Global heatwave last week. 7 Groudon appeared but the lone Kyogre got its win. Multiple reported sightings of Ho-Oh flying across a rainbow after the thunderstorm calmed.
Heysup vs Fogbound Lake
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Sun magneton vs a skarmbliss rain bo. The leads are interesting cause Fog's sub 3 attacks Kyogre is an innovative set and Heysup's Snorlax lead is something you don't very often. Kyogre is favored in the 1v1 so it gets to fish for a Thunder para as Latios pops Substitute. There's not really much risk to fishing like this because Blissey in the back means Latios isn't threatening progress. Snorlax countering Blissey invites Fogbound's Skarmory to get its first layer. That one Spike ends up being all it'll get in the game as Heysup reveals Magneton. This means that Snorlax is going to be a problem for Fogbound and he'll need to aggressively trade with it so that it doesn't get too much easy value off of Blissey. With that in mind, Fog sends out Refresh Latios to threaten the revenge kill on Magneton. Heysup clicks twave to scout the moveset and force a free switch for Snorlax. Fog commits to trading off Latios for Snorlax damage but Body Slam para means he only gets one Dragon Claw's worth. CB Rayquaza comes out to force a Magneton sac but not without eating a twave for being slower than it. Heysup brings out Latios to revenge kill back which also forces Blissey in. Conscious of the dangers Snorlax threatens, Fog double switches out of Blissey back into Rayquaza to deny Body Slam clicks. Groudon switching into the HP Flying reveals that his last is likely to be Deo-A or Ray. With Latios and Skarmory both gone, Fogbound only has his Kyogre to check Groudon but, fortunately, it is revealed to be faster through Leftovers so Fogbound gets to throw out an Ice Beam for free. Heysup reveals Psychic which puts Blissey at a dangerous 37%. Despite that, Fogbound decides to play aggressively and double switch Kyogre in as Heysup attempts to punish Softboiled with his Snorlax. Fogbound then goes for Hydro Pump, likely expecting Heysup to anticipate Substitute, but Heysup goes straight to Latios, instead. This now puts Fog in a position where he has to pick a sac. Blissey ends up being the pokemon that's sacrificed, probably because Fogbound assumes Heysup's final two pokemon are physical attackers (hera + deo?) and, with Latios being at 9%, every future Kyogre click will kill something. Mewtwo is sent out to revenge kill the Latios and this is where everything starts to fall apart. Heysup decides to switch in Snorlax raw rather than let Latios just die. This probably means that his Mewtwo doesn't have Thunder so he wants to keep Latios alive for revenge killing Kyogre. It also probably means that his Snorlax has boom and the goal is to just chip Mewtwo within revenge kill range. Mewtwo paralyzes the Snorlax, though, with the Thunder followed by 3 full paras in 4 clicks. As a result, Snorlax drops with basically zero chip and the Mewtwo at +1. Heysup then sends out his own Mewtwo, which means that his last pokemon is probably either Spell Tag Deo-A or a Rayquaza. Heysup spams Calm Mind as Fogbound clicks Substitute followed by 4 Thunders and wins the game. This exchange is a bit weird so my assumption is that Heysup is using Recover, Calm Mind, Psychic, Ice Beam Mewtwo and that he expected his Mewtwo to survive the 4th Thunder. The 1st and 3rd Thunder clicks rolled max damage so that may be why Heysup didn't try using Recover after the 3rd Thunder, instead. Considering that his Mewtwo was slower, a turn behind, and likely to get Thunder para'd while setting up, I imagine Heysup's goal was to reveal Recover as late as possible in hopes that it surprises Fogbound as well as minimizes the number of Thunders that Mewtwo eats while setting up. This is all heavy speculation, though, and it's impossible to really know what was going on without Heysup himself explaining. It's an unfortunate end for Heysup as he was very likely favored to win at turn 31 but Mewtwo's Thunder managed to turn everything around. Fogbound played well, though, and made sure to maximize his odds of success.
64 Squares vs Vileman
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64 Squares decided to bring a classic Ho-Oh balance with Skarmory as the Steel-type while Vileman seems to be recycling his team from the week prior. 64 Squares respects the Latios lead and sends out Snorlax which likely means that his Ho-Oh lead isn't CB. Thunder misses but the turn 2 Psychic shows that Latios has a coin's toss chance at winning the 1v1 vs fatlax. The probability of Latios avoiding paralysis from two Body Slams is 49% but the Snorlax ends up just criting instead. What's more interesting about this interaction is that Vileman didn't hesitate to immediately trade off his Latios for Snorlax damage this early in the game, which implies that there's a pokemon on his team that really wants Snorlax removed or weakened. This is further reinforced by the fact that Vileman went for the raw Thunder against a potential CB Ho-Oh lead, which only really makes sense if Ho-Oh needs to be weakened in order for a teammate to sweep. The sequence after Latios drops is really interesting and ends up being what decides the game. Groudon comes in for the revenge kill and Vileman decides to play it safe with Earthquake instead of trying to risk a SD in front of a potential boomlax. 64's is to send out Skarmory since it's immune to Earthquake, takes minimal damage from CB Rock Slide, and is the best answer to SD Twave Slide Groudon at this gamestate. With Ho-Oh, Skarmory, and Latios on the same team, the options are there to handle every Groudon variant but it's important to scout the moveset first. This is also why 64 chooses to send out Skarmory first, if Vileman doesn't have a fire move on Groudon then he's strongly incentivized to immediately switch so as to avoid Toxic on Groudon and/or multiple layers of Spikes plaguing his team. If Vileman decides to stay with Groudon, it's either because it has an attack to kill Skarmory with or because Vileman wants to Thunder Wave the Skarmory so that boosted Rock Slides from Groudon or a teammate have a more reasonable chance of breaking through. That's why 64 then immediately sends out his own Groudon. Groudon takes minimal damage from Overheat/Fire Blast/Flamethrower and is immune to Thunder Wave while also functioning as a decent double switch against special attacker since the Groudon is likely Special Defensive. (and Skarmory being slower means Sun stays up if a Kyogre comes in) Vileman instead decides to Swords Dance in front of the Skarmory which communicates to 64 that Vileman's goal is to Skarmory Spikes with boosted Rock Slide damage + flinches. In reality, Vileman knew that 64 would try to scout the Overheat and so clicking Swords Dance would serve as a misdirection while also allowing Groudon apply pressure and dictate plays. This pays off as intended; Skarmory switches back into the Earthquake and stays to get roasted by Overheat. Now, it's worth explaining that the overwhelming majority of SD firedon variants opts to use HP Ghost as their final attack since it's the only way for the set to damage the most popular and reliable Groudon check: Lati@s. It's for this reason that 64 Squares decided to send out Ho-Oh and click Sacred Fire. Having Rock Slide as the final attack would be very gimmicky and 64's general Skarmory usage is barely more than 10% so this sort of Groudon wouldn't make much sense to bring as a bait set against him in particular. However, the real reason Vileman is using this very specific Groudon is because he has a Sub CM Psychic Ice Beam Mewtwo on his team. Against balance/offense, Vileman doesn't need Groudon to trade with Latios, he justs wants a little bit of Rock Slide chip so that Mewtwo's +1 Ice Beam can pick it off. By having coverage moves for Ho-Oh and Skarmory, the Groudon set is guaranteed to force damage on Lati@s. Salamence and Lugia can be ignored since SubCM Mewtwo is generally pretty strong against the archetypes that feature those Pokemon. The presence of this Mewtwo is, of course, purely speculative on my part but the idea is further reinforced by the aggressive Latios plays that I highlight from earlier in the game. Healthy Ho-Oh and/or Snorlax are big roadblocks for the set so it's important to get as much damage on them as possible. Anyways, once the Ho-Oh drops, the game is basically over. Burned Groudon is left to die against Latios Dragon Claw which allows Snorlax to enter at max HP and Curse for free. This forces 64 to send out his own Groudon which is what Vileman wants his Snorlax to eliminate with boom. There's a Deoxys-Attack mirror afterwards and 64 Squares loses the tie as Vileman's Spell Deo cleans the game up. This speed tie didn't matter. If Vileman had lost, his Metagross would have just forced a kill with Meteor Mash and then boomed to make sure that Mewtwo wins the endgame. This was a really well played game with multiple layers to the interactions involved.
mako vs temp
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Mako also decided to bring a typical Ho-Oh balance except with Metagross as the Steel-type. Temp's team is also technically a Ho-Oh balance but, instead of following the standard don, bird, lax, steel, lati, deo, it dips into sun stall territory with Light Screen Blissey over Snorlax and a Skarmory instead of Deoxys-Attack. The game starts off a Groudon face-off. Temp decides to go for the SD as he wants chip on the enemy Groudon so that his Dragon Claw Latias can finish it off. Mako goes with a different approach. She sends out her Latias first since it's immune to Earthquake and threaten temp with Ice Beam even though it's actually Dragon Claw. She then immediately sends out her Ho-Oh since doing so scouts for temp deciding to trade Ice Beam chip for a HP Ghost kill (as explained before, Ho-Oh is generally a reliable counter for HP Ghost Groudon) while also functioning a double switch that beats Snorlax if temp is using SD Slide Twave Groudon. Instead Blissey appears and throws up Light Screen as mako responds with her Snorlax. She reveals Yawn which is uncommon on Snorlax but very powerful since sleep is great value and so are free Snorlax clicks on forced switches. Mako expects temp to switch to avoid the sleep and tries to punish that with an attack but her Snorlax eats a twave and full paras. Temp's cleric Blissey means that he's not really worried about denying sleep. Unboosted and paralyzed Snorlax doesn't threaten much against Groudon so temp decides to stay in and try to force a natural wakeup. Mako sends out her own Groudon and uses the opportunity to setup a free Swords Dance but respects the potential Ice Beam Latias instead of trying to push in damage. Snorlax comes back out and struggles with full para as temp's Groudon gets to burn another turn of sleep. Ho-Oh comes in and tries to get Sacred Fire chip in hopes that Groudon isn't Rock Slide or rolls a 3 turn sleep. Temp doesn't take any risks, though, and simply responds with Blissey to put Light Screen back up. This allows temp to send out Skarmory and click Spike on the obvious HP Fire Metagross since the reduced damage is worth the early hazard. Instead of immediately forcing chip, mako decides to take advantage of the limited Light Screen turns by sending out Ho-Oh to bait Blissey back in and then double switching to Metagross so that Light Screen will end after the next Meteor Mash click. Unfortunately, temp reveals that he also has a Ho-Oh and Substitute means that he doesn't even have to fear an aggressive boom trade attempt. Mako responds with her own Ho-Oh but Shadow Ball fails to pop Substitute in a single hit which forces her to reveal HP Rock surprise in order to pop the second Substitute and deny further Calm Minds. This threat at least forces temp to switch to Blissey which mako captilizes on with yet another Metagross double switch. She misses yet another Meteor Mash as temp sends out Groudon. Mako respects the 50% and sends out Latias as Groudon wakes up with a Swords Dance. Both players go for the safe option which means Blissey gets that Light Screen back up. Mako tries to use the Blissey to make progress with her Groudon since Metagross has too many checks and Light Screen means that Skarmory could put up even more Spikes. She then tries to aggressively twave in anticipation of Latias but temp is okay with trading a bit of Blissey health for a Toxic on the Groudon. Revealing Twave Groudon means that Skarmory is a safe counter and so mako double switches to Snorlax to try and get some chip for easier Metagross plays. Skarmory reveals the rare Thief which is basically a death sentence for Snorlax with the Spike in play. Mako at least gets a lucky burn with her Flamethrower for a bit of extra chip even though it doesn't last long as Groudon forces in Latias which allows Blissey to come in for the Heal Bell. Things are really dire for mako. She tries to make progress again with Metagross but 32% from Meteor Mash on Groudon just isn't enough at this point. Temp is aware of how important mako's Metagross is to her and so he goes for the aggressive Thunder Wave click against Latias in spite of the prior Mash boost. This pays off as mako is forced to click Refresh and allow temp to start to pressure with his own Metagross. Mako tries to chip that Metagross so that her Fire Punch Deoxys-Attack could clean it up later in the game but she misses the Sun Thunder and gets OHKO'd by CB Meteor Mash. Mako's Ho-Oh comes in and baits another double switch for her Deoxys but temp plays things safe by scouting damage with CB Metagross and then responding with Ho-Oh once Spell Tag damage is revealed. If mako was Rock Slide as her 4th, she would try to either punish a predicted Pursuit with Shadow Ball / Superpower 2HKO or switch if she anticipates temp to go for the raw attack. If she is Fire Punch, then she is incentivized to click it immediately against the Metagross to avoid the 50/50 situation and start making some sort of tangible progress. Sending out Ho-Oh on this turn covers all three options and confirms the neccessary information to conclude that Ho-Oh will be a very safe switch-in to Deo for the rest of the game. As a final desperate measure, mako shortly creates a loop where she baits out Blissey with her Ho-Oh, double switches into Deoxys to fish for a Shadow Ball crit against temp's Ho-Oh, and then counters that Ho-Oh with her own Ho-Oh to bait another double switch. Despite her attempts, she doesn't get any crits with her Deo and Spikes eventually put an end to her final threat. This was a very difficult match up for her to navigate. Mako technically had a chance if she could somehow bait temp's Ho-Oh into eating Metagross boom. However, temp had way too many possible answers and mako's options would shrink to Spikes as the game lingers. Getting that boom would have required mako to make multiple specific reads on turns with 3+ options which is just far from realistic. Temp played really well by mixing up his options and making sure he maintained situations that would strongly favor him in terms of risk-reward. His foresight to setup the early Spike through the help of Light Screen was crucial to this and allowed him to control the pace for the rest of the game.
MMII vs violet river
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My team for this week. I expected to fight some sort of Mewtwo rain offense since I know that conflict is a fan so I wanted to bring a solid sun fat to deal with that. I figured standard sun stall would be too predictable and I've never brought standard sun Gengar to tournament before so I decided to go with that. Unfortunatley, my team choice was far too predictable as I had to fight a nightmare mu against heramag. Groudon mirror lead is a welcome sight for me as my phys def don gets to click Toxic for free. violet's turn 1 play is to send out her Latios. Dragon Claw Latios isn't a reliable answer to healthy Groudon but this play makes a lot of sense. Often times Groudon mirrors results in SD, EQ, or switch. Clicking twave would be a very aggressive play that wouldn't make much sense to do t1 against an opponent that I know so little about and I also wouldn't risk staying in against an Ice Beam t2 even if she doesn't have it. Lastly, I have very little (if any?) public Toxic Groudon usage so it was a very unlikely possibility for her to be cautious of. This turn 1 Toxic ended up being extremely significant as her Latios was SubCM, a bandar specialty that would have been very dangerous to me this game as I have neither Light Screen nor Seismic Toss on my Blissey. This turn 1 play does communicate that I'm some sort of sun fat, so violet anticipates my turn 2 Blissey and double switches to Snorlax to advance her Magneton gameplan. I go to Groudon and click Earthquake so that I could get some info on her Snorlax spread. The damage shows fatlax so I expected Body Slam, Fire Blast, Rest, Curse to be the full moveset and send out my Gengar to burn before I start phazing with Ho-Oh. Here she reveals Shadow Ball so I was very fortunate to not miss my wisp. She anticipates that I will try to preserve my Gengar and clicks boom as I send out Skarmory. This allows Magneton to get a free trap before I even have the chance to put up my first Spike. My assumption at this point is that here final two pokemon are Metagross and Deoxys-Attack. Heramag as an archetype is an old and (in my opinion) outdated strategy so I didn't even consider the possibility when I very much should have. As such, I decided to send out Ho-Oh. I didn't want my Latias to eat status with my Skarmory gone her Groudon healthy and I also didn't want to lose much Groudon health since it would be important against a CB Rock Slide Deoxys. I was okay with eating a potential Thunderbolt because Ho-Oh could easily recover on Metagross later and would likely just drop to meta's boom, anyways. She responds to Ho-Oh with Latios and then tries to double switch on my Blissey as I instead scout her click with a Recover. I send out my own Groudon to scout for Rock Slide as she anticipates that and double switches back to Latios. I decide to go ahead and reveal Protect so that I could get a bit more Leftovers and scout to see if she continues to aggressively double switch. She reveals Dragon Claw and then double switches to Groudon in anticipation of my safe Blissey click. As with temp, I'm okay in this position with trading Blissey health to secure Toxic on Groudon to start presure with Skarmory gone. She then anticipates Latias but I decided to send out my phys def Groudon to scout her coverage moves and stall a bit with Protect so that Dragon Claw could eventually KO. Turn 17 I go for Earthquake expecting violet to Swords Dance as an attempt to punish Protect but she reads that with her own Earthquake. In hindsight, I should have been conscious of the potential back Heracross and gone for a different line entirely. Whether or not I expected SD or Earthquake, sending out my Ho-Oh would have covered both. Leftovers on turn 16 revealed that my Groudon was faster so there were good odds that my Ho-Oh would be faster as well. This means that, in the worst case scenario, my Ho-Oh would be able to chip with Sacred Fire as it drops to Rock Slide. Of course, the Groudon may not have even been Rock Slide. That set makes sense with Magneton to remove Skarmory but violet river's team is also completely dependent on Snorlax to deal with special attacks so a spdef sdtect Groudon lead makes sense as a way to mitigate special boomtwo as a problem matchup. Thunder wave would also make sense as a potential 4th since Heracross has no way to get past Lugia without it being status'd first and Groudon would be the only reliable way of doing so. Regardless of all that, even in the case where she was Rock Slide Groudon, Sacred Fire chip would position my healthy Groudon to clean up the endgame effortlessly and would be well worth the price of my Ho-Oh. This is especially true since she has Heracross in the back and Groudon was the only pokemon that was health enough to trade with it once Salac procs. Anyways, back to the real turn 17, after trading EQs I get to freely click Protect into another EQ to finish her Groudon off. Here she reveals the dreaded Heracross and so my first click is to reveal Fire Blast as my 4th move. At this point I'm stuck. After confirming that she's not CB Heracross, I could send out Gengar on her second or third Subsitute click and try to Destiny Bond. If I'm lucky, she could attack into that and we trade but if she doesn't do that then all I accomplish is forcing a switch and having to now play in a way that denies her trying to setup on my Blissey before my Groudon heals enough from Leftovers to survive Swarm Megahorn. This is a long shot so my best chance is to stay in with Groudon and recover with Leftovers while she fishes with Substitute. The only way I could really avoid Fire Blast miss is by clicking EQ (which I absolutely should have done turn 23) and hoping that she doesn't read that with a raw SD. Fortunately for me, I just never miss any of my Fire Blasts and I even get to dodge her Swarm Megahorn. (Groudon survives at that point but still) The game is over at this point. Her Toxic'd Latios is hard countered by my Blissey, her Deoxys-Attack has no way to break past my Ho-Oh, and her Magneton has no hopes of beating Latias + Ho-Oh + Groudon + Destiny Bond Gengar. This was a very scary game for me and I would have loved to see how things turned out if we had played a bo3 =}
At this point, I think I'm just going to give up on trying to be more concise. I could try to cut out anything that isn't the big picture and any big plays but I think there's a lot of thought that goes into the little turns and those interactions tie into why the big turns happen the way that they do.
