NDFL III Set & Team Dump Thread
NOTE: Only criteria is that you have to ping slopcat for every post you make in the thread.
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Tournament NDFL III Set & Team Dump Thread
- Thread starter hidin
- Start date
NDFL III Set & Team Dump Thread
NOTE: Only criteria is that you have to ping slopcat for every post you make in the thread.
slopcat
Now that the Rillaboom's are officially out of the tour I just want to do a quick dump for DOU. Before that though, I would like to thank ARTYMASION for their support and drafting me in the first place as well as Danbear02 . Additionally, I would like to thank Astro Nation Shoe for being my fellow DOU player, I believe that I went undefeated and shoe had one loss only so we had quite the DOU slot considering we both went for 3000 flat.
W2 vs NinjaSnapple (W)
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https://pokepast.es/7f5e3df68b722ea0
I remember looking at the scout against ninja and figured that ice was really strong into them. My first thought was a pao + marshadow + kingambit angle of sorts, although I don't really feel confident that I could get comfortable with that team. Instead I opted for something a little more familiar; volcanion + blackrem. It ended up being a good call and resulted in a win.
W3 vs Sunrose (W)
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https://pokepast.es/b2876f2302acc151
Honestly, this wasn't the team I prepped to face off against. I didn't really have much info on Sunrose before our match, so I just expected something along the lines of their first 2 week teams and built something that is solid into that and has generally alright Matchups across the board. The game needed up not really mattering anyways since we already secured the win but was a fun game regardless.
W7 vs Smudge (W)
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https://pokepast.es/9b69511d1dd36a5e
During the scout I though that zardy looked nice so I decided to build with it... And then I forgot to finish the team until the day before when the goat arty pasted in some zardy teams, and I eventually settled upon this one and ended up winning. Unfortunately it wasn't enough and we got knocked out of the tour, but it was a fun one nonetheless.
shoe played the missing weeks and I think only lost week 1, gz shoe on that
slopcat
Now that the Rillaboom's are officially out of the tour I just want to do a quick dump for DOU. Before that though, I would like to thank ARTYMASION for their support and drafting me in the first place as well as Danbear02 . Additionally, I would like to thank Astro Nation Shoe for being my fellow DOU player, I believe that I went undefeated and shoe had one loss only so we had quite the DOU slot considering we both went for 3000 flat.
W2 vs NinjaSnapple (W)
----- vs -----https://pokepast.es/7f5e3df68b722ea0
I remember looking at the scout against ninja and figured that ice was really strong into them. My first thought was a pao + marshadow + kingambit angle of sorts, although I don't really feel confident that I could get comfortable with that team. Instead I opted for something a little more familiar; volcanion + blackrem. It ended up being a good call and resulted in a win.
W3 vs Sunrose (W)
----- vs -----https://pokepast.es/b2876f2302acc151
Honestly, this wasn't the team I prepped to face off against. I didn't really have much info on Sunrose before our match, so I just expected something along the lines of their first 2 week teams and built something that is solid into that and has generally alright Matchups across the board. The game needed up not really mattering anyways since we already secured the win but was a fun game regardless.
W7 vs Smudge (W)
----- vs -----https://pokepast.es/9b69511d1dd36a5e
During the scout I though that zardy looked nice so I decided to build with it... And then I forgot to finish the team until the day before when the goat arty pasted in some zardy teams, and I eventually settled upon this one and ended up winning. Unfortunately it wasn't enough and we got knocked out of the tour, but it was a fun one nonetheless.
shoe played the missing weeks and I think only lost week 1, gz shoe on that
slopcat
Just shoutouts, no teams because I didn't build much and will let our UU and RU players share if they'd like.
First, a big thanks to ARTYMASION and bumboclaat for inviting me to manage. Y'all are great and it was fun to work with you guys. Coming so close to Semis is a win in my book for having essentially 0 team tour managing experience.
Niadev: Of course my CO-TL has to be first here, it was great to build alongside you for the first time. Really cool to see your style and though I know you were disappointed in your play, you did great and more than anything, it was a fun season and that's what important.
SapoDaG30: Still can't believe you didn't get drafted in PL. Always great building with you boss, you're such a talented player and builder and support.
FayaWizard: Thanks for coming along. I know we didn't get you too many games (20 person team moment), but its always cool to see you in UU and I hope to continue seeing you down there. Also nice to have someone to chat with in game discussion when nobody is around :skull:
Amstan: Thanks for being an emergency UU backup. Fun to have you along.
doso749, Caesarr, Pengu, Astro Nation Shoe: All of you were 3k and all 3 of you carried our seasons. Looking forward to seeing y'all in PL next year.
YaVR_1, Galarian Blades, SirPeanutCronch, Zpice, mipc, Steorra, Minissou, AM, OceanicGamer, t.t, CrossHeart: This was a huge team. Thanks for being along for the ride, I know it was kinda chaotic but it was a lot of fun and we hope you guys had a good time as well.
deviously: Thanks for randomly joining us midseason
slug: Hope you doing well wherever you went boss.
First, a big thanks to ARTYMASION and bumboclaat for inviting me to manage. Y'all are great and it was fun to work with you guys. Coming so close to Semis is a win in my book for having essentially 0 team tour managing experience.
Niadev: Of course my CO-TL has to be first here, it was great to build alongside you for the first time. Really cool to see your style and though I know you were disappointed in your play, you did great and more than anything, it was a fun season and that's what important.
SapoDaG30: Still can't believe you didn't get drafted in PL. Always great building with you boss, you're such a talented player and builder and support.
FayaWizard: Thanks for coming along. I know we didn't get you too many games (20 person team moment), but its always cool to see you in UU and I hope to continue seeing you down there. Also nice to have someone to chat with in game discussion when nobody is around :skull:
Amstan: Thanks for being an emergency UU backup. Fun to have you along.
doso749, Caesarr, Pengu, Astro Nation Shoe: All of you were 3k and all 3 of you carried our seasons. Looking forward to seeing y'all in PL next year.
YaVR_1, Galarian Blades, SirPeanutCronch, Zpice, mipc, Steorra, Minissou, AM, OceanicGamer, t.t, CrossHeart: This was a huge team. Thanks for being along for the ride, I know it was kinda chaotic but it was a lot of fun and we hope you guys had a good time as well.
deviously: Thanks for randomly joining us midseason
slug: Hope you doing well wherever you went boss.
Been compiling this as the tour went on which is why there's so much yap so soon after we got eliminated.
Week 1 (W):
Alternate Teams:
Dogi stocks are hugely up and lowkey it's kind of broken, so I decided to build around it. BU Fight Z messes up hippo and +1 Gunk Shot is still going to leave most Buzzwole reeling, plus this thing is bulky as hell physically so at +1 Buzz has no shot of KOing short of some funky Ground Z set. Most typical fighting answers fall flat on their faces vs this. Team comp is pretty much use Washtom to lure in grasses for MAero and Dogi to abuse, with Aegi acting as the fighting check and Serp to stop opposing washers. Hippo is our best ground that isn't Excadrill who, while good, has its issues, plus it can act as a backup Booster Moth check. The 40 SpDef EVs on MAero is to eat Discharge from Booster Moth.
Pretty much the same as the final team but it's a bit more solid into MAero and Serperior and worse into Aegi.
A fairly typical RillaMoth HO, making use of the Taunt MAero. I feel like RillaMAero is a bit of an anti synergy though, so I'm not super happy with this.
I did not play Week 2, so on to Week 3:
Week 3 (W):
Note: I probably wouldn't bring this into current meta, opposing Dogi kind of shamone this
Alternate teams:
Week 4 (L):
Alternate Teams
Week 5 (L):
Week 6 (L):
Week 7 (W):
NDRU Jumpscare.
Works on paper but Scarf Shocks is fraudulent af, I should probably have named it Nero because this shit was deadweight in test games. No real offensive presence other than Infernape too.
Final Thoughts:
Yeah I'm not gonna lie, this was a pretty scuffed NDFL run for me. Week 4 was just close and I didn't calc when I should have, Week 6 was a really rough MU, but nah there's no excuse for Week 5. Definitely learned some lessons this run, namely that I've been prepping too hard for the opp to bring a specific playstyle and paying for it. Not a single opp loaded a playstyle we expected vs me and it messed me up at least once. It's even more annoying since we tied a lot of those weeks and I can't help but feel I'm partly to blame for that, but eh, that's probably what everyone else who lost those weeks is thinking.
Just gotta get some Ws in upcoming tours to redeem myself ig and come back next year to go x-0. Ultimately I went even on my overall W/L, so it's not like it's the end of the world, but I went negative in the tier I'm Co-TL of so that's not great.
Overall, still a fun tour though. Also how tf did Sapo not get drafted for PL
Mentions:
Danbear02 - was great building with you goat, hoping next time we're both in PL next year (and I remember to actually sign up this time). Playing v you taught me a lot about how I play too (esp that I should never play near midnight because oh lordy).
FayaWizard - Ty for the tests goat
salmonelephant - You as well goat
SapoDaG30 - Ty for helping by filling out most of the sets for me in week 7 goat, I probably would have been cooked without you since my set game has fallen off since last time I played NDRU
#worrywhirl channel - For being our island, our emotional shore. It was a short existence you lived, but thank you, goat.
Didn't interact with most of the rest of the team besides posting 'nice' and 'unfort' when the goats won/lost sadly :[.
Week 1 (W):
Opp didn't seem to have played the tier before so we decided to use brokens. At first we wanted to use an Okidogi team (see the alternate teams) but ultimately decided that since I use BO so much it was time to mix things up a bit, and Moth HO is more broken anyways. The main core is Booster Iron Moth + AutoSteela, with AutoSteela weakening bulky spdef mons that are forced to come in to check it such as Mega Latias through the use of the Z, so Moth can clean up later. Plus, I always find non Z Celesteela to be hard to get going compared to Z. Booster Iron Moth is probably the most contentious mon in the tier right now, what with Discharge and Energy Ball allowing it to put conventional checks on very shaky ground, and few if any offensive mons can actually RK it, but my opinion on it is pretty much just that it's only as good as HO is, since booster sucks off of the playstyle.
MAero is next, weakening Hippowdon and Tyranitar, while AutoSteela can lure in Rotom-Wash to weaken it for a lategame MAero sweep. Moth also fries most of the steels that check MAero. Originally, MAero was Taunt to lure Hippowdon and keep it low, but this comp had too many issues with Sub Keldeo and Serperio to keep it, and MAero weakens Hippowdon a lot at +1 anyways. Azumarill is to stop Keldeo and Mienshao + other fast fightings from messing us up and forcing Mega Venu to take +6 AJet chip. Bisharp was originally a Shuca Aegislash, but with Azu and Moth checking MAero offensively, and problems breaking Clefable, we went Bisharp instead, with Life Orb to ensure that +2 Iron Head can KO MVenu. As a bonus, it also significantly improves the Aegislash MU, which came in handy in the game itself, especially since it didn't seem as if it had CC. I ummed and aahed about the lead, originally Excadrill to help with Clef and keep rocks off for Moth and MAero, but it was pointed out to me that Mew also stops most hazard leads, so we went for that since it's the more consistent lead against anti-HO.
You may have noticed that my AutoSteela is walled by MAero, but Giga Drain is actually not the standard set, so odds are, the opponent will assume it's Meteor Beam and send in their MBeam Steela check first, usually Washer or a SpDef Steela, but even if they know, Giga + Fly Z puts it in Moth Discharge range anyways so it works out just fine anyways.
Ultimately the opponent also brought HO, and it wound up with me getting lucky Fiery Dance boosts and OHKOing MAero with Discharge. I think it was still winnable without the RNG, but it would have come down to mindgames with Bish vs Rillaboom.
Now, you may have a case of deja vu, since someone else brought a team with the same mons, but different sets, and I think their comp is valid too since their AutoSteela isn't as prone to being walled by MAero, but it also leads to slightly more issues with Wash. Comes down to preference really.
MAero is next, weakening Hippowdon and Tyranitar, while AutoSteela can lure in Rotom-Wash to weaken it for a lategame MAero sweep. Moth also fries most of the steels that check MAero. Originally, MAero was Taunt to lure Hippowdon and keep it low, but this comp had too many issues with Sub Keldeo and Serperio to keep it, and MAero weakens Hippowdon a lot at +1 anyways. Azumarill is to stop Keldeo and Mienshao + other fast fightings from messing us up and forcing Mega Venu to take +6 AJet chip. Bisharp was originally a Shuca Aegislash, but with Azu and Moth checking MAero offensively, and problems breaking Clefable, we went Bisharp instead, with Life Orb to ensure that +2 Iron Head can KO MVenu. As a bonus, it also significantly improves the Aegislash MU, which came in handy in the game itself, especially since it didn't seem as if it had CC. I ummed and aahed about the lead, originally Excadrill to help with Clef and keep rocks off for Moth and MAero, but it was pointed out to me that Mew also stops most hazard leads, so we went for that since it's the more consistent lead against anti-HO.
You may have noticed that my AutoSteela is walled by MAero, but Giga Drain is actually not the standard set, so odds are, the opponent will assume it's Meteor Beam and send in their MBeam Steela check first, usually Washer or a SpDef Steela, but even if they know, Giga + Fly Z puts it in Moth Discharge range anyways so it works out just fine anyways.
Ultimately the opponent also brought HO, and it wound up with me getting lucky Fiery Dance boosts and OHKOing MAero with Discharge. I think it was still winnable without the RNG, but it would have come down to mindgames with Bish vs Rillaboom.
Now, you may have a case of deja vu, since someone else brought a team with the same mons, but different sets, and I think their comp is valid too since their AutoSteela isn't as prone to being walled by MAero, but it also leads to slightly more issues with Wash. Comes down to preference really.
Alternate Teams:
Dogi stocks are hugely up and lowkey it's kind of broken, so I decided to build around it. BU Fight Z messes up hippo and +1 Gunk Shot is still going to leave most Buzzwole reeling, plus this thing is bulky as hell physically so at +1 Buzz has no shot of KOing short of some funky Ground Z set. Most typical fighting answers fall flat on their faces vs this. Team comp is pretty much use Washtom to lure in grasses for MAero and Dogi to abuse, with Aegi acting as the fighting check and Serp to stop opposing washers. Hippo is our best ground that isn't Excadrill who, while good, has its issues, plus it can act as a backup Booster Moth check. The 40 SpDef EVs on MAero is to eat Discharge from Booster Moth.
Pretty much the same as the final team but it's a bit more solid into MAero and Serperior and worse into Aegi.
A fairly typical RillaMoth HO, making use of the Taunt MAero. I feel like RillaMAero is a bit of an anti synergy though, so I'm not super happy with this.
I did not play Week 2, so on to Week 3:
Week 3 (W):
Note: I probably wouldn't bring this into current meta, opposing Dogi kind of shamone this
Looking at the opponent's replays, we noticed a trend of balance/BO teams, specifically balance in NDUU, but also some HO, so we wanted a mon that would be good into either MU, and Okidogi seemed like the right pick. Okidogi had been a bit of a rising star these past few weeks, so what better time than now? Unfortunately, I had used the other Okidogi team outside of NDFL, so I wasn't sure if it would be scouted or not. Unlike with the Dogi paste in week 1's alternates, this time, we went with Poisonium, since Buzzwole was pretty common this week, and Hippowdon is easier to overwhelm than Buzzwole. High Horsepower is honestly just the better 4th move, since Knock doesn't hit anything HHP and STABs don't already, doing more into Aegi consistently. However, Hippowdon is still an issue for this set, so we wanted something to abuse it. Lo and behold, Rillaboom. Notably, in Grassy Terrain, Hippowdon's Earthquake does a pittance to Rillaboom after a Bulk Up, letting it farm boosts off of a mon that would otherwise check it.
Washtom + MAero is a pretty standard balance core, with Washtom inviting in grasses for Okidogi to come in on and abuse, while also being one of the tier's only passable hazard control mons. The MAero spread chosen is invested to take Booster Moth Fiery Dance with boost into Discharge better if rocks aren't up and it's at full. Hippowdon is pretty much the only bulky ground worth using right now, since Utillity Exca is often much more on paper than in practice, and we already had washer. Sand Stream hurts more than it helps here, so we went Sand Force. Last but not least is Iron Moth, mostly there to pivot on rocks for Dogi and Rilla, and abuse Celesteela and Skarmory since a) they're annoying af otherwise, and b) I figured that my replays probably hinted at a teambuilding weakness regarding Steela.
Notable issues with this team is that if there's a Washtom on the other team, Rilla is basically only a U-turn bot since it's the only mon that even wants to try to come in on Washer, but our opp didn't seem to be a massive fan of teams washer fits on. I also pretty much have to Toxic Mega Latias with Hippo or else it just kind of mogs me, but it's not an unplayable MU what with nothing that gives it an in lacking a pivoting move to bring in Hippo.
Of course, ultimately, my opp brought Trick Room, which was one of the worst MUs possible for this team, but I managed to claw a W since Rilla Wood Hammer was unbelievably free and Okidogi cleaned with an in, Cresselia weakened, and Trick Room gone, which I managed to pull off.
Washtom + MAero is a pretty standard balance core, with Washtom inviting in grasses for Okidogi to come in on and abuse, while also being one of the tier's only passable hazard control mons. The MAero spread chosen is invested to take Booster Moth Fiery Dance with boost into Discharge better if rocks aren't up and it's at full. Hippowdon is pretty much the only bulky ground worth using right now, since Utillity Exca is often much more on paper than in practice, and we already had washer. Sand Stream hurts more than it helps here, so we went Sand Force. Last but not least is Iron Moth, mostly there to pivot on rocks for Dogi and Rilla, and abuse Celesteela and Skarmory since a) they're annoying af otherwise, and b) I figured that my replays probably hinted at a teambuilding weakness regarding Steela.
Notable issues with this team is that if there's a Washtom on the other team, Rilla is basically only a U-turn bot since it's the only mon that even wants to try to come in on Washer, but our opp didn't seem to be a massive fan of teams washer fits on. I also pretty much have to Toxic Mega Latias with Hippo or else it just kind of mogs me, but it's not an unplayable MU what with nothing that gives it an in lacking a pivoting move to bring in Hippo.
Of course, ultimately, my opp brought Trick Room, which was one of the worst MUs possible for this team, but I managed to claw a W since Rilla Wood Hammer was unbelievably free and Okidogi cleaned with an in, Cresselia weakened, and Trick Room gone, which I managed to pull off.
Alternate teams:
Ultimately, most of these are just variations and cores with Okidogi. Rather than spend time going over the build process for each, I'll just list the general premise and why it got scrapped.
This was originally FuturePort Slowbro over Washtom with Fight Z Okidogi (to hopefully force Buzzwole to take Future Sight) but FuturePort+Fighting is so 2022, plus this team also just kind of got shamoned by hazards with Slowbro. Washtom also brought in Okidogi better. This got rejected because speed control kind of sucks here and there's pretty much no immediate breaking power worth a damn. It has a Hoodra though so that's cool.
This is pretty much the final team but with Hoodra over MAero. We tried Rilla over Serp for speed control, but I didn't like the fact it was still so slow, but this is still better than the first draft.
You'd think I then went with the final team afterwards but nah, here's some more drafts.
Not even a team bruh, it's just a skeleton :sob:. Rejected because Celesteela just sits on this till the sun dies. Specs Hydrapple is probably cool though, just more with a Zone or smth.
I figured hey, BO wasn't working, so why not balance? ... Yeah building balance in this meta is a nightmare. I couldn't fit enough pivots and my ass still gets shamoned by too much. Plus, again, no immediate breaking power. And this one's still steela weak. Pass.
This was originally FuturePort Slowbro over Washtom with Fight Z Okidogi (to hopefully force Buzzwole to take Future Sight) but FuturePort+Fighting is so 2022, plus this team also just kind of got shamoned by hazards with Slowbro. Washtom also brought in Okidogi better. This got rejected because speed control kind of sucks here and there's pretty much no immediate breaking power worth a damn. It has a Hoodra though so that's cool.
This is pretty much the final team but with Hoodra over MAero. We tried Rilla over Serp for speed control, but I didn't like the fact it was still so slow, but this is still better than the first draft.
You'd think I then went with the final team afterwards but nah, here's some more drafts.
Not even a team bruh, it's just a skeleton :sob:. Rejected because Celesteela just sits on this till the sun dies. Specs Hydrapple is probably cool though, just more with a Zone or smth.
I figured hey, BO wasn't working, so why not balance? ... Yeah building balance in this meta is a nightmare. I couldn't fit enough pivots and my ass still gets shamoned by too much. Plus, again, no immediate breaking power. And this one's still steela weak. Pass.
Week 4 (L):
My opp for this week was observed to be weak to fairy spam so specs Enamorus looked like it went hard into them. We also expected them to bring Garganacl like they did previous two weeks, but this was the week they didn't I supose. Unfortunately they brought Aegi, but Enam basically killed it so eh, it still got rid of a big ass threat. Mienshao stuffs Salt Cure spam and is checked by a lot of things Enamorus abuses, meaning it can click U-turn on those and we can theoretically get a free kill. We already had a breaker and needed speed control so scarf was the obvious choice. Washtom is our best defogger besides maybe Mega Latias, but this wasn't shaping up to be a balance team, so we made Washtom the fogger. It also pivots on grasses like Hydrapple and Rillaboom (not super great if we run into mega venu but w/e we can still kill it), so that's cool. Mega Latias was next for a reliable Iron Moth answer which would otherwise farm the previous 3, plus it took care of the Mega Venusaur that would have troubled this squad. We ummed and aahed about the set, going from CM to Draco 3A before ultimately settling on Psychic + Mystical + Aura since Steela was still looking annoying if they brought it.
Hippowdon is a given, I think I've already made my opinion on utility Excadrill obvious from previous yap seshes in this post and how Hippowdon is pretty much the only decent defensive ground worth running on BO rn. Rotom-W is honestly pretty ass Steela counterplay and a pivot that could bring enam in on Hippowdon and Tyranitar looked nice to bring, so Iron Moth was the logical outcome. Plus, the team was looking like it struggled for wincons other than Enam getting into position to mash Moonblast, so that was a nice bonus. It would also have won if they weren't Life Orb Zeraora of all things. Mega Venu still looked pretty annoying since it comes in on Enam aside from Psychic predicts, so we decided to run Sand Stream on Hippo to limit recovery, which meant that Morning Sun was kind of a dead slot on Moth, so we opted for EBall to weaken Garganacl.
Unfortunately, I fumbled the bag this week, but it was real close anyways so I'm not too bothered about it. I guess I probably would have won if it wasn't LO Zera but going my won Zera into Rilla was the better play since if I'd calced I'd have confirmed it was AV. Always calc folks, and remember that 90 seconds isn't 9 seconds.
Hippowdon is a given, I think I've already made my opinion on utility Excadrill obvious from previous yap seshes in this post and how Hippowdon is pretty much the only decent defensive ground worth running on BO rn. Rotom-W is honestly pretty ass Steela counterplay and a pivot that could bring enam in on Hippowdon and Tyranitar looked nice to bring, so Iron Moth was the logical outcome. Plus, the team was looking like it struggled for wincons other than Enam getting into position to mash Moonblast, so that was a nice bonus. It would also have won if they weren't Life Orb Zeraora of all things. Mega Venu still looked pretty annoying since it comes in on Enam aside from Psychic predicts, so we decided to run Sand Stream on Hippo to limit recovery, which meant that Morning Sun was kind of a dead slot on Moth, so we opted for EBall to weaken Garganacl.
Unfortunately, I fumbled the bag this week, but it was real close anyways so I'm not too bothered about it. I guess I probably would have won if it wasn't LO Zera but going my won Zera into Rilla was the better play since if I'd calced I'd have confirmed it was AV. Always calc folks, and remember that 90 seconds isn't 9 seconds.
Alternate Teams
Most of these were attempts to fix some of the weaknesses of the first team. However, I didn't like their inability to make real progress without relying heavily on Enam, so I eventually stuck with the final one and figured I'd just outplay any bad MUs since nothing was an unplayable MU. Luckily they didn't bring any of the major threats.
The main issues with the first squad were that it got kind of shamoned by Curse Garganacl anyways since Washtom Hydro only does half. Buzzwole was also a big issue if it was offensive and anything other than PJab/EQ for coverage. Pecharunt handled most of those but opened up a lot of weaknesses Mega Latias resolved, so Scizor was added to fix that. Unfortunately, this version has very few ways to quickly make progress, not helped by Bug Z Scizor being the most aggressively do-nothing mon in the tier. Danbear dropped this:
Which was a little better, but now this kind of got shamoned by MAero.
I did have a different concept focusing on Clefable since it also looked great into the opp's scout, paired with Steela since they seemed to have an affinity for unga bunga big damage fairies like Mega Garde and Lele in NDOU (not NDUU but most players tend to like similar stuff regardless of tier):
I don't think there's anything inherently flawed with this comp besides Rilla being able to bag one every time it comes in if it gets the predict right vs Steela? Just felt Specs Enam was the better bring.
The main issues with the first squad were that it got kind of shamoned by Curse Garganacl anyways since Washtom Hydro only does half. Buzzwole was also a big issue if it was offensive and anything other than PJab/EQ for coverage. Pecharunt handled most of those but opened up a lot of weaknesses Mega Latias resolved, so Scizor was added to fix that. Unfortunately, this version has very few ways to quickly make progress, not helped by Bug Z Scizor being the most aggressively do-nothing mon in the tier. Danbear dropped this:
Which was a little better, but now this kind of got shamoned by MAero.
I did have a different concept focusing on Clefable since it also looked great into the opp's scout, paired with Steela since they seemed to have an affinity for unga bunga big damage fairies like Mega Garde and Lele in NDOU (not NDUU but most players tend to like similar stuff regardless of tier):
I don't think there's anything inherently flawed with this comp besides Rilla being able to bag one every time it comes in if it gets the predict right vs Steela? Just felt Specs Enam was the better bring.
Week 5 (L):
Self scout revealed I get cripplingly mogged by unga bunga fairies so it was Celesteela week. Hydrapple + Celesteela is one of the all time goat cores so that was obvious. Typical Dragonium Hydrapple since my opp also didn't like bringing steela. Slowbro to stop Mega Aerodactyl shamoning (foreshadowing) plus answer the fightings that also shamoned me except Poison Z Okidogi (more foreshadowing). Psy Noise is so that Sub Z Okidogi didn't just lead on team preview and win (not foreshadowing). Tyranitar was chosen since the team needed reliable immediate power plus a moth check, and this week was the week I finally brought Exca as my bulky ground because offensive sand rush is kind of cheeks and Hippo would have turned this into a slow fest. To help with the slow fest we brought... Yeah ok this was Danbear's idea, but since the team was a bit of a passive fest besides TTar, we decided to bring Scarf Okidogi. Adamant since it didn't outspeed Jolly MAero anyways and the only other thing in that general speed bracket was Jolly Zera which we weren't expecting the opp to bring. Underspeeding MAero was fine since we had Slowbro (even more foreshadowing), and the Psychic Fangs would help with RKing Okidogi (foreshadowing 4x combo).
... So yeah I played like flaming ass this game, the play was always to go Scarf Dogi on their Dogi until they revealed the set fully, but my dumbass decided to try and Teleport the third time because 'oh hey, they have Drain Punch, they're probably black sludge, they can't stop me telepor-' nah. So Gunk into Z Poison raw KOs Slowbro and guess what they hit me with every time on the switchin. Then I got tilted at myself and it was pretty much a wrap after that, going hard Steela on MAero was NOT the play though. Should have just gone Exca since bro wasn't doing much anyways even if they EQd. Bringing Scarf Shao instead was probably the play to at least get momentum which this team kind of lacked. Could also have maybe chipped Okidogi and revealed that it was not sludge.
Only alternate team is just this with standard scarf shao over Okidogi, nothing special to say really.
... So yeah I played like flaming ass this game, the play was always to go Scarf Dogi on their Dogi until they revealed the set fully, but my dumbass decided to try and Teleport the third time because 'oh hey, they have Drain Punch, they're probably black sludge, they can't stop me telepor-' nah. So Gunk into Z Poison raw KOs Slowbro and guess what they hit me with every time on the switchin. Then I got tilted at myself and it was pretty much a wrap after that, going hard Steela on MAero was NOT the play though. Should have just gone Exca since bro wasn't doing much anyways even if they EQd. Bringing Scarf Shao instead was probably the play to at least get momentum which this team kind of lacked. Could also have maybe chipped Okidogi and revealed that it was not sludge.
Only alternate team is just this with standard scarf shao over Okidogi, nothing special to say really.
Week 6 (L):
So we were expecting TBIC to bring either stall or HO, so we figured that double Taunt + an unga bunga big damage number breaker would go hard into both. Turns out he expected us to expect that and brought somethig else, but we'll get to that in a bit. Admittedly, I didn't build most of this team, my only contribution was going Pecharunt over Buzzwole to avoid getting mogged by Mega Aerodactyl while not type stacking with Keldeo (like we would have with Slowbro). We were pretty confident in this team, so long as they didn't load any Celesteela + Mega Gardevoir type teams.
... They loaded Celesteela + Mega Garde BO :sob:. Legit, over half their team had a great MU into this. Heinous MU. Worse, they had Rotom-W + Mamoswine, vs a team with the one grass that Mamoswine definitively uses as cannon fodder, other than maybe Amoonguss, when Washtom Volts on it. It was by no means an unwinnable MU, even without hax, and I could have won since MAero lives any Ice Shard not from a Choice Band Mamo from full, but TBIC made all the right reads, so I couldn't get Steela low enough. I probably should have stayed in on steela and gambled for a fourth crit though. I could also probably have stood to U-turn more with Victini but I knew I wanted Washtom low for MAero lategame. Just a shitty MU, it happens.
... They loaded Celesteela + Mega Garde BO :sob:. Legit, over half their team had a great MU into this. Heinous MU. Worse, they had Rotom-W + Mamoswine, vs a team with the one grass that Mamoswine definitively uses as cannon fodder, other than maybe Amoonguss, when Washtom Volts on it. It was by no means an unwinnable MU, even without hax, and I could have won since MAero lives any Ice Shard not from a Choice Band Mamo from full, but TBIC made all the right reads, so I couldn't get Steela low enough. I probably should have stayed in on steela and gambled for a fourth crit though. I could also probably have stood to U-turn more with Victini but I knew I wanted Washtom low for MAero lategame. Just a shitty MU, it happens.
And yes, I did get my insane crit RNG from this game paid back to me lmao: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexuu-2469744469-mxan9xlas961hj6h8i22e0su7552nogpw
Week 7 (W):
NDRU Jumpscare.
Some background first: So yeah this week I was put on NDRU for throwing three weeks in a row so that the opps would have a harder time scouting us since my NDRU scout is barren compared to my NDUU one and we needed to win. I'm not new to NDRU, though, I've built some teams and played some matches before, so it's not like I'm a stranger to the tier, but I hadn't played in a little bit so I was a bit rusty on sets. Shoutouts team for the help. We were anticipating some sort of bulky comp based on friendlies Danbear did with the opp, but going by past week trends, the opp never brings what we expect them to, so I wanted a comp that was good into BO and Balance too. Originally we were going to run a Fascu comp since that looked strong into what they ran last week but Blissey is here and pretty strong so that did not look ideal. We brainstormed a sub set but figured it had too many holes into Cyc. We sifted through ghosts until we came to Sub Sinistcha, which we wanted to a Krook comp for but that wound up being too passive and had too many holes.
With the ghost arc over, we went with an LO MixApe Infernape comp instead, EVd to OHKO max def Blissey with CC and nuke everything else with Fire Blast (we did debate running Overheat but that would have meant a worse MU into Gligar). The first comp had Slowking to bring in Infernape more easily, but we wound up running AV Prim over it as it still offered a slow pivot while having more offensive presence. MAggron because it checks most common mons faster than Infernape here + rocks + it's the best mon in the tier, Cyclizar for checking the faster mons that MAgg doesn't, then we went with Scarf Diggersby (originally Scarf Shocks but Shocks sucks lmao) to go for a Spikestack approach + fast pivot, and to add onto that, Sinistcha to handle Tapu Bulu and Slither Wing while also Spin Blocking. ... Yeah we ran it anyways. Lmao.
At this point, we had two comps - the final one and the one with Slowking and Shocks over Prim and Diggersby. We tested the fat MU and found that the Prim one was worse into it, but found it was better into all of the other ones. Learning my lesson from past weeks, I went with the Prim one and wow did it pay off. The true training arc was pattern recognition all along, huh.
Yeah I'm not gonna lie, we had a pretty good matchup going into this. Only iffy MU was Infernape (which they sacked turn 3 from what I can only assume is a misclick because I learned that they weren't Gunk Shot after the game so they had no reason to ever do that, but I wanted to catch a possible bulu switchin with burn in case it was SD Rock Z which it was so I think that was the play) and Diggers only needed chip on Sandaconda and Bulu to just mash Frustration a lot, so that was the game plan. Sneasel was also a bit of a dead slot into me other than Sinis which it would have 1v1d anyways if it weren't for Para Moment:tm:. Ah well, it gave Infernape a free in to just pulverise something and I had it in the bag at that point anyways. Either way, thus ended my loss streak, and my W/L returned to even.
With the ghost arc over, we went with an LO MixApe Infernape comp instead, EVd to OHKO max def Blissey with CC and nuke everything else with Fire Blast (we did debate running Overheat but that would have meant a worse MU into Gligar). The first comp had Slowking to bring in Infernape more easily, but we wound up running AV Prim over it as it still offered a slow pivot while having more offensive presence. MAggron because it checks most common mons faster than Infernape here + rocks + it's the best mon in the tier, Cyclizar for checking the faster mons that MAgg doesn't, then we went with Scarf Diggersby (originally Scarf Shocks but Shocks sucks lmao) to go for a Spikestack approach + fast pivot, and to add onto that, Sinistcha to handle Tapu Bulu and Slither Wing while also Spin Blocking. ... Yeah we ran it anyways. Lmao.
At this point, we had two comps - the final one and the one with Slowking and Shocks over Prim and Diggersby. We tested the fat MU and found that the Prim one was worse into it, but found it was better into all of the other ones. Learning my lesson from past weeks, I went with the Prim one and wow did it pay off. The true training arc was pattern recognition all along, huh.
Yeah I'm not gonna lie, we had a pretty good matchup going into this. Only iffy MU was Infernape (which they sacked turn 3 from what I can only assume is a misclick because I learned that they weren't Gunk Shot after the game so they had no reason to ever do that, but I wanted to catch a possible bulu switchin with burn in case it was SD Rock Z which it was so I think that was the play) and Diggers only needed chip on Sandaconda and Bulu to just mash Frustration a lot, so that was the game plan. Sneasel was also a bit of a dead slot into me other than Sinis which it would have 1v1d anyways if it weren't for Para Moment:tm:. Ah well, it gave Infernape a free in to just pulverise something and I had it in the bag at that point anyways. Either way, thus ended my loss streak, and my W/L returned to even.
Works on paper but Scarf Shocks is fraudulent af, I should probably have named it Nero because this shit was deadweight in test games. No real offensive presence other than Infernape too.
Final Thoughts:
Yeah I'm not gonna lie, this was a pretty scuffed NDFL run for me. Week 4 was just close and I didn't calc when I should have, Week 6 was a really rough MU, but nah there's no excuse for Week 5. Definitely learned some lessons this run, namely that I've been prepping too hard for the opp to bring a specific playstyle and paying for it. Not a single opp loaded a playstyle we expected vs me and it messed me up at least once. It's even more annoying since we tied a lot of those weeks and I can't help but feel I'm partly to blame for that, but eh, that's probably what everyone else who lost those weeks is thinking.
Just gotta get some Ws in upcoming tours to redeem myself ig and come back next year to go x-0. Ultimately I went even on my overall W/L, so it's not like it's the end of the world, but I went negative in the tier I'm Co-TL of so that's not great.
Overall, still a fun tour though. Also how tf did Sapo not get drafted for PL
Mentions:
Danbear02 - was great building with you goat, hoping next time we're both in PL next year (and I remember to actually sign up this time). Playing v you taught me a lot about how I play too (esp that I should never play near midnight because oh lordy).
FayaWizard - Ty for the tests goat
salmonelephant - You as well goat
SapoDaG30 - Ty for helping by filling out most of the sets for me in week 7 goat, I probably would have been cooked without you since my set game has fallen off since last time I played NDRU
#worrywhirl channel - For being our island, our emotional shore. It was a short existence you lived, but thank you, goat.
Didn't interact with most of the rest of the team besides posting 'nice' and 'unfort' when the goats won/lost sadly :[.
hi since my team got eliminated i want to share some teams that i used in this tour
W1:
(W)
W2:
(W)
W3: 
(L)
W4: 
(W)
W5: 
(L)
W6: 
(W)
W7: i deadgame but i planned to use some venusaur squad (sorry exg or whoever my opp was)
Semi-Final:
(W)
I don't give explanation cuz who even hard prep in fl :rofl: I literally recycled teams that Sealoo's team used in ndpl, you can check out his post
Overall a really fun tour, i hope my record was a bit better but it is what it is
Big s/o to sealoo seth for drafting me and trusting me enough to start in sv ou slot, despite us having like 6-7 prior interactions, and big thanks to the prc server and my teammates who made the team environment really fun and enjoyable
W1:
(W)W2:
(W)W3:
(L)W4:
(W)W5:
(L)W6:
(W)W7: i deadgame but i planned to use some venusaur squad (sorry exg or whoever my opp was)
Semi-Final:
(W) I don't give explanation cuz who even hard prep in fl :rofl: I literally recycled teams that Sealoo's team used in ndpl, you can check out his post
Overall a really fun tour, i hope my record was a bit better but it is what it is
Big s/o to sealoo seth for drafting me and trusting me enough to start in sv ou slot, despite us having like 6-7 prior interactions, and big thanks to the prc server and my teammates who made the team environment really fun and enjoyable
https://pokepast.es/e368992ffd4e9458 - Kantoking
https://pokepast.es/d5dd8cdc8a50a070 - Sub Z Kyurem
https://pokepast.es/5dd1126dbeaf962f - Booster Spam (team idea by Ineros and piloted / edits suggested by Slikkles)
https://pokepast.es/10885ed54816703f - Waterpon Dragonite Treads
These were my favourite NDOU teams I built throughout the tour, and where most of the prep time went into obviously. Found myself exploring a lot more concepts which was a blessing since it shows the tier is very stable atm and puts out consistent trends without feeling forced much.
NDFL will always be a special place for me, whether it’s to meet the hidden talent of NatDex or simply shill with the best non-mainers on the site looking to have fun in the farmers league. Got to see the team do a nice 5-0 in the first weeks during my managering endeavors which went in hand with the all-time highs I also felt in NDPL. I can easily see myself going back and enjoying these things the same way all over again.
Slikkles - The moment I heard you just wanted to sign up for NDFL when you could have easily been bossing the PL pool above told me all I needed to know about all the great things you would do in this tour. Thanks for putting up with our relative inexperience in supporting you when it mattered most in the tiebreaker - Goat player all season and even better person to actually vibe with and discuss ideas around.
Incognition Horii - I think a lot of newer players just so happened to fly under the radar which made NDFL perfect the tour to get you, glad you guys got to show most of your stuff despite the trouble of overcoming NatDex mechanics, and to Incognition; if your frequent likewhoring during this time was any indication, I hope the road ahead in all these other tours and battles go well.
GOATED im_m0rtal. - Lots of people are an OUPL guy, but not everyone. On a more serious note, great job putting those extra pennies I spent to lock you in to work whenever you did play, and uh, try not to troll with scheduling next time since we needed the free dub in playoffs :skull:
Don Bork - Loved your enthusiasm as a sub ready to play on the fly and even more that you did this 4 times in the regular season and won each of them LOL. Sucks to see playoffs wasn't the same story, but may the SPL special come for you someday my brother.
dota - Time zone clashes were rough when it came to scheduling and I can definitely say for sure that had this issue not come up as much as it did in later week things would have continued well, which was to say the 4-0 at the start was well and deserved, and certainly happened for all the right reasons we planned to get you. Better luck next time I hope.
Ringmaster Uta - Always a rough tier to play but you keep fighting until the end no matter the MU, and I really hope it comes around to others in the tours you absolutely deserve to win. As always, no regrets on my end if SS NDPL told me anything about your talent as a hardcore Mono fan.
Squeeby - Going 7-1 and one of the only Ubers people to go over 10k, perhaps coincidence. Its without saying your potential was absolutely amazing and my friend bumbo could not have recommended anyone better to take on the daunting prospect that is building for Natdex Ubers.
about15gals - Super epic and relatable player on a super epic team, only that I had to fight Danbear for her and somehow won out. NatDex RU might just be an even more challenging slot to account for in a farm league as I've learned, so having the only real mainer in the pool as opposed to just flopping on which random to gamble on the slot and seeing it all pay off was just a pleasure. No doubts this time on calling you our most valuable teamslot besides maybe Doubles.
iPetBigfoot gephicka Speaking of which... Doubles and Mafia ties are very deep it would seem, but mostly the fact that you guys might just be the best ever at this tier. gephicka, our doubles prep activity would have been completely dead without your help. thank you so much king. IPetBigFoot, enjoy the regular season 7-0, and I appreciate you for putting up with all the playoffs bullshit as always.
summer romance Daepiquejt Nakoruru_XD - Sorry we weren't quite able to get you as far as you guys wished, but I still hope you had fun
and finally...
Boomenheimer - Our SS changed forever the moment you took that off-handed remark you made in PRCord to my PMs and went the full mile with it by choosing to manage with me and Ineros in this tour. You're actually such a cool dude between the hype nicknames, teamstyles, and other crazy things you had to share about the tier, and I'm so much more enthusiastic about seeing SS in teamtours now that I've gotten to see how far you carried these slots alone. Glad to have been a part of it of at least once, will certainly be a lifetime experience for anybody to see the SSND tier leader cook firsthand, and most of all, best of luck in the future!
Ineros - Never a better time to finally manage with you and head down memory lane. Now let's head for the hills in circuit my bestie :3
Was a fun season, hope to see most of you guys again in NDPL.
https://pokepast.es/d5dd8cdc8a50a070 - Sub Z Kyurem
https://pokepast.es/5dd1126dbeaf962f - Booster Spam (team idea by Ineros and piloted / edits suggested by Slikkles)
https://pokepast.es/10885ed54816703f - Waterpon Dragonite Treads
These were my favourite NDOU teams I built throughout the tour, and where most of the prep time went into obviously. Found myself exploring a lot more concepts which was a blessing since it shows the tier is very stable atm and puts out consistent trends without feeling forced much.
NDFL will always be a special place for me, whether it’s to meet the hidden talent of NatDex or simply shill with the best non-mainers on the site looking to have fun in the farmers league. Got to see the team do a nice 5-0 in the first weeks during my managering endeavors which went in hand with the all-time highs I also felt in NDPL. I can easily see myself going back and enjoying these things the same way all over again.
Slikkles - The moment I heard you just wanted to sign up for NDFL when you could have easily been bossing the PL pool above told me all I needed to know about all the great things you would do in this tour. Thanks for putting up with our relative inexperience in supporting you when it mattered most in the tiebreaker - Goat player all season and even better person to actually vibe with and discuss ideas around.
Incognition Horii - I think a lot of newer players just so happened to fly under the radar which made NDFL perfect the tour to get you, glad you guys got to show most of your stuff despite the trouble of overcoming NatDex mechanics, and to Incognition; if your frequent likewhoring during this time was any indication, I hope the road ahead in all these other tours and battles go well.
GOATED im_m0rtal. - Lots of people are an OUPL guy, but not everyone. On a more serious note, great job putting those extra pennies I spent to lock you in to work whenever you did play, and uh, try not to troll with scheduling next time since we needed the free dub in playoffs :skull:
Don Bork - Loved your enthusiasm as a sub ready to play on the fly and even more that you did this 4 times in the regular season and won each of them LOL. Sucks to see playoffs wasn't the same story, but may the SPL special come for you someday my brother.
dota - Time zone clashes were rough when it came to scheduling and I can definitely say for sure that had this issue not come up as much as it did in later week things would have continued well, which was to say the 4-0 at the start was well and deserved, and certainly happened for all the right reasons we planned to get you. Better luck next time I hope.
Ringmaster Uta - Always a rough tier to play but you keep fighting until the end no matter the MU, and I really hope it comes around to others in the tours you absolutely deserve to win. As always, no regrets on my end if SS NDPL told me anything about your talent as a hardcore Mono fan.
Squeeby - Going 7-1 and one of the only Ubers people to go over 10k, perhaps coincidence. Its without saying your potential was absolutely amazing and my friend bumbo could not have recommended anyone better to take on the daunting prospect that is building for Natdex Ubers.
about15gals - Super epic and relatable player on a super epic team, only that I had to fight Danbear for her and somehow won out. NatDex RU might just be an even more challenging slot to account for in a farm league as I've learned, so having the only real mainer in the pool as opposed to just flopping on which random to gamble on the slot and seeing it all pay off was just a pleasure. No doubts this time on calling you our most valuable teamslot besides maybe Doubles.
iPetBigfoot gephicka Speaking of which... Doubles and Mafia ties are very deep it would seem, but mostly the fact that you guys might just be the best ever at this tier. gephicka, our doubles prep activity would have been completely dead without your help. thank you so much king. IPetBigFoot, enjoy the regular season 7-0, and I appreciate you for putting up with all the playoffs bullshit as always.
summer romance Daepiquejt Nakoruru_XD - Sorry we weren't quite able to get you as far as you guys wished, but I still hope you had fun
and finally...
Boomenheimer - Our SS changed forever the moment you took that off-handed remark you made in PRCord to my PMs and went the full mile with it by choosing to manage with me and Ineros in this tour. You're actually such a cool dude between the hype nicknames, teamstyles, and other crazy things you had to share about the tier, and I'm so much more enthusiastic about seeing SS in teamtours now that I've gotten to see how far you carried these slots alone. Glad to have been a part of it of at least once, will certainly be a lifetime experience for anybody to see the SSND tier leader cook firsthand, and most of all, best of luck in the future!
Ineros - Never a better time to finally manage with you and head down memory lane. Now let's head for the hills in circuit my bestie :3
Was a fun season, hope to see most of you guys again in NDPL.
Last edited:
gigaton level yap incoming (i fucking love ndru grahhhhh)
(mu name is linked to game replay, mon icon is nickname reference, paste below both)
W1: vs SapoDaG30 (W)
https://pokepast.es/314ff3898927317d
week 1 so we didn't have much of a scout to go off of. decided to build some dirgle balance thing since blissey wasnt in the tier at the time and i thought that guy was broken. ingame i got a good predict on a crobat switchin which pretty much won game on the spot.
W2: vs carbene (W)
https://pokepast.es/778004bfcd531c0e
still only week 2 and this was a sub from oppo's end so again not much of a scout to go off of. i wanted to build sylveon + magg since it was a mon i theorycrafted a lot during BD with Danbear02. i played this game like some assss but rest magg was able to win lategame
W3: vs Big Chungus IRL (W)
https://pokepast.es/c277f21fe95b122f
w3 we finally had a bit of a scout to go off of, and what i noticed was that this guy was using a LOT of mega pidgeot. what's mega pidgeot click? wind moves. tailwind time. i called it right and he loaded it AGAIN and i was able win with a combination of brambleghast clicking power whip after the normal died and coballion z bullshittery. almost lost near the end because of a polt miss but luckily i was able to pull it back w/ scarf latias
W4 vs Medasus (W)
https://pokepast.es/67f5a6ca7279822c
now that we had actual scouts, the fun meta picks were able to start coming out. this is mega absol is actually a set that dansparce farmed me with during BD. i realized it had crazy mus into most of medas brings during the past week so i went fuck it and decided to build it. this was originally a semisnow team w/ slowking + arctozolt but it felt ass so i went with this version instead. i wasn't super happy with the team during testing but i loaded z ghost dhelmise into stall so the game went about how you'd expect.
W5 vs Kuhrrohsion (W)
https://pokepast.es/f10e133bd7bcb5bc
this was easily my favorite team i built this tour. the backstory behind this team is really funny actually. i was outside when i saw Bella post a photo of a bellibolt pokemon card she had recently gotten while i was thinking about interesting breakers to run in this format. then the gears started turning. elec z bellibolt does geniunely comedic amounts of damage to literally everything, and with access to soak is capable of harassing a LOT of stuff in the format. the idea was specs trick latios to harass stuff like amoonguss and AV tang to allow bellibolt to break once they're either chipped or crippled with specs. i had seen a lot of qwilfish popping up in pl and it seemed really cool as well so i added it here. mega steelix does similar stuff to magg but is also able to compress a ground type which is really helpful. blissey is here because its broken. i'm very happy with how i played this game overall even if it did get a bit dicey in the endgame.
W6 vs spoo (L)
https://pokepast.es/e8fde3bbd5d05a7f
this was The Team Of All Time. i swear this was actually good and it did well in testing! unfortunately that testing was not against spdef toxic registeel! in all seriousness za ou had just dropped and i was busy building that + aaapl was happening + we were already locked in for poffs so i did not do as much thinking on this one as i probably should have. lesson learned oh well
W7 vs Heatranator (L)
https://pokepast.es/dbead54c3c72f129
this team was based off a dansparce team iride loaded in practice games with a resttalk flip turn mega pert. i really liked it after seeing it and wanted to take my own stab at it. i also wanted to run defensive nihilego because it had a lot of cool traits into the metagame. most of this stuff is things i've loaded in the past but i also liked np rotom heat here as a breaker. game-wise i played well but unfortunately got a really unlucky mu with ice fang mega sharpedo which when paired with 2 really unlucky crits on other stuff ended up costing me the game.
Semis vs Kimer (W)
https://pokepast.es/73096e88750ccd8c
i'd been looking forwards to this matchup for a while, as at the time kimer was undefeated in ru. one big thing i noticed when prepping the week prior was that this guy did not like using steels, and was loading a lot of HO. enter, kleavor. i always liked this guy a lot in theory but it just thudded into too many common metagame picks for me to like using it. luckily though, it looked really good on preview from scout! i decided to pair it with fight z sub togekiss to bait in slow steels like magg to oneshot. empo + glig + dirge is a really strong defensive core in general and i slotted in ogerpon-teal to make a nice fire/water/grass core. ogerpon was originally mega scept but that guy sucks ass so i replaced it w/ spikes u turn knock pon. the mu was incredibly lopsided off preview and honestly togekiss could have very likely won turn 1 if i got it positioned right.
I'm overall super happy with how my fl went. going undrafted in PL definitely hurt a little bit but following it up with a very good showing after playing every week felt so nice. I geniunely love this tier to death. it's so fun and it feels like you can do almost anything with enough willpower and dex trawling. going out to tbs in semis after getting haxxed while up definitly sucks but i still loved every second of this tour. can't wait for ndcl in december so i can mono slot this every week and make everyone else play it so they can hopefully like it as much as i do.
shoutouts:
Ineros MY FRIEND, MY GOOD FRIEND HOW ARE WE IN EVERY TEAMTOUR TOGETHER. in all seriousness your help with testing was amazing and even if you didn't know the metagame super well bouncing ideas off you was always helpful. throw another teamtour teamup on the pile sometime
Iride you + ineros are probably the best managers a player could ask for. i'm still not sure where you got half your teams from but you put belt to ass supporting all the slots with games and teams. getting paired with you is always a joy and i hope we'll meet again.
Boomenheimer while i definitely saw you less since you were carrying our entire ss block on your back, you were still a really chill presence and always nice to have around, would glady have you manage me again
Don Bork my fellow ndru countryman. you had a lot of really fun ideas and i'm glad you were able to see the methods to my madness behind some of my more questionable loads (re: week 6) would love to play another team tour with you again
i mainly had my head down in ndru land but heres other people from the team who i think are cool but have less to say about
iPetBigfoot dou goat. keep cooking ur shit my guy
Slikkles don't let anyone tell you you aren't goated
Squeeby how does someone go this positive in ndubers
Incognition watching you learn the ins and outs of ndou was very fun. i hope you liked it and continue to play the tier
GOATED im_m0rtal. icl if i had to play ou for as long as you did i think i'd lose it. good shit
BigForretressGuy every team needs a larper. you're doing gods work out there
gephicka i've got no clue what the fuck you and bigfoot were doing but it seemed to work + you're cool
other cool people:
Danbear02 ndbd made me realize how much i love this tier and you were one of the best people i could possibly think of to help me learn it with
Irys shame you showed up like w5 but love you for pulling through and helping out our mono slot <3
jawabarat i loved seeing your ndru builds, they're always so fresh and interesting and i lovedstealing getting inspired by some of your picks. keep cooking chef
des (idk forum acc but you know who you are) i will not be listening to weezer i have some dignity
also don't let anyone tell you the hrt skillboost isn't real. it definitely is :3
(mu name is linked to game replay, mon icon is nickname reference, paste below both)
W1: vs SapoDaG30 (W)
https://pokepast.es/314ff3898927317d
week 1 so we didn't have much of a scout to go off of. decided to build some dirgle balance thing since blissey wasnt in the tier at the time and i thought that guy was broken. ingame i got a good predict on a crobat switchin which pretty much won game on the spot.
W2: vs carbene (W)
https://pokepast.es/778004bfcd531c0e
still only week 2 and this was a sub from oppo's end so again not much of a scout to go off of. i wanted to build sylveon + magg since it was a mon i theorycrafted a lot during BD with Danbear02. i played this game like some assss but rest magg was able to win lategame
W3: vs Big Chungus IRL (W)
https://pokepast.es/c277f21fe95b122f
w3 we finally had a bit of a scout to go off of, and what i noticed was that this guy was using a LOT of mega pidgeot. what's mega pidgeot click? wind moves. tailwind time. i called it right and he loaded it AGAIN and i was able win with a combination of brambleghast clicking power whip after the normal died and coballion z bullshittery. almost lost near the end because of a polt miss but luckily i was able to pull it back w/ scarf latias
W4 vs Medasus (W)
https://pokepast.es/67f5a6ca7279822c
now that we had actual scouts, the fun meta picks were able to start coming out. this is mega absol is actually a set that dansparce farmed me with during BD. i realized it had crazy mus into most of medas brings during the past week so i went fuck it and decided to build it. this was originally a semisnow team w/ slowking + arctozolt but it felt ass so i went with this version instead. i wasn't super happy with the team during testing but i loaded z ghost dhelmise into stall so the game went about how you'd expect.
W5 vs Kuhrrohsion (W)
https://pokepast.es/f10e133bd7bcb5bc
this was easily my favorite team i built this tour. the backstory behind this team is really funny actually. i was outside when i saw Bella post a photo of a bellibolt pokemon card she had recently gotten while i was thinking about interesting breakers to run in this format. then the gears started turning. elec z bellibolt does geniunely comedic amounts of damage to literally everything, and with access to soak is capable of harassing a LOT of stuff in the format. the idea was specs trick latios to harass stuff like amoonguss and AV tang to allow bellibolt to break once they're either chipped or crippled with specs. i had seen a lot of qwilfish popping up in pl and it seemed really cool as well so i added it here. mega steelix does similar stuff to magg but is also able to compress a ground type which is really helpful. blissey is here because its broken. i'm very happy with how i played this game overall even if it did get a bit dicey in the endgame.
W6 vs spoo (L)
https://pokepast.es/e8fde3bbd5d05a7f
this was The Team Of All Time. i swear this was actually good and it did well in testing! unfortunately that testing was not against spdef toxic registeel! in all seriousness za ou had just dropped and i was busy building that + aaapl was happening + we were already locked in for poffs so i did not do as much thinking on this one as i probably should have. lesson learned oh well
W7 vs Heatranator (L)
https://pokepast.es/dbead54c3c72f129
this team was based off a dansparce team iride loaded in practice games with a resttalk flip turn mega pert. i really liked it after seeing it and wanted to take my own stab at it. i also wanted to run defensive nihilego because it had a lot of cool traits into the metagame. most of this stuff is things i've loaded in the past but i also liked np rotom heat here as a breaker. game-wise i played well but unfortunately got a really unlucky mu with ice fang mega sharpedo which when paired with 2 really unlucky crits on other stuff ended up costing me the game.
Semis vs Kimer (W)
https://pokepast.es/73096e88750ccd8c
i'd been looking forwards to this matchup for a while, as at the time kimer was undefeated in ru. one big thing i noticed when prepping the week prior was that this guy did not like using steels, and was loading a lot of HO. enter, kleavor. i always liked this guy a lot in theory but it just thudded into too many common metagame picks for me to like using it. luckily though, it looked really good on preview from scout! i decided to pair it with fight z sub togekiss to bait in slow steels like magg to oneshot. empo + glig + dirge is a really strong defensive core in general and i slotted in ogerpon-teal to make a nice fire/water/grass core. ogerpon was originally mega scept but that guy sucks ass so i replaced it w/ spikes u turn knock pon. the mu was incredibly lopsided off preview and honestly togekiss could have very likely won turn 1 if i got it positioned right.
I'm overall super happy with how my fl went. going undrafted in PL definitely hurt a little bit but following it up with a very good showing after playing every week felt so nice. I geniunely love this tier to death. it's so fun and it feels like you can do almost anything with enough willpower and dex trawling. going out to tbs in semis after getting haxxed while up definitly sucks but i still loved every second of this tour. can't wait for ndcl in december so i can mono slot this every week and make everyone else play it so they can hopefully like it as much as i do.
shoutouts:
Ineros MY FRIEND, MY GOOD FRIEND HOW ARE WE IN EVERY TEAMTOUR TOGETHER. in all seriousness your help with testing was amazing and even if you didn't know the metagame super well bouncing ideas off you was always helpful. throw another teamtour teamup on the pile sometime
Iride you + ineros are probably the best managers a player could ask for. i'm still not sure where you got half your teams from but you put belt to ass supporting all the slots with games and teams. getting paired with you is always a joy and i hope we'll meet again.
Boomenheimer while i definitely saw you less since you were carrying our entire ss block on your back, you were still a really chill presence and always nice to have around, would glady have you manage me again
Don Bork my fellow ndru countryman. you had a lot of really fun ideas and i'm glad you were able to see the methods to my madness behind some of my more questionable loads (re: week 6) would love to play another team tour with you again
i mainly had my head down in ndru land but heres other people from the team who i think are cool but have less to say about
iPetBigfoot dou goat. keep cooking ur shit my guy
Slikkles don't let anyone tell you you aren't goated
Squeeby how does someone go this positive in ndubers
Incognition watching you learn the ins and outs of ndou was very fun. i hope you liked it and continue to play the tier
GOATED im_m0rtal. icl if i had to play ou for as long as you did i think i'd lose it. good shit
BigForretressGuy every team needs a larper. you're doing gods work out there
gephicka i've got no clue what the fuck you and bigfoot were doing but it seemed to work + you're cool
other cool people:
Danbear02 ndbd made me realize how much i love this tier and you were one of the best people i could possibly think of to help me learn it with
Irys shame you showed up like w5 but love you for pulling through and helping out our mono slot <3
jawabarat i loved seeing your ndru builds, they're always so fresh and interesting and i loved
des (idk forum acc but you know who you are) i will not be listening to weezer i have some dignity
also don't let anyone tell you the hrt skillboost isn't real. it definitely is :3
As much as I want to share teams, I can not as throughout the tour, i trusted my guy Boomenheimer and used whatever he sent me. therefore, it only makes sense if i start the shoutouts with the mafia boss boomenheimer himself
Boomenheimer thank you for getting me, you're the ssnd goat (just like mollymiltoast, s/o molly asw). its always a pleasure helping you/your team out in a tour, whether it be ssndpl or ndpl or ndfl. thank you for the great teams and prep. you asked me to trust you, i did, and i won.
Iride actually the first time i heard of you was when i was learning ssnduu for ssndpl, you had some great insights on the tier and im grateful you got me. this tour was great, ty for prepping the lower tiers.
Ineros dude you're great. great svnd guy who helped me a lot, even in individual tours. tysm and ty for getting me too.
Slikkles heh, you're great bro. great clicker and great dude
Horii Incognition LARPers who clicked well, was fun to team with you
dota my guy has been around since i started playing mons and pbf, you were one of the few people i knew from smogon when starting out and it was great to team up with you
Don Bork goat
Squeeby i knew you only from the pieck pfp, but now ill remember you for your peak performance (haha terrible pun) great NDUBERS player
Nakoruru_XD about15gals iPetBigfoot Ringmaster Uta i wasn't very involved with the lower tier prep but you guys were great, picking up the slack when we were losing and leading to us winning. uta, you got some bad MUs but that's to be expected in the tier you played. otherwise, great player. ipetbigfoot, dude you seriously popped off, glad i teamed with you. about15gals, i'd heard a lot about you before the tour and was excited to team with you. you're amazing. nakoruru, thank you for winning in UU when we needed you to.
hope i don't see any of you in ndfl next time, since you're all worthy of being drafted for ndpl.
sorry to my opps and my managers for scheduling issues LMAO, peace out
Boomenheimer thank you for getting me, you're the ssnd goat (just like mollymiltoast, s/o molly asw). its always a pleasure helping you/your team out in a tour, whether it be ssndpl or ndpl or ndfl. thank you for the great teams and prep. you asked me to trust you, i did, and i won.
Iride actually the first time i heard of you was when i was learning ssnduu for ssndpl, you had some great insights on the tier and im grateful you got me. this tour was great, ty for prepping the lower tiers.
Ineros dude you're great. great svnd guy who helped me a lot, even in individual tours. tysm and ty for getting me too.
Slikkles heh, you're great bro. great clicker and great dude
Horii Incognition LARPers who clicked well, was fun to team with you
dota my guy has been around since i started playing mons and pbf, you were one of the few people i knew from smogon when starting out and it was great to team up with you
Don Bork goat
Squeeby i knew you only from the pieck pfp, but now ill remember you for your peak performance (haha terrible pun) great NDUBERS player
Nakoruru_XD about15gals iPetBigfoot Ringmaster Uta i wasn't very involved with the lower tier prep but you guys were great, picking up the slack when we were losing and leading to us winning. uta, you got some bad MUs but that's to be expected in the tier you played. otherwise, great player. ipetbigfoot, dude you seriously popped off, glad i teamed with you. about15gals, i'd heard a lot about you before the tour and was excited to team with you. you're amazing. nakoruru, thank you for winning in UU when we needed you to.
hope i don't see any of you in ndfl next time, since you're all worthy of being drafted for ndpl.
sorry to my opps and my managers for scheduling issues LMAO, peace out
I want to thank Ineros Iride and Boomenheimer for drafting me and giving me the opportunity, you guys were great managers. Shoutout boomenheimer for passing goat teams and for giving great feedback on my games, shoutout the whole team you guys were amazing players and will definitely be in NDPL next year. Goated team to be in and I thank you all again.
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Well here we are. Lost in the finals, but man did we get far. Overall very happy with my 6-2 record. GG to the zarudes. I want to thank Sami Animemer Illouri for drafting me and once again give me the opportunity to play in NDFL. I especially wanna thank Sami for (helping) building my teams and also bumboclaat in the end for help. I also wanna thank everyone else on the team for making this such a fun tournament and also for rating my shit nicknames. Let's get it next year Slugmas and Magcargos.
i dint play w1 and 2
week 3 (versus BEASTADARSH) WIN
[REPLAY]
We tried to scout and found nothing so we ended up jus bringin something consistent, a nice and bald fez pao team (watch my video). I am pretty familiar with fezandipiti but was not at all with chien-pao but man does that mon click.
week 4 (versus Squeeby) LOSS
[REPLAY]
The opps beware because unfuuny is piloting hyper offense. man do i suck at this shit, just give me some smeargle or toedscruel bullshit but never ever let me touch a deos.
week 5 (versus Vxltarktimi) WIN
[REPLAY]
What if we ran pao again? lets run pao again. With a pivot? with a pivot.
week 6 (versus rightclicker) WIN
[REPLAY]
Rightclicker and I promised each other to do fucked up nicknames and I think I won on that front. Also Garganacl just fits so well on GHAZ and especially together with a pivot, u just mog everything.
week 7 (versus AM) WIN
[REPLAY]
Eruptdon looked good in the scout so i built this bullshit and in the end ditto ended up being the biggest chungus ever and goob every single mon
semis (versus liliou) LOSS
[REPLAY]
Sami thought that zarude would be a good matchup into them but then boom i played it like ass
anyways zarude is still pretty good try it out sometime (bumboclaat is NOT holding me at gunpoint)
semis tb (versus liliou) WIN
[REPLAY]
Ghost spam is just so nice to mash everything to smithereens. add fez for pivot so u can actually run choice items and bam. I actually played v liliou on ladder with this team on an alt and ended up winning (liliou ended up playing a different team tho) and that sealed the deal to use this sheet over smn else.
finals (versus BEASTADARSH) WIN
[REPLAY]
We got to finals, and I didn't get to use floober a single time?? we have to fix it. so I did. floober + scarftal is a tried and true pair. gotta pair it with some sweepers, so we have dd ndm and cm fairyceus. pdon cuz its pdon and etern because it fucking kills shit. Initially we had tera fairy on etern but switched to tera dragon for more damage v pdon and because we already had fairyceus. Initially also had tera ghost gothitelle but switched to tera water for a good matchup into trick room and because I did not think BEASTADARSH would run stall (lol) and I used Owing over toxic on scarftal for a better matchup into psyspam which he used before.
Anyways thank you for reading my rambling unfuuny out.
breezai
i dint play w1 and 2
week 3 (versus BEASTADARSH) WIN
[REPLAY]
We tried to scout and found nothing so we ended up jus bringin something consistent, a nice and bald fez pao team (watch my video). I am pretty familiar with fezandipiti but was not at all with chien-pao but man does that mon click.
week 4 (versus Squeeby) LOSS
[REPLAY]
The opps beware because unfuuny is piloting hyper offense. man do i suck at this shit, just give me some smeargle or toedscruel bullshit but never ever let me touch a deos.
week 5 (versus Vxltarktimi) WIN
[REPLAY]
What if we ran pao again? lets run pao again. With a pivot? with a pivot.
week 6 (versus rightclicker) WIN
[REPLAY]
Rightclicker and I promised each other to do fucked up nicknames and I think I won on that front. Also Garganacl just fits so well on GHAZ and especially together with a pivot, u just mog everything.
week 7 (versus AM) WIN
[REPLAY]
Eruptdon looked good in the scout so i built this bullshit and in the end ditto ended up being the biggest chungus ever and goob every single mon
semis (versus liliou) LOSS
[REPLAY]
Sami thought that zarude would be a good matchup into them but then boom i played it like ass
anyways zarude is still pretty good try it out sometime (bumboclaat is NOT holding me at gunpoint)semis tb (versus liliou) WIN
[REPLAY]
Ghost spam is just so nice to mash everything to smithereens. add fez for pivot so u can actually run choice items and bam. I actually played v liliou on ladder with this team on an alt and ended up winning (liliou ended up playing a different team tho) and that sealed the deal to use this sheet over smn else.
finals (versus BEASTADARSH) WIN
[REPLAY]
We got to finals, and I didn't get to use floober a single time?? we have to fix it. so I did. floober + scarftal is a tried and true pair. gotta pair it with some sweepers, so we have dd ndm and cm fairyceus. pdon cuz its pdon and etern because it fucking kills shit. Initially we had tera fairy on etern but switched to tera dragon for more damage v pdon and because we already had fairyceus. Initially also had tera ghost gothitelle but switched to tera water for a good matchup into trick room and because I did not think BEASTADARSH would run stall (lol) and I used Owing over toxic on scarftal for a better matchup into psyspam which he used before.
Anyways thank you for reading my rambling unfuuny out.
breezai
had a great season on ckc, even if my record started crumbling toward the end.
week 1 vs beyisback W
mega venu killsquad feat dark z weav & specs koko (by ezra)
week 2 vs zryan74 W
6 brokens (maarck version -- ada medi)
what i would have tweaked for this team bc what is that FKN VOLC BRO? holy
week 3 vs logice W
fini fish big dwagon by oculars (small edits)
week 4 vs dota (shoutout dota 2 the video game) L
pannu xard darkz weav edit
week 5 vs angolano FFW
oculars no ground screens circa 2022
week 6 vs veti L
isza lop spikestack
week 7 vs galarianblades L
cpb 2024 grass spam feat bum kart
semifinal vs mok3s W
you know what it is bro THE team of CKC's SS slots...
semi tiebreak (DNS)
finals vs rarh2 L
molly empo nd remake and edit
grats to zarudes on a very clean sweep into victory this week, though, clearly it was deserved and well done.
much love
week 1 vs beyisback W
mega venu killsquad feat dark z weav & specs koko (by ezra)
didnt rly know shit about em and scout was fairly minimally informative so decided to go for the big weenu by ezra back in the day. it's a really cool team, highly recommend everyone try the wonderful frog in SS and SV natdex tbh. not a whole lot to say, but goddamn i love SD dark z weav and mvenu bro... specs koko is also a terrorist in this tier go use it.
6 brokens (maarck version -- ada medi)
what i would have tweaked for this team bc what is that FKN VOLC BRO? holy
once again, scout very minimal, and i didnt notice til literally a month later that ryan played SM, which would have been fairly informative. game went really well for me, i think i had a pretty great matchup with the grass z gren and adamant medi which converted rolls into very very good rolls on skarm and clef. i was in the zone this game, felt really good to play.
fini fish big dwagon by oculars (small edits)
this team is fucking hilarious and strong. original version had less tank on kommo (and was improperly EVd) and manaphy modest. anyway kyurem 6-0 rain, who knew. gg lmao. i love oculars HO teams bro.
pannu xard darkz weav edit
aight first of all i shouldve had roost > dclaw like my team said. thats on me. but man, this greninja SUCKED today. i obviously had better plays to make earlier in the game, but that gunk miss was a huge L. well played otherwise, cant fault u for the game being silly anyway. if i had rock slide it would've been a slightly easier time -- was wishing i hadnt the grass knot this game so bad lmao. i also fucked up a bit in my calcing even though i had the rona spread from that boomer team (though this had some updates) and ended up taking big damage.
oculars no ground screens circa 2022
i wish there was a way to redo this one cuz it's just impossible to verify if someone used the exact same team when u dont have a neutral third party to review/confirm, but team said dont rematch and take win, so, wcyd. i tried to turn the timer off, sorry dude.
isza lop spikestack
this team is incredibly strong, but it ended up being the beginning of the end for me. i fucked up in front of kart when i'd just called out the scale shot w/ hp ice tran -- shoulda just EP the paper katana where it stood/floated then and there. it couldnt lock into a move anyway and dies to tran, what on earth was i doin man. i am still processing this loss and it is part of why i dont make a great competitor -- the other part being the lategame chokes themselves. which is why i tend to favor HO such that your momentum is simply too great to be disturbed and you Just Win.
anyway, good game to veti. my fault, team.
anyway, good game to veti. my fault, team.
cpb 2024 grass spam feat bum kart
despite getting some decent positioning and progress in this game, my brain eventually shut down and i started playing like a bot, then got folded by volc. this kart is NOT lit for this matchup, lmfao, holy fuck that was so sad doing negative damage to volc with dark z. i dont know how i didnt change that before the game. i have no idea how to use this chris-level tech dude. gg though, you deserved it. i was just dissociating in the corner after too many turns. i deffo couldve forced better positioning after taking out msab and conditioning the heatran/seis interactions.
you know what it is bro THE team of CKC's SS slots...
manaphy went fuckin st00pid with the wacan berry. god bless big oc.
i absolutely love this team and HO is the best o7
gg
i absolutely love this team and HO is the best o7
gg
my team won shit and spoo was lame as hell and deadgamed bro :(
fairly certain i could have put up a good fight here with all the prep we did, but wcyd
we reused the team next week in finals below
fairly certain i could have put up a good fight here with all the prep we did, but wcyd
we reused the team next week in finals below
molly empo nd remake and edit
this team actually rules. i'm sad i didn't give it a proper send-off. i don't have a lot to say other than i know i should have put melm out there more often and kept chomp healthy in the back to spam eq on volc, tran, and pex.
really tough loss and it's gonna be a sec before i learn what i need to from it bc of how fkn bad i fumbled this. i really, really, really wanted to do more for ckc here. being the 6th loss is heartbreaking and depressing and i dont wish it on anyone, but it just points to the area i need to work on most: high pressure, close endgame situations. and the only way to learn that is by doing. GG to rarh2, grats.
P.S.: oh man, the signature screens team woulda dunked here. idk what this load was into my scout but you know what, it's like mons. you read the read and then you're 1 turn ahead of em. it was a good load in the end
really tough loss and it's gonna be a sec before i learn what i need to from it bc of how fkn bad i fumbled this. i really, really, really wanted to do more for ckc here. being the 6th loss is heartbreaking and depressing and i dont wish it on anyone, but it just points to the area i need to work on most: high pressure, close endgame situations. and the only way to learn that is by doing. GG to rarh2, grats.
P.S.: oh man, the signature screens team woulda dunked here. idk what this load was into my scout but you know what, it's like mons. you read the read and then you're 1 turn ahead of em. it was a good load in the end
sami for drafting me and sparring with me the most, along with your thankless prep work that helped us out a ton and was detailed. really great manager.
ani and illouri for being the cutest couple ever i love watching them fight in main chat it's hilarious
oculars for being a weirdo and leaking prep for NO REASON without talking to us
but also oculars for dropping the finest heat when i needed it and singlehandedly carrying this slot
molly and xurkibruhgod for being my fuckin GOATs
me empty u rule and i loved our banter during mock and prep and in the chat u are the man
spy for tryna help out best he could i really appreciate the practice you helped put in
meda was helpful sometimes and i think that's great
breezai and smudge and SAW WAR NEWNEW for beasting
everyone else in ckc i know we barely prepped or talked but it was a lot of fun being part of this ragtag crew that somehow made it from very-close-to-knocked-out to winning semis TB and making it all the way to the final round. i can't believe we got there, frankly. it was so fun!
i hope to run more team tours soon. this is only my 3rd one and i missed SSNDPL which is tragic.
if you're reading this, feel free to hmu for gen 8 games almost anytime. especially OU, but definitely natdex too.
ani and illouri for being the cutest couple ever i love watching them fight in main chat it's hilarious
oculars for being a weirdo and leaking prep for NO REASON without talking to us
but also oculars for dropping the finest heat when i needed it and singlehandedly carrying this slot
molly and xurkibruhgod for being my fuckin GOATs
me empty u rule and i loved our banter during mock and prep and in the chat u are the man
spy for tryna help out best he could i really appreciate the practice you helped put in
meda was helpful sometimes and i think that's great
breezai and smudge and SAW WAR NEWNEW for beasting
everyone else in ckc i know we barely prepped or talked but it was a lot of fun being part of this ragtag crew that somehow made it from very-close-to-knocked-out to winning semis TB and making it all the way to the final round. i can't believe we got there, frankly. it was so fun!
i hope to run more team tours soon. this is only my 3rd one and i missed SSNDPL which is tragic.
if you're reading this, feel free to hmu for gen 8 games almost anytime. especially OU, but definitely natdex too.
Last edited:
Two extra teams we didn't use but I feel like sharing, don't ask why we didn't use them:Well here we are. Lost in the finals, but man did we get far. Overall very happy with my 6-2 record. GG to the zarudes. I want to thank Sami Animemer Illouri for drafting me and once again give me the opportunity to play in NDFL. I especially wanna thank Sami for (helping) building my teams and also bumboclaat in the end for help. I also wanna thank everyone else on the team for making this such a fun tournament and also for rating my shit nicknames. Let's get it next year Slugmas and Magcargos.
i dint play w1 and 2
week 3 (versus BEASTADARSH) WIN
[REPLAY]
We tried to scout and found nothing so we ended up jus bringin something consistent, a nice and bald fez pao team (watch my video). I am pretty familiar with fezandipiti but was not at all with chien-pao but man does that mon click.
week 4 (versus Squeeby) LOSS
[REPLAY]
The opps beware because unfuuny is piloting hyper offense. man do i suck at this shit, just give me some smeargle or toedscruel bullshit but never ever let me touch a deos.
week 5 (versus Vxltarktimi) WIN
[REPLAY]
What if we ran pao again? lets run pao again. With a pivot? with a pivot.
week 6 (versus rightclicker) WIN
[REPLAY]
Rightclicker and I promised each other to do fucked up nicknames and I think I won on that front. Also Garganacl just fits so well on GHAZ and especially together with a pivot, u just mog everything.
week 7 (versus AM) WIN
[REPLAY]
Eruptdon looked good in the scout so i built this bullshit and in the end ditto ended up being the biggest chungus ever and goob every single mon
semis (versus liliou) LOSS
[REPLAY]
Sami thought that zarude would be a good matchup into them but then boom i played it like ass
semis tb (versus liliou) WIN
[REPLAY]
Ghost spam is just so nice to mash everything to smithereens. add fez for pivot so u can actually run choice items and bam. I actually played v liliou on ladder with this team on an alt and ended up winning (liliou ended up playing a different team tho) and that sealed the deal to use this sheet over smn else.
finals (versus BEASTADARSH) WIN
[REPLAY]
We got to finals, and I didn't get to use floober a single time?? we have to fix it. so I did. floober + scarftal is a tried and true pair. gotta pair it with some sweepers, so we have dd ndm and cm fairyceus. pdon cuz its pdon and etern because it fucking kills shit. Initially we had tera fairy on etern but switched to tera dragon for more damage v pdon and because we already had fairyceus. Initially also had tera ghost gothitelle but switched to tera water for a good matchup into trick room and because I did not think BEASTADARSH would run stall (lol) and I used Owing over toxic on scarftal for a better matchup into psyspam which he used before.
Anyways thank you for reading my rambling unfuuny out.
View attachment 788492
breezai
Arceus-Rock + Chien Pao Bulky Offense
Arceus-Rock is a cool Stealth Rock setter who helps break through defensive structures alongside Chien Pao, both of them overwhelming Steel-types such as Zacian-C. Eternatus provides a strong specially offensive presence against Zygarde, Primal Groudon, and Dondozo, all three of which can be annoying to break past sometimes. Primal Groudon checks Zacian-C and Primal Kyogre, and has additonal Spike support to make a strong hazard stack duo. Ho-Oh has Defog which is a bit of anti-synergy but its not that bad IMO. Finally, Alomomola provides a pivot for Chien Pao and helps check Marshadow.
Choice Specs Eternatus + Landorus-T Offense
Choice Specs Eternatus is pretty strong I think, while Landorus-T checks Zacian-C, DD Arceus-Ground, while offering both pivot and hazard support. Arceus-Dark checks Ultra Necrozma and Yveltal. Ditto is speed control especially against Sticky Webs. Primal Groudon helps wallbreak with a surprise Double Dance set, while it and Necrozma-DM (who checks Eternatus alongside Arceus-Dark) help break past common defensive cores with Zygarde and Ho-Oh.
Also another thing I discovered in Finals:
Eternatus @ Power Herb
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 212 SpA / 44 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Recover
- Meteor Beam
- Dynamax Cannon
- Fire Blast
Literally just helps in the Sticky Webs matchup, that's it:
+2 252 SpA Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 44 SpD Eternatus: 357-420 (84.7 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Black Hole Eclipse (160 BP) vs. 0 HP / 44 SpD Tera Fairy Eternatus: 356-419 (84.5 - 99.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Only downside is that you have a lesser roll to 2HKO defensive Primal Kyogre after Stealth Rock with +1 Dynamax Cannon, but that's probably less significant than basically 1v1ing Chi Yu.
edit: "sami why doesnt the specs etern have the investment then"
i forgot
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Small gifts i am giving you, these are the teams i used throughout the tournament
s/o ARTYMASION Xurkiyee for the external support and all ckc members especially Retereereeeree Spy1198 Me Empty and Genesis9507
Week 3 vs Toryyy (W)
- - - - - 
(by artymasion)
replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2454683304-s4fd2622gqx1igdticatvx8twdskm6fpw
Week 4 vs Incognition (W)
- - - - -
replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-879322
Week 5 vs Fate1q (L)
- - - - -
replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-881292
Week 6 vs MRH1106 (L)
- - - 
-
replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-882390
Week 7 vs Deviously (W)
- - - - - 
replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-884034
Semi-Final vs Genhui (L)
- - - - 
-
replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-886102
Semi-Final Tie Break vs Fleance (W)
- - - 
- - 
replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-887713
Final vs Kana Arima CEO (L)
- - 
- - -
replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-889171
thx for having me CKC!
s/o ARTYMASION Xurkiyee for the external support and all ckc members especially Retereereeeree Spy1198 Me Empty and Genesis9507
Week 3 vs Toryyy (W)
- - - - - (by artymasion)replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2454683304-s4fd2622gqx1igdticatvx8twdskm6fpw
Week 4 vs Incognition (W)
- - - - - replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-879322
Week 5 vs Fate1q (L)
- - - - - replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-881292
Week 6 vs MRH1106 (L)
- - - - replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-882390
Week 7 vs Deviously (W)
- - - - - replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-884034
Semi-Final vs Genhui (L)
- - - - - replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-886102
Semi-Final Tie Break vs Fleance (W)
- - - - - replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-887713
Final vs Kana Arima CEO (L)
- - - - - replay :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-889171
thx for having me CKC!
My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace, where dewfew kept balance between ho slop, stall slop, volt turn slop and my beloved balance. But that all changed when NDFL III started, and WE started loading the slop to mixed effect, with only me and dewfew, masters of choking games and griefing in prep standing between the tier and its ultimate demise...
Two years ago, me and dewfew journeyed to the builder to help fight against marss barss, leaving only Okidogi and Togekiss to look after our tribe and hopes. Valiantly they fought off Marss Barss in the north, but soon tragedy struck....Okidogi was dying. He sacrificed himself to keep the identity of the Oricorio safe, buying him time to develop into our next greatest warrior.
After being confronted by Admiral spoo at the northern ndru tribe, our heroes were back at it again, with our unlikely heroes driving off the forces of darkness
together, although not without a great cost. After spoo killed Frosslass, the protector of the tribe, our hero Oricorio sacrificed themself to restore it, ultimately completely screwing up our run as I didnt win another game from there.
Our heroes came to learn Voltturn bending from Kimer, a feared bender in the NDFL RU world, putting up scary numbers throughout the tour. To change the tides of the battle, Kimer loaded HO, which through a combination of bad luck and more bad luck ended up muscling its way through our unlikely squad
ultimately quashing their chances of victory.
Me and dewfew then came to defend the thought impenetrable walls of Ba sing se which was being threatened by a dangerous bender known as About15gals, a then undefeated players. So being the great minds that we are...me and dewfew came to the decision that our best shot at defending the city from the incoming invasion was to load stall 
Unfortunately our efforts were futile as the coup instigated by Z Dhelmise was too much to handle, and the capital city fell.
We then decided to invade the nation of Kitoothe during the eclipse, but our forces 
were crushed by a combination of Voltturn and bad play. We were forced to retreat and reconsider our options before going back into battle.
Our tactics shifted to one of patience and preparation as Dewfew took the wheel, deciding to aggressively cteam the lax, stalling nature of the Chungus. As his mentor in stall cteaming we concocted a team
, although initially dewfew was adverse to the thought of taking life, even if it was in Week 6 of NDFl. These worries came tumbling down when he ran into the very matchup he was dreaming of, and strips Big Chungus IRL of his bending after defeating him during Tornadus Comet.
Over at Ba sing se dewfew was tasked with the tall order of destroying Niadevs airship and capturing him to prevent any further harm being done to the wider nation of the CKC. Dewfews crack team of shitmons
were unfortunately unable to reclaim the city, leaving Niadev and the Rillaboom nation in a strong position...
But all was not lost, as our reinforcements arrived, with dunes dealing the final blow to the Rillaboom nation, letting us recapture the capital!
Then me and dewfew were tasked with removing our final obstacle, old Admiral spoo, who had since returned and was causing trouble around the colonies of the old Rillaboom nation. We assembled a team 
for what could be our final battle, and thought our old tactics of HO slop would once again catch the admiral off guard, so we assembled a team with some familiar faces, Lucario Tornadus and Ogerpon all returning for this monumentous battle. We failed. Once again we had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and bring CKC into disrepute, who at this point were very much carrying our asses. And that's what they did. Again.
Due to our previous failures we were left out of the final battle against the evil organisation of the OZ, where we tried our hardest to support from the side-lines but nothing worked.
CKC lost, and our once prosperous kingdom fell.
Two years ago, me and dewfew journeyed to the builder to help fight against marss barss, leaving only Okidogi and Togekiss to look after our tribe and hopes.
Valiantly they fought off Marss Barss in the north, but soon tragedy struck....Okidogi was dying. He sacrificed himself to keep the identity of the Oricorio safe, buying him time to develop into our next greatest warrior.After being confronted by Admiral spoo at the northern ndru tribe, our heroes were back at it again, with our unlikely heroes driving off the forces of darkness
together, although not without a great cost. After spoo killed Frosslass, the protector of the tribe, our hero Oricorio sacrificed themself to restore it, ultimately completely screwing up our run as I didnt win another game from there.Our heroes came to learn Voltturn bending from Kimer, a feared bender in the NDFL RU world, putting up scary numbers throughout the tour. To change the tides of the battle, Kimer loaded HO, which through a combination of bad luck and more bad luck ended up muscling its way through our unlikely squad
ultimately quashing their chances of victory.Me and dewfew then came to defend the thought impenetrable walls of Ba sing se which was being threatened by a dangerous bender known as About15gals, a then undefeated players. So being the great minds that we are...me and dewfew came to the decision that our best shot at defending the city from the incoming invasion was to load stall
Unfortunately our efforts were futile as the coup instigated by Z Dhelmise was too much to handle, and the capital city fell.We then decided to invade the nation of Kitoothe during the eclipse, but our forces
were crushed by a combination of Voltturn and bad play. We were forced to retreat and reconsider our options before going back into battle.Our tactics shifted to one of patience and preparation as Dewfew took the wheel, deciding to aggressively cteam the lax, stalling nature of the Chungus. As his mentor in stall cteaming we concocted a team
, although initially dewfew was adverse to the thought of taking life, even if it was in Week 6 of NDFl. These worries came tumbling down when he ran into the very matchup he was dreaming of, and strips Big Chungus IRL of his bending after defeating him during Tornadus Comet.Over at Ba sing se dewfew was tasked with the tall order of destroying Niadevs airship and capturing him to prevent any further harm being done to the wider nation of the CKC. Dewfews crack team of shitmons
were unfortunately unable to reclaim the city, leaving Niadev and the Rillaboom nation in a strong position...But all was not lost, as our reinforcements arrived, with dunes dealing the final blow to the Rillaboom nation, letting us recapture the capital!
Then me and dewfew were tasked with removing our final obstacle, old Admiral spoo, who had since returned and was causing trouble around the colonies of the old Rillaboom nation. We assembled a team
for what could be our final battle, and thought our old tactics of HO slop would once again catch the admiral off guard, so we assembled a team with some familiar faces, Lucario Tornadus and Ogerpon all returning for this monumentous battle. We failed. Once again we had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and bring CKC into disrepute, who at this point were very much carrying our asses. And that's what they did. Again.Due to our previous failures we were left out of the final battle against the evil organisation of the OZ, where we tried our hardest to support from the side-lines but nothing worked.
CKC lost, and our once prosperous kingdom fell.
On a real, I had a lot of fun playing this tour and building not only RU, but a lot of tiers I previously disliked or just flat out hadn't ever tried for a lot of very cool people. Big shoutout to dewfew we may be ass but I thought our builds throughout this tour were rly cool and I enjoyed making them a lot. Also big thanks to Sami to running tests with me a lot more than I thought you would tbh... hope exams weren't in any way compromised! And obviously huge shoutout to all of CKC, I had a blast running it with yall! 
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ts so ass </3
I would say generational yap incoming, but I'm apparently following a full on larp, so uhhhhhhhh
Week 1
Coming into the tournament, first week I was up against Jeza.p, who I at least recognised from other tournaments even if I don't remember if I played them myself. I'm also feeling the nerves coming off a high auction price, and my week 1 is generally pretty shaky in team tournaments anyway, so I fell back on something familiar. Get used to this type of squad, it's gonna come up a lot.
There are a few details about this team beyond the obvious that I would like to talk about. First, the elephant in the room, choice band Azumarill on HO. Generally, choice locked mons on this style of non-switching HO is frowned upon as a loss in momentum. You maybe take a kill, but are then immediately forced back out to not lose ground, which gives your opponent the initiative whenever it comes in. That said, I found banded Azu to be exceptionally effective at punishing the expected answers to the belly drum set, like Skarmory and Slowbro, and giving opportunities to come in that a HO team usually wouldn't be able to force consistently. Meanwhile, belly drum sets felt like they had no room to set up in the current meta after tests, so it was almost never worth going to unless revenging something like Iron Moth, which I had Boulder for anyway. It also let me somewhat hide where my Z crystal was placed on preview, though I think most would correctly assume it was on Goltres. Also side note, I was worried about a potential HO mirror this week, so I chose excadrill over mew as lead since that's better in the mirror match generally. You at least force rocks on both sides, or can potentially get hazards clear and keep your sash intact if your opponent tries to deny that line. I ended up losing this week, but as said factors weren't in my favor at the start of the tour. I considered moving back to support and letting someone else take the slot, but decided not to due to support from friends (I'll get to that in the shout outs).
Week 2
I'll talk a bit about the team, since it is a slightly different take on standard stall, but it's not that relevant to the week due to a disconnect resulting in my opponent timing out. Unfortunate that it happened, and I hope I get to play you again at some point Dabman1069 seeing as we couldn't get the run back.
Again, still feeling the nerves, so we're on another comfort playstyle. That said, stall in NDUU has a reputation for being incredibly mediocre due to all the absurd wallbreakers running around. I should also note, at this point Okidogi had not fully gained traction in the tier, so I wasn't respecting it the same way that I would have later in the tournament. My version of stall essentially tried to accept that there were certain match ups it wasn't going to win, and instead of running multiple unmons (man flygon was always so ass) to answer them, utilise actually good mons to increase consistency. Then if the problem match ups show up, simply outplay
.
Week 3
This week I'd finally settled down a bit, and wasn't as stiff in my teambuilding and play. Some help with analysing replays during prep the last couple weeks was incredibly important to this, and resulted in the massive shift my playstyle saw during this tournament (once again, I'll get to this properly in shout outs). This was the first week that really paid off and it shows even in the teambuilder, with a team I'm pretty proud off all in all.
This team originally started out as an experiment with pivot Pecharunt and choice specs Keldeo, since I had been observing Pecharunt's use in OU and how it could sometimes feel virtually immortal. Particularly with how congested the 241 speed tier is in UU, I thought it could potentially pull off some of the exact same strategies here while maintaining bulk investment. I originally paired this with choice specs Keldeo as a nuke, but eventually pivoted to Ursaluna to better break down bulkier teams after struggling to find a way for Keldeo to break past the Mega Latias cores balance is forced to rely on. Serperior can paralyse entire teams for Ursaluna to run over, and provides defogging in front of Hippowdon, which this team can otherwise struggle to threaten immediately. Scizor is in a really rough spot at the moment, but I needed a way to threaten Mega Gardevoir that could also pivot Ursaluna in on steels, so it fit perfectly here. And Mega Aerodactyl gave both rocks and speed control, as well as a way to potentially beat Iron Moth if rocks are kept off the field (this is also why Ursaluna was invested in sp.def, to potentially eat an energy ball). All in all, happy with my team, happy with my play, though why I didn't just Headlong Rush into Hoodra turn 11 I will never know.
Week 4
Week 4 got very experimental. I have been very vocal in my hatred of utility Excadrill BO, since it always felt like having to use exca was essentially just admitting you couldn't fit everything you needed on a team, and had to sacrifice a slot purely for role compression. Which is fine in some cases, but against balance particularly can just mean playing 5v6. To Exca's benefit at least, balance as a team style is just dead in current meta, with Okidogi and Mega Gardevoir punishing it for even daring to poke its head out of the hole it crawled into. That said, prep this week was fun, lots of throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck.
This team was entirely based on an idea jawabarat threw out on day 1, I think mostly as a joke due to Tapu Fini dropping to the tier. But I'd seen Fezandipiti put in some real work, and wanted to try it for myself. The theory is pretty obvious; force in a steel, trap with Zone, win late game with calm mind Fez and poison procs. Mienshao provides immediate power, Mega Aerodactyl speed control and Moth patrolling duties, Excadrill role compression and Slowbro for pivoting to bring in Shao, as well as being a fighting check. Actually did pretty well in testing, and probably could have won if I hadn't tried to get too cute with it in the game. Swampert was a known problem match up since I didn't have a way to properly threaten it, so I got too focused on trying to get a quick toxic chain proc on it.
Week 5
Right, gloves are off this week, let's get serious. At this point I've got a good grip on what is and isn't working, backed up by data from NDPL and discussion in the NDUU discord. We'd noticed that our opponent was probably using Sealoo teams, which means we were aiming to be prepared into primarily balance as well as more offbeat sets. For this task, we prepared HO with a few techs that ended up paying off.
Told you this structure would be coming back up. Credit for nicknames on this and all my nicked teams go to jawabarat as well. Keldeo is a known balance destroyer with its Z sets, being able to pick apart Hippowdon/Mega Venusaur cores with ease after Celesteela is removed. To make sure the offense match up wasn't completely sacrificed, we then threw on Iron Moth and Bisharp, followed by Iron Boulder to prevent ever losing to opposing moths, Celesteela again for its good balance match up, and Mew lead since we weren't anticipating a HO mirror. The big tech here is in Bisharp's EVs, which are specifically designed to always live either Hippowdon's or Swampert's Earthquake. During testing, Swampert in particular was proving to be a huge problem, so we decided that the loss of power with jolly Bisharp was more than worth it. This ended up paying off big time, as we were able to both get the jump on an adamant Okidogi speed creeping the 241 region and also live the Swampert EQ after, guaranteeing the win.
Week 6
Battle of the council vs Niadev. I was looking forward to this week, since playing against Nia always leads to some very fun games, and since we've played against each other so much the match was most likely going to be won in the builder rather than in the game. Because of that, I put my absolute all into the prediction game from Monday onwards. First off, HO was out of the question. I've not exactly been quiet in my hatred for the current state of HO, and after loading it the previous week there was absolutely no way I was loading it here. Secondly, no stall. On top of the potential for running into any of its many unwinnable match ups, Niadev knows I run stall frequently and have performed well against them using it. As previously stated, balance is dead, so that left me on Bulky Offense. At this stage in the tournament, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel on my main breaker at least, so I was choosing between Okidogi and Mega Gardevoir to build around. Of those two, Okidogi is the star of the week for new threats coming out of NDPL, so I chose instead to go for a Mega Gardevoir themed team.
If you've watched the replay, you know how this went. Mega Gardevoir is the key breaker, with little to no reliable switch ins . Serperior once again spreads paralysis for both Mega Gardevoir and Mamoswine, allowing for either to go from breaker to sweeper in the late game. Celesteela provides our own counterplay against opposing Mega Gardevoir, as well as Keldeo and other similar threats. Rotom provides defogging and a Bisharp check, Mamoswine was a fun breaker designed to take advantage of the many grasses in the tier when I needed a ground type breaker that could set rocks, and Iron Boulder is here purely to counter team the chance of a Hyper Offence bring. Iron Fraud does nothing once again this time around though, but fortunately it wasn't needed. The prep paid off and I got the match up of a lifetime with Rotom and Mega Gardevoir basically 6-0ing their entire team.
Week 7
Not gonna spend too much time here, since this week straight up didn't matter. Our match had no bearing on who got into playoffs, since both us and our opponents were guaranteed in. I still wanted to play, but decided to indulge some of the memeing going on in my prep channel. Also helped hide information vs whoever we would be playing in semis, though that was of minimal impact.
This is the best I could do with Incineroar. Memento to give it chances to set up, Scizor to bring it in on steels, then a backup core attempting to hold long enough for Incin to maybe do something. Didn't work out, but clicking MALICIOUS MOONSAULT was always the goal anyway.
Semis
Run back versus our week 7 opponent, and this time we're back to trying. We're not sure how much help our opponents onboarded now that semis have started and NDPL is over, but we can at least make the team as solid as possible. We noticed two things about our opponent from their main season. First, they like to run techs and weird sets, so we need to be solid into unexpected strats. Second, literally every team they've used loses in some way to knock off Okidogi. Take two guesses what we ended up building around.
Okidogi is the star of the show, with a bulk up 3a set that traditional balance struggles immensely to answer. We used fightinium Z on this set since it hits so much more of the meta than poisinium Z, with the expectation that the rest of the team is capable enough of handling Slowbro recovering repeatedly. Mega Latias with a 3a roost set is also something pretty new that's still picking up traction, doing its best Latios impression to decent effect assuming you manage to play around Tyranitar. Scarf washer provides counterplay to HO, while also typically being able to cripple at least one mon vs standard offense or balance where Boulder can serve well enough for speed control. Serperior is our main answer to Slowbro, while once again spreading enough paralysis to essentially function as speed control. Excadrill is role compression, since I once again had to admit defeat on trying to spread everything out, and Iron Boulder is a secondary breaker and moth check. No booster here since we weren't particularly concerned about HO showing up. I did have to take a bit of a gamble this game, banking on the Mega Aerodactyl being coverage over Earthquake after it revealed pursuit, but it worked out in the end.
Finals
This was the big one, which I didn't have to be worried about in the end but still didn't want to let my team down. That said, I was a little bit lost for what to bring. I didn't want to do anything I'd already loaded to gain the surprise advantage, but I'd already run just about every consistent team style in the tier. So that only left inconsistent strats, and at one point the idea of webs was thrown out. And looking at the scout, it actually kinda cooked, so long as we didn't load into the nightmare match up of Mega Aerodactyl + Bisharp. But what are the odds of that? They've loaded each mon individually once, surely they don't change their entire building style right in the last week.
Araquanid is the webs lead of choice at the moment, being able to EV to live any hit Mega Aerodactyl could deal while only losing to Tyranitar on lead. Magic coat allows it to bounce back taunt and rocks, endeavour with a custap berry means you're not always going 5v6 down on lead, and liquidation can kill Mega Aerodactyl while applying pressure to any non-resistant target in front of it. Aegislash is the only consistent way to deny Excadrill from clearing webs, which felt incredibly important in current meta. Iron Moth is once again causing its usual problems, but this time it has a specific purpose. Not too long ago, the entire point of webs was to be able to run the booster: special attack variant instead of booster: speed. That said, Mega Aerodactyl taking over the tier gives webs an incredibly bad match up, but the Discharge set sometimes blowing up the flying fossil gives webs some form of counterplay. We chose to respect Mega Aerodactyl over Bisharp on this team where given the option, otherwise substitute here could have been an option in the same slot. Serperior with normalium Z is excellent bait for any boots Iron Moth sets I might run up against, and also provides a nuke at +2 that usually at least trades. Our own Mega Aerodactyl is specifically jolly, which may seem counterintuitive on a webs team initially, in order to provide a last ditch out to opposing Mega Aerodactyl by being able to go for a speed tie. Otherwise, not being able to be revenged by scarf Mienshao at neutral is a massive boon for mega Aerodactyl, and outspeeding sand Excadrill at +1 after webs is very helpful for it. And finally, Bisharp hard punishes any attempts to defog webs away. I was incredibly happy with my play this game, being able to pull out a win versus what should have been a win on preview for my opponent. An excellent end to the tour.
Shoutouts
First, JeoZ Mrbanana45 Darkness 789 thank you for picking me up, I appreciate my results piloting in team tours aren't great so I know it was a risk paying that much for me to run the UU slot. Happy I didn't disappoint, and look forward to teaming again in future!
jawabarat man. Literally don't even know where to start. Top tier shitposting, great team advice, your feedback on replay analysis was incredibly helpful, nicknames impeccable, I don't think I would have done nearly as well without you constantly helping me with tests. It was only at your insistence that I even committed to joining this tour, which was fully intended to be my last for a good while, and the last couple of weeks of the tournament are the only reason I'm even considering keeping playing. Ty for being the goat.
The Hisui Region MALICIOUS MOONSAULT will forever live on, thank you for the shitposting as well as the callouts with teambuilding.
ComputerWhiz You didn't need to help out but did, and I really appreciate it. Your feedback on my games is a large chunk of what led to my play style changes, and hopefully will keep me playing well for a while to come.
eldids You came in at the last minute and made up for lost time, your help during semis and finals was much appreciated!
And that's all folks!
Week 1
Coming into the tournament, first week I was up against Jeza.p, who I at least recognised from other tournaments even if I don't remember if I played them myself. I'm also feeling the nerves coming off a high auction price, and my week 1 is generally pretty shaky in team tournaments anyway, so I fell back on something familiar. Get used to this type of squad, it's gonna come up a lot.
There are a few details about this team beyond the obvious that I would like to talk about. First, the elephant in the room, choice band Azumarill on HO. Generally, choice locked mons on this style of non-switching HO is frowned upon as a loss in momentum. You maybe take a kill, but are then immediately forced back out to not lose ground, which gives your opponent the initiative whenever it comes in. That said, I found banded Azu to be exceptionally effective at punishing the expected answers to the belly drum set, like Skarmory and Slowbro, and giving opportunities to come in that a HO team usually wouldn't be able to force consistently. Meanwhile, belly drum sets felt like they had no room to set up in the current meta after tests, so it was almost never worth going to unless revenging something like Iron Moth, which I had Boulder for anyway. It also let me somewhat hide where my Z crystal was placed on preview, though I think most would correctly assume it was on Goltres. Also side note, I was worried about a potential HO mirror this week, so I chose excadrill over mew as lead since that's better in the mirror match generally. You at least force rocks on both sides, or can potentially get hazards clear and keep your sash intact if your opponent tries to deny that line. I ended up losing this week, but as said factors weren't in my favor at the start of the tour. I considered moving back to support and letting someone else take the slot, but decided not to due to support from friends (I'll get to that in the shout outs).
Week 2
I'll talk a bit about the team, since it is a slightly different take on standard stall, but it's not that relevant to the week due to a disconnect resulting in my opponent timing out. Unfortunate that it happened, and I hope I get to play you again at some point Dabman1069 seeing as we couldn't get the run back.
Again, still feeling the nerves, so we're on another comfort playstyle. That said, stall in NDUU has a reputation for being incredibly mediocre due to all the absurd wallbreakers running around. I should also note, at this point Okidogi had not fully gained traction in the tier, so I wasn't respecting it the same way that I would have later in the tournament. My version of stall essentially tried to accept that there were certain match ups it wasn't going to win, and instead of running multiple unmons (man flygon was always so ass) to answer them, utilise actually good mons to increase consistency. Then if the problem match ups show up, simply outplay
.Week 3
This week I'd finally settled down a bit, and wasn't as stiff in my teambuilding and play. Some help with analysing replays during prep the last couple weeks was incredibly important to this, and resulted in the massive shift my playstyle saw during this tournament (once again, I'll get to this properly in shout outs). This was the first week that really paid off and it shows even in the teambuilder, with a team I'm pretty proud off all in all.
This team originally started out as an experiment with pivot Pecharunt and choice specs Keldeo, since I had been observing Pecharunt's use in OU and how it could sometimes feel virtually immortal. Particularly with how congested the 241 speed tier is in UU, I thought it could potentially pull off some of the exact same strategies here while maintaining bulk investment. I originally paired this with choice specs Keldeo as a nuke, but eventually pivoted to Ursaluna to better break down bulkier teams after struggling to find a way for Keldeo to break past the Mega Latias cores balance is forced to rely on. Serperior can paralyse entire teams for Ursaluna to run over, and provides defogging in front of Hippowdon, which this team can otherwise struggle to threaten immediately. Scizor is in a really rough spot at the moment, but I needed a way to threaten Mega Gardevoir that could also pivot Ursaluna in on steels, so it fit perfectly here. And Mega Aerodactyl gave both rocks and speed control, as well as a way to potentially beat Iron Moth if rocks are kept off the field (this is also why Ursaluna was invested in sp.def, to potentially eat an energy ball). All in all, happy with my team, happy with my play, though why I didn't just Headlong Rush into Hoodra turn 11 I will never know.
Week 4
Week 4 got very experimental. I have been very vocal in my hatred of utility Excadrill BO, since it always felt like having to use exca was essentially just admitting you couldn't fit everything you needed on a team, and had to sacrifice a slot purely for role compression. Which is fine in some cases, but against balance particularly can just mean playing 5v6. To Exca's benefit at least, balance as a team style is just dead in current meta, with Okidogi and Mega Gardevoir punishing it for even daring to poke its head out of the hole it crawled into. That said, prep this week was fun, lots of throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck.
This team was entirely based on an idea jawabarat threw out on day 1, I think mostly as a joke due to Tapu Fini dropping to the tier. But I'd seen Fezandipiti put in some real work, and wanted to try it for myself. The theory is pretty obvious; force in a steel, trap with Zone, win late game with calm mind Fez and poison procs. Mienshao provides immediate power, Mega Aerodactyl speed control and Moth patrolling duties, Excadrill role compression and Slowbro for pivoting to bring in Shao, as well as being a fighting check. Actually did pretty well in testing, and probably could have won if I hadn't tried to get too cute with it in the game. Swampert was a known problem match up since I didn't have a way to properly threaten it, so I got too focused on trying to get a quick toxic chain proc on it.
Week 5
Right, gloves are off this week, let's get serious. At this point I've got a good grip on what is and isn't working, backed up by data from NDPL and discussion in the NDUU discord. We'd noticed that our opponent was probably using Sealoo teams, which means we were aiming to be prepared into primarily balance as well as more offbeat sets. For this task, we prepared HO with a few techs that ended up paying off.
Told you this structure would be coming back up. Credit for nicknames on this and all my nicked teams go to jawabarat as well. Keldeo is a known balance destroyer with its Z sets, being able to pick apart Hippowdon/Mega Venusaur cores with ease after Celesteela is removed. To make sure the offense match up wasn't completely sacrificed, we then threw on Iron Moth and Bisharp, followed by Iron Boulder to prevent ever losing to opposing moths, Celesteela again for its good balance match up, and Mew lead since we weren't anticipating a HO mirror. The big tech here is in Bisharp's EVs, which are specifically designed to always live either Hippowdon's or Swampert's Earthquake. During testing, Swampert in particular was proving to be a huge problem, so we decided that the loss of power with jolly Bisharp was more than worth it. This ended up paying off big time, as we were able to both get the jump on an adamant Okidogi speed creeping the 241 region and also live the Swampert EQ after, guaranteeing the win.
Week 6
Battle of the council vs Niadev. I was looking forward to this week, since playing against Nia always leads to some very fun games, and since we've played against each other so much the match was most likely going to be won in the builder rather than in the game. Because of that, I put my absolute all into the prediction game from Monday onwards. First off, HO was out of the question. I've not exactly been quiet in my hatred for the current state of HO, and after loading it the previous week there was absolutely no way I was loading it here. Secondly, no stall. On top of the potential for running into any of its many unwinnable match ups, Niadev knows I run stall frequently and have performed well against them using it. As previously stated, balance is dead, so that left me on Bulky Offense. At this stage in the tournament, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel on my main breaker at least, so I was choosing between Okidogi and Mega Gardevoir to build around. Of those two, Okidogi is the star of the week for new threats coming out of NDPL, so I chose instead to go for a Mega Gardevoir themed team.
If you've watched the replay, you know how this went. Mega Gardevoir is the key breaker, with little to no reliable switch ins . Serperior once again spreads paralysis for both Mega Gardevoir and Mamoswine, allowing for either to go from breaker to sweeper in the late game. Celesteela provides our own counterplay against opposing Mega Gardevoir, as well as Keldeo and other similar threats. Rotom provides defogging and a Bisharp check, Mamoswine was a fun breaker designed to take advantage of the many grasses in the tier when I needed a ground type breaker that could set rocks, and Iron Boulder is here purely to counter team the chance of a Hyper Offence bring. Iron Fraud does nothing once again this time around though, but fortunately it wasn't needed. The prep paid off and I got the match up of a lifetime with Rotom and Mega Gardevoir basically 6-0ing their entire team.
Week 7
Not gonna spend too much time here, since this week straight up didn't matter. Our match had no bearing on who got into playoffs, since both us and our opponents were guaranteed in. I still wanted to play, but decided to indulge some of the memeing going on in my prep channel. Also helped hide information vs whoever we would be playing in semis, though that was of minimal impact.
This is the best I could do with Incineroar. Memento to give it chances to set up, Scizor to bring it in on steels, then a backup core attempting to hold long enough for Incin to maybe do something. Didn't work out, but clicking MALICIOUS MOONSAULT was always the goal anyway.
Semis
Run back versus our week 7 opponent, and this time we're back to trying. We're not sure how much help our opponents onboarded now that semis have started and NDPL is over, but we can at least make the team as solid as possible. We noticed two things about our opponent from their main season. First, they like to run techs and weird sets, so we need to be solid into unexpected strats. Second, literally every team they've used loses in some way to knock off Okidogi. Take two guesses what we ended up building around.
Okidogi is the star of the show, with a bulk up 3a set that traditional balance struggles immensely to answer. We used fightinium Z on this set since it hits so much more of the meta than poisinium Z, with the expectation that the rest of the team is capable enough of handling Slowbro recovering repeatedly. Mega Latias with a 3a roost set is also something pretty new that's still picking up traction, doing its best Latios impression to decent effect assuming you manage to play around Tyranitar. Scarf washer provides counterplay to HO, while also typically being able to cripple at least one mon vs standard offense or balance where Boulder can serve well enough for speed control. Serperior is our main answer to Slowbro, while once again spreading enough paralysis to essentially function as speed control. Excadrill is role compression, since I once again had to admit defeat on trying to spread everything out, and Iron Boulder is a secondary breaker and moth check. No booster here since we weren't particularly concerned about HO showing up. I did have to take a bit of a gamble this game, banking on the Mega Aerodactyl being coverage over Earthquake after it revealed pursuit, but it worked out in the end.
Finals
This was the big one, which I didn't have to be worried about in the end but still didn't want to let my team down. That said, I was a little bit lost for what to bring. I didn't want to do anything I'd already loaded to gain the surprise advantage, but I'd already run just about every consistent team style in the tier. So that only left inconsistent strats, and at one point the idea of webs was thrown out. And looking at the scout, it actually kinda cooked, so long as we didn't load into the nightmare match up of Mega Aerodactyl + Bisharp. But what are the odds of that? They've loaded each mon individually once, surely they don't change their entire building style right in the last week.
Araquanid is the webs lead of choice at the moment, being able to EV to live any hit Mega Aerodactyl could deal while only losing to Tyranitar on lead. Magic coat allows it to bounce back taunt and rocks, endeavour with a custap berry means you're not always going 5v6 down on lead, and liquidation can kill Mega Aerodactyl while applying pressure to any non-resistant target in front of it. Aegislash is the only consistent way to deny Excadrill from clearing webs, which felt incredibly important in current meta. Iron Moth is once again causing its usual problems, but this time it has a specific purpose. Not too long ago, the entire point of webs was to be able to run the booster: special attack variant instead of booster: speed. That said, Mega Aerodactyl taking over the tier gives webs an incredibly bad match up, but the Discharge set sometimes blowing up the flying fossil gives webs some form of counterplay. We chose to respect Mega Aerodactyl over Bisharp on this team where given the option, otherwise substitute here could have been an option in the same slot. Serperior with normalium Z is excellent bait for any boots Iron Moth sets I might run up against, and also provides a nuke at +2 that usually at least trades. Our own Mega Aerodactyl is specifically jolly, which may seem counterintuitive on a webs team initially, in order to provide a last ditch out to opposing Mega Aerodactyl by being able to go for a speed tie. Otherwise, not being able to be revenged by scarf Mienshao at neutral is a massive boon for mega Aerodactyl, and outspeeding sand Excadrill at +1 after webs is very helpful for it. And finally, Bisharp hard punishes any attempts to defog webs away. I was incredibly happy with my play this game, being able to pull out a win versus what should have been a win on preview for my opponent. An excellent end to the tour.
Shoutouts
First, JeoZ Mrbanana45 Darkness 789 thank you for picking me up, I appreciate my results piloting in team tours aren't great so I know it was a risk paying that much for me to run the UU slot. Happy I didn't disappoint, and look forward to teaming again in future!
jawabarat man. Literally don't even know where to start. Top tier shitposting, great team advice, your feedback on replay analysis was incredibly helpful, nicknames impeccable, I don't think I would have done nearly as well without you constantly helping me with tests. It was only at your insistence that I even committed to joining this tour, which was fully intended to be my last for a good while, and the last couple of weeks of the tournament are the only reason I'm even considering keeping playing. Ty for being the goat.
The Hisui Region MALICIOUS MOONSAULT will forever live on, thank you for the shitposting as well as the callouts with teambuilding.
ComputerWhiz You didn't need to help out but did, and I really appreciate it. Your feedback on my games is a large chunk of what led to my play style changes, and hopefully will keep me playing well for a while to come.
eldids You came in at the last minute and made up for lost time, your help during semis and finals was much appreciated!
And that's all folks!
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do not talk about how late I am to this party
first ever NDFL, did somewhat horrendously, here's the teamdump
Week 4: 
Going into this, I knew a good amount of people would try and abuse my supposed HO onetrick attributes, so I loaded up on something I've been familiarizing myself with for weeks: Alomomola. Matchup looked pretty decent for Charizard Y, too, and after that the pieces just fell into place. Rockpon is a mon I've been heavily supporting lately, especially on sun, and a double regen core supporting the rest of the team along with Healing Wish Hatterene for that extra kick allowed for the "second wind" I'm so used to having with Custap Webs in my webs era (big shout to Acu1ty for suggesting it tho, idk what I was doing with Terap in the last slot.) I actually somehow got to 1800 on an alt before the game "accidentally", but that kinda foreshadowed the relatively clean win I cooked up afterwards.
Week 5:
Going into this matchup, I knew I was screwed. I've played Spy before in NDLT cycle 1, and my webs-centric ass couldn't manage to grab multiple wins against his defense. Despite this, I still went all in with this team, fully committing to the CB Hoopa-U and a supporting cast of mons. All the weird tech on the team, such as Taunt Corviknight and Wisp Heatran, were last minute additions solely to better my odds against bulkier styles. Some tech definitely paid off, notably the Grassium Z nuke demolishing Alomomola, but I ended up losing cause midgame I somehow thought Specs Modest Eruption Heatran was "a ladder thing" only to realize that's actually what Spy had, so, yeah. Still felt like I played pretty well though, especially when everyone around me was hard convinced I was getting deep fried.
Week 6: 
Against SHSP, I reverted back to my HO roots with a screens Zama HO fest. I built the prototype early on in the week, but an...incident meant I rushed through the rest of the team. If you want to know the details, go translate the nicks for the mons. I ended up beating kidd0s since SHSP didn't show up.
Week 7:
At this point, I've given up (I didn't even title the team lmao) so I just threw together webs slop and hoped for the best. The best didn't happen.
Shoutouts
Big shoutouts to MirrorSaMa Corvikafka emoxu9 for picking me up. It was a great opportunity for me to finally experience a teamtour, even if my performance was kinda crap. Especially big thanks for giving me a chance at all starting week 4!
reversoral Rowlet69420 Thanks to both of you for giving me feedback on my teams, especially in the first two weeks (I kinda solo balled the last two because of the incident.) Prolly would've screwed more stuff up without you guys given my horrendous teambuilding lol
uh yea that's it ig
first ever NDFL, did somewhat horrendously, here's the teamdump
Week 4:
Going into this, I knew a good amount of people would try and abuse my supposed HO onetrick attributes, so I loaded up on something I've been familiarizing myself with for weeks: Alomomola. Matchup looked pretty decent for Charizard Y, too, and after that the pieces just fell into place. Rockpon is a mon I've been heavily supporting lately, especially on sun, and a double regen core supporting the rest of the team along with Healing Wish Hatterene for that extra kick allowed for the "second wind" I'm so used to having with Custap Webs in my webs era (big shout to Acu1ty for suggesting it tho, idk what I was doing with Terap in the last slot.) I actually somehow got to 1800 on an alt before the game "accidentally", but that kinda foreshadowed the relatively clean win I cooked up afterwards.
Week 5:
Going into this matchup, I knew I was screwed. I've played Spy before in NDLT cycle 1, and my webs-centric ass couldn't manage to grab multiple wins against his defense. Despite this, I still went all in with this team, fully committing to the CB Hoopa-U and a supporting cast of mons. All the weird tech on the team, such as Taunt Corviknight and Wisp Heatran, were last minute additions solely to better my odds against bulkier styles. Some tech definitely paid off, notably the Grassium Z nuke demolishing Alomomola, but I ended up losing cause midgame I somehow thought Specs Modest Eruption Heatran was "a ladder thing" only to realize that's actually what Spy had, so, yeah. Still felt like I played pretty well though, especially when everyone around me was hard convinced I was getting deep fried.
Week 6:
Against SHSP, I reverted back to my HO roots with a screens Zama HO fest. I built the prototype early on in the week, but an...incident meant I rushed through the rest of the team. If you want to know the details, go translate the nicks for the mons. I ended up beating kidd0s since SHSP didn't show up.
Week 7:
At this point, I've given up (I didn't even title the team lmao) so I just threw together webs slop and hoped for the best. The best didn't happen.
Shoutouts
Big shoutouts to MirrorSaMa Corvikafka emoxu9 for picking me up. It was a great opportunity for me to finally experience a teamtour, even if my performance was kinda crap. Especially big thanks for giving me a chance at all starting week 4!
reversoral Rowlet69420 Thanks to both of you for giving me feedback on my teams, especially in the first two weeks (I kinda solo balled the last two because of the incident.) Prolly would've screwed more stuff up without you guys given my horrendous teambuilding lol
uh yea that's it ig
time for the worlds saddest teamdump
The team I built for my first week was probably my favorite, which also kinda sucks because this one lost due to me choking immensely in what should have been a 100/0 stall matchup. treads+mola+molt covers basically everything ever and hopefully matches up well into people trying to cteam me for being an HO mainer.
This shit is genuinely so ass i deserved an L in this game. Half of my thought process behind this is that I was salty for losing into stall so i wanted to make the stall matchup miserable (for both players) tbh. I think this garchomp set is really cool and could be used more but other than that I don't like this one
Screens slop. This one was from a pass, and i swapped out mega carchomp for mega charizard because i felt it couldn't break well into a lot of structures. Also this paste is wrong i changed volc to subswarm because i think subswarm is broken.
This is literally just the team I ladder with. Scout said HO looked good and given i have like 1000+ reps with this team I figured it was the best option. cornerpon is broken. no elaboration.
The team I built for my first week was probably my favorite, which also kinda sucks because this one lost due to me choking immensely in what should have been a 100/0 stall matchup. treads+mola+molt covers basically everything ever and hopefully matches up well into people trying to cteam me for being an HO mainer.
This shit is genuinely so ass i deserved an L in this game. Half of my thought process behind this is that I was salty for losing into stall so i wanted to make the stall matchup miserable (for both players) tbh. I think this garchomp set is really cool and could be used more but other than that I don't like this one
Screens slop. This one was from a pass, and i swapped out mega carchomp for mega charizard because i felt it couldn't break well into a lot of structures. Also this paste is wrong i changed volc to subswarm because i think subswarm is broken.
This is literally just the team I ladder with. Scout said HO looked good and given i have like 1000+ reps with this team I figured it was the best option. cornerpon is broken. no elaboration.