Tournaments The SPL XI Advance Postseason Thread

[BKC]

(set it to loop)​

Hi guys,

I put a lot of hours into Advance this season and wanted to make a resource in case anyone liked what they saw. I will not post teams to be copy and pasted - I want this to be a learning tool more than anything, which is why in addition to the teams I used/tested/thought of using, I will also be posting my thoughts on how I look at teambuilding and the metagame as a whole; hopefully that sparks some discussion since many successful players do things differently than myself. I hope other SPL participants will do the same, especially since ADV won't be in WCoP and we have several months before the next big tournament with it, Callous 4.

My general teambuilding philosophy (INSANELY LONG)

For newer players: my hope is that this ridiculously long drivel will let you understand how I like to do things, and that that in turn can help you discover your own style. I think it's important to have this out in the open for anyone who's trying to get a grasp on preparing for their own tournament games. It can be daunting when you see some tour players talking about how they perfectly read their opponent's tendencies (I personally find a lot of it to be hot air), and sometimes I'll get PMs regarding teams from less experienced players who are clearly trying to take their cue from that kind of thing - I'll mention a weakness to (insert top metagame threat) and they'll say that their opponent doesn't use it so they're ignoring it. I'm here to tell you that that you do not have to engage in such guesswork in order to succeed - in fact, it is my opinion that such guesswork leads to inconsistency, which is the opposite of what you want. It's the same thing as prediction - no matter how good you are, it is really, really tough to win consistently solely by reading your opponent. I believe the method of focusing on yourself is a more consistent, attainable way to success.

About me: I do not like to gamble in the matchup department - I like to at least try and cover everything to a reasonable degree, because one of the most awful feelings to me is when I don't even have the option of outplaying my opponent because I was excessively weak to a threat. This is not to say that I only like sticking with "safe" options - most of the teams I used are hopefully testament to that. However, there is a fine line between between being too afraid to divert from those overtly safe, standard options and being unnecessarily risky. Some element of matchup will always be present no matter what tier you play; of course you would like to consistently have good matchups, but since it is hard to get a significant natural advantage over a well-built team in Advance, I believe a team should at least be able to play around things. This is a big theme in how I like to approach things - believing in your own ability to play the game as opposed to hoping one of your Pokemon nearly auto-wins against the opponent. The power level is not high enough for this to work at all consistently in gen 3.

I tested every kind of team there is in this season of SPL, but I used SkarmBliss seven times in nine games. This is predictable on paper, but I like them because they work even when you know they're coming as long as you are smart about the specific countermeasures certain good players will bring to attempt to really shut them down, i.e. MagDol. That's why they as well as Tyranitar and friends are the best Pokemon around. As you'll see in the teams section, it wasn't as simple as "SkarmBliss to win" - it was a matter of what was doing best for the team. However, as good as they are, they aren't invincible. They can dance around most things with the right support and good play, but the aforementioned MagDol tends to lock them and their most common lineups (Tar Gar Pert + filler (Dug, Moltres)) down quite hard. They need to be taken into account, lest you get caught unprepared and taken advantage of for a loss you can do very little about due to your lack of tools to deal with them. My preferred method was not to try and play matchup guessing games with my opponent, but to support the SkarmBliss I anchored on with Pokemon that could pose a threat to common anti-SkarmBliss tactics, even without Skarm and its Spikes. Anti-anti-SkarmBliss, if you will. This makes it sound like SkarmBliss was the focal point of my teams each week - it wasn't. They just happened to fill the roles my team needed the best because they are top tier Pokemon. The idea about playing to your own strengths can be seen in trying to support them through their disadvantageous matchups, as opposed resorting to matchup guessing games where you debate on not using them because you are afraid of getting counterteamed.

Of course, I didn't go into each week hellbent on running another SkarmBliss armada - I even tried to shy away from them, if possible, just because it is natural to want to mix it up, but while it's a nice idea to keep your preferred style for later, it's not like just because you didn't use it earlier means your opponent is suddenly not going to be prepared for it in later weeks, especially if you're known for using it. That's why I ended up preferring to use them so I was sound defensively while making up for their potential flaws with the rest of the team. The thing about SkarmBliss is that while you don't need to shoot for autowins with MagDol in order to beat it, doing so consistently is not easy, and that kind of power is what draws me to them. As such, when I was testing other kinds of teams, I would not consider anything that could not reliably beat them - high-risk medium reward stuff wouldn't cut it. SkarmBliss and friends are the gold standard for a reason, and if a team cannot beat them it is not viable. Even if I did not fully expect them from my opponent, it is not acceptable to flail around without recourse against the most common style in the metagame. I do not like losing because I was completely helpless against top threats. This is why I like my teams to have a little bit of everything - I lost count of how many times I said that the goal of my team was to have my cake and eat it too. I want to have good offensive synergy and options to hit the opponent hard, but I also want a backbone to fall back on because Advance does not have such screaming levels of power and speed that you will be able to consistently just outrun and overwhelm everything. I want to be able to handle threats, but I don't want to attempt to wall everything perfectly, either. Not only is that unreliable given the diversity of threats we have, the kind of play those teams require is highly exploitable as well, so I want some flexibility and to be able to hit back.

This brings me to my next point - even though I prefer to use what I believe works best, this also does not mean that I live in a dream world of prep and matchup not existing. I fully recognize the importance of being aware of your own tendencies as well as your opponent's. However, I do not like the approach of over-analyzing your opponent's usage statistics and compromising one's team to try and gain an advantage. This is risky, unreliable guesswork. For example, let's take a statement often made when analyzing someone's usage stats: "x hasn't used y Pokemon yet." Does this mean x is likelier to continue to not use that Pokemon and that should be abused, or are you rolling the dice by assuming they're going to do that? How do you know they won't use it now specifically because they haven't used it thus far? You don't, and that's why I think it's better to not put too much stock in that kind of thing. For my own example: I didn't use a single Suicune or Claydol for my first eight games, then used both in my ninth. Was it more predictable that I would continue to not use Cune/Dol/both, seeing as I hadn't thus far (and don't very often), or that I would bring Cune/Dol/both specifically because I hadn't brought it thus far? I have seen many people argue the latter when talking (usually ex post facto) about how obvious someone's team choice was, and I think that train of thought is ridiculous. There were several other top-tier Pokemon I hadn't used all season, either - most notably Jirachi and Snorlax - who are just as much "not my usual style" and "good for this matchup" which in theory would make it equally obvious I would use them. For that matter, I didn't use a single Dragon Dance Tyranitar, either, or a single Choice Band Metagross. At this point, isn't it more reliable to just prepare for the metagame? While you're at it, wouldn't you want to be good against my usual style, just in case I bring it again? Sure, if there's a tendency you think you can exploit, go for it, but don't (unreasonably) compromise yourself to do so - it's just not necessary and doing so will often lead to frustratingly mixed results if that is the main thing you rely on.

Most of the time, you can never really know why the opponent brought what they did in previous games, which already makes the whole exercise of trying to extrapolate how they're going to tackle you a bit dicey to begin with. There are exceptions of course, like if someone brings Heracross against a known MagDol spammer, or CroCune against someone who likes standard defensive teams, or someone bringing a team they liked against someone. This stuff can be helpful in helping you make an informed decision team-wise; however, getting too caught up in it can definitely burn you. Against an opponent who is reasonably diverse, more often than not you will not be able to reliably, accurately "figure out" (quotations because I view it more as guessing with ex post facto justification) why they brought what they did - like, if someone brought Cloyster offense, was that meant to abuse someone's tendencies (possible) or just a strong team (also very possible)? Again, in some cases it's obvious, like against a MagDol spammer, but in most cases people who brought Cloy offense just brought it because it's a very strong team (as seen in the many times it popped up in the past two SPLs).

The reasoning could be anything from "it's just a team they liked" to "they brought x to counter y that they expected because of prior use of z." The latter operates under the risky assumption that the opponent will try to counter their style the way you expect them to, and as such it is incredibly difficult to consistently accurately predict how they are opponent is going to tackle your style, so if you put all your stock in that then things can very easily go wrong. No matter how logical you might think such a choice would be from them, you can't guarantee they are going to be thinking that way. You don't want to be saying "idk why he brought that, my regular teams destroyed it" after the game as a result of relying on your opponent thinking how you wanted them to.

Again, if it's apparent why your opponent made such team choices, it can be useful in helping you decide what to use, for sure. Facing someone who just goes with what they like? You can either do the same if your team is all-around solid. You want to be careful that their usual style doesn't naturally match up well against yours, because doing otherwise is silly, but the idea is sound. You can also try to get a leg up if what they tend to like has some potentially nasty weaknesses. However, you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket - is it really necessary to do so? Is it really worth it to suddenly be at a needless disadvantage if and when your opponent switches things up, which they are absolutely capable of as a good ADV player? I don't think so. Facing someone who tries to get a leg up team-wise on their opponents? Maybe you should mix it up a bit, but this doesn't mean you have to completely abandon the metagame as we know it. Facing someone who has a defined style often exploited by a certain threat? Go right ahead and bring that Heracross or that CroCune, but keep in mind the importance of the supporting cast, which you will need to handle the rest of the metagame if and when you do not get that matchup where your big guy isn't going to steamroll.

As for abusing tendencies, I'm all for it - for example, if someone rarely/never uses Milotic, it might be a great call to use MixTar, MixMence and/or MixPert. If I have those guys and don't face Milo, I'm happy. However, I'm not going out of my way to make a ridiculous team that relies entirely on not facing Milo at all - I'm using a team that's generally effective, because the opponent could absolutely bring one and it would be stupid to lose to a top metagame threat because I felt I needed to rely on matchup more than my own play. I should be able to be effective even in the face of Milo; this is why I like Cloyster, who can punish Milo with Spikes while avoiding getting trapped by Magneton, dumping on Claydol and even packing offense with boom. Milo Skarm teams can't afford Gengar so Cloy can even run Rapid Spin to reset Skarm's pressure. Have cake, eat too.

So many times over the years I have seen "no way he brings this Poke" only to face it at lead. You can have your preferences on what you'd like to face, of course, but be prepared for anything - this is generally my standard and I think it is reasonable. Being unpredictable is nice, but I don't think the differences in methods used to deal with certain teams are so vast that one needs to pick and choose, so I don't think one needs to sacrifice team quality just to fulfill some sort of self-imposed diversity quota that their opponents might not even take into account. In week one, I was testing a CurseLax team - this is the last thing anyone would expect from me. However, just because it's not expected doesn't necessarily mean it's a good choice, and it consistently faltered. The Hariyama I ended up using was not expected either, but the key difference was that it was far more generally effective.

Relying on this guess-heavy approach too much takes the ability to actually play the game out of your hands, which is not my preference. I think it is best to strike a balance between awareness of tendencies and still making a team that works against the metagame. You can never know when x player will completely surprise you and bring y Pokemon/style that they usually don't. However, you can know that your team covers the metagame at large, which I think is crucial in a best of one environment, especially because a good Advance player can use anything. I prefer this reliance on myself and playing my own game rather than rolling the dice and being reliant on what the opponent does. I'm not saying all my teams are perfectly crafted entities, equal at worst in all matchups, allowing for the sole factor in determining a game's outcome to be my playing - that'd be ridiculous. However, I would never go into a game absolutely praying I wouldn't face something, as I don't believe a good Advance team needs to do that. I'm also not saying that my method is the one correct way - the continued success of players who disagree and succeed with different approaches is testament to that. Finally, not all teams are equal in terms of risk, and I'm definitely not saying you should never take a chance with your teams; I just want to stress the importance of thinking it through.

One last thing I want to say on this subject in case anyone has the wrong idea: I am not accusing anyone in this SPL pool of ruining the metagame with their threat-neglecting cheesy matchup-fishing teams. On the contrary, I thought this year was excellent in that regard, and in fact I'll be talking about some of my favorite teams others used later on. The reason for this lengthy diatribe is because I want this thread to be a resource for anyone willing to learn, and as mentioned earlier, I see a lot of newer players holding themselves back by going about their team choices in such a risky manner, so I thought it would be useful if they could read about what's worked for me. However, my goal is not to inspire a bunch of mini-mes - I want players to shape their own identity. As I said in the previous paragraph, my way is not the only one that works; I have debated this topic with many other successful players who see things differently, and their ways are just as valid as mine.

While the teams I used were for the most part built by me (not about my ego - the competitive move is to use the best team for the job, and if that was someone else's, so be it; I tested many teams from other players, they just didn't happen to feel right), it'd be dishonest to claim that my teams were a product of my effort alone - I was lucky enough to have a terrific crew in my corner, always willing to discuss the 7-10+ teams I rifled through each week (with the exception of the one week where I think I breached 30), listen to my complaints about the metagame/everything being unviable/best of 1, test, and above all reassure me that despite my greatest fears, my opponent would not run more than 6 Pokemon. An infinite amount of thanks goes to ABR, Star and especially Asta, as well as Tony for making sure my head didn't explode and giving me permission to watch a movie instead of building even more teams. Also thanks to the tests I got from the rest of the Ugly Swans - pasy, Sunny and UD - and everyone I played on ladder.

The teams

Watchmen

vs. Conflict

Hariyama is awesome because it absolutely shits on MagDol, allowing me to run Skarm safely. It also easily counters MixTar, which is highly useful since I have Swampert as opposed to the standard Yama team's Milotic. Speaking of that standard Yama team, which can also run SpDef Zap > Milo as zf alluded to in his excellent post, I considered it, as is natural when Hariyama is the focal point. It is a solid team, and it feels wrong to call it slow and weak, but I wanted to be faster and stronger, so there you go. It was mainly a playstyle thing - I preferred to be less reactive and more proactive. This meant my beloved Modest Zap. I also preferred to have a water over Claydol to help against Metagross and Salamence, and it couldn't be Milotic, as otherwise Aerodactyl would rip me apart, so it was good old Swampert. Finally, my handy-dandy physical Tyranitar made the team more confident against CM Jirachi and Celebi while providing the last line of defense against DDers, as it always does. It also makes the team more offensive, as it consistently threatens the opponent's special sponge and proceeds to put a ton of pressure on their team in conjunction with Spikes. Some people said this team struggles with Skarmory, but I don't think so - it has plenty of resilience between WishBliss and RefreshPert as well as a lot of pressure from Knock Yama and Spikes + Modest Roar Zap and 4 attack Tar.

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew

vs. dekzeh

I love this team. It has constant, synergetic offensive pressure with the double mixed attack that instantly threatens a ton of teams, it has the speed to reliably clean up against faster teams thanks to Aero, and it has great defensive synergy without easing up on the gas thanks to the amazing combination of MetaMence. Skarm doesn't just Spike but contributes offense in its own way with Taunt to shut down opposing defensive guys, and even the dedicated wall Blissey has Thunderbolt to assist in beating down opposing Skarm while helping a lot against Suicune. Speaking of Bliss, it goes such a long way since it lets me run an aggressive team without fearing the strong, fast special attackers that most aggressive teams are fearful of. Sing also could've been quite cool here, as sleeping something would've been highly abusable by Blissey's hard-hitting teammates.

Down

vs. pasy_g

Similar idea to the above, except this time the offense consists of the incredibly dangerous BP Zap + Breloom combo. Also makes use of another excellent combo, the lovely triple fight Loom set paired with Pursuit Tar I posted about here. Tar is BlackGlasses to help against SpDef Gar. This also let me run a Blissey set I like quite a lot: SBoiled / SToss / TWave / Counter, with max HP and Defense. I was originally gonna run Roar Zap again but was semi-concerned with Celebi, given Breloom and all, which prompted ABR to make the excellent suggestion of Drill Peck. Toxic Metagross to mess up offensive Swampert. While I liked Meta for its extra offense and mainly its Snorlax checking, I strongly considered Swampert, and still think it's a fine choice as long as you can reliably play around Lax; Pert notably helps pivot around Fire Blast/Brick Break from Tyranitar and Salamence while also assisting against opposing Pert and slowly weakening opposing Skarm. There's always going to be a bit of defensive give and take on this kind of team, but the offense is reliable and powerful enough to make it worth it.

Mamba Mentality

vs. Teclis

Inspired by an old team from my buddy Jirachee. I also wanted to try a SpDef Swampert, inspired by a set Asta used and messed me up with more times than I could count, as an anti-MixPert measure. I knew I would still use Bold, but I wound up getting way too paranoid about tanking opposing Band Salamence and didn't invest quite as much SpDef as I should've. Speaking of, BandMence is such a monster and I really love using him, especially with WishBliss - I've been a huge fan of this combo ever since 2013, when I spammed g80/gene's team to high heaven (second team here). Finally, my trusty 4 attack Tyranitar rounds the team out, providing defensive security while keeping up the offense, although CB was considered and is definitely worthwhile.

Bojack Horseman penultimate episodes

vs. Altina

I like this style of offense a lot, but as I was testing, I got increasingly paranoid of the matchup against SkarmBliss. It just took one Spike for even bulky Dugtrio to be ruined by Blissey and therefore for the entire game to be lost; it is difficult to make absolutely sure you won't allow that Spike to go up before you can get Dug in on Bliss, even with BP Zap providing momentum. (Spin on Starmie doesn't solve anything.) I didn't want to stake the entire game on that, so I decided to use the dumbest Dug of all time - surviving Modest Ice Beam after a Spike. This of course means seriously cutting into Speed...but the benefit is more important than quite literally anything else.

Something else this team makes use of is specially defensive Celebi. It is an excellent special wall, but unlike Blissey, it checks Snorlax and maintains momentum with Baton Pass. Cele also has great synergy with Starmie, as Mie backs it up against the Moltres it can't wall while fully appreciating the benefits of Cele's Leech - for example, while Mie tends to struggle against Skarm on its own, if Skarm comes into Cele's Leech then Mie can come in and reliably keep Spikes off while remaining at full health, crucially out of Dugtrio range. Cele baiting other Dug for my own Dug is also useful of course.

I'd have loved to have run faster, more aggressive Pert and Tar sets, but I felt I needed the defensive security of the tank and four attack sets, respectively.

Tama also used this team in semis against zom.

2004 ALCS: Red Sox vs. Yankees

vs. CyberOdin

Not winning any awards for creativity with this team, but I believe that you can't force that kind of thing, especially not on a weekly best-of-one must-win basis, so rather than bashing my head against the wall trying to make something less inspired work, I tried to optimize something that is as proven as they come. WishBliss usually isn't seen on this team, but as always, it fits really well, reinforcing its already-solid defenses against potentially perilous chip damage. I also got to use my preferred SpDef Gengar, one that eschews +1 Salamence bulk and focuses entirely on SpDef EVs so that it can still outrun +Speed base 100s, making it more of an offensive threat while maintaining its primary defensive purpose.

Pendulum

vs. marcop

This team has a ton of great combinations: WishBliss + CBMence, WishBliss + defensive Meta, Mence + Meta...and that's just with three Pokemon! I also really love the multi-layered physical defense here - as if the aforementioned trio wasn't annoying enough, especially in conjunction with SkarmMag, they're also paired with one of the most oppressive Pokemon for physical attacking teams to deal with, Wisp Moltres.

Now, it's exceedingly rare that I don't use Tyranitar, and that's because I love Sand Stream, which keeps Pokemon like the otherwise-irritating Snorlax in line and really makes Spikes stick. It'll come as no surprise that I was considering Tar here (four attacks, what else? defensive security, offense, etc.), both over Moltres and Magneton (dropping the latter would require Mence to switch to a mix set). However, I decided that as great as that Tar set is, I wanted the team to be faster and stronger; Molt and Mag together allowed for the best form of that. I just had to make sure that I could handle potentially not having sand, and this does.

Toxic Metagross once again to assist with offensive Swampert.

I actually built this team at the very beginning of the season, and in addition to the Tar variants, I even tossed up the idea of a version with Gengar > Magneton (with MixMence > CB), which I still think is worthwhile.

Untitled

vs. z0mOG

I built this team in September; it was originally more of a fun thing with SD Molt + RD King, but it eventually turned into something legit as hell, and I think it's one of my favorite teams ever - the synergy is firing on all cylinders. Now, once again, there's no Tyranitar. Usually, special offense teams lean heavily on Sand Stream because it turns Snorlax from unkillable behemoth to slightly irritating Poke you'll have to hit a few times to bring down. However, sometimes it feels like it's just there to set up sand, and can feel kind of wasteful. With Protect Metagross as the rock resist alongside Wisp Gengar and even Leech Celebi, Lax is handled. We've also got the same Dugtrio as the Starmie team for the same reasons and it still works beautifully, especially with the double BP. As for Kingdra, it is an absolute monster. I like it fast so it's an immediate threat against midrange offense stuff without needing to set up, but it's still got bulk to survive +2 Salamence HP Flying so can safely RD when it's at +1. Lum Berry is the usual item on Dra, but not having to deal with sand is all kinds of useful, especially in that Mence scenario.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

vs. CALLOUS

A cross between my MagDol team and Star's, blending the delightful Bold Roar Suicune on mine that thwarts Snorlax and CroCune with the Spikes on his. I made the Claydol incredibly fast to help against +Speed MixTar as well as getting the jump on most offensive Suicune. I also used Impish Skarmory to survive CB Metagross' Explosion. My third CBMence + WishBliss of the season...what a combination. Also, my third Tyranitar-less team - in a row, no less. I was definitely feeling the pressure against Snorlax a little more this time around but the team has the tools and then some to be just fine.

So that's the nine. Out of interest, here's the usage from them against the viability rankings through B- rank (as they currently are, they might change after SPL). Again, this doesn't tell the whole story of how I went about things - I tested a lot of teams with many different Pokemon, some of which you'll see in the unused teams section. This is just what I felt comfortable bringing to nine best-of-ones, and the must-win nature of SPL meant I felt I had very little room for error. Having said that, in the end what I brought is the most important part, so let's take a look:

S RANK
Tyranitar - 6/9

A+ RANK
Gengar - 2/9
Metagross - 4/9
Swampert - 4/9

A RANK
Zapdos - 4/9
Skarmory - 7/9
Blissey - 7/9

A- RANK
Celebi - 2/9
Suicune - 1/9
Jirachi - 0/9
Snorlax - 0/9
Salamence - 4/9
Dugtrio - 2/9

B+ RANK
Starmie - 2/9

B RANK
Magneton - 3/9
Claydol - 1/9
Aerodactyl - 1/9
Jolteon - 0/9
Heracross - 0/9
Moltres - 1/9

B- RANK
Milotic - 0/9
Flygon - 0/9
Cloyster - 0/9
Forretress - 0/9
Porygon2 - 0/9
Gyarados - 0/9

Bonus: C ranks used
Hariyama - 1/9
Kingdra - 1/9
Breloom - 1/9

You be the judge. This isn't a thorough statistical analysis or anything, but my notes: not a single Jirachi is pretty nuts - I actually think it's one of the best Pokemon in the tier and like the teams it tends to be on. Also, zero Snorlax stems from the fact that I don't tend to favor the styles of teams it's used on. Same with Heracross and Gyarados. I do like some Spikes stuff with Milotic, I'm a fan of Jolteon and I absolutely love Flygon, but I just didn't end up feeling anything with them (as much as other teams). I wanted to use Cloy quite a bit, but could never quite make anything as all-around reliable with it as I'd prefer. I have a bit of a reputation for disliking Forretress, so no surprises there. Lastly, I'm not alone in thinking the team styles Porygon2 best fits on tend to be strapped enough for slots these days without it adding the free opportunity for opposing Metagross and Snorlax to come in and apply pressure; I tend to prefer the Cele/Hera + Dug combo if I really want to remove opposing Dug. The ability to so perfectly counter non-CB Salamence is really nice, though, and of course Dug doesn't fit on more physical offense teams. That said, maybe P2 for BL is a discussion we'll have soon.

Unused teams
I have a lot more teams I like than tournament games in which to use them - when I narrowed down each week it wasn't necessarily because I disliked the others (though that certainly happened too), but because I had to pick the team I liked most. Here are some that I would have liked to have been able to bring.

I like this form of physical offense quite a bit. Usually, you'll see an Endeavor Swampert in place of Claydol, but I think Dol does a ton of really terrific stuff here:

• Removing Spikes is so, so, so good for Snorlax.
• It is 3HKOed by HP Grass instead of OHKOed.
• It makes the team go from two Explosions to three.
• It is not Dugtrio weak.
• With heavy Speed investment, it helps against Pokemon that usually threaten this style - it dumpsters MixTar and can blow up EndPert + many offensive Suicunes.

My main version had Pursuit Tar + Asta's Salac Gross - a truly excellent set - but I also liked a Pursuit Gross + DD Tar variant.

Though not seen as a traditional member of CM spam, I think Zapdos is worth using on it for a few reasons:

• It provides a reliable way of getting Dugtrio in on Blissey.
• It threatens to OHKO Skarmory, preventing those incredibly obnoxious early Spikes.
• It provides an edge in the offense matchup; we all know how excellent it is at beating down Snorlax, and that makes the CMers threaten to sweep at almost a moment's notice.

Also, Gengar's disruptive abilities are unmatched - it's so much more than a Spikes abuser.

As much as I love Zapdos, and as great as he usually is on spikeless/mixed offense, sometimes the Blissey factor really gets on my nerves, so I decided to employ Weezing, who lured and Exploded on obnoxious Pokemon like Milotic, Celebi, Zapdos and the aforementioned Bliss. I also liked the extra degree of physical backbone it provided.

My aforementioned MagDol team. I like it because it has genuine pressure right from the start of the game, as opposed to the MagDol teams that go all-in on supporting a sweeper that "just wins." It also has really solid defensive synergy. WishBliss + CBMence, of course. bro fist used it last SPL vs. marcop, and marcop used in turn this SPL vs. Teclis.

If you watch my stuff on YouTube, you'll have seen these in action. They're ultimately quite flawed, but they have some great offensive-defensive synergy combinations and are a hell of a lot of fun. The original idea was that mixed attackers are strong but hate Milotic, so Cloyster sets up on it and doesn't care about Magneton and/or Claydol. I messed around with a Smeargle variant because I liked the idea of its faster pace.

I experimented with many permutations of a more full-blown rain assault, including Heracross, many Jirachi sets and UD's Sub RD Cune, but I didn't manage to flesh those out as much. Zapdos is the more straightforward/consistent approach, but Gengar can cause a lot of havoc as a psuedo-suicide lead with its ridiculous bag of tricks.

 

[BKC]

Metagame observations

Stuff I used that I think is meta-relevant

Wish Blissey
Out of my seven Blisseys, five of them were Wish. I absolutely love the sustain it provides for its teammates - there are a million applications but one of my favorites is keeping Skarm going in the face of MixGross. Having a second healing move can also be useful in longer Spikes-heavy games where Softboiled's 16 PP can go down fast. Nice against Dugtrio as well if you're using Bold Bliss (incredibly useful against MixMence), as if it manages to come in at full health and you want to try and stall its Earthquakes, you won't be left without a healing move if you succeed. I love pairing it with physdef Metagross, as it consistently keeps Meta healthy while switching into Snorlax - especially useful at keeping it out of Magneton range, preventing Lax from wearing Meta down and Mag then picking it off.

Taunt Skarmory
Taunt is more useful than ever on Skarm - messing with other Skarm is of course hugely important, and the varying amount of speed creep is symbolic of that. However, another application nearly as significant is dragging in Blissey and preventing it from healing, highly abusable by Skarm's special attacking teammates. If this gains more traction, perhaps we'll see more Thunderbolt/Fire Blast Blissey to at least punish Skarm for attempting this (probably TBolt given the importance of Suicune). Drill Peck is the standard, but it can also run Toxic to handle RefreshDol while also notably preventing RefreshPert from staying in on it risk-free.

BlackGlasses Tyranitar
Lefties can be kind of whatever on Pursuit Tar, and the extra push against Gengar is absolutely enormous - it's still not guaranteed against SpDef Gar, but it's a hell of a decent shot. Useful side effects include really stinging Celebi, Claydol and switching CB Salamence. Also pounds unsuspecting Swampert switches, and can even Pursuit it after as it flees from possible HP Grass.

Celebi
I am a huge fan of Celebi's defensive utility against some of the top threats around - Snorlax, Electrics, both offensive and defensive Waters, and even the occasional Fighters, Breloom and Machamp. I love how it builds off its many switchin opportunities to generate offense for its own team with its incredibly diverse, flexible movepool.

Dugtrio
Dug is as crucial as ever in making offense function against some of the meta's most important walls, and is also one of the biggest impediments to many of the popular offense teams. While there are several nice methods to turn the tables on him, he fundamentally troubles the hell out of them, and I wonder what new anti-Dug methods we'll see in the future.

Aerodactyl
People were down on Aero for a while, but he has reminded everyone why he is such a threat. There are a ton of offensive Swamperts on the highly aggressive teams driving the meta, and Aero preys on them, even providing utility in revenge killing bulkless Jolly DDTars. Defensive teams must fear him, too - most MiloDol-anchored squads are especially afraid of him. It even takes advantage of Skarmory often dropping Toxic for Drill Peck. You can't ignore him because of his winrate anymore (not that anyone ever should've).

Salamence, especially Choice Band
Some were down on Mence following Callous 3. However, while it is not truly metagame-defining, I believe CBMence to be one of the most dangerous Pokemon around; it is easily capable of consistently throwing out its immensely powerful attacks thanks to the many switchin opportunities afforded to it by virtue of its its solid speed that blitzes past the mid-range offensive Pokemon that are everywhere and its Flying typing gifting it a Spikes/Arena Trap immunity. Its hits seriously hurt - offensive Pert + Meta combinations are already fearful of Aero, so just imagine how terrified they are of Mence.

It's not just CB that's terrific, though - mix and DD are also both major threats, with mix being one of the toughest Pokemon to switch around and DD being one of the best Dugtrio punishers. These sets also have Mence's terrific defensive-offensive utility - Intimidate is a lifesaver in every scenario, for example on frailer teams that are struggling against a lategame DDTar, and Mence can use its resists to common offensive attacks - Earthquake, Brick Break, Fire Blast, Hidden Power Grass - to switch in and turn the tables on those offensive teams. If mixed, it can even switch into 3/4 of MixPert's moves.

Mixed Zapdos
This set is gaining more and more traction, usually alongside Spikes and often alongside Jolteon to make for fast, fierce teams. Zapdos' non-TBolt/Hidden Power (almost always Grass now) moves are almost always open to experimentation, and Drill Peck goes a long way against Celebi and Blissey alongside Spikes. Some players even use HP Fighting - being walled by Swampert after the reveal isn't ideal, but the initial blast against Blissey or Tyranitar could be what it takes to break the game open.

Baton Pass Zapdos + Baton Pass Celebi
This core is incredibly effective on any kind of offensive team, with either of the trappers or without. They can pass boosts between them with ease if they so choose, but even without that, they are terrific at maintaining momentum between them, consistently putting and keeping their user in a position to make their team's offense work.

Stuff I didn't use that I think is meta-relevant

Mixed Swampert
undisputed's creation remains incredibly important to the meta and is dangerous as ever - it defines much of how we currently see offense. Defensively, it just about always is paired with Metagross, which is solid but can struggle against powerful Earthquakes, which is why I like Salamence alongside them, whose Intimidate also of course helps soften powerful blows. Offensively, it forces traditional defensive teams to adapt to its presence. Many of my considerations and tweaks were centered around not getting trashed by it - heavy SpDef investment on Swampert, Toxic Metagross, constantly wanting to use Celebi.

Modest CroCune
Asta showed us that this set is dangerous as all hell in Callous 3, preying on MiloDol and standard SkarmBliss alike, and it has taken off since. It's also solid against offense because it doesn't have the typical offensive Suicune problem of crumpling to repeated hits in sandstorm - it can actually safely switch into Swampert and MixTar.

Lead Skarmory
Skarm isn't in the big 5 leads - those would be Zapdos, Tyranitar, Metagross, Salamence and Suicune. While some shy away from leading it because it lacks a truly good matchup against any of those, others revel in its ability to avoid being OHKOed by 4 of those 5 (unless Gross is CB and Explodes) and abuse getting that one Spike as soon as possible. Personally, I've mostly been in the first camp, but seeing some great players succeed with lead Skarm has made me reconsider, and I'm wondering what others think.

Claydol offense (no Magneton)
This style aims to beat down Skarm as it sets up Spikes with Pokemon like MixTar/Gross and Focus Punch Lax, then to spin with Dol, who is preferred to Starmie thanks to its defensive utility. This removes a ton of pressure on the offensive team, letting it breathe without the threat of being choked out by Spikes damage. Skarm might still be alive, but dealing with one layer is better than multiple, and there's even temporary respite as one can switch to their Tar/Meta without being assaulted by Spikes for that turn, continuing the offensive barrage. I like the idea of such teams quite a bit, but haven't been able to make anything I was satisfied with yet, so if we could get some discussion on this, that'd be great.

Blaziken?
Question mark because I'm not yet sure on this one, but Blaziken might be following in Charizard's footsteps - though it's got its issues, namely Dugtrio and less Speed, it packs the fearsome STAB Fire + HP Grass combo with a Fighting move to smack around Tyranitar and Blissey, except Ken's Sky Uppercut has STAB from a much higher Attack stat and can be used without risk against its targets, unlike Zard's Focus Punch. Ken's Thunderbolt neutrality is also potentially huge. Will Blaziken take off?

Appreciating others' teams

Earlier, I mentioned that this SPL saw a ton of great teams from other players, and I'd like to showcase my favorites here.

pasy_g's CB Dragonite + Spikes vs. marcop's Spikestacking CM Spam

I really love the offense that CB Dragonite enables on pasy's team. CB Tar can Focus Punch Skarmory and Swampert's lights out, but then it can't sweep; luckily, Nite will do that for it so that Tar can use DD, and these two alongside Spikes mean Aero is going to be absolutely vicious. The physical pressure here is immense and I hope to see more CBNite in the future now that we've been introduced to the possibilities it opens up.

I'm a huge fan of the longevity-centered approach marcop's CM spam has, with Leech Celebi and Wish Jirachi working against the issue of getting worn down quickly these teams often have. They, in conjunction with Skarm and WoWGar, ensure that they're not missing sand against Snorlax. Speaking of Skarm, it's great because it punishes Blissey/Lax hard and it is great backup against Metagross/Tyranitar so that the three CMers can remain in good condition. Its Spikes also help push the latter two into Dug range.

zf touched on both teams more in his excellent post.

Sadlysius' BP Zapdos balance (used by Alexander)

The defensive core here is solid against offense while packing longevity and being able to pressure Spike attempts from defense. BP Zap into Dugtrio is one source of great offensive synergy, but it can also effectively BPing into CBTar, who is well-supported here to not get worn down by passive damage and thus will have plenty of opportunity to deliver crushing blows.

pasy_g's Tyranitar-less Spikes + Superachi

I like this team's synergy for reasons similar to marcop's CM spam. This one is bulkier with less offensive pressure overall, but makes up for it with Superachi's speedy cleaning ability that is beautifully facilitated by its teammates.

Osgoode's dekzeh-style balance (used by GaryTheGengar)

This team is overflowing with synergy. Donphan is placed perfectly here, as it hard counters the DD Tar that would easily sweep if Claydol was used in its stead. Phan is also going to be able to spin reliably because Umbreon's Synchronize completely ruins Gar and it does not fear Dug at all. This of course sets up the dangerous EQ Snorlax beautifully. If Moltres is Sunny Day like on zf's first team here, Lax is even more dangerous. Celebi can potentially even use Heal Bell so Umb isn't compromised in walling ability after eating a Gar burn. This team is a great example of creativity done right.

Osgoode's Breloom + Moltres Spikes (used by GaryTheGengar)

Sometimes, you just need the option to hit the opponent hard. The addition of Breloom over the standard Gengar is inspired, as it turns the tables on potentially overwhelming mixed offense teams and annoying MagDol teams. It's generally an immense offensive threat, especially against opposing Spikes teams that already tend to struggle with Moltres.

z0mOG's Hariyama + Vaporeon stall

zom used TWave Bliss here, but what interests me is the possibility of double Wish really making this team tough to break. Vap is nice on this team over the standard Milo because Haze blanks Suicune as opposed to getting set up on, and Yama gives major trouble to the kinds of teams that one would want Refresh Milo for.

Altina's Venusaur + Moltres Spikes

This team is absolutely ferocious and I think it is my favorite of the season. Every bit of offensive synergy here is so beautifully aggressive and woven together, most notably Venusaur's antics being ridiculously suffocating alongside Spikes and the merciless Moltres. Fantastic team. It was also used by eden vs. z0mOG.

z0mog's SD Pass Celebi

This team reminds me of my old SkarmMag, except instead of Skarm and its Spikes it dials up the aggression with Metagross and SD BP Cele. SubLiechi Aero is something McMeghan had a lot of success with a few years ago and it's cool to see how effective Aero can be without CB or even without an SD passed. I know there are some other SD Pass experts out there; the style's not talked about that often, and maybe we could change that.

Altina's Skarm beatdown offense (used by Alexander)

This is a terrific example of the Magless Claydol offense highlighted earlier, and it's got Modest CroCune to boot. The first four Pokemon all wear Skarmory down, then Dol resets its progress and it becomes much easier to deal with. As a result of not being pressured by Spikes nearly as much, DDTar is in a much better place to set up and sweep at the end of the game.

This season's usage stats

I'll preface this by saying I don't take winrate percentage stat as gospel - I think it doesn't take into account many crucial factors (there's all sorts of variance going into that statistic) and as such doesn't paint the entire picture. I'd be more interested in looking at games with a certain Pokemon and understanding why it was or wasn't winning. That said, it is interesting to see what's succeeding - from there we can understand why it was successful. We can also examine the main statistic, raw usage, and discuss that.

Let's start by looking at the stats from the last big ADV tournament, Callous 3: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...72L6H0/pubhtml?widget=true&headers=false#gid=

Let's then compare them to the final stats from this SPL, courtesy of zom:

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Tyranitar          |   67 |  69.79% |  49.25% |
| 2    | Swampert           |   48 |  50.00% |  39.58% |
| 3    | Skarmory           |   41 |  42.71% |  46.34% |
| 4    | Blissey            |   39 |  40.62% |  53.85% |
| 5    | Metagross          |   34 |  35.42% |  47.06% |
| 6    | Zapdos             |   31 |  32.29% |  51.61% |
| 7    | Celebi             |   27 |  28.12% |  51.85% |
| 8    | Salamence          |   26 |  27.08% |  57.69% |
| 8    | Magneton           |   26 |  27.08% |  53.85% |
| 10   | Dugtrio            |   25 |  26.04% |  52.00% |
| 10   | Gengar             |   25 |  26.04% |  32.00% |
| 12   | Claydol            |   19 |  19.79% |  63.16% |
| 12   | Suicune            |   19 |  19.79% |  57.89% |
| 14   | Jirachi            |   18 |  18.75% |  33.33% |
| 15   | Snorlax            |   17 |  17.71% |  52.94% |
| 16   | Starmie            |   14 |  14.58% |  28.57% |
| 17   | Milotic            |   10 |  10.42% |  70.00% |
| 17   | Jolteon            |   10 |  10.42% |  40.00% |
| 17   | Moltres            |   10 |  10.42% |  30.00% |
| 20   | Aerodactyl         |    9 |   9.38% |  66.67% |
| 21   | Forretress         |    6 |   6.25% |  66.67% |
| 21   | Cloyster           |    6 |   6.25% |  33.33% |
| 23   | Breloom            |    5 |   5.21% |  60.00% |
| 24   | Venusaur           |    4 |   4.17% |  50.00% |
| 24   | Porygon2           |    4 |   4.17% |  25.00% |
| 26   | Gyarados           |    3 |   3.12% |  66.67% |
| 26   | Heracross          |    3 |   3.12% |  33.33% |
| 28   | Umbreon            |    2 |   2.08% | 100.00% |
| 28   | Charizard          |    2 |   2.08% | 100.00% |
| 28   | Dragonite          |    2 |   2.08% | 100.00% |
| 28   | Blaziken           |    2 |   2.08% |  50.00% |
| 28   | Flygon             |    2 |   2.08% |  50.00% |
| 28   | Hariyama           |    2 |   2.08% |  50.00% |
| 34   | Miltank            |    1 |   1.04% | 100.00% |
| 34   | Registeel          |    1 |   1.04% | 100.00% |
| 34   | Cacturne           |    1 |   1.04% | 100.00% |
| 34   | Gligar             |    1 |   1.04% | 100.00% |
| 34   | Donphan            |    1 |   1.04% | 100.00% |
| 34   | Kingdra            |    1 |   1.04% |   0.00% |
| 34   | Glalie             |    1 |   1.04% |   0.00% |
| 34   | Vaporeon           |    1 |   1.04% |   0.00% |
| 34   | Slaking            |    1 |   1.04% |   0.00% |

• Missing 1 Pokemon from MARCOP9923.
• Missing 3 Pokemon from PASY_G.
• Missing 1 Pokemon from MAILMAN THEORY.
• Missing 1 Pokemon from MCMEGHAN.
• Missing 1 Pokemon from CYBERODIN.
• Missing 2 Pokemon from CYBERODIN.

I will leave my own thoughts for another post, but I hope someone beats me to the punch on comparing them and generally analyzing this season's stats!

As much as I wrote, there still could've been more, but I'll stop there for now. If anyone has any questions about anything please post! I'm eager to help whoever asks, and I'm sure the rest of the ADV community is as well. A huge thank you to each and everyone one of them for keeping this beautiful tier alive. Enjoy discussing!

 

[z0mOG]

I also was planning on doing a team dump with the end of SPL, as I really enjoyed building and experimenting in this tier. I think the teams I used are worth sharing, so I hope people enjoy.

All the teams were either built "from scratch" by me, a previously used 6 that I made up sets for, or an undisputed/triangles original that I altered to my liking. I also shifted my opinions on mons throughout the season based on what I saw through experimenting/other SPL games, so I think my taste in the first and last few weeks is pretty different. Hope that I can at least inspire one or two people to pick up this tier because it is really fun and still very much alive. I'm too lazy to remove the nicknames btw

Also, I uploaded a number of my games from this SPL with live-comm perspective to my youtube channel which I'd be happy if people wanted to check out here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/z0mmm

I mostly just upload live comms, but I would be very interested myself into getting into other types of 'mons related content, especially for ADV with callous cup 4 and adv cup right around the corner OwO

The Teams

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-470647

W1 vs teclis

For week 1, I went through a huge number of options before finally settling on my team. That first "week" of SPL is actually the 3 weeks that follow the auction, so there was a lot of inner turmoil in team selection for me. I originally had wanted something more offensive, but Teclis was one of few players to have a big hard-on for both Aerodactyl and DD Salamence, both of which were beating the early concepts I had. What I opted to go with was a pretty basic TSS team with Roar mence to complement it. It's not too different from your standard run-of-the-mill TSS team, although more commonly you would see Tyranitar as the lead and with Dugtrio, Starmie, maybe even an Electric type as the 6th. Mixmence in the lead slot helps throw opponents off for what they're about to see while still providing utility in it's resists (flying type), roar to punish spike weak teams, and speed. Spikes also synergize particularly well with mixmence as it can pressure the tier's most common spinners and just become a big pain with the extra chip for things like brick break onto blissey, fire blast onto jirachi, dragon claw onto waters. I opted for roar over one of the other options because having the backup panic button for Suicune / other sweepers, as well as just a way to midground switch-outs, makes for good utility on a team that already wants to slow the game down. Blissey is a natural partner for Skarmory to make up the main defensive duo, and both my Skarm and Bliss sets are just the basic go-tos. I've considered both CM boltbeam blissey and tbolt>seismic toss, but since SPL is BO1 and I had an idea in mind of what I'd be facing, I opted to go with toxic and ice beam to be better vs my opponent. Tyranitar and Swampert round the team out, Swampert for defensive purposes and Tyranitar to add sand and a physical breaker so stalemates vs other fat teams don't occur. Lastly is gengar, and I opted with a wisp-taunt set to be the most painful vs other TSS / Suicune BO type builds. Coupled with mix mence and spikes, just being able to shut down softboileds or other healing moves can be really hard for a team to not end up losing to.

As for the game itself, I ended up with a pretty terrible match-up. My opponent brought the worst possible Suicune set my team could face and also had a CM physically defensive Jirachi in the back for when I finally took down the suicune I was struggling so hard against. Unfortunately, as my Swampert lacked earthquake, I ended up needing a freeze and a number of turns of Jirachi staying frozen to win. Teams like this have fallen out of my personal favor because I feel they can be a bit passive with over-reliance on 1-2 mons to do the heavy lifting vs certain archetypes. Blissey was something that felt to me more like a "your opponent decides who plays the game" mon to me, and I stopped using it for the rest of the season. I think I generally played an OK game after the start, sequencing my endgame correctly to have a chance to win in the first place.

import

https://pokepast.es/614046d5cdf8bdb8

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-472035

W2 vs Eden

Week 2 I was faced off vs a good pal of mine in Eden, who also happens to be somebody I play a Lot of ADV with. I would say we both have a good idea of how each other likes to play, so I decided to stick with something offensive this week. I trust my ability to make gameplans and follow through with them more comfortably when I am playing with an offensive team, so something like a sand-less hyper offense seemed interesting. Originally the team started with Undisputed giving me the core of Zap/Meta/Snorlax/Swampert and saying "figure out the last 2 yourself". Triangles suggested that I use Tyranitar, Salamence, and I replace the Swampert with Suicune. The team was running just alright in practice, and then I had the idea to drop Tyranitar for Magneton as my team already didn't want sand up and having magneton meant I was free to run a physical Salamence set (prior I had mixmence). The team plays out much like any offense, using lead Zapdos to either gain momentum through baton pass or slow down other prominent threats with twave, such as opposing Zapdos (which sets up Suicune+Mence to clean). Snorlax and Metagross are the go-to breakers, as they generally come in on most of the mons Zapdos wants to baton pass out versus. Without sand/pursuit, Snorlax is required to run shadow ball here. I opt for earthquake over focus punch, which is really popular right now, due to a general Jirachi weakness. Metagross is a bit funky with Lum + HP grass, but a team like this really needs to have some option to take wisp from Gengar/sleep attacks from lead sleepers. I didn't feel weak enough to Celebi to justify the flimsy HP bug, so I decided grass could be helpful for putting Pert into range for late game Salamence. Magneton is the standard magneton with grass. Forretress didn't feel like a mon I would ever be seeing Eden use, and I don't think I use enough skarm myself to justify hp fire for opposing mag. The suicune set kind of middlemans in between a defensive rest CM set and an offensive CM set, as the team doesn't usually want to commit to full Suicune long-games but having the option to is good. 96 modest situationally helps force kills on some mons like Zapdos or Celebi which the rest of the team appreciate, while keeping enough speed for Modest magneton, metagross, slow celebi. Lastly is DD Salamence to finish up games after the breakers+mag do everything. I opted RS>brick break because I feel as though Zapdos and Aerodactyl are more worth hitting here than the extra damage on Blissey and Tyranitar. The 76 spdef allows Mence to tank most ice beams, while still outspeeding modest Moltres (a mon I knew Eden loved).

Enter the game. Eden leads off with a Venusaur. When I was scouting vs Eden I actually distinctly remembered a strange looking team with Venusaur lead, so I played with the caution that I may have very well been looking at a known team. I opt to thunder wave his Venusaur, as it would generally be not too likely that I am hit by sleep powder accuracy through paralysis. I get lum gross in as Eden keeps trying to put something to sleep unsuccessfully. Moltres is revealed as his Metagross switch, and this does 2 main things: a) lets me know this is almost certainly the exact team I scouted and b) lets me know I'm fucked trying to switch in to a moltres. Fortunately for me, rather than attacking face-first with his Moltres, Eden keeps attempting to put something to sleep unsuccessfully. Had he played around the 85% fire blasts from Moltres rather than the ~56% sleep powders (into lum...) from Venusaur, he could very likely have had me in a tougher spot than I was playing from. Some turns go on and he shows Skarmory, which is able to get out of the way of my Magneton. I don't think it was entirely telegraphed from this point on that I had the magneton, but eden used the chance to keep looking for a sleep with Venu. Eventually sleep connects at the cost of Venusaur taking a mash and lum is shown. Now with venusaur low, both my hp grass electrics aren't forced out and I can be more confident against the moltres. Some turns go by and I will end up trading zapdos for chip onto pert. Magneton traps Skarmory as spike goes up, Jolteon last is revealed, and Tyranitar gets sacked. With no normal resist between his last 4 mons, snorlax just goes to town with unresistable frustration. I get a dodge on wisp, but all I believe it would have done was set him up for the chance to win with a critical hit onto Metagross, as hp grass meta cleaned hard once Moltres died. Mence too as I tank ice beam barring crit/freeze.

This team quickly became one of my favorites to use as I feel every turn is loaded with a number of good options. Mons like BP zapdos and both of my 4 attacking breakers help ensure this.

import

https://pokepast.es/393e3c5512189821

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-473070

W3 vs gilbert arenas

Week 3 was definitely the opponent I had been dreading most. I was either going to be matched up vs TDK to play a "beef" battle (with someone I don't have beef with), or I was going to matched up against marcop -- the latter of which I probably play/talk ADV with more than anyone else. Marcop always runs very well vs me in testing and we had JUST played for a smaller tournament set a couple days prior which he beat me for. Not only that, but he has a penchant for being very innovative and I just went in with absolutely 0 clue what I was going to face. I decided to stick with what I felt like I could play the best with, and went for another week of offense. This time more of a traditional phys. offense. Similarly to the last team, it has the duo of Snorlax/Metagross and I even opted for the same movesets. Magneton, again, a must-needed partner for these two as well as Gyarados. I decided I liked Gyarados over the more traditional Salamence because the taunt advantage helps the team deal with some blockades, such as how roar pert lowkey just 6-0s, being able to get past bolt beam blissey etc. Rash pert fits on very well as a rock resist and a 3rd breaker to really weaken teams down before going for game with Gyarados or Tyranitar. Unlike Salamence as the wincon, gyarados is a bit weaker and has a few HARD stops which mence doesn't really have, so opting for another breaker in Rash pert to get teams in place seemed wise. Lastly is DD tyranitar to be a secondary wincon. The mons that stop Gyarados aren't usually going to stop tyranitar (zapdos, skarm if I lose magneton, p2). I ended up going with Snorlax lead here as it gives me early priority versus zapdos, and for another cheeky reason. I know marcop is as big of an ADV buff as they come and he'd be wise enough to scout for a turn 1 lax counter should he have lead with tyranitar or metagross, which I'd be able to punish with a double into rash pert.

Turn 1, I end up facing a lead I definitely did not expect in the slightest. Slaking as a lead is pretty cheeky because it forces the opponent to play the "guess my move xd" game, and I'm already at risk of losing something crucial like metagross turn 1. Fearing CB hyper beam, I bring metagross in and end up taking double-edge instead. Marcop makes a pretty risky play and opts to go hard into Mag on my meteor mash. I miss, meaning he isn't able to see if I am CB or Lum (no lefties), so he will tbolt me and die to an eq as I wasn't CB. Heracross then comes in and I know this thing is going to be an absolute pain to deal with. My only real bug resist takes a ton from slide and it is faster than 6/6 of my mons already so I had to call its attacks right to not lose out. It reveals to be CB damage as my gyara will sponge the brick break, and marcop will then reveal a p2 which completely shuts down any prospect of my gyarados winning with a DD. A good double later and marcop finds his slaking in vs my snorlax, which I will pivot magneton into to BARELY take the dedge. After he had shown the p2 and the slaking, I felt like he probably wouldn't have another fat normal type -- lo and behold blissey shows itself. I opt to get snorlax in and get a lucky crit as marcop counters my frustration. Sand finishes blissey and its 5-4 in my favor, but with his 2 cb mons still up I am definitely playing from behind. I make a sack to hera to ultimately get metagross in on p2 and look for a kill with boom. At this point I just had to pray for no gengar, and I fortunately caught the slaking. With my good boom into slaking I was somewhat back in the game, my swampert+ttar+gyara trio looked like they could definitely close the game out vs whatever his last was (i assumed metagross or ttar at this point). I get my gyarados in on his heracross again and use the turn to double in Swampert on p2, as I can't imagine he has anything to really eat a hydro at this point. Heracross takes 60 and gets put below 33%, so had it been Swarm I likely just lost out from here. Fortunately, Gyarados tanks 2 hits as the heracross is guts, and I can get heracross low with sand damage. p2 comes in again, so I retaliate with pert and win the 1v1. His heracross will come in, revenge pert, and die to sand as I get a DD up with gyarados. He reveals his last to be metagross.
From this point on, the game came down to whether or not A) I crit eq B) He hits 2 mashes C) the 2nd mash kills my tyranitar. Normally the roll on tyranitar would be largely in my favor, but he claimed to have been using metal coat which made the roll in his favor. It didn't matter as I ended up critting my EQ and taking the win.

Generally, I think this team is not the best as far as physical offense goes. Usually BP zapdos offenses are just Better, and will always be faster. This team felt like a good idea for the opponent at hand though.

import

https://pokepast.es/6e197da96f52d93d

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-473650

W4 vs Blightbringer

For week 4 I was EXTREMELY uncertain on what my opponent was going to be using against me. In Blight's usage stats, Magneton had the highest % usage and dugtrio was at about 4th or 5th, so I wanted to ensure my team wasn't prone to trappers+weird sweepers or defensive cores. I decided this would be a good week to pull out a classic team in Undisputed's hariyama+yoloskarm stall. I was well practiced on it and had a 5-0 record in tournament games using it (albeit tournaments like CI3 play-ins, adv seasonal). The idea is that it is generally very strong into opposing fat teams as Hariyam has access to knock off, the best stallbreaking option in the tier, as well as HP Ground adamant Skarmory to bait in magneton. Originally, the team had a milotic rather than a Vaporeon, which I opted to make the change for as suicune felt too overbearing in tests. The combination of haze vaporeon + blissey stalled all suicune sets out successfully while also allowing me to have both a wish and heal bell user. The trade off is a more direct weakness to blissey as a result, as Milotic is useful for playing games with refresh+toxic 1v1 on blissey.

In the game, I had one major error that made my already really bad MU hard to recover into a nightmare, with the turn I took a Starmie tbolt on Skarmory. With skarmory basically unable to come in without an aggressive wish pass, I slowly was bled out of PP by his Celebi+Blissey combo. My justification was that I had wanted to scout if his starmie had been offensive or max hp with recover and that I didn't want to switch blissey in directly for the fear of dugtrio trapping me, as I hadn't been running ice beam. I was super weary going into the game about using a blissey set walled by dugtrio and I ended up playing too much in fear of a scoutless trap to put myself in a winning position.

Overall I would probably not recommend this team as I think Hariyama may be better suited on more offensive builds such as BKC's week 1 team vs conflict. I honestly think this team is a single move short of being perfectly viable. That move being a forced choice between 2 of heal bell (MUST use with vaporeon), toxic (lose to opposing toxic blissey without my own pivot), and ice beam (not get duggy'd).

import

https://pokepast.es/2ca04ad1792ed176

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-475351

W5 vs UD

For week 5, I had one goal in mind when deciding on what team I wanted to show up with: Use something that I can play to my strengths at. Something offensive that would have multiple options every turn to press forward to a victory. I went with the US West Loom/Zard team that our team used a few times in WCoP because it was something I felt VERY practiced on. I decided to switch the lead from Zapdos to Breloom as I felt Breloom was more polarizing starting from turn 1, either being at a huge advantage to lead off into something such as Tyranitar, Swampert, Lumless Metagross, non-drill Zapdos etc., whereas Zapdos is more passive and ALMOST always clicking baton pass into breloom turn 1 anyway. It comes at the expense of being at risk of starting off really hard on the backfoot in the presence of something like lead Moltres or Salamence. As much as I love talking about this team, I will let BKC's video explain it better than I can here:

The only other primary changes I made from the source that I'm going to mention were adding HP ghost to breloom, changing metagross from mash to pursuit, and changing snorlax set to have Frustation+Counter+Focus. Pursuit on metagross directly helps these other changes out, as with hp ghost I can put gengar in range to always be trapped by metagross pursuit and also keep myself less prone to doing nothing into spore-fodder+claydol. The snorlax set was changed as I felt that with meta's main target being pursuit, I could remove gengar and not need shadow ball on lax freeing up the spot for counter (which was meant to work as a lure with focus since the two don't all too often go together).

Enter the game: turn 1 I take a fat rock slide to the dome with Zapdos and I'm starting off 5v6. Once it's revealed that he is using a fatter type of Milo/Celebi balance, I decide that it's my gameplan to either get both of my booms onto celebi and milotic, or to ensure a boom onto celebi and a spore onto milotic. With those 2 mons out of the way, my only real objective is dancing around the CB Mence picking one if it chooses the right move each time -- after that it's smooth sailing with breloom+rash pert. He decides to sack magneton early to a focus punch to give mence a kill, and I narrowly avoid death by bringing zard in to barely tank an HP flying. Rather than waste any turns here doing something like dragon clawing into a milotic, I double to get metagross in as I want to start threatening explosion on his milotic/celebi instantly. I get a psychic crit prompting the Milotic to switch into tyranitar for fear of boom, and I make a good double into breloom that covered both a recover and hard into ttar. From here, I knew that every time I had a chance to get breloom in it would be the play as he is playing his celebi set as if it isn't psychic. I get big chip onto mence with a focus punch, sack zard, and am able to pull off a sneaky pursuit onto mence to put it in range of 2 sand hits. I get a little over-eager on t26 and attack rather than spore, thinking he would understand he needed to fodder tar to sleep to have a chance here pmuch. I get a toxic dodge and end up sleeping the milo. About 10 turns go by without much until I successfully boom my lax onto the celebi, removing his only breloom check. His Salamence will die to sand after putting an EQ onto breloom and he will reveal his last to be snorlax, which was perfect here for me. In hindsight, lax made a lot of sense but I was most expecting it to be Metagross as I felt that was the best last for the first 5 he had shown. Lax will get put in range of a swampert EQ after a sky uppercut, and the game ends up coming down to sleep turns with milotic. Since I wasn't mash, I wasn't able to go metagross and threaten a boom as tyranitar had me covered. I ended up getting 3 turns out of a possible 5 and won the game from there without risking any accuracy (thanks to an effect spore psn saving me the hydro pump risk).

Overall, I really enjoy this team and I think it'd be a good team for someone more familiar with a fast paced offensive style like you'll see in BW+SM, as it plays heavily around momentum and forcing yourself to make doubles for positioning purposes.

import

https://pokepast.es/76616e514886f630

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-475620

W6 vs Hyogafodex

Week 6 was a doozy compared to the others because I was now up against someone who A) I had almost no info to scout myself, B) a team of people that I personally test/talk ADV with A LOT, and C) I had received word that a certain Vengeful Somebody was eager to report a Mannatrix scout on my past usage stats to my opponent. I decided to go balls to the wall with some individual pokemon I NEVER use in Dugtrio, Heracross, and Superachi. The 6 was something that I had taken from the callous cup usage stats and I made up my own sets to be what I liked. The idea of this team is very solid, in that the two CMers work to break for one-another, pull off traps on special walls with dug, and use one of the two CMers to close out games. Zapdos is an obvious want on this team as it provides thunder wave+baton pass support for basically everything. The ttar set didn't get used in the game, but it's a pretty clever set that I came up with to help me get past my large weakness to both Zapdos and Wisp Gengar. Using chesto with rest instead of lum allows me to clean off my status while resting up to full hp to take hits in the future primarily from these 2. The only thing better than a healthy ttar is 2 healthy ttars after all. The subpunch lefties heracross set was another one that I felt would be the most effective as a breaker with baton pass + twave support. Heracross here really doesn't need to sweep games as you'll more often see Salac or sub-sd sets attempt to accomplish. Best of all, if I'm able to force a kill with a subpunch/horn and bait in dugtrio for an aerial ace, I get a reverse trap with my own dugtrio and Jirachi/Tyranitar are WAY more threatening. The only other really interesting set here is toxic on suicune, which can allow Suicune to force a kill very consistently against teams with blissey. If blissey comes in on a CM and toxics are traded, the blissey will either be forced out into a sack eventually due to boosted Hydros, or it will suicide itself into dugtrio range just to handle the suicune. If you end up not facing toxic blissey with toxic suicune, that's 2 kills right there (barring AWFUL accuracy).

Enter game: I hard switch my Heracross into his Salamence turn 1, scouting for either a possible CB rock slide or hard switch into blissey. A few switches later I end up scaring his swampert out of my zapdos with an HP grass threat, allowing me to aggressively twave an inbound jirachi. I pass my lefties-less tar in to start throwing out damage into his pert to gain info from here. His swampert will invite in my suicune, and as he didn't opt to bring blissey in on zapdos earlier it is certain he won't have a blissey from here. I'll end up critting the Jirachi to 1hko it rather than have the chance to be messed up with body slam paralysis, saving me a bit of possible rng trouble. The crit is revenged with a miss as his skarmory roars me out after, revealing my (obvious) dugtrio. Spike goes up and he allows me to tbolt his Skarmory, putting it in range of Suicune. I'll BP into suicune on a protect and ice beam as he sacks his mence surely hoping to eat a hydro. Gengar comes in and I let cune go to get significant chip onto gar, as I can see that my jirachi has a very likely path to victory if I just get damage onto evertyhing. I will hang on to suicune for death fodder and pull off a trap on his 6th mon ttar, meaning that everything is now in range of my psy/fire/grass rachi for the win.

import

https://pokepast.es/cf50de01044f4250

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-477275

W7 vs Cyberodin

Week 7 was a bit strange as it was the one week I got really fucked by IRL circumstances with regards to getting the team and game done. Cyberodin had used spikes in 6/6 games so far, and he had been on a 3 game cloyster streak. The one main cteam that comes to mind to someone with such a boner for skarmory and forretress to me is Magneton with sweepers who excel with spikes down in Cune/Lax. Again, I took a 6 out of the usage stats from CI3 and built the sets to my liking with Triangles' help. I was hopping on the CB mence train that was very apparent this SPL with my lead slot, as that set for Salamence generally excels the best vs fat spikes builds with skarmory removed. Suicune ended up needing ice beam here, as I already don't love using roar without spikes + I felt I needed it to answer opposing Salamence. The snorlax set was a weird suggestion from Triangles that felt needed to patch some holes, rather than using a more traditional curse rest set. It ended up not feeling great but still feeling needed as this team relies a good bit on the lax staying alive to make sure cune won games. The claydol was an interesting set with brave and near max attack, as the difference in damage from eqs onto ttar and booms onto anything was immense. It could be the difference in taking something like a Swampert/Milotic out of the game outright which was really good in these 5v5s with mons like cb mence. The last 2 slots went to HP fire mag (big forre usage) and Physically bulky metagross to help double pack vs offensive rocks and such, as cune was my sweeper not my defensive answer.

Enter the game and wow did I plan out my win path wrong from the beginning. I could blame my 2 hours of sleep in 2 days or playing during a family gathering but I'd rather just say I was dumb and didn't see how good of a situation I had with cune from the beginning, as his only real answer was booming with cloy or dodging crits with his own CM cune while roaring me out. I won't go into specific turns but I'll just acknowledge that I probably coulda won with more clear thought from the beginning, which I didn't bring to this game.

import

https://pokepast.es/499709a9117bf0ad

 

[z0mOG]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-478077

W8 vs BKC

For W8 I knew that I had wanted to put on a "Show" as both BKC and I had been doing well and he was likely the best opponent I was going to get for the tournament. Finch half-jokingly suggested I use some unconventional sets to tilt him, and through some experimentation I opted into trying out non choice banded Aerodactyl. It ended up working really capably with swords dance pass from celebi so I built my team around that. Metagross was the most natural partner as it has virtually opposite resists to aerodactyl, and a single +2 boost with clear body made metagross really capable at ending games with a single agility. Swampert was next as it was meant to be another semi-option to pass to more for midgame breaking while giving me the defensive utility I knew I'd need vs things like rock types and physical Salamence. Very often in practice I will pass an SD into pert around turn 4-6 and nothing can really survive rash pert at +2 eq with invested hydro/ice, and then ultimately committing to a sweep later. Magneton was obvious to remove skarmory primarily, as BKC had used Skarm in I want to say 6/7 games prior. Finally (ironic that it's my lead), I went with a Pursuit tyranitar to add backup into mons like taunt Gengar, Electrics, and to potentially mess up opposing celebi as they can be tough to deal with if I can't boost up my own celebi on it for whatever reason (dug, perish song).

In the game, BKC got off to a really good starting taking my Celebi down 80% in only 4 turns, meaning I was probably going to be fucked up by Zapdos all game long from here + it almost certainly meant I was going passless with meta/aerodactyl. This kind of team is one that is really reliant on winning on the setup built to win on, so with my SD passer out of commission a few turns in it was gonna be really hard to take it back. I BP into tyranitar hoping I can at least pursuit it down to get dug into leech seed range so I could maybe make plays later to get it back to life, but it turns out he was running a very spdef invested spread and the combination of a pursuit+switched pursuit wasn't even enough to be in leech range. I end up having to dance really hard around his zapdos, even switching my aero in to cover hp grass, and a few turns later finally trade his dugtrio for my celebi. I'll get my magneton in on his zapdos as he goes for the RKill on ttar, and he makes another really good read and twaves me on my sub. I thought I'd be able to scare him out with the threat of my own twave and tried to take this turn to see what I could do with a sub up on mag, but with my mag now twaved and his own zapdos that has my ass in its mouth unpara'd, it's looking kinda hopeless. Skip a few more turns and he reveals a KINGDRA, which just spells complete disaster as my remaining water resist is... I sack mag, pray he stays in on a boom and end up even losing my metagross to a hard gar on boom. While this play did look sexy, it actually might not have been his best move as I am able to force the gengar into death with tyranitar's RKill threat. His own zapdos likely would've been a better sack as it is already less useful than Gengar at taking on any potential aero nonsense. Kingdra comes in and sets an RD, and I will force a death on pert to try and bring sand back up. BKC will then hp grass my ttar instead of resetting rain and going for the kingdra clean, which means I am able to revenge kill it with aero shortly after. From t31 onwards, I basically need either a mash miss and a crit/max rolls, or 2 mash misses to save me. BKC plays it safe and doesn't boom outright on the turn I reveal I am sub without CB, and he then needs 1 more mash to hit which I will dodge. After the dodge I end up critting an earthquake onto the metagross, meaning I just need to not miss slide on the zap and I win from here. The calc revealed that I would've needed really good rolls to 2hko the metagross through protects, and if a 3rd mash connected onto my sub after a zapdos sack, I would've needed a flinch onto celebi to claim the win. I got lucky here, but in my opinion I really did play how I had to to give myself odds at the end in a really grim MU+early game scenario courtesy of my opponent.

Overall, I really like this team. I think it was just not a good time to use it in hindsight, as I had been pretty dug weak the last couple weeks and this team was about as bad into dug as it comes. This team isn't really a pinnacle of consistency due to the reliance on successful SD passing to winning, which becomes harder vs opponents who know what to expect upon seeing the team for a repeat time.

import

https://pokepast.es/157dacb7122bc822

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-478633

W9 vs robjr

Week 9 was very odd, as I was against an opponent who had very very few ADV results for me to look back on to get an idea of what I would be prone to seeing. This week was also the first time in 9 weeks that I completely panic'd and went with a "last minute" team. I was feeling really down on ideas until Triangles came to me with a weezing Forretress stall, as forretress was something I showed a little interest in using. I decided the premise was good but weezing sucked, so I tried out something new by putting Breloom in that slot. The team already had pursuit tar to fuck with Gengar, and by adding a mach punch breloom, I could bait the trap with aerial ace and steal the kill on dug with a mach + pursuit combo. I had made sure to invest some defensive evs into ttar in case dugtrio got to it first, as blissey was also dug bait requiring me to need the trap pulled off. The lead zapdos is your standard bulky rest set which works well with pursuit + spikes, as a toxic zapdos that can keep healing is hard to beat with this level of support. The blissey is wish primarily to help forretress, and this time unlike w4 I decided I felt secure dropping ice beam/counter for dug as I had a reverse dugtrio mechanism in the breloom+ttar combo. It also worked with blissey, as sesimic toss guarantees dugtrio be in mach range. I opted for hp bug on forretress for a) celebi and b) pressuring the two good spinners in the tier if they tried to be greedy vs forretress (star/claydol). Explosion in the 4th slot as it's the best move in the game. Finally the team rounds out with pert to be a rock resist and Salamence answer that won't have an issue with permanent sand.

Enter the game: I start off with two toxic misses, only the one on zapdos seeming like it may have mattered. I bring my blissey in on his and will throw out a seismic toss expecting a metagross or tar to come in, as I badly wanted to scout lefties on the 2 of these possible switches. Turns out a tyranitar came in and took 29 from seismic, which told me that since he had blissey for status absorption, this was almost certainly going to be CB. I go for a greedy seismic toss knowing every cb tyranitar user is eager to throw out focus punch more on the early turns when it's easier, and worst case I take a rock slide confirming the item to me anyway. He switches and skip some turns till I find my tyranitar in vs his gengar on a wisp miss. I pursuit his gar for a lot of damage and with his swampert in on my ttar, I decide now's the best time to get breloom in to start firing away with spore and focus. Gengar eats the spore and I try to make an aggressive focus punch, thinking he would not let me instantly trap his sleeping gengar to reset the sleep for myself, but I hit into nothing. Getting a bit more worried I go into ttar the 2nd time as the gengar hopes to wake up again unsuccessfully, meaning my pursuit finishes it off and he now has sleep reset+no fighting immune. Skip some turns and now I'm prioritizing using wish with my blissey on the turns its in, as I want to minimize dmg from switching in to this cb ttar with my swampert. Some turns go by and on t27 he makes a good double into his dugtrio to catch my blissey. I know that all I need to do to win with his entire team being known at this point is seismic the dugtrio so its in certain range of mach punch. I end up softboileding 15 times without being crit, but in my honest opinion the game was done from this point crit or not (despite the field day the smogtours circus had with my crit dodging). From here, I know all I need to do to close the game out is get forretress in on anything that isn't his blissey (which he played as if it had fire blast), spike up, and breloom+forretress+ttar would clean house. I end up getting 2 spikes on his pert and take an early boom before the 3rd spike, as I REALLY didn't want to waste it into protect. My zapdos will come in, and even though he cleverly uses his dugtrio to sponge a tbolt and force me out, he has no eq PP so I finish dug off with my ttar. Some more turns go by, I get a toxic onto his blissey and he finishes my zapdos off with a crit, but blissey is already in range of mach punch by this time so the game is done as breloom cleans up (if he got a first turn wake with zap on the 2nd focus punch, ice beam from my own tar would finish zap off and pert wasn't going to be in range to die to an eq).

Overall, this team is fantastic. I highly highly recommend it. It feels so good to play and it has a Lot Of Good Pokemon. I was really pleased with the effectiveness of my breloom+ttar trapping combo for dug I came up with, and this is my favorite team from the season.

import

https://pokepast.es/23b95f657d823aa3

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-480712

Semis vs Tamahome

Originally, I had mostly been toying with mag+curse-lax type teams when I started preparing from Tamahome. I felt so boring and uninspired that I got to experimenting and ended up toying with a Salac overheat blaziken set that was tailored to counter the Big 3 leads of zap/ttar/metagross. I decided who better to partner it up with than my trusty loom+ttar from last week, as blaziken was intended to take 1 for 1s, force dug in, and then from there I could use breloom safely on eq to spore and set up my mach+pursuit trap for after. I ended up changing the blaziken set to fire blast/hp grass from overheat/hp ice as I decided it was best used as a full on TSS beater that still fucked up the big 3 leads. The core was really solid and teams that are slow really just gets rolled over by double fighting+pursuit. With these 3, my next 2 adds were staples to this style of team in Snorlax and Zapdos. Snorlax fits perfectly as a catch all special-sponge, and with pursuit I'm at liberty to drop shadow ball so I can run a more powerhouse set with focus AND earthquake (eq being big for jirachi, crunch tar, metagross). Zapdos works to pivot on mons such as Salamence and Metagross and provide BPs into my breakers or pursuit, while also slowing teams down with twave. Metagross was a final addition, and while it did mean that DD salamence was a pain to deal with being swampert-less, it did provide explosion to hurt bulky teams even more and allow snorlax to stay alive while having a boom for mons such as celebi or milotic, which get in the way of breloom and blaziken respectively. Speaking of DD Salamence, that is this team's one big bane -- it really comes down to pivoting well into it and not letting blaziken stay in without sand being up to sub down to blaze range for a 50%+ fire blast.

Game begins: I start off really poorly with blaziken not hitting onto tama's zapdos for the first 2 turns. Had either one hit, I would've had Zapdos in range of a breloom focus punch and even possibly a psychic from metagross had the blaze blast connected, meaning I would've been in a MUCH better spot with my loom pressure. Unfortunately with blaziken para'd, it basically did nothing in this game and I had to play 5v6 accordingly -- the chip onto zap would've been enough to warrant its death overall probably. I'll switch my snorlax into a 2nd tbolt from his zap showing me a lack of satk investment here. Tyranitar comes in on a return and I bring breloom in after lefties is shown meaning I wont die to a cb focus punch, a crazy fire blast being the worst case for me. Breloom survives and throws out a spore onto celebi which I am able to pursuit for a bit of dmg. With breloom low I now have a bit of trouble switching into tama's swampert but get a dodge on zapdos to help a bit. I go for a big BP here thinking I needed to keep momentum in my favor to avoid getting steamrolled by his zapdos+ttar combo, but tama ends up staying in with pert and ice beaming so I am forced into meta. I know if I can get the boom onto meta, I can do much more with my lax and ttar here, but I'll only end up getting a psychic+eq off as I was too afraid to boom into possible protects/ttar switch. I am now extremely behind with blaziken dead and my metagross nearly dead too, but I still don't boom out of too much fear of wasting it into protect. I end up trapping celebi successfully after some bold hp grasses hoping to hit an aggressive swampert switch. His tyranitar is in again and I go to zapdos hoping to switch in on just eq, but die to a slide instead when I could've been safe and sacked blaz. Breloom will sleep swampert and I get off a big focus punch onto zap, and its about here where if I got one of those fire blasts off I'd be in a fantastic spot with zap down for the count and his recoverless starmie not able to come in on focus. He makes a very awkward play here and baton passes to dugtrio on an ice beam, I guess assuming I would be running hp grass+fire blast. The dug sack does give me a chance to get back into it though. His tyranitar comes in again hungry for a kill and I fodder blaziken. I get breloom in, go for the safe sky rather than the aggressive focus and won't end up being able to take out zapdos because if it. I regret this play the most, as I don't think tama would EVER risk his ttar like this given his last being a mon that needed ttar around to deal with lax. Had I focused and killed the zap, he would no longer have an eq immunity and my healthy snorlax could come in on his starmie and cause a lot of destruction, even allowing me to get metagross back in on the sleeping swampert and have very good odds to get a kill with explosion this time. Yada yada turns go on and I kill zap, although my lax is now in starmie range. Finally the game comes down to my tyranitar being in vs his starmie with about a 25% chance to tank hydro, or dodge altogether, but I will not be so lucky and ttar will go down meaning my loss.

Overall, I really only regret sky uppercutting into zapdos from this game. The circumstances of the first 2 turns made the game really bad from the start, but it was close enough to where a single better focus punch could've saved me. I blame myself for needing to rely on an 85% accuracy move from a pokemon that doesn't ever tank 2 attacks though, and I think I've learned a personal lesson on using accuracy based moves on mons that only get 1 to 2 chances to activate them in the first place. It was still a good game imo, and this team is one I definitely enjoy. It may not be the most optimized fighting spam, but this is a pretty untouched archetype so I would be happy to see someone do one better.

import

https://pokepast.es/6c9ab6272f69a502

Some other sets I fiddled with but didn't bring:

Hide

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 248 HP / 24 Def / 236 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Curse
- Rest

Pretty sure every ADV player thinks they can make cursepert work at some point in time. I had the idea to pair it with pursuit tar+wish blissey+a gengar set that can dismantle tss with wish to keep it alive, as cursepert tends to be better vs more offensive teams without phasing or taunt skarm/gar. In practicality, I think if I'm using a TSS pert team I would just rather a more effective defensive pert set that doesn't require this much setup.

Blaziken @ Salac Berry
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
- Overheat
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Sky Uppercut
- Substitute

This was the initial set for blaziken I wanted to use vs Tamahome, as HP ice was a nice lure for mence behind a t1 sub and overheat would incinerate Zapdos from blaze range with better accuracy and dmg. The salac was also nice for stealing games with subbing down on mence, zap, etc. Ultimately the drop from overheat just feels too lame as blaziken wants to keep fire blasting. I also felt that grass does let it get through everything better, giving outs to fish for crits vs starmie/milo and meaning you aren't walled by pert (which just sits for free once ice is revealed).

Aerodactyl @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Rock Head
Happiness: 0
EVs: 12 HP / 244 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Substitute

Even though I used this on a team above, I wanted to restate that I don't think it requires full SD pass as this Aero set tends to be good on it's own. It really just wants support vs chipping down things like Swampert and Metagross, so mons such as hp grass 4 attack ttar, magneton, hp grass metagross tend to be really good partners. The set feels so great because aero is almost always forcing a switch on the turns its in for a revenge kill and two non-cb hits will get more kills than 1 cb hit, plus once you are subbed down to liechi the damage is about the same. (I'm out of image space btw)


Swellow @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Aerial Ace
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Endeavor
- Substitute

This was a gimmicky set that triangles had wanted me to use vs Cyberodin. Vs an unsuspecting opponent you might be able to gimp ttar and then also bring something to death range with endeavor + sub, as swellow is faster than all but 2 mons. Realistically they will just send skarm and block your attempt to do anything, but vs offense you can get some ground made I guess.


Moltres @ White Herb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Overheat
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Agility

This moltres was designed to work as a sweeper with overheat being used twice, but in play this set is pretty ass because A) moltres is hard walled by the blissey that's gonna be on 50% of teams already, and b) Salamence intimidate can steal your white herb meaning it's just worse than leftovers sometimes. Generally I think moltres is actually only really viable with roar and spikes so you aren't just match up fishing for "PLS NO BLISS", as roar at least gives you room to outplay bliss teams.


Smeargle @ Leftovers
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spore
- Spikes
- Transform
- Substitute

If someone else can make this dogshit gimmick work I'll be impressed. I almost got eden with it in a test game but I lost the speed tie
https://i.imgur.com/sT3QUe3.png

bonus team

my ruby randomizer nuzlocke final team (random types too)

My final personal rankings of each team:
w9>w8>semis>w2>w6>w5>w3>w7>w4>w1

s/os to the dawgs either for building, metagaming, or just general testing help

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undisputed Triangles Finchinator jacob Gilbert arenas eden Sadlysius soulgazer crayon pop Garay oak Tamahome hellpowna Djokra HML am Blightbringer PDC BKC

 

[Altina]

Heres a graphic of all the teams used this SPL

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

PlayOffs

 

[wyc2333]

although u said u had a serious communication problem with me several months ago, i will still do what i can do here.

It's also solid against offense because it doesn't have the typical offensive Suicune problem of crumpling to repeated hits in sandstorm - it can actually safely switch into Swampert and MixTar.

lax, physical mence, cloy, and gyara on offense are huge issues for crocune.

Personally, I've mostly been in the first camp, but seeing some great players succeed with lead Skarm has made me reconsider, and I'm wondering what others think.

vs physical ttar, skarm can lay spikes early-game
vs mixed / special ttar, skarm can survive fb and lay spikes
vs cb mence, usually there is mag behind an opposing mence team
vs mixed mence, skarm can also survive a fire-type move and lay spikes. although wish mence is almost never seen these days ( imo it can be even listed in other options ), skarm can lay spikes against it too
vs cb gross, usually there is 1v1 trade. although mag can be switched in, it will be lured down by hp fire
vs bulky physical gross, usually there is mag behind an opposing gross team
vs mixed gross, skarm can also survive hp fire ( thunder punch ) and lay spikes

also, yoloskarm can lay 1 layer of spike against cb gross and use taunt against opposing skarm

The physical pressure here is immense and I hope to see more CBNite in the future now that we've been introduced to the possibilities it opens up.

compared to cb mence, it doesn't have rslide for zap, though they work in a different way

mixed gross

thunder punch hits skarm, gyara, and mie. hp grass covers pert. boom is a given. when it comes to the last slot, mm is for gar and eq is for gross, rachi, and mag

 

[vapicuno]

Props to BKC for starting this thread. My little contribution will be an RMT of the team I gave McMeghan vs Blightbringer in week 5. While I no longer play tours, I still really enjoy the teambuilding aspect of the game and I love that ADV has so many avenues for creativity without sacrificing too much on matchups. I hope you will find this an interesting read.



This is a special spam that centers itself on two key ideas: Metal Sound and Magneton + CM Spam. If you look at the lineup, the first thing that stands out is that I have five mons that theoretically should be able to stand up to Skarmory, yet I slapped Mag on the team. The presence of Mag however completely changes the sets that you would find on a typical CM Spam team to some pretty unorthodox ones, as you can see in this import

team import

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Metal Sound / Baton Pass (McM edit)
- Roar

Magneton @ Magnet
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Metal Sound
- Substitute

Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 68 SpD / 176 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Calm Mind
- Leech Seed
- Baton Pass

Swampert @ Salac Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Endeavor
- Substitute
- Surf
- Roar

Porygon2 @ Leftovers
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Def / 32 SpA
Relaxed Nature
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Recover
- Thunder Wave

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 64 SpA / 152 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def / 30 SpA
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Water]
- Substitute

So I'll try to explain how I arrived at all this. I've written up my RMT in two styles: narrative and comparative. The latter is a condensed version of the former.

The process-oriented perspective

No teambuilding for me is entirely step-by-step, but I will try to elucidate the general train of thought to constructing this team.

I've long noticed this peculiar quirk of CM Spam teams -- for a special offense, CM Spam does not have immediate means of dealing with Skarmory. Suicune, HP Fire Celebi, Jirachi all take time to set up, and Raikou doesn't always want to come out early game lest it gets trapped by an unrevealed Dug; furthermore, it's checks are still at high HP. So, why not try Magneton?



Here's my teambuilding philosophy wrt Magneton: it's a terrible trapper. For example, when you see a lead Pert or Snorlax, Metagross doing Adamant but no CB damage, your Mag alarms are ringing. When you see the second Skarm-weak mon, you're pretty much on red alert. I always like having a mon that gives my opponent some false reassurance that I don't run Mag. That also helps in case my Mag does get Dugged. This makes lead Zapdos a partner of choice for me.

Zapdos is traditionally not synergistic with CM Spam. CM Spam relies on the momentum of breaker after breaker to win, whereas Zapdos on Spikeless offense usually relies on powerful physicals to lure special check switchins. I still want to break the blobs, so I scoured for the right moves to generate the first novel idea of the team -- Metal Sound Zapdos + Metal Sound Magneton. This combination helps a specially oriented team to deal with endgame Curselax/Blissey.

ms + ms

Now I'd like to fit in the CM Spam mons. Celebi is a natural fit, not only because it obviously belongs on CM Spam but completes the Zap + Cel special defense core. The traditional CM Spam Celebi runs CM/Giga Drain/HP Fire/Baton Pass. I can now give up HP Fire, but what move should I use in place? Leech Seed of course! The Substitute Mag + Leech BP Celebi allows Skarmory to be trapped more reliably, reducing the need for predictions, bringing Skarmory into KO range of Mag's Thunderbolt, and allows Metagross and even Jirachi sometimes to be trapped indefinitely. Leech Seed may seem strange on an offensive Celebi, but you recover so much HP by just Leeching a blob that in my experience it actually stays alive long enough to do its job. The best part about having CM+Leech+BP is that Celebi is in a position to force out Blissey, Snorlax and opposing defensive Celebi, so Celebi is going to be up a Leech Seed or CM on the incoming mon, forcing chip or sustaining the momentum.

ms + ms sub + cm leech bp

Jirachi is the other great CM Spam mon, but now I have a delightful twist. Because Magneton removes the need for Thunder(bolt) or Fire Punch to be used on Jirachi, I also gain another important moveslot. I decided to make it a Substitute Rachi that doesn't use either of those coverage moves for Skarm. This will be my primary wincon vs stall teams. What options are there for fillers? I still want to hit Tyranitar and Claydol hard, so I could ostensibly use HP Grass. But in the event that Metagross is alive and weakened perhaps by say a bad Mag trap, Psychic + HP Grass is useless against it. Thus, I opt to go for HP Water. Funnily enough, HP Water also covers the occasional Houndoom which shits over the team as it is right now, and in a CM war with other Rachis, can threaten to OHKO at +6 with a crit.

ms + ms sub + cm leech bp + sub cm psy hpwater

With three Dug weaks and the perfect Dug lure in Magneton, this team is just yelling Porygon2, so let's add it. Again, because I have Magneton, I don't really need Thunderbolt. I'm certainly not going to make my last Dugtrio lest I end up with a triple trap team, so at this point I'm weak to DD Tyranitar. Drawing inspiration from marcop in SPL X, I go for HP Fighting P2 with the aim of never letting TTar set up. HP Fighting P2 has the perk of being able to 1v1 MixTar and Pursuit Tar too, something that Zap/Cel special defense cores find more difficult to handle.

ms + ms sub + cm leech bp + sub cm psy hpwater + hpfight

I counted my physical pivots now. I have weak Metagross answers in Zapdos + Cel/Mag, a solid Salamence check in P2, weak Snorlax checks in Cel/Jira, and zero Tyranitar answers. The minimally sufficient filler is thus a mono Swampert, and since it's an offensive team, an offensive mono pert. Roar Endeavor Pert really fits the bill here; Endeavor brings down special defenses like Snorlax and Blissey if need be; Roar prevents Celebi or Suicune from setting up on it. With a CM passed from Celebi and Torrent, it can also become really deadly.

ms + ms sub + cm leech bp + sub cm psy hpwater + hpfight + roar endeavor

Now to fill in the blanks:

Due to the lack of emergency measures like Explosion, a weakness of traditional CM Spam is ironically that if the opponent sets up first, the game gets really ugly. I mitigate that by allowing Celebi to get into a CM war with the opponent and BP out to Roar Zapdos at about +4 or +5. As teams that use CMers don't often carry Aerodactyl or Jolteon, a +5 Timid Zapdos can outright win the game sometimes. I go against the conventional CM/Agility semi-pass offensive Zap/Cel core here and I think it is one of the most potent synergies of this team.

I am weak to Heracross and Moltres, so Jirachi has to be at least 270 and Celebi 308 speed with Psychic. It's not ideal, but it's the best coverage I can get vs those two mons. The matchup against Moltres is winnable but requires being ahead in momentum and outplaying or racing with Zapdos.

ms roar timid + ms sub + cm leech bp psy + sub cm psy hpwater + hpfight + roar endeavor

There it is! A bunch of mons with highly satisfying weird sets!

McMeghan ended up opting for Baton Pass > Metal Sound on Zapdos, which keeps up the pressure better vs Celebi midgame, while being a bit weaker in endgame scenarios. A fully viable and probably good change.

The synergy-oriented perspective

To get to the chase, here are the particular synergies of this team in decreasing order of novelty:

ms + ms

Double Metal Sound electrics allows the special offense team to completely ruin a well-prepared CurseLax endgame, and it goes without saying that it also takes down Blissey. Zapdos improving the reliability of the Mag trap by giving the opponent a false sense of security is icing on the cake.

timid roar + cm pass

Going against conventional wisdom of Zap/Cel the Agility/CM Baton Pass duo, this combination instead seeks to use Zapdos on a CM spam to sweep against teams that try to win the CM war (and those usually don't carry Aerodactyl or Jolteon to spoil the sweep). This combination covers a crucial weakness of CM spam teams: the lack of emergency measures like Explosion against an opponent that has the initiative in setting up. Even though Roar isn't used too much on Spikeless teams, it's also great for preventing DDTar setup.

roar endeavor + hp fight

This is a synergistic duo that
1. Provides two chances at stopping DDtar should one fail.
2. Provides coverage against Salamence through P2 with a mono Endpert
3. P2 Covers MixTar and Pursuit Tar to the extent of no Sp.Def drops, which otherwise destroy Swampert.

cm psy hpwater sub +

Magneton eliminates the need for Electric/Fire coverage on Jirachi, and either eliminates/severely weakens Metagross. Jirachi cleans up Tyranitar/Claydol/weakened Metagross with HP Water coverage.

cm pass leech + hpwater

Leech Celebi gets the chip on bulky Tyranitar needed to bring it into 2hko range of +1 Jirachi.

leech + sub

I obviously did not invent this, but it's just such an excellent combo. Leech bringing Skarm into OHKO range of Thunderbolt, the safety of dry passing to trap Skarm, and Metagross traps with SubLeech.

Gameplan

Against stalls and balanced teams, unlike traditional Dugtrio CM Spam teams which seek to remove the walls for a sweep, my team focuses on continuously forcing it out till it is the sole mon left standing, by which time either Metal Sound or SubRachi takes the opponent out. This is done primarily by Leech Seed Celebi, which forces Blissey/Snorlax out and draws in Skarmory/Dugtrio/Metagross to be trapped, and Tyranitar/Metagross to be chipped with Leech and gain momentum on via Endpert.

Against spikeless offense, the gameplan is similar, though Zapdos and Endpert play key roles in winning since these teams don't commonly go above 328 in speed. Celebi plays a more (literally) pivotal role, tanking Zapdos and baiting Lax boom. P2 pivots against the mixed attackers and occasionally Aerodactyl. Where possible, Jirachi should take the opportunities to set up on opposing Endpert, but it is more than capable of 1v1ing Zapdos in the endgame if push comes to shove.

Against Spikes stack offense, which is a chaotic battle of attrition, every mon is as much midgame as endgame. Jirachi will take Aerodactyl Rock Slides midgame and punch some holes if push comes to shove, and Porygon2 is an important pivot against Jolteon and Aerodactyl that may be crucial in the endgame. This isn't a great matchup for the team, but then again, Spikes stack tends to do pretty well against all sorts of bulky offense anyway.

This team does defensive pivoting in a divide-and-conquer approach. The typical triple-threat of Tyranitar/Salamence/Metagross are dealt with in separate ways instead of piling the responsibility all on one bulky water. The team attempts to prevent DDTar from ever setting up with HP Fighting P2 and Roar Zapdos. MixTar and MixMence/DDMence are dealt with by P2. Metagross is checked by Endpert, Leech Cel + Sub Mag, and Zapdos. Snorlax is checked early game via Leech Cel and late game via Metal Sound + Rachi. P2 provides some semblance of protection against the fast threats Jolteon and Aerodactyl, threatening to TWave on a fast-paced team. On the special side, Zap+Cel is the offensive Sp.Def. core. While Cel is easily trapped or boomed, P2+Rachi can still do something to protect the team against special offenses.

Set (non)specifics

Since I almost exclusively ladder, I wasn't too careful with the EVs on some of these things. The Celebi defensive benchmarks were pretty arbitrary, and Magneton could easily be changed to Timid for more tour-ready opponents. Timid Magneton still scores the 1HKO on Skarm after Leech chip. I used Modest Mag because of good odds to 2HKO Blissey after Metal Sound under Sand, but that is admittedly a rather rare circumstance. P2 EVs could also be optimized for more special tanking. I put in more defense than normal because I don't like getting double critted by Dug.

Closing Thoughts

I really enjoyed building this team and exploring all the synergies within, and I'm glad to see that McMeghan never let his foot off the gas in his game vs Blightbringer. I really respect McMeghan as a player and I'm happy this team found its way into his hands. I might upload some of my replays facing different MUs on ladder soon if there's some interest. Thanks for reading!