Tournament OMPL VIII - Week 2

[Sectonia]

Art by AmirAlexander
- Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Playoffs | Finals -
- Information Thread | Roster | Schedule | Standings | Replays | Usage Stats | Records -
Discussion Thread​

Things to remember

How this works

There are 8 teams this year. Each team will have have 6 players and at least 2 subs. The players are bought using the 80k credits that managers receive during the auction. Managers will be allowed to purchase themselves as players for their team at a fixed price of 16k but must assign one assistant manager from their drafted players. This may be done either during the auction or after it. 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 or best-of-three at the discretion of both players involved. If there is no agreement, the result will decided in a Bo1 by default.​

​

Winning a round rewards a team with 2 points, drawing 1 point, and losing zero points. 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: The most played meta from usage stats plus one metagame picked by each manager will give a best-of-three game between the tied teams, ultimately deciding who goes onto finals. The three games must be different formats, i.e. the remaining two games cannot be the same as the most played metagame, and must be from the list above. Since SS Balanced Hackmons is most likely to be chosen by usage, the decision to play Bo3 or Bo1 is still left upto the players' discretion and bo1 remains by default.​

Substitutes

Substitutes are to be used in the case of "extenuating circumstances" which are unavoidable, whether on the first day of the week, or the last. Moreover, they should generally not be used with a tactical purpose of creating confusion in an opponent's team. 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.​

Trades

If teams wish to conduct a trade, both managers (or assistant managers if the manager is not present) MUST PM Ransei and SectoniaServant on the FORUMS to have the trade be official. No trades may occur after the conclusion of week 2. A traded player may only feature in the round after they have been traded.​

Scheduling

Scheduling should be done on VM walls, plain and simple:​

• If there is no communication on VM 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: VM your opponents, schedule your matches, and be reliable. If you're not reliable, let your manager know so they can sub you out ASAP.​

​

Use these VM's to initiate discussion about bo1 or bo3 as well!​

Sportsmanship

Exhibitions of unsportsmanlike conduct with regards to 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 activity decision (MAKE SURE YOU POST ON YOUR OPPONENT'S VM 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 the replay 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 myself. This is to assure that everyone is in-the-loop and that the OP is updated accordingly to reflect the new match-up.​

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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, in exactly the same order as laid out above. I will post instructions about sending the lineup for next week later this week.​

Matchups

The Money Magearnas (Funbot28, GL Volkner) - [4][2] - The Klink Shamers (Chloe, Pigeons)

SS Almost Any Ability: Dragonillis vs itsKimbo
SS Balanced Hackmons: GL Volkner vs a loser
SS Camomons: Matiss98 vs DugZa
SS Mix and Mega: Gmansour20 vs Pigeons
SS NFE: Crystalites vs TonyFlygon
SS STABmons: Funbot28 vs Betathunder

The Temper Tyrantrums (OM, drampa's grandpa) - [4][2] - The Pandemic Parasects (Catalystic, Sylveon.)

SS Almost Any Ability: Racool vs Sabella
SS Balanced Hackmons: Gurpreet Patel (Sent you a Friend Request) vs DF-Shock (Sub 1)
SS Camomons: Akashi vs Sylveon.
SS Mix and Mega: Skysolo vs MultiAmmiratore
SS NFE: Ho3nConfirm3d vs TJ
SS STABmons: Plas vs Zesty43

The Head Honchkrows (Jrdn, aesf) - [5][1] - The Malevolent Misdreavuses (Chazm, Euphonos)

SS Almost Any Ability: aesf vs rozes
SS Balanced Hackmons: highlighter vs Tack :]
SS Camomons: Jrdn vs Euphonos
SS Mix and Mega: Redflix vs Chazm
SS NFE: frisoeva vs DurzaOffTopic
SS STABmons: Cam vs w0rd

The Crown Jewel Corviknights (SBPC, Andyboy) - [4][2] - The Spinda Wheels (xavgb, Jordy)

SS Almost Any Ability: Thinkerino vs Megazard
SS Balanced Hackmons: MAMP vs PinkDragonTamer
SS Camomons: MetaRiolu7 vs Hamhamhamhamham
SS Mix and Mega: Andyboy vs xavgb
SS NFE: Thimo vs blinkboy
SS STABmons: Terracotta vs vivalospride


~ Deadline ~
11:59 PM (UTC -4) on April 26th, 2020​

 

[SBPC]

Ompl predicts but its who would win in a fistfight (these are purely for joke sake do not take this seriously)

The Money Magearnas vs The Klink Shamers

SS Almost Any Ability: Dragonillis vs itsKimbo (dude probably wins cause he has a ☆ in a room)
SS Balanced Hackmons: GL Volkner vs a loser (two bh superstars absolute highlight)
SS Camomons: Matiss98 vs DugZa (dugza will never win a fight in his life)
SS Mix and Mega: Gmansour20 vs Pigeons (gman is a literal pacifist this isnt fair)
SS NFE: Crystalites vs TonyFlygon (crystal would get rolled over by tony)
SS STABmons: Funbot28 vs Betathunder (funbot is wild in chat god forbid a cage)

The Temper Tyrantrums vs The Pandemic Parasects

SS Almost Any Ability: Racool vs Sabella (that could go either way tbh)
SS Balanced Hackmons: Gurpreet Patel (Sent you a Friend Request) vs sugarhigh (my mans name knocks out the announcer alone)
SS Camomons: Akashi vs Sylveon. (I played zupl with akashi and hes a dio stan, no chance)
SS Mix and Mega: Skysolo vs MultiAmmiratore (multi wins)
SS NFE: Ho3nConfirm3d vs TJ (HL match but ho3n is jacked so adv to him)
SS STABmons: Plas vs Zesty43 (zesty will spice this man)

The Head Honchkrows vs The Malevolent Misdreavuses

SS Almost Any Ability: aesf vs rozes (andy wanted to draft aesf so he can probs win)
SS Balanced Hackmons: highlighter vs Tack :] (id highlight tack in anything but a fistfight)
SS Camomons: Jrdn vs Euphonos (E♯)
SS Mix and Mega: Redflix vs Chazm (chazm is too passive)
SS NFE: frisoeva vs DurzaOffTopic (anime music quiz doesnt count as a fight)
SS STABmons: Cam vs w0rd (word is a wild man)

The Crown Jewel Corviknights vs The Spinda Wheels

SS Almost Any Ability: Thinkerino vs Megazard (Thinker is a neeeerd)
SS Balanced Hackmons: MAMP vs PinkDragonTamer (mamp destroys anyone in a fistfight)
SS Camomons: MetaRiolu7 vs Hamhamhamhamham (If he brings the hams in the cage ez win)
SS Mix and Mega: Andyboy vs xavgb (andy never loses)
SS NFE: Thimo vs blinkboy (Blink is jacked check his disc pfp)
SS STABmons: Terracotta vs vivalospride (terra is jacked and european)​

Bonus Round: Manager 2v2 Cage Fights

Money Magearnas (Funbot28, GL Volkner) vs Klink Shamers (Chloe, Pidgeons)
Everyone here would just ask to be out of the cage or they would like, play uno or smtn

Temper Tyrantrums (OM, Drampa's Grandpa) vs Pandemic Parasects (Catalystic, Sylveon)
OMPL experience gives them a hand in the ring, OM also looks like he would box based off his discord pfp

Head Honchkrows (Jrdn, aesf) vs Malevolent Misdreavuses (Chazm, Euphonos)
Jrdn and aesf are too strong a pair so they'll just roll over their opponents ez

Crown Jewel Corviknights (SBPC, Andyboy) vs Spinda Wheels (xavgb, Jordy)
It does not matter how many martial arts stresh and jordy have studied, or how hard they train. I don't even need to fight, because the plan is for andy to use my twig ass as a giant fighting pole, how is stresh supposed to fight me when im the weapon​

 

[MAMP]

MAMP's OMPL BH Review: Week 1

Gurpreet Patel (sent you a friend request) vs a loser
replay 1
replay 2
replay 3

These guys played a best-of-three set, which I'm grateful for as all three games were a lot of fun to watch. The first game featured a lot of cool innovation, like Zap Cannon Zeraora, Yache Berry Eternatus, and Golurk. Golurk's performance in this game definitely solidified my opinions on Shell Smash and its place in the metagame lol. I really like the team that SL42 brought for games 2 and 3: has some cool tech like Amnesia Seismitoad and Wish Golis, and just seems very solid defensively overall. Even with a well-timed crit, loser was just unable to make meaningful progress against the defensive core and just crumbled in the lategame. The beginning of game 3 reflects a consistent flaw in loser's play throughout this set: he's very reckless. Leaving Snorlax in against Zekrom near the start of the game was a bold and unecessary play that could have led to a sweep by Eternatus late game had SL42 gone for Bolt Beak. loser played this third game pretty poorly overall in fact, particularly when he sacked Snorlax near the end, and when he switched Marshadow out against Golisopod (he admitted that this was because he didn't realise that SL42 had already dynamaxed). I find close best-of-three sets pretty exhausting to play, so I'm kinda surprised to see SL42 say that he thought a bo3 wasn't enough. Seemed like loser definitely lost steam towards the end of the set. Overall this series was pretty cool: while I don't really want to play bo3s myself, I really hope more people play them because I think they're great to watch.


highlighter vs pinkdragontamer
replay

Cool to see highlighter back in action — he's pretty new to Gen 8 BH as far as I know, so I was interested to see how his first tournament match would go. It seems that he hasn't yet figured out that Corviknight sucks, but that's ok, it took me a month or so to work that out too. This was a pretty classic Gen 8 BH match, fought between 2 pivot-heavy balance teams and ultimately decided by how well each player played their breakers. highlighter didn't have a long term answer to pdt's Necrozma, and pdt struggled a bit against CC on highlighter's Darmanitan. pdt played his Necrozma immaculately (except for when it got burnt) and won the game because of it: getting 2 kills with a burnt mon at 14% is very impressive. I'm a huge fan of pdt's team: the Coil + Baton Pass Zacian-C and Facade Snorlax are both really cool and I'm glad they put in work. highlighter had a couple of unlucky turns but I think it didn't matter in the end. A fun, well-played game on both players part.


GL Volkner vs Tack
replay

With no offense intended to either of the players, this is one of the worst tournament BH games of all time. From Tack's mono-Strength Sap Prankster Eternatus that couldn't recover vs Mandibuzz, to Volk letting the Mewtwo that won from preview take 70 for no reason and then wasting his dynamax, to the awful 95 turn double trap, this game really had it all. A recurring theme here was that Tack seemed unfamiliar with how to play PP stall situations. Keeping a Strength Sap PP with Zacian instead of Wisp/Entrainment was questionable but ultimately low stakes, but the way he kept using PP unnecessarily in the potentially winnable protracted PP stall endgame was pretty frustrating to watch. In this game, a PH Zamazenta intentionally ran fully out of PP on all of its moves so that it could use Struggle for more consistent damage against an Incineroar. In this game, both players said gg more than 200 turns before the game actually ended. In this game, 5 Pokemon were stalled completely out of their attacking moves, and 3 of them died to Struggle recoil. To top it all off, the players messed up trying to end the game on turn 420 (haha funny weed number lol), with Tack instead forfeiting at the beginning of turn 421. Btw, the game was still winnable for Tack at this stage — Volk was forced to eventually click attacks with Mewtwo to stop Tack from switching back and forth, and if Tack switched Golis into Earth Power so that Mewtwo died to Life Orb he could've stalled out the last 3 Scalds and won the match. A complete travesty of a match.


MAMP vs sugarhigh
replay

I played this one right after the previous match, and it was definitely a nice palate cleanser. The key turns here are 7 and 9-10, where sugarhigh's checks to my 2 electric types get weakened: at this point, all I had to do was find an opportunity to get a Shift Gear with Zekrom and the game was over. Photon Geyser Ice Scales Darm-Z had a good showing here: Geyser lets it switch into Eternatus and proactively force it out, and it makes it a lot more threatening when it steals boosts. I think sugarhigh letting his Eternatus get weakened on turns 9-10 was a pretty huge misplay that almost single-handedly decided the match, which is a shame as this could have been a really cool one otherwise. This wasn't the sort of team I was expecting from sugarhigh: perhaps DF-Shock is doing most of the building?



Metagame observations:

The most interesting thing about the matches this week is the prevalence of Eternatus, particularly defensive sets. Of the 12 BH teams that were brought this week, only 2 didn't feature an Eternatus, which is a crazy number. Definitely expect to see people teching against Eternatus in coming weeks.

We also saw quite a few Incineroars this week. I'm still not convinced that this mon is actually that good, but its ability to check a ton of special attackers while boasting respectable offensive presence makes it pretty easy to fit onto teams.

Only 1 Imposter in all 6 games! Something like that would seem pretty far-fetched last year, but now I'm not even surprised. Wobbufett is so much worse than Chansey and the metagame is just really unkind to it overall. The lessened presence of Imposter is starting to have an interesting effect on the way that people are building teams that I expect to become more apparent in coming weeks.



Upcoming matches:

GL Volkner vs a loser — Really looking forward to this one, these two are both strong, experienced players with similar teambuilding styles. Volk tends to bring some kinda fresh cheesy teams to OMPL, so I'm curious to see how loser will try to tackle that.

Gurpreet Patel (sent you a friend request) vs sugarhigh — Matches between these two have historically been a lot of fun. Both are known for bringing weird stuff, so I'm expecting a pretty explosive match.

highlighter vs Tack — This is a kinda interesting one. Highlighter certainly beats Tack on BH experience, but Tack has strong fundamentals and more current gen metagame knowledge. No clue how this one's going to turn out, but it's sure to be a good one.

MAMP vs pinkdragontamer — Last year, pdt beat me in OMPL in a match that I think I played very poorly. Looking to redeem myself this time around.



Thank you for joining me for the very first edition of MAMP's OMPL BH Review! I plan to make this a weekly occurrence, so please check in again next week for more.

 

[willdbeast]

MAMP's OMPL BH Review: Week 1

Gurpreet Patel (sent you a friend request) vs a loser
replay 1
replay 2
replay 3

These guys played a best-of-three set, which I'm grateful for as all three games were a lot of fun to watch. The first game featured a lot of cool innovation, like Zap Cannon Zeraora, Yache Berry Eternatus, and Golurk. Golurk's performance in this game definitely solidified my opinions on Shell Smash and its place in the metagame lol. I really like the team that SL42 brought for games 2 and 3: has some cool tech like Amnesia Seismitoad and Wish Golis, and just seems very solid defensively overall. Even with a well-timed crit, loser was just unable to make meaningful progress against the defensive core and just crumbled in the lategame. The beginning of game 3 reflects a consistent flaw in loser's play throughout this set: he's very reckless. Leaving Snorlax in against Zekrom near the start of the game was a bold and unecessary play that could have led to a sweep by Eternatus late game had SL42 gone for Bolt Beak. loser played this third game pretty poorly overall in fact, particularly when he sacked Snorlax near the end, and when he switched Marshadow out against Golisopod (he admitted that this was because he didn't realise that SL42 had already dynamaxed). I find close best-of-three sets pretty exhausting to play, so I'm kinda surprised to see SL42 say that he thought a bo3 wasn't enough. Seemed like loser definitely lost steam towards the end of the set. Overall this series was pretty cool: while I don't really want to play bo3s myself, I really hope more people play them because I think they're great to watch.


highlighter vs pinkdragontamer
replay

Cool to see highlighter back in action — he's pretty new to Gen 8 BH as far as I know, so I was interested to see how his first tournament match would go. It seems that he hasn't yet figured out that Corviknight sucks, but that's ok, it took me a month or so to work that out too. This was a pretty classic Gen 8 BH match, fought between 2 pivot-heavy balance teams and ultimately decided by how well each player played their breakers. highlighter didn't have a long term answer to pdt's Necrozma, and pdt struggled a bit against CC on highlighter's Darmanitan. pdt played his Necrozma immaculately (except for when it got burnt) and won the game because of it: getting 2 kills with a burnt mon at 14% is very impressive. I'm a huge fan of pdt's team: the Coil + Baton Pass Zacian-C and Facade Snorlax are both really cool and I'm glad they put in work. highlighter had a couple of unlucky turns but I think it didn't matter in the end. A fun, well-played game on both players part.


GL Volkner vs Tack
replay

With no offense intended to either of the players, this is one of the worst tournament BH games of all time. From Tack's mono-Strength Sap Prankster Eternatus that couldn't recover vs Mandibuzz, to Volk letting the Mewtwo that won from preview take 70 for no reason and then wasting his dynamax, to the awful 95 turn double trap, this game really had it all. A recurring theme here was that Tack seemed unfamiliar with how to play PP stall situations. Keeping a Strength Sap PP with Zacian instead of Wisp/Entrainment was questionable but ultimately low stakes, but the way he kept using PP unnecessarily in the potentially winnable protracted PP stall endgame was pretty frustrating to watch. In this game, a PH Zamazenta intentionally ran fully out of PP on all of its moves so that it could use Struggle for more consistent damage against an Incineroar. In this game, both players said gg more than 200 turns before the game actually ended. In this game, 5 Pokemon were stalled completely out of their attacking moves, and 3 of them died to Struggle recoil. To top it all off, the players messed up trying to end the game on turn 420 (haha funny weed number lol), with Tack instead forfeiting at the beginning of turn 421. Btw, the game was still winnable for Tack at this stage — Volk was forced to eventually click attacks with Mewtwo to stop Tack from switching back and forth, and if Tack switched Golis into Earth Power so that Mewtwo died to Life Orb he could've stalled out the last 3 Scalds and won the match. A complete travesty of a match.


MAMP vs sugarhigh
replay

I played this one right after the previous match, and it was definitely a nice palate cleanser. The key turns here are 7 and 9-10, where sugarhigh's checks to my 2 electric types get weakened: at this point, all I had to do was find an opportunity to get a Shift Gear with Zekrom and the game was over. Photon Geyser Ice Scales Darm-Z had a good showing here: Geyser lets it switch into Eternatus and proactively force it out, and it makes it a lot more threatening when it steals boosts. I think sugarhigh letting his Eternatus get weakened on turns 9-10 was a pretty huge misplay that almost single-handedly decided the match, which is a shame as this could have been a really cool one otherwise. This wasn't the sort of team I was expecting from sugarhigh: perhaps DF-Shock is doing most of the building?



Metagame observations:

The most interesting thing about the matches this week is the prevalence of Eternatus, particularly defensive sets. Of the 14 BH teams that were brought this week, only 2 didn't feature an Eternatus, which is a crazy number. Definitely expect to see people teching against Eternatus in coming weeks.

We also saw quite a few Incineroars this week. I'm still not convinced that this mon is actually that good, but its ability to check a ton of special attackers while boasting respectable offensive presence makes it pretty easy to fit onto teams.

Only 1 Imposter in all 7 games! Something like that would seem pretty far-fetched last year, but now I'm not even surprised. Wobbufett is so much worse than Chansey and the metagame is just really unkind to it overall. The lessened presence of Imposter is starting to have an interesting effect on the way that people are building teams that I expect to become more apparent in coming weeks.



Upcoming matches:

GL Volkner vs a loser — Really looking forward to this one, these two are both strong, experienced players with similar teambuilding styles. Volk tends to bring some kinda fresh cheesy teams to OMPL, so I'm curious to see how loser will try to tackle that.

Gurpreet Patel (sent you a friend request) vs sugarhigh — Matches between these two have historically been a lot of fun. Both are known for bringing weird stuff, so I'm expecting a pretty explosive match.

highlighter vs Tack — This is a kinda interesting one. Highlighter certainly beats Tack on BH experience, but Tack has strong fundamentals and more current gen metagame knowledge. No clue how this one's going to turn out, but it's sure to be a good one.

MAMP vs pinkdragontamer — Last year, pdt beat me in OMPL in a match that I think I played very poorly. Looking to redeem myself this time around.



Thank you for joining me for the very first edition of MAMP's OMPL BH Review! I plan to make this a weekly occurrence, so please check in again next week for more.

why is this not in a yt video with relaxing visuals of sandcastles for accompaniment?

 

[lepton]

sandcastles

why would you just want pictures of me

 

[Euphonos]

Camomons meteorologist here bringing you a weather Camomons forecast!

[MGRN] Matiss98 (55 - 45) DugZa [KLNK]​

Featuring in this low-key highlight match of the week are two of the reputable players in the field of Camomons based on their accolades. While Money Magearnas' Matiss98 has been one of the household names in Camomons due to his wins in two Gen 7 Camomons tournaments and his respectable record in OMWC, Klink Shamers' DugZa emerged as the Champion in the most recent Gen 8 Camomons tournament. Will DugZa be able to score another upset against one of the most established players in the field of Camomons, or will Matiss98 find the retribution he seeks from the loss that he suffered from last week?

Comment: What I noticed about DugZa in his championship run in the inaugural Gen 8 Camomons tournament is how he received the help he could get from his Camomons colleagues. If he could get this kind of help to outmatch Matiss98's emotional, moral, and technical support from the French community, I believe DugZa could keep his streak alive. This doesn't mean Matiss98 isn't a slouch, either; the loss he suffered in my hands last week could spark more motivation to prepare a lot in this tour -- this is why I predicted him (while a close one) to pull off a win.

[TYRN] Akashi (30 - 70) Sylveon. [PARA]​

Temper Tyrantrums manager OM has some form of difficulty finding one of the most dedicated Camomons player in his team, ending up with Akashi stepping up to the plate to face Sylveon, one of the standard-bearers in the Camomons metagame. Given Akashi's rather raw experience in the realm of Camomons, will he score an upset against one of the household names in Camomons history, or will Sylveon continue to dominate the opposition?

Comment: Since Week 1, I honestly have no idea about Temper Tyrantrums' dedicated Camomons pool because I don't know literally anyone who can play that metagame. I feel like any player could fit in to the slot, but their rawness of experience would be a deciding factor in the long term. Unless Akashi or Mark K would dedicate so much in the craft, they would score an upset to more reputable players like Geerat. Speaking of him, I haven't known Geerat at all, but I heard that he singlehandedly instituted the metagame last generation. If Geerat remains interested in the metagame and remains dedicated to his craft, I believe he will remain dominant in the field.

[CORV] MetaRiolu7 (60 - 40) Hamhamhamhamham [SPIN]​

Featuring in this match are two of the players who have yet to score their first win in the tournament after being handed their losses in the previous week. Will MetaRiolu7, whose semifinal run in the Gen 8 Camomons tournament, edge out his opposition? Or will Hamhamhamhamham, with the support of his fellow colleague Havens, score an upset?

Comment: I'm actually putting off a prediction here based on most recent Gen 8 Camomons experience alone. I've known ham^5 for quite some time now, but -- no offense -- I haven't exactly felt that kind of presence that I wanted to see in him. Winning against MetaRiolu7 would somehow prove me wrong, however. This is why I predicted MetaRiolu7 to win in this affair thanks to his recent semifinal run in the Gen 8 Camomons tournament grants him the edge over ham^5.

[HONC] Jrdn (50 - 50) Euphonos [MISD]​

Featuring in what is arguably the most explosive highlight match of the week are two of the grittiest players to have ever stepped foot in the OMPL Camomons pool. Both of them have their own share of wins against their last week's opponents, with Euphonos being the more unbelievable one as he defeated one of the household names in the field of Camomons. Will Euphonos, while a relative unknown in the Other Metagames department, bolster his reputation by picking off a win against Jrdn, or will Jrdn break Euphonos's spirit as one of the emerging Camomons players? Find out as they square off on April 25, Saturday, 7:00 pm GMT -4.

Comment: I've been sparring partners with Jrdn since OMPL sign-ups, and I am ultimately grateful to test a lot of teams against him in these trying times (you know, no Camomons ladder, lol). I firmly believe Jrdn and I have some share of heat we could bring against each other. Expect this battle to bring the best of us, and expect this battle to marvel a lot of spectators who will watch this match. Good luck, man.

 

[Eris]

Unbiased NFE Predicts
no one probably cares about NFE or these predicts but I'm bored
if you disagree or find yourself aggravated you can send your well crafted concerns to user Crystalites

SS NFE: Crystalites vs TonyFlygon
To me this is the biggest HL. Crys had to bring Forb Machoke back last week so expect a lot of those from now on. Crys overall makes good teams and plays well but I'd be really excited to see some techs being used from him this round. Not siding with Tony because I don't know them but sans support isn't bad and she said she'd make Tony bring some heat once they are familiar with the metagame so I'm excited to see what's coming this week.

SS NFE: Ho3nConfirm3d vs TJ
I'm gonna have to go with TJ for this. I think Ho3n was a bit disappointing last week but I know he'll strike back harder this week. TJ didn't play last week so I've never actually seen them play but 85 is a great builder and I'm hopping he makes some heat that isn't based around Forb Machoke. This should not be a bad match, would be happy to be proved wrong either way.

SS NFE: frisoeva vs DurzaOffTopic
I don't know Durza very well and they've chased me down for not liking the team they brought last week so I thought about not doing a predict post, decided that if I bolded their name they might not be so angry idk. I think this matchup could go either way, ironically I'm thinking if Durza brought something similar to last week they could easily win this match. Friso is def a good player and they brought a good team last round I just don't know if they could win against heat.

SS NFE: Thimo vs blinkboy
Thimo is in my team and I'm not SBPC so I won't predict against him. This is still unbias so I will explain I guess, blink was a very hyped player this season which good for them but last week proved to me that they knew very little about NFE. The team they brought just felt like six 'good' mons paired together and calling it a day, maybe I'm reading this wrong but if so I'm def disappointed in the lack of effort. Thimo on the other hand is goat player so I have no worries.

 

[Sylveon.]

Ompl predicts but its who would win in a fistfight (these are purely for joke sake do not take this seriously)

​

The Money Magearnas vs The Klink Shamers
SS Almost Any Ability: Dragonillis vs itsKimbo (dude probably wins cause he has a ☆ in a room)
SS Balanced Hackmons: GL Volkner vs a loser (two bh superstars absolute highlight)
SS Camomons: Matiss98 vs DugZa (dugza will never win a fight in his life)
SS Mix and Mega: Gmansour20 vs Pigeons (gman is a literal pacifist this isnt fair)
SS NFE: Crystalites vs TonyFlygon (crystal would get rolled over by tony)
SS STABmons: Funbot28 vs Betathunder (funbot is wild in chat god forbid a cage)
The Temper Tyrantrums vs The Pandemic Parasects
SS Almost Any Ability: Racool vs Sabella (that could go either way tbh)
SS Balanced Hackmons: Gurpreet Patel (Sent you a Friend Request) vs sugarhigh (my mans name knocks out the announcer alone)
SS Camomons: Akashi vs Sylveon. (I played zupl with akashi and hes a dio stan, no chance)
SS Mix and Mega: Skysolo vs MultiAmmiratore (multi wins)
SS NFE: Ho3nConfirm3d vs TJ (HL match but ho3n is jacked so adv to him)
SS STABmons: Plas vs Zesty43 (zesty will spice this man)
The Head Honchkrows vs The Malevolent Misdreavuses
SS Almost Any Ability: aesf vs rozes (andy wanted to draft aesf so he can probs win)
SS Balanced Hackmons: highlighter vs Tack :] (id highlight tack in anything but a fistfight)
SS Camomons: Jrdn vs Euphonos (E♯)
SS Mix and Mega: Redflix vs Chazm (chazm is too passive)
SS NFE: frisoeva vs DurzaOffTopic (anime music quiz doesnt count as a fight)
SS STABmons: Cam vs w0rd (word is a wild man)
The Crown Jewel Corviknights vs The Spinda Wheels
SS Almost Any Ability: Thinkerino vs Megazard (Thinker is a neeeerd)
SS Balanced Hackmons: MAMP vs PinkDragonTamer (mamp destroys anyone in a fistfight)
SS Camomons: MetaRiolu7 vs Hamhamhamhamham (If he brings the hams in the cage ez win)
SS Mix and Mega: Andyboy vs xavgb (andy never loses)
SS NFE: Thimo vs blinkboy (Blink is jacked check his disc pfp)
SS STABmons: Terracottavs vivalospride (terra is jacked and european)

Bonus Round: Manager 2v2 Cage Fights

Money Magearnas (Funbot28, GL Volkner) vs Klink Shamers (Chloe, Pidgeons)​

Everyone here would just ask to be out of the cage or they would like, play uno or smtn
Temper Tyrantrums (OM, Drampa's Grandpa) vs Pandemic Parasects (Catalystic, Sylveon)
OMPL experience gives them a hand in the ring, OM also looks like he would box based off his discord pfp
Head Honchkrows (Jrdn, aesf) vs Malevolent Misdreavuses (Chazm, Euphonos)
Jrdn and aesf are too strong a pair so they'll just roll over their opponents ez
Crown Jewel Corviknights (SBPC, Andyboy) vs Spinda Wheels (xavgb, Jordy)
It does not matter how many martial arts stresh and jordy have studied, or how hard they train. I don't even need to fight, because the plan is for andy to use my twig ass as a giant fighting pole, how is stresh supposed to fight me when im the weapon

Can't believe I got beaten up twice in one week, first jeran then both drampa and om. Bunch of bullies these ttrums I tell you

 

[vivalospride]

These suck ass but I was told to write them so here they are. I'm sorry if I offend you but I honestly hate all of you equally

The Money Magearnas (Funbot28, GL Volkner) - [1][5] - The Klink Shamers (Chloe, Pigeons)

SS Almost Any Ability: Dragonillis vs itsKimbo - idk this dragon guy still even tho rozes told me he's p good, I am a kimbo stan for literally no reason whatsoever and I'm excited to see him catch his first ompl DUB this week. Dragonman didn't specifically impress me last week while kimbo has spent the last year in the hyperbolic time chamber with jrdn training to get a dub, I'm excited to see it.
SS Balanced Hackmons: GL Volkner vs a loser - As i've mentioned about 200x, a loser has contributed to the rmt subforum slightly while all GL Volkner has contributed towards my life is depression, despair, and irritation. So a loser is the easy pick here, don't use elec coverage this guy has a boner for lightning rod mons.
SS Camomons: Matiss98 vs DugZa - I don't keep up with individual om tours like at all so a lot of people like matiss I still don't know jack shit about, then people are like "oh ye he's great he won 27 camomons ssnls dude!!" and im like alright and then I forget bc I don't care. Dugza was on my ltpl team and has a ribbon I think?
SS Mix and Mega: Gmansour20 vs Pigeons - Gman is a nice guy but I've never understood why he's so universally loved to the point where people casually drop like 4892k on him. Pigeons is also a nice guy and has more experience, he is also not above shit talking people on the ladder which is one of my favorite pastimes. Def gonna have to bold Pigeons but there's a good chance they form a truce to 2v1 TI mid-game if they see him join to spectate.
SS NFE: Crystalites vs TonyFlygon - Prolly gonna bold this tony guy every single week even if he refuses to voice tommy onions on smogtours. He's just a better player than most of these other guys and is the only outsider that still decided to sign up w/o TI hard pressuring them to, props to tony for beating out TheCoastsOfToast like 12 years in a row for wittiest user award as well.
SS STABmons: Funbot28 vs Betathunder - Beta got washed last week and funbot took down the mighty word but beta also played sober last week. Chances are both of these users will be intoxicated in some way, shape, or form for this game. I 100% believe intoxicated beta to be a superior pocket monsters player than intoxicated funbot... however I just looked at the rest of the mus and I realized I predicted a clean sweep so nvm I'm bolding funbot to prevent that from being the case.

The Temper Tyrantrums (OM, drampa's grandpa) - [4][2] - The Pandemic Parasects (Catalystic, Sylveon.)

SS Almost Any Ability: Racool vs Sabella - Definitely a highlight matchup this week. Racool will overprep for lax and either stomp if he brings lax or hard lose if he doesn't. However if they bo3 it'll be heavily in racool's favor bc chances are Sabella only has 1 gen8aaa team and will forget to look at his teamchat for teams that geerat posted. I love booty but unfortunately I have to bold racool here.
SS Balanced Hackmons: Gurpreet Patel (Sent you a Friend Request) vs sugarhigh - In omwc we prioritized mengy over sl42 and that's fuckin hilarious. But sugarhigh from what I remember is like always an activity risk while sl42 is prolly tryharding tf out of this shit. Who even is gurpreet patel btw, is that some real person that sl42's name references or what, idk why I haven't asked this sooner.
SS Camomons: Akashi vs Sylveon. - I've never spoken directly to this jeran guy but from what I've seen I don't think there's literally anything to like about him. On the flip side, geerat is an angel and literally dismantled whoever his opponent was (I literally don't remember) to such a ridiculous extent I felt bad. If geerat loses I will be severely disappointed :(
SS Mix and Mega: Skysolo vs MultiAmmiratore - Skysolo is one of the better players I've seen in ubers based metagames for a while now. Even in cpl he just gets slotted into dpp ubers n shit and just wins. He's been on a tear recently so I'm definitely giving him the edge over this Amare Stoudamire guy (ik that was a stretch, I've got nothin).
SS NFE: Ho3nConfirm3d vs TJ - Forgot TJ was in this tour, this hoen guy has 12 too many 3s in his name for me to ever wanna bold him in any context, I have no real reason to bold TJ here other than that tho. Hopefully hoen gets a name change before next week so I can be more creative.
SS STABmons: Plas vs Zesty43 - Zesty is pretty handsome, plas is a pretty nice guy when he wants to be. I'm torn, I flipped a coin and it said plas would win.

The Head Honchkrows (Jrdn, aesf) - [4][2] - The Malevolent Misdreavuses (Chazm, Euphonos)

SS Almost Any Ability: aesf vs rozes - WOW what a MATCHUP. Let's be honest here rozes sucks donkey dick and aesf is kinda a god so this couldn't possibly be a lamer matchup, but that's ok. I flipped a coin and it said rozes will win, chances are the coin is wrong tho :/
SS Balanced Hackmons: highlighter vs Tack :] - There's already been some drama behind the misdreavuses afaik and i don't wanna root for them too hard, and highlighter is pretty good, right? I remember people borderline harassing him to sign up last year. P sure that guy will win!
SS Camomons: Jrdn vs Euphonos - I love both these guys but I wanna see clarion officially claim the camomons throne then proceed to spam "press E# to pay respects" for no reason afterwards.
SS Mix and Mega: Redflix vs Chazm - Finding it hard to root for chazm atm and while idk anything about redflix and he wasnt impressive last week, I appreciate ladder heros and want them to do well.
SS NFE: frisoeva vs DurzaOffTopic - I said I'd stan durza this tour but after a 0-1 start and a bunch of other random things i keep hearing about I'm finding it more and more difficult to stan durza this tour. However I will bold him anyways bc idk this friso guy at all and durza has been nice to me in the past.
SS STABmons: Cam vs w0rd - w0rd is the word but cam was a rlly good sport last week, I can't bold against him the whole tour even if ik he couldn't care less. I'm sorry w0rd I hope you win the rest :(.

I hope we get a few dubs this week instead of a bunch of boring ass ties, fuck Andyboy

 

[Akashi]

good day to all simps and simps alike welcome to the predictions of this week of Omgs playoffs.

The Money Magearnas (Funbot28, GL Volkner) - [5][1] - The Klink Shamers (Chloe, Pigeons)

SS Almost Any Ability: Dragonillis vs itsKimbo - when we this guy ever win a ompl game, i will wait and see, dunno this dragon guy but he looks alright
SS Balanced Hackmons: GL Volkner vs a loser - a simp and a loser, i would go with my good friend gl volkner, hes alright in gen 8 ou he should win this game,
SS Camomons: Matiss98 vs DugZa - good match but dug is overhyped and was one decision away from being anally penetrated by me in week 1 but mark k did a good job
SS Mix and Mega: Gmansour20 vs Pigeons - birdman vs some guy i dunno (jks ily gman send teams thx)
SS NFE: Crystalites vs TonyFlygon - 2 friends :/ but tony is the only guy i like in this team
SS STABmons: Funbot28 vs Betathunder - funbot isnt so bad, looks nice and all especially on the curves. betathunder is still ass all around better sober up kid

The Head Honchkrows (Jrdn, aesf) - [3][3] - The Malevolent Misdreavuses (Chazm, Euphonos)

SS Almost Any Ability: aesf vs rozes - better player
SS Balanced Hackmons: highlighter vs Tack :] - tack is a nobody, ez wins for hl
SS Camomons: Jrdn vs Euphonos - hopefully u better win or else
SS Mix and Mega: Redflix vs Chazm - dunno about this one, one is an actual good player and the other is a ladder hero wouldnt tell u which one i was referring to i will leave that up to u
SS NFE: frisoeva vs DurzaOffTopic - man i love durza great guy
SS STABmons: Cam vs w0rd - ew.

The Crown Jewel Corviknights (SBPC, Andyboy) - [2][4] - The Spinda Wheels (xavgb, Jordy)

SS Almost Any Ability: Thinkerino vs Megazard - memezard is the best player in this tour.
SS Balanced Hackmons: MAMP vs PinkDragonTamer - both good players, more 50/50 thou id give the edge to mamp, hes the only one with more games played in this wack gen than me in the beta
SS Camomons: MetaRiolu7 vs Hamhamhamhamham - plz ham slam me next
SS Mix and Mega: Andyboy vs xavgb - ah its this matchup love to see this, is it nice how these 2 players were literally burnt alive by me last ompl especially andyboy, guess stresh will hax his way through like last week since his hax evs are much higher than most players
SS NFE: Thimo vs blinkboy this simp has been showing some promise lately in the scene hope he measures up to my standards.
SS STABmons: Terracotta vs vivalospride - terracotta i will paypal u 100 dollars if u win, do everything u can to beat this uu simp plz also dunno if vival could play stabmons but he better get drunk for this game if u wants to win

and thats all folks. have a good week and wash ur hands before u click each move while battling, it helps those who are suffering thank you for ur consideration

 

[Sylveon.]

Subbing in DF-Shock for sugarhigh . Gurpreet Patel (Sent you a Friend Request) OM drampa's grandpa

 

[berry]

more highlight matches bc i'm incompetent with predictions and i need to stop convincing people that i can play other metagames at a high level
shameless plug for the OM record sheet, now updated with omwc 1+2
https://spo.ink/OMRecords

BH: GL Volkner vs a loser
again, two top of the line gen 8 players. Volk is pretty respected already and everyone knows he's a strong player, while loser was the most hyped up BH pickup of this year's draft. I think this will probably be similar in caliber to the SL vs loser set last week and we'll be able to watch another match filled with solid BH play.

AAA: rozes vs aesf
this might be the best AAA match of the entire season LOL. rozes and aesf are ranked 4th and 5th on the all-time OM sheet respectively, and the only AAA main that places above them is geerat. I think it's a fair assumption to say that this might be the only loss suffered by one of these players for the entire season. Again, best of the best, both have superior AAA history, definitely going to be an exciting and high-skill game.

MNM: andyboy vs xavgb
Two super impressive MNM players who have had an extremely dominant last couple of months. Andy won OM Circuit, stresh won OMGS, etc. etc. etc. Similar situation to the rozes vs aesf match above, these two are considered some of the best of the best at their respective metagame, so I'm excited to see what they end up bringing.

BH: MAMP vs PinkDragonTamer
Interesting rematch between two of last gen BH's most exciting players. Last time they met in OMPL PDT swept mamp pretty hard, but the tides could have easily been turned with different plays here and there. I wasn't too excited with either of their games last week, but they're both coming off of wins vs old school BH legends, so hopefully that momentum can carry into this week for an exciting BH matchup.

some matches I have less to say about:
MNM: Redflix vs Chazm
Redflix held up pretty well vs stresh last week and got kinda unlucky, looking forward to see how he plays vs chazm

AAA: Sabella vs racool
Another bunch of top-sheet players, just less top-sheet than rozes and aesf. Definitely no lack of AAA skill in this one either (honestly AAA this season is gonna be a blast, almost none of them will be worth missing)

CAMO: Jrdn vs Euphonos
Euph did pretty well last week vs Siamato, hopefully we get an exciting game putting him up vs one of the best

 

[Betathunder]

SS STABmons: Funbot28 vs Betathunder - funbot isnt so bad, looks nice and all especially on the curves. betathunder is still ass all around better sober up kid

SS STABmons: Funbot28 vs Betathunder - Beta got washed last week and funbot took down the mighty word but beta also played sober last week. Chances are both of these users will be intoxicated in some way, shape, or form for this game. I 100% believe intoxicated beta to be a superior pocket monsters player than intoxicated funbot... however I just looked at the rest of the mus and I realized I predicted a clean sweep so nvm I'm bolding funbot to prevent that from being the case.

Substance abuse is not a joke millions of people suffer every year :(

 

[Ren]

[12:30:05] A LOSR: he creeper
[12:30:07] A LOSR: hey*
[12:30:08] GL Volkner: helo
[12:30:20] GL Volkner: im bringing huhshrug's team
[12:30:21] GL Volkner: to ompl
[12:30:25] GL Volkner: he's such an epic gamer
[12:30:29] A LOSR: he really is
[12:30:37] A LOSR: this mirror match is gonna be epic
[12:30:41] A LOSR: i'm bringing it too

Look forward to two epic gamers battling it out on Friday using exclusive, never-seen-before epic gamer teams!

 

[aesf]

AESF'S MAMP's OMPL BH Review AAA EDITION: Week 1​

Dunno if this will be a weekly thing but I saw Mamp's post and thought it'd be a fun idea, so here we are, I have no creativity so I'm gonna use identical formatting too

Rozes vs Dragonillis
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1097869220-aobwx7418zabpt5u0nigz0gwbxl5h6spw

A very strong opener for rozes. He brings the famous cursed magpull + noivern core, and it does exactly what it's supposed to do, against a team with corvi + lax, the fakest anti-noivern core in the game (with no disrespect to drago, this is a mistake we'll see later throughout the week too). This game is pretty much a race to the finish between noivern and tinted lens garde. After avoiding a few potentially lucky rolls and crits, rozes capitalizes the moment he gets an opening and takes it all the way, while drago struggles to find a proper time to get garde in after chipping down rozes's team. Something else important noting throughout this game is that Drago doesn't have a bouncer, while rozes has one that beats his rocker from full. Rocks are up for nearly the entirety of the game on Drago's side, and that costs Drago his wincon in the long run.

Sabella vs Thinkerino
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1099199867

For his first ever tournament game, Think runs into a very solid OMPL vet in Sabella. From team preview on Think's side, we can see that Sabella doesn't really have a gengar switchin, and once ph mew is revealed, no real arc switchin either. But from Sabella's side, he, just like rozes, is blessed with another case of Noivern vs the fakest noivern check in the game + 4 slower mons that get ohkod. Sabella plays very solidly throughout with few mistakes, weakening corv and ensuring it never is able to recover. Think is on his backfoot for most of this game, and it's clear that his inexperience costs him at times with some crucial turns that ultimately make the difference. Still, from a general perspective of his teambuilding and his game sense, I suspect Think will be able to adapt quicker than most to the tours setting and get his shine should he keep this up. Props to Sabella though for a well played game - he's on a great track if he continues this type of play.

aesf vs Megazard
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1099566392

I was pretty proud of how I played this game; took a chance to chip prima significantly early on, got an important bluff with dragapult to secure 80 on lax, and pressured pretty hard with garde for the rest of the game while getting a few 50/50s right. But before I gas myself up too much, I also want to take this opportunity to bring down my opponent. In all seriousness, I respect MZ as a player, but I can't say this was the best showing from him. The main thing was, for a mon that claimed a kill every time it came in on 3/6 mons, he was really hesitant to bring in dragapult. This is still your AAA Open champion, though, so be ready for a bounce back in coming weeks, especially with one of the strongest builders in the meta, stresh, at his disposal.

Racool vs Quantum Tesseract
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1099665587 g1
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1099676419 g2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1099689132 g3

g1: Racool brings a team that loses very quickly to doublade, and QT brings a doublade. Racool's only counterplay is tricking doublade a scarf, which QT stays in on. After that, the game's over, as QT's team is just way too passive to deal with Racool's offensive breakers. Pretty foregone conclusion, and Racool secures this one.
g2: Unlike the previous game, which ended turn 27, this game really ends turn 3, when racool sacks her primarina to ferrothorn. After that, her sole breaker is gone, and the rest of racool's team has little answers to QT's threats, while QT's team has all the answers to the rest of Racool's. QT secures this one pretty cleanly.
g3: Noivern versus corvi and snorlax as the only noivern checks. Where have I heard this before? Even with shed shell, racool manages to trick the noivern early on, and trap it with a spicy magpull mew tech (that certainly earns more style points than rozes's boring scarf rotom-h!!). Either way, QT's stall gets dismantled, and that's the end of our third 6-0 of the series.

Wasn't super impressed with QT's builds or play this week; for someone who's historically been a dominant OM threat, it looks like the rust hasn't worn off yet. For Racool on the other hand, I wouldn't count another run like last year's out of the books just yet, so long as every game goes like g1 and g3.

Metagame Observations​

If there's one takeaway from this week, it's that Corviknight and Snorlax are not good noivern checks. 3 out of 4 series were decided by this exact interaction, which is absurd. The problem with Corviknight is that it takes 37 from boom and you're forced to roost, losing you momentum, not to mention you probably need health on it for other things like defogging. Snorlax isn't a check- what's it going to do, facade you? Rozes is one of the first people I've seen actually stay in on a lax and spam boomburst, because that's a thing you can do safely. But even aside from noivern, between this and two specs tinted lens gardes being brought in other games, it's clear that people are ready for corv, and if anything, corv won't be the same dominant monster that you can throw at anything and win. Expect its current standard sets to go down in usage in the coming weeks as people adapt.

A common mistake I saw this week was just playing around magic bounce. don't click rocks if your opponent has a safe switchin that is likely magic bounce!! It's probably not worth it!!! Not to mention bringing a good bouncer in general is pretty important, especially when it makes such a huge impact in chipping regen and ph mons.

An archetype we saw a LOT this week was four fat, relatively passive mons with 2 breakers, something that I like to call the AAA ladder special. Rozes, Dragonillis, MZ, and QT all used this exact team archetype. While it's not necessarily bad, these teams tend to fish for matchup a lot harder than other more offensive ones -- you tend to want your breakers to go the full distance, and you want your walls to counter your opponent's threats. I think rozes's team was a little more standout, with some pretty solid concepts behind it, but others seemed closer to darts on a wall with regard to offensive and defensive synergy.

With so much effort in theorymonning AAA this gen, we're about to see a load of new sets. SFLO Dragon Rush Dragapult makes its debut twice as a terrifying threat with few switchins, and Band Galv Dragapult is starting to pop up too. Tinted Lens Garde coming back into relevance, and I wouldn't be surprised to see geerat's PH Mew set later in this OMPL too.

Finally, the one game of stall we saw should be enough to say convincingly that until proven otherwise, stall is bad. So long as people continue to not run the most cookie-cutter, blindly aggressive offensive sets (which, happily, isn't happening - people are innovating), stall probably isn't winning games any time soon.

That's all, won't do upcoming matches bc others do that anyway. Thanks for reading!

 

[Mark K]

If we disregard the nfe games (where i mispredicted everything cuz idk shit), it came to an 11-4 record which is better than i imagined, so after going to the clouds and back on monday and being bothered yesterday I'll bold some more names and recommend some matches to watch:

The Money Magearnas (Funbot28, GL Volkner) - [3][1] - The Klink Shamers (Chloe, Pigeons)
SS Almost Any Ability: Dragonillis vs itsKimbo - 6/10 QT subbed out for kimbo so early can't be a good sign, hopefully it's nothing more than experimentation and QT is still providing as much support as he can both to Kimbo and any other metas and not just inactive or unmotivated. With that said, I don't think Drago will have a lot of trouble with Kimbo, I'm not expecting the standard balance v standard balance we've seen to happen so there's a chance Kimbo, with some good prepwork, can put up a fight. Won't be a long match.
SS Balanced Hackmons: GL Volkner vs a loser - 8/10 Had to go watch the replays of last week to trace an idea of who'd win and truth is, I haven't reached the same ammount of certainty I have for the rest of the matches. Volkner seems prepared but A Loser is a creative guy who'll put to test the Mag's bh core building skills and Volk wont be able to afford many mistakes in game.
SS Camomons: Matiss98 vs DugZa - 7/10 DugZa may have bested me last week but I was not impressed by his team, it lacked an identity, some weird semi-stall without offensive presence and thus he was forced into making greedy plays and if he carries the same issues into this week, matiss will be capitalizing on it and take the dub.
SS Mix and Mega: Gmansour20 vs Pigeons - 7/10 I refuse to predict this game as both predicts where I let my bias leak out more last week (matiss and fardin) were wrong. Pigeons is the better player but is certainly very beatable and I trust Gman can do it so I wanna bold his name so bad but I'd have nothing but simply blind confidence. Do not get me wrong though, this will be a close game and both are the kinds of players to study week 1's meta and take advantage of it.
SS STABmons: Funbot28 vs Betathunder - 5/10 I must admit I facepalmed when I realized Funbot was buying herself in the draft as I didn't think 16k would justify her ability to fit into a slot but she surprised me with a very solid game vs w0rd if she keeps it up she might just breakeven. Beta didn't look particularly good, albeit plas played like a god, to justify me bolding his name this round. Show us something cool, will ya beta?

The Head Honchkrows (Jrdn, aesf) - [3][2] - The Malevolent Misdreavuses (Chazm, Euphonos)
SS Almost Any Ability: aesf vs rozes - 10/10 Must-Watch game right here. Both are great builders and even better players, I'm definitely expecting a great game and a step towards the evolution of the meta, both are players to drop corvi and other staples in favor of doing something different to stay ahead of the curve. I had to go with aesf because of manager tiebreaker pretty much, this will be a very cool match, do not miss it.
SS Balanced Hackmons: highlighter vs Tack :] - 4/10 Good luck tack, draft didn't turn out well for you, hope you can make the best of the situation and upsets taste better when expectations are low.
SS Camomons: Jrdn vs Euphonos - 8/10 Tune in if you like Camomons, should be a pretty interesting game, Im giving jordan the W here because his teams are usually just rock solid compared to euphonos' risque but very fun archetypes.
SS Mix and Mega: Redflix vs Chazm - 8/10 Redflix did surprisingly well vs stresh, but chazm doesn't lose. After this week, i wouldnt be surprised if redflix managed to break positive within a few weeks.
SS NFE: frisoeva vs DurzaOffTopic
SS STABmons: Cam vs w0rd - 6/10 let's call last week a fluke, this guy builds a lot and sometimes people like this bring out the weird gimmick team or straight up match-up fishing with confidence in the scouting and it doesn't always pay off. Idt w0rd repeats the same mistake.

The Crown Jewel Corviknights (SBPC, Andyboy) - [3][2] - The Spinda Wheels (xavgb, Jordy)
SS Almost Any Ability: Thinkerino vs Megazard - 7/10 MZ didn't look great as i kinda expected and I'm sure he looks at Think as a good but easy opponent due to his inexperience. And it might just be what Think needs to get his first ompl win. No pressure.
SS Balanced Hackmons: MAMP vs PinkDragonTamer - 7/10 MAMP won last week, therefore, he loses this one. PDT showed he still got it and isn't here to just get an average record.
SS Camomons: MetaRiolu7 vs Hamhamhamhamham - 4/10 Meta wasn't impressive but still has good support, unfortunately that isn't enough to beat the behemoth that ham*ham^4 is.
SS Mix and Mega: Andyboy vs xavgb - 10/10 We'd be so spoiled if we got to watch a Bo3 here, sadly I don't think that will happen. Top OM players of recent times and both have something to prove as managers. Going with Andy here because in a Bo1, he only takes very calculated risks and it can put stresh off when the game gets drawn out too long or simply force stresh's hand during teambuilding to bring something more aggressive which could also be his downfall, this is however unlikely to happen, so we're in for a great game. Must-watch
SS STABmons: Terracotta vs vivalospride - 8/10 Interesting match-up. Viv usually has very interesting ideas when faced with people who are known to bring heat, but Terra has been very disciplined with his builds without losing his charm and giving his teams a spin. He's here to fix his OMPL record after it got tainted by hax and other unfortunate events last year.

Highlights:
aesf vs rozes - 10/10
Andyboy vs xavgb - 10/10

 

[Redflix]

won vs chazm gg
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1101327625
LGI KROWS

 

[S1nn0hC0nfirm3d]

won vs tjay
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nfe-1101630364
Trums trums trums

 

[Cam]

praised the sun gg
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8stabmons-1102693126

 

[itsKimbo]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1102720585 won vs dragonillis with a very favourable match up. GG bro

 

[Dragonillis]

SS Almost Any Ability: Dragonillis vs itsKimbo - 6/10 QT subbed out for kimbo so early can't be a good sign, hopefully it's nothing more than experimentation and QT is still providing as much support as he can both to Kimbo and any other metas and not just inactive or unmotivated. With that said, I don't think Drago will have a lot of trouble with Kimbo, I'm not expecting the standard balance v standard balance we've seen to happen so there's a chance Kimbo, with some good prepwork, can put up a fight. Won't be a long match.

Sorry bro

 

[vivalospride]

won vs my friend terra gg, it's his bday this weekend pls wish him a happy bday on his smogon wall he deserves it

on a more important note, everyone pls shower kimbo with love and affection

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8stabmons-1102739489

 

[Mark K]

Sorry bro

It's fine dude, I guess I'm going for everything wrong now

 

[shiloh]

won vs aesf, gg

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8almostanyability-494157

like my post and not the below nerd's v

 

[Ren]

won vs loser gg like my post and not the above noob's ^
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8balancedhackmons-494214