Hello everyone,
Inspired by threads such as BKC's, Anti's or UD's, I decided to write this thread to share a little bit of what was going through my mind before and during the most recent SPL. Despite all the tournaments I've participated in, there aren't many where I can be as satisfied on an individual and collective level as this last SPL, and I plan to celebrate that through this thread. I hesitated between doing this and recording a video, but being an old Internet user, I do fancy the goold old forum culture (and I'm even nostalgic of it tbh), so I want to keep a written trace of this journey. The topic will be divided into several parts, I will put under spoilers the parts that are not strictly Pokémon related that I want to share, such as my apprehensions or my motivation.
Blogposting
In this part, I'm going to talk about a more personal part of the game such as my motivation for the competition, the tournament itself, the teambuilding, the preparation, etc. I'm going to put this under spoilers because it's going to take a lot of space and it's not the part that most people are interested in.
A lot of things to say here, so I'll try to cover several topics without being too long.
Motivation
I have to admit that I wasn't particularly keen on playing in SPL this year. There are several reasons for this. First of all I hadn't been playing competitively since the SCL finals, where I played RU. I considered myself to be a bit rusty, and this was especially the case in the old gens I had not touched since my elimination from the Smogon Classic (and even then, it'd have been the qualification phase). Technically I participated in the Callous Invitational, but I hadn't particularly given it much attention or time either. Besides that, the SPL is an important tournament where everyone does their best. Since I was hesitant to join and not particulary motivated, I didn't want to be a burden to my future teammates and managers. However, I also didn't want to miss out on the tournament. In the past, I had decided not to participate in SPL 10 and ended up regretting it. Even though I've had some disastrous SPLs in the past few years, they are still memorable experiences and the whole community lives for that tournament between January and March.
IRL
Another factor that made me very hesitant was the amount of free time I would have during the tour. I have always put a lot of time and energy into the team tournaments I participate in, but often it was either because I could afford it, or because I was sacrificing other facets of my life for it. That being said, even though my passion for Pokémon is still alive and well, I had set a goal to be more reasonable about the amount of time I spent on the site, and I knew that would impact my activity during the tournament. On top of that, I was in a transition period in December where I was actively looking for a new job.
Tier to play
Finally, the last factor that I was very (most) hesitant about was which tier I was going to play. I was very hesitant because as I mentioned above, I was not particularly active in any old gen recently. I had mixed feelings about my choice, and I'll describe them here:
SPL Expectations
And so here I am, participating in this 14th SPL. My vision of the tournament makes it so I never approached a manager before the auction. I really like the uncertainty of the situation, and to find out who will bid on me and who I will end up with. Having said that, I have to admit that I have been in uncompetitive teams for several years now and that has affected my feelings about the tournament. Since the infamous SPL 8 with Mazar, I have never been part of a Playoff again. Worse, I found myself in the worst team of the tournament (or close to it) for the last three editions. The major change this instilled in me is that despite the team aspect of the tournament, I participate above all to have fun individually now. No matter who my teammates are or how my team is doing, I want to go for a good record and show a good level of play.
So as usual, I had not contacted anyone before this SPL. The only managers who PMed were Amaranth (who asked me about my motivation) and Vulpix03 (a friend who said he would take me if I was not too expensive). To my surprise, I ended up getting picked by Tricking and Raiza, two people I never talk to, and on a team where I wasn't familiar with anyone but DeepBlueC. The Raiders were defending champions and Tricking and Raiza are particularly competitive. I have to admit that it motivated me to get back on track and on top of that, I liked the "funky" atmosphere on the team pretty quickly. I didn't mind not having real support in my tier, because I like to work solo and play on the ladder or contact some people privately anyway.
Game Preparation
I don't plan to go into detail about how I prepare my games, but what I do want to mention is that I like to test my teams a lot nowadays, especially in generations without teampreview. I find it important to be familiar with the lines and sequences of the team that I'm planning to use and often it also allows me to explore unconventional but optimal approaches for a given team. I really like to play a lot of games and for that the ladder is ideal, but I was a bit paranoid about laddering and then playing someone who might recognize my team in the game. So I contacted people on the ADV discord or Raiders to find players who were available when I was. For all those who played me in such moments, thank you !
Motivation
I have to admit that I wasn't particularly keen on playing in SPL this year. There are several reasons for this. First of all I hadn't been playing competitively since the SCL finals, where I played RU. I considered myself to be a bit rusty, and this was especially the case in the old gens I had not touched since my elimination from the Smogon Classic (and even then, it'd have been the qualification phase). Technically I participated in the Callous Invitational, but I hadn't particularly given it much attention or time either. Besides that, the SPL is an important tournament where everyone does their best. Since I was hesitant to join and not particulary motivated, I didn't want to be a burden to my future teammates and managers. However, I also didn't want to miss out on the tournament. In the past, I had decided not to participate in SPL 10 and ended up regretting it. Even though I've had some disastrous SPLs in the past few years, they are still memorable experiences and the whole community lives for that tournament between January and March.
IRL
Another factor that made me very hesitant was the amount of free time I would have during the tour. I have always put a lot of time and energy into the team tournaments I participate in, but often it was either because I could afford it, or because I was sacrificing other facets of my life for it. That being said, even though my passion for Pokémon is still alive and well, I had set a goal to be more reasonable about the amount of time I spent on the site, and I knew that would impact my activity during the tournament. On top of that, I was in a transition period in December where I was actively looking for a new job.
Tier to play
Finally, the last factor that I was very (most) hesitant about was which tier I was going to play. I was very hesitant because as I mentioned above, I was not particularly active in any old gen recently. I had mixed feelings about my choice, and I'll describe them here:
- RBY OU : I was interested in RBY because I am constantly paranoid about preparing for tournament games (especially in Bo1). Not only do I hesitate a lot about what I'm going to play, but I'm also paranoid about the weaknesses of my team. RBY allured me because this factor is almost not present in this tier. On the other hand, I'm not particularly good at RBY (at least, not more than the norm), it's not a tier I like very much, and finally the dynamics of the gen + the fact that it's a Bo3 mean that matches can take quite a long time, which worried me a bit, especially for testing purposes.
- GSC OU : I had already tried the GSC experience in SPL in the past, and I didn't really like it. I still considered the option because I like to think I'm quite competent in the tier. I find the teambuilding part relatively easy to deal with compared to the generations after. My big problem with GSC is that I find the tier really not fun to test in. For the last year or two, I have decided to stop trolling during team tournaments and to prepare my games as seriously as possible, which means testing my teams.
- ADV OU : Obviously the tier where I am most comfortable in terms of building and knowledge. What scared me was the price I was going to cost relative to my recent level of play, and also the expectations placed on me by playing in this tier. The pressure to perform in this tier is not always easy to handle and adds to the paranoia of the preparation, especially since I feel that ADV has the strongest playerbase in the tournament with RBY as an old gen.
- BW OU : I really enjoyed getting back into this tier during the previous Classic, and I find it much more stable without the Gems. It's also a gen that I feel comfortable in and with a high level of play. Despite this, I find it hard to bring good teams to Bo1 in this tier where there are a lot of powerful Pokémon to deal with without using the ultra classic and already spammed structures.
SPL Expectations
And so here I am, participating in this 14th SPL. My vision of the tournament makes it so I never approached a manager before the auction. I really like the uncertainty of the situation, and to find out who will bid on me and who I will end up with. Having said that, I have to admit that I have been in uncompetitive teams for several years now and that has affected my feelings about the tournament. Since the infamous SPL 8 with Mazar, I have never been part of a Playoff again. Worse, I found myself in the worst team of the tournament (or close to it) for the last three editions. The major change this instilled in me is that despite the team aspect of the tournament, I participate above all to have fun individually now. No matter who my teammates are or how my team is doing, I want to go for a good record and show a good level of play.
So as usual, I had not contacted anyone before this SPL. The only managers who PMed were Amaranth (who asked me about my motivation) and Vulpix03 (a friend who said he would take me if I was not too expensive). To my surprise, I ended up getting picked by Tricking and Raiza, two people I never talk to, and on a team where I wasn't familiar with anyone but DeepBlueC. The Raiders were defending champions and Tricking and Raiza are particularly competitive. I have to admit that it motivated me to get back on track and on top of that, I liked the "funky" atmosphere on the team pretty quickly. I didn't mind not having real support in my tier, because I like to work solo and play on the ladder or contact some people privately anyway.
Game Preparation
I don't plan to go into detail about how I prepare my games, but what I do want to mention is that I like to test my teams a lot nowadays, especially in generations without teampreview. I find it important to be familiar with the lines and sequences of the team that I'm planning to use and often it also allows me to explore unconventional but optimal approaches for a given team. I really like to play a lot of games and for that the ladder is ideal, but I was a bit paranoid about laddering and then playing someone who might recognize my team in the game. So I contacted people on the ADV discord or Raiders to find players who were available when I was. For all those who played me in such moments, thank you !
Before I get to the next part, I would like to shout out Shitrock enjoyer for being my sidekick this SPL. I tested for hours and hours with him, and he was the equivalent of a human ladder. He was always in the mood to play and chain games. Plus, I could see that I was playing against someone very good, so I could see if my teams were really up to the task or not.
The Teams
I'm going to present the teams with an import, an explanation of the build, a little analysis of the game and a music I discovered or was listening to during the week I used it. If you click on the image of the Pokémon, you will have the link to the import.
For the first week, I didn't have much time to dive back into the tier, so I just played a few games with builds that were still in my builder and a couple of TSS found on the forums. I ended up choosing this team with Jolteon who was part of my team dump posted a few months ago. I liked the very aggro side of the build and I didn't feel too confident to play a more precise TSS yet. Also, I liked the idea of Jolteon + DDMence against Golden Sun which has shown some affinity for ZapDug recently. Ideally, DDGrass Ttar nabs Swampert early in the game to open up the path for Jolteon/Mence. On top of that, a lot of people assume I never play Gengar, so this was all the more reason to bring it.
The match started very well with a Crit and a perfect opening from Ttar into Spikes Skarm but then I played too straightforward with Jolteon and Mence, which allowed GS to get back in the game and open a path for Celebi/Starmie. A Pump miss on Pert at the end allowed me to get back in the game, followed by a nice double. If I had been a little more patient, I would have just used HP Flying with Mence on turn 13 to weaken Gengar and set-up later on Celebi to win. I also shouldn't have risked the roll on Dug with Jolteon on turn 11, knowing that Dug was a free setup for Mence anyway.
Always hard to choose what to use against Hclat since he can bring anything. Also, the last time we played I hated my match-up. So this week I knew I wanted to bring something straightforward and with a good wincon against offenses. I had tried a build with Venusaur + Aerodactyl but was not too satisfied with the final result. I ended up turning to builds from johnnyg2 and Jirachee based on Kingdra and AgiMeta posted on the forums. Always with the idea of playing a straightforward team, I ended up choosing this johnnyg2 team with Kingdra, which I didn't modify at all, and which ran well in tests. Zap Dug Gar is a solid offensive core, Meta to get an early trade and Claydol which allows me not to be overwhelmed by Spikes too easily. FInally, Kingdra to clean up and prevent possible DDers/Aero from sweeping me.
The game is pretty self-explanatory I would say. I'm already lucky with the full para early because I was going for RK the Meta with Dug, which would open up the red carpet to Ninjask. I can hardly do anything with this build against Ninjask, so I lock myself on CB Mash hoping to never miss (lol). I end up missing one on Suicune and then consider the game to be pretty much over. I was expecting Sub on Suicune but I didn't really have a better choice than Boom anyway, and I assumed I'd just have to hope he wasn't Sub. That said, Hclat makes a more than questionable decision and I get a pretty lucky roll with Claydol to kill the Cune. From there, I think I have a shot because this kind of team doesn't really have what it takes to handle a Kingdra that would get in, and that's what happens with the TW into SubKingdra. I get away with murder with this win out of the blue and I'm now off to a fraudulent 2-0 start this season.
With this 2-0, I was more motivated than ever to keep the momentum going and I was also starting to feel more comfortable in the builder. Triangles is also capable of bringing anything, so I went with a pretty safe structure of ParaSpam + SubHeracross. I also have Wish Jirachi to heal it (and Zap/Tyranitar) if needed. Swampert brings a second Rock resistance while avoiding being passive thanks to its EVs, very helpful to get damage on Skarm. I tested a lot with Focus Punch in the last slot, and then I remembered vapicuno's post. Curse was actually much better for the team, especially as it had problems with Suicune.
The game went well overall. I used Zapdos, who didn't really have a good counter, to generate momentum with BP, and put pressure on his team with Tyranitar once Suicune was paralyzed. Once his first 5 Pokémon were revealed, it was also pretty clear that CursePert was a big threat with Suicune paralyzed, and I leveraged that as well whenever I could. Heracross also had a good match-up but couldn't do as much as I'd hoped because of a Megahorn miss (typical).
I spent a big part of this week trying to make a Medicham + Moltres team work, but I wasn't really happy with the end result. So I retreated to a few safer structures, and ideally I wanted a good match-up against Offense because that's what I expected to face. This build worked quite well in testing. Taunt Skarm prevents fat teams from setting up, and I have a good defensive core with Ttar/Skarm/Pert/Celebi, which all have offensive-oriented sets so I don't get abused by anything and can keep the momentum. Sub Aero and Starmie are there as Offense killers that take advantage of Spikes to round out the build, especially since Starmie allows for one or two decisive Spin per game to keep Swampert and Celebi alive more easily.
The match-up was very complicated. I see very quickly that I'm going to be stalled by Flygon/Zapdos/Articuno and I won't be able to do much offensively. Especially since his Aero and Articuno have free attacks against my team. On top of that, I'm getting outplayed/playing poorly with my Starmie (I should definitely have clicked Tbolt or Spin on turns 40/41), which makes my position even more complicated. Looking back, I could have used Celebi and Tyranitar better, especially Tyranitar who could have done more potentially if I use Starmie and Celebi accurately to shield it from Toxic and Spikes damage. I tried to do as much damage with Ttar as possible and then I realized that given the set of his Flygon, there is a way to create an end game where my Aero could win. I kept my Spikes sacks to be able to setup my Subs and activate the Lichii berry but the miss of Rock Slide on Zapdos ended the match instantly.
Very early into the scout, I noticed that Sadlysius was spamming Skarm, Celebi and Claydol. Based on this observation, I immediately thought of using Moltres or Misdreavus. And then I thought, I might as well play both, and I know this ABR team is reliable anyway. I liked the idea of Stalling here too since I had mainly brought Offenses so far. I hardly modified the team. I decided to use ProTox on Moltres because I think it's pretty good overall, and I removed Mean Look off Misdreavus to have Toxic's utility in case Sadly would use an Offense. I didn't like the idea of not hitting Swampert at all with it. Also, Sadly would know that the Missy has Mean Look, so I figured it wouldn't be as good without the surprise effect.
So the match-up was much more complicated than expected, all because I took out Mean Look on Missy. Anyway, I can see that CM Wish Rachi is a big threat and that I won't be able to make much progress against it + Refresh Dol. I also realize that Refresh Dol PPStalls my Missy in 1v1 so I'm stuck there too. On top of that there is CM Bliss against whom I'm not very good in the long run. That said, as long as I have PSong PPs on Missy, I can create cycles where I keep the Spikes, which allows my Zapdos to phaze and weaken the Jirachi. As for Blissey, it's playable to PPStall it with Toxic Missy + Pressure Zapdos. This is basically what happens during the first part of the game. I manage to kill Jirachi before I run out of Roar PPs on Zapdos (and at the cost of my PS PPs on Missy), which opens a win path. Then, I have to PPWast Claydol's Spins with Missy + Pressure Zap to at least keep one Spikes, which will allow me to not end in a tie vs Blissey and Milotic. Sadly's only wincon is to create a tie with Claydol + Skarm that switch infinitely, but technically I can prevent that with Zapdos. A game that I think could have/should have been a tie if it hadn't been played very late in the night. I was ready to go to the 1000 round if I had to but Sadly capitulated before then.
Altina and I know each other very well and it was not easy to decide what to use here. At first I thought about bringing Suicune because of his affinity for Meta/Dol/Skarm but at some point during the week I thought about SubToxic Pert + Dugtrio, to get Celebi/Blissey/Jirachi out of the way. The idea was to have a Pokémon with SubToxicTect that would not be weak to Sand. Flygon requires Skarm and makes the build too complicated, and Jirachi doesn't do anything against Swampert/Claydol so I ended up with Swampert. The idea of this build is to spam status so that Protect Swampert can abuse it. If it's not Swampert, Dugtrio kills the Pokémon that got chipped by the status while opening the way for Swampert. After testing the team (which ran fairly well), I realized that Sub was rarely clutch on Swampert, unlike Refresh which allowed me to use it more freely. Claydol's set allows me to last against Skarm teams, while touching Misdreavus that I didn't want to ignore completely against Altina. As for Blissey, I chose Mimic to eventually have my own Spikes in addition to having the option of stealing CM against Celebi/Jirachi/CMBliss. The Gengar allows me to eventually SpinBlock while working well with Dugtrio to clear Swampert's hindrances.
Swampert shined in this game, with Dugtrio taking out any potential problem (basically the Lax and Meta). It was a pretty straightforward game honestly, not much to add.
Against Jirachee, I was sure I wanted to play Pokémons with a good matchup against Offenses, since that's mainly what he uses. Plus his team was out of contention so he had even less reason to try to diversify his usage. The three Pokémons that came to mind were Milotic, AgiGross, and Ludicolo. AgiGross needs no introduction, it is THE offense killer right now. I had identified Ludicolo as an interesting Pokémon because of its ability to be useful midgame with Leech Seed and in late game as a Rain Sweeper. Moreover, it allowed me to have an offensive check to OffPert and Crocune, and I know that Jirachee likes those sets a lot. In the end, I went with a MetaDol SkarmBliss because the core is solid, and Ludicolo fits in very well to handle two of the most troublesome Pokémon for this structure (OffPert and Cune).
The game, if we can call it as such, doesn't really deserve any explanation, Metagross gets a raise and sweeps Jirachee's team instantly, despite his very good early game to weaken my defensive core.
This is probably my favorite team of the season, even if it's not the best. While testing and playing the team with Status + Dugtrio vs Altina, I realized that an approach where I could chip opposing Pokémon in Dugtrio's range was really strong. I knew this from my use of Spikes + Dug in the past, but not using Skarm allows for a more offensive approach and a different structure. The idea of the build was to use Boom + Dug. Then slow Blissey with Sing + Dug also had a lot of offensive potential. Most of the sets are there to prevent Skarm from completely dominating me, as it is the most obvious problem to this kind of build, hence the presence of Fire coverage on Meta/Lax/Dol.
Leech had a pretty annoying defensive core with Starmie + Skarm, which prevents my Meta from weakening his Skarm as I would have liked. The kind of team I play wants me to not find myself chasing the score as I rely heavily on boom + Dugtrio until I create a favorable situation with Sing + Dugtrio late in the game. Turn 24 is critical in the game to prevent this from happening and I double Dug in to nab the Metagross before it gets an extra kill, which no matter what would cause me big problems late game. Once I managed to trade my Lax for his Swampert, I felt pretty confident because my Bliss won in the long run if I manage to remove his CM Bliss with Sing + Dug or Boom + Dug. Despite a good predict from him to nullify my Gengar, I still got to close the game.
It was hard to decide which way to go against zf since he hasn't played ADV in public for a while. So I turned to solid teams that I was used to playing with. I hesitated a lot but because of the pressure of the game, I didn't want to play something too defensive. I like to control the tempo of the game, especially when it's a high-stakes game. During the tests, I brought out this Loom team that I useda lot a year or two ago. I don't like its match-up against DDMence (and a bit against Celebi too), but while re-reading an old post by zf, I saw that he said he didn't like Mence, which helped me finalize my choice. I had presented a first version of this team in this post. The difference here is that Tyranitar can trap Gengar/Celebi for Loom, and Suicune is a good defensive pivot/alternate wincon.
The game is one-sided honestly. Moltres is a big threat and I was glad to see it get out of the way when I boomed Meta, even if it meant getting annoyed by Skarm. Breloom won in auto-pilot mode after that.
And finally, my team for the final. I hesitated a lot for this last choice, and I must admit that I was expecting more of an offensive team from rob. Not that my teams had unwinnable matchups against what he brought, but it was clearly not an ideal matchup that I got there. I really liked my team against Offenses, and I figured that between Lax/EndPert and Ttar, I had enough to weaken a lot of defensive cores and allow Meta to sweep. Also, I wanted to keep my tournament mentality of avoiding defensive teams and keeping the tempo in these pressure games with several offensive options. So the team is a revamp of my DDTtar Dol offense, this time with Meta as the cleaner instead of DDTtar, which I find more suited to the meta. EndPert instead of Cloyster gives the team a better defensive base against DDers and allows to trade against Waters for Meta as well, while being a good Pokémon to attract Skarm and weaken it.
The game unfortunately was very complicated. SkarmGar is in itself quite an annoying match-up, but still doable, the big problem here is the PhysDef Jirachi which cockclocks my whole team AND heals Skarm/Gar against whom my strategy is to beatdown. On top of that, I don't have status absorber for Gar and Skarm. Add to that Mence's Intimidate and the Ttar that will shield Skarm/Gar from my Lax. I couldn't have imagined a worse matchup. I did well overall to prevent Skarm/Gar from choking me too much. I had a good window at the end with Lax, but I was so far behind in the game that I hoped the Ttar wouldn't have Roar so I could kill it at +2 and get a kill after that (on Mence or Gar). Also, I didn't want to risk hitting +1 EQ into Counter. I managed to get a winnable endgame thanks to a Fire Blast miss on Meta, and then I tried to get a Mash raise to sweep but it didn't happen. In the end, I probably should have Rock Slided the Ttar to try to flinch it and put it in Mash range, but I was also thinking that there is a world where it tries to Fire Blast and misses. Thoughts and Prayers to Alice who really wanted me to use Suicune in this game, which would have had an insane matchup...
Conclusion
Overall, I am very proud of my SPL. Finishing 8-2 in ADV and 9-2 overall is much better than I expected when I joined the tournament. Furthermore, I was able to enjoy the pleasure of being in a competitive team that fought until the end and was even rewarded with a trophy. I couldn't have hoped for anything better and it made me realize how much I love these tournaments but also how many opportunities I have missed in the past. Either because I didn't do anything to influence my destiny in the auction, and therefore ended up in teams that were clearly not well managed or because I approached the tournament individually in the wrong way. I won't go into this too much, but I spend a lot of time introspecting my approach to tournaments to continue to enjoy myself, but also to raise my level of play, as I feel I have not been a very good team tour player for a long time.
I also want to thank all the people who make my life on the site in the community fun. The ones I like know that very well. Anyway, it always makes me happy that the ADV community in particular is constantly active and competitive, and I hope it will continue for a long time!
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