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Art by Bummer.
Introduction
Smogon's Tournaments section is home to a variety of players of all skill levels, all competing in hopes of winning the glory of one of the elusive trophies, whether alone or as a team with other high-level players. With Gen 9 released just six months ago, let's take a look at the generation's first major tournaments.
Smogon Premier League XIV: Team Raiders vs Stark Sharks
Widely regarded as the most prestigious tournament on the site, the fourteenth edition of the Smogon Premier League featured twelve slots, one for each of the eight older generations of OU and four SV OU slots. After ten long weeks, two teams met in the finals in hopes of claiming the coveted red trophy.
Last year's champion team, Team Raiders, found themselves in finals once again under the management of Tricking and Raiza. Packed with talented players like McMeghan, Jisoo, and Skypenguin, all of whom picked up an impressive nine wins overall, the Raiders had a dominant regular season, finishing 7-2, the best record of any team. They defeated the Alpha Ruiners in semifinals 7-3, easily securing their place in finals.
The Stark Sharks, once again led by TDK and obii, also returned to SPL finals after falling short in SPL XIII. Full of prominent tournament names like bruno, Heroic Troller, and SoulWind, it was hardly a surprise that the Sharks found themselves in finals after a third place finish in the regular season and a dominant 8-2 showing against the Congregation of the Classiest in semifinals.
In a meeting right out of SPL XIII, the Raiders and Sharks faced off in finals, with the Raiders vying for back-to-back wins, something only accomplished before by the Alpha Ruiners in SPLs X and XI, and the Sharks hoping for both redemption from last SPL and the franchise's fourth win, which would give them the most wins of any SPL team to date. The week went evenly, with both teams trading wins back and forth until the series sat at 6-6, sending it to a tiebreaker, a repeat of SPL XIII's finals. And history proved ready to repeat itself, as, despite SoulWind taking the first game of the tiebreaker, McMeghan and Gtcha's following victories secured the Raiders' second SPL victory in a row.
ADV: McMeghan vs robjr
In the finals ADV OU game between robjr and McMeghan, things start out hot with McMeghan nailing a nasty raw Focus Punch on robjr's Swampert with Tyranitar. By turn 7, robjr has revealed five Pokemon, and it's already looking pretty scary; he does manage to neuter the ever-dangerous Tyranocif with Gengar, though, and McMeghan opts to instantly Explode with his Claydol on Skarmory to deny any Spikes from going up. We then see Endeavor Swampert from McMeghan, which manages to take robjr's Swampert down low; shortly after that, in comes big boss Ronflex, the dangerous Curse Snorlax. Fortunately for the Sharks, robjr is packing Roar on Tyranitar, allowing him to stave off the threat for now, and with some smart pivoting he can make sure Salamence is on the field when Snorlax comes in so it can get chipped down by Brick Break and KOed at the cost of only about 50% of Salamence's HP. Things get really scary after that though. Agility Metagross comes in from McMeghan and dodges Salamence's Fire Blast; while it wouldn't have KOed from full HP, it would put Metagross in range of Swampert's Earthquake. Metagross tanks the Earthquake easily and takes Swampert out, but fortunately robjr's Tyranitar saves the day again by tanking a Meteor Mash and KOing with Flamethrower. All that's left now is McMeghan's lead, Zapdos, which despite its best efforts is unable to muscle through robjr's Jirachi, bringing home a huge win for the Sharks.
SV: Baloor vs kythr
On this episode of Silly Shed Tail Shenanigans, we have kythr vs Baloor. kythr brings a fairly common balance team featuring Unaware Skeledirge, while Baloor brings Shed Tail offense. Things start off fine for kythr, with him being able to take out the lead Meowscarada without much trouble, but then in comes Iron Moth—Ting-Lu seemingly checks this well enough, but an unfortunate Dazzling Gleam crit sends it packing. Iron Moth then gets another immediate crit followed by a Special Defense drop on Skeledirge, forcing kythr to sacrifice a significant portion of Toxapex's health and a ton of Slack Off PP to avoid losing to the moth. With a few Torch Songs he's able to take it out, but he runs out of Slack Off entirely in the process, making the Iron Valiant in the back quite scary; a nice Tera Fairy lets Skeledirge knock out the Kingambit, but then Roaring Moon's Acrobatics finishes it off. Corviknight goes down to yet another critical hit, this tim from Roaring Moon's Crunch, and from there Tera Flying Acrobatics manages to sweep the entire team.
Official Smogon Tournament XIX
The Official Smogon Tournament is regularly one of the largest individual tournaments of the year, with the most recent four editions all receiving well over 1,000 signups. A single elimination tournament, players must play their best if they wish to reach the finals and win themselves a yellow trophy.
As the first major individual tournament of Gen 9, the nineteenth edition of OST saw nearly 1,600 competitors, veterans and new faces alike, all sign up to compete. And with the new generation came new talent, as many of the biggest names in the tournament began to drop in the first five rounds, leaving many previously unknown players such as Random Battles mains Sylveon used calm mind and sunsets in the higher rounds of the tournament.
In the end, it was Stellar Flares, whose only posts in the Tournaments section before OST XIX were for two 2021 live tours, and Vert, who has been playing in tournaments since 2015, including qualifying for OLT IV and making it to round six in OST XIII, but without any notable results, who would face off in the finals.
Game One | Game Two | Game Three
In the first game of the series, Stellar Flares brings a fairly standard balance team while Vert brings a Shed Tail offense. The early turns start out great for Vert, who gets Stealth Rock, Spikes, and a KO on Skeledirge, although at the cost of Terastallizing his Iron Moth. Stellar Flares is forced to Terastallize to keep Iron Moth in check, though, and loses most of his Water-type Ting-Lu's HP to Dragapult. Vert manages to preserve hazards by sacrificing Dragapult to Great Tusk, which lets Iron Moth get another KO, but at this point Stellar Flares's Toxapex and Corviknight are difficult to break. Stellar Flares ends up being forced to bring Toxapex in hard on Iron Moth's Fiery Dance; had Vert gotten the Special Attack boost, the game could've been different, but he didn't, and as a result Dragapult can land a Will-O-Wisp on Kingambit and finish off the Iron Moth with Dragon Darts, sealing Game 1 for Stellar Flares.
In game two, Stellar Flares is the one to run Shed Tail, while Vert loads a Walking Wake sun team. Things start off great for Vert as he takes out Iron Moth and most of Iron Valiant's HP with a bulky Tera Grass Ceruledge. Stellar Flares then claps back with a dangerous Tera Flying Kingambit, which takes advantage of the typical counter in Great Tusk, but Vert's Great Tusk happens to be running Taunt! From there, Ceruledge gets a burn and neutralizes the threat; Roaring Moon is still scary, but Vert's Corviknight is able to handle it with Red Card—it lacked Crunch regardless, though, so it's likely Corviknight would've been able to wall it cold. From there, Vert's newly Scarfed Walking Wake is able to clean up with Dragon Pulse, taking out the Roaring Moon, Orthworm and low HP Greninja to tie the series up at 1-1.
And then in game three, we see... you guessed it, Shed Tail! Vert loads the same team he brought in game one, while Stellar Flares loads a popular Scream Tail balance originally built by Giannis Antetokommo-o. Assault Vest Toxapex shows its might early by claiming a KO against Glimmora and dealing a huge chunk of damage to Dragapult, but Iron Moth fires right back by taking out the Toxapex with Psychic and removing Scream Tail as well. Hydreigon barely hangs on and lands a Draco Meteor, but it's not enough for the KO, and now Iron Moth has claimed three; Roaring Moon comes in and does some admittedly pathetic damage to Great Tusk before Orthworm can get another free Shed Tail, letting Dragapult freely paralyze Cinderace. From there it's the Iron Moth show, and while it doesn't quite take out the Dondozo, it leaves it at such low HP that it's easy pickings for Dragapult, which then paralyzes Great Tusk. With a few fortunate full paralysis turns, Dragapult manages to take out Great Tusk, although Vert mentions in the chat that he had Low Kick on Kingambit anyway. This secures game three for Vert and brings him home the OST trophy!
Smogon Tour 35
A series of live tours held twice a year representing the three most recent generations of OU, Smogon Tour is now comprised of USM, SS, and SV OU. The tournament is two-thirds of the way over, and the race to be part of the top sixteen is a tight one.
The current top four are comprised of xavgb, a former OMs main who made a name for himself in multiple official tournaments in 2022 but has yet to win a trophy of his own, tied for third with OU council member ima, looking for redemption fresh off of a disappointing 3-5 finish in SPL XIV in both SS and SV OU, Punny, who has accumulated one trophy per year since 2020, including as the winner of Grand Slam X, and tournaments legend SoulWind, who is looking to add yet another trophy to his postbit, which already includes the Smogon Tour 32 trophy.
Meanwhile, several players are still hoping to use the final weeks of the tournament to secure their spot in the tournament. Included in the race are Star, Luthier, MichaelderBeste2, and Giannis Antetokommo-o, all of whom fell short of the trophy in Smogon Tour 34's playoffs, as well as players like National Dex main ChrisPBacon and long-time Smogon Tour host shiloh, who has been participating since Smogon Tour 19 without making it to playoffs.
Closing Words
With Gen 9 in full swing, the tournaments to look forward to are Smogon Grand Slam, an individual tournament based in Smogon's lower tiers, the first two opens of which are already under way, and the World Cup of Pokemon 2023, a highly anticipated team tournament in which players will compete with others from their country or region in SV OU. Keep an eye on these tournament to see how the exciting new Gen 9 metagames develop!
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