I've never been someone who's much stressed by things in life bc I've always felt like nothing matters much and that I'd rather enjoy the moment / my life that a specific event that didn't go right cuz life is short and sucks anyway so let's not care too much about it. But the things this game made me feel, idk, it's so weird, I've never cared so much about such a meaningless thing than fucking OMPL and I was so stressed before my game. I hate it bc I feel shit for that but on the other hand nothing made me feel more alive than playing this goddamn game
Nevertheless, my team got stomped in finals and I hard choked my game for the 2nd time, and it’s the same feeling everytime. I overall had a very fun tour (prob the best one after my first ompl) but even if i did fine I’m still so upset at my plays every week and after that loss eh it feels like all that work throughout the tour was put into nothing. I guess I’m not built for those moments and it sucks bc it destroys my enjoyment of the tour just bc of a loss at the end, even if I had a blast. Whatever, those feelings shall go away at some point, and it’s not like if we got robbed either - witches were better, just like the SSSSS, and they 100% deserved this win, ggs to y’all and sorry for not believing in you.
It's been a long time since I put so much investment in this tour (last time was prob on my first edition but I had way less experience and was mostly saying bullshit) and that was a fun one. I had fun with my team members and I had this talk with Atha in the subway about what made a team great and he was like "we have the edge cuz ghostlike and I are goated" and I was like sorry bro but it's true in AAAPL, not in OMPL (it only works for AAA and you could say GG but ghostlike can only builds stupid HO..), and he went like "so how are we so good" and I said it's the team cord, it was genuiely fun to be there, it could've been even better and we kinda lost this as the tour was going on (also bc Clem stopped doing his QOTD...) but I enjoyed this team a lot and am so glad to have played again with some friends and discovered other people that are really cool. I'm not sure to do it again though, bc it takes a lot of time to try to help in every tier and while I respect my managers I've sometimes felt like I was doing their managers duty (like making sure a prep was done or asking for the schedule if it wasn't posted by fri/sat) as well as updating the sheets with schedules (well this one is not on them cuz I told them I would do it but some managers did it for the first 3-4 weeks but by the end of the tour no one did and it's a good idea but it would've been better if managers really tried to fullfill it, I had to go on Smogon walls to do it by myself and it was a bit annoying).
Anyway, it was an exhausting tour, and I'm a bit sad it ends like that, I really wished I could've won it, I'm not saying I'm retiring bc no one believes in that but I hope I'll be able to put less time into this (esp the competitive part) bc it's so exhausting and it's killing me when I lose, so it's easier to play without caring much and I definitely cared too much this year. I have this very bad habit of putting all my thoughts on whatever I have in mind at the moment and when it's the case for OMPL I stay awake for all my team games if I can and sometimes I "naturally" wake up around the hours they're supposed to play (idk how it happens but I woke up multiple times at like 4 or 7 am when sevag, shadow, or ghostlike were supposed to play and I didn't put an alarm on). I love it but it's also very unhealthy, and I'm already tired enough outside of this to be more sleep deprived. This + the feeling I have when I lose rly makes me think that I should not put so much effort in those team tours but idk I also feel shit when I'm afk and not able to help my team
About my overall performance, well, I was not happy. Idk if I ever ended a tour by being happy or proud of me. Ngl I think the time I was the most was on my first OMPL where I had the worst record & made more mistakes than today, but I genuiely had fun playing and prepping, and even if I felt bad after losing, I was still proud of me for trying etc... I am still happy to play don't get me wrong but I've lost that creativity in the builder for 1 year or 2 now and I'm mostly upgrading builds or doing the first shot and letting someone else finish it (or just fully stealing it lol), and I'm sad to be unable to have fun in the builder again. In-game well I've made way too many mistakes during the tour, it was even more true this year cuz despite my record there was luck involved in many of my wins. I probably should've lost to Betticus, I robbed QT (not with luck but still, it wasn't a deserved win), and while I still could've beat Damflame in semis (in AAA or MnM), winning on a quadruple Wisp miss was kinda a symbol of my tournament. I think it's mainly due to the fact that I've not made a lot of test games, which is funny considering the time I spent on this cord to prep and help, and sometimes I kinda felt like I was loading a team someone said was good and I was just hoping to click well with it - but I'm not that good so I was doing mistakes, and either I lost and was sad or won with luck and was happy but not proud. Just like 3 years ago I lost in finals bc of this and it's like in AAAPL, I don't really care of my record if when things mattered I wasn't able to stand up and win, which I've been unable to for the third time now, so it kinda sucks.
I'd like to take some time in this post to complain about the general atmosphere during this OMPL (and not only this one but since I've been more active I felt it stronger). I genuiely dislike the 0% banter and 100% "only games related stuff" that was basically on throughout the tour and is the general atmosphere in OMs for some years now. Banter, making fun, doing jokes, is part of a tour, and I don't get why we're trying to remove all of that. Yeah sometimes you can complain about a situation you dislike, sure, go for it. It's not even if OM mods were able to handle those off screens situations well with how poorly the Fc & Icemaster case was treated. It's not even as if they were trying to argue about anything, since most of the time the only answer we get is passive agressive (or sometimes just blatantly agressive / power abuse of "I'm mod and you're not so stfu") and it makes any decision that could have fair grounds if talked about properly look annoying and hard to understand. It's true in forums, it's true in commencement, it's true in Weeks threads, it's true in OM Cord (pyu was banned without further notice, even if their joke wasn't of the best taste they got infracted for that +
at least talking with him about it ? but no, seems like OM mods are absolutely unable to communicate properly with their playerbase). All y'all can do is threatening when you have something to handle and it's been so fucking annoying. If anyone that is not on the OM mods team disagree with this feeling and genuiely think they're doing a good work I'd love to talk about it with them, bc it's true I'm a bitter person and I could be wrong on some points, but I know a lot of people who agree with me and I firmly think this is not how you should run a community. Maybe things are changing, but ngl outside of the Chessking thing (and it's hard to know if it's going anywhere since anyway we couldn't talk about it!) idt any OM mod is doing self criticism on what they're doing (and I'm also talking of those who aren't active at all with the community) except Giagantic who's honestly doing a good work and I appreciate seeing them around, they're open to talk and stated multiple times why they were less involved in that tour part and that's chill. UT was an awesome mod to that regard (imo) and his departure really showed how lacking this team is without him to fix the holes. Whatever. It upset me multiple times during the tour, I wanted to state it here. I know it's a futile gesture, it's not like they were much open to criticism, but I said what I had to say
Anyway, I'll team dump my teams, I'm too lazy to crosspost them in tiers ressources bc well 3 different metas. Shoutouts to ghostlike, atha, Siamato, sevag, qways, hallward, and treeko for helping me there, I wasn't the best Bo3 slot so thanks for helping me despite everything. If I'm not lazy I'll edit this post with :pokemons: but it takes too much time rn
vs Betticus IV
- AAA :
https://pokepast.es/7a799482f56f4fab it was W1 and we knew Betticus liked fat cores, so we felt like SFLO Primarina would be good unless we loaded into Hoodra. We loaded into full spd Moltres so it wasn't super good and I got a bit lucky that game (esp dodging to +2 stone edge that may have killed my Corv) and I overall got ouplayed pretty badly with my Gholdengo
- BH :
https://pokepast.es/ad3e396718723711 as shown in the paste this is a Siamato team that I edited like 3 seconds before the game by removing Court Change on Flutter and putting Sticky over Bulwark on Steela, hoping to fish for something. Sticky is fine and I like having random Stickys on mons (broken move anyway) but Court Change was there for a reason as Siamato was expecting some hazard stack and Court Change made sure I had outs. I didn't because of that and he was rightfully mad at me after this game
- MnM :
https://pokepast.es/b95e9ca36a589f6d Snow. Freezing opponents help to play the game, and being 6-0'd by hearthflame tusk doesn't. Cool team but outdated now
vs pdt
we had already lose the week so I played teams I didn't plan on using in future weeks to not leak my prep (and reused the others in future weeks, except the BH prep which was a cool Unburden HO but when I finally decided to take the HO route vs Damflame in semis Treeko told me we could make a better one so) and I somehow won 2-0 so maybe they were good after all
- AAA :
https://pokepast.es/9db45a3f7cc4e2b8 random dogi team, regen gliscor sucks ass, i was cooked by moth (wow, who would've guessed) but I got lucky cuz I was the better player
- BH :
https://pokepast.es/643e563121849579 the best thing to say abt this team is prob Free Congo. Deo is a cool breaker but idt the team suits it well, I just got lucky Arc insta won
vs QT
- BH :
https://pokepast.es/db3ee9dbc7e42ea2 Well looking at this team reminded me that I got lucky vs QT as I got clutch min rolls with Registeel vs their M-Zam. I fucked up this game but overall it was an edit of an old Quojova team with Siamato's beloved Toxic Debris Eternatus. I'm still not a fan of this set but if it works it works
- MnM :
https://pokepast.es/7e10035cff6f8f06 it was the team I wanted to use in MnM vs pdt and for some reason I thought it would work vs QT (or maybe we didn't have time to make a team, idr). Cool concept but so fishy, Flutter Mane didn't get the roll on Ho-Oh and it was basically over, at least I brought Sun !!
- AAA :
https://pokepast.es/a3ba4c919ace9f70 one of the coolest teams, NG Zapdos is a very fun set and it reminds me of my Metronome sub Zapdos I was using in gen8. I mind controlled QT to win this game but I would've loved to win it fair and square cuz this team was cool
vs Damflame
at this point I was in 3-0 but I lucked both Betticus and QT, and Damflame reminded me that I was not the goat I thought I was lol. I clicked that serie (and the following one) way too fast, it was also a stressful moment IRL cuz I had a lot of work to do and losing put me in shambles mentally (hence why I asked to be bench vs the Nightshades, cuz I knew if I lost I would've crashed out).
- AAA :
https://pokepast.es/889c9df40078d7e6 the best kind of team I'm able to do when building AAA, which are teams that were relevant 2 years ago lol, I don't think it's bad but it's just not what works atm. I'm a known lover of Band Pao and I thought I could make it work, but I wasn't able to
- MnM :
https://pokepast.es/f388af4376784055 cool status spam concept by Ghostlike with Hex Pult to hit like a truck. The issue in this team is Ting-Lu who's a shit mon but Deoxys was an issue back in the day (before Dragalgite) and it was one of the few available checks
vs TTTech
- AAA :
https://pokepast.es/1388bd86f3b80c4a This is where the lack of test games was annoying. We spent the full week on this idea of Fluffy Deo as an hazard setter and I liked it. I always said we were weak to Manaphy but Atha was like it's fine you can trade. Then I loaded into Primarina... and wasn't beating it at all lol. It's unfortunate cuz the team idea was good but yeah this was unplayable
- MnM :
https://pokepast.es/a3b68e445d005efd One of my favorite MnM teams, one of those Chansey offense from gen7 but with Sable Pecha as the glue, honestly it works quite well. I trolled the game by misscalcing Last Respects and not setuping more with NDM (cuz I thought I was safe bc of that LR calc) but the team is pretty cool (NDM was LO originally, but I put ccloak to beat Scald / Garg / Ho-Oh more reliably)
vs subzero_slammer
I wanted to play vs pannu but he told me he wasn't going to play, so ghostlike put himself in bo3 to play Sammy but Sammy was in PiC (and deadgamed, lame) so I just played in Camo since Siamato couldn't (cuz 5 weeks pricefix). I kinda wanted to build something cuz I like Camomons but Siamato never needed help to build and I was a bit lazy this week so I just loaded some old HO he made 1 or 2 years ago and it insta won
https://pokepast.es/74babb01a69a570a
vs Damflame (semi)
- BH :
https://pokepast.es/0cf5abd820488704 s/o Treeko for this build, it's broken, gg. My only input was to use Teleport > Stone Axe on Gholdengo which is a good change, but team is pretty stragithforward and Arceus insta won
- AAA :
https://pokepast.es/59dfa3af3d588d5f Ghostlike's HO but I removed Iron Crown bc I was too weak to Kingambit... to put Gholdengo... and be even weaker to Gambit... but idk I wanted to use Rattled Manaphy like 5 weeks ago and Rattled Gholdengo was its spiritual heir. I got lucky in that game with Corv (although I told Atha and Ghostlike that Guard's Dog sucks and I should just be random immunity) so the rest of the team didn't have to do anything
vs pdt (finals)
it really is like vs Lana 3 years ago. I barely want to talk abt those teams bc they just remind me of how bad I played.
MnM :
https://pokepast.es/e5dd24f8e5b96ffd Zarude was good into their scout bc they spammed the same mons, and it indeed was good. I had a mage spread that guaranteed to live headlong from pins tusk but i changed it idk why so I switched out out of fear. I also got unlucky with the strikes roll vs mag but maybe going entei was safer anyway. The most interesting game of the 3, but I got outplayed in all those little 50/50 and yeah it happens
AAA :
https://pokepast.es/03c7928ffc40aceb I wanted to use CM 3A Stail this week but wasn't able to find a good build. So atha suggested loaded some Manaphy slop and I said yes. I had a good matchup cuz specs ghold + fluffy tusk was basically winning so there's not much to say
BH
https://pokepast.es/58297d47311e7151 shoutouts to Treeko. That game was free but I choked, I really am absolute garbage. whatever.
It's time to end this long ass post with some shoutouts.
ghostlike ty for drafting me, sry I wasn't on the level. Wished we couldve share more thoughts on AAA instead of you loading something and me loading something but I'm glad you were able to use your bullshit and win, prob the only creativity there's left in this tier so wp for making it work. gl in AAAPL, I won't be there to rundown you this time
Atha I wondered if I was going to make a special shoutout for my friends at the end of the post but I felt like it was fair to put managers with managers and players with players. I know you dislike when I apologize to everyone and I know it's annoying, I'm sorry, I'm not the best teammate nor the easiest friend to have. I hope you know I'm truly happy to have you as a friend and I always feel so good whenever we meet, I know there won't be some bullshit and you won't yell at me cuz I said Sylveon was good in Stabs. I lost way too much time on this fucking website but for all the bad moments and the crash out I had if it means I can have you as a friend for the rest of my life I'd do that sacrifice ten times bc you're the fucking goat. Prep more in AAA next time tho <3
Shadow079 I didn't know you at all and I was like "yeah it's some random tour players that will click in GG, they'll be good but whatever they'll be boring". You did click in GG (despite the horrible teams Ghostlike passed weeks after weeks) but you were also so fucking nice ?? Like i was not expecting anything, but you were active (despite having 10 other tours going in lol), prepping, reacting in other channels, doing jokes ?? I may have encountered the only person who's more jobless than me and for that, thank you. Awesome guy and I was truly happy to team with you, gl in finding a job tho cuz if you're like me, you're fucked
Spitfire I don't even know why we're friends. I don't even know if you consider me your friend ? But I felt like it was always obvious. Like for the longest time we were meant to be friends. I guess I always liked you cuz flix' + atha's friend means you're my friend but I don't recall when it started. Maybe on that OMWC where I carried you in AAA ? Anyway I was super happy to have you in the team. Unfortunate you couldn't prove more cuz I'm sure you had (and have) the skill to win a lot of games but you were such a good presence to have in the teamcord and I don't regret the slightest having u in the team (although atha almost forgot u during the auctions but its okie i got you). Keep it up goat, and thanks for that W1, meant a lot
Clem idk bro. Maybe I'm in love with you ? Thank you being there and being so kind and taking decisions when (idk why I say "when" as if it wasn't all the time) I'm not able to. Thanks for being in my life. Sorry for not being someone's better that you'd prob deserve tbf and sorry for saying you were funny but not good at the game. Cuz you're not even
that funny. You do be pretty handsome though. Jokes aside I hope you know how much you mean to me. I've talked more abt u to my friends in the past few months than anyone else in the past years, and it's not only bc we're both alcoholic. It's only bc you're a fucking amazing person that deserves the best and that I'm so happy to see. Thanks for the kind words before & after my game and for meeting tn bc I'm already whining a lot in this post but it wouldve been SO much worse without this guy for making me happy tn
Siamato CamoKing but I'm still the Camokingslayer. Why weren't you able to do that last year ? fuck you. Also, take care, I know this tour exhausted you and you tried your best. Sorry for not being able to help you more. Sign up for AAAPL, it's not too late to help the Zards. Thanks to you (and Clem and Atha) for making me sign up this tour and playing it to the best of my ability (even if this ability is pretty limited). Was fun to team with you, maybe we can do it again some time (hopefully no cuz we'll all be retired)
yuki fuck you for beating us 6-4. Sorry for your season, you deserved so much better. Don't listen to anyone saying you ain't motivated enough no one cares of those people just prove them wrong next time, I'm sure you got this
The Guy Who Has Many Alts &
XxLazzerpenguinxX beloved BH slot. Gz on making the BH slot work, idk how you did it but you managed. Shame on sevag for losing to will though but I'll forgive him cuz he's a funny guy, and shoutout Hallward for trying to build teams when sevag's input was just "idk pick for me", and also winning their semi games.
qways mnm goat. I was very happy to team up with you cuz I recommended you to atha and it was so cool to have you for 3k. You really did great and outside of ChrisPBacon you were the best mnm player we couldve dreamt of, was super cool to see you play again and I hope you'll stick around for some time so you can go 9-0 next year
betathunder the cursed one. I thought I was cursed cuz both times I reached finals we lost 6-1 and 7-1 but beta told me they were 0-5 in ttours finals this year so this is all his fault. Otherwise, cool guy, I was happy to team with you and thanks for the subbing Siamato when you had to. Kinda feels like you could've been a pretty decent camo slot if you had more time & weren't in the shadow of the goat of Camo but it was cool to see you play, thanks for the OSAKE MY SAKE too made me pretty happy <33
Idyll feen GlalieGoesBoom sorry for not letting y'all play more. PiC slot was doomed by luck since W1 so it was hard to come back but thanks for trying even if you didn't the tier well, and sorry feen and glalie, both of you deserved to have a slot in AAA but ghostlike didn't want to bench me and go in bo3... sign up for AAAPL though cuz you're both super good players :)) (and respect to glalie for playing that game vs cat LOL that was a nightmare)
thanks my team for the overall super cool tour, had a blast with y'all
other shoutouts to our helpers
The Number Man Treeko928 the goat thanks for helping me and sry for letting you down but u truly are the goat
Gman best support ever
Redflix worst support ever but gz for being a doctor
Ivar57 bald
xdRudi.exe pannu both elo inflated
Ren handsome & funny & good at the game (
Clem take notes), others people I talked in OM cord,
GhastlyPixie &
adriancosmoem best managers of OMPL,
pyu (free pyu),
UT (handsome), everyone else I'm forgetting but it was a fun year thanks for being here
Rex for being the only host that rly tried and also winning the WCup for us,
SFG pour ses grands pieds,
Zoyotte kestu fais sur smogtours ?,
Hats 3arbi soigné, anyone who liked my eulogies / thanked me, appreciate it fam
Have a good day everyone, ggs to Ghold, happy for Akira & April who are 2 of the most wholesome persons on this website, deserved win !
THREE! SMILES GO FOR MILES!
), but I came into this tour after an absolutely dreadful OMCL performance. I didn't take it seriously enough at all, and that combined with some of the worst few months of my adult life to really fuck me over and, more importantly, let down my lovely co-manager and the amazing people (and 
