Tournament PUPL VII - Finals (Won by The Unscrupulous Scraggies)

[Spacial]

Though I wasn't an official member of the Huntails, Ktut allowed me to team up with them and assist in prep. Some shoutouts are in order:

Ktütverde TJ Urusius Thanks a bunch for letting me be a part of the Huntails. Probably one of the most encouraging and positive experiences I've had with PU in a while. Special mention to TJ for just being a great friend to me and tolerating my bullshit.

GeneralAnnoyance I really enjoyed working with you on DPP, especially getting an insight into your building process/how you approach the metagame. Seeing you and TJ debate on whether or not Gabite needed Toxic never got old. Jokes aside though, I hope we get a chance to work together on DPP PU soon.

Ereshkigal You put up an amazing performance in ORAS. Wish we could have talked more, but it was great playing test games with you and seeing what ideas you came up with.

To the rest of the Huntails, GGs lads. You all did great, and it was a pleasure working with you. If for some godforsaken reason I'm still around by next year, I hope we can work together again.

 

[Urusius]

That's all for this year my dear Huntails! Sadly, this is the end of our little trip. It sure has been an amazing experience. Not gonna lie, I have no regret. I know we did everything we could do to get this far and I know you will agree. We still managed to give to the Scraggies a run for their money even without Ktut at our sides. You might think that the conclusion of this tour, after all of our efforts, seems disappointing. Some of you are thinking about their past battles and might be remorseful about their plays or results. However, I'm more than sure we could have won this round given the exceptional talent you all have. We were only one game away from winning the entire tour versus the strongest team after all! I'm taking the time to write this because you don't deserve to be given congratulations just when you win. People usually make a big post for that specific occasion only but I don't agree with this tradition very much. Actually, is it really reasonable to say that we lost in every single way? To be honest, there is always a losing side in all of us. Being happy isn't about making everything perfect. Sometimes it's just about enjoying the little things. It is not much different in this PUPL. A tiebreak in finals only happened once before in PUPL iirc and this is an exploit by itself. We started with a huge disadvantage due to the price of Ktut and TJ and yet, almost all of us come out with positive scores! At the risk of repeating myself, in tours, it's not just about victories. There are the memories, the performances, the opportunities (Lambovino with the SCL or lockjaw with his "redemption arc" from the last PUPLs)... All of these aspects will be the most valuable things in your career because ultimately, that's what will matter most.

These are not sweet words to cheer you up btw. There is nothing sad about this end. I'm mostly saying this to remind you of all your prowess... Therefore, it's all about facts. A loss in finals will never take that away and I want you to know that. I once said: "We don't invent a tree, we plant it. We do not extract its fruits, we let them ripen. Success is not a creation, but an evolution. Battle after battle." In a competition, a duel inevitably involves a winner and a loser. For the latter case, it just happened to be us for this time. You guys might know the taste of defeat again one day, but that's just how it goes. Nobody ends up with a perfect and clean record as a strong player. All champions are beginners who have always stood up without ever giving up. With each passing day, you can only be a better version of yourself. That's because success is not about never making a mistake, but rather never making the same mistake twice. Before the moment of obtaining the title and the merit, the champions are born from within... It all starts with a desire, a dream, a point of view... For me, I still think that success is the sum of small efforts repeated day after day. I'm willing to bet that few people saw such a great run coming from us, including some of us maybe! It is exactly because people doubt that they often find themselves blocked in their lives. While questioning yourself can be good, doubt can destroy many more dreams and opportunities than failure.

Champions learn from the past, make the present reality and think about the future. I know because I learned all this from you. We are all masters in the making, I can feel it. We haven't brought home the cup, but you instill something strong in me. I have also learned that you measure someone's success not by the situation they have reached in life, but rather by the obstacles they have overcome in order to try to achieve them. A victory without difficulty is a victory without taste, without merit. There is no easy success, but there are no definitive failures either. As I like to say, "defeats are a lesson and each lesson is a victory in itself". The victory of your opponents would not be so beautiful if you had not given them an incredible confrontation. Just for that, I also see this as a victory for us. This conclusion does not reflect your potential. Concentration is the faculty that creates the aces, the supermen. I repeat, there are no certain victories or superior players. There are only solid preps and a desire to show others that you are worthy of the title of winner. The difficulties we've been going through are adapted to the size of our talent since we still had all our chances until the very end! Despite the passage of time, you constantly managed to make quality teams and your motivation never wavered. Sometimes it was impossible for me to know when our team won or lost because I could feel pride in either case. No matter what, I know you will always end up smiling. This is what makes the essence of our identity. We are the Happy Huntails.

...

"You're taking this PUPL thing way too seriously, it's just a fun team tour" some of you might say. Nah, that's just because you weren't a Huntail lmao. I know this is not OU, but this is not a reason to do not take seriously low tiers PUPL is probably one of the greatest tours in PU because "you put hard work in and got rewarded for it" as PTF once said. The encounters, memories, possibilities and interactions that this tournament offers are not to be underestimated. Depending on which team you end up in, you can have some of the best times of your life on Smogon... But that's just my opinion obviously. I sincerely feel sorry for those who cannot understand the sense of what I'm saying right now. This is why I invite those who are not PU regulars to stay in this community/tier so you can maybe one day experience that kind of thing. PUPLs can only get better and better every year this way. I would like to thank TJ and Ktütverde Squash Lambovino yandaud for bringing me back from the dead in order to join this tour. I had no interest in Pokémon since the end of gen 7. SM PU remains my favorite tier and it's still hard for me to move on today. However, if this tour had to be done again, I would do it again without hesitation! I'm not sure if I'll stay now that this PUPL is over, but you must know that I still love this community and the friends I've made with it just as much. Investing so many thoughts, builds and time in a generation all that to abandon it and to play with a tier that will not become optimal before a couple of months/years has repelled me a little tho. I'm pretty happy to see what you've all done with it so far. SS PU is clearly better than a year ago, but it is still full of problems. I can only hope you will make this a healthy and enjoyable tier to play as was the case with the previous one! Finally, I would like to do a final s/o to all the Huntails and those who helped them before I leave. No matter your results or your initial price, know that buying/negotiating to have you was never a mistake. I enjoyed every vocal and joke between us GeneralAnnoyance TJ PTF yandaud SpacialRendevous! I also really liked the involvement you showed McSim Ereshkigal Feaniix yovan33321! Every speech I wrote for our team over the past few weeks was to bring out this latent potential that you may not even know existed. My words never had any form of power, it was all from you from the very beginning!

Phew... That was a long one to write Anyway, see you next time/farewell, my friends. Only time will tell us. As a Pokémon player, I guess I'm kind of destined to come back one day? But we never know. I would also like to take this opportunity to apologize to those I have offended or upset in the past in this community. Whether you are right or wrong to feel like this, life is far too short to make enemies. Thank you for this lesson Akir. The most important thing is to live without any regret. Let's just play Pokémon innocently, just like we did when we were young, back in the days of carefree laughter... Ciao!

 

[nigel]

Ich shoutoute mal Feaniix weil er uns immer so unterhalten hat mit seinen Kämpfen! Leider hat es am Ende nicht ganz auf den Thron gereicht, aber ich glaube ganz Deutschland ist stolz auf dich, du kleiner Racker!

 

[termi]

my team is holding me at gunpoint forcing me to do shoutouts so: shoutouts to my team. you the best

 

[Shuckleking87]

Hey late on this, but as the starting weak link on our team, I definitely wanted to say some parting praise on this season (didn't think termi would actually go afk on this LUL). I didn't have a ton of team building interaction with many people outside of helping out for BW, but the team vibe was very relaxed and chill (outside of termi freaking micromanaging every loss) and I would definitely team up with almost everyone again if I ever participate again.

The Strap ok you are the exception to the almost everyone, you gotta change this awful name that you have right now. But funny, grounded the team, balls to the wall in prep, gotta appreciate that.

Raichy not a ton of interactions this season but appreciate the support you gave sky this season, and finch in the tiebreak.

asa not the best of records, but also didn't get the support compared to other tiers, sorry that I couldn't help out more, I barely understood my tier.

Jisoo Our team's best win percentage in USUM, definitely carried hard that slot. Even though you weren't able to play as many games, you were very engaged and super supportive of everyone which I really appreciated!

Feliburn, Sjneider, snaga A truly dominating run carrying our team, highly doubt there's ever been a consistent dominating run as y'all had, and I imagine it would be tough to replicate. All sub 10k players too, huge steals.

Eternally The glue of the team, knew how to push the right buttons, was able to motivate us after a defeat, made sure none of us tilted, kept the server active at the times when it was dead, gave us high praise after a win. Invaluable to our team's success.

TDK Bringing our SWSH slot down but hey, someone has to have the worse record. I guess you kinda redeemed yourself by getting that dominating win in tiebreak. But impressive run you've had sweeping all the lower tier premier leagues, though if you didn't play in ZUPL does it really count? Great to have gotten to know you better throughout this season Carson, but now you have bigger fish to fry trying to dominate the draft league meta.

Finchinator Yet again, bringing our USUM slot down by having our team's worst win percentage, but hey, someone has to have the worse record. But for real, outside of 1 other person, might of been the mvp of this whole thing, only losing 1 regular season game you had to play early in the week at like 5am before a vacation, true dedication. Maybe a little too much dedication though, get some more sun or something. And you almost costed us by losing twice in finals, but its ok, we still got the W. For being traded for the first time in your career, you did a great job friend.

LpZ My partner in crime this season. Really had no idea what I was doing in this meta (not sure why I got the starting nod in the first place), back when I played in the tier 5 years ago, combusken and rotom-frost were still allowed. Didn't think the meta would change that much but I guess I was wrong. You really gave me a great starting point in how to learn the meta: just have monferno+beheeyem+simipour+scraggy on the team and win games. I was still confused for the longest time, until I came to the realization where if I put monferno, beheeyem, simipour and scraggy on my teams, then I would win. But for real, definitely appreciate all of the support you gave me this season. We always didn't see eye to eye in terms of our approaches to teams and such, but for the most part, you did a great job telling me what my good ideas (the minority) and bad ideas (the majority) were, and I think we came up with interesting, fun and successful teams this season. Even though our swsh carried, we probably wouldn't of won this if you weren't there helping get me a +.500 record (mods make sure you update the pupl google doc with the finals info so this is actually true).

termi So definitely MVP of this tour, I don't think I've played for a better captain than you. In the beginning, since I'm a boomer on the site but not the most active recently, I was surprised I was drafted by you because I had no idea who you were, I just assumed you drafted me on the basis of me doing ok in nupl. Then came the realization I did know you but in a much much different way LOL. Not gonna lie, didn't rate you that high as a player back in the day, so I was kinda hesitant on our team's success going into this, until we were rated as the team most likely to win this all. So I was onboard. And then you popped off. You were able to provide teams that, from an outsider to the tier's perspective, were always different (including always weak to glastrier) yet always yielded wins. Our team wouldn't of had the dominating record in SWSH (and overall) that we had without your contributions. You gave great insight to how we could improve our play and focus on our win cons in both wins and losses, and while it times it was a little harsh, I definitely appreciated the input and I felt I was able to improve throughout the tour. And you yourself also carried with your play this year, highlighted by your 2 wins in finals. I could tell you were nervous having to be the deciding factor in finals, but we all (including yourself) had that confidence that you were going to clutch and get me that illustrious 2nd PUPL championship. Thank you for picking me up this season and carrying us to victory!

Really well run tour, thanks for everyone that ran this! Was a lot of fun to actually play in this tour, getting drafted for the first time since PUPL II in 2016. I did make finals in PUPL I and II, winning the championship in season 1, so I must of been great team support even with my combined 0-1 record. I'll try to post my thoughts on video for this BW PUPL run with teams and all, but with how late I was on posting this, not sure when I will get that video out. Not sure if I'll play in a tour like this again, between this and nupl, it was the first time I did smogon things in like 3+ years; but if it is my last, it was a great tourney to go out on.

Oh and mods it would be cool to get like overall usage stats of the tiers this tournament (unless it's a thing somewhere and I didn't see it, which is entirely possible).

Scraggy actually broken in BW, the Scraggy team also actually broken.