Tournament World Cup of Pokemon 2023: OU Discussion

[Setsu]

Logo by Iyarito
​

Hello and welcome to the WCoP 2023's discussion thread!

In this tournament 16 regions, with 8 starting players and 4 subs each, will battle against one another for 6 weeks. With Pokemon Home just having been released a few weeks ago, and an ever changing tier with the Volcarona and Urshifu-R bans as well as the Zamazenta Suspect Test, we can expect a lot of new strategies to show themselves on this stage. Expect this thread to be used for the tournament discussion, metagame developments, and game analyses.

Here are the regions participating in this year's WCoP (starters will be bolded and captains in italics)

Bangladesh: Oshim, MaswoodShaheb
Soumav, Squirtle Nornor, TheUzigunner, Mushfiq, Feen, Kaif, Oshim, Igniizard, Dhrabb, Nutrino, SKC44, stroikerrr

Belgium - Eoward, Rubyblood
le LLiolae, Eoward, B1Kharma, AtraX Madara, Rubyblood, Msnt, Wanony, Uxilon, Abbehat, AyanYuli, Max2412, Quint_

Canada -Genesis7, soulgazer
Fc, Hayburner, watashi, sunsets, Scarlet Stars, Skypenguin, Jytcampbell, 3d, Baloor, hum, Hypertonix, suapah

Europe - Leru, We Three Kings
Eeveeto, TheFranklin, Ruft, Kushalos, Lily, McMeghan, Highv0ltag3, ZoroDark, Alhen, GoldCat, Mana, tlenit

France - Cicada, Weshbien
DonSalvatore, RedEmption, Stellar Flares, Quartosa, Fairy Peak, Unamed, mimilimi, Carkoala, Deckline, Leftiez, Shafofficiel, Wabane

Germany - mind gaming, MichaelderBest22
Fogbound Lake, QWILY, Sylveon used calm mind, xdRudi.exe, Ewin, mind gaming, MichaelderBeste2, Sylvi, Achimoo, Glurakaiser, Medeia, Trickster7

India - So noisy, Mikaav
RaJ.Shoot, pj, So Noisy, myjava, Dj Breloominati, Piyush25, Floss, Freezai, Blimax, Mario34, MAVERICK SHOOTERS, skimmythegod

Italy - Aurelia, Howkings
Aurelia, Raiza, Kebab mimi, Punny, Ciro napoli, Niko, Pais, procorpish, hellpowna, Santu, StepC, Kibo

Latin America - Airi, Nalorium
Spectear, Leo, Fakee, ZDen, Luirromen, RggV, dahli, One Last Kiss, Airi, Feliburn, GasaiYunoSan, Mashing

Oceania - false, Tom Bus
Aberforth, March Fires, Chloe, ninjadog, DugZa, damien the genius, etern, false, ChrisPBacon, Drifting, Leavers, Stallion

Spain - London Beats, Dorron
Malekith, M Dragon, Trosko, Ado, Dasmer, Garay Oak, Soulwind, Luispeikou, Javi, Kefky, reiku, Reze

United Kingdom - Glue, Gingy
xavgb, Ahsan-219, Yelodash, 1 True Lycan, Stareal, Trogba Trogba, Joeshh, KillaLeston, blittius, Clas, Clementine, jawabarat

US Midwest - blank, Groudon
oldspicemike, MANNAT, Kyo, avarice, Tace, FatFighter2, ayevon, kythr, ausma, dice, DripLegend, Luthier

US Northeast - obii, teal6
INSULT, lax, Giannis Antetokommo-o, Star, blunder, FInchinator, Nat, ABR, Booty, CTC, fade, Gilbert Arenas

US South - Stone Cold, TDK
GXE, TPP, Ox the Fox, crying, pdt, Xrn, njnp, Samqian, aesf, artifice, clean, dex

US West - ima, Meru
El Quixana, Skarph, Vert, Vaboh, shiloh, Fusien, z0mOG, mushamu, Attribute, PikachuZappyZap, Roller K, velvet​

Useful Links:
Usage Stats
Replays Thread
Standings Spreadsheet
Round 1 Thread
Ticken's Usage Stats and Replays sheet

 

[njnp]

To get this thread started, here's my coverage of WCOP R1 so far....

 

[njnp]

More WCOP Coverage ft MANNAT

 

[Setsu]

Added Ticken's Usage Stats and Replays sheet to the useful links in the original post. It basically keeps track of Pokemon, Tera-types, and pairings, and its being updated as the matches happen instead of waiting for the round to be over. Here is Ticken's original post about it, and ofc a big s/o to Ticken

 

[1LDK]

Meme sets: Week 1, from saturday 17 to saturday 24​

Hello lads, 1LDK here, I have decided I wanted to do some thankless community service (and not totally farming for likes) in my own way, and I want to recollect all the heat techs and strange anomalies the world cup has seen this year. So a few disclaimers first

1) I won't get into the Evs side of things because I'm bad at math
2) I won't get too much into the statistics and meta and shit, that's for the people with the badge and social authority.
3) This is all personal opinion, so if something is wrong here, please be kind when pointing it out
4) Sorry for all the botched names and things I missed.
I think I have all the disclaimers, so let's go

Saturday 17:

Fakee vs So Noisy: Noisy brough a Psychic + Toxic Glowking, my guess is for the immediacy of a straight attack, which is compensated by the longer pressure tool of toxic, which I can get behind

RedEmption vs Ox The Fox: RedEmption brough Specs Enamorus, what else can I say, It has become popular now, and for good reason, look at that damage

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Sunday 18:

Pais vs Floss: Pais brought the first instance of something that is gonna become something really common, which is Thunder Wave Zapdos, because of course you need more hax to the table, combined with static, and something for sure is getting haxed, which, has made AND broke games this week, and uh, holy shit

Avarice vs luirromen: Speaking of T-wave spam, luirromen brought T-wave Slowking + Zapdos, which also sounds infuriating to fight

Carkoala vs Z0mOG: Z0mOG brought Grass Knot lando to lure tusk, and failed. I personally dislike the set

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Wednesday 21:

Fusien vs Stareal: Fusien brought Stored Power Cress, which has been terrorizing the ladder, and it's making a debut on the big leagues, sadly, it didn't do a lot in the match, but this thing is seriously good. He also brough Grass Knot Lando to lure garganacl and dondozo, but failed. And the most curious thing IMO, Eqless Tusk, no eq, knock off, ice spinner, cc, and rapid spin

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Thursday 22:

Kaif vs Mimilimi: Kaif brought sub cm screens abuser hatterene, which took the game by storm, pretty heat not gonna lie

Kushalos vs Myjava: Kushalos brought Mirror Coat Alomomola, which deleted the volcanion from the face of the earth, insane heat. We also saw Smackdown Lando, which is something I can get behind to force switches between birds and stuff

Procorphish vs ZoroDark: Zoro brought Fake Out + Eject Pack Sneasler, which trolled the zapdos, not much else

MSnt vs Unnamed: MSnt brought U-turn Zapdos, which is common or uncommon depending on how much gen 4 you have in your veins, it has its pros and cons, for example, not being blocked by ground types, and doing SE damage on other stuff. Unnamed brought Thunder Wave Glowking, to keep with the T-wave trend

One Last Kiss vs Tace: One Last Kiss brought trick black sludge glowking, I guess this is as a neat teach against bulky mons, it tricked the amoongus sadly, but got a red card and flamethrower the tusk that was forced in, if the flamethrower hit the lucky burn chance, game would have ended sooner probably

Fogbound Lake vs Eveeto: Eveeto brough Alolan Muk, Trick Room Slowking and Arcanine Hisui, which is a win in my book. Meanwhile, Fogbound Lake has a rare support Mimikyu with will of wisp and destiny bond, the mimiyu trolled the corviknight and yoloed the Arcanine. The alolan muk did some work with protect scouting and knock off utility. slowking got a bad roll against the samu sadly

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Friday 23:

SKC44 vs Vert: Vert brought a rare red card glimmora to start the game with 100000 hazards, while SKC44 had Sucker Punch Samu and a rare Scizor, both put in the work with the priority anti offense tools

Freezai vs Soul Wind: Freezai brough a rare tera dark valiant, which got a sd, spammed knock off 100000000000 times and won the game

TheUzigunner vs RggV: RggV brought some cool stuff, support rillaboom, night slash sneasler to lure ghost, a fucking moltres and a tera steel valiant who seemed to have won the game, but got crit one shot by av glowking

ayevon vs oshim: ayevon brought a certified 1LDK approved classic in double status rotom, which put in a lot of work for the team, I told you guys, this shit was legit

Thefranklin vs Trotsko: Franklin brought a HJK Cinderace, he then proceeded to fuck it we ball and shatter the garganacl into pieces

Michaledebest2 vs Fairy Peak!: Michael brought Psyspam, with a scarf Azelf, and psychic seed tera psychic tera blast sneasler, to capitalize on the terrain boost, look at that. Fairy Peak brought a tera dark Zamazenta, which seems like a great idea against psyspam, sadly, crit, one shot, its over

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Saturday 24:

Igniizard vs Killaleston: Killa brought Battled Bond greninja, which, in gen 7 it would have been a disaster, too bad it was nerfed, got a kill, chipped the bax and died

Ninjadog vs RggV: RggV brought a tera fire mirror herb zapdos galar, which sadly didn't do much, but the heat was there

SCK44 vs crying: Crying brought a rare kleavor, which did nothing, also had an eject pack leaf storm amoonguss, which missed almost every shot, and lastly, a tera fire + fire punch dragonite, which decimated the gholdengo, but folded to tusk. From SCK44 side of things, we have taunt spam from both valiant and tusk, it didn't do a lot in the grand scheme of things. But both players had great ideas

lax vs RaJ.Shoot: this has the dishonor of being the first full stall team, with lax having not one, not 2, but 3 rest users, in ting lu, donzo, and lando, all rounded up nicely with heal bell blissey

M Dragon vs oldspicemike: oldspice has special lando, which didn't do a lot, low kick cinderace, which took the heatran out of the game basically, and block tera ghost gargnacl, which, alongside gambit and amoongus, stopped the cress sweep and secured the game

Oshim vs Highv0ltag3: Oshim had a rocky helmet ting lu, first time I see one

Sylveon used Calm Mind vs Pj: Sylveon used screens + suicide lead Zamazenta with steel beam, which led Roaring Moon set up and beat enamorus and tusk

Lily vs Luirromen: Lily brought some terraria calamity references (thorium is better), a stone edge lando-T, boots Toxapex and an uncommon pick in slither wing, which wisped the lando and U-turned 10 million times to win the game. Luirromen on the other hand, was using a special lando which trade with the gambit, a rotom heat with NP, which 1v1 trade the lando, and a specs gholdengo, with thunderbolt too, which did most of the damage towards lily's team

Thefranklin vs Spectear: Spectear had a tera electric dragapult, which showcases the absolute nightmare that is zapdos right now, franklin had a Switcheroo Scarf Sneas, which tricked the amoongus and lock him into clear smog, which won him the game

Fogbound Lake vs Le LLiolae: LLio has a Special lando with grass knot, which this time actually lured the tusk for once, fogbound brings substute baxcalibur, madlad decides to let showdown decide for him and makes a 1v4 comeback

Mind Gaming vs Mushfiq: Mushfiq brings SD Scizor, which hard stops the valiant sweep, sadly, got killed by Ace, and the real sweeper was Amoongus, so he lost

Oshim vs 3d: Oshim brought a life orb Scizor, which, thanks to a low roll on the valiant vs moth matchup, allowed Oshim to kill moth, chip mon and save the game

QWLY vs Ahsan-219: Ahsan brought a good deal of cool stuff, physical attacking pex (which is based), Iron Hands, which is extemly based, and Bulk Up corviknight, which is ultra based, sadly, garganacl stops all the fun because it's totally balanced and just covert cloak

Ewin vs Quartosa: Quartosa brough a grasssy terrain HO, with eject button rillaboom terrain abuser sneasler, and sub cm Enamorus. was stalled out by Corviknight and Heatran for the most part

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So that's all for this week, let's hope next week we see more heat and more fun, what do you guys liked and disliked about the sets and stuff, whatever it is, thank you for reading!

 

[njnp]

WCOP Opp #1 Prep Team Dump

Enjoy

https://pokepast.es/ff0897390c6594ea
https://pokepast.es/98ee136bbdef953a
https://pokepast.es/2142d815c2b022c5
https://pokepast.es/213ea74f4c723c95
https://pokepast.es/f991e63ce4fafef3
https://pokepast.es/ddf197a0c11943ad
https://pokepast.es/0fd83d07348de157
https://discord.gg/VbC3Nx8Vgj - My OU Discussion Server

 

[njnp]

More WCOP Coverage For Your Headtops

 

[1LDK]

Meme sets: Week 2, from Sunday 25 to Saturday 1​

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the week 2 of the meme sets, the DNA of the soul, by your charming, charismatic (and not wanted in 10 countries for crimes against humanity) host 1LDK. We have matches to cover and likes to farm, uh I mean thankless community service to do, yeah, same disclaimer as last week, so here we go!

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Sunday 25:

Aberforth vs Ahsan-219: Ahsan brings earth power Garchomp, which is cringe, Iron Thorns, which did nothing, and B U L K P O W E R T R I P C O R V I K N I G H T, which gets haxed, tragedy for all the heat sets

Fusien vs NJNP: Fusien brough a pretty uncommon set in fire spin dnite, which put a ton of work in the match alongside spikes

Mind Gaming vs Finchinator: Mind Gaming is a guy who is carving his name by being a heat set master, which brings us to his next dish, Ice Body + Leftovers Baxcalibur and Colbur Berry Glowking, which shits on all valiants and mons that rely on cheap damage, the team he brought has become one of the most used and respected in wcop, which is great considering that with tera steel dumps hard on 4 out of the 6 mons, not only innovates the meta, but also helps with my propaganda, excellent cuisine

Lily vs watashi: Lily is going with a nice rain team, and has a nowadays rare Kilowattrel (remember when this was common) which deleted the dragapult and died to pex, but Floatzel came in and then gambit cleaned

Carkoala vs Leftiez Quartosa: Grassy seed sub under screens Hat

Hayburner vs Sylveon used calm mind: Sylveon used stoned edge moon to lure zapdos, which the zapdos countered by using manual Twave, and volt switch into the tusk, moon did crit the tusk, and combined with the +1 and the proto attack boost, it did a massive 14%, which was reduced into 8% with leftovers

Dasmer vs Myjava: Dasmer had a BU sub 2 attacks Lando, it went to war with the donzo, which allowed Skeledirge and Dragonite to claim victory

Jytcampbell vs Starreal: Starreal started the game with a Hydro Pump Dragapult, which missed

DonSalvatore vs B1Kharma: B1 started with Double Dance enamorus therian, which got enough boosts to win the game on its own, but Don was packing a red card glowking, which let him get back up and save the game

Yellowdash vs Zden: Yellowdash packed a Head Smash Tusk which is based and fuck it we ball pilled, the enamorus got sent back to the past

Kyo vs Attribute: Kyo packed eject pack over heat heatran, did heatran things

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Monday 26:

PikachuZappyZap vs ABR: ABR brought a Great Tusk with Protect, which stayed alive for a long time

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Tuesday 27:

Crying vs Leo: Valiant was packing shadow sneak tera ghost, a sub gholdengo, and a rocks + twave support Hydreigon

Nat vs McMeghan: everyone has watched this game already and for good reason, Nat does the unthinkable and not only bring alolan muk, not only poisons and stalls most mons and heals itself multiple times, but it actually SWEEPS, incredible

TPP vs Pj: TPP brought Psyspam, which was believed to be dead, and let gren actually do a bit of work

Eveeto vs Quixana: the invenitable happend, Cress got its sweep, this thing is good

kythr vs PikachuZappyZap: cringe ass knot sighting, which lured the tusk. Outside of that, Kythr was packing Psyshock Glowking and Pikachu was packing Iron Hands

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Wednesday 28:

March Fires vs So Noisy: March was packing Hydro Pump Samu-H, from So Noisy’s end, we saw a tera ground tera blast Moltres Galar, who destroyed the gambit, but was killed by bax

Luispeikou vs false: false brought a fully special lando, which couldn't even kill the garga

Niko vs Tace: Niko brought a full grassy terrain HO with 2 unburden mons (Lucha and Sneas) and a mew too

Pais vs Samqian: Samqian brought an extremly based Head Smash Bulk Up Tusk, and died valiantly against another grass knot lando

Punny vs Finchinator: Punny brought god blessed america balance, but with NP Torn. Finch brought a Yawn Glowking, which allowed him to gain quick repositioning

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thursday 29:

Mind Gaming vs Punny: Mind gaming brought grass knot Enamorus, which could have 2 shotted the garga, but Mind decided that there was a better play, but it could have killed

Mushamu vs Ice pais: both have grass knot, Mush on the lando, Ice on the glowking, you know, maybe I should stop talking about these grass knot lando infestation, Jesus Christ man

mimilimi vs Trogba Trogba: the game seemed lost for mimi, even with the crits, trogba seemed to have victory, he needed a hero, and a hero came, Driftblim the goat, outspeeding the zapdos with unburden, and finishing the game with a shadowball, truly something heroic

Vaboh vs Ewin: Ewin brought a rare Ursaluna semi stall with sd and protect, alongside a trusty mirror coat alomomola, but sun + heatran made it through

Vaboh vs Leftiez: Leftiez was using a Grassy terrain HO, which fun stuff like terrain rilla, DD power herb phantom force and will o wisp pult, screens abuser sub cm hat, and night slash instead of acrobatics on the sneasler

sunsetss vs Chloe: sunsetss brought Psyspam, sadly, random zapdos event, sweep canceled

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Friday 30:

Kushalos vs 1 True Lycan: Kushalos had a CM FS Slowbro, fun fact, FS gets boosted with stuff like specs, cm etc. if the user spends the whole 2 turns waiting

Xrn vs Nat: Xrn had the famous Mind Gaming team but made slightly different changes, like life orb ice body Bax and offensive Ace, which means the team overall has an even harder time against , hurray

Carkoala vs ABR: ABR had a rare Ceruledge, which made a sacrifice to kill the tusk

RggV vs Atrax Madara: RggV was using one of his teams shown on last week, sadly, he forgot to change the gapdos to CB, which means cress had a chance to sweep, and sweep it did

Eveeto vs LLiolae: Eveeto was using Delphox this time for some reason, which killed the ace, and stole his drip, he got outcrazied by LLiolae, he was using SD sub Stone edge lando, which packed a punch

Trogba Trogba vs Fatfighter: Trogba was using DD 3 attacks Mew, which shat all over the garga, the gambit, and had a decent shot against moltres thanks to the lum berry

Airi vs Watashi: Watashi was using another Ceruledge, and a fully special lando

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Saturday 1:

SCK44 vs GasaiiYunoSan: SCK was packing AV zama, why do why know this? Because Yunosan was packing scarf gengar and tricked,

Ninjadog vs Atrax Madara: Madara was using more psyspam, and yeah that's basically it

Crying vs Vert: I always like Crying’s matches, because I know some random whack fun is about to happen, and this is no different, this time we say Tinkaton and delphox, which got hard countered by Vert´s trick room with revival blessing and a Dbond valiant for the apetizer

Uzigunner vs Atrax Madara: Uzi brought a Quaquaval, which did next to nothing and died miserably

Msmt vs feen: feen, special lando, Msmt, head smash tusk

Raj.Shoot vs Attribute: Raj was using a really rare LO valiant, no boost terrain nor quark drive, attribute tried the Alolan Muk, which did a decent amount of work

Soul wind vs Sylvi: Silvi was using a LO Enamorus, man, these 2 are sisters for real, and LO has re-appeared on the map

Dj Breloominati vs feen: Dj was packing alolan muk, didn't do anything, but we know that it was gonna be hit

INSULT vs Malekith: INSULT had Mold Breaker defog Hawlucha (better than corviknight in every single way) but as all birds, choice scarf trick and he is out

GXE vs Eoward: Eject button Clodsire, which allowed for early game advantage with sneasler hax

Skypenguin vs Fairy Peak!: Fairy was packing Iron treads, yes that's right, iron treads, and BB gren, Sky was packing scarf Meow (the best cleaner pre home)

Star vs Mashing: Mashing was using Yawn + Red Card Glowking, I think toxic would have been better for the combo

Jytcampbell vs Fusien: Fusien was using level 99 glowking for slower pivots, it has already started, the pivot war

Kythr vs ABR: at the end of the match Kythr publically showed his Hoopa Unbound set

Hoopa (Hoopa-Unbound) @ Eject Pack
Ability: Magician
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Atk / 96 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Hyperspace Fury
- Psychic
- Trick Room
- Drain Punch

He never used TR so the best guess we can do is that it supports breloom

Skypenguin vs DAHLI: Sky hopped into the alolan muk hype train, and sadly got 6-0
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And that's it for today, I have been at this for the whole day even tho I should be studying, my head has been hurting badly for 4 days in a row, and I'm stressed, so sorry if this felt rushed and with less quality overall, luckily for me, things after this week SHOULD go better, so I hope the meme sets get better too (and somebody actually listens to me and uses chesnaught) anyway, bye

 

[Tysonslayer]

WCOP Round 1 Discussion

Round 1 of WCOP is coming to a close and would like to share some thoughts on what has been used throughout these last couple of weeks and how the metagame has been shaping up.​

Pokemon with consistent Usage:

: Great Tusk is the most common Pokemon in the tier, having a total of 68.23% usage or in other terms being used 262 times, this is around 17% more usage than the second most used Pokemon Kingambit. There's a good reason why this remains the most used Pokemon a great defensive and offensive typing that compliments well with its movepool letting accomplish a lot of roles as a breaker, win condition, defensive wall, and hazard control letting it work in a lot of different team archetypes. Given our very limited hazard control options in what seems to be a hazard-infested metagame, Great Tusk acts as a premier staple for a lot of teams as a defensive pick for the ability to compress a lot of stuff in one slot. Even then offensive sets are solid as well with options like Choice Band, Offensive Utility, and Bulk Up which the latter has picked up a new version using Booster Energy for a speed boost, ( more talk about this set later on). Overall this is one of the more defining mons in the tier rn regardless of what set Great Tusk run and will continue doing so giving what it provides for any team.

: This is hands down the most impactful Pokemon in any game given how strong it is and can easily turn a fight around late game thanks to Supreme Overlord and how often it uses Tera to counteract things that would beat it. This is something every team should always acknowledge when it comes to teambuilding not only is it an amazing sweeper but also has a great defensive profile as a solid ghost resist that keeps Dragapult and Gholdengo in check, while Tera also gives it much more favorable mus can help take on mons that could be problematic for it and its teammates. Sucker Punch makes up for its low speed by making it harder to revenge kill it or trying to pull off your own sweep, especially how some games can really come down to if you can outplay Sucker Punch predictions or not and these games can be flipped rather easily given to any boost from Supreme Overlord and if Tera hasn't been used up. Kingambit has been so influential throughout WCOP that people have considered it problematic to have it removed from the tier, while at times can be problematic banning it would do more harm as we lose a fantastic ghost resist, despite us having a couple neither of them are as splashable as Kingambit outside of barring Garganacl. Even then Garganacl also struggles with Gholdengo that occasionally will run Covert Cloak to completely take advantage of it and has almost no drawback with Kingambit out of the picture.

: The next contender as of the most impactful Pokemon in a lot of games, and truth be told this mon is hard to prepare for these days endless possibilities with any given set it can run and a wide move pool that can pick what it wants to do and beat. Iron Valiant is incredibly dominant with the departure of Volcarona making almost all possible sets for it to be free to do whatever it wants as we see a huge uprise of physical and mixed sets have been dominant in WCOP, as a great cleaner or can open up wholes for something to sweep more effectively. Its diverse movepool letting go either physical or special goes a long way with some useful utility that helps it be much more threatening like Encore, Substitute, and Knock Off which makes it manageable to take advantage of opposing setup mons with the former and the latter two can help against fatter stuff from potentially statusing it or removing crucial items, and occasionally the Destiny Bond to remove something problematic is always useful to catch the opponent off guard. Booster Energy is such a big boon in giving Iron Valiant immediate speed to force out a lot of stuff which can enable it to do free damage or get a free turn to set up, which becomes problematic switching into as Iron Valiant can be either Swords Dance, Mixed, or Calm Mind with a movepool you don't even know what it is.

: One of the best defensive picks we currently have. Chilly Reception has made Galarian Slowking somehow even better pivoting to its allies when needed while still making good use of Regenerator, alongside a fantastic defensive typing. Galarian Slowking checks a lot of noticeable threats like Enamorus, Iron Valiant, Zapdos, and a whole bunch of other special attackers this good defensive profile along with a versatile moveset gives it coverage on what it wants to hit and Future Sigh to enable wallbreakers makes it an amazing staple for many teams. Being able to take on threatening special attackers in this metagame and providing a lot of utility for the team as a pivot is a big blessing and will continue being used as we see players experiment with its moveset as there have been games with Trick + Black Sludge, Thunder Wave, Toxic and or additional coverage to help pressure more mons that would give the teams it is in a problem. Galarian Slowking has also been picking up other items outside of just Heavy-Duty Boots such as Colbur Berry and or Shuca Berry to take hits from the likes of Knock Off Iron Valiant and Earthquake Great Tusk and Landorus-Therian, taking a decent hit from a move that would either weaken or it or straight up remove it to cause some pressure back. This mon will continue to be relevant in this current metagame for what it provides in teams with an incredible defensive pick, and who knows maybe once the metagame settles we can see a return for the offensive Galairan Slowking sets.

: Not much has changed for Dragapult besides the rise of Screens Dragapult which calmed down throughout the past couple of weeks during Round 1. Something noticeable is that Dragapult early on was top 3 in usage for a little bit, and at the end of Round 1 it dropped down to the top 5 with a couple of mons that could easily be taken its place if they were used more, so what does this mean for everyone's favorite dragon. Well with how prominent Kingambit has been and is one of the best answers to Dragapult, Garganacl's usage also shot up later on and probably has had a dramatic effect on Dragapult usage, especially with a whole slew of mons that could be problematic, making dominant appearances like Iron Valiant, Enamorus, and Baxcalibur remain relevant as constant candidates that can revenge it. This is also noticeable as new trends such as Hisuian Samurott and Assault Vest Hoopa-Bound be used more and more which can be situational but effective ways to take on Dragapult. Regardless of how much Dragapult's usage continues dropping as the meta becomes more against it will continue doing what it does best as a speedy offensive pivot or mixed breaker with its occasional Sub Hex sets as most ghost resists outside of Garganacl lack reliable recovery and a lot of its teammates can help overcome this issues to make it much more potent once they are removed. Dragapult will always be relevant with its amazing speed tier and offensive attributes will always be great, though I also wouldn't be surprised if its usage keeps going down as we slowly move towards Round 2.

: Baxcalibur keeps doing what it does best be an absolute breaker who can easily win games in the right scenario after a Dragon Dance or be a breaker with Sword Dance, combined with its decent bulk and immunity to burns makes it a great pick for offensive teams. Once Baxcalibur gets a boost, especially Dragon Drance it becomes very difficult to take it on without having to burn Tera with its very limited switch-ins and even then most mons that attempt to revenge kill it can fail so when it uses a Tera of its own. Slowking-Galar is a phenomenal partner for Baxcalibur being able to make it up Baxcalibur's mediocre Special Defense bulk and constantly supporting, while most importantly can activate Chilly Reception setting up snow to give it more physical bulk which can be harder for some teams to deal with Baxcalibur in certain scenarios, as well as a set that has been picking up that makes good use of Snow and Ice Body.

: An incredible breaker with near-perfect coverage while occasionally able to win games with Calm Mind. Many people like to compare Enamorus to Iron Valiant but while Iron Valiant is mostly seen as a more effective sweeper, Enamorus serves more as a breaker given its very powerful Choice Specs or Mixed Attacker stable to open up holes and make progress against the opposing. Despite being somewhat frail it can be overlooked for decent defensive typing thanks to its Fairy- and Ground types that can be useful in taking hits from Great Tusk and Kingambit. Some games even show how teams appreciate Healing Wish from Enamorus being able to make progress against a team and once it is no longer needed to fully recover a crucial teammate recovered in desperate situations. By far one of the more impactful of the new non-returning mon released from Pokemon Home and will continue doing what it does best.

: Many people thought Zapdos losing Defog and Toxic would take a good chunk of its viability and truth be told it still remains as powerful as it was when SS was coming to an end. Both Offensive and Defensive sets are incredible picks in this metagame that make good use of their incredible typing in this current metagame which is helpful in taking on a vast slew of different things in the current metagame and having an incredible offensive profile. Static is such an annoying ability that can easily disrupt or screw over many mons like Kingambit, Zamazenta, and Great Tusk, while also using Thunder Wave as a way to cripple noticeable special attackers or mons that won't be doing as much contact. Zapdos' incredible attributes make it a phenomenal pick that shows how its presence has shifted as Great Tusk runs Ice Spinner and Landorus-T uses Smack Down/ Stone Edge to not be super dead weight against Zapdos.

: In a metagame with very limited hazard control and almost every mon has a way to get hazards up, Gholdengo still dominates the metagame as it can prevent a lot of common ways to remove hazard ensuring they remain up and makes good use of them. It defines the metagame as how much its presence makes hazards so annoying to deal with and variety in sets helps it accomplish many different roles like a breaker, speed control, and defensive option with some decent utility. Many hazard setter options like Hisuian Samurott, Ting-Lu, and Great Tusk help gap any holes that Gholdengo struggles in while constantly providing hazards for Gholdengo to take advantage of. Gholdengo's presence makes a lot of hazard stack teams dominate the metagame given our lack of hazard removals will ensure hazards will remain throughout a match which makes them annoying to deal with even more so as the most common hazard removal Great Tusk lacks reliable recovery granting once its removed hazards will remain, making a great team archetype very powerful just for the fact Gholdengo denies a lot of hazard removal options from removing hazards and has a good matchup against the ones in the tier right now.

: Cinderace is an incredible pick for a lot of teams an offensive pivot with some useful utility U-Turn, Will-O-Wisp, and something often overlooked Court Change making it function as a hazard removal. For a lot of teams, many choose Great Tusk as a premier hazard removal, but Cinderace can work just as well especially to screw over hazard stack teams placing back their hazards. You always have to respect Cinderace since you can't tell what set it could be as it can have any move to make things favorable for itself and its teams, Will-O-Wisp can be useful as you invite things like Great Tusk, Dragonite, and Landorus-T to potentially check it gets crippled by burn making it harder for them to make progress. These defensive sets are great as you still deal decent damage with Pyro Ball as your main source of damage or will be trying to get burns, pivoting with U-Turn, and removing hazards with Court Change a lot of times. Offensive sets are still solid picks for the pressure you can do with some cool moves, a noticeable one that has appeared occasionally was Low Kick to remove or severely weaken stuff like Baxcalibur, non-tera Garg, and Kingambit. Overall Cinderace may have seemed to have gone over everyone's head and has been having a lot of great success in a lot of matches and will probably continue getting more usage as the metagame continues.

: Nothing has changed since Home was released for Garganacl yet somehow became much more obnoxious and better. Garganacl can single-handle win games on its own even more so if you assume the wrong tera or have no mean ways to muscle through it, where some games could come down if you can fish for a crit or deal a lot of damage to Garganacl before it wins. Not much to really add to this one everyone knows what it does and has been doing lately, probably the best Water-type in the tier, and will continue doing so as long as Tera remains and is probably the saving grace from making this tier not purely offensive.


Solid Picks with decent usage:

: Decided to mention this before Zamazenta as Hisuian Samurott was top 10 for a good while despite it currently being number 13 in usage currently. What is there to say about Hisuian Samurott that everyone enjoys it, with great offensive typing, and is blessed with the incredible Ceaseless Edge move that continues making hazard stack thrive. It has a bunch of different sets that are useful like Focus Sash, Swords Dance, and Assault Vest, though a lot of times this mon will either try at most to get one or two Ceaseless Edge to get a couple of layers of Spikes at most or try to open up holes, regardless these traits give Hisuian Samurott a respectable spot in the metagame. (I still won't use it)

: Zamazenta is very unique in a lot of matches while both of its sets are great they both have their flaws. Iron Defense can get forced out with the constant usage of tuff like Enamorus, Zapdos, and Galarian Slowking giving it issues to effectively do what it wants, and while Choice Band hits hard is extremely prediction reliant and can occasionally struggle with 4MSS to ensure it has what it needs to break. Despite these noticeable flaws Zamazenta's great speed tier and ability to check some noticeable offensive threats like Kingambit, Baxcalibur, and Dragonite are solid traits to have in this metagame and a mon that can easily ruin a game if you don't respect it.

: Landorus-T no longer is as dominant as in past gens with the loss of a lot of moves that made its defensive sets so incredible. As of right now, Landorus-T has been working more of a breaker with moves like Stone Edge / Smack Down, Earthquake, and Grass Knot that can make a lot of progresses against a lot of defensive staples for a lot of teams like Zapdos, Great Tusk, Dondozo, and Galarian Slowking, even then defensive sets are valid for certain teams compared to other hazard setters being able to bring allies with U-Turn is always nice.

: Unlike Hisuian Samurott, Ting-Lu is reliable in getting Spikes up and has an overall much better defensive profile as well as being incredibly fat on both defenses. Ting-Lu makes good ways for its allies to make better use of the hazards with moves like Ruination to weaken mons noticeably those with reliable recovery, Whirlwind to phase out setup mons and ensure mons be taking chips from hazards all effective ways to ensure this mon will create progress for its teammates.

: Amoonguss is a huge disruptor in a lot of matches with Red Card and Spore ensuring something gets put to sleep and checking a lot of threats like Iron Valiant, Kingambit, and Garganacl. Amooguss' ability to disrupt battle and be hard to kill itself while causing pressure with Grass Knot for Garganacl and Dondozo and Foul Play for offensive teams gives it a great alternative to the ever so common Galarian Slowking.

: Sneasler has appeared mostly with a Rillaboom set with the most common sets usually the Swords Dance Unburden set sometimes Sneasler does a lot like opening up a lot of holes or straight up winning a game, other times it feels like you are about to go for a sweep and get halted almost immediately. Dire Claw relies on you to fish for a good hax which if it doesn't leaves you at a disadvantage where some players even opted for Gunk Shot as a less accurate yet more powerful alternative to Dire Claw for more damage. While this is not a bad mon sometimes being reliant on Dire Claw to pull off incredible sweeps can be a huge drawback and sometimes clicking it won't save you a game.

: A special shoutout to this mon while not reaching top 20 in usage, for the game it was used in had great success Assault Vest sets are good making good use of its Special Defense bulk and decent utility option with Knock Off can help it take on some special attackers like Gholdengo and Slowking Galar, while Tera gives it favorable mu against Enamorus. This set has been very successful cause all it needs is to Knock Off something to make a lot of value which can be useful in removing Choice Specs from Enamorus or any item from a mon trying to answer while having great coverage to remain threatening against and can expect it to be used even more onto the next round.

Relevant Tera Users:
(51) 14.61% Usage (Flying 24, Fairy 16, Dark 5, Fire 3, Ghost 2, Water 1)

(39) 11.17% Usage (Water 31, Fairy 5, Ghost 3)

(29) 8.31% Usage (Dark 10, Ghost 8, Steel 7, Electric 1, Fairy 1, Fighting 1, Fire 1)

(24) 6.88% Usage ( Fairy 10, Dragon 5, Ground 2, Ice 2, Poison 1, Steel 1)

(17) 4.87% Usage (Fairy 6, Steel 5, Ground 4, Dark 1, Fire 1)

(17) 4.87% Usage (Water 6, Steel 4, Fairy 3, Electric 1, Fire 1, Flying 1, !ce 1)


New Innovations:
: Iron Valiant saw a lot of crazy sets given its plentiful move options that can all work with each other and will always do something no matter what Swords Dance sets saw a massive rise in World Cup probably as its best set, but almost any set for Iron Valiant will be successful given how hard it is to reliably handle what set Iron Valiant can be.

: Assault Vest has been a great set for Hoopa-U functioning more as a support mixed attacker to check special attackers, while other sets in Eject Pack as a pivot, it really demonstrates how we are favoring more supportive Hoopa-U sets than the powerful breaker we recognized it as.

: As discussed earlier on how Galarian Slowking is a great partner which caused a rise in a Substitute Dragon Dance Leftovers Ice Body set, which main use for this set is to maintain the ability to avoid status from Substitute and stay healthy thanks to Ice Body and Leftovers.

: Given how Pokemon Home gave us an abundance of Flying-types, Great Tusk has begun adapting to it with a Speed Booster Energy set with Ice Spinner and has been making good use of not being screwed over by them, and even then some Great Tusk has been using Ice Spinner occasionally whenever it can to not be complete deadweight whenever facing a flyer.

: One set that has shown a minor appearance is Tera Ghost with Air Ballon which is really good at taking full advantage of Dragonite, while also being helpful in not being chipped down by Spikes and Earthquake removing a common weakness for pre Tera Kingambit.

: Substitute 3 Attacks has been doing wonders as a great breaker making progress against a lot of defensive picks, while some Substitute sets will be seen using set up moves as well.


Pokemon that could potentially pick up more in usage:
: Volcanion feels a bit underrated right now and deserves a lot of attention it is a great wall breaker, brings a lot of useful resistances, and an immunity to water is always nice, Tera makes it much more incredible with Ground removing its weakness to Electricity and not being weak to Water thanks to water absorb, while Fairy is solid for Hisuian Samurott and Walking Wake.

: Ursaluna honestly will either get more usage or get a little less usage, right now almost all of its sets were exclusively Swords Dance and while that set is not bad could honestly see other sets being messed around to make good use and slowly alleviate having to use it in only offense to make the most of it.

: Galarian Moltres is a bit fishy in certain matchups but this thing is fairly solid given not a lot can resist both of its stabs bar like Kingambit and Tyranitar, which the latter isn't used at all, and the former can lose after a couple of boosts would be a powerhouse on its own which also can use tera to beat things it would normally struggle, but the abundance of Enamorus, Iron Valiant, and Kingambit does hold it back a bit to see more relative use.

: This mon right now feels a bit unexplored similar to Ursaluna, while losing a lot of useful mons a great speed tier, and Regenerator with some still noticeable moves will always be good in any metagame so hopefully, we can see it be messed around with more.

: Grouping these three together as they've been having great usage and been performing incredibly well this Round and I honestly expect them to continue to get more usage as their traits are incredibly useful in this metagame and excel phenomenally.

Closing Thoughts
WCOP Round 1 has done a great job of showcasing what players can accomplish given our very limited mons selection to give us a functional yet chaotic metagame. While being chaotic, especially with how influential tera can be most games aren't immediate forfeits and are adaptable to counteract using tera especially if used early on in a match. A lot of new stuff and general direction honestly gives me hope for this tier being headed in the right direction despite their being major flaws and realistically a lot of the problematic mons that the community wants to see get some sort of tiering action would bring much more issues then positivity which becomes apparent with something like Kingambit being a great defining presence in the tier and how much its presence influences matches. Good job to every team and players who participated in this round and look forward to what round 2 has in store, also big shoutouts to Ticken for having this useful doc in gathering information for each match in WCOP, this post wouldn't be possible without it. This concludes my long story of WCOP round 1 analysis and hope you had a good read.​

 

[MAVERICK SHOOTERS]

Damn didn't know this thread existed..
Here is my entire WCOP Coverage For Team India which I was a part of,Hope You Guy's Enjoy It :)

 

[1LDK]

Meme sets, from July Saturday 1 to Sunday 9
​

Hey guys, did you all know I have a life? Wow, so I asked in the NJNP server is somebody wanted to help me out with this week because I was going to be outside all day, but nobody came (guess nobody wanted to farm reaction scores, they are not in my sigma grind set I guess), so I have to do all of this now, anyway same disclaimers as always, let's begin shall we?

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Saturday 1:

Star vs Mashing: Star brings Red Card Ting Lu to get more rocks and some shuffle going on, sadly, he shuffles Enamorus incarnate aaaand gets crit one shot, but at least he won the match

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Sunday 2:

Kebab mimi Chloe: Kebab used Battle Bond gren, which finished what valiant could not, and almost haxes the heatran, sub SD Lando-T to play around the sucker punches and predicts, sadly he misses the Stone Edge, even if he hit, he would have been forced out by pult, but still won

QWILY vs Aberforth: QWILY used full trick room with the usual trick room suspects, and he almost wins, but Azumarill does 1 belly drum and a 1v5 later, aberforth wins

Maverick Shooters vs Stellar Flares: He brought Lead Head Smash + Rocks Hydreigon which set the rocks, and suicide bonked the Glowking and Corviknight. He also had an Uxie that did 1 CM and was forced out. A few days later, he posted the team (+ a few bonus teams) and explained his reasoning.

hellpowna vs Pdt: hellpowna used.... fully special threads, a mon with 72/180 base special attack

Blunderr vs Rubyblood: Blunder brings Maushold, which did nothing but is Maushold, so it's based. Specs Walking Wake and Moltres did most of the work in winning the game

Joeshh vs aesf: aesf brings.... calm mind lando... and actually sweeps and wins the game... damm bro, why this thing has calm mind even idk

Leftiez vs Java: Leftiez brings Specs Greninja fat balance, a rare sight these days with the BB things, he decimates the zapdos and gholdengo, and pulls its weight

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Monday 3:

HYper vs Blimax: HYper brought Acid Spray + Psychic Glowking, but that didn't do a lot in the grand scheme of things

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Before continuing, as a Public Service Announcement, from this point onwards, the Tiebreakers start, so ill specify what are those matches when they appear

Thursday 6:

[13th/14th place tiebreak] Nat vs SCK44: SCK44 brought Ice Spinner + Tera Electric Tera Blast Tusk, based on the booster spread, we should guess this was Bulk Up, but sadly got burned and folded to Ting Lu

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Saturday 8:

[8th place tiebreaker] Xavgb vs Blimax: Xavgb brought Psyshock dengo, did nothing, but still won the game

[7th place tiebreaker] March Fires vs Punny: Punny has Fire Blast glowking

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Sunday 9:

[8th place tiebreaker] Yelodash vs Freezai: Yelodash brought Memento Gholdengo, and he proceeded to yeet himself into the Walking Wake, this led to safe entry to his Galarian Molters, which managed to set up, sweep and win the game. I'm gonna quoute Utena by Reol "Omedoori negau La Stella, Memento Sharekobe sue wa, agaru agaru wa" (for real, she is the goat)

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And that's gonna be for this week, much less than past weeks, but that's because we are just outside play-offs! And there the party will evolve, will we see more German 6 teams? Will we see more fat/stall? Perhaps somebody will actually listen to me and use Chesnaught? This and more questions will be solved next week! Bye!

 

[Piyu]

Some "cool" teams I built for Team India during wcop :D
( I am big ghold and goltres fan)

Scizor Tran Balance (won 1,lost 1)



This is one of my favorite teams. Has a good matchup vs all playstyles. Heatran cooks fat teams, bax does to balance and Scizor to hyper offense.

Triple Swords Dance Offense (won)



Classic 3 broken sd sweepers with spikestack+2 ghost spinblockers. I have no idea what the gholdengo ev spread does but I stole it from a team and it always put in works so...

Hatterene Screens Offense (won)



Hatt and Sneasler behind screens are broken. Valiant bcz valiant. Moltres fits a perfect role of ground immune and ghost resist .

Dragonite Spikestack Offense (won)



This team is reliant on the surprise factor element. After Freezai used Ho both games this time I expected dozo,gambit stuff. Grass knot valiant catches dozo p well. Hurricane dnite for tusk and confusion kek. Spikestack+ double ghost again bcz it is's broken.

Booster spam offense (timer loss)



I think i had good chances of winning but got Indian Interneted. (epic sheet debut)

Life orb Val offense (loss)



I think life orb sd val is vert underrated. It kills moltres/zap with tera dark knock and sneak priority for pult and scarf ghold.

Screens Terrain Offense (won)



Standard terrain team with some sets changed ( I think)

Assault Vest Azu Offense (lost to crit+speed tie)



Av azu is really good vs psyspam/rain and opposing HO. Tera ground goltres setups on zapdos.



Few other teams I built which were not used :(





















Thx :)

 

[1LDK]

Meme sets: Quarter Finals edition​

Hey guys, 1LDK here, with the semi-finals done, its my turn to see what kind of heat we see here, same rules as always, and give me likes

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Friday 14:

Garay Oak vs Avarice: Garay had grass knot glowking, which lived a low roll eq from tusk and basically deleted the tusk from the universe

reiku vs ayevon: ayevon brought a bulk up booster tusk with Headlong rush and stealth rocks, which tried to set up but got forced out and killed eventually

Stareal vs Mana: same concept as garay/avarice, but the tusk lived

Dugza vs Attribute: Dugza brought grass knot mix valiant, which revenge killed the bax, and grass knot the tusk, sadly, he tera steel and crit one shot the valiant with eq, and then the tusk got crit one shot by Dnite with eq

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Saturday 15:

Vaboh vs Ninjadog: Oh man this is a good one, Vaboh brought, eject pack flame body heatran, which pivoted into the hat and burned the valiant later into the match, then the pult set, holy shit, dragon darts, solar beam, dragon dance and tera blast fighting, which took the tusk and the garga out of the game, and lastly, low kick Sneasler, with gunk shot, who cleared the game

Sylveon used Calm mind vs Fairy Peak!: Sylveon used literally the same team Vaboh used yesterday. Fairy peak brought a counter tho, manual terrain thundurus-incarnate with prankster, alongside Life Orb mix Valiant with encore, Eject Button Lando-T, Life Orb Iron Moth, Life Orb Low Kick Gren, and tera electric hawlucha

Dice vs Dasmer: Dice had a double status rotom, which burned the glowking and para the gambit, but sadly, this was not enought

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Sunday 16:

Michaelderbest2 vs Shaofficiel: Okay, Where do I start, this fucking guy michael, brings frosmoth hail with abomasnow, proceedes to tera ground turn 1, grab 2 quiver dances before subbing, and then grabing 2 more and 6-0 won turn 1, if this is not a power move, i just dont know what it is

Unamed vs Fogbound Lake: Unamed brings a middle point beetween the Sylveon vs Fairy match, with prankster sunny day thundurus incarnate with walking wake, grassy terrain sneasler and eject pack heatran. Fogbound lake brought life orb dnite which failed to revenge kill the walking wake

Quartosa vs Achimo: Quartosa brought Specs Pelipper, which was blocked by the volcanion, untill it started spamming hurricane, and fucked around with heavy damage before dying

McMeghan vs Blittitus: Blittitus brought Sticky webs, which matched up badly against the fat balance team Mcmeghan was running

Trosko vs Kythr: Kythr brought tera normal rock tomb bulldoze breloom, he claimed it was a mistake, but it was funny so who cares, he also was packing Psychic Valiant, which almost got rolled over by the amoongus and the lando finished it off

QWILY vs RedEmption: QWILY brought Low Kick grimmsnarl, which 1v1 the samurrot, the sandy shocks and taunt blocked the valiant's sub

Trickster7 vs Leftiez: Oh boy leftiez, this guy was packing tailwind, he was using level 5 prankster murkrow and level 5 prankster tornadus incarnate, he also was using medicham, which uninstalled the cinderace, a hoopa unbound which deleted the glowking and destiny bound himself with the kingambit, and his own gambit which got flinched haxed

Driplegend vs Malekith: Driplegend was gaming with Sub NP rotom, which haxed out the walking wake. While Malekith was gaming with sunny day torkoal alongside drought

Zorodark vs Ahsan-219: Zorodark brought rocky helmet zapdos which is just mean at this point, these fucking zapdos I swear to god

Ruft vs Xgavb: Ruft brought Air Balloon Iron Moth, which, out of context sounds great because ground immune, but in the match, not only it failed to absorb the t-spikes (which it actually costed it the game), it got lured by OFFENSIVE TING LU, yes that's right ladies and gentlemen OFFENSIVE TING LU, which he sweeps

Ting-Lu @ Leftovers
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
Earthquake
Stone Edge
Ruination
Protect

Courtesy of Srn

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And that's it lads, thank you for reading, watching, and hope you all like this, see you in the next round!

 

[LOOR]

not gonna do a giant metagame review like I did for SPL. I built a lot less than I did for WCOP than I did for SPL because the format of WCOP is pretty draining. As most people know, I'm not the biggest fan of the current state of SV OU but I also still want to aim to be active in the tier. These aren't all the teams but just the ones that I liked that were either used or inspired things that we used. Some might be sorta outdated at this point so feel free to edit or whatever to your liking, they might need it since i dont super optimize teams unless theyre being brought usually. some general meta trends might be sorta absent (like cind / bax / garg stuff) mostly because we did steal a decent amount of teams too

double check to make sure all genders are what they should be before you play. i forget sometimes.
https://pokepast.es/42b03a3da5133834 I like to call this team "No Great Matchups" (s/o ox) as it rarely pulls matchups id consider good but has a ton of playable mus, outside of full stall. this is probably my favorite team to come out of this wcop and probably the one i optimized the most in my own time, i have no idea why i like it so much but its a super funny build. once Muk-Alola saw usage I knew I had to use it. rockless + cind + lando act as your hazard game on this team. tail dozo and muk form the defensive core that is hard to get past with wish. sub zama patches up some stuff like the garg mu. im not the biggest fan of sub zama and really wish it was cb or something so breaking was easier but wish + encore into other mons isn't really enough for garg unless you wanna play an incredibly painful game. you can opt to try something like cb zama if you like but I had the most success with this sub id. something that can be annoying is sub hex pult but I personally have piloted the team enough to know the routes around that specific mu. e: taunt > drain punch is a option on muk for full stall -mimikyu stardust. this by all means is a pretty unorthodox build and can be hard to pilot but I wanted to test myself and go for something different when I built this.
https://pokepast.es/6288dd56e55fbd4e Scarlet Stars really really wanted to use cb meows vs blunder so i cooked this up. meows in general is kind of underrated in the meta currently. we lost but we really optimized the shit out of this team, might be outdated now but was rly good the week of the game.
https://pokepast.es/07f2fb221bfb17b9 fun ho with the head smash tusk set, scizor and gmolt. the purpose of the team was just to be "fun" rather than good and optimized so it might not be that solid but the 6 is for sure fun to use. thief sciz is kinda troll but a fun tech
https://pokepast.es/911b85176d143a53 fairy spam idea that saw a decent bit of testing. currently this team is kind of slow so enam could possibly be scarf with healing wish, i have liked sub cm on this as a wincon but its not super needed.
https://pokepast.es/4e688eb49999af36 I hadnt built semi stall in AGES so really wanted to give it a go esp since garg + dozo kinda trolled a lot of the offense team around this time. moltres had also risen and was a good fit here. this version has muk to add an extra check to stuff like ghosts and special valiant while also blocking future sight.
https://pokepast.es/4595bdd98b532a6d clod version of the above team. im not sure about the clod set still even after using this version a good bit. might be room for some optimization. this gholdengo set is fucking hilarious and a lot of people get annoyed by it, basically the team is pretty weak to future sight, so you use gholdengo to set up light screen to help, similar to the light screen pex in gen8.
https://pokepast.es/e4932378ccaa04be original versions of my enam + zama future sight when it had rotom. i was pretty dedicated to having a traditional water resist atp in the meta so thats why rotom is here.
https://pokepast.es/26e13d87f8ff8620 zapdos version of the team above if you rather zapdos and only tera water mons as the water resists
https://pokepast.es/6a3f0d6bc9114ca2 UK used AV Hoopa at some point, i stole the idea. really fun set and can troll games. sub lefties pult is an option here as well, u turn just seems okay to get in hoopa or enam.
https://pokepast.es/ee42278960ee70f2 we used this roaring loor dragspam and kinda got mauled by scizor. this was team of the week a few weeks back and ive optimized it a bit more since. moth itself is pretty customizable and i've been editing the moves on it a lot lately.
https://pokepast.es/fb4f0eb524074188 i saw a lot of people using gterrain on ladder before it popped off in tour and I really wanted to use the turtle. this team is incredibly jank and bonkers but can be fun when works
https://pokepast.es/8db2f69d6d93f1fb first team i made this wcop bc mimi suggested fightspam with liligant. was rly cool when the meta was fresh but is prob mid now. can consider sleep powder > spinner if you're a psycho. used to have iron moth > enam but swapped to sub enam for garg mu.
https://pokepast.es/73a15afb3f45ea28 concept of the team is outdated atp but it was fire spin volcanion to trap for fairy mon. tuskless was popular when i made it so i wanted to give it a go. like the other team with hex pult, sub lefties is an option here as well but boots is more "recommended" due to unreliable hazard control.
https://pokepast.es/3490ab3dba5d9a0e version 2 of that dragon HO, used to have a roaring moon but I didnt like it with this 6.
https://pokepast.es/88a999c486bd26de another hoopa team i didnt get around to ironing out. nat coincidentally used something rly similar to this which was used around the same team i made this. used to have a tran but switched to gambit eventually.
https://pokepast.es/03c8bcf892b5ab74 I saw a ton of samurott BOs and wanted to give it a go. idk if this one is good bc I never actually tested it and we pivoted into a build used by another team for this idea and i never polished it lol. overall not this biggest fan of this which is why it was scrapped but maybe somebody can fix it up, it has a very painful enam weakness so that would be the first thing to look into
https://pokepast.es/86480770b57e72c1 wanted to build boom overqwil after I saw it on ladder. this is the same kind of structure as my prehome rain and similar to the one already in this thread. nothing special and is probably mid now. tusk can be whatever as long as it has rapid spin and booster speed. you can use crunch if ur not feeling boom

shoutouts to Mimikyu Stardust and Exotic64 for helping me tweak some of the super out of date teams in here before posting. thanks for all of the support from all of my friends. thanks to Genesis7 and soulgazer for having me on Canada again this year. really upset we couldnt replicate our success from last year and I personally thought my investment in the tier till this point couldve got us a leg up on other teams but shit happens sometimes. heres to next year if i'm available.

 

[1LDK]

Meme sets: Quarter Finals TB, Semi Finals, Semi Finals TB and The Grand Finals, and The Grand Tiebreaker Finals​

Hey guys, 1LDK here, writing this on the sandbox on July 10. You would think that I have grown lazy with this project, that would be a not entirely accurate painting, truth is, I wanted to wait to collect all the meme sets, so we could get a ball going, and with the tournament over and with this being the final edition of the program, I think we can put some actual editing and styling effort into this. Its time to end this like farming, I mean community project once and for all

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Quarter Finals Tiebreaker: Europe vs United Kingdom

Day: Saturday, July 22

Lily vs Stareal: Lily brought a tera fairy Corviknight, and besides that, she brought a Dragonite set that she later show in the NJNP discord server (which is quite big, so I don't think I'm breaking any confidential laws)

Zulrah (Dragonite) (F) @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Multiscale
Tera Type: Normal
- Dragon Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Roost

She didn't show the Evs, but she said that the purpose of this Dnite was to counter the most common way to beat dnite, and that is status, such as thunder wave or will o wisp, and with roost, you can get back on top easily

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Semi Finals: Oceania vs Spain and Germany vs Europe

Day: Friday, July 28

Fogbound Lake vs Mana: Fogbound lake brought LO Enamorus, which KO the Ceruledge and was hard to pivot around but not to outlast

Highv0ltag3 vs Ewin: Highv0ltag3 brought tera poison + brave bird Moltres, which killed the glowking, avoid hax and high damage from Dire Claw, kill the sneasler, and kill the valiant, which means Highv0ltage essentially swept with moltres

Day: Sunday, July 30

Kefky vs Drifting: Kefky used a rare sticky web team, with Destiny Bond Valiant and a super rare Zarude, Kefky timed out in turn 9, so sadly we don't know about the rest of the team

Kushalos vs Mind Gaming: Kushalos was running Discharge on Moth, a move you don't see every day, he couldn't hax Mind Gaming, which was using the Frosmoth team Michaelderbest2 used previously on the tournament

Lily vs Qwily: Qwily brought Sword Dance Cinderace with Blaze, which, thanks to Lily's sun, Qwily did 40% to the tusk, killing him instantly, sadly, Qwily lost the speed tie and got crit one shot by Lily's own Cinderace

Sylveon Used Calm Mind vs Tlenit: Sylveon used a bulky HO team with Grassy terrain support and Iron Hands

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Semi Finals Tiebreaker: Europe vs Germany

Day: Thursday, August 3

Highv0ltag3 vs Michaelderbest2: Highv0ltage brought STALL, which contained the greatest hits such as Amnesia Clodsire, Heal Bell Blissey, Rest Ting Lu, among others

Day: Sunday, August 6

McMeghan vs Sylveon used Calm Mind: McMeghan brought Tera Ghost Curse Dondozo (which was suggested by Highv0ltag3) which blocked the CC from Sneasler, and trade himself to curse chip him to death thanks to spikes damage. He also brought a Tinkaton, which did one Knock Off into the Ursaluna, died instantly, but made Ursaluna easier to tank with Ting Lu, and with spikes down, McMeghan won the game

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The Grand Finals: Spain vs Europe

Before advancing to the finals, I'm gonna make a bit of a change to the usual ruling, since its the finals, I'm going to give my personal analysis of the match even tho nobody asked and some of them may or may not contain heat, but its the end of the tournament, we are at the finish line so might as well finish this with proper style

Day: Thursday, August 10

Dasmer vs Eveeto: Okay, so there's a lot to unpack here actually, Eveeto is a player who likes to bring what some people (me included) describe as "heat strats and creative teambuilding" while others describe it as "dogshit antimeta fishing" either way, he brings a good bag of goodies in his final match, with Wish + Wave Support Umbreon, which is paired alongside Discharge Static Zapdos, both half of Dasmer´s team, he also brougt Typlosion-Hisui, with eruption and infernal parade, to capitalize on the static procs. He also brought Tera Rock Meowscarada, while he didn't reveal his rock move, we can assume it was either Tera Blast OR Power Gem. This was a heavely hax oriented game which showcased the true power of Twave

Europe 1 - 0 Spain

Day: Friday, August 11

TheFranklin vs Trosko: After a heavy spikes game, Trosko managed to get 2 layers, which then used with his wincon, defensive NP Gholdengo, it was tera fairy and Dazzling Gleam, which sweeps the game. I think this game represents the importance of the hazard game and is a good Gholdengo showcase

Europe 1 - 1 Spain

Day: Saturday, August 12

Garay Oak vs Ruft: This one hundred and forty-four turns of tug-o-war showcases Alomomola as the biggest key to stall success these days, its ability to provide healing to its teammates, while having not to worry about hazard damage in this heavy hazard metagame with few healing pp, its a blessing for these teams. This match also showcases how Garganacl, even when he is at an obvious matchup disadvantage, can still put pressure on the enemy team, if you pay attention to the match (which, I don't blame you if you don't, god I fucking hate stall) you will see that Mola was constantly on a tight schedule with burn damage, salt cure damage, and the protect pp stalling switches made by Garay, which made Ruft do more switches to compensate, which then Garay used in his advantage to put himself constantly in a good position to keep attacking and eventually break through. All in all, a great game by Garay that showcases that it doesn't matter how horrible the situation is, there's always a way out

Europe 1 - 2 Spain

Highv0ltag3 vs Ado: The first match in the finals containing Kingambit, yet the true star of the show goes to none other than Slowking from the stall Galar region, with his constant pivoting makes it so that it gave both users the high ground against each other, if you notice, Ado´s Glowking is actually faster than v0ltag3´s Dondozo, so we know that it has at least 44 Spe Eves to out speed the 106 front yard, which he used to pressure the donzo via grass knot, Future Sight and fast yet peaceful pivoting due to Donzo not being instantly threatening. Another mon that did alot in the match was Highv0ltag3´s Enamorus-Incarnate, With Tera Ground, Calm Mind and Boots, it became extremly dangerous to pivot around, because nothing in Ado´s team could take her head on, she almost took down Glowking multiple times, and with how important Glowking was to the game, it was a close game. Yes, Kingambit took down Enamorus. Dondozo and Glowking and won the game thanks to tera fairy + leftovers + Supreme Overlord, but remember who pivoted him in

Europe 1 - 3 Spain

Kushalos vs SoulWind: On a must win game for Europe to get out of the 1-3 loss at the time, Kushalos decides to bring Abomasnow, in a hail team, which is rather convenient when matched up against SoulWind´s Sun team, the meta treat that is being showcased on this match thought, is Samurrot-Hisui, which, under Aurora Veil, and with a Lum Berry, managed to get a +4, and with an adamant nature, Kushalos quickly dispatched SoulWind´s team. We also saw a baxcalibur in position to kill the walking wake, but missed and was forced out, if anybody wants the calc, here it is: +1 252 Atk Tera Ice Baxcalibur Icicle Crash vs. 12 HP / 0 Def Walking Wake: 326-384 (95.3 - 112.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO.

Europe 2 - 3 Spain

Reiku vs Mana: Hey look, another Galarian Slowking showcase, which also shows the value of defensive tera, Glowking + Tera Water shuts down any sun team not packing either Brute Bonnet or Offensive Sun Boosted trapping Heatran with Solar Beam (a favorite of mine) Reiku used rocks chip damage towards torkoal + Chilly Reception to force Torkoal over and over again until his health was too low to get up again, even with rapid spin on the torkoal, tusk just put the rocks up again and there's that. Tusk Sacked itself with BU + Headsmash to desintegrate Zapdos from the face of the planet, and then died to valiant, which contributed more to the hazard war loss. The last hope of Mana is Iron Moth, who fails to get boosts from Fiery Dance and is forced to tera grass in order to damage the glowking at all, and failed to kill the glowking. And with some pivoting around Brute Bonnet, Reiku got the win for its team

Day: Sunday, August 13

Europe 2 - 4 Spain

Luispeikou vs. Lily: While Glowking is an excellent stopgap to sun teams, his popularaty means that in order for them to survive, they need to adapt (like every species) in this case, Lily decided to go with SpA Proto Boost Walking Wake to put the fear into the enemy team, with choice specs and sun, did fucking 72% to fucking glowking, look at this shit (252 SpA Choice Specs Protosynthesis Walking Wake Hydro Steam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar in Sun: 252-297 (63.9 - 75.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) which did a million to everything else, Zapdos couldn't even do shit due to the hurricanes missing in sun, once Walking Wake was dead, it was only a matter of clean up. This game showcases Wake as one of the most controversial mons this gen in a gen full of controversys

Europe 3 - 4 Spain

Malekith vs. McMeghan: McMeghan is trusted with a simple task "save the tournament", for many, the sheer amount of pressure alone would kill them on the spot, but McMeghan is often regarded as one of the best of all time, he has been in this scenario so many times that of course the only thing he needs to be ready is a pre game shit (which is why the match was delayed and I will not hear any other reason) So what did he bring to this MUST WIN GAME for both countrys, welp, the answer is Grafaiai (which did nothing) because McMeghan brought FUCKING TERA ELECTRIC CURSE GARGANACL, which proceeded to not only tera turn 1, he actually fucking WINS 6-0. Malekith was using the well known German 6, but with one change, Zapdos over Enamorus-Incarnate, which turned this matchup from perfectly duable at the cost of some pivoting or sacking, to a fucking instant lose. To really set the thing in, lets make 2 calcs, 252 SpA Choice Specs Enamorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 100 SpD Tera Electric Garganacl: 296-350 (73.2 - 86.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, this is assuming the smogon standard set, and this 252 SpA Choice Specs Enamorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Electric Garganacl: 234-276 (57.9 - 68.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, its with max hp max SpDef. In conclusion, Garganacl is totally balanced, yeah man, literally just put covert cloak and use 2 regen mons and clef, yeah man

Europe 4 - 4 Spain

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The Grand Finals: Spain vs Europe, run that shit back edition

Day: Saturday, August 19

Malekith vs Lily: In this episode of the tiebreakers, we have Lily, running HO with her signature plate, screens pult, who has become a great screens setter due to his speed and various utility moves, of course she is running it with other Terraria Calamity references (why is Kingambit The Old Duke, it should be Lord Yharim), while Malekith was using a standard BO team with the Ting Lu + Gholdengo core, Scarf Valiant and a boots meowscarada, some back and forth with Iron Moth while Malekith pivots carefully, after a meow sac and some chip on the moltres, iron moth magically transmutates into Tera Fire Kingambit, who got a +4 SD. Low Kicks the tusk to 9%, then starts the sucker punch mind games baby, but tusk is armed, and has Bulk Up, which allows him to not only get on the mindgames, but to get out of the danger zone too, once forced out, Dragapult comes with the screens, bax haxes out the ting lu, and here comes the play of the game, Gholdengo with NP Ballon and tera fairy, once set up, clicked moves and Malekith wins

Day: Sunday, August 20

Europe 4-5 Spain

McMeghan vs Trosko: both teams are pretty similar on the general structure, which is "Spike stack bulky Offense" but both have key differneces in everything. McMeghan decides to start the game with the usual samurrot lead while trosko leads with ting Lu, samu trades itself for a layer of spikes against Trosko´s Ting Lu, then the lando comes out and starts bulking up, which forces an emergency gholdengo to trick it and neutralize it, remember this play, its gonna come back later. some back and forth with the rest of the team, and then Glowking comes out, and what does the glowking do? start calm minding, and amoongus spores it, which means it was running no speed. So at this point McMeghan´s last stand is Dondozo who is obviously curse, so amoongus pulls up with grass knot, but then, tera steel, and with covert cloak, and thanks to the lando scarf, and the glowking spore, it means garga cannot hit it, amoongus cannot hit it, and gholdengo cannot hit it, and thus, winning him the game.

Europe 5-5 Spain

Highv0ltag3 vs Garay Oak: The last game, this one takes it all, its the first time Highv0ltag3 is in this situation, I dont know how many times Garay Oak has been here, but you can feel the tension, and that tension made for a carcrash of a game, Highv0ltag3 just didnt have the correct team, not only that, but he also gets unlucky, he misses ceasless edge turn 1 and then he gets crit, he has no way to remove hazards, they get stacked. and in the end, the final stand, the walking wake, teras into steel to shit on valiant, and gets predict taunted, and with a final heat wave...
Europe 5-6 Spain
Spain officially won the world cup


And with that, this project ends, it was a long road, but I can ensure you this was a fun experience, not only I was able to farm likes off it, but it made it gain this badge for doing something usefull with my life, but dont worry people, SCL is coming just around the corner, and ill be there, waiting, for the meme sets. what was your favorite game? team? what have you learned? and most importanty, did you liked this project that I did? I hope so, that would make me happy

 

[Lily]

I like team dumps! Here's a dump of every team I used, and some others I built too.



I'll start from the bottom since those are the earliest.

vs Luirromen
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-698888

I was still getting back into the swing of things during pools; I hadn't played a whole lot of OU since SPL, and a lot of the home drops and stuff were pretty foreign to me. I'd played Luirro a few times up till now since we've been matched in various UU tours among other things, but I'd be lying if I said I prepped this team specifically for him; it was just a team I built, tested and enjoyed, and I didn't really have anything specific in mind to use against Luirro bc he had pretty limited OU games to work with other than a pretty solid OST run.

I was noting that a lot of Dark resists were either frail (Enamorus, Hisui Rott, etc), didn't actually want to switch in until late game (Kingambit), or they were Great Tusk. So for that reason, I wanted to see what I could do to abuse that with a Dark overload type of squad; I stole the AV Hoopa set from shiloh who whooped me with it in testing and felt that it made a pretty good partner for Hisuian Samurott, and then Kingambit was just the obvious broken dark of choice. The rest of the team is just an attempt at covering the weaknesses you get when using three mons of the same type, really- I needed a bulky Poison to account for the weakness to Fairies/Fightings and Pex made more sense than Glowking since it was a lot bulkier and also gave a crucial Water resist. Lando was necessary over Tusk for compression purposes, that slot needed to be Ground immune and also needed Rocks so there weren't a whole lot of options - U-turn was also more useful than what Tusk provided for positioning the breakers. Slither Wing was the perfect last for this kind of team, being able to help with switching into offensive Great Tusk which was super dangerous for the other 5 and also providing a solid check to Kingambit which is super important for Tuskless. It's also generally a really solid pivot and in the game it was really clutch for preventing me from getting swept by Meowscarada too!

vs avarice
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-699187

Not a whole lot I can say here. I didn't build this, I recreated it from a game Vert played and I believe shiloh built it originally but I'm not sure. Not a whole lot to say; avarice using some sort of cheese offense was super predictable so I used something with a good HO matchup and rolled the matchup I wanted. Unfortunately I misplayed the game and lost to a crit I probably could've prevented.

vs watashi
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-699242

I like using rain a lot and wanted to use it in pools, so I tried to build various permutations of it to see what'd work. This was my personal favourite of the bunch. For the most part it's what you'd expect; Pelipper gets rain up, Floatzel clicks buttons, Walking Wake click buttons. Overqwil was chosen for its defensive utility as a pseudo-Meow check among other things and it was pretty good at breaking some annoying mons like Amoonguss. Kingambit is just Kingambit. Good steel for offense. Kilowattrel was chosen over Zapdos because I wanted the Speed tier and the Electric immunity, and Weather Ball is a really cool niche that lets it do significantly more damage to stuff like Ting-Lu - notably hitting it extremely hard even in snow. It's a pretty brainless team and is honestly better than it looks, it's worth messing around with. Floatzel is significantly better than Basculegion, stop getting catfished.

Now on to playoffs:

vs Yelodash
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-703936

Regrettably another team I didn't build. I was on vacation for the entirety of this week so I didn't exactly have time for SV OU solving, so instead I chose to use a team we'd used a few times by now that was built by Ruft. I was really anxious about this game (and all my games) because I had very limited time to test the team out and it wasn't super similar to what I'd normally use so I didn't know if I'd be able to play it too well. In the end it was just a Garg sweep so... yeah. Fun times.

vs Stareal (tiebreak)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-704831

I LOVED this team. I decided to just use what I'm comfortable this week, and that meant some sort of Meowscarada-based offense. I felt like Meow + Bax tore apart essentially the entire non-Corviknight meta, so I tried to support those as best as I could; originally I tried Life Orb Ice Body Bax a la Germany but it wasn't doing it for me so I just went back to good ol SD and it worked wonders. The highlight of this team was Covert Cloak Dragonite, which sets up all day on Zapdos, Glowking, Glimmora and more, as well as non-Curse Garganacl. I think Covert Cloak is an extremely underrepresented item in general on boosters (which you'll see more later) and this was a perfect example of that. Didn't do much in the game itself because the spotlight was all on Meow but I promise it's good.

vs QWILY
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-706846

I expected either hyper offense or extreme fat from QWILY and so I looked into sun. I felt like sun was an archetype that was kinda "solvable"; you have three slots that are essentially mandatory (Torkoal, Walking Wake, Great Tusk), then you have some variety for the next two (fast Fire, fat-beating Grass - I chose Scarf Cinderace and Brute Bonnet, but stuff like Iron Moth and Hisuian Lilligant works), and then you have a lot of freedom in the last slot. Kingambit is a good option as has been seen recently, I chose Sandy Shocks as a nice Zapdos / Gholdengo check and a good Fast Guy, not that this team needed more but still. I think Scarf Cinderace is the best of the fire options; being faster than Iron Valiant is huge and it's just so brutal in endgames, doing stupid shit like OHKOing Baxcalibur from full. I went with +Spe Wake in this matchup for anti-offense purposes; I do believe the choice between +Spe and +SpA is a matchup call you have to be willing to make in the builder, they're both pretty good.

vs mind gaming (tiebreak)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-707792

This was my hardest week of prep for sure. mind is terrifying not only because of playing ability but also because I have to make sure my Generation 9 OU team is equipped for Frosmoth of all things??? so yeah I was really struggling this week. Ended up coming up with this Fairy Garg team because mind's Gholdengo usage was extremely low and it felt like a good call into everything he'd been bringing. I gambled on that matchup pretty hard; I wouldn't say my team was awful into Gholdengo, I had bulky Rott and Gambit after all, but I definitely wasn't expecting or wanting to see one. I did run into one though and I got absolutely cooked, this game wasn't particularly close. I was naturally upset after the loss but Roro made up for it with his win so it wasn't the biggest deal.

vs Luispeikou
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-709636

When in doubt, run it back. Spain was using pretty mediocre Water resists all tour and often relied on Tera for it so I wanted to exploit that by using the strongest Water-type in the game, and that meant Wake sun. I was inspired by the Vert sun and switched out Sandy Shocks for Kingambit in this game, since I felt like it helped a few scary matchups (most notably opposing Kingambit) as opposed to the Zapdos MU where I can rely on Just Dodging Hurricane In Sun. In the game itself I ran into solely Hisuian Samurott as Water resist pre-Tera so I just clicked Hydro Steam a bunch and it worked out, which was the entire goal, so that was great.

vs Malekith (tiebreak)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-710754

So this was a team made by Kushalos that I edited a little bit. It's just a classic Screens HO, but the mons really do tick well together; the general goal was just to get your hazards up, force a Tera with Bax, and win with one of the other three sweepers from there. I felt like it was a good call against Spain's teams because of the Iron Moth set, which had a good matchup into most of them; Scarf Valiant was a devastating and smart bring, though. I have a lot of regrets about this game - I think it would've been very different had I opted to attack the Valiant turn 1 - but I got outprepped and I can't be too upset about that even though it stings a lot.

I don't wanna write about the next few teams so I'll just dump them, they're pretty fun and I tested most of them extensively but just didn't end up bringing them for whatever reason.










+ probably some stuff that teammates used that I'm forgetting about.

Oh and of course...

...which you'll have to wait a little longer for, because I wanna RMT this one.

Hope everyone enjoys the free teams. I really had a great time this wcop and there's so much I wish I could say but I just don't have the words... but I suspect most of my teammates don't need them anyway, they know how much I value them. Going from substitute cheerleader that only gets to play a game when we're out and nobody cares to core member of the roster and playing in finals tiebreak within the span of a year is absolutely insane to me and it's not something I'm going to forget. Thank you to my teammates for all the trust and faith you placed in me over the course of the tournament. You're all amazing.

Special shoutout to our helpers in the chat who won't get the recognition they deserve unless I mention them - Savouras, xavgb post-UK knockout, TWiTT, col49. You guys were fuckin awesome and we would've been nowhere without you. Extra special s/o to Sav who built a billion teams for us when he had no obligation to and had an amazing positive attitude all season long. The rest of the teammates that were on the actual roster will get shoutouts in our server later on down the line, don't you worry.

Massive congratulations to a very deserving Spain roster and ggs once again. It stings to just barely come second right by the finish line, but we proved a lot this year and will continue to do so going forward. I have a ton of faith in our roster and we'll only keep building. I hope the old guard is proud.

o7

 

[Savouras]

Warning, my english aint it so if u easily offended by mediocre writting avoid this essay immediately.
If not and u wanna grab a team or two aswell as listen to my experience with Team Europe this World Cup as their assistant then u good and i hope u like my post.


With World Cup and my friends in Team Europe almost winning i had the opportunity to interact with them and possibly help them as much as i could with their team choices and preparation.
I wasnt allowed to play or officially join the team unfortunately owin to the current rules (im greek and im locked to play for that team which i denied of course for obvious reasons) but i was allowed with the invitation from my friend Ruft to join EU and spam everyones prep with my crap which i very much enjoyed :D
I wanted to stay in touch with the current meta of SV, build a couple of good teams which u do alot better at when u building, testing and discussin with competent players over testing by yourself in random games in the ladder and overall have abit of taste from World Cup which i very much missed since my 2019 and 2020 runs.
The result was awesome, it felt like i was truly part of the team owing to everyones warm welcome and them allowin me to interact with their preps everytime and i feel together we made some creative and overall solid builds that im gonna be sharing with u in this post.
Other than the teams im gonna talk about I will also include in the end some teams and sets that didnt see the light of usage in World Cup and were left in the shadows of our discords chats.

The Teams:

https://pokepast.es/ade934d4b16ae0ba McMeghan Finals Tiebreaker vs Trosko - Covert Dozo Offense

Something that we did is analyzing every week our opponents team preferences so me, my group and McMeghan thought this mon Dondozo would have very good mu vs them.
He requested me to give him some team options with spdef covert dozo and this team was the one that we decided to go with from the options i sent him.
We felt the best way to do this was not going hard balance with it but use a very offensive team with dedicated lead and bunch of threatning setups including the whale overwhelming their defenses until one of em succeeds and gets the sweep done.
The team has some very cool techs like ofc the dozo luring Garganacl teams and checkin various offensive threats, Sub bu lando that my guy tlenit originally used in his game, CM Colbur Slowking, Speedy Tusk for speed control and this v unique Gholdengo set.
All together formed a very good core not only offensively but absorbing and having many defensive utilities too allowin the team to breath and have room for maneuvering vs many offensive threats and hits.
Tusk lured Moltres and Zapdos for our Dondozo and its tera steel attempts to setup. Tusk and Lando often traded vs opposing Tusks which is key for keeping your Covert on Dozo against garg teams and not get knocked off.
Gholdengo aimed to do the same aswell as trade vs other common knock off and trick users. It bluffs with Spell tag an offensive or even scarf set / ev spread and it instead survives often Shadow Balls, Knock offs, EQs and trades positively with end goal dozo sweepin.
Overall rly liked that team, McMeghan was v confident on the build too and we got the result we wanted from that game.

https://pokepast.es/a3b4b0f46d7ff64e Ultimate Sun team

We have seen the rise of sun with Verts team all over ladder and tours but let me tell u the history of sun and how it all started with of course Eeveeto as the first chef. Jokes aside he was the one who first showed me how good sun can be with one Tera Grass Liligant + Charizard team and only after him i feel more people including us started exploring it more on the ladder.
I made some attempts and teams with Sun, sometimes running Eject Hatt, other times Eeveeto's Defog Liligant and sometime a week after Lily came up with a very good sun core.
It was the one she used vs Quilxy and it included brute bonnet as the grass type over Liligant. Eventually xavgb figured out the 6 pokemons that u see on the paste and after alot of testing and a shit ton of ladderin both regular and OLT i decided that for me these sets im showin u do the job best.
We have spdef Torkoal with Tera fairy for room to maneuver abit vs draco spam against ww and pult, our WW with the deadliest breaking set of + spatk with tera water maximizing and 2koing almost any set. I tried modest but being outsped by Enamorus, 320+ Zapdos, Balloon Sneasler and opposing WWs wasnt good so i went timid.
Tusk works similar to how hatt worked in pre home sun teams, pivoting, keepin the hazards off, checkin dragonite bax and ting lu which are enormous for sun teams and with Tera Ghost potentially stopping ID setup attempts.
Sandy Shocks with Wise Glasses was a set we came up with Lax in last SPL and i rly love it since then. It has amazin dmg output, great dmg rolls vs dragons and provides key defensive utilities aswell as volt switch immunity for not losing momentum.
Finally Lilys Scarf ace one of the deadliest sweepers sun can use, outspeeds valiant, superfang for opposing WW putting it in range of Liligant.. oh and of course the enormous Liligant set which is only walled by flying types but provides extra layer of security vs Gambit even lategame cuz of Sleep Powder, it does insane dmg with tera fire gettin key and unexpected kills cuz of the sun boost and provides even more speed control.
Elite team for fast ladderin from bottom to 1800, i highly recommend it.

https://pokepast.es/1bb7a799ff11b19c Scarf Sneasler + Heatran team for ZoroDark game

I came up with this Heatran spread that although i hated missing when using it had so many random little calcs and hits it absorbed that i absolutely loved building with it.
Scarf Trick sneasler provided great speed control for the build aswell as tricking and checkin key opposing setups. We had zapdos slowing down threats for our Heatran to be more threatning, Spikes from Samurott while absorbing water and ghost so it made a great core with tran. Knock off utility tusk with speed so its heavily pressuring gholdengos.
Then the setup of the team, tera ground dd bax one of the most threatning sweepers in my opinion especially when u have tran trappin many of its key checks like Dondozo and fairies.
Overall a nice hazard spam team with one of a kind trapper, not offset but big tran.

https://pokepast.es/f26a5445dd89eee8 McMeghan Semifinals Tiebreaker game - Utility Sneasler + Defensive Ghold

With this build people were still exploring this pokemon Sneasler and at the time the standard builds were kingambit, tusk, zapdos. You can see where this is going, its not meant to be a good mon vs them but its a great pokemon overall, a great lead and if u were gonna use it at the time i think this set made the most value out of it.
I figured when building this that the set functions best in bo builds with good longevity and hazards. This way it can get many opportunities to spread status and win the longrun of games while having good hazard game, knock off to support it and healing.
One change i would experiment with this build is dazzling gleam on the defensive gholdengo over make it rain, i didnt think of it at the time but saw spanish players use it and thought it can be rly nice in this.
With or without dazzling gleam its a very well built team i feel and was posted already a couple weeks ago in Teams of the Week from Setsu https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...oc-dusk-and-walking-wake.3712009/post-9712303

https://pokepast.es/753d77e749095e45 Mana's game - Weakness Policy Ceruledge HO

The week we made this build my friend Mana was playing vs the undefeated at the time Fogbound Lake and their team the Germans had been taking HO builds a step further using many new unexplored pokemons and sets which meant we werent sure exactly what we will face but we knew it would be hyper offensive.
I came up with this Ceruledge set that under screens i felt it can end games on its own vs many offensive builds. It appreciates hazard control so Hatt, Tusk and taunt lead over something like Samurott were used for this reason.
The Speed investment was outspeedin most threats at +2 except valiant that fire/ghost meant they gonna knock off on our tera fighting which is why we never invested enough speed for it anyway.
Unfortunately we faced Rain so the set did absolutely nothing except dying for a shadow sneak but in testin this set was a menace. In the actual game Hatt was the one who would end fogbound's lake undefeated score and give BanManaphy the win.
Great tusk provided much needed speed control, Gambit was there for the lategame sweep as it has very similar checks with Ceruledge so they work great together and it also provided with lum berry support vs any pult set even wisp and breakin vs birds.
And finally our own pult was meant to 2ko Cinderace with infiltrator over standard Cursed Body so when it court changed our screens we wouldnt have to deal with it.
Loved that build, the process for making it was also incredible as we took forever with my good friend Mana testing and building together to complete this and it succeeded.
Its completely ass v hard fat keep that in mind, we literally risked it and fished only cuz we were facing the Germans

https://pokepast.es/d96c1ba213262ec1 TheFranklin vs Spectear r1 - Wisp Pult + Curse Garg balance

Not alot to explain about this, was built for TheFranklin its a standard lookin team with Scarf sneasler to not only prevent opposing sweeps with switcheroo and speed but also provide key status spread with its partner zapdos so our tera ghost hex pult can do lots of dmg.
Curse Garg tera water for gholdengos which are number one checks for this sneasler set. W have that + reg slowking for better dealin vs ww sun. Uturn Zapdos + Sneasler uturn vs ting lu tusk cores and fs support so hex or cc esp when terad rly hurts.

https://pokepast.es/662f46d4701cd07d McMeghan vs Nat game in r1 - Powerful team with Specs Terablast Fairy Volc + CB zama.

Was my favourite team to use at the time, i always felt Torn has very big potential and is actually great in OU even tho it didnt see much use at the time until finals. Taunt + Regen incredible tools v fat which is what we expected vs nat.
Fs Support + Zama and volc we thought would also have great mu except the fact Nat cooked up and played extremely well with this Protect Muk that they brought causing so much damage to us.
Either way the build is hella clean i feel, there is room for adaptations if u aint feelin the torn or its item but in general i liked this build alot.

https://pokepast.es/b23567c3e26e7135 Uturn Zapdos + Ursaluna

Was really excited when i thought about this, its been alittle while since then so many people now already use uturn zap + hard hitter but it was causing so much dmg at the time in ladder gettin so many key opportunities to get luna in with safety vs Clodsires, Ting lu, Slowkings and more that made me wanna post this build.
They also have very good synergy helpin each other vs their weaknesses, static helps vs faster threats and hitters like Tusk and Samurott aswell as curse Dozo when Ursaluna can lure Baxcalibur, immune to Ghost and tera fairy if want to lure Dragapult for it.
It also frees up and weakens many key defensive threats which can lead to easy Tera Ground DD Baxcalibur sweeps overwhelming them with strong ground attacks.
HWish support even tho removes burn it is still quite nice support for Luna and Bax and honestly my only tilts with this team is Garganacl which u can Covert the Corvi for it if u want and the corvi itsself that i wanted to use physdef for it but couldnt afford to in this core.
Either way its a nice idea and decent execution, feel free to try it.

https://pokepast.es/9ca0d4e5648960b4 SAV Choice Twinks

Sav Choice Twinks as roro liked to call this was one of the build we had been considering using every week until we didnt.
Its a simple but effective build using powerful sets and pokemons with CB Sneasler Tera fighting being a killin machine 2koing even physdef corvis, specs enam and trapper Volcanion which supports v well both Choice Twinks vs bulky poisons like Pex, Slowkin and Clodsire.
Ice Spinner Tusk with attack investment means Zapdos is in a very tough spot to either Roost and get EQd or hurricane raw on Slowking which means in many scenarions free fs + big hit.
Tera Steel on Enam and in general all teras except Sneasler are defensive teras so u use em only when u might be in trouble vs like espeed dnite otherwise u tera the sneasler and break defensive cores with it.

At this point i wanna give u some other builds as i mentioned in my intro that were not used but i quite liked and feel are creative or had good potential.

https://pokepast.es/a24fe66aaa00ec00 Offensive Zapdos + CB Ace
https://pokepast.es/30af7ed5b26c87b9 McMeghan Finals team v2
https://pokepast.es/6c095304d26fb4ab McMeghan Finals team v3
https://pokepast.es/3e6282e1384711b0 Specs Valiant + Stone Edge Tusk
https://pokepast.es/fd2d1d6f5360cdda Helmet Zapdos + ID Zama and Tera Rock Tusk
https://pokepast.es/64535d4fc4ec4ec8 ID Treads + Sub DD Pult HO
https://pokepast.es/3e12dc1e64de2986 Creative HO with Tera Ghost Bax, Sub CM Enam, Howl Zama and ID treads
https://pokepast.es/94a7f1cbc84d9f0a NP Expert Belt Thundurus-T + LO Bax
https://pokepast.es/0f6a31af54ecd777 Covert Cloak Cress + Specs Pult Eject spam
https://pokepast.es/62c07d58a91e2458 Covert Cloak Cress + Specs Pult v2 with Moltres and Edge tusk
https://pokepast.es/543c1dd773115a98 Pawmot Rain

I wanna thank the whole Team Europe for lettin me work with them these last weeks in their game preparations for World Cup.
We came up with some builds im very happy with and i wanted to share them with you which is why im making this post.
Feel free to give me any feedback or if u aint sure about something and why its there feel free to contact me on Discord Savouras#8482 i got no issue sharing with you the process of why we decided on some of these sets.
Hope u like the builds and im excited for SCL, im sure we will do great things there too with SV OU teambuilding the community as a whole.