Tournaments SPL XII - DPP Discussion Thread

[hellpowna]

During my free time(finally - god bless) ive been watching all the DPP battles, and it was really amazing! I’ve seen lots of great matches between iconic players and “new comers” and all the matches were really enjoyable to watch.
Ive heard someone looks impressed(in positive Terms, I mean) by BIHI performances, but I do not.
Personally, I had the pleasure to buy him few years ago during the PPL and he always impressed me for his fresh ideas in term of building and also great game-plan skill. He always knows what to do, and not only because his teams are well-built, but he seems to be always in control during the game and often goes for the right choice. I’ve never seen him choking a turn / losing momentum / wrong sack etc
I do not know if will be undefeated, but if he keeps playing how he used to do, it will be very hard to bring him down. He is also supported by the Italian Prodige, Pietro, who is experienced and very proven in the tier.
On the other side, Snofall impressed me a lot(I thought you were a BW main ahaha) with his well-built team/ and great confidence in battle. This man came from hell to kick ass and takes name.
Incredibile performances, hope you keep doing well coz you absolutely deserved where you are and I wish all the best man.
In Italy we say “the proof of 9”, this will be the match to watch, between the “old school” and “new school”. Best of luck both, guys :)
Hope DBC, Mael, Tof and Aug start bouncing back because their record do not represent their abilities.
This pool is insanely strong and all the matches are very close. I wish good luck everyone and may the best can win

 

[Jhonx~]

hey! once SPL is done, or at least the team im supporting is out, I will share all my creations and some spreads I crafted, hope u all enjoy the tour guys n_n

 

[mael]

The OP will be updated with replays and usage stats.

Week 4 Recap

these games keep coming and keep entertaining. lots of offensive teams. 8/10 teams used were on the more offensive side and only 2 bulky ones. had some multiple healing wish type of teams, some straight ho and some mag teams. sno keeping it strong with the 4-0 and now finally all the players are on the scoreboard.

BIHI

vs

Snøfall

very, very good games imo. both brought really offensive teams, which lead to a really momentum based and short-lived game. started with a rocks and lead trade, whereafter Snøfall got the better second lead match up and forced the dnite out. crucial turns were the crit on gengar with a burned gyarados, which meant no had to outrage and give up all of his momentum. From there on another crucial turn was the rachi vs lucario match up. I was a bit surprised that Sno didn't cm there, considering that even with the slightest hp investment jirachi tanks cc into xspeed, but then dnites xspeed probably would have ko'd, so good on Sno for not being greedy there. In the end the game came down, symbolic for this trade heavy match, in a last mon vs last mon scenario and BIHI had a ddttar vs a defensive heatran, but got incredibly unlucky to lose that 1v1. I do wonder, if he was lum, cause then he could've gone for a second dd and only had to hit once. but seeing how he didn't he probably wasn't lum. lame that it went down like that, but i also think if that gyarados doesn't crit, sno gets to keep his flygon around and wins this exchange.

DeepBlueC

vs

august

yet another very exciting game. surprised that dbc decided to trade the swampert for rocks, considering how good swampert tends to be vs offensive teams, the only types rly that lead with empoleon. the mag revenge meant flygon got a free kill. mixedgon turned out to be menacing, so much that it threatened a kill and forced a lati trap. from there on it was fairly straightforward for aug.

ToF

vs

Emeral

offense against a team, that is very all in on suicune. not a fan of emerals team, cause when cune doesn't win, it looks really bleak, which is precisely the opposite of what happened lmao. hof brought a heavy heavy offense team, which struggles with taking down 1 cune, let alone 3. tof in the end got a good dnite crit that helped him win the game but it was closer than you would assume at first glance.

Christo

vs

mael

yet another offense vs offense match-up. the rachi got some favourable rng, which set me back, but gliscor was able to pull through, even tho the random ass cursepert surprised me. he coulda gone to that vs my rotom, set up and swept, but he didn't and that allowed me to win.

Malekith

vs

Void

surprisingly, this was the only match up with defensive team. interesting take on the dual pink from void. surprised that the clef wasn't cm honestly. malekith got the mag vs skarm and a spinner vs a spinblocker less team that relied on bliss to keep them up. he made a smart icy wind play that allowed him to kill the zapdos, which basically made the game unwinnable for void. it was kinda lopsided, to the point where we didn't even see malekiths last, though we might have, had the ttar not crit several times.


Week 5 Matches

• [RAI] BIHI vs Christo [TYR]
• [CRY] Malekith vs ToF [TIG]
• [SHA] Void vs Sakito [BIG]
• [WOL] mael vs snøfall [SCO]
• [RUI] Emeral vs august [CLA]

First week with a change in the DPP slots. Sakito is in over DBC. Excited to see him play, very good player and interesting builder. personal highlight is probably kith vs tof, a very old school battle. excited for more techs

Please feel free to add to this thread with discussion, predictions, highlight matches, notes on played games, or anything else!

 

[DeepBlueC]

DeepBlueC

vs

august

yet another very exciting game. surprised that dbc decided to trade the swampert for rocks, considering how good swampert tends to be vs offensive teams, the only types rly that lead with empoleon. the mag revenge meant flygon got a free kill. mixedgon turned out to be menacing, so much that it threatened a kill and forced a lati trap. from there on it was fairly straightforward for aug.

Just wanted to comment on the analysis regarding my game. The reason I decided to rocks there was because I felt it was going to benefit me always. My thinking was focused on maintaining momentum, and these were what I thought of:

1) If I Earth Power and he switches to Specs Lati or CB Dnite or maybe even Gyara, that's quite a bit of momentum I lose. I have nothing for CB Dnite, which means it picks up a kill for sure. If it is specs Lati, I at least do have CB TTar to trap it, but he can always double to Empoleon that is at torrent range OR after I kill Lati with TTar, he can then bring out Empo and claim something else. In such a scenario, I felt like I would be behind with rocks not being up and at least one mon dying.

2) If I Rocks and stayed in, the Empo would kill my Swamp bar the Hydro roll or miss. I thought if my Swamp died, then at least I would have Mag trap the Empoleon which meant that the Empo could cease being a threat. Swampert also didn't seem all that useful because it didn't have much bulk, and so it was incapable of switching into a lot of the threats, but it definitely could've served as a check if healthy.

My downfall was the mixed Flygon because I didn't have a single switch-in to it and I never expected it at all. I don't think I misplayed the game, but it was more of August outplaying me several of the turns. Turn 6 was also a very crucial turn where I got outplayed. It was Zong vs Gyara under TR, and I expected Aug to go to something to absorb the boom, and that's why I switched my TTar there but he waterfall'd and caught my TTar. It was winnable for me if I trapped his Sciz and Rotom successfully, but I wasn't able to do so. In the end, it was certainly questionable whether I misplayed by not fishing for crit with Zong, but when he revealed his last mon to be Rotom, I just felt crushed because I was hoping that it was Gengar, so I didn't think straight that turn. It also didn't matter if I crit because he said his Rotom had bulk, so it lived a Zong crit after Rocks.

 

[Christo]

Christo

vs

mael

yet another offense vs offense match-up. the rachi got some favourable rng, which set me back, but gliscor was able to pull through, even tho the random ass cursepert surprised me. he coulda gone to that vs my rotom, set up and swept, but he didn't and that allowed me to win.

you are completely downplaying how lucky you were in our match. not only downplaying, but inaccurately implying I choked. had i cursed on scarf rotom you can switch out and back into rotom, trick scarf, and shadow ball, meaning your only out was ice fang freeze in both scenarios. the correct play was pursuiting once with tar to get it in waterfall range, and then switch into pert to curse. however this slight inaccuracy does not change the fact you got a crunch defense drop + ice fang freeze + no thaw as your only counterplay with the route i took. cmon now

 

[Kristyl]

Very much looking forward to this Week, tons of great matchups!

I'm most looking forward to Mael vs Snofall to see if Snofall can keep up his impressive win streak. I also want to see if Mael will continue to turn his season around after his win last Week, we still have a lot to see from him. The Bold Roserade last Week was a cool set to see, I hope we get to see more underrated sets such as that one in the future.

Sakito's debut is something I'm also excited for, great player and builder with good support too, this should make for a thrilling debut match. Can't wait to see what they've prepared, wishing them the best.

Anyway, apologies for no long post this Week got a bit burnt out last Week so I rushed out a poor one and I rather not that do that again. Hope everyone has been enjoying the games so far, I certainly have. The meta is in a really good spot, in my opinion the removal of Dugtrio has been a huge positive. Thank you to everyone for making posts. Happy to see some discussion around DPP and I can only hope it makes more people want to try out the tier!

That's all, take care and good luck everyone.

 

[august]

feel like this thread could use a bump

| 14 | Roserade | 8 | 16.00% | 100.00% |

gonna leave this one here.. roserade balance / bulky offense has once again showed its versatility this spl as a "tried and true" strategy that only got stronger in a post dugtrio metagame. very interesting to me that defensive archetypes have been largely absent this spl too, i think that a lot of that has to do with the prevalence of taunt gengar / water types / ddtar, but these are the kind of teams that ive always thought had the capability to help keep roserade stuff in check

bless the post dug meta, and good luck to everyone this week

 

[Tomahawk]

The OP has been updated with replays and usage stats.

Week 5 Recap

Interesting week we have behind us, if I'm not mistaken this was the first time we saw rain as well as Nidoqueen full stall (and coincidentally it was a Nidoqueen stall vs stall!). Most noticably, half of this week's teams had Toxic Spikes support with either Roserade or Nidoqueen. Especially Roserade has established itself as one of the best mons and team structures in the current meta, as already alluded to by august just above me. 8 uses and 8 wins is just amazing. The team structure is usually pretty similar too, and yet no one has been able to find the formula to break it yet. I think now is a nice time to take a look at all the Roserade teams that we have seen so far this SPL (I have reordered all teams including the lead):



(Snofall - W1, Jirachi lead)


(BIHI - W2. Jirachi lead)


(august - W2, Swampert lead)


(Malekith - W2, Heatran lead)


(mael - W4, Starmie lead)


(ToF - W5, Roserade lead)


(Sakito - W5, Metagross lead)


(august - W5, Flygon lead)

I think it is easy to define a formula for building the team here if you so desired, and that's what makes the differences in teams so interesting. mael's and Malekith's are the most interesting just looking at the 6, but the other teams have interesting techs too. It will be interesting to see if people will start cooking up techs that are specfically for this team structure, and if this team's win rate will come down.

Onto the games.


BIHI

vs

Christo

In a relatively short game, BIHI's rain team sliced through Christo's bulky offense. With a 3 turn Outrage from turn 1, BIHI was able to take out Dragonite leaving only Gyarados as Christo's water resist for the rest of the game. BIHI was able to play the game out from then and solidly close it out. It seems like Christo was not properly prepared to face rain, and it's hard to see how Christo could have won this matchup. Maybe a well timed Gyarados set up? Even then it can barely setup vs anything from what we've seen. Other than that, I do think Christo's team looks quite nice and had BIHI gone with a more standard bulky offense build I think it would have matched up well.

Malekith

vs

ToF

This game also ended in a pretty simple manner. Malekith's team relies on Latias to check Suicune, and a poorly timed Ice Beam freeze meant the game was almost immediately over. Malekith's team looks pretty standard mons wise, but interesting in a way regardless. Azelf usually accompanies more offensively oriented teams than this, maybe we were looking at Swords Dance Gliscor and Dragon Dance Gyarados? This could also fit nicely with a light paralysis theme, supported by Azelf, Jirachi and/or Latias. Tyranitar could help trap Rotom for the sweepers while also enjoying para support. It's hard to say though, with the information we got from this game! ToF is a relatively standard style of team and set of six pokemon, but we have seen that this team works very well this SPL. Some slight twists are Lead Roserade: used to be standard but we usually see midgame dual hazards more nowadays, which might make sense with a more Toxic Spikes focus of ToF's team. Scarf Jirachi is also not the most common option, but it's a nice change.

Void

vs

Sakito

A very nice SPL debut for Sakito, congrats! This game was very closely contested and could have gone either way. I think both players played well here, noticably I thought Sakito played some risky moves: I probably wouldn't have Roared vs Tyranitar, or pivoted Flygon into Suicune for example, but they worked out well for him and it's nice to see that he isn't scared to take risks in his debut game. This could also have gone quite wrong though, had Meteor Mash hit his Gengar switching in on Metagross (although I don't dare to say how the game would unfold from then). He brought the Roserade / Gengar squad which has been established as a very safe choice, but with some twists. Metagross as a lead is very nice to give the team some more momentum right from the start. Metagross can do this job a lot better than Jirachi, which you would usually find in this slot. It also helps check opposing +Speed nature Jirachi more, which allows the interesting tech of Modest Gengar. Even though this combination of words is weird to look at, Modest Gengar allows for a notable power boost with less losses in the speed tier than you might expect.

mael

vs

Snofall

Here we have the always entertaining stall vs stall matchup. I thought this game was actually quite a fun watch (I didn't catch it live so I could gladly use the Next turn button), with a Skarmory cleaning Snofall's team by tactically spamming Whirlwind. mael set this up well by letting his Tyranitar get burned to weaken Rotom enough and leave Snofall with nothing to stop it. mael's team was a more standard iteration, Snofall's team was a bit more offbeat by adding Milotic and Celebi. Also interesting to note that neither team used a spinner, and mael's team didn't use a spinblocker despite rocking all three entry hazards (presumably). I think this shows that ScarfTar really helps with these iterations of stall, acting as even a pseudo-spinblocker vs Starmie as well as the standard ScarfTar stall stuff. However, the most important teambuilding note here is: speed creep on Skarmory surely can win games.

Emeral

vs

august

Here we see the 8th Rose of this season, completing the 100% win ratio. There is not much left to say about this team, as there was nothing super new revealed in this game. Emeral's team is a solid bulky offense, I wonder what most of his sets are as I think there are some interesting options here. Life Orb SubSplit (presumably) Gengar is a nice change of pace from the popular Black Sludge sets, an old classic but like Modest Gengar this boost in power can really mess up some fat teams. I do wonder if that Celebi is Nasty Plot, which could be very nice in combination with Tyranitar and Magnezone: trapping Latias, Skarmory etc. This team seems to synergize with Magnezone very well, with Flygon bringing it safely as well as Swampert, Gengar and Celebi enjoying a removed Skarmory or Jirachi.

Week 6 Matches

[RAI] BIHI vs Malekith [CRY]
[SHA] Void vs Christo [TYR]
[WOL] mael vs ToF [TIG]
[RUI] Emeral vs Sakito [BIG]
[CLA] august vs Snøfall [SCO]

Please feel free to add to this thread with discussion, predictions, highlight matches, notes on played games, or anything else!

​

 

[Aria IV]

Really really looking forward to BIHI vs Malekith, oh boy. Also curious to see how August vs Snøfall goes; prior to SPL's commencement it would likely have been easy to bold August, but Snøfall has undeniably been exceeding expectations this season.

 

[Jhonx~]

Really really looking forward to BIHI vs Malekith, oh boy. Also curious to see how August vs Snøfall goes; prior to SPL's commencement it would likely have been easy to bold August, but Snøfall has undeniably been exceeding expectations this season.

What really happen is that people just look old names for their tour success, but they ignore new names or less famous names, its all a popularity thing, if people look at new names they would find so many talented players, im happy for my friend Snofall doing excellent this SPL and I wish him the best in this tour

 

[Excal]

Lucario @ Salac Berry
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Endure
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch

Cool way for Lucario to bypass some of its common stops these days (Gliscor, Scarf Mag, even Scarf Metagross). It also checks DDtar really nicely (one-time check ofc but usually that's all you need). In addition, it can win the 1v1 vs offensive Fire Punch Jirachi, SDing as it gets fire punched into salac range and OHKOing back. We tried a lot of different combinations with it, but ultimately supported it with Spikes, ScarfTar, Twave Latias, and MixGon (to take heavy advantage of RT Rotom). Both the Skarm and Luc on the team Sakito used had ScarfMag counterplay and both the Flygon and Luc had nice tools to deal with Gliscor (against a serial Gliscor spammer in Emeral).

We also used Earthquake Latias, which is a sick set that I've been really liking for quite a while now. It helps Latias out a ton with Heatran, Magnezone, Empoleon, Tyranitar, and Lucario, and it lets it 1v1 SubCM Jirachi very reliably.

Gonna post some other stuff here at some point in the future, but I just wanted to say that the high activity in this thread is awesome. The DPP community was something of a wasteland around a year ago, and it has thrived significantly since then. The effort put into this discussion thread has definitely both shown and played a part in that!

 

[mael]

The OP will be updated with replays and usage stats.

Week 6 Recap

Two-thirds into the season and the games get better and more interesting. The thing that caught my eye is the rise of fast Tyranitars. Starting last week we saw several scarf Tyranitars coming in incredibly handy (my game vs Snofall last week, Void vs Christo this week), but not only scarf Tyranitar is seeing usage. A surprising amount of really fast non-scarf Tyranitars turned out to be quite game-deciding (me against ToF, as well as Snofall against august). Another mon that has seen more usage than, as far as I remember, ever before, is mixed Flygon. Several games where he played a key role. Some very interesting developments. I do think all the games this week were super worth being watched, either for the cool teams and sets or just because the players played really well. Sets that stood out to me were the scarf Rotom with twave that Malekith brought, the bulky EQ Latias and the Endure Salac Lucario from Sakito. After this week, most players hover at a +/- 2 w/l difference, so the pool is pretty close to each other still, even after 6 weeks of playing. The only outlier is Snofalls 5-1 record. It's gonna be interesting to see, if the players that have a positive record can start slowly pulling clear, or if the other players can catch up.

BIHI

vs

Malekith

I think at this point malekith is trying his hardest to make sure to be the only player to have unrevealed mons in more games than not. This game was surprisingly one sided, considering that BIHI had a great season before this game and was doing great. We see a stall team from BIHI playing against a fairly bulky offensive team by Malekith. Kiths main way of immediate pressure looked to be Flygon. I think the non para from Jirachis Body Slam on turn 13 was a key turn in allowing Malekith to keep his pressure up, which he did excellently. Another crucial turn was probably the critical hit on the Milo with Flygon. While Milo lives EQ into Draco (with standard EV spreads) but with the crit roll being 69, it might as well have been attack invested, which would turn it into a roll. Anyway that left BIHI in a rough position, forcing him to play weirdly around Fire Blast PP at which point his team was too diminished to deal with Malekiths team. Haze Milo was his only counterplay to any sort of bulky Roost Scizor, so that being gone really sealed the deal. Interesting little fact that august brought up: All 4 wins from Malekith came against stall. His 2 losses were to offensive teams.


Void

vs

Christo

This game was, in my opinion, the best performance Void has shown this SPL. It was Roserade ditto, which unsurprisingly means that Roserade now has a loss to its record. Both teams kind of ignored hazard-control and brought 4 mons that get damanged by Spikes. In match-ups like this, obviously you want to avoid switching when you can, and i think Void made a good job in making use of the switches that he made. Crucial turn was probably the trapping of the Scarfrotom, which allowed him to win the game out with his own Rotom. Interesting that Christo decided to bring a dual scarf balanced team. The Latias was probably a standard defensive Latias, with Trick in the filler slot, presumably to cripple Jirachis and offer one more solution against Suicunes. While the idea might have some merits to it, I am not sure if you want to do that instant Trick in a metagame where Tyranitar rules. Good win by Void.

mael

vs

ToF

Very difficult game for me. I think the fact that I got 2 good tricks off and that I had literal max speed Tyranitar to outspeed scarf Blissey saved an otherwise probably unwinnable game for me. Made some good decisions (tricks and also saving the ttar for the 1 extra hit it could get off vs Blissey) and I think played rather well overall. gg tof

Emeral

vs

Sakito

These 2 teams might be my favourite teams used this week (other than my own, obviously) because they've got lots of things covered, while maintaining ways to be somewhat proactive. I think had Sakito not let Flygon go, he could've applied a lot more pressure, seeing how emeral had troubles switching into it, but it was a tough call to make. Then Sakito also lost the Pursuit vs Crunch roll, which supposedly was in his favour and from there it was fairly unwinnable, imo. Had he been able to keep the ttar and get some damage on Rotom, Lucario could've swept. Very well played by emeral, he got all the necessary reads right to win this game and brought a cool ass team.

august

v

Snofall

To nobodys surprise Snofall continues to prove that he is an incredible player. This game featured a very untypical offense from august against a team with all the tool necessary to beat down OTR Bronzong offense. Highlight of the game was the positive speed nature Tyranitar, which outspeed a fast, but adamant, Breloom to get a free kill. Decisive turn. The burn on Bronzong definitely helped Snofalls cause, but it looked hard to win from that turn onwards anyway. Snofall made a good call bringing double Protect and a sub Zapdos against a team like augusts.

Week 7 Matches
​

• [RAI] BIHI vs mael [WOL]​
• [RUI] Emeral vs Void [SHA]​
• [CLA] august vs Malekith [CRY]​
• [SCO] Snøfall vs Christo [TYR]​
• [BIG] DeepBlueC vs ToF [TIG]​

The only noticable change this week is, that DeepBlueC is back in the pool. Again, with this Pool there is mostly good matches to be expected. Snofall probably trying to maintain his momentum and go for best record during the regular season. 2 more wins and nobody can take that away from him. my personal highlight is probably malekith vs august, again a clash of vastly different styles. interested to see what teams are coming our way.

Please feel free to add to this thread with discussion, predictions, highlight matches, notes on played games, or anything else!​

 

[Aria IV]

Week 7 matches were highly entertaining, highlight for me was probably BIHI vs Mael; really exciting offense v offense bout that was slightly marred by some unfortunate luck, but it seemed both competitors played well regardless.

Seems like the Classiest put Tamahome in vs BIHI for week 8, subbing out August/putting him in ADV? Interesting, I look forward to both respective matches.

 

[Tomahawk]

The OP has been updated with replays and usage stats.

Week 7 Recap

BIHI

vs

mael

Here we have two more Roserade teams, as they have been popular all season. Both have a slightly different iteration, but both are also use Suicune as an important wincon: mael's version is probably very slightly more standard regarding the 6, but has some interesting techs like Healing Wish Jirachi which can really give Suicune a second life which can be crucial as we have seen before this SPL, lead offensive rocks Heatran, and (presumably) Rain Dance (or at least Thunder) Rotom. BIHI goes for the double Water approach to support Suicune, Specs Starmie is an excellent lead and can cripple potential Suicune checks into range for boosted attacks. Special / Mixed Rachi also allows some more flexibility regarding switchins and means BIHI has to worry less about offensive Pert or Heatran switchins without unnecessarily damaging Suicune, for example. The game was imo well played from both sides and in the end came down to the wire, certainly worth a watch.

Emeral

vs

Void

This game could have been more interesting with I think cool teams, but Void got relatively unlucky and was basically unable to stop Emeral's Agility Metagross after a fortunate Attack raise and high roll. He started out the game quite well though, with if memory is correct the first appearance of Scarf Uxie this season, and it did its job beautifully. I think the Uxie is a very nice fit on this team: it looks a bit like the team Emeral brought in Week 3 in fact, with a different pixie lead and going for the dual Fighting core instead of Gyarados. Emeral brought more of a dual (or triple?) Water straight-up offense, unfortunately we didn't get to see the last 2 mons but we can assume they kept up the pace.

august

vs

Malekith

This was kind of a crazy game, felt like who I expected to win changed every few turns. I thought august's team was very cool, he might have noted that Malekith had 4 wins vs fat and his losses vs offense and just went straight up offense for this reason. During the game I was not sure if he was Water spam or Dual Dragon but in the end it was just a nice combination of both! Specs Starmie (I assume) + Empoleon + Gyarados is very strong and should be able to break through most Water resists during the game. Considering Malekith only had 1 Water resist, he still held out for a while: Empoleon got slept early by a (sort of) surprise Sleep Powder, and Gyarados got checked by Scarf Rotom. Mixed Flygon makes another strong appearance, and I think we can surely expect this set to be a mainstay now. Malekith's team on the other hand is a Roserade team, with the very interesting SD Gliscor + (SR?) Tyranitar in the last 2 slots over the usual Jirachi, Flygon, Latias, etc. Quick Attack was a very surprising last move for Gliscor: it's an interesting choice as I don't think it really helps versus much matchup wise and in theory it might not be the optimal move as it is simply quite weak, but I imagine in practice it can often be quite useful, like this game for picking off Latias. Malekith must have wished he had Thunder Fang in this game though. Specs Swampert was also a very cool addition to the team, but unfortunately did not get to show its strength much during the game. Finally, I was a bit surprised by Sleep Powder on Roserade with how used we have been getting to dual Spikes (and I think august might have been a bit too), but it showed its use here for sure.

Snofall

vs

Christo

Snofall brings another stall team after losing the stall mirror vs mael a couple of weeks back. This didn't start of too well for him though, as he had to absorb a Tricked Choice Specs turn 1, making Clefable a lot worse where Encore + Knock Clef can otherwise be amazing with Spikes up. In hindsight, it might have been better to select another mon to absorb the Trick, but it's hard to say, especially turn 1. Christo had an interesting team with super offensive stuff (Life Orb Gengar, Lucario) as well as some fat to absorb pressure (Milotic mainly, but also Skarmory). His team let him play a nice game, with Trick turn 1; dual hazards Skarmory vs spinless stall, and again Snofall had some problems with a faster phazing Skarmory which helped kill off Jirachi and Milotic; the classic Life Orb SubSplit Gengar which we have not seen a lot lately but matched up very nicely here. I think the game was close though, and Snofall might have had a better chance without the crit.

DeepBlueC

vs

ToF

This game feels very similar to Emeral vs Void: in fact DeepBlueC revealed 3 of the same mons as Emeral (they even both had Wacan Gyara), and some unfortunate turns allowed for a clean sweep. Even given the luck, I think this game showed that Gyarados is a threat though, as without the flinch or crit it still would have opened holes for a later sweeper to threaten something (SD Empoleon, maybe?). I can't say too much about ToF's team unfortunately, not seeing most of the sets, but Earthquake Latias was revealed: a very cool set that we also saw last week that can lure/kill standard switchins such as Heatran, Tyranitar and Jirachi.


Week 8 Matches
[RAI] BIHI vs Tamahome [CLA]
[SCO] Snøfall vs Emeral [RUI]
[BIG] DeepBlueC vs mael [WOL]
[TIG] ToF vs Void [SHA]
[TYR] Christo vs Malekith [CRY]

This is Tamahome's first game in DPP this season, to play BIHI: honestly quite surprising, I certainly didn't expect him to play a DPP game this season when in the same team as both august and Fakes! This surely promises to be a great game, with two great players. All other games look exciting as well, so should be a fun week.

Please feel free to add to this thread with discussion, predictions, highlight matches, notes on played games, or anything else!


​

 

[Kristyl]

Really excited for BIHI vs Tamahome! BIHI has been crushing SPL and Tamahome is the DPP goat, he hasn't been having a great SPL but maybe this is the change he needs. I didn't expect Tama to DPP this season but here we are, looking forward to see what he'll come up with in the no Dugtrio meta. Tough to predict who will be the victor.

We've seen some Pokemon dominate the metagame like Roserade which has really picked up recently. Due to this I think Paraspam and Weatherless stall has gotten a bit worse. Still very viable but it feels riskier since the Roserade matchup can be pretty rough. I'm sure they can adapt with sets such as Encore Clefable which ruin the plans of Substitute Suicune or Jirachi but it's a bit difficult to fit as we seen this Week Snofall used a funky Jirachi set to pull it off.

I'm not a very good but I feel I've learnt lots from the great players posting in this thread, keep it up! Thanks for reading, take care.

 

[Aria IV]

Felt like almost all of the matches for week 8 displayed some unfortunate hax one way or another, which is disappointing because imo this whole pool of competitors is playing really well otherwise.

My personal favorite match of the week would have to be Snøfall vs Emeral, just some fun and quick offense with booms flying everywhere. I enjoyed it the same way I enjoyed Pacific Rim.

Coolest tech I saw this week was Void's healing wish Clefable, which was crucial for revitalizing his scarf Latias in the endgame of his match vs ToF. Clef's movepool is obviously super malleable, but its compression of the status blocker and late game cleric roles was what really made this choice seem appealing to me, as the other notable healing wish mons in Latias and Jirachi are ruined by paralysis. Clef's winrate hasn't been good at all in the prior weeks (its decline likely attributable to the Dugtrio ban), but it seems too versatile and unique a mon to truly fall off, and innovations like these are a testament to that staying power.

 

[mael]

The OP will be updated with replays and usage stats.

Week 8 Recap

Snofall officially got the best record of the regular season, only possibly tied by BIHI! The teams this week were somewhat standard (at least from what was revealed). A standout tech here was Voids Healing Wish Clefable. Tamahome got to play his first game in DPP, but other than that it was mostly similar to what happened last weeks.

BIHI

vs

Tamahome

Very good game. All out offense against a Mag offense. Generally Flygon + Scizor tend to do incredibly well in these match ups, but Tamahome went for a really ballsy Thunder Wave turn 1, got a paralysis on scizor, which lead to a good full para against Tyranitar. Tamahome also took the guaranteed damage on Flygon with Gyarados instead of going for greed DDs, so he did all the right plays needed to win this game. Very well played on both ends. Good game to study.

Snofall

vs

Emeral

Another super interesting game. Snofall brought a team incredibly similar to Tamahomes. The biggest difference is the SD-ing steel mon. Judging from turn 4 this must've been a Jolly Metagross, which I assume is why it outspeed a Heatran that was switched into it. Crucial turn imo, considering that it meant that Emeral was missing a sack when it mattered, cause from basically the beginning it was a game of sacks in this offensive af match up, where Snofall came out on top. This style of team often ends up in trade wars, which is why Metagross is so good there, since it does a 2for1 better than any other mon. Just highlights really well, how every single turn matters so much in short games.

DeepBlueC

vs

mael

Not much to say here. Stall vs Stall match-up and Clefable tends to be incredibly crucial in those but DeepBlueC came out on top.

ToF

vs

Void

Rain against a very balanced team. Usually rain tends to do well vs these but here ToF ran into all of Sunny Day Heatran, Latias and a Suicune, so his Kingdra was super not free to spam Hydros, which kinda makes rain a little unflexible in play, but h managed to get good utility out of it, but in the end Voids defensive backbone was just too solid for him to break. Some crucial movesets, like Healing Wish Clef, Tbolt Latias and Flamethrower Nidoqueen allowed Void to win, which generally suggests a rather well built team for me. It looks like it was very well and purposefully designed. Any of these sets not being there and the match-up gets much much harder! So well played on Voids end.

Christo

vs

Malekith

Pretty much a non-game, considering the RNG, but the teams looked interesting. NP Celebi is slept on and it's shown in this replay what it can do with the right set against the right team. Heracross on paraspam is also a fairly new take to me, but I like it. Bug man does many cool teams, which include being a sleeptalker, as well as also providing a good way to instantly threaten clefable and tyranitar, without having to resort to Jirachi and sometimes go for a flinch or risk damage / knock on rachi. I like that. Would've liked to see this game actually played out.


Week 9 Matches

• [RAI] BIHI vs Void [SHA]
• [WOL] shawyu 1313 vs Malekith [CRY]
• [RUI] Emeral vs Christo [TYR]
• [CLA] Tamahome vs ToF [TIG]
• [SCO] Snøfall vs DeepBlueC [BIG]

A very very promising bunch of games. Last years DPP Player Shawyu is back to DPP to see some action and is up vs Malekith. Hopefully we're gonna see some more techs, considering that some teams are guaranteed through to play-offs and some are already out of contention. My personal favourite is probably BIHI vs Void. Voids last few games have been really good and BIHI had a good af season so far, so that is very promising. Can't wait for the games.

Please feel free to add to this thread with discussion, predictions, highlight matches, notes on played games, or anything else!

 

[Aria IV]

Where were you when Infernape had the worst winrate of the three Sinnoh starters in SPL

 

[mael]

The OP will be updated with replays and usage stats.

Week 9 Recap

The last week of regular season definitely didn't disappoint. We saw good games, we saw interesting techs and we saw a Torterra. The Roserade Spam goes on, it surely has established itself as the theme of this seasons SPL. We did see a few Magnezones too, one ran into a Shed Shell Skarm and couldn't do what it was brought in for, the other one into U-Turn Jirachi + Blissey, so it was arguably even less useful. We also saw 2 non-rocks Clefables, one paired with a non-rocks Blissey. My favourite set used this week was probably the Protect + SD Breloom, which made Tamahomes game vs ToF a lot easier than it would have been with any other Breloom set. A worthy bunch of games to watch, very enjoyable!

BIHI

vs

Void

By now we should be used to seeing these types of Roserade teams, though there's some interesting twists here. BIHI decided to bring out the forgotten Raikou as well as a Blizzard Rotom-Frost. Void on the other hand went for the standard share of 6 mons, with what seems to be fairly standard sets. As these games tend to go, Roserades exchange layers and then from there it becomes a game of either trying not to switch or getting the cm sweep faster than your opponent. I think this game kinda came down to the Protect vs Boom Situation that Raikou and Heatran found themselves in, cause if BIHI gets that right then he's fairly well situated for a sweep right there. Void knew exactly when to pull the trigger, props on him for that.

shawyu 1313

vs

Malekith

All out offense against paraspam but with Torterra. Interesting game. I think shawyu went a little to hard trying to predict a few turns and that cost him crucial momentum, which Malekith then managed to turn into a solid defensive win. Letting Machamp get paralysed and Jirachi into EQ were probably the biggest mistake thought. Torterra with a 100% win rate this spl so far. S-Rank it rn. Lets see if that changes. I do see the utility Torterra provides for these kinda teams. Interesting game!

Emeral

vs

Christo

Two very solid, very no-nonsense type of teams. Yet another Roserade offense, but this time with Sub CM Rachi instead of Cune. I think Rachi was a good call here and it did almost pull off the sweep, but lost a potential speedtie or simply had less investment. + Speed MixedFlygon saving the day. Not the common way to go about it, but it worked! Big fan of modest lead Latias, it worked out fairly well here. Christo managed to catch Emeral with a few surprising speedy mons and that got him the win. I think this is now 2 out of 2 wins for Scarfmetagross. Pretty underrated set. 2 Scarfers, both with Trick is a fairly nice way to maintain speed in a rather slow team but also have ways to cripple defensive teams. Liked both these teams.

Tamahome

vs

ToF

Not often do we see a Magnezone team run into a Shed Shell Skarmory and the skarmory still doing close to nothing that game. interesting team choices. Big fan of lefties knock off empoleon, it does well against both offensive and defensive teams and tamahome also had the breloom to absorb knock from clefable. Protect SD is an very very good tech, since it lets you live forever basically and give you enough longevity to beat up stall teams, precisely like it did in this game. I do wonder how this would have looked if he didn't get the crit on Gliscor. ToFs team was just a fairly standard stall team, but with Shed Shell Skarmory. Generally liking these teams, but they do rely on spikes quite a bit in the longer match ups and he got only one layer down, which hurt him. Had he gotten one or two more and a few more Whirlwinds to force the Breloom in, I think he could have won the game.

Snofall

vs

DeepBlueC

I loved this take on Paraspam with the dual pink. Usually I do it to free up the SR slot on Clefable so that I can run CM or another move on the classic Knock Clef. Bliss fully and entirely allows Clef to run bold and be a much better answer to many many mons like Jirachi, Gyarados and similar. In this case it was CM which surely helps the stall match up. CM Clef + Machamp looks potent enough to break up any defensive cores. Very well played game by DBC. Snofalls team was a fairly standard-ish Flygon + Magnezone team. The leftovers Metagross is always cool to have since it handles so many mons while still maintaining offensive pressure. I wonder if the last move was Protect, Toxic or Agility or something completely different. That one paralysis on Tyranitar might've been important, but we don't know what Snofall went for. But the most crucial element to this game was probably having U-Turn on Jirachi, which allowed him to escape the Sub Charge Beam Magnezone trap and save himself a mon or two. Very good game, maybe my favourite this week.​

Semifinale

• [WOL] mael vs Tamahome [CLA]
• [TYR] Christo vs Malekith [CRY]

From here on, every game is crucial. It's been a good season and I hope the DPP Players continue to provide as they did until now. I'm certainly gonna give it all.


Please feel free to add to this thread with discussion, predictions, highlight matches, notes on played games, or anything else!

 

[Jhonx~]

Since its Season Over for the team I was supporting, i'd like to drop some words and post here the stuff I built and other sets I created during the season, first of all I want to thanks Amaranth Punny snøfall for let me help in DPP, I enjoyed help the team and being listened by strong and experienced players, thats a new experience for me, learned lot of stuff and in the future I'd continue helping you guys if needed, thanks for allow me.

Lets Begin!

Dragonite @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 24 Atk / 252 SpA / 232 Spe
Mild Nature
- Outrage
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake

When you click Draco Meteor the opponent always will think ur Draco Fire Blast Superpower Roost / Extreme Speed set, that usually create opportunities for opposing pokemon to setup, the innovation of this set is that you can surprise them with a powerful Outrage, nuking them hard, the another difference is that I dont carry Superpower, instead I use Earthquake, this because I can hit more stuff hard like Metagross, take down Defensive Heatran, hits hard Tyranitar, and hit Steels in general without fear to miss, Fire Blast for Skarmory and Bronzong, Grass types, etc.

Gengar @ Black Sludge
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 200 HP / 56 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt

The idea behind this set is run an offensive spinblocker but keeping enough bulk to tank Starmie hit and avoid be 2HKO from Jirachi Iron Head, Gengar without Special Attack EV's still deals good damage and having a fast taunt user with will-o'wisp can make Gengar a good wall / wallbreaker.

Metagross @ Iron Ball
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 196 HP / 252 Atk / 60 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Trick
- Stealth Rock

This set is old and Im not the creator, but I had this idea and adapted the Speed crep which is nothing new lol...This Metagross is aimed to set rocks in the field while being able to trick Skarmory, Flying Types, Rotom-Wash and lure them with Earthquake, even Tricking a Bronzong is something beautiful, the 60 Speed EV's are to be faster than Specially Defensive Heatran with no Speed creep.

Jirachi @ Expert Belt
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Iron Head
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Icy Wind
- Grass Knot

This set is nothing special in particular, already discovered and very old one, but I suggested this one to Snofall agaisnt Malekith and this worked perfectly, with a Jirachi taking out 4 Pokemon of Malekith's Team, this was an amazing call and its so threatening in the actual metagame, being able to take down and badly damage most of the actual balances, FWG Teams, and sometimes Stall.

Starmie @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin

Old tech that NightFox gave me in 2016 when he was training me to be his succesor lol... this Starmie set allows to 1v1 Tyranitar, being able to remove the trapper and do a Rapid Spin once Tyranitar dies.

Cores and Scouting Ideas I suggested

Calm Mind Spam, idea of this was make a powerful core of Special Attackers, being able to overpower most special walls and this was good in general vs BIHI, BIHI teambuilding is really solid but lacked of good defensive answers to CM Spam, so we used this core, sets are Superachi CM Psychic Bolt Grass Knot, while Suicune was Modest with Protect CM Hydro Ice Beam.

Snofall wanted to use FWG so I built a team with Standard FWG core for him agaisnt ToF, this was an excellent pick as well, Heatran offensive power with Choice Specs nukes everything, while Suicune Offensive is annoying for Heatran checks, Roserade supports here as Water Resist and setting up Spikes & Toxic Spikes.

Vs Malekith It was really hard create a counter team, all I had in mind was suggest use offense, but this was my best call when I analyzed Malekith teams and playstyle, Mixed Jirachi always a scary threat and in the game it showed why its scary, taking down 4 Pokemon of Malekith Team without issues.

Vs Mael I suggested use Celebi Calm Mind, so it was able to sweep late game, sadly this wasnt a very good suggestion from me and Snofall got matchuped by another Stall, still Celebi is an interesting pick on the actual metagame, the bulky capabilities Celebi have are amazing and allows to be a potent end game cleaner.

Teams I created during the season.
https://pokepast.es/f9a9ca94be8438ce

I like most, except the CT I built named Malekith and BIHI in the end of the team name, these teams have lot of flaws while the others dont, hope u all guys enjoy this, it was an experience I enjoyed a lot even when I was not a player

 

[PDC]

built a lot for our team this season in dpp ou so i'll be showcasing what i think were some good teams + sets i came up with

https://pokepast.es/13f6e8af3a95a21a

built this vs...emeral i believe for christo. i wanted to bring specslead lati again + special spam. the original idea was specs lati + suit meta + rd kingdra since i thought that combo was exemplary vs his types of offenses / stall. christo changed to cune on the final version, which i think works out better. cune is such a good pokemon, and it has seen a wide resurgence lately with something like 6 different variations of cm. this team isn't one of my absolute favorites and i think it looks a lot like "old-style" dpp builds, but still it's worth trying. i think the tran set can be changed and overall the meta-tran-rotom-flygon combo can be switched around to your liking. you can do scarftran + mixgon + different rotom + sr meta, or whatever. this was just what we decided on quickly.

https://pokepast.es/36b5705ffa02b314

built this in about 1 hour on the sunday before our week went up. looking at kith's replays, i saw that he was VERY weak to special spam. not only were all his teams ridiculously slow, but they were also susceptible to grass - ground coverage across the board. so, digging through a few old threads, i stumbled upon this celebi set posted by badabing something like 2 years ago. np celebi does not sweep, and in all honesty isn't the strongest thing in the world, but it has a strong surprise value and vs some teams it can absolutely run them into the ground. another "old-style" dpp team, this type of build is surprisingly good right now. lead glisc nets you a great lead MU vs most stalls, and since nobody runs blissey or sdef jira anymore, celebi becomes a massive threat + offensive cune. tar set can be changed, shuca was honestly a random placeholder for the short term. i think passho would likely be better, but you can experiment with other sets too. good team. options that i have explored are breloom > celebi (works fine), and wise glasses celebi to boost both EP and HP ice while maintaining a strong leaf storm. good team.

https://pokepast.es/d33d33d56a7e7baa

this team is kind of hit or miss. based on an older build from bkc/roscoe, specs lead lati + dual hazard skarm gives you an excellent avenue to get rocks/spikes up early game. they bring in sdef jira, zor, or tar, and you're basically guaranteed to grab at least rocks + 1 layer of spikes. team is kinda fragile and has to be played on the edge. struggles a bit with sdef jira and other "offense killers" of that nature. you can use wisp gar or trick sludge to help vs them, or run sub cm jira as an option > lucario too. pretty cool team, and usually either outright wins or falls a bit flat. good team though, and i think was one of our favorite i built this season.

Porygon-Z @ Life Orb
Ability: Download
EVs: 96 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpA / 152 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 3 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 SpD
- Tri Attack
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Dark Pulse
- Hyper Beam

lead p-z.... yeah this shit is definitely stupid lmao except when it outright wins. if you outspeed their lead (jira, meta, pert, some ttar, tran, champ (non-sash), or are facing anything that needs to trade rocks, you're starting the game off with a KO nearly 100%. make it faster than dnite if you want, that's probably best. but yeah, this thing is INCREDIBLY strong since you almost always get the satk boost. hyper beam seems like a meme until you ohko literally anything on command. run this on a HO build.

Latias (F) @ Flame Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: Defensive Spread
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Trick
- Wish
- Recover

posting this bad boy again. trick orb latias is kinda fire in a meta inhabited by specs lead lati. defensive wish was what i wanted to bring vs anybody who i thought wasn't bringing HO after we had our 7 week specs lati spam fest. they swap to ttar or a fat steel, we get a free burn. vs jirachi or ttar this basically means they're ruined for the game. you can then past wishes with impunity. i think my original idea was in semifinals vs malekith, which was trickorb lati + bold cm clef + dual hazard skarm. still trying to find the ideal build for him though.

Abomasnow @ Leftovers
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: Outspeed Clef, Can go Faster/slower depending on preference
- Ice Shard
- Earthquake
- Wood Hammer
- Swords Dance

sd abomasnow is surprisingly viable. i found that having a +2 ice shard is devastating in a meta inhabited by so many ice weaks. if you can spread para to the opposing team abomasnow can potentially have a field day. of course this is kind of gimmicky, but in some MUs the opponent struggles to knock out abomasnow and it hits their bulky waters / flyers hard in return with WH + shard combo. para their steels and it can also do some serious damage with earthquake.

overall i didn't invent anything new this spl, and am a little bit upset i didn't build more profusely for our team (i was involved every week in dpp but definitely had some builds i wanted us to bring over others). either way, i liked the ones we ended up bringing, and some of the other techs i chefed up during the season. might make a post for bw too, since i put together a lot of single sets for us in spl this year.

 

[Excal]

My DPP SPL in review (as manager & teambuilder, lol)

Week 1 - vs BIHI

The team we brought goes all in on a bulky but powerful (Adamant) SD Gliscor. ScarfTar + Gliscor is one of the most synergistic pairings in DPP, they cover each other’s weaknesses super well and ensure a team offensively and defensively against mons like Infernape and Lucario for example. ScarfTar traps all of SD Gliscor’s annoyances, namely Gengar, Starmie, Latias, Rotom, etc. Magnezone was chosen to trap Bronzong and compensate for the already-apparent Skarmory weakness. The rest of the team went more on a defensive paraspam-oriented end with wt jira, force palm impish loom to absorb sleep and status as well as spread paras for Gliscor, and SR clef to round it out and help vs Heatran. Honestly, bihi was a rough draw for us week 1 because at the time it was a whole new metagame, he knows me & dbc really well, and he's difficult to prepare for. We ended up choosing something built before SPL and he came really prepared for my defensive style at the time of the dug metagame. Our biggest mistake was Clef lead. His Breloom lead was really smart because it prevented dbc from using Impish loom as the sleep absorb & subpunch check so momentum couldn't be gained in the battle and he played really well, huge props to him.

Week 2 - vs Malekith

Went with an attempt to revamp ipanema after the dug ban by using Scarf HP Ground Magnezone to trap opposing zone and pick off Heatran. Scarf zone > dug improved the matchup against Lucario and Skarmory but also made other matchups a bit harder (like Gengar). I think Skarm + Mag + Jira is still a really cool core and this team ended up getting a pretty decent matchup this week despite the result of the game.

Week 3 - vs Christo

We ended up using a small revamp of my spl team last year vs dbc, but went with Lum DD Gyarados > CB, and modified some of the EV spreads. The combo of offensive Gyarados and SD empo is amazing. This empoleon set is extremely underutilized and may be its strongest set right now because the priority, typing, and stallbreaking potential is insane. Also it feels so punishing to give empo even 1 SD boost, thing just wreaks havoc vs so many teams because sea incense gives its waterfalls the strength it needs to be really difficult to play around if it gets momentum.

Week 4 - vs august

Went for a breaker-style team here kind of built around CBtar. Used Lum > Macho Brace on Bronzong because of Breloom and Gengar (both huge issues for OTRZong + CBTar teams). Went for the Swampert + bulky Breloom offensive core supported by Scarf bulky HW Latias. Timid Lum Swampert was used to further assist with the Breloom matchup because we kind of cheated on fighting resists here. Magnezone feels so important to use with Bronzong because it can be huge deadweight against a lot of the Spikes setters. Team destroys stall more so than offense and needs to be played aggro to get early momentum.

Week 5 - vs Void (Sakito debut)

My take on Roserade balance featuring a lead Iron Ball Metagross combined with CroCune. IB Gross + Suicune is very strong synergy because Suicune really appreciates common iron ball targets being slowed down + grounded (Zapdos + Rotom + Skarm). Suicune can legitimately set up on and 1v1 these mons if they are slowed down, which is pretty insane. In addition, Trick + Iron Ball Metagross can function as a great trick absorber to support Suicune. The rest of the team fills itself out with standard Roserade balance mons (Roserade, Heatran, Gengar, Flygon)

Week 6 - vs Emeral

One of my favorite teams of the whole season. I talked about it in a previous post here, but it was basically a build around MixGon + SD Endure + Salac Lucario.

Week 7 - vs ToF

I built this hyperoffense right after last SPL and modernized it with a bit of assistance from dbc. Used this a lot in DPP cup last year and had consistent success with it throughout the rest of the year. Azelf lead into the triple DD core (Dnite + Gyara + Tar) finished off by agility metagross to clean offenses and SD empoleon to break stalls apart works so nicely, once again featuring the Wacan DD Gyara (lure + remove Flygon and even Lati/Rotom with no rocks up) and SD empo. I think this team is the most consistent hyperoffense in the current metagame and the results it had this SPL showed — having been used 4 times in its current form and winning each time.

Replays from this SPL:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-544639 - DeepBlueC vs ToF
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-544860 - Emeral vs Void
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-545411 - Tamahome vs BIHI
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-551401 - mael vs Christo

Week 8 - vs mael

This team was entirely dbc’s and I won't reveal last publicly because it's not mine, didn’t have any influence here.

Week 9 - vs snøfall

Modified the CM clef paraspam soulwind used in classic playoffs. It’s probably one of the best ways to make double blob work in this metagame because Zapdos can do well against Swampert + Breloom-style teams which invalidate the old takes on that core. Machamp paraspam was overrated before SPL and now it’s underrated — it really hasn’t changed imo because Machamp punishes offense just as hard as it does defense.

Other SPL games:

Semifinals - Tamahome vs mael

A unique take on hyperoffense that utilizes Camerupt’s defensive and offensive attributes to enable an interesting combination of potent sweepers to function on the same team. Camerupt completely walls most RT rotom, does well vs Scarf Rotom/Zapdos, and it also can serve as offensive counterplay to lava plume heatran (completely fending off SpD tran). Lava plume is such a nuisance to switch into that camel at minimum should always trade 1 for 1 or better (burning/crippling other stuff, revealing team members, etc). Camerupt is especially good at booming on defensive Latias and Clefable. After testing, I found that CM 3 attacks Jirachi is an exceptionally good partner for it. In addition, Camerupt is great with Gyarados, Metagross, and Empoleon (the unrevealed last), stopping electrics and booming/removing/pressuring all of their defensive checks. I also like that Camerupt can use a bulkier spread and give the team defensive traits while still fitting Stealth Rock and Explosion so you don’t lose momentum on your HO. While it looks like Starmie is a nuisance, you force it to either KO you (keep rocks up and set up on it) or you trade with its spin and set up for Empoleon or something else in the back to clean.

Sets:

Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
- Surf/EQ/Whirlpool
- Encore
- Counter
- Recover

Quagsire is damn hard to build around but this set is really strong imo. The idea is that unlike almost no other defensive Pokemon, the combination of Encore, Water Absorb, and Counter enables it to check pretty much every DD sweeper in the tier. It pairs really nicely with Scarf Tyranitar because of this. Quagsire can still invalidate a lot of teams and it’s very underrated for its utility/niche that nothing else comes close to. Whirlpool is a cheesy option that's good with trappers. Try building around him (but don’t try cheating on Toxic Spikes cause that’s gonna make it suck).

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Protect
- U-turn

I absolutely love this set. It does an awesome job at crippling Ground-types and other targets with Toxic to set up for stuff like Bulky DDnite. Maintains the momentum + defensive-based approach of SR+Tect but is also better at keeping up against Starmie because of Toxic. Dropping iron head looks awful but a lot of teams can really appreciate this set over any other.

Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
- Thunder Wave
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Recover

This is the set we used on the MixGon + SD Endure Lucario team. Talked about it a little bit on that post.

Clefable @ Leftovers/Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
- Knock Off
- Thunderbolt/Grass Knot
- Ice Beam
- Soft-Boiled

Made this set during last SPL but I’m finding it to be really good right now. Oftentimes in the Heatran metagame Clefable really wants to run boltbeam but not being able to pressure Heatran well over a long game can really suck. Knock Off gives Clef the best of both worlds. Grass Knot Clefable is strong to lure pert if you have Magnezone. Also as a side note, LO CM Clef is still really good in this meta too imo.

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
Jolly Nature
- Pursuit
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Thunder Wave/Toxic

Using status filler on ScarfTar is really neat imo. Toxic can be used very effectively against Swampert, Hippowdon, and even Milotic, which can set up nicely for something like Mixed Flygon.

Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Impish Nature
- Sunny Day
- Protect
- Leech Seed/Seed Bomb/anything
- Sky Uppercut

Sunny Day Breloom is the future of weather clearing, imo. It forces all the sand setters out and does a great job at maintaining no sand. You can also afford to drop leech seed because Sunny Day gives Breloom even more recovery (if you keep Leech Seed though the combination of no weather + Leech Seed on Breloom can be unbelievably difficult to deal with). I really like this set paired with CroCune. It provides counterplay to RestTalk Rotom, sleep absorbs opposing Breloom’s spore, and it clears sand for it. Honestly it doesn’t get more synergistic than that.

Gengar @ Custap Berry
Ability: Levitate
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Hypnosis
- Explosion

Cool set on a much more offensive build. You EV this to eat a Starmie hydro pump after SR + sand and it can do an effective job to spinblock and trade down. Custap has situational use outside of that but it comes up enough to the point where I really enjoyed the utility.

Ludicolo @ Leftovers
Ability: Swift Swim
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leech Seed
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Grass Knot

Ludicolo outside of a rain team. Its typing is super unique and lets it do very well against Suicune, Starmie, Swampert, Milotic, and even Metagross and Bronzong (resisting Steel + Ground offensive coverage). Haven’t found an amazing fit for him yet but it has a ton of potential.

Thank you for reading my post! Huge thanks to DeepBlueC and Sakito for the really fun DPP season. And thank you mael, Tomahawk, and Kristyl for the high quality overviews and once again doing a lot to facilitate this discussion thread. I enjoyed the reads and they added a lot of positivity to DPP this SPL. I also recommend reading august's post in the post-dug thread, it's really cool stuff.

 

[DeepBlueC]

So I think it's time for that post from me again. I initially signed up during the first week the sign-up threads went out, but my irl situation changed which required me to focus on that more than SPL, so I then deleted my signup. Excal and Dave asked me to sign up nonetheless in PMs, with Excal assuring me that he'll be doing all the heavy-lifting when it came to teambuilding, and all I'd have to do was practice and show up for my game. That seemed like a good deal for me so I signed up again. Therefore a lot of the teams you would have seen from me this SPL are influenced by Excal / Sakito, with maybe a few changes from my side. Anyways, let's proceed.

Week 1 - vs BIHI

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-537173

I think the idea for SD Gliscor came about because it did well vs BIHI when I faced him in the DPP server tour, but Excal was also high on using SD Glisc against BIHI due to different reasons. If you watched the game, you'll know I got destroyed completely from start to finish. To me the team didn't really do well in tests, and so I didn't feel confident with the team. It's one of those teams that looks good deceptively; that is it looks good on paper but in practice there's something missing. Given that I wasn't confident with the team + it not doing well in tests, I made sure to not bring any such team in the later weeks.


Week 2 - vs Malekith

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-538527

This is probably one of the best teams that Excal has ever made. I think the reason for using it was because wanted to stall Malekith, and I felt very comfortable when using this team in tests, so it was a no-brainer to me to bring it. I think I had a good matchup wrt to CM Clefable, but the remaining mons in my team had issue with some of Kith's mons. Like Jirachi didn't like Trick Sludge Gengar, Milo got beaten by Heatran, and Focus Punch Swampert dealt with Skarmory. I had a bit of rough luck with some Waterfall flinches with Clefable, but the biggest mistake on my part was not Calm Minding with Clef on Turn 56 when I got blessed with a burn on his Swampert previously and Focus Blast miss that turn. In my mind I was desperate to remove Gengar since that was the biggest threat to me then, and so I didn't think long-term that turn, which was my own undoing. This matchup also taught me how beneficial sand can be to some stall teams.


Week 3 - vs Christo

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-539358

During the prep for Christo, we struggled to come up with anything solid against him. I think all 3 of us - myself, Excal, and maybe Sakito were busy irl. I put a "maybe" next to Sakito because his time is mostly consumed by the waifu bot and playing OSU (sorry Sakito). So Excal suggested using his previous SPL season against me with a few changes. I tested that out and it did well in test games, so I decided to bring it. I ran into a good MU vs Christo and I also got a crit on his Latias which made things easier for my Gyara. I'm happy with the way I played this one and it felt nice to get one on the scoresheet for the team and for myself.


Week 4 - vs august

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-540486

Prep vs August was kind of hard too. It always felt like whenever we were building a team, we would be flat out exposed to one threat or the other. Initially it was Macho Brace Bronzong, and I didn't want to lose to Loom again since I lost badly to it vs Excal in the previous SPL season and BIHI in the current SPL season. So a few ways to patch up the Loom weakness was to run speedy swamp and Lum Zong. Lum Zong has shittier Gyro Ball power against slower threats like CB TTar, so having Scarf Latias with Trick helped offset the lower Gyro Ball power. The TTar was ev'd for Specs Lati, so it had more Spdef EVs than HP EVs. I discussed initially in this thread why I played out the first few turns the way I did. Orbed Flygon was the unknown threat that this team was horribly weak to as it came in on Magnezone very easily. If I had HP EVs on TTar instead of SpDef EVs, maybe my TTar could have swept endgame, because August's Gyara's Waterfall put TTar at a health range where it would die to rocks. I don't think I made any misplays this game, but it felt sad to then lose another game for my team.


Week 5 - vs Void (Sakito debut)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-542388

This week was all Sakito and Excal as I was in the last two weeks phase before my exams. The team did well in tests and Sakito played very well too, so I'm happy he could win in his debut.

I think this feeling of high is something that anyone who has won their first SPL game can relate to, and I'm glad that you got to experience it as well.


Week 6 - vs Emeral

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-543716

This week too was all Sakito+Excal. After my game vs August, I started to feel that a combination of spikes + mixed orb Flygon was super threatening. EndureSalac Lucario is a great last minute surprise for a lot of teams. I'm not too high on the team overall because to me it feels like one of those teams where it relies on one pokemon in the team being the one to destroy the opposing team. In case I'm not explaining it clearly, it felt to me more like the team was a combination of smaller units than one unit itself. EndureSalac Lucario is able to beat a few teams on its own, similarly Orbed Flygon + Spikes Skarm have the capability of doing damage of its own there too. This isn't to say that there aren't any benefits in pairing Lucario with mixed Flygon, but that's the feeling I had gotten from the team.


Week 7 - vs ToF

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-544639

The plan vs ToF was to use an offensive team. The choices were between Excal's offensive team, which is one of the top HOs currently, and another offensive team that I made. His HO team was doing much better than the other offensive team in tests, so we decided to go along with that. I made some changes to the team, like using Lum on Dnite over Life Orb because that recoil damage made revenge killer Dragonite so much easier vs a Iron Head Jirachi or Scarf Rotom without HP Ice. Gyara was Wacan berry, but I actually prefer Lum because of Body Slam Jirachi / other Twave users. I had the most amount of luck this game than I have ever had, which made things very easy for me.


Week 8 - vs Mael

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-545375

We were out of SPL this week, so I was lazy when it came to prep. I only started deciding on the team a day or two before my game, but I kept changing my choice of team depending on how the teams were performing in tests. Finally I said "fuck it" and went along with this one. I think Sub CM Jirachi has a lot of potential in the tier. It works very well with multiple hazards as it needs that extra damage against TTar, Swampert, pressuring Milotic etc. Stealth Rock Roar Hippo + Clefable + Taunt Gliscor are quite standard on most stall teams. To me the current DPP metagame is more like run Mag + no spinner, run multiple hazards and no spinner. Starmie + Skarm teams were once popular, but now I think there's just way too many things to cover that you can't really afford to have both. Similarly I don't think I've seen Starmie + Hazards Rose be a thing. Forretress was an efficient way to go about it with dual hazards + spin. The Mesprit was a very weird set, specifically there to counter CM Clefable. It was Imprison / Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / Rest. It's certainly not the most optimal choice, but I just wanted to use it for the flex factor, even though I didn't get to reveal it. I got quite lucky in the MU with a crucial crit on Mael's Clefable. With hazards on his side of the field and with me having Taunt Gliscor, it was really hard for him to come back. Mael also told me that the Wolfpack expected me to run offense, and it was the playstyle I was initially considering, but because I was lazy, incapable of building any decent offense, and indecisive, I chose this team.


Week 9 - vs snøfall

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-547564

I didn't built anything myself because I was lazy again this week :( Excal had insisted I use Machamp because it looked against Snofall's teams. Excal made two teams with Machamp - a paraspam team team and an offensive one. Because I'm an angel and not scum, I preferred using the offensive one. The offensive one didn't do well in tests, so the paraspam team was the final choice. The original paraspam version had Wish Protect Jirachi with Blissey having Rocks. I made a last-minute change to make Jirachi SR with U-turn, and with Bliss having Ice Beam. I liked this change more because it helped me not get trapped by Magnezone, and Jirachi felt like a very crucial defensive member, so I couldn't afford it to get easily taken out by opposing Magnezone. Giving Blissey Ice Beam also made me stronger against Gengar, opposing Dragonites, Brelooms, and also the potential freeze chance. I could've run Wish Protect Jirachi with U-turn while dropping one of Iron Head or Body Slam, but both those moves are the hallmark ones of Jira, so I wished (no pun intended) to use a set that had all of the three - Iron Head, Body Slam, and U-Turn. That change apparently saved me since Snofall had a Sub Charge Beam Magnezone that could have cleaned me. I was lucky with some paras which helped me prevail. I'm sorry that you were the person I chose to play this style against, Snofall. Also good job on having a killer debut season.

I think that's the review of my season. I'll drop a state of the metagame post a bit later. Thank you to Excal and Sakito for all their help during the season. Thank you to Jackie for helping out with the test games while she was on Bigs. Thank you to everyone who said nice things about me and cheered me on during my games, I really appreciate it. Thank you to several of you for keeping the discussions in this thread alive.

 

[afterburn]

Ludicolo @ Leftovers
Ability: Swift Swim
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leech Seed
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Grass Knot

Ludicolo outside of a rain team. Its typing is super unique and lets it do very well against Suicune, Starmie, Swampert, Milotic, and even Metagross and Bronzong (resisting Steel + Ground offensive coverage). Haven’t found an amazing fit for him yet but it has a ton of potential.

Thank you for reading my post! Huge thanks to DeepBlueC and Sakito for the really fun DPP season. And thank you mael, Tomahawk, and Kristyl for the high quality overviews and once again doing a lot to facilitate this discussion thread. I enjoyed the reads and they added a lot of positivity to DPP this SPL. I also recommend reading august's post in the post-dug thread, it's really cool stuff.

I've also used him as a standalone rain sweeper over Kingdra at times with LO and RD over Leech, esp if I need more insurance vs Swampert. P handy ground resist. Also, unlike Kingdra you don't have to rely on lowering you S Atk by -2 to take care of water types trying to take Hydro Pump in Rain, Grass Knot does plenty as is to Suicune and Gyara and Ttar can't switch in to that for weather reset shenanigans as easily either like he can once or twice to LO Kingdra Meteor / Pulse.

Good insights though, ty.

 

[Fakes]

Great Posts guys! :D