Project Beaf's Solomod Review

[Beaf Cultist]

approved by AquaticPanic
Beaf's Solomod Review​

Hello and welcome to the inaugural session of Beaf's Solomod Review! Today, I'm going to be covering A Golden Experience, a Gen 9 NatDex-based solomod run by Lysion. This mod aims to "make every Pokemon usable in any mean", which in this context means a wide swathe of changes to nearly every mon, as well as unbanning quite a few Ubers (with nerfs). There are also a number of Fakemon, though many of them weren't designed for OU viability and so I didn't end up seeing them much during my time playtesting.


First Impressions
My first step when exploring a new meta, particularly within Pet Mods, is to review any available resources and scroll through the teambuilder a bit. Seeing as this mod is based on an existing meta that I have some experience with, I wasn't too worried about understanding which mons were viable, so instead I focused my attention on the mechanics changes. A couple of status conditions have been changed, namely Paralysis, which no longer full paras, as well as Freeze, which now lowers both of the Frozen Pokemon's Defenses by the same amount as a -1 stat drop instead of its original effect. Terastallization and Z-Moves have also been banned, though Megas remain legal.

After giving the Spreadsheet a quick once-over (the massive pool of new customs and Fakemon was overwhelming, so I figured I'd just get right into playing and learn from there), I built my first team. Well... "built" might be a bit of an overstatement. The first mon I saw in the builder was Chien-Pao, and I thought, "There's no way this mon is legal. Its stats aren't even nerfed!" When I looked a little closer, I realized that Sword of Ruin had in fact been nerfed, now multiplying the opponent's Defense by 0.83x instead of 0.75x. However, I figured that wouldn't be enough to neuter Chien-Pao, as it's still an unbelievably strong mon for its Speed tier, so I scrolled back through old RMT threads until I found a team with Chien-Pao and loaded it up for a few games.


Battles

My first game, in my opinion, was the perfect introduction to the tier. As I loaded into the battle and looked over at my opponent's mons, I was shocked to see Genesect, Deoxys-Attack, and even Miraidon??? What was going on here? Well, allow me to introduce you to probably the most influential aspect of AGE OU: the unbanned Ubers. Every mon ever banned from OU besides most box legendaries and Marshadow are legal here, with various nerfs in an attempt to make them balanced in OU. Some of these, like Genesect, have potential, with its Download ability being replaced by Analytic, making it much easier to check defensively. Others, though, haven't been nerfed quite enough in my opinion. We'll see more of these later, but for now I'll leave you with Deoxys-Attack and Miraidon-Weakened as examples.

You can watch the replay of the battle if you'd like, but a basic summary of this game was me controlling sacs in order to click buttons with Chien-Pao. My opponent let their Samurott faint very early, leaving them with no real switchins to Chien-Pao's STABs (both Genesect and Tyranitar were running offensive setup sets), and despite their best efforts to out-offense me, Chien-Pao outspeeding their entire team sealed their fate. Another new feature I was introduced to in this battle was Rock Wrecker, which is now learned by Tyranitar (among others) and doesn't require a charge turn anymore. Using this move, my opponent's DDance Mega Tyranitar was able to nearly 1v1 my Unaware Dondozo. While it didn't matter for this interaction, I later learned that Rock Wrecker is actually supposed to lower the user's Attack by two stages, which appears to not be implemented. I thought it was pretty strange for my opponent, the tier leader, to be using this move despite it clearly not functioning as intended, but alas.

In my second battle, I was introduced to a few new mons. First off is Milotic, who is now a Water/Fairy type. In addition, Marvel Scale now activates on all non-volatile status conditions, and my opponent had given Milotic the new Frozen Orb item, which froze it at the end of its first turn in. It would seem that Marvel Scale also ignores the defense drop from Freeze, making the status essentially harmless while also giving Milotic an effective immunity to other status conditions, but I'm unable to confirm if this is the case, as both the Marvel Scale changes and the Frozen Orb item aren't documented in the mod's spreadsheet, making it impossible to tell exactly what they do without diving into the code.

Regardless, this Milotic was bad news for my team, as it completely blanked my entire offensive core, forcing me to lose huge amounts of momentum going into Amoonguss every time it switched in. This also allowed easy switchin opportunities for two of my opponent's offensive mons, Hoopa-U and Mega Blaziken. That's right, Mega Blaziken. It no longer has Speed Boost (and base Blaziken has also lost Speed Boost in favor of an ability that boosts the power of kicking moves), but instead it now has Magic Guard, which when combined with STAB High Jump Kick and Flare Blitz make for an absolutely ludicrous offensive powerhouse. This combined with a nasty Psychic Noise + Knock Off stallbreaker Hoopa-U set completely tore my team apart, leading to an easy win for my opponent.

After this battle, it was clear that my "5 Staples and a Brokemon" teambuilding strategy wasn't going to take me much farther, so I decided to build a new team with the knowledge I'd gained. To me, it seemed clear that this meta was heavily skewed offensive, as I'd seen so many offensive powerhouses buffed (or barely nerfed) with very few defensive buffs to compensate, so I decided to take full advantage of all the offensive brokens I'd seen so far with a Screens Hyper Offense team.

This team really showed off how many Ubers had been unbanned with barely any nerfs, featuring the Mega Blaziken I'd just been destroyed by, as well as Deoxys-Attack, Flutter Mane (now with better bulk but slightly lower Special Attack and Speed in exchange), Annihilape (Rage Fist now only increases by 25 BP every time you get hit), and Baxcalibur (no longer learns Scale Shot). One thing I had to build around was the fact that Light Clay was banned (I wonder why...), but I figured that with how ridiculous these offensive mons were, even 5 turn screens would be more than enough to enable them to sweep entire teams.

My next few battles went about as you would expect from a Screens HO team in an HO meta. The first two were very dominant Flutter Mane sweeps, as my opponent tried and failed to find proper counterplay. The third was a matchup into a Webs team, which beat me due to my lack of hazard removal, though I at least made sure it was a close match. My final match was an unfortunate defeat by the hands of Scarf White Whale (a fakemon I hadn't seen before) and Serperior, who did the usual Serperior shenanigans.

Closing Thoughts
Overall, I think this mod falls into a lot of the pitfalls you often see from competitively-minded mods made by people without a large amount of competitive experience. Many of these concepts were well-intentioned, but fell short of their intended goals, whether it be nerfs too minor to balance unbanned Ubers, or buffs that failed to elevate lower-tier mons to the now higher-than-OU power level. It also seems like the mod leader's current focus is with creating and balancing lower tiers, but with that comes a lack of focus on balancing the higher tiers, leading to the state OU is in as well as a very bloated and likely inaccurate UU tier. I think the best course of action for this mod would be to refocus on properly balancing OU, and likely rebanning many of the unbanned Ubers in order to drag down the power level and allow more variety in teambuilding. I'm grateful to both Lysion and tkmof (unsure what your Smogon username is) for providing test games, and I wish you luck in your future endeavors.

If you're interested in trying this mod out yourself, here's the Solomod post and the Spreadsheet, as well as a link to the Discord server.

Final Score
Enjoyment: 3/10
Competitiveness: 2/10
Uniqueness: 4/10

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Beaf's Solomod Review - Session 2 ​

Hello again! In today's session, I will be reviewing Balls, a Gen 9 solomod run by Loginator. As its name may suggest, Balls takes itself less seriously than most solomods, being a micrometa comprised of nothing but 18 monotyped balls (one for each type). Not many mods take this approach, or at least not with such a small roster, so I was interested to see how that influenced the meta.

First Impressions
Compared to A Golden Experience, looking through the teambuilder for Balls was a breeze. With so few options available, it was easy to parse through everything right away, and the first mon I noticed from my search was Baseball. This mod is meant to be at an Ubers power level, and as part of that, many of the available mons have very strong options that would never be found in an OU setting. What drew me to Baseball was its ability, Shadow Tag, which is legal and unchanged from base, combined with its 200 base Speed (the highest in the mod) and its access to Nasty Plot + STAB Boomburst. I figured that, with a team built to support it, this mon would be absolutely unstoppable.

So that was exactly what I made. My first team was built to give Baseball as many setup opportunities as possible, with Parting Shot 8ball, Thunder Wave Virus, and Volt Switch Plasmaball all providing means of crippling opponents and/or getting Baseball in safely. Plasmaball was another mon that immediately stood out to me, with its sky-high 145 Special Attack combined with Terrain-boosted Electric STAB and perfect coverage making for a strong offensive threat that I definitely wanted to abuse to its fullest. With my team built, it was time to get into battling.

Battles
Attack of the Missing Images

In my first battle, I learned something very interesting: Terastallization is actually legal in this mod! Neither me nor my opponent had realized while building, so it came as a bit of a shock to both of us, but not at all in a bad way. Unfortunately for my opponent, this battle was cut short when they decided to spam Overheat with their Basketball very early on, giving my Baseball a free switch-in opportunity and leading to an NP+Boomburst sweep.

After a few more battles, I was introduced to a couple more strong options. Moon is an incredibly bulky physical wall, able to blank pretty much every physical attacker in the tier, but its special bulk is very exploitable and it's prone to status/chip. Watermelon, on the other hand, is very bulky on both sides, and has reliable recovery on top of Unaware, making it extremely effective (maybe too effective) at shutting down opposing setup mons, particularly as it also has Calm Mind itself. Rounding out the defensive trio, Virus is notable for many reasons. It has exceptional bulk and access to Regenerator, as well as being the only Pokemon to learn Knock Off. However, its most unique trait in my opinion is its access to Toxic Spikes. In a meta where only 3/18 Pokemon are immune to TSpikes (and only one - Virus itself - actually absorbs them), Tspikes are actually quite strong, potentially ruining teams without multiple Boots users.

One thing I noticed as I was playing was that status is quite common in this meta, between Will-O-Wisp users like Moon and Basketball, and Toxic Spikes from Virus. So, I updated my original team with, among other changes, this Dragonball set:

Dragonball is generally used as a defensive pivot with Intimidate, but I thought a setup set with Guts could be quite threatening, punishing common physical walls for attempting to Burn it. One of the most fun things about testing this mod was that, if I had a problem I wanted to solve, there always seemed to be an option available, even in such a small meta. It's a testament to the mod's creator that no role feels underrepresented despite the limited mon pool. Aside from that, here's a replay of that Dragonball set in action.

Closing Thoughts
Overall, I had a lot of fun testing out Balls! I wasn't sure what to expect going in, what with the lack of prior play and the seemingly unserious nature of the mod, but what I found was a solid micrometa with plenty of complexity in spite of its simple premise. Another aspect I really enjoyed was the presence of Tera. It's rare to see Tera in a Solomod, let alone in the way it appeared here - that is to say, as a balanced presence that added another layer of strategy to many battles. It's not all sunshine, of course. A few mons are certainly suspect, such as the unstoppable revenge killing of Baseball and the bulky setup menace that is Watermelon, but overall nothing felt unbeatable, and I had fun playing even with those mons around. This mod is one of the easiest to pick up that I've found, so if you're ever looking for another meta to add to your repertoire, I recommend giving Balls a try!

I want to thank Tanny89k and cyclonez_ for helping me test.
If you're interested in trying this mod out yourself, here's the Solomod post and the Spreadsheet.

And here are some additional replays I didn't find room for in the review:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9balls-5081-tymz4eim8l2dkt9pwc7zj9a0s5q52mepw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9balls-5082-32tqkxsdxqkbjg0fmqzkk4q3n78c6o4pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9balls-5087-ekz7u22ej96d3b3sepstfcvxebx9zpypw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9balls-5088-wt1t6qwr27brh59p75oi4ikkxiuoyyhpw?p2

Final Score
Enjoyment: 8/10
Competitiveness: 7/10
Uniqueness: 7/10

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Beaf's Solomod Review - Session 3
​

Hello again! It's been a while, but I'm back once again to review another solomod. Today, I'll be writing about Climate Change, a Gen 9 micrometa run by anaconja. Like many of ana's solomods, Climate Change is very unique mechanically. The main gimmick of the mod is the 18 new weathers (one for each type), which not only all have unique effects, but can also stack on top of each other, leading to extremely chaotic games with at times 4+ weathers active at once. This dynamic is definitely quite different from most standard metas, so it was something I focused on during my time playing the mod.

First Impressions
Now, this is the first mod that I've actually had experience with before writing a review. anaconja had originally asked me to help playtest the mod back when it first released, so I was able to build and play back then. At first, I was pretty overwhelmed by the number of options available in the builder, what with the 94 changed mons and 18 different weathers to build around, so I decided to start by building around the one I found the funniest, Metronome Battle.

Metronome Battle is the Normal-type weather. In Metronome Battle, Normal-type moves always have neutral effectiveness, Metronome only calls useful moves, and Normal-types use Metronome at the end of every turn. My goal was to use Clefable to set Metronome Battle, then use Alakazam, Hitmonchan, and Tornadus-Therian (who all have the Duomod Reference?? ability, which makes them use Metronome twice, as well as spinning a Roulette Wheel of random effects at the end of each turn in Metronome Battle) and hope to call the right moves. One trend I noticed pretty quickly with mechanics in this mod is that many of them rely on luck. Certain weathers pretty much revolve around getting lucky in order to win battles, which makes RNG pretty much unavoidable in those matchups regardless of whether or not you bring them yourself. While I personally didn't mind, as I was just battling casually at this point, I think certain people would definitely be turned off by that aspect, so if that's not your cup of tea, this mod might not be for you.

Battles
As I mentioned earlier, my first battles in this mod were months ago, before I even wrote my first solomod review. This is relevant because quite a few mechanics have been changed since then, at times directly because of the playtesting I'll be discussing here. If a mechanic was changed later, I'll try to draw attention to it, but just keep in mind that this mod is constantly receiving balance updates, so it's possible this information will be outdated within weeks of my posting. Now, let's get into my first battle.

For my first game, I was up against a team that also featured Metronome Battle, which was good for me since my Clefable pulled Explosion from Metronome on turn 2, killing my setter immediately. My main gameplan was mostly ignoring whatever my opponent did and just spamming Metronome, which was honestly much more effective than you would think. However, I ran into a roadblock eventually. My opponent was also running THE VOICES (the Ghost weather), which, among other things, had a chance of replacing your move for that turn with Boomburst. This sounds good in theory, but the problem is that this was on the Ghost-type weather, meaning the opponent will always have mons that can take full advantage of Boomburst turns. That part didn't even matter in this battle though, as my Hitmonchan was forced into Boomburst twice in a row against my opponent's Wyrdeer, dealing minimal damage and allowing it to set up and sweep from there. This was one of the mechanics that ended up being changed, as it was agreed that this effect was uncompetitive and more importantly not very fun to play against, so THE VOICES now causes you to randomly use Boomburst in addition to your move for that turn.

My next few games with the team went similarly, all resulting in losses since my team was really bad. However, I was also introduced to a couple more strong mechanics. First was Dust Storm, the Ground-type weather. In Dust Storm, non-Ground/Rock/Steel types would take 6% damage at the end of every turn for each active weather. This damage racked up extremely quickly, and basically punished people for using the weathers that define the mod, so it was deemed to be too strong overall, and was nerfed to no longer include itself when calculating the total damage dealt.

Another strong contender was Mega Sableye. While it has the much worse Ghost/Rock typing now, it also had MUCH higher bulk than base MSab, as well as a very respectable 100 SpA and access to Stealth Rock. This mon was a defensive machine, as its defensive typing ended up being pretty ridiculous on the physical side due to the lack of mons that could reliably break it (physical Waters and Grasses are essentially nonexistent, Darks deal no damage with unboosted Knock Off, and Ghosts have to fear strong Shadow Balls). After a few battles with the mon, it became clear how centralizing it was, so its bulk was eventually nerfed.

For my next team, I wanted to build something a bit more viable, and after looking at all the weathers, I zeroed in on Twilight Zone. In Twilight Zone, non-Dark moves have 0.6x accuracy, Dark-type status moves have increased priority, and Snatch steals all moves with 60 BP or lower. Additionally, Pokemon like Absol and Dragapult have access to Ambush, an ability that gives their attacks perfect accuracy and a Pursuit effect in Twilight Zone. This combination of effects and powerful abusers seemed extremely strong, so I built a team around them.

Suffice to say, the accuracy drop is pretty silly. I stole a few games with it, and probably would have had more if I'd used the team more. Of course, these were balanced out by games where my opponent got extremely lucky, but I'd say I had the upper hand in most cases.

Closing Thoughts
You might be surprised after reading the rest of this review, but I actually enjoyed playing Climate Change! I think this mod treads a fine line between being chaotic but fun and being unplayable, and in its current state it's very much the former. There's definitely a lot of rough spots that need ironing out, as besides the aforementioned balance issues, there're surely more that just haven't been uncovered yet, as well as the many bugs I chose not to mention here, but the play experience is enjoyable as long as you don't take it too seriously. Additionally, I will admit that this mod is very hard to get into. The new mechanics are complicated and unintuitive, with a lot of interactions and RNG that simply don't exist in regular mons. anaconja is definitely aware of this, and he's put together many sample teams to help ease people into the meta, but I still think more resources for the mod would be very valuable in the future. Overall, Climate Change is kind of the Party Game of Solomods, following in the footsteps of predecessors like Duomod V3 and FECC. It's a fun experience if you don't care too much about winning and just want to see funny interactions, but I could never advocate for a mod like this in any sort of tournament or other competitive setting. That being said, it's still a fun ride for casual players, so do check it out!

I want to thank Tanny89k and anaconja for helping me test (plus a guest appearance from zxgzxg).
If you're interested in trying this mod out yourself, here's the Solomod post and the Spreadsheet.

And here are some additional replays I didn't find room for in the review:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...nge-5787-fqd8pr018pf0wn4436zb0bywxsaxg2fpw?p2 - The game that got MSab nerfed.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...nge-5788-lswxndjr6e7xa8cvhtiaijnh11ruku2pw?p2 - My Twilight Zone squad getting countered by Fable.

Final Score
Enjoyment: 8/10
Competitiveness: 2/10
Uniqueness: 10/10

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Beaf's Solomod Review - Session 4

​

Hello and welcome! Today, I will be reviewing Community Used 2: Regional Dex (abbr. CU2), a Gen 9 micrometa solomod run by cyclonez_. Today's format will be a little different, as similarly to my last review, I actually have prior experience with this mod. Unlike my last review, though, it's more than just a few test games. CU2 is quite unique in terms of solomods, as instead of every change being created by a single person or a small group of people, CU2 accepted fakemon submissions from anyone who wanted to contribute, and then cyclonez_ (who I will be referring to as Jump going forward) and her balancing partner Alon Guy Person would review each submission and work through changes with the original submitter in order to create a balanced meta.

I've been involved in CU2 since its inception, when I made my own contribution, Lytlegai (more on that later). Since then, I've also come on as a member of the competitive council, and played in CU2's kickoff tournament, where I managed to win the entire thing! Now that the tour is over, I wanted to take some time to discuss my experience building and playing CU2, and I figured doing a review of the mod at the same time would work perfectly. Without further ado, let's get into it!

Introduction
CU2's early days were pretty hectic, with many balancing issues that needed to be sorted out. While there were certainly a lot of meta developments during that time, I'd prefer to focus on the meta since the beginning of the kickoff tournament, as the current state of the meta was really defined by discoveries made during the tour.

Going into Round 1, my understanding of the meta was mostly shaped by casual playtesting I'd done with other community members. In those games, Lytlegai reigned supreme. Throughout all of the meta shifts as brokemons like Snipythic, Pthormign, and Furumo received nerfs, Lytlegai remained consistently good, with its amazing Steel/Fairy typing, great ability in Just a Little Guy (which halves all damage from heavier mons), and seemingly bottomless utility movepool. However, I had a theory that Lytlegai was somewhat overrated. More and more options had been popping up that abused teams' overreliance on it to blanket check offensive cores, so I wanted to bring something else into Round 1. Specifically, I had my eye on Dracolition.

Dracolition is an incredibly powerful offensive and defensive option that had been overshadowed by Lytlegai in the mod's early stages, but I saw a ton of potential in it that I wanted to tap into this week, specifically paired with Calderlauga. Calderlauga was another mon that hadn't been used much so far, but when I looked through replays of people using the mon, I saw strange set choices and people trying to cram utility onto it that worsened its matchups into the mons it checked best, so I knew there was plenty of potential in it as well. The best part was that Dracolition and Calderlauga paired extremely well, with Calder checking the special mons that scared Dracolition, while Draco walled the Rocks that could otherwise force Calder out. Even better, Calder could use Wish to keep Dracolition healthy throughout the battle and was by far the best mon in the tier at this role, so I decided to build a team around this pairing.

Round 1
Going into this week's battles, you can imagine my surprise when my opponent also brought Dracolition and Calderlauga. For game 1, my opponent brought a very defensive team, relying on fatmons like Hulvine and Lytlegai to slow down any offensive progress. Thankfully, my team was well-prepared for this style of build, with Mega Bjorniorite and its Pixilate Rapid Spins making it seriously difficult for my opponent to make progress with hazards, their main win condition. My opponent also played very passively, running sets like mono-Foul Play Hulvine and Boiling Deluge Calderlauga (the set I'd elected not to run specifically because of its passivity), which gave me plenty of setup opportunities and free turns to keep my breakers healthy with Wish. Despite that, things almost went very badly for me, as my opponent was running Wood Hammer Bjorniorite, which I elected to stay in on with my own Bjorn, thinking it didn't have a Grass move. I ended up taking over 70%, which combined with prior chip meant Mega Bjorn died to hazards on its next switch-in. Thankfully, that passive Calderlauga set of theirs ended up costing my opponent the game immediately afterwards, as it allowed my Quiver Dance Ballaboar to set up on it and punch holes in their squad, and the rest of my breakers cleaned up from there.

My opponent brought the same squad into game 2, but I was prepared this time. They attempted to go for the win very early with Dragon Dance Dracolition, but that was one of the mons I'd built my Calderlauga set to counter, so I dispatched it in quick fashion. My opponent misplayed pretty heavily after that, allowing my Swords Dance Alcespen to knock out half of their team despite having a healthy Hulvine in the back, and from there they couldn't break through the rest of my team, so their fate was sealed.

Round 2
In Round 2 I was paired up with lepton, who had a bye in the previous round. I hadn't seen them playtest the mod at all in the past, and with how strong my performance was last week, I figured I'd be able to bring the same team and win comfortably. Just in case, I did build a backup team, but it was mostly made to test some of the less explored (but likely bad) options and wasn't really made for tournament play.

In game 1, my opponent revealed a very unique team. Some mons, like Charcold and Alcespen, were uncommon but were mons I saw potential in, but others like Lumigald and Molusket seemed very out of place considering their lack of results. However, Molusket wouldn't seem out of place for very long. After a couple of fumbles on my part, Molusket was able to switch in repeatedly and threaten KOs, forcing me into Calderlauga. However, Calderlauga wasn't a safe answer, as Molusket has Mold Breaker Hydro Pump. Eventually, Calder ate a Pump and went down, and everything went south from there. I had a small rally with Quiver Dance Ballaboar, taking out most of lepton's team, but I had nothing for Molusket after Ballaboar went down. My only saving grace was on the final turn, when my Mega Bjorniorite lived a 4x super effective Flash Cannon on 1%, KOing Molusket back with Tri Attack and giving me a very undeserved win.

After how horribly that game went, I decided to switch things up for game 2 and brought my secondary team out of storage. My opponent also brought another team, once again featuring strange choices that hadn't been seen before. There were a few standouts - first off was Noirpeck, a mon that had been written off as useless due to its poor stats and movepool, who was able to cleanly 2HKO my Lytlegai with Tinted Lens Brave Bird, crippling my defensive core. I also had some success midgame with a heat Loaded Dice Rock Blast Vepsno set (meant to lure Calderlauga), but eventually I was swept by lepton's Swords Dance Fawntiful.

After my backup team's poor performance in game 2, I had no real choice but to switch back to my Calderlauga/Dracolition team for game 3. I had swapped out Ballaboar for Lytlegai in a desperate move to improve my Molusket matchup, but the team was still extremely weak to it. Thankfully, my opponent didn't have Molusket this time, so there was hope for me. Not so thankfully, lepton immediately threw me off my footing with Thermovult, revealing my team's disastrous weakness to it. My only real answer, Mega Bjorniorite, was 2HKOd on switch-in since I hadn't had the opportunity to Mega Evolve it yet, and at that point the game was already lost. My opponent stacked up max hazards, then destroyed the rest of my team with Calm Mind Snipythic.

This week was very rough for me. I underestimated my opponent and lost horribly as a result. To a certain extent, though, I didn't really have much of a chance regardless. My opponent had done no public testing and brought mons and sets that hadn't been used previously, so I got completely blindsided by mons that turned out to be meta threats after this round. Sometimes things like this happen in untested metas, and it just so happened that I was on the receiving end this time. Regardless, I made sure to reevaluate my personal viability ranking going into Round 3, and to not slack off on building again.

Round 3

Going into Round 3, there was one mon I wanted to build with above all else: Molusket. After its insane performance into me last week, I knew Molusket had huge potential in the current meta, preying on what had shown to be the two most common defensive mons - Lytlegai and Calderlauga. Taking cues from lepton's team in the previous round, I decided to build with choiced Molusket, in this case Specs. I also wanted to pair it with Lindelidae, a formerly broken mon that had hardly been used since its nerf (mainly because of its poor matchups into Fairies and Dracolition, all of which are destroyed by Molusket). Putting those two together led me to this team, which I brought into my games against BriefMarigold.

Game 1 started off very strong. My opponent had brought Rapid Spin Bjorniorite-M, which straight up cannot remove hazards safely on Iron Head Lytlegai, giving me a huge leg up in the hazard game. From there, I pressed my advantage, using Thermovult and Molusket to punch holes in my opponent's defenseless team, and they ended up forfeiting quickly.

For game 2, my opponent brought the same team but with Thermovult over Calderlauga, an odd decision considering it made them even weaker into Molusket, but I suppose the thought process was to try and out-offense me before I could get going with my breakers. My opponent got very lucky in this game, but even luck couldn't help them break through my defensive core, and I was able to slowly whittle them down, occasionally bringing in Molusket to take a mon where I could. Eventually, they got bored of the defensive play and revealed Swords Dance Lytlegai, taking out my Skdaver before being revenged by Molusket. After this interaction, they said the trade was "worth it" in the battle chat, presumably because Skdaver was the main mon walling their Pthormign. However, Lytlegai fainting meant my Iron Head Lindelidae won on the spot. Or so I thought. As it turned out, they were running Scarf Fawntiful (their third Fairy type, mind you), and despite Lindelidae completely cleaning their team if they kept it alive, they chose to U-Turn out into Thermovult, getting a lucky Static paralysis that crippled Lindelidae. It didn't really matter though, as their team was falling apart at this point, and I cleaned up the rest with Lytlegai, Thermovult, and Molusket.

Round 4
Despite my strong performance in Round 3, I wasn't going to let a repeat of Round 2 happen, so I built a completely new team for this round. There were a couple mons I wanted to test out this week, and all of them fit into Hyper Offense, so I decided to build an HO team with Sash lead Furumo plus 5 sweepers. Nearly every set on this team was innovative and based on trends I'd seen in previous weeks. My Furumo set was designed to get Spikes up and keep them up, with Rapid Spin to deny opposing hazards, Explosion to gain momentum once I'd got as many Spikes up as I could, and Furumo's previously unseen signature Perfect Freeze to buy time against mons I couldn't handle with the rest of the set, such as Lytlegai. DD Lum Berry Dracolition was also a new concept, as while Dragon Dance itself was a fairly common set, most people ran Calderlauga to stop it in its tracks. However, Calderlauga's only real way of threatening Dracolition is with Will-O-Wisp burns, so Lum Berry allowed Dracolition to muscle through a slightly weakened Calderlauga. The last mon I'll mention here is Muerekrot, a mon that hadn't been seen at all since the start of the tour. However, pre-tour testing had shown that Muerekrot had literally no defensive counterplay, so I knew it would fit well on an offense team with its Swords Dance set.

Game 1 was pretty much a textbook showcase of the team. Furumo was able to get Spikes up and freeze the opponent's Lytlegai, and from there I was able to set up and sweep with Calm Mind+Substitute Snipythic.

Game 2, however, went a bit differently. Instead of switching out of Snipythic with their Neifhemming once I'd sent it in to block Spin, my opponent clicked Ice Beam and OHKOd my Snipythic. I was shocked, to be honest. Snipythic is extremely bulky, and even though I wasn't invested in bulk, I should have lived any hit from Timid Neifhemming, leading me to believe they were probably running Modest (a questionable decision, considering it allows you to be outsped by quite a few relevant offensive threats, but it worked out for them here). After that, they attempted to set up on my Muerekrot with DD Dracolition, but Muerekrot was able to show its strength by winning the 1v1 against the best physwall in the tier from a neutral position. I was then able to click buttons with Noirpeck, who you might remember from Round 2. Well, despite its showing in that game, council elected to buff its Attack by 15 points after Round 2, making its Brave Birds near impossible to switch into, and I took full advantage of that here to tear apart my opponent's team, making it a simple task for the rest of my breakers to clean up.

Round 6

After a long break and my Round 5 opponent dropping out, I was feeling pretty rusty. I'd be going up against the tier leader in this round, and I needed to prepare something good. I'd helped Jump test in Round 5, so I knew the biggest threat to prep for was Balirachnid. The spider was, similar to Noirpeck, an underused mon who had been buffed in the post-Round 2 balance patch, and it was now a demon. With Autotomize + Hunter Shot, Balirachnid could easily sweep entire teams, which had happened to me multiple times in testing with Jump, so I knew I had to be ready for it. However, I also had an ace up my sleeve. Drakkrab was a mon I'd been thinking about since before the tour even started. While it was designed to abuse Focus Punch, Swords Dance+Weak Armor sets had shown in casual testing to be borderline unstoppable in the right circumstances, and I knew that with my level of experience with the tier at this point, I would definitely be able to build a team that supported it well.

Game 1 got off to a pretty funny start. Scarf Strigpyre was a set I'd seen a handful of times before, but it definitely wasn't the most common set, so I correctly assumed Jump wouldn't be expecting it and got a free kill on her Furumo turn 1. Then, on turn 4, Jump decided to U-Turn out of my Drakkrab with her -1 Lindelidae, dealing minimal damage and activating Weak Armor. What started as an attempt to claim a single kill with my Drakkrab turned into a full-on sweep, as Jump had nothing to deal with boosted Drakkrab besides praying for a miss.

Game 2 also started off well for me. Strigpyre was able to 1v1 a Thick Fat Ballaboar by spamming Fire Lash, and then Arbjorn was able to make huge progress, claiming three kills in a row. However, things got dicey when Jump sent out her DD Dracolition. This mon is a nightmare for more offensive teams to deal with, but I kept my cool and played to my win condition, allowing Furumo to go down in order to remove hazards for Drakkrab, who could guaranteed live a hit with Focus Sash and win from there.

Round 7
After such a good showing in the previous round, I felt pretty confident going into Round 7 against M0onstarr, but I didn't want to make the same mistake I'd made in Round 2, so I made sure to build another team. This week, I wanted to test out Kuongakrabbi, a mon that had so far seen literally no usage in the tournament. While its Water/Rock typing and low Speed made it difficult to justify, I saw potential in the mon, as 135 Attack with Tough Claws and strong contact STAB moves is honestly ridiculous, and so I built this team around it, pairing Kuongakrabbi with multiple slow pivots in order to get it in safely.

Game 1 started very badly for me, as my opponent's Vintriol immediately OHKOd my Thermovult with Earth Power. Thankfully, I was then able to grab momentum back with Neightmare, using Parting Shot and giving Kuongakrabbi a free switch into M0onstarr's Ballaboar. Having no switchins into Kuongakrabbi's ridiculous damage output, M0on was forced to sack his Molusket. He then brought in his Drakkrab, probably trying to force out Krabbi with the threat of a Cross Chop. However, I didn't want to give him a chance to set up, and I was pretty sure I would live any hit thanks to Kuongakrabbi's high natural physical bulk, so I stayed in. This ended up working out extremely well for me, as M0on clicked Knock Off predicting a switch, allowing me to then finish off Drakkrab with Aqua Jet. From there, I was able to clean up the rest of M0on's team with my offensive Lytlegai, giving me the first win.

While Kuongakrabbi performed very well in game 1, I was a little worried I'd lost the surprise factor going into game 2, so I instead brought my Drakkrab team from the previous round. The game started well, with Rocky Helmet Raccatoskr quickly chipping down M0on's Mega Naglrir, and my Furumo was able to finish it off while also removing the Spikes it had set. After that, I was able to bring Balirachnid in on Molusket, as it had locked into Power Gem, and after a single Autotomize it was able to quickly net two kills, opening the doors for a Strigpyre sweep to finish things up.

Round 8 (Losers Semifinals)
For Round 8, I was paired up with Dragonslayerz_. I had an inkling that they'd been bringing very similar builds for most of the tour, and a quick scout revealed the reality - they had only used 12 mons so far in the tour, with Azumarill-N and Lindelidae appearing on every single one of their teams, along with Thermovult on most. This extremely linear building immediately made me think of bringing stall, a playstyle I'd been meaning to explore anyway, so I built this team in order to counterteam their most common builds.

In hindsight, I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I built stall. Azumarill is one of the worst matchups for stall in this meta, and Dragonslayerz_ has a habit of running Heal Bell Lytlegai, another mon that would make my wincon extremely difficult to achieve. Game 1 revealed they had actually brought BOTH of these problem mons, leading to an extremely drawn-out battle. Long story short, I wasn't able to break past my opponent's core and ended up losing in 198 turns.

I wasn't playing around going into game 2, so I brought back my Furumo HO team from Round 4. Things started about as badly as they possibly could, as Lytlegai thawed from Perfect Freeze on the same turn it was frozen, killing Furumo with only a single Spike set. Dracolition was able to set up and get a kill after that, but went down to Drakkrab. Thankfully, the single Spike meant I was able to set up and revenge it safely with my Muerekrot. Not so thankfully, Dragonslayerz_ immediately got a crit flinch Dragon Rush with their Lindelidae on the next turn, stopping my sweep in its tracks. Feeling bad for how badly they were haxxing me, Dragonslayerz_ let their Lindelidae die to Poltergeist, though I still died to Lytlegai on the next turn. Fortunately, my Noirpeck was able to clean up from there, leading to a very gross win.

I brought my Drakkrab team to game 3, seeing as it was my most consistent team so far. Things started horribly thanks to misplay after misplay on my part - my head really just wasn't in the game at this point. However, I was able to maneuver Drakkrab in and set up an SD pretty early and claimed a kill on my opponent's Lytlegai. They followed this up by bringing in their Lindelidae, which was apparently a misinput. The real misplay, though, happened on the next turn, when Dragonslayerz_ clicked Dragon Rush into Drakkrab, giving it a Weak Armor boost and sealing their fate with a sweep.

Round 9 (Losers Finals)

While the previous round had been a shitshow, I wasn't feeling too bad going into Round 9 against anaconja. This is because I was pretty sure I had solved the meta. Drakkrab was banned from this round forward, and without it I was pretty sure Ghostspam with CM Snipythic + SD Muerekrot was by far the best playstyle. Ghost resists are extremely limited in this meta, and most teams only have one Ghost answer at most, so by having two Ghost-type breakers on my team I could easily overwhelm the opponent's defensive core and sweep them from there. With that in mind, I built this very offensive team around the core.

I had a strong start in game 1, setting Rocks with Lytlegai and making big progress with Azumarill. On turn 8, ana brought in their Lumigald. Usually, this mon would a non-issue since I had a Lytlegai, but I'd taken huge chip on it earlier, and I wasn't sure if I could switch in consistently. Thankfully, ana immediately overpredicted, failing to OHKO my Furumo with Close Combat and losing Lumi. After that, I thought I'd found a great opportunity to set up and sweep with Muerekrot, but my opponent revealed Roar+Strength Sap Alcespen, which put quite the damper on my Ghost core. I figured I could still break through with good prediction and utilization of Lindelidae, but I didn't have the chance to find out, as ana forfeited soon after.

I brought the same team to game 2 and started off strong with Azumarill once again, claiming two kills very quickly (I'd honestly been sleeping on this mon before now). Despite the huge advantage I found myself in, I still nearly got haxxed to death by TWave + Iron Head Lytlegai, though I was thankfully able to power through with Fire Fang Lindelidae, leading to a win.

Round 10 (Grand Finals)
The tour had been dragging on for quite a while at this point, and my opponent for grands, zxgzxg, asked if I wanted to just rfn after my games with anaconja. I agreed, since I was pretty confident in my team and honestly didn't want to drag things out much more, so we went straight into our games after I beat ana.

Game 1 was a Ghostspam mirror match, as zxg had actually been the first to use the playstyle in tournament, piloting it to victory in Round 8 against ana. Despite his Naglrir and Ballaboar, I was pretty confident I could win this matchup, as my entire team was built around abusing people who thought these mons would be enough to stop my Ghost breakers. Sure enough, I was able to keep up momentum and force chip on Naglrir, eventually taking it out with Snipythic and opening the way for the rest of my breakers to clear zxg's team out.

Game 2 went much the same. CM Snipythic was able to make huge progress early on, opening the way for Muerekrot/Lindelidae to clean up in lategame.

Round 10.5 (Grand Finals Bracket Reset)
zxgzxg mixed things up for game 1 of the bracket reset, bringing a new team featuring Noirpeck. This didn't end up working out for him though, as I took out his Neightmare and Dracolition with my Ghosts and Furumo, opening up Lindelidae to clear out everything else.

For the final game, zxg brought his submission to the mod, Vintriol. It ended up dying immediately, but uh, at least it was there for emotional support!! Anyway, zxg lost on preview to CM Snipythic, particularly after I haxxed his Lytlegai to death. While it was certainly an anticlimactic finish to a very long tournament, I think this battle perfectly represents how I feel about CU2 right now, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.


Closing Thoughts

I wish I had more positive things to say about CU2. I've spent quite a lot of time playing this mod, and it would seem I'm the single best CU2 player at the moment, not to mention my being a council member, but it would be a stretch to say I've enjoyed playing this mod, or that I feel it's balanced. In fact, this is probably the least balanced meta I've ever played in tournament. I really don't see what beats Drakkrab or Ghostspam reliably, and over half of the meta is downright unusable right now. Now that the tour is over, we're planning massive balance changes to problematic/unviable elements, and hopefully we'll be able to figure things out, but as the meta is right now, I really can't recommend it to anyone.

If you're interested in trying this mod out yourself, here's the Smogon thread, the Discord server, and the Spreadsheet.

Teamdump
Calderlauga Wishspam Balance
Dogshit Vepsno Squad
Calderlauga Wishspam (Lytlegai variation)
Lind + Molusket
Furumo Spikestack HO
Drakkrab Bullying Squad (run this to lose your friends)
Gigachad Kuongakrabbi
Stupid Stall
Ultimate Ghostspam

Final Score
Enjoyment: 5/10
Competitiveness: 3/10
Uniqueness: 7/10