I also wanted to take a moment and thank TDK and the UU community for letting me host this tournament and Finchinator for co-hosting it with me. It's been a fun and positive experience for me and I genuinely enjoyed it.
We should be the ones thanking you and others for putting work into hosting this...thank you!
Instead of predicts, since I'm in a team's chat and CBU verbally berates me whenever I voice independent thought, I'll post some highlights for individual players in SS and SM this tour:
SS UU: Saria vs. Indigo Plateau - I'm showing a loss for Saria's highlight because overall, I think
he played excellently and the one bad turn he had just happened to cost him Pangoro. On turn 20 for example when he used Roserade to counter a Reuniclus and then he promptly set up Spikes, that was just fantastic and the best possible situation. Staying in on Flygon multiple times with Noivern, also fantastic. He's absolutely capable of finding best case scenarios for important turns and then making sure that best case scenario happens.
IP shows he's capable of innovating to find weaknesses in his opponent's building like with
Dark Pulse Lucario here. But he doesn't take his foot off the gas pedal, he finds a nice way to win by setting up Necrozma on a -2 Roserade, and this was still before DD Necrozma usage was exploding. To me, it seems like Hikari/Saria is capable of completely dominating his opponents and making critical predictions while IP can make fantastic preparation in building and play very consistently. Spectators should look to see if Saria is reaching his very high ceiling and able to maintain it, as well as looking out for any of IP's special techniques to see if they work.
SS UU: 100%GXE vs. Accelgor - GXE was an early adopter of
Escavalier in week 3 and it was nice to see him do A LOT of work with it against Roserade, Bronzong and Mamoswine. This was when Escavalier was getting 1 or 2 uses per week in SS, in week 6 it was the third most used Pokemon in SS! He didn't make any major predictions this game (except turn 12 Knock off) but his position was always good so it's good to see he can keep his cool and just slowly increase and convert the advantage.
Accelgor on the other hand is also capable of getting good positions and just calmly winning them
like in week 4. It's not clear that Accelgor has a big MU advantage but after Sage clearly let the game deteriorate after turn 9 with Incinroar ravaging her team and then trying an obviously hopeless Darmanitan sweep when Rhyperior was still healthy, you can see Accelegor never relented. Spectators should look to whoever gets an advantage first and if that advantage can be maintained or increased over a couple turns, then it could be game over.
SS UU: col49 vs. basaninho - Basaninho is capable of just dismantling opponents
like in week 7 when he brings a unique style of offense. Usually when people bring Wish Sylveon and Noivern they pair it with some random Bronzong/Esca/Copperjah fat steel and Incineroar and some fat water type or Celebi or other fat mon. Basaninho impressed me because he went with a totally different approach and went with pure power and it totally paid off in MU, his opponent's team was just too slow and didn't have proper counters. Also, plenty of spectators raged at Basa saying he misplayed by risking Sylveon on turn 9 but I thought it was fine, just a pretty obvious SR from Copperjah since Sylveon never stays in unless he has Mystic Fire which wasn't revealed yet.
Col49 brought what I consider
an innovative team in semis - even though it's abusing Volt-Turn, a well known tactic, volt-turn hasn't proven too common at all this generation. He played pretty much perfectly accurately after setting up SR and eliminating Rhyperior, it didn't seem there was a way to stop him. Spectators should look at the team compositions and see if anyone gets a sizeable MU advantage - I'd expect them to be able to convert that.
SM UU: Christo vs. PinkDragonTamer - Frankly this whole tournament has been a Christo highlight. I'll just mention
briefly his semis game where he brought a new team for once - he generally recycles teams - and put on Life Orb on Krook which shockingly hasn't been studied much before this game. After getting rid of Rotom Heat and Nidoqueen there was really nothing to stop Christo from spamming Volt Turn and winning so that's what he did. I think Christo loves to use very solid strategies with the most common Pokemon - Scizor, Latias, Krookodile, Manectric, Togekiss are all super common, top 15 or even top 10 - and people who watch him know that he plays very very quickly too. This helps induce chokes in his opponents (Although he doesn't need to rely on that frequently) because his brain is a bit faster than most people.
As for the rosy tinted behemoth discipliner, he seems to be more capable of using a variety of teams. He
went for a spikes hyper offense in week 2 - except he didn't bring Spikes!. He got an advantage pretty early on by making some good but clear moves to get SR up again, it was good because he read that his opponent apparently wasn't interested in trying to predict him. He pretty easily dominated after that, culminating in a well timed Scizor sweep. For this game, spectators, should look pay close attention to what Christo brings - is he going to try and stay comfy with his usual Scizor/ Volt-Turns or stall, or will he branch out? If he does branch out, expect new techs and see if they work in the game or not.
Bo3: Adaam vs. CBU - Adaam has probably been the most active UUPL player all season, when writing up this post I see him in like 70%+ of all the game chats. This dude is addicted to Pokemon and needs to get a life. CBU on the other hand treats me like a battered wife sometimes.
For Adaam's HL game, I wanted to
review his win in SS against CBU. His building was so correctly on point. Nidoqueen to stop CBU's beloved Volt-Turn and it also happens to beat basically everything else on CBU's team one v one except Mamoswine. Scarf Rotom also helped too. I feel like Z Belch Hydreigon was a fine choice too, considering that CBU frequently brings fairies (well everyone does). But the thing that most impressed me was Adaam managed to fit his beloved Shark into his team too. So Adaam was able to prep for CBU while also using a Pokemon he was super comfortable with.
CBU though won that match overall, partly
by winning the SS game. Early on he adopted Pangoro and it has absolutely exploded in usage, the ladder in April used it 600%+ more compared to March. Even so, he struggled until Adaam couldn't pull the trigger on Noivern and Rhyperior died (well it was a hard prediction anyways) on turn 12. Pangoro sealed the deal for CBU there and he just played very reasonably and didn't let his advantage go away. I'd say this match is pretty similar to the Christo/PDT match. Spectators should look out for their prep and see if they are using teams they are known for using and very comfortable using or will the branch out; if they do branch out, will their special techniques work?
Raichy kinda of plays linear at times and can fuck up from what ive seen, but if he starts the game off strong he's usually pretty good at keeping a lead and closing games out.
