Other OU's SPL Coverage

[alexwolf]

Here, you can see and discuss some high-level replays of one of the most prestigious and important Smogon tournaments, SPL. Everything in SPL regarding XY OU will be covered in this thread, helping us to observe some cool sets and gimmicks, good plays in tight situations, and how the best players of Smogon plan ahead and form their gameplan from the minute the game starts.

Week 1

Boudouche vs PDC
C05ta vs Dekzeh
CrashinBoomBang vs TheFourthChaser
dragonuser vs PttP
Emvee vs Stellar
GaryTheGengar vs kd24
High Impulse vs Toxzn
Kid Buu vs Yusuke
pokeaim vs ZoroDark

Week 2

AB2 vs Dekzeh
aim vs PttP
Bloo vs PDC
c05ta vs Stellar
CrashinBoomBang vs Toxzn
dragonuser vs Lord Elyis
GaryTheGengar vs idiotfrommars
High Impulse vs Lady Bug
JabbaTheGriffin vs Yusuke
kael vs kland

Week 3

AB2 vs Bloo
C05ta vs papai noel
CrashinBoomBang vs High Impulse
dragonuser vs liberty32
GaryTheGengar vs Masterclass
idiotfrommars vs reyscarface
JabbaTheGriffin vs Stellar
Kevin Garrett vs PttP
kland vs Yusuke
Lady Bug vs Lord Elyis (Warning, 421 turns match)

Week 4

AB2 vs idiotfrommars
Bloo vs C05ta
CrashinBoomBang vs sebixxl
Dekzeh vs kd24
dragonuser vs papai noel
GaryTheGengar vs Yusuke
High Impulse vs Lord Elyis
JabbaTheGriffin vs Lady Bug
Jayde vs kael
Masterclass vs Stellar

Week 5

-Tsunami- vs Lady Bug
badabing vs CyberOdin
CrashinBoomBang vs Yusuke
Dekzeh vs kael
dragonuser vs Remedy
GaryTheGengar vs Toxzn
Lohgock vs PttP
Lord Elyis vs Valentine
Lunar. vs Sinclair
Masterclass vs papai noel

Week 6

C05ta vs Masterclass
CrashinBoomBang vs dragonuser
CyberOdin vs GaryTheGengar
Dekzeh vs Yusuke
High Impulse vs Nelson
kael vs Lord Elyis
Lohgock vs Valentine
LUST vs Sinclair
PttP vs Remedy
Tesung vs Toxzn

Week 7

-Tsunami vs High Impulse
Adam vs Masterclass
C05ta vs CyberOdin
CrashinBoomBang vs Tesung
Dekzeh vs GaryTheGengar
Delta 2777 vs Kevin Garrett
dragonuser vs Valentine
liberty32 vs Toxzn
Lord Elyis vs PttP
papai noel vs Sinclair

Week 8

-Tsunami- vs dragonuser
Adam vs TGMD
Bloo vs Lord Elyis
Cicada vs Valentine
CrashinBoomBang vs Sinclair
CyberOdin vs LUST
Dekzeh vs liberty32
High Impulse vs ThunderBlunder
Lunar. vs PttP
Tesung vs Vinc2612

Week 9

dragonuser vs Lady Bug
Eo Ut Mortus vs Myzozoa
Floppy vs sebixxl
Sinclair vs Vinc2612

Records

(best records so far with bold)

Boudouche: 0-1
PDC: 1-1
C05ta: 3-3
Dekzeh: 4-3
CrashinBoomBang: 4-3
TheFourthChaser: 1-0
dragonuser: 4-5
PttP: 5-2
Emvee: 0-1
Stellar: 2-2
GaryTheGengar: 3-3
kd24: 0-2
High Impulse: 5-2
Toxzn: 2-3
Kid Buu: 0-1
Yusuke: 5-2
pokeaim: 1-0
ZoroDark: 0-1
AB2: 1-2
aim: 0-1
Bloo: 3-1
Lord Elyis: 3-4
idiotfrommars: 2-1
Lady Bug: 1-4
JabbaTheGriffin: 1-2
kael: 2-2
kland: 0-2
papai noel: 2-2
Masterclass: 1-4
liberty32: 3-0
reyscarface: 0-1
Kevin Garrett: 2-0
sebixxl: 0-2
Jayde: 0-1
-Tsunami-: 2-1
CyberOdin: 2-2
badabing: 0-1
Remedy: 0-2
Lohgock: 0-2
Valentine: 3-1
Sinclair: 3-2
Lunar.: 0-2
Tesung: 2-1
Lust: 2-0
Nelson: 0-1
Delta 2777: 0-1
TGMD: 0-1
Cicada: 0-1
ThunderBlunder: 0-1
Vinc2612: 1-1
Myzozoa: 1-0
Eo Ut Mortus: 0-1
Floppy: 1-0

You can talk about everything that you observed in a battle, as long as it's something not obvious and worth talking about. From good plays in critical turns, misplays in critical turns, important hax on critical turns, good execution of a game-plan, good or bad match-ups, etc. Just make to sure to be respectful to those that played the battles, as nobody would like to be bashed publicly for a mistake he did in a tight situation.

Discuss away!

EDIT: Btw, if someone wants to categorize the battles by playstyle feel free to do it, send me a PM, and i will include it to the OP. What i mean by this, is adding in parenthesis after each battle what kind of team each player was using. Eg Boudouche vs PDC (Bulky Offense vs Balance).[/HIDE]

 

[Photofluid]

Was caught completely off guard when I click into Lady Bug vs Lord Elyis, almost a whole hour spent(full stall vs semi-stall), first blood after like 150 turns, perhaps there should be some warning?

The game is so long for me to remember the details(I have thought I play long games but that was like 3 times the longest of mine), but things starts to fall apart when one side lose the Skarmory(spoiler proof), failing to maintain the health level, and I think there was some hax in between, I believe it was a crit when the thing is about more than full health and hence cannot stay and roost with sufficient health.

I knew Quaisair is extremely useful(even better in the contemporary physical inclined meta), but the fact that Nidoqueen is used to huge effectiveness is rather surprising. And Abasnow, a little more stally than what I had imagined lol.

 

[Ajwf]

Co5ta was one hax away on the last turn of his first match from being 3-0 (And damn did he get haxed that match...). For what he was picked for (3k, bare min), he's done well in all his matches... I think he was strongly underestimated in the preseason rankings.

Lord Elyis vs Lady Bug was a great match, two pretty solid (semi-)stall teams, and one being a rather... odd... hail stall (Nidoqueen/Aboma-mega). Lasting into 400 turns, I believe, that match was simply well played by Lord Elyis, but there were some odd mistakes made by Lady Bug, such as leaving Abomasnow-mega in on skarmory. I watched the replay probably the day it came out so I don't exactly remember the situation, but it seems odd to give up the biggest offensive presence when down 4-6.

I was reading BKC's usage stats and unsurprisingly the aegi usage week 1 was top. Heatran, rotom-w, conkeldurr... The cores of teams seem to have settled down into a very consistent core. Bulky offense seems to have hit it's stride with a very consistent host of characters in SPL.

Masterclass vs GaryTheGengar was odd. Masterclass was making no attempts to change his pattern, yet Gary kept going hydro pump on Keldeo over HP Flying, which would've trashed the constant venu switch in. Not to mention the double switch trying to threaten Zapdos out for a free switch, which Masterclass again was either sac'ing zap or over predicting his own bulk... At the time, Masterclass had nothing to absorb the nuke named Fire blast from Charizard-y. And if Gary thought he was slower, the choice to bring out Zard-y initially was a strange one..

 

[Meru]

Was caught completely off guard when I click into Lady Bug vs Lord Elyis, almost a whole hour spent(full stall vs semi-stall), first blood after like 150 turns, perhaps there should be some warning?

The game is so long for me to remember the details(I have thought I play long games but that was like 3 times the longest of mine), but things starts to fall apart when one side lose the Skarmory(spoiler proof), failing to maintain the health level, and I think there was some hax in between, I believe it was a crit when the thing is about more than full health and hence cannot stay and roost with sufficient health.

I knew Quaisair is extremely useful(even better in the contemporary physical inclined meta), but the fact that Nidoqueen is used to huge effectiveness is rather surprising. And Abasnow, a little more stally than what I had imagined lol.

Seriously. Put some kind of warning/disclaimer on this match. A 421-turn match of Full stall vs Full stall was not what I expected to watch.

 

[kleine]

Co5ta was one hax away on the last turn of his first match from being 3-0 (And damn did he get haxed that match...).

The Stone Edge crit by itself cannot really be considered hax. Assuming Dekzeh's Aegislash had 252+ SpA, then it is easy to show (using the percentages displayed from the attacks that MVenu took) that C05ta's Mega Venusaur's could not have had any more physical-defense investment than a spread of 248 HP / 100 Def / 160+ SDef.

Eleven of the sixteen possible damage rolls from a non-crit Stone Edge would have KOed this Mega Venusaur at 48.2%. After accounting for accuracy and the possibility of a crit, the odds of Stone Edge KOing MVenu at 48.2% are (11/16*7/8 + 1/8) * 4/5 = 58.125%.

The freeze by Kyurem-B definitely changed the game, and C05ta would likely have won if the freeze hadn't happened. But the stuff after that wasn't terribly unlikely. Aegislash hit MVenu with eight Shadow Balls and got two SDef drops and a crit. The probability of getting at least two SDef drops in eight attempts is 49.7%. The probability of getting at least one Shadow Ball crit in eight attempts is 40.3%. If neither a crit nor a SDef drop occurred, C05ta would still have needed to predict King's Shield correctly (with prediction being partly a matter of luck) to avoid an Atk drop from Knock Off.

 

[neooo]

CBB's Venusaur had a hard life. Paralyzed, -2 SPA and -1 ATK... It seemed like every time that he could have made a potentially game winning move RNG got the best of him.

I was really hoping he'd snap out of Paralysis and lay the smack down, but it just wasn't meant to be.

 

[Ajwf]

Yeah, saw that game. Unlucky, as he really did seem to have that game with sludge bomb venu.

 

[Sturdynips]

TheFourthChaser's Venusaur had a hard life. Paralyzed, -2 SPA and -1 ATK... It seemed like every time that he could have made a potentially game winning move RNG got the best of him.

I was really hoping he'd snap out of Paralysis and lay the smack down, but it just wasn't meant to be.

That was cbb's Mega Venusaur. Aside from the unfortunate ending, that match was quite good. CBB played his Conkeldurr really effectively, forcing out TFC's Genesect and Heatran and making them take regular chip damage from SR to ensure that they could not threaten his Mega Venusaur late-game.
If ever there was a match to show how good mega Venu is, this was it. It pretty much hard-walled TFC's Rotom-W, Clefable, and Amoonguss, while dealing with Landorus-T pretty nicely. Mega Venu's presence made TFC play very differently, especially on turn 17, when he switched his Amoonguss out of CBB's Conkeldurr expecting the Venusaur to come in. Ordinarily, Spore was probably the best play as defensive Amoonguss survives an Ice Punch from that range, and with Conk asleep it can't force out Heatran and Genesect so effectively. Mega Venu's presence forced TFC to play far more conservatively there, and allowed CBB to take the upper hand.

 

[Jin White]

Incredible showing so far. This series highlights not only what top-tier play looks like - and what certain mons are truly capable of, being utilized to their best potential - but also the amount of diversity the Gen 6 meta allows for. We're seeing stall, we're seeing a lot of bulky/balanced, and we're still seeing hyper offense; we're seeing some Gen 5 favorites in Keldeo + Tyranitar; Politoed isn't dead yet; we're seeing the new Gen 6 go-to in Mandibuzz + Mega Venusaur.

We're also seeing too, too many Mega Luke sweeps imo, or instances where it comes in for free and punches crucial holes mid-game, even unboosted. Mega Luke is, at the moment, still an immensely potent threat (arguably THE threat), and regardless of one's place on the ladder one misstep means gg in Luke's favor. See the Bisharp v. Mega Luke match-up, GarytheGengar v. IFM Week 2, resulting in a five pokémon sweep from Turn 10.

One of my all-time favorite moments thus far comes from another GaryTheGengar match, Week 1. He shows us the meaning of "wallbreaker" as his basedchomp turns his opponent's entire defensive core into a liability. Garchomp grabs not only one, but two bold Sword Dances early-game and decimates the opposing Lando-T. He comes back mid-game to do it all over again versus Chansey, taking it down with the clutch Rocky Helmet recoil. Lando-T and Chansey were kd24's only defenses against the impending Volcarona sweep, both taken out by a single breaker. Rocky Helmet Garchomp MVP.

So, what can we learn from all this? In terms of SPL usage stats, two things came to mind:
> Be prepared for Mega Charizard, or get wrecked. Charizard's usage jumped in week two to the second-most-used mon in SPL, and he often tipped the scales one way or the other. As with Mega Luke - and for almost exactly the same reasons, its potential to go powerhouse special or powerhouse physical and the nigh impossibility of being predicted beforehand - he needs to be prepared for, or he has a field day. See Lord Elyis v. Dragonuser, Week 2, where one user switches in a Heatran predicting the incoming Charizard Y Fire Blast. Instead, what turns out to be Charizard X gets a free Dragon Dance, and a free kill at the start of the match.

> Thundurus-I has been seeing insane levels of play. Week 3 usage stats aren't up yet, but I believe he's featured in 7 out of 10 battles, and in some cases on both teams at once. This is a pretty notable difference from the general December usage stats, where he lists as #36 in all usage and #22 in 1850+. Presumably this is for his niche in stopping hyper offense before it starts with priority Taunt (the Deoxys-S vs. Thundurus-I lead match-up is not uncommon), limiting stall for the same reason, and then checking fast sweepers at any time with Priority T-Wave (effectively neutering either Charizard form, for instance). Players reliant on setting up and sweeping need to bring an answer to Thundurus-Incarnate, lest their sweep end early.