League Circuit 15 Notes
pre-round:
lovely i'm first send. keriel's team looks relatively frail except for mesprit, so in theory i should try to hit hard right? clefable and ampharos are probably my hardest hitters. i think it's safe to say that keriel will not be sending out zoroark no matter what, and he is almost definitely sending out iron valiant and/or mesprit. if i send out slowbro as my lead, keriel will probably send out weavile, so that's *probably* a no-go. if i send out clefable... the biggest threat is probably mesprit or starmie with neutral coverage? maybe? or ditto, but we outdamage that. hmm, what happens if i send out ampharos first? ...wow ampharos actually has both screens *and* volt switch. i should use this mon more often. i think i probably should have brought an expert belt because that probably helps us here. but, amphy can probably set up a screen for us. wait... do we even want a screen up? i don't think keriel has a defogger so it's probably relatively safe to do so.
tldr; i'm sending out ampharos as a screen setter with a focus sash, probably. update from future duo: yes that is exactly what i did.
round 1:
keriel sent out mesprit and seems to be setting up hazards and screens, just as i expected. unfortunately, i don't think ampharos has hazards, so i will have to settle with light screen i think. then, i also think adding on paralysis will pay off in the long term, probably? okay oops i spent three hours already, so i'm going to send the orders now.
round 2:
thunder wave means mesprit is at 3 strain, and if it switches, it gets another strain which is good. i don't think ampharos can make good progress here, so i probably want to switch in a physical attacker because mesprit set light screen ...actually i don't have any physical attackers. man, mesprit is just a wall to my team just like ampharos is a wall to keriel's team. overall, clefable is probably the best choice though, since clef gets to spam meteor beams that deal 14 through light screen while taking ...15 from iron tail? clefable also ignores stealth rock which is great. alright i'll switch to clefable @ life orb.
keriel declined to counterswitch, so i guess we get to order first. yippee my favorite *grumble grumble*
what i want to be doing here is mashing meteor beams. best case scenario i deal 14+18+14-6-2-2 = 36 damage, and mesprit deals 15+15+15 = 45 damage. that certainly hurts, but i feel like keriel will not go for iron tail, as it is only 75% accurate. double edge deals 12 damage with recoil as the second-highest damaging move i think? unfortunately i am not faster, so i cannot sub "if iron tail use minimize" and i can see potential abuse there, so i think i am fine with letting keriel raw order iron tail (if keriel orders aim, i get more damage anyways). let's see what else we need to sub for...
protection (need), decoy (no need), evasive (no need), sealed (no need), encore (no need...?), sleep status (no need), ah steel and poison combos
tldr; mash meteor beam and sub for protect and super-effective combos
holy crap i just realized i'm an idiot and i didn't even read keriel's major status sub in round 1. at least it all worked out fine lmao
round 3:
second ordering time! keriel seems to want to spam psyshock, and he has written a sub to try and prevent meteor beam.
however, he forgot we can substitute, so we can trigger the meteor beam subs behind the sub and he does nothing! i am going to pick calm minding over meteor beaming one more time because i think it gives us more long-term value. hopefully this pays off.
round 4:
first order yay... let's see what we want to do here. probably blast right?
okay copying last time's orders except i don't think mesprit has any good poison combos (except with water pulse) so let's swap that out for a pain split sub. then, let's add a confusion sub to use safeguard and then we're all good i think? yeah. probably. let's see if keriel finds something.
round 5:
very sad mesprit copied abilities and dodged big damage, letting it survive. i should've gone for substitute that time probably. anyways he switched to ditto @ metal powder which is super fat, so we should go to ampharos (deny him boosts). why are there so many fat mons this game aaaa
okay so our game plan right now is just mash seismic toss because i don't trust meteor beam. do we care about magnetic flux? probably not right. we can sub to use it if protect i guess. meteor beam from him deals 17 or 21 and recoil deals a lot, so let's sub to use confuse ray if he meteor beams. do we want to phaze him? if we phaze him we order first which is sad, but we do force him into either a bad matchup or a neutral matchup, so maybe? he could also literally just meteor beam x3 me and deal 55 damage. scary. oh i can light screen. let's do that and turn his 17/21 damage into a 12/16. but is it worth it? we probably want confuse ray right. and magnetic flux reduces damage by more anyways. what else do we care about... i think that is probably it right. oh let's sub to use meteor beam just in case keriel does a weird bulldoze - dig - dig thing. okay i think we are ready to post. let's go, and let's hope keriel doesn't find a sub exploit.
round 5:
okay let's catch up on what happened. keriel ordered counter x3 which is sad. then he switched to weavile @ metronome @ choice band so i was like sure order first with two subs buddy. then he didn't sub for decoy because he kind of couldn't. so yay sub punch!
rip sub punch. anyways we're just mashing fighting attacks with spinda and hoping for the best now.