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Playoffs Smogon Tour Season 28 Playoffs [Won by ABR]
- Thread starter Luigi
- Start date
- Status
16. VS. 8.
2. VS. 7.
3. VS. 6.
4. VS. 5.
2. VS. 7.
3. VS. 6.
4. VS. 5.
McMeghan (60) VS. John W (40) : McMeghan is Kylian Mbappé in Pokémon, nothing to add. Go gagner ça mon bro.
ABR (50) VS Lopunny Kicks (50) : HL matchs. It can go either way so 50/50 but ABR has to defend his position as the best USM OUer ever. I will give an edge to LK for his Italian sense of teambuilding. I already see Lopunny saying this if ABR somehow miss his schedule or lose his SM:
Buona fortuna
SoulWind (60) VS. Pohjis (40) : That is a tough one prediction. Pohjis is very good overall and SoulWind is pretty frustrated that he has to repeat the same levels each time again because he can't beat the final level/boss. I will give an edge to SoulWind but it can go either way too.
Quaze (50) VS. FMG (50) : Rooting for FMG. Nothing to add.
ABR (50) VS Lopunny Kicks (50) : HL matchs. It can go either way so 50/50 but ABR has to defend his position as the best USM OUer ever. I will give an edge to LK for his Italian sense of teambuilding. I already see Lopunny saying this if ABR somehow miss his schedule or lose his SM:
SoulWind (60) VS. Pohjis (40) : That is a tough one prediction. Pohjis is very good overall and SoulWind is pretty frustrated that he has to repeat the same levels each time again because he can't beat the final level/boss. I will give an edge to SoulWind but it can go either way too.
Quaze (50) VS. FMG (50) : Rooting for FMG. Nothing to add.
GO POHJIS
oras predicts
I checked some replays to have some extra input to make this post interesting and the matchup apparently happened a while back in w2-oras-tour2.
As you can see john w brought his atrocious oras team back then too and McM was trying to fish a win with webs Ho which is legit enough but I'll give a take on that later in the quaze matchup. I checked most of roro's replays and it's been a very small selection of fat teams. Slowbro was featured in all of the following teams, spikesbalance or the meta-stall for the absolute majority. Occasionally he'd choose abr's version of jellicentspikes w meta and or the webs team shown above. I believe these choices were made because of him trying to counteract cteaming, since he would always run slowbro spikes in the tours he got past r3 at least. I believe the cbb/trosko mtar team that we crafted in semis for wcop should be in his repertoire as well. The team he brought in round of 16 is a very similar style but also featues the slowbro. McM = slowbro onetrick? I'm sure he responds to his teambuilding weakness in some way by choosing a different style this week which results in him being harder to face due to oras unique insane variety. He also has some good friends that are certain to help him prepare a good team so actually no worries there. Playing wise we all know he's a goat and other than against known oras-mains that bring techs that he doesn't know about I hardly see him struggle in that category. The format helps him as well since there's one oras game max.
There's not too much to say about john w in oras, the main team he's been using which I assume he built himself is ultrabad but seems to be his comfort-zone. The other matches consist of the small selection of stall teams that some seem to like and even 1-2 sample teams. I think more than 2 months ago I faced him for something with a bad team after my 2+year break from oras and while he had a really good matchup he managed to play even more suboptimal than I did. Well yeah as long as McM runs a build that doesn't get butchered by random offensive builds I hardly see him losing. Oops that got long I'll get more to the point in next ones
ABR vs Lopkicks
I did a lot of oras research in recent months and while I still feel like abr is one of if not the best player to plan and execute in long term his repertoire has dropped a lot, not just by the all-known "abr doesnt play zard/volc in oras" which didn't apply to him when he was an active oras main. Sure knockoff clef, icebeam clef, whatever clef, whatever variation of spikes or suicune or slowbro balance are definitly good but they're also definitly abusable and you don't even have to go niche. I'd expect a variety builder to cause huge troubles to modern ABR. However he beat xray solidly who would be considered one of the best still active oras mains even though strictly speaking he isn't a main anymore. xray's team kind of suggests that he wanted to beat ABR by beating him at the exact style he would normally be favored at. Whether or not it was a good idea is disputable. Furthermore I tested with xray beforehand and the team is definitly solid in conjunction with xray still being xray even though his form of the day might not have been Dr. Röntgen. Lopkicks is good, his team last round was solid in some way at least even though highly abusable by common threats. Sounds like a meme but I'm sure he has further italian oras support behind him who almost always manage to cook up something whack but also crazy to get certain good matchups. In this particular matchup however ABR might not even have to step out of his comfort zone and I doubt he will. Lopkicks has decent chances to take it away, bo1 favoring him. He should have decent chances to take it, probably the closest call this quarterfinals.
Soulwind vs Pohjis
2 players who don't play a lot of oras and I doubt either enjoy the tier much. Pohjis teamchoices are very similar to the ones McM did, just that a few 2016 teams are mixed in between and that he gathered a few more pastes. No idea if he built the ditto team himself but that was an absolute woat team, I imagine he went into full cteam mode countering HO's and stalls against pcm but the tier they played was hardly oras ou. SW's approach to oras is a bit different but in the regular season he has been mainly trying to farm wins w webs-ho or the aforementioned germany semis team. Last st the same just with teams that were the popular pastes back then. In playoffs he would mainly use teams that should consist of as many proven good oras mons that fit into BO as possible. His playing-capability is undisputedly one of the best and the format also favors him. Pohjis has to step it up AND needs to bring a team outside of his comfort zone to win. Don't count him out though, po is capable and he definitly has a rather clear path in front of him of what to improve so he's able to beat sw in oras.
Quaze vs FMG
Quaze has one of if not the best oras w/r this season which obviously is a feat but I can't bold him here. I hate the word "cheese" in oras since webs is a legitimate playstyle with multiple abusers, a lot of different HO's are also legitimate and stall also is, although hard to build. But he legitimately only farmed wins w webs/stalls and only a small selection of the current teams that are running around. Other than that he plays whack 2015 snou teams like the abomasnow one where he got the one matchup abomasnow would ever be good in. That was the one weekend which I was able to play from home so I watched a few of his games and faced him friday relatively early as well as in semis on sat. He brought webs on friday which ended in him losing badly and metastall @ sat netted him a win. I would post replays but he apparently hides everything to disguise his bad teampool but it was like this: I played a freshly built offense that also 5-0s the meta stall he spammed that day so I predicted him to switch it up but alas he didn't and he netted another mu win along with help of goddess fortune. Hard to have faith in him in oras since his playing ability didn't show outright either and if I was convinced that everything was because of mu wins I'd outright predict him to lose. However I know him a bit from a few years ago since he would try and hang out in some of the german rooms (he's swiss italian or something like that no idea) so he at least has an idea of what oras as a tier can provide and his playing ability has improved a lot since the last time I played him.
His opponent FMG is the firemonkeygamer that used to spam stours chat at the start of sm if I'm correct props to him making playoffs and defeating empo. His team was pretty good although I'd always recommend gliscor>clef in that teamstructure since it's flat-out better. I liked empo's team and he also played quite well so it's no bummer to lose to empoleonlover the oras ladder fiend. Didn't analyse the game thoroughly so if there was a choke it was one of those that's just a bit harder to see. He seems to have a relatively good sense of what is able to work in oras so if he continues to work with the people that support him this match should be quite even. If it happens to be himself that changed the team for RO16 and he continues to build himself then I'd even give him the edge since selfbuilt teams are almost exclusively scarier in oras than any known team could be. As long as they don't get 6-0d by gliscor/clef/meta/webs/stall that is.
This one also got quite long but it's probably the most interesting oras matchup since they bear a lot of potential and are probably more open to bringing something cool.
I hope I was able to provide an interesting read about the oras matchups, keep in mind these are only predicts and a bolding does definitly not mean 100-0, all of these participants deserve to be where they are and these predictions are focused on oras-only!
Please show us some cool oras since it does definitly not only consist of gliscors, clefs and mega-metagrosses, have a good day everyone
McMeghan vs John W
I checked some replays to have some extra input to make this post interesting and the matchup apparently happened a while back in w2-oras-tour2.
As you can see john w brought his atrocious oras team back then too and McM was trying to fish a win with webs Ho which is legit enough but I'll give a take on that later in the quaze matchup. I checked most of roro's replays and it's been a very small selection of fat teams. Slowbro was featured in all of the following teams, spikesbalance or the meta-stall for the absolute majority. Occasionally he'd choose abr's version of jellicentspikes w meta and or the webs team shown above. I believe these choices were made because of him trying to counteract cteaming, since he would always run slowbro spikes in the tours he got past r3 at least. I believe the cbb/trosko mtar team that we crafted in semis for wcop should be in his repertoire as well. The team he brought in round of 16 is a very similar style but also featues the slowbro. McM = slowbro onetrick? I'm sure he responds to his teambuilding weakness in some way by choosing a different style this week which results in him being harder to face due to oras unique insane variety. He also has some good friends that are certain to help him prepare a good team so actually no worries there. Playing wise we all know he's a goat and other than against known oras-mains that bring techs that he doesn't know about I hardly see him struggle in that category. The format helps him as well since there's one oras game max.
There's not too much to say about john w in oras, the main team he's been using which I assume he built himself is ultrabad but seems to be his comfort-zone. The other matches consist of the small selection of stall teams that some seem to like and even 1-2 sample teams. I think more than 2 months ago I faced him for something with a bad team after my 2+year break from oras and while he had a really good matchup he managed to play even more suboptimal than I did. Well yeah as long as McM runs a build that doesn't get butchered by random offensive builds I hardly see him losing. Oops that got long I'll get more to the point in next ones
ABR vs Lopkicks
I did a lot of oras research in recent months and while I still feel like abr is one of if not the best player to plan and execute in long term his repertoire has dropped a lot, not just by the all-known "abr doesnt play zard/volc in oras" which didn't apply to him when he was an active oras main. Sure knockoff clef, icebeam clef, whatever clef, whatever variation of spikes or suicune or slowbro balance are definitly good but they're also definitly abusable and you don't even have to go niche. I'd expect a variety builder to cause huge troubles to modern ABR. However he beat xray solidly who would be considered one of the best still active oras mains even though strictly speaking he isn't a main anymore. xray's team kind of suggests that he wanted to beat ABR by beating him at the exact style he would normally be favored at. Whether or not it was a good idea is disputable. Furthermore I tested with xray beforehand and the team is definitly solid in conjunction with xray still being xray even though his form of the day might not have been Dr. Röntgen. Lopkicks is good, his team last round was solid in some way at least even though highly abusable by common threats. Sounds like a meme but I'm sure he has further italian oras support behind him who almost always manage to cook up something whack but also crazy to get certain good matchups. In this particular matchup however ABR might not even have to step out of his comfort zone and I doubt he will. Lopkicks has decent chances to take it away, bo1 favoring him. He should have decent chances to take it, probably the closest call this quarterfinals.
Soulwind vs Pohjis
2 players who don't play a lot of oras and I doubt either enjoy the tier much. Pohjis teamchoices are very similar to the ones McM did, just that a few 2016 teams are mixed in between and that he gathered a few more pastes. No idea if he built the ditto team himself but that was an absolute woat team, I imagine he went into full cteam mode countering HO's and stalls against pcm but the tier they played was hardly oras ou. SW's approach to oras is a bit different but in the regular season he has been mainly trying to farm wins w webs-ho or the aforementioned germany semis team. Last st the same just with teams that were the popular pastes back then. In playoffs he would mainly use teams that should consist of as many proven good oras mons that fit into BO as possible. His playing-capability is undisputedly one of the best and the format also favors him. Pohjis has to step it up AND needs to bring a team outside of his comfort zone to win. Don't count him out though, po is capable and he definitly has a rather clear path in front of him of what to improve so he's able to beat sw in oras.
Quaze vs FMG
Quaze has one of if not the best oras w/r this season which obviously is a feat but I can't bold him here. I hate the word "cheese" in oras since webs is a legitimate playstyle with multiple abusers, a lot of different HO's are also legitimate and stall also is, although hard to build. But he legitimately only farmed wins w webs/stalls and only a small selection of the current teams that are running around. Other than that he plays whack 2015 snou teams like the abomasnow one where he got the one matchup abomasnow would ever be good in. That was the one weekend which I was able to play from home so I watched a few of his games and faced him friday relatively early as well as in semis on sat. He brought webs on friday which ended in him losing badly and metastall @ sat netted him a win. I would post replays but he apparently hides everything to disguise his bad teampool but it was like this: I played a freshly built offense that also 5-0s the meta stall he spammed that day so I predicted him to switch it up but alas he didn't and he netted another mu win along with help of goddess fortune. Hard to have faith in him in oras since his playing ability didn't show outright either and if I was convinced that everything was because of mu wins I'd outright predict him to lose. However I know him a bit from a few years ago since he would try and hang out in some of the german rooms (he's swiss italian or something like that no idea) so he at least has an idea of what oras as a tier can provide and his playing ability has improved a lot since the last time I played him.
His opponent FMG is the firemonkeygamer that used to spam stours chat at the start of sm if I'm correct props to him making playoffs and defeating empo. His team was pretty good although I'd always recommend gliscor>clef in that teamstructure since it's flat-out better. I liked empo's team and he also played quite well so it's no bummer to lose to empoleonlover the oras ladder fiend. Didn't analyse the game thoroughly so if there was a choke it was one of those that's just a bit harder to see. He seems to have a relatively good sense of what is able to work in oras so if he continues to work with the people that support him this match should be quite even. If it happens to be himself that changed the team for RO16 and he continues to build himself then I'd even give him the edge since selfbuilt teams are almost exclusively scarier in oras than any known team could be. As long as they don't get 6-0d by gliscor/clef/meta/webs/stall that is.
This one also got quite long but it's probably the most interesting oras matchup since they bear a lot of potential and are probably more open to bringing something cool.
I hope I was able to provide an interesting read about the oras matchups, keep in mind these are only predicts and a bolding does definitly not mean 100-0, all of these participants deserve to be where they are and these predictions are focused on oras-only!
Please show us some cool oras since it does definitly not only consist of gliscors, clefs and mega-metagrosses, have a good day everyone
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16. McMeghan vs. 8. John W - I'm never really sure where McMeghan stands in ORAS or SM, so it's hard to guess whether he'll use something reasonably standard or go crazy. I expected Finch to prevail in R1 solely on experience in both those tiers, but despite McMeghan bringing the ugliest team (aesthetically) I've ever seen in SM, he outplayed in both and won handily. I've played John W several times in regular Smogon Tours (albeit only in SM) throughout the last two years or so, and while he's definitely decent, he seems like one of those guys who cant pull upsets and just wont beat a player who's a tier or two above him. He didn't make any huge errors in R1, but I think his opponent beat himself there through questionable team and moveset choices. His own team choices were reasonably predictable as well, and especially in BW he will have to change it up or else McMeghan will just feed on his inexperience and outplay turn after turn. I'm still not entirely sold on McMeghan outside of BW, but John W seems like a lesser Finch in all three tiers, and McMeghan showed his class in that series, so I'd be extremely surprised if this turns out any different.
2. ABR vs. 7. Lopunny Kicks - I had hopes that xray would make the R1 series closer, but ABR still won handily despite xray having outs in both games, but not finding them. The best player left in at least 2/3 tiers, and a clear top 2 player left in the pool at this point. I agree with CTC that there are players and playstyles that can punish him, but if xray didn't then I doubt Lopunny Kicks will either. A lot will probably come down to what Lopunny Kicks shows up with in SM and ORAS, as he's been quite predictable in the past, but being italian he (probably) has a lot of support in those tiers. ABR is the clear favorite in BW, as his teams are usually good, while italians have a history of bringing known relics in BW (as well as in DPP and ADV, take note for World Cup). He's the obvious favorite to me in ORAS as well with the dominance he's showed throughout the years in that tier. Lopunny Kicks has shown he can play several times before, and he won his R1 games without much trouble, despite using the same team in both gens. I wouldn't be that shocked if we saw an upset here, especially if he dares to step out of the comfort zone, but ABR is still my favorite to win here, as well as the entire tour.
3. SoulWind vs. 6. Pohjis - Pohjis will show up with teams from SPL8 and SoulWind swiftly wins 2-0 without effort.
4. Quaze vs. 5. FMG - The hardest series to predict for me since I don't know really that much about either player. Both players did surprise me by advancing to R2, as I had both Malekith and Empo as dark horses to win the entire tour. However, while FMG got here on Empo's errors, Quaze won deservedly even without his best tier. This makes me want to bold Quaze already, but from what I've gathered his team support is also italian, which is very hit or miss. FMG had some issues in R1, and was outplayed at several points vs Empo, but he's had some great tournaments in the past so it would be silly to count him out. I do think FMG has access to better teams of the two, but I'm uncertain if he's choosing to use them, as shown by bringing known teams against Empo. FMG has more experience in high pressure situations as well, but Quaze seems unfazed by this regardless. As I said before, this is hard for me to predict, but I'll give it to Quaze based on the R1 performances even if it may seem like Team Europe bias.
2. ABR vs. 7. Lopunny Kicks - I had hopes that xray would make the R1 series closer, but ABR still won handily despite xray having outs in both games, but not finding them. The best player left in at least 2/3 tiers, and a clear top 2 player left in the pool at this point. I agree with CTC that there are players and playstyles that can punish him, but if xray didn't then I doubt Lopunny Kicks will either. A lot will probably come down to what Lopunny Kicks shows up with in SM and ORAS, as he's been quite predictable in the past, but being italian he (probably) has a lot of support in those tiers. ABR is the clear favorite in BW, as his teams are usually good, while italians have a history of bringing known relics in BW (as well as in DPP and ADV, take note for World Cup). He's the obvious favorite to me in ORAS as well with the dominance he's showed throughout the years in that tier. Lopunny Kicks has shown he can play several times before, and he won his R1 games without much trouble, despite using the same team in both gens. I wouldn't be that shocked if we saw an upset here, especially if he dares to step out of the comfort zone, but ABR is still my favorite to win here, as well as the entire tour.
3. SoulWind vs. 6. Pohjis - Pohjis will show up with teams from SPL8 and SoulWind swiftly wins 2-0 without effort.
4. Quaze vs. 5. FMG - The hardest series to predict for me since I don't know really that much about either player. Both players did surprise me by advancing to R2, as I had both Malekith and Empo as dark horses to win the entire tour. However, while FMG got here on Empo's errors, Quaze won deservedly even without his best tier. This makes me want to bold Quaze already, but from what I've gathered his team support is also italian, which is very hit or miss. FMG had some issues in R1, and was outplayed at several points vs Empo, but he's had some great tournaments in the past so it would be silly to count him out. I do think FMG has access to better teams of the two, but I'm uncertain if he's choosing to use them, as shown by bringing known teams against Empo. FMG has more experience in high pressure situations as well, but Quaze seems unfazed by this regardless. As I said before, this is hard for me to predict, but I'll give it to Quaze based on the R1 performances even if it may seem like Team Europe bias.
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Won 2-0 vs Lopunny Kicks, ggs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-466989
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-466991
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-466989
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-466991
Won 2-1 vs John W. Although I advance this round, I can't say I'm really proud of the way I did it. Got pretty outplayed in ORAS, then threw BW on a stupid oversight but got bailed by a miss, after John W playing a solid sequence. GGs overall man, you were as tough as I expected.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-467135
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-467140
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-467165
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-467135
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-467140
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-467165
lost to mcmeghan in 3 ggs and good luck in future rounds, I am a bit disappointed with the way that BW game ended especially after that early game sequence with the gliscor sack expecting a double on mcmeghans end but oh well can't be too upset at something out of my control. The SM game was well played on mcm's end and I have no regrets with the plays I made at the given time. He got aggro when he needed to and it resulted in him advancing. Overall happy with my performance throughout this season and huge thanks to Mannat for helping me figure out what teams would be best for playoffs. As for me hopefully I'll be back in SPL to compete once again
well they're no "firemage" thats for sure (???)
McMeghan vs Quaze - McMeghan is in really good form and he's particularly really good at BW where Quaze has more trouble so there's little doubt McM will take the BW game, and in the remaning two games I think McMeghan is superior in terms of playing ability while Quaze had an approach where he gets himself good match-ups and plays it safely, so I think Quaze can win that way in one of SM and ORAS but most likely not in both tiers, especially since McMeghan has the ability to surprise with his team choices so he has a good margin over Quaze. I would say 70-30.
ABR vs SoulWind - I think SoulWind has a good margin in BW, where ABR is better in ORAS and SM but by not much, so if SoulWind indeed wins in BW, then he just has to win one out of the two, which in terms of probability seems like he has slightly higher chances of winning this. Either way it's really close, and if ABR wins the BW game it's going to be really hard for SoulWind.
Except for Quaze, I would like to see all of them win it, and I would love to see McMeghan vs SoulWind for the third time in playoffs of an official tournament this year, and having them as the last BW game of Smogon Tour would be really fitting.
ABR vs SoulWind - I think SoulWind has a good margin in BW, where ABR is better in ORAS and SM but by not much, so if SoulWind indeed wins in BW, then he just has to win one out of the two, which in terms of probability seems like he has slightly higher chances of winning this. Either way it's really close, and if ABR wins the BW game it's going to be really hard for SoulWind.
Except for Quaze, I would like to see all of them win it, and I would love to see McMeghan vs SoulWind for the third time in playoffs of an official tournament this year, and having them as the last BW game of Smogon Tour would be really fitting.
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