w4 reviews late sorry i was busy
quinn vs treeko928 
quinn has a very slow structure with flutter and fireceus as the main mons of interest. it’s possible that these mons are cheesers like norm or desolate land, but it could also be superman with mg fireceus and some hazard-immune flutter like pixilate. even specs flutter would be possible here. treeko has a crunchy ghostceus structure with the 2 fast dragons and what looks like fc zac (otherwise chomp kills you) with regenvest registeel, and one of the dragons or ghostceus may also be fc. it’s pretty difficult to tell what quinn is actually doing here, as registeel + zac will be very reliable into flutter and fireceus will struggle against the 2 dragons.
steela leads into the terrifying eternatus and gets vest knocked on stone axe, and then takes helmet. this solidifies etern as fc no boots, so it’s possible quinn could get through with hazards in the future, though either way etern is likely a very defensive set without much impact here. registeel comes in next to stone axe and quinn nuzzles it with imposter, which seems sensible as you aren’t slow pivoting on it and the time earned from full paras will add up. registeel reveals revdance meaning idk how flutter does anything here, but is no salt cure meaning we’re likely looking at scales zac fc ghost fc etern, or even etern only fc though i don’t know what ghostceus would be doing there. no boots no leftovers (probably covert) audino comes in to confront mirai, and lands knock on treeko’s covert imposter. quinn wants to preserve their own covert so switches out the audino and mirai gets in.
quinn lets the steela take cage to mortal off the rocks in exchange, revealing fc mirai (last on steela should be salt cure here to spin on imposter). the suspicious hard imposter is successfully played and treeko retreats to chansey for some reason, which is really dubious long-term (i hope that zacian can do something) but could be used to sapblock imposter down the line depending on set. quinn runs away to steela to regen more and treeko parting shots instead of recovering the imposter, i guess scared of cage encore. steela uturns directly into flare boost flutter against registeel’s stone axe, which is insane because nuzzle was another risk-free option that all but guaranteed progress. the play works out, though, and flutter boosts up against the scales zacian switchin to land a respectable +1 astral on spirit break.
at this point the main problem with quinn’s position is making itself clear: there just isn’t a good way to contest the registeel. steela is always getting spinblocked by either the registeel or the imposter, nothing knocks off the vest, and flutter is taking so much from hazards and revdance to gain any initiative. it would seem that fireceus is needed here, and quinn finds an opportunity to bring it in a couple turns later. rocks-immune no desolate land is revealed, meaning we’re probably looking at an mg set here. mirai comes in on torch (reasonable) and encores.
here quinn switches out the fireceus on shore up (a weird thing to run on mirai, but imposter had been in on it before so set was known). i don’t know if that was the best move, mirai is healthy while you’re down 2 crucial torch pp, and staying in might have been a reasonable play. hard to say for sure. steela is the switchin because quinn has no actual elec resist, and again trades mortal for cage before hard switching to bliss, but this time treeko opts to go imposter to regenerate and refresh rocks, so quinn has the non-transformed blissey out. nuzzle and teleport are clicked as axe is refreshed. both players have a pivoting imposter set, which is a bit unusual. makes me wonder how strong it is and when it’s worth.
this time it’s registeel in on fireceus, trying to scare it out with nuzzle, but quinn knocks, decisively solving one of the big problems in the position. it’s still difficult to say whether flutter will get to enter play again with the rocks + burn counting for so much, but even discounting that this is a major blow against treeko’s structure. registeel haplessly nuzzles as quinn regenerates imposter back to full, and treeko decides to get ghostceus in on steela this time rather than mirai.
the presumed reason why ghostceus hasn’t come in yet is that it doesn’t do anything into the revealed audino, and treeko eloquently demonstrates this for the viewers by revealing an fc judgment/mortal set, while quinn is handsomely rewarded for preserving audino’s covert cloak. still, this ghostceus will be a competent hazard remover throughout the game unless it can be sapblocked somehow. quinn teleports to flutter on the ghostceus to split, which was a bit of an eyebrow-raising play to me cause i thought surely you can find a less risky split opportunity against imposter, etern, or maybe even registeel, but the play works out regardless and flutter enjoys a heal to 39% as zacian shackles into fireceus, beginning one of the crucial interactions of the game. (note that both players don’t know the last 2 moves on each other’s mons)
i was talking a lot in vc about this possible trade and i think it’s really interesting. due to the torch interactions, it’s basically impossible to tell how things would go with the calc alone, so i decided to just test it, which you can watch
here. here are the crucial takeaways:
- fireceus should always knock first, as the increased damage from low-boost torch is less than 1 leftovers recovery
- fireceus gets to use all its attacking pp before dying to zacian’s attacks, though this is surprisingly close and if it starts at low hp or gets multi crit it might die, though its last attacks do so little damage that not much difference would be made
- quinn can maximize damage by using all the torch songs immediately, maintaining a +0 or +1 boost level, but treeko could simply switch out after removing all the torch songs, leaving zac with several recovers left against a thoroughly useless fireceus, so best is probably using only a few torches early and leaving most of them until the end
mechanics of the 1v1 aside, treeko does need to be responsible with zacian here because impostered mirai and flutter are very strong into the knocked registeel and paralyzed imposter, so i can understand the decision to keep the leftovers and instead lose the life orb on mirai. quinn reveals the orthodox earth plate, taking off some of the shore ups before treeko goes registeel to nuzzle. giratina comes in and clicks COURT CHANGE, revealing a prank set with boots. flutter comes in on impostered giratina to astral for 28 into the zacian, forcing a shore up out of it. quinn brings in fireceus to torch song expecting hard registeel and heal up.
even at this point, treeko’s position feels like it’s deteriorated to the point where they kinda just need to lock in, shackle the fireceus, and trade it off. there just isn’t good long-term fireceus counterplay unless you’re happy letting the zacian get chipped, lose leftovers, and use one recover after another while fireceus lives forever. you’re maybe doing okay if you can run out the torch songs, but it’s hard to see a path to that which doesn’t involve a worse version of the shackle trade. maybe there is some idea of drawing things out further in order to force quinn’s mons to take more rocks, but the closest you come to actually killing something is forcing audino to take rocks repeatedly with ghostceus (even then there’s steela as an alternative switchin). the progress isn’t happening. zacian comes in to spin and the leftovers fall off.
treeko reveals the interesting spikes chansey here, but it’s hard to fight with hazards when there’s court change giratina into paralyzed imposter and flutter, the main thing you’d be hurting with hazards, can heal for free on said imposter unless you call it out. ghostceus comes in on parting shot and quinn goes to fireceus to start clicking torch song from -1.
this turns out to be a terrible decision as the ghostceus is take heart and does a wonderful job taking the torch songs (this is also a mon that doesn’t need very many recovers), so quinn is set back a significant amount of pp and will eventually have to switch out unless they crit. however, treeko slips up and starts clicking judgment too late (they should start clicking it as soon as it 2hkos), then has to sacrifice zacian. this is the deciding error and quinn is able to win from here without much stress. lunar dance chansey (this guy is really funny) and gigaton celesteela (i don’t even know what this is supposed to do) are also revealed.
treeko’s only way to win before like turn 500 here involved simply making the right calls with mirai and doing a better job exploiting quinn’s lack of solid checks. they definitely tried that in this game and things could’ve turned out very differently had they successfully caught the imposter coming in while life orb was intact, but the primary supporting piece registeel would’ve let in quinn’s imposter to heal (while mirai wouldn’t even be able to enter), so it’s hard to see whether there was a winning sequence other than the one where you just sit there with mirai and call out everything to get kills.
if treeko had saved the ghostceus, things really would’ve gone down differently. mirai wasn’t ever really breaking through once the life orb went (i think the idea that they had to use it so couldn’t trade off zacian was a major reason why treeko lost) but with half its torches gone, fireceus was hardly getting through either. in the position i foresaw, both players would’ve had the primary idea of going imposter on the other’s regenvests and trying to shoulder through the team that way. treeko could also have tried to play with spikes + ghostceus, though with so many recovers traded off, it’s hard to say how well this would’ve worked. a similar position would’ve been reached had zacian entered into the trade with fireceus, but i’m pretty sure that would’ve been a better version for treeko because zacian does nothing here. regardless, this would have been an extremely long game, and with so many factors at play essentially impossible to tell which player would’ve had the advantage, especially given unknown factors like the last on gira and etern. definitely not a 1000 turn game though, hazards were going to do the job sooner or later.
i didn’t really like treeko’s team a lot. that ghostceus set feels very dated atp (it also just outright loses to chomp), the shore up mirai was really really sketchy, and lunar dance imposter is awesome but i don’t think it’s actually very good, because imposter is itself a crucial piece in closed late-midgame and endgame positions and you’re also using it as a semi mirai imposter-proofer. quinn’s works i guess, though that steela is completely ridiculous and the flutter at best speed ties in any endgame where imposter is alive (average flare boost flutter team to be fair)
overall, this was a really interesting game in which difficult positional questions were asked of both players. i have no idea where either of these teams even came from, but these 2 players have been fun to watch throughout the season and i’m excited for their last few matches.
lazzerpenguin vs ballfire 
lazzerpenguin has a bunch of special attackers with what looks like regenvest heatran, maybe fc fairyceus, but a lot of unknowns here. ballfire has a chomp + clodsire structure which amounts to a fairly standard if slow balance. the fairyceus set for lazzerpenguin will determine how long he’s able to hold out against chomp.
registeel leads against zam, and ballfire nuzzles the heatran switch, which i think is slightly inaccurate cause you really want to bring imposter in on heatran and try to slow pivot on it, but the position is still fine either way. chomp tries to come in but heatran successfully uturns into etern, who clicks parting shot into the bounce clod switchin.
great decision by ballfire to go clod on the unrevealed etern, because this is the exact type of team to run etern techs like gambit and knock in an effort to remove the registeel; it’s also very unlikely sevag would try to play aggressive against a full health regenvest registeel if he were a standard offensive etern set. chansey transforms, revealing the etern to be a surprisingly defensive fur coat set that can’t touch fairyceus. parting shot on hard fairyceus, ogre comes in.
this ogre is unironically kind of annoying for ballfire’s team because there isn’t a water resist and you can’t just go to imposter without risking knock and mortal. fairyceus reveals volt switch, meaning likely no take heart and probably pixilate, and ballfire chooses registeel, which i think is the wrong call: knock from ogre would be devastating here. i think actually zama was best; ogre can’t do anything significant to it, it’s a pretty insubstantial mon against the variety of special attackers and fighting resists, and you can leverage the paralyzed heatran to swing any mortal spin mindgames heavily in your favor. regardless, lazzerpenguin instead chooses stone axe before hard switching out (?) into mirai. ballfire goes to the fairyceus to click pixilate spin, mirai stays in to cage, ballfire just says “huh?” which i think is the funniest chat line so far in this ompl.
anyway, lazzerpenguin realizes his mistake and switches out to etern, another mon that gets 2hkod by boomburst, while ballfire volt switches to clodsire and teleports on the draco. i can’t say i understand that one either, if you’re gonna slow pivot on the etern why not just go registeel so you can regenerate off the damage? anyway, chomp comes in on the worst opportunity in history but it’s still band into no ground resist so it lands 75% into the ogre followed by net 26% into the fc fairyceus. not bad, though i don’t know if ogre needed to be brought in at all; -1 sunsteel into fairyceus wasn’t worth the risk. overall probably a fine play though because ogre presumably isn’t too valuable here if it isn’t knocking registeel and being scared of trick is reasonable.
mirai is brought in on knock and loses its covert cloak (also who exactly is non-fc cloak mirai? no one has ever used this mon) before lazzerpenguin reveals his masterstroke and knocks off the vest with knock mirai, meaning the special attackers will now be flooding in. all i’m saying is that clod would always have been a safe switchin here had it not taken that draco earlier. zama is brought in and fucks around for a bit but lazzerpenguin calmly brings in zam and snipes registeel on the switch with armor cannon. this is why that av made such a difference: zama previously had a reasonable purpose as a hazard remover and knock off clicker, but now it’s a liability that lets in zam super easily. at the very least, it should have seriously considered staying in, or maybe just going to imposter.
from here the game is far from completely over as imposter can take the psychic moves for a bit and chomp is eating through the team slowly, but there’s still a definite advantage to lazzerpenguin. chomp comes in next to click blades, clod arrives to sapblock fairyceus, then lazzerpenguin tries going zam on the recover but catches nuzzle instead, drastically swinging things. in his defense, nuzzle clod is a really strange set as it doesn’t do anything into imposter or take heart, but you can never be too careful around these weird defensive guys and i think there were definitely better plays, like maybe hard ogre or hard mirai even.
at any rate, the game has now swung significantly in ballfire’s favor as chomp is now contested only by etern and fairyceus, and a couple of full paras rub some salt in the wound, though etern dodges a big blades. ballfire goes to bounce the parting shot again to get chomp in again on -1 etern. this whole idea just feels super dubious to me, why not go to like fairyceus? chomp takes -1 draco and trades off the etern, but this will be its last kill: after ballfire doubles it in from zam vs zam, ogre comes in instead and finishes it off with surprise timid revdance, and the game swings once again.
i would say ballfire still has the advantage because zama + clod + imposter is just so good and it’s becoming increasingly clear that lazzerpenguin’s team just isn’t built to last against imposter, but ogre is still so hostile and heatran prevents fairyceus from ever winning so it’s non-trivial. ballfire seems to have learned something after spending hundreds of years in the hard stall hyperbolic time chamber though and he’s able to put on enough pressure with zama to force a mortal onto the mysterious mirai which turns out to be regen dragon energy/encore, a really cool idea though the imposter-proofing is tremendously sketchy here.
ballfire slips up and lets the zama get caged by fairyceus, but lazzerpenguin misses the knock/cage -> mortal/cage -> anything/moonblast line which would almost definitely have killed zama, leaving the game in an incredibly cursed state with both players seemingly unable to do anything at all. likely we would’ve seen a lazzerpenguin plan like (clod in) th on ruin, hard heatran, uturn to ogre, hard back to heatran, trying to poison imp with mortal ogre (though you may need to heal mirai first), while ballfire would be trying to exploit the incredibly sketchy imposter counterplay with everyone poisoned or paralyzed. i feel like lazzerpenguin must have had at least decent odds at a very slow-paced win, though it’s the kind of position where if you slip up once then everything can fall apart.
zama is able to escape, though, and fairyceus takes one too many ruinations so lazzerpenguin is left without a triple arrows switchin and loses all his mons in a rather messy sequence that nevertheless felt pretty one-sided throughout with zama uncontested.
overall, completely unhinged game, i feel like these nuclear breaker games so often fizzle out into boring middlegames where one person is always ahead, but lazzerpenguin is known for bringing these super volatile structures that lead to really weird, unbalanced games, and without a doubt this was one of those.
wheaty vs cityscapes 
wheaty has brought the bomb squad director’s cut featuring waterceus>giratina and registeel>celesteela. i have an extremely standard balance that used to be wisp/hjk scept (?!) over garde, but akira was giving me an unrelated sermon about the standard qt structure being modular and being able to put anything as the breakers without it massively affecting the team, so i figured i should use a viable mon like garde (half joking, but scept is so completely terrible and immaterial in bad matchups that i figured i shouldn’t be relying on it too hard). i am not happy to see registeel into my garde, but i am reasonably happy to see chicken into my wbb flutter + fc waterceus, i’ve ruled out shift gear chicken cause there’s no possible respectable imposter-proofer, so as long as flutter isn’t caught by coverage and waterceus isn’t sapblocked by chansey i should be ok.
before getting further into the analysis it should be noted that during this game i was listening to
the money store by death grips.
anyway, i know wheaty will be expecting imposter lead cause i often speak of its virtues, so i figure i can try to lead registeel into some pivot (hopefully opposing registeel), trade knocks, use ting to handle the zam, and go to town with my fairies. but he leads with his chansey which is imposter rather than mg, and this SUPER throws me off and i have to reevaluate everything. i need to keep the vest on registeel or it’ll be me that the fairies come for, so i go ting and he uturns to chicken. waterceus can’t be sapblocked unless registeel is bounce, and garde would eat that alive anyway, so i feel reasonably safe going to it (revealing cb) and then imposter (revealing the set as knock/glaive). knock causes a lot of problems for my team in general, but i’m not excessively attached to the boots on flutter (exotic hazards are very unlikely here) or the covert cloak on imposter (my main worry with imposter on regenvests is chicken and zam killing me, not secondary effects), so i will try to give those up first.
my double works out nicely and i get to ask wheaty what’s even going on with his waterceus, so i knock it and it’s plate, which is a really weird set. this mon probably loses to imposter and/or is incredibly passive, as without leftovers the take heart cage idea just doesn’t work so well. i try to get an edge with registeel by knocking on a predicted switch, but he just stays in and scald burns me, which is a little annoying.
i just go to imposter to see what the deal is and it’s fc topsy recover, which will do a fine job staying alive in front of chicken but is absolutely terrible into my waterceus. i go to registeel to recover and then copy the ting to see what it does. it’s a pretty passive hazard-focused set, but it can knock my waterceus so i go ahead and knock the vest off, then immediately risk waterceus’s leftovers to chicken when it comes in (to be fair no human clicks knock there). i get crit by cc and then zam semi-sapblocks me, catches ting with fleur, chicken doubles in on registeel (this should maybe have been hard imposter), and flutter takes 83 from knock somehow.
i am really not having a good time right now, chicken has enough hp that i’m pretty sure i can split without dying to the second knock so i try that and he switches to registeel. obviously this is clicking u-turn here but i urgently want to know the set to determine how best to proceed, so i copy it with imposter and allow the chicken another entry. fortunately for me, this registeel is an unviable loser that can do nothing into either flutter or waterceus. i figure wheaty must see vcreate as a risk-free move after the last interactions so i go flutter again and suddenly everything is fine.
i’m able to heal out of knock range on registeel, uturn is definitely expected cause i don’t gain much by staying in, but i unsuccessfully fish for an infernal parade burn anyway, because registeel is the defining mon in the position and a burn would be super helpful for all 3 of my special attackers. zam comes in and i correctly read that wheaty thought i saw my ting as too valuable to risk like that, so i go to it and begin to regenerate it. imposter enters on my uturn and this is where i learn it’s covert.
i have a real opportunity to bring in garde here so i do that, but i figure i can extend the advantage state at no cost by doubling back to ting on registeel, landing me in a very favorable matchup with more regeneration on the way. the rocks are really annoying so i spin them away, but ting comes back to set them back up so i go imposter, fortunately lose the tie, and get my own axe up. renowned loser waterceus comes in as the so-called imposter proofer, which means i get to pivot on it and bring in garde again on ting. i figure you can never be too careful and boomburst into the registeel switchin, which i think was the wrong move. doubling out earlier signaled that i wasn’t confident in garde to break down the team on its own, so i should’ve realized that wheaty was playing under the impression that he could go to registeel forever, which as it turns out wasn’t the case. after this, it’s another chicken sequence where imposter takes cc for 55, flutter comes in, misses a second infernal burn, splits to full, and finally zam crits registeel with moongeist for 45. my team at this point is still mostly recovered from wheaty’s first attack, so the second one is cut off with registeel out of moongeist range, and it’s hard imposter as i switch to ting. i don’t value the av on ting very highly because every attacker has so much pressure into it, so i trade my vest for his cloak and he has to run away because i’m threatening nuzzle. ting comes in on my spin, i should maybe have just clicked uturn but it’s chill, i think axe is definitely next so i correctly go garde and catch the registeel for 70 with secret sword.
obviously wheaty will switch out here so i double to imposter in order to regenerate some hp, and it’s his chansey that comes in. i have the insane thought that garde can just come in again, so i play that instead of uturning for whatever reason (scared of tspikes??????) and get in on registeel again. i really heavily think about this turn because it’s a huge deal, and ultimately decide on boomburst which correctly catches the imposter.
i’ve been going too fast here so let me explain what’s actually going on in the game. after scouting the registeel i realized my waterceus is a completely insane mon that can win the game on the spot, but it’s very chipped and needs some time to recover and set up, and imposter also has good chances into it depending on starting hp for both sides and whether leftovers are present. the 2 critical defenders on wheaty’s team are imposter and registeel, and by hitting the predict with boomburst i broke them apart, creating a winpath. if i missed this predict, my position was worse by a lot.
i will not save the garde. wheaty’s registeel has regenerated out of secret sword range, while mine can very quickly be chipped down into it. so i go for the tie and lose.
flutter comes in, wheaty goes registeel and i miss yet another infernal burn. here there’s a weird sequence where i as the kids say “crash out” and start spamming take heart while wheaty tries to spin and nuzzle instead of just uturning to zam, allowing me to take heart out of moongeist range altogether. here wheaty should probably uturn to imposter and force me to fish for tie, but zam comes in instead and i say “psystrike” while being stone cold set on the fact that there is no chance the zam will psystrike me here or even have the move. imposter comes in which apparently was a split read, i wasn’t thinking about split at all, i just wanted someone dead. i get my wish but volt switch put me in moongeist range so i gotta run away and things go on.
registeel comes in on my registeel which is mildly surprising, though i guess you can afford to play a lot more loose with it after garde is dead. i get in my waterceus and am able to land a huge sap, getting me back to full; at this point i see the first pieces of the win starting to crystallize. +1 waterceus wreaks quite a bit of havoc, taking off most of the zam’s hp, but wheaty catches me running away from psycho boost and kills off ting with fleur, leaving me without a volt switch resist. at this point we have a truly insane endgame that could go either way.
i prioritize rocks because zam is the only mon left that can contest waterceus, but wheaty is able to bring in chicken. i get the sense that letting in waterceus would put him too far behind, and i think he felt the same way, so he knocks and i stay in to uturn to flutter (why not registeel????????) then hard back to imposter, keeping all 4 of my mons alive. wheaty’s waterceus gets chipped down further and i’m able to get another opportunity on ting, against which i choose flutter.
here i’m like “this rules i’m about to hit the fattest split of my life” and then i’m like “wait what if he goes zam” and come up with the midground of hard imposter. this was probably stupid and unnecessary, flutter is not a very important mon in the position, and even if zam did come in i would still have been out of rocks range. the play i made is sound, though, and imposter gets in on knock to regenerate once again. i think uturn for sure from him so i go waterceus but instead it’s spin which feels really dangerous, unrestricted zam will be a nightmare to deal with in this endgame. chicken is brought in, i think if i let imposter die i can get waterceus in, sap, and maybe get something done, but wheaty knocks instead and here begins facing the consequences of letting his waterceus get low in order to click random moves. ting is brought in on vcreate for some reason, then it’s waterceus, and this guy REALLY has to recover. chicken comes in again as i get stone axe, wheaty opts for cc on the imposter switch, and i get waterceus in fairly confident that i’ve worked everything out.
things initially are smooth sailing, i’m able to eliminate the opposing waterceus on the switch with cage and that guy was pretty much the only mon that could decidedly force me out from any %. then zam comes in on rocks and clicks psycho boost on my sap. i lament in chat “sap was never correct there” but sap is fine there. it works the same way: zam attacks, registeel comes in, spins, brings zam in vs more boosted waterceus, tries to chip it down or kill with crit volt switch, i win if that doesn’t work. i do think revdance was overall the safer play (zam is in rocks range, so i’m always able to sap) but psycho boost is just a really weird play in the first place and again the difference is pretty minimal.
anyway, wheaty goes for an alternative winpath of nuzzling me and hoping i get too paralyzed to click take heart, which i think is worse than volt switch crit fishing. none of it works and i win.
this was one of the craziest games i’ve ever played in my life. at every opportunity there were countless ways the game could have branched, i didn’t really get into the hypotheticals here because there’s just so much to say and i’ve already said quite a lot just by typing out my thoughts during the game. very well played to my opponent, he’s been playing his heart out all tour, i’m really glad to see him starting
i thought my position was worse pretty much the whole game lol but objectively i don’t know if that’s really the case. at the very least i felt like i had accomplished something incredible, even though i wasn’t happy about relying on no crit at the end.
hey wheaty
Wheaty if you wanna play out like 5 more games of this same matchup lemme know please and thank you
akira vs quojova 
akira has her standard jank balance with a bunch of weirdos, quojova has a much more standard mgarde + steelceus balance.
wbb steela leads vs imposter, and quojova immediately goes to steelceus on beak blast, meaning there’s probably some trickery going on with magic guard, or maybe quojova is just insane and trying to kill off the steela with thunder cage. regardless, akira goes to korai as the steelceus plots up, and quojova defends with imposter, scouting the standard fc zama set. zacian-c comes in against etern, and akira, fearing some fc torch set, switches into chansey as quojova again goes imposter and learns of the fanged one. chicken comes in and clicks lo headlong for 40 into etern, which is revealed as fc helmet; big question here is whether it’s recover or sap. if it is recover, i don’t know how akira ever gets through with just chicken and zacc; quojova clicks stone axe on the switch, a strange play that can’t really be called bad but does raise the question of why out yourself as a very passive set and also not recover. fc ghostceus hops in and gets every spike, but the ting is salt cure and akira can’t spinblock it consistently, leading to ghostceus taking a devastating mortal.
next, akira tries going to chansey and just spamming glare. this works surprisingly well and quojova even allows paralysis on their webs flutter, plotting to outspeed -1 zacc with the garde. the position for akira is completely ridiculous and it feels like a matter of time before garde gets in and rips everything apart. korai is able to successfully spin off the webs but takes a poison in return. but heart swap is now revealed as the last on etern, importantly meaning zacc hard walls it and can set up on it. it’s still incredibly difficult for zacc to actually win with eviolite imposter around and webs as a possibility, but it can’t be ruled out. webs go back up once again as chicken and zacc continue to not get anywhere.
quojova makes the strong play of going ting on chansey’s shore up, but for some reason chooses to salt cure on the switched in korai rather than uturning to garde to essentially force a kill. regardless, korai fails to catch the steelceus with arrows and gets chipped way down, meaning webs might be staying up for the rest of the game. zacc comes in on flutter, but quojova misplays and tries to nuzzle it, which is unsuccessful due to parafusion. i think this wasn’t a good risk to take, you can risk flutter all you want as soon as the korai is dead and not a turn earlier. imposter felt always safe here as you can sap on sd, then go to etern and heart swap to slow them down if needed.
after imposter does come in, akira again is able to save the steela by switching into vcreate, but she chooses to knock instead of sap, landing into the helmet etern; i thought this was a little confusing cause the shift gear chicken has many problems and helmet is kinda the least of them. i suppose speed tie into imposter is kind of the only winpath that actually works here. zacc gets in again and quojova tries to bait vcreate onto the etern but akira misses, so flutter and steelceus are then sacrificed in order for garde to force out the zac. in exchange, akira sacrifices ghostceus and then steela for initiative so korai can spin off the webs, rendering garde useless. akira correctly switched to chansey to block impostered zacc’s sap, and at this point the game is inevitably heading for a speed tie, which akira wins.
i really don’t think there was any singular deciding misplay here; instead, it was more of a small series of inaccuracies and quojova being very slightly too passive and predictable adding up to make the game even. still feel like zacc is a genuinely horrible mon if it has to do all this and win a speed tie to accomplish anything against a decent defensive core lol. the game was real cool though and i’m really glad to see quojova starting again
fififlutters vs sammyce123 
fifi has what looks like zacc + fireceus as the breakers, though there's a possibility it's some weird zacian-hero set (could be offensive or defensive). sammy has a pretty clear firespam idea with fire-immune magearna, multiple torch song dragons, and of course the chicken. at a glance fifi looks disadvantaged because it's likely steela is regenvest, meaning there will be no consistent torch etern counter (unless non-imposter chansey but i *hate* that here), and i'm not sure what fireceus does into the gear. it's way too early to tell anything for sure though.
sammy leads imposter and steela is revealed fc, which again is incredibly dubious vs the dragons; sd/magical/headlong/sap zacc is a potential set that would be improofed by this steela. fireceus is brought in on gear; we could be looking here at the earth plate set as seen in quinn vs treeko which would have some decent potential here, but sammy is having none of that and just glares it and then goes to etern to bounce the spike. obviously fifi isn't happy about this, but on the plus side at least it isn't a more aggressive etern.
chansey comes in and reveals mg and i really don't like this, the team is just *so* vulnerable to chip damage and regenvests constantly coming in and out, so without even imposter i feel like you're just consigning yourself to slow and inevitable defeat unless the plan of spiking up with fireceus and spinblocking works, which in this case it clearly doesn't. i feel like the types of teams that superman was meant to prey on have kind of fallen out of favor; bounce has become pretty standard on balance as a dual-purpose sapblocker and spike-blocker, and the ballfire special double spin has become a mainstay on more passive builds.
sammy goes imposter and reveals that the fanged one has made its second appearance of the week. fifi switches out, which i think is maybe too passive. para on imposter favors fifi quite a bit, if it switches out then super fang is progress, and even para on chansey feels like only a minor concession. chicken comes in on the spike and reveals band tc headlong for 46 on what turns out to be bounce giratina. this chicken is 1 predict away from shredding the whole team.
scept comes in and reveals drought and i immediately get flashbacks of heavily considering drought mscept last year when i was building [redacted] fortress before going with flutter, lowkey i'd also go flutter on this team lol. anyway this is really bad news for fifi cause chicken doesn't actually need to predict, and it gets another entry to do 77% to giratina with vcreate (good mon alert). over the next few turns fifi is able to somehow navigate around losing the giratina, but it ends up dying anyway to chicken killing it from 88% on the switch with wicked blow.
from here fifi is forced to play really fast and it was never really working, toxic zacc is mildly interesting but it needs more time to actually do work, and fireceus of course is paralyzed so there is not much left to do.
i think the matchup was always very difficult for fifi here because blaziken under sun is just crashing through, but she could maybe have had chances had she done more to prioritize hazards, especially stone axe early on. waterceus is trivially spinblocked by giratina once spin is revealed, and even the etern is very unreliable into earth plate fireceus. that said, it was always very difficult against a team with strong slow pivoting piloted by a good player like sammy.
qt vs icemaster 
icemaster loads bomb squad and my buddy fish gets fucking infracted from observing this, go read
akira's post she said something funnier about this. qt has their own chicken team which strangely has no fire resist, so if zama is the only fc then things could get real ugly here.
icemaster gets the first initiative with zam, landing a volt switch for 47 on what seems to be regenvest steela, before chicken comes in and shift gears up, but qt has fc eleceus to stop this plan in its tracks. this works fine enough for now, but the long-term counterplay feels incredibly iffy with eleceus presumably vulnerable to sapblocking from the mg chansey. qt's own chicken seems to be the band tc variant as used by sammy, and vcreate does a respectable 47 to the giratina. both sides trade stone axes, which i think favors icemaster, and qt stays in forever vs the fc steela with their zama for some reason. this seems reasonably sound as the zama is shore up and it won't be needing to use those against zama or chicken. qt eventually finds the combat torque para, but steela shortly afterwards teleports into zam.
icemaster volt switches on steela again and brings in chansey to wish up zam, allowing knock and nuzzle from steela in the process. this seems fine as long as eleceus can be kept in check by the rest of the defensive core. zam comes back in and there's no ghost resist, so clodsire is sacrificed. qt needs to make something happen quickly, so they uturn into zama, double into chicken (good play; chansey can bulwark against chicken with reasonable risk/reward, but against zama the possibility of full para makes it never worth, so this forces out chansey) and catches giratina with glaive for 85. icemaster prioritizes healing off the giratina, but this allows the steela to knock and then nuzzle it, which feels pretty sketchy.
tidy up is then clicked afterwards and this feels very incorrect. qt has a much easier time maintaining rocks than icemaster, and icemaster's zam benefits a ton from the rocks into imposter + regenvest steela. qt then goes to chicken and just kills off the celesteela, meaning icemaster won't have any rocks for the rest of the game. the game's still far from over, though, and zam volt switches to ting to knock the steela coming in. i guess qt was expecting uturn from the ting, but i think switching to zama was the more sensible option regardless as you don't lose a ton by allowing zam in when rocks aren't a factor and you still have the vest.
qt then knocks into the ting, i'm not sure if icemaster should've allowed this or if going to something like gira, chicken, or chansey was more sensible. pretty hard to say. they choose to throw out the steela altogether to get rocks, then go to chicken to vcreate into the paralyzed giratina, successfully killing it off at the cost of most of the vcreate pp. zama gets sacrificed on the revenge but at this point it's too late, qt's imposter is still too healthy and fleur cannon kills something guaranteed, while chansey allows chicken in to click cc, so the rest of icemaster's team folds.
very well played by qt, you can track the chronology of icemaster's problems: zam switches in on thunder cage turn 7 and gets chipped, which means chansey must wish it up to maintain pressure, which means celesteela can knock and nuzzle it (note that qt was playing only with mons that pressured chansey during this time), which means ting must keep the vest in order for zam to be imposter-proofed at all, which means the only way icemaster can contest qt's pivoting is with the fc celesteela, who lets in chicken and generally isn't a good mon. i feel like the main thing icemaster could've done differently here is play more with chicken early game rather than zam, as eleceus can pretty clearly be sapblocked by chansey or even zam if you're scared of sword, and chicken vcreate damage is better at "sticking" compared to zam who volt switches into a strong regen guy. it's still a pretty interesting matchup though and hard to say anything for sure.
tttech vs damflame 
damflame brings my no recovery ghostceus + wish ogre team and we load into FUCKING bounce topsy ssa recover etern so none of our guys ever ever get through, we're no removal bounce aud which is usually fine because our guys can typically actually win the game but obviously that isn't happening here. in order to learn my true thoughts on this game you must open up a random avgn video, wait for him to experience the most sadistic game mechanic known to man, and observe his reaction. damflame made some mistakes later on with letting waterceus win earlier than it should've (we should've impostered registeel to spin vs the no ghosts) but i can barely blame the guy, i was tilted too without even playing lol
anyway, second use of magic bounce etern for the week (after sammy). it seems people rate this guy pretty highly, and i can definitely understand why. you're faster than arc and have the bulk and typing to handle threats like zama and flutter, and the main weakness of bounce (regenvests) is something you're running away from anyway. the City Approved Set as seen on the regenvest mzam team is black sludge scald/clanging scales or draco/heart swap/recover, tap in
mindnight vs clas 
mindnight has a pretty basic team with unecro chicken as the breakers, the chicken improof is pretty dubious unless it's like no fighting move chicken + wbb steela, probably the aud or eleceus will be improofing unecro depending on the set. clas has chomp + flutter + fightceus, this could be offensive flutter or util levitate flutter. clas has no fire resist but i also don't like mindnight's team very much, it's slow as fuck and if steela is wbb that means no regens.
imposter chansey leads against ting, who gets rocks on the uturn into chicken. fightceus takes 43 from vcreate, clas remarks "cb", indicating this is actually utility umbrella fightceus. fc aud comes in on the retaliatory knock, meaning it's no sapblocker from mindnight, and audino proceeds to teleport right back into chicken to do another 46 into the fightceus. clas saps on the audino switchin to heal to 39, then mortals into it as the audino teleports into unecro. this feels like it should be bad long-term for mindnight into the chomper, but clas needs to resolve the issue of fightceus (the presumed improof) being low before chomp can be a serious threat here.
clas stays in with ting lu while in range of hjk, but mindnight MISSES and the tables are completely turned. had this hjk hit, eleceus or chicken looked potentially poised to win depending on blissey.
flutter gets in and reveals flare boost, so blissey is probably not imposter cause imposter would be a super inconsistent improofer. eleceus switches in on moonblast and gets dropped, then chicken switches in on np, then chicken switches out to imposter (?????) on moongeist and finally blissey improofs with prank thunder wave followed by screens shoutout screens. the paralyzed imposter proves to be fatal for mindnight's position and flutter autowins the next time it gets in.
super difficult game to play for mindnight with the hjk miss, unecro looked really strong here and that was pretty much its only chance to get anything done. though, the switches around flutter felt very inaccurate and i'm not sure why chicken came in or why the intermediate audino -> imposter switch wasn't tried. it is what it is i guess.
shoutout to clas for unironically bringing screens balance, i'm really glad this playstyle is still alive in some form. the triple spdef defensive core with regenvest steela + regenvest ting + blissey with utility umbrella fightceus as the fc is also really funny.
insane matchups this week lol
W VIRIZZIONS (0) vs (0) Dazzling Diancies 
Gholden Witches (0) vs (0) Pink Ponyta Club 
Heart Takers (0) vs (0) Crazy Diamond Dialgas 
Zoomer Zeraoras (0) vs (0) Commanders 
