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Project Unluckiest Player of the Week (Week 6, see Post #134)

How often should we declare a UPOW winner?

  • Every week! (higher odds of winning, but potentially less exciting winners)

    Votes: 11 25.0%
  • Every other week! (High quality replays every post, but lower odds of winning)

    Votes: 33 75.0%

  • Total voters
    44
  • Poll closed .
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Hosted by Affles, co-hosted by Cake

Hello, and welcome to the Unluckiest Player of the Week contest!
Whether you've been playing Random Battles for a week or for years now, odds are you've found more than a few truly unfortunate and frustrating moments to call your own. That's where we come in! The Unluckiest Player of the Week project aims to provide a way to turn the frustration of missing that third consecutive Focus Blast (or fourth, or fifth) into an opportunity to win both prizes and a place in UPOWs Hall of Fame!

We try to exclude as few replays as possible, but your odds of winning are best if the bad luck in your replay happens in quick succession and/or at a moment that would have been crucial to winning your game. These are not requirements, however! If you think your replay is worth sharing but does not follow these criteria, explaining why in your entry will help your case.

Rules:
- The replay has to be of a battle in the Random Battles format.
- Frustration is understandable, but we will not be considering your entry if you act with outright hostility or otherwise toxic behaviour. If you think your replay reflects badly on your character, do not post it here.
- Your entry will only considered if it took place less than a month ago, except for specific weeks where we will state otherwise.
- If you want to share a replay in which you yourself are not the unlucky one, we will only be considering your entry if you include a screenshot showing that your opponent consented to being put on UPOW.


To participate, please comment with the following:
- A replay of the battle
- A description of the unlucky event(s)
- The turn number(s) they take place


~~~
We will be accepting entries from Monday to Sunday, then review all submissions and decide on a winner. This week will run until Sunday November 23rd. The winner(s) will be added to UPOW's Hall of Fame post below and earn a Tour Token, which will allow you to request a tour of your choosing in the Random Battles room over on showdown.

You can find UPOW Week 6 here!
~~~

This is the first Random Battles forum project that aims to document remarkable replays for future enjoyment, so if you have funny or otherwise interesting replays to share that don’t fit the mold of “unlucky” per se, you are absolutely free to share those here (provided you state as such in your entry). Entries of this nature may very well be featured in an honorable mentions/funniest replays section, though as of right now they will not be eligible for prizes. We will not be considering replays with the premise of 'I played really well this game!' or similar for this category.
 
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~UPOW HALL OF FAME~

Week(s) 1:
1st Place: Chains of Markov - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2427840214
2nd Place: Aedan37 - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9randombattle-2444578695
3rd Place: Typhlosion48 - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...-2438483017-r6euil7ipncpbopenacs164wobv9ra9pw

This battle is simple and quick, but densely packed with such odds that we can't even really calculate them. Not only does the luck result in an immediate loss from two self-KO moves, the opponent's Metronome even picked perhaps the most insulting move to use in return as well. There's no way this doesn't take the cake.

We did the math on this one: in a consecutive span of turns with no break, missing six focus blasts and then getting fully paralyzed twice results in a ~0.0045% chance of occurring! That's astoundingly unlucky, right there.

While there are some other submissions with lower odds than this, we take context into account, not just pure math. Watching Dire Claw put three consecutive Pokemon to sleep in a row made both of our jaws drop! For the sheer impact alone, this one takes our bronze.

Week 2:

hammy3581 - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7randombattle-2459268002?p2
This battle was over before it even started when our unfortunate winner missed a whopping five gunk shots in a row, which had a mere 0,032% chance of happening! This let his opponent set up three layers of spikes that would haunt him for the rest of the game. As a cherry on top, the match ended with a lost speed tie coin flip. I'm sure I'd need to take a break after a game like that.

Week 3:
didntexpectsnorlax - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...-2462912858-l5qtgp52663l657ha1em86s7juktabgpw
Y'know, it would've been really simple to deal with this Oricorio. This Electric Oricorio, against a Ground team with an Unaware user. It would've been. But fate had other plans, and Oricorio dodged four out of four uses of Toxic and hit five out of five hurricanes against the two relevant Ground-types. And if that wasn't enough, one of the hurricanes confused the Quagsire and allowed the Oricorio that set up to +4 to just steamroll the rest of the team. Factor in all that together, and you've got something in the realm of 0.00004%, give or take. Not that the odds matter much, for cases like this.

Week 4:
Nav1gator_ - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9randombattleblitz-2467016831
Like Checkov's monkey, seeing Passimian come and go like that at the start of the battle seems pretty innocuous at first. Sure, it took care of one of its checks by dodging two hurricanes and landing a poison, but what else is it gonna do? Well, the answer to that question rears its ugly head hardly a dozen turns later, after it manages to dodge another would-be finishing blow- only to go on to sweep the rest of the game away.. As a final twist of the knife, passimian ends the game by landing three back to back critical hits. Rng really can be cruel sometimes.

Week 5:
1st Place: Hasuinna - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5randombattle-2472267666
2nd Place: AquaGuy2.0 - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9randombattleblitz-2472110316
3rd Place: weinerdog69420 - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9forceofthefallenrandomroulette-2477406209

As much as I'd want to pull the same shtick as #2 with today's winner, the start of this battle is impossible NOT to remark on. You can hardly imagine a better way to start of a UPOW entry than two turns, two crits and two ko's. The battle doesn't end there though, and despite all odds today's winner almost won the game too! You're gonna have to watch for yourself to see how that ended up for them..

This replay speaks for itself in many ways, but Aqua's assertion that he 'just didn't get to play the game' might very well be best way to put it. I'll leave it at that, you're better off experiencing this one on your own!

For most of its duration this battle ebbs and flows like many other gen 1 games have before it. This holds true until the very end, where a +6 tentacruel proceeds to miss two back to back hyper beams.. and then gets frozen (effectively an insta kill in gen 1). The palpable sense of rng plucking defeat out of the jaws of victory earns this the number three spot.
 
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https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1randombattle-2448053932

Gen 1 bullshit featuring crits and misses
Making a full list but this happened on ladder today
List of things:
Crit EQ sandshrew (which mattered) turn 1
Crit Blizzard Jynx (also mattered) turn 6
1/256 miss venomoth turn 9
Blizzard Miss Seel Turn 16
Crit MD Gloom Turn 16
Miss Stun Spore Oddish Turn 19
Technically a few other things (like not getting paras) but I only counted the things that had a less than 50% chance of happening.
 
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Posting cus FOMO

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5randombattle-2448456124

T1 hits hypnosis (this is lucky, trust)
T3 Bite flinch on gar, preventing me from missing LO focus blast
T16 ice punch freezes gar (this Gar must be cursed body cus boi aint gettin shit to go his way)
T17 I insta defreeze and get a meaningless but important crit to send a msg that i dont fuck around
T18 Persian trying to Bite flinch gliscor into range of return and getting the first flinch
T19 opp goes for return crit and thankfully isnt rewarded
T21 opp ice beam freezes blissey (its a cold world atp)
T27 i dodge FB which doesnt matter cus wish pass
T30->37 opp goes for ice beam freeze/crit endgame and dodges a toxic + gets a crit but never matters cus im a pink blob

Ill prob post somethin far more sinister later in the week when ive played more

Edit: Just noticed a random citizen commented on T4 or somethin about the lucky start for opp, s/o to ya
 
So I felt inspired after meeting the funny wifi password guy today who so shamelessly haxed me last AC.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5pokebilitiesrandombattle-2448686354
* Three Water resists, but no known instance of a Simipour resist
* Two cases of two full paras in a row (out of 6 turns: 17-19, 22-24).
* Everything on the opp team except Solrock and Staraptor outspeeds my entire team.

Not a lot compared to what happened that time, or to anything else, but I might as well tell the story to anyone willing to learn the true side of that evil man.
 
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