Smogon Snake Draft 2018: LC Discussion

i know i'm likely beating a dead horse but especially from an "outsider" perspective LC is one of the weirdest tiers i have ever played in terms of building. the top mons are so absolutely insanely better than anything else, but almost everything that is "tier 2" (assuming foo and vulla are tier 0) is about par. so you end up with this odd mish-mash tier where folks can use standard cores and completely bizarre esoteric sweepers, though nobody REALLY has attempted it yet (obii gave me permission to use larvitar...watch out kingler bitch)

it sounds odd coming from an RBY player talking about centralization but its almost nuts HOW good mienfoo / vullaby are. you can definitely build without them of course but goddamn are they incredibly useful.
 
sorry for not posting my other games earlier, but i was a bit busy with other things and wanted to wait for the weekend to write this out.

s1p1 vs. levi - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7lc-395104

i decided to veil him cause i thought it matched up well vs his usual style (he used sort of a normal team vs zeb, so i thought he would the same here). sadly he veil'd me too and was hoping this team worked cause it did rly well in tests :(. the matchup wasnt that great for me but i had ways to win, which i didnt rly use well enough.

at team preview i thought it was smash perl/veilpix/sd shrew/z or sash suicide lead dig/np spritz/ np vully. after looking back i should have pressured with veil and set up stuff cause my breakers does more work under veil than his. my process at first was i could set up w/o veil and win by breaking through spritz and shrew, which didnt end up working cause my early game mishap forced every turn to a 50/50. just gonna do a quick skim since there wasnt much for me to do after messing up early.

t1-3: i led pawn so he cant veil for free, shoulda went shellder instead to pressure and keep pix for later, killed perl and maintain some pressure w/ shellder
t4: i stayed in cause i feared veil into sd shrew then that wins
t5-6: pawn to not let veil up and didnt want vully to np on the switch and ohko smth w/ z move

i think the game was basically done there unless i got rly lucky, lost the important 50/50s. there were multiple routes to take in the early game and i just chose the wrong one which caused me to have 50/50s every turn.

---

s1p2 vs heysup - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7lc-395484

gastbra usually tore heysup's usual build and i thought it would be good vs him and wouldnt expect someone bringing it vs him twice.

from preview it was p obv what heysup's set was for the most part: standard foongus, sr donkey, sd phish, mp mag, aoa timburr, bulky vully. and my gameplan was to get sr up and try to win with either otr spritz, abra or gast. phish, donkey, and mp mag were huge threats to the team.

t6-10: mudbray basically killed everything and i had no way to ohko it, so i went to ferro trying to chip it down to gastly or abra range. at t10 ig i coulda preserved ferro and went gastly on the eq.
t13: after the protect i initially clicked psychic since i knew he was gonna go foongus or another mon, but i wimped out and went dig. psyching there basically won me the game there.
t16: i almost went dig catching the mag switch, but once again i wimped out and went spritz for whatever reason.
t22: i should have went for dgleam roll/crit to win the game

played too passively and got punished.

---

s1p2 vs zeb - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7lc-397224

at this point prepping for me wasnt working out since i got 3 poor matchups and decided to bring a solid team. pablo thought sd pawn would be cool vs zeb, so i just asked levi for a team. thanks levi once again!!!

team preview: mareanie/lo or evio or scarf dig/ferro/aoa timburr/scarf or lo gastly/z gull. my game plan was to scout dig and gastly set and try to weaken timburr to win with sd pawn.

t1: i led vully since he had no resists and was hoping he would sack gull t1, i got min roll on ferro which comes into play later
t5-6: subbed on gull and felt getting ferro out of the way was better and if i got a normal roll with bbird i didnt need to blow z there :(
t7-8: hard foongus expecting a drain punch for what ever reason and it worked out and got a free spore off
t9-10: went vully on the slept gastly for momentum and bbird for chip on timburr (at this point if he wasnt sub dig and didnt burn me with mareanie sd pawn wins)
t14: i didnt sub cause i didnt expect zeb to let me sub for free and win there, he banked on my choke and harded dig which is a good play by him.

everything after was p simple, pp stall recovers after knocking mareanie (zeb let me get a knock for free at t18 which was nice) and win with pawn. he played rly well endgame tho, but pawn pulled through!

---

good game to all my opponents and glad i was able to pull through with a win for my team :). had a poor start but i think i know how to play pokemon now! looking forward to hopefully play in stage 2, when we make it out and if i dont get benched. also excited to see the last few lc games this weekend :)
 
YO i won but my last game was ATROCIOUS . I think generally so far i haven't been performing to my highest in this tour so far and haven't brought any sick ass plays to the table yet so going forward (fingers vrossed) im gonna really try and do a lot better and bring you all some exciting games to show i deserve to be here
 

jake

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pairings for stage two, week one are up!

LC: teal6 vs Heysup
LC: jake vs OP
LC: Corporal Levi vs Dundies

i'm pretty excited for all three of these games, especially levi vs dundies. i know LC results don't equate into team performance, but it's pretty cool to see that nearly all of our top 6 power ranked players ended up moving on to the top 6 group stage.

as far as my personal predictions, i think teal vs heysup will be a tight game, and it mostly depends on what kind of team heysup shows up with. both are smart tour dudes who can play well enough to win, so familiarity with the wild shit that heysup can bring is what'll make the difference. i lean teal, i think, if only because star is in his back pocket and can help him through the team prep phase.

i'm looking forward to me vs OP. i like to think that i've brought a cool variety of stuff with mostly positive matchups, and hope to continue to prep well for my opponents. OP has brought mostly standard teams with some cool twists like lo abra, all within his comfort zone, so maybe we'll flip the script and i bring standard teams to his wild squads!!

levi vs dundies is my highlight match of the week, but that's mostly because i missed their open series and i want to watch them go neck and neck. levi is a deserved 4-0, almost exclusively clean wins i think, while dundies had a tougher pool and pulled a 2-2 like basically everyone else in this stage. i think both play well in the clutch, but as long as levi remembers that he doesn't have two weeks for this game, i think levi keeps his winstreak alive this week over dundies.

what do you guys think?? also i might post gameplay thoughts of my last two vs sken and trash but i'm pretty embarrassed of my play in the trash game so i am reluctant, maybe tomorrow
 
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was typing the pairings up, but got sniped by zeb :(. ill just post my own predictions ig

teal6 vs. Heysup
honestly a huge fan of teal atm, after destroying dcae it made me realize how good he was. jokes aside i favor teal in this matchup cause i think hes a great player, backed up with a strong builder (star), and had time to get a better grasp of the little cup meta. while heysup is a vet and a solid player, his interesting teams can either do well or flop.

jake vs. OP
op, the only competent lc mod ever, seems to finally have figured out how to not make bad teams for team tours and his classic strat of: standard and outplay is enough for him to beat every player in the lc field. rly looking forward to this game cause of zeb's unique approach to sm and building!

Corporal Levi vs. Dundies
the legend himself: 4-0, ranked 1, lc open smth winner and currently facing doggy poo toxic af ggggd in semis vs. the clicker himself: 2-2, lc champion, lost 2-0 to nonprep levi in lc open this yr. i favor levi here because i honestly think hes just the better player and if he actually puts effort into this he will win. not saying dundies is bad, but i feel that tryhard levi (hopefully we will see this soon) will outprep and outplay everyone.
 

jake

underdog of the year
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sooo i played vs op

i'm pretty disappointed in the game naturally since it was a week decider after we started 4-0, but i put a ton of effort into prepping even beyond OP's usual styles and the goon goes and picks literally the worst matchup i could imagine against the team i was going to bring. fastfoo + fucking *five* croagunk checks + 3 pony checks.

but anyway i'm really proud of my team, i think subfoo is excellent and hopefully people stop running stupid slowfoo that gets preyed on by subfoo and that sd me first pass set and everything else on the planet.
 
I was bored so I did some analysis on last week's games. I did the first two as both were pretty easy, but dundies vs Levi was really close so I'm gonna look at that tomorrow and edit it in later.


Match #1: Heysup vs Teal


From team preview it’s very clear that both have continued to follow their teambuilding trends from previous weeks: Teal is using fairly standard builds from his support, while Heysup is using a more substandard build using munchlax and salandit out of webs. The advantage that using standard mons in matchups can sometimes give doesn’t seem to apply to this particular instance though; Both munchlax and salandit clearly have great potential use from team preview, as the former is able to trap both Wingull and Abra and the latter is not hindered by diglett or the 19 speed pokemon on Teal’s team, considering the presence of munchlax.
Overall think it’s fair to say that Heysup holds a slight edge in in matchup by either superior prep, luck or some combination of the two. Both of teal’s means of offensively pressuring other teams are given great difficulty by munchlax, and Heysup is able to pressure teal’s defensive backbone through gastly, snivy and salandit. Teal has some fighting chance though; if he can manage to successfully avoid the danger of pursuit from munchlax through doubling and preserve his defensive backbone he can win, but both require him to outplay.
In practice teal is unfortunately unable to execute either: Heysup successfully dismantles both the offensive and defensive backbone of teal’s team by spreading knockoff early game and surprising teal with scarf sleep talk salandit. The addition of that set makes my earlier analysis of team preview matchup even worse for teal, as does the pawn set being SD as opposed to scarf or evio pursuit. Overall I think Heysup played well here, but this matchup with the addition of sets was virtually unwinnable for teal.

Matchup #2: OP vs Jake

Right off the bat it’s clear that similarly to the Heysup vs Teal game one team has a significant advantage over the other. Given his use of abragast the set on OP’s diglett is very likely to be scarf, which is very unfortunate for jake’s team considering half of his pokemon are shut down by it. If jake uses sucker punch on diglett then OP is limited to trapping two of his pokemon, but even then this is definitely not an even matchup. It would be nearly impossible for Jake's defensive core to keep up with the offensive presence of abragast + mienfoo and vullaby when one third of pokemon are trapped, much less one half. The exception to this would be if his diglett is scarf; If that is the case then the matchup isn’t completely gone, though still likely not even.
Even without factoring in diglett the matchup was terrible: Offensively everything that jake might want to do is shut down by diglett and fast mienfoo while defensively abragast and vullaby are absolutely menacing. This ends up playing out in the game; OP definitely played well but this matchup was absolutely disgusting for Jake.
 
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jake

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is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
while it's still fresh in my mind, me vs teal:

team preview

so this week i built with iron defense overcoat vullaby. it matches up well with the star teams that teal has been bringing, and i figured it was an off-the-wall enough win condition that teal would not play around the possibility in-game (also who would?). i also brought recycle mag because i think it's broken, and he's really good against the more offensive teams i expected teal to bring this round. i've been bringing a lot of weird offense with stuff like clamperl, so i figured a fast scarfer was likely, and ended up bringing a pretty slow team with twave support myself. it's not my favorite team i've made, but it's pretty good and won most of my test games.

at team preview, i got abra-gas-trap'd again, though i was significantly better prepped this week for that kind of junk. big ruff was a good pick against me, given the fact that i've been relying on some intermediate fly resists to build more interesting teams. auto-foo lead is a bad idea here because literally every lead he could pick beats mine (i'm acro), so i went for slowpoke because it has a positive matchup against everything that isn't gastly or staryu, depending on the set.

game

t1: fuck (it was a ~60% roll to kill my slowpoke but who brings cb rufflet what the hell)
t2: mag is my only choice here. bb miss is big, it enables me to win the upcoming trapinch vs magnemite war. i fc'd because i thought he might hard trapinch; ruff is still useful vs my vullaby + ferroseed.
t3-10: crit on trap did matter but i was being a goon and saying his eq crit the turn before mattered. anyway, i can pp stall eq out, but in doing so, mag will become useless. to trap mag without losing all eq pp, he just has to click two off-meta turns, but a recycle mag with no recycle is also bad.
t11-t14: i caught him realizing that he can giga every other turn to recover trapinch's health until it's out of mag 2hko range again. i went for it because a trapinch without eq doesn't really make a difference to me, but i had to try to come out of the exchange with an alive magnemite for the best possible result for me.
t15: i lost my fight resist to a turn 1 cb brave bird, so i have to sack something here. my vull does not eat hjk the way you'd want it to; wa vull would be good here, but i'm not wa. snivy is the least useful pokemon i have left in this matchup, so it goes down to hjks. note: the dmg roll on snivy confirms that this is reckless foo, which means it is either scarf or flyinium. it is more likely scarf, but i don't get the chance to find out (it's actually scarf though). either way, my only way to handle it is to go foo. i need to keep vull full.
t17: i deliberated between knock and hjk, but figured hjk was the only play. teal would never risk gastly here when it's a huge part of his wincon, and a staryu midground isn't the worst thing to eat a hjk. he was likely no-item anyway, so a good roll on hjk would be a big positive for me.
t18: i sacked foo because i couldn't risk any chip on anything else. if i galaxy brained, i could sack mag here and preserve foo with enough hp for eating gastly hp fire but no way i'd do that without knowing his sets.
t19: this is the only turn i regret, i think, because i should have gone ferro first, but i figured he'd most likely be hp fire on just one of his 3 remaining mons, and he revealed he had it on abra. vullaby doesn't die unless teal gets a 1/16 plus another high roll, but she eats two and kills abra.
t22: he is hp fire on gastly also which sucks and now i'm in a terrible spot, thanks to that. i have a couple options, none of which are good and all of which require me to get lucky. at this point, i have to make the decision of whether or not gastly is scarf or z-move, and whether or not staryu has hp fire. hp fire from gastly has a ~20% chance to not kill magnemite, but i also need a max roll flash cannon or a crit to kill in return, meaning my chances of winning by going mag were minuscule. ferro lives hp fire barring crit, but needs a good roll to kill with knock. i could also attempt to wave, but then i am relying on 25% chances of yellow magic (on top of the 90% to hit twave). i had to bank on him prepping for the possibility of clamperl and being scarf, not z, and missing hpump vs my mag for best odds of winning.
t23: i did not get my odds, but they were in teal's favor, anyway.

i think going ferro before vull could have changed the game, depending on how teal played it. for me, that play was going to be between twave and bullet seed, because if i yellow magicked earlier, vull had a chance to roost to full against whatever i paralyzed, and it beat everything else teal had left. that's my only real disappointment with this game, which i think means it's probably my best play to date and i'm generally happy with it


also the rest of you snake fuckers should do this too, it's good to look at your games + it's good for everyone else to see what goes on in your galaxy brains
 
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per the above, i really enjoyed that game and the team that star made for me this week. rufflet was actually cbb's idea, but after he pointed out how fucking absurd some of its rolls were we thought it might be a cool idea. cb damage output is frankly silly, even against resists, you're doling out huge damage. turn 1 in the game was huge, it wasn't a GREAT roll in my favor, only like 0.8*0.68, so about a hypno hit chance. but i knew if i got it the game would take a huge turn in my favor cuz reckless scarf foo could do some real damage.

zebs line of thought it right btw - an esoteric set like ID vulla is a good idea vs me particularly cuz i still cant like, cognate sets like that.

great instincts on the mag trapinch battle - you read my mind, i was trying to giga to get out of range of the FC. probably shouldve feinted the turn you killed me, but i went for EQ because i was half scared of a cheeky recycle on the predicted feint. the chip from feint would've put him definitively in fire range, so it was probably best to do that.

all 3 of my last mons were hp fire, uh, thankfully. so that end game required a little less on my part than it seemed,, i just had to go for the SE atk and hope for the best. gg bro
 

Corporal Levi

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My game vs op

This was a pretty fun one to play out even though t20 was a bit suboptimal on my part. What bailed me out this time was OP using a Synthesis-less Foongus, which is an unacceptably terrible set in 2018.

t2-4: I was getting ready for the extended Foongus war that usually happens when I play OP, but his Foongus didn't have Synthesis.
t10-14: I started to gear up for another Foongus war, but his Foongus didn't have Synthesis.
t15-17: Evio abra was free kills at this point. He ended up being zdig, but from his perspective, he didn't want to blow it because gastbra abras tend to be sash or LO, and in either case z-eq would do the same as regular eq; if I had been LO, saving the z would be really important for putting pinch into pony range or even catching Foongus with tirt knock + some chip.
t18-19: I sacked gastly here because I didn't want my Foongus to come in on a knock - other than just making Foongus wars a lot harder (preserving gastly would help with those too, but would leave him more room for counterplay with Spore), giga didn't KO tirt from full, so if he won a tie he could knock into two stone edges and KO, and then I would have to hit his Foongus with zhb.
t20: I should have gone Foongus here. Going tirt was still in my favour by a good margin - defensive tirt's knock into stone edge wouldn't have KOed without a crit or a 1/16 max roll, so I could just smash -> liquidation -> ajet. I thought of this play first, decided it looked fine, and stuck with it instead of considering all of my plays. In hindsight, I didn't need to risk those chances, because his tirt was now in range of being KOed by giga, and I would have my own tirt for two free Foongus regens (preserving pinch for his pony) at minimum, so even if my Foongus got knocked by his tirt, the chances of his Foongus coming out of a Foongus war with full health to survive abra's psychic were very slim. It also left me more room to get around his tirt potentially being heavily invested in attack or carrying the rare and amazing scald. My mistake was punished accordingly when his knock crit.
t21-25: My hand was pretty forced here, but then I got bailed by his Foongus not having Synthesis.

im op06/18/2018
theres 3 main schools of thought
op approach: bring solid team and outplay
levi approach: win on matchup or dont bother
trash: use mouse and crocodile lol

school of thought 2 wins again.
 
robbed OP again, this time not on turn 4 or whatever but on the very last one.

game was really, really hard because star and i didn't expect some of the choices. for example, i was pretty sure i was gonna face diglett. i am proud of myself for actually taking the time to think through a lot of stuff though, particularly after the max roll on tirt, because that made things a little bit more complicated. i realized going into the last third of the game that pretty much no matter what i was going to need a cane miss at some juncture, either vs the foongus or vs the gastly (which ended up happening).

i was trying to think through a slightly different path prior to that going tirt on the free switch but two rounds of rocks put my in scald range as far as i could tell so i couldn't really do that (meaning foo was a free switchin on the knock or whatever then i was obligated to switch out to foong). i was hoping that foong would bait the z fly and it did, but so it goes.

sorry again OP!!!! i feel i've lucked you the last 3 times we've played between here and LCPL. mb mb
 
faced off vs dundies again, managed to make it 1-1. replay: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7lc-403818

i thought this was another high octane game, and from team preview of course, it was going to be a fast one. we both went with balls to the walls offense but the funnier part is that out of like 60 games, this was the ONLY one to have webs in it and we both brought it.

our teams were nearly identical but with one major, major difference that gave me a huge leg up, that being bj mag. in a game where you can't afford to click rocks, having a pokemon w/ extra lives is ABSOLUTELY invaluable, and gave me an extremely nice advantage throughout the whole match as dundies had to play around its possibility.

i think both dundies and i are "instinct" players and that showed with the timer never going below the first level 270 seconds for the entire match between both of us. i think we were both able to map out the path of the game from the very beginning (post gast tbolt) and from there it was just pulling the trigger when necessary. his double to foo was fucking beautiful, it combined aggressive play with a very slick bluff. it may not seem like a ton for some watchers but when you're first blood, playing in front of a big crowd in an important week putting those two skills together on the big stage is a lot harder than it seems.

i felt obligated to answer dundies technical ability later on in the match with abra, and getting two turns in a row "right" (sub into hp fire x2) is essentially what won the game. frankly, there was no genius strategy there - my gut told me that dundies would pull the trigger, so i looked for a more aggressive play and tried to out aggro. if i lost that sucker war i think i lost the game, but i was lucky and won it.

until next time man - it's really fun matching you.
 
Updated the thread and with almost concluding (playoffs aka at least 2 more lc games to go), i'll write up my thoughts and stuff. Before I start, I would like to congratulate Corporal Levi on his awful record and not going undefeated like I predicted. And sorry in advanced for my horrible English.

First, I'm gonna post the Usage Stats (cumulative, stage 1, and stage 2) and go over some stuff I thought were cool.
cumulative stats
Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Mienfoo            |   52 |  74.29% |  44.23% |
| 2    | Vullaby            |   42 |  60.00% |  57.14% |
| 3    | Diglett            |   30 |  42.86% |  50.00% |
| 4    | Pawniard           |   25 |  35.71% |  60.00% |
| 4    | Foongus            |   25 |  35.71% |  60.00% |
| 6    | Ferroseed          |   24 |  34.29% |  33.33% |
| 7    | Abra               |   19 |  27.14% |  63.16% |
| 7    | Onix               |   19 |  27.14% |  57.89% |
| 9    | Wingull            |   18 |  25.71% |  33.33% |
| 10   | Gastly             |   16 |  22.86% |  62.50% |
| 11   | Spritzee           |   15 |  21.43% |  40.00% |
| 12   | Magnemite          |   14 |  20.00% |  50.00% |
| 13   | Trapinch           |   11 |  15.71% |  54.55% |
| 13   | Tirtouga           |   11 |  15.71% |  36.36% |
| 15   | Timburr            |    7 |  10.00% |  57.14% |
| 15   | Snivy              |    7 |  10.00% |  42.86% |
| 15   | Bunnelby           |    7 |  10.00% |  42.86% |
| 15   | Mareanie           |    7 |  10.00% |  28.57% |
| 19   | Grimer-Alola       |    5 |   7.14% |  60.00% |
| 19   | Staryu             |    5 |   7.14% |  60.00% |
| 21   | Croagunk           |    4 |   5.71% |  50.00% |
| 21   | Ponyta             |    4 |   5.71% |  50.00% |
| 23   | Clamperl           |    3 |   4.29% |  66.67% |
| 23   | Mudbray            |    3 |   4.29% |  66.67% |
| 23   | Munchlax           |    3 |   4.29% |  66.67% |
| 23   | Frillish           |    3 |   4.29% |  33.33% |
| 23   | Doduo              |    3 |   4.29% |  33.33% |
| 23   | Omanyte            |    3 |   4.29% |  33.33% |
| 29   | Corphish           |    2 |   2.86% | 100.00% |
| 29   | Chinchou           |    2 |   2.86% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Vulpix-Alola       |    2 |   2.86% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Zigzagoon          |    2 |   2.86% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Sandshrew-Alola    |    2 |   2.86% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Chespin            |    2 |   2.86% |  50.00% |
| -    | Pumpkaboo-*        |    2 |   2.86% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Pumpkaboo-Super    |    2 |   2.86% |  50.00% |
| 29   | Surskit            |    2 |   2.86% |  50.00% |
| 37   | Kabuto             |    1 |   1.43% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Wynaut             |    1 |   1.43% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Snubbull           |    1 |   1.43% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Salandit           |    1 |   1.43% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Rufflet            |    1 |   1.43% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Cottonee           |    1 |   1.43% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Taillow            |    1 |   1.43% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Spinarak           |    1 |   1.43% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Pancham            |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Jangmo-o           |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Shellder           |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Elekid             |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Drilbur            |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Pineco             |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Meowth             |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Carvanha           |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Amaura             |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Slowpoke           |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Scraggy            |    1 |   1.43% |   0.00% |
stage 1
Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Mienfoo            |   33 |  78.57% |  48.48% |
| 2    | Vullaby            |   28 |  66.67% |  53.57% |
| 3    | Diglett            |   23 |  54.76% |  56.52% |
| 4    | Ferroseed          |   17 |  40.48% |  29.41% |
| 5    | Pawniard           |   16 |  38.10% |  68.75% |
| 6    | Foongus            |   15 |  35.71% |  73.33% |
| 7    | Wingull            |   13 |  30.95% |  46.15% |
| 8    | Magnemite          |   10 |  23.81% |  50.00% |
| 8    | Spritzee           |   10 |  23.81% |  50.00% |
| 10   | Onix               |    9 |  21.43% |  55.56% |
| 11   | Mareanie           |    8 |  19.05% |  25.00% |
| 12   | Abra               |    7 |  16.67% |  42.86% |
| 13   | Gastly             |    6 |  14.29% |  50.00% |
| 13   | Tirtouga           |    6 |  14.29% |  33.33% |
| 15   | Trapinch           |    5 |  11.90% |  40.00% |
| 16   | Timburr            |    4 |   9.52% |  75.00% |
| 16   | Snivy              |    4 |   9.52% |  50.00% |
| 18   | Frillish           |    3 |   7.14% |  33.33% |
| 18   | Bunnelby           |    3 |   7.14% |   0.00% |
| 20   | Clamperl           |    2 |   4.76% | 100.00% |
| 20   | Ponyta             |    2 |   4.76% | 100.00% |
| 20   | Chinchou           |    2 |   4.76% |  50.00% |
| 20   | Grimer-Alola       |    2 |   4.76% |  50.00% |
| 20   | Vulpix-Alola       |    2 |   4.76% |  50.00% |
| 20   | Zigzagoon          |    2 |   4.76% |  50.00% |
| 20   | Meowth             |    2 |   4.76% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Sandshrew-Alola    |    1 |   2.38% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Kabuto             |    1 |   2.38% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Staryu             |    1 |   2.38% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Chespin            |    1 |   2.38% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Snubbull           |    1 |   2.38% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Mudbray            |    1 |   2.38% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Corphish           |    1 |   2.38% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Wynaut             |    1 |   2.38% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Jangmo-o           |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Pancham            |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Shellder           |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Elekid             |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Pineco             |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Croagunk           |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Drilbur            |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Doduo              |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Carvanha           |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| -    | Pumpkaboo-*        |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Pumpkaboo-Super    |    1 |   2.38% |   0.00% |
stage 2
Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Mienfoo            |   21 |  70.00% |  38.10% |
| 2    | Vullaby            |   16 |  53.33% |  62.50% |
| 3    | Abra               |   12 |  40.00% |  75.00% |
| 4    | Foongus            |   11 |  36.67% |  45.45% |
| 5    | Gastly             |   10 |  33.33% |  70.00% |
| 5    | Onix               |   10 |  33.33% |  60.00% |
| 5    | Pawniard           |   10 |  33.33% |  50.00% |
| 8    | Diglett            |    9 |  30.00% |  33.33% |
| 9    | Ferroseed          |    8 |  26.67% |  37.50% |
| 10   | Trapinch           |    6 |  20.00% |  66.67% |
| 10   | Wingull            |    6 |  20.00% |  16.67% |
| 12   | Tirtouga           |    5 |  16.67% |  40.00% |
| 12   | Spritzee           |    5 |  16.67% |  20.00% |
| 14   | Bunnelby           |    4 |  13.33% |  75.00% |
| 14   | Staryu             |    4 |  13.33% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Magnemite          |    4 |  13.33% |  50.00% |
| 17   | Croagunk           |    3 |  10.00% |  66.67% |
| 17   | Munchlax           |    3 |  10.00% |  66.67% |
| 17   | Grimer-Alola       |    3 |  10.00% |  66.67% |
| 17   | Omanyte            |    3 |  10.00% |  33.33% |
| 17   | Snivy              |    3 |  10.00% |  33.33% |
| 17   | Timburr            |    3 |  10.00% |  33.33% |
| 23   | Mudbray            |    2 |   6.67% |  50.00% |
| 23   | Doduo              |    2 |   6.67% |  50.00% |
| 23   | Surskit            |    2 |   6.67% |  50.00% |
| 23   | Ponyta             |    2 |   6.67% |   0.00% |
| -    | Pumpkaboo-*        |    1 |   3.33% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Pumpkaboo-Super    |    1 |   3.33% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Salandit           |    1 |   3.33% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Rufflet            |    1 |   3.33% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Corphish           |    1 |   3.33% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Cottonee           |    1 |   3.33% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Taillow            |    1 |   3.33% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Spinarak           |    1 |   3.33% | 100.00% |
| 27   | Chespin            |    1 |   3.33% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Amaura             |    1 |   3.33% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Sandshrew-Alola    |    1 |   3.33% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Slowpoke           |    1 |   3.33% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Scraggy            |    1 |   3.33% |   0.00% |
| 27   | Clamperl           |    1 |   3.33% |   0.00% |
Gonna go over some snake trends. In Stage 1, there was some noticeable usage of Ferroseed (was it because of the menacing Foongus? or was it because of it soft checking many threats?) While in Stage 2, the usage of Ferroseed went down and Abra/Gastly took over. The top 5 most used mons are Mienfoo, Vullaby, Diglett, Pawniard, and Foongus. This wasn't very surprising to me because of the utility it provides to every team. Something that caught my attention was Abra and Gastly's winrate being both above 60%, both are great mons but did not expect them to have a decent usage rate and above average win rate due to Pawniard and Diglett being common.
Did anything stand out for you? or anything you want to add about the usage stats.

Next, gonna go over teams I built and interesting ideas I had. (click images for team paste)
vs. Sken
I decided to use a standard and boring FerroSpritz team vs Sken because I felt that his teams usually had a hard time breaking it. Started off with FerroSpritz cause strong defensive core. Vully gave me a secondary check to Snivy, Abra, and other special attackers. Slowfoo with Diglett cause Mareanie was annoying and wanted to trap it. Tirt was originally Kabuto, but forgot the reason why I changed it. Overall, this was a slow and bulky team that does nothing besides set hazards which isn't my usual "wincon" builds.
vs. Levi
Levi brought a somewhat standardish team for his first game, so I expected him not to cheese this snake and got it wrong. This team was very fun to use and had a positive win rate in test games. "Suicide lead" Pawniard or use it to trap Gastly, which is a huge threat to the team. A pretty straight forward team, set up veils and use the 4 set-up sweepers to break for each other.
vs. Heysup
Gastbra. Heysup sort of weak to Gastly + Abra + Scarf Dig since I was able to trap the resist or break with one of Abra or Gastly the win with the other. I had OTR Spritzee as a backup wincon/breaker and Ferroseed/Mienfoo as a check all things then pivot out. Basically the purpose of the team is to break with either Gastly, Abra, or Spritzee and win with one of those mon, while using Ferro and Foo as pivots and Diglett to trap opposing trappers (Pawniard/Grimer-A/Diglett).
vs. Jake (not gonna post team cause its Levi's)
My builds weren't working and I felt going to my more comfortable onus fighter bird filler filler team would be better, so I asked Levi for his SD Pawn team. Mr. Obvious Pooter always preached "bring solid team and outplay" and so I went with his idea and won a game.
Not gonna discredit my opponents wins cause they obviously played and prepared better than I did, but I felt that I didn't play to the best of my ability and went out of my way to build outside of my more comfortable zone (which was my only win). Now onto my stupid ideas I had for snake.

When snake started, I wanted to use full pass cause it was a legitimate strategy and had a decent matchup vs to the meta at the time. However, I never found the right time to use it :(.
https://pokepast.es/5b112e7558fe15bb - some sets I wanted to use and build around, but never did.
bulky z tot pump - concept is cool cause it outspeeds the unboosted meta then burn, heal, and attack.
future sight slowpoke - future sight slowpoke was a cool tech I saw in Level 100 tiers and thought it could be cool with onix/fighter since those mons forces out dark types (vully/pawn) and lures in foongus/fighters on the future sight turn.
wisp spam - spread burn with will-o-wisp with bulky pony and another ghost then have a set up sweeper to abuse the decreased physical dmg
trapinch - pinch + some abuser that likes onix/tirt gone is a strong strat, but heavily disliked using trapinch in my test games
sd dwebble - pretty memey but looked cool with the right support since +2 attack and speed is threatening
23 hp scarf mankey - basically scarf mienfoo w/ less power and/or utility but with final gambit to ohko/chunk threats when healthy
sd stufful w/ de - live physical attacks, break things, and fire off powerful double edge cause not much switches into normal/fighting coverage
That should be most of my ideas I had for snake (had others but prob scrapped and forgot).

There are two players that shined the most in stage 2, Heysup and Levi. Heysup being one of the strongest teambuilder and Levi with his strong end games and playing well overall.
Heysup - In the game vs teal, he had techs that destroyed the matchup (Munchlax and scarf sleep talk Salandit) and had ways to deal with common threats. vs OP, Heysup used more techs that got him the win. AA Corphish with knock Cott to punish Foongus and Z eq Onix to nuke something/break for Corphish. And lastly vs Jake he had one of the most unique team I have seen in snake. He used Munchlax once again to deal with strong special attackers and Trapinch to trap Onix/Tirt/Pawn for his birdspam core (Taillow and Vully) with a defensive core of Omanyte + Foongus. His ability to think outside the box and counter style other players/the meta trends is why he is doing well in stage 2 (going 3-2 and doing the second best in stage 2 next to teal6).
Levi - Levi did luck a good amount in the first stage, but apart from that he has looked the strongest in stage 2. vs Dundies, Levi nearly outplayed every turn and putting himself into a position where his sashbra won. vs Heysup, this game showcases the greatness of Levi besides a couple of misplays. Despite being behind and having a poor matchup Levi was able to find his way to win and executed it perfectly (outplayed every single turn in the end). Even though Levi lost this game vs Jake due to a miss, it demonstrates that how he sets up the win with Scraggy by weakening/trapping mons that are able to take a hit or threaten it (Grimer-A, Gastly, Vullaby, Mienfoo). Levi's ability to create a gameplan in the beginning stage of the game and modify it as the game goes on is what separates him from more average players like me.

Now onto matchups for playoffs and some of my thoughts.
Semifinals: OP vs Heysup - OP has been looking p badly in the last 4 weeks, but you know how it goes when OP lose 4 in a row he gets on a winning spree. While Heysup does have cool techs, I think OP is a very incredible thinker and with a solid team he will be able to win.
Can't really predict who is playing in Finals besides teal6 being there, but i'll give my thoughts on teal and his possible matchups. teal is a really solid player as long as he doesn't face things out of meta, so vs Heysup it would be an issue due to his unique team choices. If teal is vs OP in finals, this should be a solid game between a thinker and a player who goes by instinct and potentially their third game.

Lastly, I think snake was an interesting tour as a whole because of the unique format, people's expectations of how the teams will do, and how the Little Cup metagame has changed. Snake sped up LC trends as before the tour started we were using standard cores like Onix/Foongus or Tirtouga/Foongus/Diglett and shifted into a even more defensive core being Ferroseed + Spritzee in the first stage of snake. However, in stage 2 people realized that FerroSpritz was too passive and was easily exploited by most top mons. FerroSpritz was only a reaction to excessive Wingull usage prior to snake. The meta evolved from a more defensive/bulky approach to a more offensive style (fast and hard hitting mons).

Gonna tag other LC players that are out of snake for teams, sets, or ideas they had during snake or other things they want to talk about.
Corporal Levi Kingler12345 Sken Dundies jake dcae

s/o OP for letting me host this thread and to the rest of the people posting here!
 

Corporal Levi

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I felt that I didn't play to the best of my ability and went out of my way to build outside of my more comfortable zone (which was my only win).
Agree with this; I think trash had a very poor performance, especially relative to what I would expect his level of play to be at - I expected him to have issues with nerves/consistency, but not nearly to this extent.

It wasn't just trash; phase 1 was an extremely poor showing for the LC community as a whole. I think the main reason for this was that a lot of us were out of practice. This was our own faults because we had opportunities to remain reasonably in shape in medium pressure tours throughout the year - circuit tours - but only a few of us made any effort to participate, and none of us took it very seriously. I think those of us who bothered participating in circuit tours at all were the ones who initially looked the best; OP and I each took one game to get rid of the nerves and looked more or less okay afterwards, jake came out of phase 1 looking like one of the stronger players, and even dcae performed much better than most of us were expecting (play-wise, not record-wise). On the other hand, kingler and trash hardly even bothered to sign up for circuit tours; this likely played a part in how they took 2-3 weeks to start picking up. When they were knocked out before phase 2, it meant that they had been playing well below their usual level for at least half their time in snake, making for some very disappointing personal performances. This applies less to teal6 because he was already fairly practiced in mons as a whole, just not well-versed in the LC off-meta; facing an endless stream of trash teams in circuit tours wouldn't help this.

Thankfully, we played a lot better during phase 2 after using phase 1 for warmup - still some ugly games, but a comparable amount to or less than other lower tiers, from what I could tell/have been told. I would say that our phase 1 performances were straight up worse than LC during SPL 7 (still a lot better than LC during SPL 5, where the LC starters at the time would probably collectively make a mid-tier team in one of the past three LCPLs). Our phase 2 performances were roughly on the level of where we were at in SPL 8, maybe a tad worse, and what I would say is a more reasonable level of play for the supposed top players of the tier.

What this does mean is that players like osh, ninja, serene, tazz, toadow who have made a serious effort in the circuit aren't looking weaker than more established LCers at all. Excluding first time nerves, I'm wondering if we could replace all ten starters for this snake and end up with a similar level of play.

Moving away from our plays and onto our builds, there's been some criticism for some of the teams that were used for snake because they were "bad". A lot of these teams wouldn't be ones that I would use to ladder for a suspect with, or try to make my way through an entire seasonal using only that team, but I think teams like the one jake brought vs OP were perfectly acceptable for a single game. There are probably around 19 genuinely good mons and about another dozen situationally good mons right now; I would argue that in a meta as centralized this one, anything that deviates heavily from 3-4 key archetypes is going to be less solid. The benefit to using these sorts of teams is surprise value and being a lot harder to prep for week to week, and I think this gets undervalued a lot when we criticize these teams during 20/20 hindsight post-game analyses. (Plus, they're generally more fun to use than boring onus every week)

In the case of jake's team vs OP, he used some neat techs that didn't really help at all vs OP's particular build, like sub foo. This sort of tech would probably come off as underwhelming the second time you faced it - I wouldn't consider it a "good" foo set at all - but it's easy to come up with scenarios where it would do great against an opponent caught off-guard, great enough to warrant use on a team that jake doesn't plan to use again, regardless of how it didn't end up working out. This isn't to say that every single team used was up to snuff. For example, I'm not fond of trash's week 1 team at all; I think the nerves got to him and he resorted to a style of build (passive af) that just isn't very effective in LC right now. The issues with these teams were ones that wouldn't really benefit trash from a prep/unpredictability perspective, nor was it significantly stronger in a one-off scenario from surprise value - it just wasn't very good. But I think that outside of trash's first team, each of us pretty much built to our capabilities, e.g. Heysup had some really cool teams along with a couple that missed the mark; and as a net whole, we built at a reasonably good level.

Re: my personal performance, I won't go into detail on individual games in this post because some of them were pretty embarrassing, like the one I ended the season with. Most of my teams fit under how I described jake's team vs OP: they had some nice strengths but weren't really traditionally solid. I wasn't exactly outstanding with prep, but I think that for most of the games I managed to pull up neutral matchups anyways. As for my plays, my week 1 game vs jake was really poor on both sides, I guess the nerves got to us both. Outside of that game, I did make a few missteps here and there, but they were much smaller in scope. Other than the suboptimal plays vs OP's tirt that I described earlier in the thread, I had a couple of outright misplays against Heysup: in my first game against him, I didn't pay attention to the z-move when I knocked it (again) and should have hard swapped in Snubbull (t2), and in my second game, I really had no reason to swap out of Munchlax with Magnemite, I kind of just clicked too fast and forgot it had Pursuit for a second (t19). I guess making sure that my 458-23 record against him didn't get worse made the games extra stressful. Overall, I definitely could have done better, but I think I played fine in my loss against jake so I guess I don't regret anything in that sense. I'll just have to work on being more consistent throughout the season next time.

This has been a fun season, and I'm looking forward to playing again next snake - or maybe this SPL, if our phase 1 performance doesn't get factored in too heavily!
 

jake

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i haven't posted for like three games so quick thoughts on each of mine then i'll talk about overall stuff

vs dundies:

i wanted to get back on track winning so i worked with a cheesy birdspam core i love. one thing i noticed was that dundies was generally susceptible to abra, though he did keep it in check frequently with a combination of pawn and dig, so i built sub hp fight shed shell abra. it didn't have to come out, but that's the kind of set and team design that kept building really fun for me throughout snake.

i won pretty hard on matchup, especially as he made a pretty cheeky play staying in with tirt on my ferro. i think a lot of people click rocks there, which is what dundo was thinking too, but as soon as tirt got out of the way i had it won, pretty much. only other turns i want to talk about have to do with his doduo: turn 1 i scouted for both the scarf doduo play and the switch to tirt, and that led me to make the play i did on turn 7. i also think i had the tools to win from there even if he was scarf dod and wingull died.

shoutouts to him for using great nicknames though

vs levi:

i built lo bunnelby from day 1. idk why, i just thought it'd be cool and that levi was going to bring levi stuff so i'll just bring my stuff.

i identified quickly that grimer was useless in this matchup. i thought he might try to play another trapinch-based team so i brought protect + disable grimer, which i was pretty proud of. it didn't see any use in this game but i like him. turn 6 i clicked fake because i wanted to keep foo as healthy as possible, thought he would stay in for sure, and wanted to confirm a u-turn kill on the next turn. maybe a weaker play but it worked out ok

turn 8 i had to make the call between gastly or vulla, and i lost the flip to levi. this was a huge setback because vull was a win condition tool, though gastly was important too. also for the record i was sure that he was psychium-z scraggy throughout this game. turn 10 didn't think he'd be pursuit dig because i thought he'd be memento for scraggy. maybe nobody else builds it like me but scraggy seems subpar if you're not super focused on it, and z-fight scraggy seems very meh to me. full para turn on turn 13 sucks because i twaved but the game bailed me out with a hjk miss a couple turns after. i got the subsequent turns right with bunn. glad i ran iron head -- i was debating heavy in the last few moments before the game whether or not i wanted to go ih, agility, or bulk up.

vs heysup:

real sad on this one because i built the whole week thinking i was going to bring scarf amaura and heavy duty fly resists but i tested my team like 10 times and lost basically every test game i could've played. turns out if i brought that team, amaura basically 6-0d from turn 1. i was reluctant to bring a team that didn't perform great against the meta as a whole after my OP game, and so i ended up bringing a team that was just mediocre overall. i thought it was unlikely he brought lax since we played about a million test games where he brought his lax teams (and i used lax teams myself against him), so sucks that i brought a team that did mediocre vs it.

i feel stupid about the first few turns because i didn't take analytic into account and thought he was a less specially bulky lax, where the roll was 15/16 in my favor to kill with hp fighting on the turn i lol'd. turn 7 was a tough turn because i thought he was going to double to trapinch. i guess bbing was his least risky play, but i think i had an understandable line of thought there. after that i kinda just got chunked out by munchlax, with no pokemon that did well enough to break it.


overall, i'm happy with the tournament. i built lots of cool teams with lots of cool sets -- i think i had some of the most varied and interesting builds in general, though i never did bring hail like some goons. i made some mistakes in games, and had some games where i think i played well overall. the only real bad one for me was vs trash, and i think i rebounded nicely. wish i could've gone 5-4 with a 3-0 wrap-up, but 4-5 is fine too considering that i'm pretty sure i was expected to go worse.

edit: also, yeah, i don't think my team vs OP was bad at all (you heard otherwise?). it was maybe a poor decision on my end to bring a team that targeted OP's usual types of builds so heavily, but i'm totally at peace with picking that team and i think it was a good tourney team with a handful of notable flaws and a near-guaranteed win if OP brought anything that he usually liked. i also did not think about abra gast trap teams at all when that game happened, so i just wasn't prepared for that style of team to begin with.

i'm still fuckin mad that lc isn't in spl by the way
 
okay i was planning on just editing my previous post but whatever
i kind of disagree with you, levi. i think that despite my pretty awful choke (which I think is my own fault and not an indication of a larger lack of ability to perform on the big stage), I played pretty damn well in the game against OP otherwise. Letting dundies covet my grimer was kind of annoying, but there aren't many scenarios where knocking there was terrible, I just happened to get the worst of it (not being able to knock his evio off due to winning the tie + not poisoning him). The dcae game wasn't the best, but I did the best with what I had, I felt. And against teal, shit going my way just made the game really simple, but I'm really happy with a lot of the aggressive reads I got on him.

again, I'm a pretty shitty builder and you can probably see that bc I didn't have great matchups (except against op i suck haha!!). But I kinda just focused on trying to be the better player in-game, and I feel like that's not a bad strategy to have. i think I could have performed better and shit, but I think there's a very good reason why we had this set of players drafted. I think the new guys have a way before they can replace the current set of LCers in the next snake (bc that's the only team tour representation we have I think?) so yea.

this is not to say that you guys haven't stepped it up though, good work to osh on the 30000 grand slam points and other upcoming players like zebra and ninja (who played pretty well in our recent series).

loaf out. Plas post your shit if you'd like. ftr he built the teams i used vs op and uhhhh teal maybe
 
I was just a benchwarmer/tester/gasser this snake which I really enjoyed cause the team was super fucking chill and cool. The builds I did have a hand in were not very creative but solid vs everything and had 1 or 2 things we figured could annoy opponents. Both of us cared more about practicing and outplaying rather than outprepping and cting kinda shit.

Vs Dcae
1540672696235.png

So Kingler came up w/ this set and we both really liked it. Dcae also tended to be weak to waters a lot assuming we had a way to threaten or trap ferroseed. Sub was to not get revenged by diglett cause dumb mon sometimes.
Staryu @ Psychium Z
Ability: Analytic
Level: 5
EVs: 76 Def / 196 SpA / 236 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Psychic
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
He kinda went through and put standard shit on and I helped w/ sets and made foo a timburr cause we had no priority and breaking for z staryu sounded nice. Got him a W so woo!

Vs OP
1540671862897.png

So this team I made about 4/5 months ago before trapinch was super mainstream and widely acknowledged as great and it's probably my favorite USUM LC team I made. Basically the idea is one of mareanie/elekid bait in diglett to trap it dependent on the matchup, Trapinch traps the diglett, and the other of the 2 either annoys like crazy if mareanie or breaks shit once everything is knocked if it's elekid. Rest is just glue stuff. OP had a habit of spamming diglett and pawniards so figured trapinch could trap those and elekid would be a massive threat. I wanted to use it vs him in open but i knew it would have great matchup vs him so I let kingler use it. Worked out v well and then kingler had a coma or something idk :C

Vs Teal
1540672200970.png

Ok so this team is not at all creative but it utilized one of my favorite offensive cores right now, in pony+pinch. Kingler really wanted to use Pony vs teal cause his fire answers thus far had been wingull, diglett, and like bulky foo/vull so we wanted to take advantage.
flcl vs burntzebra lcpl
It's literally this lcpl team, which I assume was a trash build cause idk who else built on bunnies, but I was like hey; I've got like 3 priority users a WA user and foongus. I'm prolly fine w/o priority and pony LOVES having Onix/Diglett trapped. The rest is fairly standard and safe.

Vs Dundies
I kinda just let the loaf have at it. I was busy w/ hurricane at the time and he should have been 3-0 had he not had a coma vs OP so I was like yea, Use whatever and outplay. Had other homies in chat that could help.

Overall it was really fun and glad to get closer w/ some cool people. Appreciate pearl and the booty for picking me up was a fun ass time and while the teams I helped with weren't super cool or unique I think they were all very solid built around a viable but person specific thing (z staryu, pony, elekid). Loaf was heat when he didn't suck. Most of the games this snake were solid which was cool. The analyses were really really cool and I'm glad that became a widespread thing throughout numerous tiers' talk I completely agree w/ a lot of what teal said regarding centralization and shit; Kinda shows in teams I helped w/.
 
in retrospect i guess the season would be considered an overperformance on my part but it kinda stings that i think i very realistically could have been 7-3 as opposed to 6-4. being ranked 9th and getting the 2nd most wins is satisfying but there's definitely some games i could have done way better. my latter season form was far superior to early season.

i'll be back to make finals of LCPL and ideally win it again next - see you all later, LC.
 

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