SCL IV LC Discussion Thread

WEEK 8 MATCHUPS (3 teams OUT!):


[Machines] tazz vs hacker [Gibles]
[Breakers] tko vs Starsama [Foxes]
[Islanders] Colin vs Eeveeto [Spartans]

[Dynamos] Fille vs Envy1 [Shoguns]
[Terrors] Lokifan vs taka [Platoon]


Week 7 Recap (we've had better weeks):


[FOX] Starsama vs Lokifan [TER]
The battle of the top records! The best two players of the season bring their A-game to decide who's actually on top this season, as both coming in with 5-1 numbers. Their teams however, don't reflect that with the Terrors coming closer to cinching playoffs while Foxes are all but eliminated.

On to the actual game itself, Lokifan brings a fun ttm build featuring Magby, which as we will later see comes a bit more common as people wake up to it being a pseudo-sidegrade to Torchic with strong Fire STAB, access to immediate Psychic coverage and fast Will-o-Wisp and two strong abilities. Starsama's got the ttm mirror, but the mu is a bit skewed with his 19 speeder being Wingull, which poses some serious trouble here.


Loki boldly leads Magby into Mienfoo, getting a burn despite missing a wisp. Turn 4 sees him shockingly sack Magby, although it did live without a crit (somehow??) and would've put him into an excellent spot had he gotten that bold play right. Despite this setback, Loki continues a very aggressive set of plays and baits out a Tera Ground Vullaby with Tera Blast, which works in his favor he has preserved tera and an unrevealed SD Foo with Trailblaze. This tech works out as he just comfortably sets up and sweeps after getting all the prior conditions cleared for it to go ham, letting him claim the mantle of best LC player this season (for now).
[PLA] Scottie vs Fille [DYN]
Fille returns to play this week after a brief break, and this time he's brought another Snowshrew ttm vs Osh's almost ORAS team with a pawn and chou.

Early on Fille reveals Infestation Mare to trap Foongus, before switching in Snowshrew to reveal....Safety Goggles?? Ironically this fish works out perfectly, as it completely blanks Foongus and forces bad switches into Snowshrew — although it does have to worry about chou and pawn resisting axel hits. Osh's sloppy Spore gives Shrew the perfect chance to come in later in the game and claim a kill on Vullaby with SD + Ice Shard, and is later forced to sack Pawn after wasting tera on Bray earlier to 1v1 Tink and Toed. The endgame then turns into the funniest sequence, where Fille not wanting to risk missing HJK as he'd have to click it twice, plays the long way around to end up deciding the final turn on an HJK click anyway to seal his win.
[SHO] Envy1 vs Colin [ISL]
The post-torb meta revolution continues as Colin taking excellent inspiration from the games before, brings the incredibly cool (and hot) combo of snowshrew + magby, with the controversial cheeser shellder in the back. Envy finally ditches the bray balance again for using tazz/tko's team from last week.

Early game ends up being forced trades, with Colin getting Magby in to claim a mon in Tink but losing his Vull to it soon after. Soon after begins a very boring sequence of Foongus wars that aren't fun to write about, let alone watch so we'll skip to t28 when colin finally gets in snowshrew and gets in a kill against Envy's Stunky and some solid chip on Shellder, before trading his foo to kill it. T38 Colin could've won had Envy's Foo not been Tera Water, or if he had Tera Psychic + Protect on Magby. With the last two mons being Foongus, but Colin having less Synth pp + no evio, he's bound to lose so he forfeits there. Cool team but unfortunately didn't pan out for him here.
[SPA] Eeveeto vs tazz [TMS]


This game had a pretty unfortunate rare case of dc-ing before it got too far, but the replay here has the recreated version. Eeveeto, heinous cook that he is, has subbed in for Eric to presumably play out the rest of the season. His team continues to be remarkable, in the most lcuu build possible he's got larvesta, drifloon, wattrel and shrew....regular shrew. Tazz brings a more conventional triple poison with a trapinch as trapper support.

Eeveeto gets a good start in as he rightly predicts a t4 knock off and switches in weakness policy drifloon, but tazz's immediate tera means it does a flat nothing (boo!). This ends up being a very unremarkable game from here on out, as most of the mons on Eeveeto's side don't really force progress here and tazz's tera helps blank it, although tazz is lucky (rare) and avoids getting a burn and gets the speed ties in the Vull mirror to KO Eeveeto's Vull. With last mon tera steel Wattrel, he just kinda loses the game as Discharge never procs yellow magic.
[GIB] Hacker vs tko [BRE]
The secondary highlight mu for me after the starsama loki fixture, both players coming in with more innovative builds in prior weeks so this week should not disappoint...till it did.

Hacker's safer approach to using a similar team as tazz above but with tink > glim while tko brings another form of torchic offense again. T4 Hacker sacks tink early to get in pinch to remove it immediately...only to get high rolled on Fire Blast. He sends out Stunky but this ends up mattering pretty little as tko has tera ground blast on Torchic, which crits and kills. Hacker is kept in this game by a Fire Blast miss on Foongus, which lets him get in Vull and go Tera Ghost to reveal NP Air Slash into a Mudbray that misses Stone Edge, but without a flinch it ends up mattering not as Mudbray lives and KOs it, letting tko win from there as last mon Foongus won't be enough to beat the remainder of his team.


First eliminations of the season! Three teams out, which of the remaining ones make playoffs? Go go root for your favs!! Which LCers will we see in playoffs and what crazier techs are next?


PS. Drop predicts!
PSPS . writeup got delayed bc a brother not feeling well :tymp:
 
week 6 results:

(84%) Hacker vs Starsama (16%)
(84%) tko
vs Eric (16%)
(84%) tazz vs Envy1 (16%)
(36%) Colin vs Scottie (64%)
(24%) Kaboom vs Lokifan (76%)

well done to teamo for being the only person to score 5 here. also nobody scored 0 which is a first. decent scores all round

week 7 results:

(46%) Starsama vs Lokifan (54%)
(71%) Scottie vs Fille (29%)
(29%) Envy1
vs Colin (71%)
(9%) Eeveeto vs tazz (91%)
(50%) Hacker vs tko (50%)

gj to fille and eric for scoring 5, and nobody scored 0 again. interesting to see how much better we get at predicting as the tour goes on, despite 2 upsets this wk

updated standings: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KL9NwE8PoRg4FRobUMRG-lQ4HftXZ2a7ZBHC8Ttpoa0/edit?usp=sharing
 
WEEK 9 MATCHUPS (almost playoff time baby!!):

[Spartans] Eeveeto vs Fille [Dynamos]
[Shoguns] Envy1 vs Lokifan [Terrors]
[Foxes] Quinn vs taka [Platoon]
[Gibles] false vs Colin [Islanders]
[Machines] tazz vs hacker [Gibles]
[Breakers] tko vs tazz [Machines]



Week 8 Recap (delayed by redacted voting):

[TMS] tazz vs Hacker [GIB]


I must've unkarma'd tazz because his luck's rebounded from all my earlier jokes and this game is definitive proof of that.

Hacker, having a lukewarm season this year, opts to buy into further masochism with bringing wingull again, this one on a ttm build. Meanwhile tazz still enamored with ORAS LC, brings another chou foongus bray team with the new hype mon in LC in Magby on the side. Hacker's forced to trade Vull early on tazz's Magby, which has LO Substitute, making it pretty potent here. Wingull being (unrevealed) tera ground also gives Hacker's team a lot of options to play Chinchou, which is the main threat here but he doesn't take the 50/50 with it and switches out. Further tech in Sleep Talk Foo gives Hacker some extra lines into Foongus, and getting a poison on tazz's Vull later means it gets a free defog in to let Magby back on the field. Hacker committing tera here to KO the Magby unfortunately ends up for naught, as getting burnt by Fire Blast means the Tink doesn't KO it, which cuts off his comeback as tazz eventually completes the win.

[BRE] babyboyblues vs Quinn [FOX]

tko going on surprise vacation (probably reading manga) to let in the yearly bbb game, while starsama also swaps to let Quinn in to make his SCL debut.

Quinn's team is fairly tame, classic brayglim balance and bbb continuing the season's push for Magby and Chou as viable mons in our post-torb world. Not a remarkable first set of turns, lot of mirrors and I think Quinn plays it less optimally as bbb gets most of these turns right. T16-17 reveal non scarf chou and it's done a good number on Quinn's team with two moves. Quinn being forced to sack two mons soon after as bbb trades his glim for a layer of spikes , after which magby cleans up nicely despite quinn's tera water foo.
[ISL] Colin vs Eeveeto [SPA]

Eeveeto's 2nd week into SCL LC this season and he's brought something more reasonable, quite similar to the Hacker team above but just tink instead of a full ttm, with bray and stunky in the back. Colin takes the magby ttm idea and uses it but with a Vull over Stunky and a different Magby set. This set does wonders early as turn 4, getting a free sub up and Eeveeto opting to sack Goth to get rid of its sub. The Magby does some significant chip on the Wingull too, which ends up missing a pretty big Hurricane on a knocked Mareanie. A few turns later, Colin gets rid of rocks on an easy Toed switch and forces Eeveeto to reveal Resttalk Mudbray, which doesn't do much here but take some more chip as it trades with the Toed. Balloon Tink tanking the incoming Stunky also helps Colin keep momentum, as it lets him get some big chip in with Mare. Colin later commits an easy tera on foo to KO a weakened Wingull, and lets his Scarf Vull get knocked and continue the progress before Eeveeto has to commit to tera on his Glim, now revealed as scarf, to make one last break to win. Colin cleans easy here with his remaining team, showing form closer to his LCPL run than his SCL debut season thus far.



[DYN] Fille vs Envy1 [SHO]
Envy's preference for bray based teams continue, but this time he's got a torchic to switch things up. Fille committed to being more innovative in this meta, brings back the controversial Koffing, a mon no one can seem to agree is good or bad again now.

Envy gets going right out the gate, taking advantage of Fille's all-in approach and getting early KOs on the Elekid and Koffing, which I think should've been used interchangeably here instead of going for the raw Psychic t1. Fille has special Vull out next, but this doesn't do much into Glim. Envy gets good progress in as he gets two Glim turns right with Vull and trades for Fille getting rocks up, and gets a good poison in vs Fille's Foo soon after. Fille having Overcoat Vull also pretty much gives away his set being Idef, and the endgame comes down to him committing tera on it to try and win, but Envy does well with going tera ghost on Glimmet to beat both Toed and Vull to wrap up this endgame.


[TER] Lokifan vs Taka [PLA]

I jumped the gun early with Koffing in the previous game, as Lokifan also brings it on top of several mons that are just weird and less viable, but then again this keeps paving the way for the rest of the meta to take notes. Big fan of the fake ttm here, tink....tentacool...and mare koffing, with a zorua-h to top it off. Taka, making his lc scl debut after subbing in for Osh, brings a mostly standard team but with Numel.

Almost immediately, the Zorua is slept and the real Tentacool is sent out to knock Chou's eviolite, before flip turning on Vull. Taka does well to play into Lokifan's tink with Vull and gets a cool defog off before sending out Numel and hard Fire Blasting on the telegraphed Vull from Loki. This won't end up lasting much longer as Loki gets to easily trade for Taka's Vull, and just committing the tera on Vull to Ground Blast Glim out of the game means it's easy picking from here. Taka's Foongus send doesn't matter as it gets KO'd instead of bluffing tera successfully. He should've kept it and gone Foo which revealed Tera Electric immediately after anyway, and revenges before letting in Toed—err, Tentacool which speed ties with chou and wins to KO it with Gunk. Scarf foo on Loki's side just wins the endgame from there, so the weird mons didn't end up doing much except tentacool but still a cool bring.

Final week of regular season, and one last debut in false subbing in for Hacker who's probably sitting relieved somewhere he doesn't play this meta for a while now. Place your bets on who joins tazz and the Technical Machines in playoffs! Lokifan is almost certainly a lock with the Terrors, but who of Colin, tko, Fille and false/Hacker will join them? Find out this week!
 
WEEK 10 MATCHUPS (PLAYOFFS BEGIN):

[Terrors] Lokifan vs Larry [Dynamos]

[Machines] tazz vs Colin [Islanders]




Week 9 Recap (goodbye and thanks for all memories):


[SPA] Eeveeto vs Fille [DYN]
Eeveeto gets one last hurrah this season as he brings the most abominable team known to man vs Fille's relatively sane magbychou balance. To put it into further context, Eeveeto has a grand total of 1 LCOU mon (2 if you count the not so present in tours trapinch), that being Stunky.

I like Eeveeto's t1-2, Fake Out into Technician boosted Covet is a strong opening move with the lack of ghost types right now, so it's a better knock/thief as it lets you run itemless to grab a free eviolite, which it does off Fille's Foongus. He then burns tera t3, which I think is pretty bad on paper in the current LC meta as teras feel better used defensively — but eliminating foongus with tera psychic blast does have its benefits. Fille reveals Scarf Vull next and dodges a Gunk Shot to keep Foo intact, before getting rid of Stunky. By t8, Fille's Mudbray reveals Heavy Slam into Bramblin, which is short of a 2HKO it looks. Bramblin's ability to be a spinblocker that spins and sets hazards would be so good in this meta if it weren't for the ubiquity of Vull and Stunky, but alas — it gets up a spike and switches. After getting a Rapid Spin in the Bramblin heals up with Strength Sap, another useful trait even if it's still unable to 1v1 Vull/Stunky in OU with it. Trapinch gets rocks up as Fille sacks Bray to scout, and Scarf Mag kills Chou after taking some chip. Fille takes this chance to reveal Tera Steel SD Foo, which forces a Bramblin sack. Fille choosing to U-turn here to keep foo out of ajet range from corphish is fine, but gives up Magby in the process while also getting another sack in Meowth. Very confusingly, he also just doesn't take the risk on going for HJK on Corphish, taking some more chip and letting Vull die, but it doesn't matter as Corph lives a raw HJK anyway, so Eeveeto wins.
[SHO] Envy vs Lokifan [TER]
Lokifan, funny player he is this season with his team builds, brings a sun HO into Envy's team (which is the same six as Fille above). With at least two (half more if you count frail Magby) as Fire resists this should be something manageable for Envy matchup-wise.

First turn Loki scouts the Fake Out and gets up Sunny Day immediately after and sacks Dig-A, upon which Torchic comes in and misses Fire Blast into Chou. This is a bit rough as Fire Blast clean 2HKOs this Chou under sun, so Loki could've been better off had he not taken unwanted chip on Torchic. This lets Mienfoo tera water and revenge the torchic in exchange for some chip, and he sends out magby to take another sun boosted hit. Predicting Head Smash, he goes Foongus only for Loki to click Flare Blitz with Growlithe. Loki goes Timburr next to take a Foo HJK as Growlithe can't do much to it now, and then forces some more chip on Vull with Mach Punch before it's sacked to let in Shroodle and sun again. Being u-turn, it does pivot out of Vull for massive chip and let in the dog again, which does more to Foo switching in and burns it, helpful for later. Loki then takes this chance to Tera Fire as the Flare Blitz does enough to KO foo with burn chip. The Magby takes 84% from this too without sun, but the Shroodle gets it up again and Bulbasaur comfortably wins from here.
[FOX] Quinn vs Taka [PLA]
Quinn and Taka continue to play out for their teams' starter spots to close out regular season. Quinn brings a ttm featuring Greedy_eb's favorite mon Nymble (S-tier on the greedy VR) and Taka brings a toed-glim structure with magby and snubbull.


The funniest t1 turn in SCL award goes to Quinn for being able to pull off a Protect into Counter KO on Snubbull. Taka tries to take this chance to setup SD Foo, but Vull scares it out and Quinn goes for a chip and knock on Glim. After clearing the hazards, t11 they both double and Taka has Magby in on Tink . Taka tries to wisp here and gets it on Quinn's Mare switch-in, and after some funny doubles gets rocks up again with glim on tink. Quinn also gets his rocks and KOs with Ice Hammer while taking some chip, but Magby comes in and hits a Fire Blast, and threatens Psychic but Quinn scouts. Hoping Taka chokes by going for Fire Blast here, Quinn having no better tera options teras the Toed hoping to catch it but Taka teras too and clicks Psychic, from which he's comfortable into the endgame and wins.
[GIB] false vs Colin [ISL]
In the desperate race for Gibles and Islanders to claim one of the last playoff slots, LC Open Winner Hacker has been swapped to let his LC Open runner-up opponent False play his former LCPL teammate Colin. Colin got the popular Magchou build of the week, but with a Snowshrew added in, and False's team is a triple poison with trapper pinch.

Aggressive t1 as False goes for Brave Bird and tries to KO Foo, but slowfoo eats and u-turns out. He continues this aggression by staying in on the Snowshrew which gets rocks up in exchange for getting knocked. False sacks it to Defog on the Shrew and then forces it out with Glim, which gets some chip on Colin's chou. A few turns later False gets rocks in with glim on foongus, before the inevitable boring foongus war happens. This doesn't last long as False gets a good switch in with Stunky which reveals substitute to block spore, which gives a lot of threatening paths for him here. Sacking the snowshrew, Colin sends in Vullaby to break the sub but gets the 50/50 wrong after being poisoned and loses it to sucker punch. Colin's Magby wreaks some havoc here with Fire Blast, doing 76% to Foo and then Psychic to clean Glim. Pinch comes into trap, but Colin reveals Overheat which KOs it immediately in exchange for some more mild chip with First Impression.

Unfortunately, Colin's endgame doesn't work as once the Magby is sacked on Stunky, it subs up again and tera darks to knock Colin's attempt at blocking a Gunk Shot 50/50 with tera steel chou. Taking more chip with Gunk, Colin concedes the win here, but wins the war as Islanders would eventually clutch a playoff berth.
[BRE] tko vs tazz [TMS]
Tko and his SCL team fight for dear life for a playoff chance miracle and this game vs tazz was a tough one as machines have been hot and strong, with tazz doing well when he's not lucked. Tazz has copied a Hacker/Starsama ttm gull build from earlier in the season, and tko has brought goober offense with the 2nd Meowth of the week (100% winrate so far).

tko gets a wisp off t1 on vullaby, and then tries to force sd foo up but tazz burns tera immediately on vull to KO the foo with HJK recoil and Brave Bird. tko gets his vull in and reveals np, but it can't progress vs tink so he swaps to bray and gets rocks up instead. As both get rocks up, they double after and tko gets it right by going magby on tazz's toed. The Magby, being modest, kills here (although tazz is riled up thinking it's a 6.3% roll and he's been famously lucked again) so rocks stay up. tazz's mare gets spored after, and he goes vull on vull but tko's vull gets a nasty plot in and weak armor proc'd, before revealing tera blast ground on tazz's mare after, which easily cleans from here to give tko the win, meowth a continued 100% winrate in scl this season but unfortunately breakers can't lay claim to a playoffs spot as islanders clutch up elsewhere.


That's all it for this regular season! Tune in for the semis with Larry coming in for the fille/kaboom pair to play loki while tazz and colin duke it out in the other spot. Who's making finals, place your bets on your favorites and s/o to the LCers for another great season of games in SCL !
 
WEEK 11 MATCHUPS (FINAL):

[Machines] tazz vs Larry [Dynamos]






Week 10 Recap (short lived):


[TER] Lokifan vs Larry [DYN]


The only LC game of the week, since the Machines Islanders set ended up being so one-sided the LC game went deadgamed.......

Larry subs in for the Fille/Kaboom pair for the Dynamos as they do some last minute experimenting with the lineup in playoffs. Lokifan comes off a strong x-1 season looking to add another W to his tally to take Terrors to finals.

Loki's team is borderline normal next to most of his brings this season, although he's spiced up the bray-foongus balance with a snowshrew + houndour. Larry's team is decidedly more bizarre, with a Numel and Dewpider. Dewpider in particular is a funny bring in respone to the current state of the meta, since it leans fire heavy right now and dewpider's ability + tera makes it an excellent check for that.

Loki's lead into foongus is a pretty easy u-turn into a boring foongus fight, but the mirror goes wrong as he gets a spore wrong and doubles to shrew. Larry's Numel comes in to hit some Fire Blasts, chipping the Mienfoo and then doing an ugly crit + burn on t7 to Vullaby. The further reveal of encore tink to stifle snowshrew from doing further chip on tink and locking into rapid spin also gives Larry more edge, as it lets him get a free knock on Houndour switching in. T14 the Dewpider finally switches in and it teras immediately, doing a whopping 79% to Foo to KO. The Foongus comes in to scare it out, and Loki doubles again to snowshrew here only to face another critical turn as he lands a 1 hit axel (3 hits + ice shard kill all variants of foo). The next few turns end up being a battle for Loki to keep hazards on the field, which he can't do as Mudbray gets chipped trying to 1v1 the defog Vullaby. After this defog/rocks war ends t30, t31 foongus is back on the field but Loki unfortunately calls a wrong bluff as the Dewpider stays in on Foongus instead of Larry doubling to Foongus, meaning Loki's shrew switch in ends up for naught as it gets KO'd. Loki's Houndour enters soon after and takes some more chip on sludge bomb, and he does some clever doubles to scout if the dewpider is scarf or not, sacking Mudbray and Foongus' Eviolite to get a spore in on Mienfoo. Houndour kills the Mienfoo, but Loki gets it wrong on t47 as he decides to go for the flinchplay hoping it's not scarf dewpider. In the end a knocked Foongus can't win the 1v1 so Loki's winstreak finally comes to an end, and with it Terrors' finals hopes get dashed as they ultimately lose the week.

That's almost it for SCL! One more week left, drop your predicts: it's been a very fun season to watch and write about and I think the SV LC meta is the best it's been with the high quality games and shakeups coming out of the meta in the last few weeks. See you all next week for one last recap!
 
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