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Smogon Masters III - Top 16 [REPLAYS MANDATORY]

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Princess Autumn

Princess Autumn

Anyways - so then I cursed her.
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Welcome to the third edition of Smogon Masters! This is a Swiss bracket, Bo3 tournament with each set consisting of ORAS OU, SM OU, and SS OU. Players will decide which metagame to play first (with the higher seed choosing come Top Cut), then the loser picks a different generation for the following game. If both players cannot agree on a metagame to play first, each round will have a default generation randomized at the start of each round. After several rounds of the Swiss bracket, all players with 2 or fewer losses will be advanced onto a single elimination, Bo3 bracket which will culminate in a grand finals where we'll crown our winner of Smogon Masters III and the purple trophy
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! Last year's Masters was won by none other than Empo in a closely fought finals, do you think you have what it takes to take his title?

Rules & Tournament Format

General Tournament Rules
  • This is a tournament that will employ the standard rulesets for ORAS OU, SM OU, and SS OU, being a Best of Three with one game of each tier.
  • Smogon Masters III will be a Swiss tournament with a to-be-determined Top Cut size depending on signups.
    • Players will be automatically dropped when they hit three losses as they are no longer in contention for top cut. Players who achieve top cut scores before the end of Swiss will not be matched up for the remainder of the Swiss rounds.
    • Players will be assigned a random opponent out of the pool of players with the same record as them each round, although on rare occasions, players may face someone with a better/worse record to avoid having more than 1 bye in any given round. Players will not face the same opponent during the Swiss portion of the tour.
  • Matches are to be played on Pokémon Showdown!. If you can't agree on which server to play on, the Smogtours server is the default option.
  • Saving replays is required and must be posted in each winpost starting in the second round.
  • There are no extensions due to the nature of a Swiss tournament, so please get your games done on time. This will be removed for the single elimination Top Cut stage of the tournament.
  • Princess Autumn is the primary host of this tournament and the co-hosts will be a fairy, Eledyr, goldmason, and vmnunes.
This tournament uses a Swiss format, where everyone plays until they lose three times, or until Top Cut begins after Round 10 (or 11). The Top Cut will be single elimination and based on a 32-player bracket, although this may vary depending on the tour's player count. All matches will be a Best of 3, involving ORAS OU, USUM OU, and SWSH OU.

This tournament is expected to fall into of the following sizes:
384 - 512 players = 10 rounds of Swiss, 32 person Top Cut with varying numbers of byes
513 - ~978 players = 11 rounds of Swiss, 32 person Top Cut with varying numbers of byes
~978 - 1024 players = 11 rounds of Swiss, 64 person Top Cut with varying numbers of byes

Byes will be awarded based off of seeding which will be calculated by the following tiebreakers: fewest number of losses, highest opponent's resistance, highest opponent's opponent's resistance.
Opponent's resistance is defined as the average win% of a player's opponents expressed as a decimal, for example:
  • I have a record of 3-0
  • My R1 opponent's record is 0-3
  • My R2 opponent's record is 1-2
  • My R3 opponent's record is 2-1
  • My opponent's resistance is (0 + 1/3 + 2/3)/3 = 1/3 = ~0.33
  • This value has a hard coded minimum of 0.25
Opponent's opponent's resistance is the average of each of a player's opponent's resistances, and is calculated in a similar manner.
If players are still tied after these, their seeding will be determined by a coin flip.

There will be no substitute slots this year, instead week 1 will last for 2 weeks; substitutes will be allowed to signup for the duration of week 1 and come Sunday, inactive players will be replaced on a first-come first-serve basis.

Players who achieve a Top Cut-qualifying record before the final round of Swiss will be removed from the Swiss rounds. They will be seeded in brackets depending on when they qualified.

You can find the full standings and bracket here.

Top 16
1) Giannis Antetokommo-o vs 16) DeeJ
2) ChrisPBacon vs 18) Attribute
3) Typhlosion48 vs 14) BAGANHA13
4) c0mp vs 13) Tenebricite
28) Star vs 21) Ikaishi
6) 3d vs 11) TJ
26) NoName6293 vs 23) zinnias
25) Hairoll vs 24) Always!

The deadline for extensions is <t:1765422000:F>! The deadline for this round is <t:1765767600:F>!

If there are any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to myself or any of the other hosts!
 
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I promised myjava I would do these so here we go

1) Giannis Antetokommo-o (SS, SM, ORAS) vs 16) DeeJ
Possibly the strongest individual performer in the last 5 years (?) is at it again and looking as dominant and consistent as ever. It's honestly pretty hard to see him losing to anyone until we make it to the business end of playoffs, but Nemosse certainly gave him a run for his money last round with Giannis needing to nail a few 50/50s at the end to close it out. This is a tough pull for DeeJ, who I think has been quietly very solid in his run and is overall pretty underrated as a player, but he'll need to be at the top of his game to pull this one out. His team picks are really interesting wielding a nice mix of balances and offenses with some funky techs, so there's definitely a series to be had.

2) ChrisPBacon (SM, ORAS) vs 18) Attribute (SS)
Chris has been on a tear in this tour going all the way back to last years edition, so it's not a surprise I'm bolding him here. His team picks definitely lean towards the bulkier side (obese, one may even say), but he seems to have taken the approach of "I'm loading what I'm comfy with, try and beat me" which I can respect. Last weeks set was a bit messy and I think Storm kinda blew the SM game so it'll be interesting to see if there will be a change in approach this week into Attribute, who's been playing a great brand of mons lately. He gave me the business in SS during our set so I am forced to favour him there, but this one is really close and definitely a highlight of the round. He's coupled strong offensive teams with some great aggressive play; I'm looking forward to watching this one live.

3) Typhlosion48 (SS, SM, ORAS) vs 14) BAGANHA13
Have to heavily favour Typh here, he's been extremely strong all year and has a great track record in these formats too. BAGANHA got very fortunate in his set last week and is obviously a less-known quantity here, so it's difficult to bold him for any of the tiers.

4) c0mp (SS, SM, ORAS) vs 13) Tenebricite
Circuit dominance in the back end of the year seems to have paid off for c0mp who comes into these playoffs hot and looking great in all 3 tiers. Last round was a nailbiter and he has proven time and time again that he has the skill to pull wins from his ass and capitalise on any opportunity provided to him. Tenebricite is a solid player, but to me he fits into the jack of all master of none category and last weeks set wasn't a great showing either. I think c0mp takes this pretty comfortably.

28) Star (SS, SM, ORAS) vs 21) Ikaishi
While I don't think Star's performance against Spitfire last round was particularly inspiring, the difference in track record between him and his opponent here is probably the widest out of any of the matchups this round. He should take this one comfortably, although I do think Ikaishi's SS is quite strong and could potentially pull out a win there. Over-under on him dropping a "." or complaining about hax this set is 4.5 btw.

6) 3d (SS, ORAS) vs 11) TJ (SM)
Fun set between two friends and the other highlight of the round. To me they're pretty evenly matched in all 3 gens and it'll come down to the teams they decide to load. I will not pretend to understand the intricacies of toxic orb Breloom in SM but TJ seems to have the plug in that gen, whereas 3d looks to have adopted the load balance and outplay approach which can't go wrong really. May as well be a coinflip, but 3d has been hot lately so he takes it for me.

26) NoName6293 (SM, ORAS) vs 23) zinnias (SS)
The young prodigy capitalised on his good fortune and took down lax last week, if you want to talk about up and coming players on this site you need not look further than him. The team picks are creative and the ingame is very solid as well, I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do in these playoffs. I will say his SS has looked significantly worse than the other two gens which is something to look out for, but he looks heavily favoured overall. I can't say I know too much about zinnias other than them being an SM enthusiast and taking egalvanc down pretty comfortably last week. If she's going to win this set, it all hinges on the SM game imo.

[Winner of 8) kDCA vs 25) Hairoll] (SS, SM) vs 24) Always! (ORAS)
To be totally honest this pick is completely vibes based. kDCA obviously had a strong run into top cut, but I can't say I've seen him play much of the masters gens before this and I'm only really aware of his solid showings in CG. Hairoll has taken down some pretty great players on his run here (SW, GeniusX, Malekith) and from what I've seen in his replays he plays a pretty solid brand of Pokemon. As for Always, apart from being the nicest person on the internet his ORAS is definitely the strongest of the 3 gens, but overall I haven't been blown away by his play and he was definitely on the more fortunate side last round. No real opinion here so I'm going for the fun pick.

Looking forward to some great games!
 
Okay, let's start with a historical check-in, now that we're in what I consider the actual playoffs of this tour. There are 5 players for whom this is their first career individual top 16: BAGANHA13, Ikaishi, NoName6293, zinnias, and either kDCA or Hairoll. Of them, only BAGANHA13 (and kDCA) has prior sheet games. It's fair to call these players long shots by virtue of the fact that it's extremely rare for someone to win an individual trophy on their first career playoff appearance. In fact, so far in the 2020s, it's only happened once in a trophy that's not OST or OSDT, which each bring their own unique contexts (OST has a much more volatile format that tends to result in newcomer-heavy top-16 fields, and the pool of OSDT contenders typically only have one opportunity per year to make an individual playoff rather than 7). That counter-example is LpZ's Slam trophy; we'll see if anyone can join that dark horse club.

Though this playoff field isn't really stacked with perennial trophy contenders, it does have quite a few who have been here before. 6 players are making their second career individual playoff here, and I'll group them into a few categories. First, there's c0mp and Attribute, teamtour fixtures making their second individual playoff. It's been quite a while for c0mp, their last playoff appearance coming a decade ago at OST XI, which you might remember either as the WhiteQueen OST or the Style OST. It's been a shorter wait for Attribute, whose first playoff came in STour 36. Next, there are three players who made their first career individual playoff earlier this year, and are closing it out with a second. For Always! and Tenebricite, this is a chance to make it past the round of 16 this time around. Meanwhile, 3d has had a massive breakout year, starting it as a 5k SPL buy and finishing it with an individual semifinal, a 14-8 teamtour record, and a trophy. There's a lot more that's interesting about these players, but I'll get to that in a future post. DeeJ's the last one making their second career individual playoff, and they fall into the category of players who are making their name in this specific format. DeeJ made top 8 at Masters last year, putting up great results against an admittedly middling bracket path, and they've been excellent so far this tour.

The other addition that I will make to the category of "Masters specialists" would be ChrisPBacon, and while they do have an STour first-round exit, there's no doubt that their run to the finals in last year's Masters (like DeeJ, a run ultimately stopped by Empo) is what's fueling the upside here. This is their third career individual playoff.

TJ is making their fourth career individual playoff. Notably, they have never before lost in the round of 16: 3 career playoffs and 3 career quarterfinals. Notable as well is the fact that TJ is the first player we've discussed so far with an individual trophy, and perhaps more notable still is the fact that that individual trophy came at an STour with these exact tiers. A fourth quarterfinal would put TJ in 31st in that metric, the other players with a single individual trophy in that group being Ox the Fox, Conflict, WhiteQueen, Vert, and Giga Punch. Next, and this shocked me a little, but Typhlosion48 now has 6 career playoff appearances, entering a tie for 42nd all-time which includes, among others, xavgb and Tesung. Of course, of the ten players to reach the threshold, Typhlosion48 is only one of three with no individual trophies to have come out of it, a dubious honour shared with INSULT and Tamahome. Mind you, those two have combined for 291 sheet games, and Typh has 0.

Then we get to the most accomplished players in this pool by a landslide. Let's start with Star, for whom this playoff appearance marks his 20th. Does that sound good? It moves him out of a tie with McMeghan and into a tie with Empo for 2nd all-time, behind only SoulWind's (checks notes) 41. That, along with their 8th-ranked 8 quarterfinals, would be the metrics that someone would reference if they were making the case for Star as the most accomplished player without an individual (a case I am sympathetic to, although I'd probably favour Malekith). Star made the quarterfinals last year at this tour before getting dropped by ChrisPBacon; is StarMasters in the cards this year?

Finally, there's Giannis Antetokommo-o. This being "only" their 15th career playoff might not sound as flashy as Star's total, but of the two, Giannis has a better winrate in every round of the playoffs, and because a 25% finals winrate is greater than 0%, Giannis does have a trophy. They're also the only player who's made the top 16 at Smogon Masters all three years. They were my favourite to win the tour, and I'm sticking with that pick.
 
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