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By autumn, DurzaOffTopic, lyd, and Nuked.
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Art by Bummer

Art by Bummer.

Introduction

Smogon runs several annual tournaments, covering a range of different metagames. These tournaments involve a variety of players and opportunities for everyone. Let's take a look at how Smogon's tournaments are progressing so far!

Smogon Tour

After weeks of battling for qualification and playoffs, Smogon Tour has finally come to an end with blunder beating SoulWind, an equally deserving player who fought his hardest. Both were looking for their first individual trophy; SoulWind was coming off a victory in the most recent Smogon Premier League a run to the finals of the Official Smogon Tournament. blunder has been fighting for a trophy of his own, as he has qualified for playoffs in an incredible five consecutive Smogon Tours. The series was a tight one in three games; the first in BW, the second in ORAS, and the deciding game was in the current generation, SM.

Game 1: BW

The first game in the series was played in BW; as SoulWind was the higher seed, he predictably picked his strongest gen of the three. Both players brought powerful teams, but SoulWind was able to prevent Spikes from being set up and burn blunder's Rotom-W early on. This allowed SoulWind to successfully set up to win with Jirachi, which was running a set consisting of Substitute, Iron Head, Thunder, and Hidden Power Ice.

Game 2: ORAS

The second game was played in ORAS and was a very decisive victory for blunder. blunder predicted phenomenally around SoulWind with his Mega Metagross and was able to trap Skarmory with his own Magnezone with an excellent double switch, clearing the way for Metagross to win the game. SoulWind attempted to put up a last-ditch effort with his Reflect Type Mega Latias, but it was not enough to prevent blunder from taking his victory and forcing a third game.

Game 3: SM

The deciding game of the series was in SM, and from Team Preview it could be seen that blunder's Mega Alakazam would be a huge threat to SoulWind. Both players brought very bulky builds, but blunder's strong defensive backbone consisting of three Regenerator Pokémon in Tornadus-T, Toxapex, and Tangrowth was able to give him a cushion to break through SoulWind's team. blunder's Heatran was able to remove SoulWind's Mega Latios with a set using Steelium Z and Flash Cannon. From that point the rest of blunder's team was able to break down SoulWind's core and declare him the victor of the series, which awarded blunder with his long-awaited first trophy.

Smogon Classic

The Smogon Classic is an old generations best-of-five tournament that consists of BW, DPP, ADV, GSC, and RBY. Smogon Classic uses a points system, where a player's points are collected from their performance in all five of the "cups", which are open tournaments across these five generations. The players with the most points entered a playoff bracket to see who will be the next owner of the coveted trophy. Round 1 saw a lot of great matches, but the highlight was Jimmy Turtwig vs FlamingVictini.

Game 1: ADV

In Game 1 played in ADV, FlamingVictini's Swampert is notably a huge threat to Jimmy's team, as Jimmy has no consistent switch-ins to it. To make matters worse for Jimmy Turtwig, FlamingVictini manages to get two layers of Spikes up with his Cloyster, which makes it harder for Jimmy Turtwig to switch anything into Swampert. The Cloyster also managed to hit Jimmy Turtwig's own Swampert with a Toxic, which allowed FlamingVictini's Swampert to clean up nicely late-game, aided by luckily hitting a couple of Hydro Pumps.

Game 2: BW

Game 2 is BW, and both teams are running Tentacruel rain. However, Jimmy Turtwig's Jirachi is running a Substitute + Calm Mind set with Thunder and Flash Cannon, which sets up on three of FlamingVictini's Pokémon, and FlamingVictini has no counter to it, as only Garchomp can hit it super effectively with a STAB move. Overall, FlamingVictini plays the endgame very well, but his matchup against Jirachi was too bad for him to win, and it eventually swept his team, grabbing the KO on all six Pokémon.

Game 3: RBY

Game 3 is RBY, and both teams are mirror matchups. On turn 84, FlamingVictini KOes Jimmy Turtwig's Starmie with Exeggutor, but FlamingVictini's Pokémon are weakened enough to the point where they all get KOed pretty quickly in return. FlamingVictini almost brings the match back by getting a Hyper Beam crit on Snorlax, but his own Snorlax fails to KO Tauros with Self-Destruct, allowing Tauros to clean up late-game.

Game 4: DPP

Game 4 is DPP; Jimmy Turtwig brings Breloom balance and FlamingVictini brings a very offensive team. Jimmy Turtwig's problem is that his Choice Band Tyranitar switch-ins are few and far between, especially with Stealth Rock up. After switching Breloom into Tyranitar once, it's at below half HP, meaning it can't take another Stone Edge, so Jimmy Turtwig unfortunately has to bank on a Stone Edge miss on his Breloom (which doesn't happen) and FlamingVictini's Tyranitar picks up four KOs while Choice Scarf Infernape cleans late-game.

Game 5: GSC

Game 5 is GSC, and both players bring pretty similar teams, with the only difference being that FlamingVictini has a Raikou while Jimmy Turtwig has a Vaporeon. Jimmy Turtwig plays very well in the endgame by sacrificing his Steelix and Snorlax with Explosion and Self-Destruct to put his own Snorlax in a 1v1 situation against Raikou, which can only beat Snorlax if it crits Snorlax twice in a row with Thunder (and it's hard enough as it is to hit Thunder twice in a row). Snorlax eventually KOes Raikou, which gives Jimmy Turtwig the overall win for the round and advances him to round two.

Overall, this series was amazing and definitely the highlight of the round. Every game was well played by the winner and game five was down to the wire. Congrats to Jimmy Turtwig for playing very well and advancing to round two, and well fought by FlamingVictini. Some matches to watch out for in round two are Jimmy Turtwig vs Ojama and M Dragon vs Lavos; these players are all well-established past generation players looking to claim a Classic trophy.

World Cup of Pokémon

The World Cup of Pokémon is possibly one of the most interesting tournaments on Smogon—especially for fans. It pits countries and regions against one another in a team tournament to obtain the blue trophy. This year, the tournament is looking especially interesting due to changes to USA regions, which broke apart last year's winners US East, and Team Brazil dominating round one and achieving first seed in playoffs. They'll be taking on the tiebreaker runner-ups, US West, and Team France, another strong team from round 1, will take on the tiebreaker winners, US Northeast. The other quarterfinal matchups include Italy versus Oceania and Canada versus Europe. Matches to look forward to in playoffs include Eternal Spirit vs z0mOG, Cdumas vs Sabella, and blunder vs Pohjis. Round 1 itself had some more than interesting matches though, most notably Empo vs ima, which shed some light on a brand new Tapu Bulu set:

WCoP Spotlight: Swords Dance Synthesis Tapu Bulu

Tapu Bulu

This set takes advantage of Tapu Bulu's good typing and bulk to be a big threat to most standard balance teams. Synthesis allows it to set up on the likes of Clefable and Zapdos by avoiding 2HKOs due to its ability to recover off the damage reliably. It can also take a Magma Storm from even offensive Heatran and knock it down with a +2 Superpower, one of the key advantages that let this set rampage through common balance builds. As displayed in Empo's match, Tapu Bulu was able to stomach a Magma Storm from Heatran and proceed to recover on Clefable to sweep late-game; although dodging an Iron Tail helped it, this new set just goes to show how dangerous Tapu Bulu can be in the right conditions.

Smogon Grand Slam

Smogon Grand Slam is the annual tournament that showcases the range of Smogon's SM metagames. Five Opens, tournaments where anyone can join and have a chance to win, across five different tiers are set to begin as we speak. The UU Open's signups commenced June 25th, the RU and NU Opens start their signups July 1st, and the signups for LC and Ubers Opens begin July 8th. During these five single elimination Opens, players who progress far into the tournament gain more and more points from them. The competitors with the most points will be entered into a playoffs bracket, competing to take Level 56's position as Grand Slam winner. Everyone has a chance to win this tournament, so why not give it a try?

Final Thoughts

The variety of tournaments that Smogon has to offer gives everyone a chance to compete in a metagame they enjoy and are good at. With Grand Slam coming up soon, followed by Official Ladder Tournament, there are several opportunities to participate in and follow these exciting tournaments!

Planned by autumn | HTML by Lumari.
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