Lead select starts off with a pretty common lead duo between BKC’s Mence and Teclis’ Tar. Teclis needs to get out of the way of a possible brick break, as all lead Mence opt to run it. The salamence user here would usually have some leeway to double into something “midgroundy”, as the tar is always getting out of the way, but lead ttar doesn’t really spell out at all what’s coming in to take the hit. Zapdos, Skarm, Pert, Jolteon, Suicune all being decent switches to see if its mixed or cb.
BKC goes for a tunneled hard Mag, hoping to catch an inbound Skarmory while Teclis will reveal a Zapdos. My guess is that this was likely a play Teclis had made often in replays, or he just had a big bone for skarm in his usage stats. Otherwise I think a double into BKC’s own tar or his skarm would gain more traction. The hard into Mag should reveal to Teclis that this Mence will either be CB or dragon dance, although most likely CB as that set operates much better as a lead.
Both Magneton and Zapdos get out of the way of eachother, both probably not willing to take a twave on something pivotal in the MU, and ttar comes in for both players. BKC will use this turn to get Skarmory in without risking his Tar, as Teclis shoots off a hidden power, which could be bug aiming for a celebi switch or grass aiming for a pert, the calc shows both as options. BKC will lay down a spike as fire blast reveals Teclis’ tar to be special.
Teclis waits on a protect and then is able to get his cloyster in on BKC’s blissey, resulting in a traded free spike as blissey would realistically need tbolt to pressure Cloy without risking boom-death. 8 turns in now and both players have a spike up each and have revealed very little about their own teams, so the game is at a pretty even state.
Big turn coming up here: Teclis will get Jolteon in to absorb the hit from BKC’s mag, and the two will trade twaves, both deciding that crippling the other would be worth in the long run. In my opinion, this trade slightly favors teclis. Magneton can now no longer outrun the steel in the back (almost always meta), and will be pressured all the more by Zap, Cloy and Jolteon still. The advantage BKC gets out of para’d Jolteon is that it means it will not be faster than Salamence, and if the mence is CB it will be all the tougher to deal with without the Jolteon. Teclis’ last two mons are pretty apparent at this point, one being Meta and the other being a water, so, BKC must have felt confident in his ability to close out with Mence+the rest to take the twave trade.
Roar comes out on the Mag and Mence will be dragged out, CB being revealed through sand chip. BKC will take the turn to get Mence out, perhaps just not wanting to play games with CB “predictions” when Ttar catches Teclis’ choice of zap or jolt pretty safely.
T12: I’m not sure if I agree with this here on Teclis’ side, but he decides to let the Jolteon go rather than getting his Pert in on some EQ damage to start hammering away at BKC’s team. It should have been apparent that BKC’s ttar was a physical 4-attack / bulky DD set, so there was not too much risk of a big HP grass on the pert.
BKC is happy to take the free kill on Jolt, because when Teclis’ gets his pert in for the revenge, BKC comfortably brings his own in to take the hits better than I would have thought. This does mean though, that BKC will have to sacrifice a lot of HP on his Swampert in exchange for crippling Teclis’, which could be troublesome if Teclis’ last mon metagross was agility rather than the more predictable bulky meta.
Teclis’ now finds himself perfectly roared to get Cloy in, and with the Para making Magneton slower, he can now threaten a lot of damage to BKC’s team with surf/ice beam on everything (+boom for blissey). BKC will lose some HP on skarm, but he is able to roar the super threatening Cloy away. However, with ttar being brought in, BKC feels safest just letting pert go down. He could’ve taken the gamble of Teclis’ ttar not being brick break and opting to wall it with Blissey, but losing blissey would spell a certain loss to Zap from this point forward. This was good foresight by BKC to understand his position from ahead and not risk it to stay “more ahead”.
T23, the game is 5-5, both sides are pretty evenly crippled. BKCs skarmory is low health and his magneton para’d / very low, and Teclis’ swampert is toxic’d + he has taken some chip onto his Cloy and Ttar. Salamence will come in on the Ttar to threaten a certain kill should he lock into the right attack, be it rock slide for Zap or Brick for ttar. Teclis’ takes the road of least resistance and decides to sack cloy, which would’ve died to either attack. BKC now is ahead again.
Zapdos will tbolt the Blissey switch doing 15%, and Teclis then reveals BP. The damage will mean that Teclis’ zapdos is not invested into SAtk, and on a team like this it’s a no brainer that we’re seeing a mixed zap. Teclis then shows BP, which is not all too common on mixed Zapdos at it is generally pressured for moves between drill peck, HP, and twave. This may have surprised BKC a bit, but having the information that he is BP should mean it has no chance of being twave 4th.
Metagross is revealed, and BKC will let the mag go. 25% from mash means that Teclis’ metagross is CB, and every set is now clear at this point in the game. CB mence comes in for another revenge kill game, and Teclis’ is put at another position where he is forced to play “does he eq or does he slide” mindgames. Tyranitar will come in, hoping to take a slide and then likely pursuit the mence for some damage, but ttar will simply die to eq -- BKC is at a 4-3 lead.
Zapdos comes in as Salamence is walled. Blissey will come in to take the hit as HP Fighting is revealed. This will actually force the blissey to softboiled on a turn it surely wanted to get an attack in, meaning CB metagross comes in safely. The skarmory is let go, and mence comes in for one final CB hit.
However, Teclis makes a mistake and stays in with Metagross rather than going swampert. EQ comes out, rather than an aggressive rock slide, and the meta goes down. Without metagross, the only means Teclis’ has left to kill blissey is with a timely HP fighting crit, which doesn’t come. BKC wins the game from there with the Salamence+Ttar alive to finish off the pert that was toxic’d oh so long ago.
Had Teclis’ sacked his Swampert rather than his Metagross, he would have been able to put himself in a position to baton pass Metagross back in on blissey (ttar cannot come in on 2 hits due to the hp fighting zapdos). BKC is forced to sack the tyranitar to a meteor mash, and then it comes down to a “50/50” between a final CB eq vs CB rock slide from BKC’s mence.
I enjoyed watching this game a lot for a couple reasons.
#1 was because it had an abundance of longterm-type trades, where BKC really showed his ability to plan for the endgame with a couple key turns early on. Those turns namely being when he decided the Twaves trade on Jolteon/Magneton would be more worth for himself, and also opting to trade his Swampert’s entire health bar to get a toxic on Teclis’ Swampert and limit it from breaking the game open.
#2 was that this game highlighted the significance of figuring out set information. Both players made moves to dance around the others team until the information they felt was needed was revealed, such as BKC’s item on mence and the set for Teclis’ metagross and Zapdos.
#3 was just seeing how close this game came to the wire between the rookie and the veteran. BKC proved that he had the fortitude to stick this game through to the end without messing up into a loss.
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