Tournaments Coverage

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Introduction

Smogon's tournaments are the premier venues for competitive Pokemon players to test their skill. Whether you play the standard 5th generation OU metagame, another 5th generation metagame, an older generation metagame, or a non-standard format, the Tournaments section offers anything you could want to play in. The majority of Smogon's best players regularly compete in tournaments, so no matter which tournament you join, you will always be met with formidable opponents.

In this article, Smogon's tournaments will be examined in detail, players will be recognized for their achievements, and current and upcoming events will be reviewed, with a focus on Smogon's official events.

Current Tournaments

World Cup of Pokemon VI

This year's annual World Cup of Pokemon is currently in its final round, where the score is 4-4 between two-time champs Team Oceania, captained by Blue Kirby, and Team USA West, captained by Scofield. The championship hinges upon the final tiebreaker match between Earthworm and Philip7086. The match is certain to be one of the most intense BW OU matches in Smogon's history so far, so be sure to watch it!

Oceania, who finished as the first ranked seed after Round 1, had to defeat Brazil (5-4, winning the tiebreaker) and France (7-1) in the playoff rounds, while USA West were seeded seventh and overcame USA Metro (5-2) and Canada (5-2) to reach the finals. The other teams that qualified for the playoffs were Europe and USA East. Latin America barely missed out on qualifying, with Spain and Asia not far behind. The final standings after Round 1 can be viewed on the World Cup of Pokemon website here.

The final round has been especially close and has involved many heated matches. Smogon Tour champion Golden Sun beat Smogon Frontier champion Bloo to kick the round off, and recent tournament star Heist beat Indra to extend the lead to 2-0. USA West then began to fight back, with Loven defeating Stallion. Oceania further extended their lead with playa beating remlabmez to make the score 3-1. USA West then made a great comeback, managing to even the score thanks to symphonyx64 beating then undefeated The_Chaser and the ever-consistent Philip7086 beating Hipmonlee. Earthworm managed to beat undisputed to get the advantage back once more and put Oceania within a single match of being three-time consecutive champions. The final match was between two undefeated players, panamaxis (who won the tiebreaker against Brazil) with a 6-0 record and Scofield with a 4-0 record. Scofield managed to bring home the goods in a tight match, bringing the entire tournament to a climactic tiebreaker match. These finals have been perhaps the most intense ever, with some very good play on both sides. No matter which side wins, the trophy will certainly be held by a deserving team.

Thanks very much to Jackal for putting on this fantastic tournament for all of us. The World Cup of Pokemon is one of the most fun and competitive tournaments on all of Smogon, and draws in not just the regulars, but great players from international competitive Pokemon communities as well. For those interested, a brief history of the tournament can be viewed here.

The Smogon Tour

The 12th season of the biannual Smogon Tour recently started, and will continue over the next couple of months. It is one of the most prestigious tournaments held on Smogon, being one of a select few to award the overall winner with a permanent trophy on their forum profile. The Smogon Tour is designed to test the player's ability to adapt to multiple metagames, rather than just the current generation's OU metagame. Each weekend, there are three live tournaments in one tier, which rotates on a weekly basis through ADV OU, DPP OU, and BW OU. At the end of nine weeks, the sixteen players with the most points advance to the season finals, where players are placed into a seeded, single elimination bracket and play each other in best-of-three bouts to determine who advances.

The Smogon Tour is one of the most popular tournaments on Smogon, and this season is looking to be no exception. One reason for the tour's popularity is that the tournaments generally take under three hours to complete, even though the tournaments generally draw in 64 to 128 players each day. This makes it a great venue for those who are unable to commit to playing in other tournaments, which generally take a couple of months to finish. There are no restrictions on who can enter; all that is necessary is that you have a Smogon forum account and you are online to post "in" to the signup threads when they are posted. For more information about the Smogon Tour, you can visit the Smogon Tour website here.

National Pokemon Association

The National Pokemon Association is a league-style team tournament akin to the Smogon Premier League. The tournament focuses solely on Nintendo and The Pokemon Company International metagames, such as VGC 2011 and Journey Across America. There will be eight teams, each of which will have six players and one manager. Managers will choose players in a snake draft which will be held on September 9. The main season will consist of all teams playing each other once. The four highest ranked teams at the end of the season progress to the playoffs, where the winning team will be decided by a seeded single-elimination bracket.

This tournament is sure to be a great way to spend the off-season of VGC and is definitely a landmark event for those interested in the various doubles metagames offered. Player signups will be occurring in the first week of September, so be sure to sign up in the thread when it is posted if you are interested in playing! More information about the tournament can be found in the thread here.

Team Trials

The fourth rendition of the annual Team Trials tournament has begun. Team Trials has traditionally followed the Smogon Tour finals in terms of format, with each team having a player dedicated to one of the three tiers. This year, a poll was held before the tournament began, and the results showed that the majority wanted to play the Black & White metagames (UU / OU / Uber) rather than the current Smogon Tour format (ADV OU / DPP OU / BW OU). For this reason, DJXO9 (the host) chose to follow the suggestions of the voters and made his tournament an all-BW tournament. Teams still go head-to-head in a single elimination format as per usual, with each team member battling once per round.

Team Trials is always a fun tournament since you can team up with your friends and work together to get as far as you can. It tests your skills in a standard metagame, both team building and battling, and gives you the chance to help your other team members out with their teams and battling skills. Good luck to all of the teams participating, and be sure to thank DJXO9 for hosting when you get the chance.

The Best of 3 Tournament

The Best of 3 Tournament is a tournament hosted by Lunar. that tests competitors' abilities to play in the three main BW singles metagames: OU, UU, and Ubers. Each round, players must win in a best-of-three series with each of these metagames being played once. The tournament started out as a 128-man tournament and is now reaching the later rounds. The remaining players are highly talented, and the winner of the tournament is sure to be someone very talented at Black & White. Good luck to everyone left in the tournament.

The Pokemon Value System Tournament

The Pokemon Value System Tournament (or PVS Tournament) is a tournament designed to test a set of restrictions unlike those normally played with on Smogon. These restrictions are designed so that using the Pokemon with the best stats, typing, ability, and movepools comes at the cost of having to use Pokemon that are lacking in the aforementioned departments. The tournament tests its competitors' abilities to find a balance within the restrictions and to adapt to a new metagame. Further discussion and information about PVS can be found here. This tournament is hosted by Fire Blast and has reached the last couple of rounds, so good luck to the remaining combatants!

Oh My Mirror !

Oh My Mirror ! is a tournament designed to test players' abilities to come up with the best movesets in a mirror match against the same six Pokemon, which are chosen by the host (Agammemnon) each round. The tournament has so far explored themes such as Fire / Water / Grass, all-legendary, and an all 6 possible Rotom formes round. Making wise team building choices is the key to success in this tournament, since simply choosing the common and predictable movesets will lead to the opponent having devised a way to beat you before the battle even begins. The tournament currently only has a few rounds remaining, so expect things to heat up going into the final few rounds!

Black/White OU Crew Tournament

The Black/White OU Crew Tournament is a team tournament with a twist—players carry on from where their teammate lost in the previous battle. In this format, winning by 5 or 6 Pokemon becomes a lot more important, since a team without a couple of its Pokemon is often helpless against a full 6. Each team consists of three players who must submit the teams they plan to use prior to the beginning of each round in order to avoid counter-teaming. The winner of a battle will have his remaining Pokemon restored, though his fainted teammates are out of the match. The format tests the players' ability to keep as many Pokemon alive as possible, as well as testing their ability to come from behind when facing an enemy with more remaining Pokemon. Players must be aware of when it is a good idea to take risks, and keeping low-health Pokemon alive rather than sacrificing them is also important, though perhaps not as important as actually winning the battle. Generally speaking, it will be quite difficult for a lone Pokemon to take down even one foe. On the flip-side, it is not impossible for a lone Pokemon to sweep an entire enemy team—this has in fact happened already. Thanks Eo Ut Mortus for hosting, and good luck to the remaining teams!

Got Arceus?

The Got Arceus? tournament is a fun tournament where all teams must have 6 Arceus and each must be a different type. There is not a whole lot of strategy involved compared to most other tournaments, but choosing the right types and movesets is still helpful. The infamous "Extreme Killer" Arceus set is sure to see a lot of use, as well as the Calm Mind Steel Arceus variant. Defensive Arceus with Will-O-Wisp and Toxic are likely to be rare since Arceus is so potent offensively, but may still be seen occasionally. Good luck to the remaining participants in the tournament!

Same-Type Tournament

Hosted by Tobes, the Same-Type Tournament is a tournament where Pokemon may only use moves that are the same type as one of their typings, including non-attacking moves. This means that choosing Pokemon with good natural type coverage such as Terrakion is very important, as well as creating a team that has a good set of resistances to take advantage of. Switching is likely to be very common in this format, which means that entry hazards should be powerful. However, there are no Ground-types with Spikes, which means only Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes are available. The tournament reached 128 players, a very good showing for a non-standard tournament. Good luck to everyone in the tournament.

Hoenn Cup

The Hoenn Cup is a league-style ADV OU tournament hosted by Umby. A set of players handpicked from the list of signups were placed into six divisions at random, and in each of five rounds, they are placed against two other players from any division. Players receive points each round based on their performance and whether or not they were active during the round. At the end of the five rounds, the top scoring player in each division qualifies for the playoffs, and the second place in each division becomes a possible wild card entry, having to succeed in a mini wild card tournament in order to qualify for one of the last two positions in the playoffs. In addition, a side tournament for players that didn't make the cut is being run for extra slots in the wild card rounds. The playoffs will be happening soon, so be sure to pay attention to this tournament!

An UnSUSPECTed Metagame

An UnSUSPECTed Metagame is a tournament hosted by Delta 2777 which tests players' abilities to compete in a metagame without any of the Pokemon formerly chosen to be voted on in Smogon's suspect testing. In addition, Drizzle and Drought were also banned (Sand Stream was kept due to Tyranitar's Dream World ability being unreleased). The tournament should certainly have created a vastly different and interesting metagame for players to try out. Good luck to everyone in the tournament.

inb4 nintendo

inb4 nintendo is a tournament in which the host (Lady Salamence) selects unreleased Pokemon and abilities to "release" in order to create a different metagame for each round. Competitors are challenged to adapt to the new metagames and make the best use out of the new Pokemon and abilities that they can. In the first round, the powerful unreleased Pokemon Keldeo, Genesect, and Meloetta were available for use. Future rounds will certainly include very interesting Pokemon such as Imposter Ditto. Hopefully the participants of the tournament will enjoy their taste of things to come!

RarelyUsed Tournament

Smogon's new Black & White metagame, RarelyUsed, now has a tournament! Hosted by Foster, the tournament tests competitors' skills in this fresh metagame and challenges them to find the most powerful strategies in a somewhat unexplored format. Since the metagame has not gone through any sort of process to decide what should be banned, there are very likely highly powerful Pokemon that players will be hard-pressed to find a good counter for. We can only guess as to the strategies that will succeed in this tournament.

Who Needs Team Preview Tournament

Black & White brought with it a new restriction—WiFi battles could no longer be played without the ability to see an opponent's team beforehand and choose a lead. That doesn't stop us from finding out what the BW OU metagame would be like without team preview on a simulator! This tournament is standard BW OU, but with team preview turned off. Competitors will explore a variant of BW OU where choosing the right dedicated lead is of a high importance, and keeping threats hidden is a viable strategy like in previous generations. It will definitely be interesting to find out how the lack of team preview affects players in team building and in battling.

The Gauntlet II

The Gauntlet, originally hosted by Rising_Dusk, is now being hosted by Steven Snype in an attempt to revive the fun tournament format. Each round, every Pokemon that faints under control of the match's victor cannot be used in any future rounds. The list of fainted Pokemon for each player is publicized each round, so attempting to choose a threat that an opponent may have difficulty countering is a viable strategy. The format also affects players' ability to sacrifice Pokemon, since they will want to allow as few Pokemon to faint as possible. This can lead to people making interesting and unusual plays in order to keep a key Pokemon from fainting. This is the first BW OU rendition of the tournament, as the previous version was held in DPP OU. Good luck to everyone playing!

Upcoming Tournaments

Coming soon to the Tournaments forum are the following tournaments:

The No Johns Tournament is a BW OU tournament hosted by Iconic. This is the ideal tournament for those who just want to get matches done without having to wait weeks for each new round. The tournament will feature some of the shortest deadlines a non-live tournament has ever had.

A DPP UU Tournament hosted by Bloo. This tournament will follow the standard DPP UU rules, and will be fun for old fans and new players alike.

DPP OU Tournament hosted by Steven Snype and ENZ0. With all the focus on the current generation, this tournament will give people a chance to play in the familiar but now less commonly played DPP OU metagame.

Sneak4 hosted by Iconic. Sneak is a team tournament that was last hosted back in 2007 by ex-administrator Justin8649, and was considered one of the most prestigious tournaments of its time. It will feature pairs of players competing in a DPP OU and BW OU format. For those looking for a highly competitive and challenging tournament, this is for you.

ADV Ubers Tournament hosted by Umby. The ADV Ubers metagame is one that is very rarely played nowadays, but it is still very fun to play. For those who enjoy playing the Advance tiers, you will enjoy playing in this tournament.

Eviolite-less BW LC Tournament hosted by ShinyAzelf. The Black & White Little Cup metagame came with an item that changed the metagame significantly from the DPP metagame: Eviolite. This tournament will explore how the metagame would be without this change. Those interested in Little Cup should definitely enjoy competing in this tournament for a change of pace.

Scales of Justice hosted by zarator. This tournament will challenge players' team building skills by placing restrictions on the most used Pokemon using usage percentages. Those who are looking for such a challenge will definitely find this tournament interesting.

The Helping Hand Tournament hosted by Eternal. This involves every entrant coming up with a moveset for a unique Pokemon when they sign up, and players will construct their teams exclusively from the Pokemon with the movesets created by the tournament's participants (nicknamed after the player that submitted it). This tournament will definitely be a fun tournament to play in, since even those who are eliminated early can hope that the moveset they submitted is used successfully by others.

The Wyoming Tournament hosted by elDino. The Wyoming Tournament is Smogon's annual Challenge Cup tournament, in which players use teams that are generated completely at random. The Wyoming Tournament is a fun event and practically anyone can play with little effort. Be sure to watch the Tournaments forum for the signup thread!

Recently Completed Tournaments

This section covers tournaments that ended since the release date of the last edition of The Smog.

The Smogon Frontier V

The Smogon Frontier is arguably Smogon's most difficult tournament to win. Challengers register and then challenge the frontier brains, a group of top players handpicked by the host, Kevin Garrett. To win the tournament, challengers must defeat twelve brains while sustaining a maximum of two losses. Unlike every other tournament on Smogon, there is no guarantee that there will be an eventual winner -- despite there having been four frontiers before this year's, only two players have previously managed to win. This year's frontier had a few new changes: an extra brain position was added, brains themselves were allowed to challenge the frontier, and challengers only needed to defeat twelve of the thirteen rather than having to defeat every brain.

The fifth Smogon Frontier concluded a few weeks ago with yet another champion! Bloo successfully managed to defeat the other twelve brains while only sustaining a single loss, a feat never achieved before. The previous champions, Atticus and Gouki, both conquered the brains with two losses overall. Congratulations to Bloo on this splendid achievement! Some other notable achievements made this year by challengers included: Ciele (8-3), Lamppost (7-3), and FearItsSelf. (7-3). Other challenger records can be viewed here.

The frontier brains also compete with each other to maintain the best win ratios against challengers. Although there is no reward for having the best score, the statistics are recorded on site for posterity. They can be viewed here. Kevin Garrett managed to keep the best win ratio this year, with a win percentage of 78.35%.

The Smogon Frontier involves a lot of manual work for the host, and the efforts made to keep everything up to date should not be underestimated, so well done to Kevin Garrett on another successful year hosting the tournament.

Interview with Bloo

Smogon Tour Season XI

The eleventh season of the Smogon Tour concluded last month, with Golden Sun defeating ENZ0 in the final, losing ADV OU then coming back to take both DPP OU and BW OU to win the series 2-1. Recordings of these battles have been uploaded to Smogon's YouTube channel and can be viewed here (ADV OU and DPP OU) and here (BW OU). Winning the Smogon Tour requires dedication and mastery of a diverse set of metagames, so congratulations to Golden Sun on his well deserved victory.

Interestingly enough, Golden Sun was the first player in the tournament's history of several years to have won the trophy after placing first in the season's final standings. Another interesting detail is that Golden Sun didn't win a single one of the individual tournaments during the main season, yet still managed to earn 40 points (4 points ahead of Heist, who placed second in the final standings). During the main season, Golden Sun's strongest showings were in DPP (15 points) and BW (19 points), while ENZ0's strongest showing was in ADV (18 points). Even though the final results of their matches accurately reflect each player's in-season strengths, all three of the battles were incredibly close.

The Smogon Tour would not be possible without the efforts of the volunteer staff that put aside hours of their time to host the individual tournaments, including Bloo / Iconic who spend a lot of time crunching numbers to update the standings (as well as hosting multiple individual tournaments themselves), and Philip7086 who organizes and co-ordinates the whole tournament. Thank you all for making this yet another successful tour season.

Interview with Golden Sun

Smogon VGC Tournament

Smogon's first official VGC tournament ended a couple of weeks ago, with Tyler managing to overcome Human and andrea in the finals! He has earned himself the currently unique orange VGC trophy () on his forum profile. The finals happened in person at the VGC World Championships event in San Diego, where The Pokemon Company International's tournament finals also happened. Congratulations to Tyler on being the first ever Smogon VGC Tournament champion! Be sure to watch the battles on Smogon's YouTube channel, they are quite intense!

The tournament attracted an impressive 384 players -- a great turnout, especially for a new tournament. Like the Official Smogon Tournament, the VGC tournament featured a single-elimination best-of-three format, but players had to use the same six Pokemon from which they would choose four after seeing the opponent's six. The tournament mimicked TPCI's Worlds Top 8 format exactly, except for the fact that the players could use a new team every round.

Smogon's WiFi Tournament Director, Alaka, did an excellent job of hosting this tournament. Not only did he handle each round impeccably, he also programmed a team submission system to prevent cheating, and was responsible for contacting some of the organizing staff of the official VGC event to check up on certain details. If it wasn't for his efforts, the tournament probably wouldn't have existed, so well done!

Interview with Tyler

THE SPLASHING SNORLAX TOURNAMENT

THE SPLASHING SNORLAX TOURNAMENT was a single elimination GSC OU tournament, hosted by Royal Flush and Hantsuki. The tournament sought to revive interest in the now scarcely played second generation, and succeeded in reaching 64 players.

Golden Sun managed to overcome tournament veteran JabbaTheGriffin in the finals, his Miltank proving too resilient for even a Growth-passed Nidoking to take down. You can watch their battle on YouTube here. Interestingly, since Golden Sun also managed to win the Smogon Tour which had ADV, DPP, and BW, he has now proven himself able to succeed in the four most recent generations' OU metagames, a feat not many people are capable of. Congratulations to Golden Sun, and thanks to Royal Flush and Hantsuki for hosting!

Black/White Walkthrough Tourney

The Black/White Walkthrough Tourney was a tournament in an ongoing series of "Walkthrough-style" tournaments, where competitors are challenged to create teams from a limited pool of Pokemon, items, and moves that are available at certain points in the Black/White cartridge games. Level restrictions are also set, to mimic the levels that people playing the cartridge games would have leveled their Pokemon to.

The tournament was won by snorlax, who defeated runner-ups Bluewind and Cristal in a round robin finale. This was snorlax's second tournament win, his prior win being in The Drought Tournament back in 2009. His team made use of creative sweepers like two Shell Smash users and Sandstorm Excadrill. The team (along with reasoning for his choices) can be viewed here. Thanks to RBG for hosting this tournament.

The Barebones Tournament

The Barebones Tournament was a tournament designed to go back to Pokemon's roots by removing a subsection of attributes that Pokemon can have, including items, EVs, and positive natures (only neutral natures were allowed). The tournament gave competitors a taste of what it would be like if these advanced customizable elements didn't exist without needing to play RBY.

Agammemnon managed to beat his fellow Frenchman Ojama as well as JabbaTheGriffin in a round robin final, both of whom were top 16 in the most recent Smogon Tour. Agammemnon is no stranger to the tournaments scene himself, having already won the Stat Specialization Tournament earlier in the year. Congratulations Agammemnon, and thanks to Alan for hosting.

II tnemanruoT esreveR ehT

II tnemanruoT esreveR ehT (The Reverse Tournament II) is the sequel to the original Reverse Tournament held in 2009, which was won by reachzero. The Reverse Tournament is a difficult concept to grasp, but in a nutshell it involves building a team designed to be unable to stop itself from beating the opponent, then exchanging teams with each round's opponent and trying to lose with the team they gave you. It is by far one of the most difficult formats to adapt to out of those offered in tournaments here on Smogon, and can be very confusing when you first start to play it.

Earthworm managed to beat Eo Ut Mortus in this year's final, after falling short in the finals of the 2009 edition. Earthworm's team matchup in the final battle was highly advantageous, allowing him to win without a lot of difficulty. The battle can be watched on YouTube here. Thanks twash for being an excellent host once again.

RBY OU Tournament

Not long after the GSC OU tournament began, ENZ0 and The_Chaser teamed up to host a RBY OU tournament. RBY is known for its high critical hit rates, constant status abuse, and Tauros sweeps. It is a very fun metagame to play and so despite being a fairly ancient format, it still managed to attract a respectable 64 players.

ENZ0 overcame Earthworm in the finals, becoming possibly the first host ever to win his own tournament. ENZ0 came back from losing the first battle to win the series 2-1, the third battle being so close that it came down to a literal 50% chance. Congratulations to ENZ0, and thanks to both you and The_Chaser for helping to revive interest in this fun and competitive metagame.

The Modern RAINBOW Tournament

The Modern RAINBOW Tournament was named after the original RAINBOW tournament held in 2007 by Dan Dan, which was won by imperfectluck. The tournament involves the host picking one of the colors (or a combination of colors) of Pokemon in the Pokedex each round, and the competitors must then build a team consisting only of Pokemon that the Pokedex classifies as being that color.

Heist defeated kaonohiokala in an all-green finals, which marked his first solo tournament victory. He was well prepared for what he correctly perceived to be a common threat in Reuniclus by having both Calm Mind Celebi and Choice Band Tyranitar, while also taking advantage of the speedy special-attacking powerhouse Yanmega. The final battle was recorded by Eternal and can be viewed on YouTube here. Congratulations Heist, and thanks to hanke for being a great host as always!

Day with an Absent Deity

Day with an Absent Deity was a Black & White Ubers tournament, except with Arceus banned. Arceus is undoubtably one of the most, if not the most, powerful Pokemon in the game, capable of performing a vast number of roles with its ability to be any type and its ridiculously high base stats. This tournament's aim was to find out what the metagame would be like without its most powerful Pokemon.

Bloo was able to win against pi face in the finals in an intense and prediction-filled battle. Both players had similar teams, taking advantage of Ferrothorn in rain and its Spikes. The log of the battle can be viewed here. This tournament marked Bloo's first tournament victory, since it occurred before he conquered the Smogon Frontier. Congratulations to Bloo, and great job to Ditto on hosting!

BW Doubles Tourney

The BW Doubles Tourney was the first Smogon tournament to use Smogon's singles rules for a doubles tournament in the 5th generation. Doubles is a lot more complex than singles, and so tests quite a different skill set. Each turn there are far more possible move combinations, meaning predicting correctly can be much more challenging, especially for someone who is only well-versed in singles.

zarator came out on top of a round robin finals between JabbaTheGriffin, BKC, and himself after an initial three-way-tie. He made use of the powerful Trick Room strategy in combination with Hail to fire off powerful Blizzards initially, and switched to a general powerhouse team with Marowak and Life Orb Snorlax for the second set of matches, as can be seen here. Congratulations to zarator on your second tournament victory, and thanks to StarmanXL for hosting.

Rediscovery: A 200 Metagame Tournament

The aptly titled Rediscovery was a tournament which exposed participants to a mostly forgotten mode of 3rd generation play: the 200 metagame. The RS 200 metagame is a format involving approximately 200 Pokemon, those being the Pokemon that were available when the Ruby and Sapphire versions were first released (when there was no legal method of obtaining the other 186 in a 3rd generation game).

The tournament was won by Earthworm, who defeated veteran 3rd generation player and recent ADV UU tournament champ ]V[ajinTupacZ 2-0 in the finals. The first battle was especially close and it was unclear who had the advantage throughout the match. The battle logs were posted and can be found here. Congratulations Earthworm! It is primarily thanks to Umby that a large variety of 3rd generation tournaments have been hosted in the past year, and they have been hosted to a consistently high quality. Congratulations to Umby on hosting such successful tournaments.

Black & White UU Tournament

Smogon's first ever Black & White UU tournament was recently completed. It was a simple single elimination, single match tournament hosted by symphonyx64, who also is the main person in charge of the Smogon YouTube channel. Black & White UU is currently a relatively new metagame that is undergoing significant changes at reasonable frequency, so competitors in this tournament played a variety of different UU metagames based on shifting OU usage and bans placed throughout the tournament.

In an all French final, Private beat -Manu- to take out the title of first BW UU tournament champion. Congratulations to Private on your first tournament victory, and thanks to symphonyx64 for hosting!

Strikeout Tournament: Black/White Edition

The recurring Strikeout Tournament was once again hosted, this time in Black & White OU format. The concept of the tournament is to allow competitors to eliminate one Pokemon from their opponents' available pools in order to give their team an advantage. The tournament features a gradually increasing ban list generated purely by statistics: each round, the Pokemon most struck out in the previous round becomes banned, and the most used Pokemon in the previous round also becomes banned.

Heist triumphed over Iconic and franky in the round robin finals, using a Drought Vulpix team against Iconic and a balanced team with Gligar against franky, who had struck out Gliscor. Heist has posted the battle logs and they are available to read here. Congratulations to Heist on his second solo tournament win! The Strikeout Tournament is a high upkeep tournament, requiring a lot of manual work on the part of the host, and has traditionally taken a long time to finish. Despite this, zarator managed to host this tournament with a high level of efficiency, so great job on that and thanks for hosting!

The Pro-Choice Tournament

The Pro-Choice Tournament was a single elimination tournament where every Pokemon on your team must hold a choice item. The tournament was designed to test the competitors' ability to build a team with good offensive synergy, and truly tested their prediction skills as well. Innovative strategies involving Fling and Klutz were also allowed, though due to the weak offensive potential of the available Klutz users and the cost of a turn required to Fling (and the lack of a hold item afterwards), strategies like these were not commonly utilized.

Heist continued his tournament winning streak by beating out yondie in the finals. Heist was one of the few competitors to make use of Fling, and managed to construct a team that abused Fling and Protect to eliminate prediction as much as possible. Despite this, facing off against powerful choice users was still very difficult, as you can see by reading the log of the finals here. Congratulations to Heist yet again, you have certainly proven yourself a force to be reckoned with in tournaments. Thanks also to Bloo on a great job of hosting this tournament.

Switch Off Your Mind Tournament

The Switch Off Your Mind Tournament was a single elimination tournament that involved absolutely no forms of switching, except when a Pokemon faints. Competitors are challenged to come up with strategies that take advantage of this rule, usually by setting up a sweeper on a helpless opponent. Players must not only ensure that their teams are not vulnerable to the enemy employing such a strategy, but also need to come up with a way to execute their own strategy and carefully select which sweepers to use.

In the end, it was Agammemnon who devised a team that was clever enough to win the tournament, defeating the other finalists McMeghan and SGV in a round robin. All three finalists used Prankster Whimsicott and Thundurus as well as at least one Choice Scarf Trick user. All three chose at least one set-up sweeper with a move capable of beating Unaware Quagsire, and both McMeghan and SGV made clever usage of stat lowering moves like Flash to give their sweepers an even greater chance to set up, a strategy highly likely to be overlooked by most competitors due to how uncommon the moves are used in standard play. Congratulations to Agammemnon on your third tournament victory, you have definitely proven yourself a great strategist. Well done to Fatecrashers on a well hosted tournament as well!

noSTAB Tournament II

The second edition of the noSTAB Tournament, hosted by DJXO9, very recently concluded. The tournament disallowed players from using moves that get the Same Type Attack Bonus, which meant attacks were generally less powerful than usual. One would think this would lead to the total dominance of defensive teams, but strategies involving Taunt and recovery or a stat boosting move were used to easily counter most defensive teams. Additionally, there are many offensive threats that don't require their STAB moves to be offensively powerful, especially set-up sweepers like Calm Mind Reuniclus and Jirachi.

Bluewind defeated IronBullet93 and Agammemnon in a round robin finale. He managed to succeed with a defensive team, using Dragon Tail Mew as a method of countering Taunt set-up strategies and Calm Mind Shadow Ball Jirachi as a reliable counter to Calm Mind Reuniclus. The logs of the battles have been posted here for those interested in how the finals played out. Good job to Bluewind on coming up with innovative strategies to combat the metagame's biggest threats, and congratulations on winning the tournament! Thanks also to DJXO9 for hosting!

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