋਗੇ।
we were having a inhouse tournament during tiebreak week and I could see both teams channels:
Vileman Saved the best for last, VILEMANAGER. Sorry for not being able to let you get more games in this season, and I know you do not feel great about your contributions to the team record wise, but your positive team presence is a really big factor and was really helpful to me too. Early on in the season I was blowing up your dms with so many random stuff and you were so helpful in giving sage old man wisdom which helped shape up what the rest of the season held, your input of having better and more personal announcements, doing shoutouts, etc. along with having amazing team spirit is about as good as you can ask for, I am glad we could win this SPL together after the semis tb heartbreak of adpl last year. The season would not have gone smooth without you.
To helpers,
Raiza Tricking After seeing the inhouse game between you both and seeing the things zamazenta did, my image of b2b olt champ gicking was shattered. Ok fun aside, thanks a ton for trusting us with your franchise and joining the cord, helping out in multiple tiers, test games and prep help, along with general chatting and bringing in the raiders team element that was lacking which makes raiders what it is. Hopefully we were able to live up to your expectation and did the franchise well, you both were genuinely so amazing, helped with whatever whenever asked and also let us add our own flavour to everything without saying anything, only positive things to say about you both.
myjava H.M.N.I.P Mister McLovin Typical_bastard Serpi ima Siatam LuckOverSkill RealJester Metallica126 Sadlysius Le Don 第二十五夜 Kustavan Student of Sinnoh Paprikaflow GeniusX SouCarlos hellom Xrn Skypenguin Sagaz Jotao
I really wanted to write individual shoutouts for you all too, I had so many positive things to say about all of you, but I have been writing for 3.5 hours now and don't think I have it in me to type more, we were blessed with single handedly the best and most active group of helpers with no doubt about it, you all so selflessly helped with so many things in your respective tiers and actively chatted too building a really positive teamchat, for the people not from the team reading this, they were easily putting up as much effort as anyone drafted on the team would which just cannot be said about enough, even though you may not of received the trophy, you all were as much of raiders as us and without help from every single one of you we would be nowhere close to here, and I genuinely mean it from the heart, thanks a ton.
Laurel If you did not message me to signup with you for SPL, I definitely would not have done it. While it may not have been the best decision irl to have done this and spend so much time on it, I do not have any regrets over it and would 100% do it again. We butted our heads so many times on what we thought should be done for every single little thing throughout the season, but I think ultimately it always resulted in something positive. You covered so many gens you do not main or play actively just to give our players test games when no one was online to give them, and I am sure they all appreciated it, reduced the load for me to focus only on fairy gens too. At the end of the season I did a line count check to feel good about myself thinking I had the most lines, and then to my horror I saw you beat me by like 1k lines LMAO. Fun aside the amount of time and you feeling nervous in critical points clearly showed you wanted it bad after such a long time on here, and glad you got it.
things he was willing to do to give people test games:
twash To have a veteran of the game on our side who could help in covering old gens was a sigh of relief, you were truly the balancer to me and laurel, you were always there to give calm and collected thoughts on everything, I remember in one of the weeks we were going to put bee on bench for a week just to see how it goes, and you clearly opposed it wanting to keep bee there pointing out that debut nerves will settle and he will prove why we were willing to bet so much on him, and you were soo correct. Thanks for always being available and keeping us sane.
Skyrio Bro there is genuinely nothing left for me to say about you, I repeated the same glaze throughout the season and not a single point throughout this entire tour you gave me the chance to feel anything else about it, I had to skip you out on shoutouts in couple weeks because there was genuinely nothing noteworthy left for me to add in the glaze. You were the OBJECTIVELY BEST PLAYER of this whole tournament, every single game played with such confidence, not making any mistakes, playing everything perfectly, not feeling any pressure, the fact that you were a last minute auction decision after the players we had planned went away and it turned out this well for us is incredible. At least no one is ever going to put you 10th in prs ever again after the complete domination you displayed in the madhouse.
BeeOrSomething During draft planning I was insanely paranoid of rby and wanted a very stable/experienced rby player so that we do not have to look at that slot or worry about it for the entire tour, I don't remember who (I think laurel), but someone had pointed you out as a potential rby option for us, and my initial impression was just remembering you from ADPL, but when we did more research and saw you were the SERPI SLAYER, being the only one to win b2b tournament games vs him last year, and having a string of pretty good tournament records at that time, we were sold. This gamble paid out in full and much more, from shaky start where you probably had to deal with debut nerves and had us doubt if we really made the right call, to then getting into the rhythm after the nerves wore off and then displaying amazing games and wins after wins after wins, we realized we did make the right call. Even though I did not have anything to add related to rby, I made it a personal point to continuously boost your confidence and remove self doubt whenever I could, because at around couple weeks into the tour I realized, your gameplay becomes exponentially better when you are in your flow and feeling confident, I don't know if it helped much or not, but thanks for carrying our season and making rby feel like we have confident wins every time, the win post memes weekly were funny too. I beat you in line count ( yes I am counting manager chat), imma take that as a W, keep crine son.
zS I knew when I woke up and joined the auction call to see we got you for just 19.5k we had a crazy steal, and we were so right about that. You not only got wins on wins, but also carried our SV department throughout the season while having your own slot to worry about. Your teams each week were a breath of fresh air with unique stuff every time, you also handled your prep pretty much yourself throughout the season, and are positive in officials 7 times in a row now, this really makes me wonder how in the hell did we get you for less than 20k. You being the only 2 losses to attribute was really funny, having a SV1 who had winning tiebreak experience and putting up 7 wins while being self sufficient was really assuring.
You know it's gonna be a fun one when this is how your player starts the season:
tier During auction zS pushed really hard for you and since he was our SV1, we listened to get you over the other people we had in mind, and thank god we did because you turned up and started winning 6 in a row to turn our season around, your game against nagol where you bluffed scarf on your specs rai for the entire game in a very bad matchup to turn the game around and in the end win it was definitely your best game of the season and showed your ceiling. You were really active in prep for all SV channels too which was really helpful and much appreciated.
Ruffles THE GUFFLER. Another person who I knew we got for a really good price, as you said "Why go to the store when you can go to the manufacturer" and we did. To have won ADPL to get us ca of our favourite pokemon and now getting the SPL trophy together feels great. I knew you had a really tough match schedule facing vs the top end at the start of the tour leading to you getting a bad starting record, but I had confidence that you would bring it back, and you did. Even though you were paranoid of santu the entire tour, you did not shy away from facing him even after we had won semis and could of secured a guaranteed non negative record, this just showed a complete change in how you go about things and its a really positive one. Even though you had your own slot to prepare which you did from shortlisting a ton of teams weekly, you also helped out very actively in other master tiers and they were really positive contribution with your prep calls turning out really well too. Glad everything is going well in your life and you got the things you were aiming for while this SPL season was going, to many more in the future.
Fc I knew from the start of auction planning you were a top candidate for us to get, and when we got to know no other manager has really reached out to you, we were really hopeful of getting a steal in the auction, and we did. How are y'all letting +20 sheet farmer, one of the top records of recent SSPL, and someone coming off a 11-1 SCL with tiebreak win go for 4K??? If we went to tiebreak I was ready to push really hard for you, because PLAYOFF MODE FC does not lose when it matters. Even though your record was only neutral, I had a lot of confidence in you throughout the tour and you paid it back in full with double playoff wins, both of them with crazy ballsy plays like double staying in on lando with melm in semis, and the finals game I don't think I need to even talk about, one image sums it up.
Well actually there is another log which does it too:
Eternal Spirit THE MAGICIAN. O MAGO. GAMA. I was a really big fan of your SV season last year with insanely creative and teched out teams topping it with a 7 win record so your playing capability was not even a question, though before going ahead with retain I was scared that you might miss the games or will be inactive which I brought it up to you as soon as we added you, and you assured that you will be really active since you were part of the draft planning too, and you were, maybe even way too active LMAO, The @sm pings every couple hours every day was demon time, even during the tiebreak break week you did not stop, and this just shows your unreal commitment to the team and the trust everyone had in you after seeing that grind. I am actually glad the garg pech sv game happened because otherwise we would not of unlocked your true calling of SM MAGICIAN. HOLY SHIT BRO CLUTCHING THE FINAL DECIDER GAMES IN DO OR DIE SCENARIO OF W8. W9. SEMIS. AND FINALS. THE CLUTCH STAT OF YOURS GOING INTO THE SEASON DID NOT LIE. All your teams were so crazy and unreal breath of fresh air and creativity, no one is willing to run the stuff you effortlessly build and run, even making ballsy plays that no one would do which just makes you so unique. I am so glad that our retain was the one to clutch the decider and get the trophy. One last thing though, you have made us wait the whole tour, release the GAMA MANIFESTO.
Sorry typical..
One of my finest work this season:
Underlying Another one of our 10k debut gambles and it paid off well too with b2b2b wins in w9 and playoffs, after getting your nerves off from starting off the tour you did an amazing comeback bringing your record back to neutral with getting really big and much needed wins when they mattered most. I truly believe you could of had a really stellar record, your start and midgames are so amazing, you position really well and get yourself in advantageous positions, converting the winning position endgame was a struggle at the start of tour where we missed out on won games which you worked hard in the matches to get to that position, but I think you conquered it really well and turned it up when it mattered. your 2% snorlax 1v1ing a machamp at full was a highlight of the season, that was so fucking funny lmaoo. I really believe you will be a top gsc threat in no time if you continue your grind.
JJ09LIE Even though you had military and really limited time every week, you still played almost every week and was willing to use whatever people gave. During auction I was really happy to get you because your ceiling is so high and you had a lot of experience by now, and you showed it in finals when it mattered the most getting us a crucial win in a well played game, thanks for putting whatever extra time you had into this SPL.
Ash KetchumGamer The B2B2B SPL Winner, we got you to form a same country core with gama and you were really fun to work with. We were going really well at start then it getting bit shaky and then back to a really good process, it was a rocky road but I think by the time ending weeks of regular season came we had a really good thing going, you were very open to feedback and very mature with everything, you put in effort every week being open to whatever people gave, you adapting to whatever was best for the team and us prepping multiple weeks in dms was fun too. Our sv core pressuring you to stall in the finals when you really did not want to as you lacked experience with it and was a last hour change, but you being willing to run it showed that you will do whatever is best for the team and will try your best.
What else is there to say outside of, unlike other managers we saw the truth and grabbed the opportunity, STAY BLESSED:
Endill We had really rocky start into the season immediately off the wrong foot, but I think as the season went on we both got appreciative of each other much more turning into friends which is all SPL is about. Having the empo defeater on our side as retain was really nice, you were active with prep and test games every week throughout the tour, you may be unhappy with your record but that does not do justice to your season, you had a pretty unlucky run, having to deal with your crucial mon getting early crit putting you in really tough spot in half the games, but you still did not let it affect your motivation and went in each week with a fresh start, your regi game vs triangles was really funny on its own right, but also a complete season saver as without that I don't think we would be here right now. TROPHY CHECK.
Charmflash Thanks for playing games in the first half of season, your w1 game and game vs vert was really memorable, both had really crazy endings and both wins helped us secure points which was needed with our rough start
Star This was easily the most haxxed run for a player I have seen in SPL so far, and it being our 36k player sucked, but best believe you were still going into tiebreak with no doubt in our mind if it came down it and we had confidence in you winning every week throughout the tour. You still built teams, played tests and was active in your prep along with helping out adv and sv whenever asked even with as many infuriating series of games that you had to deal with, very few people could still continue with the season in a positive way after what you went through weekly. I don't think you are locking yourself to BW again after this LMAO. Your best and worst SPL seasons have netted you the trophy now, hopefully you lookback at the season and keep happy memories from it, time for 39k star next year?
MANNAT Getting you in auction through laurel calling you was definitely a first in SPL, and it really worked out well, you won the bet, and got the trophy. Your prep help in ORAS and SS was insanely helpful and it cannot be understated that you were crucial in us netting wins there with really good calls on what we should bring and expect, you also showed up willing to play when asked upon which showed you will do whatever the team needs. Giving raiders the evil aura team boost was the final thing we needed to confirm that trophy, you also gave us the venusaur gif which while had me mad at the moment, but looking back was one of the best parts of this SPL LMAO. ਪੂਰੇ ਸੀਜ਼ਨ ਦੌਰਾਨ ਸਰਗਰਮ ਰਹਿਣ ਲਈ ਧੰਨਵਾਦ, ਉਮੀਦ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਇਸਦਾ ਆਨੰਦ ਮਾਣੋਗੇ।
we were having a inhouse tournament during tiebreak week and I could see both teams channels:
Vileman Saved the best for last, VILEMANAGER. Sorry for not being able to let you get more games in this season, and I know you do not feel great about your contributions to the team record wise, but your positive team presence is a really big factor and was really helpful to me too. Early on in the season I was blowing up your dms with so many random stuff and you were so helpful in giving sage old man wisdom which helped shape up what the rest of the season held, your input of having better and more personal announcements, doing shoutouts, etc. along with having amazing team spirit is about as good as you can ask for, I am glad we could win this SPL together after the semis tb heartbreak of adpl last year. The season would not have gone smooth without you.
To helpers,
Raiza Tricking After seeing the inhouse game between you both and seeing the things zamazenta did, my image of b2b olt champ gicking was shattered. Ok fun aside, thanks a ton for trusting us with your franchise and joining the cord, helping out in multiple tiers, test games and prep help, along with general chatting and bringing in the raiders team element that was lacking which makes raiders what it is. Hopefully we were able to live up to your expectation and did the franchise well, you both were genuinely so amazing, helped with whatever whenever asked and also let us add our own flavour to everything without saying anything, only positive things to say about you both.
myjava H.M.N.I.P Mister McLovin Typical_bastard Serpi ima Siatam LuckOverSkill RealJester Metallica126 Sadlysius Le Don 第二十五夜 Kustavan Student of Sinnoh Paprikaflow GeniusX SouCarlos hellom Xrn Skypenguin Sagaz Jotao
I really wanted to write individual shoutouts for you all too, I had so many positive things to say about all of you, but I have been writing for 3.5 hours now and don't think I have it in me to type more, we were blessed with single handedly the best and most active group of helpers with no doubt about it, you all so selflessly helped with so many things in your respective tiers and actively chatted too building a really positive teamchat, for the people not from the team reading this, they were easily putting up as much effort as anyone drafted on the team would which just cannot be said about enough, even though you may not of received the trophy, you all were as much of raiders as us and without help from every single one of you we would be nowhere close to here, and I genuinely mean it from the heart, thanks a ton.
We qualified for playoffs with negative BD after fighting multiple weeks of do or die games and did not get more than 7 wins in a single series this entire tour, yet we won, and it felt very dominantly too, just the raiders way I guess. When the odds are stacked against you, just go even harder at it and it will pay off eventually
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