OSDT III Coverage

By Theia and zoe. Released: 2023/12/12.
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OSDT III Coverage Art

Art by Pissog.

Introduction

The Official Smogon Doubles Tournament, or OSDT, is the most prestigious DOU tournament on Smogon, an individual Swiss tournament in which players fight their way through brackets of increasingly difficult opponents to make it to the single elimination top cut for their chance at their very own orange trophy. OSDT III was the first OSDT of Gen 9, so it was a perfect chance for old and new talent alike to rise to the top and reaffirm or prove their skills on the big stage.

Swiss

The first round of Swiss started off with a few great matchups already, featuring ratpacker versus jonas, MADARAAAA versus tenzai, Animus versus JRL, and Toxigen versus fespy. Luckily for the tournament's spectators, not only were replays mandatory for the entire tournament, but the DOU community also got together to put on a number of livestreams covering the highlight matches of each round as they happened. Fans were treated to further highlights in round two like NinjaSnapple versus GenOne and Spurrific versus Memoric, but the stakes were about to get higher in round three.

Round three was the first round to feature a x-2 bracket, 0-2 in this case, where, if a player lost, they were out of the tournament for good. A good number of the drops from this bracket were actually byes, but 25 players also said goodbye to their chances at the trophy already in round three, with even more such as Lily, Spurrific, and Mizuhime finding themselves in danger after losing in the 1-1 bracket. On the other side, the 3-0 bracket began to form with strong players such as Xrn, Animus, ratpacker, qsns, and Nido-Rus remaining undefeated through the first elimination.

By the end of round seven, 157 more players had been eliminated, including talented fan favorites to top cut like Memoric, Animus, ratpacker, Star, and fangame10. With over 50 players left in the tournament and only 32 possible spots in the top cut, it was clear that competition would be fierce to remain in the tournament. In the higher brackets, defending SPL champion Ash KetchumGamer, tier leader Yoda2798, DOU council member qsns, and OSDT I champion Nido-Rus were the only undefeated records coming into round seven, and Yoda2798 and qsns emerged victorious to face off in round eight, while a number of players looked strong heading into the final two rounds of the top cut, with the 6-1 bracket full of names like JRL, Ann, and Mishimono.

The highlight match of round eight, Yoda2798 versus qsns, ended with Yoda2798 on top after two games that lasted a total of 19 turns, earning them a perfect 8-0 record and a bye in round nine. qsns was still guaranteed a place in the top cut, alongside the seven winners of the 6-1 bracket: Ann, Meminger21, Nido-Rus, zee, Feyy, z0mOG, and xqiht. Among those exiting the tournament from the 5-2 bracket were SoulWind, crying, SMB, and Smudge.

In round nine, 28 users in the 6-2 bracket fought through life or death sets to determine whether or not they'd make it to top cut or fall just short of playoffs. Those pulling themselves up from the bottom included Chris32156 beating out tier leader Actuarily, Akaru Kokuyo making an impressive run from the 0-2 bracket to top cut, and several other strong contenders in MichaelderBeste2, fespy, JRL, and bage1. Going home just before playoffs after strong runs were Yellow Paint, Hugo, Voltix, and Eeveon7, among many others.

Top Cut

Following nine intense rounds of Swiss, 23 players advanced to battle it out in a seeded single elimination bracket:

  1. Yoda2798 (8-0, 40-21 (65.57%) Resistance)
  2. xqiht (8-1, 50-21 (70.42%) Resistance)
  3. z0mOG (8-1, 46-24 (65.71%) Resistance)
  4. Meminger21 (8-1, 45-24 (65.22%) Resistance)
  5. Ann (8-1, 38-26 (59.38%) Resistance)
  6. qsns (7-2, 50-20 (71.43%) Resistance)
  7. Nido-Rus (7-2, 46-20 (69.70%) Resistance)
  8. Feyy (7-2, 48-22 (68.57%) Resistance)
  9. bage1 (7-2, 45-22 (67.16%) Resistance)
  10. LoSconosciuto (7-2, 44-25 (63.77%) Resistance)
  11. Mishimono (7-2. 42-24 (63.64%) Resistance)
  12. zee (7-2, 41-24 (63.08%) Resistance)
  13. Xrn (7-2, 41-25 (62.12%) Resistance)
  14. Givrix (7-2, 41-26 (61.19%) Resistance)
  15. MichaelderBeste2 (7-2, 36-25 (59.02%) Resistance)
  16. Z Strats (7-2, 35-26 (57.38%) Resistance)
  17. AIRedZone (7-2, 34-26 (56.67%) Resistance)
  18. JRL (7-2, 33-26 (55.93%) Resistance)
  19. Chris32156 (7-2, 34-27 (55.74%) Resistance)
  20. Lemurro (7-2, 33-27 (55.00%) Resistance)
  21. jonas (7-2, 32-27 (54.24%) Resistance)
  22. fespy (7-2, 29-27 (51.79%) Resistance)
  23. Akaru Kokuyo (7-2, 28-27 (50.91%) Resistance)

Top "32"

While there wasn't a proper top 32 due to the OSDT III hosts not being great at math and nine players getting byes, there were still seven matches to be played between the ten lowest-seeded players to determine a proper top sixteen. zee drew first blood less than 24 hours after the round being posted with a little help from their opponent timing out in game two, and Givrix followed five days later with the second win against Chris32156. AIRedzone fell victim to the lethal combination of Maushold and Cetitan, and Xrn and Akaru Kokuyo each sealed their series in two games, featuring an unconventional stall team from Akaru. JRL took down VGC World Championship runner-up MichaelderBeste2 in three close games, and Mishimono was the last person to join the top sixteen with some assistance from favorable RNG.

Top Sixteen

Feyy took the first victory in this round with a down-to-the-wire game three against bage1, Yoda2789 took the second victory when their opponent got banned, and qsns followed the next day with the third, beating Mishimono. xqiht won over JRL with a niche pick in Wo-Chien and a completely unorthodox pick in Orthworm, z0mOG won against Givrix but lost the moral victory by bringing Baton Pass Espathra, and Meminger21 finished out the Saturday series by defeating Xrn. The mouse family claimed another playoffs victory, this time for zee over Ann, and Nido-Rus ended Akaru Kokuyo's impressive comeback run in two games to round out the top eight.

Quarterfinals

qsns was the first to secure a spot in the top four with help from a timely critical hit that was probably divine punishment for z0mOG's Baton Pass Espathra thing from last round. xqiht dashed Nido-Rus's hopes of claiming a complete monopoly over OSDT trophies thanks to a potent sun team, and Feyy beat Yoda2798 in the latter's first OSDT series since round eight of the tournament. Meminger21 fell victim to some unfortunate game three RNG in an extension match, making zee the final member of the tour's top four.

Semifinals

Despite nearly everyone predicting against them, xqiht once again showed how they earned their second seed placement, sporting yet another Orthworm in their two-game victory over qsns. Feyy, perhaps better known for their time in the Draft scene, was similarly unfavored against zee but also came out on top in two games.

Finals

Finals went off to an interesting start, with Feyy bringing a physical offense team with Chien-Pao and everyone's favorite physical attacker, Flutter Mane, into xqiht's bulkier team with Wo-Chien and Diancie. After the opening turns, the game went decisively in Feyy's favor due to a critical KO on Cresselia that put xqiht on the backfoot for the rest of the game, putting Feyy up 1-0. For game 2, xqiht brought a very fast-paced sun team, with Feyy opting for a slower team with Kingambit and Spectrier. In the opening turn, Feyy lost Spectrier while setting Stealth Rock, allowing them to send out Diancie immediately after. After that, it was very hard for xqiht to force it out, with Tera Grass Heatran only complicating matters. In the end, Diancie presented too much of an issue for xqiht, and Feyy clinched the OSDT III title 2-0.

Metagame Trends

Due to the less than ideal timing of OSDT, the metagame shifted quite a few times throughout the tournament due to how fresh it was in addition to bans (of which there were only two, to be fair), so this section will be talking about them!

The beginning rounds of the tour had a few clear frontrunners in usage: Flutter Mane, Cresselia, and Ursaluna, with the latter two being an extremely strong pairing and the former being the indisputably best Pokémon in the format and only losing top usage in semifinals. Some other trends came and went—Pokémon like Kleavor and Hisuian Samurott were seen a considerable amount due to the ease of setting entry hazards with them, and Landorus had a decent amount of usage thanks to the appeal of a Sheer Force-boosted Sandsear Storm. However, all of these steadily dropped in usage throughout the tournament. Another trendy Pokémon that didn't keep its early steam into the later rounds was Heatran, but that'll be discussed in depth later. In any case, Trick Room teams centered around Ursaluna and Cresselia were extremely popular in the first round due to their strength and remained popular into the second round, although Ursaluna saw a considerable dip in usage, with Cresselia and Rillaboom knocking it down to the fourth spot. However, Ursaluna's usage became non-existent in the following weeks due to it being banned, knocking Trick Room down a peg for the rest of the tournament. Despite losing its arguably best partner, Cresselia maintained a respectable level of usage until the later rounds of the tournament, as it was a good partner to a number of setup Pokémon such as Bulk Up Palafin and Kingambit, which saw a surge in usage after Ursaluna's ban. Teams built around setup Pokémon in general saw a surge in popularity for a good bit, until later in the tournament where teams featuring immediate offensive potential, which were still used a fair amount by the end of the tournament, rose in popularity to beat those same setup-heavy teams. Cresselia was already trending downwards by that point, however, as its passivity became increasingly less desirable and more exploitable.

One aspect of the metagame that was never touched on was both of the Basculegion formes, despite the male version getting banned mid-tour. This is because, outside of forcing a few Pokémon, like Volcanion, Iron Hands, and Rillaboom, to run Tera Normal, their effect on the metagame wasn't near the extent of other Pokémon, as when Basculegion-M got banned, Basculegion-F immediately took its place, and the metagame just continued on as it had before, except with one fewer broken Pokémon. Both Basculegion formes were strong throughout the tournament, as Adaptability Last Respects is no joke, but the metagame was more or less the same without them due to their sporadic usage. When they were brought, they generally made a big impact, which was enough for the stronger of the two formes to get banned but not for the meta to shift drastically.

Earlier, it was said how Heatran didn't keep its high usage throughout the tour, much like a few other Pokémon. However, unlike those Pokémon, Heatran remained strong throughout the whole tournament; it just fell behind in usage to the other two prominent Fire-types, Volcanion and Chi-Yu. In the earlier rounds, Heatran was far more popular due to its ease of use and better matchup into Flutter Mane, Cresselia, and Diancie, in addition to the general strength of Tera Grass on it due to Flash Fire. While Heatran retained those qualities throughout OSDT, Volcanion rose in usage when Basculegion and Palafin became popular thanks to Water Absorb and a Tera type of choice, either Normal or Fairy, making it a great counter to both. Volcanion became the most used Fire-type for a few weeks as a result, though the overall strength of Heatran caused it to overtake Volcanion once again as the most used Fire-type, and it remained there comfortably until Chi-Yu, commonly paired with Flutter Mane on a few different compositions, generally with Flutter Mane being the nuke and Chi-Yu focusing on bulk or Flutter Mane supporting Choice Specs Chi-Yu with Booster Energy and Icy Wind, started prying at its spot. Heatran maintained its lead, albeit slightly despite Chi-Yu's strength and popularity at that point due to it being an excellent stopgap to Chi-Yu on its own, although it was far from a perfect counter. The two remained close in usage until the round of 16, where Chi-Yu had an astounding 11 uses in top 16 and 8 compared to Heatran's 4 and 1 uses, respectively. Overall, Heatran lost its definitive lead as most used Fire-type by the end of the tour, with it going between Heatran and Chi-Yu numerous times during the later stages of the tour, despite Heatran's constant strength throughout the tournament.

Conclusion

Congratulations to Feyy for not only winning OSDT III and the accompanying orange trophy, but also the playoffs prediction tournament running alongside it. Hopefully, as a major DOU tour winner, they can stay on the right side of the banhammer. Check out the OSDT III Replays Thread to see all of the amazing battles from the tournament, watch the OSDT casts in the DOU Media Thread, and keep an eye out for OSDT IV, which will take place after the second DLC and certainly bring more amazing battles with it!

HTML by Kaede.
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