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Welcome to the OLT X Discussion Thread! In this tournament players climb up the OU ladder aiming for one of the top 8 spots in each of 4 cycles, which in turn earns them a spot in the OLT playoffs. The purpose of this thread is for everyone to share their teams, ladder trends, and just the overall experience that comes with this unique tournament format. We will be highlighting the winners of each cycle and give a quick run down of how the ladder looks like after each cycle.
Visit the OLT subforum for more information on the tournament and how to participate.
Its good to be back into tours and show some good results as a first impression.
the best strategy for OLT is definetly to counter team people and have a repository of of good teams that you can use and cycle through. Well i did the opposite, 80% of my games were using the same rain team and the rest of it were using HO. With enough wits, a good enough team, and properly sniping people and finding your target is enough to get you through the gaunlet.
Now i have 2 teams that i used this whole cycle, both were made by Vert and since a lot of people have been asking me for it, figured ill post it here
Ever since i started mons back in the middle of Crown Tundra, rain was always my favourite playstyle, and this team is probably the best rain team i've used in this gen. The main idea is to stack hazards with ting-lu lead, with physdef investment you can stay in vs band baxcalibur, band great tusk, band sneaseler while being able to still take strong special water moves like surf from walking wake or specs moonblast from enamorus. Hazards is amazing for your other mons to get ohkoes consistently, especially with greninja and its battle bond. Greninja has INSANE damage potential with modest tera water hydro pump, it can one shot physdef amoong and baxcalibur without hazard, and with 1 cycle of hazard it can one shot AV Azumarill. Spikes also helps with grabbing a guarantee KO on frail offensive pokemon like iron valiant and sneaseler with Water Shuriken. Greninja is definetly the center of this team as just with 1 kill it can DESTROY any team without spdef boots pex, tera water blissey, water absorb clod or dragonite. The other pokemon on this team synegizes well as they all beat greninja's counter, with basculegion nuking everything with wave crash and also being an amazing spin blocker, in most games i've played basculegion has been more prominent as a spinblocker than a breaker, kingambit cleaning up games with tera blast fairy if needed, and zapdos being a great pivot and thunder wave spreader to cut everything's speed to size.
Another team by vert, this team was made because of the rise of cinderace and stall, the rain above doesnt exactly excel againts rain and weirdly enough, its weak to cinderace at it shuts down the early hazard stacking and late game kingambit. This team is the perfect foil to the rain team above, and i run it everytime i see people using heavy anti-rain stuff. This is a pretty standard HO build with lead glimmora but with some unorthodox sets, The Iron Valiant has Taunt which shuts down a lot of walls like garg, alomomola, toxapex from doing their thing, knock i off is a very nice tool to get rid of boots on fatter teams and psychic is here to hit amoonguss as it is the only common mon iron valiant struggles with using this set, iron jugulis is an amazing cleaner (if you hit its moves) with knock off and taunt it becomes a brutal fat breaker too, Iron Moth and Greninja are by far the 2 best anti offense mons as not many fast offensive mons can handle its strong attacks and revenge kill, tera ghost on greninja lets it beat dragonite and sub on iron moth lets it beat kingambit. Tera Fighting Fat Kingambit absolutely demolishes stall teams, not even curse dondozo or iron defense corviknight can beat it, Low Kick + Iron Head is also a very good neutral coverage as everything that isnt hit neutrally by fighting, iron head does.
Now this team is made by me, originally i made this team to counter a few fat balance team that had dondozo molt tinglu pex and another one with zapdos glowking (i believe it was insult and nat), now i didnt use this team on main but i did run a few games with it in my alt and knocked a few OLT players down that were using mono-physical wall zapdos which this team loves. Its very simple, just paralyze everything and then spread damage with sawsbuck, and clean with bax gambit and dnite after the opposing team has been paralyzed and chipped. Don't expect this to be the most consistent team out there but it has been good the few times i used it to snipe people. not much to say, other than frosslass is a very underrated lead.
Now hows the meta shaping up?
Currently things that are on the rise are fast paced HO with 2 leads, usually being sandy shocks and samurott, stall teams are also on the rise with will-o-wispers such as talonflame, drifblim, moltres and cinderace showing up to counter the rise of stallbreaker gambit. Offensive Thunde Wave zapdos has been making a return on bulky offense teams, and garg + boots spam balance have also become meta again with mons like torn-t and pex regenspam core
For these HO, the best way to beat them is just to use Booster Special Iron Valiant and stall teams with will-o-wisp, their stall breakers are usually gholdengo and gambit and the will-o-wisp mons can shut them down easily.
For Stall, i suggest running more taunt on teams, encore has been used a lot this generation but taunt is a pretty under appreciated move, as a long of defensive pokemon currently cannot do much once taunted, especially on stall teams. See the anti-court change HO above as an example.
The Boots Spam balance doesnt really have a specific weakness, i find using a lot of knock off users and faster mons like scarf trick valiant are very helpful.
This was a very fun experience and I’m glad I was able to make it. This is pretty much the first tournament I take seriously so it felt great to qualify. I didn’t really have much trouble and it all went fairly well, apart from the last few hours that are an absolute rollercoaster. Congratulations to everybody who qualified and I’m excited to face you in the playoffs.
This is the only team that I’ve used and also built(barring unviable cteams used to snipe). It isn’t perfect at all and not the best team by any means and I will probably not use it again, but I peaked with it on the ladder a bit prior to OLT and knew it could get the job done as I’m really comfortable with it. I still think Toxapex is a top tier mon but the way I see it, using it is making a deal with yourself that you’ll struggle in every single glowking encounter and as a counterpart being an absolute glue and cornerstone against everything else. However I found myself to be too much at a disadvantage against glowking, especially against great players, that it’s probably not worth it. Building anything without Great Tusk is really hard atm, it does everything so well on top of being the best (I’d argue only viable) hazard removal in the tier. 12 attack ev assure you’ll get a prothosynthesis boost against sun, which I found to be the better option, a speed boost can also come in handy so it’s pretty much up to preferences. I’ve opted for four attacks as Close Combat is way too good for Baxcalibur and Kingambit, I did think of putting ice spinner on there, but knock off is an absolute must in the metagame especially on an hazard stack and rapid spin is simply impossible to take off. I think hazards are broken atm and there’s no better setter than tinglu, but I needed a way to cripple tusks and Zapdos just appears to be the best option, it was originally terablast fighting but people on the ladder knew I ran that set so I settled for twave which ended up working very well, (especially for gambit, once paralyzed pex and own gambit can deal with it) dealing with a paralysed great tusk is just a game changer hence why I think these two work so well together. I needed some type of speed control and Dragapult fills that need perfectly, providing a spin blocker that can switch once into tusk while also making your opponent reluctant in clicking rapid spin. I’ve personally used modest for this run, I wouldn’t do that in a tournament, but there has not been a single situation where I needed to be timid. Lastly we have Kingambit, I’ve changed the sets quite a few times, I’ve put about 80 evs into speed to screep, which ended up being really nice. Also interchanging the tera to dark, flying and fairy between every game (originally it was tera dark) but I found fairy to be the most consistent option in the end, also did change between low kick and iron head, but settled on Iron head as I got tired of getting 1v67 by tera fairy kingambit. I don’t think I need to tell you what this mon does, incredibly stupid and once you’ve paralyzed the tusk you’ll find with no surprise it can do absolute wonders paired with hazards late game.
HO is quite hard to deal with, especially with Samurott and SS, two leads is really tough and you’ll have to get the first few turns right. Some other threats are obviously glowking, and sub set up sweepers (enamorus, baxcalibur are both almost straight defeats with sub, only way is to tera tinglu and whirlwind them out), lastly the biggest opp is by far cinderace.
replays (you can check my olt replays on showdown if you wanna see more, I’ve saved a lot):
I also wanna echo Mimikyu’s post, sniping/picking your games is hella valuable and probably the most consistent option. May I mention this gholdengo set that is absolutely unviable in any other match ups but will be almost impossible to beat for any stall if you feel like sniping
If you’re a player looking to get better I heavily encourage you to sign up. I don’t think there is a better environment than what OLT provides for you.
Last but not least quick shoutout to the French community for showing support when I never even spoke to most of them, it meant a lot and hope to count on it in the next stage.
Hi, this will in all likelihood be the only OLT I ever attempt (did 1 cycle a few years ago, but yeah) since I'm not too compatible with laddering many games and having a goal attached. Don't worry, I accept this is because of me. Because of this, among other reasons, I think it'd be cool to just talk about what I learned about OLT qualifying in general. I also was asked about advice anyway, so this feels like a fair way to relay this in full. This will include a guide on how to qualify, my own qualification, team reviews for the ladder, and other things maybe. For my qualifications for those who don't know me, I spent probably 98%~ of this cycle as rank 1 (by my math about 4-5 hours as not), and ended as rank 1, with the 2nd highest gxe of OLT so far at 88%. Anyway, here we go.
First thing I'd mention is try not to be a frontrunner, but set a good pace for yourself as well.
Thursday, Day 1: 42-2 +849 elo
Friday, Day 2: 15-5, +143 elo
Saturday, Day 3: 7-4, +7 elo
Sunday, Day 4: 14-6, +41 elo
Monday, Day 5: 2-0, +28 elo
Tuesday, Day 6: 2-0, +26 elo
(decay hit 2x, -12)
Wednesday, Day 7: 6-3, +8 elo after decay
Thuesday, Day 8: 1-0, +9 elo
Friday, Day 9: 0-0, end +1111 (2111 elo)
For a couple of things to note here, as a frontrunner even going double positive in w/l will see you barely scraping by in elo gains. You'd often be playing people over 100 elo lower than you, which means a max of like +15 elo per game, and losses of -25 or more. When they're 200 elo below you, it's more like 10/-30. In my time looking at the boards fairly often, it didn't pay for people to be consistent frontrunners. All it took was a few losses to suddenly be -20 -30 -15 and tilting down several hundred. Here is an image of the top 8 three days ago, when it really started to look like not only would it be a higher cycle, but the top 8 had a few games gap over 9th.
A whopping two of these top 8 players, and even only 2 of the top 13 players here qualified. Every other one you see especially in the top 10 tilted down several hundred elo on some given day, and most never recovered at all. It's exceptionally easy to see your elo snowball to -100 after 4 losses when you are frontrunning. Do not whatsoever stress not being near the top at the start, only the final day really matters. At the same time, it may not be healthy for most people to wait until the last minute to build their way to 2100. I'd recommend just setting goals for yourself and keeping track of how you've progressed through the day. It's a lot easier to see "oh i went from 5th to 14th today, fuck" but more prudent to say "oh i went +50 today, that's good." When you set goals, this allows you to even end days earlier if you do good enough. Contrary to some beliefs, I did go outside this olt cycle. I only played 109 games! 13 games a day with a lot in the beginning is not so unbearable of a time constraint imo. You can't be afraid to play either. Just because you have a new peak of 1932 elo, doesn't mean it will last forever. Keep playing, especially before the final few days. Which leads to my next point....
You don't have to go positive every day, and frankly chasing losses is a big reason imo why a lot of people fell how they did. I did it too but fortunately never lost 3 games in a row in this run, so even when a little frustrated (read: inexplicably pissed off) it never translated to elo much.
Now that a general mindset about how to progress through the cycle elo-wise is covered, I'll go over more specific things in climbing like sniping, prep trends, protecting yourself against being sniped, etc.
~
If you'll recall in a previous paragraph, I mentioned that two of those players in the image provided did qualify for OLT despite being frontrunners 3 days ago. One was me. The other was lt102vo injust, a name players familiar with cycle 2 already may have a mental image of. Once he got to 2k by stalling, he proceeded to be very patient, and scout games of weaker players who worked their way into high enough elos to be worth his time/risk (think like, higher than +10.) I don't know how many times he tried, but there were a certain few players he consistently matched up with and ultimately chipped off 10 elo here, 12 there for quite a few games. This as you may imagine is extremely useful when at the 2k+ range, where climbing can be very daunting if just loading in randomly into a lax or vert. This is not to make fun of injust at all, instead to say if you want to play OLT, you need to be prepared for people trying to snipe you, especially if you are less established. I sniped some guy named xwipe like 3 times in the 1900s, and once as a high 2k. They will usually just be higher elo accounts looking to score an easy bucket. If you want to avoid being sniped, there are a couple of tips I'd recommend:
1) don't load asap after you play every game.
2) especially don't do this .2 seconds after you lose every time (unavoidable in the moment, i know)
3) ESPECIALLY don't do this using the same team over and over after you keep losing
4) keep an eye out for ppl just legit joining ur games over and over.
5) mentioned somewhat in 3, but constantly change your teams.
One of these tips that I'll reiterate outside of the hide tag since it's such a big deal is to vary your team choices. You do not want to have 900 olt games using two teams only and leading sandy shocks or alomomola every game like a robot. You will not qualify for OLT in all likelihood and frankly are limiting yourself in learning to be a better player, which indirectly hurts you in OLT growth too. Even if you want to use the same 6, maybe have a different variant or two with sets so people can't scout your games so hard and know your iron valiant is sd encore and cannot touch my great tusk as i click rapid spin lol thanks for +13. Another thing to make people trying to get your sets less convenient is to hide all of your games, when you remember. People definitely can and will scout your open games/replays for sets if available. If you're varying your teams often enough, being creative, changing a set or 2 here or there and hiding games, you'll be extremely hard to snipe from a solely prep standpoint even if you're insta-loading more games. People may try to snipe /you/ solely as an opponent if they see you as at a skill disadvantage, but at least from preview it'd be more fair.
As a different thing to talk about with prep, you'll absolutely notice prep trends occur where some teams are all the hot rage for a few days. They'll start really strong as they're new and people are unfamiliar with them. They'll then be copied a bunch, and maybe be still good but not as lethal since people definitely know what to expect. If you're playing a fair amount of games you'll naturally encounter what I'm talking about, but it's always good to keep in mind that what you're using at the start of cycle 3 may not be as great and as potent as the end of cycle 3. I know I feel that way about some teams I used, and also fought vs. Don't be afraid to slightly adapt your already established teams to ladder trends or even opponent trends you've noticed as you go. Also, pretty much anything is viable to use in OLT. People have qualled using stall only, HO only, and anything in between. I've had everything I've used this cycle be copied & stolen, and this will be anyone who is rank 1 or finding success typically. Lord knows I've seen the vert sun about 86 times today. People like to climb, not build. This is doubly true when pressed for time of a cycle.
But ultimately, I can write about prep all day when in reality being a good player will win you more games than most things. That being said, I think from my experience qualifying for all 3 ou tours this year, OLT is definitely the least skill-intensive compared to OST/Stour at least for making playoffs. It's a lot more rewarding of being smart in prep, patient, and coolheaded (not many people check of all 3 of these.) I'd probably call patience the best attribute for qualifying, at least from my limited pov. For some it's load like crazy and just see where it takes you, but ultimately if you see someone qualify you want to be elitist about and say "i don't think they're good, I've never heard of them", maybe they were just patient with the ladder. This is especially doable if you're a frontrunner, but as mentioned this runs its own risks. I'll now go into some misc stuff.
~
I saw a few people asking about "how much elo did people have at this time cycle 1?" and nobody really had a good answer. I took the liberty of taking screenshots most days of highscores, and I'll put those in hidenotes below if you want to compare them % wise to your ongoing cycle, and ultimately can maybe predict cutoff rises etc. For fun, if they qualified for playoffs I'll put their number in green so you can see just how unlikely it is to matter you aren't often in the top 8.
Another thing I forgot to mention that this graph reminded me of is decay! Some people were asking about it and all I can share is my experience. In my experience, I played above 6 games on the first 4 days, though days 5 and 6 I proceeded to play 2 games each. After day 5, I expected to get on and see -6 elo. My elo did not move. I played two games on day 6, and still the decay did not hit me. I then got on day 7 to see I received -7 (apparently 2100 is -7 not -6, while 2000 is -6), and also received the other form of decay after playing my first game, another -7 I believe. Playing 6+ games that 7th day made my decay going forward go away. Knowing how this worked, I played one game on day 8, and sure enough day 9 got on to find I received no decay and stayed at 2111.
Most of the teams I used are not my own, though I'd just spend time finding what works for you. If you start 0-200 experimenting it doesn't really matter. I watched some guy named xwipe toil around 1600s for like 400 games after falling from 1900s, and then eventually made it back to 2032. He then made it back to 1500s on the last day, but hey, probably no better environment to spam games and improve if you're in the right mindset for it. Thanks to AkalliStorm ZonelaxVert and most notably big stinky cat for the company and just chatting throughout the cycle here and there. I don't think I have any goals besides making it past the laddering stage, so that's pretty freeing. I'm not too excited about qualling, just kinda sad I did this since it made me feel like a soulsucked ghoul, but there are many people who played 3x-5x the games to barely miss, so I have to be grateful. It's of course nice to have a reward for the effort and playing well. But it comes with the guilt of being an asshole at times, worse at other times.
All in all qualifying for this is pretty big shithousery and you will nearly invariably be tested mentally in some avenues. It's helpful if you can find some joy in suffering, though you'll be rewarded with a pretty exciting last few hours typically. It's also helpful to have people to talk to who are also playing ladder, especially OLT. Think this is about it. Please stop using the sandy shocks/walking wake HO outside of low 1800s. Please stop using razor shell.
I always love reading these threads as I think it’s cool reading about peoples experiences on ladder and also seeing what people used, so here’s my spin at the post lol. (Currently typing this on my phone so apologies if I make any grammatical errors or formatting issues).
I’ll be honest, I’m still in shock about what happened, I’m so relieved that all the time spent into this tour (I think I started laddering maybe tuesday or monday? Don’t rly remember) wasn’t thrown out by my awful nerves, thank lord I decided to load a few games both yday and today morning LOL. I hadn’t really had the highest motivation going into this tour, I came off of what might have quite possibly been the biggest qualification throw of all time in stour this spring, which really blew my mental considering how close I was the season prior as well to qual, and it didn’t help that I threw up both yday and today because of this tour too. I wasn’t all too excited or confident about this cycle but decided to give it a try anyways because it’d likely be my last attempt at qualifying for an individual this year (not interested in masters, wish falltour wasn’t removed but oh well). Before I post pics of the teams I used I’d like to thank literally EVERYBODY who either gave me advice, teams, or cheered me on during my run, it helped a lot seeing many people supporting me, and made the last second qual insanely hype as well LOL.
(note, not all teams pictures will be there, I used a few more but I’ll only be showing what I used somewhat frequently since it prob will help people more, mostly only posting pictures because I stole like all the teams I used and would like to give the people who made them a chance to post if they would like, not gonna post it on forums myself and take it away from them).
1000s - 1800s:
I had decided to steal and use these two teams on the lower part of ladder because I felt pretty confident that they’d be able to power through whatever bullshit I would see down there. I was evidently wrong though as around 30-40 of my losses were with these LOOOL it was so painful, I think if you bring the webs you are just cursed into instantly fighting either rain or cinderace, both teams are v solid though. The fusien team is public I believe so I’ll just post it here (my version is diff from his though):https://pokepast.es/ff5c3679d2950d4e
Tera fighting cress is really good vs the meta rn imo, a lot of teams really rely on gambit to kill cress so being able to bait it and sweep is invaluable.
Gym T was owning a lot of ppl in cycle 1 with the webs so I decided to steal it and try it out and it really is a good team if you aren’t given the cinderace curse.
Edit: Vkhss made this team, my bad
1900s-2100s:
stole the team in cycle 1 because nat was farming with it, dozo is insane into a lot of offenses and lando was pretty nice into slower teams, I personally changed the team to make the dondozo tera dark with around 84 spedef evs, this let it be a guarantee 4hko from cress moonblast after tera iirc, helps a lot cuz as it turns out, lando does NOT beat cress even while para’d and tera grounded lmao (I learned this the hard way… twice).
Another team I stole from watching nats games, was told CTC made it so big shoutouts to him cuz it was what I used a lot of my run and even in the final hour. Has playable games vs mostly everything, and if desired ghold can be changed to psyshock to target some stall teams. Dozo again carries vs offense alongside dnite, and I personally changed the meowscarada from taunt to tspike because I saw a lot of teams in cycle 1 really struggled vs tspike + mons like dozo and zap, but taunt works just as well for the team and prob is better than tspike atm since there seems to be an influx of teams with iron moth (and more pex/amoon usage than cycle 1).
Took me a millennia to catch a vert game live to see what he was using but when I did, I instantly stole the team lol. Saw a lot of other people spamming this and for good reason, it’s just really hard to stop mons like wake and iron moth. Moth especially can sometimes just end games on its own if it gets a fiery spatk boost in sun, I found myself really worried about fighting this mon a lot due to this, def one of the best mons rn imo.
Some other teams I used for some games:
Made the last 1 myself I think a few weeks or maybe 2 months ago, not entirely sure when, so I’ll just drop the paste here: https://pokepast.es/c0dc58ebb536d3e6
The idea was essentially keep rocks off and eventually win with one of the three brokens (gambit dnite thundy). Thundy is a mon I wanted to build around because plot + lefties was really nice vs the balances people spammed a while ago, I think psychic is a much better move than focusblast on it but I was too lazy to change it ngl. I didn’t make the dnite set but I fell in love with it after using it on a diff team, the 6% recovery helps soooo much in setting up and roost spamming, and tera fly tblast cleans a lot of offensive teams up.
I said it above but I really do appreciate everybody who hit me up to show their support, too many names to tag here + I am not badged so most of the tags won’t go through, but ya’ll know who you are and know I would do the same for you guys, lets hope I don’t go 0-3 in playoffs LOOOL god forbid bros.
Best of luck to anybody participating in the next two cycles, especially my friends <3 (goooo), and hf to everybody in poffs, should be fun for sure.
Sorry if this was difficult to read btw I’m not great w long posts.
I always love reading these threads as I think it’s cool reading about peoples experiences on ladder and also seeing what people used, so here’s my spin at the post lol. (Currently typing this on my phone so apologies if I make any grammatical errors or formatting issues).
I’ll be honest, I’m still in shock about what happened, I’m so relieved that all the time spent into this tour (I think I started laddering maybe tuesday or monday? Don’t rly remember) wasn’t thrown out by my awful nerves, thank lord I decided to load a few games both yday and today morning LOL. I hadn’t really had the highest motivation going into this tour, I came off of what might have quite possibly been the biggest qualification throw of all time in stour this spring, which really blew my mental considering how close I was the season prior as well to qual, and it didn’t help that I threw up both yday and today because of this tour too. I wasn’t all too excited or confident about this cycle but decided to give it a try anyways because it’d likely be my last attempt at qualifying for an individual this year (not interested in masters, wish falltour wasn’t removed but oh well). Before I post pics of the teams I used I’d like to thank literally EVERYBODY who either gave me advice, teams, or cheered me on during my run, it helped a lot seeing many people supporting me, and made the last second qual insanely hype as well LOL.
(note, not all teams pictures will be there, I used a few more but I’ll only be showing what I used somewhat frequently since it prob will help people more, mostly only posting pictures because I stole like all the teams I used and would like to give the people who made them a chance to post if they would like, not gonna post it on forums myself and take it away from them).
1000s - 1800s: View attachment 541790 View attachment 541791
I had decided to steal and use these two teams on the lower part of ladder because I felt pretty confident that they’d be able to power through whatever bullshit I would see down there. I was evidently wrong though as around 30-40 of my losses were with these LOOOL it was so painful, I think if you bring the webs you are just cursed into instantly fighting either rain or cinderace, both teams are v solid though. The fusien team is public I believe so I’ll just post it here (my version is diff from his though):https://pokepast.es/ff5c3679d2950d4e
Tera fighting cress is really good vs the meta rn imo, a lot of teams really rely on gambit to kill cress so being able to bait it and sweep is invaluable.
Gym T was owning a lot of ppl in cycle 1 with the webs so I decided to steal it and try it out and it really is a good team if you aren’t given the cinderace curse.
Edit: Vkhss made this team, my bad
1900s-2100s: View attachment 541792
stole the team in cycle 1 because nat was farming with it, dozo is insane into a lot of offenses and lando was pretty nice into slower teams, I personally changed the team to make the dondozo tera dark with around 84 spedef evs, this let it be a guarantee 4hko from cress moonblast after tera iirc, helps a lot cuz as it turns out, lando does NOT beat cress even while para’d and tera grounded lmao (I learned this the hard way… twice).
View attachment 541793
Another team I stole from watching nats games, was told CTC made it so big shoutouts to him cuz it was what I used a lot of my run and even in the final hour. Has playable games vs mostly everything, and if desired ghold can be changed to psyshock to target some stall teams. Dozo again carries vs offense alongside dnite, and I personally changed the meowscarada from taunt to tspike because I saw a lot of teams in cycle 1 really struggled vs tspike + mons like dozo and zap, but taunt works just as well for the team and prob is better than tspike atm since there seems to be an influx of teams with iron moth (and more pex/amoon usage than cycle 1). View attachment 541794Took me a millennia to catch a vert game live to see what he was using but when I did, I instantly stole the team lol. Saw a lot of other people spamming this and for good reason, it’s just really hard to stop mons like wake and iron moth. Moth especially can sometimes just end games on its own if it gets a fiery spatk boost in sun, I found myself really worried about fighting this mon a lot due to this, def one of the best mons rn imo.
Some other teams I used for some games: View attachment 541795 View attachment 541840 View attachment 541797
Made the last 1 myself I think a few weeks or maybe 2 months ago, not entirely sure when, so I’ll just drop the paste here: https://pokepast.es/c0dc58ebb536d3e6
The idea was essentially keep rocks off and eventually win with one of the three brokens (gambit dnite thundy). Thundy is a mon I wanted to build around because plot + lefties was really nice vs the balances people spammed a while ago, I think psychic is a much better move than focusblast on it but I was too lazy to change it ngl. I didn’t make the dnite set but I fell in love with it after using it on a diff team, the 6% recovery helps soooo much in setting up and roost spamming, and tera fly tblast cleans a lot of offensive teams up.
I said it above but I really do appreciate everybody who hit me up to show their support, too many names to tag here + I am not badged so most of the tags won’t go through, but ya’ll know who you are and know I would do the same for you guys, lets hope I don’t go 0-3 in playoffs LOOOL god forbid bros.
Best of luck to anybody participating in the next two cycles, especially my friends <3 (goooo), and hf to everybody in poffs, should be fun for sure.
Sorry if this was difficult to read btw I’m not great w long posts.
Hey. Great post, I just have one thing to say about the Fusien Cress team. You have Tera Fighting Cress, Scarf Lando, Tusks, and Flame Body Tran for Gambit. Isn’t having Jolly Low Kick Gambit overkill or is there another reason for running it I’m not understanding?
Also knowing I probably influenced people into using Thundy-T brings me joy.
Apparently the last time I attempted OLT was in 2014 lmao. I'm not sure what caused me to want to try this time, but this cycle was the only reasonable time frame I could give it a go and I said fuckit. Here are some observations I had during my time qualifying:
Just to preface, I don’t have a lot to add in terms of teams to use or specific mons to use, which is what most people viewing this thread are likely looking for.
Some quick things:
- Cresselia is great for low ladder to farm, but less consistent as you go up as you face more experienced players that know how to play around it.
- Idt I ever lost to Shocks-Wake lmao, so like Nat said, don’t use this in high ELO at least. When your gameplan is that linear, it makes things like lead advantage and set expectations a lot easier to plan around.
- Vert sun is very good, but you have to know how to get Bonnet and Wake in as much as possible as Sun teams aren’t the most structurally sound, and this one is considered more offensive than previous Suns with Corv, Bulkier Tusk, etc. If you learn how to maximize the amount of times you switch Wake and Bonnet in, these two will absolutely shred the majority of teams.
Last thing regarding gameplay specifically is Tera management: it is very important to NOT Tera in the first few turns no matter how enticing it seems. I am a major noob in this regard; I won't lie. The amount of times I loaded up Pinkacross Tera FlyBlast Thundurus-Therian and clicked that shit Turn 1... and my record with that team went from 3-0 to 3-4 as I used it in higher ELO. There was a game I saw a roll if I Tera Fire my Cinderace vs a Zapdos on turn 4, and I ended up missing that roll and getting Twaved, and para'd, and dead to cane. This is while I had a hard counter in Gloking and other stuff. It is of the upmost importance to NOT TERA early, because having your Tera in the back gives you more opportunities to react to your opponent's Tera and other techs they may have. Unless your early Tera can start the game with something crazy like a 6-4 advantage, or it's a Pokémon you know for certain your opponent will struggle immensely to handle , it is best to be analytical in your Tera usage. This isn't to say you should hold off and be passive in your Tera usage, but just try to be more mindful. Obviously, this is case dependent as is everything mons related, but there is a very common trend I've noticed in early Tera into early Loss.
The final thing regarding OLT as a whole that I want to add is to be respectful to your opponents, as this helped me. It's so easy to get tilted, so easy to call your opponents "the worst fucking player ever" and tell them "lol you're not going to qualify anyways" or "you're going to go 0-3 in swiss anyways" as you yourself miss out on qualifying. I noticed that towards the latter half of my cycle, when I started saying gg every game and conversing with my opponent more often, that I was able to handle losses much better. I was able to shake it off and move forward without ruminating on things such as "I'd be in 9th if he didn't flinch me with Icicle Crash" or "My streak ended due to a crit". I definitely still commented when unlucky, but this was more of a way to vent out rather than lashing out at my opponent. It happens all too frequently that people get pissed and shittalk their opponent. The reality is we are playing an unofficial metagame (in true Pokémon standards) on a niche website. Saying a simple "gg" can come a long way for you and your opponent, even if you get haxed. There was not a moment during the entire cycle in which I felt robbed from being on top and that the world of RNG was out to get me. It's the ladder - literally anything can happen. I was more reflective in things I was doing that caused me to lose more, such as wasting my Tera early lool. I honestly thought I was too washed for Pokémon nowadays, but I shook it off and enjoyed playing the game for the game.
This tournament is genuinely a test of mental fortitude (and sniping apparently) more than it is skill-based, arguably. Your opponent who got luckier doesn't care a single bit that you whine and curse at them.. all it does is affect you and your future play. They just move on with their day and probably don't even remember you while your crying can impact your mental in other games. You'll get unlucky; you'll get lucky. Shit happens, and you're not the unluckiest player ever. Just keep moving and maintain a good attitude.
There's great advice above in terms of gameplay specifically, but I hope some people can understand my message. GL all
Thought I'd post Verts sun team that's been extremely popular the last week and a half during OLT. The team is pretty customizable and works very well in general with a lot of the matchups you see in the high ladder. If you can get Bonnet and Walking Wake out safely in terms of doubling its quite a fantastic team to pilot. The RMT above goes into details, so check it out if interested :)
Feels good to qualify for this after coming so close twice in the past. My main goal for this tour was qualifying, I don't know where that leaves me for playoffs but now that we are there we might as well try. I have some different things to talk about but I'll start with teams since it's a question I've been getting a lot.
A few people have asked me teams or what to use, so here are my thoughts: in low ladder, up until 1700s, if you are a decent player you will climb using most stuff. I would suggest to use hyperoffense if you want to get to that 1700 checkpoint quickly, optionally loading two games at once if you don't care too much about GXE / losing some games early.
Personally I mainly played the vertex sun up until the 1700s, I had never played the team before and it was by far the most popular team last cycle, so I just took low ladder as an opportunity to try the team out, and if I liked the how it played maybe continue using it. I ended up using this team for a few games in the 1800-1900 range but then I stopped using it, it's not a bad team by any means, but by now everyone knows it, players started adapting to it and I just felt like some matchups were too volatile, especially the sun mirror. The team is also deceptively not easy to play. I felt like if I wanted to continue running this team I would've had to change sets and rotate them to consistently win those volatile matchups, and also so whoever I matched up with wouldn't already know my sets. It felt like too much of a hassle so I dropped it and started playing something else.
Once you reach high ladder, if you don't have anyone that gives you good ladder teams or if you aren't a builder yourself, I suggest to start looking at what people are using in the cycle at that particular moment, particularly the players in the top 3, and also what players used to qualify in the previous cycles. You can take those replays and recreate the teams they were using that look interesting to you. That is what I did.
I recreated two of the teams Nat used to qualify in the last cycle and I felt pretty comfortable with them. The Zamazenta one ended up being the team I mainly used for my run. Having played spikestack teams a lot during cycle 2 I was just tired of getting destroyed by Cinderace and boots spam so I decided that a team that didn't rely on spikes to make progress would've given me a more enjoyable playing experience. The team has tools to make most matchups playable, and I didn't feel like I was in uphill battles most of the time (which happened often with the teams I was using during cycle 2). Boots on everyone bar lando meant I didn't have to worry too much about opposing hazards and Cinderace court changing my own spikes back, Future Sight makes progress against anything that doesn't run Tect + is tanky enough or has the typing to withstand it, Zapdos is also generally a great progress maker against any team that isn't too fat, especially if you can manage to keep rocks up. Spikes are something additional that give you a big edge against teams that run no hazard control and you tend to get them up naturally clicking Ceaseless Edge. If everything else failed I still had my Kingambit trump card. The team does have quite a bad matchup and that's stall, but I just avoided that issue by trying to not load games if stall players were around. I tried Zamazenta with Iron Head / Substitute in the 4th moveslot, Iron Head felt nice against fatter teams and fairy teras / stuff like Iron Valiant and Scream Tail, otherwise Substitute is better. I have seen people run Howl as well but I didn't try it. On Samurott I originally ran Sacred Sword but ended up replacing it with Knock Off, Sacred is nice vs opposing Samurott but Knock is more useful in most matchups and can be gamechanging in some, so I'd say it's the better move to run. I've also messed with the spread, started with a bulkier slower Samurott then transitioned to a faster one to guarantee being faster than non scarf Gholdengo.
The second team I used more sporadically whenever I wanted to switch things up, didn't use it nearly as much as the first but I feel like it's still strong so I will mention it. hellom used this team as well and he gave a good description of it, Dondozo is great into HO whereas Lando will carry you in most other matchups. Landorus is also particularly nice paired up with Future Sight, as having sub allows you to sub up on protects.
As far as general laddering goes since last cycle I got knocked out last second this time I started laddering with the goal of reaching and consistently maintaining a top 3 spot, so hopefully I wouldn't have to have to ladder in the last hours of the last day (avoid it trust me). I got there around day 3-4, and eventually a combination of playing games to avoid decay + the players around me tilting down allowed me to get top 1 and stay there for the majority of the cycle. I started the last day at 2058, which would've been enough to qualify but I was still a bit paranoid so I decided to load one more game and I lost it, that said it was still morning and the situation was nearly not as hectic as the last hours so I wasn't too worried, after some games I regained the elo back and eventually won the last game and reached 2069.
I'd say that if you want to qualify without having to be stressed in the final day, being top 3 going into day 9 should allow you to chill and load one more game maximum to get the qualification. Doesn't really matter when you start making a push to get to the top as long as you don't do it too late (last day), climbing up on day 8 means you will avoid decay for day 9 so that's obviously a bonus. Getting a very high rating early on isn't that beneficial because decay will hit you hard and you will face people rated way lower than you, best to take it slow and pick up the pace in the last few days.
About tilt and sniping, something I did that helped me avoid both is taking breaks after games no matter win or loss. That assured I was not going to get sniped and also that I kept up the focus for each game. It was a big reason for why I managed to qualify this time with way less games (117).
I know the temptation to load games especially after a loss is there, but you have to force yourself to not load because the likelihood you get sniped and tilt even more is high, and you're going to drop 200 points. Wait 5 to 10 minutes and you will be fine and ready to start climbing up again.
As I said the team I was using wasn't great against stall, so while I did not actively try to snipe someone in particular, what I did try to do was the opposite and avoid loading into players using stall. Generally be conscious of the players that are online playing around your range.
Something minor and only relevant after you get to the 2000s: if you want to minimize your points loss you shouldn't be looking for a game for too long, the longer you wait the more likely it is that you get paired against a player that is rated lower than you. That means you gain less if you win and lose more if you lose. You could argue playing against a player rated 150-200 points lower means an easier game, but I believe that's not always the case and not worth the risk of potentially losing 30 or even more points.
I think I covered everything that I wanted to talk about, there are some great posts in this thread already that have helped me so I hope my post does the same for you, good luck to everyone trying to qualify in cycle 4, looking forward to another insane cycle ending now that I don't have to take part in it lmao.
Hey it's me EGC, I wanted to share that I thought I would not be able to make it to playoffs until the very last day, but you have to believe in yourself and believe that you can accomplish what you set out to do. I played over two thousand games throughout this OLT and now I find myself once more in the playoffs stage for my third time, I want to say that for me personally playing like whatever has worked out very well, like teraing early for instance, mid game or late game, it doesn't really matter tbh. Having played such an inmense amount of games made me learn that by force.
One advise I could share for cycle 4, albeit it's perhaps too late though, is to log off of your account so people cannot snipe you as easily and load a wide variety of teams and when I say ''wide variety of teams'':
I have shared a couple of my teams to some people that had asked me for teams and stuff but I would recommend being creative and learn the metagame by yourself. In the end of the day you are the only individual who can change the outcome of your qualifying phase since this meta is so diverse and has way too many options.
Having said that, I wish everyone who is trying cycle 4 the bests of luck and may all your magma storms connect.
During this final cycle, figured I'll compile some of the teams that I've seen used by our fellow contenders on the higher ladder. S/O to Jordy, Finch, and Jhonx~ for the idea since I've seen their past contributions. I'll be sure to update this post throughout the cycle. Good luck to all contenders.
Hello, a rather late post from cycle 3 but here we are.
The team I've used :
I'm really proud to have managed into qualify with my own team, with the presence of Tinkaton, who is UU but deserves to be played in SV OU.
Using something fat is the most consistent archetype and it definitely worked out for me. I originally built this team for McMeghan’s World Cup Semifinal TB game after realizing Tinkaton was actually quite good and definitely has a niche in this meta. Having access to a encore (arguably the best move in the meta right now) is amazing and can prevent tons of set up sweepers, such as Cresselia, Baxcalibur, Kingambit and so on. It also can use knock off, which is amazing with all the boots spam going on right now while also being able to set up rocks. Tusk can be annoying as it can pretty much come in for free, but I found that tusks usage definitely took a hit, at least in high ladder, that I felt comfortable using it as my rocker. Cinderace is definitely a top 5 Pokemon right now, while uturn is nice, I don’t think it’s really needed (obviously sometime it’ll suck) on a bulkier archetype. Max attack stab low kick is incredibly powerful and at least on ladder, I don’t see a reason to use high jump kick, there probably wasn’t a single situation where I wished I was HJK, lastly will o wisp is great to cripple physical attackers and court change is the teams hazard control. I’m not particularly a fan of using Dondozo, but it definitely is hard to not use it considering the non sense baxcalibur and kingambit, it gives you an easy out to most of them and if you’ve tried building in this metagame, you’ll know how hard it is to build and have a plan for every single tera they potentially can be. It also obviously will stop most physical attacker, but these two are especially why it is for. Tera fight is mandatory to beat Garganacl which can be a pain for this team. Dragapult is the speed control of the team alongside cinderace, sub can be annoying and even win on the spot against most teams that don’t really prepare for it as it’s not as common anymore, wisp neutralizes every physically attacker(ban baxcalibur). Granted it doesn’t miss, it’s amazing as digging holes and making progress against bulkier teams. TingLu is definitely one my favorite mons atm, being the teams primary answer to Zapdos, which again, if you’ve played recently know how omnipresent it is. Rest gives it some nice longetivity, ruination is also an amazing move to have right now as the meta is transitioning to a mono boots fest without recovery, allowing you to touch Zapdos and Landorus and plenty of other stuff like Tusk. Tera water is mandatory if you don’t wanna lose your whole team to walking wake. And then we have Zapdos, an absolute cornerstone, crippling every mon with static and discharge are absolute game changers and will help you make progress if you can proc it on mons like tusk.
The team doesn't really have any bad match ups where you lose turn 1 on the preview but I would say to be very careful with baxcalibur in general, as the tera drag lo set can be painful even if you keep cinderace as revenge killer.
In some match ups like sun or water spam offense (wake + gren) you will have to tera water with your TingLu for obvious reasons. Tera water can also help against Baxcalibur in the first instance.
I wasn’t really planning on posting anything, but due to the amount of people that have reached out and asked for the team, it felt right to share it so I can just link them this post instead of explaining to every single person how to deal with certain threats. Definitely one of my favorites team and I’m glad I was able to make it work.
I'm not one for posting on this site. However, figured why not since I've finally managed to qualify. Just wanted to share the team I used for my run:
Specs Hoopa paired with Sneasler & Rotom is fantastic as those mons bait in bulky Poison types, Gholdengo etc Providing easy opportunities to start punishing the opposing team with big hits. Bulk is relevant as you live hits such as Enamorus Moonblast and +1 Greninja Hydro. Curse Garg is still nasty & under prepped for. If your check is G Slowking you will get cooked (which is most teams). Tusk is mandatory for the role compression, then Gholdengo to help check Iron Valiant+other Sneas. Twave is great for supporting Hoopa as well
You can see the team in action on my vid and I showcased other teams to
Appreciate everyone who cheered me on during my run, especially my teammates from Northeast. Thanks for readinghttp://😁
Happy to have qualified for my favourite tournament after just missing out last year, especially as I decided to properly learn the gen as OLT began.
When I was new to smogon the best part of OLT was all the teams that get shared in this thread from people who's skill level I thought I would never reach so I gotta do my part and share the teams from my run.
Boots spam team created by idk who - used to 1900 https://pokepast.es/b5f4c85ea1fce339
Empo team - 1900-2063 https://pokepast.es/4e68674f68ed2da6 - I saw empo using soft sand lando and specs dragapult, it looked fun and good so I stole it and changed the sets/teras/evs to make it more offensive. Primarily the kingambit set which allowed me to stop worrying about late game gambit sweeping me and it let me play my lando/tusk more aggressively. The combination of ground/fighting across the whole team is incredibly powerful, thx empo for carrying my run
https://pokepast.es/6324ba66abc256c4
Used exclusively this common 6 with my personal set changes (bu water tusk, epower torkoal, lum gambit) and held #1 rank for a good amount of time. Go nuts
Ting-Lu Battle Bond Gren Rain
Anti-Courtchange HO
