Heysup vs Ayu
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Heysup decided to go with comfort by bringing a double kaiju balance. Heysup likes this archetype a lot in general and this specific six is one that he has
used countless times before. Ayu's team choice was, frankly, much more dubious.
Her team was built by noitu for the most wanted tournament back in early 2021. This is a VERY long time ago for ADV Ubers and the metagame has changed considerably since then. Heysup's team is obviously proof that some teams from that era hold up well, although they generally do need set updates. However, noitu's team was (in my opinion) too ambitious even for its time period and has not aged well at all. Wobbuffet, in particular, was very avant-garde in 2021 but is, nowadays, much more difficult to use with consistency due to how much the meta and the players have adapted to it.
Regardless of all this, the matchup for Ayu isn't exactly unwinnable, either. SubCM Mewtwo is actually pretty threatening for Heysup's team. Snorlax is a good defensive check for it but Snorlax is also very vulnerable to a Wobbuffet trap. Deoxys could revenge kill Mewtwo but it needs Choice Band to OHKO a healthy Mewtwo and, thus, expose itself to Tyranitar's Pursuit. Ayu's CB Ho-Oh might not have any sun support on the team but Heysup also has zero flying resists, anyways. Defensively, however, the Wobbuffet team struggles quite significantly. Latios, in particular, is a massive problem and the only way it can be stopped is by accepting sacrifices and aggressively trading with it. 2/3 of the team is also bullied by Heysup's double kaiju which puts a lot of pressure on Latias as the team's first and only line of defense against the duo. Overall, the game will mostly be a damage race that could be tipped in Ayu's favor depending on how quickly and efficiently she traps the SubCM Mewtwo checks.
The game starts off a Lati twin mirror that both players decide to stay in with and slug things out. For Heysup, the motivation to stay and click Dragon Claw is because any damage on Latias greatly advances the gameplan for his main offensive core. For Ayu, staying is simply a matter of necessity as the team she chose has no switch-ins for Latios, anyways. Her Latias being faster than Heysup's Latios gives her the advantage forces Heysup to retreat to Snorlax turn 2 but Heysup is also very okay with this as Ayu's Latias is left barely hanging on. Heysup then goes for the safe Body Slam click as Ayu reveals Wobbuffet and gets the turn 3 trap!
Unfortunately, Ayu makes an important blunder in this interaction: she switches out of the Snorlax before attempting a PP stall or at least forcing Heysup to reveal the full set. The double Protect into Encore is certainly annoying but Snorlax is stall far from escaping the forced trade. The Snorlax set would need to be Protect, Curse, and a third passive move in order to reasonably survive vs Wobbuffet. Once Snorlax reveals Protect, the first goal is to force it to prove that it's not Protect + 3 attacks. The best way to do this is is to spam Counter since the PP is double that of Protect while still forcing a trade if Snorlax attacks. If the Snorlax has Curse, it will start using it so that Body Slam/Shadow Ball can eventually threaten a OHKO and discourage the Counter spam. Once the Snorlax has boosted to that point, the Wobbuffet player can now mix between using Encore or using the Destiny Bond -> Counter trick that I explained last week. Doing so makes it virtually impossible that the Snorlax wins the PP stall war unless it shows that it has a third passive move with more than 8 PP. Even if that is actually the case and the Snorlax gets to survive, the Wobbuffet player still leaves the exchange in better position than it would have without stalling. The Snorlax has been forced to reveal its full set, burn through (almost) all of its attacks' PP besides Body Slam, and is Encore locked into a do nothing attack as the Wobbuffet player sends out a new Pokemon to maintain momentum. The capped Snorlax stats are not a problem because (good) Wobbuffet teams are built with a teammate that can use Psych Up or Roar/Whirlwind.
Anyways, Ayu chooses to use the Encore-locked Snorlax to heal up her Latias. This decision later proves to be prudent given the given matchup (which hasn't been completely revealed, yet) but it does mean that, in the short term, Heysup gets his first Spike up. Ayu tries to punish this with CB Ho-Oh but Sacred Fire fails to burn Kyogre. Ayu responds to Heysup's Kyogre with her own and takes advantage of her unrevealed set to force Heysup to respect the possibility of Thunder (which she probably doesn't actually have) while she clicks Thunder Wave instead to catch the already weakened Latios. Unfortunately, whether because of rolls and/or ev spreads, Kyogre's Ice Beam just barely fails to finish off the Latios as it clicks Refresh to remove the paralysis. Regardless, Ayu compensates for this with the smart play to send out Tyranitar so that sand can finish the Latios off.
Now Heysup brings out his Kyogre. Based on everything revealed so far, his likely assumption (I could be wildly off, not a mind-reader) is that the last Pokemon on Ayu's team is a Deoxys-Attack or a Rayquaza because the contrary would mean that her team is wildly weak to Salac Heracross. Under this assumption, Groudon is in a very good position to win once Latias falls to Kyogre. He could even afford to trade with a Thunder, if he wanted to, just to ensure the Latias is out of the game. Since Ayu's Kyogre has already revealed Thunder Wave, there's a good possibility that it doesn't have Thunder and, therefore, wouldn't want to switch it in reactively against Heysup's Kyogre. Instead, the safe play would be to simply send out Latias since CM Kyogre is VERY threatening to Ayu right now. This is why Heysup goes straight for the Ice Beam. If she were to send out Kyogre, that would imply to him that she has Thunder and he doesn't seem to want to just CM then switch. By Ice Beaming into Latias, he gets to fish for the 15.625% while Ayu to make difficult choices even if he doesn't get that. Latias ends up being Ayu's answer and Heysup plays it safe by simply sending out Snorlax instead of trading with Thunder; he can always force the issue again later but with CM. Ayu tries to scout a double switch with Recover but Heysup is content to simply click Body Slam since he has already seen that Ayu isn't willing to attempt the PP stall with Wobbuffet. Ayu was fortunate to not eat a paralysis on that Body Slam but she doesn't want to push her luck and so she sends out Wobbuffet. We see the same interaction as last time and Latias is sent in on the locked Snorlax. This time, however, Ayu calls out the attempt to punish Recover with a raw Thunder that catches Heysup's Deoxys-Attack. Although, Heysup may have been okay with this since he still denies her her one chance to Recover with Latias and Forretress is probably more valuable to him than Deoxys-Attack based on what he expects the endgame to be. (vs Ray or Deo last)
With Snorlax back in and Wobbuffet nearly KO'd, Ayu is forced to go Tyranritar on the Body Slam and eats a sizable amount of chip due to the Spike. This is where Heysup finally reveals his Groudon and Ayu chooses to give up her weakened Tyranitar so that she can safely bring in her Kyogre to check the threat. Here we see that her Kyogre is faster than Heysup's Groudon and then we see that it is faster than Heysup's own Kyogre on the following turn. Without Latios still around, Heysup is forced to finesse vs Ayu's Kyogre and so he sends out Groudon on the Thunder Wave so that he can check the Kyogre with his Snorlax under sun. Snorlax continues to get away with a lot of extra value than it should have gotten in this matchup by trading Body Slam chip on Ayu's Kyogre in exchange for Thunder Wave and then landing the Body Slam para on her CB Ho-Oh right after. Groudon switches into the CB HP Flying and goes for Rock Slide as Ayu brings out her faster Kyogre to check the Groudon. Thanks to all the chip from the Spike and assorted attacks, Heysup can now comfortably send out his own Kyogre to answer Ayu's. Her only choice is to accept the loss of Kyogre in exchange for chip + paralysis so that her Latias can clean up the mess.
Once again, Heysup's Snorlax comes out to get value it shouldn't be getting. Ayu decides to play conservatively with her CB Ho-Oh as she doesn't expect her Wobbuffet to be able to handle the Snorlax. She tries to fish for parahax with her Latias to avoid Ho-Oh eating a Body Slam and ends up losing her Latias. Heysup reveals that he has Shadow Ball in the process, which confirms that Wobbuffet could have trapped the Snorlax much earlier in the game. The opportunity is still there for Ayu to revenge kill this Snorlax with Wobbuffet but she sends out her Ho-Oh instead. Admittedly, winning the PP stall war is less certain now that the Snorlax is paralyzed and there is only 4 Encore PP left.
After Groudon switches into HP Flying and finishes off the Ho-Oh, Mewtwo is revealed and flips the expected endgame on its head. Although she is still not exactly favored, Ayu has a chance to win through parahax. She fishes for that parahax Mewtwo's Substitute and gets a little bit of it but it's not enough to win the 1v1 vs sun Snorlax. This wasn't a certain endgame for Heysup, though. Although unlikely, there was still a chance Ayu could win by sending out Wobbuffet as Snorlax fully paralyzes and then forcing the Destiny Bond trade. There were better opportunities for this earlier in the game but the option was still technically there and Mewtwo would win comfortably with Snorlax gone.
I think this game and the one from last week are good examples of how difficult Wobbuffet can be to play optimally in the current metagame. The pokemon is definitely still viable and has strength to it, as Heysup showed in the first week of UPL. However, the metagame has adapted so much that it's much limited in what it can freely trap and requires a lot more knowledge and effort to abuse. Outside of the ones concerning Wobbuffet, Ayu's in-game decisions were great. The misplays were clearly not a reflection of her abilities as a player but simply a side-effect of not being an active player in the ADV Ubers metagame. Heysup, of course, played incredibly well and showcased just how solid and consistent he can be.
Raph369 vs Dave
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Raph was supposed to play Magician (cause Vileman has moved to a different metagame) but they were subbed out at the time of their match for Dave. The two team choices are very basic and staple archetypes in the metagame: Ho-Oh BO vs Boomtwo rain offense. The rain team wants to make aggressive trades with its multiple booms so that Latios or Deoxys-Attack can clean up the endgame. The sun team wants to try and stabilize vs those booms so that Ho-Oh's staying power and Spikes support can tip the value exchanges in Raph's favor.
The game begins with Dave revealing BU Mewtwo while Raph stays in to EQ with his Groudon. Raph's Groudon is built in a way that allows it to win the 1v1 against Mewtwo leads (or at least force it to boom) but seeing BU Mewtwo implies physical offense. As a result, he decides to force the Mewtwo to boom on Ho-Oh, instead of Groudon, since he expects his Groudon to have more potential in the matchup. This proves to be very prudent as Kyogre is revealed following the Mewtwo boom. Raph choose to send his Groudon back out after the boom trade and it is, predictably, slower than Dave's Kyogre. With sun up, this allows a safe double switch to Snorlax and Raph abuses the momentum against Latios to try and catch a steel-type with raw Fire Blast. Dave made the safest midground by sending out his own Snorlax instead of risking Body Slam paralysis on his Kyogre or Fire Blast tearing into Metagross health. However, this is where Raph reveals his Skarmory and safely tosses up Spike since rain Snorlax is very unlikely to have Fire Blast (and even the uncommon Thunder threatens little under sun).
The game position is looking very strong for Big Bandar. Mewtwo's threat has already been dealt with and Dave has to find a way to deal with Skarmory sinking his Metalax core in Spikes value. Dave tries to aggressively make progress with CM Kyogre but Raph's Latios threatens the Thunder 2HKO even against +1 Kyogre. Dave then makes the decision to save his Kyogre because wants rain Thunders for his Latios against Raph's Snorlax but this does mean that he is forced to send out his Snorlax to eat Spikes + Thunder chip (and para) as well as allow Skarmory back in to throw up a second layer.
This Spike does mean that Dave gets to abuse rain Latios Thunder and he is immediately rewarded with a crit on Raph's Snorlax. However, Raph reveals Rest to heal off that damage. A sleeping Snorlax is exploitable, though, and Raph covers for this by sending out his Groudon into the Latios. This play covers Thunder crit fishing (as was the case) as well as functioning as a double switch against any physical attackers. This play also baits Dave into clicking Ice Beam which allows Snorlax to come back in and burn a turn of sleep. With Spikes in play and Kyogre already at 50%, a Kyogre double switch wasn't a big concern nor is it a problem switching into the sleeping Snorlax.
Groudon comes back into the game as Substitute is revealed on Kyogre. With Latios at 24%, it would be dangerous to switch it into Kyogre directly. Going Groudon risks a bit of chip but Raph would still be way ahead in the damage race between the two kaiju and having sun again would allow Raph to burn his final turn of sleep on Snorlax. This is exactly what happens as Dave tries to Ice Beam the Groudon and so tries to recover momentum by sending out his Deoxys. Raph responds to the Superpower with his Skarmory and, after seeing the damage calcs, immediately sends out his Groudon in anticipation of a potential Thunder. This read turns out to be entirely accurate and now he gets to free click Hidden Power Ghost into the Latios.
Bandar's Snorlax comes back in as Latios clicks Recover which forces Dave send his own Snorlax out again. Although Dave has a Metagross, he can't afford to switch it into sun Fire Blast. Even Body Slam + Spikes chip is dangerous since he wants his Metagross to be healthy for any Deoxys that Raph might have as well as the simple fact that bringing out Metagross would only result in more easy Skarmory Spikes. With Protect + boom, Dave can try to bait Raph into being greedy with his own Snorlax and open a path for Latios to turn the game around. Unfortunately, Raph is prudent with his play and Skarmory is the one to absorb the boom damage. This still does at least open the door for Metagross and Deoxys to muscle past the weakened Skarmory but the Ho-Oh team has stabilized a long time ago, already, and Spikes are really doing their work.
Kyogre comes in after the Snorlax boom but simply sacrifices the Skarmory to bring his Latios in safely. This allows for a free Dragon Claw that not even Dave's Metagross can handle due to Spikes + Thunder. Deoxys comes back out but it can't do much to make progress vs Groudon and is forced to sacrifice itself for minor chip. With Dave's Deoxys and Metagross now gone, there is nothing stopping Raph's own Deoxys from finishing the game with Shadow Ball and that's exactly what happens.
This game was very one-sided and Raph is now the player with the most wins in the pool and zero loses on top of that. The unfocused offense and significant struggles with Skarmory is why, personally, I prefer a Regice variant instead of the more popular MetaLax core when it comes to using Boomtwo rain offense. Dave played a very respectable game especially given the matchup difficulties and the fact that he was a last minute substitute against a very seasoned player.
MMII vs Fogbound Lake
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My team for this week. I noticed that Fogbound has zero Forretress usage or any other Rapid Spin for that matter. He does like to use Spikes often, though, so I figured bringing rain Forretress would give me good tools to fight on that front. CM Recover boltbeam Mewtwo is a set I've wanted to explore for a while now and, since it I figured it would work best with Forretress, I decided this would be the week to do so.
I don't want to start by talking about this matchup because I think the majority of this game was discovering what exactly the matchup was. Fogbound is a creative player and brought a unique structure so it was very hard to make any assumptions during the game itself.
The game opens with my Mewtwo vs Deoxys-Defense. Fogbound had quite a bit Deo-D usage in his scout but his set choices varied and sometimes included more niche options based on the requirements of the team itself. For that reason, I decided to go for the safest possible play and simply send out Snorlax instead of trying to punish a turn 1 Spike with Kyogre pressure. Seeing Deo-D does imply a fatter team and so it's very likely that my SubCM Kyogre is the most important member of my team and I don't want to be taking risks with it so early. Fogbound gets his first Spike up and so I decide to click Curse to punish trying to greed with more layers and to start forcing some progress against a potential Groudon check. (which is the Snorlax answer for mitana's popular Deo-D + Mence stall) Instead, I see an Armaldo which confirms that I'm fighting some sort of stall team. I know my Snorlax set can't beat Armaldo in a 1v1 but I want to paralyze it so that it's less effective at spinning or checking CB Ray as well as forcing Fogbound to commit to keeping it in play so that one of my teammates can exploit its passive nature. (Kyogre mainly) However, the Armaldo immediately reveals Knock Off. Because of egg breeding mechanics in gen 3, Armaldo can't learn both Knock Off and Rapin Spin at the same time. Despite losing Snorlax's Leftovers, I do get the crucial information that Fogbound's stall team doesn't have Rapid Spin and any Spikes I set will be able to stick all game long. Armaldo being present also means that it's very unlikely for there to also be a Ghost-type so there should be nothing to stop my Forretress's Rapid Spin. As such, I immediately send out Forretress against the paralyzed Armaldo to get rid of Fogbound's Spike and start setting up my own. Thanks to para luck, I even get to setup two layers as the Armaldo loses a turn to click Knock Off against my Forretress.
Deoxys-Defense is brought back into my Forretress and now I'm forced to make a decision. A lot of Spikes Deo-D will use Fire Punch to deny Forretress Rapid Spin. This possibility is further reinforced by the aforementioned suspicion that Fogbound doesn't have a spinblocker. On the other hand, none of Fogbound's prior Deo-D usage seemed to have Fire Punch. Do I stay in to be greedy with Forretress and get my third Spike or try to play slow despite losing Leftovers? I decide to go with the later plan and send Snorlax back out. Doing so will bait Armaldo to come back in which is Spikes bait for my Forretress. There's no point in trying to Curse to punish Spikes since Armaldo will deny progress so instead I choose to go parafishing and get lucky once again. Fogbound does reveal he has Thunder Wave and the Body Slam damage also shows that he has heavy phys def invest for his Deo-D. I need to Curse if I want to force Armaldo back in. However, Fogbound reads me like a book and doubles back to Deoxys as I try to bring in Forretress. This forces me to eat Spikes chip and allow him to throw up his third layer as I go back to Snorlax.
This time, I decide to Curse war to make it as difficult as possible for Fogbound to double switch against my Forretress. Eventually, on turn 30, I bring my bug in and get to clear out the hazards as Fogbound reveals another member of his team: Rayquaza. At this point, I suspect the rest of the team to be Toxic Blissey, some Groudon, and a CM Dclaw Roar Latias. So my main goal now is to try and get Kyogre in to apply pressure against this. In the meantime, I need to deal with the threat of Rayquaza. Since it switches into Rapid Spin and revealed Leftovers, I know that I'm not dealing with a CB Ray at least. Although it's far from a certainty, Leftovers makes the most sense on a special Ray variant and, since it switched into Forretress, it is probably going to be clicking Fire Blast anyways. As such, I choose to send out my Snorlax and the damage does show that it is indeed special attacker Rayquaza. With Fire Blast revealed, I don't expect it to have Brick Break so I stay in with Snorlax to force Fogbound to play in a way that would allow my Kyogre to switch in safely.
I get my Kyogre in on a forced Deoxys-Defense Recover and now I can start my offense. I don't want to have to deal with parahax so I go ahead and click Substitute, just in case, as Blissey comes in. Toxic Blissey doesn't want to stay in against a SubCM Kyogre so I raw Ice Beam to scout for a Groudon switch instead of boosting with CM. If the Blissey stays, it would be to throw up Light Screen but I'm okay with that since that implies that it can't damage my Forretress. However, Fogbound instead reveals that he is Calm Mind Blissey. The big downside to this is that my Kyogre is unlikely to be able to make progress except through double switches. The upside, though, is that my Mewtwo doesn't have to worry about Toxic. Regardless, I don't want this CM Blissey to get carried away nor risk a double switch against my Snorlax so I immediately bring it in as Fogbound tries to pop my Substitute with Thunder. Deo-D then comes back in and I decide that I'm okay with risking a rain Fire Punch if it means that I get my third Spike. At the current pace, my Forretress won't be able to keep spinning away hazards and I'll need my own if I want to win the damage race. I get quite lucky as the Deoxys full paras so I get to throw my third spike and bail before eating a twave or anything else.
I go to my Snorlax afterwards so that I can take advantage of the Deo Spikes turns to Curse up and safely Rest away the chip and paralysis that Snorlax has suffered so far. Snorlax can't make do anything significant to Armaldo but Armaldo can't do anything besides PP stall back. As long as I keep abusing the Armaldo to heal up, I can delay a CM Blissey sweep and possibly break Fogbound's team first with CB Ray + Latios/Kyogre + Spikes. This time, it's my turn to deal with parahax and I fail to get enough Curse boosts in time to Rest before the Groudon shows up. With my Snorlax at 44%, no more Leftovers, paralysis, and 3 layers of Spikes, it is very unlikely that I can switch out here and still find a way to heal up my Snorlax. I can't play a drawn out game anymore, I have to just for the CM war with Mewtwo so I pull the trigger and reveal boom to take out Fogbound's Groudon.
As long as sun stays up, my Mewtwo has a little better than a 50% chance to stall out Blissey's moves without getting crit. I don't have any other way to really beat the Blissey 1v1 with Snorlax gone so I have to go for that CM war asap. I send out Latios to force Blissey (and try to fish a crit with Spikes with up) as Fogbound chooses to send out Rayquaza to avoid losing a pokemon to a potential Deoxys-Attack. This brings Blissey in and so I just go for it. The early sun Thunder para hurt my odds somewhat by making it difficult for me safely crit fish myself but the para also helped make sure that I easily PP stall Blissey out of every other move. 21 turns later, my Mewtwo successfully survived all of Blissey's attacks without being crit. That immediately ends the game as Fogbound didn't have any answer to CM Recover Mewtwo besides hoping to win the CM war.
It was an anti-climatic finish to an interesting matchup. The game basically boiled down to a simple coinflip. Honestly, though, I don't think this specific matchup could be won or loss any other way. Even if we both had perfect information on each other's teams prior to the match, it would still be very difficult for either of us to avoid the situation. Fogbound is a very strong player and the team he brought was very unique. Yet again, I would have liked to bo3 to see just how things would go in a non-coinflip mu :/
temp vs 64 Squares
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5 weeks of SkarmBliss!!! It's crazy to be predictable like this against a preplord like 64 Squares. Ho-Oh BO is a strong pick here because the fire coverage on Ho-Oh, Snorlax, and Metagross makes it difficult for Skarmory to get value. Toxic Snorlax especially shines here since it can cripple Groudon early in the game and make it especially difficult for temp's team to switch into any of 64's physical attackers. Honestly, the only thing temp has going for him in this mu is that 64's team doesn't really like switching into Heracross attacks.
Lead matchup starts off badly for temp as lati vs don sets up an easy double switch for 64 Squares. With his Groudon in vs Blissey t2, it's too risky to do anything but play it safe and so temp switches out as 64 gets an SD. Temp makes a great sequence, though, to scout the Groudon set. First he sends out Latios, if 64 doesn't have spdef HP Ghost then he won't stay. Then temp sends out Skarmory, it covers the HP Ghost set and now baits 64 to reveal more. Finally he sends out his own Groudon, 64 has little reason to be clicking EQ as the mixup is between attacking the Skarmory with a fire move (if he has it) or reading the Latios scout with HP Ghost (which is what he attempts). Groudon covers all of these coverage options while threatening to trade damage on the turn after. Even though 64's Groudon is boosted, he doesn't want to be eating chip that puts him into KO range for Latios and the HP Ghost damage may have revealed temp's Groudon to have heavy phys investment. (I don't know if that is the case) In any case, 64 switches out his boosted Groudon as temp goes for a Toxic with his.
This is where the lopsided matchup really starts to show. Even though temp's Toxic reveals CB Ho-Oh and his Protect scouts the Sacred Fire + gets more Toxic chip, he is still pressured to play in a way that is predictable due to risk/reward. This allows 64 to double switch his Snorlax in on the Blissey (or Latios) and then click Toxic to cripple the forced Groudon. This Groudon invites Ho-Oh back in which sets up another lopsided risk/reward situation and, thus, another double switch. This time 64 opts to bring back out his own Groudon since it covers both stay and Blissey. Since temp doesn't have the tools to easily chip out a Swords Dance firedon, he is forced to take a risk and stay in to Toxic with Blissey. 64 Squares reads this, though, and goes a raw EQ to get massive chip on the Blissey. The turn after, he reveals that he wasn't firedon to begin with but it's too late for temp; the Groudon already got too much value by crippling Blissey.
Temp tries to bring in his Skarmory to get some Spikes thanks to it hardwalling Groudon but 64 has no reason to be staying in with his Groudon against Latios, anyways. He simply sends out Snorlax to check the Latios and finds himself in a position where can threaten the Skarmory with Fire Blast. There is no choice but to send out the Toxic'd Groudon to check the Fire Blast but 64 gets to make lots of progress, anyways, by trading Return + Toxic chip for an uninvested and unboosted Earthquake. 64 brings in his Ho-Oh to avoid damage from a second Earthquake. However, temp's Groudon has one more turn before succumbing to Toxic if it decides to stay in. Since 64 doesn't want Blissey to heal, he decides to send out Groudon and then switch Ho-Oh back in. This sequence allows 64 Squares to avoid temp scouting what move the Ho-Oh locks into with Protect while also making it impossible for Blissey to try and sneak in a Softboiled. Temp decides to save his Groudon sac and bring in Skamory for a potential Spike but 64's sequence accounts for that too by threatening the Skarmory with a weight 50/50. Temp guesses right and brings in Blissey on the Sacred Fire but it was for naught as Sacred Fire burns and ensures the 2HKO regardless.
Temp sends out Deoxys-Attack afterwards but sending it out this early just allows for 64 to sacrifice his nearly deadly Ho-Oh in exchange for a safe Metagross entry. With the Deo set still unrevealed and nothing on temp's team that can switch safely into Metagross, 64 Squares simply goes for the raw HP Fire instead of trying to catch a retreat with Pursuit. This play catches the stay and forces the 6% Groudon to come back out and die just to force the Metagross to switch. Since Groudon is the least useful member for 64 at this point, he chooses that as the switch in to the Groudon attack. This allows Skarmory to finally come in and click Spikes but it's much too late. There's nothing left that can stop Snorlax at this point and it just comes in to clean the game up.
This game was entirely determined by prep and 64 Squares made sure to play as clean as possible to secure the win. From what I've heard, temp (nor his adv support) didn't have much time this week and that's reinforced by the fact that he's not playing this week. It's incredibly unlikely that his team misses playoffs at this point in the tournament so it makes sense that he simply phoned it in. Despite the matchup, he played as well as always and hopefully he'll have more time for the final week and/or playoffs.
