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If you've missed last week's edition, make sure to catch it here.
The Smogon Premier League (SPL) is Smogon's most prestigious team tournament, assembling a plethora of squads filled with distinguished Pokémon battlers competing in a multitude of Smogon tiers, ranging from the minuscule threats in Little Cup to the behemoths dwelling in Ubers. In the eighth instalment of one of the most highly anticipated tournaments in Smogon's yearly cycle, the ten squads will contend for the elusive Smogon Premier League trophy. This series seeks to address the weekly incidents in said tournament and provide a general overview of what exactly is going on in SPL, as well as featuring highlight matches in the aforementioned tiers. We've asked a few knowledgeable players coming from a multitude of different tiers to chime in and contribute to the weekly editions in order to obtain an unbiased and proficient outlook on the tournament. In this specific instalment, we will be covering everything related to the ninth week of SPL. For all SPL aficionados as well as casual Smogon readers, the coverage of the 8th Edition of the Smogon Premier League is a weekly must-read.
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In this week's edition of Around The League, we will be interviewing two playoff contenders, BIGs ORAS OU starlet Genesis7 and Tigers SM OU player Steve Angello! Will we see them again in the finals next week?
Finch is a funny guy, he's sort of like that kid who would follow your group of friends around at recess and you would tolerate him, but whenever he would invite you over to his house you would sort of ignore it. He’s definitely the hardest worker and the backbone of the BIGs, he does all he can to test and help everyone and anyone; he is very annoying though, but without him we wouldn’t be in this position in the tournament. Funk I played with on Team Canada two years ago, so we were acquaintances, and boudouche I don't think I had ever spoken to before the season. Both of them are great guys who are cool and epic, and Funk is one of the best gamers I know.
I knew that xray and GTM were basically just bringing bisaboard offense in every week of the tour, not that that's bad but I sort of knew the general feel of the team I was going to play against while building. My idea was to bring Mega Alakazam since it outsped the majority of his teams, and then Thundurus because his Steels usually couldn't handle it, and the rest of the team was just building around those two. The match felt like it went by fairly quickly, we were pretty much just chipping each other and trying to prevent the other player from getting off a big hit. He got me first by Energy Balling my Keldeo with his Manaphy on the switch, so I had to claw my way back from that. I got a few predictions right with my Alakazam in the late-game, which set me up for a potential sweep (if I hit Focus Blast), but unfortunately he got the SPA drop from his Clefable’s Moonblast so I had to try to win with my Latios + Landorus-T. I had sort of unintentionally lured GTM into thinking my Landorus-t was the Scarfer (the set was actually an SD Rocky Helmet set to bluff my Rocker and get momentum as he tried to get Rocks up with his Clefable, since Europeans love Rocks Clef for some reason) and I managed to win that way. Basically Alakazam had weakened his Clefable down to 20%, enough for Scarf Latios's Surf to KO and Landorus-T's Earthquake to KO, so I revealed my Scarf on Latios and weakened his Tyranitar with Surf, but GTM didn't clue in and still thought Landorus-T was my Scarfer. Basically GTM needed to sack his Clef to my Lando, come back into Tyranitar, and attempt to high roll or crit with Stone Edge, so the game was still in my favor. But GTM Crunched the Lando instead and realized I was Rocky Helmet, and I just Earthquaked the Tyranitar and Clefable and won.
I pretty much dislike every new thing that was introduced in SM, the meta is too passive for my taste. I just prefer ORAS in every single way. Nothing much else to say.
I think the Scooters drafted a team that is very solid old gens wise and very risky SM wise. I think it pretty much played out that way too. Their season has gone pretty well, I don't think it was spectacular but they had a smart draft so I expected them to be somewhere from #2-5 in the standings come playoffs. Axel10 has had a good season, some people were wondering how he would translate to SPL but it has gone smoothly, and Philip7086 has been having a great season as well although everyone saw that coming. None of the players on their roster have really impressed me though, I guess their retains have been underwhelming (although Jirachee is still the best player to ever do it) so everyone is looking at them to turn it up in the playoffs. Our team is pretty confident that we can win this series, everyone is on the same page and everyone is hungry for this win. It's gonna be a close series just like in Week 5, and I’m excited to see it play out.
The reason why the Tigers' SM OU is working is really simple. We have nothing to lose, and every win we achieve is more than people expected us to get. We got ranked 10 in the power rankings, which really motivated us to do well. The team chemistry is really good, a mix of Brazilians, Germans, and others works really well. It's not like we have a specific builder, everybody builds his own teams, and we share ideas and comment on the builds. There is no brain behind the teams, it's more like getting feedback from the other players. Personally I am testing a lot with every teammate, even with Tamahome. I am testing a lot with Steve Rorongello, Mazar, p2, Gama, and miltankmilk. I am not a fan of testing with people outside a team, but a special mention to Freestylerking, AFOC (GTM), Aurious, Erz, and ben gay. My team trusts me, I can use whatever I want as long as I am playing well, which has worked out so far. I have had a lot crazier ideas but I felt like saving them for later games. A lot of last-minute changes came from Mazar, but that's only finetuning.
I had a rough start in SM OU before SPL started. I had problems winning matches, I played well but always lost my games. I tested a lot with some people and felt comfortable enough to play it. My favorite pokemon in SM OU is definitely Toxapex. This pokemon walls the majority of the metagame and can set up Toxic Spikes, which is just amazing. To be fair, people started to prepare for it lately, and it doesn't work that well like 3-4 weeks ago, but it still does what it has to do. Personally I think we need some changes. I dislike Pheromosa and Mega Metagross. If you don't run Mega Scizor it's really hard to stop Metagross. I wouldn't say it needs to be banned, but its hard to prepare for it, 'cause that means you are most likely weak to other Megas. Pheromosa is just annoying, it works always well against me in tests and I can't play with that Pokemon for whatever reason. People on Smogon still describe me as an offensive player, but during SPL 8 I changed my style to bulky offense or semi-stall. I didn't feel comfortable with that in ORAS, but it's somehow working for me in SM OU. My style is similar to reyscarface's; this guy is just amazing and I personally don't think his wins were donations, 'cause you got to beat everybody and 9-0 is amazing.
The prep versus Zamrock was kinda bad. I had a banking seminar last week and another one currently this week, so my prep vs Anti is not the best either, but it's playoffs time and I will get my stuff done. Originally I had a team in mind versus Obii but didn't get to use it, so I used it versus Zamrock. Actually I didn't have a bad matchup, but he used a unconventional set in Thunderbolt + Trick Gengar. It definitely caught me off guard. The main idea of the team was Z-Baton Passing Curse boosts to Agility Metagross or SubDD Zygarde, For reference, Z-BP negates the Speed drop, which is really cool, give that strategy a shot!. It turned out to not work against him, which kinda bugs me, but it is just a game and my brother played well against me, definitely a deserved week. I don't really want to go into detail in that battle, cause some plays were questionable and a Scarf Koko bluff worked well in the beginning. I played my Pyukumuku rather strangely, cause the Z-FB would have done too much damage, so I decided to keep that thing healthy.
After I got drafted by GoatAce, I wasn't really sure and didn't expect us to do well, because the team was a mix of old and new players. But after the first win in Week 2, we were confident and thought we could make playoffs if we managed to play like that during the regular season. The team atmosphere is really great, I've enjoyed it a lot so far; I was rather busy due to my job, but I found time to be active and talk shit in the team channel. The positive aspect about our team was, we knew we could win but nobody was salty if you lost a match, we win and lose as a team. There were some sad moments, not gonna lie, we were super pissed after donating so many ties to other teams. We could have clutched the POs a week or two before week 9, but it was exciting to see GOAO and FAJI winning for us; probs to you, because you could have just forfeited! Now that we are in playoffs we want to win the whole tournament for sure, but first off all vs Raiders. The Raiders are insanely strong, and we were glad that they bodied us Week 1 so we knew what we need to change to make us a winning team. We know that the Raiders are the favorites to win the series, but we don't donate them this series, we are there to win and impress the crowd. I am personally happy about my general performance; I was able to get more than four wins this SPL, but I am super pissed at some losses, they were really avoidable but that's just criticism on a high level. I am really excited for my second playoffs in my third SPL, and I will do everything to win my match and hopefully it will be entertaining, GO TIGERS!
In this week's edition of Battles of the Week, we will be taking a closer look at the most intriguing games that have taken place during the ninth week of SPL. Let's delve straight into the action, shall we?
BW OU - Jirachee vs LuckOverSkill - written by BKC
This game had very high stakes for Jirachee's team, the Scooters; a win would guarantee them a playoff position. If he lost, they'd have to rely on their Ubers player, Gunner Rohan. Luck's team, the Wolfpack, had just been eliminated, but they were trying their best to win to assist the Tigers in reaching playoffs, and who doesn't like winning for the record books?
Jirachee was coming off a pretty rough season, being 1-5 at the time; Luck, on the other hand, had recorded a solid 4-2.
The classic BW matchup of sand vs. rain strikes us at Team Preview. Generally, Luck's kind of team is solid at handling rain, with two bulky Water switch-ins, one of which inflicts the crippling effect of BW sleep (and a Sleep Talking Specs Latios is a lot less scary than a healthy one, especially when Luck has chosen to use the rare Bronzong over the more common Skarmory) and Tyranitar to cut the weather off (and in some cases even trap Politoed!), and Landorus-T is surprisingly useful with a Choice Scarf set to put on offensive pressure. However, it's not all sunshine and flowers, because with some good maneuvering Jirachee's Starmie, which appears to be Life Orb, can break open some serious holes, especially if it switches in with rain up (which is very feasible because Luck will likely be countering Jirachi with Heatran—Landorus-T is vulnerable to Ice moves, which it's very likely to carry). Once the first holes are broken, the team as a whole starts to not look so fearsome and impenetrable.
Luck's Starmie leads off against Jirachee's Breloom. Bulky Starmie generally runs Scald/Psyshock or Toxic/Rapid Spin/Recover with heavy Speed and HP investment; Breloom can be either offensive, packing Focus Sash, Life Orb, or Fighting Gem, or running a bulkier Toxic Orb set. In any case Rachee feels he could get a better, safer matchup for Breloom to do more damage in, so he switches to Jirachi as Luck doesn't want to take any chances either, choosing to go to his hard Breloom counter, Amoonguss (which also commonly packs Sleep Talk). Jirachee makes a good switch and goes to Politoed; he does not want his Politoed attacking because it's easy to wall with Amoonguss, with Starmie as backup, and it could get trapped by Tyranitar, so it makes the best sleep fodder. However, Luck didn't want to risk any funny business with Jirachi against Amoonguss and thus switched to Heatran, leaving the matchup in favor of Jirachee. Politoed unleashes and hits one of two Hydro Pumps that reveal Choice Specs damage as Luck goes back to Amoonguss and puts it to sleep; Jirachee got his desired sleep absorber, but now he must be careful to only switch Politoed in to set up rain and then immediately back out, lest he give Tyranitar a free trap.
He does this on turn 9, pivoting out to Starmie afterwards; should Tyranitar have come in, unless it was the incredibly rare Scarf set, it'd have eaten a Life Orb Hydro Pump, and that would've assisted Jirachee greatly in winning the weather war. However, Luck merely throws out a Lava Plume, which could be argued was a lazy play, as it didn't really accomplish anything almost no matter what. It was too much of a risk for Jirachee to try a double switch to Breloom there, but perhaps that's what Luck was looking for. However, with Amoonguss in perfect condition, this was unnecessary and forced Luck to fall behind.
Anyway, Starmie is in with rain up. Luck is forced to switch or die, and a switch means Starmie's Analytic comes into effect; despite being resisted, it tears 84% off Luck's bulky Starmie, which is quickly finished off by Psyshock. Luck's Starmie going down means that when Jirachee sets up Stealth Rock, it will stay.
Rocky Helmet Garchomp, a rather forgotten set but excellent at chipping sand's omnipresent physical attackers, is revealed as Jirachee switches it in to take the U-turn Luck's Scarf Landorus-T threatened to revenge kill Starmie with. Luck then makes an incredible bluff, switching Tyranitar into Garchomp; this would normally signify Scarf or Shuca Berry with Ice Beam, but as Jirachee plays conservatively and switches to Jirachi, which would handle both these sets with ease, he is met with a Choice Banded Crunch. Luck squanders this advantage, however, choosing to continue attacking with Tyranitar rather than switching to Heatran as Jirachee was forced to Protect or Iron Head. Jirachi ends up healing quite a bit with Leftovers thanks to this. Luckily all it really costs Luck is half his Tyranitar's health, as the Jirachi is sacrificed to the dangerous Landorus-T' Earthquake shortly after.
This gives Jirachee's Breloom the opening it's been waiting for; it puts the Amoonguss switch-in to sleep, and Garchomp is able to get Stealth Rock as a result. Luck once more flails around attacking when he doesn't need to, eating an Earthquake, and Jirachee makes a great move, capitalizing on the forced switch to Bronzong for another kill with Starmie; had Luck gone to Bronzong immediately, he wouldn't have been in such a bad position, because Jirachee would've actually had to switch into its attacks, not to mention the rather powerful hit Amoonguss took in the process for no gain. Bronzong ends up eating the Hydro Pump and failing to KO back with Earthquake; Luck chooses to sacrifice Heatran afterwards as Starmie's final hit kills it as well thanks to Life Orb. However, it essentially killed two Pokemon, leaving the slow Bronzong at a paltry 34%. Some argued it may have been better to outright sacrifice Heatran, since Bronzong held at least some defensive utility against Jirachee's team, and then go to Landorus-T afterwards to put more pressure on. Of course, going Bronzong immediately against Garchomp was better to begin with.
On the double down, with the threat of two Dragons looming, Jirachee decides to go Breloom, knowing Amoonguss is unlikely to come out and is weakened. He is indeed met with Landorus-T; Luck then chooses to let Tyranitar go down to Bullet Seed before going to his 70% Amoonguss, a quizzical move, seeing as Breloom had been Intimidated. Tyranitar eating a hit earlier already made him more susceptible to Latios, especially with Bronzong down, but now Jirachee is completely free to switch to it and, in the immortal words of pokeaimMD, drop a Draco. It doesn't do very much, meaning it's almost certainly Scarf, but Amoonguss is helpless in return, and Luck's other Pokemon, Landorus and Bronzong, can't switch in. Politoed sets up rain and Latios cleans up with Surf.
We can see here how, in a clutch situation, some players come up big. Jirachee bounced back from a rough season to deliver when it mattered most, with a tough matchup to boot. Life Orb Starmie in rain is a forgotten threat, but unless you have Gastrodon or full health Ferrothorn, you are losing Pokemon to it. Luck made no shortage of misplays, which certainly helped, but to take credit away from Jirachee in this win would be silly.
ORAS OU - Genesis7 v Get This Money - written by Finchinator
In this week nine battle between two SPL rookies in ORAS OU, Genesis7 of the Bigs looks to solidify his team's chances to make the playoffs while Get This Money looked to help his team come back and spoil the Bigs' playoff chances in this final regular season week. Both of these players brought relatively standard teams; GTM's team appears to be more on the balanced end of the spectrum while Genesis's team looks to be straight-up offense. Get This Money has a defensive core of Clefable and Amoonguss supported by various other Pokemon with clear defensive presences such as Mega Metagross, Tyranitar, and Landorus-T. On the other side, Genesis7 brought numerous threatening Pokemon such as Thundurus, Keldeo, and Mega Alakazam in order to pressure the aforementioned defensive core. The match-up here depends on the sets of various Pokemon, most notably Clefable and Mega Metagross on Get This Money's team, but it is seemingly winnable for both parties and could set up to be a close battle!
In the opening stages, both players lead with likely Stealth Rock setters in Landorus-T for Get This Money and Jirachi for Genesis7, and Landorus-T forced out the Jirachi as it used Stealth Rock. The other Landorus-T, of Genesis7, managed to Toxic Get This Money's Manaphy before both players pivoted out, leaving Genesis7's Keldeo out against a Tyranitar from Get This Money. Statuses ended up being traded as Scald burnt the incoming Amoonguss and then Jirachi of Genesis7's was put to sleep by the Amoonguss on the ensuing turn. Then, another pair of switches occurred, letting Alakazam, a likely Mega for the Bigs' kekking ORAS OU player, come in on Tyranitar. Genesis7 fired off a predictable Focus Blast into a Landorus-T switch-in, and then both players switched out, giving Genesis7 the initiative once again as Landorus-T switched out into a Tyranitar for Get This Money while Genesis7's Alakazam pivoted into his own Landorus-T, which should keep the Tyranitar in check quite well. Landorus-T hit Manaphy with Earthquake, doing about half, and then Manaphy used Energy Ball into Genesis7's Keldeo, which was a very good prediction by Get This Money, leaving it very weak. Keldeo's Hydro Pump hit the incoming Amoonguss, and then Genesis7 pivoted back to his Alakazam on a Giga Drain, giving him some momentum once again.
At this point, Get This Money did not want to risk anything, so he foddered off his Manaphy to a Psychic as Genesis7's Alakazam finally Mega Evolved. On the following turn, Genesis7 took a page from Get This Money's book and foddered off his own Water-type, letting Keldeo die upon entry as Get This Money's Metagross, his response to Mega Alakazam, Mega Evolved and revealed Ice Punch, likely in attempt to catch the Landorus-T. Genesis7 then went to the aforementioned Landorus-T and went for Toxic, a ballsy move to use into a Mega Metagross, but he played correctly and hit the opposing Landorus-T, giving him an advantage once again. He proceeded to pivot to his sleeping Jirachi on a Stone Edge and then back to his own Landorus-T on an Earthquake, stalling out the opposing Landorus-T through Toxic damage. Get This Money then switched to his Amoonguss in attempt to preserve the Landorus-T, but he caught a U-turn into Mega Alakazam to give Genesis7 the initiative. In order to regain momentum and get his threat in, Get This Money foddered off his Amoonguss to Mega Alakazam's Psychic, giving Genesis7 a 5-4 advantage.
Mega Metagross followed up once more and used Ice Punch into a Jirachi switch-in from Genesis7, but Genesis7 stayed in with his Jirachi while Get This Money overpredicted and Ice Punched once more, failing to do much damage to the Jirachi. Then, Jirachi woke up and set up Stealth Rock while Thunder Punch and Hammer Arm from the Mega Metagross KOed it, putting the game into a 4-4 position. As we approach the end of the game, Thundurus entered the game for Genesis7 for the first time and traded its life for 60% damage on Mega Metagross, allowing Mega Alakazam to KO it with Shadow Ball on the following turn. After a sequence consisting of both players Calm Minding at points, a Moonblast drop on the Mega Alakazam from the Clefable that was the immediate follow-up from Get This Money, and Mega Alakazam eventually dying, but not before leaving Clefable at 20%, Get This Money had a 3-2 lead, but this game could still go either way in the final stretch. Landorus-T attempted to revenge kill the Clefable, but Get This Money went to his own Landorus-T on the Earthquake, and then Genesis7 went to his healthy Latios and dodged a Stone Edge from Get This Money's Landorus-T as it entered the game. Latios turned out to be the Choice Scarf user on Genesis7's team and used Surf to kill the Landorus-T and chip the Tyranitar before fainting to Crunch. Get This Money's Tyranitar was also Choice Scarf and, therefore, it only had a slim chance to kill the Landorus-T if Intimidate was not in the equation, meaning foddering the Clefable and then coming back in an attempt to get lucky and clean with Tyranitar was Get This Money's optimal play and most likely path to victory. However, in a blunder of sorts, he instead just kept the Tyranitar in on the Landorus-T and lost, as he did not crit and Earthquake proceeded to kill the Tyranitar and Clefable, giving Genesis7 a slim 1-0 victory with a 19% Landorus-T being the last Pokemon standing. Overall, both players brought solid teams and Genesis7 maneuvered around threats and into threatening positions at a higher level, winning this battle in a very close game!
I hope you've all enjoyed this week's edition of Smogon Premier League Week Overview. It was undoubtedly a dynamic follow-up to the intriguing seventh week, and that should only rise to higher levels as we approach the later rounds of the competition. For any further information that may pertain to Smogon Premier League, make sure to check out the following resources:
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