This win was unexpected to say the least. After our 2-10 start to the tour I thought we were effectively out of playoffs, but that just made the turnaround even more fun. I'm super proud of my team for continuing to keep faith even when it seemed like we had no chance, and it eventually paid off thanks to some clutch wins and timely luck. My goal before the draft was to get a group of players that gelled well together, were self-sufficient, and were able to pull out wins under pressure. I'm really happy with how my team turned out, and it's been a rollercoaster of a season. Here are the individual shoutouts:
Catalystic Thanks for being a great assman. I really needed your discord abilities at the beginning bc im hopelessly incompetent, and your
luck skill came in clutch for us for like the last 3 weeks. Considering we built a total of 3 teams over the course of the season, 5-2 is a pretty damn good record. I think i paid like 20k for you but it was absolutely worth it, you're one of my best friends on the site and you're a great player too. Thanks for a great season.
skysolo14 This is the 4th or 5th time I've teamed up with you in team tours, and it's the same inevitable result: The team wins, and you deliver when it counts. I felt confident giving you any type of team bc you can pilot everything so well, and you did it nearly every week (except that one time when u called ho-oh a 'bitchmade' mon and then got destroyed by it). Thanks for being a consistently toxic yet positive presence.
Alkione You probably had the least lines out of everyone in the chat, and every one of those lines consisted of meaningless drunk texts or "VIVILLON". That being said, you still managed to pull off that insane win in finals which I'm gonna remember for a long time. CM unecro and mmy vs 2 dark types is a horrible mu but you somehow did it. Thanks for your weird french memes that nobody understands, and maybe next year I'll let you use vivillon :)
GRNBLN You really bounced back in this tour after a rocky start, and honestly played every game super well. You were one of the players I had my eye on before the draft and I'm really glad I was able to get you. You won some pretty important games late in the season, and I knew I could count on you every week.
absdaddy When you told me that you wanted to play oras ag i was super hyped bc I know how good of a player you are. I think we were on the same page nearly every week when it came to teambuilding and the result was some pretty fire HO teams. Sucks that the matchups were heavily against you multiple times, I think you could've gone undefeated if you hadn't gotten bullshitted in half the games. ORAS is a rly haxy meta but I hope it was fun regardless, for me the 10k was definitely worth it :)
Quaseem I know the results didn't go the way you wanted them to but that shouldn't take anything away from the effort you put into this tour. It was your first team tournament so the pressure was understandably different, and you were quite unlucky with matchups and got punished for a few minor misplays. You def got better as the season wore on and I look forward to seeing you improve in the future.
Viduf When you asked me for a tryout I was kinda shocked bc I hadn't seen you online in like 3 years. Clearly the rust didn't get to you bc u played at a rly high level in tryouts, and were super helpful with the oras prep throughout the season. I wish we could have played you more, you're still a great player and hopefully you get back into USM ag too.
Luthier i think u disappeared after losing with vivillon (Sorry Alkione) week 1, but I don't rly blame you bc our chat was pretty dead lol. Thanks for showing up again at the end, you're an entertaining presence altho u bully me too much :[
Alpha Rabbit definitely the good luck charm of our team. The second i put u in the starting LU, our results started turning around and you played rly well individually as well. Sucks that you couldn't win with THE team but u did a great job regardless. I'm surprised at how quickly u picked up the meta after not touching it for a long time, it just goes to show how skilled u are.
Ratkiller Really sorry we couldn't get you a game this tour, but your presence in the chat was still very appreciated. You were always willing to help in usm and oras despite not playing, which a lot of people wouldn't do so thanks for that.
Lasen top tier shitposter as usual
Final Thoughts:
I decided not to play this tournament because I was sick of the stale state of the metagame, and while an enjoyable experience, this tournament has made me realize that gen 8 can't come quickly enough. The vast majority of our teams were old squads from mine or cata's builders, but they still performed well bc the meta just has not developed significantly. This tour also highlighted the importance of using stuff you're comfortable with over out-prepping the opponent, as we learned the hard way in the first Abs vs Chloe game. I'd like to echo
Zenithial 's earlier point that skill matters so much more than metagame knowledge - my team had only 2 real ag mains (quaseem and grn) but we still did well because of the experience and ability of the rest of the squad. Thanks to the rest of the managers for making this a fun tournament and a special thanks to
Perish Song for hosting. Go Dooms!