I've been thinking about making this thread for at least a year or two, but I got 2 things wrong while I was planning on it: 1) my record and 2) the fact that I'd end up winning the tournament. It's no secret I'm very disappointed about my 4-6 record, which isn't the end of the world but, if I believe I am the player I think I am, it's subpar at best (specially considering I got retained and the fact that I haven't had a positive +6 games season yet). I started planning my SPL 6 or (7) 8 months in advance, or whenever JI2 took place, with a dedicated roadmap where I'd save my best builds for this tournament, stick to specific teamchoices in sidetours (ji2, advwc, advpl) so I'd be harder to counterteam this SPL (it worked really well week w5, lol...), and all that stuff I really didn't end up following (90% of the "new" teams were never used, my opponent's scouts got into my head making me stick to my confort zone in weeks I knew I'd face dedicated counterteams, and, above all, not trusting my gut fucked me up both outside and in-game). Not everything went terribly wrong tho, I want to think that in that 3 week winning strike I had (3/12 lol...) my teammates felt that, no matter what, I had their backs covered and that I would win my games (like w7), I also enjoyed assuming a position as a sort of 4th manager and discuss my teammates' concerns with them when needed, reach out to them, etc., and I like to think I played some great games (outside of final's blissey vs focusp pert and I guess that Johnald game where I should have been more proactive in the early game).
With that said, let's discuss the games!
W1: vs zinc
For w1 we had 2 entire weeks to prep but Sadlysius (who supported me throughout the entire tournament. Thanks a lot goat, let the world know 1966 is your team) and I weren't entirely sure what to prep for since zinc3 didn't have a real scout at the time, was unknown in the OU community, and gorgie/PDC/marcop had 3 very different playstyles so we wanted something proactive that would help me dictate the pace of the game and we decided OffCune + DDSala + CurseLax was exactly what we were looking for. Sadly shared a team that had all 3 alongside Medicham (
) but we considered Medi to be a kill-all-6-or-die-t1 mon which wasn't what we were looking for against our opp, but then we realized jolly SD Heracross kind of destroyed all of zinc's v5s and balances (their most spammed archetypes) while also supporting DDSala as well as Medi does so we went with the beatle.
The squad is pretty easy to understand except for the Meta and Lax sets: Meta's covers Gengar (which zinc also used sometimes) and the 2 steel/psy of the tier but since its EQs don't hit that hard, its targets are more likely to stay in since they won't feel as threatened by it, effectively fullfiling it's support role to EQless DDSala and Heracross, but it can also wear down Ttar so RestLax can eat as many hits as possible while cursing outside of sand (restlax follows the same line of Hera of beating v5). Rest over S.D. is certainly a hard choice to make, but the former helps a lot with MU division. Game went pretty standard until the missclick I regret to this day hit turn 20.
W2:
My alltime record against mayo is beyond terrible and I made my best to keep this little fun fact as out of reach as possible from my teammates that week. Instead of focusing on mayo's recent scout, I decided we had to cover most of the teams mayo has used in our games, which means we prepped for a close to 90% gar tss and zap or jolt tss usage. Psychic Starmie felt only natural for that purpose, while RecoverCele + Bliss should handle any Zapdos, Jolteon, Zard, Offmie. The game got out of my hands fairly early because of my inability to read Zap's sleep count that led to Starmie dying turn 38 out of 160 (in my defense, I played after traveling for almost 8 hours so you can say I was pretty sleepy too) which meant I had to outplay mayo to death without a spinner against a Forre RestZap Bliss squad. Luckily for me, Forre's lack of Counter and Blissey not having Ice Beam made all dreams possible: I always had outs to win as long as Cele's Leech Seed put enough pressure on mayo's walls to the point of forcing a momentum breaking move (Soft Boiled, Wish, Rapid Spin, Rest, you name it) which gives a free entry to Dugtrio. With Dugtrio succesfully snapping 3 mons, it looks that, in hindsight, spinning with Starmie was the right move even if it originated from a brain fart. That makes it 2 brain farts in 2 weeks.
I've had this 6 rooting in at least 2 of my previous builders but it always felt nice in test games, so I optimized it for today's metagame with double status Blissey (TW for offense and balance and Tox for the more defensive teams) Perish Celebi (dug enabler and it's always valuable in end games), 2 great additions I considered very important (OG team had Counter Bliss and CM Psy Celebi).
W3:
I had to play this one at my grandpa's. Not how I wanted to spend my sunday and the fact that we already won the week by the time my game started only makes things worse.
I knew I was going to face hard stall since he hasn't used it in his last 2 games at the time so I prepped all week for it; I knew I had to missy from day 1. Taunt Misdreavus, the set I had in mind vs Johnald, always felt kind of mid in test games where I didn't get the perfect MU for it, and, although I unfortunately didn't get to test against the exact 6 or teams as fat at the one he ended up using, I always ended up outplaying the MUs where taunt missy would own, so, in addition to Triangles and Sadly's (iirc?) suggestions, I went with the more and classic Rest Trapper missy set. Never trust a Newcastle fan. I could have gotten one (singular) 50/50 right against Claydol, yes, but it is easier to blame the old man.
This is my take on ABR's team. By replacing Molt with Aero you have more room to play around Blissey, Celebi, certain offenses, stall?, spinless TSS, etc., at the cost of losing a very valuable HP Grass user, longevity, and a Metagross check. The Aero set is very customizable, I also tried SubTect Slide EQ with pressure, which was another decent option I considered for the week; adamant Aero can work just as fine too.
W4:
By week 4 I'm 1-2 and I'm facing fruh as my next opponent. Although fruh was managed by ABR, I was extremely sure I wasn't ever ever going to face stall or any fat for that matter; fruh faced 3 teams that were targeting slop in the first 3 weks of the tournament and hadn't used a single Bliss so far so I knew it was time to bring my favorite Jirachi set ever: Offensive 3atk with Wish Support. When I'm using max hp superachi I often wonder if I can drop CM for something else so Jira can work more as a midgame option rather than late game (it has a fantastic bulk, typing, and it can learn so many useful support options that fat superjira sometimes feels that it appreciates having the coverage but it lacks the specific moves to effectively checkmate in endgames) so, with that in mind, I gave it Wish. Max hp Jira has enough bulk to take 3 tbolts from zap and avoid getting hkod by pretty much anything; with psy fire grass coverage I don't think there's a specific speed tier u HAVE to hit which means maximizing its SpA is the way to go, but don't get it wrong: CMless modest 228 SpA still hits extremely hard, just run some calcs and you'll realize how op this guy is; Jira having Wish with Fire Punch and Psychic means it should 1v1 CMless and Fire Blastless Bliss, just like it 1v1s Registeel. I'm serious, just give it a try. A small warning is that it's not the most splashable set (I think) and sometimes you'll prefer other more specialized options over this midground set.
Let's go back to the prep... RefreshPert seemed obvious into a regi spammer while Pert itself should take care of his DDTars or Metagross; double status gar was a wonderful choice into players that don't use absorbers very often and Aero was perfect against Celebi TSS. The team I used and had built in the JI2 days happened to cover all boxes for the week.
This is a squad that focuses on offense, getting spikes up, and getting the most out of the free turns Hypnosis, Fire Punch burns, and WoW will provide. Sometimes you'll want to play for a Jira endgame, DDtar might look like the perfect option to keep around for the last couple of turns, or, more often than not, Aero will be your cleaner of choice.
W5:
no team for this one because it's not mine. It's w6, I have a 1-4 record, and I'm thinking to myself that facing the ADV sub of the ADVer that cancered on the cancer team would help me get another very needed win. Guess what, I was very wrong about 2 things: 1) I somehow convinced myself in prep that I'd face 290 different teams and that I had to keep all of them in mind; I second guessed myself so much this week I asked mielke for a CBSala team the night before the day I played and still couldn't find a team I liked.. I still have no clue why I wanted a CBSalamence team but it clearly ended up going poorly lol... somehow managed to go with a team that looked really similar to my scout, 2) pixie909 ended up beating me in an ez game and getting another 6 wins in the top of that, impressive season (still no FJ2K s/o tho). We also got smashed this week and the poffs dream started to fade (or so we thought).
W6:
Another pasteless team since it's fruh's. 1-5, almost out of poffs, and running out of time and options to finally not suck in SPL. I knew Garay would hariyama fat me, it's his confort zone, he wasn't doing well (not 1-5 but still), and, with my w5 team in mind, it looked like I was defaulting to boring balance tss (which should be a good MU for yama and cune). I knew I had to offense the shit out of Garay and I'm friends with the most prolific offense builder in the tier so... match made in heaven for this week. The moment I see lead Sala and Hariyama, I knew I won the game: DDTar only needed to trade with yama or cune and one of my other 42 sweepers to break through. As rng heavy as this game was, I firmly believe I should always win this MU, just like every time I did when testing similar MUs with the squad.
W7:
After getting our first win in a very long time last week, we face the ruiners that were dead last and shoud grant us 2 free points. Right? Or so we thought and by the time I played my game we were 5-6 down and, considering we needed 6 points in the last 4 weeks of regular season, losing against Jabba meant we were out of the tournament. For reasons I don't know, I never felt I was going to win a game as much as I did that day and so I did! winning the deciding game with such stakes is a wonderful feeling, it was my favorite moment of the tournament for sure. Knowing Jabba, he was going to start with his prep the same day of the game and use a team that allowed him to skillcheck me, so the plan was to deviate from my usage and go-to teams. But that was the entire plan, I had no idea on what was the right choice for the game. Sadly suggested Cloyster because they thought I'd face a Magneton and Jabba's scout was often weak to spikes. After testing a couple of teams, we thought Moltres was a great idea due to his tendency to offense and lack of Blissey, but I couldn't find a Molt team I liked. Sadly shared this Molt team but something felt off when I used it, so I decided to give it a small tweak.
The smallest of tweaks in my opinion!! Team ended up being dogshit but, luckily, I made 2 version that were extremely similar to the OG team, the second one being
This one replaces Cloy with Forre, Jira for Meta, Cune over Pert, Dol over Gar and Raikou over Moltres; it's almost 99% the same team Sadly posted... Originally, I tried multiple special attackers in the Raikou slot, including Moltres itself, but I wasn't happy with them. Then I remembered Spreek had posted a team that employs Raikou in a similar role to what I was looking for: something that could single handedly deal with special set up sweepers, with a nice speed tier, and I was set for success. The game went smoothly as Jabba brought offense (I think?) that couldn't break thru WishJira + Cune, and it pretty much ended after Cloyster died vs Suicune and I removed spikes. I'm very proud of this team and I find it really solid.
W8:
To be really honest, I had no idea what to load and, since we had agreed to rfn, I intended to not do any prep for this week... but Triangles got sick (or busy? don't remember) and could no longer play before friday, so I said fuck it. I was expecting him to use his beloved defmie since he hadn't used it in the last 7 weeks and there was no way he could resist the urge to bring Patrick. Sadly, once again, suggested Moltres (or Zap + Jolt) which was a really fine pick because angles spammed fighters and Blissless for the last year and a half. Not sure why I didn't went with that and decided to start building slop (derogatory)
. I guess SubLeechPass really isn't a bad pick vs offense and CBHera worked just fine against his sandless dugless stalls which he loves, but I didn't end up feeling like those were solid enough. So it's 2am on the morning of the day I have to play him and I got no team yet. But then something happened:
. 2 AM thoughts made me look for a poke that could own 1) wishjira 2) defmie 3) cmbliss, and I came to the conclusion that there's only 1 guy that can do all of that: CurseRest Registeel. And so I started trying to find replays where this set was used; I defaulted to McMeghan because I remembered he has used it a lot in the past (
) but I didn't like his teams. Sadly, at 2 in the morning, tells me ABR also used it once so I try to find the replay. Can u believe who got owned by that Registeel set? https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-810517 I knew this was going to work again and oh boy it did. Always trust your gut.
W9
We win another week and we are 100% IN if we manage to beat the wolfpack. I was genuinely lost against mielke because I had no idea what to use since we've been playing friendlies all SPL, just like last week with Triangles, so I defaulted to pokémon I never use (just like against Jabba): +atk Pert, Moltres, MixMeta, Jolteon. Moltres was such a great choice into mielke's scout because mielke isn't the biggest Blissey spammer, really likes offense, my SPL scout was certainly weak to Celebi and the pixies (like Jirachi which Mike had in the back), and, obviously, he wasn't going to expect it from me; it certainly got the MU I intended. Just when I thought I could end this SPL with a positive record (was 4-4 before the game, having won 3/3 in the last weeks), disaster strikes and I fall short (unless we make poffs, get to finals, and I win 2 out of 2. Spoiler, 2/3 happened).
this is my take on Molt offense which I'm really not a fan of in general. I'm happy with the team and I think it has interesting sets and evs that make it so it has outs in most standard MUs (in contrast to the majority Molt teams). Initially, I had AgilityMeta over Mix, which is a choice, but J23 (perhaps I could have finished with a better record had I listened to your suggestions a bit more lol) suggested MixMeta and it got the team to the next level. I really like how BravePert, MixMeta, and Jolt support each other by wearing down their respective checks, which also happen to be DDSala checks.
Semis:
We unfortunately agreed to dead game, I really wanted to play this one although I was sick because the positive record dream was fading away, but we ended up beating the fan favorite Sharks with no issue. Anyway, free team. The fj2k team that pixie909 used in our regular season game had HPGrass Psy Cele which I didn't like because it made the Skarm MU pretty terrible in my opinion, so I made it HPFire thanks to a Triangles suggestion. We also changed the evs of the team to take a more direct approach (s/o Sadlysius).
Finals:
We won!!! robjr hadn't ADV'd in a hot minute before the second half of this SPL so we really didn't know what we were going to end up facing. I decided to go with the stay away from your scout approach again which worked well in the 2 games I did it. All we knew is that rob liked offense and Gengar (exactly what he used in the finals game). Outside of the early run of w2 and w3 alongside w7 against Jabba, I hadn't used fat that much so it felt natural to bring CuneJira again (the 2 also were generally solid into most standard TSS and old school offense [AKA not slop or DDSala oriented offense]).
This is a team I built back in JI2 when I was making teams for SPL. I terrorized (or bored to death) ladder with it for a couple of months, although the team had Wishjira over Dug as its lead. The lead Dug idea got into my head because I was expecting 1) Gar TSS 2) a classic gorgie cheese with smeargle, a fighter, or Jynx lead 3) slop. I got the lead wrong. Team is centered over the idea that Jira and Blissey and extremely solid walls (insane) that should be able to farm most offenses on their own, Suicune can do Suicune things, Dug works as the team's revenge killer, while ThiefSkarm and RestDol help in the longer games. Def not the most interesting team of all time but it gets the job done (outside of my game lol). It's extremely solid and it will get wins no matter what. M Dragon made me realize I choked this game and that I could have won it by keeping Blissey healthy (thanks for the fact that rob's last was jolteon). 4-6 it is.
https://pokepast.es/76452c16cc84094c this thread's + 2025 SPL teams
I won't predict what I'll be doing in 5 years from now because u never know what life has to offer, but I'm still as motivated as always about this game, I enjoy playing it as much as you (perhaps just some of you?), and getting to play a different tier in WCOP for a couple a months every year helps a lot at avoiding burnouts, but one thing is certain: if I don't manage to get a positive record and a SPL I'm content with playing-wise in the next couple of years, I'll inevitable need to have a conversation regarding my investment on this game, because this is a very time consuming hobby and I won't always have as much free time as I'd like to. While I certainly value invitationals and other individual tournaments, there's something about SPL that makes every game feel special or rather important (for the most part), or that's how I see it, which is why I'll always make performing in the tournament my main goal.
Closing words: keep grinding until you become as good as you want to (because that's what it takes for the most part, alongside a real desire to get good) and you'll win trophies by yourself or, if u don't, there's a chance you get carried to one lol.
With that said, let's discuss the games!
W1: vs zinc
For w1 we had 2 entire weeks to prep but Sadlysius (who supported me throughout the entire tournament. Thanks a lot goat, let the world know 1966 is your team) and I weren't entirely sure what to prep for since zinc3 didn't have a real scout at the time, was unknown in the OU community, and gorgie/PDC/marcop had 3 very different playstyles so we wanted something proactive that would help me dictate the pace of the game and we decided OffCune + DDSala + CurseLax was exactly what we were looking for. Sadly shared a team that had all 3 alongside Medicham (
The squad is pretty easy to understand except for the Meta and Lax sets: Meta's covers Gengar (which zinc also used sometimes) and the 2 steel/psy of the tier but since its EQs don't hit that hard, its targets are more likely to stay in since they won't feel as threatened by it, effectively fullfiling it's support role to EQless DDSala and Heracross, but it can also wear down Ttar so RestLax can eat as many hits as possible while cursing outside of sand (restlax follows the same line of Hera of beating v5). Rest over S.D. is certainly a hard choice to make, but the former helps a lot with MU division. Game went pretty standard until the missclick I regret to this day hit turn 20.
W2:
My alltime record against mayo is beyond terrible and I made my best to keep this little fun fact as out of reach as possible from my teammates that week. Instead of focusing on mayo's recent scout, I decided we had to cover most of the teams mayo has used in our games, which means we prepped for a close to 90% gar tss and zap or jolt tss usage. Psychic Starmie felt only natural for that purpose, while RecoverCele + Bliss should handle any Zapdos, Jolteon, Zard, Offmie. The game got out of my hands fairly early because of my inability to read Zap's sleep count that led to Starmie dying turn 38 out of 160 (in my defense, I played after traveling for almost 8 hours so you can say I was pretty sleepy too) which meant I had to outplay mayo to death without a spinner against a Forre RestZap Bliss squad. Luckily for me, Forre's lack of Counter and Blissey not having Ice Beam made all dreams possible: I always had outs to win as long as Cele's Leech Seed put enough pressure on mayo's walls to the point of forcing a momentum breaking move (Soft Boiled, Wish, Rapid Spin, Rest, you name it) which gives a free entry to Dugtrio. With Dugtrio succesfully snapping 3 mons, it looks that, in hindsight, spinning with Starmie was the right move even if it originated from a brain fart. That makes it 2 brain farts in 2 weeks.
I've had this 6 rooting in at least 2 of my previous builders but it always felt nice in test games, so I optimized it for today's metagame with double status Blissey (TW for offense and balance and Tox for the more defensive teams) Perish Celebi (dug enabler and it's always valuable in end games), 2 great additions I considered very important (OG team had Counter Bliss and CM Psy Celebi).
W3:
I had to play this one at my grandpa's. Not how I wanted to spend my sunday and the fact that we already won the week by the time my game started only makes things worse.
I knew I was going to face hard stall since he hasn't used it in his last 2 games at the time so I prepped all week for it; I knew I had to missy from day 1. Taunt Misdreavus, the set I had in mind vs Johnald, always felt kind of mid in test games where I didn't get the perfect MU for it, and, although I unfortunately didn't get to test against the exact 6 or teams as fat at the one he ended up using, I always ended up outplaying the MUs where taunt missy would own, so, in addition to Triangles and Sadly's (iirc?) suggestions, I went with the more and classic Rest Trapper missy set. Never trust a Newcastle fan. I could have gotten one (singular) 50/50 right against Claydol, yes, but it is easier to blame the old man.
This is my take on ABR's team. By replacing Molt with Aero you have more room to play around Blissey, Celebi, certain offenses, stall?, spinless TSS, etc., at the cost of losing a very valuable HP Grass user, longevity, and a Metagross check. The Aero set is very customizable, I also tried SubTect Slide EQ with pressure, which was another decent option I considered for the week; adamant Aero can work just as fine too.
W4:
By week 4 I'm 1-2 and I'm facing fruh as my next opponent. Although fruh was managed by ABR, I was extremely sure I wasn't ever ever going to face stall or any fat for that matter; fruh faced 3 teams that were targeting slop in the first 3 weks of the tournament and hadn't used a single Bliss so far so I knew it was time to bring my favorite Jirachi set ever: Offensive 3atk with Wish Support. When I'm using max hp superachi I often wonder if I can drop CM for something else so Jira can work more as a midgame option rather than late game (it has a fantastic bulk, typing, and it can learn so many useful support options that fat superjira sometimes feels that it appreciates having the coverage but it lacks the specific moves to effectively checkmate in endgames) so, with that in mind, I gave it Wish. Max hp Jira has enough bulk to take 3 tbolts from zap and avoid getting hkod by pretty much anything; with psy fire grass coverage I don't think there's a specific speed tier u HAVE to hit which means maximizing its SpA is the way to go, but don't get it wrong: CMless modest 228 SpA still hits extremely hard, just run some calcs and you'll realize how op this guy is; Jira having Wish with Fire Punch and Psychic means it should 1v1 CMless and Fire Blastless Bliss, just like it 1v1s Registeel. I'm serious, just give it a try. A small warning is that it's not the most splashable set (I think) and sometimes you'll prefer other more specialized options over this midground set.
Let's go back to the prep... RefreshPert seemed obvious into a regi spammer while Pert itself should take care of his DDTars or Metagross; double status gar was a wonderful choice into players that don't use absorbers very often and Aero was perfect against Celebi TSS. The team I used and had built in the JI2 days happened to cover all boxes for the week.
This is a squad that focuses on offense, getting spikes up, and getting the most out of the free turns Hypnosis, Fire Punch burns, and WoW will provide. Sometimes you'll want to play for a Jira endgame, DDtar might look like the perfect option to keep around for the last couple of turns, or, more often than not, Aero will be your cleaner of choice.
W5:
no team for this one because it's not mine. It's w6, I have a 1-4 record, and I'm thinking to myself that facing the ADV sub of the ADVer that cancered on the cancer team would help me get another very needed win. Guess what, I was very wrong about 2 things: 1) I somehow convinced myself in prep that I'd face 290 different teams and that I had to keep all of them in mind; I second guessed myself so much this week I asked mielke for a CBSala team the night before the day I played and still couldn't find a team I liked.. I still have no clue why I wanted a CBSalamence team but it clearly ended up going poorly lol... somehow managed to go with a team that looked really similar to my scout, 2) pixie909 ended up beating me in an ez game and getting another 6 wins in the top of that, impressive season (still no FJ2K s/o tho). We also got smashed this week and the poffs dream started to fade (or so we thought).
W6:
Another pasteless team since it's fruh's. 1-5, almost out of poffs, and running out of time and options to finally not suck in SPL. I knew Garay would hariyama fat me, it's his confort zone, he wasn't doing well (not 1-5 but still), and, with my w5 team in mind, it looked like I was defaulting to boring balance tss (which should be a good MU for yama and cune). I knew I had to offense the shit out of Garay and I'm friends with the most prolific offense builder in the tier so... match made in heaven for this week. The moment I see lead Sala and Hariyama, I knew I won the game: DDTar only needed to trade with yama or cune and one of my other 42 sweepers to break through. As rng heavy as this game was, I firmly believe I should always win this MU, just like every time I did when testing similar MUs with the squad.
W7:
After getting our first win in a very long time last week, we face the ruiners that were dead last and shoud grant us 2 free points. Right? Or so we thought and by the time I played my game we were 5-6 down and, considering we needed 6 points in the last 4 weeks of regular season, losing against Jabba meant we were out of the tournament. For reasons I don't know, I never felt I was going to win a game as much as I did that day and so I did! winning the deciding game with such stakes is a wonderful feeling, it was my favorite moment of the tournament for sure. Knowing Jabba, he was going to start with his prep the same day of the game and use a team that allowed him to skillcheck me, so the plan was to deviate from my usage and go-to teams. But that was the entire plan, I had no idea on what was the right choice for the game. Sadly suggested Cloyster because they thought I'd face a Magneton and Jabba's scout was often weak to spikes. After testing a couple of teams, we thought Moltres was a great idea due to his tendency to offense and lack of Blissey, but I couldn't find a Molt team I liked. Sadly shared this Molt team but something felt off when I used it, so I decided to give it a small tweak.
This one replaces Cloy with Forre, Jira for Meta, Cune over Pert, Dol over Gar and Raikou over Moltres; it's almost 99% the same team Sadly posted... Originally, I tried multiple special attackers in the Raikou slot, including Moltres itself, but I wasn't happy with them. Then I remembered Spreek had posted a team that employs Raikou in a similar role to what I was looking for: something that could single handedly deal with special set up sweepers, with a nice speed tier, and I was set for success. The game went smoothly as Jabba brought offense (I think?) that couldn't break thru WishJira + Cune, and it pretty much ended after Cloyster died vs Suicune and I removed spikes. I'm very proud of this team and I find it really solid.
W8:
To be really honest, I had no idea what to load and, since we had agreed to rfn, I intended to not do any prep for this week... but Triangles got sick (or busy? don't remember) and could no longer play before friday, so I said fuck it. I was expecting him to use his beloved defmie since he hadn't used it in the last 7 weeks and there was no way he could resist the urge to bring Patrick. Sadly, once again, suggested Moltres (or Zap + Jolt) which was a really fine pick because angles spammed fighters and Blissless for the last year and a half. Not sure why I didn't went with that and decided to start building slop (derogatory)
W9
We win another week and we are 100% IN if we manage to beat the wolfpack. I was genuinely lost against mielke because I had no idea what to use since we've been playing friendlies all SPL, just like last week with Triangles, so I defaulted to pokémon I never use (just like against Jabba): +atk Pert, Moltres, MixMeta, Jolteon. Moltres was such a great choice into mielke's scout because mielke isn't the biggest Blissey spammer, really likes offense, my SPL scout was certainly weak to Celebi and the pixies (like Jirachi which Mike had in the back), and, obviously, he wasn't going to expect it from me; it certainly got the MU I intended. Just when I thought I could end this SPL with a positive record (was 4-4 before the game, having won 3/3 in the last weeks), disaster strikes and I fall short (unless we make poffs, get to finals, and I win 2 out of 2. Spoiler, 2/3 happened).
this is my take on Molt offense which I'm really not a fan of in general. I'm happy with the team and I think it has interesting sets and evs that make it so it has outs in most standard MUs (in contrast to the majority Molt teams). Initially, I had AgilityMeta over Mix, which is a choice, but J23 (perhaps I could have finished with a better record had I listened to your suggestions a bit more lol) suggested MixMeta and it got the team to the next level. I really like how BravePert, MixMeta, and Jolt support each other by wearing down their respective checks, which also happen to be DDSala checks.
Semis:
We unfortunately agreed to dead game, I really wanted to play this one although I was sick because the positive record dream was fading away, but we ended up beating the fan favorite Sharks with no issue. Anyway, free team. The fj2k team that pixie909 used in our regular season game had HPGrass Psy Cele which I didn't like because it made the Skarm MU pretty terrible in my opinion, so I made it HPFire thanks to a Triangles suggestion. We also changed the evs of the team to take a more direct approach (s/o Sadlysius).
Finals:
We won!!! robjr hadn't ADV'd in a hot minute before the second half of this SPL so we really didn't know what we were going to end up facing. I decided to go with the stay away from your scout approach again which worked well in the 2 games I did it. All we knew is that rob liked offense and Gengar (exactly what he used in the finals game). Outside of the early run of w2 and w3 alongside w7 against Jabba, I hadn't used fat that much so it felt natural to bring CuneJira again (the 2 also were generally solid into most standard TSS and old school offense [AKA not slop or DDSala oriented offense]).
This is a team I built back in JI2 when I was making teams for SPL. I terrorized (or bored to death) ladder with it for a couple of months, although the team had Wishjira over Dug as its lead. The lead Dug idea got into my head because I was expecting 1) Gar TSS 2) a classic gorgie cheese with smeargle, a fighter, or Jynx lead 3) slop. I got the lead wrong. Team is centered over the idea that Jira and Blissey and extremely solid walls (insane) that should be able to farm most offenses on their own, Suicune can do Suicune things, Dug works as the team's revenge killer, while ThiefSkarm and RestDol help in the longer games. Def not the most interesting team of all time but it gets the job done (outside of my game lol). It's extremely solid and it will get wins no matter what. M Dragon made me realize I choked this game and that I could have won it by keeping Blissey healthy (thanks for the fact that rob's last was jolteon). 4-6 it is.
https://pokepast.es/76452c16cc84094c this thread's + 2025 SPL teams
I won't predict what I'll be doing in 5 years from now because u never know what life has to offer, but I'm still as motivated as always about this game, I enjoy playing it as much as you (perhaps just some of you?), and getting to play a different tier in WCOP for a couple a months every year helps a lot at avoiding burnouts, but one thing is certain: if I don't manage to get a positive record and a SPL I'm content with playing-wise in the next couple of years, I'll inevitable need to have a conversation regarding my investment on this game, because this is a very time consuming hobby and I won't always have as much free time as I'd like to. While I certainly value invitationals and other individual tournaments, there's something about SPL that makes every game feel special or rather important (for the most part), or that's how I see it, which is why I'll always make performing in the tournament my main goal.
Closing words: keep grinding until you become as good as you want to (because that's what it takes for the most part, alongside a real desire to get good) and you'll win trophies by yourself or, if u don't, there's a chance you get carried to one lol.
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