Tours and Pokémon Showdown!

Tournaments

We host a lot of tournaments in Other Metagames, so many that we decided to create a queue in the index to keep track! If you're itching to play in one but don't like worrying about tracking timezones with your opponent, we also host daily tours on Showdown! that rotate (you guessed it) daily. The lineup was recently changed to include a popular metagame, Hidden Type. Here is the new roster:

The OMotM ladder was dropped from the lineup because matches are easier to find thanks to the temporary ladder buzz. Plus, the Tournaments room hosts them as well.

Besides the dailies, a few organized tours took place in January. One was the Slacker Tour, which pitted 3-person teams against each other to decide who was the biggest slacker of all! Each player specialized in a format: PU, FU, and Mediocremons. These 'slacker' tiers are what led to the name of the tour because they're filled with Pokemon the bottom of the barrel (and in FU's case, the bottom of the bottom.)

Here's a replay of the final match between trc and Flying Types Rule!: link. Both teams ran Ursaring, a Pokemon so strong it was eventually banned in FU. trc got the upper hand with his Guts Raticate, though, which cleaned up the rest of FTR's team with ease.

Anty hosted the second PU Minitour which had a twist to it. Pokemon above 9% of usage in the 1760 PU stats for November were banned! This cut out a sizable list of PU standbys and players had to run more middle-of-the-pack Pokemon and even a few more obscure threats to succeed.

The finals came down to scorpdestroyer and Robert Alfons: link. The battle opens with a duel between Tangelas and then quite a bit of switching as the players position themselves for the match. Sadly, the battle was an anticlimactic one as Robert Alfons loses from inactivity. Here is a battle between scorpdestroyer and Megazard Z. Maybe from watching the plays in this one you can guess how the finals might have turned out.

To coincide with Hidden Type joining the daily tour lineup, a Hidden Type tour commenced toward the end of the month, hosted by The Immortal. This is a straightforward tour with no restraints other than the commitment to finish matches on time. It's still ongoing in Round 2, so make sure to catch the action as it develops!

Here's a heated match between Pikachuun and Grurk from Round 1: link. A jaw-clenching Play Rough miss on turn 8 by Grurk followed by an Iron Head flinch on turn 9 by Pikachuun seemed to put the odds in Pikachuun's favor. Will Grurk pull out of the offset? Watch to find out!

Pokémon Showdown!

During this month, Flying Types Rule! and Lucina09 were both promoted to Voice, while Kl4ng and Pikachuun were both promoted to Driver!

January's Locked Up concluded its 1v1 challenge recently. The challenge was to play on the 1v1 ladder but with only one Pokemon on your team as opposed to the current format, which lets you bring three and use one. The only player to break the top 500 on the 1v1 ladder was:

February's Locked Up challenge is on the STABmons ladder and players can't have any Normal Pokemon on their team. That should be interesting, considering how prevalent Diggersby, Chansey, Meloetta, and other Normal-types are on the ladder. Good luck to all the players!

Lastly, there was a high-profile Battle of the Week match between two esteemed Other Metagames players. The tie-breaker was quite the spectacle: link. One side had a determined Regigigas, hellbent on getting started, and the other had a gassy Weezing that refused to die. Who were you rooting for?