Premier League Spotlight: DPL

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Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Premier League Coverage! Premier Leagues have long been one of the most popular tournament formats on Smogon because they combine the rush of bidding with the collaborative atmosphere of team play. The Smogon Premier League is the largest and most prestigious of such tournaments, but many communities on Smogon have Premier Leagues of their own. Today, we will be covering the Doubles Premier League.

Introduction to DPL

For the third year, Doubles Premier League, or DPL as it will be called from now on, has followed the conclusion of SPL and stands as one of the most important tournaments in the Doubles community. Following finally and Hashtag, I took over this year as the new host.

DPL's format mirrored that of other similar tournaments; each manager was granted 80k credits to use at a live auction to purchase players for a minimum of 3k credits each. The managers were also granted the opportunity to purchase themselves for a set price of 10k credits. Once the auction was completed, managers would create a lineup to face each of the other teams in a variety of Doubles-based formats from current and recent generations. Following a lengthy discussion, it was decided that each series would consist of 6 matchups—3 SM DOU, 2 XY DOU, and 1 BW DOU. Throughout the 5 weeks of the regular season, the six teams would play each of the other teams in a round robin format, with the top three eventually advancing to playoffs, where this year, the second and third teams would face off to face the top seed for a chance to win the tournament.

With a format selected, an auction date picked, and a crop of managers chosen—half of whom were new to managing DPL—it was time to start the tournament.

The Auction

After the dust had cleared and players were purchased, the lineups turned out as follows:

One of the most notable takeaways from the auction occurred before the auction itself even began—though all of the managers are highly regarded as skilled and experienced players in Doubles, both Checkmater and Arcticblast opted out of purchasing themselves pre-auction, hoping to save themselves more credits for players they were expecting to be expensive. Each took advantage of this credit surplus in a different way—Checkmater bought two of the three most expensive players in Stax and finally, who went for 25k and 20k credits, respectively; Arcticblast decided to aim for a large roster with ample room for subs, testing partners, and contributors to back up a rotating list of starters. While Arcticblast's decision made sense to many due to his merely sporadic battling experience as of late, some questioned Checkmater's choice and felt he was worth far more than the 10k credits that would have been charged to him. Still, both took a risk and were the first two managers in DPL to opt out of playing.

Five players were especially pricey in the auction, with MajorBowman having the largest price tag at 28k credits, the aforementioned Stax and finally each being valued above 20k, Demantoid going for 17.5k, and kamikaze costing his manager 16k. Each of these five were highly sought after due to their tournament success, high level of respect garnered from the community, and experience in both building and playing making them likely candidates for fantastic teammates.

Memoric's initial strategy to buy many players whose names started with M in himself, MajorBowman, miltankmilk, Matame, Mizuhime, and makiri appeared to have won over the other managers, with the core of MajorBowman and miltankmilk being fresh off an SPL victory with the Circus Maximus Tigers. Kaori's ability to grab himself, a promising newcomer in Mishimono, and various well-respected longtime contributors in qsns, Level 51, and Dawg was similarly highly regarded, as was Braverius's decision to purchase three of the most decorated Doubles players in SPL in himself, Biosci, and BLOOD TOTEM. By contrast, Arcticblast's draft failed to impress, with his vast roster being criticized for valuing quantity over quality. Overall, many teams seemed poised to make a run for the postseason, so the first week was started soon after.

After getting some time to ruminate on the concluded auction, the managers each sent in rankings of the other five teams, which were eventually tabulated in a preseason Power Rankings, released by GreenGogoatttt. Being ranked first by another manager earned a team five points, second provided four points, and so on, down to fifth place adding one point to a team's total. The rankings, with a maximum possible score of 25 and a minimum of 5, were released as follows:

The Early Weeks

Right from the start, it appeared that predictions for the Rustboro Baptist Church and Mossdeep City Space Jams to do well were spot-on. The former accrued an impressive 3-0 record in the first three weeks and the latter also went undefeated, though they tied their Week 3 matchup. By contrast, the Tohjo Tramplers underperformed and struggled to secure a win, ending up with two ties and a loss after the first three weeks. The New Bark Loud Puppies also failed to claim a win, being stuck at the same record as the Tramplers, though this was slightly less of a surprise. The Six Island Shitposters and Santalune Storms also had a bit of a rough time in the first few weeks, just as preseason predictors seemed to have forseen.

After Week 3, many key players had shown to be worth far more than their price tags—EmbCPT (Church), Matt (Jams), Jhon (Storms), BLOOD TOTEM (Puppies), and Yellow Paint (Shitposters) were the only players with 3-0 records, and all went for less than 10k credits. MajorBowman, kamikaze, and Demantoid appeared to be living up to their lofty price tags with only one loss each, but Stax and finally struggled to do the same, with their combined 1-5 record during the first three weeks being a large source of the Six Island Shitposters' troubles.

These first few weeks also saw a bit of metagame growth, with various sets and Pokémon falling in and out of favor. The combination of Azumarill and Jirachi was one that arose towards the end of last generation, and after Jirachi's banning in SM, XY was the only place where the combination could be used. Many players still disagree with the decision to leave both Azumarill and Jirachi unbanned in XY, but the tier's inclusion in DPL allowed a bit more exploration in how to keep them in check and whether either was actually banworthy. Perhaps even more notable for XY was the high usage of Seismic Toss Mega Kangaskhan. This set was seen as a bit fringe while XY was the current metagame, but the sheer dominance of the set in SM DOU brought XY players to use it considerably more and to decent effect.

Another bulky Normal-type that rose to prominence in the early weeks of DPL was Snorlax; though it saw no use in XY DOU, SM gave Snorlax the ability to use the combination of Recycle, Gluttony, and an Iapapa Berry to reliably heal half its health while setting up with Curse. The set proved to be quite threatening and difficult to take down, with Snorlax rising from being unranked on the Viability Rankings to Tier 2 as a result of many players' success with it in DPL. Conversely, Mega Charizard Y and Tapu Lele, once thought to be two of the best Pokémon in SM DOU, fell out of favor with few uses and poor records evident from the beginning of the tour.

Highlight Match

The first highlight match of the tournament comes from the Week 2 matchup between the Six Island Shitposters and Santalune Storms, an XY DOU game between Stax and kamikaze. Though their teams were ranked fairly poorly in the Power Rankings, Stax and kamikaze have long been respected tournament players, and this particular matchup was a bit of a clash of the titans. Furthermore, Stax brought the much-feared Azumarill and Jirachi combo and kamikaze used Seismic Toss Mega Kangaskhan, showing off two of the most popular sets/strategies of the metagame. At Team Preview, Stax seemed to have a fairly solid matchup, taking on Amoonguss and Substitute Kyurem-B admirably with Mega Gardevoir while possessing the always-threatening combination of Azumarill and Jirachi. However, kamikaze's Mega Kangaskhan posed a large threat, with no Fighting- or Ghost-type to hit it hard or safely switch in. Focus Sash Gengar also helped kamikaze's chances against AzuRachi, Landorus-T, and Mega Gardevoir quite well.

From the lead, kamikaze knew he couldn't afford to let Azumarill set up, as a +6 Azumarill would apply too much pressure early-game and likely leave him on the back foot. Once setup was prevented, both players took turns chipping each other's teams down, using their bulky offensive nature to weaken the opposition in preparation for some sort of win condition and scouting out all potential sets. The game took a bit of a turn when Stax used Jirachi to set up Trick Room, as kamikaze was then able to take advantage of his Mega Kangaskhan's recent paralysis to bring Stax's Mega Gardevoir low on health and use the pressure that a slow Mega Kangaskhan could exert to set a Substitute with Kyurem-B.

Though kamikaze was able to correctly call Stax's switch from Landorus-T to Jirachi on the last turn of Trick Room, Jirachi's fantastic bulk allowed it to take Kyurem-B's Earth Power and stick around to redirect Kyurem-B's attack the next turn, letting Mega Gardevoir fire off a Hyper Voice and take it out even behind its Substitute. However, once Mega Gardevoir got off that attack, kamikaze's Amoonguss was able to put it to sleep and then continued to use Spore to incapacitate two of Stax's other Pokémon, eventually leaving only two of Stax's team members awake. With Heatran and Mega Gardevoir asleep, kamikaze identified that Amoonguss could fairly easily pressure Stax's team, switching Amoonguss out to restore its health with Regenerator for the end-game. With kamikaze's team low on health, he had to make aggressive calls, eventually breaking through on Turn 18 with a double KO on Stax's Landorus-T and Azumarill. At that point, it was just a matter of preserving Gengar and Amoonguss, finally forcing Stax to target the Amoonguss and leaving his team unable to break Gengar's Focus Sash before it was too late. With this game, kamikaze ensured the Santalune Storms would at least get a tie for the week, which later was turned into their only win during the first three weeks and a crucial couple of points for their quest to make the playoffs.

The Late Weeks

Though some teams were clearly performing better than others, none fell too far behind, shaping up an exciting end to the regular season. With one battle left in the penultimate week, every team still had a possible scenario that lead them to a place in the finals.

Perhaps the largest shift in the dynamic of the regular season was the Mossdeep City Space Jams' defeat at the hand of the Santalune Storms, putting the Storms in a situation where they were not only likely to make the playoffs but also technically eligible for the first seed. That same week, the Six Island Shitposters also pulled a victory against the Tohjo Tramplers, removing them from playoff contention once the Storms also secured their 2 points.

Despite a large number of possible scenarios leading into Week 4, when Week 5 came around it was all about two big questions; would the first seed go to the Rustboro Baptist Church or Mossdeep City Space Jams, and who would be the third team in the playoffs, the Santalune Storms or the New Bark Loud Puppies? After a season filled with ties, the Puppies struggled to take the last step to secure two points but had enough built up that a win in the last week could be instrumental.

The first question had a rather simple answer, with the two teams in contention for #1 facing each other so that the winner of the series would top the leaderboard. For the second, the Puppies would need to win their upcoming match by more than the Storms lost—sadly, this qualifier ended up being obsolete when the Puppies failed to defeat the Six Island Shitposters. When the dust finally settled after Week 5, the Rustboro Baptist Church had won the right to advance directly to the finals, awaiting the winner of a Santalune Storms vs Mossdeep City Space Jams rematch. The final standings stood as follows:

In order to secure the Rustboro Baptist Church their place atop the standings, Kaori, Dawg, and EmbCPT all closed out the season strong, with at least four wins apiece. Though their seasons were over, Yellow Paint (5-0, Shitposters), TDK (3-0, Puppies), and Matame (3-1, Tramplers) ended up with quite solid seasons as well, helping to keep their teams in the running for as long as they could. Blame could be handed around to various members of the teams that fell short, but no team's season could be called an outright failure.

There weren't many new or largely impactful trends in the final two weeks of the regular season. In SM DOU, Snorlax continued to impress and Tapu Fini further cemented its place in the metagame, with Mega Gengar rising slightly in favor in response to these trends. In XY, two Tier 1 Mega Evolutions showed varying trends; Mega Gardevoir ended up with a very successful 77% winrate, but Mega Charizard Y was quite unsuccessful, winning only 17% of the time.

Highlight Match

After a loss and two ties, the New Bark Loud Puppies could really use some extra points Week 4, but faced with the 3-0 Rustboro Baptist Church, this was no small feat. During that series, this game between Kaori (who went by SamVGC at the time) and DragonWhale demonstrated one of the more dominant and prominent teamstyles in SM DOU from Kaori, who effectively used Tapu Fini, Zygarde, Mega Salamence, and Snorlax to break holes for each other, with his team eventually becoming a sample team.

At Team Preview, DragonWhale appeared to have a pretty decent chance to win—with Alolan Ninetales for Kaori's dual dragons, two solid Tapu Fini checks in Mega Gengar and Shaymin-S, and either Hoopa-U or Shaymin-S to cripple Snorlax by stealing its Berry or lowering its Special Defense, DragonWhale had the major threats covered in one way or another. However, Kaori changed the tone of the game by setting Trick Room Turn 1, as the majority of DragonWhale's team was rather fast and frail, leaving it susceptible to the reversed turn order. With Trick Room set, Kaori's Eruption Heatran was free to fire off a few attacks with an allied Zygarde there to take on DragonWhale's Heatran.

After stalling out the turns of Trick Room and only losing a couple of his less crucial Pokémon, DragonWhale did his best to take back control. Using Mega Gengar to burn Kaori's Snorlax and trap his Zygarde while Alolan Ninetales took the field, DragonWhale was able to take out Zygarde and weaken Snorlax to the point where it wouldn't be a large threat; that is, until Kaori's Mew took the field. Setting Trick Room again, Mew was then able to provide Snorlax extra turns to set up and deal significant damage to DragonWhale's Landorus-T. Despite DragonWhale's best efforts, Kaori's Snorlax stuck around long enough that, on turn 11, Mew was able to use Z-Transform to bring another Snorlax onto the field, this time with full health, no burn, and a few turns remaining of Trick Room. At that point, it was just a matter of cleaning DragonWhale's team with a few boosted attacks, further supported by Kaori's Tapu Fini using Swagger to safely and sharply raise its Attack.

The Playoffs

First up in the postseason, it was the Santalune Storms against the Mossdeep City Space Jams. With identical records during the regular season, down to the number of games won, it was certainly built to suggest a very even semifinal. Predictions such as these would prove correct when, at the end of the week, neither team managed to secure the necessary four wins, and a tiebreaker had to be called, with each manager selecting one tier to add to the required SM DOU game. At this point, the Santalune Storms were 10-2 in XY DOU, so their selection was obvious. When the Mossdeep City Space Jams chose SM DOU as the third tier, the tiebreaker was set, and whichever team won two of the three games advanced to the finals. The Space Jams started off strong, as Pocket defeated Tman 6-0 in a game of SM DOU that favored him with a positive matchup, well-made plays, and a few crucial crits. However, Storms heroes kamikaze and Jhon pulled through in the end, raising their records to 5-2 and 7-0, respectively, and bringing the Space Jams' season to an end. This left a rather unlikely finals matchup, with the chosen lineups as follows:

#1: Rustboro Baptist Church (1) vs #2: Santalune Storms (4) SM Doubles OU Mishimono (3-2) vs Tman (2-2) Kaori (4-1) vs Hashtag (2-2) EmbCPT (5-0) vs Psynergy (0-0) XY Doubles OU Dawg (4-0) vs Jhon (7-0) (DNP) mrbopper (2-2) vs kamikaze (5-2) BW Doubles OU qsns (3-2) vs AuraRayquaza (2-3)

When these two teams faced in the first week of the tournament, Rustboro Baptist Church picked up a quick four wins and the overall victory before the Storms could take any games. However, since then, the Storms changed up their lineup significantly, with only two slots, kamikaze and AuraRayquaza, staying the same as when the two teams originally faced each other.

Kaori and Hashtag faced off for the chance to get their teams on the board first, where Kaori was dealt a rough matchup against his Tapu Koko team that was made nearly impossible to win when his Tapu Fini struggled to hit its moves. Ultimately, Hashtag made the plays necessary to pull through with his team, giving the Storms a huge confidence boost and showing that this would not simply be a repeat of Week 1. Next, Psynergy's first match of the tournament got off to a strong start against the undefeated EmbCPT, with him taking out Mega Salamence and stealing the opposing Snorlax's Berry. However, EmbCPT pulled the match back with the help of Calm Mind Tapu Fini, bringing the overall match score to an even 1-1. With this game, EmbCPT also clutched a perfect 6-0 season. The next game played was another rather hax-filled match between AuraRayquaza and qsns. Though qsns was able to pull through with the help of Swagger in Week 1, AuraRayquaza came out on top this time, despite a crucial missed Zen Headbutt, thanks to full paralysis and Muddy Water accuracy drops leading to a missed Ice Beam on the penultimate turn of the game.

Hoping to even out the score again, Mishimono took on Tman, who had only left the Storms' bench Week 4 and thus hadn't faced the Church before. After a few turns of not much happening, Tman created a very pressuring position when he set Trick Room and used Transform to have two Snorlax facing a team with no Ghost- or Fighting-types. Despite an unfortunate Seed Flare miss, Mishimono eventually used careful positioning and attacking to take out both Snorlax on Tman's side of the field, relieving the pressure and bringing the game to a near-even situation. In the end, the pressure got to Mishimono, and on Turn 15, he sent out Landorus-T even though Mega Metagross could have given him an advantage for the final few turns. Tman took advantage of this choice, pulling through with another win for the Santalune Storms and bringing the score to 3-1. With a chance to clutch the whole tournament, Doubles OU Tier Leader kamikaze didn't disappoint his team, once again skillfully using his favorite XY team to defeat his friend mrbopper, albeit with the help of a few minor dodges.

Closing Remarks

With that, the Santalune Storms, universally ranked last by their competitors preseason, were crowned champions of DPL 3! It may not have been the smoothest path to victory, but with a wide number of players on the bench, the team was able to rotate out struggling players easily and really got into a groove at just the right time. I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who helped the tournament run smoothly, as the hosting experience was ultimately an incredibly rewarding one. Without Orda-Y, the auction would have been a logistical mess, and he even volunteered to stay up until nearly 4am to keep watch over the auction just in case something went wrong. The managers were all professional and helpful, players ensured that games were all completed on time, and through the efforts of everyone involved in the tournament, I didn't end up having to resolve too many problems with executive decisions.

DPL will continue to be an important tournament for the Doubles community, but it was especially so this year, helping SM DOU to quickly develop following the bans of Jirachi and Kangaskhanite and giving newer or less experienced players a few chances to shine and prove their worth in high-level competition. Catch you all next year!

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