UUFPL III Final Sunday Coverage

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On Sunday, May 21, 2023, something incredible happened on Smogon.com. UUFPL, a UU Team Tournament that is unreasonably hyped each year, actually ended its regular season with all eight teams tied with 7 points on the standings, meaning the entire playoff scenario was decided by game differential alone. The number of stars that have to align in one spot for this to happen is astounding—the standings entering the final week saw four teams with 7 points and four teams with 5 points, and somehow all of the top 4 teams were facing all of the bottom 4 teams for the final week. Needless to say, all the bottom four teams won, finalizing what may be the most incredible end-of-season standings in Smogon tournament history.

What is UUFPL, exactly?

The UnderUsed Farm Premier League has been around for three years now, and its presence in the UU tour schedule as an unofficial tour is beloved by many in the community. Unlike other farm leagues, UUFPL regularly has many of the best UU players participating each year, as the unique tier lock rules allow UUPL players to play with heavy restrictions, resulting in a mix of new faces playing the current generation and UU mainstays trying their bit at oldgens they may know and love or may just be trying out with their innate UU knowledge of the tiers.

This year, the eight teams and managers were as follows:

• Dave's Dudunsparces, managed by Leru and Stone Cold.
• Black Ops Spidops, managed by DugZa and Floss.
• Attack on Cetitan, managed by hariyana grande and avarice.
• Dolliv Garden, managed by TeamCharm and TheKingKarp.
• Gilderoy Lokix, managed by jeza.p and dunoks.
• Shroodles & Company, managed by justdrew and haxlolo.
• Knights of Baxcalibur, managed by Totomon and Slip.
• Skeledirge of the Seas, managed by Estarossa and show39.

The first few weeks of the tour seemed like any other tour, as a few teams, most notably Black Ops Spidops, Dave's Dudunsparces, and Dolliv Garden, frequently sat at the top of the standings, while the others struggled to keep up though never really seemed out of contention. And yet, as we entered the final week of the season, no teams were eliminated and no teams had clinched a playoff spot. In fact, any possible combination of teams would be able to make the playoffs depending on multiple different scenarios, and more importantly, there was a real chance of all teams finishing the season with an 8-way tie at 7 points.

What was at stake for each matchup entering the final week?

Week 7 Matchup #1

The Daves had a pretty remarkable season entering the final week 7. They were tied for first place with Black Ops Spidops, doing so with a roster sporting multiple SPL starters, and they were facing the last-place team Skeledirge of the Seas. Even a loss of 5-7 still ensured them a playoff spot. This was truly the one matchup that seemed most likely to kill the possibility of an 8-way 7-point tie—if Vegas had UUFPL odds makers, they would likely put Skeledirge as only 35% or lower to beat the Daves this final week. Meanwhile, Estarossa and his Skeledirges saw that it was "possible" to make the playoffs, but the path seemed near unattainable—they would have to beat the Daves by at least 8-4 to even have a chance, and even then it was slim. Only an 11-1 thumping would 100% guarantee them a spot in the postseason. And perhaps it was for this exact reason—that the season was realistically over barring a miracle—that the Skeledirges decided to just go out and play and have some fun.

As soon as the week started, the Skeledirges immediately took a 1-0 lead as dingbat defeated Nightingales in BW UU in a RFN match. Nightingales was not the typical BW UU starter for the Daves, and so this was not exactly an unexpected result. The Daves still looked good in all the remaining matches. Two days later, Leru put the Daves on the board for SS UU, and by Friday Sylvi won in ORAS UU and gave the Daves a 2-1 lead. As most people expected, the Skeledirges likely weren't pulling this one off.

Then Saturday arrived. Suddenly the Skeledirges shifted into top gear. MrSoup won in GSC UU against his fellow GSC NU mate MTB to start things off. Scalescale, UUFPL's most surprising player for 2023, then beat Tier in SV UU to give Skeledirge a 3-2 lead. Mind you, the Daves had by far the best SV UU record of any team, absolutely rocking the competition with all 3 SV UU starters in the Top 5, so any SV UU loss was an outlier. Mossy Sandwich, who probably hadn't played any more than two ADV UU games prior to the tour, beat LBN in ADV UU to extend the Skeledirge lead to 4-2. Fortunately for the Daves, Fc was able to pull off likely the only upset for their side in the matchup, beating Unowndragon in RBY UU and closing the gap to 4-3. And then we come to what is probably the biggest upset of the tournament—Monai vs. Corporate Donkey. Monai entered Week 7 having a perfect 6-0 record in SV UU and boasting a pretty sizeable team tour resume coming into the season. Corporate Donkey, who has yet to see UU team tour action besides UUFPL, had 1 win the entire season—and that was one more win than he had in the prior UUFPL. And yet, it seemed certain that both players had not much of any idea who their opp was, with Monai not really following the SV UU community scene much, and Corporate Donkey not exactly following any of this past SPL and also likely not paying much attention to the current SV UU individual records. So when Corporate Donkey pulled off the win, in a game that wasn't even really close, it put Skeledirge on top 5-3 entering Sunday, and considering they would end up winning 7-5 (not a spoiler, you already knew all teams ended up with 7 points), this upset wound up being far more important than anyone realized at that time.

Week 7 Matchup #2

Black Ops Spidops made a splash right at the start of the season with a unanimous #1 ranking in the UUFPL PRs, many calling them the greatest assembled UUFPL team of all time. And they were often atop the rankings all season long, start to finish, even tied for the #1 seed entering the final week. While their playoff path was not as easy as the Daves, since a loss of 4-8 would actually allow their opponents, Shroodless & Company, to surpass them. The Shroodles, on the other hand, were still in the race, but their manager justdrew had all but given up hope, sending his team a fond thanks message as if their season was over and leaving the official UU Discord. But the Shroodles actually had decent odds—in fact, simply winning 7-5 would give them a real shot for at least a tiebreaker scenario, if not an outright playoff berth. Not all of the Shroodles had lost hope, and as the week progressed it was made more clear to everyone that they in fact did have a chance.

The week got off to a very rocky start for the Shroodles, not because they had lost early games, but because JustFranco's opponent, KM, missed the scheduling time, which should have been an easy act win. However, since justdrew had left the UU Discord server, comanager haxlolo was away, and JustFranco wasn't in the UU Discord himself, there was nobody to ping the other team's managers to demand a timely sub. As a result, the game had to be rescheduled rather than ruled a win. It was after this situation settled that justdrew and the rest of the Shroodles finally got a smack of reality that they could potentially make it, and so he re-joined the UU Discord and manager chat and let his team know he was ready to step it back up. After Heysup defeated Xiri to give Spidops a 1-0 lead, tlenit won the first game of the series for the Shroodles to make it a 1-1 tie. justdrew then subbed himself in to play GSC UU, a tier he has never gotten a tournament win in before, and won against pp's splash town, recipient of the Best GSC Player Award. JustFranco ended up winning the rescheduled game as well, and after an RBY loss, the score was 3-2 Shroodles heading into the weekend.

Saturday saw a stark shift in momentum, however, as DugZa and Chaos23333 won both their games for Spidops. That made the series 4-3 heading into Sunday. If the Shroodles were to have any hope left, it would lie with their 3 SV UU slots yet to be played, and their BW and ADV slots which were a combined 5-7 for the season. But there was hope nonetheless, and this was set for a photo finish come Sunday.

Week 7 Matchup #3

Have you ever felt down and out, like your time was up and there was nothing you could do? That's how Knights of Baxcalibur felt after Week 5 of the season. They were 1-3-1 with a negative 13 differential. Only a miracle could propel them back to the top for the final two weeks. This miracle became a reality in Week 6, when a Smogon-wide tour shutdown occurred to extend nearly all Smogon tours by one week. This extra time seemed to do wonders, as the Baxcaliburs proceeded to 8-1 their opponents, Dolliv Garden, who had seemingly grown apathetic during the shutdown.

Meanwhile, Attack on Cetitan started the season at the very bottom of the official UUFPL Power Rankings, but managers avarice and hariyana grande had managed to maintain a steady week-by-week season that saw them clinging on to 3rd place solely on game differential. While a simple 5-7 loss to Baxcalibur wouldn't let their opponents leapfrog them in the standings, the fact that every other team could potentially do so based on how the final week went meant that only a win or tie could guarantee their playoff hopes. Meanwhile, the Baxcaliburs were searching for one more miracle, as an 8-4 win was the only way to give them a chance, albeit faint, while a 9-3 win would be as good as guaranteed barring exceptional circumstances.

The Knights started off the week going 3-0 with wins by their three best players TMM, HANTSUKI, and Slip, all of whom would finish the regular season with 5 total wins. Stunner047 and Feaniix took back some momentum back to back wins for the Cetitans early Saturday, but this was immediately counteracted with back-to-back wins by Taka and One Last Kiss for Baxcaliburs, making the score 5-2 entering Sunday. The miracle was very much alive for Baxcalibur, but the Cetitans still had hope if they could muster up a strong closing act, and some of their best players like pokemonisfun and udongirl still yet to play.

Week 7 Matchup #4

The message from Dolliv Garden manager TeamCharm was loud and clear to start Week 7:

What they didn't realize was that, in fact, they were very much not confirmed, and actually were barely clinging on to 4th place with a negative 1 differential. But this was an understandable mistake, since after Week 5 Dolliv Garden was cruising atop the standings with a 3-1-1 record, giving them 7 total points and a healthy +6 differential and facing two of worst teams in Weeks 6 and 7. But the PS Outage during Week 6 caused the week to extend before most of the games were played, and the Dollivs didn't seem to care that much about playing, losing 1-8 to Baxcalibur and not bothering to play 3 of their games. It didn't take long after the TeamCharm message for the team to realize they were actually in a must-not-lose scenario. A loss to Gilderoy Lokix in the final week would effectively eliminate them from contention.

Meanwhile, Gilderoy Lokix had a complete opposite ride into the final week. They were 1-3-1 after Week 5, but with a healthy +1 differential. After winning Week 6 handily, they boasted the best differential (+7) out of anyone in the tournament—and yet they were in 5th place with 5 total points and in a must-win scenario themselves. Any win by them would catapult them to likely the #1 overall seed. A tie or a loss would eliminate them. But they were riding high on momentum and looking to capitalize on the opposite from the Dollivs.

The week started off rather disastrously for the Dollivs, as they immediately had to double sub out their most expensive player, kythr, due to scheduling issues, bringing in Sificon, who had yet to win a game this season. This would end up being the first of three subs that the Dollivs would have to make for the week. Meanwhile, Ara would win the rfn game vs Felines to put Lokix up 1-0 on Monday. Beraldo, who had the best season in the SV Unlimited slot for the Dollivs, was fortunately able to win his game early to get the Dollivs on the board for 1-1. Surfy won the GSC UU matchup vs romanji, though, to put Lokix back up 2-1. And that was all the gaming that would happen prior to Sunday, as pretty much the entire series was to be played on the last day. And it would end up being one for the ages.

7 Point Sunday - How the Final Day Unfolded and Ended

It was early Sunday morning, approximately 4:00 AM in New York City, when the first Sunday game took place. It would be a Bo3 RBY UU showdown between RBYPL teammates Ice Yazu, regarded by some as the best RBY UU Player at the present time, and nicole7735, a primarily RBY NU player who had been struggling with only one win on the season. Ice Yazu handedly took the series to put Gilderoy Lokix up 3-1 to start the day.

With how important the subsequent games are, it seems appropriate to give a quick recap of the rest of the scores at this point early Sunday, with the seven-point teams all on the left, and the five-point teams all on the right:

At around 5:30 AM in the US East, it was time for some early European Sunday gaming. Javi from Dolliv Garden was able to win his game against jawabarat in SV UU, to bring Dolliv Garden back to a 2-3 deficit, but shortly after, Goldcat from Lokix would defeat Danny in BW UU to bring it back to a comfortable 4-2 Lokix lead. In the other series, NHelioX7 from Shroodles & Company then defeated Tal0, and RampageWebber from the Shroodles would end up beatin baconeatinassassin in SV UU to finally give the Shroodles a 5-4 lead, while Spellcaster from Skeledirge would finish off a stellar 5-2 season with a win over Lialiabeast in SV UU, giving the Skeledirges a rather commanding 6-3 lead over the Daves and sparking concerns with the Daves that they may actually end up missing the playoffs. All of the five-point teams now had leads over the seven-point teams, and at the conclusion of all of these early morning games, the scoreboard was as follows:

Disaster struck Dolliv Garden over the course of the next few hours. TeamCharm would have an unexpected emergency come up, which made him mostly unavailable to play or even do much management. This would lead to three straight substitution posts, one of which was done by Javi, and the chaos can be seen within them:

This was a terrible omen for Dolliv Garden, who could not afford a loss of any kind, else they'd be eliminated completely. GotCookies would end up not even being available to play his game until much later, and UUFPL Back to Back to Back MVP Amukamara for Lokix defeated the substitute Fluore to give Lokix a 5-2 lead. Meanwhile, in the other series, Dj Breloominati♬ put Black Ops Spidops in the playoffs by defeating NoahDeKnight. This made the Spidops/Shroodles series 5-5 with two games left to play. Spidops only needed five wins to confirm a playoff spot, but the Shroodles needed to win last two games to have a chance themselves at the playoffs—and also a chance to create an eight-way seven-point tie.

The Daves then made their own push for the playoffs, with Cubic Skunk defeating burstbean in DPP UU and UU Tier Leader Lily defeating Esta "the show" rossa in SM UU, making that series 5-6 with one game left to be played. And that one game left would be zoe from Skeledirge, entering the week with a rather disppointing 1-5 record, vs dex from the Dudunsparces, coming in with a respectable 4-2 record.

Right from the start, you will notice that there are a Crabominable and a Mudsdale on dex's team. Combine this with the fact that the Slowbro was Oblivious and not Regenerator, and you have a matchup for zoe that most say would give her an advantage here. Turn 5 saw Mimikyu use Trick Room, which suddenly makes the snow crab a gigantic threat, and yet it never ended up even using a move all game. After using Mimikyu to Ghost Cure Scream Tail, dex finds himself basically down two pokemon in exchange for one and without a spinblocker. Turn 10 saw another Trick Room activate with Slowbro, while Turn 11 saw this sequence happen:

While dex had in the past cooked many supreme cuisines in SV UU for the season, it seemed he left this team in the oven a bit too long:

With Mimikyu a goner, zoe was able to spin away all the Spikes and Rocks, and with Slowbro low on health with no Regenerator, Quaquaval was able to clean sweep it home. The Skeledirges would now win the week 7-5. While this was not enough to make the playoffs, it at least ended the season on a positive note for them, while the Daves would secure a playoff spot with five wins for the week. It wasn't until much later when Estarossa saw the final standings that he realized just how close it really was—only one more tie/win during the season somehow would have catapulted the Skeledirges from last place to first place. While this game was ongoing, Azick ended up winning a game for the Cetitans against UnzipsCrogre, making that series a bit closer at 3-5. And so after the early afternoon games were finished, this is what the scores looked like:

The Shroodles wasted no time entering the early evening, with Real FV13 immediately winning vs Huarguensy in BW UU, making it a 6-5 score in favor of the Shroodles. The final game was a must-win for the Shroodles, and it would be innovamania, entering the week with a 2-3 record in ADV UU, against 3-2 Alkione. But innovamania has been playing ADV UU for a least five more years than Alkione has, and so when he lead with a Poliwrath it probably threw Alkione for a loop.

The Poliwrath would only get one KO, but innovamania's Cacturne would end up blocking Psychics from Kadabra and KOing Electrode with Counter, which, per ADV UU mechanics, lets you Counter damage from all Hidden Power even if it inflicts special damage. Innovamania's grasp on ADV mechanics was put in the spotlight for this game, and this was probably one of the only games where a Cacturne/Poliwrath/Defensive Sandslash core would get a win in ADV UU. The Shroodles would now win the week 7-5, and suddenly you had four total teams with 7 total points, and still some games left to go for the rest.

Meanwhile, as part of the Dollivs freefall, Banbadoro would beat Sificon (another sub) in SV UU to give Lokix a very commanding 6-2 lead. And for the other series, Rasche from Baxcalibur ended up beating basaninho in SV UU, giving Knights of Baxcalibur 6 points. The Cetitans were in bad spot, made worse by the fact that their GSC UU starter corvere was unavailable. This forced them to sub in sasha to play GSC UU, and Mystras put the finishing touches on securing the victory with a win over sasha, giving the Knights a 7-3 lead and putting the Cetitans in real fear of not making the playoffs entirely. But then a double sub in the SV Unlimited slot forced out both teams' best SV players in Parpar and udongirl, in exchange for Corperate n and kev. Corperate n would end up winning, pushing the lead for Knights to 8-3. This effectively eliminated the Cetitans from the playoffs, but the Knights would have to win their final game in order to make it in themselves. And their final opponent? pokemonisfun from the Cetitans in SV UU. That would truly be the capstone finale for the Baxcaliburs if they were to make the playoffs. Evening was fast approaching, and at dinner time in Washington DC, these were what the scores looked like:

There was only one series left to secure the eight-way seven-point tie. And, given the fact that it was 6-2 currently, odds seemed to favor the Lokix. But to start the night off, TLTK from the Garden defeated HydreigonTheChild in SV UU, putting the Dollivs back to 3-6. The Dollivs were clinging on to hope of a tie, as a tie was all they needed to make the playoffs, and they were probably the only group of Pokémon players in the world at the current time that wanted nothing to do with a historic eight-way seven-point tie. They needed to win out, tie the series, ruin history, and make the playoffs themselves. And so for the next game, which would take place around 9:30 PM EDT, the Dollivs sent out their undefeated UU tier leader Indigo Plateau to face off against UU rising star Attribute in an SM UU game for the ages. Below is a recap of the game courtesy of pokemonisfun:

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SM UU is a metagame that is widely known for being centered around top threats—with Scizor and Latias being accepted as the top two threats and being present in many, if not most, games. So, the fact that this matchup has four Pokémon mirrored and features neither of the two top threats is unusual and makes for an incredibly exciting and tense game.

The two differences in the matchup—Mew and Volcanion for Attribute of the Gilderoy Lokix versus Primarina and Zeraora for Indigo Plateau of the Dolliv Gardens—likely favored Attribute to a small extent, because Volcanion was strong into Indigo Plateau's team, getting openings against Bisharp, Hippowdon and Amoonguss to cause major damage. Meanwhile, Indigo Plateau's threats had more difficulties making progress and finding openings—Zeraora generally struggles vs Hippowdon and Amoonguss, while Primarina often struggles to break through Amoonguss and Volcanion. Nevertheless, given that most of the matchup was a mirror and that sets can vary wildly with Z-Moves this generation, nobody had a big advantage on Team Preview.

Attribute leads with the tried-and-true strategy of starting it safe with a Hippowdon to try to get an early Stealth Rock to maintain his matchup advantage, while Indigo Plateau counters with an aggressive Aerodactyl lead to prevent Attribute from making progress with Volcanion. Both sides get early Stealth Rock up, which paves the way for the classic SM UU Amoonguss mirror as early as turn three—these mirrors don't last long in SM UU compared to SS UU due to Amoonguss's movepool being more strained here and its inability to fit Synthesis generally. Attribute comes out of it nicely, weakening Indigo Plateau's team more than his and overall keeping his advantage he had all the way from the matchup.

Up until turn seven or so there's a lot of maneuvering and footwork, with neither of these heavyweight players going for a decisive attack. That changes on turn seven, with Indigo Plateau likely being unhappy with the game's trajectory, so he finds an opening for his Primarina. It doesn't seem to yield much for him, though as Attribute reveals a defensive Mew set that can hard check Primarina if it avoids a critical hit. With his Lokix teammates surely praying for Attribute to avoid a crit, a sequence that invoked a Synchronize Scald burn clearly favors Attribute, and Indigo Plateau signals the retreat by turn 18, trying a new attack with Bisharp.

The tension is only mounting, though, with Indigo Plateau trying to break through still with a first KO but Attribute curling up in a very defensive position, successfully parrying all of Indigo Plateau's attacks. Tension peaks, and an extremely dangerous moment for Attribute occurs on turn 26, where Indigo Plateau's attack seems to be yielding progress with a surprising Aqua Tail putting Attribute's defensive core in a weak spot. However, Attribute recovers from this fumble by capitalizing on the famous “Stone Miss” and minimizes the damage by getting Bisharp in, likely deducing that his pivoting would work because it was impossible for Aerodactyl to have enough coverage for his whole defensive core.

True to the mirror nature of this game, the first knockouts start piling up with mirror moves—Attribute's Mew dies to Indigo Plateau's Aerodactyl's Pursuit, but the Aerodactyl then promptly dies to Attribute's Bisharp's Pursuit after some prediction on turn 41.

Highly accurate play by Attribute on turn 44—using Toxic to damage the opposing Hippowdon, means his position is playable, but he did seem to lose some of the edge he had before the Aqua Tail fumble. That critical Toxic though makes Attribute's Aerodactyl extremely dangerous, and another pair of mons are quickly swapped off, Attribute's Bisharp for Indigo Plateau's Primarina by turn 47.

With 'mons dropping like flies in the game, Attribute finds an opening for his Volcanion but makes a bizarre choice of using Sludge Bomb instead of an obvious Fire-type move on turn 51. Perhaps a misclick, though it goes unpunished, as his opponent sacrifices Hippowdon anyways bringing the game to three vs three—a very weakened Volcanion, Aerodactyl, and Amoonguss for Attribute versus an Amoonguss, Zeraora and Spored Bisharp for Indigo Plateau.

Tension is once again peaking here as both of the remaining speedsters are doing what they can to sweep the opponent—with Attribute needing Aerodactyl to sweep and revenge kill Zeraora and Indigo Plateau trying to use Stealth Rock to re-fossilize the dinosaur so he can get a monkey sweep. An excellent double switch on turn 55 and sufficiently long two-turn sleep on turn 60 give Attribute the next KO—the first time he's been leading in KOs in the game—and a three-turn sleep and excellent predictions around Zeraora by Attribute give him a winning advantage by turn 69. Volcanion cleans up the final barrier on turn 75, clicking the Fire-type move it surely meant to do on turn 51 winning the game for Attribute.

In this wildly tense and entertaining game by both players, Attribute extended his winning streak to four games (and he'd extend it to six games in playoffs) while also taking down the duo of tier leaders in his run, an extraordinary achievement. Both players had chances to win, but just enough went wrong for Indigo Plateau with a Stone Edge miss and inability to capitalize fully on his Aqua Tail on turn 26, and just enough went right for Attribute, particularly with his series of perfect predictions at the end of the game, for Attribute to eke out a close victory.

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This was the game that sealed the series and sealed the eight-way seven-point tie. After this, the scores were as follows:

Lokix would tack on another win later as gorex defeated EllingtontReborn in ADV UU, and later in the evening, the Knights of Baxcalibur would end up losing their final game, effectively eliminating both Cetitans and Baxcaliburs from the playoffs. But the final results were truly astounding: all eight teams in UUFPL III finished the season with 7 total points. The entire playoff picture was decided by game differential alone. And so this is how the historic Sunday, May 21 2023, ended.

Gilderoy Lokix rode their momentum all the way to the finals and ended up winning the entire tour, entering the very esteemed UUFPL Hall of Fame. And while all of their players will always remember their victory, it's the final standings that likely much of the community will always remember for a long time to come.

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