Tournament Most Wanted II - Tour Feedback & Set / Team Dump

Lasen

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With Most Wanted having finished a couple of days ago I thought I'd make a thread where people can freely share their opinion on the format of Most Wanted, what they seemed to like and dislike overall or compared to the previous iteration of the tournament. This also functions as a place where you can dump all the teams you built and are willing to share with the rest of the community. If you're gonna post a complaint, do try to give us a possible solution that's also realistic.

- Sign up with 3 tiers of your choosing SS / USM / ORAS / BW2 / DPP / ADV. - These tiers are LOCKED all tournament. Choose wisely what you want to offer to a team. You cannot play any other tiers. - High activity is a requirement to play in this tournament because you can only be benched once every 2 weeks. - Draft occurs via a snake method. Player value (starting bounty) is based on draft position. Drafted earlier = higher bounty. - Captains and players decide what tier they play each week (only 1). - Your opponent will be someone in the same tier that week with a similar bounty to you. - If you win, you take 50% of your opponents bounty. Vice versa if you lose. - Upon a third loss you are assassinated. When assassinated, your final opponent takes all your remaining bounty. - Work with your team to get the total bounty across all members before week 7 ends. That number is 275,000. - Teams can nominate an assassin to freely pick any opponent in their tier when they reach a certain number of total wins. - Additional progress toward assassin status is earned via wins in "cold" tiers, or by sweeping a week.



[02:46]
Victory: • The first team to achieve 275,000 bounty by the end of a given week is the winner • If two teams manage to achieve 275,000 bounty by the end of the same week, the team that exceeds by a higher margin is the winner • If no team achieves 275,000 bounty by the end of Week 7, the team with the highest bounty upon the conclusion of Week 7 is the winner Team Formation: • Teams will be formed though a snake draft • Draft order is randomly assigned Bounty: • Bounty is held by each player and a team’s bounty is equal to the sum of all its player’s bounties • A player’s initial bounty is determined by draft position • All captains have an initial bounty of 25,000 Team & Player Quantities: • There will be exactly six (6) teams • Each team will have exactly eleven (11) players • The total number of initial players will therefore be sixty-six (66)



[02:46]
Tier Support & Registration • All battles will be best of one • At signup, players will register for exactly three (3) of the supported tiers • Captains may not submit lineups with more than three (3) players in a given tier per week • Players may freely change tiers every week, but may only play tiers that they registered for at signup • The tier or tiers that receive the lowest number of matchups in a given week will be declared “cold” for the following week. Players who win a match in a “cold” tier will earn a two (2) game progression for their team’s assassin status Benching: • A team may bench no more than one (1) player per week • A player may not be benched for consecutive weeks, or forcibly benched due to lack of matchups for consecutive weeks • Players who must be benched due to lack of a matchup do not count as a team’s bench and receive no penalty • Activity losses are treated the same as normal losses • Players in a "dead game" will not lose bounty, but will lose a life. A player killed by a dead game will have their bounty split between the highest valued players that are not on their team • Players who "no show" or similarly become inactive will be considered illegal benches and will have their bounty split between the highest valued players that are not on their team
[02:46]
Matchups: • Weekly matchups are determined by a player’s bounty at the start of the week • Players in a given tier are sorted by bounty and matched against their closest neighbor from top to bottom • Two or more players with equally close neighbors will be randomly determined • Two players will not be paired against each other in consecutive weeks • In the event that an odd number of players register for a tier, the lowest bounty player must select another tier in which they are registered. If no alternate tier with an odd number of entrants is available, said player must be benched that week Assassin Status: • Assassin Status is held by teams, and can only be achieved upon a team’s twentieth (20th), twenty-eighth (28th), and thirty-sixth (36th) win, and is effective the following week • A team that has achieved Assassin Status may select one of their players to challenge any player within the tier they play that week • This status is optional and does not have to be taken advantage of by the potential assassin • A win in a “cold” tier counts as two (2) wins toward assassin status • Additionally, a team which sweeps a week (lossless) will earn an additional three (3) wins toward assassin status
Bounty Transfer and Player Lives: • The winning player takes 50% of their opponent’s bounty • Bounty will not be split into denominations lower than 500, rounded up • The minimum bounty transaction is 1,000 • Players start with three (3) lives • A life is lost for every game a player loses • Players that lose their third life are eliminated for the remainder of the tournament • When a player eliminates another player, they receive 100% of their remaining bounty Trades and Administration: • Trades will not occur under any circumstances • Captains may replace those designated as "team cancer" prior to the posting of Week 1 with any player remaining from the draft pool • These replaced players will be set at the same initial bounty as the removed "team cancer"

As far as my personal opinion goes:

Strengths:
  • The "cold tiers" replacing "dead tiers" incentivises old gens players as well as flexible slots​
  • The bounty goal of 275,000 seems approachable and not overblown​
  • Snake Draft format makes for an interesting draft from start to finish where captains can target specific pools but can't completely remove the player pool​
  • Bounty-based match-ups make for pretty close matches in most cases​
  • Teams can be competitive all the way till the end even if they start a later week at the bottom of the rankings with good play​
  • Players being eliminated makes things feel fresh from your standard, run of the mill round-robin team tournaments​


Weaknesses:

  • Assassins feel very underwhelming, being neither able to force someone off the bench nor having the ability to kill someone immediately
  • Unmotivated players and/or "team cancers" get very harshly punished
  • Players picked up early in the draft can snowball a lead very quickly and carry their team all by themselves
  • Being able to be benched with a high bounty, get picked as an assassin to snipe someone who you don't see as a threat and then be benched again so you do not risk losing bounty can be abused to hide a team's large bounty if it's collected on a single person
  • 6 day weeks feel awkward, where Mondays are neither a period of rest nor one where you can prep
  • Large player pool lead to multiple matches which felt like they barely mattered in the grand scheme of things

Overall, the positives far outweigh the negatives, but the assassin being severely crippled when compared to their MW I status felt like it was merely a formality, as we saw multiple match-ups where high bounty players went after other high bounty players who they could have hit without expending their assassin status. I believe that the uniqueness of this tournament can lead into an eventual evolution of it that is as close as to perfect as possible. I'd like to see all of your suggests and teams.
 

Garrett

Banned deucer.
As a spectator it felt sort of weird to see good games being played that meant essentially nothing for that team. I could see it being very demoralizing for many starting with <5000 bounty and, for example, going 1-1 just to end with slightly less than what you started with. The tournament was basically protect your 2-0 player at the end of week 2 at all costs, with the rest meaning nothing.

I would suggest turning the assassin mechanic on its head: give the worse performing teams a chance to catch-up with assassins instead of giving teams with the most early wins a chance to steal more too quickly. The fact this could've ended week 3 is telling. It would be a great meme but also fun to maybe give the worst performing players assassin status. You re-motivate against the team cancers and give everyone a reason to play even if a team is ridiculously behind.
 

byulharang

formerly Holy Ghost
is a Tiering Contributor
Some feedback as all my teams were given to me and I dont want to post teams I did not create.

First off I want to thank Minority for creating and hosting Most Wanted, this tour was made back when players wanted another team tour and the old mod team didn't support Ubers world cup at all so much respect for you coming forward and giving us such a creative tournament, which I feel many people forget. I didn't pay attention much last year but I see a lot of people bashing the tournament and i'm not saying anyone is right or wrong but I want to give my thoughts on playing this year. I was not super involved and im not the best heavy thinker in the world so if I say something dumb/wrong feel free to bash me, I take critism.
I really enjoy how you're basically able to pick who you battle each week or at least get a good idea on who you can face and how you play people with similar bounty/skill/worth. I think the assassin role this time is fairly balanced and manageable although I think it could be good to have maybe a protection of some sort to prevent someone being a target back to back weeks, like lets say a high bounty (~50k) is the target of a low bounty assassin (~5k), what is stopping them from being targeted next week? I'm not sure how much of a problem this REALLY is but imagine a team like the Darkrai's where the big bounty players were me and icemaster so we absolutely needed to get bounty for our team to not sink under but me being targeted by plat (2k bounty) basically was a dead week for me, I gained only 2k if I won and lost like 21k. If I won I could be targeted again next week and if this were to happen and it was another low bounty I imagine my team would have close to no chance at winning as it would have only been icemaster gaining money for the team the past 2 weeks and the other teams would be progressing at a much better rate. I think a good solution to fixing this POSSIBLE problem would be to maybe make it so a player cannot be a target for assassination in the SAME tier back to back weeks, maybe allowing it if they switch tiers? Also if the target wins maybe it would count as more wins towards their own teams assassin like cold tiers did but since it has higher stakes and is more rare than cold tiers it could be worth more like 3 wins, i'm not sure just throwing ideas out there (the extra wins wouldn’t be available for the assassin imo since the risk is on the target, not the assassin). Another cool thing would be to make assassin games a bo3 with these higher stakes since its no longer a deathmatch this could help add similar hype feeling surrounding the assassin games.
A problem a lot of people seem to have is how low bounty players are basically worthless except for gaining wins and i'm not sure how this would be fixed as it imo is the heart of the tournament, big bounty focuses on bounty and smaller bounty focuses on gaining as much wins as possible however they can which can be money tiers like usm/ss or stacking in cold tiers. I feel players who go on streaks should be awarded in some way too, mainly to provide an extra way for low bounty players to feel motivated in their games which I know a lot of players felt unmotivated as they thought their games made 0 impact. Rewarding streaks also awards consistent players as on paper players play people of similar skill every week so this would be a good addition if a viable way was found, i'm not entirely sure but I like the idea of 4 wins to get assassin although idt I would add that back but maybe after 3-4 wins you get an extra win added towards assassin every win or 60% of the player you beats bounty or SOMETHING to reward streaks as they aren't that common and easy to get. Also want to point out in the rules an extreme is stated that "Additional progress toward assassin status is earned via wins in "cold" tiers, or by sweeping a week." and maybe you could add another extreme such as if a player goes a crazy 5/6-0 they get an assassin status for their team, i'm not too confident on this though as it might add unbalanced scenarios but its just brainstorming more incentives. I speak on adding more ways to reward players and teams because my team was very unmotivated as we felt our games didn't matter much as we started off pretty bad and had the idea that we couldn't catch up to the other teams which lead to us spiraling down even further, this can ultimately be blamed on the players though and not the tournament which I understand this already but making a solution for low bounty players to feel more eager about winning and that they do in fact matter in the grand scheme of things would be excellent.
I think I've spoken on the main problems of the tournament, bounty inflation at the top and low bounty players feeling not as needed as mid/high bounty players. I wish I was gifted in math to try and find an optimal solution for this but I cannot although I feel the math already set this MW is fine and i'm just biased on this because my team had a bad season, I'll look at other players and spectators thoughts on this. I think it would be interesting to adjust the percentage of bounty earned on a win at a certain level, maybe below a specific bounty or above but maybe this is just a stupid idea. Another thing I saw talked about were old gens and how adv was basically noitu vs heysup every other week. I'm not sure on how this would be fixed but I think adding the bonus win in cold tiers was a great addition. I'm also a believer in this tour is where players who can play more than one gen will tend to shine and you shouldn't try to stay in one old gen the whole tournament unless it's working out for you ofc. I wonder if its possible to change the bounty taken from 50% to something more risk/rewarding in cold tiers or if me bringing up changing the % impossible and irrelevant as it would fuck the numbers up somewhere and if it does im sorry for bringing these ideas up. If changing the % if possible I'm not sure if it would cause more positive than negative as the winner is rewarded more but the loser would also lose more unless a workaround is found. If a tier like adv gave you extra wins towards assassin and you gained a bigger percentage from winning or something I would have def stayed in adv opposed to going to usm most likely, but again if other people have better ideas or thoughts on this I want to read them as I think a solution to tiers basically dying is possible somehow.
Also want to ask what the reasoning for a bounty cap to win is for? I feel it would be viable to just make it so the highest team bounty after w7 or whatever (if you want to extend it to upl length might be cool to see even more dead players but the tour might be watered down bounty wise if you extend it) wins to reward good overall team standing instead of a potential ideal matchup one week to where they can win at week 4. I might have more ideas but I made this sorta on the fly, I am not heavily educated on the tournament and I don't want to water down my points or just start rambling about interesting "what if" situations so I'll leave it at this. Again thank you Minority for hosting, you did a good job imo and i'll use this to shoutout my team, thank you for drafting me! We had an unlucky season but you all were cool people and I got to talk to people I haven't before, hopefully I see you guys take some souls in upl !
 
I mostly stand by what Holy Ghost said, but I also wanna add the "no pairing" issue.
In the Darkrais, both Samqian and I didn't even have a week 1 pairing, which had 3 issues imo
1. It is extremely frustrating not to be able to play week one in this tour format, where you ideally wanna farm a bigger bounty each week.
2. Both him and I got a pairing week 2, which was an higher bounty player that lost Week 1. This is honestly kinda whack. The DPP week 1 pool had many players with higher starting bounties than I did, with 378 at 14,5k, Zayele at 7k and Thorx at 5,5k, yet my first pairing was against Toma which started at 17,5k.
3. I couldn't realistically play in good conditions as I was super busy Week 2, and I knew this ages before the tournament was even announced, however I was forced to play as being benched twice in a row isn't allowed.
 

AM

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LCPL Champion
Most stuff contributed to me was from team. Diancie Darkceus team that orch gave me an anxiety attack watching him use after it didnt do well first game was a framework I had we changed a bit to make it more useful like changing spdef don to eruption. Decided not to use my own stuff or go too far out with techs I used in test games after first game due to worry of counterteaming, since I watched how easy it was to pull replays for study purposes and find out quickly what someone didn't match up well against. Plus CKW always had something solid on deck that didn't feel too matchupy at times so I had support there in addition to my life workload.

It felt kind of weird especially the last week where there was only one ADV Ubers game cause people got knocked out and most bounty was SM/SS stuff, Idk if there's a fix outside of not forcing people to play a specific tier and perhaps sign up suggest a tier they would like to play and not be locked in. Maybe it'll help balance out the amount of matches we see in certain tiers since things like ADV basically got killed off in the later portion.

The meme of Peli practically not playing for close to a month was also bit of a circus. I was getting my ass kicked in games holding onto my pennies but I at least showed up to play lol. I agree with Lasen's stuff but wanted to give my perspective. The bounty stuff was always confusing to me cro had to keep like a spreadsheet to let us know what was going on so I can't speak too much on that unfortunately.
 
teamdump

week 1 vs astounded: https://pokepast.es/694b0d27d3fed895
week 4 vs paradise seeker: https://pokepast.es/9cebd09ba18770c5

Didn't have much time to build this tour so I only made new teams for week 1 and week 4. I'm pretty happy with how the teams turned out, some nifty sets I used include:

fast overheat pdon instead of fast eruption pdon - eruption is often quite useless after it gets chipped
toxic refresh darkceus - very annoying for teams that lack a magearna, and teams that have a magearna get punished hard by max spA overheat pdon
psyshock on scarf xern to hit gengar

sd dragon tail pdon - used this a few times recently, i also tried thunder wave > dragon tail
max spdef ho-oh - nice as a pure defogger since it takes judgments/lots of other sp attacks very well
hex shadow ball mgar - built this team around hex, but shadow ball is absolutely indispensible on any mgar set to net the ko on ultra-necrozma
adamant marshadow - this has netted me a huge number of kos in test games that jolly misses out on - supportceus have been running very low speed recently and this aims to punish it, as well as hitting zygarde and pdon harder
 
Just wanted to do some quick shoutouts and give my thoughts on the format. Didn't build anything new for this tour so I'm not doing any sort of team dump.

Huge thanks to Aishia and squinn for a great season as managers, you guys were super helpful and supportive throughout the season and the energy that you guys brought really showed in how well we performed across the board. Extra thanks for trusting me with assassin status and I'm glad I was able to make it pay off.

Enzo Gorlami you were a great leader and veteran presence for us and it was fun getting to build and test with you, hopefully we get to do it again sometime.

TrueNora, crucify, Fogbound Lake - The homies from the Ballfire server days, was fun getting to pair with you guys and watch you dominate SS.

I also wanna thank guys like Chill Shadow, Mysterious M, Noitu, Aberforth, Lord Thorx and even Eternal Spirit on occasion for being great players and teammates as well as making the team chat a fun place to hang out.

Thanks to Hugo Barrington, The Dovahneer, Paradise Seeker and Garay oak for being cool and helping with teams / tests.

And one last special shoutout to Goat Heart ♥ for the help with prep as well as introducing me to competitive and smogon in the first place, sorry we couldn't convince Nora to use Lanturn.

I definitely don't think that this tour is a lost cause like some others seem to, I think it's a fun concept that with some adjustments could be a unique draw for Ubers. That being said, with World Cup of Ubers on the horizon, I'm not entirely sure there's a place for a third team tour in a single year.

The main issue I had with it was the extreme disparity between the top and the bottom of the draft's initial bounties. This caused the top player's bounties to snowball out of control and led to lack in motivation for games between low bounty players and for players on teams whose top 3 didn't didn't have flawless / near flawless records.

I also think that assassin status was a bit underwhelming, removing the ability to choose benched players and only taking half of a player's bounty left it kind of weak for what was supposed to be the tour's main selling point. I'm aware some people were annoyed that it could force high bounty players into what were essentially dead weeks for them, but I think that the chance for lower bounty players to call out those at the top is what makes the mechanic exciting in the first place and that any solution that's reached should preserve the possibility of this dynamic.

Based off these issues, here are a couple of possible solutions that I think could be good:

1. Players start with the same bounty or a max spread of approx. 5k difference from top to bottom of the draft.

Pretty simple fix to what was in my opinion the tours biggest issue -- makes it so that games are impactful no matter a player's draft order and makes it much less likely that a team can simply run away with the tour by having a good first 3 weeks from their top 3 picks. Top players should be winning their games anyways so starting with a lower bounty shouldn't be an issue if they're worth their spot.

2. Add back assassin ability to bypass safehouse, increase assassination winnings to minimum 75%, failed assassination attempts now grant either assassin status to the survivors team or a large number of points towards it.

Allowing assassins to force games and win a larger amount of bounty adds back that sense of danger I think the mechanic should carry, meanwhile the failed assassination attempts boosting the target's team's chance at assassination solves the issue of the target not having anything to play for. There's other limitations I think you could consider here in case just free assassin status is too overpowered such as assassin status exclusively for the targeted player or just against the original assassin's team, but nonetheless I think this is a pretty equitable solution.

Anyways, I had a great time with this, hope to see you guys around!
 
Last edited:

cromagnet

I pledge allegiance to the grind
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So one big thing that I kept noticing because I kept a running tally of my team's points week-to-week is how difficult it is for players, on average, to make back points they lose after a single loss. It seems to be an intrinsic thing/issue for the tour because you can't just make bounty out of thin air and I get that.
So for example, BaconEatinAssassin lost week 1, and it was only by week 4 (almost at the end!) that he had a record of 2-1 and was able to break even and be eligable to make a profit on the next game. It seems that, on average, it takes players 2 consecutive wins to make back points from a single loss and break even. This same thing happened with several other players on my team and I'm sure it is consistent across MW. It just makes it very tough for players/teams to bounce back when they take a loss. This also means that if a team has a particularly rough week, there is a good chance they are out of the running for the win and primarily serve as a spoiler to teams with higher bounties.
Perhaps this difficulty of making points back is by design, I don't know. This difference in weight between a win and a loss is just something I wanted to bring up, since, as I have shown, losses affect significantly more than a win. I do see how assassin can somewhat remedy this as does knocking out players on their last life in later weeks. Again, I do see why it's this way to keep a set amount of points in play. I don't know if its something that can/should be fixed but I figured it was worth bringing up.
Overall fun tour though!
 
It was a quite pleasant for me to play this tour! First I should thank a lot to Lasen and steelskitty for offering a guy never played team tour before like me the chance, it's always my pleasure to be one of Astral Assassins, hope we can be teammates again in the future. As a player being inactive after losing finally in 2018's ssnl, I gained a lot knowledge from you guys, I should especially thank Astounded and SparksBlade for always offering suggestions to me, and by the way I have to apologize to steelskitty again for my boldness on choosing team, I'll be more cautious in future tours. Besides, it's really a bigggg pleasant surprise to be friend with Zayele , you are always sweet as an angel!
And I should also thank ppl always encouraging me, especially Garay oak , TrueNora , Lazy_bread27 , 64 Squares , Rhmsitb , Mega zygarde-100% and no doubt my cutie Aishia , I can't make it without the cheers.
hmmm...my team dump?
https://pokepast.es/f7afba1698a60ada
It's the team I used in week 3, mega punny is a big surprise if used correctly, such as this, hope it can offer some inspiration.
https://pokepast.es/1c91fac2a3b1e199
yh webs are always not reliable...but for me, this team is very interesting, normalium Z ekiller can lure many physical walls such as Zygarde, Yveltal and Groudon with the unusual seen giga impact: +2 252+ Atk Arceus Breakneck Blitz (200 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde: 426-502 (101.4 - 119.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Arceus Breakneck Blitz (200 BP) vs. 252 HP / 56+ Def Groudon-Primal: 393-463 (97.2 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
Shadow Force is my personal preference since it can deal more damage on giratina and necrozma, but it may struggle on hitting faster ghosts when webs are removed, as the downside aspect.
Blacephalon is another interesting mon to be used in ubers tier, webs make it's enough decent speed very hard to outspeed, except mons immune to webs. Besides, it's STABs are very hard to wall in this meta, with the coverage move hp ice to gain neat koes on 4*weaks, it's really a demon in late games. At last, taunt is useful not only to block defogs but also give the clown the ability to break stalls, I just copied it from a ladder guy but it turned out to be useful.
In the end, congrats to SSY for winning this tour, Aishia ily very much and hope can be teammate with you in the future.
That's all I wanna say, I'm sorry if didn't express well, English is not my mother tongue, farewell guys, cya in the coming upl.
 

Manaphy

Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am family guy
is a Tiering Contributoris a Top Contributor
MUHFUGGIN UHHHHH TEAM DUMP

Week 1 vs TonyFlygon
https://pokepast.es/8b318e1e75231ea7

If there was a highlight game for the whole tour, this honestly might be the game. Crazy game that was dictated by my very unique team, catching Tony off-guard. He was able to abuse Marshadow very effectively however, and I was BARELY able to finesse around it. He recognized his wincon by the endgame well and played amazingly well for the position he was in. I was feeling on Cloud 9 after winning this game because it was so fun and crazy and by the end I had literally won about 10 billion 50/50s that could have swung the game to his way instantly.

The concept of the team was to abuse Dugtrio; it was mostly known for being able to remove Zacian-C from the game after some chip damage, mainly from Rocky Helmet, however I was able to abuse the fact that most people didn't realize that Dugtrio is an excellent trapper of Eternatus as well, even more so after the DLC dropped due to Eternatus having to go Special Defense over Defense. When I was thinking about Dugtrio, I got reminded that Dugtrio in pre-home SS was able to be EV'd to live a +3 Quick Attack from Zacian-C, so that got me wondering if I could have Dugtrio live an attack from Eternatus, and god damn it it could! You also didn't have to run as much speed on Dugtrio as you had to before due to Volcarona being gone, so it naturally lended itself to being invested in HP. This Dugtrio set tanks a Dynamax Cannon from Eternatus after Stealth Rocks, meaning with a bit of damage on Eternatus you can RAW SWITCH INTO IT and kill, which is pretty amazing. This is exactly what I did in this game, using Ho-Oh as a way to force Eternatus in.
Band Ho-Oh is one of the most abusable mons in the whole tier, but I also wanted a team that could reliably prevent Stealth Rocks from being up on the field. Banded Ho-Oh is one of the best breakers, especially as most teams have almost no counterplay to it other than Stealth Rocks themselves, which, granted, are a big limiting factor if they do go up. Defog Skarmory was my original idea, but since I thought of using Dugtrio to remove the best check to Ho-oh, Eternatus, I figured I would go to the classic pre-home SS route of Corviknight + Dugtrio. To many, it seemed dated, especially Corviknight who appeared to lost it's niche with Excadrill falling off, however Corviknight makes an excellent cockblock to Necrozma-DM. Nothing else can switch into NDM and sit on it's face and defog away like Corviknight can, particularly because Pressure means you can outstall their Rocks with your Defogs. At the same time, Corviknight could be used for it's classic purpose of semi-checking Zacian-C while not being vulnerable to Gothitelle; U-Turning into trappers is also very effective. Corviknight's ability to cockblock NDM and Zacian-C was a huge factor in winning me this game.
For the rest of the team, Yveltal was basically a given, and Blissey was chosen due to it's role compression. Particularly, Blissey's ability to check both Kyogre (both choiced and CM) and Xerneas in one slot was something that Eternatus couldn't do. While Blissey also appears passive, it's ability to Teleport was another huge factor for me using it, and it synergizes very nicely with Dugtrio and everything else. Xerneas was my last chosen mon, giving me another wincon, a Cleric (something I almost require on any balance), and a Zygarde check in one. I ended up giving Yveltal Toxic as a last-minute change as I felt getting the surprise Toxic on opposing Yveltals could be a good way to create favorable endgame scenarios for me should Xerneas or Ho-Oh end up dying, which certainly paid off here. I also decided to go with a more defensive Yveltal spread, considering I had Blissey to help with the Calyrex-SR matchup. I wanted to go Max Def which would have significantly improved my Marshadow match-up, but I decided to hedge my bets because the speed could have been critical for a possible Groudon match-up. Thankfully it worked out for me but a well-played Marshadow is definitely a huge threat. Overall this is the team I'm most proud of this tour, as I think it was super creative but also fun to use and had a huge amount of synergy.

Week 2 vs Fc04
https://pokepast.es/6783eb59957467b9

This game ended up being really lame because Fc got screwed over by hax pretty hard. I do think it would have been a really interesting game otherwise for sure. In particular it felt extra lame after how lit the previous game was.

For my team here, I decided to go with another balance again as I was still feeling out the players and the meta and felt it was too early to go hard HO or stall. You can see some concepts I mentioned above in this team again, for example the reappearance of Blissey (clerics are just sexy) and the appearance of Max Def Yveltal. Of particular note is the Groudon set; it's EV'd to live a +3 Behemoth Blade from Zacian-C. This was really nice as it gave Groudon more defensive utility than it already had checking Zekrom; coincidentally, I discovered that it made Groudon able to tank a Foul Play from Yveltal quite comfortably after Groudon has already SD'd up. I thought this was particularly powerful as many teams only defense against Groudon is Foul Play Yveltal, and you could essentially set-up on it's face. Ice Beam Blissey may also seem really weird, but it still hit Calyrex and it particularly dissaudes Zygardes from trying to set-up on you. Since you already have Aromatherapy, I figured going for Serene Grace could give this non-teleport Blissey a somewhat bigger way to be less passive (a 20% freeze chance is pretty massive). Ho-Oh was then chosen for it's offensive and defensive roles, I decided to reduce the defense it has as it was redundant since you already lived a Wild Charge from Zacian-C with the EVs I have there, and put the rest into Attack. Thunder Wave Ho-Oh is a great lure for Etern which I wanted to abuse with CB Marshadow, although generally the yellow magic is fucking broken as you can see here.

Week 3 vs Icemaster
https://pokepast.es/e0df408cbf629522

This was game was pretty weird. I never ran into a CB Caly-Ice before so I was caught off guard pretty heavily. Had I known what it was I would have been able to play around it a lot better imo. Still, the game ended up being tighter than I expected by the end thanks to LO Etern doing some good work. It may have even been a still winnable game, and I think one of my flaws as a player is that when I see some crazy unexpected shit go wrong for me from the start I generally give up and start playing meh.

The team was chosen as another balance because I figured by week 3 people were catching on to everyone going balance, and were deciding to HO it up. terra had me convinced that ice woulda HO'd me lol, and while I thought it was pretty likely I wasn't totally sure. Scarf Yveltal was chosen just to be absolutely sure no webs could do any work against me. LO Etern was also chosen as I figured there was a decent chance that ice would go balance again himself, and I noticed he had very little Blissey usage recently. The rest of the team is pretty standard I think, I still have my Blissey and Groudon fetish on full display here haha. I decided to give Thunder Wave a try just to change it up but it ended up being super unfortunate because double dance Groudon would have ended up being a huge threat to ice's team.
Before this game we each joked about how the tour might finish week 3 and we'll bring meme teams if we do, and apparently in ice's mind this perfectly legit and functional team was his meme team that he decided to bring anyway. that man is fucking crazy, when I say meme team I mean a prim and proper Regigigas team, not some actually decent Calyrex-ice nonsense!

Week 4 vs Skysolo
https://pokepast.es/be6d2c580bed4c24

I am pretty familiar with user SKYSOLO... I was actually a SirFetch'd at last year's most wanted with Icemaster and Goat Heart, Solo is truly a visionary lmao. He was also the user who DEFEATED ME WITH MY OWN TEAM in the pre-home SS breakout tour. Because of this I am pretty familiar with Solo and his building mindset, so I knew I wanted a nice thicc W here. Solo is still IMO one of the best ubers players hands down.

Ok here's the thing about Skysolo: he likes using fun shit. Because of this, he's usually using some like B- tier mon on his team and because of that his teams usually end up being weak to some big threats. This is the reason I decided to just screens him, as I figured his team would probably get 6-0'd by groudon or zekrom or something else. I ended up pretttttttttyyyy much right about this, so this victory ended up being a real nice feeling because I hadn't beaten solo in tour before this. This was the basically the screens I submitted on the sample teams thread, I just changed some sets around to possibly throw him off. I honestly think Balloon Zekrom is really legit, I wanted something that was immune to webs without having to resort to using some shit like Lando-T, and the bonus of being immune to ground-type attacks could come in clutch especially in a very fast-paced team such as this. Despite what I said earlier, this game actually ended up being very close as Solo still played well and had a pretty solid team overall; Darmanitan in particular was a mon I definitely was not giving enough credit to before this game. I ended up being able to take the W at the end of the day, but the last few turns were very, very tight and hard decisions; that Sub on Zekrom was a huge nut play. Overall this was just a really fun game with a really fun person. I was glad I was also able to show that Screens was still a very legit and good playstyle, since webs seemed to be dominating the HO scene before this.

Week 5 vs TonyFlygon 2
https://pokepast.es/b17e0750a59699c1

I was thinking about gothing his ass, but I decided against it because at this point I was 3-1 and tony is a cool guy and using goth just feels like a dick move. Instead I decided to GO FOR THE GLORY.
This team was something I was thinking about and theorymonning for awhile, it usually breaks Balance teams handily, but it entirely depends on the matchup. Let me explain:
The basic idea was to use Xerneas as a set-up mon for a grassy seed sweep; this was because Xerneas critically got Ingrain, meaning it couldn't be phazed. Combined with CM to boost up, the defense boost from grassy seed, Rest to get rid of status, and the passive healing of ingrain and terrain, Xerneas could single-handedly stomp on teams if it gets set-up. It's sounds really hard to set-up in the first place, but it's actually not. I chose to use Rillaboom over Bulu for the simple fact that Rillaboom could slow U-turn, especially on Necrozma. With Terrain Extender, Xerneas could LITERALLY set-up on Necrozma's face and outstall it's Sunsteel Strikes, which is pretty heat. Not to mention using Rillaboom is just bonus heat. The main outs to this Xerneas are 1.) Trick Calyrex 2.) Confide Blissey 3.) being HO. I knew using the team would be a big risk but I decided to go with it for the fun and because tony also likes to use fun/crazy shit (the man literally brought a charizard week 2 lmao). Unfornutaley, he ended up having a solid out with Calyrex; this is somewhat I could have potentially outplayed, but an early double para on my Etern in the beginning of the game essentially made it so that I had no room to maneuver. Overall this game was cool but also disappointing on both sides because we never we able to show off the heat on our teams (zarude didnt even come in :[ ). Still, it's pretty impressive that both teams managed to use monkes :]]]]

other teams I made/heavily were involved in:
JT Yao vs faint
Peli vs. tjay
This game was disheartening because I made a very strong team, and JT had a clear path to victory with a Specs Calyrex sweep at the end but he chokes and throws the game away. Super disappointing! Anyway, the basic concept of the team was to use Groudon as I mentioned above as a defensive utility mon but also as a offensive threat and lure to Yveltal, which opens up a nice opportunity for a Calyrex sweep should yveltal bite the dust. Swole rounds the build off being a fantastic blanket check to Groudon and Marshadow and basically any physical attacker, a great role compression mon.
Peli was able to use the team successfully vs. tjay, honestly by just tjay not being nearly careful enough with his Yveltal lmao
Punny vs faint
Very similar to my first team I talked about above, instead I replaced Band Ho-Oh with Specs Ogre, and added Zacian-C as a xerneas check and powerful offensive partner with Kyogre. Dugtrio being able to kill Eternatus makes specs ogre just ridiculous, in this game it alone it gets like 4 kills it's insane. Eternatus rounds off the build over Blissey as with no item it becomes a solid Marshadow check in addition of it's normal role of checking opposing Kyogres, and in addition, Toxic Spikes becomes a huge threat after opposing Eterns die.
IoSonoNeon vs faint
This is just a spinoff of my Screens, this team went head to head versus a webs and came out on top which is nice! The biggest changes are that I went with offensive Necrozma to cover the role of Xerneas check that Zacian-C had before, and also some HEAT with Lyranrocc. This was originally a terra idea and I almost used it versus Solo, although I ended up deciding Froslass would be a safer pick. In general, Froslass or Aerodactyl will probably be better suicide leads for teams, but Lyranrocc can get you some unexpected wins because of it's ability to Endeavor, which not many people are aware of. It also is faster than opposing Froslass which is pretty nice. overall cool mon that should probably be on the VR I think :]

jesus that was a long post, you all better appreciate it and not just use this info to counterteam me in future tournaments x)
 

Fc

Waiting for something to happen?
is a Site Content Manageris a Top Team Rateris a Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Contributoris a defending SCL Champion
Ubers Leader
I had a great time during this tour, and while the pre-emptive ending sucked before the tour could hit week 7 or I could properly be assassinated, it was still a great experience overall. S/o's at the end, but dropping the teams I used here because most were pre Zacian-C so kinda outdated and I don't mind sharing those and how I went about going into the matches.

Week 1: :gothitelle: :zacian-crowned: :necrozma-dusk-mane: :yveltal: :eternatus: :buzzwole:
This was the first main idea that I had, just abusing the broken mons. I expected some form of balance, and Gothitelle + Zacian-C was arguably the most powerful balance breaking core in the entire tier. The Gothitelle is super fast, creeping dusk mane's that run enough speed for paralyzed Calyrex-S, which ended up coming in handy in the game. Fairly standard for the rest, and showed buzzwole being great checking the Zygarde defensively and just being a solid pivot as a last mon to compliment the standard 3 mon defensive core in the tier.
Week 2: :urshifu: :blissey: :eternatus: :yveltal: :necrozma-dusk-mane: :lunala:
For this team I wanted to try out the classic paraspam strat, with super strong breakers being banded Urshifu and Life Orb Eternatus. Unfortunately I was ironically the victim of paralysis this game so it didn't get to shine as well as I wanted it to, but I think it's still quite a strong team overall. Only time I build without Zacian-C pre ban as well for a team that I actually ended up using. It was weak to Marshadow to an extent, so Eternatus ideally tried to beat it just with speed and pp stalling. Still like the idea, might need some updates post Zacian-C, but generally solid and fun to use because wicked blow.
Week 3: :rayquaza: :zacian-crowned: :slurpuff: :calyrex-shadow: :yveltal: :kyogre:
The first time I tried HO in a team tour, and it didn't go so well unfortunately. I do think that the team was still really good though, and may have been able to win but didn't. It used magic coat Slurpuff as the webs setter to ideally beat shuckle and prevent rocks from going up with the sash spam, and has a fairly good MU against most teams, because the multiple sashes don't let common things just take a hit and drop the attackers in 1 hit. I really wanted to use Scale Shot ray, and I think it looked quite good here, I couldn't get webs up due to thunder so nothing really put in the work expected, although it was a somewhat mediocre MU either way due to priority spam and an opposing fast flying, I think it still can shine in games if Zacian-C is replaced, but I don't know the optimal replacement yet.
Week 4: :landorus-therian: :Necrozma-dusk-mane: :xerneas: :zacian-crowned: :yveltal: :eternatus:
This week's team was something I had prepared for an earlier week, and I think structurally it's very sound. I liked the idea of leftovers bulky Lando-T a lot, and even though it didn't do a ton it still has the ability to be a stealth rocking pivot that checks Groudon. Xern Zac is always threatening, and while they were very well prepared for it with Sp.def dusk mane + helmet Quagsire, my luck turned around and I got lucky this game for a Xerneas sweep. Zacian may have been able to put in work if it didn't work out, but regardless I think the team's solid overall.
Week 5: :marshadow: :yveltal: :giratina-origin: :ferrothorn: :darmanitan-galar: :necrozma-dusk-mane:
This week didn't matter because the tour was won by the time I played, so I picked a cool team that was still fairly serious but used some mons I wanted to the whole tour. Mainly Ferrothorn + phazing Gira-o and both Marshadow and Darm-G which I wanted to use. Not sharing the full Gira set just because I think it's cool and if I do ever use this team again I'd rather just keep it, but generally things are standard enough to just guess. Marshadow is still one of the scariest breakers imo, and while there was a misplay in how it was handled slightly it still put in a ton of work no matter what, and is able to in most games generally.

As for feedback for the tour, I think that generally other people covered some of the larger flaws, where the tour was in danger of ending 3 weeks in with the Solgaleo's having 90% of the required bounty, something that like 1-2 more wins could have solidified super early on. I don't know if the bounty max is too low even after the increase or it was just a very good team on a hot streak that likely won't happen in any future iterations. I don't know if having a cap at all is the best way to do it but I suppose it gives a concrete objective to work for rather than just if you have the most by week 7, but having the most by then would allow for the tour to play out like a normal one and not be cut extremely short potentially.

The other issues people brought up are relevant too, where it's really hard to recover from losses or climb from a low bounty to a higher bounty just due to how things work, as if you don't just go undefeated you lose a significant portion of bounty. I feel like there's probably a mathematical solution to this, but generally I think things work fine and this is just the way the format must go. The other point of mu's being quite weird is always there, with Heysup and Noitu playing 3 times during the tour which was just a bad way for things to play out imo, you don't want to have to ever play the same person even twice ideally in such a short time, let alone 3/5 weeks.

Now onto shoutouts, saying now that I really liked the team we had and would be happy to team with any of you in the future:

Skysolo Great manager, thanks for having faith in me as a first round pick, I didn't deliver as hard as I wanted but you still helped me out a ton throughout the whole season, hearing out all my ideas I threw out for teams and playing tons of tests while playing great in your own slot. Couldn't secure the victory, but still had a great time on the team :fetchd:

Staxi :swole: You helped out an insane amount, playing so many test games each week when I'd just hop on and send a chall, I probably went through like 30 bad teams because of just testing them out with you, so thanks for not having me bring trash and keeping me prepared lol. Great manager as well, thanks for the great season.

TonyFlygon We'd never teamed before, but now I got to see the true insanity with the stuff you can come up with for fire teams that work out. Specs Zard with no Dynamax, Bulk Up Zarude, insane ideas that you executed and played near perfectly. Ty for holding down the SS slot while still giving me feedback on the things I was trying to do in the builder where I was not as flames.

Catalystic P2 sucks : ) But fr, you were a great player throughout the tour, giving a ton of great ideas in the SS camp with Tang + DD dusk mane and as much as I talked it down, 1 game 1 win P2. Great to have you around in the SS department, getting 2 assassinations too with great play all around.

Sharow Bro stop playing 5 minutes after the week goes up LOL. Regardless, you're really good at sm, always bringing the heat and playing well. Second time we've teamed together and I can tell how good you are, keep it up and waiting on that mono purple debut :o

Minougarou Had a ton of fun playing sm with you, I don't get to play it a ton against strong players so it was great to get to do that with someone who was invested in the tour and you were a great teammate here.

ojr We didn't get to talk a ton but you were a great presence in the chat when you were around, woulda been fun if you got to play a bit more in the last few weeks but hope you still had a good time as a fetch'd.

dream You're a super good ORAS player, always bringing cool stuff like useless gliscor, which is cool regardless of performance. Despite it being oras I still had lots of fun testing, and I've gotten a bigger appreciation for oras from this tour in general, because the games are always trips.

Evuelf No matter your record this tour, we all know how good of a BW player you are. You brought some super cool ideas to the table like deo d + zekrom, and still picked up a clutch win this tour. Respect for being a great bw player and builder still, and ik you have much more to give.

Mr.378 He's the iron man of ubers. Not the best of luck this tour, but you still played really well and carried us down in DPP. Great to have you around as a teammate, amazing player and boomer presence on the team as always lol.

Heysup The ADV goat, unfortunate schedule with having to play the same opponent 3 times but you still showed how good you are through the games played, but I got smacked in enough test games to know how good you are lol. Keep it up, loved playing more ADV learning from a great player.

Fetch'd.png
 
I'm late but I wanted to write a post before I forget. Prioritizing post vs discord to better organize my thoughts but my main interest is to better understand your intentions behind various mechanics, minority.

Also gonna preface that this is from the perspective of a spectator mostly only interested in the adv matches. Criticisms are going to be narrow and biased as a result. Building a tournament like this is really complex, though, so I think it's worthwhile to have various angles of input to piece together.

This tournament started with the most stacked adv signups ever. The matchups we got ended up being below expectations. Weeks 1 and 2 had some stacked mus but beyond that we only really got a heysup noitu bo3 and the 2 week 4 games. The games themselves were fantastic, though. Here are some of my thoughts on why that might have happened. (amongst other things)

-Tournament ending in 3/4 weeks
It ended in 5 this time but it was very possible for it to have ended in the two weeks prior. I don't know what length you are aiming for but I'm assuming 3/4 weeks is too short. Given that, I think the mechanics of the tournament that makes it possible to end prematurely will need tweaking of some sort. I don't know the most elegant solution, especially since any change to any mechanic has a lot of impact in other areas. Maybe you want to set a minimum week limit (reach x bounty after week y to win) but that seems a little hamfisted. You could try changing it to most bounty by x week but that might not play as well with how bounty shifts between players/teams? Definitely going to need your feedback on this since I'm sure you've already considered that option, minority.

-Eliminating players
I don't understand the intent in this mechanic. My best guess is to put more pressure/suspense on games but I feel like bounty is already plenty sufficient for that purpose. Eliminating players is a great mechanic in seeded double elim brackets cause you are saving time by cutting out the games that don't need to be played to determine the best player. In a team tournament where you are drafting the best X players from the playerpool, I feel like elimination is harmful. Pokemon is inherently volatile and old gens are a lot more competitive since it's the most dedicated and experienced players that make up the playerbase. Being an amazing player and losing 3 times in your first 4 weeks is very possible and I think losing the future games that player could be playing is a shame. It doesn't even save on any time, 3 matchups or 8 matchups on week 5 doesn't make any difference except provide a lot more games to enjoy. It's also probably discouraging for elminated players to keep contributing to a team tournament that they can't play in anymore. (don't know for sure, I didn't play) If this mechanic is tied to making sure the bounty economy works as intended then I think bounty needs to be reworked in some way to avoid resorting to elimination as a solution.

-Much harder to make money than lose it
Players with a sizable gap in bounty (cause of assassins or just playerpool matchups) have an uneven risk/reward where the "stronger" player risks losing more than they can potentially gain. Even if matchups are only ever between close bounties, when you look at things over the course of multiple weeks you see that it is much easier to lose money than it is to gain it. Assassin can help with this but that forces you into the problem with the former. Holy Ghost made a good point about how multiple teams can theoretically target the same high value player over and over to kill progress even if that high bounty player wins all their games. I feel like the best solution to this is to make it so that you can only lose/gain = to half the lower player's bounty. You do lose the ability to send a 2k assassin against a 40k to potentially make a big buck (although you still get to stall progress at no risk) but now there's more value in sending your big bounty player against other big bounty players since they are the only ones that can rip a fat chunk for your team in one win. (although you could also send your big player against a small one to minimize risk / have an extra safehouse) This change doesn't make it easier to gain more bounty over the course of multiple weeks, it actually slows it down if you are behind. However, making it harder to lose as much in one loss might be enough? Another solution might be to create a system for teammates to transfer bounty to eachother but that gets very complicated so hearing your thoughts first would be cool.

-Funds leaving old gens and players leaving as a result
We already talked about this before on discord a couple weeks ago. I think it did pan out to be a very real problem that the current system doesn't address on its own. I'm not sure the best solution to this, though. Maybe force teams to field at least one player per gen? (only works if you kill eliminations but I think you should anyways)

-No obligation to draft/field old gens
It didn't really come up this tournament (or at least not notably) but it is very possible for a team to only draft SS/USM with the spares going to some old gen of choice. It might even be an ideal strategy if I am correct in assuming that most bounty sticks in those two gen pools. USM is cool but I think Ubers should continue to reward the community's investment in old gens. I guess this is another reason to potentially add the aforementioned mechanic to ensure at least 1 player per team represents them in each gen?

I think there is stuff I'm forgetting but this is probably a good start.
 

steelskitty

you deserve so much more than this
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These are the teams I built or modified that I or my players ended up using. I took a more hands-off approach here than I have in the four other Ubers team tournaments I've managed, which means I let my players use their own stuff way more and actively worked to get them to test with each other rather than having them play a billion tests with me. The impact of this that's relevant here is that I have less teams to share than I normally would, although I do feel very good about everything I brought or approved my players to bring. No weird WIPs or teams I don't want to talk about.

1. bw ubers | splinters
:groudon::forretress::blaziken::latios::ho-oh::arceus:
HESITATION WOUNDS (Groudon) @ Earth Plate
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Dragon Tail
- Stealth Rock

EVERY EMPTY VEIN (Ho-Oh) @ Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 112 HP / 252 Atk / 144 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sacred Fire
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk

PARIAH (Blaziken) @ Ghost Gem
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shadow Claw
- Low Kick
- Swords Dance
- Protect

AN APPARITION (Latios) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 240 SpA / 16 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Dragon Pulse
- Thunder
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Psyshock

SANDS OF SLEEP (Forretress) @ Custap Berry
Ability: Sturdy
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Rapid Spin
- Spikes
- Endure

ABSENCE (Arceus) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Shadow Claw
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance
I used this in my week 1 game vs blim. I didn't know at this point that 64 squares was helping the Darkrais (although the stag-influenced Tornadus-Therian weirdness he brought made that rather evident in hindsight), and I didn't have enough time to do any scouting, so this was based more on my memory of what blim himself was weak to rather than any hard data on him or his support. Some teammates cautioned that this was a risky pick, but I disagreed. Using Choice Band Ho-Oh without a hazard remover that sticks around looks difficult at first, but the rest of the team's hyper-offensive nature more than makes up for Ho-Oh's lack of longevity. The star of the show here was Ghost Gem Blaziken, which sucks a whole lot versus the Gliscor stuff blim sometimes brings but did admirable work in this particular game by lowering Giratina's health to the point that Extreme Killer Arceus could clean up later. I had Brick Break on Arceus during the game, but Earthquake is definitely better here. Hack used a similar 6 with Latias over Latios and some different sets, and this is certainly based on that.

2. bw ubers | apex profane
:dialga::kyogre::palkia::deoxys-speed::giratina-origin::arceus-steel:
MUCIFEROUS (Dialga) @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Draco Meteor
- Thunder
- Aura Sphere

BAPTISM IN BILE (Kyogre) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sleep Talk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder
- Ice Beam

BODY FARM (Palkia) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder
- Draco Meteor
- Spacial Rend

DEGLOVED (Deoxys-Speed) @ King's Rock
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 108 Def / 188 SpA / 212 Spe
Naive Nature
- Fling
- Spikes
- Psycho Boost
- Hidden Power [Fire]

APEX PROFANE (Giratina-Origin) @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 176 Atk / 248 Def / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Will-O-Wisp
- Dragon Tail
- Shadow Sneak

EMETIC EUCHARIST (Arceus-Steel) @ Iron Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Calm Mind
- Thunder
- Recover
I knew I wanted to use edgy goregrind nicknames at least one week of this tournament to give the nickname connoisseurs on my team something to complain about, and this happened to be the week to do that. This is almost exactly the same as one of my favorite BW teams I've built — you can find replays as far back as 2017 of me using this with Accelgor over Deoxys-Speed, although I opted for Deoxys-Speed this time to try to catch my opponent. Carl Murray is rather notorious for his high Cloyster usage, and there's no better way to punish a predictable suicide lead than a lure set on a Pokmeon that it normally beats. Although I didn't catch a bivalve week two, you can see the idea behind Fling here, where it scores a convincing matchup win by taking my opponent out of the hazard game by the second turn. Like my week one team, this is some heavy offense that excels at punishing reactive plays or team choices. I'm very happy with how it did versus the offbeat weatherless balance Murray brought.

3. bw ubers | aladdin sane
:kyogre::giratina-origin::arceus-electric::tentacruel::ferrothorn::shaymin-sky:
drive-in saturday (Kyogre) @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 220 SpD / 40 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Roar
- Scald

cracked actor (Giratina-Origin) @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 176 Atk / 248 Def / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Aqua Tail
- Dragon Tail
- Will-O-Wisp
- Shadow Sneak

watch that man (Arceus-Electric) @ Zap Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Calm Mind
- Ice Beam
- Recover

panic in detroit (Tentacruel) @ Mental Herb
Ability: Rain Dish
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 240 SpD / 20 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic Spikes
- Scald
- Protect
- Rapid Spin

time (Ferrothorn) @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball

the prettiest star (Shaymin-Sky) @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Air Slash
- Seed Flare
I used to harbor an irrational hatred for Shaymin-Sky — I thought it was a dumb gimmick Pokemon and avoided using it for years. As it turns out, it has one really fucking good set. That's the one you see here. Subseed Shaymin-Sky is a deceptively strong hazard abuser, and one that historically matches up well versus Chill Shadow; passing Exiline a team with it for his game versus him was a no-brainer. The offensive core of Shaymin-Sky plus Arceus-Electric already has a nearly unreasonably good matchup versus fat rain, and when you pair that with Ferrocruel it's oftentimes too much to overcome altogether. A possible set change worth exploring here is ResTalk Giratina-O over the Aqua Tail one, which loses out on the Ho-Oh and Deoxys-A matchups but gives you an unkillable spinblocker in wars of attrition versus Excadrill and Tentacruel. The techiest thing here is Mental Herb Tentacruel, which is intended to get a layer of guaranteed Toxic Spikes versus Deoxys-S teams.

4. ss ubers | i don't name my ss teams after albums for some reason (Toxic Zygarde / BW Kyogre hazard abuse)
:necrozma-dusk-mane::yveltal::ferrothorn::zygarde-complete::kyogre::calyrex-shadow:
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 188 Def / 68 Spe
Impish Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Sunsteel Strike
- Stealth Rock
- Morning Sun

Yveltal @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 64 HP / 252 SpD / 192 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Foul Play
- Knock Off
- Defog
- Roost

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Curse
- Power Whip

Zygarde @ Leftovers
Ability: Power Construct
EVs: 16 HP / 228 Atk / 48 Def / 216 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
- Thousand Arrows
- Toxic

Kyogre @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Roar
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Calyrex-Shadow @ Choice Scarf
Ability: As One (Spectrier)
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Astral Barrage
- Psyshock
- Aromatherapy
- Trick
When I talk about my prep being hands-off, this manifested most strongly in SS — though I looked over and approved most of the stuff my players brought, this is the only team out of like fourteen we used that I had a hand in building. We wanted to use SubToxic Zygarde week one cause it's broken and hard to play around. I forget what TJ initially tried out, but it wasn't testing well, so we put our heads together and made this thing that's pretty easy to pilot and seems to win a lot of games. The Kyogre set in particular is both underexplored and very good in this metagame, spreading burns and wracking up hazard damage while tanking pretty much anything that gets thrown at it. For the actual game we had a 32 Speed Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, but I retroactively changed it to 68 cause that's faster than Jolly Zacian-Hero. The most flexible thing about this team is Necrozma-Dusk-Mane's item; Heavy Duty Boots, Leftovers, and Rocky Helmet could all be good on it, but to deal with uncompetitive Gothitelle as consistently as possible until we hopefully boot it you might think about Shed Shell.

5. dpp ubers | the origin of my qwilfish
:deoxys-speed::dialga::giratina-origin::kyogre::qwilfish::palkia:
DETRANSITIONING (Deoxys-Speed) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Def / 96 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Spe
- Trick
- Spikes
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock

MISSPENT YOUTH (Dialga) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 240 HP / 40 SpA / 180 SpD / 48 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Thunder
- Roar
- Stealth Rock

LAY DOWN AND ROT (Giratina-Origin) @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 52 Atk / 200 Def / 200 SpA / 56 Spe
Rash Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Thunder
- Shadow Sneak
- Earthquake

EPILATION JOY (Kyogre) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Sleep Talk

PLS DONT LEAVE ME (Qwilfish) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Taunt
- Destiny Bond
- Explosion

AN ANGEL (Palkia) @ Haban Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 8 HP / 248 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Roar
- Thunder
- Hydro Pump
squinn was far and away my hardest opponent to prep for, cause up until when I played him I was one of his main testing partners for the tour. I'd been beating him up in tests with Blissey-centric fat stuff, and I knew he'd invest time into scouting me, so I elected to use a pick that would throw him off — a modification, not of one of my teams, but of some hyper offense Zayele built back in the Farceus meta. He loaded up something very anti-fat that didn't have a real Kyogre check, so I'd say my prep was successful even though a crit at the most inopportune time took this game out of my hands. There are plenty of weird EV spreads on this team and I don't remember what any of them do, but the concept here is to facilitate a Scarf Kyogre or Giratina-O clean by winning the hazard game and shuffling the opponent around. Roar Palkia is weird, but it has a lot of potential to both block setup sweepers and get crucial Spikes damage on would-be checks like Blissey and Dialga. Think of it like Roar Latios in BW, except able to wield a Haban Berry to take on threats like Scarf Garchomp in dire emergencies. The only other thing to note here is that Qwilfish is really good and should see more use. It makes Tentacruel a dead slot, very often works excellently as a mid-game pivot, and even has serious potential to take the opponent's Pokemon down with Explosion or Destiny Bond.

6. dpp ubers | rain ho-oh, no edgy nicknames
:ho-oh::kyogre::kabutops::dialga::garchomp::latias:
Ho-Oh @ Lum Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 152 HP / 244 Atk / 112 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sacred Fire
- Earthquake
- Roost

Kyogre @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 208 Def / 52 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Thunder Wave

Kabutops @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge
- Rapid Spin
- Low Kick

Dialga @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 236 HP / 40 SpA / 192 SpD / 40 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder Wave
- Dragon Pulse
- Thunder
- Stealth Rock

Garchomp @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 240 Atk / 16 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk

Latias (F) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 204 SpA / 52 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Thunder
- Calm Mind
- Roost
Zayele versus Lauriane was a similar situation to me versus squinn — the two had played well over a hundred DPP games together by the time they fought in week three, which made prep very challenging. Zayele threw around a lot of ideas early in the week but eventually elected to use one of my teams in the hopes of throwing off a Lauriane preparing for Zayele-style builds. I'm very high on this team, personally, and feel that it very consistently and effectively executes its central concept of overwhelming the opponent through sheer Physical presence. Ho-Oh is quite the fearsome Pokemon in DPP, even though the difficulty of building a team that properly supports it means you tend not to see it often. I paired it with Kabutops because the two wear each other's checks down very well and Ho-Oh gets a lot of mileage out of the fossil's Rapid Spin support. If all goes well with the team, hopefully Ho-Oh and Kabutops can punch enough holes that Scarf Garchomp has no difficulty cleaning. The team's biggest weakness and most unintuitive matchup is Latios, but if you can overcome that I think you can beat most anything else with this, too.

I'm not posting the team I used versus Luck Thorx cause it's not even mine in a vague sense and I think the less we talk about that game the better.

===

I was going to spend the next part of this post talking about all the problems I had with the tournament and how I'm not really even in favor of having a MW3 at all, but I feel like I kinda missed the boat wrt this + it was gonna be a massive tl;dr type thing that I don't really have the energy to write rn. I am probably gonna save my complaints until we get much closer to when the next edition of the tournament would be. Until then, I hope you all enjoy the teams and I'm sure I'll see a lot of you in UPL.
 

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