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Since DPL is near to its end, I thought about making one of these threads where you guys can post teams or original sets you used through your dpl run, maybe give a little bit of insight on why you built it that way, niches it might contain, etc etc. Same for ideas you thought about potentially using but ultimately didn't! Everything is welcomed here!
I only played duu in dpl but i ended up making lots of drafts and building for ss dou (with the help of good user emma) the weeks tony played so I'll share some of the sets we used before going with the duu team dump
Fast tailwind, best tailwind. We used this on a very offensive team, with mons that were able to threaten kos with strong spread moves like eruption heatran and expanding force necrozma, we also had eject button amoonguss to help getting good positioning and opportunities for zapdos to set tailwind.
At this point SS players were starting to use max speed kyub and taunt lele was starting to get popularity so i thought max speed zapdos was a good call. Protect is also great on this set because zapdos is really easy to get double targetted so avoiding that is really nice. Another notable thing to support max speed on zapdos is that it zapdos outspeeds non scarf urshifu.
Nihilego was a major threat to our team, protect also allowed us to not get ohkoed while switching on the other slot to our nihilego check, scarf urshifu.
Max speed Zapdos was the mvp of the game imo, outspeeding a tapu lele as was intented and setting tailwind for necrozma and heatran that swept the opponent's team.
The spread makes zapdos 2hko band rillaboom with heat wave after grassy terrain recovery so there are probably better spreads for this set.
Kartana @ White Herb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Sacred Sword - Swords Dance
- Protect
I don't know if I should call this set underused or underrated. Ofc everyone knows about sd kartana but I wanted to include it here because I'm shocked its usage is so low.
We decided to use a set up spam team vs zeefable, after some drafts we took the classic framework of volcarona + blastoise + grass spam but i wanted to give it a little tweak and instead of going for bad mon lando + second set up mon as most set up teams do, we went for a real grass spam core; sd kartana + band rillaboom. SD kartana gave us a lot of options and versatility for the last slots since we already had our second set up mon and the team could work well without the need of volcarona or kartana to set up. We ended up rounding the team with eject button super fang scrafty (2nd fake out, intimidate, momentum, good at chipping stuff, kyub check...) and rock slide av kyub to check stuff like volcanion or volcarona.
The team featuring this kartana set is easily my favourite team at the moment, I encourage you to try sd kartana if you haven't yet, I swear on every ss test game I played during dpl it went to at least +4 very easily and with very little support that certainly most teams can afford.
And, talking about sd kartana...
Zeraora @ Salac Berry
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 220 HP / 32 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out - Fling
- Plasma Fists
- Taunt
One of the, arguably, nastiest cores used in dpl was born because I was trying to build a set up spam team with sd kartana + fling salac berry zeraora, I wanted a second target for salac berry so I tried weakness policy Spectrier and it worked wonders. And yeah, this core is for dou, I practiced with the team and the strat worked really well, with either spectrier or kartana sweeping teams many times.
The only reason why we didn't use it is because I wasn't sure if tony would be able to pilot the team properly since it requieres A LOT of positioning. I liked so much this core that I decided to use it that same week in duu, but that's for later.
Escavalier @ Leftovers
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Iron Head
- Drill Run
- Substitute
- Protect
So we were deciding what to use in playoffs and lele + amoonguss teams seemed to be on its prime (iirc 6/12 usages of psychic terrain and 5/12 usages of amoonguss in the last week of the regular season). Tony also lost to one of these teams the previous week and we didn't want that to happen again.
After a brainstorm we had 2 possibilities; aegislash or... overcoat escavalier!
Believe me, sub overcoat escavalier just 6-0s the classic semiroom teams with diancie / amoonguss / lele / fire type / tier 4 mon lando / filler so we went with it and honestly I regret nothing. This mon worked great on test games. To help cover its only weakness we used it on a team with a really good mu against fire type mons and vs mons that tipically run fire type coverage. Escavalier itself can also lure fire types and do a ton of dmg or even kill them with drill run.
As I said we tried to cover mus vs mons that tipically run fire type coverage. Except Zapdos. Which we ended up facing. Even though, I think we could have won the game if we koed zapdos when we had the chance to. Anyway the loss was mainly my fault because i was aware of that weakness and didn't solve it, mainly because of the lack of time I had last week but yeah.
For real I suggest people that don't believe on escavalier to give it a try, this mon probably deserves to be ranked on the vr due to the great mu it has against the most popular teams atm, and it didn't feel like deadweight in almost any mu.
Ev spread could be improved, I didn't bother looking for a better spread because, again, I literally had no time but yeah.
And with this I finish the review to some of the sets we used in ss dou. Let's go with the duu team dump
Stoutland @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Giga Impact
- Crunch
- After You
- Protect
Gigalith @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Rock Slide
- Stone Edge
- Stomping Tantrum
- Heavy Slam
bow bow (Victini) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Victory Star
EVs: 252 HP / 160 SpA / 84 SpD / 12 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blue Flare
- Energy Ball
- Trick Room
- Protect
Blastoise @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 132 Def / 112 SpD / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Flip Turn
- Follow Me
- Life Dew
Tapu Bulu @ Assault Vest
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Atk / 124 SpD / 40 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Wood Hammer
- Horn Leech
- Dazzling Gleam
- Rock Slide
So I had no clue on what to use vs EternalSnowman because iirc he had 0 replays playing duu. I just tried to cover as many matchups as possible and sand semiroom is great at doing that. After you Stoutland is a great pick because it checks offense and you can get many unexpected kos with either life orb giga impact or doing after you to gigalith. Stoutland is great at what it does on this team, not only offensively but defensively checking spectrier and aegislash. I remember we were debating what item could be the best for stoutland and there was this one calc that made me go with life orb:
Jokes aside I repeat I had no clue what he could use so dnite was a possibility...
The main gameplan for this team is setting trick room and trying to start breaking stuff with gigalith and bulu. Victini is a nice trick room setter on this team because it checks steel types that are annoying for bulu and gigalith and also can hit water types with energy ball, which can even be boosted by grassy terrain. When trick room isn't up stoutland is there for the speed control and threaten kos and kommo-o is the wincon of the team. Blastoise helps setting trick room and with the kommo-o set up.
Overall I think this is a pretty solid team, with very few bad matchups as was intended so I'm glad with the result.
Demantoid only seemed to play set up teams so I wanted to have many spread moves for this week. Set up is really strong in duu so I said, why not using my own set up team with strong spread moves? Started the team with the hail core + giga drain sitrus volcarona, i didn't mind running no boots because it's not easy to set sr vs this team. Worst case scenario I play 6v5 with a 75% hp volcarona, assuming their sr mon died setting rocks.
Rest of the team is just me trying to fix weaknesses, intimidate and a good rock and ghost resist, adding double fake out and another set up mon in primarina.
Played the game assuming demantoid's blaziken was focus energy because that was way more threatening for my team than sd, since with focus energy and scope lens it can ignore screens and intimidate.
Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 24 HP / 228 Atk / 56 SpD / 200 Spe
Jolly Nature
- High Horsepower
- Knock Off
- Rock Slide
- Fling
Originally the trick room team I played vs kaori was supposed to be the team I'd use on this game, since atmosphere was only playing balance teams with average or no trick room checks. As I said previously, I tried this salac berry zeraora on dou and it worked wonders with wp spectrier so i gave it a try on duu. I also wanted to use kyurem because it's good vs all the fwg cores atmosphere was using on his balance teams. Np togekiss is an unexpected set on duu that helps breaking teams for spectrier and also is a second mon that benefits from getting the salac berry speed boost. Rest of the team is blastoise, a staple on most set up teams and krookodile to check zeraora and for intimidate support. Fling was a cool addition in case i needed to trigger weakness policy with it.
This is probably my weakest team, it has many bad mus but i just expected a balance team so if i faced that i knew it was going to work. After an unfortunate turn where i'm unable to chip ferrothorn I just sac both of my mons to get zeraora and spectrier on the field at the same time. Spectrier swept the entire team and got to +6 spa which was nice to see.
Stoutland @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Giga Impact
- Crunch
- After You
- Protect
Gigalith @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Rock Slide
- Stone Edge
- Stomping Tantrum
- Heavy Slam
Built this the previous week but it seemed to have a good mu vs the stuff kaori had brought so decided to use it on this week instead.
I loved using stoutland gigalith week 1 so I tried to build a full trick room team with them. Pretty standard build besides maybe goggles oranguru (people were starting to use cringe sun) and aromatisse (solid kommo check, second trick room setter and avoids getting taunted).
I think the game was decided on a lurantis speed tie that I end up losing, after that my chances of winning were minimal but a fortunate heat wave miss on my lurantis and kaori misplaying setting trick room gave me the win. Tbf this is the only game I felt like I should have lost.
Tapu Bulu @ Assault Vest
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Atk / 124 SpD / 40 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Wood Hammer
- Horn Leech
- High Horsepower
- Rock Slide
Blastoise @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 132 Def / 112 SpD / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Fake Out
- Flip Turn
- Follow Me
- Life Dew
Zeraora @ Life Orb
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Plasma Fists
- Knock Off
- Close Combat
- Protect
Arcanine @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Extreme Speed
- Wild Charge
Looking at the overall usage stats confirmed me hawlucha might have a place on this meta. 0% thundurus usage and only 1 aegislash usage, which are the main counters hawlucha has. Looking at some calcs, hawlucha ohkos zeraora with +1 cc and there aren't many other flying resists on the tier with the exception of gigalith which also drops to cc, so I was confident i could make hawlucha work and i built a team with it.
Weezing blocks intimidate and checks trick room, bulu triggers grassy seed, blastoise staple on most set up teams, life orb zeraora deletes bulky water types and hits aegislash and arcanine gives intimidate support and is another solid aegislash check.
Originally the team had band bulu and defensive arcanine, but i didn't like how passive the team was with weezing blastoise and defensive arcanine and went with av bulu and band arcanine which also allowed to check more stuff with wild charge and extreme speed.
This was a messy game, I feel like everything was under control until actuarily roars blastoise slot instead of weezing slot fsr, roaring slot would have allowed him to set sun which was imo the play to do. Instead, I got an unfortunate roll that ends up placing weezing + bulu on the field, literally the worst mons possible. I'm forced to sac bulu and switching out weezing for an early hawlucha set up. This also allowed him to set sun and winning the game some turns after.
Togekiss @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 112 HP / 68 Def / 76 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Air Slash
- Follow Me
- Dazzling Gleam
- Encore
Gigalith @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Rock Slide
- Superpower
- Stone Edge
- Stomping Tantrum
Lurantis @ Assault Vest
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Leaf Storm
- Superpower
- Knock Off
- Poison Jab
All or most of kaori's teams seemed to fall to trick room and strong spread moves so my main idea for this week was using gigalith again.
I shared team in Doubles Mixed League with actuarily and he shared a team similar to this one so s/o to him for the original idea of the team. Actuarily's team had hawlucha > togekiss, slowking-g > necrozma and some different moves on scarf victini. I think the changes made the team more solid since scarf togekiss helps a ton setting trick room with the combination of follow me, encore and serene grace air slash and necrozma is probably the best trick room setter at not getting ohkoed, so this allowed me to set trick room twice or even three times.
Team did great on test games, I didn't lose a single game with it and I was pretty confident on my chances of winning my semifinals game.
Would have loved to play this game since after 4? 5? years of playing dpl this was my first playoffs game and my team was 0-2 down, I tried everything for the game to happen but yeah it is what it is. I hope I have the chance to play another poffs game next season.
Lastly I'd like to thank all the heroes for such a good season. This is easily the dpl where I had most fun, you all were a great group of people to share team with and I felt very comfortable with all of you. No one trusted in us to do well and we proved them wrong, getting an undefeated record on the regular season and almost snatching the first seed from another great team like the storms is something we should feel really proud of, even if the season finished sooner than we expected.
See you all next dpl, maybe finally managing a team?
Here are all the teams I used in DPL. I'm sad I ended up 1-2, but I think all three teams are pretty solid, and the losses came more from me being bad than the teams. I built most of the teams on my own (no big deal to me) but special thank you to SMB and Yoda2798 for being the two people who helped the most in prepping / test games, as well as the Heroes as a whole. I made Yoda play my Week 5 team into Listmon Killer at least three times (as well as plenty of other tests and asking them to review everything I used), so special thank you to them for being a huge help despite being on a different team.
[1:11 AM] Yoda2798: meow
-- Originally built around Volcanion + Rillaboom as it did well into Rain, Diancie, and Grass Spam which were all on shrop's scout. Safety Goggles on Volcanion and a way to change terrain I felt were mandatory for the rising Tapu Lele + Amoonguss archetypes, especially because he used it the week before.
-- Really comfortable with Porygon2 semiroom archetype which i felt was important going into probably my second ever game with legitimate team pressure.
-- Originally had Landorus-Therian over Diancie but made the switch to help give me a clearer win condition (Volcanion + Diancie under Trick Room)
-- Volcanion as 24 Speed EVs instead of Minimum Speed to catch other Volcanion with Earth Power outside of Trick Room.
-- Rillaboom is Superpower and Diancie is Rindo Berry to deal with Kartana which can be annoying.
-- Porygon2 is Toxic over Thunderbolt because the former is mandatory on all my teams and I felt comfortable enough against Volcanion.
-- Nicknames are Natural Disasters because my 10-year-old sister loves them.
[SQU] shrop vs emma [HER]
-- Immediately noticed Cresselia. Had Toxic on Porygon2 so I felt okay as long as I could status it.
-- Got a little nervous when Zeraora revealed Coaching, but I knew I should be safe with Toxic in the back.
-- Despite being down 4v5 at the end of Turn 8, I thought I was in a good spot because I could stall out Cresselia with Toxic + Fake Out + Recover.
-- Have a massive stroke when Mew reveals Heal Bell.
-- Turn 10 was a major misplay on my end. Should have Earth Power'd + Ice Beamed to put it in Steam Eruption range (which was what I was trying to do with Heat Wave) and left Cresselia alone for a turn.
-- Turn 15 - Kartana KOs Mew 50% of the time with a critical hit, and if I KO Mew I win the game. Didn't think he'd give me the opportunity to go for the kill so I switched to Kyurem-Black to save Kartana and catch the incoming Rillaboom. Don't think the play was bad even though it didn't work out, just think I got the call wrong.
-- Cool team by shrop. The better player won this game. Don't hate my play too much but made an obvious misplay and could have won the match without it. Good thing the game didn't matter.
[9:04 PM] emma: first 3 thundurus are bulky sitrus (mix and maxing moves), last one is thunder leftovers on rain
[9:06 PM] emma: i think the first landot (team 2) is scarf, while the other one had protect
[9:06 PM] emma: both kyub are cb outrage
[9:06 PM] emma: heatran + both grosses are sub
Tenzai so kindly linked me all his BW Cup replays and I watched them all before we played.
[2:20 PM] emma: why is there a snorlax
[2:20 PM] emma: big fan of "snorlax rain"
[2:22 PM] emma: i think its cb
[12:26 AM] emma: i'm scared!!! i'm scared of listmon killer!!!!!!!!
-- Original idea was Marowak which is good into Thundurus + Steel, but after some testing and discussion we concluded that Marowak sucks ass, and his team weren't weak enough to it to warrant bringing.
-- Shifted to Conkeldurr which is an actual good Pokemon and kills basically everything except the one Jellicent and Mew.
-- Originally had Metagross as my Steel, but changed to Heatran to better match up into their Steel.
-- I was absolutely terrified of him bringing Listmon Killer since the only two teams on my scout were Conkeldurr / Heatran / Jellicent / Landorus-T / Thundurus / Filler. Thankfully Yoda and SMB calmed me down and explained he was unlikely to bring it since it was a sample and there was minimal scouting to be done for me anyway. I even changed Latios to Energy Ball but went back to HP Ground after Zigh got subbed in.
-- Decided to keep the same team even when Metal got subbed since it was a good six and I was comfortable with it.
-- Nicknames are Sigrid songs because she's a queen.
-- Fuck Yoda2798: [7:18 PM] Yoda2798: I resisted the urge to say in the battle "wow you named the thund after yourself"
[GHO] Zigh vs emma [HER]
-- Felt fine in the mirror. My Jellicent was Toxic over Will-o-Wisp which helped a ton and I had played the matchup in test games.
-- Didn't think he'd let me kill his Thundurus Turn 1 with Stone Edge so I U-Turned out which didn't work out. This turn kind of sucked for me and I ended up having to sack Thundurus and pivot around a bunch until I got into a decent position in Turn 5.
-- Didn't miss my second chance to KO Thundurus. Subbing with Heatran also gave me an edge and put me in a real good position.
-- Turn 7 - Doubled into the Heatran slot for a guarenteed KO. Felt extremely good about my chances since Tyranitar was the only thing that could damage Jellicent and I had a ton of checks for it.
-- Have a massive stroke when his Tyranitar gets the Double Protect.
-- Was fine with trading Toxics. Didn't have another way to significantly damage Jellicent but I knew if I Toxic'd it I would win.
-- Overall, being able to spam Substitute with Heatran was really effective, even if the face of Jellicent, because if it's breaking your sub than its not doing anything productive. Very happy with how I played this once after the unfortunate first couple of turns.
-- Felt really happy after winning my first DPL game, and even cooler that it actually mattered.
[5:41 PM] emma: his two teams
[5:41 PM] emma: jelly / support / fire / fast dragon / bulky psychic / filler
5:42 PM] emma: slots 1 + 2 check sand
[5:42 PM] emma: while the rest kinda get destroyed
[5:42 PM] emma: even jellyicent doesnt exactly beat ttar
[5:43 PM] emma: i like sand + thundurus
[5:44 PM] emma: amoonguss: annoying
[5:44 PM] emma: or maybe
[5:44 PM] emma: sand + skymin
[5:45 PM] emma: this core, could be gaming
[5:47 PM] emma: sand checked by jellicent + fightints + shroom which skymin games on
[6:13 PM] emma: also jesus christ i like freaking dislocated my shoulder or some shit this is terrible
-- Sand + Skymin matches up really well into Memoric, who uses 0 Landorus-T and relies on Jellicent + Hitmontop / Amoonguss to check it which both fold against Shaymin-Sky.
-- Wanted a Steel for my last and SMB recommended Swords Dance Flying Gem Acrobatics Scizor which Mizuhime brought Week 1 but didn't reveal. Was really glad to have a cool Bo1 tech since Memoric is better than me and I wanted some sort of edge.
-- Double Dark STAB on Tyranitar because I really wanted to click Pursuit on Latios but also have something reliable for Jellicent.
-- DaWoblefet so kindly PMd me on Showdown giving me tips on what Memoric likes and what to bring. He talked about how Memoric never uses Landorus-T and how a variation of Sand would be good which made me feel a lot better about my team choice.
-- On double Thunder Wave: [6:30 PM] SMB: suggestion: thunder wave spam
-- Nicknames are cute girls + talah (who is also cute)
[SQU] Memoric vs. emma [HER]
I win if I hit Rock Slide, but honestly I should won even with the miss. I had a pretty solid matchup but rushed through the entire match, and especially the endgame, since we were already officially eliminated. I didn't deserve to win at all even though I got "unlucky" at the end. Pretty mad about this game -- if I played at a much slower pace and thought things through a bit more I feel like I definitely could have taken it. Props to Memoric for clicking all the right buttons - he deserved the win more than me.
SMB and I, with help from the rest of the team, built Tony's teams this tournament so I also want to show off epic Necrozma.
urshifu lele sleep 1 urshifu lele sleep 2 urshifu lele sleep 3 GAMER NECROZMA
-- I had Urshifu / Tapu Lele / Amoonguss in my builder for a long time (since DLC2 dropped) but could never really figure out a six I really liked. Zapdos and Heatran were really good fits, while the last pokemon was a bit of a tossup. Adding Landorus-T has a good glue with Stealth Rocks + Intimidate + U-Turn which is always nice, and I especially like(d) having a ground type on all my teams.
-- Raineko actually used the same 5 but with Necrozma > Landorus-T in a Discord Premier League match against me and it matched really well into the Tapu Fini / Kyurem-Black / Porygon2 cores I was spamming. I changed around some of the sets such as making Heatran and Necrozma fast instead of acting as a Trick Room mode as you can see in Version 3.
-- Lele + Necrozma shreds all of Paraplegic's teams, so I suggested the six for Tony to use against him and SMB had some nice changes such as Timid Zapdos, Eject Button Amoonguss, and Choice Scarf Urshifu.
-- The team did exactly what it was supposed to do and it's now 6-0 in Tournament Games. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
-- I think Tapu Lele + Amoonguss archetypes are the strongest in the metagame right now, and I might make another post about it in the NP thread soon.
Really happy that I went 5-1 :) I had a super mediocre DPL last year so glad I could return to the tier with 6 players and do well. Shoutouts to my awesome team, Stax for building the finals team, and JRL for helping me test a good amount after I hadn't played mons for a while.
I didn't actually scout that much - XY is a pretty centralized tier with about 10 Pokemon I would consider good, and didn't feel like I ever needed to venture outside of my comfort zone in my actual games. I compiled my rejects, however, and I feel like I went off the deep end quite a few times.
Week 1 vs Emforbes
I didn't know what to expect from Emilio considering he hasn't played much XY, so I brought good Pokemon with not much spice. AV Hydreigon was something cool that Level 51 used last year, and I value the defensive utility that Dragons have against Volcanion and Thund. This was the first year that TTar had been considered a really solid Pokemon and I abused that, assuming Emilio wouldn't prep for it, but tbh neither did I LMAO, this team was pretty weak to it. HP Grass Volc because the team had a lot of stuff for opposing Volcanion and I had no Gastro check.
Week 2 vs Toxigen
Jelli is one of those mons that I couldn't get to work for a Long time until this week, and the Gengar + TTar core helped it trap the very specific things it was weak to in order to let it win endgame. This was the only time I did not use Volcanion this tournament and I think the team feels it most in the lack of good 'mons to just "click buttons" with. If you're using this team yourself, try to play the trapping -> Jellicent wincon pretty hard. I would probably not use a team without Volcanion in the future, makes me super uncomfortable :_:
Week 3 vs JRL
I literally had Rain loaded up and ready to go and misclicked into this team I was testing - glad I did though, because Rain had a horrendous matchup into JRL's team. This fit the same semi TR mold that last week's team did. Tyranitar is really terrifying under TR almost as a solo threat, and I think P2 has been underrated in the tier for a while. Heroes called out my general weakness to Sylveon and brought this + the first use of God Manectric to beat my typical MGar stuff. Was in a playable, but not great position if Heat Wave didn't crit my Gengar but I crit the Sylveon with Sludge Bomb and got bailed out of having to actually play the game.
Week 4 vs Mishimono
I figured I was probably going to get hard CT'd considering I had basically brought the same clowns 3 weeks in a row. JRL ended up using my Week 3 team in Week 4 and I basically used his, with Amoonguss > Jellicent. This was because I was absolutely terrified of Bisharp, something that Mishimono has brought in the past, and Bisharp basically sweeps the majority of my teams 6-0. I'm still not 100% sure how to beat it with conventional mons, please don't CT me :(. This began my constant use of Manectric - it fits how I handle the tier about as well as Gengar and is able to beat Gengar, so it felt relatively splashable to me.
Funny enough Mishi brought Superpower Hydrei this game and I was also testing it for this week ._.
Week 5 vs Amaranth
Band Kyube was really funny in tests - I think a grand total of 4 fairies had been brought in the tournament up to this point, and it can really push in balance if given the chance with Intimidates. My love affair with Manectric continued, and I brought Aegislash, which I don't think is a great mon, because I was a bit scared of Diancie with the Kyurem-B, but I knew I was still a bit weak to it. Squirtles called out the usual qsns bullshit and brought Sub LO Deo-A, and Amaranth played well (the switch from Amoonguss -> Volcanion on Turn 5 was great and locked me out of pressuring anything this game).
Finals vs Amaranth
I AFK'd for two weeks and Fespy tagged me the day before the match begging me to build. Stax had posted two teams, I picked this one. shoutouts Stax. I lucked this one a bit but I think I was in a pretty good position before I crit the Jellicent.
I had a really mid DPL at 2-3 but I enjoy the tier a lot and I also like talking a lot so I will analyze my teams anyways. Gonna be lazy and link you to the replays thread if you want to see how the teams actually performed. Huge thanks to fespy for his expert EVs and guidance, additional shoutouts to Grandmas Cookin for prep and Z Strats for help with the finals team/game
Week 1 VS Z Strats - You Can (Not) Redo
The team had already won the week and I was really being hard on myself for picking a new team, so Fespy rightly convinced me to bring something I felt comfortable with. I had been using something similar to this team for a while in Discord PLs. I started DOU right when Crown Tundra dropped and I had been using DD Zygarde teams then, so transitioning to CB Zygarde balances just felt really natural. I would probably make the Mew run Coaching on this team if I could do it again, because there isn't really a lot of longevity for TSpikes to be capitalized upon. Regardless, Z Strats hit me pretty hard with their Volcarona team. I think I played a decent game but lost by playing the endgame poorly.
The team name 1.0 + 1.0 is a reference to the Evangelion rebuild series, as I had to rebuild this Zygarde from the stuff I was comfortable using already. You Can (Not) Redo is a song from the series, and I rounded out my nicknames with the title of the recap movie "Death and Rebirth".
Week 2 VS Qwello Lee - Mt. Pyre
I started the week by saying that I wanted to use Eruption Heatran because I felt like it could be really strong against Qwello. I originally planned to use a SemiRoom team like the ones that flooded week 1, but ultimately Fespy and I came up with the idea to go turbo instead and I loved it. I felt like very little could effectively answer Kartana + Lando-I + Eruptran, and with Mew and Kyu-B to serve as speed control mons I was really comfortable with the core. Tapu Fini just kind of found its way onto the team by means of being a good glue mon, but being able to prevent Spores and threaten Fires was pretty big I think. Scope Lens Kartana is excellent and tbh I think it's the best Kartana item by far. I used Rock Slide Lando-I with a bit of bulk so I didn't get screwed by Volcarona again.
The team name is a reference to how the team started as semiroom, the Pokemon names are all locations in Pokemon Emerald.
Week 3 VS TonyFlygon - See You, Space Cowboy
I wanted to build DD Cube this week because I had 0 games with it and figured it would look be effective. I think this team is actually really strong, but a fatal flaw it has is being too reliant on Cube. I feel like if I could have replaced one of Zeraora or Amoonguss for some more offense it would've been way more effective. I also thought AV Genesect was wavy for some reason this week, but it ended up being a pretty big factor in my defeat. The team is really effective for setting up Kyurem though, and if you can get it going its very hard to stop. Coaching/Snarl Zera is a really sick set and I enjoyed using it. Double Puff + Setup Sweeper was also pretty huge, I think Pollen Puff is just an insanely good move. This would be a great team to get to high elo quick for DLT if you're looking for one.
The nicknames are references to some of my favorite anime series. Hunter x Hunter 1999 is better than 2011 btw.
Week 4 VS YoBuddy - Struggle of Sadness
I got lazy this week and decided to revamp my week 3 team to what I thought would be a more consistent build. However, the team doesn't have a lot of ways to pull back lost momentum which is why I got rolled. I think this was my worst team choice for this tournament and I'm the one to blame. There were a lot of better DD Kyurem builds such as the one used by Shrop, and I should have been less arrogant and been more willing to take more inspiration from them.
No nicknames this week should tell you how overwhelmed with laziness I had become.
Finals VS Paraplegic - Space Song
I did not build this team, and therefore I don't think it's fair for me to share it or write up too much about the process tbh. I decided to use it because Z Strats is a far better builder and player than I am and I put my faith in them, and luckily came out on top in a close game. Psychics are insanely good though. I didn't get to test as much as I wanted because school had been killing me and then I lost internet toward the end of the week, but thankfully I got to have the honor of bringing home the gold for the storms.
I hope to be a much better builder and player going forward!
or... overcoat escavalier!
)
