Tournament OMPL IX - Playoffs (Tiebreaker @ #25)

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Sectonia

But I set fire to the rain
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There are 8 teams this year. Each team has 6 players and at least 2 subs. Managers bought players using the 100k credits in their auction budget. Managers were allowed to purchase themselves at a fixed price of 20k but had to do so before the draft. Teams can win their matchup every week by winning 4 of the 6 matches that their players have to play.​
The tier lineup this year is as follows:​
  1. SS Almost Any Ability
  2. SS Balanced Hackmons
  3. SS Camomons
  4. SS Mix and Mega
  5. SS NFE
  6. SS STABmons
All games will be played on the Pokemon Showdown main server or SmogTours in the most current version of the format corresponding to those listed above. The result between players may be decided in a best-of-one (Bo1) or best-of-three (Bo3) at the discretion of both players involved. If there is no agreement, the match will default to a Bo1.​
Points distributions per round:​
> Win (4-6 or 5-1): 2 points​
> Loss (1-5 or 2-4): 1 point​
> Draw (3-3): 1 point​
In addition, the manner in which the round has been won will also be recorded i.e. the difference between a team's wins and losses in a specific week's round (referred to as "Win Differential").​
Playoffs:​
Each team will play one another for seven weeks. Based on the final standings, the top 4 teams will enter a Playoffs Round to determine the teams appearing in the finals.​

Tiebreaker
In the event of two teams being tied for a spot in the finals based on points and win differential, or a tie in the final round itself, we will have a tiebreaker round(s).​

Tiebreaker Rules: One metagame will be picked by each manager with the higher seed picking second. The third format will be determined at random by the hosts. All three metagames must be unique, so no format can be picked twice.​

Substitutes
Substitutes are to be used in the case of extenuating circumstances, whether on the first day of the week, or the last. At the same time, players should be relatively well-aware of who all are available to play in the opponent's camp. If last minute substitutes are being frequently used or abused and the hosts find explanations unsatisfactory, the hosts still reserve the right to veto them. In order to further prevent this being the case teams are only granted a maximum of two substitutes per week. Any substitutions after the second will be vetoed.​

Trades
The hosts have decided to not include trades this year due to reasons outlined in this thread - all roster decisions are final.​


Scheduling
Scheduling should be done on Smogon Profile walls, plain and simple:​
  • If there is no communication on Smogon Profile walls and a game goes undone, it will be left to the RNG to decide the winner
  • If there is communication on only one user's behalf, the win will go to them. Feel free to call activity in this thread beforehand
  • If there is a very healthy back and forth regarding potential times and one user is a no-show, a manager may take the opportunity to sub out the no-show competitor; if this is not done, the user that showed up responsibly will be awarded the win.
TL;DR: Post on your opponent's Smogon wall, schedule your matches, and be reliable. If you can't play for any reason, let your manager know so they can sub you out ASAP.​
Use these posts as a place to initiate discussion about bo1 or bo3 as well!

Sportsmanship
Exhibitions of unsportsmanlike conduct with regards to the Other Metagame Premier League will be met with an infraction at the discretion of the OMPL host/OM mods. This is unlikely to include interactions within a team's private chat unless there is reason found to make an exception. This rule is meant to protect other users from being publicly flamed/bashed/provoked by another competitor for the duration of and following the tournament.​
All players must complete their matches by the given deadline. Any incomplete matches by that time will be subject to an activity decision (MAKE SURE YOU POST ON YOUR OPPONENT'S WALL); otherwise, they will be decided via !pick publicly in the OM Room. All matches should ideally be done on your most notable alt (the one you registered for OMPL with) to avoid confusion and all match replays must be saved and posted in this thread. The replays will be archived in a separate thread, and will be used to calculate usage stats.​

Substitutions & Lineups
Managers, if you wish to make any substitutions, you must post here tagging both the player you're subbing out, the player you're subbing in, the manager and assistant manager of the opposing team, the substitute's opponent, and all of the hosts (Kris, Think, Sectonia). This is to assure that everyone is in-the-loop and that the OP is updated accordingly to reflect the new match-up.​
Managers, when you send in lineups, please send it in with the tier and Smogon username of each player fully written out for ease of transcription, following these guidelines exactly.​

Matchups

:jolteon: The Five-Star Jolteons (Ransei and Racool) - [5][1] - The Zoomer Zeraoras (a loser and Redflix) :zeraora:
SS Almost Any Ability: motherlove vs Osake
SS Balanced Hackmons: Smove_$wag vs a loser
SS Camomons: Euphonos vs Sylveon.
SS Mix and Mega: Quantum Tesseract vs TectonicDestroyer
SS NFE: beauts vs King Leo V
SS STABmons: The Immortal vs vivalospride

:spinda: The Spinda Wheels (xavgb and Jordy) - [3][3] - The Temper Tyrantrums (OM and Chazm) :tyrantrum:
SS Almost Any Ability: Fc vs MZ
SS Balanced Hackmons: xavgb vs XxSevagxX
SS Camomons: Mossy Sandwich vs anaconja
SS Mix and Mega: Fardin vs Chazm
SS NFE: tlenit vs Skysolo
SS STABmons: Plas vs Fissure


Deadline:
11:59 PM (GMT -4) on July 25th, 2021

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:spinda: The Spinda Wheels (xavgb and Jordy) - [2][1] - The Temper Tyrantrums (OM and Chazm) :tyrantrum:
SS Mix and Mega - Fardin vs Chazm
SS NFE - tlenit vs Skysolo
SS STABmons - Plas vs Fissure


Deadline:
11:59 PM (GMT -4) on July 28th, 2021
 
Last edited:
I don't play any of these tiers, but these are accurate probably..

:jolteon: The Five-Star Jolteons (Ransei and Racool) - [0][0] - The Zoomer Zeraoras (a loser and Redflix) :zeraora:
SS Almost Any Ability: motherlove vs Osake
SS Balanced Hackmons: Smove_$wag vs a loser
SS Camomons: Euphonos vs Sylveon.
SS Mix and Mega: Quantum Tesseract vs TectonicDestroyer
SS NFE: beauts vs King Leo V
SS STABmons: The Immortal vs vivalospride

:spinda: The Spinda Wheels (xavgb and Jordy) - [0][0] - The Temper Tyrantrums (OM and Chazm) :tyrantrum:
SS Almost Any Ability: Fc vs MZ
SS Balanced Hackmons: xavgb vs XxSevagxX
SS Camomons: Mossy Sandwich vs anaconja
SS Mix and Mega: Fardin vs Chazm
SS NFE: tlenit vs Skysolo
SS STABmons: Plas vs Fissure
 
I got a nice 61% on predictions last week, so I need to get at least 4/6 right this time to beat that and not drag down my record. Let's see how it goes.

:spinda: The Spinda Wheels (xavgb and Jordy) - [2][4] - The Temper Tyrantrums (OM and Chazm) :tyrantrum:
SS Almost Any Ability: Fc vs MZ I bolded both of these players last week and was wrong both times, so clearly I'm not batting 100 here, but FC archeops'd MZ last time they played and I'm betting on MZ getting revenge.
SS Balanced Hackmons: xavgb vs XxSevagxX It's hard to ask for a better start to BH in playoffs, with two of the best players in the current metagame facing off. Given his run so far it's very hard not to bold Stresh here but sevag's one of the few players where him winning wouldn't be that much of an upset.
SS Camomons: Mossy Sandwich vs anaconja Anaconja has really been killing it in Camomons this ompl, and the spindas have been struggling
SS Mix and Mega: Fardin vs Chazm Anyone who has ever been in team tournament with Fardin knows how much effort he puts into it, and he's been in fine form this OMPL. That's not to count Chazm out, though; they managed to do quite well in their match against QWays last week and the current metagame is quite favorable to the builds they prefer, so I expect him to make Fardin work hard if he wants to eke out a win.
SS NFE: tlenit vs Skysolo -Strap
SS STABmons: Plas vs Fissure Another very exciting highlight match here, as two of the best stabmons players around face off. I'd like to say it's tough to say who to choose here, but plas dipped and didn't play their game last week so I will be bolding Fissure out of spite.
 

Redflix

Forgiven and Hanged
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Time to pay respect to the boomers and wigglies. S/o King Leo V for ensuring that zoomers live to see another week

The Based Boomers

The Boomers were lead by a fun looking duo of lasen and tnm, who also had some managerial experience. TNM was an obvious buy for them , as he had been really impressive in aaa and could support both stab and camo at a fairly high level , thus making him fully deserving of the 20 k price tag. Lasen , on the other hand did have some prior MnM and STAB experience and thus could offer advice for both slots.
They started their auction very well , buying cityscapes for 25.5 k. Given both managers had very minimal experience with BH, buying a player who could be self sufficient was a great move even though they ended up paying a little more than expected. Next up they bought betathunder for a relatively cheap price for 10.5k. Beta was coming off from a great wcoom showing and with both lasen and tnm to support, their stabmons slot also looked fairly strong. Terracotta who could dab into multiple metas , was their next buy and it looked like the former ubers play would definitely be playing camomons this ompl. They then proceeded to buy Marjane and Icemaster for NFE and MnM, which was very confusing cuz both of these players weren't gonna start either due to being inactive or just due to personal preference and hence it made little sense to buy ur subs before covering the main players. Havens probably was their emergency pick for camo in case one of beta/terra cant play a week. They then finally decided to cover their missing MnM and NFE slots by buying Derpyboi and Kythr respectively and rounded off the auction by getting stolen identity, a player who had gained recognition in the bh community due to their crazy and impressive ladder records. DerpyBoi himself was a ladder hero for gen8 mnm altho both his building and playing abilities were questionable imho. Kythr had no prior experience of NFE and this pick was met with much criticism from nfe mains but given their caliber as a player , i was sure they would do well after a week or two.
After the draft ended , The Boomers were generally slotted in the bottom half of power rankings by many due to having glaring weaknesses in some slots and overall not having enough starpower or favourable slots.

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Contrary to popular belief, the "Weak" slots of the Boomers actually did really well. Kythr proved why they are a great mons player in general and were able to quickly learn the meta with the help of Marjane and took down some big names in his great 4-2 record. DerpyBoi also impressed with his positive record. While I personally think DerpyBoi couldve played better in some of his games , he generally brought some well built teams which allowed him to win vs big players. Stolen Identity did fairly decent given it was their first ompl and ended up even, although their game vs stresh was questionable given the match up. Havens also came in clutch , getting a 2-1 record and playing well throughout. However thats pretty much where my praise for Boomers stop. CItyscapes and Betathunder also ended up with positive records but given City's past record and the price tag , much more was expected from them. Beta did really well but only played 3 games in stab ;-; . Both the number man and terracotta had a subpar season from their standards. While the aaa pool is always one of the toughest in every ompl, a 3-4 record doesnt really suit tnm , altho im sure his contribution in both stab and camo throughout the 7 weeks still made up for the price. Terra didnt find much success in either STAB or Camo , going 2-2 and 0-2 respectively. Icemaster , who I personally looked forward to seeing in action, especially of how dominant he was in MnM mashups only played 2 games and ended up even.

Overall, The boomers certainly exceeded expectations , being in contention for playoffs till last week. The draft couldve definitely been a bit better from the managers with having a little more established players but thing that fucked boomers the most was their timing of losses. The team was doing very well till week 5 - being undefeated and also 6-0ing rozelias. The last two week though , which are usually the most important for playoffs were unfortunate where their established players like tnm and cityscapes failed to deliver and ended their playoff chances with 2 losses.

The Wiggly Family

Wigglies went into this ompl with having the most wholesome user on smogon as their co manager with Dragonillis taking the charge after having managed plenty french community om tours. The duo wasnt ranked very highly as gman had quit playing mnm acitvely (altho he did keep up with the meta but his support wasnt as strong as other mnm managers) and while dragonillis could support multiple tiers, they werent at the level of which other managers could.
The Wigglies were also the only team where neither of the manager bought themselves and started their auction with buying the aaa open winner for 16k. Atha had an impressive showing in open as well as omwc and 16k was a fair price for them despite the aaa pool being very strong. Their next pick was Alternatif for STAB support altho he had been inactive mostly and thus went for a cheap price considering his past performance. Wigglies then went with probably the most hyped mnm player in the auction in qways , who had been dominating the ladder for the past 2 months. Personally i was very skeptical of qways as his teams tended to use some extreme ladder sets which could work as a double edged sword in bo1 situitations but with gman to support , this problem could easily be rectified thus giving wigglies a solid mnm slot. The Wiggly Family then proceeded to buy Jett + Ojr for their Nfe slot and Pandadoux for aaa support. Ojr was an up and coming nfe player with a solid performance in UMPL and thus this core was generally viewed as one of the strongest for nfe. They then went on to buy LBDC for a high price of 18k altho given his form in omwc and his ability to support AAA, this was a fair deal. The Wigglies then covered their BH slot with buying Onyx + Apathetic Inaction + Palapapop. Niether of the players were top level but could def manage an even or slightly negative record. They then wrapped up their auction with Buying Meta for Camomons and Pujo as a benchwarmer.
This Auction was generally put in the upper half of rankings given their strong nfe , aaa , stab and mnm slots. Personally i felt like there were definitely some wild card slots that could go either way like MnM and Camo (Meta had been inactive in camo prior to this) and wasn't too high on this team.

1626808261148.png



Let me just start by saying the wiggly family definitely surprised me with their fairly strong run. The star of the team was qways - who absolutely went on a tear in his first ompl smashing everyone left and right and only losing to a unwinnable match up (where even then he was able to take advantage of chazm playing fairly passive). Wins against Andy, Fardin and Cata came in clutch as Wigglies were able to maintain their good leaderboard position throughout the group stages. Apart from qways, Atha too was playing their first ompl and impressed equally , going 5-2 against a tough AAA crowd. Meta also held the fort in the camomons slot , acquiring a respectable 4-3 record. Their Stabmons slot however didnt quite really performed as expected with LDBC only managing to go 2-3 and alternatif going 0-1. What really held Wigglies back though was their nfe and bh slot - which went 4-10 combined across 4 different players. This was especially shocking in the case of NFE as Ojr only managed to get a single win - a major step down from his umpl performance which was against a similar skill level of players. Onyx Struggled as well ,only being able to get a win vs pdt, altho this was somewhat expected given how tough the bh pool was this time.
Despite mostly being carried by their 3 slots , The Wiggly Family were a prime contender for playoffs till week 6. But similar to the boomers, loss at an unfortunate time kicked wigglies out of the playoffs. With only needing to win 3 games to qualify in the last week / 2 wins to at least guarantee a tie breaker, the wigglies lost to a reborn tyrantrums 5-1 with both meta and qways losing.
Overall it was definitely very unfortunate to see wigglies not qualify especially after a fairly strong group stage performance up till week 6 ( it should also be noted that they broke Spindas 13/14 weeks undefeated streak , altho thats another question whether spindas really cared that week or nah) but props to qways and atha for performing really well in their respective slots.
 

a loser

I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?
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a loser's OMPL BH Review: Week 7
The final week of OMPL featured some pretty long games, coming in at an average of 108 turns per game. Despite two outlier games like the 342 turn Week 3 game and the 7 turn game in Week 5, BH games this OMPL are averaging 77 turns per game. This week seemed especially long when compared to the last three weeks though, which combined for 50 turns per game.

Smove_$wag vs pdt
From preview, it looks like PDT went with either semi-stall or a strange Psychic Surge team while TTTech went with his favorite which is slow breakers paired with hard imposter-proofers. Lunala could be annoying to PDT's team and it doesn't look like he has solid Palkia checks either. Mewtwo could potentially be threatening with like Mold Breaker, but having two Steel-types and Lunala doesn't bode well for it.

Things start out with several pivots and a couple items being removed, but after six turns we see PDT is rocking a Poison Heal core of Mewtwo and Ho-Oh (both of which are rare and weird) and Tech gets a third of his items removed but shows his go-to Prankster Parting Shot Registeel, Fur Coat Lunala, and Pixilate Xerneas. More pivots happen, and one from Flip Turn Magearna leads to Xern taking down Ho-Oh with Diamond Storm to get rid of PDT's Spikes user and item remover. PDT responds by sending in Mewtwo, which uses Thunder Cage on Xern who promptly spins it and the layer of Spikes away. We find out that PDT's Solgaleo is Prankster when it heals before Registeel pivots out to bring in Palkia. Scared of a Water-type STAB, PDT boldly switches to Giratina as we see Palkia use Nasty Plot and get to +1 from Speed Boost too. PDT has few good options here and goes back to Solgaleo to eat a Dragon move and forces out Palkia with Topsy-Turvy. Tech brings Lunala back in and uses Glare while PDT switches to a Magic Bounce Eternatus that sends the Glare right back. This leads to a pretty cringe interaction where Lunala (who threatens the entire team with Glare, Core Enforcer, and Hex) gets almost every read wrong as PDT switches between Bounce Etern, PH, Mewtwo, and Ice Scales Zama-C and ends up dying to a couple critical hits. These 20 turns end up making this battle about 100 turns longer than it should have been. The rest of the battle is incredibly boring and is only "highlighted" by PDT making some questionable calls that result in him losing Solgaleo and his only breaker, Mewtwo. The battle technically could have gone over 200 turns, but thankfully PDT got too bored and forfeited.

Parts of PDT's team seem neat, but solo breaker PH Mewtwo is Pre-DLC tech and Bounce Spin Eternatus is one of the worst sets I've seen in a while. Tech's team wasn't bad, but I thought the Dry Skin / Water Absorb improofing Magearna was a little too BH ladder tech to bring to a tour game. Not that it can't work, but PDT hadn't brought Imposter since Week 1 and had been bringing lots of FC Chansey lately. Glare seems like a worse choice over Nuzzle on Lunala, but I guess it makes sense considering Tech's extremely close call with Normalize last week.

MAMP vs xavgb
Preview shows us Melmetal's OMPL IX BH debut on stresh's side, alongside a very stresh looking core of Tina/Fini, one or two -ate users, and a lone breaker Kyu-B. MAMP brought an interesting looking team that has what looks like could be a very useful Eternatus and Golisopod if played right.

Right away, it looks like RegenVest Melmetal is here as Eternatus Volt Switches out to bring in PrimSea Golisopod, who gets his boots knocked off. Stresh Volt/Turns around a bit and brings in PH Tapu Fini, who gets trapped by Anchor Shot Zama-C. I hope MAMP didn't get too excited here after using Anchor + Entrainment on Fini, cause we all know stresh isn't gonna let his PH mon fall to that stuff. Fini Flip Turns out and brings in Ho-Oh, who gets its Fire Lash denied by Golisopod, who then goes for Fishious Rend and hits Giratina on the switch. This brings back memories of last OMPL with Shift Gear Goli, which was pretty cool, but we don't get to see the rest of the set as it soon falls to Aerilate Extreme Speed from Ho-Oh after being provided a false sense of safety. MAMP responds by bringing in Groudon, who could be really threatening here, and uses Shift Gear while stresh brings in Xerneas. We see that Don is using Poison Heal, which is a bit disappointing considering Adapt or Mold Breaker have much more utility while keeping the Goli improof. Don hits Xern for a decent 71% but gets that undone by Strength Sap and is then out-done and forced out by a 72% from Boomburst. This leads me to believe that stresh's Xern is Timid, which is fairly rare, and that he was hoping to tank whatever Don threw at it and move first to Sap it. MAMP does manage to get some hazards up over the next several turns, but it is fairly inconsequential with boots Spin Xern chilling in the back. Turns out that Ho-Oh is actually the boots spinner and comes in to clear the way for Melm, who eats a Clanging Scales thanks to the Assault Vest. Groudon comes in a couple more times and attempts to set up, but is checked pretty well by Prankster Giratina with Haze, Entrainment, and Spectral Thief. MAMP brings PH Xern back in to face Giratina and gets hit with Entrainment while getting Spikes up again, but stresh is forced out and brings in Ho-Oh to check the Xern. But here, MAMP pulls out a surprise Diamond Storm to hit Ho-Oh really hard, although for not quite enough as the Xerneas didn't have the right nature. This is pretty huge, considering neutral Attack Xern would have had a 93.8% chance to KO Ho-Oh meaning that rocks and spikes could stay up. Stresh sacks Ho-Oh the next play, chipping Etern some more in the process, and ends up having to sack Tapu Fini after Melmetal gets two full paras against MAMP's Metronome Pixilate Magearna. But Magearna meets its end when Kyu-B comes in with Mold Breaker Choice Band V-create to revenge kill it and even stays in on the incoming Zama-C to KO it too. From here, Kyu-B and Xern clean up for the win.

I thought MAMP showed big signs of improvement here and it is a shame about the Xern nature because having Xern around with hazards up would have given more opportunities for Groudon to finally break through Giratina. Stresh's team looked solid, but it was pretty risky to send Ho-Oh in on Xern like that when two moves hadn't been revealed yet.

idea vs XxSevagxX
Sevag with Giratina / Zamazenta-C / Xerneas / Celesteela / Tapu Fini... where have I seen this before?? idea is rocking a somewhat similar team, with Zama-C, Xern, Celesteela, a different Ghost and Dragon, plus Regigigas. Sadly this looks like the grind I was expecting this battle to be.

This battle starts out with some action pretty quickly with sevag activating PH Fini and landing a Will-O-Wisp burn on Celesteela, who stays in on Fini to use Nasty Plot. Sevag brings in Eternatus who takes basically nothing from +2 Oblivion Wing, meaning it is either Ice Scales, Unaware, or like, Shadow Shield lol? Etern Taunts it and forces it out, which leads to some pivoting around that brings in Regigigas to activate its Toxic Orb. idea predicts a Giratina switch here and uses Glance with Gigas as Tapu Fini stays in, eats the hit easily, and pivots out to bring in Tina. Both sides get Stealth Rock up and at 9 turns in the battle is looking very even. Gigas comes back in and doesn't mess around with predicting this time as sevag brings in Tina to ignore the Facade. Then, anticipating a switch, sevag uses Scald instead of Core Enforcer to maybe land a burn on Xern but Gigas stays in and uses Glacial Lance to hit for 25%, confirming that Tina is FC. idea does bring Xern in on the next turn though and starts clicking Boomburst, getting good chip on sevag's Xern only to be forced out by Etern a few turns later. idea brings in Lunala to face Etern and Lunala clicks Spirit Shackle, a move that is rarely seen, but sevag had switched to Tapu Fini who just U-turns out of there. Lunala gets forced out by Encore Zama-C so idea brings Celesteela back in and Steela tries, unsuccessfully, to deal with sevag's Eternatus. After this, some more pivoting around brings Gigas back in to face Eternatus and Gigas sets up with Shift Gear as sevag is forced to go to Giratina. Gigas lands a big critical hit on Tina for 59% and Tina clicks Scald in return, expecting a switch. This is a pretty bad play by sevag here, as Core Enforcer or recovery are much much safer cause he didn't know yet if Gigas could have been running something like Spore as well. Now Tina can easily be KO'd by Glance, but idea suspects a switch and tries to catch Zama-C with a surprise V-create. Sevag stays in with Giratina, tanks the V-create, and recovers to force Gigas out. I'm not sure if sevag was sacking Tina here or just had a lucky prediction, but this was a big momentum loss for idea. More switching around allows some mons to regain their health and sevag brings in his Celesteela who comes up empty revealing Poison Fang as idea brings in Regigigas. Gigas sets up again and this time sevag decides to handle it with Prankster Zama-C. This starts out well for Zama-C, who Encores it into +1 Facade, but ends terribly when Gigas lands another big crit and KO's Zama-C. This isn't too bad for sevag though, considering at this point he keeps idea's Celesteela and Xern checked well with Etern and has Giratina still for Gigas, unless a lot more crits happen. Celesteela tries again to break Eternatus but fails, so idea brings back in Gigas who catches a Taunt from Eternatus. This leads to a big turn, as idea threatens the Etern with both Facade and Glance and is slower than Etern so it avoids ability suppression so he makes a double to Xern in anticipation of sevag bringing in Giratina. Much to idea's dismay, sevag keeps Etern in and clicks Sludge Bomb, nailing the Xern who is now chipped to the point of no return. Xern dies the next turn and a few turns later sevag brings back in Celesteela and we see that his is also running Triage but with a much better moveset thanks to Leech Seed. It messes around a bit and KO's Zama-C with its Rocky Helmet but gets forced out by the threat of V-create from a somewhat healthy Gigas. I say somewhat here because the rocks and two layers of Spikes are really wearing down idea's team quickly. idea later comes up empty on a Destiny Bond lure from Lunala and gets up being Taunted and KO'd instead. This pretty much wraps up the win for sevag, but in reality that happened when Xern died.

I feel like sevag was pretty favored in this matchup, despite the fact that he might have been swept by Belly Drum Xerneas. idea was unlucky running into an opposing Triage Celesteela cause that meant sevag was prepared for it and it wasn't able to make any progress due to Taunt Eternatus. Some timely crits kept idea in the game though, and I think had he sold out on getting rid of Giratina instead of focusing on predictions he could have maybe won this one.

A Touch Of Crazy vs Stolen Identity
Preview shows us that yolk brought a very yolk-y build as he is still holding onto hopes that Registeel is a viable Pokemon. Crazy has brought an assortment of bulky offensive mons that look like they might have issues with Pheromosa and Xerneas.

yolk starts out scouting with Imposter as crazy leads with Palkia, which leads to crazy bringing in the Kyogre improof as yolk makes an interesting switch to Giratina. I mean, I don't think crazy would really risk a Speed tie on turn one but going to Giratina on Palkia is still a little risky. Crazy pivots out with Baton Pass to bring in PH Gigas while yolk brings Chansey back in and starts doing what every Imposter-carried user loves to do: just click moves and waste time. Crazy's Gigas gets a sub up, unfortunately too late to prevent Imposter, and yolk starts spamming unboosted Facade, which is just powerful enough to break through sub on decent rolls. Chansey does get chipped a good bit here but brings in Pheromosa on a Baton Pass to force out Gigas and bring in FC Solgaleo. Mosa uses High Jump Kick here and doesn't do much damage, but this means that Mind Blown is a likely next move so crazy is forced to bring in Palkia to eat a hit. It tanks the Mind Blown and gets U-turned on and clicks Dragon Energy as Mosa brings in Zama-C. Crazy brings Gigas back in and tries to get a sub back up so he can pass it, but yolk's attacks like Anchor Shot from Zama-C are hitting for 24-25% and are again just enough to break the sub and keep Gigas from getting momentum. Hoping for a friendly roll, crazy Baton Passes to Kartana but has the sub broken again. Regardless, yolk has to decide here if Kartana is using Sunsteel or coverage, as coverage likely removes Zama-C, Registeel, and Imposter while Sunsteel nukes everything else. FC Giratina comes in to take 66% from Sunsteel, meaning a low roll from Steelworker Choice Band, so yolk brings Zama-C back in and forces out Kartana. Zama-C is looking like a problem here for crazy, and he brings in Palkia and attempts to burn it with Steam Eruption and maybe stall for a bit, but gets trapped with Anchor Shot and ends up having the burn removed when Zama-C reveals Aromatherapy. I think that Zama-C vs Palkia might have been inevitable in this matchup, but I think that crazy's decision to do it this early in the game was not ideal. But he does get Zama-C down to only one Soft-Boiled left in the process, and Zama-C flees before Palkia can struggle and leaves it with only Strength Sap remaining. yolk bring in Xerneas, who shows off a cityscap-esque set of Quiver Dance Pixilate, and crazy brings in Kyogre who steals the boosts. Of course, yolk immediately brings in Imposter to take advantage of this situation as crazy passes to Gigas who tries to get a sub up yet again. He does this time, as Chansey takes its opportunity to heal up, but crazy makes another questionable call by passing the boosts back to Kyogre instead of Kartana or the unrevealed Eternatus. This leads to yolk getting momentum back as he passes to Pheromosa, who easily breaks Kyogre's sub to bring in Giratina. We then see that Giratina is a very yolk set with FC Haze and Tina gets phazed out with Dragon Tail to bring in Xerneas. I'm sure crazy would have loved to face someone rather than Xern here, but he brings in Kartana who is able to survive a big hit from Boomburst. Kartana then clicks Bullet Punch, which doesn't make too much sense here considering that Kartana is faster and a potential Extreme Speed would go first anyway, but yolk switches to Magic Bounce Registeel who chips Kart even further with Rocky Helmet. At this point, crazy is running out of options and doesn't have much for Pheromosa so he finally brings in Eternatus to try to make something happen. It sets up with Focus Energy as yolk brings in a PP-depleted Zama-C and proceeds to miss Overheat and get trapped for important chip. This is pretty huge considering that Zama-C only had one recovery PP left and would have been 2HKOed and left Eternatus with a decent amount of HP left. But due to the miss, Zama-C goes down after chipping Etern to 37% and yolk responds by bringing in Pheromosa who proceeds to miss a Head Smash and be OHKO'd by Sludge Wave. This miss is really big for crazy, since Eternatus is now a huge threat to yolk's team and he has no choice but to bring in a very healthy Chansey now. But here, crazy plays it much too safe and has to pray for good RNG as he pulls out Eternatus to bring in Ice Scales Ogre. Ogre gets crit on the switch and the following hit to be KO'd and Gigas comes in next to be KO'd by a Draco Meteor crit. This is quite unlucky for crazy, as Imposter'd Eternatus only has a 50% chance to land the crits, but he gets all the crits he needs to reverse sweep and get the win. Considering the state of his team when Chansey came in, crazy pretty much had to risk the Speed tie here because landing Draco would have meant Chansey took 80.9 - 95.8% and this could have made it more manageable for his teammates to revenge kill Imposter and maybe sneak out with a win.

Crazy's matchup wasn't awful here but he had a lot of bad luck and misfortune with yolk always getting the roll to break the Substitute when it really mattered and then all the crits at the end sucked too. yolk's team definitely looked like a merging of sl42 and his own ideas more than anything we'd seen from them all season, but it was pretty lame to see Eviolite Imposter put in so much work here and get the win.

Metagame Observations
In terms of usage, there was no surprise again to see Xerneas, Zama-C, and Eternatus leading the way. Diamond Storm on Xerneas shows how good Desolate Land Ho-Oh has been lately at stopping Fishious Rend variants, and despite the awful coverage outside of Ho-Oh this move almost picked up two kills this week. And despite the longer games, there were still plenty of offensive sets being used this week like Triage Celesteela, PH Gigas, and various Xern and Palkia sets.

Upcoming Matches
Smove_$wag vs a loser - this should be an interesting game. Tech and I have played a good bit against each other this generation throughout the multiple DLC releases and metagame shifts, so it'll be fun to see how this one ends up in the new meta without Zacian-C. I'm not sure how much QT is gonna help build here since he'll definitely be busy with AAA and MnM already. I'm looking forward to a good one here though, so show up to watch this Thursday at 4pm GMT-5!

xavgb vs XxSevagxX - stresh finished the season unblemished, but he definitely got some chinks in his armor along the way. Sevag is playing well and has come a long way since the lopsided Week 1 loss to stresh and certainly has more material to scout with, but I'm not sure still if that will be enough to take him down. However, who knows how burnt out stresh might be currently from BH building and supporting his team, while sevag really has nothing to lose here going up against the best of the best. I'm definitely looking forward to this one.
 
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pdt

is a Past SCL Champion
PUPL Champion
a loser's OMPL BH Review: Week 7
The final week of OMPL featured some pretty long games, coming in at an average of 108 turns per game. Despite two outlier games like the 342 turn Week 3 game and the 7 turn game in Week 5, BH games this OMPL are averaging 77 turns per game. This week seemed especially long when compared to the last three weeks though, which combined for 50 turns per game.

Smove_$wag vs pdt
From preview, it looks like PDT went with either semi-stall or a strange Psychic Surge team while TTTech went with his favorite which is slow breakers paired with hard imposter-proofers. Lunala could be annoying to PDT's team and it doesn't look like he has solid Palkia checks either. Mewtwo could potentially be threatening with like Mold Breaker, but having two Steel-types and Lunala doesn't bode well for it.

Things start out with several pivots and a couple items being removed, but after six turns we see PDT is rocking a Poison Heal core of Mewtwo and Ho-Oh (both of which are rare and weird) and Tech gets a third of his items removed but shows his go-to Prankster Parting Shot Registeel, Fur Coat Lunala, and Pixilate Xerneas. More pivots happen, and one from Flip Turn Magearna leads to Xern taking down Ho-Oh with Diamond Storm to get rid of PDT's Spikes user and item remover. PDT responds by sending in Mewtwo, which uses Thunder Cage on Xern who promptly spins it and the layer of Spikes away. We find out that PDT's Solgaleo is Prankster when it heals before Registeel pivots out to bring in Palkia. Scared of a Water-type STAB, PDT boldly switches to Giratina as we see Palkia use Nasty Plot and get to +1 from Speed Boost too. PDT has few good options here and goes back to Solgaleo to eat a Dragon move and forces out Palkia with Topsy-Turvy. Tech brings Lunala back in and uses Glare while PDT switches to a Magic Bounce Eternatus that sends the Glare right back. This leads to a pretty cringe interaction where Lunala (who threatens the entire team with Glare, Core Enforcer, and Hex) gets almost every read wrong as PDT switches between Bounce Etern, PH, Mewtwo, and Ice Scales Zama-C and ends up dying to a couple critical hits. These 20 turns end up making this battle about 100 turns longer than it should have been. The rest of the battle is incredibly boring and is only "highlighted" by PDT making some questionable calls that result in him losing Solgaleo and his only breaker, Mewtwo. The battle technically could have gone over 200 turns, but thankfully PDT got too bored and forfeited.

Parts of PDT's team seem neat, but solo breaker PH Mewtwo is Pre-DLC tech and Bounce Spin Eternatus is one of the worst sets I've seen in a while. Tech's team wasn't bad, but I thought the Dry Skin / Water Absorb improofing Magearna was a little too BH ladder tech to bring to a tour game. Not that it can't work, but PDT hadn't brought Imposter since Week 1 and had been bringing lots of FC Chansey lately. Glare seems like a worse choice over Nuzzle on Lunala, but I guess it makes sense considering Tech's extremely close call with Normalize last week.
i lose the game in the first 12 turns as smove swag tries to throw away his only attempt at checking my mewtwo in his prankster registeel on turn 8 (the last on my ho-oh is v-create and this is not uncommon coverage, not really sure what was going on there) and then i get baited with diamond storm xerneas and then i autolose, then outplay for about 100 turns as i try to get him to choke but the deficit is too far so i forfeit. i stand by that this team is quite good actually, and spin mbounce etern is hella valid because it can spin on the most common ghost in giratina if you have core enforcer and it gets pretty good spin+bouncing opportunities in general. it isn't solo breaker mewtwo because ho-oh makes progress vs. many teams which enables mewtwo greatly, for example if the registeel indeed died to the ho-oh he instantly would lose to my mewtwo long term, and clearly by the length of the game even after i go down big he doesn't have the tools to pressure and end the game before this occurs. ggs to smove though, he didn't play badly besides those weird first turns vs. ho-oh where he made a ton of unnecessary risks, but i guess i did the same in "risking" ho-oh to diamond storm, although i'd argue that diamond storm xern is a huge matchup fish (hits literally one pokemon when there are hundreds of other ways to beat mons in bh) compared to v-create ho-oh being relatively intuitive

no offense to the players in the bh pool, but this game i think epitomizes why bh just doesn't reward good play, and more rewards who can fish their opp better in the builder. this is just the nature of bh due to its variance, its impossible to cover everything on a single team so inevitably there will be a games where you just instantly lose, and this happens way more often than i'd like for a healthy meta. there isn't much you can do about it because no matter how many things you ban due to the nature of bh's rules there will always be this level of variance, but probably after this season i won't be playing bh that much if at all anymore. i got especially frustrated when i thought i was the better player (big surprise huge ass ego pdt) but felt like i had no room to play out of a matchup that seemed to be a lottery draw (admittedly i wasn't really updated with the bh meta but i think my teams were alright at least + definitely put like 10x less effort into them than last year). big shoutout to cata for dropping 30k on me and not complaining when i went 1-6 love u bro lets watch vinland, and big shoutout to Shing'n Streets from keeping me from probably cancering this tour, you got big things coming homie.

good luck to the remaining players, personally i hope stresh wins so he can rest easy finally but also rooting for my friends viv, geerat, leo, fardin, solo and others porra
 
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cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
i lose the game in the first 12 turns as smove swag tries to throw away his only attempt at checking my mewtwo in his prankster registeel on turn 8 (the last on my ho-oh is v-create and this is not uncommon coverage, not really sure what was going on there) and then i get baited with diamond storm xerneas and then i autolose, then outplay for about 100 turns as i try to get him to choke but the deficit is too far so i forfeit. i stand by that this team is quite good actually, and spin mbounce etern is hella valid because it can spin on the most common ghost in giratina if you have core enforcer and it gets pretty good spin+bouncing opportunities in general. it isn't solo breaker mewtwo because ho-oh makes progress vs. many teams which enables mewtwo greatly, for example if the registeel indeed died to the ho-oh he instantly would lose to my mewtwo long term, and clearly by the length of the game even after i go down big he doesn't have the tools to pressure and end the game before this occurs. ggs to smove though, he didn't play badly besides those weird first turns vs. ho-oh where he made a ton of unnecessary risks, but i guess i did the same in "risking" ho-oh to diamond storm, although i'd argue that diamond storm xern is a huge matchup fish (hits literally one pokemon when there are hundreds of other ways to beat mons in bh) compared to v-create ho-oh being relatively intuitive

no offense to the players in the bh pool, but this game i think epitomizes why bh just doesn't reward good play, and more rewards who can fish their opp better in the builder. this is just the nature of bh due to its variance, its impossible to cover everything on a single team so inevitably there will be a games where you just instantly lose, and this happens way more often than i'd like for a healthy meta. there isn't much you can do about it because no matter how many things you ban due to the nature of bh's rules there will always be this level of variance, but probably after this season i won't be playing bh that much if at all anymore. i got especially frustrated when i thought i was the better player (big surprise huge ass ego pdt) but felt like i had no room to play out of a matchup that seemed to be a lottery draw (admittedly i wasn't really updated with the bh meta but i think my teams were alright at least + definitely put like 10x less effort into them than last year). big shoutout to cata for dropping 30k on me and not complaining when i went 1-6 love u bro lets watch vinland, and big shoutout to Shing'n Streets from keeping me from probably cancering this tour, you got big things coming homie.

good luck to the remaining players, personally i hope stresh wins so he can rest easy finally but also rooting for my friends viv, geerat, leo, fardin, solo and others porra
hey, i don’t mean to come off as condescending here, i look up to you as a player and am seeking some clarification. how exactly would you say people “out-prepped” you? i can’t speak to the experiences of the other bh starters but in my experience, prepping specifically for you looked near impossible because 1) you were good and could bring anything and 2) i had no past replays to go off in dlc2. i brought an old dlc1 idea, monke, that had been somewhat revitalized by zacc ban + discovery of Good Mon fc lunala as an imposter proofer, falling back on things i knew could work.

anyway, wishing you the best of luck in uu or wherever else you might end up. i also was impressed by the teams you built in this ompl, especially later on— stuff like the ph hooh and mewtwo were really cool.
 

pdt

is a Past SCL Champion
PUPL Champion
hey, i don’t mean to come off as condescending here, i look up to you as a player and am seeking some clarification. how exactly would you say people “out-prepped” you? i can’t speak to the experiences of the other bh starters but in my experience, prepping specifically for you looked near impossible because 1) you were good and could bring anything and 2) i had no past replays to go off in dlc2. i brought an old dlc1 idea, monke, that had been somewhat revitalized by zacc ban + discovery of Good Mon fc lunala as an imposter proofer, falling back on things i knew could work.

anyway, wishing you the best of luck in uu or wherever else you might end up. i also was impressed by the teams you built in this ompl, especially later on— stuff like the ph hooh and mewtwo were really cool.
obviously i don't really know how a lot of my opponents prep and how in-depth they are, but i agree with you on the general lack of information on me, i do tend to use very similar defensive cores role-wise, because i feel like i've developed a decent formula for building these cores and blanket checking as many threats as i can. i didn't feel as much as i got "outprepped" more than i just rolled a good amount of unlucky match-ups, but after we went like 0-3 in the weeks to start out i started spending about 5 minutes on my build each week so i definitely wasn't surprised when those autolose matchups occured. one time where i think that i got outprepped legitimately was when i was using stuff that was really weak to groudon first couple of weeks and then brought a super groudon-weak team into cb adaptability groudon and had little to no chance of winning from preview. it's definitely possible to just test a ton of different matchups and raise the consistency of your team, but that process is honestly exhausting to go through (stresh can tell you that last ompl we gave up testing after around week 6 because each test would go 200+ turns at least). the best way to technically "outprep" in bh in my opinion is basically just taking advantage of general metagame trends (more what everyone is using than what the specific player is using) and counterteaming them to an extent while making sure the team is still consistent in a lot of matchups. more often than not it ends up that getting a good matchup is just lucky assuming that you're playing a competent player, which was my main grievance with this meta and what i meant more than i felt that i got outprepped, although i do feel like most, if not all of my opponents probably put more effort into their teams than i did. feel free to pm me if this didn't answer your question fully so we don't clog the thread, this type of conversation interests me more than playing the meta itself


to make this not completely unrelated to ompl i'll talk about the remaining bh match and why stresh is a ridiculously consistent in bh and currently undefeated, and i fully expect him to continue to do so until he either wins the tournament or his team is eliminated. bh can be very loopy (repetitive) in its game state and a lot of games can boil down to just manipulating different sequences to force your opponent to make a mistake in order to make progress. stresh is an absolute genius at this skill and he pairs it with very sharp focus and patience, two factors that are super important in bh due to the drawn-out nature of games and two things that i am absolute shit at (see all the times where i just toss pokemon because i get too impatient, bored, or make a bad play because i lost focus). in my opinion even though a lot of bh games are long, most of the playerbase has not quite perfected their long game-planning ability. a lot of this is attributed i think to bh being decided on matchup a lot of the time, so that you don't need super precise play in order to win. therefore there is no need to develop that ability, and it was definitely one of the later things i learned and am still learning after years of playing. when you have teambuilding consistent enough to give at worst a neutral matchup or a matchup that requires outplaying a bit but is still winnable (like a 40-60 or 45-55 rather than neutral) like stresh has, and making little to no mistakes even if the battle goes up toward the hundreds of turns is exactly why he has dominated the individual and now teamtour bh scene so consistently in gen 8. in my game against sevag he definitely didn't play badly at all, and of course he won, but there were lots of imperfections on how he was playing the sequences, doing tons of unnecessary moves that would've mattered a lot of my matchup hadn't been pretty unplayable (the team i brought was very rushed and not very good). all that to say this is something that can't happen against an opponent like stresh, because he will seize those opportunities instantly and generate advantage at every turn he can. his consistency through the last couple of opens and now this tour has just solidified to me that he is head and shoulders above the rest of the bh playerbase in terms of playing ability, especially in longer games, so i can't see him losing this one unless he rolls an unplayable matchup. good luck to both players, sevag i'd love to see you prove me wrong and outplay stresh, and silence the essay i just wrote praising him, and i challenge you to really think about the best way to play each turn and to view the game in long-term sequences rather than individual turns.
 
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