Spikemuth Cup is an unofficial VGC community format that many tournament platforms are switching to in order to fill the downtime in the post 2022 World Championships offseason. The name comes from the side event at 2022 NAIC, which from there is based off of Spikemuth's gym leader, Piers, not dynamaxing. The community was eager for a format like this all generation -- the only time we had a metagame with no Dynamax, it was overrun by Restricted Pokemon like Zacian-C, Calyrex-S, and Kyogre.
Use this thread to talk about your thoughts on the metagame and your experiences playing. I'm going to kick this thread off with some of my thoughts are playing for a while



If you've played a few games of this format you've probably run into "the big three". Incineroar and Rillaboom cover for each other really well, creating free turns with Fake Out, pivot moves, Intimidate, and priority to put teams in a stranglehold. Urshifu-R can put pressure on slower compositions due to its favorable speed tier and the ability to circumvent both Intimidate and Protect as counterplay.


The Meteor Beam-using Ultra Beasts are particularly effective at snowballing the game, sniping an exposed Incineroar with Meteor Beam can quickly lead to a fast +2 Special Attack boost, and thanks to Nihilego's Speed and Celesteela's bulk and defensive prowess, respectively, both can be difficult to remove before they claim more KOes.

Tsareena is a hallmark enabler of offensive teams thanks to Queenly Majesty preventing it and its partner from being stuck in The Fake Out Vortex as well as blocking Rillaboom's Grassy Glide. It also has a unique offensive coverage set with Power Whip, Triple Axel, and High Jump Kick. Taunt, U-Turn, and Helping Hand are all incredibly great moves for it.
The format has a lot of options and people are bound to exploring them in the coming weeks. So hit up the Showdown ladder and come back here to let us know your thoughts!
have some sample teams, courtesy of Zephyl


















tagging Borghi because I know he's been playing this format way more than I have...
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