OU SPL VII RBY Discussion Thread

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Bedschibaer

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Smogon Premier League

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The Smogon Premier League is one of the biggest stages of competition on this website and a good opportunity to showcase quality matches of metagames that do not get alot of exposure otherwise. Every past generation will have 5 matches each week that we can discuss here. I will update this thread with the matchups and the replays/logs of every week. This thread should be a place for constructive discussion about things like team choices, matchups, plays but also tendencies in the metagame and so on. Trashtalking players is not allowed. Players commenting on their teams or on certain key turns and answering questions is encouraged.​

coming soon














So who has the best tauros?:pimp:
 
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Jorgen

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Tobes v. MetalGro$$
Game 1:
MetalGro$$ makes the curious decision to stay in for Hypnosis turn 1 against Alakazam, and gets away with it. Coupled with surprising Tobes with Reflect Lax to take down his Egg and successfully using his own sleeping Egg as Snorlax boom-fodder, MetalGro$$ was able to obtain a sizeable advantage in the midgame. He then all but cemented his victory by winning a crucial 50/50 freeze war, although Tobes admirably attempts to climb out of the hole by playing for the crit Hyper Beam OHKO rampage.

Game 2:
With a tricky Hyper Beam from Egg and a surprise Counter in the Snorlax ditto, MetalGro$$ appears to have Tobes' number. Tobes then gets a critical Hyper Beam range to emerge victorious in the Lax ditto, then MetalGro$$ again makes a curious decision and allows Chansey to paralyze his Starmie. To few people's surprise, that Starmie then switches into a dangerous Tauros Body Slam and gets crit to death, thereby signaling the beginning of MetalGro$$'s demise. Tobes manages to convert this advantage with a cute Snorlax boom from just outside of Chansey's KO range and a Tauros who manages to tank a low roll from an otherwise worrisome awoken Alakazam.

Game 3:
MetalGro$$ starts off with a good lead advantage, but lets his Starmie take paralysis from Chansey again! The opening seems to be going Tobes' way when he paralyzes two of Metal's mons and deftly brings in Gengar to take the Egg Sleep Powder (a risky play I'm not too fond of, but it's an old school standard move with a certain logic behind it, and it worked out for him in the end). However, it's then Tobes' turn to make a curious play, as a perfectly good Cloyster sits on the bench as he tries to psyche out a dangerous Lax with a sleeping Gengar and paralyzed Exeggutor. The Body Slam v. EQ prediction war ends with MetalGro$$ winning with a bit of cunning and a bit of luck, as Egg gets crit on the switch by a Body Slam. Tobes then makes a series of plays that maximize his chances in response to MetalGro$$'s cavalier use of Hyper Beam, but ultimately, MetalGro$$ gets enough luck to convert his advantage, winning a speed tie to win the Lax ditto and dodging a Clamp to all but kill Cloyster. He closes the game in stylish fashion, drawing the Twave from Tobes' Chansey to avoid any freeze shenanigans.

Overall:
MetalGro$$ is Schrodinger's RBYer. He's simultaneously an RBY genius that leaves you dazzled and a boneheaded noob that leaves you puzzled. Tobes played a much more steady, predictable game with fewer mistakes. In the end, I feel like MetalGro$$ brought enough tricks and cunning to overcome his occasional brain fart to come away with a deserved win.
 

Bedschibaer

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Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + --- + ------- + ------ +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use | Usage % | Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + --- + ------- + ------ +
| 1    | Tauros            | 26  | 92.86%  | 50.00% |
| 2    | Chansey            | 26  | 92.86%  | 50.00% |
| 3    | Exeggutor          | 25  | 89.29%  | 52.00% |
| 4    | Snorlax            | 22  | 78.57%  | 40.91% |
| 5    | Starmie            | 15  | 53.57%  | 33.33% |
| 6    | Jynx              | 9  | 32.14%  | 66.67% |
| 7    | Alakazam          | 9  | 32.14%  | 33.33% |
| 8    | Gengar            | 6  | 21.43%  | 66.67% |
| 9    | Golem              | 6  | 21.43%  | 33.33% |
| 10  | Slowbro            | 4  | 14.29%  | 75.00% |
| 11  | Lapras            | 4  | 14.29%  | 75.00% |
| 12  | Jolteon            | 3  | 10.71%  | 66.67% |
| 13  | Zapdos            | 3  | 10.71%  | 66.67% |
| 14  | Victreebel        | 1  |  3.57%  |  0.00% |
| 15  | Cloyster          | 1  |  3.57%  |  0.00% |
+ ---- + ------------------ + --- + ------- + ------ +
Usage stats from this week, I think since RBY has the biggest sample size these stats give the most information so far. Most people know it by now but with the Body Slam changes Chansey has moved up to be the metagame defining force alongside Tauros. Before that I was often not opposed from dropping Chansey from my teams because it gives up momentum and you could do just fine without it. Now it just feels way too good to be considered being dropped, being able to wall the entire metagame with ease and not having to fear para from other normals is strong, being able to wall other things and evade freeze/status when you are parad is strong too. No matter how your opponent tries to take down Chansey, it pretty much guarantees value.

The rather high Lapras usage and especially win percentage surprised me, especially since others and I considered it to be very weak in wcop. Rhydon seeing no usage at all doesn't surprise me, it just got a whole bunch worse than Golem. The high usage of chansey might vouch for it having a niche though, the 2hko is very relevant, so is the 3hko on slowbro. We will see how it turns out. I don't really see it making a big comeback, I wouldn't be surprised if it snags a surprise win here and there though. Golem also has a sort of low usage and win percentage whereas the most used "last" mon happens to be a water type (mie, bro, lap). This always leads to pretty interesting interactions of usage between rocks and electrics, since it's sort of a matchup triangle. I wouldn't be surprised seeing the electrics spike in usage one week and rocks spike in usage another week, granted waters will always have higher usage though.

Since all players are expected to be johns the matches of last week are still encouraged to be discussed. I will update the threads with the second week's matchups and I will probably give my opinion on some of the matches, week 1 had pretty exciting battles overall.
 

Isa

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small sample size tbh

that being said starmie and zam at 33% win rate is shocking
 
surprised that rhy isn't getting used more often. other than that and a couple more jolteons than expected, nothing too surprising.
 
This gives an interesting perspective of what's winning and what is not. Electrics are winning, teams with a backup sleeper are winning, Lapras/Slowbro water type choices are succeeding over standard Starmie, and good ol' cores of zam/starmie/rock are losing. I also find the fact that 5 out of 6 teams lacking Snorlax won very striking. It's obviously not a very big sample but I'll be interested to see how it evolves.
 

Isa

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i'd keep in mind that some %'s are skewed as there were quite many pokemon not revealed - in g2 between rey and agammemnon, only 6 pokemon were shown on screen total, as an example
 

Mr.E

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I don't really see how Rhydon got any worse than Golem. You're not trying to paralyze Normals with Body Slam, since they don't usually switch into Goldon anyway, you're trying to catch Eggy and Starmie/Lapras which are still eminently vulnerable to BS PAR. Metagame changes aren't that relevant since they're so similar but Rhydon hits a notable 2HKO on the big winner, Chansey. We had these changes implemented last year anyway, no? The metagame isn't totally brand new at this point.

maybe electric win% would be down if scrubbies used the superior rhydon tbh
 

Lutra

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The point is it had such a great role cleaning up endgame, e.g. versus Chansey. Chansey actually has a decent chance of winning against Tauros and Rhydon if it is kept unparalyzed. It just needs to avoid some timely critical hits (or freezes) and softboiled up to ~60% while beating Tauros, then pray Rhydon doesn't CH earthquake. Now imagine what Golem could do in that situation.

It isn't that bad, but most recent players think it's just dropped below the OU cutoff.

Edit: To clarify, my example is mainly a situation where Tauros has to KO something before Chansey comes in, since decently skilled players would put in Rhydon first to EQ and follow up with Tauros Hyper Beam. Decently skilled players and up mostly decide tiers as they are the players who win and start trends, although weaker players do help shape the metagames.

Also I neglected to mention, there's still a 50:50 between Thunder Wave and Ice Beam, assuming full health mons, predicting Tauros to stay in or Rhydon/Golem to switch in. Additionally with Golem, unlike with Rhydon, even if Tauros is paralyzed, you have the option to win on a predicted Softboiled with Explosion.
 
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Mr.E

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Explosion can definitely be a big winner situationally, although I like it much less in RBY because it's not OHKO-level strong. Rhydon can muscle through substantially more situations that Golem otherwise has to Explode in to save face, though. Regardless, I don't see how Rhydon suddenly got any worse in comparison, I don't know what Bedshchdvsdfusuf means by that. Recent metagame shifts, while substantial in their own right, don't mean all that much to choosing between Golem/Rhydon and none of the old arguments have changed.
 
Physical endgame sweepers/sweeping in general has suffered and Rhydon was the ubiquitous one, paralysis isn't being spread as much and Chansey can now actually handle Snorlax well and at least puts up a fight against Tauros, she is now often evading paralysis and running reflect more. Therefore people are playing for freezes which means ice attacks are getting spammed and it can't even soak a Tauros hyper beam and win the match-up. After switching in on Zapdos, it's just not in a postion to do much anymore, too much can switch in to and just absorb or heal off the damage and it's not like Rhydon can fish for a crit.

Despite the rise in Zapdos/electrics, the entire rest of the metagame is bad for Rhydon, it's not even something you really need to bare in mind when making a team now, your team will be able to handle it by accident the vast majority of the time. Golem suffered significantly too, but explosion can actually muscle through things. Right now I'd put Rhydon on the level of random oddments like Kingler/Persian/Victreebel/Kangaskhan etc... that pop up from time to time and can give you trouble under the right conditions, but that's probably a little harsh.
 

Mr.E

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I mean, if you wanna talk metagame changes, the fact that Chansey can now handle Snorlax reasonably well and yet Snorlax is still #4 usage despite no longer doing the one thing it used to be good at... What's left, it beats Starmie? Chansey already does that. I suppose it still has a better SD than Golem does Explosion, though.
 

Jorgen

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Snorlax needs a little help is all. Getting Chansey to eat a Twave isn't that hard, and once it does, Snorlax beats it the same way it always has. Plus Lax walls Chansey right back if it runs Rest and forces it to burn through Softboiled PP in a hurry. It's still a top mon.
 
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