Hey guys, my team was unfortunately eliminated from LPL, so I feel like I can drop the various squads I used over the course of the season. I finished with a 5-3 record, which while not bad, certainly is less good than I would have preferred. Overall, I think the metagame itself is in a pretty decent spot. Outside of Deer, who's more annoying than it is oppressive, there is a good amount of variety both in terms of individual pokémon and playstyles (which in lc is a rarity). Having to deal with 2 notable shifts over the length of the season man for quite a bit of adaptation and meta development, which I think you'll be able to see in the builds I ended up with. Anyway, without further ado, here are the teams I built and used this LPL season.
Camel Deer Balance
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Week 5 vs Albi | L, replay
Frog Spikes
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Semi-Finals vs MTB | W, replay
JuanSG-style Balance
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Unfortunately, my team and I were unable to make it to the Finals where I would have gotten to face reggg again, but Overall I'm pretty okay with how the season went and am looking forward to more LC UU in the future. Thanks for reading!
*Click Sprites for Pastes*
Week 1 vs NotJackewu | W, replayCamel Deer Balance
ILLEGALSo Week 1 LC UU was objectively the worst iteration of the meta we had for the whole tour and the major reason for that was the power of Numel and it's Stockpile Body Press set. That set singlehandedly warped any game it was involved in into a exercise in prayer hoping you'll crit/not be crit depending on if you had the Numel on your side or not and my game vs Jack was no exception to this.
Anyway about the team itself, I started building it wanting to use a fun idea in Tera-GroundStunky, because I'm making this post like 2 months after making the team, I can't quite remember what specifically Tera-Ground was for outside of maybe opposing Stunky, but the set itself is kind of support Sandile in a different font, being a tad faster and packing Sucker at the expense of Rocks and using up the Tera. Deer was added to do degenerate Deer things, not much to say beyond that tbh. Clauncher, being one of my favorite bulky-pivots in the tier was added to get slow U-Turns to bring in Stunky, Deer and Numel safely while also providing a solid emergency Chewtle check and at least possibly force the Tera from Numel. Numel was broken so I was abusing it. Swablu was added because it was and remains the tiers best source of hazard control with its strong bulk and ability to defog, though it had competition from Bramblin at the time. Last up was Nacli to provide my team with rocks while threatening opposing Swablu in a world before we discovered Larvitar. Nacli also provided me a second Houndour check who remains one of my most feared mons in the tier.
As the game played out, my Swablu sort of dominated the early game before being forced to Tera-Fairy by Jack's Riolu after missing a crucial Hurricane. Tera-ing Swab was not ideal for me as it meant I wouldn't be able to Tera my Deerling into a Ghost for Jack's Numel, or my Stunky into a Ground making its Tera Blast effectively useless this game. Eventually, Jack is able to get his Numel in and start attempting to set up. And after he both did not tera and stayed in on my Clauncher's potential Water Pulse where I U-Turned instead, I was forced into trying to win the Numel War. Ultimately, my Numel ended up critting first and I was able to win the game. Honestly, a pretty lame game, but a W is a W.
Numel and it's Stockpile Body Press set. That set singlehandedly warped any game it was involved in into a exercise in prayer hoping you'll crit/not be crit depending on if you had the Numel on your side or not and my game vs Jack was no exception to this.Anyway about the team itself, I started building it wanting to use a fun idea in Tera-Ground
Stunky, because I'm making this post like 2 months after making the team, I can't quite remember what specifically Tera-Ground was for outside of maybe opposing Stunky, but the set itself is kind of support Sandile in a different font, being a tad faster and packing Sucker at the expense of Rocks and using up the Tera. Deer was added to do degenerate Deer things, not much to say beyond that tbh. Clauncher, being one of my favorite bulky-pivots in the tier was added to get slow U-Turns to bring in Stunky, Deer and Numel safely while also providing a solid emergency Chewtle check and at least possibly force the Tera from Numel. Numel was broken so I was abusing it. Swablu was added because it was and remains the tiers best source of hazard control with its strong bulk and ability to defog, though it had competition from Bramblin at the time. Last up was Nacli to provide my team with rocks while threatening opposing Swablu in a world before we discovered Larvitar. Nacli also provided me a second Houndour check who remains one of my most feared mons in the tier.As the game played out, my Swablu sort of dominated the early game before being forced to Tera-Fairy by Jack's Riolu after missing a crucial Hurricane. Tera-ing Swab was not ideal for me as it meant I wouldn't be able to Tera my Deerling into a Ghost for Jack's Numel, or my Stunky into a Ground making its Tera Blast effectively useless this game. Eventually, Jack is able to get his Numel in and start attempting to set up. And after he both did not tera and stayed in on my Clauncher's potential Water Pulse where I U-Turned instead, I was forced into trying to win the Numel War. Ultimately, my Numel ended up critting first and I was able to win the game. Honestly, a pretty lame game, but a W is a W.
Week 2 vs zeroouttathere | W, replay (the replay server was being stupid)
Hound Tea Balance
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Hound Tea Balance
LEGALFollowing Week 1, Week 2 LC UU looked quite different. We banned Numel so we don't have to deal with that anymore, but we also experienced a tier shift where we also lost Bramblin, Meowth, and Stunky (as well as Numel, but that didn't matter since we banned him anyway). In return we received Cyndaquil, Oshawott, Sandile, and Shellos. The former 2 ended up being fairly irrelevant, but the latter 2 proved to be quite solid additions to the meta. With my Week 2 opponent being my good buddy zero, I wanted to bring something solid that also packed some strong homerun power. This team was probably one of my most successful builds this tour, as it was stolen and used at least twice more during the season by others.
The team I ended up with started off with me trying to create a solid defensive core withSwablu being a natural starting point, since the community was still struggling to find ways to pressure and punish it effectively at this time. New drop Shellos was added to provide the team with rocks while sort of threatening opposing Swablu with Ice Beam. Snover and the new Snow mechanic provided me with an excellent Chewtle check with some crazy good physical bulk and its STAB combo + Water Pulse make it fairly annoying to switch into to boot. Makuhita is the lesser talked about fighter in LC UU, but it has some real nice aspects to it including Knock Off, which is quite rare at this point, crucially for this team, Thick Fat which allows it to be a reasonable Hound check, who I am always terrified of. Speaking of Houndour, that was the next member of the squad and it provides the team with some real firepower. Tera-Ghost is my favorite Tera-type on Hound as it allows it to avoid dangerous fighting type moves such as Croagunk's Vacuum Wave and get setup opportunities from them. Life Orb Hound already has 0 switchins, and that is even more the case at +2. The final member of the squad is Sinistea, using a somewhat unique set with no Shadow Ball, opting for Endure instead. My thinking on this was that Shadow Ball doesn't really hit that much anyway, and between Psychic and Tera Blast-Fighting, I'd hit everything I need to, since Slowpoke wasn't in meta yet. By opting for 15 speed and Endure, I could also ensure that the teacup could function as an emergency "give me a chance vs Chewtle" button assuming they don't know my set, which zero didn't.
In the actual battle, my Swablu once again carried my early game taking out Chewtle by itself hitting a huge Hurricane before going down and allowing Sinistea to come in and set up. The fact that zero's Impidimp lacked both T-Wave and an attacking move, meant that the teacup was able to roll through the remaining members of zero's squad despite the Light Screen boosting their spdef. It was the perfect game for the set I brought and it paid off for me big time.
The team I ended up with started off with me trying to create a solid defensive core with
Swablu being a natural starting point, since the community was still struggling to find ways to pressure and punish it effectively at this time. New drop Shellos was added to provide the team with rocks while sort of threatening opposing Swablu with Ice Beam. Snover and the new Snow mechanic provided me with an excellent Chewtle check with some crazy good physical bulk and its STAB combo + Water Pulse make it fairly annoying to switch into to boot. Makuhita is the lesser talked about fighter in LC UU, but it has some real nice aspects to it including Knock Off, which is quite rare at this point, crucially for this team, Thick Fat which allows it to be a reasonable Hound check, who I am always terrified of. Speaking of Houndour, that was the next member of the squad and it provides the team with some real firepower. Tera-Ghost is my favorite Tera-type on Hound as it allows it to avoid dangerous fighting type moves such as Croagunk's Vacuum Wave and get setup opportunities from them. Life Orb Hound already has 0 switchins, and that is even more the case at +2. The final member of the squad is Sinistea, using a somewhat unique set with no Shadow Ball, opting for Endure instead. My thinking on this was that Shadow Ball doesn't really hit that much anyway, and between Psychic and Tera Blast-Fighting, I'd hit everything I need to, since Slowpoke wasn't in meta yet. By opting for 15 speed and Endure, I could also ensure that the teacup could function as an emergency "give me a chance vs Chewtle" button assuming they don't know my set, which zero didn't.In the actual battle, my Swablu once again carried my early game taking out Chewtle by itself hitting a huge Hurricane before going down and allowing Sinistea to come in and set up. The fact that zero's Impidimp lacked both T-Wave and an attacking move, meant that the teacup was able to roll through the remaining members of zero's squad despite the Light Screen boosting their spdef. It was the perfect game for the set I brought and it paid off for me big time.
Week 3 vs HanPyol | L, replay
Grass Spam
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Grass Spam
LEGALFor Week 3, my opponent had not yet played LC UU this season and frankly the opponents were basically punting their UU slot and ended up just stealing/reusing teams for most of the regular season. Unfortunately for me, that wasn't quite apparent yet and I rolled into my exact 6 that I used the previous week against zero, which was frankly hilarious. Particularly because they had to make up their own sets and ended up catching me off guard during the game itself.
As for my team, I decided I wanted to useSprigatito because I just like that mon and people were generally low on it so I wanted to prove them wrong with a new innovation: AcroCat. This one is also Tera-Ground to provide some additional counterplay to opposing Fires and Meowth-G. The unfortunate thing about running Tera Blast-Ground, however is that you have to drop one of Grass-STAB, Sucker, or U-Turn and on this team, I opted to drop the Grass-STAB because as you'll notice, I have plenty of other options for Grass on this team starting with the next member, Snover. Snover was brought over from last week's team exactly filling largley the same roll. I was very into the physical bulk Snover posesses at this time and this team would need a primary Chewtle check. With 2 Grass-types already on the team I needed to address the threat of opposing fires and that brought Makuhita and Rolycoly to the squad, between Maku's Thick Fat and Coly's Flash Fire, the team had 2 solid Fire checks. Maku is the exact same set as last week, and Rolycoly is not good, but is probably the best available spinner (dire, I know). On the brightside, it does at least set rocks and threaten Swablu, so that's good enough for me. Tadbulb was added to the squad as yet another curveball, and theoretically it also has a lot going for it being the only Electric type available that is worth using thanks to its coverage for Ground-types in Muddy Water. It also is able to switch into and pressure Swablu and its access to, gimmick move, Parabolic Charge means that it has some form of recovery available to it. Honestly, if it weren't for the middling speed, the Bulb would be really solid in the meta and I should try to use it more. Last up for the squad is Salandit, a mon that is very good as an offensive Fire in the meta. While not quite possessing the wallbreaking power of Houndour, Salandit does have a better defensive secondary typing and crucially a higher speed tier hitting 18 to Hound's 17. With Tera Blast-Grass it is able to easily blow through would be checks such as Nacli or Wooper and the Oran Berry allows some more wiggle room to switch in multiple times a game.
In game, I got wrecked by the combination of Houndour and Scarf Tera Ground Snover. My lack of a scarfer myself made it so Snover could just click quite easily vs me especially once I let my Makuhita go down. No real excuses this week, I rolled a poor matchup and didn't play weel enough to overcome that on top of it.
As for my team, I decided I wanted to use
Sprigatito because I just like that mon and people were generally low on it so I wanted to prove them wrong with a new innovation: AcroCat. This one is also Tera-Ground to provide some additional counterplay to opposing Fires and Meowth-G. The unfortunate thing about running Tera Blast-Ground, however is that you have to drop one of Grass-STAB, Sucker, or U-Turn and on this team, I opted to drop the Grass-STAB because as you'll notice, I have plenty of other options for Grass on this team starting with the next member, Snover. Snover was brought over from last week's team exactly filling largley the same roll. I was very into the physical bulk Snover posesses at this time and this team would need a primary Chewtle check. With 2 Grass-types already on the team I needed to address the threat of opposing fires and that brought Makuhita and Rolycoly to the squad, between Maku's Thick Fat and Coly's Flash Fire, the team had 2 solid Fire checks. Maku is the exact same set as last week, and Rolycoly is not good, but is probably the best available spinner (dire, I know). On the brightside, it does at least set rocks and threaten Swablu, so that's good enough for me. Tadbulb was added to the squad as yet another curveball, and theoretically it also has a lot going for it being the only Electric type available that is worth using thanks to its coverage for Ground-types in Muddy Water. It also is able to switch into and pressure Swablu and its access to, gimmick move, Parabolic Charge means that it has some form of recovery available to it. Honestly, if it weren't for the middling speed, the Bulb would be really solid in the meta and I should try to use it more. Last up for the squad is Salandit, a mon that is very good as an offensive Fire in the meta. While not quite possessing the wallbreaking power of Houndour, Salandit does have a better defensive secondary typing and crucially a higher speed tier hitting 18 to Hound's 17. With Tera Blast-Grass it is able to easily blow through would be checks such as Nacli or Wooper and the Oran Berry allows some more wiggle room to switch in multiple times a game.In game, I got wrecked by the combination of Houndour and Scarf Tera Ground Snover. My lack of a scarfer myself made it so Snover could just click quite easily vs me especially once I let my Makuhita go down. No real excuses this week, I rolled a poor matchup and didn't play weel enough to overcome that on top of it.
Week 4 vs Ralts_boy | W, replay
Parting Shot Set-up Spam
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Parting Shot Set-up Spam
LEGALWeek 4 came along and I wanted to massively switch up from the builds I had been running. My lack of speed control was looking like a problem and so I wanted to address that with this weeks team. Around this point of the season, HO centered around Impidimp, Chewtle, Axew, and Larvitar really started to be en vogue and I decided to hop on the trend.
The 1st 4 mons on this team are exactly that HO core I mentioned. Where mine differed from the typical variants however is my decision to not use screens onImpidimp, instead opting for a more support pivot set. Frankly, I don't like screens Imp, it can't run all the moves you want on it and wierdly struggles to effectively grab momentum or put a sweeper in a genuine position to sweep unless its lategame and the pivot set can usually do just as good a job in that scenario. Also tbf, I just never have clicked with screens as my HO gimmick. Anyway Chewtle serves as my first set-up sweeper and for many it is the single most threatening mon in the tier with Shell Smash; Tera-Dark, Strong Jaw-boosted Crunch; and the ability to run Stomping Tantrum to break through it most common check in Croagunk. Imo, Chewtle is solidly strong, but not overwhelming or consistently able to just win enough to be a real issue at the moment. Axew, I'll be honest, is probably the best mon that I just am not good at using. Something about it makes it so I never try to build with it, so including it here was an attempt to step out of my comfort zone a bit and use a uniquely threatening sweeper that can break extremely well with its access to Mold Breaker and powerful Tera-Dragon-boosted Outrages. The last mon of the HO core was the newly discovered threat, Larvitar. During week 3, Reggg innovated bringing Larvitar as a way to truly punish the extreme presence Swablu had on the early weeks of the season. With its Rock-typing Larvitar was able to come in and resist both attacks most commonly run by Swablu and set rocks in its face or more often get a free Dragon Dance off, and become an immediately threatening sweeper with its EdgeQuake coverage and Tera to help avoid being revenged via its common weaknesses to Water, Grass, or Fighting type attacks. My Larvitar are Jolly, honestly because I didn't think about how this tier lacks a 20 speed mon that you need to outspeed at +1. Wiglett technically exists but is hyper niche and would probably have Aqua Jet for you anyway, just Tera and ignore it imo. Supporting my HO core, I decided to call up 2 LC RU mons in Varoom and Fletchling, who will go on to make several more appearances on my teams moving forward. Varoom compeleted my Parting Shot duo that existed to provide as many switchin and set-up opportunites to my sweepers as possible. It also provided me with a scarf mon for some much needed speed control, after last week, I didn't want to get cooked by a lack of speed again. Fletch was something I starting experimenting with as a second option for Defog in situations where I didn't want the passivity brought by Swablu. With Gale Wings and Heavy Duty Boots, even in the worst case scenarios Fletchling can provide my team with some last-minute, possibly game changing support via a priority Defog to remove Screens or hazards, Hurricane to get off a powerful hit, or even a Tailwind to allow whatever is able to come in after Fletch goes down to outspeed whatever is on the enemy side and revenge it. Special Fletch is honestly better than physical Fletch right now as with physical, you either run a weak-ass Acrobatics, don't guarantee a priority hit if you run a strong Acro, or only get 1 instance of priority if you use Brave Bird. While you might miss Hurricane, when you do hit, you can at least keep hitting at priority. Also as a PSA: never run a speed boosting nature on Fletch, it so desperately needs the power from Adamant/Modest.
Game itself was a pretty whack one unfortunately, I rolled into an HO mirror, except rather than Varoom and Fletch as the final 2, my opponent went for Rolycoly and Belly Drum Cetoddle. My Scarf Varoom caught the opponent off guard and was able to pick up 2 kills in the 1st 4 turns. After that, I started playing pretty bad and let my opponent find a set-up opportunity with their Cetoddle. I was luckily able to withstand that and find an opportunity to set-up my Chewtle on my opponents Impidimp, but then I got super bailed as I clicked Smash again thinking Imp wouldn't have an attacking move but it did and missed its Play Rough. From there I won after my opponents Axew was unable to ohko my Larvitar. Undeserved win on my end, but that's the game we play.
The 1st 4 mons on this team are exactly that HO core I mentioned. Where mine differed from the typical variants however is my decision to not use screens on
Impidimp, instead opting for a more support pivot set. Frankly, I don't like screens Imp, it can't run all the moves you want on it and wierdly struggles to effectively grab momentum or put a sweeper in a genuine position to sweep unless its lategame and the pivot set can usually do just as good a job in that scenario. Also tbf, I just never have clicked with screens as my HO gimmick. Anyway Chewtle serves as my first set-up sweeper and for many it is the single most threatening mon in the tier with Shell Smash; Tera-Dark, Strong Jaw-boosted Crunch; and the ability to run Stomping Tantrum to break through it most common check in Croagunk. Imo, Chewtle is solidly strong, but not overwhelming or consistently able to just win enough to be a real issue at the moment. Axew, I'll be honest, is probably the best mon that I just am not good at using. Something about it makes it so I never try to build with it, so including it here was an attempt to step out of my comfort zone a bit and use a uniquely threatening sweeper that can break extremely well with its access to Mold Breaker and powerful Tera-Dragon-boosted Outrages. The last mon of the HO core was the newly discovered threat, Larvitar. During week 3, Reggg innovated bringing Larvitar as a way to truly punish the extreme presence Swablu had on the early weeks of the season. With its Rock-typing Larvitar was able to come in and resist both attacks most commonly run by Swablu and set rocks in its face or more often get a free Dragon Dance off, and become an immediately threatening sweeper with its EdgeQuake coverage and Tera to help avoid being revenged via its common weaknesses to Water, Grass, or Fighting type attacks. My Larvitar are Jolly, honestly because I didn't think about how this tier lacks a 20 speed mon that you need to outspeed at +1. Wiglett technically exists but is hyper niche and would probably have Aqua Jet for you anyway, just Tera and ignore it imo. Supporting my HO core, I decided to call up 2 LC RU mons in Varoom and Fletchling, who will go on to make several more appearances on my teams moving forward. Varoom compeleted my Parting Shot duo that existed to provide as many switchin and set-up opportunites to my sweepers as possible. It also provided me with a scarf mon for some much needed speed control, after last week, I didn't want to get cooked by a lack of speed again. Fletch was something I starting experimenting with as a second option for Defog in situations where I didn't want the passivity brought by Swablu. With Gale Wings and Heavy Duty Boots, even in the worst case scenarios Fletchling can provide my team with some last-minute, possibly game changing support via a priority Defog to remove Screens or hazards, Hurricane to get off a powerful hit, or even a Tailwind to allow whatever is able to come in after Fletch goes down to outspeed whatever is on the enemy side and revenge it. Special Fletch is honestly better than physical Fletch right now as with physical, you either run a weak-ass Acrobatics, don't guarantee a priority hit if you run a strong Acro, or only get 1 instance of priority if you use Brave Bird. While you might miss Hurricane, when you do hit, you can at least keep hitting at priority. Also as a PSA: never run a speed boosting nature on Fletch, it so desperately needs the power from Adamant/Modest.Game itself was a pretty whack one unfortunately, I rolled into an HO mirror, except rather than Varoom and Fletch as the final 2, my opponent went for Rolycoly and Belly Drum Cetoddle. My Scarf Varoom caught the opponent off guard and was able to pick up 2 kills in the 1st 4 turns. After that, I started playing pretty bad and let my opponent find a set-up opportunity with their Cetoddle. I was luckily able to withstand that and find an opportunity to set-up my Chewtle on my opponents Impidimp, but then I got super bailed as I clicked Smash again thinking Imp wouldn't have an attacking move but it did and missed its Play Rough. From there I won after my opponents Axew was unable to ohko my Larvitar. Undeserved win on my end, but that's the game we play.
Week 5 vs Albi | L, replay
Frog Spikes
LEGALWeek 5 put me up against one of my favorite people to play against in Albi. Our games are always fun and I look forward to this matchup as much as any every season.
Starting off this team I decided that I wanted to try to run Spikes. Swablu was still a dominant force in the meta as a reliable Defogger, but the rise of Larvitar made it so that even if my Spikes got removed, I likely end up in a threatening position. In terms of Spike setters though, we don't really have a ton of stellar options,Froakie is probably the best one though as it can threaten Swablu with a pretty strong Ice Beam if it ever tries to Defog in your face, or you can just U-Turn out to Larvitar, who was the next member on the squad. Standard stuff with Larvitar really, nothing much worth commenting on further. Sinistea was the next mon to find its way onto the squad, and I wanted to use the same idea as last time with it. This time however, rather than Eviolite, I decided to run Lum Berry as a way to ignore a potential T-Wave from the likes of Deerling. With Endure, I figured I could still get a near-guaranteed Weak Armor boost regardless and thought the pay off would be worth the risk. Croagunk was added, honestly solely because I hadn't used it yet this season, and I decided to get a little unorthodox with this set as well opting to drop Dry Skin for Poison Touch as the ability and run a physical Bulk Up variant. Dropping Dry Skin was a decision made because I wanted to be physical on this team and I wanted Gunk to not just fall over to a potential Houndour, who remains a nightmare in my prepping mind. Rowlet was added sans-Defog, mainly as a way to complete a Fire-Water-Grass core with the next member of the squad and Froakie, but more importantly provide me a Ground resist/immunity. Life Orb Hound rounded things out providng the team with an immediately threatening breaker, especially if Spikes were up.
Getting into the game vs Albi. It was an Offense vs Hyper Offense matchup and the game was balanced throughout the early game on a razors edge. Eventually I got myself into a bad position vs Sinistea and was forced into a 50/50 with my Houndour. I could either Tera-Ghost predicting the Tera Blast Fighting from Albi, or I could remain a Dark-type predicting Albi to predict my Tera and hopefully see a Psychic or something out of the teacup. Unfortunately, I got the play wrong and my Hound dropped to the +2 Shadow Ball and Albi's tea was able to win from there. It is what it is, realistically I should've done better to not be in that position in the 1st place. Usually, when you lose to Tea, its your own fault and that was the case here as well.
Starting off this team I decided that I wanted to try to run Spikes. Swablu was still a dominant force in the meta as a reliable Defogger, but the rise of Larvitar made it so that even if my Spikes got removed, I likely end up in a threatening position. In terms of Spike setters though, we don't really have a ton of stellar options,
Froakie is probably the best one though as it can threaten Swablu with a pretty strong Ice Beam if it ever tries to Defog in your face, or you can just U-Turn out to Larvitar, who was the next member on the squad. Standard stuff with Larvitar really, nothing much worth commenting on further. Sinistea was the next mon to find its way onto the squad, and I wanted to use the same idea as last time with it. This time however, rather than Eviolite, I decided to run Lum Berry as a way to ignore a potential T-Wave from the likes of Deerling. With Endure, I figured I could still get a near-guaranteed Weak Armor boost regardless and thought the pay off would be worth the risk. Croagunk was added, honestly solely because I hadn't used it yet this season, and I decided to get a little unorthodox with this set as well opting to drop Dry Skin for Poison Touch as the ability and run a physical Bulk Up variant. Dropping Dry Skin was a decision made because I wanted to be physical on this team and I wanted Gunk to not just fall over to a potential Houndour, who remains a nightmare in my prepping mind. Rowlet was added sans-Defog, mainly as a way to complete a Fire-Water-Grass core with the next member of the squad and Froakie, but more importantly provide me a Ground resist/immunity. Life Orb Hound rounded things out providng the team with an immediately threatening breaker, especially if Spikes were up.Getting into the game vs Albi. It was an Offense vs Hyper Offense matchup and the game was balanced throughout the early game on a razors edge. Eventually I got myself into a bad position vs Sinistea and was forced into a 50/50 with my Houndour. I could either Tera-Ghost predicting the Tera Blast Fighting from Albi, or I could remain a Dark-type predicting Albi to predict my Tera and hopefully see a Psychic or something out of the teacup. Unfortunately, I got the play wrong and my Hound dropped to the +2 Shadow Ball and Albi's tea was able to win from there. It is what it is, realistically I should've done better to not be in that position in the 1st place. Usually, when you lose to Tea, its your own fault and that was the case here as well.
Week 6 vs reggg | W, replay
AcroCat's Revenge
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AcroCat's Revenge
Week 6 brought me a matchup against then undefeated, new-to-LC UU sensation, reggg and honestly I'd been excited about this one for a while at this point. As timing had it we got to face off in the first week post-June shifts which brough Mankey, Chespin, and Fuecoco to the tier at the cost of Sandile, which made for a somewhat unpredictable landscape. At this point in the season reggg both undefeated and basically using the same shit every week, especially Croagunk and Larvitar.
My team for this week started off with me wanting to play with the new toy,Mankey, but I didn't want to just slap a scarf on and call it a day. If you notice, I'm not the biggest scarf user of all time, I try to get greedy with speed whenever possible, and I decided to make this Mankey a sort of Crabrawler/Mienfoo-Hybrid. Bulkier, pivoting, and immune to Will-o Wisp if necessary. One of the really cool things about this Mankey is that it lives a +2 Chewtle's Liquidation from full after rocks unless you get supremely unlucky. Somehow, this was the first appearance from Meowth-Galar on a squad of mine that I brought. As probably the most reliable Rocker in the meta and a great pivot that hits surprisingly hard, Meowth-G is excellent on most teams. This one is rocking Brick Break to be an answer to potential enemy screens as well as to hit opposing Meowth-G. Clauncher was next as a 2nd bulky pivot to get in mons like Salandit, Mankey, and Sprigatito. Also it eats any hit from Chewtle at +2 and can OHKO back with a pretty beefy Aura Sphere. Ice Beam was chosen to hit Swablu for decent damage over Dark Pulse, because Slowpoke wasn't yet a major mon in the meta, and there was no way reggg was bringing it regardless. The actual star of the show for this team is AcroCat, aka Sprigatito. This time opting to drop Tera Blast-Ground for native Grass-STAB, Sprigatito was positioned to handle both opposing Croagunk and Larvitar that reggg is so fond of. Salandit and Fletchling round out the squad providing speed, offensive firepower and general team support. Both sets we've seen before, so I won't comment on them further.
The game itself was In.Tense. and saw AcroCat show off its power in a way even I couldn't have expected, eventually picking up all 6 kills on the way to victory. The unsung hero of the game however was Fletchling who was able to Defog away the screens, U-Turn out of Larvitar, and in teh late game set up the Tailwind that allowed me to just barely clutch it out thanks to reggg running Adamant Larvitar. All hail AcroCat, all hail Fletch the god.
My team for this week started off with me wanting to play with the new toy,
Mankey, but I didn't want to just slap a scarf on and call it a day. If you notice, I'm not the biggest scarf user of all time, I try to get greedy with speed whenever possible, and I decided to make this Mankey a sort of Crabrawler/Mienfoo-Hybrid. Bulkier, pivoting, and immune to Will-o Wisp if necessary. One of the really cool things about this Mankey is that it lives a +2 Chewtle's Liquidation from full after rocks unless you get supremely unlucky. Somehow, this was the first appearance from Meowth-Galar on a squad of mine that I brought. As probably the most reliable Rocker in the meta and a great pivot that hits surprisingly hard, Meowth-G is excellent on most teams. This one is rocking Brick Break to be an answer to potential enemy screens as well as to hit opposing Meowth-G. Clauncher was next as a 2nd bulky pivot to get in mons like Salandit, Mankey, and Sprigatito. Also it eats any hit from Chewtle at +2 and can OHKO back with a pretty beefy Aura Sphere. Ice Beam was chosen to hit Swablu for decent damage over Dark Pulse, because Slowpoke wasn't yet a major mon in the meta, and there was no way reggg was bringing it regardless. The actual star of the show for this team is AcroCat, aka Sprigatito. This time opting to drop Tera Blast-Ground for native Grass-STAB, Sprigatito was positioned to handle both opposing Croagunk and Larvitar that reggg is so fond of. Salandit and Fletchling round out the squad providing speed, offensive firepower and general team support. Both sets we've seen before, so I won't comment on them further.The game itself was In.Tense. and saw AcroCat show off its power in a way even I couldn't have expected, eventually picking up all 6 kills on the way to victory. The unsung hero of the game however was Fletchling who was able to Defog away the screens, U-Turn out of Larvitar, and in teh late game set up the Tailwind that allowed me to just barely clutch it out thanks to reggg running Adamant Larvitar. All hail AcroCat, all hail Fletch the god.
Week 7 vs Mike Cometa | L, replay
Hawlucha at Home
LEGAL ILLEGAL
Hawlucha at Home
In week 7, my team had already secured playoffs and I think even had wrapped up the 1 seed so this game barely mattered at all. That made it the perfect opportunity to bust out a wild set idea I had been sitting on for about a month at this point, once I realized Mankey was likely on the way to LC UU. Whether or not this set is ever actually worth running is up for debate, but it at least looks fun as hell and I wasn't gonna waste the opportunity to run it before playoffs.
Hawlucha at Home,Mankey was the set I had cooked up, Endure to activate Salac Berry, Bulk Up to get strong, Drain Punch to heal up from 1 HP and Tera-Flying Acrobatics to just hurt things as much as possible. Note: I have yet to actually achieve the fantasy of this set, but you have to admit, it's funny. Keeping with the Acro theme, next on the squad was physical Froakie. Much like AcroCat the week before, AcroFrog is really adept at handling both opposing Croagunk and Larvitar, this time with the added layer of contributing potential Spikes. (The reason I didn't go with this set vs Albi 2 weeks ago was because he had seen it in tests before). Teacup returned to the squad this time rocking a slightly different set, dropping Endure for Giga Drain since Juan (who builds for Mike) loves running stuff like Wooper or Slowpoke, and opting for Stored Power over Psychic because Fuecoco exists and "Stored Power beats Unaware". Larvitar, Rowlet, and Houndour are all mons we've seen before with some minor tweaks to sets. Larvitar runs Stone Edge over Rock Blast due to the addition of Chespin. Rowlet drops Roost for Shadow Sneak (for no reason, tbh I don't like Rowlet much idk why I used it). And Houndour added Protect over Mud Shot, because I basically never clicked it and Mankey exists now.
The game itself was revenge for my robbing of Ralts_boy earlier this season as Mike's Scope Lens Scarfed Scorbunny ruined me. High-roll Crit my Froakiee T1 with U-Turn and things went downhill from there. I was almost able to pull it back, but my Hound did not have quite enough HP after being crit by Scorbs U-Turn late game when on its last stand. Though tbf, I got lucky myself, Dark Pulse flinching the Tera-Fighting Sinistea which allowed me a chance at the end in the first place. I also misplayed my Mankey not clicking endure on 57% Swablu's Hurricane, opting to Bulk Up instead hoping for a miss. Oh well
Hawlucha at Home,
Mankey was the set I had cooked up, Endure to activate Salac Berry, Bulk Up to get strong, Drain Punch to heal up from 1 HP and Tera-Flying Acrobatics to just hurt things as much as possible. Note: I have yet to actually achieve the fantasy of this set, but you have to admit, it's funny. Keeping with the Acro theme, next on the squad was physical Froakie. Much like AcroCat the week before, AcroFrog is really adept at handling both opposing Croagunk and Larvitar, this time with the added layer of contributing potential Spikes. (The reason I didn't go with this set vs Albi 2 weeks ago was because he had seen it in tests before). Teacup returned to the squad this time rocking a slightly different set, dropping Endure for Giga Drain since Juan (who builds for Mike) loves running stuff like Wooper or Slowpoke, and opting for Stored Power over Psychic because Fuecoco exists and "Stored Power beats Unaware". Larvitar, Rowlet, and Houndour are all mons we've seen before with some minor tweaks to sets. Larvitar runs Stone Edge over Rock Blast due to the addition of Chespin. Rowlet drops Roost for Shadow Sneak (for no reason, tbh I don't like Rowlet much idk why I used it). And Houndour added Protect over Mud Shot, because I basically never clicked it and Mankey exists now.The game itself was revenge for my robbing of Ralts_boy earlier this season as Mike's Scope Lens Scarfed Scorbunny ruined me. High-roll Crit my Froakiee T1 with U-Turn and things went downhill from there. I was almost able to pull it back, but my Hound did not have quite enough HP after being crit by Scorbs U-Turn late game when on its last stand. Though tbf, I got lucky myself, Dark Pulse flinching the Tera-Fighting Sinistea which allowed me a chance at the end in the first place. I also misplayed my Mankey not clicking endure on 57% Swablu's Hurricane, opting to Bulk Up instead hoping for a miss. Oh well
Bonus Week 7 Gali vs reggg | W, replay
Fight Spam
LEGAL ILLEGAL
Fight Spam
In addition to the team I used week 7 I also built the team Gali used versus reggg when they had to sub in last minute. This was one that I was considering myself, but ended up deciding to let Gali run it instead and it picked up a win, so that's neat.
Type-spam and overload style builds are lowkey some of my favorite archetypes of Offense and with 2 excellend Fighting types in the tier now that Mankey had arrived, it only seemed natural to try a Fight-Spam team. Life OrbGunk serves as the breaker and Scarfed Mankey is on clean up duty late game. Both sets are fairly standard for what they are, though Gunk is running Gunk Shot as a 4th to bop potential Chespin that think they wall. Meowth-G gets to run Fake Out on this team over Rocks because Larvitar is packing those. Clauncher is the same lobster you've seen every time out of me, and Fletch is rocking a new tech in Tera Blast-Grass to try to punish any Larvitar that think they can set up on it like I had to deal with vs reggg myself. More on this set to come.
Type-spam and overload style builds are lowkey some of my favorite archetypes of Offense and with 2 excellend Fighting types in the tier now that Mankey had arrived, it only seemed natural to try a Fight-Spam team. Life Orb
Gunk serves as the breaker and Scarfed Mankey is on clean up duty late game. Both sets are fairly standard for what they are, though Gunk is running Gunk Shot as a 4th to bop potential Chespin that think they wall. Meowth-G gets to run Fake Out on this team over Rocks because Larvitar is packing those. Clauncher is the same lobster you've seen every time out of me, and Fletch is rocking a new tech in Tera Blast-Grass to try to punish any Larvitar that think they can set up on it like I had to deal with vs reggg myself. More on this set to come.Semi-Finals vs MTB | W, replay
JuanSG-style Balance
My opponent in Semi-Finals was from the team that was punting their UU slot the whole season just stealing or reusing, so I didn't have an idea of what to expect. As a result I decided to go for something that was as solid as possible with my own little bits of flavor added in. Now, I didn't necessarily head in intending to do this, but what I landed on was basically the exact same team as one built by JuanSG, except I use Fletchling over Swablu.
Fletch is legitmately the key mon on this team with this fully special set. This Fletch has everything: Priority Defog for opposing Screens and other Hazards, Priority Hurricane to bop opposing Fights and Grasses like Deerling, Heat Wave to hit Meowth, and most importantly Tera Blast Grass to ruin a Larvitar's day. This set is genuinely really good (or at least was with how the meta evolved this LPL). Meowth-G, Deerling, and Mankey also feature here as they have before running fairly standard sets, not much to highlight there. Fuecoco's is a new face on my builds however and is rocking my standard set of Tera Fairy, Slack Off, Flamethrower, Yawn, and Stomping Tantrum. There are definitely at least 4 other viable options to use over both of my last 2 moves, but I like Yawn for forcing things out in defensive duels and Stomping Tantrum to not be walled by Houndour or Salandit. Slowpoke is the final member of the team to talk about, and there's not really much to it. Tera Fairy to remove all of Slowpoke's native weaknesses and just sit on things with T-Wave and Slack Off, dual STAB to hit important threats like Croagunk and Houndour as hard as possible, and hella bulk + Regenerator just to be a nuisance. Tbh I don't like running Slowpoke or respect it as a mon, but damn has it been effective, so it had to come.
As for the game, I felt very in control the whole time in a balance vs balance matchup with 3/6 mons the same on each side. We unfortuntately end up in a Slowpoke War for a little while, but eventually I find an opportunity to get my Deer in to threaten their Slowpoke out and am able to pick up a kill on their Meowth-G who was massively chunked by my own Meowth's Brick Break earlier. From there I was on the front foot through my Meowth's ability to pivot into Impidimp and Slowpoke and picked up a kill with my Fletchling's Hurricane on Makuhita. My own Meowth went down shortly after. Eventually after my Fuecoco is able to take out my opponent's Deerling, my own Deer is able to finish out the game with relative ease. My one regret is that Fletch actually had insane matchup this game and was denied the opportunity to show it... but we got the W so who cares.
Fletch is legitmately the key mon on this team with this fully special set. This Fletch has everything: Priority Defog for opposing Screens and other Hazards, Priority Hurricane to bop opposing Fights and Grasses like Deerling, Heat Wave to hit Meowth, and most importantly Tera Blast Grass to ruin a Larvitar's day. This set is genuinely really good (or at least was with how the meta evolved this LPL). Meowth-G, Deerling, and Mankey also feature here as they have before running fairly standard sets, not much to highlight there. Fuecoco's is a new face on my builds however and is rocking my standard set of Tera Fairy, Slack Off, Flamethrower, Yawn, and Stomping Tantrum. There are definitely at least 4 other viable options to use over both of my last 2 moves, but I like Yawn for forcing things out in defensive duels and Stomping Tantrum to not be walled by Houndour or Salandit. Slowpoke is the final member of the team to talk about, and there's not really much to it. Tera Fairy to remove all of Slowpoke's native weaknesses and just sit on things with T-Wave and Slack Off, dual STAB to hit important threats like Croagunk and Houndour as hard as possible, and hella bulk + Regenerator just to be a nuisance. Tbh I don't like running Slowpoke or respect it as a mon, but damn has it been effective, so it had to come.As for the game, I felt very in control the whole time in a balance vs balance matchup with 3/6 mons the same on each side. We unfortuntately end up in a Slowpoke War for a little while, but eventually I find an opportunity to get my Deer in to threaten their Slowpoke out and am able to pick up a kill on their Meowth-G who was massively chunked by my own Meowth's Brick Break earlier. From there I was on the front foot through my Meowth's ability to pivot into Impidimp and Slowpoke and picked up a kill with my Fletchling's Hurricane on Makuhita. My own Meowth went down shortly after. Eventually after my Fuecoco is able to take out my opponent's Deerling, my own Deer is able to finish out the game with relative ease. My one regret is that Fletch actually had insane matchup this game and was denied the opportunity to show it... but we got the W so who cares.
Unfortunately, my team and I were unable to make it to the Finals where I would have gotten to face reggg again, but Overall I'm pretty okay with how the season went and am looking forward to more LC UU in the future. Thanks for reading!
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the cat finally came back home, giving us a good option to stop setup sweepers with its Fake Out + Feint combination, and also a good way to keep momentum when trying to break bulky structures, being able to get free damage with fake out and pivot out with uturn vs slower mons. I can see some mons starting to run Tera ghost to avoid being revenged by this.
after staying in ou since the beginning of the gen, we finally get the chance to play with this guy! Amazing physical wall with rest for recovery, stab prio in shadow sneak, and surprisingly good (but kinda weak) coverage options with ice/fire/psy fang and stomping tantrum. It would have really enjoyed mankey still in the tier, but it’s still gonna be a decent options in many structures.
another returning mon. it was (and likely still is) very splashable as a scarfer, now without mankey competition. Tera flying + stabs gives it all the coverage it needs, and Moxie makes it very hard to sack and revenge unless you have something faster or prio. Thankfully the cat is here to save us all from free moxie sweeps.
18 speed, np + shadow ball + Tera blast. It pretty much has no other moves and no bulk. I don’t see this making a huge impact cause it basically forces you to Tera but I’m still curious, especially because of the good speed tier.
a bit surprised about this, definietly a good mon. Stab knock, pivoting with uturn, illusion creating possible new strategies, and an alternative scarfer to Sandile. I have high hopes for it
this is probably going to ru asap. 19 speed, np and coverage is fine, but it remains very weak to really create a threat to opposing teams 
another fire type to add to the big list we currently have, although this is really not keeping up with the others, both in speed (16 is ew) and in coverage, walled by houndour of all things. Likely dropping to ru at the first chance.
will it replace its kanto cousin in the para spam teams that were beckming very good lately? Probably not, but a new bulky mon to experiment with, tho a lot of dark and ghosts dropped with it.
Bramblin, 
Voltorb
Teddiursa???
Larvesta, 
Magnemite, 
Surskit, and 
Wingull 
Weather Ball, Roar
Knock Off, Flip Turn, Vacuum Wave
Roar
Knock Off
Scale Shot
Knock Off
Lunge
Grassy Glide
Poltergeist
Lunge
Flip Turn
Scale Shot
Flip Turn
Flip Turn
Roar
Grassy Glide
Pollen Puff
Grassy Glide
Flip Turn
Superpower
Scale Shot
Flip Turn
Knock Off
Lash Out
Knock Off, High Horsepower
Bellsprout, 
Crabrawler, 
Mareanie, 
Munchlax, 
Nymble, 
Quaxly (thank fuck), 
Turtwig
).
Grookey, 
Zorua-H, 
Chinchou, 
Sandshrew-Alola, 
Torchic, 
Squirtle, 
Corphish, 
Doduo, 
Joltik, 
Cranidos, 
Cottonee, 
Treecko, 
Solosis, 
Dewpider, 
Bulbasaur, 
Inkay, 
Blitzle, 
Oddish, 
Pikipek, 
Seel, 
Horsea, 
Exeggcute, 
Litten, 
Golett, 
Espurr, 
Rhyhorn, 
Chikorita, 
Tepig, 
Tyrogue, 
Milcery, 
Popplio, 
Mudkip, 
Shieldon, 
Beldum, 
Cosmog
NYMBLE IS GOOD (if you're good) 
Drifloon | 5.277% Usage | Unlikely to Drop
Minccino | 5.221% Usage | Unlikely to Drop
Grimer-Alola | 4.299% Usage | Legit Threat to Drop
Drilbur | 4.166% Usage | Legit Threat to Drop (and be outclassed by 
Shroodle | 3.667% Usage | Likely to Drop
Tentacool | 3.060% Usage | Likely to Drop
