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Its that time again! Worked on 4 avatars this year
Foxes
I did one for the foxes last year, this time around I ended up making both! Sprites by the goat Kyledove, custom ninetales sprite & trainer edits by me
Islanders
Similar to the foxes but in a different way, I did this year's male sprite for the Islanders using one of my Eggy sprites from last year, as well as a funny looking Wake
Dynamos
And last but not least, a sprite for the Dynamos. Using their tried and true GZap sprite made by Brumi, with Elesa in her newest outfit from Masters made by yours truly.
woooooo SCL time again!!
I got to work on a bunch of avatars this year and as always I'd like to thank deetah, sharpclaw, Irpachuza, RADU, Turtleye_ and especially Altthiel who helped me so, so much when I didn't have time to (especially for Gibles avatars)
Studio Gible
I got to work on Gibles' avatars this year, once again with huge help from Altthiel
The Volo sprite was made by Brumi, and I made both Gible's and Dreepy's sprites from scratch
Power Plant Dynamos
If you ask me, Dynamos are the hardest avatars to get done each year because topping what Brumirage made a few years back is pretty much impossible
Thank god, Turtleye did an insane job at it this year, and I was able to use parts of his work on this one
The Guzma sprite was made by kyledove, and the Gapdos sprite was once again made by Conyjams
Showdown Shoguns
Huge HUGE thanks to Turtleye for allowing us to use this gambit sprite, and RADU for all the help on the female avatar (especially for that one unused version LOL)
Red-Masters sprite by kyledove, Kingambit sprite by Turtleye (from blunder's avatar, thanks to him as well for letting us use it)
I'll do a longer post whenever I have time but I was late to post LOL
I wasn’t as able to contribute this time around, so grateful—and blown away by their work!—as always to Clem, deetah, RADU, Irpachuza, and Turtleye_. Way to go team!
Uncharted Terrors
M - (Adaman) by Brumirage, recolor by me
F - (Drasna) by Gnomowladny, recolor by me
Gyarados by me
A bit late, but here's a bit of an "SCL Preview" post! The concept is sorta like what they do before the playoffs in American sports leagues where they list all the best/longest tenured players without a championship, so that's what I'm doing here, just a bunch of players according to various criteria, players without the SCL green trophy and without any trophy at all, competing for one of them this tournament. (p.s. managers count too, but they were slightly more annoying to search through so they get italicized)
First, the most obvious of these to me was "players with the most sheet wins." The list of players in this tournament without an SCL trophy, ranked by sheet wins, is as follows:
1. Finchinator (119)
2. ABR (88)
3. watashi (87)
4. Nails (86)
5. Punny (85)
Next, we'll ask the same question, except this time the leaderboard is organized by sheet differential rather than total wins. A few names stay the same, a few turn over.
1. ABR (+43)
2. Punny (+29)
3. Finchinator (+27)
4. Santu (+23) 5. lax (+22)
5. Star (+19)
This is neat, but lumping all the team tours together obscures some of the interesting details here; after all, who's to say all these players regularly play SCL? Here's the list of players in this tournament without an SCL trophy, ranked by SCL/Snake Draft wins:
1. Punny (42)
2. Finchinator (41)
3. Kushalos (39)
4. Nails (37)
5. robjr (33)
And this same question, but ranked according to SCL/Snake Draft sheet differential:
1. Punny (+22)
2. Nails (+18)
3. Scottie (+12)
4. Sacri' (+11)
4. MichaelderBeste2 (+11)
With all of that laid out, I'll then ask the same questions, but instead of looking for the top players without an SCL green trophy, ranking players with no trophy at all. The players in this tournament without any trophy at all, ranked by sheet wins:
1. Kushalos (62)
2. Sacri' (58)
3. Gilbert arenas (51)
4. Scottie (43) 5. Mana (35)
5. Xrn (34)
5. TheFranklin (33)
Same question, but according to sheet differential instead of total wins:
1. Attribute (+15)
2. Scottie (+14)
2. TDNT (+14)
2. hellom (+14)
5. Sacri' (+13)
Now, trophyless players in this tournament, sorted by SCL/Snake Draft sheet wins:
1. Scottie (29)
2. Sacri' (25) 3. Feliburn (23)
3. Accel (21)
3. TheFranklin (20)
3. GXE (20) 4. Xrn (17)
4. Icemaster (15)
4. Danny (15)
And one last one, listing trophyless players in this tournament by their win differential in SCL/Snake Draft games specifically:
1. Scottie (+12)
2. Sacri' (+11)
3. Kushalos (+7)
3. GXE (+7)
3. Lokifan (+7) 3. Xrn (+7)
There are a few more neat topics I want to cover. First of all, some of my previous posts have highlighted the players to win each of Smogon's three team trophies, a group that currently consists of SoulWind, BIHI, elodin, Tace, and S1nn0hC0nfirm3d. The following players can join that club this year with a team win:
Breakers: ABR, Kebab mlml
Foxes: Punny
Platoon: Nails, robjr
Shoguns: lax
Most of you probably knew, whether you've ever thought about it or not, that no player has won both the SCL/Snake Draft green trophy and the Masters purple trophy (given that Empo and MDB would be the only possibilities). What many people may not have realized is that no player has won both the SCL/Snake Draft green trophy and the OST yellow trophy in their careers. As such, the list of players who can pick up a unique two-trophy combination this tour is as follows:
Three players in this tournament have multiple individuals trophies and no SCL trophy, those being Santu with 2, MichaelderBeste2 with 3, and ABR with 4. Expanding this list to include players with multiple individual finals, we can also consider Punny, Lax, and Giannis Antetokommo-o here. Is this interesting? I don't know! The point here is just to indicate other ways to think about the question of "who are the good players without a trophy at this tournament who are potentially due."
So tl;dr here is my approximate ranking of SCL teams this year based on "who has the most accomplished players looking for a big trophy here," formulated by adding up everyone who ended up on one of these lists. If you are used to the sports experience of your team getting knocked out of the playoffs early and choosing instead to cheer for teams with some 40 year olds taking one last shot or for a young superstar to get their first, this may be for you! Does this ranking seem wrong, that there are other players more "deserving" that aren't on here? I mean yeah, sure, the criteria are all arbitrary anyway, follow your heart.
This is in part a PDC congratulations post. With his Classic XI win he picks up a fifth trophy and a first individual trophy, which enters him into a tie for 12th in the Smogon Hall of Fame, with Bad Ass, Earthworm and Philip7086. A perhaps less obvious result of this is that PDC is now a single trophy away from entering a top 10 whose composition hasn't changed since McMeghan and Tricking picked up their fifth trophies after SPL XIV. This post is also inspired by Santu jumping from 78th to 20th in the Hall of Fame in the span of just a couple weeks, which has made me think about just how quickly someone could theoretically leap up this list. This is not really an SCL post, but there are enough SCL players mentioned hereWe're going to follow this idea to its extremities.
What is the Smogon Hall of Fame? It's the list of every player in Smogon history with a trophy, sorted first by total number of trophies and with ties broken by number of individual trophies. This is not the consensus greatest of all time top 10 ranking, which at last poll went as follows:
Between permabanned players not eligible for the ranking and players whose stocks have risen since that last poll (M Dragon, Santu, MichaelderBeste2) I don't think this actually reflects consensus at this point in time, but it's a useful point of comparison.
The current Hall of Fame's top 10, on the other hand, is shown here:
1. Empo
2. ABR
3. SoulWind
4. BKC
5. August
6-7. McMeghan/Tricking
8. -Tsunami-
9. Dave
10-11. goofball/Veteran in Love
SPL XIV is what gave McMeghan and Tricking their fifth trophies to tie them with goofball and Veteran in Love to make it so that there's no clean split for top 10 (both players have since picked up another). And before them 10th place was tied with a few other players, so I don't even know the last time there was a clean split between top 10 and 11th onwards.
So in order to enter into that goofball/Veteran in Love tie for 10th, you need two individual trophies and three team trophies. Meanwhile, to enter the top 10 outright, you either need three individuals and two teams, or any six trophies total. PDC is now noteworthy because he's, by my count, the only active player with five trophies and (since there's no one with three individuals and one team) therefore the only player who can enter the top 10 outright with only one more team trophy. Of course, he could also do so with OST, and I'm pretty sure between SPL tiebreaks and OST finals extensions either one could theoretically happen first?
So those are our research questions. Between now and the end of SPL and OST, we also have the ongoing Masters and SCL. We know that PDC can enter the top 10 by April, theoretically, but is he the only one? Who else is close? Who is the furthest player away that could theoretically put themselves right behind Shake and Dave in the Hall of Fame? If nothing else, the goal is to demonstrate that in terms of pure time, no one's actually that far away from the top of the historical record.
We know that PDC is the only player a single team trophy away, but to enter the top 10 with just one more individual trophy, you need to currently have either two individuals + two teams, or one individual + four teams. The latter category is all inactive besides PDC, but there are three in the former. Atticus is definitely retired; while I'm not actually sure whether to count him as retired, M Dragon could enter the top ten with an OST win in 2026. Does that sound too remote to you? Well, Santualso would only need a single individual to do so, except he doesn't need to wait until OST to do so, because he's still in the 5-1 bracket in Masters.
To be two team trophies away from top 10, you need to currently have either three individual trophies, or have four total trophies. For the purposes of this exercise, you also need to be actually playing in SCL. The three-individuals club is straightforward; Ciele is retired, so MichaelderBeste2 is the only player that could enter the top 10 by adding two team trophies to his three individuals (although to my knowledge the Islanders are basically eliminated, so this seems out of reach). The four-total club is a little bigger, but who's still alive in SCL? Punny and Nails could have done it if their teams weren't eliminated, but winning SCL and SPL back-to-back is still mathematically in play for elodin and TJ, along with the aforementioned Santu.
There are a few ways to get one more individual and one more team trophy; Masters + SCL, Masters + SPL, SCL + OST, SPL + OST. The players who could reach top 10 with one of these combos need to currently have either four total trophies, or two individuals + one team trophy. Let's start with Masters + SCL; anyone still alive in both tournaments who fits the above description could enter the top 10 before the end of 2025. That doesn't give us any new names, and we'll notice that SCL + OST doesn't either; the only players who could make it with either combo can also do it with SCL + SPL. Masters + SPL is more interesting, though; Garay oak and Luthier are still alive in Masters and could enter the top 10 by taking the purple trophy and then winning SPL. SPL and OST introduce the annoyance of evaluating whether players are actually retired, so you'll have to forgive my judgment calls, but I think it's at least a mathematical possibility that Tace, Raiza and Conflict learn how to play SV OU and take the back-to-back yellow and red trophies, although I would politely turn down that bet.
I'll also add as a postscript in this section that anyone who currently has one individual and two teams could make the top 10 by taking both Masters and OST. This would have been a larger section if the number was larger, but lax is the only one who can accomplish this, as he's the only such player still alive in Masters.
Once the top 10 gets more remote, it becomes a requirement to be still playing in either Masters or SCL to have a mathematical shot at getting there by April. Let's start with two more team trophies and one more individual. That gets you into the top 10 if you currently have two individuals, or if you have any three trophies. You also need to be playing in SCL, at least. Among those not mentioned yet, watashi and Niko would enter the top 10 in the Hall of Fame if they won SCL and Masters followed by SPL in April, while Kate, Eternal Spirit, Kebab mlml, Larry and S1nn0hC0nfirm3d could get there with an SCL win followed by wins at both OST and SPL, although I believe Larry and Gama are functionally eliminated here because of their SCL teams.
Now, how about reaching top 10 by April by taking Masters, OST, and either of the next two teamtours? In addition to the players we've mentioned so far, you'd only need a single individual and a single team trophy. Unfortunately, there is no one new that can do so with Masters + OST + SCL. I know! However, we do have to accept the fact that there is a mathematical chance that we see Hall of Fame top 10 Luigi, and all it would take is Masters + OST + SPL. Better start grinding!
In theory, anyone who currently has at least two trophies, or who has a single individual, can make the top 10 outright by April if they sweep the next four tournaments: Masters, SCL, OST, SPL. Doing so would yield the former player two individuals and four team trophies, the latter player three individuals and two teamtours. Since said player would need to take both SCL and Masters, they'd obviously need to still be alive in both tournaments. This is more of a theoretical construct than anything. Nobody is sweeping the next four tournaments no matter how really, really funny it'd be. However, the whole fun of playing with numbers is dealing with outliers and remote possibilities. So let's count them?
The only player who could do so by adding this treasure trove to their existing single individual is Giannis Antetokommo-o, who would need a Shoguns win to get there. Honestly, that's not outlandish for me. Basically every one of Giannis's numbers in individual tournaments beyond finals winrate suggests a top 10 player all-time (we don't talk about teamtours). But unfortunately, I don't think many other possibilities are meant to be. Storm Zone, Malekith, DonSalvatore and Rubyblood aren't playing in SCL, while LpZ, Excal, Gondra, Jytcampbell, mind gaming, robjr, Feyy and Fusien either never entered Masters or have already lost.
There are actually two more players who could do it, though. Two players still alive in both SCL and Masters and who currently have two team trophies. These players could, although I think this is a "heat death of the universe is more likely to arrive first" type of deal, enter the top 10 outright by sweeping the next four tournaments. Due to the current SCL standings, one is more likely than the other; the "top 10 all-time DAHLI" world is at least something the human brain can comprehend, if not rationalize. The other is funny in a sort of cosmic sense, even if it's not actually possible because the Foxes have been eliminated. However, multiple team DQs in SCL are probably more likely than sweeping four tournaments in a row, so I'll at least mention that if they were to do so, we'd be looking at "top 10 all-time avarice."
Because SCL is making sense for the first time...it is time for the first-ever SCL eulogy. We will start at the bottom with the Foxes:
From my recollection, the Foxes have historically been pretty awful in this tournament. The team was led by umbry, Gondra, and xrn this year. The Foxes's failures this year do not particularly surprise me. My pre-tour analysis was that they basically had a bunch of competent slots with a lack of real sheet warrior carries besides Punny. Speaking of which, his underperformance in the tour is certainly the most surprising thing in this screenshot. He had gone 42-20 in SCL in the past and allegedly had amazing UU support in the form of umbry; I honestly thought he was slightly underpriced based on his past production. If you told me before the tour Punny was going negative, I would have said this team would get last, and that is precisely what ended up happening. This is one of those buys that you certainly can't really fault them for even though it did not work out. Sometimes, even great players have bad tours.
However, the managers did blatantly disrespect the sheet on several occasions when constructing this roster. TheFranklin + Elias PSY + SoulWind were 63.5k combined. For that cost, you would probably like to see these players combine for around 18 wins at least. Franklin's last two SCLs ended with him going 7-11. He also did bad in SPL, but he wasn't playing RU so it's less relevant. He did farm in prior SCLs, so at least there was some basis for his price, but there is at least some rather predictable risk to this pick. Elias PSY has gone 12-7 in his past two SCLs, having an amazing tournament last year. Considering his small sample of games, though, it is certainly a possibility that they were buying high on him. As I wrote in my predicts, I would have preferred to see one more good tour from him before he went for such an astronomical twice. SW, meanwhile, is one of the best players ever, but is not exactly good at sheet farming. He has not gone +3 or higher in a team tour since 2020, and is obviously nerfed without the existence of BW OU in this tour. He also went 2-7 last year. He is obviously still a phenomenal player, but he is someone that you buy to clutch things out in the playoffs and tiebreaks, not someone you buy to help you make the playoffs at such an exorbitant price. All that is to say, expecting 18 wins for these three players combined seemed a bit ridiculous to me. They ended up with 11 wins so far with 1 week to go thanks largely to The Franklin's sublime performance; I projected them for around 15, so this seems kind of normal. To me, the odds of these three players combined getting 18+ wins was pretty low.
The team also retained someone who had not played a full team tour before in Ann. They were ranked 2nd in the official PR due to having seen success in tours I do not particularly care about. Personally, I think retaining someone that has yet to play a full SCL / SPL season is a bit insane. Were they really going to be over 10k? I suppose it's possible, but it seems unnecessary to me. They also paid 11.5k for an Ubers player without a sheet game...at least that one somewhat worked. The main standout on the team thus far is Stareal, who managed to go 5-3 through 8 weeks for 8k; he was 16-25 on the sheet before this tour, so he has certainly exceeded expectations thus far. avarice's 0-6 certainly helped cancel this performance, out, though.
Overall, it seems like this team just trusted way too much in people that have not displayed the ability to consistently get wins in team tours. There was a lot of sheet disrespect going on here. They certainly had nowhere close to the amount of bankable wins you would expect of a playoff team, and their primary sheet carry had an off-tour, pretty much sinking them from the outset. They also apparently had the possibility of retaining Starsama and ESM, but did not [Starsama apparently rejected the retain because they asked him too late]. Retaining Ann over ESM certainly appears rather nonsensical in hindsight. I would definitely rather retain someone that went positive the year before than someone with no real sheet sample. The reasons for the teams failures can thus be summarized as follows:
1. Blatant sheet disrespect with half the lineup
2. Punny underperformance
3. Questionable retain decisions
See you in the next eulogy if I decide to write one.
Welcome back to yet another eulogy. This time we will be discussing the Indigo Platoon:
This team looks extremely weird. The team spent 43.5k on the core of Fusien + bhkg for OU, two players with a combined sheet record of 18-14 before this tournament. That genuinely seemed insane to me. Fusien was extraordinarily hyped though, and was coming off an OST win + good World Cup showing. That being said, I am generally very against spending over 20k on someone with a lack of good sheet results. He literally went 3-6 earlier this year in SPL. bhkg was less hyped, only being ranked 13th in the official PR, but he did manage to go 9-5 before this tournament. For this price, you would like to get at least 12 wins combined from these two slots, but that really seemed a bit ambitious to me. I projected them to get around 9, which looks like it's going to be accurate. bhkg got farmed while Fusien continued performing well; I did not anticipate that, but the end result is much the same. JJ09LIE had performed pretty well prior to this tour, and I said he could become a sheet warrior with a great performance in this tour. He is not playing in Week 9, and will end the season 4-4. He certainly did not perform badly, but it is not ideal for a 19k price tag. The OU core only getting 12 wins through 8 weeks for a ridiculous 67.5k is one of the major obvious causes for this team's shortcomings.
The main person I had a good amount of faith in on this team was Nails, who I gave a confidence rating of 7.5 to prior to the season. He generally always performs well in SCL and I felt he could even be underpriced, despite his more pedestrian showing last year. He certainly should have been more money than bhkg. He has a chance to get 6 wins, which is about what I thought would happen. He was one of the lone bright spots on the team. The far more surprising bright spot, though, is Esteb4n. He was ranked low in the PRs, went for 6.5k, and somehow managed to get 6 wins. That honestly seems like kind of a miracle; we will see if he can keep it up next year. Unfortunately, the efforts of these 2 players + the aforementioned Fusien was not enough to keep this sinking ship afloat.
The team's other lower tier slots pretty much all performed badly. The Magician unfortunately did not have the magic this time around, but he does have bad tours from time to time, so it's not particularly astonishing. None of the other players performing poorly is really that surprising either. This team took a lot of chances on players with no real relevant results, and most of them didn't pan out. They did end up 8th on my PRs for a reason. robjr usually goes around even; he went 2-4, but perhaps he could hav put up his normal 4-5 performance if he played all 9 weeks. Shockingly, he did not outperform Santu like Heatranator predicted. Exiline doing that poorly is probably the most shocking thing here; he had performed pretty admirably prior to this tour. He was only 3k, though, so him doing badly should not hurt the team that much in theory...but when you spend 67k on OU and get 12 wins in 8 weeks, you do kind of need slots like this to pan out. Overall, though, there is really nothing that surprising here.
This primary reasons for this team's failures are honestly just the following:
1. Spending 67k on an OU core that was rather unlikely to put up 19-20 wins
2. Gama / Exiline underperformance
The first decision pretty much killed all of their leeway. They also took a bunch of chances on players with little relevant experience, but Esteb4n's amazing performance pretty much cancelled out kyuss + Kaboom's failures. Oh, there is also the hidden third reason:
Yeah...any time you start the season with an act loss, it's probably just a wrap.
Welcome to day 3 of eulogies. This time, we will be discussing the Technical Machines. If I remember correctly, Howkings managed this franchise once before he was blackballed by the TDs...the end of an era.
This team was ranked last in my PRs, so I clearly had very little faith in them going into the tour. Last year, they were amazing despite getting a similar rating. This year, with the tournament making more sense, the wheels pretty much fell off immediately, as the team went 3-17 in the first 2 weeks of the season...I would guess that is the worst start to any team tour ever by any team, but I have not fact checked that. The team spent an egregious 31.5k on clean, who had made OLT finals and had gone 8-5 in SPL + World Cup. His overall sheet was certainly not impressive...and it's not like 8-5 is some phenomenal record. He was 11-12 prior to this tournament. As written in my PRs:
"The Liberator — 9/5/25, 6:21 PM
I was like 3-7 back in 2023 when I was bad"
"This man is acting like 2023 is like 2012 or something bro that's something sergio aguero could say not you. My god go win some games."
Well, I will be taking my victory lap after this tour. He was allegedly unlucky, but there's no way you are convincing me that someone with this sheet record should conceivably be 31.5k. The team's other two OU players at the start of the campaign were Hiko and leng loi, who went for 24.5k combined. Hiko was 13-8 coming into the tournament and leng loi was 10-7. I didn't really think retaining leng loi was necessary, but they chose to do it anyway. The total price of the core was 56k. For that price, you probably want around 17 wins combined; I projected them for around 13, which is a big reason why they were last in my PRs. Hiko and clean went 4-10 combined and leng loi had a disastrous tour before being sold back. It's not really surprising that the team failed with this hefty investment panning out so poorly.
The team's other two retains were Icemaster and tazz. Icemaster was once heralded as some type of Ubers god. While he failed to live up to those expectations, he was coming off a a 7-3 campaign. He is currently 4-4, which is "fine" for 12k. Retaining tazz seemed unnecessary to me; prior to this tour, he had one tour where he went +2, three even tours, and one disastrous tour. His 6-4 tour being his most recent one is what I assume convinced the managers to retain him. This tour, he wound up going negative, which is honestly not that surprising. It's not like that will sink you for only 10k, but when you have used up most of your leeway on an OU core that flopped, these types of performances will only make success nigh impossible. I also thought that Lpz was a bit overpriced, but they managed to perform well enough thus far. DJ Breloominati is the real star of this team, though, going 4-1 for only 5k. frankjosh also managed to go 3-1. However, neither of these people played a game until after the team started the season 3-17, so there is honestly not much they could have done. The Doubles pick seemed very strange. ratpacker was only ranked 7th in the Official PRs, so clearly there were a lot of mainers who were not big fans of him. He performed pretty poorly, so I suppose they were right. Veteran Sacri' also had an awful tour, albeit one that was allegedly marred by luck. I also said that he was an overpay because of how hard the UU pool was, which I suppose was true.
Overall, this team's failures are wholly unsurprising. This was the only team in the tournament without a single player with a confidence rating of over 5.5 on my PRs, essentially meaning that they took risks on a lot of entities without a proven track record of success. The reasons for their failures can thus be summarized as follows:
1. Overpaid on an OU core that was unlikely to provide good value. They then underperformed heavily.
2. Building a roster without a solid foundation of competent sheet farmers
PDC
M Dragon
Santu
MichaelderBeste2
Punny
Nails
elodin
TJ
Garay oak
Luthier
Tace
Raiza
Conflict
lax
watashi
Niko
Kate
Eternal Spirit
Kebab mlml
Larry
S1nn0hC0nfirm3d
Luigi
Giannis Antetokommo-o
DAHLI
avarice
