Smogon Champions League V - Commencement Thread

[Turtleye_]

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.

As always, big shoutout to the rest of the sprite team Clem deetah sharpclaw RADU and Irpachuza they put in a lot of work as usual

GL and HF to everyone!

 

[RADU]

gm, had to pleasure to work on a few avis this SCL

Indigo Platoon

I made the train on the male avatar from scratch, while the female one was just a recolor and editing the falinks made by brumi+sharpclaw last year

Circuit Breakers

irpachuza started off with the concept and I took over since he was busy; making the fx was quite fun.

shoutouts the melmetal team management for not knowing melmetal doesnt know fire punch (this was the first version

)

also made the trainer's sword effect on this avi

good luck everybody in scl! see u guys for spl/rbtt

 

[Clem]

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

 

[sharpclaw]

Last but not least! The caboose to our CA train!

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

Happy SCL!

 

[ego]

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)

Accomplished players in this tournament with no SCL green trophy

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)

Accomplished players in this tournament looking for their first overall trophy

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:

• Breakers: ABR (OST)
• Islanders: MichaelderBeste2 (Masters)
• Platoon: Fusien (OST)

For those who are curious, the winners of the other combinations are here

Classic + SCL: SoulWind, McMeghan, Ojama
OLT + SCL: Poek, Ox the Fox, SoulWind
OSDT + SCL: Biosci, kingofmars
Slam + SCL: ict, Garay oak
STour + SCL: SoulWind, McMeghan, TJ, Ojama, z0mOG, Posho

SPL + SCL: SoulWind, McMeghan, BIHI, Poek, TJ, elodin, Tace, kingofmars, Gtcha, Kate, Larry, S1nn0hC0nfirm3d, emma, false, Gondra, obii, RedEmption, Rubyblood, Shrug
WCoP + SCL: SoulWind, Dave, BIHI, Garay oak, elodin, Luthier, Tace, Ox the Fox, z0mOG, Niko, S1nn0hC0nfirm3d, teal6, Welli0u, avarice, Corazan, emforbes, Eo Ut Mortus, London Beats, Shafofficiel

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.

1. Breakers: Santu, ABR, GXE, watashi, Kebab mlml
2. Gible: Star, Finchinator, Gilbert arenas, Feliburn, Accel
3. Islanders: hellom, MichaelderBeste2, Kushalos
4. Platoon: Fusien, Nails, robjr
5. Terrors: Lokifan, Scottie, TDNT
6. Foxes: Punny, TheFranklin, Xrn
7. Machines: Icemaster, Sacri'
8. Spartans: Danny, Attribute
9. Shoguns: lax, Giannis Antetokommo-o
10. Dynamos: Mana

 

[ego]

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:

Top 10 by poll ranking

1. ABR
2. Empo
3. SoulWind
4. McMeghan
5. BKC
6. Tricking
7. Ciele
8. Tesung
9. bro fist
10. Earthworm

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:

Hall of Fame top 10

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.

Question 1: who's a single individual trophy away from top 10

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, Santu also 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.

Question 2: who could enter the top 10 with just the next two team tours?

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.

Question 3: who could enter the top 10 with two more trophies

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.

Question 4: who can get to the top 10 with three more trophies

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."

 

[-Tsunami-]

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.

 

[-Tsunami-]

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.

See you tomorrow for the next eulogy.

 

[LOOR]

i trained esteb4n, not a miracle buddy. real recognizes real, taught the kid everything i know.

 

[-Tsunami-]

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

See you tomorrow for the next eulogy.

 

[SFG]

 

[Posho]

View attachment 785343

i feel old because i cant see shit

 

[-Tsunami-]

I am back on a discord hiatus, but there are only 3 teams left and I feel kind of obligated to write the Terrors eulogy given their historic collapse so......

Dave in SCL has proven to be a wizard, a sharp contrast to his numerous failures with the BIGs (although he did make playoffs with the Scooters recently). However, as I stated before, this is the first SCL that really ever made any sense to me, which of course means that the Islanders miss the playoffs for the first-time ever. What went wrong this year?

The team started off with a set of promising retains in hellom and MDB. hellom was a budding sheet warrior, well on his way to reaching the prestigious 'sheet god' status after starting off his career with a sensational 16-2 record. However, the wheels seem to have fallen off a bit, as he went suffered the first negative tour of his team tour career. Coupled with his pedestrian showing in SPL, and his status as a sheet warrior appears to be a bit in doubt now. If you told me before the tour that hellom would go negative, I would have said the Islanders miss the playoffs for sure...and well, that's what happened. MDB is another player who has performed well on the sheet; however, as I wrote in my PRs:

"According to the ABR Glazer, as of February 17th, 2025, Michael was 35-16 in SS OU on the sheet and 17-18 in non-SS OU...that is to say, he is MUCH MORE PEDESTRIAN for whatever reason outside of that tier. He has performed pretty well in almost every SCL, though, so there's that. But because of those stats, I will temper my expectations a bit."

This led to Michael having a 6 confidence rating instead of a slightly higher one, which pretty much guaranteed the Spartans 4th place in my rankings instead of the Islanders...thank god for that. Well, Michael actually performed well in this tour, going 6-2 and exceeding my expectations. He did have a timeout win as well as a Week 1 activity win sprinkled in there, though, so I will refrain from commending him too much...we will see how next SCL goes. While my logic was technically not correct, the results worked out excellently for me. The same cannot be said for the Islanders. Michael's 6-2 record was not enough to salvage the team's season. The team's most expensive player, zS, also had a phenomenal campaign, going 7-2 and living up to his whopping 28k price tag. He has been crazy good as of late and I suppose I will officially have to drink the kool-aid now...congratulations.

It's actually weird looking at this team's records since they honestly did not actually do that badly. They ended the season with a +4 BD. A bunch of their slots I doubted performed pretty decently, and others like Envy and Feyy exceeded expectations. I suppose the elephant in the room is the Colin retain...I'm not really sure what that was about. Colin was only ranked 5th in the official PRs and had not impressed in a limited sheet sample before this tour. It was a rather baffling retention decision and certainly was a big reason for the team's failures. They even managed to get a 3-3 record out of the Chef, who went 5-20 in 4 tours prior to this one. But, alas, it was not to be.

The primary reasons for the team's inability to make the playoffs this year can thus be summed up as follows:

1. hellom underperformance / regression
2. Colin retain

Colin + hellom went a combined 0-6 in weeks the team lost 4-6. In a tour with such tight margins as this one, that can be the difference between contending for a trophy and being knocked out prior to Week 9. After the team started the tour 1-0 off an early-week activity win, I thought the Islanders's devil magic had once again kicked in. For once, though, it did not.

Also, this is the first year I got 3/4 playoff teams right in this tournament [Gible were 5th for me] and it came off the back of a 4+ month break from watching any Pokemon games. As it turns out, you do not need to watch any games to form a reasonable opinion on Smogon team tournaments...the sheet will guide you. See you next week for the last 2 eulogies.

 

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Welcome to the penultimate eulogy featuring the Dynamos.

Excal had managed to win this tournament 2 times already, and there was definitely a shot he could pull off the 3rd win. However, the team's miracle run fell short at the end. What went wrong this year?

The team started off by retaining Roro, Pkel, and Kate. The Roro retain seemed like one of the best in the tour in terms of value. He had gone +4 or better in 5 of his last 7 team tours where it was possible to do so, and +3 or better in 6 of his last 8 that fit that criteria. He also had an amazing showing last year in this tournament, so it seemed like a no-brainer to retain him. However, as it turns out, his motivation was apparently extraordinarily low this year, and this led to him having a bad performance. The team decided to sell him back at midseason to acquire another player, a move which was seen as blasphemous by multiple sectors of this site. If you told me Roro would end the season 1-3, I would not have picked this team to make the playoffs...I'm sure a lot of people would say the same. As such, this can very easily be chalked up as the primary reason for the team's shortcomings. The team's other two retains also did not perform very well, as Kate and Pkel combined for a 4-9 record for 24k. Neither of these people had really excelled greatly in team tours before. I gave Pkel a confidence rating of 5 and Kate a rating of 5.5. In other words, I thought that over 9 weeks, they were likely to end up with around 9 or 10 wins. They clearly underperformed that by a good amount [although they only played 13 total games], but I don't think it's a totally backbreaking performance. When coupled with Roro's failures, though, it is probably enough to guarantee the team's demise.

The team's most expensive buy in the auction was JustFranco, who went for an astronomical 33.5k. He had performed well in the past, but I thought it might be hard for him to live up to that price tag. I would say 6 wins is probably on the low-end of what you would want out of a 33.5k player, so I will claim a small victory on this prediction. The team's best regular season performer was actually EternalSnowman, who put up a monster 7-2 record. Unluckily for him, the team's other relatively big name players also performed badly. Niko had two bad auction tournaments for the first time in his career...perhaps his price will be depressed enough in SPL that he can wind up being a steal. Jyt crash-landed back to earth after having the tour of his life last SCL. ACR1 also continued floundering after starting his career 12-4...not everyone can be a sheet warrior, unfortunately. Luckily for the Dynamos, the team's cheap buys helped balance out the shortcomings out of these players to some extent. The team got a 5-3 record out of DPP mainer and known bo1-hater Kristyl in RU, and a ridiculous 10-2 showing out of three 3k players in FlamPoke, fakenagol, and Lazuli, the last of whom they picked up at midseason following the Roro sellback. Thanks to the efforts of these underdog players, the Dynamos actually managed to nearly make the playoffs following a disastrous start 0-2-2. In past years, the stars would have maybe aligned for them to make the playoffs, as it did in SCL II, but as I mentioned previously, this SCL has made more sense than any of its previous iterations. While the Dynamos fought valiantly to claw back into a near-playoff spot, their early-season struggles had unfortunately cost them too much in a tour where the 4th place team ended with 10 points at +12 BD.

The team's failures can thus be summarized with the following:

1. The retains went 5-12 for 47.5k....you probably aren't ever going to make the playoffs if that happens. From the outside looking in, Roro was an extremely high-confidence bet on-paper, but sometimes things do not pan out like you envision. The underperformances of both Pkel and Kate on top of this essentially doomed the team from the start, as they simply had too much ground to make-up in the second-half of the season.

There isn't that much more to say here, tbh. I thought the prices they paid for pretty much everyone on the roster were reasonable. I thought Franco was an overpay, but he got 6 wins. Also, as I mentioned previously, Roro was a massive value based on his previous production, so the savings from that, on-paper, should cover Franco's inflated price regardless. Things just don't work out sometimes.

See you later for the final eulogy.

 

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Welcome to the final eulogy, this time featuring the Uncharted Terrors.

mozes and Gingy had established themselves as kind of the reyscarfaces of SCL, having managed to cruise to the playoffs each of the past 4 seasons. Making the playoffs consistently takes more skill than winning the tournament one time. The duo had clearly figured out a formula that worked in this tournament. I had only picked them to make the playoff 1 out of the previous 4 seasons; their rosters always seemed extremely sketchy to me, but they always managed to outperform my expectations. However, this SCL was much different than other ones, so it kind of checks out that this would be the one year the team did not make the playoffs. The main difference between this season and prior campaigns was the a loss of the stresh retain. He had farmed the competition to the tune of a stellar 25-9 record over the tournament's history, including a ridiculous 15-4 record in the past 2 seasons. Losing him would certainly be a blow to the team, but few would have said pre-season that the Terrors could possibly miss the playoffs.

For my part, I wound up rating them 9th in the PR this year; they were only 0.5 points away from the 10th place Machines in confidence points. It being SCL, though, I was almost certain this team would screw me for yet another season, though. After three weeks, it looked like my premonition had come true. The Terrors won the first three weeks in a row, going 22-6 overall and certainly almost guaranteeing a playoff spot. They lost a close series 4-6 to the Platoon in Week 4, but after Shengineer's Hoopa hit Focus Blast in Week 5 to secure the win against the Gible, the playoffs seemed like a 100% guarantee. No team in team tournament history had ever missed the playoffs before after this strong of a start. Last year's Ruiners started off 3-0 and missed the playoffs, and the SPL 12 Scooters had started 3-0-1 and missed it. No team had ever amassed 8 points through 5 weeks and missed the playoffs. It genuinely seemed inconceivable that it could even happen, especially considering the team's stellar +16 BD and historically great track record. However, the SCL gods decided that I deserved to get 3/4 playoff teams correct this season. The impossible happened, and the Terrors suffered the biggest collapse in the history of Smogon team tournaments. This was honestly kind of an insane year in that the 4th place team got 10 points with +12 BD. Honestly...I don't even know what to say. Well...let's see what went wrong I suppose.

The most glaring issue with the team is that pdt went 2-7 for 33k. He went 0-2 in weeks that the team lost 4-6, and his 5 other losses also wound up mattering since the Terrors only missed tying the Breakers by 2 BD. If your most expensive player is going to have that bad of a tour, it is going to be pretty hard to succeed. That being said, pdt seemed like a pretty clear overpay to me heading into the season. He went 4-5 last year and UU had a ridiculous amount of good players. JustFranco, pdt, and zS were all 28k+, and Punny could have easily been worth that amount as well based on his past elite performances. Multiple players over 10k also started in the tier. Realistically, there is just no way one tier should have this many expensive players, especially since most of them have failed to really sheet farm at a consistent-enough level over the years to be worth their prices. Of course, no one would expect pdt only winning 2 games, but him not living up to the 33k price tag was rather predictable. The other main issue with the team was that Scottie went 1-6. He was not in LC this year, but this is a person who has had some pretty good tournaments in the past. He did go 3-6 last year in what was one of the most surprising outcomes of the tournament, but him going 1-6 in this tour was certainly not really forseeable.

pdt + Osh going 3-13 for a combined 43k put the team in a massive hole...but luckily for them, they got some historically amazing performances from some of their much-more unproven players in order to remain a playoff contender throughout the season. Shegineer and Drud went 15-3 combined for only 15k. And, somehow, zee, who was an abysmal 3-13 on the sheet prior to this tournament, managed to go 9-0. That is actually insane. I can't believe that someone that was 3-13 on the sheet was 8.5k and it somehow worked out this well. My god. These three succeeding this much is just classic SCL. These are exactly the types of picks that I rate low, which leads to me leaving the Terrors out of the top 4, which leads to them making the playoffs because SCL usually doesn't make sense. However, this season, the insanely good performances of this trio of underdogs was not enough to lift the Terrors to the promised land. In terms of the team's other players, nothing surprising really happened. Lokifan was a retain and went negative, but he really only had one stellar tour before this, so it's not really that crazy. oldspicemike perhaps slightly underperformed his projection, but he still went positive. heileone and Metallica managed to go 8-5 combined for 13k, so that also helped the team. TDNT, meanwhile, struggled quite a bit...this game in particular was especially bad. I believe the end of this game was choked also. Well....if he wins the former game, the team gets to tiebreak the Breakers for the 4th playoff spot. If he wins the latter game, the team would have tied Week 4 and would have just made the playoffs. I guess we have no choice but to label these two games as a key reason for the team's failures. We will see if he can rebound back in his SS OU home in SPL.

The reasons for the most historic collapse in Smogon team tour history can thus be summarized as follows:

1. pdt overpay + underperformance
2. Scottie underperformance
3. TDNT choking two games
4. High-cutoff for playoffs

Well, this tournament's results went extremely well for me. I got 3/4 playoff teams right and the 4th playoff team was 5th in my rankings...genuinely insane for SCL. Surely that means this tournament will keep making sense in the future. We will see if I can keep it up.

 

[pdt]

Welcome to the final eulogy, this time featuring the Uncharted Terrors.
View attachment 786647
mozes and Gingy had established themselves as kind of the reyscarfaces of SCL, having managed to cruise to the playoffs each of the past 4 seasons. Making the playoffs consistently takes more skill than winning the tournament one time. The duo had clearly figured out a formula that worked in this tournament. I had only picked them to make the playoff 1 out of the previous 4 seasons; their rosters always seemed extremely sketchy to me, but they always managed to outperform my expectations. However, this SCL was much different than other ones, so it kind of checks out that this would be the one year the team did not make the playoffs. The main difference between this season and prior campaigns was the a loss of the stresh retain. He had farmed the competition to the tune of a stellar 25-9 record over the tournament's history, including a ridiculous 15-4 record in the past 2 seasons. Losing him would certainly be a blow to the team, but few would have said pre-season that the Terrors could possibly miss the playoffs.

For my part, I wound up rating them 9th in the PR this year; they were only 0.5 points away from the 10th place Machines in confidence points. It being SCL, though, I was almost certain this team would screw me for yet another season, though. After three weeks, it looked like my premonition had come true. The Terrors won the first three weeks in a row, going 22-6 overall and certainly almost guaranteeing a playoff spot. They lost a close series 4-6 to the Platoon in Week 4, but after Shengineer's Hoopa hit Focus Blast in Week 5 to secure the win against the Gible, the playoffs seemed like a 100% guarantee. No team in team tournament history had ever missed the playoffs before after this strong of a start. Last year's Ruiners started off 3-0 and missed the playoffs, and the SPL 12 Scooters had started 3-0-1 and missed it. No team had ever amassed 8 points through 5 weeks and missed the playoffs. It genuinely seemed inconceivable that it could even happen, especially considering the team's stellar +16 BD and historically great track record. However, the SCL gods decided that I deserved to get 3/4 playoff teams correct this season. The impossible happened, and the Terrors suffered the biggest collapse in the history of Smogon team tournaments. This was honestly kind of an insane year in that the 4th place team got 10 points with +12 BD. Honestly...I don't even know what to say. Well...let's see what went wrong I suppose.

The most glaring issue with the team is that pdt went 2-7 for 33k. He went 0-2 in weeks that the team lost 4-6, and his 5 other losses also wound up mattering since the Terrors only missed tying the Breakers by 2 BD. If your most expensive player is going to have that bad of a tour, it is going to be pretty hard to succeed. That being said, pdt seemed like a pretty clear overpay to me heading into the season. He went 4-5 last year and UU had a ridiculous amount of good players. JustFranco, pdt, and zS were all 28k+, and Punny could have easily been worth that amount as well based on his past elite performances. Multiple players over 10k also started in the tier. Realistically, there is just no way one tier should have this many expensive players, especially since most of them have failed to really sheet farm at a consistent-enough level over the years to be worth their prices. Of course, no one would expect pdt only winning 2 games, but him not living up to the 33k price tag was rather predictable. The other main issue with the team was that Scottie went 1-6. He was not in LC this year, but this is a person who has had some pretty good tournaments in the past. He did go 3-6 last year in what was one of the most surprising outcomes of the tournament, but him going 1-6 in this tour was certainly not really forseeable.

pdt + Osh going 3-13 for a combined 43k put the team in a massive hole...but luckily for them, they got some historically amazing performances from some of their much-more unproven players in order to remain a playoff contender throughout the season. Shegineer and Drud went 15-3 combined for only 15k. And, somehow, zee, who was an abysmal 3-13 on the sheet prior to this tournament, managed to go 9-0. That is actually insane. I can't believe that someone that was 3-13 on the sheet was 8.5k and it somehow worked out this well. My god. These three succeeding this much is just classic SCL. These are exactly the types of picks that I rate low, which leads to me leaving the Terrors out of the top 4, which leads to them making the playoffs because SCL usually doesn't make sense. However, this season, the insanely good performances of this trio of underdogs was not enough to lift the Terrors to the promised land. In terms of the team's other players, nothing surprising really happened. Lokifan was a retain and went negative, but he really only had one stellar tour before this, so it's not really that crazy. oldspicemike perhaps slightly underperformed his projection, but he still went positive. heileone and Metallica managed to go 8-5 combined for 13k, so that also helped the team. TDNT, meanwhile, struggled quite a bit...this game in particular was especially bad. I believe the end of this game was choked also. Well....if he wins the former game, the team gets to tiebreak the Breakers for the 4th playoff spot. If he wins the latter game, the team would have tied Week 4 and would have just made the playoffs. I guess we have no choice but to label these two games as a key reason for the team's failures. We will see if he can rebound back in his SS OU home in SPL.

The reasons for the most historic collapse in Smogon team tour history can thus be summarized as follows:

1. pdt overpay + underperformance
2. Scottie underperformance
3. TDNT choking two games
4. High-cutoff for playoffs

Well, this tournament's results went extremely well for me. I got 3/4 playoff teams right and the 4th playoff team was 5th in my rankings...genuinely insane for SCL. Surely that means this tournament will keep making sense in the future. We will see if I can keep it up.

honestly this might as well be ai slop because of how dogshit it is, but i commend you for attempting to provide us with entertainment

 

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honestly this might as well be ai slop because of how dogshit it is, but i commend you for attempting to provide us with entertainment

Not everyone can be a sheet warrior and justifiably be worth 33k. Happens. I will hope that next tour, your price ends ups up at a much more reasonable level so you can avoid being labeled as the primary cause for a team's downfall. Good luck next tour.