It's kinda crazy that I've basically been in SVZU teamtours since August, and because of that I haven't really found the time to teamdump anything since ZUPL ended. This will probably be a mix of ZUPL/UMPL teams, and to increase the value of this post for anyone coming here looking for something that isn't a sample to load in some random tour, I'm gonna include as up-to-date as possible versions of each team I post. I also definitely waited a bit to post this cuz i forgot, but hey better late than never.
I had a lot of fun building for the crams during ZUPL, even if I got burnt out from it in the end. I was kinda expecting it to be more like my past ZUOL/ZUWC experiences where I'm mostly staying in my lane but helping out where I could, but whatever happened W1 didn't work, I passed TJ a bad team because I thought it would be fine (it was not), and then the PRs came out and predicted that I'd do a lot of building that tour. After all that, I did the next logical thing by locking in and starting to do a lot of building that tour. I'm shocked I had as many ideas as I did all tour; I loaded a team called 'the inspiration has left my body' the week I subbed back in and still had more in me after that somehow. I didn't quite reach 4 SV loads in 1 week (which thank goodness TJ had an act win the week before and just used the planned team from then, the sliggoo-h team in the works was NOT good), in thanks to Terracotta, BaitWiz, PlayaBeavs slotting in and self-building, and all the semi/final helpers, cuz whatever I was doing was not sustainable, i made nothing good for semis, none of my builds made the cut lol.
I also had a lot of fun and energy to build in UMPL up until the last 2 weeks, where I think I just ran out of steam and Esteb4n unfortunately picked up a loss. Venu dropping is the only reason I was able to stay as motivated as I was during that tour, and I had a lot of fun building in this meta. Was a little weird when UMPL and ZUPL were running simultaneously, but once that was done and I could allow myself to experience Venusaur, I got into a groovebefore I dropped the 3-0 to a 3-3 rip. I didn't build a lot in UMFL, but that's what happens when you manage and buy ppl so you don't have to do a lot of building.
And the teams will be in whatever order I feel like, and I will leave out/include what I want on a whim. I'm not writing up ~30 teams unless I find 30 I care about.
Bello v4 / Mag + Ori BO
| ZUPL w5, LBN (L)
| UMPL w2, Esteb4n (W)
The original intent was a team designed to abuse the newly broken Bellossom, and I was really proud of this team despite it losing when LBN brought it. I think if I actually made a chronological teamdump I was gonna say smth like 'man i cant believe the builds didn't win more this week i was proud of them.' It was one of the ones I brought into ZU SSNL and definitely contributed to why I'm probably one of the only people who needs to restrict my Magneton usage. For the UMPL remaster, Esteb4n was playing early and I saw a Magneton weakness in Shadow's scout. It's a little known fact that I am a huge Magneton glazer, so I saw a chance and did a little recycling with one of my favorite Magneton teams. I also knew that Shadow liked to reuse, and I was half-expecting the Tera blast fairy curseglast team. We got the matchup. I think the Oricorio is electric because at some point BaitWiz and I went through all the tera types for Ori trying to land on a perfect one, and Electric had reasonable defensive utility and a lax bslam immunity.
TORKOAL TEAM
| ZUPL w4, LBN (W)
Fitting Weezing + Whims on one squad kind of became my white whale during ZUPL, since I kept adding Lanturn on as mon #3. In hindsight I'm not sure how I didn't get Weez + Whims + regi/lax working since they're all the same mon and fill the jolt/zard check role, but idk it never came together. Maybe I was flip turn pilled or was building it for TJ who wanted something outlandish like an 'electric immunity' (and I totally should've put smth together with Piloswine or Whiscash, RIP hindsight again) Going back to the real team, the main point was actually a Mabosstiff squad since FlamPoke spammed Mesprit like crazy. I originally had Regirock > Torkoal and just no removal, but I wanted the secondary physical wall running rocks to not add a Whimsicott weakness, and Torkoal just happened to fill that role perfectly. I knew LBN would be down to load Torkoal and it did everything I wanted it to do in that game, even if this wasn't the MU we had in mind. Torkoal's resistances are awful without Whimsicott being a problem anymore, but I'm still really happy with this squad and finally experiencing the magic feeling of finding a UR mon that plugs the perfect hole in my build. Wish it caught on, but like Ho3n's Defog Gurdurr and basically every other niche mon ran for removal, it just didn't.
A couple of webs squads
| ZUPL W1, me (L)
| updated version
| Terrorizing ladder
| UMPL W3, Esteb4n (W)
The story of this team actually goes back to LTWC somehow, where I stole a Medicham team that Danny used (and I think DBD built) for Lice, and I wanted to bring Medicham Webs to start off ZUPL. I thought I played fine during the game besides falling to the obvious fast dbond weezing that was popular at the time (look, i tabbed out of wc), but right after Bait told me I didn't get the breaker in, and yeah I didn't. In the moment I knew clicking the Vika tera was the wrong play but I didn't think Medicham tera got me anywhere much better. I guess I could've tried to nuke mesp on a switch, but I knew it wasnt helm (or knew my wincon was 'it gets locked into NP'). Anyways, around the time of the Bello suspect, I reworked this team to be Clawitzer > Medicham for extra Charizard assurance, and I still didn't outspeed zard LOL. I had fun with it on ladder, and I felt like it was solid and reliable and good despite how it terrorized zause and Meth Master. For UMPL, I looked at OBB's scout and saw a grand total of zero snorlax usage. I even had Jeza scout farther back, and nope, still no lax. From ladder, I knew that the Claw webs version was was good into not-lax, so I polished it up to not be scarf clawitzer and Esteb4n added on a Samurott. Somehow Esteb4n won without webs up, but hey it still won.
Glastrier + Trev BO ft. Muk
| ZUPL W5, TJ (L) + UMFL W2, Praise the Salt (L)
Man I didn't realize this team lost twice, but to be fair, I picked it because I could actually find stuff to say about it. I liked it enough to pass it in UMFL, but there's no Magneton, so I'm not head over heals in love with it today. I would never use this Hitmontop set today, since I think I figured out that pads saves you in every MU where you want to trade for damage on smth a week or 2 later, and there's no speed creep. The team originally started off as a BaitWiz team that TJ ended up loading 2 weeks after (and winning with), but I didn't like the Whimsicott MU and Victreebel felt like it was stretched too thin when I tested on ladder, so I kept just tweaking things until I couldn't tell which 'Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of muk > bell because whimsicott sucked' was the real one and had to actually rename the team. For UMFL, I was uber busy IRL and Praise The Salt didn't have anything yet and I didn't have time to build/test, so I sent this in. Despite losing twice, I think it had the tools to win both games if PTS remembered Regi was a zard check lol.
the inspiration has left my body
| ZUPL W7, me (W)
The Crams immediately jumped straight to Basculin once Floatzel left the tier, and I had been spamming it on that scarf claw webs team, so a boring looking offense with voltturn and basc was still fresh enough for me to bring. I was burnt out enough to where the building process was 'slap 6 together and have nothing better to load' even though I was confident with it once I brought it. It's games like this that convinced me that Pass and Mowtom suck as scarfers, or at least when you lose to Basculin. I did take a risky line to get to the W, but hey, it worked.
and thats all the ZUPL teams. the ones from finals were built last minute and I already sent the hail in the sample submissions, and everything else is either not memorable to me or smth i want to gatekeep for no reason. and while im here the rest of the teams are gonna be UMPL teams since I'm only taking credit for the one FL team I passed. I do also have thoughts for the UMPL teams so most of them will be included.
Tombcorio BO
| UMPL W3, me (W)
This paste was sitting in my builder through ZUPL and the reason I didn't load it was definitely related to my Magneton and Sandslash usage. Someone else in the cord (I think it was Bait but this also feels like a Terra tech) put me on physical Spiritomb, and I lowkey forgot about it until now which is a crime because it SLAPS. Was really nice when people were going hard Whimsicott into your tomb because you would just delete it with Poltergeist. As for the actual game, I had to wait the full 30 minutes for it (even if I said I cant play early because i was still building/testing, I was still ready on time and bro was online) and I remember going in with the mentality that I was going to win because of that. All things considered, I think this is one of the best performances I've had in a game ever. I made good trades in the early game, and even though I'm not really sure what I was doing with my Muk or if I saw the Oricorio line by then, by time I clicked Tera I knew the game was over. Thank goodness I landed my Hurricanes lol.
Self-Sun Venu Offense (it's probably BO still LOL)
| UMPL W4, Me (L)
Was fun getting to face tony. Don't think we'd played ever and I was excited to. This was the busiest week I had IRL this tour, so I built this like Monday/Tuesday and just hoped it was good when it was game time. The goal was to see how broken Venu was when heat rock was legal since I was busy playing the non-venu ZUPL meta, and I wanted to make this Venu work. It decimated ladder and I knew I was bad against lax, but I thought Regirock alone was gonna be enough for that MU. I didn't get enough games with this team in, since I still didn't have a good gameplan against a well played Snorlax, and I didn't adapt the rigid plan I had against non lax teams or on ladder, which was get early game KOs with venu and clean with Graf.
LO Medicham VoltTurn
| UMPL W5, Me (L)
I kinda just decided it was Braviary time for me and Esteb4n this week, I got nothing from the scout and Esteb4n didn't have any better ideas. I wanted to include this team last because I felt like it was good. Idk, 'its brav week' and 'team good' are all I got. I need to learn how to play around SubSeed or to learn to commit to trades when I really don't want to make them, because my only out vs that CB basc into ditto was tera on magneton, and by time I realized that I lost to that combo, it was too late because I chipped magneton.
and finally,
That One Fat Team
| UMPL W4, Esteb4n (W)
| OG version (grass nacl + defensive cryo)
I actually copied the ppl that copied this team for this paste, since Spiritomb was a pain point and I watched Irene solo a Spiritomb with tera fairy Naclstack. If you want the original, go check out my ZU interview. The inspiration this week was simply to build fat. It'd been on my mind for a while. I didn't think this squad was that good, but Toto stole it for SSNL finals, and Irene ended up also using it in UMPL. I actually didn't realize it was the same team when I was watching Toto play live lol, but shoutouts to Esteb4n for making it look really good tho.
And yeah, teams.
I had a lot of fun building for the crams during ZUPL, even if I got burnt out from it in the end. I was kinda expecting it to be more like my past ZUOL/ZUWC experiences where I'm mostly staying in my lane but helping out where I could, but whatever happened W1 didn't work, I passed TJ a bad team because I thought it would be fine (it was not), and then the PRs came out and predicted that I'd do a lot of building that tour. After all that, I did the next logical thing by locking in and starting to do a lot of building that tour. I'm shocked I had as many ideas as I did all tour; I loaded a team called 'the inspiration has left my body' the week I subbed back in and still had more in me after that somehow. I didn't quite reach 4 SV loads in 1 week (which thank goodness TJ had an act win the week before and just used the planned team from then, the sliggoo-h team in the works was NOT good), in thanks to Terracotta, BaitWiz, PlayaBeavs slotting in and self-building, and all the semi/final helpers, cuz whatever I was doing was not sustainable, i made nothing good for semis, none of my builds made the cut lol.
I also had a lot of fun and energy to build in UMPL up until the last 2 weeks, where I think I just ran out of steam and Esteb4n unfortunately picked up a loss. Venu dropping is the only reason I was able to stay as motivated as I was during that tour, and I had a lot of fun building in this meta. Was a little weird when UMPL and ZUPL were running simultaneously, but once that was done and I could allow myself to experience Venusaur, I got into a groove
And the teams will be in whatever order I feel like, and I will leave out/include what I want on a whim. I'm not writing up ~30 teams unless I find 30 I care about.
Bello v4 / Mag + Ori BO
| ZUPL w5, LBN (L) | UMPL w2, Esteb4n (W)The original intent was a team designed to abuse the newly broken Bellossom, and I was really proud of this team despite it losing when LBN brought it. I think if I actually made a chronological teamdump I was gonna say smth like 'man i cant believe the builds didn't win more this week i was proud of them.' It was one of the ones I brought into ZU SSNL and definitely contributed to why I'm probably one of the only people who needs to restrict my Magneton usage. For the UMPL remaster, Esteb4n was playing early and I saw a Magneton weakness in Shadow's scout. It's a little known fact that I am a huge Magneton glazer, so I saw a chance and did a little recycling with one of my favorite Magneton teams. I also knew that Shadow liked to reuse, and I was half-expecting the Tera blast fairy curseglast team. We got the matchup. I think the Oricorio is electric because at some point BaitWiz and I went through all the tera types for Ori trying to land on a perfect one, and Electric had reasonable defensive utility and a lax bslam immunity.
TORKOAL TEAM
| ZUPL w4, LBN (W)Fitting Weezing + Whims on one squad kind of became my white whale during ZUPL, since I kept adding Lanturn on as mon #3. In hindsight I'm not sure how I didn't get Weez + Whims + regi/lax working since they're all the same mon and fill the jolt/zard check role, but idk it never came together. Maybe I was flip turn pilled or was building it for TJ who wanted something outlandish like an 'electric immunity' (and I totally should've put smth together with Piloswine or Whiscash, RIP hindsight again) Going back to the real team, the main point was actually a Mabosstiff squad since FlamPoke spammed Mesprit like crazy. I originally had Regirock > Torkoal and just no removal, but I wanted the secondary physical wall running rocks to not add a Whimsicott weakness, and Torkoal just happened to fill that role perfectly. I knew LBN would be down to load Torkoal and it did everything I wanted it to do in that game, even if this wasn't the MU we had in mind. Torkoal's resistances are awful without Whimsicott being a problem anymore, but I'm still really happy with this squad and finally experiencing the magic feeling of finding a UR mon that plugs the perfect hole in my build. Wish it caught on, but like Ho3n's Defog Gurdurr and basically every other niche mon ran for removal, it just didn't.
A couple of webs squads
| ZUPL W1, me (L) | updated version | Terrorizing ladder | UMPL W3, Esteb4n (W)The story of this team actually goes back to LTWC somehow, where I stole a Medicham team that Danny used (and I think DBD built) for Lice, and I wanted to bring Medicham Webs to start off ZUPL. I thought I played fine during the game besides falling to the obvious fast dbond weezing that was popular at the time (look, i tabbed out of wc), but right after Bait told me I didn't get the breaker in, and yeah I didn't. In the moment I knew clicking the Vika tera was the wrong play but I didn't think Medicham tera got me anywhere much better. I guess I could've tried to nuke mesp on a switch, but I knew it wasnt helm (or knew my wincon was 'it gets locked into NP'). Anyways, around the time of the Bello suspect, I reworked this team to be Clawitzer > Medicham for extra Charizard assurance, and I still didn't outspeed zard LOL. I had fun with it on ladder, and I felt like it was solid and reliable and good despite how it terrorized zause and Meth Master. For UMPL, I looked at OBB's scout and saw a grand total of zero snorlax usage. I even had Jeza scout farther back, and nope, still no lax. From ladder, I knew that the Claw webs version was was good into not-lax, so I polished it up to not be scarf clawitzer and Esteb4n added on a Samurott. Somehow Esteb4n won without webs up, but hey it still won.
Glastrier + Trev BO ft. Muk
| ZUPL W5, TJ (L) + UMFL W2, Praise the Salt (L)Man I didn't realize this team lost twice, but to be fair, I picked it because I could actually find stuff to say about it. I liked it enough to pass it in UMFL, but there's no Magneton, so I'm not head over heals in love with it today. I would never use this Hitmontop set today, since I think I figured out that pads saves you in every MU where you want to trade for damage on smth a week or 2 later, and there's no speed creep. The team originally started off as a BaitWiz team that TJ ended up loading 2 weeks after (and winning with), but I didn't like the Whimsicott MU and Victreebel felt like it was stretched too thin when I tested on ladder, so I kept just tweaking things until I couldn't tell which 'Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of muk > bell because whimsicott sucked' was the real one and had to actually rename the team. For UMFL, I was uber busy IRL and Praise The Salt didn't have anything yet and I didn't have time to build/test, so I sent this in. Despite losing twice, I think it had the tools to win both games if PTS remembered Regi was a zard check lol.
the inspiration has left my body
| ZUPL W7, me (W)The Crams immediately jumped straight to Basculin once Floatzel left the tier, and I had been spamming it on that scarf claw webs team, so a boring looking offense with voltturn and basc was still fresh enough for me to bring. I was burnt out enough to where the building process was 'slap 6 together and have nothing better to load' even though I was confident with it once I brought it. It's games like this that convinced me that Pass and Mowtom suck as scarfers, or at least when you lose to Basculin. I did take a risky line to get to the W, but hey, it worked.
and thats all the ZUPL teams. the ones from finals were built last minute and I already sent the hail in the sample submissions, and everything else is either not memorable to me or smth i want to gatekeep for no reason. and while im here the rest of the teams are gonna be UMPL teams since I'm only taking credit for the one FL team I passed. I do also have thoughts for the UMPL teams so most of them will be included.
Tombcorio BO
| UMPL W3, me (W)This paste was sitting in my builder through ZUPL and the reason I didn't load it was definitely related to my Magneton and Sandslash usage. Someone else in the cord (I think it was Bait but this also feels like a Terra tech) put me on physical Spiritomb, and I lowkey forgot about it until now which is a crime because it SLAPS. Was really nice when people were going hard Whimsicott into your tomb because you would just delete it with Poltergeist. As for the actual game, I had to wait the full 30 minutes for it (even if I said I cant play early because i was still building/testing, I was still ready on time and bro was online) and I remember going in with the mentality that I was going to win because of that. All things considered, I think this is one of the best performances I've had in a game ever. I made good trades in the early game, and even though I'm not really sure what I was doing with my Muk or if I saw the Oricorio line by then, by time I clicked Tera I knew the game was over. Thank goodness I landed my Hurricanes lol.
Self-Sun Venu Offense (it's probably BO still LOL)
| UMPL W4, Me (L)Was fun getting to face tony. Don't think we'd played ever and I was excited to. This was the busiest week I had IRL this tour, so I built this like Monday/Tuesday and just hoped it was good when it was game time. The goal was to see how broken Venu was when heat rock was legal since I was busy playing the non-venu ZUPL meta, and I wanted to make this Venu work. It decimated ladder and I knew I was bad against lax, but I thought Regirock alone was gonna be enough for that MU. I didn't get enough games with this team in, since I still didn't have a good gameplan against a well played Snorlax, and I didn't adapt the rigid plan I had against non lax teams or on ladder, which was get early game KOs with venu and clean with Graf.
LO Medicham VoltTurn
| UMPL W5, Me (L)I kinda just decided it was Braviary time for me and Esteb4n this week, I got nothing from the scout and Esteb4n didn't have any better ideas. I wanted to include this team last because I felt like it was good. Idk, 'its brav week' and 'team good' are all I got. I need to learn how to play around SubSeed or to learn to commit to trades when I really don't want to make them, because my only out vs that CB basc into ditto was tera on magneton, and by time I realized that I lost to that combo, it was too late because I chipped magneton.
and finally,
That One Fat Team
| UMPL W4, Esteb4n (W) | OG version (grass nacl + defensive cryo)I actually copied the ppl that copied this team for this paste, since Spiritomb was a pain point and I watched Irene solo a Spiritomb with tera fairy Naclstack. If you want the original, go check out my ZU interview. The inspiration this week was simply to build fat. It'd been on my mind for a while. I didn't think this squad was that good, but Toto stole it for SSNL finals, and Irene ended up also using it in UMPL. I actually didn't realize it was the same team when I was watching Toto play live lol, but shoutouts to Esteb4n for making it look really good tho.
And yeah, teams.