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road to nowhere
a bw ou spl reflection
week 1 vs Fakes
cb scizor + sub bulk up toxicroak
team choice & match analysis
mamoswine | psychics | setup fighters
my predicted week 1 was dominated by 2 large forces: latios and breloom. breloom was the new hotness, and absolutely dominated the pre-spl meta rains and ferro + scarf lando sands, to the point of making them unviable. meanwhile, latios benefited greatly from the sleep ban, and with newfound freedom to run 4 moves, trick + specs sets were became the new baseline, mandating stronger and more plentiful checks. to combat these meta shifts, i came up with 3 concepts. the first was to use mamoswine: ice stab is great against both breloom and latios, it covers thund-t rains, and acts as a powerful breaker against fat sands. the second idea hinged on latios' new ability to consistently lure and damage jirachi and tyranitar with trick and surf, respectively. i figured latios could enable magic guard psychics to easily break through these aforementioned checks, and as an added bonus, these team compositions were naturally strong against breloom. lastly, i thought of using breloom myself, as it was extremely challenging to punish if Fakes used his preferred playstyle of rain. eventually, i settled on cb scizor + toxicroak - croak checks both breloom and rain, while cb zor, when paired with substitute mons, can easily trap latios and can deal with jellicent and reuniclus for croak. sub pdef thund-t makes good use of scizor's pursuit support and is extremely strong against ferro sands that utilize specs latios as the second water resist. ferro provides an initial switch-in to latios, hazards, and general defensive utility - i chose gyro ball to effectively pressure breloom or latios (if tricked a choice item). politoed felt like the only logical scarfer, giving me a relatively safe scarfer against dragmag and the mandatory rain needed to support toxicroak. cm gem latios rounds out the squad by giving me a fast breaker, soft loom check, and easy way to win the weather war against teams that rely on ttar as the sole latios check - +1 gem draco does ~75% to standard ttar. overall, i felt my week 1 team was extremely strong in both sand and rain matchups - dragmag could pose a potential problem, but having a steel faster than and could ohko magnezone, as well as a thund-t that lives scarfchomp attacks after rocks and scarftoed to revenge physical sweepers made it a playable matchup.
i'm fairly pleased with how i played this game. i lead latios to force out the turn 1 rotom-w - he can't risk "losing" it to specs latios this early and i didn't want my ferro to get burned. i get the lead matchup i'm looking for and immediately use that free turn to switch in my thundurus-t - it's a hard punish to excadrill, ferro, or ttar that would want to come in on latios' draco and doesn't mind eating a volt from rotom-w should Fakes choose to volt into ttar for the free pursuit trap. sub is free here since ferro can't break it with power whip, and it effectively scouts latios or ttar switching in. Fakes ends up going to latios and uses dragon pulse, revealing specs latios without recover. i decide that my gameplan is to trap or wear down latios using toxicroak and thundurus-t and sweep with whichever is still alive. i gain momentum with cb zor over the next few turns, and eventually land a timely crit on Fakes's ttar to abruptly win the weather war. at this point, it isn't hard to execute my gameplan - specs latios isn't a long-term stop to thundurus-t, and likewise for scarf landorus-t against toxicroak. i eventually end up winning with latios after thund-t weakens his ferrothorn.
week 1 takeaways
- sub pdef thundurus-t is an amazing breaker with minimal checks
- specs latios can easily be abused by pursuit trapping in combination substitute/protect
- latios is the de-facto best mon in the metagame
week 2 vs SoulWind
dual grass sand
team choice & game analysis
dragmag | volcarona | breloom
i came up with 3 different approaches to potentially use against SoulWind . i could muscle past his preferred balanced playstyles using dragmags with a focus on physical sweepers (subsd chomp, ddnite, dd latios), cheese him with a volcarona, or engage in a friendly balance mirror with breloom as a breaker. i eventually chose this breloom team because it felt consistent. i would later find out that it had a major weakness to non-choiced lando (a set i had overlooked entirely in both gameplay and teambuilding), as well as ferrothorn (my choice of hp ice amoonguss made it virtually impossible to chip, and my 2 chosen ferrothorn punishes were hard-countered by reuniclus and bulky waters).
this was the worst game i played in spl - turn 2 was an absolute mistake and i didn't even consider the option of non-choiced landorus-t on SoulWind 's team. my matchup was rough to being with, seeing as i struggled to break his core of gastro + ferro + reuniclus, but i threw the game away entirely when i sacced my landorus.
key takeaways
- lefties landorus-t is good again
- don't rely on sole mons to punish opposing key defensive threats if they themselves can easily be stopped by other common defensive threats
week 3 vs Steve Angello
life orb terrakion sand
team choice & match analysis
terrakion
Steve Angello was making his return to the tour scene in this game. i really had no idea what to expect from him - i knew he was capable of using anything on the bw spectrum, including cheese. as such, i picked terrakion - it's a no-nonsense mon that punishes most cheese structures (dragmag, volcarona offense, sun & other stalls) without sacrificing utility against more standard teams. i ultimately decided on this squad with scarf lando-t and rotom-w to easily get my adamant life orb terrakion onto the field. i chose this particular terrakion set because it's very strong against most rains as they almost forgo lando-t, gliscor, or reuniclus, and i was only running 2 shaky water resists.
this is another match i basically lost in the first couple of turns. my ttar eating flame orb turn 1 ensured i would lose the weather war and also meant i had no way whatsoever to check an opposing latios in rain. i'm not unhappy with how i played, although there were definitely points where i could have pulled the trigger with my terrakion to get extra kills instead of killing myself to orb recoil as he pivoted around. additionally, tricking my specs onto excadrill was not ideal - i expected his jirachi to be fully specially defensive and to come in immediately against my latios in rain (he was not specially defensive wishtect jira). i also probably could've stalled his jirachi out of wish towards the end of the game to force a tie between our latios, giving me higher odds to win.
key takeaways
- heatran needs status to make progress
- ABR was right about the viability of life orb
- ttar + heatran is not enough insurance against latios
week 4 vs dice
specs starmie dragmag
team choice & match analysis
dragmag
dice is another player i could expect to use cheese. as such, i wanted to a strategy that could overpower stall and be insured against wonky auto-win sweepers like volcarona. i ended up on dragmag because of dragonite/kyu-b's ability to break through most defensive structures. this team revolved around dragonite + garchomp to pummel offense and cm latios + specs trick starmie to break defensive structures. i ended up choosing it because it felt nearly unstoppable in testing - i don't think i dropped a game without getting haxed, whereas the other dragmags all had intrinsic issues that would occasionally crop up.
at preview, this game could be challenging for me - dice brought a specially-defensive core of chansey + jirachi that could effectively stop my breakers and a physically-defensive core of scarf landorus-t and pdef politoed to impede scarfchomp + ddnite. however, specsmie had potential to deal massive damage if it could safely generate a free turn. i prioritized getting rocks up so i could deal meaningful (permanent) damage with either starmie or ddnite, and on turn 7, dice sacced tenta, ensuring my hazards would stay up for the rest of the match. however, his subtect loom tech ended up landing, and i was forced into locking my ddnite into outrage to deal with it after a timely crit ohko'd my recover latios. my situation was looking grim - my only hope was for dice to sac his chansey, which he tried to do on turns 22 and 23, but got bailed out out by a hydro pump miss that sealed the game in his favor.
key takeways
- getting haxed sucks
- chansey is unbreakable
- loom is back after the lefties lando-t surge
week 6 vs Pearl
scarf tyranitar + keldeo spikes
by Finchinator
team choice & match analysis
in terms of team choice, i was disheartened by my 1-4 record and had a busy week, so i asked Finchinator for one of his teams with keldeo, a pick that i believed would perform against Pearl 's excessive usage of ferrothorn and ground types.
on turn 1, Pearl stayed in and ate a trick with his sole latios check, ferrothorn. turns 3-5, we traded hazards, before i used his last choice-locked spike to generate a free turn for my alakazam, which was a large threat to his team. at preview, his only logical scarfer was latios, which i was able to catch on the switch with t-wave - he wouldn't want to sac anything this early in the match and scarf latios could either break my sash or force ferro/ttar to take loads of chip damage from spikes. this t-wave allowed me to safely pursuit trap his latios, paving the way for my own alakazam to tear through his team. after he revealed subtect tenta, i was scared that i would sacrifice to much of my team to deal with it - however, i was able to pivot gliscor in safely, breaking its sub and sealing the endgame for the combo of alakazam and latios.
key takeaways
- ferrothorn alone is not enough against latios
- zam renaissance is in full bloom
week 7 vs Finchinator
sub sweepers + toxic spikes rain
team choice & match analysis
hard cheese | sub keldeo
my next match was against my good buddy and blue to my red, Finchinator . finch and i tested together every week of spl until this point, and i knew set for set what teams he was building and what mons he consistently used. i considered cheesing him for the laughs, but ultimately decided i wanted to beat him fair and square. i knew he had a disdain of bulky waters other than rotom-w, used a lot of choiced latios, and relied primarily on tentacruel as his keldeo check on rain teams. as such, i settled sub keldeo (cm and subtect) as a good way to punish his common cores. after some discussion with bff dice , i settled on this 6. scarf scizor would trap latios in conjunction with sub thund-t and sub keldeo. t-spikes tenta worked extremely well with 2 sub sweepers, subnp thund-t abused Finchinator 's hate of gastrodon, and sashchomp would body his teams that relied on specs latios to revenge sd garchomp.
i got the exact matchup i prepped for - specs latios + rotom-w sand. sashchomp went to town, trading with his latios as he attempted to pivot around its stabs. once i was able to generate a free turn for thund-t, it was able to boost up and single-handedly killed his remaining mons by hitting thunder in sand. once latios dropped, however, subcm keldeo would've done the same thing if thund-t couldn't finish the job.
key takeways
- being too one dimensional can lead to getting counterteamed
- the pursuit + tect/sub axiom remains true
week 8 vs John W
moltres + chansey + cb scizor
team choice & game analysis
[8:03 PM] Finchinator: i dare you
[8:03 PM] Finchinator: to use darm
[8:03 PM] Finchinator: or molt
i realized John W had next to no rotom-w usage during my scout, and jokingly quipped to Finchinator that i should use an offensive fire. he replied to me with this quote, so i settled on moltres, the more viable of the two suggested mons. i eventually settled on yet another scizor team because i find it hilarious to use - everyone seems to think it's terrible but it truly does support chansey well as a mon that can trap latios that lock themselves into trick (can be scouted by all the sub/tect users on the team).
i'm a bit salty about this game - i won on turn 4 if will-o-wisp hit his chople ttar. i did my best to play well, to enable my wincon of moltres, but instances of hax ultimately made this game unwinnable for me.
key takeaways
- moltres is good if you can keep rocks off
- rotom-w is the ultimate anti-cheese mon
week 9 vs Caetano93
lati twins + reuniclus dragmag
team choice & game analysis
i got lazy for my week 9 game and combed through my old teams until i found one i liked to use against Caetano93 . latias tricks flame orb to ferro, ttar, or jirachi, which paves the way for either cm boltbeam reuni or cm latios to absolutely crush the opposing team.
my strategy in the teambuilding stage ended up working this match - i was able to trick his jirachi, his only psychic check, a flame orb on turn 1. from this point on, i was favored - both my lati twins threatened ohkos vs most of his team, and reuniclus was a potential failsafe against his dd salamence. his scarf latios could potentially be a threat long-term if he could chip my jirachi, so once it revealed scarf, i was very conservative and played to conserve my jirachi's hp, which proved crucial in the lategame.
key takeaways
- broken psychics stay broken
- autolose to "x" is ok if "x" isn't common (mamoswine)
peace :)
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